Sunday, October 27, 2013
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Black Magic Woman - an excerpt
Chapter 6
Mama lit another candle and then disappeared into another part of the house. She returned carrying a small jar, a necklace, and an ornate box. After placing the objects on the kitchen table, she brought the teakettle from the stove. Thunder, lightning, and pounding rain continued outside the house without any sign of slacking as steam swirled up from our teacups.
“Hold out your palm,” she said.
When I extended my hand across the table, she tapped something into it from the antique jar.
“What is it?”
“Mushroom.”
“Like in magic mushroom?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Is it dangerous?”
“Not with me here it isn’t. I’m a practitioner. Remember?”
“I trust you.”
“Good. I’m giving you just enough to help induce a trance so I can channel the spirit that visited you in the hospital. Chew the mushroom; swallow it, and then wash it down with tea.”
Thunder rocked the ceiling as she pushed the box toward the center of the table. Wax had begun dripping down the sides of the candle and drying on the tabletop. Mama didn’t seem to notice or to care. In the flickering light, I could see the box was constructed of beautifully polished wood with intricate markings carved into it.
“What is it?”
“More magic. A music box made by monks in the Early Middle Ages. Christianity was in its infancy in Europe at the time, and still very much a mixture of folk religion and paganism. This music box produces a very specific and wonderful melody. It was used in rituals to create trances.”
“To what purpose?”
“To ward off demons, curses, and the evil eye.”
“It must be very valuable. Where did you get it?”
“Don’t ask,” she said. “Is the mushroom working yet?”
“How will I know?”
“You’ll know. Put this around your neck and drink the tea.”
She handed me the pendant necklace with a stone, black as the sky outside the house. Rain and wind had set the chimes on the back porch sounding a discordant mixture of percussive music. Something heavy blew loose and slammed against the wall. I held the stone in my hand, rubbing its polished surface.
“What is this?”
“Psilomelane; a mineral with very special properties. It’ll help us induce the trance.”
“This isn’t going to hurt, is it?”
“Stop kidding around. No time for silliness.”
Mama wound the music box and then opened its carved top. Centuries had not dulled the instrument’s dulcet tones. A simple, repetitive melody began filling the kitchen with metallic-inflected sound. As it continued, it seemed to probe my very psyche.
“Breathe in,” she said. “Breathe out. Close your eyes and become one with the tones. Focus only on the melody.”
The tune was enchanting, the pleasant pitch of plucked pins as poignant as a full orchestra. The noise of the storm had disappeared as the mushroom started working, the far wall rippling and changing colors from vivid yellows and reds to ghostly white through my slitted eyes. I felt weightless as if I’d somehow risen out of the chair and was floating, not touching anything. When I glanced at the candle, the wax pouring down its sides had turned to blood. It was the last thing I remembered for a while.
***
Wyatt’s eyes had closed, his head tilted, chin almost touching his chest. He didn’t notice the shimmering cloud that had suddenly appeared behind him, or the spirit staring at Mama with steely resolve. It was the spirit of a young man, his dark hair and distinctive clothes cut in the style of a different era. Though an aquiline nose dominated his face, it somehow made him appear regally handsome. He wasn’t smiling.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Zacharie Patenaud,” the apparition said. “Who are you, and why do you summon me?”
“I’m Mama Mulate, a close friend of Wyatt’s. I called you here for answers.”
“The man you call Wyatt has the answers.”
“If that’s not his name, then what is it?”
“I do not need to tell you what you already know.”
As Mama stared at the flickering apparition, a python appeared around his shoulders. The eyes of the dark reptile glowed red as it jutted its neck toward her, Its mouth open wide with evil intent. When Mama put her arm up to block the assault, pentacles, pentagrams, and hexagrams began flying toward her like an out-of-control, 3-D movie. The melody from the music box had become suddenly and relentlessly loud.
“You are cursed!” she shouted. “Why have you attached yourself to Wyatt?”
“Because it is he who caused the curse I bear. We are doomed to stay with each other for eternity unless. . .”
“Unless what?”
“Only he can have the curse lifted.”
“You make no sense. Why would he place a curse on you that would have such an evil effect on himself?”
“Only he knows,” the spirit said.
“That isn’t true. Someone else has cursed you. A facilitator of the Devil and not Wyatt.”
“He paid for the curse with twenty coins of gold.”
“Then you must have done something horrible to cause him to do such a thing. What is it you did?”
“Elise,” the spirit said.
“A woman? He cursed you because of a woman?”
