Year's End: 14 Tales of Holiday Horror (9 page)

The day after Pastor Gumm and company arrived at the fork in the trail, Priscilla Purdy, a red-haired six-year-old who had wandered away from her mamma whose attention had turned to washing clothes at the sandy bank of the Cimarron River, carried her straw-stuffed baby, Victoria, in her arms, and did not return when called, nor was she found by the search party formed for that purpose. When Pastor Gumm and the Baptists headed out early the next morning, and when some of the fretting mammas—mostly from Missouri, a few from Kansas—began to glare at the chillun’ hating Myrtle Roady, Myrtle saw the good sense of moving on with the Baptists regardless of her distaste for them, but embracing the good sense of a skedaddle from the Cimarron cutoff about now. And the Baptists had welcomed her after she’d advised Pastor Gumm that she’d been washed in the Waters of the Lord back in Arkansas, and that was just fine and dandy for the Pastor and his minions as they crossed into Colorado and headed northwesterly to the place where Captain George A. Crawford would eventually plant the seed of a town in the minds of the Faithful.

*

By December 31, 1888, and after eight years of doggedness in the pursuit of making Crawford a town to be proud of, the residents—now including two Mormons, seven Methodists and twenty-six others not self-identified by their faith—determined to make the last year of the decade, 1889, even better than the one they would tie up tonight at the annual New Year’s Eve celebration. That the Baptists still organized the event didn’t bother the others, who looked upon the advantages of strength in numbers, and weren’t disinclined to share some of their food stores as well. What was bothersome, though, and had affected all souls in the town in one way or another, was that New Year’s Eve had also become the time when a child would be lost. Not just lost, but forever gone without a clue as to the why or wherefore of it. Five children in all, and a peculiar thing no one had yet to really put a meaning to was that with the disappearance of each child, something of that child’s had also disappeared. After the first child vanished on New Year’s Eve, 1882, and after a week of desperate searching by the townsfolk, Pastor Gumm wrote in the front of his Bible: “12/31/82 Hiram Clop – 7 yrs – wooden horse.” The list had grown by the New Year’s Eve day in 1888 to five entries including Hiram Clop: “12/31/83 Mary Day – 6 1/2 yrs – blue ribbon around a ringlet of her baby hair; 12/31/84 Rachel Moore – 8 yrs – doll with painted eyes; 12/31/85 Henry Poole – 7 yrs – wooden axe; Richard Sawyer – 9 yrs – rawhide Indian headband.

*

Myrtle Roady had never participated in the nonsense that annually erupted a mile from her hilltop, and had, over the years, instead fancied her own celebration of sorts, consisting of uncorking one of the three bottles of rum with which she’d begun her journey west. The owner of the hog she’d butchered at the Cimarron cutoff had given her a half-full fourth bottle in payment for her skills, that she now placed upon her table. Her temperance was disciplined to the point that the last six years had seen her imbibe only once a year, and today was that day when she’d probably finish the fourth and last bottle. She’d determined not to take a single sip until after she’d made her kill, rendered it to edible strips and chunks and then warmed up her home to a lavishly comfortable temperature—another once-a-year indulgence. Her mouth watered, drool seeped down her chin in anticipation of the scrumptious morsels after they’d been slightly roasted over the fire, then the pleasant burn of the rum to wash it down. Oh, she’d throw Charley some of the smaller bits after he returned from his own hunt. Charley could of course smell the particular sweet aroma of the roasting practically the moment the first waft of smoke curled out of Myrtle’s chimney, and he’d come lumbering up or down whatever hill he’d happen to have been traversing at the time, stand tall, scratch against the door and wait until Myrtle opened it. Certainly, Charley had no sense that that special smell marked a special day, but did remember what that aroma had promised from years past.

Just as the sun began to slip from what had been a mild day, with a cool breeze from the north since noon and a meager cloud cover since two, Myrtle pulled on her coat, slipped her Bowie knife into its sheath hanging from her belt and tied the rawhide strips hanging from the rosewood covered tang of her serrated, clawing knife to the loop of her pants. She grabbed her axe, considered the sufficiency of logs she’d carried inside for the later feast, smiled at the rum upon the table and clucked her tongue. “C’mon you rascal,” she said, as sweet as she’d ever said a word in her life. “C’mon Charley, let’s get to it. Oh, dem golden slippers,” she began to sing as Charley slipped from beneath the deer hides, waddled across the floor and preceded Myrtle out the opened door. “So it’s good-bye, chillun!” she raised her head, shouted the words, heard them echo off the canyon walls beyond.

