CANDLELIT CHRONICLES: HISTORIC HAUNTS

March 20_and free reads WC 7095

Well, Gentle Readers, today I surpassed 50K on MarNoWriMo (March off-season National Novel Writing Month), and signed up for April Script Frenzy. This is in addition to the new novel I'll be writing just as soon as I finish the March novel. Whew! Never written a script before, but I just couldn't resist the Creative Challenge. For Script Frenzy, the goal is 100 pages, rather than 50K words. That's said to be 3.5 pages per day. But you must know I still intend to crank out a daily 2500 words on the novel!!





So here is today's free read, again from The Phantom Logging Operation which I had begun posting from a while back. Remember now, this is the unedited version To recoup, I'll repost Chapters 1-5 today again and add Chapter 6-10:





THE PHANTOM LOGGING OPERATION          





a Novel





by Archie Standwood





Book One: The Testament Corporation Chronicles





(because it's not just logging, after all)

Prologue:





The Phantom Northern Woods Tales are set in an alternate historical probability, in which The Northwest Territories were divided differently than in our own “consensus reality.” In this reality, The Northwest Territories became Wisconsin and Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio. Each existing state is called by its full name: “State of-” as in State of Wisconsin, State of Michigan, State of Illinois.


In The Phantom Northern Woods, there are three states where today only Michigan and Wisconsin stand: one state between them, like an inverted triangle, heavily forested, bordering Canada to the North-the State of Algonquin. It is this state which harbors the infamous “Big Forest.” In The Phantom Northern Woods, each existing state is called by its full name: “State of-” as in State of Westerley, State of Minnetonka, State of Illustrian. There are three states where today only Michigan and Wisconsin stand: one state between them, like an inverted triangle, heavily forested, bordering Canada to the North-the State of Algonquin. It is this state which harbors the infamous “Big Forest.”

         

Chapter 1

                   The faded-red 1928-style cab yanked behind it a long unwieldy flatbed of precariously loaded pines. Within the darkened cab, shadows shifted and drifted, fluttering aside at the last moment of view to reveal what I'd already suspected: the log truck possessed no driver. Both the driver's seat and the passenger side were empty, yet the headlights glowed like twin eyes of some bird-of-prey, and the truck barreled down my road, headed east toward Collins Junction. Well, I assumed the destination would be Collins Junction, the county seat, the only town of any size anywhere in our county. It was the only community still with a sawmill- even if it ran only three days a week.





                   I stood by the corner of my newly built log home, keeping I hoped well out of sight, peeking at the cab and praying that whatever was not inside would not see me. To the southwest, in the direction from which the log truck had appeared, was only the little town of Knox, really more of a village. A mile or two further back began a vast empty pine forest, extending way West and North, a combination of original timber and second growth from the logging boom of the 1920's, when timber was an extraordinary industry in our state. Back then the mill in Collins Junction had run six days a week, three shifts a day, so my Daddy had told me. But when the logging industry collapsed in 1932, the loggers took to riding the freights as hobos, or disappeared out to the Southwest, toward Arizona and California, hoping for work, or at least for heat, which is an event that occurs here only in July.





                    I hadn't realized any new logging operations had begun near The Big Forest; nearly as long as I'd been alive (I'd been born in 19-Ought-30), the old operations had been closed and by now, in 1957, all remaining traces were eradicated from sight by new forest growth and old roots. I didn't remember the old access road into the forest being locatable, either, so it was a mystery to me as to where this bizarre log carrier could have manifested from-or why. I decided to take a little ride out toward Knox, and see if I could find any new operations between there and my land.





                   I lived 12 miles east of Knox and from my house,  east and southward, Collins Junction was another 25 miles. Back nearly directly south was Rennald, but the turnoff for it was 5 miles east of me. Perhaps that strange truck was headed there.





