CARVED IN STONE part 4

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.

CARVED IN STONE

Part 4

By R. Peterson

 

            “Check your eating utensils at home … see if any forks are missing!”

Sheriff John Walker blinked his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

Melania Descombey smiled as she walked from the window. “You asked me how I knew a witch had come of age in Motha Forest.”

            “What does that have to do with my dinnerware?” The sheriff was surprised to see the old woman up and walking. Only moments … before Cloverdale’s resident witch had seemed ready to take her last gasp.

            “Witches send blackbirds to steal forks,” Melania told him. “They use them to cast spells.” She could read the disbelief on John’s face. “Look in that drawer next to your sink. If you can’t seem to find a fork, even an unwashed one, you might want to sprinkle a little garlic around your bed.”

“I seem to remember trying to eat a steak with a spoon the other night in Spare-a-dime,” the sheriff said. “I thought it was just a lazy dishwasher.”

            “You want to know about the Momett,’ Melania said. “There are many strange aspects to their story. I could tell you but it will be far better to show you.” The old woman lifted a tiny bell from a night-table and rang it once. The sheriff thought the sound was hardly enough to wake a gnat but Allison Weatherbee appeared at the bedroom door. “Bring a jar of the special tea labeled Tornare indietro l'orologio from the cellar and brew enough for three in the cast iron kettle.”

            “Good,” Allison smiled. “I was hoping for some travel.”

Melania told the sheriff stories about her early days while Allison was gone. When the girl returned and filled three cups Melania smiled.

 

 

            “Can you hear that noise outside?”

The sheriff took another drink of his tea. It was much better than he expected. “Sounds like a terrible wind coming up!”

            “That’s the moon moving from west to East,’ Melania said. “I’m taking you back to 1941where this all began … well most of it.”

And the sheriff, Melania and Allison walked into a dream …

 

Scarecrows part 1

By R. Peterson

 

            Margie Cleverly put the kettle on the stove for her Aunt’s tea, and then she walked out on the porch with her sewing basket. There was a breeze blowing from the southeast. A quartet of tree branches playing down by the stagnant slough, sounded like rusty door hinges. It was an unusually cold end of October and she’d been in the kitchen all evening making supper for her two younger cousins. She covered herself with a blanket. Her Aunt had been sick for almost two weeks now, two months if you counted from the time she got the letter.  Frank her aunt’s oldest son had been killed in France fighting the Germans.

Margie stood up suddenly from the old porch swing. She thought she’d seen a man striding through the cornfield. There were hardly any men in Comanche County, with the war going on. The ones that were left were either too young or too old to be noticed by a sixteen year old girl. An occasional vagabond passed by but they were mostly harmless. Clouds covered the moon and it made it hard for her to see into the corn patch. Margie stared intently into the dark; she could see someone standing there.  His silhouette stood out against the blue black sky.

A loud thump shook the ground. The moon gently crept out from behind the clouds and illuminated a scarecrow, erected on land that belonged to Mr. Hicks the next door neighbor. The figure was nailed to a leaning fence post, in a field of cut cornstalks. 

She now knew what it was, but her mind made it into something more.

Silver button eyes stared at her from under a fractured leather hat and from the outside of a rotted grain sack.  A torn red handkerchief sewn-on for a scowling mouth dared her to turn her back, with a voice like wind in a cemetery. The rotted fence post shook as the demon with shabby gloved hands struggled to get free.

 It was just a scarecrow, similar to the one she was sewing blue button eyes on now, but something about the thing standing in the corn stubble made ice run through her veins. She bounded as the tea-kettle began to whistle from inside the kitchen. Margie dropped her scarecrow, gathered up the buttons, thread and needles and ran, slamming the porch door, as she fled into the small unpainted house.

Just after midnight the old door creaking sound of the branches stopped and everything was deathly silent, even the cold wind abated. The silver button eyes on the hanging scarecrow began to bulge outward. First one then the other button broke loose from the grain sack and fell to the ground. Murky eyes appeared in the holes left by the missing buttons; they looked in both directions then focused on the house. The red cloth sewn on for a mouth began to twist and tear   forming words. They sounds came out softly but in the extreme silence they could be heard. “I’m going to eat you,” the thing said.

