Samurai and Other Stories (18 page)

I managed a smile in return. “Several. But none with any truth to them,” I said. “What I need for my book is physical verification—an old transcript of the song maybe?”

Malone laughed. “I don’t know about transcripts,” he said. “But if it’s physical verification you want, you’ve come to the right place. Tell me... have you ever actually been down a mineshaft?”
 

Five minutes later we were in a metal cab heading down into the darkness. He had changed the suit for a set of orange overalls, but he still looked too clean, too neat for this place. Three miners shared the trip down with us, but none of them looked at Malone or even acknowledged his presence during the ten-minute descent.
 

We arrived in a well-lit tunnel that hummed with the sound of a conveyer belt taking fresh-dug coal to a series of carts that were hauled in a continuous stream back up the shaft. That wasn’t what he’d brought me to see though. We walked down an older shaft for maybe five minutes.

“This is where it happened,” he said. “Great-Great-Granddaddy found Tam and Jenny down here. They thought they were safe... but the old man knew better.”
 

He led me up a slight incline to a chamber, dimly lit with only a single flickering light bulb.
Two old carts sat there, the nearest half-on, half-off the old rails.

“You wanted
physical verification
?” he said. “Here you go.” He patted the nearest cart. “Meet the one, the only, the original...
Shoogling Jenny.
”

He raised his voice and sang again.

Now Jenny wouldn’t leave her man, and clung to him real hard

Malone in his rage shot her too, and left them in the dark.

He rapped his hand on the cart.

“Come out come out wherever you are.”

Suddenly everything went quiet. I couldn’t hear any sound from the other shafts of the mine. The light bulb flickered overhead.

“Come on over,” Malone said, still standing over the cart. “This is what you came for isn’t it? The old man dumped the bodies here. From what I heard Tam took his time dying.”

And Tam he drew his dying breath, and cursed baith lang and sare

And though Malone might own the mine, he was happy never mare.

I backed away. The cold chill was back, the same as I’d felt at the window the night before, and suddenly all I wanted was another beer. Malone seemed not to notice. He slapped the cart again. It shook on the rail, rattling once then went quiet.

They say at night when the moon is full, that Shoogling Jenny runs there still.

“What do you think?” Malone said. “Is it a full moon?”

His laugh sounded cold and cruel.

I backed off further. “I’d like to go now,” I said.

He smiled, his teeth showing white in the dim light. He walked towards me.

“I took you for a rational man,” he said as he walked back down to me.
 

I wasn’t watching him. My gaze was fixed on the cart at the top of the slope. It rocked from side to side on the rusted rail, as if keeping a beat.

Malone stood halfway down the slope.

“Come on, man. You’re not afraid of the dark are you? I thought you Scots were a practical bunch. You surely don’t believe that old song?
And though Malone might own the mine, he was happy never mare?
I’ve never been happier.”

The cart rocked hard, settled on the rail, and rolled, gaining speed as it came down the incline. I couldn’t take my eyes off the front wheel—the one that shook and
shoogled
all the way down.

“Look out,” I shouted, but that only made him turn to see what was going on. It hit him at waist height, knocking him out of his shoes and sending him sprawling on the track. The sound as his neck broke was the loudest thing I heard that day.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. The thing that still sends me screaming out of sleep at nights was the last thing I saw before a faint took me.
 

The cart rolled—
up the incline—
then came back down hard to finish the job. And just as darkness took me, I heard the singing again, two voices, a man and a woman, high and ethereal in the distance, joined forever in song.

The rails they run both fast and true, as fast and true as any

And for all I know she runs there still, the birling, Shoogling, Jenny.

THE HAUNTING OF ESTHER COX

Extract from the diary of Esther Cox. August 23rd 1878

I ain’t a bad girl. I don’t care what anyone says. I was brought up in a right and Christian manner.

I done told Bob MacNeal that even before I got into the Surrey with him. Daniel glowered at us from the door as we rode off. He wasn’t happy about me walking out with Bob, but he ain’t my father. He ain’t hardly five years older than me yet he treats me like a child.
 

Well I was eighteen on my birthday, and that surely ain’t no child around these parts. Janet Briggs had a baby just last week, and she’s no more than sixteen summers. There was talk at church that Bob might be the father but he has promised himself to me alone. I am his sweetheart, and he says that he loves me.

He was so sweet. He came to the door and asked for me, real proper like, and he complimented me on my new dress. When he kissed me on the cheek I felt hot all over.
 

He took his time driving along our street, just as I asked. Everyone was out on their porches enjoying the evening breeze, and we made sure they all saw us as we trotted out of town.

It was one of those fine late summer nights, when the air is just starting to chill and you know that Fall is right around the corner and you’d better enjoy the sun while you still can. Ain’t nothing finer than sitting in a Surrey with your beau on a night like that.
 

Bob drove us out on the Nappan Road. At first we passed some people, mostly folks gathering berries to make jelly for the coming winter. But soon we had the lane to ourselves and he gave the horses their head. We had a fine time bouncing and tumbling along the ruts hardened by a long hot summer.
 

He stopped when we came to Croziers pond. When he put his hands on my waist to lift me down it felt so sweet that I let him leave his arm around me as we sat and watched the sun go down over the water.

That is when he told me.

He loves me.
 

He said it real soft, scarcely more than a whisper.
 

His hand crept to my bosom, and I let it lie there. But I ain’t no bad girl.

That evening was just the best ever. The sun went down pink and purple and Bob held me closer as the air turned chill. He whispered to me, of new dresses, of marriage. And he spoke of a house of our own where children would run. He knew just what I wanted.

So I let his hand stray across my bosom, and I did not complain when his attentions became stronger. It was only when his hand moved to my knee that I began to protest. Even then, I did not struggle too much, for if truth be told, I found pleasure in his advances.

