On the Edge of Twilight: 22 Tales to Follow You Home (9 page)

Miss Riley’s Lot

How bout when my big brother Chris took me up on Uncanny Hill during hunting season and let me watch while he and his buds shot a woman?

I was fifteen, and it was the day after Thanksgiving, and Chris, he was nineteen that year, a real bruiser who liked to drink and get in brawls around town, but he got along with me bettern most.

Well, he and Jim and Dale, that’s his friends, they took me up in the woods above town, and further in, deep in, until Uncanny Hill reared up, and then Chris ran up ahead to the clearing, he had us wait, and came back and said, all breathless, “She’s there, OK.”

And I said, “Who’s that?”

And he said, “You’ll see,” and nudged his pals.

We went on up the hill together until it broke clear from the woods and there was wheat all over on the top, and there was an old woman sittin on a rotten stump. She was all wrapped up in a shabby black-knit shawl and had on black stockings, and a black bonnet, a natty old black dress, and a tattered, dirty pair of black old wooden clogs. It was like she was in mournin or something, dressed up so. White hair streamed out from neath her shawl in long, thin strands. Her face, oh, it was like lookin at one of them maps with mountains on it, the kind that stick up a little. And her eyes, I remember when we got close thinkin how they musta once been green, but now was all faded, kinda olive-colored, and red round the edges.

“Well, Chris, that’s Miss Riley!” I shouted.

All the other fellas laughed long and loud at that, but I can’t say as I knew why, cept we wasn’t supposed to say a word to her cause she was ‘touched,’ like they put it, and she had always kinda skeered me. She liked to clump around town now and again, but specially out in the woods and through the fields, and she muttered and laughed and smiled like there was somethin real sad and unspeakable behind those four black teeth of hers.

“You ain’t frightened, now, are you Jeff?” Chris asked, nudging Dale.

“No, no, I ain’t a bit.”

“That’s a good whelp. Now you follow close and watch real good.”

So they moseyed on down to Miss Riley, me followin behind, and Miss Riley came clumpin up the hill aways to meet em, and Jim, he said, “How’s it goin, Miss Riley?” And Miss Riley, she stopped and smiled that smile, then laughed, and it sounded like a squalling baby. And she said, “I’ll show you a thing or two!” then turned and walked on down the hill agin to her dead ol stump and took a seat.

“Here now, whose turn is it?” Jim asked.

“I thought we said it was mine,” Chris said.

“No, I don’t remember that,” Dale said.

“Three’s better’n one!” Miss Riley piped up, and I thought to myself,
What’s she runnin her gums about?
And then I found out.

“You say so,” Chris said, and set his .30 caliber against her chest, just as Jim and Dale did the same.

And then I’ll be damned if they didn’t lift up the safeties, pull the triggers, and the world went up in smoke and thunder.

What I felt, it’s kinda hard to put in words. All time, it seemed to hang on edge, and I let out a whoop! and a cry and fell on my knees as Miss Riley, she blowed backwards, knocked straight outta her shoes, and a fine red mist sprayed the ground, my brother, his buds, my face. Then Miss Riley just lay all still, her chest pretty well gone to glory, and her bones and innards all on view, and I closed my eyes and pinched my arm and tried to wake myself up, but acourse I couldn’t cause I was waked already.

That then is what happened to begin with, and it’s bad enough. But with my eyes still clamped shut so tight I saw stars, I next heard a rustling and a whispering and a grunt from one of the boys, and then high above it all, shrill and clear as winter water, Miss Riley’s laughter.

I opened my eyes real slow, cause I didn’t want to see no more, but there’s no way I could keep em shut after hearing
that
. And what did I see but Miss Riley standing there in the knee-high wheat, puttin her shoes back on, balancin from one leg to another. Her hair, it was all wild cause her bonnet was knocked clean off by the blast, and her face was covered in blood, but she was alive, though I could still see her innards, and they was waving as she moved.

There’s no point lyin, I passed out cold on the ground at that, and when I came to Chris was lookin down at me and shakin his head.

