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An ear-splitting cry ricocheted across the crumbling tombstones, sending an uneasy shiver down the backs of the tour group.
“Not to worry…,” their guide’s voice rumbled like distant thunder, “merely a screech owl on his nightly hunt for rodents and the like.”
Emily had butterflies in her stomach.
Exploring a cemetery on Halloween seemed like fun at first, which is why she accepted the dare last week from her friend Sarah with a laugh. But now that she was here, she felt a bit on edge. The Halloween Graveyard Ghost Tour, a yearly tradition in this small New England town, promised tales of local haunted history and the possibility of spirit sightings. Although Emily didn’t exactly believe in ghosts, she couldn’t completely dismiss the idea, either.
The night was chilly and, except for the cry of the owl, utterly silent. Smoky streams of clouds hung over the slivered moon before beating a hasty retreat as if sensing the spirits below would soon be out to prowl.
While waiting for the tour to begin, Emily huddled under the barren limbs of a massive oak with Sarah and the others—the cemetery loomed just ahead. Dating as far back as 1660, the ancient burial grounds sat on an eerie stretch of frost-heaved earth marked with gravestones in no logical pattern. It was as if the spirits of the dead had arranged them for some sort of otherworldly board game that only they knew how to play.
Their tour guide, Andrew, a dashing figure with his top hat and billowing black cape, carried a lantern whose flame flickered bravely against the gloom of the late October night. Emily felt a tingle of excitement at the thought of exploring the cemetery with such an attractive man leading the way—until she reached the entrance gate.
A rusty iron behemoth, it stood like a grim sentinel to all who entered, swinging inward on shrieking hinges as if expecting them. Something about that gate and the inky darkness beyond gave Emily pause as a cold sense of foreboding washed over her, creeping down into her bones. She took a deep breath and did her best to ignore it as she tucked a wayward curl behind her ear and marched along with the group.
No one spoke as they entered the cemetery. Leaves crunched beneath their feet while the hushed silence of death kept up a never-ending refrain. Through the thin rubber of her sneakers, Emily imagined she could feel the ground pulse with the souls of the dead preparing to make an entrance.
Stopping in front of an elaborate gravestone, Andrew held his lantern high to reveal its intricacies. The weathered grey stone stood about five feet tall and was flanked by what looked like angels kneeling on either side. As her eyes adjusted to the light, Emily realized they were actually snarling gargoyles with fangs bared. Their talon-like claws clutched the base of the stone as if through mere might alone, they could yank the unfortunate occupant back from the dead. A large, delicately carved skull sprouting a pair of feathery wings topped the stone, its mouth spread wide in a rictus grin. From her vantage point, Emily could only make out the words, Here lies the body of…
“Tonight, as you walk through this lonely patch of land, tread lightly, my friends,”
Andrew explained with a dramatic flourish, “For here lie the souls from centuries ago, those of the brave and the bold, those of lost youth and innocence, and those who may have struck a deal with the very devil himself!”
Sarah moved closer to Emily, grabbing her hand.
A whiff of something foul seeped into the crisp night air, growing stronger with each breath Emily took. She couldn’t place it at first, but as the fetid odor lingered, it dawned on her—sulfur. Andrew’s body stiffened, but he did nothing except raise the lantern higher while staring into the pitch-black beyond the gravestone
Strange tendrils of mist began to form above the stone—wispy outlines in vertical rows, and for a moment, Emily thought her eyes were playing tricks on her. She rubbed them with the heel of her hand but to no avail. The vaporous strands continued to multiply, swirling and rotating as if batted about by an errant breeze, though the night remained deathly still. They reminded her of the long, bony fingers of a wraith-like harpist who had performed during her senior year of high school. The woman’s fingers had flown up and down the strings as if fueled by an unseen force, their motion blurring like hummingbird wings.
But there were no soft, melodic notes drifting in on the sulfurous cemetery air, and no harp emerged from the shadows. Emily watched in disbelief, feeling her mouth go dry as, inch by inch, the spinning mass slowly took shape, and a pale apparition appeared, hovering over the gravestone. With empty, black eye sockets and corkscrew curls cascading down its back, the spirit focused all its ethereal attention on Andrew, who seemed unable to take his eyes off the spectral display. Slowly removing his hat, he bowed deeply and exclaimed with awe, “Madame, you honor us with your presence!”
Emily’s heart skipped a beat, and she dropped Sarah’s hand. She had to get closer—had to see the spirit more clearly. Taking a tentative step forward, she crept nearer until she was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Andrew. An involuntary squeak, like air being sucked in through tinny, timeworn pipes, leaked out of her. Her hand flew to her mouth, but it was too late. The spell between Andrew and the spirit had been broken. When the ghost whirled toward the source of the noise, Emily knew. Terror bubbled in her chest, as caustic as acid, and she began to shake. It was unlike anything she had experienced in her twenty-something years on earth—as if a looking glass from beyond the grave had suddenly materialized in front of her.
The ghost was a dead ringer for Emily!
A lifelong resident of New England, Cheryl is captivated by its haunted history. Coupled with her love of the mystery-horror genre, she is inspired to write stories of spooky New England. Cheryl is an RN with a degree in nursing and English who enjoys playing tennis and trying out new recipes.
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Bonneville Salt Flats. Original photo by Zoxcleb. Distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.0 Generic license
In Salt, we measure out our lives in tales, trying to discover where we’ve been, find out how far we’ve come, and determine how long we have to get where we need to be.
The tales spread out across the Brine Fields at sunset, whisk through Salt Flats at dusk, hover over the Salt Pond like a slow-stirred evening fog, and settle, damp and mottled, like torn bark from the black walnut tree that hangs over the top of the Muck Dam at night.
Tales find you on front porches, catch you in doorways on Main Street, and even perk-up your ears while you doze. Accompanied by Old Man Brine’s solemn voice, each tale is stacked one upon the other and rises toward Red Rock Mountain until it becomes a revised-again legend.
Silence has descended upon Salt. Silence coupled with the darkness and a crazy sickle-shaped moon. I get up out of my chair, my ears still pressed to the wind. I’m not so good at hurrying anymore. As quickly as I can, I return inside and fetch my coat. When I get back outside, the wind is still and the air is silent.
When school ended this year, I tidied up my room and closed the door on that world. Then I moved through my summer as if in a dream. I never accomplished very much, although I had the best of intentions. There was the house to keep, and those promises to visit damn near everybody. You know how it is when time gets away from you.
I spend most of my summer mornings in bed reading books, which lay like lovers strewn all around me. I spend my afternoons puttering around the garden. I spend early evening hitting a tennis ball against the big brick wall that surrounds the Shaker High gymnasium. At 7:30 I sit myself down on my front porch with a glass of lemonade, hot chocolate, or brandy, and press my ears against the wind.
Old Man Brine came to town when Shaker High was built. He used to teach History while sitting in his wheelchair. Everyone called him Socrates—students, teachers and administrators alike.
On my first day as a newly-minted teacher, the first thing I did was walk right into that classroom of his filled with posters of the Parthenon, the Pyramids, and the Palisades. Old Man Brine was sitting in his wheelchair, head bent, penciling the children’s names into his grade book. “Hey, Socrates,” I said rather loudly, “remember me? Yewley Dunn? I had you as a teacher.”
Looking up from his wheelchair, I watched his eyes trace the contours of my face. Then, I heard that storied 7:30 voice that invoked so many memories I suddenly found myself smack in the middle of my childhood.
“Yewley Dunn!” Old Man Brine said. “Yes, I remember you; however, let me assure you, my boy, that you never once had me!”