                   Yet my amazement was not yet to end. As I turned from the southwest corner of my house, where I had just finished planting a row of perennials- the corner toward the Knox Road-I heard yet another loud, raggedy, engine approaching. Expecting that perhaps the phantom log truck had circled around on some unexplored back road and returned, I looked toward the east, but suddenly my attention was impelled in the opposite direction, from which the driverless log truck  had first appeared. Approaching was a square wood-sided truck, also red, paint faded almost to the point of exhaustion, engine laboring as if on a steep climb-although our road had no grade at all; and once again, this truck possessed no driver. Ah, but this one did include a passenger, a dark-complected male bundled in a dark green jacket, golf cap pulled down over his brow, apparently staring out the passenger window so that I could not see his face; nor really, did I wish to.





                   This was becoming way too spooky for me. My heart urged me to race back inside the cabin and lock all the doors and windows, but my mind insisted there must be a logical explanation, if only I could find it. I yanked the keys out of my left-hand jeans pocket and juggled them in the air for a moment, trying to decide which of my organs to heed. Finally, mind won out, so I jogged along the side of the cabin, across the back lot, and up to my '49 Mercury coupe, parked at the far end of the driveway from the road, just ahead of the property's wood lot. I jumped in, gunned the engine, and backed up sufficiently to turn around, then headed down the drive. Just as I came within sight of the road, I heard another motor approach, and hoving into sight was a similar square wood-sided truck, this one loaded with pulp wood leavings-the crown branches from cut logs.      A really upsetting sight in the cab met my eyes: this time there was a driver (the first had contained no one; the second no driver, just a passenger), a burnt husk himself-yet he drove, and he turned his eyeless gaze upon me, then suddenly floored his gas pedal and roared west in the direction of Knox and the Big Woods, belching gray exhaust fumes from the sawed-off tailpipe.





                   The afternoon had progressed from strange, to bizarre, to unbelievable. I didn't know whether to pull out on the road, turn west toward Knox and the Northern Woods beyond, turn east toward Rennald, or beyond, Collins Junction, or back up  the long drive, run inside the cabin, and lock the doors, pulling down all the window shades. I was beginning to wonder why I had insisted on moving here after my divorce in February.





          When my wife of 8 months had run off on me, claiming a blackjack dealer down in Vegas as her new toy, I signed the divorce papers the sheriff's deputy bought me, packed the little I owned into the Merc, and headed for the property my Daddy had left to me when he passed over in May of '41, that came fully into my possession two years ago when my Mamma died of a painful, lingering bone cancer. I hadn't ever used it, had not even seen the land, for when Daddy enlisted in September of 1939 in the Canadian Air Force, Mamma had carried me to Champaign, State of Illinois, where she still had people, and I had grown up there.





         I'd married late, at age 26, but I guess I still wasn't wise enough to choose well. I liked my mechanic job at Joe D's Garage, going to church on Sunday mornings, and a beer or two on the back porch on a Saturday evening. Leill liked the high life, or so she said, and eight months into the marriage she was off to Vegas like a shot. More power to her; I packed and went home to the land that Daddy had given me. According to what my Mamma told me before she died, I actually had grown up in this region: I wasn't quite sure where was my birthplace here, for Mamma had never actually specified. But she had told me often that when I turned two, Daddy had moved us from this section of the County down to Rennald. That was the year the Logging Operations here in The Big Forest had shut down. Daddy had logged in the eastern stretches of The Big Forest, for the Testament Logging Corporation out of Madison Mills, about 50 miles distant,  and it were a good-paying job for the times, least until the Great Depression rolled in with its suicides and bank collapses, and everything in our world just turned upside down.





