GRAVE ROBBERS part 3

Copyright (c) 2020 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.

GRAVE ROBBERS

Part 3

                                                 By R. Peterson         

            The front of the Ford lifted high into the air. Ardel and Rodney screamed. Steam gushed from a broken radiator hose, almost as though the car screamed too. A mouth opened in the gnarled trunk just below a single monstrous eye and the creature roared, “You hurt my Momma!”

Ardel attempted to remove the “ring” from his finger but the strange organic object seemed to have become part of his skin. “I’m sorry,” he blubbered. “We were looking for treasure not to hurt anyone.”

The leaf-covered monster blinked twice and then allowed the car to fall back onto the road. It was as if Ardel had been understood. The car bounced, stalled and the trunk flew open. Bolts broke and the front bumper sagged on one side. Wolves gathered around the walking tree. Eyes, glowing with malicious intent, warned the boys not to run.

            “Don’t stop,” Rodney urged his friend. “I’m not as good at begging as you are.”

            “I only took this,” Ardel pleaded with his hand. “I don’t want it now.”

The wolves all howled at once … and then were strangely quiet. The silence was eerie. A sound like flowing and dripping water came from the bushes. Adel thought maybe a creek had overflowed. Rodney could hear his own heart beating … as well as his friend’s.

The wolves all turned as the pale root that had lain next to Amanda Hick’s corpse emerged from the trees. The thing was larger, had sprouted legs and was now staggering toward them.

            “You have given Booma new life!” The monster gestured toward the root walking toward them. The words invaded their thoughts. Rodney covered his ears but could not block out the sound. “You are hereafter charged with keeping the baby safe.”

Ardel and Rodney both felt the car sag, even with the extra heavy duty truck shock absorbers as the thing crawled into the trunk.

Wolves and the monster moved to one side as Rodney frantically tried to move the car. The starter dragged, backfired and the engine started. Back tires kicked up a cloud of gravel and dust as they spun furiously to escape the huge crack in the road. Perhaps the added weight in the trunk allowed for more traction. Finally the tires found purchase and the car lunged forward. Just then a battered pickup truck passed them with horn honking furiously. A bearded man shook his fist out an open window. Within a minute the two boys were careening around blind curves at more than sixty miles per hour. “Thank God!” Ardel allowed himself to breathe as he settled back in his seat and flipped on the radio. Guy Mitchell was crooning the second verse of Heartaches By The Number . “For a moment there … I thought we were in trouble!”

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

            A half hour later they were parked in Rodney’s parent’s yard trying to figure out what to do with the walking root crammed into the truck when a Comanche County police car pulled in behind them. Deputy Sheriff Wylie Young ordered them to step out of the car with one hand on his holstered revolver. Another police car arrived seconds later. “What seems to be the problem officer?” Ardel figured he knew the answer but he had to ask anyway.

            “Fred Hicks is the owner of one hundred sixty acres of timberland bordering Motha Forest,” the deputy said. “He says you tore the hell out of a bunch of his trees, dug up a road and disturbed an ancestor’s grave.”

            “It was all a mistake,” Rodney stammered.

            “What was … the grave or the road?” the deputy asked as he produced two pair of handcuffs.

            “Everything,” Ardel moaned as they were loaded into the back of the police car. “Everything was a mistake.”

The trunk was open when the officers searched the car and they found nothing.

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

            The arraignment was delayed for a week because the judge was out of town. Ardel and Rodney were surprised when they found out they’d both made bail. Sean O’Brian far and away the richest man in Cloverdale waited for them just outside of the police station. They were transported home in a chauffeur driven limousine. “I’m sorry it took so long to get you out but I was in Chicago on business,” Sean told them.

            “Why help us?” Ardel was astonished at the sudden change of events.

            “I’ve had people searching for Amanda Hick’s grave for years,” Sean told them. “Thank God you two stumbled across it.”

            “The police laughed when we told them about the monster tree and the wolves,” Rodney said. “Don’t tell us you believe!”

            “I was just a boy when the woodcutters brought the Wandelen Boom baby out of the forest,” Sean said. “But the county was never the same after.”

            “How can we ever repay you?” Ardel asked as they stopped at Rodney’s parent’s farm.

            “Fate goes where it will and cannot be led,” O’Brian told them. “Watch over that which was hidden in your trunk and keep it safe. I’ve already made arraignments to buy the woods from Hicks so I’m sure the charges against you will be dropped. As for the delinquent taxes on your parents’ farm …. I’m sure they will be paid also.”