 

 

Margie woke to pounding on the front door. She tied a bathrobe around her and climbed the ladder down from the loft bedroom she shared with Charles and Samuel. The clock above the kitchen stove said 8:00 a.m. Emma Hicks had told her she would be there early, to help with the chores, take Charlie and Sam to school and give Margie a break. Emma used to be her aunt’s next door neighbor before she divorced her husband and moved into town. She was her aunt Momett’s best friend and had been coming regularly since her illness.

“How’s my girl today?” Emma asked when Margie opened the door. She swept in without being invited she was like family.

“I just woke up.” Margie said sleepily. “But I think she slept all night.”

Emma tittered. “I was talking about you,” she said.

She sat an armload of food on the kitchen table then walked back and peered outside before she closed the front door.

            “Lemont was in the corn stubble pulling up a Tatty Bogal when I drove up,” Emma said. “He turned and walked away dragging the post; he wouldn’t even look at me. I guess he’s still mad because he don’t get to whomp on me anymore.”

            “What’s a Tatty Bogal?” Margie asked.

            “A scarecrow, it must have posted itself near your house. You need to be careful now, once they post you know they want something.”

Margie looked at Emma and smiled, she figured her aunt’s friend was pulling her leg. With the Dance of the Scarecrows Festival in two weeks, that’s all the people in the county talked about.

            “Oh Emma, I wish you still lived close. I know why you left and all, but I do miss you and Mommet does too. She’s just all tore up since Uncle Harold died and then Frank.”

            “Well I’ve got something to make her feel better.” Emma said as she pulled a cloth cover off a big pot of soup.

            “It smells delicious.” Margie could sniff the aroma of the herb seasonings Emma used in her cooking.

Emma cackled as she un-wrapped two loaves of still warm bread.

 “It better be, I chased that rooster from mother’s coop to the other side of Cloverdale.” She strolled to the closed door on the side of the hall leading to the bathroom.  “I better see if I can get your Mommet to eat something,” she said.

 

 

 

Lemont Hicks dragged the scarecrow back to his farm buildings. He leaned the splintered post with the effigy hanging from it, against a milking stall, while he opened a trap door in the floor of the barn. He never took his eyes off the thing as he worked and he kept a butane torch and a lighter near him, just in case. The entity didn’t move, not so much as a twitch, but it was daylight and the moon was sleeping.

“You’re like a dog that won’t stay home,” he muttered as he lugged it to the open pit. One arm caught as he tried to shove the thing down the hole and chills ran down his spine for a moment as he grasped the scarecrow’s hand and tucked it next to the body. He hated to touch it, but he knew it was better than having the thing touch him. He watched it slide slowly down the rickety old stairs like a dead body.

“You don’t go posting till I say.” Lemont sneered as he thought about his estranged wife and that whore friend of hers, the one who that had talked her into running off. “You just wait till I say.”

He closed the thick square of oak timbers, and then put a lock on the recessed clasp. He kicked dirt and straw over the door to hide it, then rocked and tugged an anvil till it rested on the lid. He stared at his work then added five 100 lb. sacks of grain for good measure.

            He left the barn and staggered toward his chicken coop. The door hung from one hinge.  The ground inside and out was carpeted with feathers and blood.

            “Lavar!” Lemont shouted. “Damn you! You left the door open. It was out last night! All our chickens have been murdered, I followed China Man’s tracks but who knows where he’s been. Damn you boy! Get out here.”

A nine year old toe head dressed in torn bib overalls and wearing no shoes, stuck his head around the corner of the pump-house. He was blinking and quivering with a face the color of mud.

            “It wasn’t me pa, someone was here last night, laughing talking like the Tatty Bogal. I think it was them let the Moggy go.” He began to toddle toward his stepfather dragging his feet. “Please don’t whip me pa.” He began to cry.

            “Come here boy.” Lamont ordered as he slid his belt from his pant loops. “We got us some sins to skin.”

 

 

            Emma lifted Margie’s scarecrow form from the corner of the porch and looked at it. Clean cotton bags had been carefully sewn together and stuffed with finely ground straw almost like sawdust to make the arms, legs and torso. The head lay nearby, not attached yet. Margie had been sewing on buttons for eyes and colored cloth for mouth, nose and ears. Emma giggled. “Blue eyes! You’re Straw Dandy is so handsome! I wish he was courting me.”

            “You still have time to make your own dance partner.” Margie said. She lifted the head and picked at some loose stitching. “After all, me being in this scarecrow dance was your idea.”