                   As far as I knew, I also still held title to that little tract of land; Daddy had built a 3-room cabin on it just before the wedding, and Mamma had birthed me there. They had managed to hold on once the Depression started; Daddy was real skilled with his hands, so when the timber boom collapsed in 1930, he was able to stay on with Testament Corporation by working for them as a travelling maintenance man, going from site to site and keeping all their equipment in good repair. For some reason unknown to me, Testament did not suffer in the Depression as many of the logging and mining firms did. While other firms collapsed, or filed bankruptcy, or just disappeared, while owners threw themselves out of high office windows, or ate their pistols, or just disappeared, Testament Corporation persevered, even thrived, as if the Great Depression was instead for Testament an economic boom time. The timber operation near Knox in The Big Forest was closed, but the main plant in Madison Mills kept right on running, and Daddy sometimes had to go as far as Kenosha, over West in State of Wisconsin, to do a job of repair work. Most of the time, Mamma said, Daddy would travel down to Trent, or over to the sawmill at Collins Junction; about once a month or so he'd be called in to work at the Main Plant in Madison Mills, and sometimes he might be up there for a week or two. He and Mamma had given up the rural homestead in 1932, when I turned two and the Logging Boom collapsed, and moved to Rennald, to a house right at the edge of town that Daddy built himself (for he was handy that way, both with house carpentry and with furniture-making, and just with all kinds of woodwork. I often dreamed that if he had lived on and not died in the Second Hun War, he and I could have owned a furniture-making, cabinetry, wood-working business together, up here in the Northern Woods.





                   In 1936, Daddy was asked to move up to a full-time position in maintenance at the Madison Mills main plant. I was only 11 when Daddy died in the Europe War; he enlisted in September 1939, with the Canadian Air Force, right as soon as Hitler invaded Poland. I was 9 and a half then, and it was then that Mamma moved us to Champaign, since her folks had already both passed away also-though I did not know when, nor did I remember them, so I supposed it was before my birth.





                   Testament Logging Corporation sure was on my mind these last few moments, ever since I had seen that first bizarre log truck with its missing driver. None of the three odd trucks had any kind of markings or insignia; I had heard no sounds of saws or digging or axes; there was no reason to think anything was happening down to The Big Forest. No reason to think-yet I knew.  I knew.





Chapter 2





         I decided it was not yet time to start playing possum, nor to wimp out and be cowardly. Rennald was closer-the turnoff to the Rennald Road only 5 miles to my east-so I turned left and headed east first. Right then it was only about 2 o'clock of the afternoon, plenty of time to check Rennald and then turn back toward Knox and The Big Forest beyond, and still be home, parked in my driveway, and inside my cabin before dark. For some reason, the thought of being abroad tonight just skittered me.





         I could drive all the way out to Rennald and back in near the time it would take me to go to Knox. Just the idea of driving toward The Big Forest skeered me-just skeered me today-but then if I did drive to Rennald first, when I came back this way it would be later in the afternoon-and maybe I wouldn't have the courage to try for The Big Forest-I was not sure now that I ever would.





                   Then I remembered how my Daddy had braved the Hun Hordes in the Big War, and how he had died keeping my country safe. I remembered how Mamma talked to me about how Daddy was so brave during the Great Depression too, working at menial maintenance jobs, travelling whenever and wherever Testament Corporation told him he had to, being away from Mamma and me, just to keep our roof over us and keep us fed and clothed-and I knew I couldn't be such a weakling and disrespect everything my Daddy ever stood for.





                   I sat no longer resisting at the end of the drive. Instead, I put the Merc in gear and headed right, to the west, toward Knox and The Big Forest which I now so feared.





Chapter 3











                   I sped in the direction of Knox, knowing the faster I arrived the faster I could conclude this investigation and head for home. There were 3 more borders of perennials to plant, after all; wood to chop-nights were still cool and would be through June; and I needed to work on insulating the cabin. I had just finished constructing it, as the property had held only one very old, shabby, collapsed house, sitting about a half mile farther back into the land than did my cabin. I had looked it over when I first arrived, and deemed it not worth the extreme efforts of trying to repair it, nor the extensive cost of materials. Hardly enough lumber was left intact to reconstruct one wall of a single room, the flooring was almost all the way through, the foundation only dirt, and the chimney in several chunks of charred brick. Seemed a shame to waste the site, already laid out as it was, but then I was only one person, and a job that size-repairing and virtually replacing and entire homestead would have been more than I thought I could handle.  So I decided to leave that site alone, and instead I chose a plot a ways back from the road, and to the East a bit, to build my cabin. I pitched the tent I'd brought along from Champaign, rolled out my sleeping bag, and on the nights that were just too chilly-which were most nights, curled up in the back seat of the Mercury.





