The Silver Bridge (22 page)

“The Sandhill would not attack a person or follow a car, to my knowledge, though if you cornered him he could be very fierce.

“Very fierce. Very fierce,” he repeated. “It has a long dagger-like beak which can become a dangerous weapon when the great bird is cornered and fighting for its life. Many hunters have found this out when their dogs have attacked these birds and been wounded or killed.”

My mind flashed back to the account given to me by the manager of a Clarksburg shoe store, who had reported one of the few daytime encounters with Mothman.

Tom Ury said goodbye to his mother, Mrs. Frank Ury, and his mother-in-law, Mrs. Dorothy Rhodes, both of Point Pleasant, and again expressed regrets that his wife had not been able to spend the Thanksgiving holidays with them. Deeply involved in a civic project, she had finally decided that its importance was so great that she must reluctantly sacrifice the visit back home.

Ury warmed up his new convertible and fretted briefly about the grime that had accumulated on it over the weekend. He supposed, as it had been with his previous cars, that he wouldn’t mind so much about dirt after the novelty of the sleek machine had worn off.

Traffic was virtually non-existent in Point Pleasant. The stop-light at the bridge, deliberately set slow in order to disgorge the traffic from the huge suspended structure which seemed to stretch almost into the sky, now seemed to be slower than ever. Taking advantage of the delay, he pushed the stick into “park”, loosened his seat belt and crouched to untie his right shoelace.

“Darn!” he thought audibly. “I work in a shoe store and I fit up dozens of people each day. I only hope I fit them better than I fit myself.”

He kicked the shoe off and worked his toes in relief, vowing to drive home comfortably, without replacing the “killer”. He usually crossed the Silver Bridge and drove up the Ohio side to Parkersburg, where he could take Route 50 East home to Clarksburg. But today he had promised to stop briefly in Lakin, on Route 62, on the West Virginia side, to briefly visit a friend who had just moved there. He really should be in a hurry to drive back home, but he was off for the entire weekend, and weekends at home, particularly those following holidays, tended to depress him.

He turned on the radio and searched the dial. The strongest signal in the area emanated from Marietta, an “all country” station, broadcasting Nashville records, and he hated it. But it was better than nothing, and the song,
Almost Persuaded,
one of the better country music tunes, was fairly tenable. The station broadcast news every half hour, and he was anxious to hear about Viet Nam.

But instead of the news, a farm market report came on, and he was regaled by the price of hogs on the eastern Ohio market. He turned off the radio.

The crooked roads prevented his letting the convertible out to test its speed again. He wished he were on Route 7, on the Ohio side.

Coming out of a bend into a relatively straight stretch of road, Ury noted a large field to his right, probably employed for grazing in the summer, but now barren and sere. He looked at the wooded area several hundred yards across the field. Suddenly an object appeared from that direction, rising slowly “like a helicopter”, he said.

Curious about the object, he slowed the car, and peered through the rain covered window. The thing apparently was a huge bird, though he had never seen one that large.

“I know you may think I’m crazy when I tell you about this thing,” he presaged his report to me, “but I’ve never had such an experience. I was scared, I tell you. Really scared!”

His facial expression, and his entire demeanor, indicated that at least for a moment he was reliving the puzzling and nerve-shaking affair.

“After it came up out of the woods, it veered over my car, and began to go around in circles—I’d say about the height of two or three telephone poles.”

His next reaction was one of fear. He stamped at the gas pedal, and the powerful engine, in an orgasm of exploding fuel, pressed him against the seat as the car accellerated. At 70 he let up, for this section of road was crooked and substandard. He knew he was pressing his luck at the wheel, but just “had to get away from that thing!”

He had a definite impression that it was hostile, and the feeling that it might come down through the top of the convertible.

“I’ve never had that feeling before,” he told me. “A weird kind of fear. That fear gripped you and held you.”

His look at the thing had been brief, as he had seen it arise from the woods and speed toward him; but in those few seconds he had seen enough to convince him that it was “unnatural”, as he put it.

