There is a widely held belief that with age comes wisdom, and it is true, for the most part; but sometimes gained wisdom is hard fought. Sometimes wisdom leaves you scared, hopeless; wishing you could take it all back, to regain an ignorance that’s been lost to antiquity.
There are times when the space between this world and the next begins to thin, to weaken in the middle and fray at the edges. In these times, any number of things may temporarily make their way into our plane of existence. Usually the door is too small, too fragile to allow anything through for more than a few seconds, but the rarest of instances, something else happens.
In the fall of 1969, I experienced one of those rare happenings first hand.
Shortly after graduating from the University with a bachelor’s in business management, I was recruited by Kurt Leibowitz, head of sales and marketing for a small startup company. The business plan was to try to gain a footing in the emerging holdings markets. My first task, was to scout a few potential bases of operation that Kurt thought might be undervalued.
The list of likely sites he gave me seemed odd, out of place for a holdings company, buying and selling other small businesses. A suspicion lurked in the back of my mind that my employer may be looking doing something underhanded on the side. I eased my apprehension by reminding myself that this was a time of crippling taxes on high earners, there were bound to be schemes and plots to hide money.
I couldn’t blame them for that. After all, I had hidden more money than I needed, and only worked to keep up pretenses. Still, my curiosity stood unabated, trying to understand my real purpose for going to these places. The plane landed in Boise Idaho in the early afternoon, and within an hour my rental car set south to investigate the first location on the list.
An hour out of town and after a dozen too many dirt roads, I passed an old wooden sign welcoming me to Bruneau. Under the sign hung three smaller blocks, etched with a 1 and two 0’s; the third zero having slid almost off of the hook. It dangled perilously, like an unsure jumper from the window of a high rise building.
“What could the boss be looking for here?” I asked myself as I continued further into the small village. I’d already memorized the directions, but decided to look at them once more for good measure. “Fourth house on the left, across from the church.” I’d already passed two bungalows, so I looked out to see past the third, to my destination.
An old man, with a wild unkempt white beard stood in the dirt driveway in front of the property I was looking for. As I slowed my car to a stop, he stared solemnly at me, his eyes unwavering. When I stepped out of the car, my nose was assaulted by the smell of fresh manure of local livestock. “Hi, my name’s Miller, Hank Miller.” I said with a grin, reminding myself to breathe through my mouth. “You must be Stanley Shoemaker.” He stood in silence as I walked over and held out my hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”
The old man nodded his head and slid his thumbs up into the front of his jean overalls. He spit a wad of black chew out onto the dust and dirt and turned back toward the old house. “Follow me then.” He beckoned, his voice raspy, high pitched and wet. “We can talk in the house.”
The shack was clearly distressed, the paint having been beaten off by countless winters. The bare wood then exposed to the sun’s damaging light. Small bits in the shade of the front porch showed that the exterior at some point had been some shade of blue. Though that could have been my mind seeking out the light, unwilling to give in to the fact that someone would allow their home to fall into such disrepair.
I noticed a visible sagging in the roof before following Mr. Shoemaker inside. At the threshold I noticed that the inside had no lights. Instead, the walls held their original candle sconces of ornate and gaudy brass. “You’ve no lights in your home?” I asked, careful to sound curious and not condescending.
The old man turned, looked outside one of the window to the empty street. “Don’t need ‘em. Got all the light I needs during the day. Night comes and I light the candles ‘til bed.” He turned back toward the living room and slowly bent down to sit on a couch that lost its springs years ago. “I don’t trust ‘em.” He said with a wheeze of breath, leaning forward to grab a can of chew from the coffee table in the middle.
“But you have power lines coming to the house.” I remarked. Then sat down on an unpadded rocking chair across from him.
He smiled, exposing the fresh tobacco under his bottom lip, filling the air with his putrid breath. “Yessir, that’s for the refrigerator. Got it a couple of years ago. Figured if they want to bring electricity all this way, it might as well keep my beer cold for me.” Laughter erupted from him like a geyser, sending little bits of saliva soaked spittle to land on my suit.
Temporarily I lost focus on why I was there, and considered walking out on him. A deep inhale calmed my nerves enough to continue our conversation. “We can keep this brief if you’d like, Mr. Shoemaker.” I studied his response, but found only an old man staring back at me.
“You want my property.” He said plainly. “You want all of our property.” He nodded, his eyes still stuck on mine. “You even want that church.”
“Let’s keep this to your property, sir. We’re prepared to offer you fair market value. You’d be able to secure a new home easily. Reloc-”
“Fair warning you, boy. Y’aint gon’ find no oil here. We already been prospected.” He shook his head, as though remembering hope for his town had died long ago. “No gold, neither.”
“I’m not in the oil business, sir.”
“What are ya gon’ do with the cemetery?” His eyes showed genuine concern. “Lotta good folks buried out there.” For the first time since sitting down, the old man took his eyes off of mine. He turned his gaze around toward the far window, toward the church.