            “I have my own parts in the festival.” Emma said. “Just remember to finish the body today then bring it tomorrow night, this is making day. Don’t put any clothing on your Straw Dandy yet, that’s dress day on the third.” Emma had gone through the festival itinerary with Margie before but she counted on her fingers as if it were very important.  “The festival runs on odd days. One is making day, three is dress, five is courting, seven is love, nine is loss, eleven is joining and thirteen is the fire. Tomorrow is an even day we’ll just practice the dance steps.” She held the legs of Margie’s scarecrow up and looked at the feet. “Make sure these straps are tight. We don’t want you tripping and having your courting man fall on you.” She laughed. “What would Mommet think?”

 

 

            Lemont took highway 13 into Cloverdale. He made a left turn on Wallace then another on East Garlow, pulling into the parking lot behind the Spare-a-dime café. He could have driven down Main Street, it would have been closer, but then the gang inside would have laughed at the blue smoke his old ford was puffing. Lemont hated laughter when it was directed at him, and loved it when it was laid on someone else. His wrist still hurt from the beating he had given Lavar. “He shouldn’t have tried to run,” he muttered as he walked in the back door of the diner.

 

 

            Margie lifted the scarecrow head and studied it from the kitchen table, the blue buttons for eyes were a good touch but she didn’t like the mouth. The bristly black stitching made the thing look evil like Mr. Hick’s scarecrow, the one that had scared her. She was glad he had taken it down. It must have been in the corn patch all along and I didn’t notice it till the corn was cut, she rationalized. She looked again at the instructions Emma had given her, follow them exactly she had written, below the description of the gloomy thread cross-stiches for the smile. Margie began to carefully pick the black thread from the mouth. I have a better idea she thought to herself and after all it is my boyfriend. She grinned as she thought about how she was going to dress him.

 

 

            Lavar sat in a booth next to a large glass window that looked out on Townsend Avenue. There were as many horses pulling wagons as cars on the hard-working street.  Ed Fowler, Tom Walker and Larry Putnam were there drinking coffee and eating pie along with a man he didn’t know. Mrs. Yokohama was there with a clean cup and a hot pot of coffee as soon as he sat down.

            “Good morning day to you Mr. Hicks,” she sang as she filled his cup with coffee. Lemont ignored her.

“You want lots of apple pie today, very good - ask them.” She pointed to the other men at the table, their plates were almost empty. Tom Walker stuffed a piece of crust in his mouth as she refilled his cup.

            “Of course I want pie, why the hell you think I come in this dump for?” Lemont bellowed. His friends laughed.

            “Coming right up! You like apple pie very much I bet!” Mrs. Yokohama scurried away.

            “Dirty little slant eyed chink.” Larry Putman watched her carry a load of dirty plates into the kitchen.

“You think she’s got a two way radio back there?” He asked the others as he spooned sugar into his coffee.

            “Of course she does,” Tom Walker said. “Look what they did to us at Pearl Harbor, sneaking is their way, and I sold Iron to them murdering Jap devils for ten years.”

            “We ought to go back there smash it and make Jap Mary Yokohama eat it.” Ed Fowler said, “After I show her what we do to Japanese women,” the others laughed. He stood up and rocked his hips back and forth, but sat back down quickly when the old lady came bustling back with Lemont’s pie and another pot of coffee.

After Mrs. Yokohama left Ed Fowler looked around then leaned in close to Lemont, he gestured to the stranger sitting with them. “This here is Dr. Louis O’Conner he’s from Mississippi, he’s Putman’s cousin and he’s one of them mind doctors.”

“I’m a psychiatrist,” Dr. O’Conner said.

Larry nodded looked at his cousin and grinned. “He’s been around the block a few times. We can trust him and we can use him.”

He looked at Walker “Ain’t that right Judge?” Tom Walker glanced at Dr. Louis then at the others. “I checked him out – He’s Ku Klux Klan, Death to Roosevelt - Dewey Republican, Saltillo Fellowship Baptist Church, he comes from respectable blood.”

            Louis O’Conner said “Pleased to meet yawl, I ain’t much for chewing the fat, just tell me what you got.”

            “Lemont’s grandmother in law is a witch,” Tom said.

            “Ain’t they all,” Dr. Louis snorted.