“Sorry bout that, fry. We didn’t figure you’d take it so ruff, though it
is
a bit of a trial when you don’t see it coming. But that’s always been the best way to let a newby know what’s goin on with Miss Riley, since no one’d believe otherwise.”

I wiped my mouth and sat up. Jim and Dale were outta sight, but Miss Riley was sittin on her stump again and starin at me with those faded olive eyes of hers, smiling that hoary black-toothed grin.

“You’re dead,” I said, and pointed at her. “You gotta be.”

“Ha!” she spat.

“You saw her chest,” Chris said. “Look agin.”

I peeked over, and that big old hole was still there in her gullet, but it didn’t look too bad from what it was before.

“She’ll get better,” Chris said. “She always do.”

“Come on by an do the same any time!” Miss Riley cackled at me, but I couldn’t look at her again, an didn’t feel too steady on my legs.

Chris put a hand on my shoulder. “Come on, let’s get back to the house and go for a drive. You’ll get your answers. It’s time.”

* * *

We got back to the house and didn’t even go inside at all, but went straight for the old Model A Chris’d bought from Doc Weaver for twenty clams. And when we was inside and rolling down the road toward nowheres, Chris started talking.

“Here’s the thing about Miss Riley,” Chris said, staring ahead. “How old you say she is?”

“Eighty-five,” I said, cause that was the oldest I could imagine.

Chris shook his head. “That end of town she lives in? Back when Grampa was a boy there was a big flood, and a heap of people died. You know that, don’t you? You better, the way Gramma keeps on about it. OK, so most everything from there was either warshed away or left to rot, so nobody’d have to think about all the people that got kilt, and so they wouldn’t disrespect nobody’s memory by building it all up again. Except Miss Riley stayed, because she was there then, and already old, and she lived through it even though she was swept away more’n a mile. She came back when no one else did.”

“That flood was almost a hundred years ago!”

Chris nodded, keeping his eyes on the road. “I ain’t saying anyone gets it. And I guess you’re wondering how she does it? Well she doesn’t do much of nothing, as fur as I can tell. She just can’t damn well lay herself down and die.

“Before Grampa passed on when you was little, he took me out for my first hunt and showed me what I showed you today. Miss Riley, she goads hunters into doin it, and finally long ago one of em did it for the first time, and ever since it’s been kinda traditional-like for some of them to take a shot at her every year at the start of the season. Good luck, they say.

“But Miss Riley, I know why she keeps at em. She keeps at em cause she keeps hopin one of em will do her in right and kill her. It don’t happen, though. Sometimes it takes longer and sometimes it takes shorter, but she always gets better. Even so, she won’t never give up.”

We was both quiet for a bit, and I watched the blue November sky meet the road as Chris kept drivin.

“How come she don’t die?” I finally asked.

Chris sighed, then shook his head and wrinkled his nose. “There was talk of great sadfulness and all the kind of things you’d think’d go along with such a queer situ’ation. Somethin bout her son gettin kilt and her swearin to stay until he got back, and him not gettin back, so her stayin on and on. But now she’s ready to go, and been ready for a long bit now.”

“You think that’s true?”

“Mebbe. But one thing I know is when folks don’t get the ins and outs about any given thing, they make up somethin so they think they do. And that’s what happened, I guess. But ya know what I think? I think there
ain’t
always no reason for everythin. I think she don’t die cause she don’t die. That’s her lot, jus like it’s some’s lot to die young. She’s durn tired, has been since anyone alive’s knowed her, but that’s her lot.”

That stuck like glue, and I come to think maybe Chris was right bout a story makin people feel better. I like to think the tales was true, meself. They give what happened to her some reason, bad or crazy besides. Better than none, for sure. But I’ll never know one way or t’other, and so be it.

Chris snuck a glance at me. “So you’re probably wonderin why the hell you ever need know bout all this business. Well, you’ve heard stories told, and at your age you’d be hearin more shortly as all that talk begins to take hold in you. And that’d be a damn shame, cause privacy’s a right few don’t deserve. So most of you boys need to be told, and have it all out in the open, and understand how things is, and that way you won’t need to talk bout it ever agin unless you’re careful who with and when. You see how things stand?”

