CHAPTER 35
A Rainy Night
IT was a rainy night. Golly Moses! how it rained! No wonder I was down in the clubhouse all by myself. Who else would come out on a night like this? Not even Perry Stokes, who was always as close to me as my shadow—not even Perry showed up. And cold! Oh, boy!
How the wind blew around the corners! Winter was coming, no doubt of that. This was the end of the balmy days of Indian summer. And it came suddenly, too; that’s what gets me. I can stand cold weather when I get used to it little by little.
But when I step out of a nice, warm autumn day into a cold, bleak, rainy day—good night! I shivered. Chills ran up my backbone every five minutes regularly. It was a good thing I left the lamps lighted in the clubhouse before I went home to supper. I don’t think I would ever have found it, so dark it was that night, and the rain coming down upon my old fishcoat sounded like hail on a tin roof.
I dashed into the clubhouse and slammed the door shut behind me. The wind blew a sheet of rain in behind me. I took off my old rubber sailor’s sou’wester and let the water run off of it into the ash pan under the stove. Then I shed my heavy fishcoat—Golly! what an awful smell a fishcoat has—and hung it on one of the hooks behind the door. Seldom did I wear that old fishcoat, but seldom did it ever rain as hard as it did tonight. My clothes were dry as dust, and I sat down and yanked off the high-top boots that Pop gave me for Christmas last year—and my feet didn’t even know it was raining. So, feeling a little cheerful anyhow about this, I trimmed the wick of the lamp on my writing desk and sat down.
Strange that I should have been alone in the clubhouse that night. Strange that I should have been the only one to meet the three stranger visitors that called upon me in that little meeting place on that terribly rainy night. You know, sometimes I think that God fixes things to happen just as they do. I think that God fixed it so that it would be only me and not the whole bunch of our fellows, because else why should those three have come to me on the same night, there in that same place? I don’t know. But God had a hand in it somehow. What had made me come out on that awfully wet night? What had I to do there in the clubhouse? Only to write down what I had found out about the terrible unicorn that Androfski had slain on Burney’s Field?
“It was a gnu,” I wrote in my book. “An animal that is sometimes called a horned horse. It had escaped from the zoo. After being followed without success by the keepers, it was given up as having been lost by drowning, because some persons had seen it fall from the cliff into the river. However, the fall had not killed the beast, nor had it drowned. But in falling, one of its horns had been broken off, leaving only one horn jutting out from its head. This single horn, no doubt, and its remarkable resemblance to a horse, was what led Simon Bleaker to believe it to be a unicorn. This is not my own opinion, however, but that which Doc Waters gave to me today when I called on him for—”
The storm outside grew as I wrote. The rain whipped against the windows, and the wind howled around the corners of the clubhouse. Through the narrow stove chimney came the sound of the wind like a baby crying, and I simply had to stop. I began to be afraid. You can’t blame a boy for being afraid in a storm. And here was I alone in this ramshackle shack in the hollow, with nobody around to talk to, and I never could talk outloud to myself. But I thought. Yeah, a fellow can think to himself. “If this keeps on,” I thought, “the first thing I know the roof will be down over my head—”
A step on the porch! A hurried step, a quick step, and a rattle at the doorknob.
“Who’s there?” I called out. The sound of my own voice frightened me.
The door opened. A dripping wet figure, leaning on a hickory stick, entered the room hurriedly and slammed the door shut. It was a boy.
“A bad night, Hawkins,” he sang out, in the voice I knew so well. “A very, very bad night, Hawkins, eh what?”
“Simon Bleaker!” I exclaimed. “What in the world are you doing here on such a night?”
Yeah, it was Simon. Dear old Simon. Even to this day, I think of him with a soft heart and a great admiration for his courage. There he stood, dripping wet, his clothes sagging about him, leaning on the hickory stick that Big Ike had tried to make into a crutch. There he stood—
“How the wind blows, Hawkins,” he sang out, as if he had not heard my question. “How the rain beats down on one’s head—what would you call it, a nor’wester, or a Spanish main gale?”
