THE WIND part 7

Copyright (c) 2018 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

     

By R. Peterson

          Melania opened her eyes. The hands on the Haller German alarm clock next to her bed showed four-nineteen AM. She held her breath and listened … a minute later, the noise sounded again … a pounding … like impatient knocking on a door … coming from the attic?

Melania dressed quickly, throwing on a calico robe and slippers. She was careful to close her bedroom door gently so as not to wake Dorothy and Brian sleeping in the next room. She was almost to the top of the stairs when the sound came again … this time a scratching noise accompanied more thumping.

            The large dimly lit attic, filled with decades of boxes, crates and old furniture was in need of a good cleaning. Dust bunnies grew wings and took flight as she crossed the room. A fine layer of dust that her late mother called Sift floated in the air and under the single sputtering incandescent bulb the room appeared as if it was swathed in a London fog.

            She saw the large banded-trunk with the lock on it jerk just as the banging came again. Something was inside wanted out! Someone or something was speaking to her, a harsh, rusty-can voice coming from the bottom of a deep well … that only sounded inside her head.

“… release me and I promise that you will die … in the quick! Leave me here and I won’t forgive! There just under those rotted piles of tenda …”

Melania turned as if invisible fingers were twisting her head. A tiny, gold key gleamed just under the edge of folded and faded curtains. It called to her with an irresistible and animal-like visual temptation. She reached for the precious metal shrouded with maroon velvet … her mind no longer controlling her own hand. Her dead mother Jesska’s shrill voice echoed repeated warnings from somewhere far off in the great beyond. “No! My precious daughter! It is not gold you desire but a snake. You will not be the one to open what must forever remain closed!”

Melania closed her eyes and shook her head violently as if trying to dislodge some vile spider clinging to the walls of her mind. She finally felt it dislodge with a flood of her own tears … tearing folded brain matter and memories. With force of will Melania closed her fingers … before she could lift the key.

“You bitchhhhhhh!” the thing hissed like a snake. “I’ll get out without youuuuuu … and when I dooooo …”

Melania turned and fled down the stairs, slamming and locking the attic door behind her. The Tri-Punto that she Dorothy and Brian had created was already working the dark half of its magic. Her mother, Jesska, had warned her numerous times that even the tiniest bits of enchantment must be undertaken with great caution. “If not me … then who will open it Mother?” she whispered as she reached the bottom of the stairs … there was no answer.

            Melania set a pot to boil for tea on the stove and after piling split kindling onto hot coals in the fire-box crept into the library. Joseph Callahan had an extensive collection of diaries that he kept faithfully for many years. She took down a half-dozen leather-bound volumes and stacked them on a table next to an oil lamp. The banded-chest in the attic looked as if it hadn’t been moved in at least a decade. Somewhere inside Joseph’s writings there should be an account as to what was inside the mysterious locked trunk. The banging/scratching noise in the attic sounded again … this time there was also what sounded like hushed laughter.

            Melania opened a dusty volume labeled 1920 and began to read …

January 1, 1920

Woke this morning with a bit of the old lingering celebration sickness. My poor head! I’m afraid I imbibed of too much of the night’s assorted pleasures. If I only could have had my beloved Melania at my side! What a repulsive fool I was … and probably still am! The coming year, in fact the entire decade ahead, looks to be one of remarkable and continuing prosperity! And not just for Callahan Industries, but for the national economy as a whole. If only …

-------2-------

                Tang Lei struggled because the laughing men expected it. He knew he couldn’t win … but not because he was too old. It was because he had learned early that beating a white man at anything brought bad luck and revenge. His parents were immigrant railroad laborers and he was born in Utah Territory on May 6^th. 1869 four days before the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads joined tracks at Promontory Summit. But Tommy Lee would always be a Chinaman with an English name … never an American. Butch Fowler pinned him to the floor of the upstairs bedroom while Lemont Pool stripped off his clothes then they tossed him onto the bed with the naked woman. “Hang on to him, Gladys!” Hicks yelled as Tommy tried to crawl off the bed and Butch took pictures with a bulky Graflex press camera.

