Scary Creek (26 page)

My mind kept tormenting my body with nervous warnings.
I tried to slow the asSamuelt down on my motor or autonomous systems by
breathing deeply. There were grassy nodes scattered throughout the graveyard.
Weeds and brush had also taken root and established a firm foothold. I found a
small indentation in the ground in just about the right spot for an unmarked grave
and stuck a shovel in the earth. It sank in easily. I levered a clump of dirt
out, emptied it, and sunk the shovel in the hole a second time. It struck
something solid.

“Holy shit!” Virgil shouted.

I quickly scooped out several shovels full of dirt.
The corner of the coffin was less than a foot in the ground.

“I wonder if they all buried this shallow.” I
murmured. “A decent rain could wash them all down the hill and into the creek.”

“It’s happened already,” Virgil replied. “What are we
going to do?”

“Bury them deeper,” I said.

“What good will it do?”

“It’s a start,” I replied.

While George and Virgil unearthed the coffin, I
attempted to restore the fallen markers. I wanted to know whose coffins we were
violating. I found Samuel’s grave. His body, I suspected, would be interred at the
proper depth. Elinore, I assumed, occupied a space alongside him.  I found
several unnamed graves marked simply with stones that bore the initials R.I.P.,
or ‘Hic Jacet.’ There were also graves of beloved aunts and uncles, some
cousins and nieces and an assembly of friends, but little in the way of
information to link them to the Ryders. I was also surprised to find the gravestone
of Dr. Ezekiel Grier, the only one with an epitaph inspired by Shakespeare’s King
Richard III.

 George and Virgil were busy opening the final resting
place of one Annette Bishop, whoever she might be.  I picked a few colorful
weeds and flowers, and spread them atop Elinore’s grave, a lonely sight. I
resurrected a few more stones from among the weeds and propped them up by using
excavated soil for ballast. The first coffin was nearly exposed and we were ready
to lift it from its shallow bed.

George signaled for help with the exposed coffin.
There was no concrete vault, but the wood was in good shape. I was afraid it
might be in such poor condition that it would fall apart when we moved it, but
the Ryders believed in using the proper materials for every job. We levered it
up with shovels and freed it from the ground.

“This box is heavy. Are you sure it’s not filled with
rocks,” Virgil said.

We propped it up against the wall. It was a simple,
but a well constructed wooden box.

“Why is the wood so dark?” George asked.

Virgil touched and examined the wood. “It’s black oak.
There was plenty of it around 100 years ago, but most of it is gone now. Oak
doesn’t keep well in the ground: it must have been treated.”

George nodded in agreement. Any other explanation
would have involved something unnatural, and we did not wish to provide support
for unorthodox theories.

“Are you going to open it?” Virgil asked.

“No point in that,” I said, trembling at the thought.
“We came to re-bury Annette, not to raise her,” I said, mangling a few more
lines by Shakespeare.

Virgil chose to ignore the quip. He conceded that
opening a coffin might offer more in the way of provocation to unknown forces.

“Are we going to re-bury them all today?” George asked
fearfully.

“I can’t expect you to waste all your time out here.
If you’ll just help me…” I read the marker a second time, “…put Annette a
little deeper into the ground, we’ll call it a day and I’ll do the others at my
leisure.”

The suggestion met with approval, and the work proceeded.
They refused to allow me to relieve either one of them. I began to wander over
the grounds examining each tuft of grass and raised hillock. Not looking for
anything in particular, just following my instincts and hoping they would lead
somewhere.

I climbed to the ridge of the hill and gazed toward
the creek. It was the first time I could see that Scary Creek circled the
house. It looped around from the back, flowed passed the front and almost came
together again on the other side of the house. A narrow channel four or five
feet wide and twenty feet long could shorten the circuitous route of the stream
by nearly a quarter mile.

The back and front of the property sloped down to the
creek. There were only a few trees where we were working. Broom sage thrived on
the side of the hill. A few large elderberry and sumac bushes were blazing in
the sunlight with dark blue and bright red berries.

If burying coffins deeper would satisfy restless
spirits, I was willing to try. Virgil stood waist deep in the grave ladling
dirt. George raked the loose soil away from the edge so it would not fall back
in the hole.

The wind began to blow a little stiffer. I wondered if
it meant to interfere, to drive us off or do us harm in some way. I studied the
little knot of gravediggers and noticed a shift in the coffin’s position. It
looked as if it were preparing to fall.

“George!” I shouted, “The coffin is moving!”

He cocked an ear, but couldn't hear my warning.

“The coffin!” I shouted, “It’s going to fall!”

The wind worked against me, carried my voice away from
them, back into my face. George stepped out of the enclosed area and tilted his
head in my direction. The coffin spun away from the wall and appeared to walk
upright for a few seconds. George kept one ear and eye cocked in my direction,
but I was silent, engrossed in the coffin’s waltz. I watched it spin and move
back and forth. Virgil kept shoveling unaware of the waltzing box. George shook
his head absently. I pointed a finger toward the coffin, indicating that he
should take note of the wind’s playful tricks. He turned his finger on himself
as if to ask, “Me?”

I was nearly ready to concede that I was witnessing an
illusion when the coffin stopped spinning and stood stock still in the yard. It
began to tilt forward. The wind died down and I heard voices.

“George,” I shouted. “Look at the coffin.”

He turned in time to see the coffin fall. It
splintered when it hit the ground. I ran down the hill and Virgil scrambled out
of the grave brushing dirt from his clothes and shouldered his weapon. George
stood idle at the gatehouse waiting for someone to tell him which way to run. I
caught up with them and ran toward the coffin.

