The Ghosts of Varner Creek (15 page)

Things went on like that for the next few years until it seemed like one day Pap just stopped striking out at Mama completely. It must have been about 1905 or so. Nothing special happened, at least that we could figure. He didn't find religion and he didn’t suddenly give up the drink, he just completely stopped slapping and pushing Mama around. None of us knew why, particularly Mama, but when they argued and he got mad like usual he'd think twice when his arm went up, and never let it fall on her again. I didn't fare as well, but at least it was something Mama wasn't getting hit on anymore.

Chapter 8

That was years before the morning Mama and Sarah disappeared, though. Now here it was, 1909, and I was twelve years old standing on Aunt Emma and Uncle Colby’s doorstep as a refugee again, except this time I was all by myself. Mama and Sarah were gone and had left me behind to live with Pap. I was glad Aunt Emma had come to the house to take me home with her. I couldn’t imagine staying under that roof just Pap and me. I was scared of him, always. He might not hit Mama anymore but he was still quick to lay one on me when he felt the inclination, and I never could forget what he’d done that night. The only one he seemed to have any affection for was Sarah.

Aunt Emma's house was a bustle of activity. It was just what I needed in order to get through the difficulty of thinking Mama had taken Sarah and left me. George and I had to share a bed but it wasn't too bad. I kept my mind off things for the first week or so playing pranks with him on Amber and Francine as often as possible. We put frogs in their shoes during and lizards in their beds. George showed me how to fill Amber's hand with Uncle Colby's shaving lather while she slept and tickle her nose with a feather from the pillow to make her smack her own face with a handful of cream. We tried dipping Francine’s hand into a glass of water to get her to pee, but for some reason she was immune. We ended up improvising and it worked better than we’d hoped. Both Amber and Francine were thick as thieves and constantly whispering to one another and giggling at George's expense, which also became my burden as well when I went to stay with them. All day long they'd go around whispering and laughing at us in their secret taunts. But George found a way to divide and conquer, even if it was just temporary. Francine and Amber shared a bed, and since the old hand in water wasn’t working, George decided to just pour some water in the middle of the bed while they were sleeping. When the moisture woke them up, each blamed the other for peeing in the bed. Neither of them would admit it, though, since both were innocent, of course, but since each knew she hadn't done it that could only mean the other one had, and so both accused one another of peeing the bed and then trying to blame it on the other. To give George credit, it certainly ended up being the best of pranks. The next few days were bliss. Amber and Francine were so busy being upset at each other that they lost all interest in their private jokes at our expense. Unfortunately, Francine suddenly realized the possibility that we had scammed them. And when she told Amber about her theory, they immediately agreed and fell over each other in apologies. Well, they had it in for us after that. George and I were the butt of jokes worse than ever, but it was worth it. I congratulated George on the grand success he had achieved, however short-lived, and promised to aspire to his level of perfection when it came to pulling off pranks. To show my appreciation, when we went looking for an armadillo down its hole to haul out by the tail, I told George I’d let him have it all by himself. I coached as we walked, "Always make sure you get them by the tail," I told him, “‘cause they have sharp claws that'll get yah, and they'll bite, too. But as long as you get ‘em by the tail they can‘t get at yah." I was enjoying the teacher's role.

“
You ever been bit?” asked George as we trudged along looking in holes for one.

"Sure have," I boasted with the pride of a wounded war veteran, even if had only been a nip once.

"What'd you do?" he asked.

I let him go and screamed like a little girl is what I did, but I wasn‘t going to tell George that. "I pulled him out and bit him back, right on his tail!" I said.

"Tsk!" he scoffed, "You’re foolin'. You can't bite one of them things."

He caught me. "Can if you shuck 'em first. Armadillo's are good eatin, ya know," I informed. That much was true.

"You’ve eaten an armadillo?!" he asked with disgust.

"Well, shoot yeah. Ain't you never had two-bean armadillo?"

"Nu-uh," he said, "Mama ain’t never cooked one of them."

"Well trust me, it's good. My Pap makes it with hot peppers and it's right fine." Maybe saying it was right fine was a bit of a stretch, as Mama, Sarah, and me only had it the one time and figured that was enough, but Pap sure seemed to like it.