Three flash-bulbs going off in ten seconds temporarily blinded Tommy.

            “Do you know what the sheriff does to Orientals that get caught raping white women?” Hicks asked before he took another drink from his bottle.

            “They don’t bother with no trial …. they hangs ‘em from the closest tree!” Lemont Pool stuck a thick finger in the Chinaman’s face as he answered Hicks’ question.

            “Twenty-three dollar … maybe I sell horse twenty-five,” Tommy was blinking his eyes as Gladys latched onto his ponytail and jerked him back onto the bed. He thought these men were after his money. “Grain price very low … nobody buy!”

“We don’t want your worthless chink money … although this young lady you’re fooling around with might.” Fowler laughed and tried to push them together.

            “We want to ride along with you on your Sunday morning milk deliveries and have you help retrieve something that belongs to us from that big house on the corner of Main and Galbraith Streets,” Hicks said.

            “You got a key to that Descombey woman’s digs don’t ya?” The camera flash went off again and Tommy looked like a child lost in the woods at night. He didn’t understand.

Suddenly Tommy knew what these bad men wanted. Every Sunday morning at seven he opened the back door to the Joseph Callahan mansion with a key and delivered milk and other dairy items to the basement ice room while the owners were at church. Things hadn’t changed since the witch woman had been living there. If anything the deliveries were more frequent. These Gwailou were not planned to rob him … they wanted him to steal from others! “No thief!” he shook his head. “Tommy Lee hang dead from tree … Tommy Lee no thief!” he told them.

            Hicks had half expected this kind of answer. He opened a drawer and pulled out a large knife with a ten-inch blade. The naked Chinaman didn’t flinch but stared at him with calm and determined eyes … death before dishonor. “Roll him on his belly and hold him,” Hicks ordered.

Tommy felt the rough man yank at his braided hair and then gasped as the man cut off his ponytail.

“You’ll get this chink hair-rope back after you do what you’re told,” Hicks said.

Tang Lei knew he must retrieve his sacred queue and somehow re-attach it no matter the consequences. The words of Confucius had been written into Chinese souls for generations. There was a thousand years of respect and obedience bound in that two foot length of braided hair. To lose it was to bring dishonor to all your ancestors. We are given our body, skin and hair from our parents; which we ought not to damage. This idea is the quintessence of filial duty.

            “You say I do!” Tommy hung his head. “You say … Tommy Lee do.”

            “Now that’s more like it!” Hicks opened another bottle of whiskey. “Gladys! Give this yellow chink dog his reward!”

-------3-------

An hour after she started reading Melania found what she was looking for. The hands showing four-nineteen on the clock when she had been awakened by the scratching, thumping sounds kept flashing in her mind like a lighthouse keeper’s beam during a particularly vicious storm. There was danger in the winds tonight and she was being guided to safety.

April 19, 1920

Winter lingers long past the beginning of spring in Cloverdale and most all of Western Montana. The temperature has not risen above freezing for more than seventy-two days. Ice on the roads can be as deadly as a gunshot … more so when a family is involved.

I was determined to stay at home next to a warm fire but was called away just before dark by problems at the factory that could not easily be put aside. A sedan going too fast crashed through the guard rail of the Townsend Street Bridge and sunk beneath the broken ice just before I stopped. Emma Brady and her three youngsters were trapped inside. Johnny Lang, the illegitimate son of legendary sheriff Thomas Lang and Elisabeth Walker, and a young man whom I liked very much, was the first to arrive on the horrible scene. Johnny dove repeatedly into the freezing water and pulled out the mother and all three children. The crowd gathered on the bridge all yelled for him to stop when he pulled out the last crash victim but Johnny took a deep breath and dove under the water one last time. He never resurfaced!

It was more than two hours later when a wrecking truck with a winch was able to pull the sedan out of the frozen river. Johnny Lang’s body was found wedged against the rear window frame next to some kind of stringed puppet. Obviously, Johnny had mistaken it in the underwater darkness for another trapped child.

