A Tale from the Hills (16 page)

The same dream occurred over and over with only slight variations. Sometimes the old man would trip her and she would fall into the water. Sometimes he would come up out of the water and grab her, and sometimes he would throw a rock at her and smash her little head. Then she would disappear over the edge of the bridge. Other times he would come out from under the old footbridge and grab her by the foot. The old man was always the reason why she disappeared, and he always taunted William with that fact. It was the common thread that tied all of the dreams together.

The old man seemed to be saying, “Stop me if you can.” to William.

The murderous dreams eventually led the way to another series of dreams that showed only little Alice. She always had a terrified look upon her face and her mouth moved, but no sounds would ever come out.

Sometimes he would read her lips enough to understand “Help me brother!”, but other times she would form words that he could not understand.

The two women began to notice a change in William. They would talk to him at breakfast and he would not respond. The would ask him a question and he would not have a logical answer for it. He had a glazed look in his eyes and he did not pay attention to his duties. Finally at lunch one day they confronted him about the situation. He told them that he was having bad dreams almost every night, and his lack of restful sleep was beginning to take a toll on his waking hours. He did not give them any details about the dreams because he did not want them to find out about little Alice. Eunice and Samantha decided that he was probably afraid to sleep upstairs by himself in the old house.

Eunice thought that a solution to his obvious problem might be to bring him downstairs to sleep. They set up his bed in the dining room, because they never really used it anyway. It was the room that was closest to their own and she figured that she could keep an eye on him. The bad dreams stopped. It was the strangest thing that they had ever seen, besides the dreams that is. He slept like a baby every night, and he was back to being the old William again in no time. If moving him downstairs would solve his sleeping problem, they decided to make it a permanent arrangement.

William began to enjoy life again. The two women could see that he was growing like a weed in the garden. Eunice realized that it would not be too much longer before she would have to find him bigger clothes in her brother’s trunks upstairs. Once her brother’s clothes were too worn or too small for the growing boy, the only clothes that she had left for him to wear, were her father’s, but she seriously doubted if the day would ever come that she would be able to dig through her father’s possessions.

Her parent’s possessions were stored in the room at the far end of the upstairs hallway. She never went into that room because it brought back too many bad memories. She wished many times that she had destroyed all of her father’s things after he died, but times were hard and she could not make herself throw away anything that might have a useful purpose at some time or another. Her mother’s things were a different story. She loved her motherand treasured the things that her mother owned, as few things as there were. She knew that her mother’s life had been pure Hell with her father.

Bob Hill treated his whole family like slaves. They were his possessions to do with as he pleased, at least he thought so. Eunice used to hear the way that he talked to her poor mother, and how he intimidated her in front of everyone, even his own family. She was afraid to ask her mother why she let him treat her so badly, but she could see the hurt in her mother’s eyes everyday.

When Eunice’s brothers went to war, the remaining family members had to make up for their absence. They worked from before daylight until well after dark to make sure that everything was done to suit the tyrannical Bob Hill. Eunice had the greatest respect for her brother Tom who left home when he was so young. She understood very well why the family never heard from him again. She blamed her father for the deaths of her brothers and sisters and dear mother from the flu epidemic. If they had not been so exhausted and rundown, their resistance might have been stronger to the deadly strain.

Eunice watched all of the members of her family die, one by one. Her only consolation after her mother died was that her father suffered for days before he finally died. He was covered in his own blood and snot and vomit when he wheezed his last breath. She dragged his dead body onto the front porch so that she did not have to look at him while she waited for the death wagon to pick up his carcass. She covered him in a soiled sheet as a final insult for the miserable life that he gave his family. She eventually buried all of her family in a beautiful section of the farm, all except her father that is. She buried him in an unmarked grave next to those aggravating railroad tracks.

Eunice took care of the farm as best as she could after her family died, but it was a much bigger job than she could handle on her own. The farm was going downhill fast when she met Samantha.

Samantha was a farm girl too. She and Eunice hadbeen acquaintances since childhood, but neither of them realized that they had so much in common until they met later in life. They met at the hardware store in Sparta and when Eunice told Samantha the sad story of what had happened to her family, Samantha offered to help her on the farm. One thing led to another and the rest of the story was happening on a day to day basis. Now of course they were an inseparable team. William was happy that they were together. He hoped that someday he would be ashappy as they obviously were.

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Chapter Two
 

Three years passed quickly for William while he was living with Eunice and Samantha. For the most part he was very happy living with them. Sometimes he felt guilty for not writing to his family to tell them how he was doing and where he was living. He also felt guilty about not telling the two women that he had become so attached to, that his real name was Hill, too. He could have possibly opened up a line of communication between a brother and a sister. It would have been a positive revelation for both of them, but he chose not to tell Eunice that he was her nephew. For reasons that only he was able to justify to himself, he wanted to keep the different stages of his life separated from each other.

Even though Eunice and Samantha had always been aware of his nightmares, William never told them that his mother, his dear sister Alice, and an old man long dead were the main characters in those horrible dreams. They never knew that his mother died soon after he was born. He used to blame himself for her death too. They never knew how attached he was to little Alice, and how devastated he was when she disappeared. He still blamed himself for her tragic death. He never described the old man who terrified him down to his soul either. Eunice might just have recognized that old man if she had heard about him. All that William could say was thank God that the dreams were not a regular occurrence anymore.

