The Best New Horror 2 (65 page)

T
HE
N
EBRASKAN SMILED WARMLY
, leaned forward, and made a sweeping gesture with his right hand, saying, “Yes indeed, that’s exactly the sort of thing I’m most interested in. Tell me about it, Mr Thacker, please.”

All this was intended to keep old Hop Thacker’s attention away from the Nebraskan’s left hand, which had slipped into his left jacket pocket to turn on the miniature recorder there. Its microphone was pinned to the back of the Nebraskan’s lapel, the fine brown wire almost invisible.

Perhaps old Hop would not have cared in any case; old Hop was hardly the shy type. “Waul,” he began, “this was years an’ years back, the way I hear’d it. Guess it’d have been in my great granpaw’s time, Mr Cooper, or mebbe before.”

The Nebraskan nodded encouragingly.

“There’s these three boys, an’ they had an old mule, wasn’t good fer nothin’ ’cept crowbait. One was Colonel Lightfoot—course didn’t nobody call him colonel then. One was Creech an’ t’other ’un . . .” The old man paused, fingering his scant beard. “Guess I don’t rightly know. I
did
know. It’ll come to me when don’t nobody want to hear it. He’s the one had the mule.”

The Nebraskan nodded again. “Three young men, you say, Mr Thacker?”

“That’s right, an’ Colonel Lightfoot, he had him a new gun. An’ this other ’un—he was a friend of my grandpaw’s or somebody—he had him one everybody said was jest about the best shooter in the county. So this here Laban Creech, he said
he
wasn’t no bad shot hisself, an’ he went an’ fetched his’un. He was the ’un had that mule. I recollect now.

“So they led the ol’ mule out into the medder, mebbe fifty straddles from the brake. You know how you do. Creech, he shot it smack in the ear, an’ it jest laid down an’ died, it was old, an’ sick, too, didn’t kick or nothin’. So Colonel Lightfoot, he fetched out his knife an’ cut it up the belly, an’ they went on back to the brake fer to wait out the crows.”

“I see,” the Nebraskan said.

“One’d shoot, an’ then another, an’ they’d keep score. An’ it got to be near to dark, you know, an’ Colonel Lightfoot with his new gun an’ this other man that had the good ’un, they was even up, an’ this Laban Creech was only one behind ’em. Reckon there was near to a hundred crows back behind in the gully. You can’t jest shoot a crow an’ leave him, you know, an’ ’spect the rest to come. They look an’ see that dead ’un, an’ they say, Waul, jest look what become of
him
. I don’t calc’late to come anywheres near
there
.”

The Nebraskan smiled. “Wise birds.”

“Oh, there’s all kinds of stories ’bout ’em,” the old man said. “Thankee, Sarah.”

His granddaughter had brought two tall glasses of lemonade; she paused in the doorway to dry her hands on her red-and-white checkered apron, glancing at the Nebraskan with shy alarm before retreating into the house.

“Didn’t have a lick, back then.” The old man poked an ice cube with one bony, somewhat soiled finger. “Didn’t have none when I was a little ’un, neither, till the TVA come. Nowadays you talk ’bout the TVA an’ they think you mean them programs, you know.” He waved his glass. “I watch ’em sometimes.”

“Television,” the Nebraskan supplied.

“That’s it. Like, you take when Bud Bloodhat went to his reward, Mr Cooper. Hot? You never seen the like. The birds all had their mouths open, wouldn’t fly fer anything. Lost two hogs, I recollect, that same day. My paw, he wanted to save the meat, but ’twasn’t a bit of good. He says he thought them hogs was rotten ’fore ever they dropped, an’ he was ’fraid to give it to the dogs, it was that hot. They was all asleepin’ under the porch anyhow. Wouldn’t come out fer nothin’.”

The Nebraskan was tempted to reintroduce the subject of the crow shoot, but an instinct born of thousands of hours of such listening prompted him to nod and smile instead.

“Waul, they knowed they had to git him under quick, didn’t they? So they got him fixed, cleaned up an’ his best clothes on an’ all like that, an’ they was all in there listenin’, but it was terrible hot in there an’ you could smell him pretty strong, so by an’ by I jest snuck out. Wasn’t nobody payin’ attention to
me
, do you see? The women’s all bawlin’ an’ carryin’ on, an’ the men thinkin’ it was time to put him under an’ have another.”

The old man’s cane fell with a sudden, dry rattle. For a moment as he picked it up, the Nebraskan glimpsed Sarah’s pale face on the other side of the doorway.