                   All of this passed through my mind as I sped on toward The Big Forest, and all of it faded away as an old black Chevy truck passed me in the opposite direction, driven by a dead black man, and came to a stop in the middle of his lane, waiting while a scrawny white hound crossed the road.





                    “Rory,” I reminded myself. “You already know this guy-by sight-you've seen him passing up and down the road a hundred times since you first started work on the cabin, remember? Many times he's even thrown up his hand at you.”





         That was right-but this is the first time I'd noticed he was already dead. Maybe he wasn't earlier-on the other hand, maybe he had been all along. That truck, I would say, was about 9, maybe 10 model years old. Geez, my own Merc was 8 model years old. His Chevrolet was older than that, I thought.





         He must be coming from Knox, I thought-or maybe (though I really hoped that wasn't the case) from The Big Forest. Nothing else lay out this way, on this road. To get anywhere- to any bigger town-you had to go east and then south to Collins Junction, and from there, gee, you could get to Trenton, Troy, even eventually Madison Mills! But on the virtually untravelled highway on which I lived, it was Knox and then The Big Forest to the west, the turnoff to Rennald (another tiny town) a little east of me, and then east of that, the road to Collins Junction. I couldn't even remember any farmsteads or isolated houses on this road-that is, houses sitting out by themselves without farms. Far as I could think, it was just my new cabin as far as housing, unless I had missed some houses set back up in the woods somewheres.

















Chapter 4





                   Just about as soon's as I had passed the Dead Man in his black Chevrolet truck, a roar behind me made me spin to see. I glanced first toward the sound, then toward the lane, hopin' that scrawny white hound had moved on. No squealing rubber, no bawlin' dogs, so I guessed he'd made it on across okay. That dead black Chevrolet was out of sight already too. Gee, the road sure was fillin' and emptyin', fillin' and emptyin', somethin' fierce this afternoon.





                   The source of the racket pulled into the far lane and roared up beside me. A flatbed truck loaded with an old, old Chevrolet sedan-what used to be called a “gangster wagon”-my Daddy would surely have recognized them on the streets of Kenosha when he worked maintenance for Testament Logging Corporation-flashed by me, but not before I saw the driver, yet another burnt husk, leaning forward and lookin' toward me. Despite there bein' no flesh on that skull, I swear I could feel it smilin' and glowin'. As it sped up and passed, I saw the sedan had been badly burnt too; it looked like a blowtorch had played over it and blistered off all the paint.





                   This had really been a bad day for me all around, and it was barely three o'clock. Thankfully I had planted my perennial beds; I doubted I would accomplish anything more today. A storm threatened to be breaking over The Big Forest, so I determined to ride only as far as Knox, stop in at the small general store there for some provisions, and then get myself back home.





                   The next few miles were uneventful, but the approaching storm darkened the day considerably. The little store stood on the opposite side of the road, just the near side of Knox, and as I glanced in both directions to pull across the road, I saw that the tall-sided wooden bed truck loaded with tree crowns and pulp wood castoffs was parked at the far end of the gravel lot beyond the store. At an angle to the road, all I could see was the end of the truck and a peek at the side. I hoped-strongly hoped-that the burnt driver was in the truck, or gone, or just a hallucination, and that I would NOT encounter him in the store.





                    I parked on the near side of the store, climbed out, and strode toward the door. As I approached, it opened and an old geezer walked out, nodded his grizzled head at me, spat a chaw out into the lot, and clambered over to the old rocker at the far end of the porch. Inside was shady and musty-smelling, and a layer of dust seemed to overlay all the shelves and merchandise, even the plank flooring. Well, no matter; the canned goods I could wash at the pump before opening them, and as long as the flour and sugar and corn meal came in canisters, they should be safe enough to use. I selected the cans and canisters I needed, added some hardware and tools, and carried the load to the counter where I began to lay it out while checking around for the clerk, nowhere to be seen. As I glanced toward the back room's doorway, a woman rose up right in front of me, behind the counter, as if she had just lifted up from the floor on a trap door with spring.