I am sure to look both ways before I cross the road. I walk down the street in the general direction of Old Man Brine’s house. I am surprised that none of the Saltfolk are sitting on their porches. Oh, there are lights on in kitchens and front rooms. Every once in a while, I see the blue flicker of a television screen or hear the clatter of silverware combined with table talk. I walk past what I like to call the Republican Church on one side and the Democrat Church on the other. I flip a quarter into the doorway of the 5 & Dime. I walk past the home of the town newspaper, The Shaker, a two-page local affair filled mostly with obituaries, gossip, and the funnies.
I make my way down a steep hillside and cross the tracks whose parallel rails appear to inch ever closer before they escape the town. I sit on the steps of the depot and examine the rusty rails, which frame chunks of coal and salt rock.
About thirty feet sits an abandoned set of railroad tracks and on them, a rusty and rotting boxcar. Chicken Venerable, face as red as hellfire with his one leg stretched out, sits in the middle of the car drinking canned heat. Chicken Venerable used to load the salt buckets and still rides the bucket line now and again. Lives on his disability check, which he picks up at the Post Office, across the way.
He collects change bothering the old ladies outside the Piggly-Wiggly, offering to hop their grocery bags to their cars. The kinder ladies in town feel sorry for him, I suppose, and hand him their bags. I hear Chicken’s hop has become a little irregular lately. The ladies say that when they get home and unload their groceries, all of their eggs are broken inside of the Styrofoam containers.
When I walk down the steps to the Post Office to get my mail, Chicken Venerable is waiting for me. Without fail he says, “Yewley Dunn! How’ya getting along?” I used to give him my spare change.
Earlier today, Chicken was sitting on the yellow stonewall, next to the PO, his one leg sticking out. “Yewley Dunn,” he said, “how’ya getting along?” Instead of change, I handed him a postage stamp. Chicken screwed up his wild, red eyes, slipped the stamp into the front of his overalls, removed his leg from my path, and said, “Yewley, you’re the salt of the earth.”
Tonight I amble alongside the boxcar. It’s completely rusted, yet by the grace of some miracle, Chicken is able to open and close the door in order to give himself some privacy. I’ve heard Chicken remark on more than one occasion that the boxcar is both his coop and his coffin.
Chicken says from somewhere inside, “T’ain’t tales in the air tonight, Yewley. You know I can’t sleep ‘thout the tales. I fear the worst.”
“I’m on my way to find out where they went, Chicken.”
“If they’s truly lost, Yewley, you’re going to need me to find ’em.”
Chicken hops out to the edge of the boxcar and into the dying light. He’s always hopping and flapping his arms like some crazy bird. He holds out his wings and flutters to the ground, landing on his one leg, poised and sure-footed. “The tales are the heart of Salt, Yewley, and the heart has stopped beating. I fear the worst.” Soon, Chicken’s hopping along beside me, a bottle of shine in one hand, his other claw resting on my shoulder. He has this remarkable ability to keep up the pace, drink shine, and talk nonstop-nothing all at the same time.
“Funny, Yewley,” Chicken says, “I was wondering just this very afternoon which tale Brine was going to tell tonight. I thought maybe the one ’bout Salt’s oldest living man who pulled into the town’s only fillin’ station and asked where in damnation he was. Oldest living man in Salt likely died on the spot when the grease monkey by the name of Flim-Flam Flynn said, ‘Why, young fella, you’re in Salt.’ That’s one of my particular favorites, Yewley.”
Chicken’s hopping kicks up the chemical dirt around us. “‘Member when the paleontologists from up north came looking for dinosaur bones? Ha! I’ve hear tell paleontologists have poor dispositions from working so long in shallow graves. Yewley, I don’t know much, but I know one thing for certain. Them paleontologists look to dust off bones so they can build a monument to the past, all the while standing in shallow graves. And do you know why they do it, Yewley? I’ll tell you why: ‘Cause they want to live forever.”
We pass the Western Auto Store, the concrete tennis courts with their fence-metal nets, drooping in sad half-smiles in the direction of the saltwater swimming pool. The willows are weeping and hang across the road like a curtain, which we part. The lights of the Saltbox Diner fill up the sky—neon colors racing toward a pot of glittering gold.
“That gold oughta’ be salt. What kind of senseless theme is a rainbow diner and a pot of gold in this town?” Chicken says.
The great wall of Shaker High School is in front of us now. “You been working at that school for how long now? And you just keep on doing it—keep slugging away even though most of those kids haven’t got the sense to pick up the marbles they spit out of their mouths. And do you know why you keep after those bone children, Yewley? I’ll tell you why: ‘Cause you want to live forever.”
I look toward the school that has occupied my time. “I feel like I’ve spent my whole life in that building, Chicken, first as a student and now as a teacher, and it’s as if I’ve never spent a day,” I say.
“You know why you keep doing it, though, and that’s what’s important.”
Chicken hops beside me as we walk across the golf course, down Smoky Row, through the weeds that stand between the Madam Russel Church and the pillars that frame the entrance to the Salt Works.
Together, under the crazy sickle-shaped moon, we make our way across the baseball field whose outfield dissolves, by degrees, and turns into Old Man Brine’s lawn, porch, and white, three-tiered house. Chicken steals my thoughts. “Yewley, I can’t believe that we’re the only ones here. How long you been listening to them tales? I know I have for the better part of fifty years.”
Chicken takes a swig of shine and passes the bottle to me. I wipe off the bottle with my shirt, take a long, slow drink and hand Chicken the bottle. He throws it against the steps.
“Old Man Brine! Old Man Brine, you in there?”
“For God sakes, Chicken. We’re here to find the tales, not to tell ’em.”
Chicken hops up the stairs and onto the porch. He hesitates at front of the door, lays a hand for a moment on Old Man Brine’s empty wheelchair, twists the doorknob to the right and hops on in as if he’s the one-legged tenant. He sees my quizzical look and says from the doorway, “Yewley, I’ve been more places than you can think of.”
Old Man Brine’s front room is filled with beautiful old furniture. A spinning wheel sits in one corner, a huge family Bible adorns a coffee table. There is a totem pole in another corner and a glass case filled with all kinds of arrowheads, spear tips and headdresses. A picture of the town, nearly as big as one wall, hangs above it all.
We look at the picture of our skillet-of-a-town. All of the buildings are labeled with a letter. There’s the old hardware store, the Salt Works, Shaker High School, the no-tell motel, Smoky Row, Lick Skillet, Slaughter Pen Hill, Goose Bottom, Pump Log Hollow, and Henrytown Road.
Two envelopes are stuck into the right corner of the picture. The first in Old Man Brine’s sprawling hand: “Open this letter if something happens to me.” The second is addressed to The Shaker.
“Them tales are the heartbeat of this town, Yewley. They are past, present, and the future and I fear they are way past due. And do you know why Socrates tells ‘em? I’ll tell you why: ‘Cause he wants to live forever.”
Chicken walks over to the stairs, plops down in the bucket lift, buckles the seatbelt, and hits the button on the wall. The bucket moves up the stairs, and Chicken sits smiling back at me like a bird in a shooting gallery. “Catchcha, later alligator.” I hear Chicken thumping around upstairs. “Yewley,” he yells. “I found Socrates. He’s sitting up in the chair reading a book. Dead as a polecat caught between a golf cart and the tires. Smells almost as bad, too.”
The bucket backs down the stairs. Chicken’s fingers are pinching his nose. “I’m too lazy to unfasten this buckle-belt, Yewley. Come-on over here with that letter addressed to the finders of misfortune or death. Thankya’ kindly.” Chicken bites open the first letter and begins to mumble, scratches his head, and mumbles some more.
“What’s the letter say, Chicken?”