George and I tromped off in the woods on a regular basis. We'd climb trees after squirrels or try to cram ourselves down holes to see what was inside. We were the masters of the woods and all creatures feared us. Or so we told ourselves. A few days into our regular adventures proved things otherwise, though. We were kicking through the brush one early morning when we heard clucking. Around the house that was perfectly normal, but clucking out in the woods was a novelty. And when we followed the noise into a small clearing there were a good dozen hens pecking at the ground all around. We were surprised to find them out there by themselves. I had never really heard of wild chickens before, but since I was there looking at them it made sense to me that there must have been wild chickens in the world if there were farm chickens. That had to come from somewhere. There were parts of the country that had wild horses, after all, so why not wild chickens? It was certainly the first time I’d ever seen any, though, and apparently George, too. I suggested to him that it would be great fun to give them a chase and take a few home. I could just see the surprise on Aunt Emma's face when we arrived back home each carrying a couple of chickens. She'd gush over what fine hunters we were, catching them with our own hands and all, and probably be pleased as punch to fix them up for dinner. I could see it all in my mind and I painted such a pretty picture of it for George that he immediately agreed. We both proceeded to pick out the chickens that each of us thought we could most easily catch. My first choice was a fat hen that seemed like she'd be slow. George was eyeing another of his own, and once we had it clear who was going for what, we took off after our prey with the speed of mountain lions. I got within five feet of that hen, though, and she started squawking and flapping up a storm and flew a few feet away before thumping back to the ground. I was just about on her again when out from the right of me shot the biggest rooster a man ever saw, let alone a twelve year old. He was two feet high if he was an inch and had talons like an eagle. And he wasn't hopping his way over to me, or even the ugly type of flying a chicken can do over short distances. No sir, that rooster was flying at me at head's height and with the speed of a darting blue jay when you invade its nesting area, and he was coming right for me. I went to throw my hands up in defense and that thing clamped down on my arms like a razor-wire lasso pulled tight. Its heavy wings batted me about the head, its beak tearing at me like a wood pecker gone mad, and it held tight to me with one leg while slashing about with the other. It was the devil's chicken. The Satan of poultry, the Lucifer of Leghorns, and that damned bird was ripping at me with its hell spawned claws that burned like the whips of fire that I imagined only the devil had. He was just evil, big, bad, feathery evil. I turned and ran blindly screaming back into the thickets hoping my retreat would satiate the bird's bloodlust and finally, after an eternity of seconds, the bird did let go and headed off back into the clearing. I was just about to thank God in heaven for my life being spared from that wicked creature when I heard George let out a blood curdling scream. A few seconds later I spotted him darting off into the woods not far from me. That Leghorn rooster was atop his head like a hat come to life, pecking, scratching, and pounding poor George with its wings like they were fists. A few moments later I heard the beating of wings and the chicken came flying out from the woods back towards the clearing.

I yelled out for George in the general direction I had seen him running, "Hey, George! You all right?"

I could hear a moaning noise and marched towards it. George was sitting on the ground with one leg stretched out and the other tucked in under him. He was crying and trying to wipe his eyes with his sleeves when he heard my footsteps in the brush. It was then I realized that I kind of felt like crying, too. My arms and face were stinging. Blood was soaking through my own sleeves and something very smelly was slowly oozing down my cheek. I wiped it with my hand and held it up to see what it was. It was chicken shit. George wasn't much better off. He had scratches all over and blood was trickling down from his temples where that demon bird had clamped itself. I sat down by George and we both licked our wounds. All the while we listened intently to make sure that rooster didn't come back to finish us off.

After a bit George said, "You won’t tell nobody I cried, will yah?"

"Hell, naw," I said. "I had some tears myself just cause it stung so bad. I ain't never seen a rooster that mean," I told him.

"Me, neither." He dropped his head and stared at the ground. "I didn't never think I'd get whooped by a chicken."

I couldn't help it, then. I laughed. I looked at George and remembered how funny he looked with the chicken on him, "That thing was stuck on you like a rooster hat," I told him. I held up my hands in the air like he had done and gave him an impression of himself running into the woods. "You was running and screaming, ‘Ah-h-h-h!’ All the while that thing stuck on your head flapping at yah."

He laughed a little bit, too. "Well, what about you? I had that hen I was chasin', had her right by her hind feathers. Then I heard you yellin' bloody murder and there you was with that rooster pecking at yah like you was a big corn kernel, and you run off same as me. I figured I had that hen since he took off after you, but the next thing I know that bird was flying at me goin' plum crazy." He smiled, though. "That chicken’s possessed," he finally decided. "Ain’t no way a normal chicken act like that. We ought to get the preacher out here to do drive the devil out of it or somethin’," he suggested.

