The Dreadful Revenge of Ernest Gallen

by James Lincoln Collier

  Sonny reached behind himself and started tucking his shirttail in. Then he thought better of it and pulled his shirttail out again.

  “Let’s get off Sonny’s shirttail,” I said. “What else did your dad say?”

  “Nothing. Every time I tried to get him onto the hanging he swung around to something else. I couldn’t get him to admit anything.”

  “I thought you were so hot at worming him.”

  “Yeah, so did I. But I couldn’t worm him on this.”

  “But you figure he knew about it?”

  “I think so,” she said.

  Well, we didn’t know where we were with it, except that I was in a heap of trouble. It made me feel more comfortable with myself to have Sam and Sonny on my side, but really, what could they do for me? They couldn’t do anything about the specter. And we couldn’t find out much about anything else if the grown-ups were going to cover up the whole thing. When I had Sonny and Sam around, it didn’t seem so bad—seemed almost hopeful. Sam was the hopeful type anyway, always sure there was a way out of anything. But when I was alone, it didn’t seem so hopeful. It was like I’d been abandoned by everybody.

  A day later, Grampa pinned me down for a chat. I was coming in from delivering groceries for Snuffy. As usual, Grampa was reading the Post-Dispatch. He folded it in his lap. “Gene, sit down for a minute. I want to have a chat.”

  There was a footstool by his chair that I could have sat in, but I felt like standing up. Grampa took off his reading glasses and looked at me. “Gene, your mom says you’ve been talking to yourself a lot recently.”

  “I don’t think it’s a lot,” I said. “Just the normal amount. Everybody talks to themselves sometimes. Mom even does.”

  “Yes, that’s certainly true. But your mom says this isn’t the usual thing. She says it seems as if you’re arguing with somebody who isn’t there. Some kind of imaginary person. She said it’s as if you’re trying to convince yourself of something. Talk yourself into something.”

  I tried to think of some excuse. “I guess maybe it’s because of what happened to Sonny’s dad. That’s kind of hard to get over.”

  Grampa nodded. “That’s understandable. It was a very unhappy business. It’s natural that it would bother you. Your mom and I have considered that. But your mom said she’s heard you arguing with yourself before.”

  “Grampa, I don’t remember talking to myself all that much.” I wished Mom would say supper was ready, but I knew she was holding off until Grampa had finished talking to me.

  “Your mom remembers it pretty clearly, because it worried her. She didn’t understand it. Now she says she overheard you saying something about killing me.”

  “Grampa, I wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  “Gene, I don’t believe for a minute that you want to kill me, or anyone else, for that matter. I’m curious to know why you said it.”

  “I didn’t say it, Grampa. Mom misheard.” That, at least was true; I’d said just the opposite, that I wouldn’t kill Grampa.

  “She doesn’t think she misheard.” He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Gene, who did you think you were arguing with?”

  “I didn’t think I was arguing with anybody.”

  “That isn’t what your mom says.”

  I felt ashamed of myself for all these lies, and sick of the whole thing. Why couldn’t they leave me alone? “If you won’t believe me, what can I say?”

  “Gene, I’m not calling you a liar. We think something’s bothering you, and we’d like to help you. I don’t care what you did, or think you did. We love you and we always will. But we want you to tell us what’s troubling you so we can help you deal with it.”

  “There’s nothing to tell, Grampa. Nothing’s bothering me.”

  He didn’t say anything for a bit. Then he said, “All right, Gene. I’ll take your word for it. But remember, anytime you want to talk about something, we’re here to listen.” He got up. “I’ll go see how your mom is doing with supper.”

  When I got to school on Monday, I went looking for Sam to see if she’d been able to worm anything more out of her dad. But she wasn’t in school. I had to wait until second period, when we went to science, to ask somebody. “Where’s Samuels?” I said.

  “Didn’t you hear? Her dad got into an awful car crash. He drove off the road into a tree. Nobody can figure out how it happened. It was in the middle of the afternoon, a nice clear day, and not much traffic.”

