A Tale from the Hills (18 page)

“Yes ma’am.” he answered with a bit of formality in his voice.

“All right then. Sam, let’s go. Bye William.”

“Bye Eunice.” he replied.

“Bye William.”

“Bye Sam.” he replied.

He had already decided that he was going to leave shortly after they were on the road. He would be a good distance away before they discovered that he was even gone.

He waited until they were out of sight of the house before he made his first move. He remembered seeing an old suitcase in a backroom upstairs, and he got it first. He stopped in his old room when he came back down the hallway, and neatly packed the dark blue suit into the suitcase. Then he went halfway down the stairs making sure that he was still alone, before he returned for the suitcase. He decided that the old pistol might come in handy in his travels. He had never been inside their room before, and he almost felt like an intruder. He opened the top drawer and found the pistol very easily. Eunice must have laid it on top of everything else so that he could get to it fast if he needed to do so. He put the old gun into his right front pocket and looked around for extra bullets. But while he was looking, something else caught his eye. He blinked his eyes and cleared his throat to make sure that he was not having another nightmare. On the top of the dresser, inside a smallmetal frame, was a picture of the old man who had haunted his dreams for almost as long as he could remember. He snatched up the picture from the dresser and turned it over. Scratched into the back was inscribed ‘the Hill’. It had to be a picture of Eunice’s parents, his grandparents. A chill started on the top of his head and ended at the end of his bandaged toe.

For as long as he could remember he had been haunted by the old man in that picture. Now he knew exactly who the old man was. Why had the old man lured him to this house? Why was he supposed to be there? Was that the old mans way of letting him know that there was a blood bond between them? At that moment William knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had to get as far away as possible.

***********

All the way to Sparta Eunice had an uneasy feeling. She felt uncomfortable about leaving William all alone while she and Samantha were gone. Maybe they should have brought him along with them. But after all, someone had to stay at home and stand watch. The uneasiness passed as they approached the town limits.

The men at the hardware store acted suspiciously when they spotted the two women. Eunice suspected that one or two, or maybe even all of them were at her house the night before. It suddenly occurred to her that she should have asked William the name of the minister at the little church that he attended on Sunday morning. She might have dropped his name during their visit to the store and watched for any kind of reaction that it might cause. She decided that she would make a point of looking for a sign in the front yard of the church on the way back home. She felt like she needed to know the name of her chief adversary.

Besides purchasing glass and putty for the broken window and door, and as a way of letting the men know that she meant business, Eunice added a few self defense items to her order.

“I also need two boxes of twelve gauge shotgunshells and a box of twenty two hollow points. I have been having some trouble with varmints and I want to make sure that I have enough ammunition.”

“What kind of varmints?” the manager asked.

“The worst kind of polecats, “ she answered. “Mostly the two legged kind with bright yellow stripes down their backs.”

“I ain’t never seen a polecat with yellow stripes.” the man added.

“Maybe they just looked yellow in the moonlight. They don’t come out in the daylight to show their true colors.”

She gave the men a look that let them know that she recognized them.

“I’ll be sure to be ready for them the next time that they show their ungodly faces.” she added.

She settled her account in cash and she and Samantha were on their way back to the farm even sooner than she had anticipated. Samantha sat close to her all of the way back home.

**********

William took the old picture in the metal frame with him. He found a box that contained important looking papers, and emptied the contents on the dresser. He placed the pistol, the bullets, and the old picture of the estranged Hills back inside of it. He carefully packed the box into the suitcase to keep it from rattling about. He decided to take some bread and dried beef with him so that he would not have to stop until at least nightfall. He had already counted his money the night before, and he was very surprised to have right at twenty dollars. He did not bother to look for any of Eunice’s money. He did not want to leave her in a financial bind. He knew that she would have a tough enough time as it was. He was on his way to the railroad tracks before the two women had even reached the halfway point to Sparta. He figured that he could be several miles away by the time that they had returned.

He stepped over the fence and touched his feet on a railroad tie for the first time in more than three years. It was a strange sensation and he felt a little lightheaded. By the time that he had crossed the first trestle that he came to, he was at the last trestle in Alleghany County and he felt like a seasoned traveler again.

The next County that he entered was called Wilkes. When he was a little boy his daddy talked about going to Wilkes, and William always thought that it was some distant land. Strangely enough it looked just like the County that he had just left. The scenery did change however after he reached the Continental Divide, which was located at the very top of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The mountains were beautiful. William noticed that a road construction project was well under way at the top of the huge mountain range. There was a plaque that read, “Future Home of the Blue Ridge Parkway”. He thought about asking one of the work crews if they needed any laborers, but he quickly decided against the notion. He did not want to be in such a cold assed place when the Winter winds blew up again.

He could see for miles and miles from the top of the mountains. He wondered how they had ever managed to build a railroad line in such a treacherous place. The horizon on the other side of the mountain range looked practically flat compared to Alleghany County. By the time that he had reached the bottom of the mountain though, he was thinking about finding a place to sleep for the night. He decided that a barn filled with soft hay would make anexcellent bed, that is if he could find one.

**********

Eunice felt like something was wrong as soon as she pulled the wagon into the backyard. William did not run outside to greet them. He was not there to ask if they encountered any problems along the way to and from Sparta. She ran into the house to look for him but he was nowhere in sight. She was about to have a panic attack when she noticed the dresser in her bedroom. Papers werescattered everywhere and the top drawer was open. When she looked inside she noticed that the pistol was missing. Could those evil men have gotten him? Or had he ran away and taken the pistol with him? She suddenly remembered the night before when she and Sam were reassuring each other that nothing would ever scare them away. William had kept silent. He did not say a word that reassured them of his allegiance to their cause. The feelings of fear and sadness were replaced with anger.

