Judge’s steps slowed as something attracted his attention. “Hey, it’s a dog statue!” He veered away to inspect a bronze casting of an alert-looking dog.
Sally bolted inside. Once away from direct daylight, Sally removed the more ostentatious pieces of her gear so she looked a little less like a movie star in hiding. Doing so usually saved her some tedious explanations. In less than a minute, Judge came trotting inside with a goofy grin on his face. “This town had a heroic dog. I love that.”
The Town Hall was humid inside, its stone walls smothering. The little building accommodated the entire breadth of the justice system for the town of Gully and its surrounding patches of civilization in three rooms. Vital Statistics/Public Records, one door said. The second said, Economic & Agricultural Development / Environmental / Conservation / Parks & Rec and finally the door at the end of the hall stated, County Sheriff.
Sally opened the door of the sheriff’s office and Judge followed in behind her.
The sheriff’s department was cooled by two noisy blowing fans that were directed at a motionless receptionist, who might have been sitting in this same spot since 1967 and whose duties were probably vastly beyond mere reception work. For all Sally knew, this could be the town’s mayor. It seemed ridiculous to announce themselves as being there to see the sheriff, because the sheriff herself sat at a desk not eight feet away, writing furiously on a report, and had noticed them come in. The sheriff was in her fifties, small and fit, wearing the expected brown uniform of county law enforcement. Her golden badge was shiny on her chest; her matching hair was shiny on her head, stacked high with hairspray and bobby pins. She had a face lined by a thousand days in the sunshine, clear blue eyes, a friendly smile huge with strong-looking teeth.
“Morning!” she said. “I’m Sheriff Lila and this is Paula who does everything else. Can you give me a minute to finish writing this?”
They nodded and spoke together: “Yes ma’am.”
“You’re both so young,” said the motionless receptionist Paula. “Are you doing some high school project?”
Sally said, “No ma’am. We’re actually both in our twenties.”
“Must be pretty early in your twenties. What are you doing here then?”
Sally continued to speak for them. “We’re here interviewing and researching the Baker clan.”
“Which part of it?” asked Paula dryly, which made Sheriff Lila laugh, sort of a donkey-laugh, a sound that was at first overpowering and then bold and charming.
Sally answered Paula, “The ones on the Eyeteeth Mountain. Cloda Baker specifically, but we’ve also met Ardelia and we want to get some more information on what happened to Willie Baker last year. And we’d like to get some copies of the reports, if possible, and if there are town records that you think—”
Paula held up her hands to stop Sally’s recital. She said, “Whoa there, whoa there. Let’s take this all one step at a time. What you got there, young man? Is that a kitty-cat?”
Judge raised the crate to Paula’s eye level. “My cat Vladimir,” he said. Inside, the great grey tabby snoozed, somehow undisturbed despite the jog inside the building. “He had an accident last weekend so I’m keeping him nearby. He’ll sleep for the next few hours because he’s on drugs.”
Paula nodded, cooing a little and fussing over the injured cat, as people tended to do, and told Judge that he was welcome to put Vladimir down beside her desk near the fan where it was nice and cool. Then, the most important matter dispensed with, she turned her attention to Sally.
Sally had been prepared to produce identification and qualifications, to press the sheriff’s department about why they needed the information and why they had a right - even a need - to snoop around. She had a speech ready to go, with the reminder that this was all a matter of public record, and so on, with assurances that cooperation meant an appearance on a webshow which was almost as good as being on television. Nearly anyone would be excited to be on television and that offer usually helped people bend rules.
It turned out, however, that Paula was only too eager to launch into details. From her expression, she seemed to know all there was to know about Willie Baker and was perfectly happy embellish wherever necessary. “That Willie Baker was a hound dog who thought himself God’s gift to women, without giving them much a say in the matter neither. That horny old coot - a man his age, can you imagine! - even tried to get a little fresh with me one time – but my husband was close by thank God.”
Judge’s brow darkened. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
“I’ve lived around here all my life. Everyone knows about Willie and how he would carry on with the women at the rocking chair factory, force them to do things they didn’t want to do, or else lose their jobs, and jobs is plenty scarce – most women were willing to take it, just to keep working.”
