Soldiers - a short story

SOLDIERS

Jim and I crossed the state line at noon, black Kansas thunderclouds chasing up behind and miles of highway still ahead. Swirls of ocher powder daubed the once pale sky. Tumbleweeds rolled along the highway like steel balls in a giant pinball machine. A heavy wind whipped the car, scaring pheasant and jackrabbits lolling in the ditch.

Awakening from a fitful dream, I rolled up the windows of Jim’s old beater and pulled a bandanna over my face. Earlier that morning we’d left Omaha, stopping only once to relieve ourselves by the side of the road. Jim’s mood, like the weather, was foul. He hadn’t spoken in two hours. Refraining from disturbing his trance, I folded my arms, braced myself against the seat, and closed my eyes, trying to lock out the storm, Jim’s mood, and the piston drone knocking beneath the hood.

Three miles across the border, the storm caught us, turning dust into rivulets of mud on the car’s hood. Rain blistered the windshield leaving only flashes of visibility between labored swaths of slow-moving wiper blades. Then a billboard, barely visible through the downpour, alerted us to a truck stop up ahead. When we reached it, we found a weather-beaten filling station beside a roadside juke joint.

Jim parked the car in the gravel parking lot.

“Let’s stop. I’m tired of fighting this storm,” he said.

The storm hadn’t tired of fighting us. As we ran for the front door, it bombarded us with falling missiles, thunder shaking the walls as we entered. Removing our wet ponchos, we shook ourselves like two retrievers, and then blinked, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the dimness. When they did, we saw five dismal patrons gazing back at us.

Moving shadows, cast by neon beer signs, danced across the four dingy walls. Through the pallor, a middle-aged bartender behind the counter polished a glass with a white rag. A beefy man played pool alone the faded rose tattoo on his hairy arm matching the exact hue of his sleeveless T-shirt. Before continuing his lonely game, he gave us a quick once-over. A couple, immersed in a whispered conversation, glanced up at us. An old man in a wheelchair, his rheumy eyes never blinking, watched as we approached the bar.

Jim slapped his palm against the counter, stared at the bartender, and said, “Two draws, and a tequila shooter.”

“You boys old enough to drink?”

When Jim glared without answering, I said, “We’re both twenty-one.”

Red hair and ruddy Irish complexion melded with Jim’s high Indian cheekbones, and even when he smiled he seemed angry. He wasn’t smiling. With a frown on his own craggy face, the bartender glared back at him until he finally noticed our short hair and clean shaves.

“Soldiers?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Artillery?”

“Infantry,” Jim said.

As the bartender smoothed greasy black hair and mustache with his fingers, muscles in his neck twitched.

“Guess if you’re old enough to fight, you’re old enough to drink.”

He laughed, and it quickly drew into a dry, hacking cough.

“Damn right we are,” I said.

As he watched us from the corner of his eye, the sullen bartender drew the beer. As he did, Jim started bullet holes in his back, even as I nudged him in the ribs with my elbow. When the bartender returned with two beers and a tequila shooter, Jim immediately killed the shot. When he slammed the glass against the bar, the resultant sharp sound echoed like the crack of a small caliber rifle through the room.

Finishing his beer in one long pull, he nodded at the two empty glasses and said, “Again.”

As he drew another beer from the tap, the bartender’s neck muscles twitched when he reached behind him for the tequila. Jim finished his second shot and glanced around the room like a stray cat in a strange barn.

“Easy,” I said, eyeing his empty glass. “Still got ourselves a long way to go yet.”

He smirked and asked, “In a hurry, Sport?”

Intent on the couple in the back of the room, he didn’t see me shake my head. The man, looking like a middle-aged farmer, was dressed in overalls and a baseball cap. The woman’s weather-beaten face pegged her as his wife. We watched the farmer slam his hand against the table, hard enough to rattle both of their beer mugs and glare as if he were about to strike her.

“If you had a lick of sense, woman, you’d know what a fool question that is.”

Apparently, she didn’t, and her unspoken reply filled the room with silent reverberations. As we watched the scene unfold, Jim’s shoulders tensed, and he stepped away from the bar. Grabbing his elbow, I held on.

“Not this time.”

Jim tried to stare me down. I stood my ground, shaking my head. Then, immersed in our trance, we both jumped when the bartender slapped his hand against the counter. When we wheeled around, he was leaning over the bar with an amused look on his whiskered face.

“Didn’t mean to scare you boys. Nother beer?”

“Sure,” I said.

He asked our names when he returned.

“I’m Paul, and this is Jim.”

“Proud to meet you. Name’s Ezekiel, but people around here just call me Zeke.”

I shook his hand; Jim didn’t bother. Instead, he asked, “What’s the story of the old man in the wheelchair?”

“Rivers is his name. We call him Old Man Rivers,” he said, chuckling at his little joke.

The old man in the wheelchair glared at us through the crumpled mass of wrinkles obliterating his withered face. Angry gaps pitted the man’s features, weathered and spongy as fallen white cake. A half-smoked cigarette rested between gray lips. Like tangles of red snakes on cold stones, broken capillaries veined his nose and eyes. With gnarled hands clawing the wheelchair and bony arms like the plastic limbs of a child’s discarded doll, he looked like warmed-over death.