“Williams gone.” she shouted to Samantha.

“What do you mean gone?” Samantha asked.

“The little so and so just took off. And he took the pistol with him.”

“Did he take anything else?” Samantha asked.

“Not that I can see.” Eunice replied.

She did not miss the picture in the metal frame because she forgot about putting it on top of the dresser.

“Why do you think that he took off without telling us? He is really going to put us in a bind.” Samantha asked.

“I’m sure that the night riders scared him almost to death. If you remember last night, he did not promise to stay and help us. He probably thought that we would try to talk him out of leaving if he told us his plans.”

“Damn!” said Samantha.

Eunice had never heard Samantha say a profanitybefore.

“Double damn!” Eunice added.

***********

That night while William slept in a farmer’s soft hay, the riders on a mission from Hell were making good on their threat. Eunice’s outburst at the hardware store must have convinced them to show up one night earlier than their original promise. This time they did not burn a cross in the Hill’s front yard. They did not break a window to wake the household from their sleep. They moved in silence to secure the doors and windows from the outside. They spread two five gallon cans of lamp oil all over the outside of the old farm house, and then lit the four corners in unison. The oldhouse burned like a dry pile of brush. The fire was so big and so hot that there was not even a chance that any living thing could escape it’s fury. The mice that had built a nest in the attic were consumed by the fire at about the same time as the house snakes that made their home in the crawl space under the floor.

The intended victims watched the whole thing take place from the safety of the barn loft. The two women realized that since William was gone, they could not defend the house from attack. During the course of the afternoon and early evening, they had hidden as many valuables as they could inside the inconspicuous barn. From a safe vantage point they watched the riders remove their hoods to watch the ritual of the fire. They easily recognized some of the men from the hardware store, a few of their own law enforcement men, and even one of their closest neighbors among the group of outlaw vigilantes. Although they did not recognize the ring leader of the group, they would identify him later as the minister of the little church down the road.

Under the cover of darkness the two women left for Ashe County as soon as the villains rode away. Samantha was a first cousin to the High Sheriff over there, and with his help the federal authorities were notified.

The men at the hardware store were completely taken by surprise when a convoy of government men raided the store on the following Saturday afternoon. The minister wondered why none of the men showed up at church on Sunday morning. He was equally curious when a dust cloud appeared in the distance while he was preaching his sermon on sin and evil. The puzzle was easily solved when the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents surrounded the little church. He and his comrades from the local police surrendered without a shot being fired. The minister’s daughter, who had been slapped silly only days before for smiling, beamed a smile from ear to ear when the government men put handcuffs on her daddy and led him away. After the federal authorities had rounded up all ofthe hooded conspirators, the Klan organization was stopped in its tracks in that particular county.

Eunice and Samantha were able to set up housekeeping in the barn until their home was rebuilt. A mild Winter was a blessing for them because their house was rebuilt by late Spring. The owner of the hardware store supplied all of the materials to rebuilt the house. He felt guilty because his sons were partly responsible for the women’s losses.

The best thing to come out of the whole series of events was the reunion of Eunice with her long lost brother Tom. The incredible story of the Klansmen and the burning of the house made big news in the entire region. Joseph Hill’s wife got the story off of the news wire at the newspaper office in Abingdon, and when she retold the story to Joseph, he of course remembered that his daddy always talked about a sister named Eunice. Tom was flabbergasted when he heard the story. He wrote a long letter to his sister in care of the old family address, and she received it only days later. The two of them exchanged correspondences for several months.

Tom was heartbroken when he read about the tragedy with his family in Alleghany County after the Great War. He could hardly believe that he and Eunice were the only surviving members of such a large family. Eunice explained to him about her relationship with Samantha, and he seemed to be comfortable with it. He told her that he was glad that she had someone with whom to share her life. That particular aspect of her life was the only hurdle that she was concerned about with her brother.

Tom had his own tragedies to tell his sister about. He explained about the death of his young wife and the almost impossible task of raising five little children all alone. The story about little Alice’s disappearance nearly broke Eunice’s heart. She cried as she read the sad and touching letter. Tom told her about his three older boys who were each doing very well, but he could not easily tell her about William. How could he put the words on paper to describe the inner conflicts that eventually drove his youngest son away from home. He told her that William had been gone for more than three years, but she did not correlate his missing William to the William that she knew. It would have been inconceivable for the two boys with the same first name to be the same person. She did not even mention the William that she used to know to her only living brother at all.

The two siblings agreed to get together by the time that the house was finished. The general store that Alan now co-owned with his in laws received a shipment from Wilkesboro about every month or so, and Alan worked out a deal with the delivery man for his daddy to ride over to Alleghany County with him. Eunice suggested that Tom come to visit with the intention of staying for as long as he wanted. She hoped that he would return to his birthplace to live. She and Samantha would love to share the farm with him. They had a lot of lost years to catch up on, and the sooner the better.

*************

Chapter Three
 

William made it as far as Wilkesboro before he decided to stop for a while. Wilkesboro was a bustling town, bigger than any place that he had ever been before. The people there were friendly and the prospects for a job looked good. He found a room in a boarding house that catered only to single men. The lady who rented him a room made it quite clear that she would not tolerate shenanigans. She said that there used to be a hotel up the street that boarded people on a weekly basis, but after a man got his throat cut by a jealous husband, the hotel closed down. Now all of the houses either rented to men or women separately, there was no mixed occupancy. William did not know a soul in town anyway, so it did not matter to him one way or the other.