Fear, p.36
Fear, page 36
“Are you hungry?” asked the boy named Mickey. “You look it, Jeb. You look like you’re starved half to death.”
“I am hungry,” agreed Jeb. He took a couple of steps forward and felt something firm, yet pliant beneath his feet. He looked down. Raw earth covered the floor of the boxcar, instead of the hard wood of two-by-fours.
“Then come on over here and eat your fill,” invited Mickey. He waved at a spot where a dark-eyed woman and her brood of silent children sat.
Jeb couldn’t believe his eyes. He had failed to notice it before, but there was a blanket spread out on the earthen floor of the boxcar. And, laid out on that wrap was a meal that made Jeb’s mouth water. Bowls of steaming vegetables, yeast rolls, and crispy fried chicken sat there, as well as a wooden bucket chocked full of Coca-Cola and Orange Crush on ice.
“Go on, Jeb,” urged Mickey, his smile growing broader. “Help yourself.”
Jeb could smell the rich scent of the fried chicken in his nostrils and he could restrain himself no longer. He was about to take a step forward, when he felt a strong hand on his shoulder, holding him back. Almost dreamily, he looked back and was surprised to see Roscoe Ledbetter standing there.
“Let’s get back to camp, Jeb,” Roscoe said, his eyes grim. “But look at all these nice folks I’ve found over here,” protested Jeb. “And will you take a gander at that spread? Look at all that food!”
“There ain’t no food, son,” said Roscoe firmly. “Look again.”
Jeb turned his eyes back to the floor of the boxcar. The blanket and its wondrous feast were gone. In their place was only bare earth.
“What’s going on, Roscoe?” asked Jeb, feeling a little dizzy in the head. “I don’t understand.”
Roscoe glared at the hoboes who stood there with sly grins on their pale faces. “I’ll explain it to you when we get back to camp. Right now, let’s just back outta here right slow and easy.”
“Don’t go, Jeb,” called Mickey as the two began to ease toward the open door. “Stay a spell and make yourself at home.”
Jeb felt the urge to walk forward, but Roscoe’s dark hand clamped down hard on the boy’s shoulder, almost painfully so. “Don’t look at his eyes,” he told him sternly.
The farmboy did as Roscoe requested and, suddenly, felt the dazed sensation begin to fade. The feeling of warmth and welcome he had experienced a moment before began to turn into gradual alarm. Jeb began to realize that danger lurked there inside the boxcar, and the source of that menace was those gaunt, malnourished souls who stood before him.
It seemed like an eternity, but they finally made it outside. Frantically, Roscoe tugged at the old door and slid it back into place. Then he grabbed Jeb’s hand and ran, pulling the boy behind him.
A moment later, they were across the tracks and back in the clearing. Sam stood there with an armload of wood and Buckshot sat on his haunches, whimpering like a frightened puppy. “What’s going on?” asked Sam, dumping the wood in the center of the clearing. “Where’d ya’ll run off to?”
“Over beyond that boxcar,” said Roscoe. Nervously, he fumbled through his knapsack and found a box of sulfur matches. He lit one and tossed it on the kindling, but not before he separated a number of long sticks from the stack. Soon, the campfire was blazing strong and hot. “Ya’ll sit over here on this side of the fire,” he instructed. “Away from the railroad tracks.”
Jeb and Sam complied. The farmboy sat down on a fallen log next to Roscoe and watched as the black man took out his pocket knife and began to whittle at the ends of the sticks. As the shavings fell away, Jeb saw that Roscoe was cutting them down to sharp points.
“What’s wrong, Roscoe?” asked the boy. “What’s got you so spooked?”
“It’s them folks over yonder in that boxcar,” he said. His eyes moved from his whittling to the darkness beyond the railroad tracks, and then back again.
“What about ’em?” Jeb wanted to know. “And what in tarnation are you doing with them sticks?”
Roscoe finished one and held it up. In less than a minute’s time, he had whittled himself a stake with a wicked point. “This is one of the few things that’ll stop their kind, Jeb.”
“What do you mean … their kind?”
Jeb had never seen the old bluesman look so scared before. “The undead, son. That’s what I mean.”
