Ghost on Black Mountain (25 page)

“What’s wrong, Mama?”

“I’m fine, sweetie.”

“You look scared.”

“No.” I stepped out of the water onto soft moss. “We’d better get home.”

“I like it here.”

“Yes, we’ll have to come back,” I said, shivering to the bone.

When we reached the road, I took the opposite direction. I saw the back end of a truck pointing down the embankment about fifty feet away. I’d have known that truck anywhere. “Hobbs.”

“That’s my friend’s name. He said you knew him.” Lonnie smiled.

I pulled the door open. Nothing; not even his smell. Then I saw a ring, a wide wedding band, on the floorboard. It was hers. She drove the truck up here. She killed him. I clinched the ring in my hand so tight it left a print on my palm. All our actions travel a road that comes home to us at some point. His fate had been in this delicate girl’s hands. I didn’t know how I knew all this, but I knew it. I put the ring in my dress pocket and cried the first tears since Hobbs died, a baptism in grief.

Forty-two

J
ack was backing up his truck when he saw us walking into the yard. “You okay?”

“We went to the waterfall. We got to stand inside of it.” Lonnie danced around. “Mama caught a butterfly.”

Jack smiled. “Well, it sounds like you had a good walk.”

I touched the ring in my pocket. “What do you know about Nellie, Jack?” The sadness still came in waves.

“Hey, Lonnie, go get us some of those cookies your mama made yesterday.”

Lonnie smiled. “Okay.” He ran off into the house.

“I should have told you about the truck.”

“Aunt Ida told me when I first came here.” I fought the tears away.

He rushed ahead of me. “We couldn’t get the truck out. I tried.”

“You probably were the only one.” I slid the ring on and off my finger inside my pocket. “I know you hated Hobbs, but he was the father of my son and he was the man I loved. It hurts to see that truck hugging that tree, clean, except …”

He nodded. “Except what, Rose?”

I pulled the ring out of my pocket and shoved it at him. “This, this ring was on the floorboard of the truck.”

His eyes got big but he wiped the look off his face quick as a flash. He took the ring in his fingers.

“Do you know who it belonged to?” I knew. It was a trinket from one of Hobbs’s poker games with me sitting right there beside him. Before Christmas. He had promised to give it back to the man. He promised.

“I think so.” At least Jack wasn’t a liar.

“It belonged to Nellie. It had to belong to her because I was with Hobbs when he won it in a poker game. He gave it to her probably for Christmas.” I spat the words at him as if he was the one who caused all the trouble.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“She was the one in the truck! She drove it off the road!” I was screaming the words.

He stepped forward. “You don’t know that.”

“I do! Why would the ring be in there? She would have kept it.”

In my heart, I knew if I turned to the hollow tree, the shadow would be right there, waiting for Jack’s response.

He shrugged.

Lonnie burst from the house with a plate of cookies, allowing a few to slide off onto the ground.

“Just forget it, Jack.”

“Don’t.” The one word was a warning. “Let it go, Rose, before it swallows you up.”

My anger served no purpose pointed at him. “Maybe.”

“I know.”

He had given thought to Nellie being the one. He’d been through it over and over in his mind.

Jack took a handful of cookies.

“Lord, you love sweets better than anyone.” I tried to laugh.

“I got a big favor to ask of you.” Jack spoke around the cookies.

“What?”

“The kids have got it in their heads to have a Halloween carnival. They want to have it at your house with a big bonfire, games, and food. They’re afraid you’ll say no.”

How could I? I wanted to belong to that mountain so bad. “Sounds like fun. Of course we’ll have a carnival. But why do they want to have it here?” But I knew even before he opened his mouth.

“They think it is haunted.”

I laughed. “Well, they’re probably right.”

Jack smiled.

“You have to stay for supper. Lonnie will be disappointed if you don’t. I’ll send a plate home to Aunt Ida.” She never left the house now.

“You don’t have to twist my arm. I’ll stay. We can talk about the games we’ll have at the carnival.”

When was the last time I played a game? I couldn’t remember. “I always wanted to play bobbing for apples.”

“Then we have to add that one to the list. How about I be the pumpkin carver? The whole mountain will come. Well, except for the good pastor. He refuses to have anything to do with the devil’s night, as he calls it.” Jack laughed.

Pastor Dobbins was a real stick-in-the-mud. Watching paint peel on the side of a house was more interesting than listening to his sermons. That’s why I didn’t bother to go to church; that and I didn’t know what I thought of God. Oh, I believed, but He played favorites. This left the rest of us on our own to make the biggest messes out of our lives.

“We’ll have a party, a Halloween carnival.”

“Yes we will.” Jack smiled. He was becoming a trusted friend.

Forty-three

H
alloween came and the whole mountain was set for the big party. Right before sundown, I went into the woods to get some pretty leaves—orange was my favorite—to decorate the tables. A little girl stood on the other side of the creek. She wore only a slip, the frilly old kind that touched the ground.