“What matters is that only he can lift the curse from my soul. If he does not, we will remain together for eternity,” he said, his image growing dimmer.
“How can he lift the curse?”
“That is a question only he can answer.”
The music had grown earsplitting, Mama’s eyes rolling to the back of her head as she tried to muffle the sound with her hands.
“What’s his name,” she shouted. “And the name of the woman who can lift the curse.”
The apparition’s voice and its image began to fade. He held out his hand to her as he disappeared into the darkness. Mama continued shielding her face as the serpent and flying Devil signs went with it.
When they were gone, she poured a straight shot of whiskey and then slugged it down in one gulp. After her second shot, the music box lay quiet, thunder shook the roof, and the candle in the center of the table flickered and died.
###
Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.
3.8 Carat Canary Diamond Found in Arkansas
Diamond Story
Eric'sWeb
Friday, October 18, 2013
Prior Approval Required for Burial
John "Pink" Pinkney O'Rear, my great-grandfather, lost a leg in the Civil War while serving with Company D of the 1st Texas Infantry Battalion. After the war, he hiked from Georgia to Texas on the wooden leg the Union doctors provided him.
He died long before I was born, but my grandmother assured me he had no ill will against the Yankees and had told her many times they treated him with respect while he was in their prison camp.
I'm glad I had no one to bury on the day I visited because I had no prior approval.
###
All of Eric's books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and on his iBook author pages, and his Website.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Ghost of Marie Laveau
* * *
When I was nineteen, I lived across the street from Madam Marie Laveau’s house on St. Anne’s. In the seventies, I worked in a hotel on Rampart. It was rumored that part of Madam Marie’s bed was on the wall above the bar. It was a side piece that had a sliding door. This is so she could close herself off totally while sleeping and no one could cast a spell on her.
In the nineties, after a long sojourn in California I was back in New Orleans for a visit and decided to stay at the hotel. I went in the bar to see if the bedside was still there. It was, the bar remodeled, and the bedside moved it to a new spot.
I didnt tell a soul thinking some disrespectful person might mark it up if they knew the story. After checking into my room, I went about the business of seeing old friends from my LSU days and having dinner with them. We ate at recently opened Baco on Rue Chartres.
After returning to my hotel room I retired for the evening and turned out all the lights but one in a little dressing area kept coming back on. Thinking it had a short, I unplugged it. It came on again! Then I realized my room was directly over the bar and the piece of Madam Marie’s bed. Now that I think of it, maybe she was trying to thank me for not giving away her secret.
####
All of Eric's books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and on his iBook author pages, and his Website.
Yashica Dreams - tale of two f-stops
The Yashica was great and let you do the focusing, set the f-stop and the shutter speed. Of course, if the printed picture was over or underexposed, or out of focus you had no one to blame but yourself.
The sturdy Yashica took awesome photos but I soon decided that I couldn’t live another day without a single lens reflex. Since I couldn’t afford a more expensive brand with interchangeable lenses, I settled for a fixed-lens, Kowa SLR. It wasn’t as sturdy as the Yashica nor did it take pictures even half as good, but I kept it until it finally locked up on me.
Gail and I had little money for cameras after we married but I did manage to purchase a Minolta SRT-101 while passing through Japan Vietnam
No one buys 35 mm SLRs anymore. Well, except me. A few years ago, on a surfing trip through eBay, I purchased ten or so SLRs of various makes and models. I have so many cameras and lenses that I can never use them all, and, well, I’ve now discovered digital photography.
I have a tiny little Nikon that takes wonderful pictures and movies if I feel like it. I can download them instantly to my computer and crop, touch-up and doctor any photo to my heart’s content, or delete it completely if I don’t like it.
Unlike my old Yashica, the Nikon performs all the tasks for me. I barely have to think about it. I love it, but sometimes, usually, late at night and after quaffing a few strong brews I regret the loss of choice and decision I had back in 1968, but not enough to give up my little Nikon.
###
All of Eric's books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and on his iBook author pages, and his Website.
Monday, October 14, 2013
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Primal Creatures on Sale at Amazon and B&N
Primal - Amazon
Primal - B&N
Eric'sWeb
Sunday, October 06, 2013
A Halloween to Remember
Halloween was on a Friday, so we planned the big bash for Saturday. Not all of our guests got the message as three revelers showed up for the party Friday night. Born on the day before Halloween, I seem forever destined to be connected to that holiday.Anne and I married early in 1980 and decided to host a Halloween party that year.