“That’s awful!” Sally exclaimed. “Nobody ever made any complaints?”
Judge cut in before Paula could respond. “Sal, you’re directing, remember, and I’m doing the interview. Put a camera on us and Paula and I can talk about this. You don’t mind being on our show, do you, Paula? We need testimony from people who were there and know what happened, and it sounds like you’re our go-to expert, you and Sheriff Lila.”
Paula was flattered, maybe surprised at Judge’s deep voice. “Oh we knew you were coming, so I did myself up just a little today.” Had she really? Sally wasn’t certain what that meant. Paula seemed particularly unnoticeable, a big woman with a resting frown, rather poorly-dyed dark hair, and the shapeless features of a dozen generations of similarly ordinary people coming together. She wouldn’t photograph like a beauty, but never mind; she was at least animated and willing to talk, so Sally stepped back and put the camera on her and Judge. Sheriff Lila, still writing, did not object.
“So,” resumed Judge, “did any of these poor women ever complain about Willie’s behavior?”
“I reckon a couple of them might have,” said Paula. “But in a day or two, seems like they’d change their mind. You know that sister of his is a witch, right? She’s got plenty of ways to make people forget things, or make them so afraid they won’t talk.”
Sheriff Lila raised her head suddenly. “Paula, Cloda Baker is a decent woman; I think she only aims to help people.”
“Blood is thicker than water,” argued Paula. “Anyways, when finally two, three generations of lady workers got together to make their case against him, I’d bet you a thousand dollars Cloda tried to put a stop to it. I don’t know, maybe she just wasn’t strong enough or maybe they was too many or too far away, down to the county seat. Maybe by the time she and Willie realized what them women was doing, it was just too late. Her Willie got his comeuppance. We have a certain idea that there was more to them than just normal brother/sister affection.”
“Whoa,” said Judge. “What are we talking about here?”
“Well.” Paula’s glance checked to see if Sheriff Lila was going to say something, but the sheriff either didn’t care or hadn’t heard. “All I’m saying is that last year, when that attorney was asking questions and filing papers every which way, there was some trouble with figuring out who was Ardelia’s father. Turns out, Cloda Baker has never been married to anybody.”
“Women can have children without being married,” Judge pointed out.
“Mm-hmm. And I think that’s exactly what she did.”
“It’s not really proof that she and her brother had a child together.”
“Wait,” interrupted Sally, forgetting that she was meant to be quiet. “I thought Ardelia was Cloda’s younger sister.”
Paula smirked as if Sally was just now catching on to something quite obvious. “Yes, and just how much younger? Eighteen, twenty-years or so? Them Baker folk have a family tree that goes in a straight line without no branches, if you ask me. But I’m not one to gossip.”
“Neither are we,” Judge confirmed solemnly. “So you think that Willie and Cloda Baker are Ardelia’s paren
ts. It would explain why Cloda kept getting her relations mixed up.”
Paula’s expression of disgust only barely outshone her delight in telling her tale. “Mark my words, if Willie was mean enough to do that to his own sister, and to fourteen women who was willing to say so, that tells me that there were plenty of others who never said nothing. His nonsense caught up with him. Served him right that it killed him, them finally carrying him off in irons, and it was high time. But I’m not one to talk.”
Shaking her head, Sheriff Lila said, “Speaking of Bakers, just look at this very report. Seems Elton Baker’s been leaving that monster truck of his parked in the craziest places; his neighbors is fed up with finding it on their lawns. Oh my Lord what an ordeal. I’m finishing up right now.” A few more scratches of her pen and she sat back, stretching.
While Sally readied the hand-held camera and positioned herself to tape the next conversation, Sheriff Lila came forward and sat on the corner of Paula’s desk, one hip propped, one leg swinging.
Judge made more formal introductions. “Sheriff, Sally and I are with the webshow Othernaturals. We investigate the paranormal.”
“Ghost hunters,” surmised Sheriff Lila.
