HAUNTED HEADS

a novella by Gary Canup

Chapter 3

They put their arms around each other and began their walk. They rounded the wellhouse and strolled through a relatively well-kept lawn that lay between the shop and the garage. The lawn was separated from the house yard by a picket fence and from the barnyard by more rusty barbed wire.

"This is the so-called courtyard, where the menfolk used to play croquet, washers and horseshoes, especially horseshoes. Many a time these woods echoed with the clang of metal and the shouts of men."

"Weren't the womenfolk allowed to play?"

"Sometimes they joined in a game of croquet, but they never seemed interested in washers and horseshoes. Mostly they just sat on the front porch and yacked."

She elbowed him playfully in the ribs and they ambled past the garage along the semicircular drive past a large silver tank.

"This a gas tank?"

"Yes, this is where Grandfather used to fuel up his tractor, which he parked in the garage there along with his old Ford."

They turned left and started down the narrow gravel-covered lane hand in hand. To their left was woods. To their right was somebody else's pasture, an expanse of land colored all the way to the distant woods with early evening sunlight.

"Aren't we going to lock up the house?"

"There's no need out here. Crime is virtually nonexistent."

"Still—" she began fretfully "—my laptop."

"I love it here," he sighed, drawing her closer to him. "It's so peaceful and bucolic. After all that hectic schoolwork I needed to get away to a relaxed setting."

There was no pollution, just fresh air and the occasional distant lowing of cows. They strolled hand in hand past the first barn.

"This was what I used to see as the adventure barn. I loved to explore it when I was a kid. This was where Grandfather stabled his livestock, and I was always finding interesting objects like an old leather horse collar, a bullwhip, or a machete, which Grandfather used to call a corn knife. You could go up a narrow flight of steps to the hay loft and climb among the bales of hay and build forts and tunnels."

They strolled past the second barn.

"This was what I used to see as the boring barn. Grandfather just used it for hanging tobacco and for storing farm implements like reapers and cultivators. Very dull."

They came to a long wooden gate, which had not been painted in decades, and Tyler dragged open the gate and they passed through and he closed it again, he knew not why, there was no longer any cattle on the property to allow to escape, but Grandfather had impressed upon him in his childhood the importance of closing all gates. With their arms around each other once more they ambled slowly down a lane which was nothing more than two dimly defined ruts leading through the woods. Squirrels frolicked in the branches. They heard the rapid tapping of a woodpecker, and identified the remote sounds of a bobwhite and a whippoorwill. At one point they saw a harmless snake slithering along the lane in front of them, and Nattie drew closer to Tyler even though he probably liked snakes even less than she did. Eventually the lane opened on a view of a broad meadow where shadows were lengthening and where the sun was half sunk behind the remote woods on the western horizon.

"Well, here it is," Tyler announced.

"Here what is?" she asked, gazing around.

"The remains of the old log cabin."

"Where?"

"Right over there."

Nattie saw the broken and crumbling remnants of what appeared to have been a concrete trough beside a wide pipe that projected from the ground and that was capped with a metal lid. "This is it?"

"You were expecting Stonehenge?"

"I was expecting something. Maybe some rotten logs and a foundation at least."

"There was no foundation. Just bare earth."

She lifted the metal lid and shouted down the pipe. "Hel-loooo?" Her watery voice echoed back at her. "I assume this was the well?"

"Exactly. Grandfather kept it capped because this well is still good."

She replaced the lid.

"The old log cabin stood right about there."

She glanced at the level spot that he indicated. "How many acres did your grandfather own?"

"About five-hundred eventually."

She raised her eyebrows, impressed.

"While my grandparents were engaged, Grandfather built this cabin with the help of kinfolk. He had inherited a spot of land from his father. My grandparents were married in a local wilderness church that doesn't even exist anymore, and they spent their honeymoon right here in this cabin. The newlyweds were very very young, still teenagers. I'm quite certain that their first night in this cabin was their first time alone together. They had courted always in the presence of chaperones. They were both deeply religious and subscribed to the Puritan work ethic. Definitely no premarital sex. Not much postmarital sex either. Sex was for procreation, not recreation. They believed in a God that expected you to marry young and have lots of children so that's what they did. My father and his two brothers and three sisters were all born right here, probably with the assistance of a local midwife. When the boys were old enough, they helped in the fields. They still used mule-drawn plows in those days. It was hard work from dawn to dusk. Grandfather was a strict disciplinarian. You worked hard, you said grace before every meal, and you went to church every Sunday without fail. He read the Bible to his family every night before bedtime and God forbid you should talk or giggle during the nightly reading or you would risk one of his wrathful stares or possibly even a switching with a birch branch. His sons left home as soon as possible. Father could not wait to get out of here and move to the city."

"When did the family make the move to the larger house?"

"I can't remember the exact year, but only the two younger daughters were still living at home."

"No premarital sex, huh?"