“I’m buying,” Jim said. “Give him whatever he wants.”

After pouring a shot of bourbon, Zeke tilted the old man’s head and dribbled liquor into his mouth, causing his blotchy tongue to wriggle like an earthworm growing desperate on a sharp hook.

Jim smiled and said, “Make it two.”

As I was watching Zeke whiskey-nurse the old man, someone tapped my shoulder. Six inches from my nose the pool-shooter invaded my space, smiling insanely and blinking one discolored eye that looked to me like a spoiled eye yolk. I backed against the bar. When he spoke, his stale breath smelled like battery acid gone even more sour. Stumbling slowly over his words, he said, “I’m Doyle. Was a soldier once myself. Old Man River’s my Daddy.”

“Oh yeah?”

Doyle grinned and pumped his head like a long-handled water pump. “Nah, not really, though I like to call him that.”

Noticing Jim’s amused smile, I backed even further away from the counter. Doyle pivoted and followed me like a machine gun on a swivel turret. Lightning struck, shaking rafters and sucking air from the room like a giant accordion. Doyle grimaced and drifted back to the red glow emanating from the swaying fixture above the pool table. Raising an index finger, I signaled Zeke to bring more beer.

He grinned and said, “Doyle’s a little nuts. Myra takes care of him.

“Myra?”

“Lives with the Stewarts,” he said, pointing at the couple in the back. “Looks after Doyle, and he takes care of Old Man Rivers. Bring them in every morning. Comes and gets them every night.”

Zeke’s mention of Myra prefaced her appearance through the back door—a pretty girl with pale skin and colorless blonde hair. The thin and wispy fabric clung in blue waves to every subtle feature of her diminutive frame. And, like a low cloud wafting slowly in a gentle breeze, she approached the counter and squeezed in between Jim and me. Zeke placed a glass of white wine in front of her.

“You must be Myra,” Jim said, suddenly becoming verbose.

“Yes.”

“Rain’s a little heavy outside. We come in to drink beer and wait it out,” he said.

In a lilting, whimsical voice, she replied, “Come in and I’ll give you shelter from the storm.”

As Jim listened to her recite the line from the old Dylan tune, his neck inexplicably flushed the color crimson. As if reading my thoughts, Myra turned and studied me with pale, unnerving eyes.

“The storm’s dark and frightening.”

“Yes,” I said, suddenly at a loss for words.

“Have you met Zeke, Doyle, and Old Man Rivers?”

“Yes,” I said again.

Dismissing me with a coy nod, she daintily picked up her glass of wine and went to the old man, stroking his neck with cashmere fingers. As Jim had done, River’s ruddy skin flushed. Static electricity, brushed up by her fingers, raised thin hairs on his head as a booming clap of thunder rocked the roof and the wind whistled through the loosely fitted windows. Again, rain blistered the outside walls and darkness began draping the windows with muted gloom.

“Myra,” the farmer called. “Come answer Mary for me. Tell her what a fool question she’s asking.”

Moving fluidly away from the bar, Myra glided to their table and listened as the woman cupped her hands and whispered something into her ear. After answering, Myra turned away, leaving the woman to rest her head on the table and weep.

When Myra returned, Jim asked, “What’d she want?”

“Her daughter, Emily, is gone. A car accident separated them. Mary asked if I knew when Emily would join them again.

“Did they take her to a hospital out of town or something?”

“She’s where she’s always been,” Myra answered.

“Then. . .”

Before I could finish the question lingering in my brain, Myra placed a finger on my lips and shook her head. “You don’t need to understand,” she said. “The storm’s not over yet.”

Excited by Myra’s perfume, Jim gently touched her cheek. She didn’t move away.

“I wouldn’t mind getting to know you a little better,” he said.

“Forever?” she asked.

Letting his hand drop, he caressed the length of her willowy arm and said, “For as long as you want.”

“Don’t talk to her like that!” an angry voice said.

Behind Jim was Doyle, his teeth clenched in an irritated scowl. He quickly wrapped a hairy arm around Jim’s neck and yanked it. Jim slammed an angry fist at Doyle’s jaw, then tossed the surprised attacker over the counter and dived over after him.

A weighted club appeared in Zeke’s hand. With a practiced swing, he tapped Jim lightly on the neck, just below the base of his skull. He sank to the floor.

“Ain’t hurt too bad,” Zeke said, glancing up at me. “Be just fine when he wakes up.”

After helping drag Jim’s inert body to a chair, I rejoined Myra at the bar. She was staring at the ceiling as she sipped her wine. She seemed disinterested in the whole affair.

Glancing at my empty beer, and then at Zeke, I said, “Better have another.”

“Sure you can handle your liquor?”

“Jim didn’t start it,” I said, frowning at Doyle.

Doyle was still on the floor, grinning like an idiot as he rotated his swollen jaw with his hand.

“Maybe not,” Zeke said as he drew another beer.

Myra said, “Where have you been, Paul?”