“I’ve seen lots of big birds. I’ve been to zoos. I’m rather interested in birds, but I’ve never seen anything like that.

“It was a grayish-brown color; I’d say it was six feet in length, and that the wing span must have been at least ten feet. Its legs were folded under it.”

To Ury, the body appeared to be too large in relationship to size of the wings.

“Somehow,” he added, “the best way I could explain it would be to say that the whole thing
just wasn’t right.
I know that may not make sense, but that’s the only way I can put into words what I felt.”

He did not see any beak, nor any eyes.

The outside swirled by in a blur. He realized that he was approaching 80, and, coming to his senses, reasoned that if Mothman didn’t “get him”, an accident surely would. And he couldn’t be certain that the creature was still above the car.

The peaceful expanse of the Kirkland Memorial Gardens, with its neat landscapeing, its white rows of tombstones and occasional mausoleums, swung into view around the bend. Although it was a beautiful place, and he usually enjoyed passing and looking at it, at this moment it served to further impress him of the danger of his speed. He instinctively let up on the accelerator, and as he slowed, his eye again caught the outline of the huge bird, as it veered off, apparently abandoning chase and heading toward the river at his left.

Mothman had stretched its great wings and soared southward. Whatever the creature had been, it had shown up in St. Albans, W. Va., the next night, November 26, and there gripped Mrs. Ruth Foster in its mystical and compelling gaze.

Supper had been delayed, for her husband was late in getting home. He had worked overtime at the small fabricating plant, and she didn’t mind such an inconvenience when it would mean more pay that weekend. Though the family lived frugally, she found it difficult to make ends meet.

As she finished the dishes, Mr. Foster glanced at the wall clock. It was five ‘til eleven. She hadn’t realized it was that late. The clock was near the kitchen door, and it reminded her to look out and check on the weather.

The view outside, usually depressing, with its rows of dingy, nondescript houses, most of them in need of repair, and a garish neon sign over a bar, would be even starker on this cold November night.

She didn’t open the door, for it was one of the “old fashioned” kind with a window at the top. She pressed her face to the cold glass, then recoiled in horror.

Looking directly at her was an awful thing, with huge eyes: red, bulbous, glowing more than reflecting. Even though she had the compelling desire “like it hypnotized you” to continue looking into the eyes, she escaped their gaze by covering her eyes and screaming.

Mr. Foster ran from the living room.

“Mom! What’s wrong!”

“God help us! It’s the devil outside!”

He peered through he glass.

“But there’s nothing out there. You look again.”

She could hardly bring herself to comply, but George’s presence assured her. Again she fearfully pressed her face to the window.

The thing was gone. Outside was the same dreary street, the cold, depressing, drizzling rain, and the many waste baskets and garbage cans, not yet taken inside by the neighbors after Wednesday’s pickup.

Still, she was certain she had seen this devil. She began to recall the few other details, besides the eyes, she had hurriedly noted. It must have been taller than her husband, who stood about 5’10”, for she remembered she had looked upward at the eyes. She also remembered a white body with what she termed “close feathers”. A huge set of folded wings and a “peculiar face” were the only other details she could recall.

Her sister, who lived in the adjacent house, suddenly appeared at the door, again frightening Mrs. Foster, not yet recovered from her initial shock. She banged on the door.

“Let her in,” George urged, and Mrs. Foster told her in halting phrases what she had seen.

“I’ll sic Old Ringer after it,” her sister promised, and ran back home. Mrs. Foster could hear her calling the dog.

“Here, Ringer! Here, Ringer! Here, Ringer!”

She reappeared at the door.

“That cowardly dog! He won’t come out! I guess he’s fed too good. That hound is his under the dresser, and he won’t come out for nobody!”