“Says a lot of things, Yewley.”
Chicken hits the button on the wall and it begins its slow climb back up the stairs. As it’s moving, Chicken says, “Yewley, go down to the root cellar and get the shovel that’s propped up ‘gainst the wall. Once you’ve done that, lean it outside ‘gainst the porch. Wheel in that chair and set her at the base of these stairs. After that, help me get the Old Man.”
I do as I’m told. I race through the front room, into the kitchen, and down the cellar steps. Just as Chicken says, the shovel is propped up against one wall. I move through the front room and out onto the porch. I lean the shovel against the wall, wheel the chair through the front door.
“On three now, Yewley. One, two, three!” We both explode upwards like weight lifters, Chicken under one armpit, me under the other.
“Dignity is as important as any one thing a man can have,” Chicken says smiling at me. Together we inch Old Man Brine toward the bucket-belt, sit him down, buckle him up and send him on his way.
“Now, go on down them stairs after him, Yewley. Don’t mind me, I’ll hold onto your shoulders and just hop along behind. Watch your speed now, son. Nobody has any business going anywhere that fast. I expect the Old Man will wait. Okay, now unbuckle ’em and load ’em into that chair while I study this map a minute.” Chicken unsticks the second letter addressed to The Shaker and pushes it into his bib pocket. He points to the red dot on the map, studies it for a little while longer, scratches his head, bites his lip, closes his eyes, points to the dot again, and says, “I could find this spot in my sleep. Let’s skedaddle, Yewley. You know I can’t stand being on the inside of anything with four walls for long. Let’s take a roll, Socrates. Think you’re up for it? Course you are. Even though you’re dead, you still want to live forever.”
Chicken stands on the footrests in the front of the wheelchair; Old Man Brine has the seat but the way I figure it, he deserves it. “Step on up on the back of the seat, Yewley. You’re the lookout. I’m the captain of this outfit.”
The motorized chair moves out onto the porch and down the ramp. The last thing Chicken does as we roll toward the land of chemical grief is stop at Old Man Brine’s mailbox; he takes the stamp out of the front of his overalls, the unopened letter out of his bib pocket, licks the corner of the letter, sticks on the stamp, and makes sure it is in the mailbox and the flag is up.
“Just three good buddies out for a roll in the dust,” Chicken says.
“The white bitterness, the chemical grief, the very history of the town,” I say.
“You got that right and poetics, too.”
We follow underneath the cables of the bucket line on which large black buckets carry alkaline and gypsum into this valley. One final thing: as we round the corner and head toward Henrytown Road, the Drayman passes us with an empty cart and a quizzical look.
“Looks like we beat ole’ Dray to the punch. Did you see his face, Yewley?”
I fake-tip my hat at Dray and we turn the bend and leave him in the dust.
“I ever tell you the story ’bout how I lost my leg. I’m sure I have but I’ll tell it again to kill the silence. I was working up around Smoky Row where the cinders fall off the train so thick you can cut the air. Boy Henry, Jr., had been brewing up some shine and, without too much encouragement, persuaded me to try some. After my tenth pull, I swear the sky falls and one of them iron buckets from that bucket line knocked my leg clean off. When I come to, my leg was sitting right next to me. Way I got it figured: in this town, the grief is going to get you one way or the other.”
The streetlights flicker in the distance— illuminating the rich shops, casting shadows on the poor ones. The lights of the Saltbox Diner rainbow flick off, first blue, then red, then green, then yellow and then the pot of gold turns into an outline of cauldron black.
Old Man Brine and I sit underneath the sickle moon and watch Chicken hopping around in circles of dust in the middle of the Salt Flats, spinning like a crazy compass needle, hopping on the cracked ground, spinning, howling, until he falls, vanishing in a puff —white chalk and chemical death all around him.
“Start digging right here, Yewley. And don’t say I never done nothing for us.”
“What are we doing out here, Chicken?”
“Just hush up. We ain’t doing nothing Socrates doesn’t want us to.”
“The ground is salty flat and caked hard. I feel like I’m stranded on the moon with a dead man and a one-legged Chicken looking back at the earth and wondering what it must be like now that I’ve left it. I push the shovel into the ground as deep as I can. The grit and rocks and muck and dust fill my mouth. I keep my ears pressed to the wind. Brine’s storied voice is all around us.
“‘I told those paleontologists where to dig but they never listened to me either. They could have sifted through the layers of dirt and time ‘til their heart was content. They could have uncovered this ole’ town bit-by-bit, dusted it off, labeled it, unearthed whole houses, resurrected the charred ruins of a Civil War town.” We listened to the wind as Brine continued. “Pterodactyl bones and more bones, stacked on top of one another, intertwined like the crazy twisted roots of bent-over trees. They could have tasted the roots that fought their way through coal and gypsum in search of nourishment, finding only saltwater.’
“‘The Old Man here told the archaeologist where to dig, too, Chicken. ‘Salt,’ he told ‘em, ‘was salted down and is waiting to be rediscovered.’
“‘Stop jabbering and keep digging, Yewley. God never gave us soil in Salt, just adversity.’
“‘During the Civil War, Salt was the site of what’s come to be known as conflagration, salvation, and redemption. Both the Confederate and Union armies desperately needed salt to preserve their food and lengthen their supply lines. Up there around Red Rock Mountain, several Union soldiers were captured. They were stripped naked, salted down, and tied to the tall pine trees overlooking the town. Out of some devilish spite, the Confederate soldiers set the tops of the trees on fire. The conflagration danced across the heavens from treetop-to-treetop, licking at the sky, donning a fiery wig on the sun, whose big bald head was setting over Salt. Instead of finding the Union soldiers on the ground, the conflagration raced down the mountainside headlong bound by some invisible thread from tree-to-tree. Horror-stricken, crazy with fear, the Confederate soldiers hurled themselves one-by-one from the face of Red Rock Mountain and attempted to gather the flames in their arms before they destroyed Salt. Rumor has it that on warm summer nights the sunset casts a red glow that dances on the tops of the trees while the woods fill with hysterical laughter.’
“And Old Man Brine wasn’t quiet done.
“‘Salt was built on top of the sacred Indian burial grounds. There are caves with secret passages that are filled with everything imaginable: headdresses, canoes, animal skins, and the bones of great warriors who, after their lifelong journeys, took something to protect them when they entered the next life.’
“Chicken sits in the wheelchair on Old Man Brine’s lap. I can see their feet and both are silent for once in their lives.
“The last thing Old Man Brine did before he retired ten years ago was collect pine cones from underneath that big pine tree they planted in front of Shaker High School when they built it. From my classroom window on the second floor, I watched him get up out of his chair, bend down, press his palms over the brown nettles, pick up a pinecone, and put it in a brown paper bag. Then he waited for the three o’clock bell to ring, and he just rolled away.
“As time passes, I’ve begun to realize that it’s not really the tales that change.
“’Salt it away, Yewley,’ Chicken says.
“Suddenly, my shovel hits something solid. Chicken springs out of the chair and hops down into that shallow grave with me and helps uncover a trunk. Then, we hoist it out onto the Salt Flats. He uses the shovel to break open the lock.
“In the trunk are thousands of tales, carefully written down in the Old Man’s hand, each sheet piled on top of the other, preserved, salt it away.
“Together, Chicken and I unload the trunk and set the tales down on the Salt Flats, one page at a time. We place Old Man Brine into the empty trunk and lower him into the ground.
“Before we leave the Salt Flats, we watch as the wind gathers up the tales and stacks them one on top of the other in the wheelchair. After the wind dies down. Chicken climbs up on top of the stack of tales and sits perched his crazy bird shape astride the crazy sickle-shaped moon.” Then, he climbs down, sits in the wheelchair, which he makes his own.
