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 …