*

About the same time Myrtle Roady was beginning her hunt, Pastor Gumm was welcoming the spinster sisters Charlene and Darlene Skivers into the wall and roof-framed but not yet sided First Baptist Church of Crawford. The sisters had for the past three New Year’s Eves taken charge of the immediate preparations for the later dinner and blessing, and would do the same this year while Pastor Gumm, as had been his habit for as long as anyone could remember, sought some solitary time away from the townspeople. He’d go off into the scrub and hills nearby, where he would seek a personal confabulation with the Good Lord Himself, a self-cleansing of sorts, before returning to the church to share the victuals and give the blessing for the new year. As he headed for the outskirts of town, he saw that Peter Drum and Harold Oaks had begun their vigil to assure that no child was lost this day and, as had been agreed at just this past Sunday service, to question any unusual activity by or behavior of anyone in or near the town. The question of what constituted unusual activity or behavior was voiced by Isabelle Constance, a schoolteacher from Missouri who’d agreed to provide her skills to the children of Crawford—a blessing—but usually provoked rolled eyes and huffs—not a blessing—from townspeople when she gave voice to her heightened understanding of the English language. “I think we’ll know it when we see it,” was Pastor Gumm’s response that evoked nods from most, and a silent sigh from Miss Constance.

*

Myrtle moved as silently as the now almost complete fall of the sun, crept toward the town’s center where she knew from experience the aroma of the town’s feast would draw out her prey. The repetition of her song, “Oh, dem golden slippers. Oh, dem golden slippers. So it’s good-bye, chillun!” now sung only in her mind, over and over again. She hunched down, smelled it now, saw it there directly in front of her.

*

Pastor Gumm squatted in the scrub, mouthed without speaking his annual prayer beseeching Good News for the coming year, saw movement to his left, tensed, believed it was the Stivers’ boy, Sammy.

*

Myrtle unsheathed the Bowie knife, knew she was upwind, crept closer, leapt upon it, swiftly buried the blade in its back, knew she’d struck the heart when it simply deflated upon the ground, a soulful whimper in its descent.

*

“Who goes there?” Peter Drum’s voice, sturdy and full of authority, called out.

Pastor Gumm stood up, turned away from what he had earlier eyed, waved at Drum. “It’s only me, Pete.”

Harold Oaks approached Pastor Gumm from the other side, patted him on the back. “Thought you was the demon, Pastor.”

“Good work, you two,” Pastor Gumm smiled, watched Drum approach him. “’Spose we ought to get back to the church, huh?”

“Could eat a mule,” Oaks laughed, as the three headed back toward the welcoming glow of the First Baptist Church of Crawford.

*

Myrtle Roady sliced and chopped, fashioned the meat into strips, cut the strips to her liking, stoked the fire, sang her song, “Oh, dem golden slippers. Oh, dem golden slippers. So it’s good-bye, chillun!” She tugged a length of barbed wire through the fleshy strips, then stretched the wire high over the fire, secured each end through a gap in the river rock. She heard Charley’s scratch, opened the door, watched him sniff and lick the pooled blood on the plank floor. “Gonna have the meat done in a bit, Charley,” she said. “Oh, dem golden slippers…”

*

“Where’s Sammy!” Mary Stivers screamed to the already feasting assemblage. “I can’t find my boy!”

Sammy Stivers, a boy of seven, red-haired and with a temperament inclined toward premeditated mischief, was nowhere to be found. His mamma, Mary, had delayed her short trek to the church awaiting Sammy’s return from the nearby pond, where he’d been sent to wash-up and make himself tidy for the celebration. His daddy, Samuel Sr., had already settled himself before one of the three tables in the church generously spotted with food offerings from nearly all Crawford’s citizens. Samuel Sr. stood, toppling his pine stool to the floor, and hollered, “It’s her! It’s that goddamned witch Myrtle Roady! We all know it! She’s taken my boy!”

Pastor Gumm stood, spread his arms in a calming gesture, started to say something and was immediately silenced by the shouts of the God-fearing fathers amongst the gathering who, to a man, agreed heartily with Samuel Sr. “She’s got him!” Harold Oaks screamed. “By God, we can save him if we get up there right now!” Peter Drum huffed, as he grabbed a knife from the table before him and started running for the tent flap of a door.