“Three days later, The Shaker ran the following Verse (Matthew 5:13)—a posthumous reminder from Old Man Brine.
Salt of the Earth
Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour; where with shall it be salted: it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under the foot of men.
“After Old Man Brine’s death, I thought that Salt would remain irrevocably silent, but the townsfolk placed pots of morning glories on their front porches and those flowers trumpeted each time a breeze blew across their railings.”
I release my breath and with it the tale of Old Man Brine. The wind grabs hold of my words and in a flurry of dust transports them through the night.
The way I got it figured, the students in the afterschool program will have just have to get along without me this year. No, not really. If they sit on their porches, and they press their ears to the wind tonight at exactly 7:30, they will hear the reason for the town’s name.
Dr. J. Bradley Minnick is a writer, public radio host and producer, and an Professor of English at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He is the Executive Producer for Arts & Letters Radio, celebrating modern humanities in the South, found at artsandlettersradio.org. He’s published numerous journal articles and fiction.
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Marge McCormack slowed her rusting Chevy to a stop beside the cornfield where Terry Haskin was working. His brown hair nudged above their tractor’s nearside back tire as he adjusted cultivator hydraulics. Doubtless, he was slathered in grease. Marge snatched up a manila envelope, slammed the car door and leapt the roadside ditch. “Terry!”
Short blonde hair, bare legs below a yellow sundress, her sandals filled with loose dirt in plowed cornrows. Balancing on one foot, then the other, she slipped off her shoes and waved the contract. “Terry, I got it!”
She saw his fierce, happy grin. “Marge, you only applied day before yesterday!”
She beamed as he approached, wiping his hands on an oil rag. “Lord, woman, I can see why you got the job.” He leaned close with hands tucked safely behind him. “Give you a job of work m’self.”
Marge threw down the contract pouch and clasped his face with both hands for an emphatic kiss. “Tonight, Sweetheart.”
#
At supper, Terry Haskin sat beside Mrs. McCormack, Marge’s mother. Mr. McCormack said grace, and after a round of ‘Amens,’ Marge and her two younger brothers brought celebratory platters of chicken-fried steak, cornbread and green beans to the farmhouse table. Marge settled on Terry’s right as the grinning youngsters slid into chairs opposite.
“You know this ain’t a proper nursing job,” Mr. McCormack told his daughter, “just Pokagon County politics, surveying wetbacks for communicable disease.”
“Heaven knows what she’ll pick up from those migrants,” Mrs. McCormack muttered. She blushed when her sons glanced to one another.
“What’s Marge gonna pick up?” one boy whispered. His brother shrugged.
“Daddy, they’re not wetbacks. They’re Texicans, Texas Americans.”
“Maybe some are, but not all. Not by a long shot.”
Teeth grinding, Marge held on to her temper. Dad tried again. “You and Terry have a lot of planning to do.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
Terry cleared his throat. “Marge’s contract says she’ll work mornings, six to ten, Monday to Friday, till Labor Day.”
“Four fifty an hour, Dad; enough for senior year tuition and textbooks. I can help Terry in the fields afternoons and weekends until my nursing program starts up again.”
As the boys served wedges of lemon meringue pie, Terry reassured Mrs. McCormack. “Half the township’s booked us; cultivating, baling, combining, right through August.”
Mom nodded. “This year a nursing practicum is extra. Marge will need every dime.”
“We’ll be . . . she’ll be okay. We’ve been saving for the last three years.”
#
Fireflies pulsed in tall grass; purple martins swept mosquitoes from a reddening sky. At 9 P.M. the setting sun barely touched the treetops. Her parents glided, side by side on a suspended porch swing, powered by Dad’s long legs. Marge and Terry nestled nearby on the front steps while everyone listened to Harry Caray’s radio broadcast of White Sox baseball. When a Sox ninth inning reliever gave up the winning run, Marge stood with a snort of disgust. Terry grimaced, then smiled up at her. Hands cocked on hips, her eyes sparkled. “Sweetie, it’s time I took you home. Back in a jiffy.”
As she sprinted upstairs for her clean laundry, Mr. McCormack motioned Terry out onto the farm lane, to Marge’s old red Chevy. Dad folded his arms and shook his head slowly. “Son, I gave up trying to keep you two apart a long time ago. Maybe someday she’ll have enough sense to tell you ‘Yes’.”
Terry opened the coupe’s driver-side door. “I’m counting on it, Sir.”
“Too grown up, that girl don’t mind me, but she might pay attention to you. It ain’t safe, Marge wandering round migrant camps. Those people . . . well, she just don’t listen any more.”
It was only a short drive into Pokagon Village where, at sunset, street lights had begun to flicker. They climbed an iron staircase to a one bedroom apartment above Pokagon Gas and Oil. Terry managed the gas station from November until planting season, six days a week, dawn to Cronkite News. For two years, they’d plastered, painted and spruced; tried to make things presentable to their friends – to Marge mostly – and the apartment was rounding into shape. There was a tiny kitchen next to the television room, a toilet with shower and sink off the bedroom, and two chests of drawers, one Marge used for her things. She pecked his cheek, shed her cotton sundress and broke for the shower.
#
In pre-dawn light, Marge filled the coupe’s gas tank. Beneath a red striped, safety vest, she wore a beige shirt and matching work trousers. Her hair was wrapped in a paisley scarf. Elbow propped against a pump, Terry watched the gasoline meter roll. She told him, “Price keeps going up, it’ll break a dollar a gallon before long.”
“We’re still three cents cheaper than most.”
“Eight fifty. I don’t never want to pay more than that for a fill up.” She handed him a ten dollar bill. “When’s George opening this morning?”
“Be here any minute.” Terry unlocked the station office but turned back in the doorway. “Campbell place still needs a day’s cultivating. Meet me for lunch?”
On tip-toes, she kissed him slow until both needed a breath of air. “Sweetheart, I’ve got to leave.” She towed him outside, slid into the car and rolled down the window.
Terry smoothed two calloused fingers across her cheek. “You’ll be careful, right? Anything, anything at all, you know where I am. Yes?”
“You’re getting bad as Daddy.”
“No telling which of us loves you more.”
The engine started with a roar, and she gave him a wan smile and wave. “Bye.”
#
Six minutes north from the village stoplight, Marge tromped on the gas to climb Wrecker’s Hill. Atop was a level plain with some of the county’s best farmland. A migrant work camp appeared; scores of cabins in a thirty acre park of tall hickory and oak. A dirt lane led to the company parking lot behind the administration building. As day broke over the horizon, she entered the office and did her best to exude confidence. “I’m Marge McCormack, from Pokagon County Public Health.”
Chief Administrator Arthur Wheeler was an officer of the agri-business that sold vegetables grown on the thousand acre plantation. She’d seen their product labels in grocery stores all her life. Wheeler was a tall, middle aged man wearing black-rimmed glasses, a short sleeved shirt and narrow tie. “Our company’s eager to cooperate with Public Health, Miss McCormack, but as we submitted in hearings last spring, these folks are all strong and healthy. We wouldn’t bring ’em north otherwise.”
“So my job will be a snap.”
Administrator Wheeler blinked once, then grinned. “Well, absolutely, Miss McCormack. Dead easy.” Then, “Have you inspected our camp before, seen the facilities?”
“No, never.”
“Camp Director Alvarez will show you round this morning.”
Outside in the parking lot, Marge met Jorge Alvarez, a dark, portly man wearing jeans, a white T-shirt and denim vest. The older man bowed. A little embarrassed, she extended her hand. “Mucho gusto, Señor Alvarez.”