Chapter 5





                   At this point, I truly believed I had experienced enough-enough shocks, enough horror-for the rest of my life. I glared at the witch behind the counter, whose bun was so tightly yanked back from her face that she resembled a skull, and whose black bombazine dress looked like something out of the turn of the century.  Before she could even speak, I held up a cautionary finger and turned away, headed back up toward a center aisle where I remembered seeing a selection of plant and flower seeds. I picked up a trowel and several packets of perennials, tossing a few azalea packets in for good measure. I considered asking if they stocked rosebushes, but figured to wait until my next trip to Collins Junction for that. Way my life was going, I might be driving down to the big city sooner rather than later, just to get away for a while and spend some time in sanity.





         But for now, I just carried my extra purchases to the counter, set them down, and reached for my wallet. Silently she totaled them up, then handed me a bag and pointed to the total showing on the old-fashioned register. I paid and received my change while simultaneously bagging up, ready to get on out of there. Maybe she was mute, or just didn't care for this particular customer; I sure didn't care. I nodded an equally silent thanks, stepped to the door, and out onto the porch, where of course I encountered the burnt husk driver of the pulp-castoffs truck, fixing to enter the store.





Chapter 6





         Immediately I thought better of  stepping outside, and instead I spun around, almost dropping my purchases in their sack, and moved back inside and alongside the nearest aisle. Scuttling more than walking, I pretended to hunt for some precious and essential item I might have overlooked, but I needn't have attempted concealment. The door did not open at once, and when I peeked above the shelf in front of me, I noticed that the figure behind the counter had turned her scary self toward the archway behind her and to her left, as if she had heard a noise from what must have been the store's back room-probably a storeroom or tool shed, I guessed. (Wait, Rory! A tool shed? What use would a general store, small as this one is, have for a tool shed? A storeroom, yes. Surely some kind of delivery truck brought in the canned goods and perishable notions-the flour, sugar, coffee canisters-and most likely a nursery, perhaps at Collins Junction, delivered the plant and grain seeds. Granted, this general store did offer trowels and other gardening and planting implements, but only in small quantity. I could not cudgel my brain into identifying whatever subliminal clue had inspired me to think of “tool shed” in the back.)





                   As I continued to ponder that topic, the counter witch turned more fully toward the darkened archway, just as a young girl, appearing about twenty or so, rushed through it. Her waist-length dusty blond hair was pulled back with a wide  cream-colored ribbon, her eyes were stretched wide, and her expression bordered on both astonishment and confusion. Deeming it imprudent to press closer to the front door, instead I sidled back along the shelf toward the side wall, and around behind it. The shelf stack immediately behind the front shelves were lower, and I could readily see over them and watch the strange goings-on unfolding at the archway.

“Alice! What in the world-? I sent you to pack away those Easter items we didn't sell-”

                   Hmm-so there was a storeroom somewhere in the building-but a tool shed? Surely not!





                   Alice's expression changed to distraught.





         

“I did, Aunt Jennie! That's where I found this!”

         The girl-Alice-held up a mottled, spotted old book that appeared to be an antique ledger, or perhaps a journal. Whatever it was, the covers and the page edges were foxed, and appeared in some places stuck together. Clearly the item was both old, and long untouched. I turned from contemplation of the book to look at the old witch's face just in time to watch her pale and step back, nearly stumbling behind the counter.





         

“Alice,” she croaked, “where did you find that?





“Upstairs, Aunt Jennie, as I told you: while I put away the Easter merchandise! It was in that small two-shelf faded yellow bookcase, in the back corner”-Alice turned and pointed diagonally to what would have been the southwest corner of the building- “past the two shelves with the Christmas and Thanksgiving merchandise.”

         Clearing her throat several times before she could achieve anything more than a throaty rumble, Old Witch-now named Aunt Jennie-told the girl,

“There isn't anything back in that corner, Alice! And-that-book-should not have been anywhere in that storeroom.”

