Held (26 page)

I stepped off the bottom step and avoided the gravel, stepping onto the grass, cool on my bare feet. I headed out across the yard toward the barn, fighting to keep my overactive imagination reigned in. That was more than a little difficult because scenes from horror movies kept flashing through my mind, none of which were the early scenes, where everyone was laughing, smoking dope, and naked. No, they were the ones from the end, where people may be naked, but it didn’t matter because they were maimed and bloody and decapitated. So naturally, by the time I’d made it halfway to the barn, I had chills. I hugged my arms across my chest and kept walking, keeping my eyes on the barn door, focusing only on finding the mysterious man.

With each step, I became more frightened of what I would find when I stepped inside the barn. I also became more aware that I was wearing only an oversized t-shirt and panties. This worried me a little, because I couldn’t name a horror movie that
didn’t
have a woman running around half-naked. I considered going in the house and grabbing my pants, maybe a bra, and definitely some shoes, but decided against it. I was halfway to the barn already, and besides, it’s not like anyone could see anything. The shirt hung nearly to my knees, and my arms folded across my chest kept the girls in place. Surely it would be okay.

I walked on, wondering if the man was even inside the barn. Maybe Tim had left the door ajar. He never did before, but we’d had an argument, so maybe in his anger he’d accidentally overlooked it this time.

Then, I considered the stranger. What if he wasn’t a neighbor? What if he was a murderer? I shook my head to clear my mind of thoughts such as that. I wasn’t in St. Louis anymore. This was the country. Things like that just didn’t happen here, which was precisely why we’d moved. I ignored the fact that most horror movies took place in the country, in old isolated farmhouses.

I told myself it was nothing sinister; just a neighbor who had lost an animal and wanted to know if we’d seen it. His animal had run through our yard, causing the crickets to stop chirping. There was a perfectly logical explanation for everything. At least that’s what I told myself. But it didn’t explain away the feeling I had. The feeling of horror and dread, mixed with doom and gloom.

The sound of a creaking floorboard made me stop. The loud bang that followed made me jump. I spun around and faced the front of the house, which seemed to be where the sound originated. I knew of a board on the front porch that squeaked if you were heavy enough. Tim, standing six foot and three inches tall and weighing two hundred thirty pounds could make it squeak. I could not. And I couldn’t explain the bang.

When my heart began to beat again, I headed back to the front of the house, causing the hair on my arms to stand.

It was midnight, and I wasn’t even halfway through my first beer when the old man plopped onto the barstool beside me. There were four empty barstools on each side of me, and yet he parked his ass on the one right next to me. People were the absolute worst.

Fighting the urge to roll my eyes, I made a conscious effort to make no eye contact with him. In fact, I pretended not to notice him at all, even when he ordered what was his twentieth beer of the night, judging by the slur of his words. I looked at our reflection in the mirror hanging on the wall behind the bar and noticed that his expression matched his speech. His gray hair was wild, his shirt disheveled. This guy was lit.

Taking a sip of my beer, I felt his eyes on me. I paid him no mind. When the bartender, a burly man named John with a full beard and mustache, thumped a beer down in front of him, I still ignored him. I didn’t come to the bar seeking social interaction. I came to stew in my dissonance and have my habitual three beers. Yet I had this feeling that this guy came for the conversation, and he wasn’t going to leave me alone until he got it.

Maybe I should just go home and make up with Molly. Make love to her and go to sleep, like always. But this was only the first beer, and habit dictated that I have three. No more, no less. I considered rushing through them, just downing all three beers. Or better yet, I could down this one and take the other two to go. I could park along the side of the road and drink them. Or maybe—

“You that guy?”

Shit. All the ignoring in the world hadn’t kept the old coot from talking to me. Normally, I wouldn’t have minded at all, but I hated talking to a drunk. In my experiences, drunks were loud, obnoxious people who either loved you too much, or would love to beat the shit out of you. They were way too eager to touch you and hang all over you. They reeked of alcohol and didn’t mind sharing by leaning in closer and spitting as they spoke. I wanted nothing to do with a drunken person, yet this one was hell-bent on striking up a conversation with me.