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

            After two days of searching, the boys found the strange root. It was concealed in a patch of weeds behind a woodshed. “Looks like our baby tree picked a good place to plant itself,” Ardel said. “The soil here is rich and rain coming off the shed roof should keep it well watered.” Rodney nodded grimly. On their return to town, he  stopped at Spare-A-Dime and called Sean from the café’s public telephone. “All good, Mr. O’Brian. We’ve found it. And it’s already thriving.”

-------5-------

            The strange tree grew faster than anyone expected. Six months later it was so large the woodshed had to be moved to a new location. Two years later, in late fall, the tree could no longer be concealed from traffic driving by on the road. “One day an old man being driven in a Lincoln Continental stopped at the farm. His face radiated astonishment as he walked toward the shady tree. “I’ve searched the world for rare tree species,” he said. “I never thought I’d see another VanGagen,” he blubbered. I’ll give you one-hundred dollars for it!”

            Rodney laughed. He and Ardel were working on Rodney’s car. “The tree is much too large to be moved,” he said. “Besides I’ve grown kind of attached to it.”

            “I’m not talking about the whole tree,” the man said picking something off the ground. “I’ll give you a hundred dollars for this leaf. I only wish you had more.”

An astonished Rodney put the money and a business card in his pocket and watched as the man drove away. Ardel walked over and Rodney opened the door to the woodshed. Ardel whistled. At least a dozen plastic bags bulged from under the shingled roof. “I spent all day yesterday raking under the tree,” Rodney said. “I was going to burn the leaves …. but now I think I’ll hold off.”

And both boys laughed.

THE END ???

GRAVE ROBBERS part 2

Copyright (c) 2020 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.

GRAVE ROBBERS

Part 2

        By R. Peterson         

It was almost dark when the Ford Customline came to a stop in the woods next to the old Hicks farm. An October moon was rising in the eastern sky, turned blood red by the reflection of the setting sun’s rays.  “You sure you want to go through with this?” Ardel shivered as he zipped up his coat. Rodney guessed his best friend was starting to have doubts.

            “Remember robbing an old grave was your idea,” Rodney smiled as he took two shovels and gloves out of the car’s trunk.

            An owl high on a branch demanded to know their names as they plodded around tangled mulberry brush and weathered cottonwoods. Darkness came quickly under a canopy of soon-to-fall leaves. Rodney followed behind Ardel. He moved close behind his friend and leaned forward to speak. “How far is this Amanda Hick’s grave?”

Ardel made a show of whispering back in great exaggeration to mock his friend. “Not far. Whatever you do don’t let that barn owl know where were going. He is surely the Devil’s pet and will fly off with your ear while you’re busy digging.”

They both stopped at the same time. Twigs snapped. Something large was moving through the brush off to their left.

Rodney turned to look back and then ducked as the owl swooped low … just over their heads.

“Dang! I thought you were joking!”

“I was!” Ardel crouched and raised his shovel over his head like a weapon. A great shadow created by the moon flapped once and was gone. The trees had thinned and they were in a small clearing. The thick clump of brush in the center looked like it had been planted sometime in the dim past.

“Isn’t there supposed to be a fence around all graves?”

“There was … forty-seven years ago.” Ardel skirted a large clump of poison ivy and used the shovel to pry-up a length of decorative but now rusty cast iron from the heavy loom.

The tarnished head of a gargoyle, looking something like rotting skin under the  moonlight but was probably once just part of a gate-handle smiled up at the two from the disturbed soil.

Suddenly a sound like a woman’s scream split the night and sent cold chills cascading down their spines. “What the hell was that?”

            “A fox?” Ardel’s eyes looked almost as big as the moon. “I hope.”

Rodney put on gloves and tossed a pair to his pal. “Do you think the fence was to protect people from the grave … or the poison ivy?”

            “I don’t know … but I think we’re going to find out!”

They began to dig.

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

                The full moon hung like a photographer’s light in the eastern sky as the boys dug into the humus rich soil. Shapeless forms surrounded the violated grave and watched from the darkness like a leaf-wearing audience at a horror movie. The moss-covered headstone bearing the name Amanda Lee Hicks lay on a pile of uprooted poison ivy. In the far-distance, a lone wolf howled - completing the scene.

            Rodney’s shovel hit something but it was not the dull thunk of metal into old wood they had expected. At first they thought it might be just another field-rock but after two more hour of digging they exposed a huge concrete vault, reinforced with thick bands of stained iron and an oxidized lock the size of dinner plate. “If I took the wheels off I could almost bury my father’s tractor inside,” A sweaty Ardel whispered as Rodney used a shovel to pry-off eight rusted hinges. In the distance the wolf wailed again … he sounded much closer.