“What are you doing out here in the woods dressed like that?”

“I come here all the time.” She was pale, sickly looking.

“You need to come with me. I’ll get you home.”

She smiled. “I’d be happy if I could.” In her hair were tiny rosebuds attached to pale pink ribbons. I thought it odd she’d have fresh roses in October.

“I know your mother would hate it if I left you here alone. What’s your name?”

“Katleen Morgan. You’re going to have a big party?”

“Yes. I think I met your brother, Tyler.”

She giggled. “Couldn’t be. You’re going to make him mad.”

“Your brother?” The child was talking in riddles.

“No.” She stepped toward the creek and stopped. “A question will be answered and a riddle will form.”

“Come with me so I can take you home.” The girl must have been touched in the head.

“Can’t.”

“The weather is turning cold and it’s almost dark. You can’t walk around in what you’re wearing, especially in the woods.”

“I don’t like the dark.”

“Well, come over here and let’s go. Be careful not to wet your slip.”

“You’ll make him mad.”

“You’re not making sense.”

The little girl giggled again.

“Rose, are you out here?” Jack called from the edge of the woods.

I turned. “I’m here by the creek. I’ve found a little girl.” I looked back but the girl was gone.

Jack made his way through the trees and undergrowth to where I stood. “Did you say you found a little girl?”

“Yes.”

He looked around.

“I know. She was right there.” I pointed across the creek. “I’m not crazy. She was wearing a slip.”

“Folks say the whole mountain is haunted, and that it takes all sorts of forms.” He smiled.

“I’m not joking. That child is going to freeze to death or get lost or eaten by a bear.”

“I ain’t heard of no one being eaten by a bear in a long time. Did she give you a name?”

“Katleen Morgan.”

Jack thought a minute like he was going down a list of people living on the mountain. “Never heard of her, and I know pretty much everyone up here.”

“Maybe she’s visiting.”

“Don’t get many visitors and no one has company right now.”

“I’m not crazy, and what happens up here that everyone doesn’t know about?”

He laughed. “You ain’t crazy. And not too much happens that doesn’t get passed around. There’s no little girl visiting right now.” He took my arm and led me out of the woods. “We’re going to have us some fun tonight, Miss Rose. Are you ready?”

I looked over my shoulder but no one was there.

Forty-four

T
he party began with a rush of kids trying to do everything at one time. The yard was full. The fire blazed, providing lots of light. We had paper lanterns and the half moon hung in the sky. Lonnie followed the big boys around like a shadow, but they didn’t seem to mind. He was a strange little fellow who spent most of his time alone and happy about it. Maybe he wasn’t different. Maybe all little boys liked playing by themselves. Jack stayed close and part of me liked this, even though I knew we were just friends.

I looked after the bobbing-for-apples game. The night air was nippy, but our guests didn’t seem to care the water was ice-cold. My mind was on my frozen hands, which were so painful I almost didn’t notice a ruckus coming from the woods. The noises blended in with the party’s commotion, but the second burst of loud voices brought a sharp hush to the crowd, as if everyone noticed at once something wasn’t right. My first thought went to Lonnie. I strained to see around the people.

“Look here! Look here!” It was one of the teenage boys. I moved toward him.

Jack touched my arm and nodded. “He’s right there in the thick of the excitement. Them boys are stirring up some ghost story or another. It’s Halloween.”

My whole body turned fluid with relief. “What do they think they’re doing? I was scared to death.”

“Ah, they’re boys. Don’t have no brains to speak of.” Jack smiled and moved toward the one talking so fast he was hard to understand. “What’s all the excitement about, Charles Ray?”

“Jack, look what we found in the hollow tree, right inside that hole. Look. We ain’t playing no gags. This is real.”

“What’s …” When Jack stopped speaking I moved to get a better look.

A bony face perched in Charles Ray’s hand. What kind of joke was this?

“I want to hold it.” Lonnie reached for the horrible treasure.

I crossed the distance between us. “You don’t touch it, young man.” I grabbed his arm.

A skull with big vacant eyes stared out at me. Hobbs’s features formed over the bone. I looked to see if anyone noticed, but they didn’t. When I looked back, it was into the empty eyes of the skull, but I knew what I had seen.

“Who you think it belongs to?” Oshie Connor shouted at Jack, as if the noise of the crowd still existed.

It was Hobbs, of course, the father of my son.

“It’s my friend.” Lonnie spoke as if his answer was normal. “He’s always out there by the tree.”

I choked on the thought.

Jack came closer but didn’t touch the skull.

“So he’s been here all along,” Oshie almost whispered.

The crowd buzzed. My heart turned empty like a ghost ship on the water.

“We got something to talk about now.” Jack spoke so everyone could hear.

Charles Ray placed the skull in Jack’s hands.

“I’ll call the sheriff tomorrow, but I don’t know what to do with this until then.” Jack looked at me.

“Put it back.” The tree had been Hobbs’s grave all this time. “It seems only right.”