I hadn’t considered the cemetery as a topic for preparation of our meeting. A sudden guilt overwhelmed me, a deep regret for having come here at all. Mr. Shoemaker was lost in his own thoughts, staring at the old church building as I rose from the rickety rocking chair. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
I sat in my car, thinking about how I could explain to my employers why I’d come back empty handed, when I heard a tapping on the window. Startled, I looked out to see a young woman, auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail, pale dotted freckles and a pointed nose framing a sincere grin.
My hand grasped the window handle to quickly bring it down. “You must be Hank. I hope grandpa Stan didn’t scare you off.” She offered a hand through the open window for me to shake. I felt the callouses of manual labor and the firm grip of a woman trained to keep up with her brothers on the farm. “Oh how rude of me. I’m Patricia, but everyone calls me Patty.”
“Glad to meet you, Patty.” I nodded and let go of her hand. “Now if you’ll excuse me. I have a flight to catch and I’m sure to get lost several times trying to make my way back to Boise.”
“Oh that’s nonsense. You haven’t even had supper yet.” Her eyes showed a genuine concern. “Why don’t I give you a tour of the town, then we can all have a nice meal and go over your company’s plans.”
The tour didn’t take very long, and soon Patty and I stood in front of the church. The building had no steeple, but on top of the front entrance stood a large, covered bell. It was clear from my tour that the church was the only thing in the town that hadn’t fallen into disrepair. It’s wood siding had a fresh coat of white paint, and the shrubs out front seemed well managed. She directed me to a metal bench that ran along the path from the door to the street.
I sat down on the sturdy white bench first and waited for my guide to sit as well. “This place, it means alot to you all.”
“The church?” She asked coyly, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.
“It’s the only thing aside from the farm equipment that doesn’t seem to be falling apart.”
She looked down at her shadow, folding her arms. I instantly knew I’d touched a nerve. “After the fire, it’s the only thing that brought our neighborhood back together.” I began to notice the time, seeing her shadow growing on the pavement. “We’d all probably have moved away from eachother long ago if it hadn’t been for our pastor. He united us when we were all at each other's throats.”
“That doesn’t seem right.” I said bluntly. “Shouldn’t a traumatic experience bring you closer together?”
“Not if no one can decide what really happened.” Her hazel eyes darted for a moment, like the words she was searching for were scattered on the lawn. Without warning she stood and began walking slowly toward the side of the chapel. I followed, sensing she was leading me somewhere important.
“What do they say happened?” I asked.
“Some folk say it was some kind of wiccan ritual gone wrong, that they unleashed a monster into our world.” We meandered behind the small chapel, into an open field of overgrown grass. “Others say it was a town hall meeting and a careless cigarette that didn’t get put out.” She kicked the grass with her boot, and added. “Three dead. My momma, grandma… Sharon, my cousin, she was the youngest, only twenty…
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Patty stopped momentarily, and looked up at the setting sun on the horizon. “I was young, too little to understand what they were up to that night.”
“When did it happen?”
“Fifteen years ago, if I recall correctly. I was four or five at the time, so I don’t really remember it that well. Only the stories people told when they thought I wasn’t listening. When they thought I’d gone to bed.”
We’d walked a ways into the field when my foot had landed on something hard, like rock, but flat. I looked down and saw a depressed gravestone under my foot, the name decayed with age. I hadn’t realized until then that I was in the middle of the cemetery Stanley had told me about. The sun was going down, but I was filled with questions. “What does your grandpa think happened?”
“He’s more conflicted than the rest, really hasn’t been the same since. Sometimes I think he tries to carry the burden of what happened solely on his shoulders.”
“Conflicted?”
“Yeah. See, one the one hand he doesn’t want to believe that his wife and daughter were into witchcraft. That goes against everything a good protestant believes in.”
“I can imagine.”
“On the other hand, I’ve heard him talk about that night a couple of times. When he’s been good and liquored up, he’ll talk more freely. He talks about the long arms of a serpent, the eyes like a hole, sucking in the light. The great horn on its head.” She paused for a moment, overwhelmed by the story.
“It’s okay to stop.” I assured her.
“I’ll be okay, but thank you.” She looked back toward the church, as though she was trying to coax something from it. A piece of the past that now only stood as fragments in her mind’s eye. “There isn’t much written down on the subject. What was, was gathered up and left in the basement of the church, waiting for the stories to die. That’s where I got most of my information from, since everyone’s been so tight lipped about it.”
“What do you think really happened that night?”
“You’ll think I’m crazy.”
I shook my head, straining to see her in the under the light of the half moon. “Please.”
“It was a typical thursday night for most of the town, ma and pa had just served me dinner, when she abruptly got up and excused herself from the table. Pa went after her and they talked in the hall for a bit. I remember her saying something about having to go, then she gave him a peck on the cheek and gathered her winter jacket. I glimpsed out the window grandma and a couple of other women in the front yard waiting for her. I watched them turn and head down the road before pa pulled the blinds closed.”
“So that’s all you know?”
