Joe Lansdale - A Fine Dark Line

“Let’s step out back,” she said.

She unlocked the back door and we went out on the veranda. “Now tell me,” she said.

I gave her the background, briefly as I could.

“Ghosts?” she said. “You believe in ghosts?”

“I don’t know. I wanted to find out.”

Callie was quiet. She still had her glass of milk and she sipped it slowly.

“Richard’s out front waiting on me.”

“You know Bubba Joe could be out there.”

“I know.”

“Kind of exciting really.”

Actually, I wasn’t all that excited. I was just worried about being perceived as a sissy.

“I’m going with you.”

“Do what?”

“I’m going with you. I want to see a ghost.”

“You can’t go with us.”

“It’s either I go, or I tell Mom and Daddy about you.”

“I’ll tell them you wanted to go too.”

“They won’t believe you.”

“You could end up in trouble.”

“So could you.”

“You already been in trouble. Sure you want to chance it?”

“Want to chance yourself getting in trouble?”

“Oh, all right.”

“I have to change.”

“I’ll tell Richard.”

“If you know what’s good for you, you won’t try and slip off with him. You hear me, Stanley?”

“We’re taking bikes as far as the sawmill.”

“So, I’ll bring my bike.”

“Do you still remember how to ride?”

“I believe I can still figure it out. Now go out front and wait on me.”

“I’ll need the key to take my bike out.”

Callie reached it off the key hook inside next to the door.

“All right. You unlock the gate, leave it open, hang the key on the latch, and I’ll lock up when I get my bike out. I’ll lock up the house as I come out.”

———

I OPENED THE GATE, pushed my bicycle out to meet Richard. “I was beginning to think you were asleep,” Richard said.

I thought: Now there was a lie I could have used. I could have told him I fell asleep. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

It was too late, of course.

“My sister caught me. She’s coming too.”

“She can’t.”

“She can. Or she’s going to tell on me.”

“A girl.”

“Yes, Richard. She is a girl. Sisters usually are.”

He sighed. “All right. Where is she?”

“Getting dressed.”

After about five minutes, Callie showed up pushing her bike, her hair tied back in a ponytail. She had on jeans rolled almost to the knee, pink tennis shoes, and a large pink shirt tied in front with the shirttails. In the moonlight I could see that she had put on lipstick.

“Who’s the warpaint for?” I said. “The ghost?”

“You never know who you might meet.” Callie straddled her bike, said, “I’m ready.”

12

WE RODE SWIFTLY beneath the light of the partial moon. The shadows of the pine trees fell silent across the road in front of us in dark arrowhead shapes. The air was cool and bats circled overhead diving at bugs. The only sound was the whistling of bicycle tires on concrete, the grind of our chains rolling on their sprockets as we pedaled.

When we came to the abandoned sawmill, we stopped and looked at it. In the moonlight it seemed formidable. I half expected the machinery to start up. Every shadow I saw, was, for an instant, a ghostly sawmill worker moving about his job.

“All the sawmill workers I ever knowed was missin’ a finger,” Richard said. “My daddy’s worked sawmill some, and he’s missin’ a finger on his left hand. Since he whips my ass with the belt in his right, it ain’t been a real hindrance to him. ’Sides, a missing piece of finger don’t matter if you can make a fist.”

“I came to see a ghost,” Callie said. “If there is such a thing. I don’t want to hear about fingers cut off in sawmills.”

“Place where it is is on the other side of the sawmill,” Richard said. “Through the woods, down by the tracks. I can’t guarantee you’ll see anything. But that’s where it’s supposed to be.”

“Through the woods?” Callie said.

“That’s right.” Richard looked at me. “That’s why I didn’t want you to bring a girl.”

“What’s that mean?” Callie asked.

“You sound all frighty. Ooooh, the woods. You might get a bramble in your hair.”

“I didn’t say I couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t do it. I merely asked where the ghost was. I’m here to see a ghost, aren’t I? You think an old sawmill and some trees are going to stop me?”

“Did Stanley tell you this ghost hasn’t got a head?”

“If you’re trying to scare me, save it. I assume if I’m frightened by this ghost, if there is a ghost, I’ll be just as scared if it has a head or doesn’t.”

“We’ll leave our bikes by the sawmill,” Richard said.

We pushed our bikes into the brush by the mill, leaned them against the rotting posts that held up the back wall. Richard looked at Callie, said, “Stanley tell you there’s a little dead nigger boy under all that sawdust?”

“Do what?”

Richard paused to tell her the story. I realized in his own damaged way, he was flirting with Callie, trying to impress her.

“I don’t believe that story at all,” she said. “And I’d rather you not use that word in my presence.”

“What word?”

“What you call Negroes.”

“Niggers?”

“That’s the word.”

“Nigger, nigger, nigger.”

Callie gave Richard a look that made him move back slightly. In the dark I could feel that look, and I wasn’t even the target.

“Let’s just go see the ghost,” Callie said.

Richard’s mouth formed the beginnings of one more smart remark, but he saved it. I thought that a wise decision.

———

THE MOONLIGHT LAY only on the trail in front of us, the rest of it was sucked up by the darkness between the trees. A night bird called, and a possum, surprised by our presence as we rounded the trail, hissed loudly at us, then scampered away and blended into the woods.

“I almost dirtied my pants,” Callie said.

“I even jumped a little,” Richard said.

“You jumped a lot,” Callie said. “I thought you were going to jump up in my arms.”

Before Richard could argue, we heard a sound, like sobbing, then the crunch of something followed by a whacking noise, then more crunching. All of this overlaid with the sobbing.

Richard, who was in front of us, held up his hand, and we stopped. “Step off the path,” he said. His voice gave little more sound than the beating of a butterfly’s wings.

We hunkered down by a big tree.

“What is that?” Callie asked. “An animal?”

“If it is, it ain’t no animal I know of,” Richard said. “And I’m in these woods all the time.”

“Maybe this animal hasn’t been in the woods when you’re in them,” Callie said. “Until now.”

We listened some more. Definitely sobbing. A crunching sound. Then a sound like something smacking at the dirt.

“It’s off up in the woods to the right,” Richard said. “It could be the ghost.”

“I thought she was by the railroad tracks?” I said.

“Maybe she got tired of the railroad tracks.”

“That sounds like a man crying,” Callie said.

“There’s a little trail over on that side of the path,” Richard said. “If we’re real quiet, we can come out close enough to see what’s making the noise.”

“Are we sure we want to?” I said.

“We came to see the ghost, didn’t we?” Richard said.

“I don’t believe it’s a ghost,” Callie said.

“If we ain’t afraid of a ghost,” Richard said, “then we ought not be afraid of someone cryin’, should we?”

“I suppose not,” Callie said.