Splintered wood was everywhere. The coffin looked as
if it had exploded.

“How the hell did that happen?” Virgil wanted to know.

“It was spinning all over,” I replied. “The wind picked
it up and spun it around, and moved it here and dropped it,” I said.

“That thing must weigh 200 pounds,” Virgil said. “The
wind couldn’t have moved it that easily.”

“I’m telling you what I saw,” I replied.

We slowly approached the coffin, pushed a few
splintered boards away with our feet and exposed the skeleton. It was relatively
short overall, but a few bones were long and thick. It also had a large skull
and sharp canine teeth protruding from the jaw. Long arms and bow-shaped legs extended
from a narrow barrel-chested rib cage.

“Christ, that’s no human being, that’s a wild dog,” Virgil
shouted.

The chest was massive and the fore arms reached beyond
the knees.

“Oh, yeah? Since when did they start giving dogs
Christian burials?” I asked, and returned to the stone and its inscription.

“’Here lies Annette Bishop, March  4, 1864; died Nov.
30, 1898, widow of Davis Bishop, beloved daughter of Nathaniel and Margaret
Shipley,  R.I.P. According to this stone, this was all that remained of a
woman.”

“Jesus,” Virgil replied. “Ugly, wasn’t she?”

“Can you imagine what it would be like living with
someone who looked like that?” George added.

“I think we’ve been duped,” I said.

“What do you mean?” George asked.

“Whatever that creature is or was, could not have been
a woman. Look at the size of that head, jaw and those teeth. Women don’t get
that mean and vicious. No, that was some kind of animal. Something they kept
under lock and key and used for a watchdog or some animal they could …exhibit.
This could be what scared hell out of Elinore.”

“Is that possible?” Virgil asked.

“What else could it be?” I ventured.

We contemplated the strange skeleton in silence.

“Too big to be a chimp,” Virgil volunteered.

“It’s about the right size for an ape, but not with
those canines. And what would an ape be doing in the Ryder family cemetery?”

“Who knows?” George said, “It could be ‘spawn of
Satan,’ or maybe it married into the family.”

Virgil stepped away from George. “This all happened
before my time. Amy Taylor might know.”

I do not want to bother that old woman with talk about
strange pets. Besides, I suspect she knew nothing about this. This was Samuel’s
private business.

George and Virgil agreed.  “What should we do, put it
back, or pitch it into the creek?”

It seemed like desecration to throw it away. If
someone cared enough to put it in a box and bury it, it should stay that way.

“It’s not fitting to put an animal in a grave, and I
can’t believe that thing is human. Look at the size of its hands. The fingers
are nearly ten inches long.”

“Oh, oh,” Virgil said as he bent over the skeleton and
touched one of the bones on the hand. “What’s this?” He removed something from
the middle finger or paw of the skeleton. “It looks like a ring.”

George echoed his words and turned the possibility
over in his mind.

“It looks like a gold wedding band.”

“It’s big, too, what would you say, about 24 carats?”
I asked.

“I don’t know, but it’s heavy. It must weigh at least
a tenth of a pound.”

“Big, too, too big for me,” Virgil said

“Let me try it,” I said, snatching it from the tip of
his finger. “Fits well: almost as if it were made for me. I like it. Maybe
there is something to that story about hidden stocks and bonds, maybe even gold
and silver.”

George and Virgil stared at the ring for a moment in
silence.

 “Wait a minute; we’re losing perspective,” Virgil
said. “What’s this thing doing with a ring on its finger? Apes or any other
kinds of animals do not wear jewelry. Remember?”

“Maybe it isn’t an ape,” George suggested. “Maybe it
really is Miss Bishop. Maybe she wasn’t the best looking woman, but I’ll bet
she could swing with style and grace through the tops of the trees.”

George’s words came from the heart and never wavered. I
wondered if all lawyers thought that way, or was his brain still reeling from
damage caused by previous alcohol abuse.

“I think we’ve strayed beyond our field of reference,”
I said. “I don’t know what that thing is, and I think we should try to find out
before we proceed any further.”

“How are we going to do that?” George asked in a voice
that seemed to have simply abandoned all approaches to logic.

“There must be an anthropologist at the university in Morgantown,”
I said, directing my words to Virgil. “Let’s load these bones in your wagon and
take them there for an evaluation.”

Reluctant thoughts transformed Virgil’s smile into a
scowl. “I can’t help you, not today. I have too much work to do; maybe tomorrow,
or the day after.”

I took the initiative. “You’ve been a great help. I
can’t expect you to spend more time on this than you already have. I’ll take
care of it. Give me a hand with these bones and help me get them back to my
van.”

We each grabbed a section of leg or arm bone. I
supported the pelvis and rib cage, while the skull and the shoulders fell to
George. We walked the skeleton back to the car slowly so as not to jar the
parts loose. We loaded the bones in the back of Virgil’s wagon.

I saw no reason to return to the cemetery, since we
had accomplished what we’d set out to do, which was too deepen the graves, but
not for animals. If this was a sample of what we might find in the Ryder
cemetery, I saw no point in continuing until we put a name to what we found.

“Familiars,” I said,  as we drove away.

George turned pale. “What?” he replied?

“Familiars,” I repeated. “Witches and warlocks have
familiars. You know, cats, goats, dogs, owls, special emissaries that do their
bidding, act as messengers, watch dogs, or rather, watch animals.”

“You think that ape was someone’s familiar?” George
asked.

“I like to mention things as they occur to me.”

“Ever hear of an ape being a witch’s familiar before?”
Virgil asked.

I shook my head. “It would have been a first.”