“Afghanistan. We just got back and finished our leave.”

“Saw lots of action, did you?”

“Yes.”

“Kill many of the enemy?”

Her question, asked with a curious smile, took me by surprise. “Maybe a few,” I answered.

“And Jim?”

“I’m sure he killed his share,” I said. “What’s the name of this town?”

“Don’t you know?”

“Seems a bit familiar, but no I don’t.”

Zeke chuckled and said, “You’re in Inferno. Inferno, Oklahoma. Hotter’n hell in the summer.”

“Could you love a girl like me?” Myra asked, interrupting Zeke’s vivid description.

“Guess maybe I could,” I said.

“You love someone else?”

“Life,” I said. “With the war and all it’s about the only thing I’ve thought about along those lines.”

“Life is a fickle virgin,” she said, her pale blue eyes suddenly glowing like cold pearls.

“And you?” I asked. “What do you love?”

Myra licked her lips and glanced at Jim. He was conscious, though still moaning as he massaged his neck. Without answering my question, she turned to leave but stopped as if having second thoughts. I rubbed the icy remnant her touch imparted when she squeezed my hand, and then I watched her walk through the door. Holding it open, she stood looking at me.

“Wait. Where are you going?”

“Come with me and I’ll show you.”

“Can’t,” I said. “Have to get back to the post.”

She extended her delicate hand toward me, waiting for me to grasp it. “I promise you won’t be sorry.”

I started to follow but remembered Jim, still lying on the floor. Another clap of thunder sounded, closer this time, shattering the trance and causing me to blink. When I opened my eyes, Myra was gone. Quickly, I downed my beer and tossed some money on the bar.

“Still mighty nasty out there,” Zeke said. “Better have another beer.”

“Not today.”

Bracing Jim beneath my shoulder, I started for the front door. Curiosity stopped me beside the couple’s table. I stared at the weather-beaten woman until she glanced up at me.

“Sorry about your daughter. How old was she when she died?”

A single tear trickled down the woman’s face, and she said, “Emily’s not dead.”

“But what about the car accident?”

The woman’s lingering eyes held me locked in place. “Emily wasn’t in the accident. Just Ralph and me.”

Breaking her cold stare, I pulled Jim out the front door. He staggered alone to the car, revived somewhat by the rain. Taking the keys from his shirt pocket, he tossed them to me and slumped into the passenger seat. I gunned the engine and hurried away before the wipers could clear the ruthless onslaught of rain. A mile down a deserted highway, I glanced into the rearview mirror and searched in vain for the two buildings. They were gone.

Far away, behind reality and disappearing foothills, lightning and thunder flared and crashed like distant firefights. Further still, when the rain finally ceased, filtered light mingled with road dust blown up by our racing tires. As I stepped on the gas and stared into the rearview mirror, swirling ocher powder looked almost like a delicate hand, beckoning me to return.

Maybe tomorrow, but not today.

###

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• Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma, where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He authored the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans, the Paranormal Cowboy Series, and the Oyster Bay Mystery Series. Please check it out on his Amazon author page. You might also like checking out his Facebook page.

Teenage Fantasies and Small-Town Ghosts - a short story

While attending college in Louisiana, my friend Larry and I decided to hitchhike to the small Webster Parish town of Cotton Valley. Larry’s grandparents lived in the former oil and gas boomtown and had invited us down for the weekend. The trip there was non-eventful, the trip home a story all its own. I’ll save that account for another time and tell you about our encounter with a ghost in the Cotton Valley cemetery instead.

Teenage Fantasies and Small-Town Ghosts

My buddy Larry had a twin sister named Leeann, who was also visiting her grandparents for the weekend. Her girlfriend Cindy had a car, and don’t ask me why we hitchhiked to Cotton Valley instead of riding with them, though I’m sure it had something to do with sibling rivalry.

Larry’s grandparents, I’ll call them the Bloomers, had a sizeable wood-framed house with many rooms that they had once rented to itinerant oil field workers. By the sixties, Cotton Valley had a population of less than two thousand. Still an oil town, it was no longer a boomtown. All of the Bloomer’s extra rooms were empty, and Larry and I had our pick of the lot.

Like her brother Larry, Leeann was tall and dark. That’s where their appearances diverged. Leeann looked like a young starlet and had a body like Jayne Mansfield. Tiny Cindy was as pretty as Leeann but was blond, svelte, and had a profound and lusty voice that belied her size.

I was in my teens, and the girls could have both been homely as sin, and I would still have had visions of a potential weekend liaison. Leeann and Larry, as I mentioned, had unresolved family differences, and my daydreams were squelched shortly after the girls arrived. I got my first clue when she and Cindy took rooms as far away as possible from us on the other side of the large house.

Friday night and most of Saturday passed without Larry and me seeing much of Cindy and Leeann as they were off in the car and we were on foot. At the time, Cotton Valley had neither a movie house nor any other form of recreation, and Larry and I soon grew bored. I managed to stem my boredom by keeping a running journal written in ink on a sheet of paper that I kept in my shirt pocket.