I guess I was starin out ahead at me and didn’t say nothin fast enough, cause Chris reached over and punched my arm real hard. “You see how things stand?” he repeated.

“Yeah, I guess I see how things stand.”

He nodded. “That’s what I wanna hear. Now, she’s harmless, I’ll swear by that. She’s odd but she won’t hurt you. So if you wanna take a shot—”

“No!”

“That’s your good choice, either way. But if you wanna keep away from her, there’s a couple things you should know. First, next time you go swimming down at Uncanny’s deep hole on a hot summer day, better be careful not to go too far underwater. I’ve heard it told she sets herself at the bottom of the pool with a rock tied to her ankle. It’s her way of keepin cool, since drowning’s death, and she can’t die. So if you feel someone grab you, that’s what it is. And if you don’t want to get grabbed, use the hole downstream by the hill.

“Second, if you ever walk in the woods and see her hangin from the old oak tree over on the edge of Mr. Scot’s, don’t get scared. She do that sometimes, too. You just ain’t ever seen it yet, but you will, if you keep on huntin.

“And third? Once in a while, usually at night, she’ll climb up the library tower and take a leap. It’s the highest buildin in town. She don’t do that often any more, not since Sheriff Rogers had the borough add on that grate. And she usually only does it when she’s been hittin the bottle, and no one in town’s allowed to sell her any hard stuff anymore, neither. But you might see that, too, so it’s best to keep one eye out and the other open.” He paused and chuckled real dry. “That way she won’t land on you.”

We drove back home just in time for Ma’s supper, and it was good but I didn’t have much stomach for it. And Chris and me, we never spoke of Miss Riley again.

* * *

What happened after that? you might well ask. Well, time fades old frights. I had a good group of friends back then, Philip and John and Drake, and as we growed up we hunted together. Now we was good boys for the most part, even if we got in our share of trouble. Still, good or no, we was also of the age that liked to walk the line with things, and death is the biggest line of all. And so one early Saturday we was back in the woods hunting, and came up Uncanny Hill, and Miss Riley was there all right, settin on her stump, and she came up on us like she came up on my brother, and said, “You wanna go? I’ll show you a thing or two!”

And so we talked a fair bit about it, then Drake went up and shot her right in the gullet.

The old woman staggered back a step, and her face screwed up in pain, and she let out a wollop of a holler, almost as loud as Drake’s, but she didn’t drop, and when she looked down and saw her stomach, she started laughin, then walked off like nothing much was the matter. Just as before.

“Now you’s a man!” she crowed, hobbling away. “Now you’s a man.”

I gotta admit I shot her too when I saw her next, and the scary thing is, it felt
good
in a way I don’t understand. But I can’t say as I felt like a man. In fact, I kinda scared myself, doing that thing.

And so we’d see her around, and got used to the idea that she couldn’t die, and life went on. She was crazy and not worth talkin to, otherwise I guess I’da tried to get a better thing goin with her. Knowing someone like that? Couldn’t help but be interestin, but she never had nothing to say. And she was a bit of a creep, stalking around in woods and hiding in lakes and hangin from trees and laughing and smiling with those rotten teeth. And that’s all there’d be to the story, cept for one more thing that happened a few years later.

There was a house up on Barnaby Street, about three blocks from my family’s little place, empty about fifteen years. Well, fifteen years is a long time, and it started fallin down in places, but us boys used it for all kindsa things. We went even though we knowed it wasn’t a safe place. There was wires and electrical fixins and rotten wood all about.

Shortly after I turned seventeen, me and my friends was up there one afternoon with some young ladies, and we was havin our own party in a way, and someone dropped a match in the wrong place. A bunch of old heavy yellow curtains caught fire, and before we knowed it we was runnin for our lives out into the open air. It was December, so I remember the cold of the day and the heat of the fire hittin each other, and then I heard the screams, but they warn’t like those of us who was runnin. They was of pain, and they was from inside that house.