“So I snuck out on the stoop. I bet it was a hundred easy, but it felt good to me after bein’ inside there. That was when I seen it comin’ down the hill t’other side of the road. Stayed in the shadow much as it could, an’ looked like a shadow itself, only you could see it move, an’ it was always blacker than what they was. I knowed it was the soul-sucker an’ was afeered it’d git my ma. I took to cryin’, an’ she come outside an’ fetched me down the spring fer a drink, an’ that’s the last time anybody ever did see it, far’s I know.”

“Why do you call it the soul-sucker?” the Nebraskan asked.

“’Cause that’s what it does, Mr Cooper. Guess you know it ain’t only folks that has ghosts. A man can see the ghost of another man,
all right, but he can see the ghost of a dog or a mule or anythin’ like that, too. Waul, you take a man’s, ’cause that don’t make so much argyment. It’s his soul, ain’t it? Why ain’t it in Heaven or down in the bad place like it’s s’possed to be? What’s it doin’ in the haint house, or walkin’ down the road, or wherever ’twas you seen it? I had a dog that seen a ghost one time, an’ that’n was another dog’s, do you see?
I
never did see it, but he did, an’ I knowed he did by how he acted. What was it doin’ there?”

The Nebraskan shook his head. “I’ve no idea, Mr Thacker.”

“Waul, I’ll tell you. When a man passes on, or a horse or a dog or whatever, it’s s’pposed to git out an’ git over to the Judgment. The Lord Jesus Christ’s our judge, Mr Cooper. Only sometimes it won’t do it. Mebbe it’s afeared to be judged, or mebbe it has this or that to tend to down here yet, or anyhow reckons it does, like showin’ somebody some money what it knowed about. Some does that pretty often, an’ I might tell you ’bout some of them times. But if it don’t have business an’ is jest feared to go, it’ll stay where ’tis—that’s the kind that haints their graves. They b’long to the soul-sucker, do you see, if it can git ’em. Only if it’s hungered it’ll suck on a live person, an’ he’s bound to fight or die.” The old man paused to wet his lips with lemonade, staring across his family’s little burial plot and fields of dry cornstalks to purple hills where he would never hunt again. “Don’t win, not particular often. Guess the first ’un was a Indian, mebbe. Somethin’ like that. I tell you how Creech shot it?”

“No you didn’t, Mr Thacker.” The Nebraskan took a swallow of his own lemonade, which was refreshingly tart. “I’d like very much to hear it.”

The old man rocked in silence for what seemed a long while. “Waul,” he said at last, “they’d been shootin’ all day. Reckon I said that. Fer a good long time anyhow. An’ they was tied, Colonel Lightfoot an’ this here Cooper was, an’ Creech jest one behind ’em. ’Twas Creech’s time next, an’ he kept on sayin’ to stay fer jest one more, then he’d go an’ they’d all go, hit or miss. So they stayed, but wasn’t no more crows ’cause they’d ’bout kilt every crow in many a mile. Started gittin’ dark fer sure, an’ this Cooper, he says, Come on, Lab, couldn’t nobody hit nothin’ now. You lost an’ you got to face up.

“Creech, he says, waul, ’twas my mule. An’ jest ’bout then here comes somethin’ bigger’n any crow, an’ black, hoppin’ ’long the ground like a crow will sometimes, do you see? Over towards that dead mule. So Creech ups with his gun. Colonel Lightfoot, he allowed afterwards he couldn’t have seed his sights in that dark. Reckon he jest sighted ’longside the barrel. ’Tis the ol’ mountain way, do you see, an’ there’s lots what swore by it.

“Waul, he let go an’ it fell over. You won, says Colonel Lightfoot, an’ he claps Creech on his back, an’ let’s go. Only this Cooper, he knowed it wasn’t no crow, bein’ too big, an’ he goes over to see what ’twas. Waul, sir, ’twas like to a man, only crooked-legged an’ wry neck. ’Twasn’t no man, but like to it, do you see? Who shot me? it says, an’ the mouth was full of worms. Grave worms, do you see?

“Who shot me? An’ Cooper, he said Creech, then he hollered fer Creech an’ Colonel Lightfoot. Colonel Lightfoot says, boys, we got to bury this. An’ Creech goes back to his home place an’ fetches a spade an’ a ol’ shovel, them bein’ all he’s got. He’s shakin’ so bad they jest rattled together, do you see? Colonel Lightfoot an’ this Cooper, they seed he couldn’t dig, so they goes hard at it. Pretty soon they looked around, an’ Creech was gone, an’ the soul-sucker, too.”

The old man paused dramatically. “Next time anybody seed the soul-sucker, ’twas Creech. So he’s the one I seed, or one of his kin anyhow. Don’t never shoot anythin’ without you’re dead sure what ’tis, young feller.”

Cued by his closing words, Sarah appeared in the doorway. “Supper’s ready. I set a place for you, Mr Cooper. Pa said. You sure you want to stay? Won’t be fancy.”