The seclusion Larry and I felt had also worked on Leeann and Cindy because shortly after a sit-down dinner with the grandparents, they asked us to go for a spin with them in the car. We quickly agreed.

We drove away from the grandparent’s house after dinner, Larry and I in the back seat of Cindy’s Fairlane. As I glanced over the bench at the half-hidden riches beneath Leeann’s plunging blouse and Cindy’s short skirt hiked high on her tanned thighs, my daydreams quickly re-emerged. They needn’t have.

We soon stopped at a house on the far edge of town and picked up Jim. Cindy and Jim, we learned, had met the prior semester at college. After flunking out, he’d moved back to Cotton Valley to work in the oil patch.

Cindy’s beau was a handsome fellow with a lifeguard’s tan. When Leeann climbed into the backseat with Larry and me and told me to push over to the middle of the bench seat, all my sexual fantasies flew out the car’s open window, and I could tell by her frown that I should keep my hands to myself. I thought so when she crossed her legs and pointed them away from me toward the door. I knew when she wrapped her arms tightly around her ample bosom.

It was just beginning to grow dark as we drove away from Jim’s house. A; good thing as I had trouble keeping my gaze away from Leeann’s ample body. Miniskirts were the vogue then, and the short garment barely qualified her as fully clothed. Feeling Larry’s cold stare over my shoulder, I somehow wrested my gaze from her gorgeous legs and luscious breasts, except for an occasional stolen glance.

There isn’t, as mentioned, much to do in Cotton Valley, and we were soon headed out of town on a stretch of lonely blacktop. By now, it was pitch dark, except for the stars and light of a full yellow moon. Jim and Cindy had a bit of a tiff earlier in the day. We didn’t know it then, but their relationship was near an end. Luckily for the rest of us, they remained cordial the remainder of the evening, and Jim covered up their quarrel skillfully by becoming our local tour guide.

“Slow down, and I’ll show you the hanging tree.” Cindy touched the brakes and pulled over as Jim pointed at a large oak tree on the side of the blacktop. A single large branch stretched across the road. Jim told us the tragic story of the rape of a white girl by a local black boy and the resultant retribution performed by an element of the town’s white population. ‘They buried his body in the cemetery up the road, and he supposedly still haunts it, especially on a full moon like tonight.”

“Have you ever seen the ghost?” Leeann asked.

There was a swagger in Jim’s voice when he said, “Lots of times. Once, it waved a knife at a friend and me.”

“Did it scare you?” Larry asked.

“No way,” Jim said

As we sat on the side of the road, listening to Jim’s story, a gentle summer breeze wafted the giant tree’s leaves and branches, causing shadows to dance across the warm blacktop. We didn't comment as Cindy applied the gas and started toward the cemetery.

As I recall the short ride to the suspected rapist’s place of internment, I realize that Jim probably had visions of mending fences with Cindy and perhaps a romantic connection induced by her anxiety at possibly seeing a ghost. When we reached the cemetery, I’m sure the visualization we soon saw caused his thoughts of romance to disappear out the open window, along with his phony boldness.

The little cemetery lay off the blacktop and had a small dirt parking lot. Cindy pulled into the lot and turned off the car’s lights. The night was moon-bright. It took only a few moments for our eyes to adjust to the relative darkness. A fence of wrought iron surrounded the cemetery, stretching before us like a silent metropolis of the lifeless.

“Hear it?” Jim asked. “The dead boy’s soul is calling out to us.”

I couldn’t hear anything except semis passing on a distant highway and a chorus of crickets and tree frogs. Still, Jim’s words evoked a certain anxiety. Cindy also felt it as she slid toward the car's center and closer to Jim. Leeann uncrossed her legs and grabbed my hand in a firm clasp. I couldn’t see Larry’s eyes but knew he must be frowning. We had all just noticed something that none of us could explain.

Leeann clutched my hand tighter when Cindy said, “Oh my God! What is that?”

Before us, an eerie blue light rose from the center of the little cemetery, stretching like the creepy luminescent beam of an ethereal spotlight pointing high into the sky. A slight breeze caused the shaft to fluctuate like the luminous arms of a ghostly hula dancer.

We all sat silently, waiting for the image to disappear so our minds could promptly deny what we had seen. It didn’t happen that way.

Talk of the ghost had elicited Jim’s desired effect on Cindy. By now, she was practically sitting in his lap, her arms clutched desperately around his neck. Jim didn’t seem to notice as his eyes in the reflected moonlight were big as proverbial saucers, his arms gripping Cindy as tightly as she held him.

They weren’t the only ones caught up in the spooky moment. Leeann clamped my right hand with both of her own. She couldn’t have drawn any closer without occupying the space where I sat. What Larry was thinking about the situation briefly crossed my mind.

“Let’s get out of here,” Leeann said.

Larry was having none of it. “No way, we need to find out what’s causing that light. I don’t believe for one minute it’s a ghost.”

When no one responded to his statement, Larry opened the back door and started for the cemetery gate. I was more interested in Leeann’s pressing warmth and tender softness than the ghost, but it quickly returned to my attention when the door slammed behind him. Concerned for her brother, Leeann released her grip and pushed me toward the door.