I couldn’t answer him. I stood up, and in the shadow of the lampshade that fell around the floor, I gazed at him, too awed to speak. He swung his checkered cap around, and the water splashed in spots all over the room.
“A bad night, a very bad night, indeed,” he repeated, “and yet I came all the way to see you. I want to be here when he comes. You don’t know how I know these things happen, do you, Hawkins? Well, old Seckatary, you’ve been a fine chap to me. I’ll come to help you out, even though it rains pitchforks, even though I hobble on this yard stick that Big Ike made—”
“Simon,” I said in a low voice. “I had hoped you would be well by now. There were times when I treated you a little rough, Simon. I didn’t know you then. But I had hoped you would not need that crutch anymore—”
“It’s alright, Hawkins,” he broke in. “I’ve settled that for myself. I’m lame for life. I know that. Don’t let’s worry about that. The unicorn finished my left leg alright. It’s done for. I hobble. I’m content. There’s too much in life to worry about a little thing like—”
“What’s that?”
A soft tapping was heard. First, like the beak of a bird against the window pane—ah, that beak of a bird! How often had I said that Androfski’s nose reminded me of a beak of a bird.
“I beg your pardon, fellas,” came in a rich, mellow voice. Ah! If Lew Hunter could have heard that voice! It was the most musical, silvery thing I ever heard. Like a bell, it rang clear and loud to us across the room, as we gazed at the partly open door—Androfski stood there. Androfski, who used to be called the Silent—yeah, he stood there, letting the wind beat the rain in behind him, while he held his cap in his hand and bowed to us.
“Come in,” I said. “Shut the door, boy. It’s howling cats and dogs out there, and we are all getting wet.”
Androfski, who used to be called the Silent, stepped quickly inside and closed the door.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I did not know you would have company, Hawkins—at least, not my friend, Simon Bleaker.”
There was a smile on Bleaker’s face.
“Have you really forgotten it all, Androfski?” he asked. “Can I believe that you—”
“You are a great boy, Simon,” spoke up Androfski. He stepped up to Simon and reached out his hand. “A great boy!”
Simon took a firmer hold upon his hickory crutch and grasped the hand of Androfski.
“It’s an honor to hear you say that, Androfski,” he said. “Although I have helped you out many times, boy—”
“I know,” broke in Androfski. “I know, Simon, you and me and Hawkins. We are of a kind. I always said that, but nobody was able to hear me. I never used to talk. But I did a great thing—I killed the unicorn that crippled your poor foot—”
“You?” exclaimed Simon, limping back a step. “You, Androfski? You killed the unicorn—”
“Yeah, he did,” I chimed in. “Androfski killed it, Simon. He paid it back for what it did to your poor foot. You got to give credit to Androfski for that. He is a wonderful shot. Three bullets, Doc Waters said, and each one in the head of the beast. And when he realized that he had killed the terrible ghostly creature, the excitement brought back his voice.”
There was a wonderful look of admiration and gratitude upon Simon Bleaker’s face. Poor kid! How I pitied him, him and his poor crippled foot.
“And I tried it so many times,” he said. “I tried it so many times, and failed—see, this is what I got for trying once too often. But there, don’t let it worry us. I’m content, I told you. I ha
d my chance. I’m glad you got him, Androfski. I’m sorry I took Jude the Fifth away from you. I have not seen, him. Where is he?”
“He has come back to me,” said Androfski. “Jude is a fine boy. We are going to New Orleans together tonight. We will never bother any of you boys again. He’s waiting for me down on the riverbank, in the rain—”
“That will never do!” exclaimed Simon Bleaker. Dear old Simon! How he loved all the boys with whom he ever came in contact. “That will never do, Androfski. Get Judy up here at once. I will see him before I leave. And Freddie, with the three fingers. Yes, I must see them once more before I leave—”
“You’re not going away, Simon,” I broke in.