  I went cold. “Is he dead?”

  “No. They say he’ll be okay. But he was hurt pretty bad.”

  “And they don’t know what happened? He didn’t blow out a tire or anything?”

  “No. Mr. Samuels doesn’t drink, either. Some trucker coming along behind him said that he was sailing along perfectly well. Suddenly he veered off the road into a tree. Luckily, the trucker got him out of the wreck and took him to the hospital. Nobody can figure it out.”

  But I could.

  Chapter 8

  It took me two days to get hold of Sam. I called her two or three times, and then I finally walked over to her house to see if she was there. She said she was spending a lot of time in the hospital with her dad, and the rest of the time she was helping her mom by doing the laundry and cleaning up around the house. She said she was going to stay home from school for a couple more days to help, but that she could meet us down at the bandstand for a little while around four o’clock the next afternoon.

  Sonny and I got there right on time. Hot day, but it was cooler on the bandstand in the shade of the big elms. Sam came running up five minutes later. “Sorry,” she said. “I had to finish hanging up the clothes. I didn’t know that being a mom was so much work. I’m going to be a brilliant heart surgeon instead.”

  “How’s your dad?” Sonny said. “He going to be okay?”

  “I guess so,” she said. “He broke one of his legs in two places. The doctor said he might have a limp. Everybody says he’s lucky to get off that lightly after an accident like that.”

  Sonny and I both wanted to know the same thing, but we weren’t sure if we should ask. “Was it a blowout?” I said. “A sudden blowout can make your car veer.”

  “No. It wasn’t a blowout. You know what it was.” She looked scared.

  “You sure?” Sonny said.

  “Dad was unconscious when he got to the hospital, and they took him into the operating room right away and put him under ether. He didn’t talk much the first couple of days. Mostly he dozed. Ate a little soup and dozed some more. But then he felt like talking a little. He made arrangements with Mom about who was to run the newspaper while he was laid up. And he started to talk about it. For one thing, he was afraid people might decide he had been drunk. He hardly drinks at all. Has a bottle of beer sometimes on a real hot day. He said it wouldn’t be good for the newspaper if people decided it was run by a drunk. So he hadn’t had anything to drink; he just couldn’t explain what happened. He was going along on the road out to East Creek. There was an old Civil War veteran having his ninetieth birthday and Dad wanted to do a story on him for the Chronicle. Just an everyday story, the kind he’d been writing for years. Nothing special. He was going along, maybe thirty-five miles an hour, when all of a sudden he felt this tightness in his chest, a sort of pressure. For a moment he thought it might be a heart attack, but it didn’t feel like any heart attack he’d ever heard of. A heart attack is pretty painful, he said, and this wasn’t painful, just a pressure.”

  “Yes, that’s it,” I said. “Just a tightness but no pain.”

  She nodded. “About that time he noticed a big tree along the side of the road about a quarter of a mile away. And suddenly he started thinking, ‘What if I ran off the road into that tree?’ He didn’t know why he was thinking that. He told himself to cut it out, but every time he tried to think of something else, the same thought kept coming back—’What if I ran into that tree?’ The tightness kept growing and the tree began racing toward him, and the next thing
he knew he was waking up in his hospital bed feeling sick from the ether.”

  None of us said anything, but we looked at one another. “Did you tell him about the specter?”

  “No. I knew he wouldn’t believe me.” She looked at Sonny and me, scared and white. “What are we going to do? Is the voice going to kill everybody?”

  “No,” Sonny said. “It ain’t gonna kill everybody. Just the ones that were in on the lynching.”

  “My dad wouldn’t have lynched anybody.”

  “No, but he helped to cover it up,” Sonny said.

  “What about your dad, Sonny?” Sam asked.

  “I don’t know. I hope he wasn’t in on it. It seems to me like he was too lazy to get in on a lynching. But he owned them oil certificates. Maybe he got took for a ride along with the rest.”

  “What about my grampa?” I said. “He was a judge back then. He wouldn’t have lynched anyone.”