The boy had to wrestle with the word for a while, before it suddenly dawned on him. He recalled the term being used in that Bela Lugosi movie he’d seen at the picture show in Nashville. “You mean vampires? Aw, come on, Roscoe, are you joshing me?”
“No, son,” said Roscoe, his eyes bright with fear. “I ain’t never been more serious in my life.”
Jeb was about to ask another question, when Sam spoke up. “Who’s that there?” he asked, pointing past the flames of the fire.
The ten-year-old turned and looked toward the far side of the clearing. There, standing on the railroad tracks was Mickey.
“Come on, Jeb,” he called out, his voice echoing strangely in Jeb’s ears, almost as if it were snaking its way clear down into his brain. Mickey extended a long-fingered hand. “Come on over and meet my family.”
“Look away!” yelled Roscoe harshly. The Negro leapt to his feet and, clutching two sharpened sticks, held them together like a cross. “You’d best just git outta here!” he warned the red-haired boy. “Git back yonder to that boxcar where you belong and stay there!”
At the sight of the cross, Mickey’s friendly face changed into a visage of hatred and disgust. With an angry cry, the hobo leapt off the tracks and back into the darkness.
“Hold these!” Roscoe told Sam, handing him the two crossed sticks. The bluesman rummaged through his pack and found a brown paper sack that held the spices he used for cooking. He found a small glass jar and, unscrewing the cap, made a complete circle of the campsite, sprinkling white powder upon the ground as he went.
“What’s that?” asked Jeb. He kept looking toward the railroad tracks, but, so far, the tramp named Mickey had failed to reappear.
“Garlic powder,” said Roscoe. “Hopefully, it’ll keep ’em at bay.”
After the circle of garlic had been completed and more crosses and stakes had been made, Roscoe seemed to calm down a bit. They fixed themselves a supper of hot beans and cornbread, but none of them enjoyed it. Their attention was directed more toward the darkness beyond the campsite, than their grumbling bellies.
Several times, Jeb glanced toward the train tracks and the dark grove of pines around them and swore that he saw pale faces staring at them from out of the night. Bloodless faces with ravenous eyes and teeth much longer than they should have been.
They made it through the night, restlessly, but with no further visits from those who dwelled across the tracks. Jeb and the others waited until the sun was well over the eastern hills, and then ventured across the railroad tracks. They went around to the far side of the boxcar, but found the door closed. When Sam tried to pry the door open, they found that it wouldn’t budge an inch. It was as if the rusted door hadn’t been opened for countless years, let alone the previous evening.
Before they left, Jeb pressed his ear to the side of the boxcar. But, no matter how hard he listened, he could hear nothing inside. No stirring of sleeping forms, no snores or breathing. Just complete silence and nothing more.
As they gathered their gear and started north along the tracks, Jeb couldn’t help but think that his senses had deceived him. He knew that Mickey and the others were there, behind that closed door. He could imagine them lying on their beds of earth, motionless and cold, waiting until the darkness of night arrived to awaken them once again.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Lynching Springs
Several miles further down the tracks, the forest began to thin out. Tall stands of pine, oak, and maple dwindled down to scrubby thickets of thistle and blackberry bramble. Soon, that too had petered out, giving way to weedy lots littered with broken bottles, tin cans, and the rusty hulls of abandoned automobiles. Little by little, they began to realize that they were leaving the rural wilderness and approaching a town of some sort.
“Do you think it’s that place the Granny Woman warned us about?” asked Jeb. “Lynching Springs?”
“Probably so,” replied Roscoe, looking a little uncomfortable. He looked up ahead and saw several houses and buildings standing a few yards east of the railroad tracks. “If it is, it’d be in our best interest to pass by unseen.”
Jeb nodded. He and Roscoe left the bed of the railroad track and descended down a steep embankment that dropped sharply to the left. “Come on, Sam,” called the boy.