There was a wan smile on Simon Bleaker’s face.
“Before you know,” he said, slowly. “I am going away. Before you know, Hawkins, I will leave you. I am going—”
“Where?”
There was a silence of two full minutes. The strange, yet familiar, voice that had spoken that last word brought us all about at once. As if a command from an officer had brought us all about, we turned and faced the door.
I knew it would be he. Yeah, I knew it would be no other. The Gray Ghost, Stoner’s Boy if you wish me to call him that, stood there with the door open behind him. The rain blew in upon the wind.
We stared at him as though we were hypnotized. The gray figure in the gray cape-coat, the broad-brim hat, and the gray kerchief that hid half his face—ah, boy! How I see it all yet as I sit here writing this in my seckatary book—there he stood before us.
“We’ve been waiting for you, Stoner,” said Simon Bleaker. He hobbled forward to the door. I noticed that his step seemed slower. His voice was weaker, and his crutch wobbled. Stoner grasped him by the hand.
“I am sorry,” said Stoner in a low voice. “I treated you mean. It’s all over, that is. I’m changed now, Simon Bleaker.”
“I know it, Stoner,” came Simon’s voice, low and clear. “That’s why I came. I heard you tell Three-Finger Fred.”
“Ah!”
“Fred told me,” broke in Androfski the Silent.
Stoner’s Boy stared suddenly at Androfski.
“You speak?” he asked. “You talk like me, Androfski? Tell me the truth—were you a liar all the time—”
“Hold on there,” I broke in.
“Ah, to be sure,” said Stoner’s Boy. Oh, why did he always talk to me in that sarcastic voice? I thought to myself. “To be sure, the Seckatary is with us. We must let him talk some.”
I glared at him. Stoner’s Boy was no friend of mine. But I told him how Androfski had got back his voice.
“He saved my life,” said Stoner’s Boy to me. Then, turning to Androfski, “Boy, you did me a good turn when you killed that monster as it charged above me. But—”
None of us spoke. We waited for Stoner to continue. He paused awhile. His eyes were turned upon the floor. Then, suddenly raising his head, he whipped the gray kerchief from his face. Never have I seen a more intelligent, a more boyish face than I gazed upon when I looked at Stoner with his face uncovered—
“Boys,” he said, “forgive me. My father died—it was the unicorn that took him—he gave his life to save me from the unicorn that night. I’m going back to N’Orleans with Freddie, he with the three fingers. Hi, Freddie!”
From out of the storm, a boyish figure leaped through the door that Stoner held open for him. As he did so, a couple of taller figures of men pushed behind him—
“Three-Finger Fred—”
“Doc Waters,” I said.
“An’ the sheriff, boys,” drawled another voice. True enough. Behind Three-Finger Fred pushed Doc and the sheriff.
“The jig’s up, Stoner,” said the sheriff.
“He’s dead,” said Stoner, simply. “You can’t take him, Mr. Sheriff. And you can’t take me, neither. Try it and see!”
With one leap Stoner was out into the rain and Three-Finger Fred with him.
“After him, Sheriff,” called out Doc Waters, sternly. “Don’t let him get away!”
“One moment!” came the voice of Simon Bleaker. He had hobbled in front of the rushing sheriff; he stood between the officer and the door. “Just one moment, Mr. Sheriff,” he said. He lifted his bony little hand; poor, little, handsome Simon Beaker! That was the last time he ever lifted his bony, little hand. He sank into a heap upon the floor, between the sheriff and the door. The rain spattered in upon him. His head sank upon his breast. “One moment,” he repeated in a very low voice. “I came to help Stoner; one moment, Mr. Sheriff; let him go to N’Orleans—let him go—let him go——”
I saw a look of dismay upon the sheriff’s face. I saw Doc Waters start. He ran to where the poor, little body of Simon Bleaker had fallen and laid his head upon Simon’s breast. There was a look of awful pain in Doc Waters’s face as he turned to me.