“You’re his friend. You go with him.”

When I glanced at Big Jim, his wide-open stare quickly told me he would be of no help. Leeann’s frown and folded arms had returned, so I opened the back door and followed Larry into the night.

“Larry, where are you?” I said.

“In front of you,” he said in a whisper. “The light is coming from over that rise.”

The little country cemetery was well kept, grass trimmed around the tombs. Some of the headstones were large and ornate. Most were old and crumbling, many little more than wooden crosses and rectangles of worn concrete. We needed no flashlight as there were few trees to block the stars and the bright glow of the full moon. A graveled path led up the hill toward the gleaming blue light.

Larry and I were in ROTC, and both were experienced in night maneuvers. The ghostly light that continued to beam from the center of the cemetery didn’t frighten my large companion, and I felt more anticipation than fear. As we crested the slight rise, we both saw the origin of the eerie light.

Larry halted in his tracks and held up his hand for me to stop. Moonlight was shining directly on a large piece of blue foil once used to wrap a flower pot. The light reflected off the foil and onto the polished marble surface of a headstone. The resultant glow shone like the beam of a spotlight straight up into the sky.

The light wasn’t all we saw. In the darkness, just beyond the spot where the little hill began to drop in elevation, an almost indistinguishable shadowy figure came into view. It remained a moment in one place before continuing slowly toward us, its amorphous shape wafting in the gentle summer breeze. Larry stepped forward to investigate. A shout from behind caused us both to turn and look.

“Larry, where are you?” It was Leeann. Worried about her brother, she had followed us. We watched as she picked her way up the little hill. Just as she reached us, she froze, put her hand to her mouth, and said, “Oh my God!”

A vivid flash of summer lightning accompanied Leeann’s exclamation, followed quickly by a clap of thunder that seemed as if it were right on top of us. Leeann didn’t appear to notice. She was staring at a spot behind us, still grasping her open mouth with her left hand as she pointed straight ahead with her right. Need I add how wide her eyes had grown?

Another flash of lightning lit the sky as Larry and I turned to see what she was pointing at. A sudden summer rainstorm had moved quickly overhead, already covering the stars and moon with puffy clouds. As lightning dissipated, only gloom remained, though not until Larry and I saw a shadowy nimbus floating up the hill toward us.

Before either of us could react, Leeann grabbed me from behind and screamed at the top of her lungs, trying to squeeze my breath out. As she did, clouds began unloading with heavy drops of warm precipitation lasting for a minute. Dark clouds passed with the rain, again revealing a clear sky with stars and full moonlight. Whatever we thought we had witnessed had disappeared along with the momentary storm.

“Did you see it?” Leeann asked, her long arms still wrapped tightly around my chest.

“I saw something, though I don’t know what it was,” I said.

When Larry said, “Just a low-lying cloud,” Leeann looked incredulous.

“My ass!” she said. “It was shaped like a man coming up the hill after us. You saw it, didn’t you, Eric?”

“I saw something. We turned away when you screamed.”

“It was only a cloud,” Larry said as he led us back to the Fairlane.

Leeann had already begun disbelieving her eyes as she followed her brother down the hill. I didn’t know what to believe, though I was already missing the warmth of her breasts against my back. We had to bang on the car door for Jim and Cindy to let us in.

“Did you see it?” Cindy asked.

“Yes, just before the rain started,” Leeann said.

“What rain?” Jim asked. “It’s been clear as a bell since you left the car.”

“It sure as hell rained on us, didn’t it, Larry?”

“For a minute or so,” he said.

Cindy and Jim stared at him and then at me. “You don’t look wet. Are you guys pulling our legs?”

My shirt and pants were almost dry, and I could do little more than shrug my shoulders. When we dropped Jim off at his house, talk of the ghost had ended.

Cindy and Leeann were gone the following day before Larry and I ate breakfast. Larry didn’t want to talk about the ghost except to say it was “bullshit,” I never spoke to either Leeann or Cindy again.

The mind plays tricks, and sometimes, what you think you see is nothing more than an invention of your imagination. Still, as Larry and I waited on the edge of I-20, trying to thumb a ride, I reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out my scribbled journal. Out of clean clothes, I was wearing the same shirt and jeans as the previous night. Something prompted me to unfold the soggy journal and look at it, and I was shocked when I did.

Rain or sweat had caused the blue ink to bleed on the paper, rendering my scribbling indecipherable except for one word. In large blurry letters, it spelled out WRAITH.

###

Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma, where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He authored the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans, the Paranormal Cowboy Series, and the Oyster Bay Mystery Series. Please check it out on his Amazon author page. You might also like checking out his Facebook page.

Gurdon Curse - a short story

My wife Marilyn was born in Oklahoma but spent much of her childhood in Gurdon, Arkansas. A railroad traverses the outskirts of the tiny Arkansas town, and there are numerous accounts by people who have seen strange lights at night on the track. Marilyn and her family lived in the house near the tracks, and an old black woman named Hattie worked for Marilyn's family. One dark night, Hattie recounted the story of the Gurdon Ghost to Marilyn and her sister Sharon. Is the story true? Sometimes, the truth is stranger than fiction.