“Also psychic phenomena, the occult—”
“So, witches. That’s why you’re seeing about the Eyeteeth Bakers.”
“That’s right.”
“You’ve met Cloda already, did you say? I never used one of her little stick-people spells myself but rumor has it they work, that she’s the real thing. Years ago, gosh, must have been a good fifteen years at least, my own cousin went to Cloda for some help when she was having marriage problems – her husband had a bad case of wanderlust but you didn’t hear it from me – anyway I think it’s dangerous to mess with that sort of stuff, it’s devil-worship though Cloda herself would say that’s not so.”
Before Judge could respond, Paula was speaking. “Do you all ever look for monsters? Because we’ve got a Bigfoot in these parts, not the Bigfoot but a Bigfoot, they call him the Sliding Shrieker because he’s fast as lightning.”
Sheriff Lila rolled her eyes. “Twenty years ago, two hikers saw something in the woods they think was a Bigfoot and we still can’t get rid of the rumors about it.”
“Are you calling my granddad a liar?” asked Paula with just a hint of real anger. “He told us about it when I was just a little girl. It’s not just ‘twenty years ago’ but every other decade for the last two hundred years, and my granddad was one of the ones who saw it. He was out on the mountain hunting deer and it came up right behind him, because my granddad had invaded his hunting grounds. And it hollered right in his ear to drive him away. My granddad was deaf on that side ever since that day.”
Sheriff Lila remained unimpressed. “What these kids are really interested in would be Screaming Norman. You all go out to the end of Marsden road – all the way out to where the stream crosses it, and you’ll see the field of Delaney Farm, where he was killed. He was a settler back in the 1790s. Indians attacked his claim and killed him the night before his wife was to join him there. Now he roams the grounds screaming, ‘Where’s my scalp? Where’s my scalp?’ because he doesn’t want his wife to see him without hair. As kids we were always afraid to go out to the Delaney farm.”
“No, Screaming Norman is on that field of the Ag Departments Experimental Field Grasses,” said Paula. “Now out on the Delaney farm, that’s where the Schoolmarm is said to linger. She’s the one that died of cholera. And she haunted the schoolhouse so bad that they just had to let the forest take it back again, and no one knows whatever became of it.”
“No, they tore that down and used the wood to build barn doors,” said Sheriff Lila. “That’s what I heard. That’s why we get so many animals afraid to go through their barn doors.”
“If you were looking for monsters, there’s a giant boar named Razorback who’s been terrorizing the mountain people since I don’t know when,” Paula said. “They say he’s as big as an ox with tusks three feet long and sharp as daggers. Every now and then a hunter finds a deer or a cow that’s been gored to death by him.”
“It’s easier for me to believe in the giant boar than in a Bigfoot,” commented the Sheriff. “No offense to your grandad. But a giant animal isn’t really supernatural anyway, is it?”
“The ghost you should look into is Old Boomer,” said Paula, ignoring the Sheriff’s Bigfoot skepticism. “That’s a nice story, something that kids can hear about.”
“I saw the dog statue outside!” said an excited Judge. “Old Boomer the hero!”
As if speaking to a group of tourists, Paula recited, “Old Boomer was a hound dog that didn’t belong to anybody really, just lived in Gully where everyone could take care of him and of course they all did. Then one night during the driest summer anyone could remember, a trash fire blazed out of control and caught fire to the boarding house. Boomer’s barking woke everyone up in time so they could get out. That dog saved a dozen lives that night! There’s a statue of him on the lawn.”
“But you say he’s a ghost?” asked Judge.
“Supposedly haunts the town square. They say that at night, you can still hear him barking,” said Sheriff Lila. “But it’s hard to tell, you know, with so many people actually having dogs.”
“Don’t forget about the Major and his troops,” said Paula suddenly, her face brightening with excitement.
“Oh, the Major!” Sheriff Lila explained, speaking directly at the camera now, “They died on the mountainside in a Civil War battle. The Major still rides up and down with his troops behind him. I know more than one person that claims to have seen them out there.”
“What battle was fought here?” asked Judge.