“Ah!” His eyes lit up. “Usted habla Español. Muy bien, Señora . . .”
“Señorita McCormack. Marge McCormack.”
“Bienvenida!” he said as they shook hands.
#
Marge followed Camp Director Alvarez past rows of tiny cabins. “Hay más que un . . . hundred families this year,” he explained in Spanish as they strolled beneath century oaks. “Grandmothers, and grandfathers too, but older women don’t work the fields, only men and younger folk.”
“When I was still in high school, I saw your Spring trucks passing through town.”
“Two days and nights from Amarillo, we’re all tired after that.”
Beside them, chicas of nine or ten sauntered with buckets. Lining up at water spigots, barefoot in knee-high skirts, they giggled and chattered too quickly for Marge to follow, then ran home to mothers, some shouting “Hola, Jorge” after glancing suspiciously at the oddly dressed stranger.
“We begin work at seven, Señorita McCormack. No one expects to talk with you today, but I can introduce some of the leading families. They’ll want to know pay won’t be docked for spending time with you tomorrow.”
Half an hour later, Marge and Señor Alvarez rode in a tractor convoy to the fields. Cucumbers were first; one hundred acres of ground hugging vines, trained into rows, where already grandfathers hoed weeds that dripped morning dew. Beyond were vast plots of green beans, peas, beets and carrots. A cloudless sky overhead, he told her, “Late mornings will be cooler in the woods.”
“If I find somewhere shady, could families meet me there?”
“Por supuesto. Let’s line up some folks for you to interview tomorrow.”
Within a few minutes, Marge found a quiet glade. Families stood in a circle as she spoke with Señora Aquino, Señora Ramos, and a handful of others. “I’m not here to make trouble.”
#
Later, midmorning heat shimmered over the crops, but the glade was still a hospitable retreat. While relaxing, Marge counted blank survey forms and realized she needed more from Public Health. If immunization was as spotty as she feared, she wondered whether county officials would provide financial support for inoculation.
After swatting a mosquito drilling inside her shirt collar, she noticed it was already a quarter to ten. Director Alvarez left a couple hours ago when workers had moved farther away. She heard water flowing somewhere behind her among rustling aspen. Wandering toward the stream, she searched for a clump of bushes in which to find relief. Unknowing, she stepped upon a recently dead red fox and stirred up a swarm of bot flies. Annoyed by her carelessness, she wiped slime from her boot before heading upwind. She found a boy of six or seven, too old or too impatient for a grandmother’s care, who was herding frogs with a willow tickler. He smiled and waved. Marge decided the office restroom was a better choice.
#
In early afternoon, dust devils swirled across the Campbell cornfields. Sheltered beneath an over-sized, tractor umbrella, Marge focused on the cultivator shovels below. Her left hand rested on the hydraulic control, her right foot poised to brake if stones knocked a spade out of line. Weeding corn was tedious, attention-demanding work that Marge had done since she was thirteen; a task she did now with effortless skill.
She saw a young woman approaching between corn rows in steel-toed boots and a straw hat. Marge slowed the tractor to a stop. At seventeen, Cheryl Campbell was filling out, no longer the skinny freshman who stalked Terry when he and Marge were still in high school.
Cheryl scanned the field, then called out, “Marge, I thought Terry was coming back this afternoon.”
“He’s mending a fence break at the Tompkins’ place. Sent me instead.”
“Oh.”
Marge shut down the tractor and twisted to face Cheryl, who’d lifted an arm against glaring light. “This week Terry’s been teaching me how to cultivate. Last spring, after my high school classes, he and I planted this field. The soybeans, too.”
Marge chuckled. “Really! Been teaching us right out of a job, has he?”
Cheryl stuffed one fist in a jeans pocket and set her jaw. Marge felt a little chagrined. “Sorry, Cheryl. I’m not real proud of what I said just now. How’s your dad doing these days?’
“He isn’t getting any stronger. Mornings, he goes out to the barn, but half an hour later, he’s sittin’ down someplace.”
“It’s been nearly a year since your dad’s accident. Is that right, Cheryl?’
“Corn picker took his arm, but that wasn’t the worst. It damned near crushed his chest.”
“Come on up here. Let’s try it out. You any good at this?”
#
That evening Marge waited, wet-haired in a bathrobe at Terry’s supper table. Sipping beer from a glass, she listened as he climbed the stairs to their apartment. When the door opened, she saw he was covered in dust and fence wire scratches. He hung his baseball cap on the wall. “Hello, Honey.”
“Maybe.”
“You want us to fight about it now, or after I shower?”
“Need time to think what to tell me?”
“Maybe.”
She smiled, just a little. “Go ahead. I’m not dumping you quite yet.”
A bit later, with a bath towel wrapped round his middle, Terry sat at the table. Marge slid across a church key and bottled Lite. “I suppose you wanted me to see how Cheryl’s grown into a woman?”
“Well, she has done that.”
Below the table, Marge curled her toes and kicked his shin.
“Ow! Damn it woman. I ain’t never loved anyone but you.”
She hesitated; knew what he said was true. “Then don’t tease when I’m mad.”
“Are you, Marge? Really mad, I mean? Cause if you are, I won’t work for the Campbells anymore. But Honey, you ought to hear Mr. Campbell; he coughs and wheezes like a man with a three-pack habit.”
“A thoracic specialist should look at him.”
“Honey, how’s he gonna pay for that?”
#
Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning, by 6 A.M. Thursday, Marge found that Public Health medical surveying was definitely falling into a pattern. At dawn, when she arrived to arrange interviews, mothers and fathers completed survey forms, though no one would admit to less than perfect health. Appraising them unobtrusively, Marge often believed what they said.
Nevertheless, inoculation to prevent common diseases was as problematic as she’d supposed. Worse, only a few adults had a single smallpox scar upon an upper arm, and no one seemed to have heard of Sabin polio vaccine. Mumps, measles, chicken pox, whooping cough, youngsters old enough to work the fields had already endured these diseases, but babies and toddlers at the camp required vaccination. Still, who would pay for serum when farm workers earned less than a dollar an hour? The County Board of Health? Marge was skeptical, though surely these were the ailments she was hired to learn about. But above all, a smallpox or polio outbreak would be horrifying, a danger to any unprotected person in the county.
At Friday’s supper table, Marge admitted her father was right – it was all politics. Pokagon County, she’d learned, was willing to survey migrant health, but profoundly reluctant to make any financial contribution for immunization. Maybe in next year’s budget, she was told.
Dad scoffed. “Don’t hold your breath. Them that wanted this survey are looking for reasons to keep wetbacks out, not ways to make ’em healthy.”
Marge was about to explode, but held her peace when she glanced at her younger brothers. Terry scowled at his untouched pork chop; he’d heard his own parents express similar views.
“Darling,” Mom said, “I know you don’t hold with it much anymore, but there’s a Women’s Auxiliary at church Saturday. Maybe we can organize a fundraiser.”
Marge took her mother’s hand. “That’d be wonderful. I’ll see Doctor Hansard about how to start a vaccination program.”
#
Next morning, Marge left Terry asleep at their apartment, then drove into Doc Hansard’s parking lot. In an empty waiting room, she chatted with his receptionist until white-haired Doc emerged carrying a stack of patient records. “Well, if it isn’t Marge McCormack!” He shook her hand, then led her to his office and closed the door. “Is everything okay?”
“Fine, Doc, but did you hear? I got that Board job surveying migrant health.”
“Well, sure. I told them they couldn’t find anyone better . . . not at four fifty an hour.”
She laughed and pulled him close for a hug. “Thanks, Doc.”