Rodney’s face was devoid of all color as the top sprang loose. “Either they didn’t want any looters getting into this underground crypt …or they didn’t want something getting out!”

It took both boys to slide the huge cover to one side and then topple it from the edge to the ground. A cloud of rancid breath like from a broken and exposed sewer-pipe rose into the night air. The vault was deep and dark; Rodney was glad that he remembered his flashlight.

            Mummified skin and tendons in the shape of a skeleton lay curled next to what looked like an enormous tree root? “So that’s why this vault is so big,” Ardel gasped. “They buried half the forest with her!”

Twigs snapped a few feet away in the darkened trees. Both boys looked in all directions.

            “Quick,” Rodney whispered. “Look for jewelry … anything that might be valuable.”

A bit of tarnished gold glimmered from the bony remains of one finger. Ardel closed his eyes muttered a short prayer pleading to God for forgiveness then leaned into the vault to slip the ring off. The brittle skin around the finger turned to dust as he grasped it. The huge root shape lying next to the skeleton felt strangely soft to his touch … as if it were alive. He jerked his hand back as if it had been shocked. The root appeared to be growing.

A low, rumbling, almost earthquake-like growling came from the trees surrounding the clearing and shook the ground. More than a dozen pairs of malicious eyes targeted Rodney as Ardel tumbled with a shriek into the open grave.

Rodney held his shovel over his head like a sword and screamed “Let’s get the hell out of here!” as a vicious pack of wolves appeared from the trees …  and surrounded them.

Ardel seemed to have springs on his boots. He leaped from the grave like a high jumper; one leg catching the edge of the pit while the other hurtled forward on a dead run. A tendril like root whipped from the grave and failed to snag his boot.

Rodney knocked one of the wolves off its feet with a vicious swing. Ardel paused long enough to pick up his own shovel. They were more than fifty yards down the trail before they realized they were not being pursued.

            “Let’s not do that again,” Rodney gasped. Both boys were out of breath when they reached the car; they clambered inside and locked the doors.

Ardel used the Ford’s glove box light to examine his prize. “I thought this felt kind of light for gold,” he muttered.

Rodney leaned to the side to look what Ardel had in his hand. The ring looked to be made of woven fibers instead of precious metal. Ardel thought the ring’s shape resembled the braids that some Scandinavian women wore in their hair. By twisting the ring slightly Ardel could see the glimmer of tiny mineral fragments probably gold flecks reflecting the light. “This is made of wood from Motha Forest,” Ardel said.

            “How do you know that?” Rodney was staring out both windows as he started the car expecting the wolves to appear.

            “My uncle Rance used to be a woodcutter,” Ardel said. “He told me it was impossible to cut trees in Motha because everything growing there absorbed metal, mostly iron, through its root systems. Their chainsaws used to put on a fireworks show whenever they tried to cut the wood and they were constantly changing the blades.”

            “So where did this come from?”

            Ardel was holding the ring close to his eyes. “It looks like the seventh, eighth and ninth growth rings from some kind of oak slab with the center punched out …”

Rodney put the Customline in gear and they were just starting to leave when all the trees on the right side of the road began to shake violently. Two cottonwoods, with more than twelve inch diameter trunks, were pulled from the ground sending tree limbs branches and roots flying high into the sky. Part of the gravel road was torn apart by the uprooting and the back wheels of the Ford spun frantically in a jagged trench. Ardel was beating his fist on the dashboard and tugging on his fingers.

            “What did you do?” Rodney screamed.

            “It looked like a ring … I only wanted to see if it would fit,” Ardel stammered.

Something larger than the trees moved from the shadows onto the road. “Take it off,” Rodney begged.

            “I can’t,” Ardel, said. “It’s like it’s become part of my finger.”

There now appeared to be two tree trunks blocking the car’s path. Finally Rodney remembered to flick on his headlights. Both boys screamed.

Two growing legs spread across most of the gravel road. More than twelve feet above the ground thick limbs stretched outward like hideous arms. Just below the leafless branches a single eye and a mouth opened from the tree trunk. “Mama” the thing bellowed. “You hurt my Mama!”

TO BE CONTINUED …

GRAVE ROBBERS

Copyright (c) 2019 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.

GRAVE ROBBERS

By R. Peterson

Ardel Higley could see Rodney under the jacked-up back-end of the ’53 Ford Customline when Clarence Porter stopped at the Frost farm. “You know what F O R D stands for?” Clarence spit tobacco juice out his side window as Ardel got out the passenger side. “Found on road dead!” He laughed before he ground his flat-bed Dodge into gear and disappeared in a cloud of dust. “Thanks for the ride,” Ardel called after his neighbor.