Jakob, an Israeli expatriate that was doing stonework around our house for us, showed up as a cowboy. He was soon followed by Nancy, a geologist, dressed, strangely enough, as an Indian princess. John, another geologist, showed up a little later, his only costume a mask.
Nonplussed, Anne and I broke out the alcohol. There was a championship boxing match on television that night - Oklahoma City Glasgow , Scotland
Those days there was no rule about excessive bleeding. To say that there was a little blood strewn around the ring would be a true understatement. The ring looked more like the inside of a working slaughterhouse, all the viewers, including myself, in shock and totally aghast. The fight was soon called and Watt proclaimed the world champion.
We went on to drink, carouse and to celebrate into the wee hours, neither Anne nor I in shape for the real Halloween party that continued as planned the next day.
A few years later I met Sean O'Grady at a Christmas Party in Oklahoma City
He wasn't smiling and I could tell from his expression and the clench of his fists that he was getting ready to hit me. Having seen his devastating punching power on more than one occasion, I immediately raised my right palm.
"Believe me, I'm not "Little Red" Lopez. I'm one of your biggest fans."
Sean smiled and we proceeded to have a nice conversation. Lopez, it seems, had beaten the teenaged O'Grady and he had never forgotten or forgiven. I have posted a picture of "Little Red" on my photo page so you can see for yourself that I look nothing like the former boxer.
That was the first Halloween party that I hosted, eventful like everyone else that followed. I have another Sean O'Grady story but I'll save it for another day.
###
All of Eric's books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and on his iBook author pages, and his Website.
Friday, October 04, 2013
Old Creole Winter Okra Soup - a weekend recipe
Old Creole Winter Okra Soup
Ingredients
· 3 pints Okra
· 6 tomatoes, fresh
· 2 onions
· 2 T butter
· 2 dozen oysters
· 3 T rice
· 1 red pepper pod, deseeded
Directions
Wash and stem the okra, and then slice it very fine. Chop the tomatoes finely and preserve the juice. Chop the onions finely, and then fry them in the butter, in a large pot. Wash the rice well. Slow stew the onions, tomatoes and juice, and pepper in about three quarts of water and one pint of oyster juice for three hours, stirring frequently. Don’t add the okra and rice until ten minutes before serving, then let it come to a boil. Drop in the oysters, boil up once, and serve.
Note: South Louisiana usually has a long growing season, but the Creoles of New Orleans didn’t have fresh okra and tomatoes during the winter. They resolved this problem by canning fruits and vegetables during the months they were plentiful. To follow the original recipe, use one can (jar) of okra, and one can (jar) of tomatoes instead of fresh okra and tomatoes. Either way, it's wonderful.
###
Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Cornbread and Boll Weevils, a Halloween Memory
Halloween was my favorite holiday when I
was young in Vivian , Louisiana
I couldn’t have been much more than five
when I began staying out until the wee hours, dressed as a ghost or goblin, with
my big brother Jack and close friend Wiley.
Most people quit answering their doors at ten but that didn’t keep us
from knocking, or turning over their trash cans if no one answered and rewarded
us with candy.
The only thing I can remember that was
slightly unsavory was that someone gave us weevil bread – cornbread with boll
weevils cooked into it. We all decided
that we had gotten the weevil bread from the mayor’s house.
I grew up in a different time, not
better, just different, but I’ll never forget the feeling I had that I was
somehow invisible, and that the darkness was where I was destined to be.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Gurdon Curse - a short story
My wife Marilyn was born in Oklahoma but spent much of her childhood in Gurdon, Arkansas. A railroad traverses the outskirts of the tiny Arkansas town, and there are numerous accounts of people seeing strange lights at night on the track. Marilyn and her family lived in the house near the tracks, and an old black woman named Hattie worked for Marilyn's family. One dark night, she recounted the story of the Gurdon Ghost to Marilyn and her sister Sharon. Is the story true? Sometimes, the truth is stranger than fiction.
Gurdon Curse
When I was young, I lived in the country just outside of
The porch wrapped around the house, and Daddy screened it to keep out mosquitoes. We were all sitting outside that night, enjoying the dampness a late autumn rain had brought and a little chill that made it comfortable to cuddle up in one of Grandma’s old Afghans.
Almost grown, Bobby Jack was hardly ever around. He had a date that night with the new girl down the road and soon slipped out the screen door without saying bye. Brother David was at a basketball game. Mama frowned when my Daddy dropped the butt of his cigarette on the porch, smashing the glowing stub with the toe of his boot.