“Hawkins,” he said, and then he stopped. He could not go on. I walked over and took Doc’s arm.
“Tell me, Doc,” I said. “Tell me the truth; has Simon done what he said—”
Doc’s head rose and fell.
“He’s gone,” he said, “on a longer journey, Hawkins—”
Sobs came from Doc Waters then. Dear, good, old Doc Waters! Yeah. He had loved Simon too. Simon had passed on. Simon had gone home.
I bowed my head and went back to my desk. Pain was upon my heart. What was Simon Bleaker to me, you might ask? Why do I always get questions I cannot answer? What had Simon to do with me? Why ought I have any feeling for a kid who always worked against me? I can’t explain it.
Ah, well! It’s all over now. I write this days after it happened. I could not write it the day it happened. No. Because, while I felt that our bunch of boys, who gathered in the clubhouse, had got rid of a bunch of boys who had done them many a bad turn, I can’t get away from the idea that it was all in a day’s work. What Stoner was to us, we realized now. He was the life and the soul of our very existence. He passed out. I knew that when, after they took poor, little Simon Bleaker away, and I was left alone in that dreary clubhouse, I heard upon the river the sound of a steamboat’s whistle. And, as I watched through the rain the passing lights of the dear, old steamer Hudson Lee, I heard the long drawn-out notes of the old familiar brass horn, the horn that had come to us with Stoner—and after Stoner’s first disappearance, again with Harkinson, and after Harkinson, stolen again by Three-Finger Fred for Stoner’s Boy—yeah, I heard those old familiar notes ring clear and loud above the rain and the storm, and I bowed my head upon my writing desk and prayed to God to make of this Stoner’s Boy, of his pal, Three-Finger Fred, of Androfski, who was called the Silent, and of his partner, Jude the Fifth, boys that the world would someday be proud of—
And as I raised my head, I found myself alone in the clubhouse. Somehow, everything seemed settled. Doc was gone, the sheriff was gone. Simon Bleaker and Androfski, Stoner—all were gone. The rain still beat against the windows—the wind still shrieked around the clubhouse—and yet there seemed to be something in all the wild sound that said to me that we would never more see Stoner’s Boy.
Which we never did.
Acknowledgments
My thanks to:
Seckatary himself, Grandpa, for instilling in me the fair + square principles and values that guided his life and seasoned his stories.
Thanks to Harper Lee, who steadily encouraged me to reprint grandpa’s stories that she loved as a child; and for including Seckatary Hawkins’s principles in her book.
My best friend, my wife, Bonnie G, for putting up with thirty-five years of constant and ubiquitous chips of aged brown newspaper trails; all the while encouraging me on in this quest that seemed so quixotic at times.
Diane Schneider for permanent museum exhibits and for introducing the University Press of Kentucky to Seckatary Hawkins.
George Beatty, volunteer typist, who made mixed manuscripts and scans into professional-quality books.
Dan Kindle for edits and correcti
ons and for finding anything missing.
And so many who have read and will now begin to read these motivating mystery stories.
The entire Fair and Square Club for supporting The Seckatary Book Project year after year.
Yours Fair & Square,
Randy Schulkers
Contributors
“Randy” Schulkers is the grandson of the author, captain of the Seckatary Hawkins Fair & Square Club, and an international businessman for forty years. Having grown up at his grandfather’s knee, as they lived together throughout his childhood years, Randy is grateful to share with new readers the wonderful stories he loved hearing first-hand.
Diane Schneider, J.D., Ph.D., is Robert F. Schulkers’s great-niece. After ten years as a theology professor and writer, she headed a Mayo Clinic study on the healing effects of harp vibrations, and produced the “Harp of Hope” series of therapeutic harp CDs. Diane is co-captain of the Seckatary Hawkins Club, and greatly enjoys being a medical harpist and living close to the Kentucky riverbanks that inspired her great-uncle’s stories.
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