With as much reluctance as any one person has ever possessed, I turned my head and answered him.

“I’m
a
guy.” I just couldn’t hide the smart-ass tone in my voice. Of course, I didn’t try to.

“Yeah, but you’re that guy. The guy that bought the Smith farm.”

“My name’s Tim Martin, and I
leased
the
Taylor
farm.”

“Oh hell, that ain’t the Taylor farm,” he said with a wave of his calloused hand. “That’s the Smith farm. The Taylors may own it, and they may have leased it to you, but it’ll always be the Smith farm. Ain’t nothin’ ever gonna change that.”

“Well, I never met the Smiths, but I leased the farm.” I took a swallow of beer, longer than a sip this time. I was a little ashamed of myself for liking the old man’s thick southern accent, but damn it, I just couldn’t help it.

“Of course you never met the Smiths. It’d be downright weird if you did.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hell, they’ve been dead…oh, about a hundred years now, I reckon,” he said, scratching his head.

“Really? And you still refer to it as the Smith farm after all this time?”

“Yup. Any time there’s a tragedy somewhere, the name sticks. Goes right on down the line with the place the tragedy happened.” He scrutinized me for a second, eyebrows pulled together in a sea of forehead wrinkles. “You look like a smart fella. Surprised you didn’t know that.”

I opened my mouth to say something to the man, but closed it instead. I had a weekly limit of wise cracks and good comebacks, and I’d used them all in my argument with Molly earlier. I should’ve saved a couple, but who knew I’d need them? I’d planned to drink in silence before returning home. I didn’t think I’d be involved in a wisecrack slam with a drunk.

The old man tilted his head down toward his chest and his cheeks bulged, an obvious sign of a drunken man belching. When he was finished, he took a long drink.

“What’s the tragedy?” I wanted to end the conversation, I really did. I wanted to sit at the bar, drink my three beers peacefully, mope about my argument with Molly, and then go home. I’m a creature of habit, and I embrace it. But I was curious as to what had happened at my house. The house to which I’d brought my family only five months earlier.

“It was bad. Wasn’t it, John?” the old man asked the bartender when he came closer.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Burt,” John answered. I could tell from his tone that though he didn’t enjoy it, he was used to dealing with drunks and being pulled into their various conversations at random. He had far more patience than I did.

“I’m talkin’ ‘bout what happened at the Smith place that night. It was bad, wasn’t it?”

“I guess. I’m only forty-two, Burt. That was way before my time.”

“It was before my time too, but I remember. When I was young, it was still the talk of the town. Couldn’t go anywhere ‘round here without hearin’ people talk about it. Hell, people still talk about it today, just not as much. And most of what I hear folks sayin’ ain’t the truth anyway. They’ve embellished it, see. Added stuff to scare the younger folks, and left out parts that they either don’t remember or don’t want to tell.”

The old man, who I now knew to be Burt, drank the rest of his beer and told John to fetch him another, which John obediently did. He opened a new bottle, set it down in front of Burt, and took a good look at the old man. He appeared to be considering how many more he should allow the old man before cutting him off.

“Well? What happened?” I asked.

After a moment of silence, Burt turned to me and said, “It’s bad. You sure you want to know? I mean, you and your family have to sleep in that house at night. You can’t
un
know somethin’ once you know it.”

I thought about what he said, but how bad could it be? A guy got killed in a farm accident? Some old lady died in the house? Really, how bad could it possibly be? When we lived in St. Louis, there were three separate occasions in which I drove past a dead body on the way to work. And one of them was on fire. Surely I could handle anything this guy threw my way.

“I want to know. Tell me,” I said.

Burt took a gulp of his beer and belched again. Then he began with, “It was bad.”

“Yeah, you’ve mentioned that,” I said sarcastically. I was unable to fight the eye roll this time, so I did it with flare.