            “I’m talking the real supernatural kind,” Tom looked around the room, nobody seemed to be eavesdropping. A group of old men were clustered around a wood burning stove, listening to Lowell Thomas give a radio report on the war. “About thirteen years back, 1931 I think it was. Lemont’s wife’s grandmother Melania Descombey Karnes cast a spell on a scarecrow. The damn thing up and come to life. Old Lemont here stole the recipe card from the old lady; it tells how to make them come alive. Once them buggers are conjured up they’re hard as heck to kill and the longer they’re around the nastier they get. That’s when our scarecrow festival got started. It runs every November from the first to the thirteenth. You’ve seen the posters?”

            “How could I miss them?” Dr. Louis said.

            “At the end of each festival there’s a big bonfire all the scarecrows in the county get burned.”

            “So what you need me for?” Dr. Lewis asked.

            “There are lots of different scarecrows,” The Judge said. “There’s the Tatty Bogals and the Straw Dandy’s they’re your regular garden variety and are mostly worthless. Then there’s the Moggies and the Shufts, they can get mean and usually do. The best ones are the Hodmedods, they’re big, strong and they love killing.”

Ed Fowler interrupted “Most of us have at least one Moggie or Shuft hidden away, a few even have a Hodmedod that can put to good use when the need arises.” He looked at Lemont and Lemont glared back at him.

The Judge continued.  “The Old Lady Karnes has a few too and if need be she can make more, there is a special breed called Shay, excellent trackers. She uses them to hunt down the renegades and make sure they get invited to the bonfires.”

Ed picked up the sugar jar to lace his coffee, it was empty, he pointed it at Dr. Lewis.

            “What we need from you is a mandate committing the old lady to State Hospital North; it shouldn’t be too hard,” he said. “She believes that scarecrows come to life, besides she must be seventy years old.”

            “She’s seventy four, born in 1870. She has a brother in town who’s a second generation doctor, a general practitioner - I have a file on her,” the Judge said.

Ed continued. “Once she’s out of the way we can do whatever we want. Dewey will be president in six days. He will own the country and we will own this county.” Ed smiled. “If anybody gets in our way, they get a visit from Lemont’s Chinaman.”

Lemont scowled at him. “Shut your yap,” he said.

“It’s no big secret,” Ed protested. “Everybody knows you got one, just not where you keep it.”

“I can sign a few papers, no big deal,” the Doctor said. “But how do you get these things to obey you? You can’t just tell them to kill and they do it. Can you?”

“The day of each cycle,” Ed said “The anniversary of when they were created, they can’t refuse any request from their maker, stalking, scaring, killing you name it and it’s done.”

“Any anniversaries coming up?” the doctor asked.

“The ninth” Ed looked at Lemont “Isn’t that right?”

Lemont looked angry at first then he shrugged his shoulders “That’s right.” he said.

Ed got up and walked to an empty table and brought back a full glass sugar jar. After he had laced his coffee, he took the lid off a saltshaker and emptied the salt into his empty sugar jar. Then he filled the salt shaker with sugar. He promenaded over and set the two corrupted containers on the empty table. “Dirty little slant eyed chink,” he said as he walked back to the laughter coming from his booth.

The radio was playing “That old Black Magic” by Glen Miller when Joe Walker the county sheriff walked in with his deputy. “Let’s get out of here,” Judge Walker said as he watched his brother walk to the counter.

            Mrs. Yokohama appeared with a ticket just as the men stood up. “Everything is A Ok?” she asked.

            “I’m afraid not,” Larry Putman said. “You should have washed your dishes better; we ain’t paying for dirty food.”

They were almost to the door when Sheriff Walker stood up. “Just a minute there boys. I noticed you walked right past the checkout with-out paying.”

            “The plates were dirty.” Ed said. “We don’t pay for slop.”

The Sheriff walked over to their booth. “But you ate every piece.” He picked the tab check off the table. “Pie and coffee, that’ll be thirty five cents each,” he glared at them. “Unless you want to work it off.”

“Look here Joe, you can’t …” The Judge didn’t finish. The Sheriff grabbed him by the shirt collar.

“I used to think you ran with the wrong crowd.” He looked at the men. “Now I think they do.” He shoved his brother away. He watched as the men dug money from their pockets and laid it on the table. They walked out the front door without saying anything.