“Sure glad to see you. Been thinking about you a lot.” He motioned her out into the office hallway. “Come along, Nurse McCormack.”
She wondered what he was on about. “Doc, I still got a year till graduation.”
“Over in a flash, My Dear. Meantime, we’ve got plans to make.” He drew the examination room curtain aside. “Remember how there’s a door from my office, straight into here?”
“Sure.”
“Well, I’m thinking to have another door cut from here into the supply room.” He led Marge next door.
“To get supplies?”
“No, a door to a new medical office. We’ll knock out that wall,” he said, pointing to storage racks on the parking lot side, “and enlarge this room. Put in windows, air conditioning, examination table and cabinets, anything you want. It’ll be ready for you next Spring.”
Flabbergasted, she could hardly believe her ears.
“Marge, have you thought of a nursing speciality?”
She threw up her hands. “Pediatrics, or maybe Obstetrics. I can’t decide,”
“Either’s fine by me.”
“Goodness, Doc, I never thought . . . Do you really want a nurse? Wouldn’t a doctor be better . . . you know, to take over your practice some day?” Watching for his reaction, she wondered if she’d put her foot in it.
“Still got a few good years left in me, young lady. No, mostly I’m thinking about high school dropouts. Every year, three, four girls get pregnant, cause they don’t know . . . how to be careful. But they won’t talk to an old fogy like me. Now you, that’d be different! School Board tells me they want you to teach a girls’ health unit in junior high – introduce yourself before they really need you.”
Overwhelmed, visions of a life-long career glimmered before her.
“Marge, don’t you know how much this town needs you? Now, why’d you come to see me this morning?”
#
Second Sunday in July, Marge sat beside Terry in Main Street Congregational Church. Around them were Mom, Dad and her little brothers, the Haskin and Campbell families, Doctor Hansard and scores of others. Reverend Vanderleuck stood at the pulpit as ushers readied offertory baskets.
“Before we take up this morning’s collection, there’s something I would ask everyone to consider. We all know the ways of this world, endless war, countless refugees, fear everywhere. Well, there’s something useful, something good you and I can do, right here at home. It’s a task for people seeking to do the Lord’s work in this, our own back yard. I’m going to ask a beloved daughter of this congregation to speak to us. Marge, come on up here.”
Eyes low, she walked the aisle, handwritten notes fluttering as she placed them on the lectern. Momentarily speechless, she looked to faces in the pews, to Doc Hansard watching her with confidence, Terry with such commitment. With a deep breath, she hoped for their forgiveness should she ever disappointment them. With a smile to Dad, she told the story of people who’d traveled to Pokagon County for decades, but were excluded from its community.
More than a few parishioners folded their arms and inspected the sanctuary floor, but others did not and reached for wallets. Two weeks later, with Doc’s help, there was a tiny clinic in a migrant cabin that Terry refurbished. It was there Marge counseled families, offered first aid and inexpensive vaccines to young and old.
#
* * *
#
“Señorita McCormack!”
In late August, a chica stood in the clinic doorway. With the sun high overhead, Marge was already late helping Terry cut silage at the Whitley farm. Impatient, she glanced at her watch. No time for lunch either.
“Señorita McCormack!”
“Si, Juanita?’
“Es mi hermano, Pedro.”
Sighing, Marge walked to the clinic door and watched Juanita Lopez sprint down a camp pathway. Marge glanced toward the administrative office thinking she should phone Terry, but the girl beckoned frantically, then raced into a lane leading home. Marge ran after her and found Juanita midway along a row of shacks. The girl had crouched in dirt beneath her cabin and was calling to her brother. “Pedro, come out. Papa will spank!”
“No! You can’t make me. A wasp, it hurts so much.”
Marge dropped to her knees. Among cobwebs and piles of desiccated leaves was the six-year-old she’d seen playing in the woods.
“Pedro, I’m Señorita McCormack. Do you remember me?”
“Sí.”
“Come to me.”
As Marge carried him inside, Pedro babbled constantly. He wrapped arms round her neck, then suddenly pushed himself away. She caught him in midair; felt heat from a intense fever on his forehead and cheeks. As he fought to escape, his sister was wide-eyed.
“Where are your mother and father?” Marge asked her. “Did they take lunch to the fields?”
“Sí, Señorita.”
“Run. Find them. Tell them to hurry.”
Marge lay Pedro on his cot beside a window. A wasp he said. It must be an allergic reaction.
“Señorita, it hurts. I want Mama.”
“Juanita’s fetching her. Papa too. Where were you stung?”
“Here, here.” He rolled to expose his left side, pulled his T-shirt from his collar bone. “I’m burning.”
“Sit up. Let’s take off your shirt.”
The boy whimpered. His thin shoulder and neck were unmarked, no welt, no abrasion, but he was bathed in perspiration. His body radiated heat. She stretched out her hand, but before her fingertips brushed his skin, he screamed with pain. “Mama!”
“Hush. Hush, muchacho. I won’t hurt you.”
Abuelas, grandmothers with grandbabies in arms, gathered on the Lopez front steps. “Señorita McCormack, qué pasa?”
Pedro lurched to break away, but at the door he was corralled in one grandmother’s arms. As he howled, Marge told his captor, “He says he was stung, but I can’t find a welt.”
“Ice,” Abuela shouted and another grannie scurried for the refrigerator in Administrator Wheeler’s office. Carefully, inch by inch, they examined him, searched everywhere for a mark, a puncture.
Nothing.
If he wasn’t stung, what could it be? Marge realized he shouldn’t be in this much pain, not even from a yellow jacket. And such fever, what could that mean? As he writhed to escape, she tried to swaddle him in a blanket. In only minutes, Administrator Wheeler brought ice, but at the doorway, the sight of Pedro’s struggles stopped Wheeler from closer approach. When Marge slid an ice cube over the boy’s unmarked collar bone, his shrieks were terrifying.
Panic stricken by cries heard from afar, his parents arrived and Abuela explained what had happened. Señora Lopez jostled Marge aside. Gripped by confusion and dread, Marge stumbled towards Wheeler. “I’m calling for an ambulance. This isn’t an insect sting.”
#
The voice on the phone was exasperated. “Young woman, if it isn’t a bee, a wasp, something like that, what ’n hell is it?”
“I don’t know,” Marge told Doctor Thornton, Director of Treatment at Pokagon Community Hospital. “I’m a third year, student nurse.”
“Not much use, are you? Well . . . I’m not bringing a wetback into this hospital to be treated for God-Knows-What.”
“The boy’s in trouble, Doctor Thornton.”
“Yes. Yes, Nurse McCormack. I’m coming myself. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it there.”
“Thank you. Thank you.”
“Just hang on, we’ll hurry. I don’t suppose you have infectious disease gear; masks, gloves, anything like that?”
Realizing she might need a more sympathetic ear, Marge’s next call was to her father, who she woke from his after lunch nap. “Daddy, I need Doc Hansard. Something terrible is happening here. A child is really sick.”
“Get outta there, Girl. Right now!”
“No, Daddy, you got to find Doc. His receptionist stays home Fridays when he’s making house calls.”
“Phone the dang-blasted hospital and get the hell out!’
“I just called Pokagon Community and I’m not leaving. Terry’s at the Whitley place.”
#
Raking her memory for a diagnosis, Marge trudged back to the Lopez cabin. Administrator Wheeler and Camp Director Alvarez waited outside in a shaded lane where grandparents and little ones listened anxiously to desperate screams.
“Nurse McCormack,” Wheeler asked, “what is it? What’s wrong with Pedro?”
“I don’t know. Doctor Thornton is coming here.”
From a growing crowd, Director Alvarez shouted, “Señorita McCormack, should we move everyone farther back?”