  “Maybe he sentenced this oil guy who got lynched to jail.”

  It was possible, but we didn’t know. We sat there on the seats on the bandstand, thinking. Finally Sonny said, “Know what I think? I think we oughta go back out there to that old house and have another look around. We scampered outta there pretty quick. We might of missed something.”

  “You really want to go out there again, Sonny?” Sam said.

  “Well, you know, Sam, this is about the most interesting thing that ever happened to me. I’d kinda like to see how it ends up. Ain’t nothing much ever happens around Magnolia, and ain’t nothing likely to. I ain’t ready to quit on this yet.”

  “I am,” I said. “I’d quit tomorrow if the specter’d let me.”

  “Well, yeah, Gene,” Sonny said. “You got a particular interest in it. I can see where you might want to chuck the whole thing. But seeing as you can’t, we might as well keep going. It seems to me we oughta get a better look at that old Toffey house.”

  I shrugged. “If Sonny’s willing, I guess I am.”

  Sam nodded. “I guess Sonny’s right. We’d better go back out there. I don’t like the idea too much, but I can see that we ought to.”

  We had to wait until Saturday. Sam’s dad came home from the hospital that morning, so Sam’s mom could stay home and Sam was freed up a little. This time we brought flashlights with us. At least Sam and I did: Sonny didn’t have a flashlight—not one that worked, anyway. It was the middle of the afternoon and the sun was bright. We’d planned it that way because we had no intention of being caught out there after the sun went down.

  We walked out to the house. For a moment we stood at the edge of the brushy lawn looking at that old place. It stared back at us out of its empty eyes—old gray boards, crooked chimney, sagging roof, like an evil creature with a hunched back, big crooked teeth, rotten breath. We weren’t in much of a rush to cross the lawn and go inside again. But then Sonny said, “Well? What are we waiting for?” So we went through the brush and tall grass on the lawn, across the porch, and into the living room. Here we flashed our lights around. Nothing new. We went into the kitchen and did the same. Nothing we hadn’t seen before.

  The kitchen door was hanging open. We went out into the backyard—what used to be a backyard, anyway. The three big spruce trees loomed high overhead, turning the yard into a kind of dark cave. A rusty fifty-gallon oil drum sat on a wooden rack by the back door. Probably held kerosene for the stoves once. Sonny banged on the drum to see if it was empty. At the hollow sound a little milk snake slithered out from under the drum and disappeared into the tall grass. “I don’t like snakes,” Sam said. “Let’s go in.”

  Sonny grinned. “Probably a bunch of snakes inside, too.” Sam gave him a dirty look, but she didn’t say anything. We went back in. We all knew we were stalling: none of us wanted to visit those headless bones again. Finally Sam said, “We may as well do it, fellas. Let’s go upstairs.”

  We went up the stairs and crowded into the doorway of that room. It was as still as death in there, the noose hanging down from the light fixture, unmoving; the clothes empty of everything but bones. Nothing moved. Nothing had moved there for years. Everything had lain dead still as the sun came up and shone in and went down; as the moon rose, its pale light passing over the skull and going down; as winter came, the snow had fallen and melted; and then spring came, wildflowers bloomed again, as the years rolled by. Had the specter been wandering around all that time looking for a way to get even? Did it know we were there now, staring at its bones? Was it watching us? I felt a chill go over my back. “Let’s get going so we can get out of here,” I said.

  Sonny walked around the clothes to the noose and took a look at it. “It ain’t a proper hangman’s noose. You can’t slide a hangman’s noose open—got to cut it.”

  “How do you know that, Sonny?” Sam said.

  “My dad used to buy them cowboy magazines sometimes. I read enough cowboy stories to know how a noose works. Somebody could’ve opened up this noose and let him drop.”

  Sam and I pushed into the room to examine the noose. “Who would have done it?”

  “I don’t reckon nobody did it,” Sonny said. “If somebody had dropped him here the skull would have still been attached to the neck. Looks to me more like he rotted for a while and then the body pulled loose from the head and fell. Head dropped and rolled away a little.”