Mrs. Yokohama hurried up to the Sheriff. “I’m big sorry,” she said. “I don’t want to make some trouble.”

The Sheriff smiled at her. “How about some pie,” he said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

            Margie finished sewing the grin on her scarecrow’s face. She used a pale pink fabric and the mouth really opened. It looked almost real. “You don’t look at all bad now - Brian,” she said. She giggled as she hugged the stuffed figure. On impulse she leaned forward and kissed the pink cloth lips. She pulled back startled. It was a strange new amatory feeling. A tingling sensation swept down her back and delighted her toes. She took a deep breath then another. There was a gentle ache in the back of her throat that was somehow sensual. The blue button eyes twinkled, she felt enchanted as she gazed into them. They seemed to be looking at her.

“No, not bad at all my dear Brian,” she whispered.

 

 

Ed Fowler stood with the four men next to Tom Walker’s 36 Ford Coup. “The first thing we got to do is get rid of your damned brother the sheriff.”  He looked at the Judge.

            “I agree, but it’s got to be done correctly. We’ll  need a killer who’ll be caught. We need someone to accuse. I think I know a way to lure him away from town and get him someplace alone.” The judge looked at Lemont. “You still want to get even with that bitch, the one who talked your wife into leaving you?”

            Lemont had been half listening now he perked up. “I wouldn’t mind giving her some trouble.”

            “Then let your Hodmedod out for a little anniversary night-time stroll, have him visit your friend Emma’s place. Have it slaughter everyone in the house. When the Sheriff shows up the murderer’s going to get him too.”

            “This had better work,” Ed said.

            “With my brother gone I’ll have to appoint a new Sheriff,” the judge said. “Who wants the job?”  

 

 

            Emma Hicks walked into the two story house she now shared with her grandmother.  Melania Descombey Karnes sat in a rocking chair, by the parlor window, looking out at the first falling snow of the year. “Grandmother you’re too close to the window, you’ll catch a cold!” She picked up a heavy quilt from the back of a sofa and draped it across the old lady’s shoulders. “I hate to see this snow so soon. It’s going to make it cold for the Scarecrow festival.”

            “The snow will be gone and it will be dry on the thirteenth,” Melania said. “La paglia brucerà ancora (the straw will still burn).”

            “How can you be so sure? How do you always know what will be?” Emma asked her grandmother.

            “The future is always what you believe; it can be no other way.” She looked at her granddaughter and smiled. “I’m happy that you’re living with me now, Lemont was no good for you, I knew that when you first brought him home, but any mother must allow her children to be wrong, to learn right. Many things in life have to go their own way.”

 

 

 

Emma sat down and put her head in her hands.

“I think it was Lemont who took the card from your Ombre box grandmother, he knows about the magic. I think he has been hiding a Hodmedod.”

“Yes he hides it in a hollow under his barn, soon he will send it out to do murder.” The old woman turned to her granddaughter. “Ha fatto un cattivo spaventapasseri, (he has made a bad scarecrow). He wasn’t careful, Egli non ha utilizzato il panno bianco, (he didn’t use the white cloth.)” Melania was looking out the window, but not at the snow covered landscape. She seemed to be looking through it. She gestured to her granddaughter to come to her, and then caressed her cheek as she whispered. “You must be careful my little one, very careful.”

 

 

It was nighttime when Lemont lifted the grain sacks off the heavy door in the floor of his barn, then with some effort slid the anvil to one side. He stood looking downward for several moments. Fear washed over him like an icy shower, the thing below had begun to shift. He could hear a faint rustling, and the grating sound of the post being dragged along the dirt floor. Lemont grabbed the two live chickens with their feet bound and tossed them into the pit then slammed down the lid. He quickly replaced the anvil and the grain bags. He sank to the floor exhausted and listened as the chickens trapped below shrieked loudly, then were suddenly silenced.

“Be satisfied for now,” he whispered to the entity in the darkness below him. “Soon you will have humans as food to gobble on.”

 

 

A group of timeworn men huddled next to the woodstove inside the Spare-a-dime diner, listening to the radio. Allied troops from Canada had just secured the island of Walcheren off the coast of Belgium. A blood bath was taking place as the Germans fought furiously to re-take the strategic position. In the town of Cloverdale another war was just about to begin. A battle on a much smaller scale but just as strange, just as significant and just as bloody.

 

To be continued …