Scott Nicholson - The Farm

He was below the old remnants of the dam. Part of the earthworks was still in place, funneling water past in a series of tiny falls. The trout loved to lie among the rocks beneath me white water, where the oxygen level was rich and food dropped down like earthworms from heaven. Odus's hook dropped in, too, though he had to work the reel with a steady hand because the bait washed downstream in the blink of an eye.

The general store up on the hill was dark. That was contrary, because Odus had never known it to be closed for a full day. He'd called up to the hospital to check on Sarah, and the receptionist had hemmed and hawed about federal privacy rules until Odus claimed to be her son. Then the receptionist declared Sarah to be in stable condition and scheduled to be kept overnight for observation.

A few tracks from the old Virginia Creeper line, some that hadn't been washed away in the 1940 flood, lay in weed-infested gravel across the river. The creosote cross ties had long since rotted, and the steel rails themselves would have long been overgrown if the tourists hadn't made a walking trail out of the line. Tourists were the damnedest creatures: they took the ugliest eyesores of Solom, such as fallen-down barns and lightning-scarred apple trees, and proclaimed them a glory of Creation. Took pictures and bought postcards, put their Florida-fat asses onto the narrow seats of expensive ten-speeds, and pedaled down the river road as if they were going nowhere and had all day to do it. Beat all, if you asked Odus, but nobody asked, because he was just a drunken river rat and didn't even own any property. He lived in the bottom floor of a summer house and kept the grounds in trade for rent.

But, by God, he knew how to troll for trout, and he could take a ten-point buck in October, and when spring came he could pick twelve kinds of native salad greens, and in summer he knew where the best ginseng could be poached, and then it was fall again and he could make a buck or two putting up hay or helping somebody get a few head of cattle to the stockyards. All in all, it was a king's life, and he wasn't beholden to anybody. If you didn't count the Pennsylvania couple that owned the house where he boarded, and Gordon Smith, and the people who had loaned him money.

The sun slipped a notch lower in the sky, spreading orange light across the ribbed clouds like marmalade on waffles. Fish often bit more at dusk, just as they did at the break of dawn, because the insects they fed on were more active then. A lot of the tourists went in for fly-fishing, and all the gear, complete with hip waders, LL Bean jacket, floppy hat, woven basket and all, would run you upwards of three hundred dollars at River Ventures, the little place up the road that rented out kayaks, canoes, bicycles, inner tubes, and every other useless means of transportation known to man. Odus figured the tourists must be bad at math, no matter how many zeroes they had in their bank accounts, because three hundred dollars would buy you more store trout than you could eat in a year.

But that wasn't his worry. Odus wanted one more rainbow on the trotline before he headed home for a late supper. He planned on stopping by Lucas Eggers's cornfield on the way home and snagging a few roasting ears. That and some turnip greens he grew in the Pennsylvania folks' flower garden were plenty enough to keep the ache out of his belly.

He hit the Old Crow and was about to draw in one of the Millers for a chaser when he saw weeds moving on the far side of the river. The rusted-iron tops of the Joe Pye weed shook back and forth as something made its way to the water. Probably deer, because, like the fish, they got more active at sundown. But deer were likely to stick to a trail, not tromp on through briars and all. Odus played out some slack in his line and waited to see what came out on the river-bank. Odus didn't have a gun, so he couldn't kill the deer, and so didn't care if it was a deer or a man from outer space. As long as it wasn't a state wildlife officer ready to write him up for fishing without a license.

At first, Odus thought it was a wildlife officer, because of the hat that bobbed among the tops of the weeds. But the hat was dirty and ragged like that of-

The Smith scarecrow.

Then the weeds parted at the edge of the river.

The sight caused him to drop his pole in the mud, back up onto the slick rocks skirting the riverbank, and wind between the hemlocks and black locust that separated the water from the river road. His heart jumped like a frog trapped in a bucket. The or3nge light of sunset had gone purple, and the clouds somehow seemed sharper and meaner. A bright yellow light shone above the general store's front entrance, the one Sarah claimed kept bugs away, though Odus could see them cutting crazy circles around the bulb. He broke into a jog, sweat under his flabby breasts and in the crease where his belly lay quivering over his belt. He didn't once look back, and even though the river was between it and him, he didn't feel any safer when he reached his truck.

Odus was fumbling the key into the ignition when he remembered the Miller, and for just a moment, he hesitated. He would definitely need a good buzz later. But three beers wouldn't be nearly enough to wash away the image that kept floating before his eyes. The best thing now was to put some distance between him and what he'd seen. Maybe some tourist would be out for a walk, or a bicyclist would get a flat tire, and it could take them instead.

As he drove away, his chest was tight and he could barely breathe. He wondered if he could get a hospital bed in Sarah's room, because now he knew what she'd been going on about as she lay on the sacks with her eyelids fluttering.

It hadn't been the scarecrow he'd seen. It had been much worse than that. The man in the black hat, face white as goat cheese, as if he'd been in the water way too long.

And he had, if you believed the stories.

About two hundred years too long.

Betsy Ward didn't scream when she encountered the goat. She'd milked plenty of the critters, and the teats were tiny and tough, a workout for her hands. But they usually kept to the field even when they were riled. Occasionally one slipped through a gap in the fence or squeezed between two gateposts, but when they did that, they usually made a beeline for the garden or the flower beds. Goats had a nose for heading where they could do the most damage.

But she'd never had one come in the house before. The back door was ajar, as if the goat had nudged it open with its nose. The mesh on the screen door had been ripped. Maybe the goat had put one sharp hoof on the wire and sliced it down the middle. Goats weren't that smart, even if they smelled something good in the kitchen. In this case, the only thing going was the sweet potato pie. No doubt the goat had smelled that and come in for a closer look, though Betsy had no idea how in the world the creature had worked the doorknob. Why hadn't Digger run the goat off, or at least raised the alarm with his deep barks?

"Shoo," she said waving her apron at it. "Get on back the way you come."

The goat stared at her as if she were a carrot with a spinach top.

"Arvel," Betsy called trying not to raise her voice too much. Arvel didn't like her hollering from the kitchen. He thought that amounted to pestering and henpecking. Arvel always said a wife should come up to the man where he was sitting and talk to him like a human being instead of woofing at him like an old bitch hound.

Arvel must not have heard her over the television. The goat's nostrils wiggled as they sniffed the air. The oven was a Kenmore Hotpoint, the second of the marriage. In the red glow of the heating element, she could see the pie through the glass window in the oven door. It had bubbled a little and the tan filling was oozing over the crust in one spot