“The other parts I’ve pieced together over the years. The group went north, to the Jenkins barn and performed an ancient ritual. Grandpa...” Patty took a deep breath, as though she hoped the inhale may tell her story for her. “Stan had followed the group, worried about what they were up to. He stayed outside the barn, trying to listen in on them. He listened through the old barn door until someone inside mention a ritual, then he decided he’d heard enough. He flung his cigarette and burst through the door.”
Trying to piece the story together for myself, I asked. “They were summoning the ‘beast’?”
“No! They were trying to close the portal, once and for all.”
“I don’t understand.” I admitted.
“You see, Bruneau is one of a few places on Earth where the barrier between our world and the others is weakest. Apparitions, or ghosts are commonplace here, have been for generations. Momma June and the others were trying to close it off because they knew it was reaching a breaking point. A time when something could get through and stay.
“The beast had been showing up from time to time for years. A few dead goats or pigs here and there, scaring the dogs. It would show up for a few minutes, and then disappear back wherever it came from. The Beast of Bruneau, we called it. When I was young, I thought it was just a scary story my friends told to keep me up at night.
“But that night, after pa had sent me to bed, I was looking out for ma to come home and I saw it from the window. A giant thing, almost see through. I could feel its hate even from the safety of my bed, walking slowly up the road to Jenkins farm.”
“So your mother and grandma, they were trying to close the portal to stop it once and for all?”
“Yes. Then Grandpa showed up, accusing them of all being witches. He was irate, saying how he was going to tell the pastor, and have the demons exorcised from them. At first they tried explaining what they were doing, but he wasn’t having any of it.
“I once overheard him telling pastor that he even accused them of making the whole beast of Bruneau thing up to hide their sacrifices to the devil. They all got so caught up in accusing each other or defending themselves that they didn’t even notice that the old wood was beginning to singe. Smouldering in the brush from a long summer's dry spell, a gust of wind finally gave breath to the fire.
“I can only imagine what a nightmare it must’ve been for them. Trying to tell your husband, father that you’re trying to protect the township. To have him staring into your eyes, with the rage of betrayal. Only to notice that faint but unmistakable aroma, the musky scent of a burning ponderosa pine.
“Grandma must have realized the smell wasn’t from a neighbor's fireplace first. She must have been the one to grab papa by the arm, shaking him back to reality. ‘The barn’s on fire!’ I can almost hear the panic in her voice.
“Momma June ran for the door, but standing in the way was the beast of Bruneau. Taller than the entrance, she screamed in fear as it bent down. Snarling, it wrapped its slithering arms around her before she could run. Papa watched it take his daughter and charged after, but it was too late. There were only pieces of her left scattered along the outside.” Patricia couldn’t stop herself from crying any longer and fell to the ground. Her hands outstretched on a flush gravestone.
I bent down, circling my hand on her back for a little comfort. The headstone read ‘HERE LIES JUNE SHOEMAKER - FRIEND, MOTHER, WIFE.
“The official report is that momma was too close to a propane tank when it exploded. But I know it was the beast. The others were found in the corner, huddled under the collapsed roof. They died in the fire, too afraid of the beast to follow her out the door.”
I exhaled heavily, barely aware that I’d been holding my breath. My mouth only began to mouth the words ‘I’m sorry,’ when another voice came from behind us.
“What in the hell are you two doing out here?” Came the voice of Stanley. His old white beard, gray in the moonlight. “We don’t come here at night, Patty. You know that!”
“He had to see, papa. He had to know why we can’t sell this place.”
“Get on up, now. Ya hear? We’ve got to go, you don’t know what kind of animal might come out on a night like this!”
Patty nodded her head, and I helped her back to her feet. “I’m sorry, Mr. Shoemaker. Let’s get back home where you’ll all be safe.”
Before we rounded the corner of the church, we heard a rustling behind us, then a brilliant blue light sent our shadows onto the chapel wall. Every dog in the neighborhood began howling in unison, feeling the same static charge we did. Slowly I turned, and saw a large white and blue circle just beyond where we’d been kneeling seconds ago. “What is that?” I asked.
Two figures stepped out, glowing and pulsating red, green and blue. Bits of pure light shot out from the circle behind them like fire crackers, hissing and falling back to the ground. “Momma?” Patricia asked, her voice hoarse from crying.
Mr Shoemaker turned to us and said, “stay here.”
Patty tried to follow, but I pulled her back. “Your grandpa told us to stay here. I think he’s right.”
We watched as Stanley stepped closer to the figures, his arm out to hide his eyes from the intensity of the light. When he made it to them, he fell to his knees, silently sobbing. The two figures bent down and picked him up back to his feet. They embraced for what felt like years, wrapped up in an instant.
He turned back toward us, as though to say goodbye. I couldn’t see his expression, but I felt his smile like warmth from a summer sun. He bravely waved at the two of us and then turned back, hand in hand with his wife and daughter, into the bright circle, and onto the other side.
My report back to Kurt Leibowitz was brief, but truthful. The people of Bruneau have no interest in selling their property, or allowing outsiders to build. He smiled wide, and handed me a note telling me where I’d be headed to next
Submitted February 27, 2016 at 08:46PM by InfectedByPrescience http://ift.tt/1oOE63Q libraryofshadows