The shock of losing a dear friend was enlarged beyond measure by the bizarre and ethereal circumstances surrounding the horrible accident. Emma Brady and all of her children swore they had never seen what I later learned was a very, very old marionette before. The wooden effigy lay in the snow. Its painted eyes seemed to move each time you looked away. Several times I thought I saw a flash of teeth although the head appeared to be solid wood … so that must have been impossible?

I felt great relief when Ted Burrap, who owns the local second-hand store, picked the wooden stage-monster out of the snow and drove away with the abomination in the back of his truck.

Some days are longer than others. Some nights go on forever. I’m hoping this night will not be that kind.

Melania read more than sixty pages of journal entries before the strange marionette was mentioned again.

July 18, 1920

The puppet from hell still hangs in the dusty front window of Ted’s Disount even though Ted Burrap had been dead for more than two weeks. So many deaths and tragedies in this town as of late … it’s unnatural! The wooden creature vexes me so that I’ve taken to driving a different route when I have to be about on business or errands. One late night I swore I saw the creature walking about inside the darkened store with some unseen power moving its ghastly strings. Something has been not right in this town ever since that frozen sedan with its commendable but dead hero inside was pulled from the Cottonmouth River. I’ve made up my mind to consult with the gypsy woman Jesska Descombey. Her son is the local doctor and she is reputed to be a vast storehouse of things spiritual and sub-natural. I’ve never met her lovely ravishing daughter Melanie? I believe. But at even a quick glance the daughter’s striking beauty steals away your breath and makes you want to jump about and perform dangerous Barnum Brothers Circus stunts like some love-crushed ninth-grade school lad. God help me! The villain, Cupid, hasn’t just stung me with a single arrow but has turned me into a virtual pin cushion of lust and desire.

Joseph Callahan appeared to be almost on the verge of a nervous breakdown by the time Melania read this entry about the puppet.

October 30, 1920

Having bought the Ted’s Discount store from Ted Burrap’s widow along with all its contents. I have secured the marionette which Madame Jesska Descombey calls “Demilune” inside a special black-oak seaman’s chest bound with stout iron bands and a special vocal prayer? Enchantment? read aloud in Latin by a former? Fallen? Catholic priest over the lock mechanism … per the old woman’s exacting instructions.

It appears to be working. I wear the silver key on a chain around my neck and hardly ever venture into the dusty attic where it … rests? is stored.  I do hope by year’s end to actually sleep through the night. When I close my eyes, I dream of the gypsy woman’s beautiful daughter. I had it wrong. Her name is “Melania”. What a lovely sound!

Melania closed the journal and went into the kitchen for another cup of tea … a little more cream this time. The wind outside had ceased and the house seemed strangely quiet. It was a little after five AM. Church services began at seven AM sharp. It had taken great patience to convince the Momett to accompany her to Sunday services. Even with their strange attire Melania wanted Dorothy and Brian to be accepted by the community. So far it seemed to be working.

What was in the chest in the attic was a problem and definitely a danger. Joseph Callahan had an extensive collection of books on the occult and there were her own mother’s volumes that she had saved from the fire. I’ll find out everything I can about this Demilune Melania told herself as she climbed the stairs until then I think I can possibly steal an hours-worth of sleep before I must rise.

-------4-------

Four minutes and nineteen seconds after Melania Descombey slipped into the first stages of sleep, a tiny breath rustled a handful of leaves in a single tree outside. It was minutes before the wind came again … this time stronger. Almost every leaf on the tree moved … vibrating to a magnetic calling of unknown origin. Something dark and sinister was coming …. before the dawn. A shadow seen only under moonlight - dissolved and diffused by starlight - lingered just beyond the streetlamp’s ruddy glow. An age old reflection of evil that never dies because it has long been dead danced across the withered lawn. The wind gasped as if it had been holding its breath … and trees began to tremble.

And somewhere miles away a milk truck started and began its rounds.

TO BE CONTINUED …