We both had a good laugh, but not too loud. We didn’t want him hearing us and coming back for seconds, so we went ahead and pulled ourselves up off the ground and headed back to the house. We had a dandy of a time convincing Aunt Emma that a chicken had attacked us in the woods. She was convinced we'd snuck over to someone else's farm and been up to no good. She didn't believe in the whole wild chicken attack story, not until Uncle Colby backed us up. "There's chickens in them woods," he said bluntly over dinner. Not a chicken dinner, by the way, just a plain dinner with a carrot and potato stew. "Don't nobody know how long they been there, but they’re there. I‘ve heard them a time or two myself." Henry Mullins could have told us how those chickens came to live and breed out in the woods, but none of us knew. His old fighting roosters had spawned the granddaddy of cock-fighting roosters.

That night neither George nor I slept very well. Our scratches hurt and no matter how much I had washed earlier, I could still smell the chicken crap on me. Finally the thought of it sliming down my face like it had drove me out of bed and back outside to the well. I had to make sure it was all off and get the smell gone, otherwise I'd never get any sleep, so I crept out the door quietly so as to not disturb everyone else still sleeping.

Outside a cold chill had settled along with an accompanying misty fog. Aunt Emma must have put the soap and bucket back at the well, and I hesitated to approach the well remembering what had happened back at my house. The eerie quiet of a half gray, half black night wasn't encouraging, either. Still, I told myself that I was acting like a baby, plus my cheek was remembering the texture of chicken crap along with the smell that I thought I could still detect emanating from me, so I went ahead and drew up the bucket. There was an old lye bar of soap we used earlier and I grabbed it and began scrubbing away. My arms were scratched up a hundred times worse than my face, but the soap still stung in my cuts on the cheeks and neck. I threw another handful of water over my face and some of the suds crept down into my eyes causing them to burn. Lye soap could be excruciating on the eyes, even in small doses. I shut them tight to block the invasion of soapy water and bent over close to the bucket to cup water into my hands. I dipped my hands along the surface of the bucket like I was holding a hymnal in church, a V- shape to catch a nice little puddle, but as they slid just beneath the water I had the sudden sensation that I was looking for something. Yes, there was definitely something I was trying to find. My thoughts seemed to run away from me and I just started feeling over and over again, I’m looking for something, I’m looking for something, I’m looking for . . . someone. I have to find someone. I have to find . . . Sol! And at that moment something grabbed my hand in the water. It gripped me tightly and I had to jump back to get it to let go. My eyes opened wide. The lye immediately stung them horribly, but I was just able to make out a small hand disappearing back into the water with barely a ripple. My first instinct was to run, but then I wondered if I hadn’t had another waking dream. Surely, that didn’t just happened. I crept cautiously towards the bucket, leaning back just in case that hand came thrusting out of the water to grab me again. When I got closer, I pushed the suds from my eyes and squinted to see the water. The first thing I noticed was the water. It was black with the night sky’s reflection but it had suddenly taken on that same greenish tint. It just didn’t make sense. I stayed where I was a few moments, still frightened a hand might rise again, but when it didn’t I got a little closer to the water and tried to see what it was making the water tint that way. All of a sudden, as though rising from a deep abyss, I saw something pale white rise up. It was a face, Sarah’s face. Her head seemed to float towards the surface as though the bucket were much deeper than possible, and then her eyes opened and looked right at me. Terror rose up in me from somewhere deep in my belly. It amplified as it jumped into my chest and froze me from the inside. Her face was dimly lit in a green luminescence, and then she said my name. I didn’t hear anything, but her lips clearly mouthed “Sol . . .” But then, as though someone had grabbed her by her ankles and pulled her back down, she disappeared quickly into the depths. Within seconds she had vanished inside the bucket. I still wanted to turn and run back inside the house, but I felt compelled to look into the bucket deeper to see where she might have gone. It was like trying to see through to the other side of a mirror. Nothing was there except the shadow I was casting from the moonlight, creating even a blacker surface than the night alone could manage. I poked the water and little ripples danced on its surface, but nothing else stirred inside. Slowly, and with a lot of caution and fright, I put my right hand all the way into the bucket. I half expected to be pulled inside down into some underworld, but there was nothing there except the bottom of the wooden bucket and the water between.