If he kept himself occupied during the day, and if he ate well, and if he avoided becoming upset, William usually slept like a baby at night. But if things went wrong, or if someone upset him, the nightmares would return like clockwork. They always showed up to add to his misery and pull him further down into the depths of desperation. As long as he stayed on the farm and saw only Eunice and Samantha, he was quite fine. Changes in routine were definitely not good for him.

Eunice needed to pick up supplies in Sparta about once a month. She liked to take either Samantha or William with her, so that she would have someone to talk to along the way. Samantha would go on rare occasions but usually it was William who made the four hour round trip. On one of Eunice and William’s trips they talked about the future. Eunice asked William if he had plans to settle down and raise a family someday.

“Sure I guess so.” he said. “That’s what everybody wants. But I hardly ever see anyone except you and Sam. That is unless I go with you somewhere like right now.”

There were not too many places for people to meet except church or school. The only people at the hardware store were old farmers and a grouchy old storekeeper. The store was located just outside of town and the entire trip was over rural roads. They never saw anyone except maybe a farmer or two, all the way to and from the store.

“I know,” suggested Eunice. “Why don’t you start going to church? There is a little church just down the road from home, and you might just meet someone your age there.”

“I don’t know, I’m not much good at meeting people.” he replied.

“You will never know unless you try. Just go one time. If you like it fine, if not, that’s fine too. It might be worth a try.” she added.

“Maybe.” he sighed.

He thought about Eunice’s suggestion from that day until Saturday afternoon. He made a bold announcement to the two women at the supper table that same night.

“You will need some Sunday go to meeting clothes.” said Eunice. “Let’s go upstairs to see what we can find.”

Eunice remembered that her brothers had some nice clothes that they brought back from Europe. She did not know if William would like them, but she realized that he had not been too choosy so far in their relationship. He like herself, was not that hard to please when it came to his appearance. Samantha cut his hair and he never complained about a gap here and there. He was a very good looking boy who was quickly becoming a handsome man.

Ever since he began staying downstairs, William felt uncomfortable about going upstairs. Eunice sensed his discomfort and rummaged through her brothers’ trunks as quickly as she could. She found a white shirt easily and a nice leather belt. She remembered that the jackets and pants were hanging in the large wardrobe in the room that was beside of her parents. As she moved her hand over the hangers she felt sentimental. William did not see her wipe the tear from her eye. She found a suit that reminded her so much of her dear brother John that she started to cry. William patted her shoulder to let her know that he understood her sorrow more than she would ever know.

The suit was a nice color. It was a dark blue wool with a tiny black stripe. William could not wait to try it on. Eunice thought that she might have to alter the hem of the pants, but that was an easy task. She left the room so that he could have a little privacy while he tried them on.

William felt very elegant when he slipped his naked leg into the pants. The waist was a bit too large but they were exactly the right length. The belt would surely take up the slack around the waist. He tried on the jacket without the benefit of a shirt. The wool itched a little bit but the jacket was a nearly perfect fit too.

He found a surprise when he rummaged through thepockets of the jacket. Hidden inside one of the breast pockets were several pictures. The backs of the pictures were designed for mailing, but the fronts were provocative photographs of naked women. He had never seen pictures like those before. They almost took his breath away. He was glad that Eunice was not in the room because he would have been embarrassed for her to see the things that his lower body was doing as a result of the pictures.

“Is everything all right in there?” Eunice asked, startling him.

“Fine, fine. They fit fine. They won’t have to be altered at all.” he answered breathing hard and fast.

“That’s great then. I’m going back downstairs.” shesaid.

“Ok.” he answered almost too quickly.

The cards were more exciting than he could look at right then and there. He would need some quality time alone to fully appreciate the curves and nuances of the naked women’s bodies. He hurriedly dressed back into hisold clothes and headed to the barn as fast as he could.

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Sunday morning William had coffee ready when Eunice and Samantha got up. There were not as many chores to do on Sunday morning, so they got an extra hour or so of sleep. William got up earlier than usual though, because he wanted to take a bath and prepare for his trip to church. He made doubly sure that the pictures were hidden in a very safe place. He never wanted to lose the treasures that one of his uncles had posthumously given to him.

After breakfast he decided to get an early start on his long walk to church. It was located about two miles from their house and he wanted to take his time getting there. Who knows, maybe he would get there in time to meet some girls before church started. While Eunice and Samantha cleared the table and washed the dishes, he went upstairs to get ready. Even though he had been livingin the house for three years, he had never looked in any of the rooms except the room that used to be his own. Since he had a few minutes to spare, he decided to take a quick peek. The room beside of his old room was practically empty. There was a bed frame, and a chest of drawers, but there was no rug on the floor and the closet was completely empty. He figured that it used to be the girls’ bedroom, and now Eunice was using the furniture downstairs. The room next to that one contained several cot like beds and a huge wardrobe closet in the far corner. He suspected that it was full of old clothing too, but he did not bother to look inside. The room at the end of the hall was so full that he could barely get the door open. It looked like an interesting room to prowl in, but he would have to wait until Eunice and Samantha were gone somewhere to do that. He hoped that he would be lucky enough to find a few more photographs of naked women or a family treasure or two.

“Hey up there, what’s up?” Eunice shouted from the bottom of the stairs.

“Nothing, I’m just getting ready for church.” he answered as he hurried back to his old room.

He dressed quickly because he did not want Eunice to get suspicious about his movements in the house. He held a position of trust and he did not want to do anything to jeopardize that trust. Sometimes he wondered why the two women trusted him so much anyway, and why they took him in when he was on the run. He was not sure that he would have given the same consideration to a total stranger. He knew that they were better human beings than he would ever be, or even hope to be.