Gurdon Curse

When I was young, I lived in the country just outside of Gurdon, Arkansas. Our house sat alone, back in the woods, about a mile off the highway. Daddy was a logger. Mama took care of the house and all six of us kids. Hattie was a black woman who helped Mama with everything. She had her own home and family but often stayed after work and visited on the front porch.

The porch wrapped around the house, and Daddy had screened it to keep out mosquitoes. We were all sitting outside that night, enjoying the dampness a late autumn rain had brought and a little chill that made it comfortable to cuddle up in one of Grandma’s old Afghans.

Almost grown, Bobby Jack was hardly ever around. He had a date that night with the new girl down the road and soon slipped out the screen door without saying bye. Brother David was at a basketball game. Mama frowned when my Daddy dropped the butt of his cigarette on the porch, smashing the glowing stub with the toe of his boot.

Waving at us over his shoulder, he said, “See you all tomorrow. Four o’clock comes early.”

Mama shook her head, grabbed Nita and Carl Wayne, and followed Daddy through the front door. We had no light on the porch, but the glow of an almost full moon cast Hattie and Sharon Ann in a warm glow. She was eight; I was nine.

“Guess it’s time for me to go home, too.”

“Please, Hattie, tell us a story before you go,” I begged.

“I’m tired, and you two girls have heard every story I know at least a dozen times.”

Hattie’s smile disappeared when Sharon Ann said, “You never told us about the Gurdon Lights.”

“Maybe you know as much as I do. What have you heard about the Lights?”

Sharon Ann gave me a frowning glance, daring me with her eyes to blurt something out and take the spotlight away from her.

“We heard it was the ghost of a railroad man that had fallen off a train, and it cut off his head. They say the lights are from the lantern he carries up and down the tracks, looking for his lost head.”

As Hattie grinned, a semi out on the highway blew its horn, and the dying moan mingled with the chill breeze, whipping the limbs of the tall pines in our front yard.

“The Gurdon Lights are real, but the true story ain’t nothing like anything you ever heard. I’ll tell you when you both get a little older.”

“No way,” I said, grabbing her arm. “We’re both old enough. Tell us now.”

Sharon Ann grabbed her other arm. “Is it spooky?”

Hattie let us direct her to Mama’s rocker. “Spooky? It’s downright scary, and the story is kind of long. If I'm gonna tell it, I need a big glass of iced tea to wet my whistle.”

I didn’t have to be told twice. Rushing into the house, I poured Hattie a large glass of tea from the pitcher in the icebox. Before leaving the kitchen, I doctored the brew with Daddy’s bottle of Weller he kept hidden behind the Mason jars in the pantry.

I didn’t bother stirring the mixture before handing it to Hattie, and after her first sip, I knew it didn’t matter. Sharon Ann and I sat on the porch in front of her, huddling together in the warmth of the Afghan.

“This story might give you a few nightmares. Your Mama wouldn’t like that.”

“We’re not scared,” I said.

I always considered Hattie a big woman, maybe because of her husky voice. She wasn’t big at all. I realized this many years later when returning to Gurdon for a visit. She did have square shoulders, big arms for her size, and slightly bowed legs that we girls used to tease her about, and her skin was as dark as if she had spent her whole life in the sun.

Hattie took another slug of the laced tea, and I knew she wasn’t going anyplace until she’d finished every drop. After settling into Mama’s comfortable rocker, she began her story, her words so low that Sharon Ann and I had to lean forward to hear them over the gusting wind.

“Marilyn, you and Sharon Ann are such pretty little white girls. I was not much older than you are now when I first saw the Gurdon Lights. It was about this time of year, maybe just a tad later. Sister Selma and I were sitting outside the house in the swing. It was dark, and Mama had called us to come inside at least twice.”

Hattie leaned her head back and closed her eyes before slowly continuing.

“Our daddy was the local preacher, man. Everybody knew him. We lived in a nicer house than most black folks, not far from the railroad tracks. Selma and I were waiting for the ten o’clock to thunder past. It wasn’t quite ten when I saw something else instead.”

“Selma, you see that?” I said, pointing down the tracks.

“It was a light moving toward us. We couldn’t tell much else because the night was misty from one of the low-hanging fogs. Sorta like tonight.”

“Where? I don’t see anything,” she said.

“I didn’t have time to answer because here came the ten o’clock, right on time. The train blew its whistle and rattled right past our house. The flickering light I had first seen was gone when it finally disappeared into the darkness.

“I was the oldest girl in the family, my room on the first floor, in the back of the house. That night, I heard something tapping on my window. The sound woke me. I was half asleep. It was dark, and my eyes were blurry when I looked at the window where the noise came from.

“Someone or something was tapping on the window. The sound echoed through my room. Tap, tap, tap, it went. Tap, tap, tap."

“What was it?" Sharon Ann demanded.

Hattie sat her tea on the porch floor, closed her eyes, and hugged her arms together.