Chapter 7

         This had become way too intriguing to leave now. I leaned on the shelf in front of me, till I noticed a discouraging wobble, so I straightened up and tried to look as if I had overlooked picking up some essential household or gardening item. Actually I had: I needed mulch for the perennials I had laid out earlier today, before all this weirdness had begun. I slid up and down the aisles, one eye on the ladies behind the counter, the other toward the front door in case Mr. Burnt Husk himself decided to walk-er, shamble-through it in search of supplies or condiments or first-aid kits.





         The older woman behind the counter started to shift her attention in my direction, so I quickly grabbed up a bag of mulch and headed her way. Slamming it down on the counter, I inquired as to whether they had a sharp axe, a yard rake, and a large shovel in storage. She allowed as how they had and motioned young Alice to the counter to begin ringing up my new purchases, while she scowlingly backed through the archway, presumably to wherever the tools such as I had requested were located. (In the elusive tool shed, perhaps?) Alice calculated the cost of the mulch, shovel, ax, and rake and gave me the total. I paid her while with downcast eyes she counted out my change. I kept trying to think of conversation starters-I really was intrigued by that mottled, spotted old book, which she had laid on the far side of the counter-but questions like “Do you live here, then?” and “Are you from Knox?” seemed both puerile and nosy. Then too, the old bat would most likely return at any moment, dragging my tools, and I would be caught redhanded-or open-mouthed.





          I was wrong, after all; she returned empty-handed, pointed to the front door after glancing at Alice to be certain I had paid in full, and only mumbled to me, “Carl has your tools outside by your car.” I thanked them both, gave a tiny lingering smile to Alice, and headed back out, checking carefully as I opened the door to make sure I was not about to have a face-to-face encounter with char, and crossed the porch. Down the steps to the Merc, and sure enough, there waited the old geezer I had seen earlier on the porch, shovel, rake, and axe bundled in his scrawny old arms. I thanked him, unlocked and opened the trunk, and laid the tools, the mulch, and my other purchases inside.  He moved away silently; as I slammed shut the trunk, I glanced up at the shimmering faces of Alice and the old witch staring through the grimy pebbled glass of the front door.

Chapter 8

                   Pleasing as it was not to see the burnt husk around anywhere, I was still somewhat dismayed to find that his equally-burnt out truck had disappeared. That might mean he was lurking somewhere out and about, and I might yet encounter him on the road. My original intent when I left the cabin only an hour or so ago, maybe even less, had been to drive to Knox and then on into The Big Forest, checking around for any signs of a new logging operation or other. But after the experience I had already undergone today, I thought devoting my attention to a little home life would be best. So I hopped behind the steering wheel (now mindful of how easily any driver could become the counterpart of the burnt husk) and proceeded cautiously out of the gravel lot and back on to the road. I had checked carefully in both directions, and no traffic was to be seen or heard, smelled nor sensed.





                   Reaching home with only a trunk filled with purchases to be put away would have been most pleasant, as would a nice afternoon drive on this isolated country road in warm sunshine. Instead, no sooner had I pulled out of the store's lot than the clouds already roiling over The Big Forest, which lay behind me, suddenly darkened to an ugly slate-gray, with flashes of lightning streaking through from cloud to cloud, like a child playing hopscotch in the sky. Predatory rumbles surged ahead and seemed to surround me on all sides. Behind me, the General Store and its gravel lot disappeared behind a curtain of blinding gray as the clouds released their anger, so I hit the gas and sped up to try to outrun the storm. This twisting road was difficult to drive even in perfect conditions, and with the rapidly darkening day and my fear of that oddly commencing storm, conditions were far from ideal. I moved as fast as I thought prudent, much as if I was being chased by the Hounds of Hell, and I was within sight of the cabin's driveway before the rain caught up to me.