  Sam and I both shuddered. Then the three of us stooped over the clothes. “Look,” Sonny said, pointing. “Neck’s all tore up.” It was true: the neck bones were not lying in a neat line, but were lying in a jumble.

  Now Sam reached out gingerly and touched the collar of the pink shirt. I don’t know what we thought might happen, but nothing did. She closed her hand around the collar and gave it a little tug. The shirt had rotted in places, and tore over the ribs. The arm bone slid a few inches out of the sleeve, disturbing the finger bones. Sam pulled the shirt away. More rotten cloth tore and bones clattered onto the floor. She stood, holding the half-rotted shirt. On the floor beneath lay the rib cage, scattered back bones, arm bones, finger bones.

  There was a splotch of blood on the front of the shirt, near the collar. “He must of been fighting them off,” Sonny said. “Got a busted nose or something.”

  The shirt had a breast pocket. “See if there’s anything in the pocket, Sam,” I said.

  “You look, Gene. I pulled the shirt out of there.”

  I took the shirt, put my fingers into the pocket, and pulled out a piece of paper folded in half. I unfolded it and saw some pencil scribbling:

  Ernie—

  I will talk to the judge as soon as I can about your bail. Keep up your spirits.

  —Tom

  Tom. “My dad’s name.”

  “So this oil guy, Gallen, was in jail,” Sonny said.

  “Let’s not talk about it now,” Sam said. “Let’s get finished with these clothes and get out of here. I’m getting the creeps.”

  I looked at the others. “My turn, I guess.” I stooped over the clothes, took hold of the pants by one of the belt loops, and pulled them away. Again, some rotten cloth tore. The leg bones dropped down out of the pants, and the pelvis tipped out, bounced on the floor, and rolled away a little distance.

  “Anything in them pants?” Sonny asked.

  I held the pants out to him. “You do it. I did the shirt pocket.”

  He took the pants, pushed his hand into a side pocket, and pulled out a handkerchief splotched with dark red blood. “They must’ve banged him around some,” he said. He put the handkerchief back in the pocket, reached into the other side pocket, and came out with some coins. “Two quarters and a nickel,” he said.

  “Fifty-five cents. You going to keep it, Sonny?”

  “Not me,” he said. “I ain’t stealing money from no dead man. Someone else can have it.” He slid the coins back into the pocket and reached into the back pocket. This time he drew out a newspaper clipping. He unfolded it, gave it a quick look, and handed it to me.

  Questions Raised About Magnolia
Oil Claim

  Reports that oil has been discovered in the town of Magnolia, thirty miles west of St. Louis, have been questioned by federal authorities, according to a spokesman for the Department of the Interior, Mr. Elliot Smith. Studies by geologists for the Department of the Interior conclude that there is little likelihood of significant oil deposits in the Magnolia area or surrounding territory. Mr. Ernest Gallen, who insists that he possesses valid geological reports showing oil deposits beneath land he owns in Magnolia, says, “This is a typical example of government interference with the rights of American citizens. I have complete faith in the reports made by my geologists, as we shall soon discover when drilling operations start next month.”

  However, investors in the project have become alarmed, and many are demanding their money back. According to Mr. Thomas Richards, a spokesman for the Gallen operation, “We will happily return the money of anyone who wants it. We have plenty of other people who will be glad to take advantage of this great opportunity.” Asked when investors might be receiving their money, Richards said it would be done “in a few days, when we finish the necessary paperwork.”

  Sam and Sonny looked at me. “That was your dad, Gene?”

  “I guess so,” I said. I’d never even known my dad, hadn’t much idea of him, but still I didn’t like the idea that he’d been in on a swindle. He was still my dad—might write me a letter someday, with a railroad ticket in it so I could come to visit him in his fancy apartment in Chicago. “He might not have known there was anything crooked about it. He might have thought it was on the up-and-up.”

  Sam and Sonny looked at me. I could tell they didn’t believe it. “Most likely that was it, Gene,” Sam said. “Your dad didn’t know it was crooked.”