“Probably. Yes. Do that.”
Alvarez spread out his arms as he cautioned onlookers.
Marge heard Pedro gagging inside the cabin. Slowly, she climbed the steps, paused, seized what courage she could muster, then plunged inside. Pedro’s father, mother and Abuela surrounded his cot. Abuela said, “He begs for water, but can’t swallow.”
“Por favor,” Marge whispered and took the cup from Señora Lopez. Her hand touched Mama’s shoulder. “Could you raise him a little? That might help.” She edged onto the cot, brought water to his lips, but gagging, he coughed violently and threw out his arms. He thrashed from side to side, twisting away as far as he was able. She bent closer. His throat was distended, swollen from jaw to chest. Using a wet cloth to mop his perspiration-coated body, Marge could swear it must be an allergic reaction, to something, but together with a raging fever, that didn’t make sense either.
Pedro moaned, then asked Mama, “Cinnamon? Where’s Cinnamon?”
“At home in Amarillo, My Darling.”
“No. No. She’s here. I saw her.”
Marge raised an eyebrow to Papa.
“The boy’s cat. A fuzzy tabby with reddish-brown fur.”
“Juanita, bring Cinnamon. Maybe she’s under my bed.”
Papa knelt beside the cot. “My son, Juanita is next door with Señora Ramos.”
“No, she isn’t. She’s there,” he said, pointing to an empty doorway. “Juanita, bring our cat.”
As the sun slid towards afternoon, Marge heard approaching sirens and rushed outside. Dust flying, four police cars skidded along the camp road, followed by an ambulance. Old Doc Hansard was close behind; his sedan roof now sporting a rotating emergency light. Marge watched Doctors Thornton and Hansard lead the charge from the parking lot.
“Nurse McCormack, are you all right?” Thornton frowned at Hansard who’d beaten him to the punch.
“Pedro’s hallucinating. Shouldn’t everyone stay back?” Marge, herself, then ran into the shack.
As the doctors donned breathing masks and plastic gowns, county police strung yellow, caution tape. From behind this perimeter, Director Alvarez called to Pedro’s parents, urging them to wait with Abuela and Juanita in a hurriedly designated quarantine hut. Inside the cabin, Marge held the wriggling boy firmly, and when doctors entered wearing hazard gear, he buried his face against her. Thornton untangled him from Marge, then gave her a mask. Pedro strained to tear at his choking throat and again tried to escape, but Thornton used padded, leather straps to bind his arms and legs to the bedframe.
Bound immobile, the boy was wracked with pain and soon began to convulse. Aching to run for safety, Marge bent low to cuddle him, whispered entreaties for courage. Only once did she hear a coherent reply, “Madre de Dios. Ayuadame!”
Losing all control of arms and legs, he jerked against the restraints in a helpless frenzy. During the futility of his exertions, white froth began to coat his lips. Doctor Hansard then loosened his own breathing mask and glanced at Thornton, who did the same. Hansard grasped Marge’s shoulders and turned her to face him. “It’s rabies.”
Inhaling slowly, again Marge strove to beat down her fear. “All right, Doc. What do we do for rabies?”
“Try to make him comfortable.”
Her face crumpled.
“Nurse McCormack, there is no treatment. He’s past help when these symptoms appear.”
Marge reeled outside to the line guarded by police. Beyond were scores of migrant families, and from that throng, Dad, Mom and Terry ducked below the yellow tape.
Weeping, she plunged into their arms.
#
It was long past midnight. A priest had come and gone. Final prayers for health and salvation were concluded. The little boy, prostrate in his battle for life, was silent. Marge knew the injection Doc prepared was morphine. She took each parent’s hand. “Pedro has slipped into a coma. He will not wake in this world.”
“How long?” Papa asked as his son’s body trembled.
“A few hours, I think,” Doc Hansard said. “A day at most.”
“It is a sin, but let it end now. God calls him.”
After many tears, Mama agreed.
“Give me the syringe,” Marge said.
#
* * *
#
Marge was profoundly troubled following Pedro’s death. Terry worried as she withdrew from life, from himself, and he asked Doctor Hansard to speak with her about what’d happened that night. At the end of August, they sat on Doc’s couch; Marge’s hands folded, eyes downcast.
“Doc, I’m not fit to be a nurse. I nearly left camp to let him die alone.”
“During his convulsions? I saw him. It was shocking.”
“Yes, then for sure. It was all I could do not to run away. But I mean earlier when Juanita first came to me. I was this close,” she said, rubbing first finger and thumb together, “to telling her, Mañana.” She shuddered. “I don’t want to be that kind of nurse. I didn’t think I was.”
Doc propped both elbows on the paper-strewn desk and wrung his hands. “Your first instinct was a mistake. I follow a routine, everyone does, and if the routine says it’s time to go, you go. But somehow you knew to stay, and through his greatest suffering, you held him in your arms.”
“I was useless and so afraid. Wasn’t there something I should have done to help him?”
“Please, Marge, you must understand the disease. Once late symptoms appear, the infection has run its course and medical science cannot prevent death. If initially untreated, rabies lies sleeping in the nervous system, secretly growing, spreading for days, even months, and then bursts loose to kill inexorably, with ferocious torment.”
She looked to Doc, spread her hands and implored, “How can life be like that? He was a child, an innocent little boy! Why did he have to die in such agony?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think there is an answer.”
“You can’t believe that – believe an innocent can be destroyed for no reason at all!”
“Marge, you already know that seems to happen, all too often.”
#
Labor Day’s parade came to an end and the high school marching band exited onto Maple Street. On the bank corner, American Legion Veterans and Boy Scouts saluted Old Glory. Following receding strains of Semper Fidelis, the village’s police car and fire truck crawled past with sirens clacking.
Marge and Terry climbed stairs to their apartment and sat facing one another, cross-legged on the bed. In years past, they would have clung together in devotion, on this, her last night before returning to university. For this night, they expected only tears.
“Marge?” She could barely hear his voice. “Will you come home at Thanksgiving?”
She hesitated “Sweetheart, I always do.”
“Then you’ll come back to me?”
She began to cry. “I love you, Terry. I’ll always love you.”
“We could marry in the Spring. Buy a farm of our own. You can teach and be Doc’s nurse.”
She tried to smile. “It’s all there, right in front of me. Isn’t it?”
“If you want it.”
#
The Chevy’s back seat was packed with nursing textbooks and her suitcase. Terry waved as she drove away from town.
North along the highway, migrant families were at work and she slowed to park on the berm. Leaving the car, she looked towards people scattered over fields of black earth. Doc was right, she thought, any life can be snatched away. We balance on a knife edge of destruction.
Marge leaned against the car and wondered what she should do next Spring.
The author won the Carleton University Creative Writing Contest, Passages, for 2015 and his debut historical novel ‘1812 The Land Between Flowing Waters,’ was published by Fireship Press. Nine of the author’s short stories have been published in various reviews and anthologies.
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“Where are the bears?” David, José’s 5-year-old nephew, cried the moment he arrived with his parents—José’s brother Jorgé, and José’s sister-in-law Mariela. “I want to see the bears, tio,” he said, almost falling out of the taxi that brought him with his parents from the airport to the home of his uncle José and José’s partner Aaron in northern Vermont. “You promised.”
José had told his brother that almost every night a mama bear would visit, accompanied by her two recently born cubs, and when Jorgé planned their visit to Vermont, seeing the three bears was, for David, going to be the highlight.
“You don’t understand kids,” Jorgé told José when they discussed the visit. “Ever since you told David about the bears, he’s had me read the story, The Three Bears, aloud to him every night when I put him to bed, otherwise he won’t sleep. He’s obsessed.”