At about eight the next evening, a neighbor girl, 13-year-old Shelia Cain, was going to a neighborhood store with a friend and came running home screaming. Passing an auto junkyard, they saw a huge bird-like creature standing in front of one of the skeletonized vehicles. They described it as “gray-and-white-looking”, and it, too, displayed glowing eyes. They saw no other details, and they also emphasized the red eyes, which “seemed to stare right through” them.

I regarded Professor Gross more carefully while he had cake and coffee. He gave me the impression of a man totally devoted to his disciplines of research, but who had neglected some of the niceties of life. He wore a suit which did not fit. Wading boots added to the oddness of his appearance. Although I tried to draw him into other conversational areas, he limited his comments to only the subjects in which he was apparently deeply interested: biology and ornithology. Nor did he talk down to us, as he continually interspersed his discourses with scientific and technical terms I could not come to grips with. Yet he seemed to fascinate Joey and Donny, who sat on the floor before him with rapt attention, though I knew they understood little of what he was saying. Maybe this was because he directed most of his conversation to them. Anyhow they remained completely quiet, and almost motionless, a condition rare for the two boys.

I assumed the Professor had no children, and had never married, for he wore no rings of any kind. As I was speculating on this matter, Joey breaking his silence, asked the question I had civilly withheld.

“Do you have lots of kids like my dad has (he is one of a very large family)?”

“Seven chaps, seven chaps (he tended to repeat key phrases), but they’re all older than you. One’s a doctor, one’s in the space program, and the others, all girls—well, they all got married.

“Interesting bird, this Sandhill crane,” he switched the conversation.

“The cry of this bird is a veritable voice of nature, untamed and unterrified. Its uncanny quality is like that of the loon, but is more pronounced because of the much greater volume of the crane’s voice. Its resonance is remarkable and its carrying power is increased by a distinct tremulo effect.”

We listened, open-mouthed to his croaking voice, which suddenly seemed appropriate to his description of a creature which he evidently admired greatly for its beauty and courage. I closed my eyes and pictured myself in a lonely, wooded area, lighted only by a summer moon, listening to the great bird as it cried from the empty distances.

“Often for several minutes after the bird has vanished, the unearthly sound drifts back to the listener—like a taunting trumpet from another world.”

CHAPTER 18

THE EMPTY BED

I
t had been on the Saturday night following the first Mothman sightings that Ida Wentworth had moved out, bag and baggage, taking the dog along, but leaving her husband, Frank behind.

Beyond initial puzzlement and dismay, Frank reasoned that her exit would, after all, be a great relief. Although Ida was a good cook and housekeeper, they had never got along well, and she had constantly nagged and shrieked at him. Practically nothing he ever did pleased her.

He did experience a great relief the first three days of living alone. He didn’t make inquiries about her whereabouts. This would only serve to aggravate the neighborhood gossip, and he was quite certain that she had gone across the river to Middletown, and was living there at his son-in-law’s. He could telephone her, but that would give her too much satisfaction. They had been in a particularly bad argument the night she left, and he felt she would return, once her anger wore off and she got tired of living away from home.

After a week, however, he began to re-examine the situation. She had not yet returned, and despite Ida’s shortcomings, he felt that he definitely missed her.

There had been the times when she was in a good mood, mainly on Sundays, when they came home from church, or when relatives or friends were visiting them. And he was tired of eating out and fixing his own meals.

He did have the comfort of believing that her leaving was certainly not his fault. Her constant criticisms had little basis in fact. For instance, she had often lectured him about “getting ahead”. He had what most people of the Point Pleasant community considered a good job: he drew about $150.00 per week, after deductions, and usually added overtime to that. He had held the same job for twenty years and made reasonable advancement, though his position wasn’t of executive nature, and he had progressed about as high as he could expect to go with the company. He considered himself a good provider. They owned a nice house and farm in adjoining Jackson County, though they preferred to live near Point Pleasant, he close to his work, and Ida near her friends in the city. He was able to provide a modern and pleasant apartment, part of a four-unit structure, shared with two other tenants and the landlady, who listened to all of Ida’s complaints about him and tended to side with her most of the time.