The brawny farmer failed to hear Jeb at first. He simply stood there, staring up ahead at the little town that bordered the tracks. Jeb shook his head, feeling a bit uneasy. This wasn’t the first time since they had awakened that morning that Sam had acted strangely. The boy had noticed his father behaving in a manner that was odd for the man. Sometimes he would pause and stand on the tracks for a moment or two, his eyes glazed, as if he were attempting to look inward rather than outward. Other times, Jeb would ask Sam a question and his father would answer him in a voice that was devoid of the naive, slow-witted tone Jeb had known for the past couple of years. It was then that the boy heard echoes of his true father in Sam’s voice. Jeb had crossed his fingers during such instances, hoping that the poultice the Granny Woman had applied was finally doing its magic.
“Sam,” he called again, trying not to talk too loudly. “Are you coming?”
The farmer pulled his gaze from the buildings and turned to the boy. “Uh, sure, Jeb,” he said, looking a little confused. Soon, he was off the tracks and heading down the embankment to where they waited in the cover of a honeysuckle thicket below.
“Are you okay, Sam?” asked Roscoe, having also noticed the way the big man had been acting that day. “How’s your head feeling?”
Sam shrugged his broad shoulders. “Fine, I reckon. It ain’t hurting none, if that’s what you mean.”
“Good,” said the bluesman. He motioned for them to follow him. “Let’s be as quiet as a mouse when we pass by that place. If we draw somebody’s attention, it might bring us some trouble we could do without … especially me.”
Jeb nodded. He recalled what the Granny Woman had said about the folks of Lynching Springs and how they hated the sight of a black man. Jeb couldn’t rightly understand why someone would feel such a way toward a person purely on account of their skin color, but he wasn’t quite innocent enough to believe that such feelings didn’t exist. He knew a few people back in Mangrum County who felt the same way and didn’t care who knew it, either.
Quietly, they started through the underbrush, heading north along the side of the embankment. When they had entered the town limits, they could see the peaks of roofs over the edge of the railroad tracks. Every now and then, they heard people’s voices, mostly cussing and arguing, from somewhere just beyond. Midway through Lynching Springs, they heard the distant sounds of a roadhouse; the dirty laughter of liquored rednecks and the fast-paced music of a jukebox blaring a country-western tune about cheating men and wanton women.
It was at that moment that Roscoe raised his hand, motioning them to stop. “There’s a creek down yonder,” he said, pointing toward the base of a deep hollow. He shook the canteen that hung around his scrawny neck. It sounded as if it were less than a quarter full. “Ya’ll stay put for a minute,” he told them. “I’m gonna go down and fetch us some water.”
“Hurry back,” whispered Jeb. He didn’t much like hiding there in the honeysuckle patch with the hostile burg of Lynching Springs no more than a stone’s throw away.
“I will,” promised the guitar-picker. Then, with Buckshot close behind him, Roscoe stepped into the thicket and was gone from sight.
Jeb and Sam sat there in the underbrush, waiting for their friend to complete his chore and return. The boy looked up at the sun and noted that it was well past one o’clock in the afternoon. When he turned back to Sam, he noticed that odd expression in the big man’s eyes again. Sam looked distracted, as if the music from the honky-tonk overhead was triggering something deep down in his brain.
“What’s wrong, Sam?” asked Jeb, his voice hopeful. “That music up yonder … does it remind you of anything?”
“Yeah,” mumbled Sam with a frown. “But I can’t rightly put my finger on it. Not yet anyway.”
“Well, just keep listening,” said Jeb. “Maybe it’ll help you remember.”
Jeb felt elated at the possibility of his father recalling something from his past. But his excitement turned into alarm when Sam suddenly stood up, like something had kicked him in the seat of the pants. “Sit back down, Sam!” the boy warned. “Somebody might see us down here!”
But the farmer didn’t seem to be listening. He ignored the boy and, turning toward the bank, began to climb his way back up to the railroad tracks. “What in tarnation are you doing?” asked the boy, his eyes wide. “Get back here, right now! Do you hear me?”
But if Sam did hear Jeb, he gave no indication of obeying the boy’s order. As if in a daze, the big man reached the mound of the railroad bed and disappeared from view.
“Good Lord!” said Jeb, his heart beating a mile a minute. He debated on what to do about Sam’s strange behavior. Should he follow his father, or get some help? It took him a moment, but he finally decided. He left the honeysuckle patch and headed down the slope of the hollow to find Roscoe.
Sam felt as if he were in the middle of a dream.