         As I slowed and braked, I caught sight of that old black Chevrolet truck, the one I had watched earlier stop for the crossing hound as I drove to Knox. It was stopped on the side of the road, just past my drive, on the other side, facing toward me. In the encroaching twilight I could not see the driver, and did not care to stop. If I hurried, perhaps I could unload the trunk and take at least the foodstuffs and the plant seed packets into the house; the tools, after all, could wait, and the Merc had a nice solid-fitting trunk lid. For some reason, my mind was racing as if I must provision against an oncoming blizzard of many days' duration, for I “just knew” I had to get everything perishable or nearly so, out of the trunk and into the house, where I must lock and bar the doors and windows. Why, my mind didn't share with me.





         In view of the oncoming weather, I elected not to go on to the end of the drive to park next to the feed lot as I usually did. I had graded the long drive expecting to eventually add a garage and yes, a tool shed, as I hoped to open a Plant Nursery this summer, on a small scale. But none of those buildings had yet been constructed, so I had to park in the open. Today, I whipped around the back of the cabin, narrowly missing a bed of just-planted perennials, and leaped out, popping the trunk and grabbing as much of the groceries I could, making sure to pull out the paper packets of seeds on this first trip as well, just in case the storm reached my property before I could return from the house. I could get wet, and survive, but not those seed packets. Once at the door, of course I had to juggle my load because I had forgotten to keep the keys in my hand, but quickly I unlocked the back door and opened it, racing to the counter to unload. One more trip to the trunk and I found myself reaching for the trowel, the rake, the shovel, and the axe, in a semi-daze slamming down the trunk, checking my pocket for the keys, and returning to the house, where I stood the tools next to the door, which I closed and locked. I then raced throughout the cabin, checking windows in each room, but not before I had ascertained the front door was also firmly locked.

Chapter 9

         After I ascertained that every opening into the house had been secured, I headed for the wide front window which was as close as I could manage to a picture window. I know it may seem unusual to try to fit a picture window into a log cabin, and why on the front side facing toward the road, but I had always admired the window in my Mamma's living room in Champaign. As a young boy I had determined that when I had a home of my own, a picture window it must include. My home with Leill was a narrow two-story duplex, half of a row house on the east side of Urbana, Champaign's twin city. It was all we could afford on my mechanic's  job at Joe D's garage. It was good enough for the first year or so, though-but then our first year only lasted 8 months before she was gone. I knew right then, that from now on, I was building a home for me, the way I wanted it; and whether or not a woman ever again became part of my life, I would still have my home, the way I wanted it. That was my new promise to myself.





                   My head was so fogged with these thoughts of the past that I nearly overlooked the present. Just as I pulled aside the curtain (the living room and bedroom windows were the only ones I had managed to cover so far), a boom roared out overhead and lightning forked to earth diagonally across the road from me, the flash lighting the old Chevrolet pickup, still on the far side of the drive, nearly tipping into the ditch. Sure enough, that old black man was behind the wheel, but it didn't appear he moved or even flinched that close to the lightning. Well, maybe as being dead, such like didn't disturb him, or maybe he had finally took stock of himself being dead and now decided to act accordingly.





                   The rain slammed down so fiercely that between lightning flashes I could not see the old Chevrolet, the ditch next to it, the road, nor even my drive and front yard. My poor perennials were taking a beating; I could only hope that somehow the water table could absorb all this precipitation and that by some miracle they might survive. The afternoon had been an almost non-stop rendition of one spooky horror after another. When it wasn't on the road with me, it was in my head (what was in that old account ledger that scared that girl Alice so at the General Store? What put in my mind at that store the notion of them having a tool shed-and why would that matter?) I was at the point of total befuddlement.





