The Ghosts of Varner Creek (22 page)

I reached the spot I had remembered from crab catching. There was the tree on the bend, and the shelf that jutted outward a few feet. I had to scramble through a bit of thickets to reach the tree and looking back I couldn’t tell if Uncle Colby was coming or not. I didn’t bother stripping down this time. I started down the steep embankment off to the side of the tree and slipped in some clay mud. My feet slid into the creek and I began wading around to the secret hollow. It was deeper there than I had thought, about five feet. I looked in through the overgrown grass and weeds that cascaded from the riverbank into water, and inside the hollow is was very black, but not very big. I took a deep breath and went in under the natural roof. My arms were stretched out before me and my eyes were shut tight. Immediately I felt something like wire down near the bottom. Then I felt a big stone. I followed the wire running from the stone and hit on something squishy and bony. It was the ankle of a leg. I could feel the panic in me overflowing. I pushed myself all the way into the hole-like place and with my other hand felt more debris. It seemed like rolled up wire mesh with some material like a blanket floating around. I tried grabbing it to pull, but it barely budged an inch. Whatever else was in there, it all seemed tangled up together. I swam back outside and came up for air. I didn’t know if the salt I tasted on my lips was from the creek or the tears that began flowing down my face. My eyes were burning and I could hear myself making a high-pitched moan that was getting louder. I had worked myself into a frenzy, what with suddenly realizing I’d just found Sarah’s body and the frustration of not being able to get it out. I tried to get some control over myself, but my emotions were all over the place and my breath wouldn’t come despite being able to breathe air again. My chest was clamped and my throat wouldn’t let air in. I was grief stricken and furious at the same time. I managed to make a few swallows to clear my throat and then let air fill up my lungs again. Then back into the black I went, this time determined that she would come back with me. I felt the cloth material again as well as wire, and this time instead of trying to pull up I pushed myself down and used my feet against the silt to pull her along. I could feel the stone move, now, and started sliding it out from under the shelf with me, but it was still so heavy I couldn’t free whatever else she was mixed up with down there. Silt ran through my hands as I changed grip and I remembered my dream again. Of course it hadn’t been the well. We were lying side by side facing each other in a cradled position. The well wasn’t wide enough for that. And the clay silt was of an entirely different consistency than the muck at the bottom of our well at home. I popped my head out of the water again gasping for air, getting madder and madder at myself for not being strong enough to free her from that watery tomb. I was just about to dive again when I noticed legs standing at the side of the creek out of the corner of my eye. Uncle Colby was standing by the tree looking down at me with startled eyes.

“
Sol, what the hell are you doing in there?”

“
I got her!” I said, both in a yell and an angry sort of sob. “She’s here, right under me, but I can’t get her out!” I was going to prove to him I wasn't crazy this time if I had to haul him in myself to see.

His expression became wildly confused and he started into the creek. I got the sense he was probably coming in more to pull me out than because he believed me, but I wasn’t leaving without Sarah. When he lost his balance right where I had and his legs fell in, I didn’t wait on him to get back up and dove back down. I went back under again and pulled with all my strength, but still it just barely moved an inch. I was about to have to come back up for air again, but then I felt a big arm come down next to mine, groping under the water. It grabbed on me and I could tell he was going to pull me out of the water, so I grabbed the wire mesh. I felt his arm slide down to where my hands were, probably to undo my fingers, but then they hit the wire. He patted it once or twice to feel what it was, and then pulled. Finally, I came out of the water for the third time, coughing and breathing hard. I watched as Uncle Colby ducked under and a moment later he pulled the big rock out onto the bank with the strength I’d lacked. Sticking out of the water near the edge of the wire bundle was the end of a leg, pale and mostly just bone, the ankle portion I’d felt when I first reached her. Whatever else there was left of Sarah was still hidden by the bundle that fell back into the water. Where it went or what else was attached to it was still hidden by the muddy water. Uncle Colby had a look of horror on his face. He looked at me and then pulled the rock until the rest of the mass slid out of the creek. And then there she was, or at least what was left of her. Around her midsection was another stone, though not quite as big as the first, and she was wrapped around completely with chicken wire and barbed wire, the same kind we had put up around Lilipeg’s pen back at home. The cloth I had felt under the water wasn’t a blanket. It was the same dress she had gone to bed wearing that night nearly a month ago. Hardly any skin was left on her arms, legs, and face, and the only reason she held together when we pulled her out was because of all the wire wrapped around her. Her torso seemed mostly intact, though bloated and mushy under the dress. It was amazing that much was left considering what carnivorous things were in the creek. All the wire and fabric must have insulated her from their probing appetites. We’d also had some good rains over the past few weeks and the influx of fresh water must have sent the blue crabs a little further south down the creek where it was saltier. If it hadn’t been for that, she might well have already been picked clean.