The Nebraskan stood up. “Why, that was very kind of you, Miss Thacker.”

His granddaughter helped the old man rise. Propped by the cane in his right hand and guided and supported by her on his left, he shuffled slowly into the house. The Nebraskan followed and held his chair.

“Pa’s washin’ up,” Sarah said. “He was changin’ the oil in the tractor. He’ll say grace. You don’t have to get my chair for me, Mr Cooper, I’ll put on till he comes. Just sit down.”

“Thank you.” The Nebraskan sat across from the old man.

“We got ham and sweet corn, biscuits, and potatoes. It’s not no company dinner.”

With perfect honesty the Nebraskan said, “Everything smells wonderful, Miss Thacker.”

Her father entered, scrubbed to the elbows but bringing a tang of crankcase oil to the mingled aromas from the stove. “You hear all you wanted to, Mr Cooper?”

“I heard some marvelous stories, Mr Thacker,” the Nebraskan said.

Sarah gave the ham the place of honor before her father. “I think it’s truly fine, what you’re doin’, writin’ up all these old stories ’fore they’re lost.”

Her father nodded reluctantly. “Wouldn’t have thought you could make a livin’ at it, though.”

“He don’t, pa. He teaches. He’s a teacher.” The ham was followed by a mountainous platter of biscuits. Sarah dropped into a chair. “I’ll
fetch our sweet corn and potatoes in just a shake. Corn’s not quite done yet.”

“O Lord, bless this food and them that eats it. Make us thankful for farm, family, and friends. Welcome the stranger ’neath our roof as we do, O Lord. Now let’s eat.” The younger Mr Thacker rose and applied an enormous butcher knife to the ham, and the Nebraskan remembered at last to switch off his tape recorder.

Two hours later, more than filled, the Nebraskan had agreed to stay the night. “It’s not real fancy,” Sarah said as she showed him to their vacant bedroom, “but it’s clean. I just put those sheets and the comforter on while you were talkin’ to Grandpa.” The door creaked. She flipped the switch.

The Nebraskan nodded. “You anticipated that I’d accept your father’s invitation.”

“Well, he hoped you would.” Careful not to meet his eye, Sarah added, “I never seen Grandpa so happy in years. You’re goin’ to talk to him some more in the mornin’? You can put the stuff from your suitcase right here in this dresser. I cleared out these top drawers, and I already turned your bed down for you. Bathroom’s on past Pa’s room. You know. I guess we seem awful country to you, out here.”

“I grew up on a farm near Fremont, Nebraska,” the Nebraskan told her. There was no reply. When he looked around, Sarah was blowing a kiss from the doorway; instantly she was gone.

With a philosophical shrug, he laid his suitcase on the bed and opened it. In addition to his notebooks, he had brought his well-thumbed copy of
The Types of the Folktale
and Schmit’s
Gods Before the Greeks
, which he had been planning to read. Soon the Thackers would assemble in their front room to watch television. Surely he might be excused for an hour or two? His unexpected arrival later in the evening might actually give them pleasure. He had a sudden premonition that Sarah, fair and willow-slender, would be sitting alone on the sagging sofa, and that there would be no unoccupied chair.

There was an unoccupied chair in the room, however; an old but sturdy-looking wooden one with a cane bottom. He carried it to the window and opened Schmit, determined to read as long as the light lasted. Dis, he knew, had come in his chariot for the souls of departed Greeks, and so had been called the Gatherer of Many by those too fearful to name him; but Hop Thacker’s twisted and almost pitiable soul-sucker appeared to have nothing else in common with the dark and kingly Dis. Had there been some still earlier deity who clearly prefigured the soul-sucker? Like most folklorists, the Nebraskan firmly believed that folklore’s themes were, if not actually eternal,
for the most part very ancient indeed.
Gods Before the Greeks
seemed well indexed.

The Nebraskan nodded to himself and turned to the front of the book.

The Nebraskan rose, laid the book on his chair, and strode to the dresser and back. Here was a five-thousand-year-old myth that paralleled the soul-sucker in function. Nor was it certain by any means that the similarity was merely coincidental. That the folklore of the Appalachians could have been influenced by the occult beliefs of modern Egypt was wildly improbable, but by no means impossible. After the Civil War the United States Army had imported not only camels but camel drivers from Egypt, the Nebraskan reminded himself; and the escape artist Harry Houdini had once described in lurid detail his imprisonment in the Great Pyramid. His account was undoubtedly highly colored—but had he, perhaps, actually visited Egypt as an extension of some European tour? Thousands of American servicemen must have passed through Egypt during the Second World War, but the soul-sucker tale was clearly older than that, and probably older than Houdini.