Tyler smiled at her sadly. "I'm afraid you and I are going straight to hell."

She smiled back, bemused, turned and wandered back in the direction of the wooded lane. He admired the way her firm young legs looked in the cutoffs, the way her buttocks shaped the seat of them. Tyler had to smile upon his recollection of how the yokels at the lunch cafe had checked out Nattie when they had entered. They had looked at her and then at him enviously and he had smiled at them rather smugly as if to say: "Sorry, boys. She's mine. All mine."

Casually he followed her. She stood now with her back to the trunk of a tree, looking at him from the shadows. He went up to her slowly. He caressed her face and softly kissed her mouth. His hand slid up inside her T-shirt and cupped one of her small breasts and her hand snaked down into his tailored slacks.

"Oh my," she said. "Aren't you a big boy!"

"You know," he murmured, his lips still lingering against hers, "this is a big farm. We could frolick naked through woodland and meadow and no one would see us."

"I'm afraid it's getting a little too late in the day for frolicking. The sun's going down. Any other erotic ideas?"

"One thing I've always wanted to do here is climb out one of the dormer windows and make love on the roof in the rain at night."

"Is it going to rain tonight?"

"It would be fun even without the rain, just doing it under the stars."

"Except that the mosquitos would eat us alive." She swatted the side of her neck and inspected her hand.

"We'll try it tonight then?"

"It's a date, big boy. You and me, tonight, on the roof."

He kissed her gratefully.

Afterwards she asked: "Would Grandfather approve?"

"Definitely not. But then Grandfather is dead."

He glanced at the horizon and sighed with dismay. "You're right, the sun is going down. We had better be heading back. You have no idea how dark it gets out here in the country. We'd probably have to feel our way back."

"Our friends will be visiting tomorrow, so we'll frolick naked through woodland and meadow on Sunday for sure."

"Sunday it is."

Hand in hand they started back along the shadowy lane through the woods.

"The sun is going down, you say?"

He looked at her. She was wearing one of her playful grins.

"What's wrong with that?"

"Oh, come on. That's a rather pedestrian way of putting it, is it not? You can do better than that."

"You put it that way first," he reminded her.

"Come on, Mr. Poet! You can do much better than 'the sun is going down.' Let's hear some poetry."

He grinned and turned and studied the sun. She loved playing these little literary games. "How about: Nature is slowly pulling the shades?"

"Yuck. Try again."

"Mother Nature is modestly pulling the shades?"

She shook her head with impatience and squinted at the sun herself. "How about: The sun's red face bearded with green?"

"Show off. How about: Mother Nature is blushingly pulling the shades?"

"How about something about an orange egg in an Easter basket?"

"How about something about the death-bed of a day?"

"That one's not bad."

She saw him looking guilty.

"Hey, wait a minute! I think I've heard that one before. Isn't that a quotation from somebody?"

"Bailey," he nodded. "Damn, you're just too sharp. I can't get anything by you."

He opened the long gate and they passed through and he closed the gate again and they strolled back along the gravel-covered lane. It was twilight now and the insects were shrilling in the surrounding foliage, drowning out the waning songs of birds. They would not be able to discern a snake from a stick now until it moved and for that reason they avoided treading on sticks.

"You haven't told me much about your grandmother," Nattie observed.

Tyler smiled fondly. "Their wedding picture shows her as a very thin, delicate, demure, genteel young woman, still practically a girl, in fact; but I always remember her as a stocky burly-armed matron capable of crushing your ribs in a bear hug of affection. I always got the feeling that grandma really liked me. She was proud that I was a straight-A student in high school. But I visited here less and less until by the time of her death I hadn't seen them in a number of years. Grandma told my father once, rather sadly, according to my father, that she never thought I would get tired of coming home. That was what she called it, 'coming home.' The last time I saw her alive, she was in the hospital. She was no longer capable of administering bear hugs, but she was truly glad to see me. I always felt guilty about not visiting more often in the end."

They had drawn abreast of the second barn, the boring one. The dusk was growing thicker.

"You seem to feel guilty about a lot of things, Tyler."

"I know. It's not healthy, but I can't help it. That's just the way I am. I remember one time, I think I was about ten or eleven, certainly old enough to know better, I found an egg out behind the henhouse. I figured that, since it hadn't actually been laid in one of the nests inside the henhouse, it didn't really count as one of Grandma's eggs, and I could do with it as I pleased. So I flung it against the back of the henhouse and watched the yolk and albumen ooze down the rough splintered wood. I squatted and inspected the remains and found, floating in the yolk, a tiny fetal chicken. I felt bad then about smashing that egg. I remember brooding about how that tiny thing would never grow up to become a real chicken because of what I had done. Then I made the mistake of telling Grandma herself what I had done. She gave me a look of disappointment that I had never seen from her before. I feel guilty about it to this day."

They were passing now the first barn, the adventure barn, barely visible in the thickening dusk of the woods, and he sensed her disapproval.