Waving at us over his shoulder, he said, “See you all tomorrow. Four o’clock comes early.”
Mama shook her head, grabbed Nita and Carl Wayne and followed Daddy through the front door. We had no light on the porch but the glow of an almost full moon cast Hattie and Sharon Ann in a warm glow. She was eight; I was nine.
“Guess it’s time for me to go home, too.”
“Please, Hattie, tell us a story before you go,” I begged.
“I’m tired and you two girls have heard every story I know at least a dozen times.”
Hattie’s smile disappeared when Sharon Ann said, “You never told us about the Gurdon Lights.”
“Maybe you know as much as I do. What have you heard about the Lights?”
Sharon Ann gave me a frowning glance, daring me with her eyes to blurt something out and take the spotlight away from her.
“We heard it was the ghost of a railroad man that had fallen off a train and it cut off his head. They say the lights are from the lantern he carries up and down the tracks, looking for his lost head.”
As Hattie grinned, a semi out on the highway blew its horn, and the dying moan mingled with the chill breeze, whipping the limbs of the tall pines in our front yard.
“The Gurdon Lights are real, but the true story ain’t nothing like anything you ever heard. I’ll tell it to you when you both get a little older.”
“No way,” I said, grabbing her arm. “We’re both old enough. Tell us now.”
Sharon Ann grabbed her other arm. “Is it spooky?”
Hattie let us direct her to Mama’s rocker. “Spooky? It’s downright scary and the story is kinda long. I need a big ol glass of ice tea to wet my whistle if I gonna tell it.”
I didn’t have to be told twice. Rushing into the house, I poured Hattie a large glass of tea from the pitcher in the icebox. Before leaving the kitchen, I doctored the brew with Daddy’s bottle of Weller’s he kept hidden behind the Mason jars in the pantry.
I didn’t bother stirring the mixture before handing it to Hattie, and after her first sip, I knew it didn’t matter. Sharon Ann and I sat on the porch before her, huddling together in the warmth of the Afghan.
“This story might give you a few nightmares. Your Mama wouldn’t like that.”
“We’re not scared,” I said.
I always thought of Hattie as a big woman, maybe because of her husky voice. She wasn’t big at all. I realized as much years later, when returning to Gurdon for a visit. She did have square shoulders, big arms for her size and slightly bowed legs that we girls used to tease her about, and her skin was as dark as if she had spent her whole life in the sun.
Hattie took another slug of the laced tea, and I knew she wasn’t going anywhere until she finished every drop. After settling into Mama’s comfortable rocker, she began her story, her words so low that Sharon Ann and I had to lean forward to hear them over the gusting wind.
“Marilyn, you and Sharon Ann are such pretty little white girls. I was not much older than you are now when I first saw the Gurdon Lights. It was about this time of year, maybe just a tad later. Sister Selma and me was sitting outside the house in the swing. It was way past dark and Mama had called us to come inside at least twice.”
Hattie leaned her head back and closed her eyes before slowly continuing.
“Our daddy was the local preacher man. Everybody know’d him. We lived in a nicer house than most black folks, not far from the railroad tracks. Selma and me was waiting for the ten o’clock to thunder past. It wasn’t quite ten when I saw something else instead.”
“Selma
“It was a light moving toward us. We couldn’t tell much else because the night was kinda misty from one of them low-hanging fogs. Sorta like tonight.”
“Where? I don’t see nothing,” she said.
“I didn’t have time to answer because here come the ten o’clock , right on time. The train blew its whistle and rattled right on past our house. The flickering light I had first seen was gone when it finally disappeared into the darkness.
“I was the oldest girl in the family, my room on the first floor, in back of the house. That night, I heard something tapping on my window. The sound woke me but I was still half asleep. It was dark and my eyes blurry when I looked at the window where the noise was coming from.
“Someone or something was tapping on the window and the sound echoed through my room. Tap, tap, tap, it went. Tap, tap, tap. It was dark outside but I saw the shadow of something in the window.”
“What was it?” Sharon Ann demanded.
Hattie sat her tea on the porch floor, closed her eyes and hugged her arms together at her bosom.
I took the empty glass from the floor and scurried back inside to replenish it before she thought better about finishing her story. Sharon Ann had Hattie’s arm, begging her not to leave when I returned from the kitchen.
“What did you see in the window?”
Hattie took a deep breath and a slow sip before answering. “I didn’t hardly believe what I saw myself, but it was a white ghostly head, with long white hair.”