But I ain’t a bad girl. When his hand went up under my petticoat I slapped him away, hard. I done seen in his eyes that he weren’t happy, but Jane had told me all about what boys would be after.

He held me some more, and whispered some more, but now it sounded cold, and the chill had settled deeper into my bones.

I told him to take me home.

And that’s when it happened.

He done told me I was a
tease.
He said I was a bad girl underneath, and that he knew all about girls like me.

Then he took out his gun and told me to lie still.

He said I would enjoy it, but I didn’t. Not one bit.
 

He ran his hands all over me underneath my skirts. His face looked red in the last of the sun’s light. He looked like Old Nick himself, smiling in the fires of Hell.

So I waited until he unbuckled his trousers then did what Jane had taught me. I kicked him hard, between the legs. He moaned and fell off me. His gun fell to the ground. He made a grab for it, but he was more concerned with the thing between his legs and was slow and clumsy. He no longer looked red. His face was pale, a gray pallor that made him look half-dead. He did not look anywhere near as attractive as he had earlier on the porch.

I took the gun and raked it across his nose. Blood, black in the darkness, spurted.

Even then he did not stay down. He circled me, like a cat after a mouse. Indeed, he may have caught me, but just then I heard a carriage rattle across the ruts and I yelled, loud.
 

I turned my head to see who might be coming.

The gun went off, jarring my arm all the way up to my shoulder. It suddenly felt too heavy, so I dropped it to the ground. I half-expected Bob to keep coming for me, but when I looked he was dragging himself slowly up into the Surrey. He moved as if he was hurt. I guess my kick did more damage than I thought.
 

The next thing I remember is old man Crozier pulling me up into his wagon.
 

Ain’t nobody seen Bob for three days now.

Despite everything I miss him.

I am his sweetheart, and he said that he loves me.

Extract from the diary of Daniel Teed. August 23rd 1878

There is something wrong with my sister-in-law Esther. She will not say a bad word about him, but if that rascal MacNeal has harmed her in any way I swear I will swing for him.
 

I did not want her walking out with him in the first place, but she is as headstrong as her sister is, and I have learned long since not to get between a Cox woman and anything that she desires.

MacNeal always was going to turn out to be a bad ‘un. Ever since he was a boy he has been picking fights, lighting fires and more recently whooping it up down at the saloon on a Saturday night. Then there is the matter of the Briggs girl. She swears blind that MacNeal is the father of her child, and no amount of nay-saying on his behalf will persuade me otherwise.
 

Good riddance to him. Old man Crozier said he saw him hightailing off in the Surrey like a rat with a squib up its arse.
 

He had better not come back.
 

Extract from the diary of Esther Cox. September 3rd 1878

There is still no news of Bob MacNeal. I do hope he comes back. I am so sorry I hurt him. But I ain’t a bad girl. I couldn’t do what he wanted.

I missed the dance in the church hall on Saturday. Jane wanted me to go with her, but I waited at home to see if Bob would call on me.
 

The house was quiet. The parlour was too cold, too dark, so I took my book and a candle upstairs to my room. When the wind dropped I could hear the fiddles from the hall and it fair set my feet to tapping. The new dress hung behind the bedroom door, and I knew it would only take me ten minutes to dress and take myself along to the dance.

But then I might miss Bob calling at the door, and I so wanted to see him again.

So I sat still and quiet, listening for his Surrey on the road outside.

The first time I heard the mouse, if that is indeed what it was, I nearly jumped out of my skin. At first it was little more than a rustle behind the headboard. We are used to mice coming in from the fields when the temperature starts to drop. A good thump on the wall usually sends them scurrying for safety... but not this one.

The tap-tap of its feet sounded in time with the music of the dance for a second. From where I sat on the high bed I could not see it, but I heard it run along the side of the wall towards the window. I got up slowly and carried the candle over. Even as I got closer it scurried away again, and even bending down towards the floorboards I could not quite catch sight of it as it merged with the shadows.

I went back to my book but I could not concentrate. Every time I came close to losing myself in the tale, the
pitter-patter
of tiny feet would start again. I gave up trying to read and lost myself in reverie, imagining Bob and I together on the dance floor, him holding me tight and everyone watching us.

A louder scrape brought me back to myself. The cardboard box in which my dress had arrived moved across the floor and came to a halt near the door. As I got off the bed it moved again, sliding noisily back to where it had originally been standing against the wall. I watched it warily but the movement was not repeated.

I lay back and watched the moon cast shadows on the ceiling in time with the dance music wafting on the wind.
 

Sleep was a long time coming, and when I woke I did not feel at all rested.

Extract from the diary of Daniel Teed. September 3rd 1878

I know not what to make of it.
 

We were late in getting back from the church hall and the house was in darkness. I was slightly merry, having taken too much beer during the course of the evening, and I felt hot and tired.

All I wanted to do was fall into bed and rest.
 

But it was not to be.
 

Jane noticed the sound first, a far-off scratching, like fingernails on wood. I would have put it down to mice or maybe squirrels, but the sobbing started almost as soon as I put a foot on the stairs to the upper floor.

We found Esther lying on top of the bedclothes. She was as naked as the day she was born. Jane shooed me away, but not before I saw that her body seemed gross and bloated, like a neglected cow that has not been milked for many days. Her eyes stared at the ceiling but she did not react to our presence. She just kept sobbing in a soft piteous mewling that brought tears to all that heard it.
 

Jane pushed me out into the hall where my brother John stood, unsure what was to be done. We had started on our way downstairs when the whole house shook with a bang that made me think we were under attack from cannon fire. John and I ran for our guns and headed outside to meet what might be there.