The weight and tightness of the bandages around his skull seemed to have disappeared. Instead, he felt strangely lightheaded, as if he had ridden the roller coaster at the county fair one time too many.
Absently, he stepped off the railroad tracks and began to walk across a vacant lot choked with ragweed and spiny cocklebur. With each step he took, the music that had drawn him out into the open grew louder and more distinct. For some reason he couldn’t fully comprehend, the shriek of a fiddle and the moan of a steel guitar stirred something inside him. He began to experience fragments of sights and sensations; the feeling of a cold mug in the palm of his hand, the warm comradery of old friends trading tall tales and dirty jokes over a poker table, and the sight of a pretty gal whirling across a dance floor, a smile on her face and a wink in her eye.
The music drew Sam like a magnet, past the edge of the lot and into a dusty dirt road that served as the town’s main street. As he crossed over, he was oblivious to everything around him. All his attention was focused on one place and one place only; the building from where the music originated.
The honky-tonk was a low building of weathered boards and a tarpaper roof that had been patched many times over. Its outer walls were decorated with old tobacco and liquor advertisements and, above the front door, hung a crudely painted sign that proclaimed “THE DEVIL’S JUKEBOX.”
Anyone in a sensible frame of mind would have avoided the roadhouse like the plague, but Sam felt no such hesitancy. Without a second thought, he walked up to the open door and stepped inside.
The bar room was dark and smoky, its only illumination coming from a few neon signs over the long bar at the far side. Sawdust covered the floor and the only furnishings in the place consisted of several tables with chairs, a pool table, and, of course, the jukebox in the corner. Its volume was cranked higher than any Sam had ever heard before, filling the room with foot-stomping music from ceiling to floor.
Dazed, Sam crossed the bar room and stopped in front of the bar. Standing on the other side was a short fellow with scars on his face and a maze of tattoos on his brawny arms. He spat into a shotglass, wiped it out with a filthy bar rag, and eyed the big farmer with a scowl. “What do ya want?” he snapped, not sounding the least bit friendly.
Sam thought for a moment. A thirst that he hadn’t felt for a very long time suddenly hit him. “Beer,” he said.
With a grumble, the bartender took a spotted mug from off a shelf behind him and positioned it beneath a tap. A minute later, he pushed the drink across the bar to the man.
There was more foamy head in the glass than beer, but Sam didn’t seem to mind. He lifted the mug to his mouth and drank deeply.
“That’ll be a quarter,” said the bartender. But his customer failed to hear him. Sam turned around and studied the bar room with that dreamy look on his broad face.
His attention was drawn by three burly, rawboned fellows who congregated around the pool table with sticks in their calloused hands. They wore torn T-shirts and threadbare overalls, and smelled as if they hadn’t taken a bath in a month of Sundays. They were an ugly bunch, to be sure. Their brows were bushy and low, and their stubbled jaws protruded slightly. Sam was instantly reminded of apes he had seen at the fair; the kind that grunted within their wire cages, scratching themselves and picking the lice from each other’s fur.
But that wasn’t the only thing that Sam noticed. It was a flag that hung on the wall on the far side of the billiard table that sent a strange jolt of contempt through the big farmer. It was a brilliant red flag with a white circle smack dab in the center. And, inside that circle, was a crooked black cross; the familiar symbol of the Nazi swastika.
Suddenly, the pleasant feeling that had engulfed Sam was gone. In its place boiled a rage that started at the base of his brain and burned, slowly, toward the back of his eyes. His knuckles tightened around the handle of the beer mug as he stood there for a long moment, listening to the talk being bantered about at the far side of the room.
“Yes, sir, I’m sorry them Krauts lost the War,” said a lumbering fellow with mats of hair on his long arms and a matchstick clinched between half-rotten teeth. “They sure could’ve taught us a few things over here in the States. Could’ve took control and set things straight.”
“You’re right, Travis,” agreed the one who leaned over the table, knocking balls into pockets with the end of his stick. “Take them there concentration camps for instance. Why they killed ’em millions upon millions of jew-boys in just the matter of a year or two. Gassed ’em right good and baked ’em in ovens till they were no more’n dust. Some of ’em they skinned and made into lampshades and such.”