Uncle Colby fell back on his rear in the muddy clay, wiping his face with his sleeve. “Jesus Christ Almighty,” he said.

I was still crying but it wasn’t the wailing moan as a few moments ago. Most of that had been just shear frustration. I’d known she was dead, really. It was certainly different, though, between slowly coming to believe a thing and having it confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt. There aren't proper words to describe what I was feeling at that moment. I was sad, angry, and I also felt a horrible sensation of guilt because a very small part of me was glad that she was actually there and that everything that had been happening to me suddenly seemed validated. It had all become a slow and steady kind of crying, sadness and relief that at last, I’d found her. I had thought something terrible had happened to my sister, and now I knew. At first I just looked at her, at what had become of her. Someone had wrapped her up in the chicken wire, then threaded barbed wire on the ends and tied them around and around the two heavy stones. They weren’t taking any chances on her floating back to the surface. They’d wanted to make sure the creek’s inhabitants would leave no flesh there at the bottom, but in doing so they’d actually made it too difficult for her to be completely consumed yet. They’d hid her well, though. If it hadn't been for her showing me, I don't think anybody would ever have found Sarah. Even Noah's flood wouldn't have pulled her out from under that overhang, not the way she had been stuffed inside with the rocks.

I started pulling on the barbed wire, trying to unravel it so I could pull the rest of it off of her. Uncle Colby sat awestruck at seeing Sarah's body before him, but after a minute or so had passed, he started helping me as well. Neither of us spoke as we tugged and pulled. Down at her legs the wire had been twisted several times around and I found the end of it and began reversing the twist. I nearly gagged with the terrible smell.

When we had her free of the two stones Uncle Colby stopped me from undoing the rest of the chicken wire. "No, we bes' leave that for now, Sol," he said. He knew that if we completely undid everything her body might literally fall to pieces. He took off his shirt and placed it over Sarah's mangled head, which looked just like I’d seen in my dream before she filled back into herself, and then he used the rope we still had with us to tie it so it stayed put and covered her face. He carefully picked up the mass of flesh, bone, and wire, and we started walking. Uncle Colby used both hands to carry her and I don’t know how he kept from gagging from the smell of her decayed corpse. I watched her legs bounce with each step. The skin left on her feet was black and it sagged as though it had been pulled and separated from her like a pair of socks.

We walked along in a silence for a time. Finally Uncle Colby spoke, "How'd you know, Sol?" he asked without looking at me.

"She told me," I said. "She was scared there by herself."

He tilted his head down and looked at me like I was something foreign to him, but he didn't say anything else. It seemed that he had always been holding out hope for Mama and Sarah, and now that optimism had been crashed to pieces.

"You reckon my Mama’s in the creek, too?" I asked him.

He took a deep breath. "I dunno, Sol" he said, "But I'm going to make sure it gets looked over real good. If she's there, too, we’ll find her," he promised.

The tears kept coming as we walked. Even Uncle Colby had to stop for a second to wipe his eyes with his shoulder. Each time I thought I was about to be able to stem the flow, I'd think of some other time with Sarah, us picking berries or pecans with Mama, me skinning fish out back and chasing her around with guts while she squealed. And then I pictured that day on her birthday, dressed like the littlest princess. My heart broke and broke again. Uncle Colby changed his grip on the chicken wire so he could carry it with only his left hand and he put his other arm around my shoulder for a bit as we trudged our way through some of the wooded area and then over the old tobacco fields.