I took the empty glass from the floor and scurried back inside to replenish it before she thought better about finishing her story. Sharon Ann had Hattie’s arm, begging her not to leave when I returned from the kitchen.

“What did you see in the window?”

Hattie took a deep breath and a slow sip before answering. “I couldn’t believe what I saw. It was a white ghostly head with long white hair.”

“You mean a ghost?” Sharon Ann asked, sucking in her breath and holding it for Hattie’s answer.

“It was a ghost, staring at me through the window with eyes that didn’t have a drop of color. Scared the scream right outa my throat. I swear to you, nothing came out. I just pulled the covers over my head and shook.”

The wind whipped up, causing a real commotion with Mama’s chimes hanging on some of the nearest low-hanging limbs.

“Then what happened?” I asked, reaching for Sharon Ann’s hand and squeezing it fiercely.

Hattie steeled herself with a healthy sip from the tea glass and finally began again.

“I would probably still be under the covers, but Selma couldn’t sleep, and she had walked down to my room. When she shook the bedspread, I almost had a stroke. When I didn’t answer, she yanked the covers off my head.”

“What are you doing under there?” she asked.

“I glanced at the window and then back at Selma. Whatever I had seen was gone. Selma laughed at me when I told her, and before long, I’d convinced myself it was just a dream. The following day, my brother found something that brought back my fear.

“Somebody’s gonna get in trouble when Mama finds out who broke off her favorite rose bush,” he said.

“Selma and I followed him outside to Mama’s roses growing right outside my bedroom window. Petals strewed the ground beside the broken bush. It looked like someone had fallen, mashing it nearly flat.”

“A ghost wouldn’t have fallen,” Selma said. “Someone climbed up on the big rock and looked into your bedroom.”

“I wasn’t convinced I hadn’t seen a ghost, though the thought of a peeping Tom in the neighborhood did little to soothe my nerves.

“That night, the light was back, only this time Selma saw it too. We weren’t the only ones. For the next few months, people all over town began seeing it, usually late at night and almost always close to the railroad tracks.”

Hattie took another sip, and chilly as it was, wiped beads of perspiration from her forehead. The wind outside had slowed, and it got quiet, except for a dog barking in the distance. Fog hung close to the ground, in the hollows, and between the trees. The screech of Mama’s cat outside the house startled Hattie. A grin spread over her big face when she saw us staring intently at her.

“You girls aren’t letting me go home until I finish the story.”

Our faces were the only answer she needed; we were a captive audience, and she knew it.

Hattie grinned again, took another sip, and continued. “My Daddy, like I said, was the preacher man. I knew I couldn’t tell him I’d seen a ghost or he’d made me listen to one of his sermons after the other. I told my Grandma instead. I could always talk straight to her, and she always gave me good advice.

“Grandma was a very old woman, with skin as black as chimney soot and hair white as ash.

“You believe in ghosts, Grandma?”

“Course I do. I was your age when I saw my first ghosts. I was picking cotton with my Mama and Daddy. It was hot, and we were tired. I cried, grabbed my Mama’s dress, and begged her to let me quit.”

“Chile,” she said, “We can’t go till we finish picking this cotton, but we got some help and will soon be done.”

“She pointed behind me. There were folks I had not noticed, and they were helping.”

"Who was helping?" I asked.

"Dead ancestors, looking as real as you and me and doing just as much work, except you could see right through them.”

Hattie drew a deep breath. “Granny said we all have spirits that guide and protect us.”

“Don’t ever be afraid, little Hattie,” she said. “Always do the brave thing, and God will protect you.”

“I got my chance to test her words not long after that. I was asleep in my room when the same tap, tap, tap on my window woke me, just like before. My eyes were wide as saucers when I peeked out from under the covers and looked at the window.”

Hattie covered her eyes and shuddered. “Don’t stop,” I said. “Tell us what happened.”

“This time, I got a good look at the ghost. He was huge and white as a sheet in the light of a full moon. His eyes had no color, and he was tapping on my window with long fingernails that curled up like fishhooks.

“I covered my head with the bed covers and stayed that way, thinking he would bust through the window any minute. It never happened, and I fell asleep from exhaustion sometime during the night, but my heart was still pounding when I woke up the following day.

“I ran outside in my nightgown and found something under my window.”

“Tell us,” Sharon Ann said, squeezing my hand to where the pink of the fingers gave way to white.

“An envelope, and there was something in it. A letter.

“I waited until I was in class before I opened and read it. It didn’t say much except 'Help me—Dorothea James, the old house that sits alone down the railroad track. Please come.'

“I wanted to tell my daddy, granny, or maybe even Selma. Something in the message made me keep it to myself. I was working on a project for the English teacher, and it was after five before I left school. Instead of going straight home, I headed up the railroad tracks toward the old house in the woods.

“Everyone in Gurdon knew about the house near the railroad track. It had been ramshackle as long as I could remember, and we called it the haunted house. We had all heard tales about hobos and tramps living there, and none of us kids had ever so much as stuck our heads inside that old building.