“Not one of the big ones,” said Sheriff Lila. “More like a skirmish.”
“I didn’t hear that it was a skirmish,” remarked Paula. “They roam up and down because they don’t know the war’s over; they think they’re still on a mission.”
Sheriff Lila said, “I haven’t seen him myself. And you know how folks like to spread stories around.”
Sally frowned, interrupting the conversation once more, in spite of herself. “Hey - didn’t Greg and Drew say something about seeing some Civil War guys on the way here?”
“What? When?” asked Judge.
“Oh - you were half asleep anyway. It was in the van, when we stopped in the rain.”
“That’s really lucky,” said Paula with considerable respect. “They say that only those worthy to ride with the Major ever manage to see him.”
“You sure do have a lot of ghost stories here,” said a serious Judge. He and Sally, with six and five years of experience on the show respectively, knew that every small town had ghost stories very much like this. Sheriff Lila and Paula had just shared six different tales, and Rosemary would say that statistically, one of them would be more or less true. Maybe the Major and his troops were the real deal.
“This is great material,” said Judge. He had been charmed enough by the story of the ghost dog to forget about the Sliding Shrieker and Razorback. “Thank you so much, ladies. I almost hate to ask more of you, but we did come to discuss the Bakers.”
Without giving him a chance to ask another question, Sheriff Lila said, “It’s an ugly story hereabouts, nobody’s proud of it. The Bakers were pretty respected altogether, especially with the line of medicine women, or witches I guess you’d say, in the family for so many generations. And of course the Eyeteeth Mountain Rocking Chair was the only steady business Gully could boast all through the last century. Then this Willie– well, lucky for me I never had to deal with him much myself, but can you imagine a pervert like him going on for decades without anybody stopping him?”
“Were you involved in the arrest?” Judge asked when he could get a word in edgewise.
“Had to be there, you betcha,” said Sheriff Lila. “But I had some argument with Judge Faunstock about it. Why arrest a man that old? I didn’t figure he could do much harm if we�
�d just left him alone. He’d die soon enough, I figured.”
Sally and Judge weren’t there to make judgments, though for a moment they exchanged glances of their shared dismay. Sally herself was rankling at this shitty situation, angry on behalf of the women who’d suffered at the hands of a man who should have been too old to “do much harm” and yet had seemed to do quite a bit of harm nevertheless. She was personally glad that his stay in jail had killed him. That at least felt like meager justice.
Sheriff Lila continued, “We were lucky that Elton Baker was able to keep the rocking chair factory running. Regardless of what Willie did or didn’t do, that’s jobs that we need bad around here.”
“Have you been there?” asked Judge.
“To the factory? Never have, no. The Bakers sorta prefer that we stay off their mountain.”
“Really?”
“You don’t want to rile up the Bakers.”
“Do you know anyone who works at the factory?”
“I know everyone who works there. Most everyone in Slope.”
“So, Elton kept a lot of people employed by keeping the factory going.”
The Sheriff said, “Lucky for them. If they cared about their jobs so much they shouldn’t have gone after Willie.”
Judge feigned innocence. “Maybe they thought he should stop raping the women who worked for him.”
Sheriff Lila didn’t seem to be convinced, or maybe she was just kidding when she said, “I guess that could have been it. But see how much trouble it caused.”
Sally took in a deep breath to keep herself from speaking. Judge was getting bristly, though. “Sheriff, do you mean that they should have just kept quiet? Kept putting up with it?”
“Nothing was ever proven,” Sheriff Lila remarked. “A man is innocent until his guilt is proved.” Judge urged her to elaborate, and she said, “I only mean to say that after Willie died, the whole lot of them clammed up and went back to work. That lawyer of theirs wanted to go on and sue the Eyeteeth Mountain Rocking Chair itself but everybody went kind of silent on the subject.” She paused, thoughts turning in her head, her eyes narrowing. “Now that I think of it, I ain’t heard much out of anybody since Willie died last year. Just Elton, when I have to talk to him about leavin’ his truck all over, and he barely says two words together.”
Witches Page 20