When we reached the house Aunt Emma had finished hanging her laundry and was back inside. George saw us first and was going to walk out to meet us before noticing what Uncle Colby was carrying. As we got a little closer he saw our faces, mine still with fresh tears and Uncle Colby's knotted with grief, and he yelled out, "Mama!" There wasn’t an immediate reply, and he turned and ran into the house yelling out "Mama!" again at the top of his lungs.

She was sitting at the kitchen table shelling peas, "Boy, what are you on about hollerin' in my house like you don't know no better?" she scolded.

"Daddy and Sol are comin' back," he told her.

"Well, Saints be praised, ain't that a wonder?" she quipped at him sarcastically. "Did you think they was gone for good?"

"Daddy’s carrying something," George told her with a shaky voice.

She stopped snapping the peas, "Boy, why are you actin' queer? What's he carryin' that’s so special?"

George had walked over to the kitchen window, and as he looked out he said, "Looks like it might be somethin‘ all wrapped up." She didn't seem to be catching the possibility he was pointing out for her, and of course she wouldn't as she didn't know the real reason I had wanted to go home on that day, so George just laid it out for her. "Looks like maybe he's got Sarah," he said.

He heard Aunt Emma nearly fall over with trying to get up so fast, "What?" She darted over to the window, too, and by this time Uncle Colby and me were nearly at the house.

She came out the back door just as we arrived, George directly behind her. She walked out and looked at the bundle Uncle Colby had in his hands. She saw my tears and Uncle Colby's solemn face and said, "Oh, God, no, Colby. It ain't . . ."

He put Sarah down on the ground and went to hold his wife. When she saw his shirt wrapped around the little head and the bony legs sticking out of the bottom, she lost it, "Oh my God! Oh, Lord, no, no, it can't be." I looked down at Sarah and felt fresh tears welling up. George came out from behind Aunt Emma and he started to cry, too. He just stared at the bundle on the ground letting the weight of what it meant sink in. Then he walked over and put his arm around my neck, "You was right," he said. "You found her."

"Yeah," I told him with a choke. "She weren't in the well, though. She was down yonder in the creek, sunk down with rocks."

Aunt Emma heard me and she pulled herself free of Uncle Colby and knelt down by Sarah. She examined the chicken wire and the way it had been threaded together by the fence wire. She pulled Uncle Colby's shirt off a little and stroked a piece of black hair that was poking out, all the while shaking her head as if to say no, not Sarah, not like this. She knew what it meant. We all did.

Francine and Amber hadn't been home that afternoon when we brought Sarah back. They had finished their morning chores and Aunt Emma had let them walk into town to visit with friends and buy themselves a coca cola at the general store, the new fizzy drink everyone liked so much. Mr. Padgett, the storeowner, had bought a whole bunch of crates of the stuff from Houston and it was quite the sensation around that time.

Aunt Emma and Uncle Colby put Sarah in the back of the wagon and we all headed into town. It was a long, solemn journey, like a funeral march that it more or less was. Once we reached town, Aunt Emma went off to find Francine and Amber at the store while Uncle Colby, George, and I all went into the sheriff's office.

Sheriff Covell wasn't in as usual. But when we went back outside to get ready to go look for him we saw him walking up from the same direction Aunt Emma had just gone. He had a piece of fried chicken in one hand and a mason jar of iced tea in the other. He saw us come out of the door to his office and gave us a grin and wave merrily while he kicked up the pace a bit to a waddling trot. "Miss Thomas down the way fried up some chicken and invited me for a taste, and y’all know I ain't one to pass up some of her cookin,'" he said jokingly. “And old widower like me’s got to take his home cookin’ where he can get it.” His humor fell on deaf ears and when he saw how solemn we all looked he changed his demeanor, "Something ain't right, is it?" he asked Uncle Colby, "Y’all ain't looking yourselves. What's wrong?"