CANDLELIT CHRONICLES: HISTORIC HAUNTS

March 29 Writing Updates_Free Read_2424 WC

Today's MarNoWriMo word count was 76716, which means tomorrow, on the penultimate day of the month, only three pages or so will reach the March goal of 77,500 words. Well, of course we won't be stopping there, Gentle Readers. . I also decided on the definite working title for the April Script Frenzy Stage Play I'll be beginning on Thursday, and its format:

Obax and The Night-Riders, a Stage Play in Three Acts, setting, Georgia-March 1870.

Again, this is based on a character for whom I wrote a history, a future, and a precis in 2008. Took her two years to percolate to the surface.





Book Three of The Testament Logging Corporation Series has now completed Chapter Sixteen. I will continue it in the beginning of April. My daily routine will still be 2500 words. The remainder of that after each day's three pages of script are composed will of course be applied to the novel; Book Three, then Book Four; and I see at least two novels coming out of the characters from the 2008 precis on which I am forming April's stage play: her grandmother-Yoruba to Aruba, then Obax-Aruba to Georgia 1750.





Today's free read.





The Phantom Logging Operation continues:

Chapter 29

          Old Mr. Jenks averrred as to how it was time for him to leave; seems he had some errands to run down to Collins Junction (or “The Junction” as he termed it) and was planning to pick up a load for seed for Farmer Jennell while he was in the city.

“Sure will be good when you get your Plant Nursery opened up and start in stockin' seed bags for us farmers,” he told me as he returned to his pickup. “It's a fur piece to drive down to The Junction just ever' time we run out of seed. Good business for you, a big help  to us. Works out for everybody.” He turned back for a moment and I saw shadows shift across his eyes again; then they cleared, he nodded, lifted a half-hearted wave, climbed into his truck, and backed carefully down my drive. No hot-rodding this time, for sure. Too many witnesses, I suspected.





         I went back to work with the boys, and somehow, either time expanded, or we three speeded up and worked like angry demons, because by approach of nightfall we had the West wall. When we finished the final corner, I realized suddenly I had offered the boys no lunch since the snack we shared just before Mr. Jenks drove up; yet neither had these two constantly hungry growing boys thought to ask. I invited them to supper but they demurred, saying they needed to get on home before their Mamma went to worrying and called Uncle Oakes (Uncle Sam they called him) to go lookin' for 'em. Jackie did ask me, though:

“Got any of them good biscuits left, Mr. Rory?” (/center)





I agreed that I did, and loaded what was left of the morning's second batch in an empty flour sack and handed it over, apologizing for missing out on lunch.

“That's okay, Mr. Rory,” said Sam, “we were working so fast and hard we didn't even notice lunchtime!”





They were pleased with the day's pay (increased because of that extra hour or so we worked through the noon meal break) and hurried off down the drive, eager to get home and rest, I guess, before another day. Well, rest was for them; none for me. I had work to do yet this eve. I stopped into the cabin and put on a fresh pot of coffee, ate one remaining biscuit I had saved out from the sack I gave the boys, and the indoor privy; then I moved the percolator, got me a cup of coffee, and headed back outside. By the time I had drunk the coffee and picked up my hammer, the headlights of an old pickup appeared from the East on Knox Road and turned on into my drive. Right on time, old Mr. Jenks, just as I knew he would be. He'd left sufficient time for the boys to get on their way to Collins Junction before he'd left his land to come to mine, to help me start on the Greenhouse-a job we could do only at night.





         The old Chevy pulled up to the spot where I had intended my garage to go, and the engine cut off. When Mr. Jenks climbed down, saying “Jest call me Clyde, son, that's all right, at night,” I noticed his eyes had that starry shift again as when he had driven away earlier. Somehow now, in the cover of near-darkness, it didn't really bother me-or more likely, it was because something in me had changed. I felt now that, as long as I didn't have to encounter either last night's cypress-stump-head, or the charred husk driver of the wooden-box truck with the pulp wood castoffs, I could handle pretty much anything The Big Forest could toss at me. As I realized this, I understood also that now, at last, I knew-recognized-the Source of all these horrors. I still had no idea why the Source had chosen to target me, a man who had only lived in the area not even three full months-but I knew the identity of the Source, and I accepted it as a worthy, if sometimes sneaky, opponent.

Chapter 30

         Jenks and I headed toward the lumber stack and each grabbed as many boards as we could tote; he carried a surprising quantity for an older gentleman. Then we started through the pine copse when I smelled a whiff of char; no, not a whiff, it was stronger as I considered it. I glanced toward the drive and sure enough, approaching was the old wood-sided box truck, and obviously its lovely operator. Before I could speak or act, old Mr. Jenks (“jest call me Clyde, son”) released his right hand from its grasp on the lumber he carried, and waved it to the right and behind him, not either breaking his stride, nor shifting the load he carried. Suddenly the odor disappeared; when I looked back toward the drive, it was empty of all except my Merc and Mr. Jenks' old Chevrolet pickup. Clearly the old black man had some power in this region, power over The Big Forest too, power over at least some of its horrors.