                   I thought about resting, but knew I couldn't sleep. Usually a soft gentle rain soothes me, but this was neither soft nor gentle, but rather akin to a malevolent, purposeful, storm. No sleeping in this and no resting either. The cabin began to feel chilly and I felt a little numb, even though I had avoided the rain. I returned to the kitchen, fired up the wood stove in the back corner, and filled the stovetop percolator with water. A warm cup of coffee sweetened with cinnamon and chicory ought to warm me up. While I waited, I began putting up the foodstuffs, and I packed the seeds away into a drawer for safety (there was an odd thought again!). I lit two kerosene lanterns, one on the table and one on the counter by the sink, and washed up my breakfast and lunch dishes while I considered the nature of my supper. If the weather had held , I had planned to walk down to the creek at the back of my property and try to catch a couple of trout. None of that for supper now, as I would be underwater as soon as I stepped out my back door. Not for the first time, I wished that my cabin had electricity; lantern light was warm and cozy under the right circumstances but in an unexpected and terrifyingly heavy storm such as this, glowing overhead fixtures and conveniently placed floor and table lamps would be oh so much more reassuring!

Chapter 10





         When I wanted a meat dinner I had to drive to Collins Junction to the big IGA there, or run down to Rennald and pick up something at the small butcher's shop downtown next to the Gas 'n' Go and Todd's Service Garage. Without electricity, I couldn't keep a freezer, so fresh meals were touch-and-go, a quick drive or a walk to the creek and hope for fish to be lured to my bait.





                   While I prepared for my planned Plant Nursery, I worked occasionally and sometimes full weekends at Todd's. I had some diesel experience from my jobs in Champaign and Urbana, and I put that to good use on weekends, servicing the various farm tractors and combines and harvesters. South and southwest of Rennald were fertile fields, far enough from the shade of The Big Forest for crops to grow well, as long as their selection was tailored to our harsh winter weather, which often seemed to extend from September through June. The storm today was exceptional-our precipitation tended to be white, cold, and in the form of snowflakes-and I pondered again whether it related to the other odd events of today.





                   I decided to make biscuits and pancakes, and open a can of green beans I had just picked up at the General Store in Knox. While I waited on the baking, I sat at the round wood table with a cup of hot java and stared out the uncurtained back window behind the wood stove. Rain, rain, everywhere was rain, slicing and slashing like knives, relentless in its fury. Yes, I personalized it; I still perceived it as a purposeful event, this unaccountable storm.





         Two thoughts kept pushing through my mind, and trying to distract myself, I stood up from the table and walked through to the living room, checking around the curtain once again. Now I could not see the old black Chevrolet truck: either it had disappeared, or the still strident rain blocked my view. No, here came another lightning bolt, farther away this time, southeast across the open land in the direction of Rennald. No truck in sight, nothing untoward-other than this rain. Now I had no more distractions to pacify my raging thoughts. I picked up a book from the end table and immediately set it back down. The novel had riveted me from the first page when I read it in a bookstore in Collins Junction, and I was nearly halfway through, but my eyes wouldn't settle on the words, nor my mind stay still long enough to focus on fiction.





         I could not stop turning over two particular aspects of today's strange events, both of them linked to the Knox General Store and the two ladies working there. First was the persistent notion that had struck me while hiding between the shelves after I had seen the burnt truck driver shambling toward the front door: the notion that the General Store had not just a storeroom, but a tool shed, and that in some way this was important-to me. Second was that old ledger that the girl Alice had discovered upstairs at the Store, that the old witch said “should not have been anywhere in the Storeroom,” and that had so spooked and confused the girl. What was in it, why did it disturb Alice, why was Old Bat so upset it had been found, and found by Alice? And why did these two occurrences upend my mind much more so than the burnt husk of a driver, the dead black man in the Chevrolet, the burnt driver of the flatbed loaded with the blowtorched gangster sedan, and all these other bizarre events?





          A roar and a sputter beside the cabin grabbed my attention just then, and I raced to the kitchen and peered out the window by the stove. I couldn't see anything at first, past the driving rain, then that old black Chevrolet pickup hove into sight, tearing gobs out of the drive, speeding toward the end of the drive where I planned to build a garage and beside that a tool shed. I couldn't see the driver-if there was one-and I felt unaccountably afraid to unlock the back door, step out, and confront him. At this moment, fear washed over me in waves like standing under an outdoor shower; but instead of getting clean, I was feeling more and more numb, powerless to stop this onslaught of events, most of which seemed to center around me. I could have had no conception of why, nor could I have foreseen their eventual outcome.