“You mean a ghost?” Sharon Ann asked, sucking in her breath and holding it for Hattie’s answer.
“It was a ghost all right, staring at me through the window with eyes that didn’t have a drop of color. Scared the scream right outa my throat. I swear to you nothing come out. I just pulled the covers over my head and shook.”
The wind whipped up, causing a real commotion with Mama’s chimes hung on some of the nearest low-hanging limbs.
“Then what happened?” I asked, reaching for Sharon Ann’s hand, squeezing it fiercely in my own.
Hattie steeled herself with a healthy sip from the tea glass and finally began again.
“I would probably still be under the covers, but Selma
“What are you doing under there?” she demanded of me.
“I glanced at the window, and then back at Selma
“Somebody’s gonna get in trouble when Mama find out who broke off her favorite rose bush,” he said.
“Selma
“A ghost wouldn’t have fallen,” Selma
“I wasn’t convinced that I hadn’t seen a ghost but the thought of a peeping Tom in the neighborhood did little to soothe my nerves.
“That night, the light was back, only this time Selma
Hattie took another sip, and chilly as it was, wiped beads of perspiration from her forehead. The wind outside had slowed and it got all quiet, except for a dog barking in the distance. Fog hung close to the ground, in the hollows and between the trees. The screech of Mama’s cat outside the house startled Hattie. A grin spread over her big face when she saw us staring at her so intently.
“I see you girls aren’t going to let me go home until I finish the story.”
Our faces were the only answer she needed, plus, we were a captive audience, and she knew it.
Hattie grinned again, took another sip and continued. “My Daddy, like I said, was the preacher man. I knew I couldn’t tell him I’d seen a ghost or he’d of made me listen to one of his sermons after the other. I told my Grandma instead. I could always talk straight to her and she always give me good advice.
“Grandma was a very old woman, with skin as black as chimney soot and hair white as ash.
“You believe in ghosts, Grandma?”
“Course I do. I was your age when I saw my first ghosts. I was pickin’ cotton with my Mama and Daddy. It was hot and we was tired. I cried, grabbed my Mama’s dress and begged her to let me quit.”
“Chile
“She pointed behind me. There was folks I had not noticed and they was helpin’ us pick the cotton. They was our dead ancestors, looking as real as you and me, and doing just as much work, except you could see right through them.”
Hattie drew a deep breath. “Granny said we all have spirits that guide and protect us.”
“Don’t ever be afraid, little Hattie,” she said. “Always do the brave thing and God will protect you.”
“I got my chance to test her words not long after that. I was asleep in my room when the same tap, tap, tap on my window woke me, just like before. My eyes were wide as saucers when I peeked out from under the covers and looked at the window.”
Hattie covered her eyes and shuddered. “Don’t stop,” I said. “Tell us what happened.”
“This time I got a good look at the ghost. He was huge and white as a sheet in the light of a full moon. His eyes had no color and he was tapping on my window with long fingernails that curled up like fishhooks.
“I covered my head with the bed covers and stayed that way, thinking he would bust through the window any minute. It never happened and sometime during the night I fell asleep from exhaustion, but my heart was still pounding when I woke up next morning.
“I ran outside in my nightgown and found something under my window.”
“Tell us,” Sharon Ann said, squeezing my hand to where the pink of the fingers gave way to white.
“Was an envelope and there was something in it. A letter.
“I waited until I was in class before I opened and read it. It didn’t say much cept: Help me—Dorothea James, the old house that sits alone down the railroad track. Please come.
“I wanted to tell my daddy, or granny, or maybe even Selma. Something in the message made me keep it to myself. I was working on a project for the English teacher and it was after five before I left school. Instead of going straight home, I headed up the railroad tracks, toward the old house in the woods.
“Everyone in Gurdon knew about the house, near the railroad track. It had been ramshackle long as I could remember, and we called it the haunted house. We had all heard tales about hobos and tramps living there and none of us chilluns had ever so much as stuck our heads inside that old building.
“It was dark when I reached it and I was already kicking myself for being so far from home, but as I stood on the tracks and stared down at the house I saw the glow of a light coming from inside. I almost turned and ran away down the track, but Granny’s words stopped me. I started down the hill instead.
“The old front porch creaked like an old man’s bones and I wished I had a lantern to keep from stepping in a rotten spot and falling through. Somehow I made it to the ruined screen door hanging on one loose hinge. The old wooden door was only half shut.
“I pushed through into the house. The inside smelled like mold. You could feel the dampness on your skin. The wood was all rotted. I followed the hallway to the dim light that led to a bedroom where someone was lying in bed.