“It was a hot summer. One of the hottest ever, they say. A lot like this one we just had, but that year, it was a good summer with lots of rain. There weren’t no drought muckin’ it all up.” Burt spat those words like they tasted bad. He said them as if the drought had sent him into financial ruin and starvation, and he was holding a grudge against it. And just as quickly as the bitterness came into his voice, it was gone. He continued his story in a regular tone, no longer angry at the weather. “No, that year, the crops were sproutin’ up like crazy. Everybody was hirin’ extra help because it was just too much for the farmers to handle. Remember, they didn’t have the fancy machinery we have now. Back then, it was done by hand.” Burt looked me in the eye. “Can you imagine takin’ in all your corn by hand?”

I tried to imagine it, but it seemed impossible. That was a lot of corn, and I just had the two hands, which were currently wrapped around the cold neck of a Budweiser bottle. I shook my head.

Burt nodded, and then continued. “Me neither. But that’s how they did it. People had a whole different set of work ethics back then. Put in a hard day’s work every single day. No whinin’. No complainin’. Just work, from sun up till sun down. That’s the way they did it, see.”

I sensed Burt was straying a little too far from the subject, so I decided to reel him back in. After all, nobody came to a bar for a history lesson. “And the Smiths were hard-working people?” I asked, with the hope of bringing Burt back from his adventure in yesteryear before he got lost in there and started talking about breadlines and horseless carriages.

“Oh yeah, they were. Damn fine hard-workin’ family. Least that’s what they say. I never met ‘em, of course, but they say the Smiths worked hard, attended services every Sunday, and minded their business and their manners.” Burt took a drink of his beer and rubbed his chin between the thumb and index finger of his right hand, as if he were concentrating on his words. “That summer, everybody hired extra help, like I said. The Smiths were no exception. They hired a few extra men to help bring in the corn, and they let these people stay in their barn, see. Made ‘em up a real nice place out there too. Least that’s what they say. I have no way of knowin’ that, of course, but I believe it to be true.” Burt paused for another drink, and took a glance around the bar. Seeing nothing to detract his attention, he continued.

“They hired an older man, a widower. Quiet guy, didn’t talk much. Must’ve missed his wife somethin’ fierce. Kept to himself. Believe his name was Thomas.” Burt thought for a second, and then consulted John. “John, was that man’s name Thomas?”

“Hell, Burt, it’s your story. You tell it,” John replied from the other end of the bar.

Burt went on with his story as John suggested. “I believe that was it. Then there was another man they hired, who was in his late thirties. He had a wife and a few kids with him. Their kids got along fine with the Smith children. They had a ball together, as they say.” Burt smiled at the thought of a bunch of kids he’d never met running around, playing together. Then his face grew solemn. “But then there was another one. A young man, ‘bout 26 years old, name was Lucius Lull. He was single. Some say he wasn’t right in the head, but others say he was, and that he knew full well what he was doin’.”

“What was he doing?”

“Well they say he was a fine worker, but it was what he did when he wasn’t workin’ that got him into a whole heap of trouble.”

As Burt finished his beer and ordered another one, I wished I’d never engaged in a conversation with him. He was going around his asshole to get to his elbow in telling this story, and it was getting more than a little annoying. Plus, I couldn’t help but wonder how much of this story was coming from memory and how much was coming from the bottle.

I sighed. “And what was that?”

After picking up his new bottle of Bud and taking a drink, Burt continued. “The story is that one night at about midnight, James Smith headed to the outhouse to let loose with some business. When he walked around the house, he saw Lucius peekin’ into the sleepin’ porch out back. Now that wouldn’t have been a big deal, see, but that Smith girl was out there sleepin’ that night. This infuriated him, as you can imagine. Seein’ a grown man lookin’ in at your little girl like that is sure to set your blood a boilin’. Well,” he quickly added. “She wasn’t little. I believe she was a teenager, but girls are always little in the eyes of their daddies.” He looked at me. “You got kids?”