“Hand me that knuckle-buster will you?” Rodney pointed to a tool-box resting under a large oak tree.

“You want both knuckles broke … or just chewed up?” Ardel attached a three-quarter socket to a ratchet and handed it over after seeing what his friend was working on.

“My hands are pretty banged-up already,” Rodney said. “A little more blood ain’t gonna hurt.”

“You got this thing raised high enough?” Two Handyman jacks rested on cinderblocks and were extended all the way out.

“It was the only way I could get these shocks on.” Rodney grunted as he tightened the last nut then slid out.

“I though you was broke?”

“These came off that ten-wheeler that plunged into Magician’s Canyon,” Rodney said. “I helped the tow-truck driver and he told me to take what I wanted.”

Ardel laughed when Rodney let down the jacks and the rear of the car stayed high in the air. “Got a heavy date?”

            “Gravel roads are hard on shocks,” Rodney smiled as he polished his car. “Besides It kind of looks like a cougar ready to pounce!”

            “These all you stole off that wreck?”

            “Nope,” Rodney blasted an extra loud air-horn that made leaves fall from the oak tree. “Let’s go for a ride.”

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

Rodney turned on the radio just as they roared passed the leaning mailbox. “I’m going to miss this place,” he said as the Everly Brothers began to sing ('Till) I Kissed You.

            “Your Pa couldn’t come up with the 1956 taxes?”

            “Nope,” Rodney said. “That makes us three years behind and Pa got a foreclosure notice two days ago. We all knew it was coming but still Ma broke down and cried.”

            “How much do the buzzards want?”

            “They’re saying now all three years has to be paid … if we could only come up with one year two-hundred and eighty five dollars plus another forty-five interest we could probably hold them off for a spell.”

Ardel shook his head. “That’s over three hundred dollars … I don’t know anybody with that kind of money.”

            “You don’t happen to know where a gold mine is …. Do you?” Rodney turned up the music as if it could blast away his worry.

Ardel shook his head. “I sure wish I did.”

The Everly Brother’s song stopped playing and after a commercial where Mona Freeman tried to sell 4 way cold tablets the Coasters began to sing Poison Ivy.

            “That’s it!” Ardel suddenly sat up in his seat.

            “You know where there’s a gold mine?”

            “No, a clump of poison ivy almost as big as this car.”

Rodney laughed. “If I was going to do myself in, I’d choose something faster than itching to death.”

             “That’s not what I’m talking about,” Ardel said. “Two weeks ago I was hunting in the woods near the edge of Motha Forest when I tripped on a root and fell into the poison ivy. I was all tangled up and trying to get out when I noticed an old gravestone. The name on it was Amanda Lee Hicks … and it said  she was buried in 1912.”

            “What would a grave be doing way out there in the woods?”

            “Everyone knows the Hicks’ got land a plenty but they ain’t got enough money to afford indoor plumbing,” Ardel said. “But that wasn’t always so. At the turn of the century, Laurence Hicks was one of the most prosperous people in Cloverdale. They ran a sawmill and were partners with a family of German woodcutters named the VanGagens. The Hicks mansion burnt down in 1920. You can see the remains of an old chimney from the road. That grave I found must be from their old family plot.”

            “I still don’t understand how that helps me,” Rodney said.

            “People in them days used to bury their loved ones with pearl necklaces, gold and diamond rings and all sorts of expensive things,” Ardel said. “There might be a treasure under that poison ivy clump just waiting to be dug up.”

            “Let me get this right,” Rodney turned down the radio. “You want us to become grave robbers?”

            “It was just an idea,” Ardel told him. “It’s not like we are digging up half of Black Rose Cemetery. It’s been forty years! Most folks have probably forgot that grave is even there. There’s probably nothing in the coffin but bones … anyway.”

            “A person would have to be powerful desperate to do something like that,” Rodney turned up the radio. An instrumental by Duane Eddy was just beginning to play. “My folks, me and my little sister are looking at a lot more than forty miles of bad road if we get forced off the farm,” Rodney said.

By the time the song was finishing, Rodney was turning around in the old Walker barnyard.

            “Where are you going?” Ardel asked.

            “Pa keeps a couple of shovels in the well-house for irrigating,” Rodney said as he glared at his friend. “We’ll have to hurry it will be getting dark soon. I can’t believe you talked me into this!”

TO BE CONTINUED …