The first evening, while his parents and uncles ate their dinners, David watch—and rewatched—the Disney cartoon The Three Bears, his eyes glued to the television.
“You say they usually come in the early evening?” Jorgé asked, looking at the time on his iPhone. “By the way Aaron, this is the best roast chicken. Before we leave, will you let me have the recipe?”
“Generally, they show up any time until 9:00, while it’s still light out,” José told his brother. “But there’s no guarantee that they’ll show up at all.”
“I hope they do—for David,” Jorgé said. “I’ve read the story to him so many times that I feel I know it by heart. If they don’t show, he’ll be so disappointed.”
That evening the bears were no-shows. José listened to his brother read the story of The Three Bears—twice—before David calmed down sufficiently for the lights in his room to be switched off.
This pattern was repeated the next three evenings. No bears appeared.
“José, isn’t there something we can do to entice the bears to visit?” his brother asked. “I don’t want David to go home without seeing the bears. Perhaps we could leave them food; that might encourage them,” he added, hopefully.
For the last night of their visit, José promised his nephew they would have a marshmallow roast outside. That afternoon, Jorgé built a fire pit in the driveway near to where José told him the mama bear would bring her two cubs.
“Do bears like marshmallows, tio?” David asked José as they prepared for the roast.
“Bears eat berries and herbs, so I’m sure they like to eat marshmallows,” José told his nephew.
They decided to start the marshmallow roast around 8:00 while there still light, hoping the fire might attract the mama and her cubs. David sat between his father and his uncle, while Mariela brought out the tray with the marshmallows, the Hershey chocolate bars, and the sliced bread.
“This should be a real s’mores roast,” José explained. “Something of middle-America,” he explained to his brother and sister-in-law.
“I want to put the ‘mallows on the sticks,” David said, taking the branches his father had prepared that afternoon. While he began squeezing the marshmallows onto the sticks, his father lit the fire and his mother put pieces of the Hershey bars on slices of bread which she placed near the fire, to melt.
After a few minutes, José excused himself. “I should put the dogs in the house; I’ll be right back,” he told them. José left and called Lily and Mandela to follow him, while Jorgé repeated the story, The Three Bears, to David and Mariela.
Suddenly, above the crackle of the fire in the fire pit, there was a noise coming from the nearby woods.
Growl…growl…GROWL….
“It’s the bears,” David screamed and ran to his mother. “Mama, the mother bear is bringing her cubs,” he told her as he climbed onto his mother’s lap for protection.
Growl…Growl….Growl….
“Jorgé, do something,” his wife screamed. “They’re coming closer.”
Jorgé turned on the flashlight in his iPhone and shined it in the direction of the growling.
GROWL…GROWL…GROWL….
“Take David and go inside,” Jorgé told his wife. She lifted their son in her arms and ran onto the porch and into the house, returning in case her husband needed her.
“Do you see anything?” she asked, but when she saw Jorgé on the ground, his hands on his heart, she rushed to him.
“I think it’s my heart,” he said softly. At that moment, José appeared.
“What happened? Why is Jorgé lying on the ground?” he asked.
“When the bears came, I think he had a heart attack,” Mariela said. “Where’s the nearest hospital? We shouldn’t wait for an ambulance. Can you drive him there, Aaron?”
“José, help me lift Jorgé into the car. Mariela, go back in the house and wait there with David,” Aaron told her. “I’ll call you as soon as I get to the ER.”
When the truck was a distance from the house, Jorgé opened his eyes.
“I think it worked,” he said.
“You looked like you really did have a heart attack,” José told his brother.
“And the growls you made, Aaron, sounded real,” Jorgé laughed.
“They were real,” Aaron told him. “I googled sounds that black bear mothers make when they’re calling their cubs, and played the tape. Do you think David believed he actually saw the mama bear and her cubs?”
“You don’t know kids, as you and José don’t have any, but kids—especially young ones, like David—are very inventive. All you have to do is plant the seed and their creative imagination takes over.” Jorgé sat up in his seat. “David was all set on seeing the mama bear and her cubs, so by creating a scene like we did—and the growling sounded so real that I forgot for a moment that we had planned it all—David believes he actually saw the bears.”
Twenty minutes passed. Aaron turned the truck and headed back to the house.
“I think we should return now,” he said. “Mariela might be worried.”
“Call her and tell her I’m okay, that I didn’t have a heart attack but just a fright that caused my heart to beat faster.”
As they parked the truck, Mariela came running out of the house.
“You’ll never guess what happened,” she said, hugging Jorgé. “I’m so happy it was nothing serious, —but guess what happened after you left?” Without waiting she said, “The mama bear returned with her two cubs.”
“What?” Jorgé shouted.
“After you left and David and I were in the house, we heard a growling. David ran to the window. ‘Mama, come here,’ and I joined him at the window. ‘The bears are here; they came back.’ And sure enough, the mama bear was there with her two cubs, just like you told us they would be, José.”
“I can’t breathe…I need a glass of water” Jorgé whispered, falling to the floor.
“Jorgé, what’s wrong?” his wife asked as she bent over his prone body.
“I think…I think it’s a heart attack,” Jorgé told her.
“That’s not possible, Jorgé. You just came back from the hospital,” Mariela said as she caressed her husband who was gasping for breath and clutching his chest. “José, I think something is wrong; I’ve never seen your brother like this,” Mariela said, stroking her husband’s face.
“Mariela, José will help me put Jorgé back in my truck. José, you stay here with David. Mariela and I will drive Jorgé back to the hospital,” Aaron said.
When they arrived at the hospital, the attendants at the ER put Jorgé on a stretcher and wheeled him into the operating room for the doctor on duty to examine him, while Aaron took Mariela to the waiting room.
“I just don’t understand how Jorgé could have two attacks so quickly,” Mariela said, accepting the coffee Aaron offered her.
“I have to confess, Mariela, that the first wasn’t an attack….”
“What do you mean?” she asked, a worried expression on her face.
“The three of us—José, Jorgé, and me—planned it. Since we couldn’t be sure the mama would show up with her two cubs, Jorgé suggested that I go into the woods and make mama bear sounds, to scare David who would believe that she was really coming out of the woods with her two cubs. By faking a heart attack, Jorgé thought David’s 5-year-old imagination would cause him to really believe that she had come with her cubs,” Aaron explained.
“But she did come, just not when the three of you were there,” Mariela said.
“What I don’t understand is why Jorgé had a heart attack when you told him that the bears had actually been at the home,” Aaron wondered.
“You don’t understand José’s brother, Aaron. He was the one who was all excited about the possibility of seeing the mama bear and her two cubs. David was too, but it was Jorgé who got the boy all worked up, reading him the story at bedtime and watching the Disney cartoon with David. All Jorgé could do for weeks before our visit was talk about seeing the bears. He’s like a kid, really. There are times when Jorgé acts like a 5-year-old. I think when we told him that the mama bear had really come with her cubs, the disappointment of not being there and seeing them was such a shock that it caused him to have a real heart attack.”
Mr. Lande notes: “I was born in Montreal, but have lived most of my life in the south of France and in Vermont, where I now live with my partner on a 500-acre farm, writing and caring for more than 100 animals, many of which are rescues. Previously, I taught at l’Université d’Ottawa where I served as Vice-Dean of my faculty, and I have owned and managed country inns and free-standing restaurants. Recently my stories have been accepted by more than a dozen journals including Bewildering Stories, Archtype and Literally Stories.
“I live in the country where wildlife is a part of life. Every day, I am visited by hundreds of wild ducks and Canadian geese, and bears come by often. “The 3 Bears” is simply a story about everyday life around here.”
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