“It was dark when I reached it, and I was already kicking myself for being so far from home, but as I stood on the tracks and stared down at the house, I saw the glow of a light coming from inside. I almost turned and ran away. Granny’s words stopped me. I started down the hill instead.

“The front porch creaked like an old man’s bones, and I wished I had a lantern to keep from stepping in a rotten spot and falling through. Somehow, I made it to the ruined screen door hanging on one loose hinge. The old wooden door was only half shut.

“I pushed through into the house. The inside smelled like mold. You could feel the dampness on your skin. The wood was all rotted. I followed the hallway to the dim light that led to a bedroom where someone was lying in bed.

“It was a woman, her hair long and unkempt as wet hay. She was black, and her skin was ashen as Granny’s hair. The sight of me set her into a coughing fit, her eyes bulging when she tried to catch her breath.

“Oh, Chile, thank God you came,’” she said, holding her hand and speaking in a wheezing voice.

“She wasn’t old but her body was so ruined by disease that I barely understood her. Frail as she was, her grip was strong when she grabbed my hand and touched it to her cheek.”

“I’m Dorothea, and I got a problem,’” she said. “I’m gonna die soon, and I need to share a special secret with someone I can trust.”

“What secret?”

“It’s about Jerome. Jerome, my boy."

“She didn’t have to tell me someone else had entered the room because the little hairs on my neck bristled up, and I felt a cold chill race down my back. I was afraid to turn around, though more afraid not to. When I turned and saw who it was, I almost fainted.

“Standing right there was the Ghost of Gurdon. My legs got weak and rubbery. I almost pissed my panties and would have, except my heart was beating so fast I had to grasp my chest to keep it from busting out of my body. The woman still had hold of my hand and yanked it.”

“It’s okay, Chile. Jerome wants never hurt a soul."

“I was once in a doughnut shop when the Grambling basketball team came in. I’ve never in my life seen such tall, athletic young men. Jerome was just as tall and big, and he had no color in his whole body, not his hair, eyes, or skin. He was white as a ghost.

“Dorothea yanked me, demanding I pay attention to her, not her giant, colorless son. She eased me close enough to her face that I could smell her sour breath and see the tears in her eyes.”

“What’s your name, girl?’” she asked. When I told her, she said, “Jerome’s an albino. Having an albino baby in these parts is a curse. It’s called mzungu, the product of a black woman and a white man. Worse, most believe an albino is a living ghost. When families have such a curse, they usually take care of it. I just couldn’t do that to my baby."

“I brought him here and raised him all by myself. We had a little truck patch out back, a cow, and a few chickens. Jerome never had anyone but me, and when I took the sickness, I got to where I could not feed us anymore. Jerome’s been walking down the railroad track at night with his lantern, stealing food and things we need. He’s deaf and can’t speak, and I’ve been so scared somebody would kill him or hack off his arms and legs and leave him to die."

“There’s no monster mean enough to do that,” I said.

“The woman pulled me closer, right up to her face so that I was staring directly into her brown eyes, and I couldn’t help but see and feel her desperation.”

“You’re just a baby. You don’t know yet what hatred some people have in their hearts. Jerome thought you were older, and he had a good feeling about you, but . . ."

“Just tell me what to do,” I said, squeezing her hand. “I’ll help if I can.”

“I can’t die and leave Jerome like this. He’ll never make it without someone to care for him."

“Daddy’s a preacher. He’s a good man and will help you, I promise.

“Dorothea loosened her grip on my hand and looked me square. She didn’t say another word. She smiled, nodded, and laid her head against the pillow.

“Dorothea was right. Jerome wouldn’t have hurt a soul. He held my hand as we walked the tracks back to my house. I kissed him on the cheek before sneaking into the house without anyone knowing I had been out. The next morning, I told my Daddy.”

Thinking about my dad, I asked, “Was he okay with it?”

Hattie nodded. “He let me take him to the old house on the railroad track. He prayed for Dorothea and promised her that he would care for Jerome and protect him from harm.

“And that’s what he did. When Dorothea died, Daddy held a service for her and buried her body behind the Baptist church. Jerome was there, wearing a black coat and a big hat with a veil so people couldn’t see his face. Daddy knew a good couple in Chicago, and he called and told them about Jerome. They adopted and finished raising him.”

Sharon Ann and I were captivated by the story. “I can’t believe Jerome wouldn’t have been welcome here in Gurdon.”

Clouds had finally parted, and a full moon lighted the path outside the screened porch. Hattie finished the last sip of her tea and started out the door, turning when she had one final thought.

“You pretty little white girls just remember one thing. Old beliefs, black or white, die hard. Some people would rather deal with a ghost than someone different than them. Those people will keep looking for a ghost forever because their minds can’t accept the truth.”

Sharon Ann and I watched the little black woman disappear down the foggy road. Before closing the door, I glanced up at the full moon and then back at the railroad track, wondering if the distant incandescence disappearing into the fog was Jerome’s spirit, still searching for a person with a good heart.

###

Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma, where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He authored the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans, the Paranormal Cowboy Series, and the Oyster Bay Mystery Series. Please check it out on his Amazon author page. You might also like checking out his Facebook page.