*

Myrtle sucked on the meat, sipped from the bottle, watched Charley lick his paws after consuming each bit she’d thrown to him. “Good-bye, chillun! Huh, Charley?” she said, then cocked her head with the sound of voices in the distance. “Goddamned Bible-thumping sonsabitches!” she spat, sending Charley’s attention also to the sounds he’d long since come to avoid. Myrtle stood, opened her door, saw too many shadows to count moving up the rise of her hill, heard distinctly the words: “I want my boy back, Myrtle Roady!”

*

Charley scampered under the deer hides as Myrtle braced her arms against the doorframe. “Goddamned…” was the only and the last word Myrtle spoke before the angry men rushed her, stepped into her shack, saw the blood, smelled the meat and knew for a certainty that Sammy Stivers’ little life would be Myrtle Roady’s crap in the morning. It was too much for Samuel Sr. He grabbed one of Myrtle’s axes, smacked her across the head with the flat end and declared, “Let’s string her up. She killed my boy! Oh, God-A’mighty, she killed my boy!”

*

In the earliest hours of January 1, 1889, Myrtle Roady’s toes floated three feet above the ground, her head drooped to her shoulder, her neck wrapped in the rope Harold Oaks had quickly untied from his mule, Clem, where it had hobbled the beast against the animal’s annoying penchant for wanderlust. The limb of the oak over which the rope was thrown had audibly sighed when burdened with the weight of Myrtle’s body. All eyes of all souls in Crawford, Colorado stared at the apt end to the killer of the innocents among them. Women sobbed, and men cursed the demonic visage of Myrtle Roady. Pastor Gumm, while providing a faint attempt to cool tempers, had finally stepped aside, and lowered his head in prayer as Myrtle was hoisted to her just reward.

*

Sammy Stivers, having determined to the limits of his seven-year-old understanding of such things, that hiding out within the newly constructed log post office one hundred yards down the road from the First Baptist Church for the purpose of evoking the panic that it had—hadn’t counted on the Myrtle Roady twist, though—and beginning to shiver against the near-freeze of the night now that it was past midnight, picked up the rawhide whip his daddy had fashioned for him and just simply went home. He didn’t know what all the hubbub going on was about, and didn’t care. He was cold and tired, and he crawled into his bedclothes, where he was found by Mary Stivers shortly past 3 a.m. when she returned home from the hanging, her body spent, her eyes raw, her heart broken. The reunion was heaven-sent.

*

With Sammy Stivers accounted for, Pastor Gumm, Samuel Sr., Peter Drum and Harold Oaks climbed the two hills to Myrtle’s ramshackle house, studied the scene in the light of the new day, the new year, and saw the remains of what was clearly a small catamount, and certainly not a human child. They returned to the old oak where Myrtle still swung, cut her down, wrapped her in canvas and duly buried her in the cemetery behind the church. The following Sunday services were attended by more than a few with atonement on their minds who found solace in Pastor Gumm’s observation that the Good Lord surely does work in mysterious ways.

*

Shortly before sunset, a full day after the mighty upset to his life, Charley scampered from what had been his home for the past three years. He watched from afar as several two-legged critters set ablaze the little house on the hill.

*

A week into the new year of 1889, Pastor Henry Gumm stuffed his few belongings and a goodly amount of dried meat and hardtack into three bags of burlap, said good-bye to no one and headed toward what he’d heard was the bloom of a bustling place to the west called Grand Junction; lots of family folk, lots of children. He reconfirmed the good sense in never marrying as he considered the particular course his life had taken over the years. A wife just wouldn’t have understood. Five hours into his journey, his sat down off the side of the rutted road, untied the top of one of his bags, reached in and pulled out what he believed was his favorite of them all—a wooden horse missing a leg.

Midnight Whisper

Kathryn Ohnaka

The most obvious defect about the dog was the eye. The idiot thing had been hit by a car at some point, causing his right eye to permanently roll back in the socket like a milky white marble. Between the eye and the narrow pink lip that was always caught on its sharp lower tooth, he was the ugliest dog in creation. He slept, barked, and trundled around, peeing in shoes and chewing up the curtains. And now, he was busily gnawing on the edge of the cabinets. Lynn slipped her toe under his rear and nudged him, causing him to growl. “Stop it!” she cried, and pushed harder. Wobbles flashed his teeth but didn’t bite—it was his one redeeming quality. He got up and walked out into the living room, and Lynn went back to scrubbing the sink.