"Nattie, don't we always feel guilty about our remembered conduct towards the dead? Things we did and said, and things we should have done and said?"

"I suppose," she sighed, after some reflection.

"Grandfather, on the other hand — I never got the feeling that he liked me much. His greetings were never warm, in fact he barely acknowledged my presence. He rarely said a word to me. And I think he was embarrassed about my good grades."

"Maybe that was just his nature. How did he treat his other grandsons?"

"He adored my country cousin. He practically doted on him."

"What sort of kid was your country cousin?"

"A farmer's son and a regular churchgoer."

"Well, there's your answer. Your grandfather liked him because he was just like your grandfather. His dislike of you had nothing to do with you personally, but with what you represented, or more accurately, what you failed to represent."

Tyler did not say anything for a while. "I really felt sorry for the old man after Grandmother died. Though they had never seemed to me to be all that close, he seemed lost after her death and increasingly withdrawn. Towards the end he rarely got out of bed. It was as if he had lost the will to live. He died only about two months after my grandmother died, upstairs in the old farmhouse."

"What was the cause of death?"

"We don't really know, and I'm not sure the doctors did either. We never found out. He just died. Call it old age. Call it grief. Maybe he was like King Lear and simply died of a broken heart. Who knows?"

"That is rather sad," Nattie said.

They had come within sight of the old farmhouse.

The BMW stood parked out front. The car and the house and the grounds all were shrouded in twilight. Tyler looked at the dormer windows and imagined himself and Nattie climbing naked out of one of them and making love on the roof.

That was when Tyler saw someone in an upstairs window.

When she realized that he was no longer beside her, Nattie stopped and looked back at him.

"What's the matter, darling?"

He stood staring with horror at the window.

"Tyler, what is it? You look kind of funny."

"Huh? No, nothing. Nothing's the matter."

She was smiling uncertainly. "Are you sure?"

"I'm positive." He ambled up to her again.

"Why? Did you see someone? Do you think someone's in there?" She hesitated and looked at the house worriedly.

"No, no one's in there. Don't worry about it. This is the country. You don't have to lock your doors every time you leave."

"Damn it, Tyler, if somebody's in there and they find that gun, they could use it against us. I told you I don't like those goddamn guns!"

"No one's in there, Nattie."

"Then what did you see?"

When he made no reply, she looked from the house to his face again. Her expression mingled anger and worry with amusement. "Are you just doing this to scare me?"

Tyler forced himself to chuckle.

"You scoundrel!" she slapped his shoulder. "How adolescent!"

"I'm sorry. I'm in a mischievous mood. Come here, honey."

"Don't you honey me."

He tried to put his arms around her.

"Don't you touch me."

But he could see that she wasn't really angry and after a few more steps along the semicircular drive she put her arm around him and rested her head against his shoulder. "That was a big mistake, darling. You should know by now that I give as well as I get. I'll getcha back big-time for that. You won't know what hit you."

"Thanks for the warning."

But Tyler in his agitation was not really listening. He had just glimpsed again at the upstairs window the pallid face. There was definitely somebody up there. And the somebody was not shy about making his presence known. Tyler was thinking now that maybe he should have locked up when they left. Perhaps the country had changed since his boyhood. Next time he would lock the door. He was not sure what to do now. Should he tell Nattie to stay outside while he went in to investigate? Should he confront the intruder? Would he have to fight? Was the intruder armed? Perhaps he had found the gun. Maybe he would hide somewhere inside the house. Maybe they shouldn't even go inside. As they went up the concrete walk to the porch Tyler mulled over the option of getting on his cell phone in the BMW and calling the police.

Brave Nattie flung open the screen door and boldly entered the porch. "Yoo-hoo, anybody home?" She opened the front door and stepped into the darkness of the living room. He heard her voice but could not see her. "Any intruders? Any bad guys? I have a machine gun." He snapped on a lamp and gazed around. Suddenly Nattie leaped into the middle of the room and began firing an imaginary machine gun, making machine-gun noises with her mouth. She turned to him and grinned. Tyler, after initial alarm, could not help but smile half-heartedly back. He scanned the room. No one was there, of course. Their suitcases were undisturbed. The door to the upstairs was closed.

She walked into the pool room, switching on the light and making lots of noise. "Tyler, are you hungry now?" They had bought sandwiches and soda at the cafe where they had stopped for lunch.

"Yes."

While she was getting into the refrigerator, he inspected the door to the upstairs. It did not have a lock. He went through the pool room and switched on the light of the back bedroom and walked up to the bureau. The Colt revolver lay untouched inside the folded newspaper.

"Do you want to eat in the kitchen or out on the front porch?"

"Out on the front porch," he replied.

He turned and found her standing in the doorway with the sandwiches and cola, looking at him curiously. "What are you doing in there?"

"Just checking around."

"For what?"

"Nothing," he said, and switched off the light.