         We set to laboring on the Greenhouse, and while we worked, it occurred to me that this was at least the third manifestation of my thoughts taking shape and form-last night the road had developed a 12 per cent grade from a 7 per cent (which shouldn't have existed at all) as I thought of it, and the driver of the stalled log truck had come knockin' on my door (old Stump-Head) after I thought about me being a good and skilled diesel mechanic who could likely help out (but not him-it) and just now, I had thought of Mr. Charred Husk and here he come. On the other hand, though, if he'd been comin' to help out and not simply to scare me senseless, I'd of almost been glad to see him. For some reason I was feeling an extreme urgency to complete this Greenhouse, much more so than what I felt about the Plant Nursery-this one HAD to be done and SOON-and the work just wasn't proceeding as fast as the Nursery construction. Sure, we only had two of us here at the charred Foundation, and one of us was really old. We sure could use some help. Just as I thought that, I pounded the last nails in on my board (because this would be a Greenhouse, we were raising the plank walls only to three feet and then would frame out a roof's perimeter. The roof itself and the walls from three feet high to seven or eight feet would be all clear plastic, protection from the rain but plenty sufficient to allow sunlight's rays to penetrate to the dear deserving plants I would be growing here, in this very special Greenhouse). (Back somewhere in my conscious mind, the thought registered that I was acting and thinking very oddly, but the compulsion to perform the work on the Greenhouse was so powerful that the still small voice quickly grew resigned and gave up trying to influence my behavior.) Just then yet another truck motor sounded out on the grade (the grade?) and a westbound logger, coming from the direction of The Big Forest, pulled up in the road and stopped opposite the cabin. There appeared to be no driver, though I could not tell for sure now that it was full dark, and at the Greenhouse foundations Mr. Jenks and I worked by the light of the fitful Moon, but the truck appeared to be the one I had seen a few short days ago, the afternoon I had planted perennials. Or perhaps this was the second truck? At any rate, I heard a door open and boot heels clump to the pavement; I tensed, but what walked around the front of the cab was a normal-appearing human (I hoped; I really hoped) with a dark green golfing cap, a dark green jacket, and stiff new blue jeans above scabby work boots. He wore heavy gardening gloves so I could not see his hands, but above the collar line at the throat and what little I could spot of his chin looked brown-not as dark as Mr. Jenks, who was clearly of African descent, but a person of color nonetheless. Then I remembered the passenger in the second truck on Tuesday; this must be him. Once he had crossed in front of the semi and reached the drive, the truck (still wihout a driver?) shifted back into gear and headed for the grade, downhill from his direction. (oh that pesky grade! Where none before existed) He said not a word, and Mr. Jenks neither spoke nor looked at him, but the new-man-reached for a board, a hammer appeared in his hand out of nowhere, and he set to work with a vengeance. Soon the work started to flow a little easier and move faster; I completed the West wall while Mr. Jenks and the new-man-worked on the South wall. So I started around to the back wall, on the North, and as I bent to reach another board from the lumber pile at the the end of my driveway (I had used all of what I had brought over in the first trip) I smelt that old familiar char again. Instead of panicking, screaming, running away, or doing anything else unmanly, I simply resumed loading my arms with lumber, straightened up and walked back toward the Greenhouse. Mr. Jenks and the new one were busy working their way along the South wall, the front of the Greenhouse. I proceeded to the back, along the West wall I had finished, and just as I dropped my pile of lumber, glanced up to see what was peeking around the Northwest corner at me: my old buddy, Mr. Charred Husk, grinning and brandishing a hammer-not at me, but at the West wall, which apparently he was constructing single-handedly, a darned good feat for a creature in the condition he found himself in (char flakes flicking off each time he moved were not an appealing sight). I gave up; I was tired of fighting the fear and opposing the horrors. I shrugged, sighed, nodded, gave a half-hearted wave, and resumed stacking the lumber properly; then picked up a 2 c 8 and set to work on the South wall at the Northeast corner. Hopefully, I considered, Mr. Husk would be finished with the West wall before I reached the Northwest corner, and would have disappeared back to his truck-or from wherever he had showed up tonight. A friendly guy he was proving to be, but not someone I'd invite to dinner or want to play a hand of poker with.





          By Moonset, I had finished about half of the back wall. The West wall was completed, and Mr. Jenks and his friend had finished about as far along the front wall as I had on the back one. I passed them and went along to the East wall, heart in mouth, and sure enough, that wall was complete and also ready for plastic, and no one else was there. So I had worried about that for nothing. By the time I walked back around to the front, after checking over Mr. Husk's excellent work, the extra one had disappeared, and Mr. Jenks was cleaning off his hammer with a rag he pulled from his back pocket. Nodding at me, he simply added, “See you tomorrow night, then, Rory; sleep well,” gave me an odd lazy grin, and walked back to his pickup, climbed in, and backed cautiously down the drive. (I realized then that both this time and this afternoon he had backed along the drive as if he was expecting ruts!) I was tired, but not exhausted as I would have expected to be after laboring for two long days and one night. Emotionally and mentally, I felt almost exhilarated. I went  to the back of the Greenhouse and toted the remaining lumber back to the pile at the end of the drive and covered it gently with the tarp; I didn't want the boys questioning in the morning. Somehow I knew they would not notice either the absence of much of the lumber, nor the size of the building growing across the way, past the pine copse, on the new hill that rose gently from the east side of my drive. As I crossed the drive back toward the cabin, one of the box-sided trucks passed headed westbound toward Knox-or toward The Big Forest. It was not in very good shape either, belching white smoke and the carburetor coughing intermittently. The passenger was the dark one who had helped out tonight on the Greenhouse. He raised a limp right hand in a wave, without looking, I waved back, and the truck honked and proceeded on. Did this mean I was now accepted-at least by some of the horrors? Continuing on to the house, I remembered that now the truck had lettering on the door: “Monument Maintenance”-and the box frame had been stuffed to the brim with-tombstones.