“It was a woman, her hair long and unkempt as wet hay. She was black but her skin was ashen as Granny’s hair. The sight of me set her into a coughing fit, her eyes bulging when she tried to catch her breath.
“Oh Chile
“She wasn’t old but her body was so ruined by disease that I barely understood her. Frail as she was, her grip was strong when she grabbed my hand and touched it to her cheek.”
“I’m Dorothea and I got a problem,’” she said. “I’m gonna die soon and I need to share a special secret with someone I can trust.”
“What secret?”
“It’s about Jerome. Jerome my boy."
“She didn’t have to tell me someone else had entered the room because the little hairs on back of my neck bristled up and I felt a cold chill race down my back. I was afraid to turn around though more afraid not to. When I turned and seen who it was, I almost fainted.
“Standing right there was the Ghost of Gurdon. My legs got weak and rubbery. I almost pissed my panties and would have, but my heart was beating so fast I had to grasp my chest to keep it from busting out of my body. The woman still had hold of my hand and yanked it.”
“It’s okay, Chile
“I was once in a doughnut shop when the Grambling basketball team come in. I’ve never in my life seen such tall, athletic young men. Jerome was just as tall and big, and he had absolutely no color in his whole body, not his hair, his eyes or his skin. He was white as a ghost."
“Dorothea yanked me, demanding I pay attention to her, not her giant, colorless son. She eased me close enough to her face that I could smell her acrid breath and clearly see the tears pouring down her ruined face.”
“What’s your name, girl?’” she asked. When I told her she said, “Jerome’s an albino. Having an albino baby in these parts is a curse. It’s called mzungu, the product of a black woman and a white man. Worse, most believe an albino is a living ghost. When families have such a curse, they usually take care of it. I just couldn’t do that to my baby."
“I brought him here and raised him all by myself. We had a little truck patch out back, a cow and a few chickens. Jerome never had no one but me, and when I took the sickness, I got to where I could not feed us no more. Jerome’s been walking down the railroad track at night with his lantern, stealing food and things we need. He’s deaf and can’t speak and I’ve been so scared somebody was gonna kill him, or worse, hack off his arms and legs and leave him to die."
“There’s no monster mean enough to do that,” I said.
“The woman pulled me closer, right up to her face so that I was staring directly into her brown eyes and I couldn’t help but see, and feel her desperation.”
“You’re just a baby. You don’t know yet what hatred some people have in their hearts. Jerome thought you were older and he had a good feeling about you, but . . ."
“Just tell me what to do,” I said, squeezing her hand. “I’ll help if I can.”
“I can’t die and leave Jerome like this. He’ll never make it without someone to care for him."
“Daddy’s a preacher. He’s a good man and will help you, I promise.
“Dorothea loosened her grip on my hand and looked me square in the eyes. She didn’t say another word. She just smiled, nodded and laid her head back against the pillow.
“Dorothea was right. Jerome wouldn’t have hurt a soul. He held my hand as we walked the tracks back to my house. I give him a kiss on the cheek before sneaking in the house, without anyone knowing I had been out. Next morning I told my Daddy.”
Thinking about my own dad, I asked, “Was he okay with it?”
Hattie nodded. “He let me take him to the old house on the railroad track. He prayed for Dorothea and promised her that he would care for Jerome and protect him from harm.
“And that’s what he did. When Dorothea died, Daddy held a service for her and buried her body behind the Baptist church. Jerome was there, dressed in a black coat, a big hat with a veil so people couldn’t see his face. Daddy knew a good couple in Chicago
Sharon Ann and I were captivated by the story. “I can’t believe Jerome wouldn’t have been welcome here in Gurdon.”
Clouds had finally parted and a full moon lighted the path outside the screened porch. Hattie finished the last sip of her tea and started out the door, turning when she had one last thought.
“You pretty little white girls just remember one thing. Old beliefs, black or white, die hard. Some people would rather deal with a ghost than someone that’s different than them. Those people will keep looking for a ghost forever because their minds can’t accept the truth.”
Sharon Ann and me watched the little black woman disappear down the foggy road. Before closing the door, I glanced up at the full moon, and then back at the railroad track, wondering if the distant incandescence disappearing into the fog was Jerome’s spirit, still searching for a person with a good heart.
###
Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma, where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He authored the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans, the Paranormal Cowboy Series, and the Oyster Bay Mystery Series. Please check it out on his Amazon author page. You can also check out his Facebook page.
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