A Brief Glimpse Of Shadow
Short stories for the hurried modernaire
Copyright 2010 by Everly Hartland
Cover photo copyright 2009 by Roberta Humiston, used with permission
Smashwords Edition
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book contains profanity.
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This collection includes:
1. Incident On Twin Bridges Road
In 1932 three boys went for a motorcycle ride in the Ozarks. Only two came back.
A man, unable to move. A machine, his caregiver. Eternity in every direction.
A boy, his dad, an airplane crash. Oh, and thirty years in prison.
Loyalty.
Two kids, best buddies. Inseparable.
Some battles never end.
7. The Last Life Of Ogden Karr
Orphaned, he receives an inheritance that changes his life. Or was it really his life?
Plus, excerpts from the new novel Beneath A Pagan Sky, also by Everly Hartland
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When my grandfather Everett passed away a few years ago, my mother could not bring herself to go through his personal effects for a number of years. Last summer she finally divided his few things up and passed them along to each of her children. My brother got his old Marlin .22 rifle, my sister his Mexican saddle and I, his knife.
Now, lest you think I got the short end of the stick, you need to understand that this was no ordinary knife. No, indeed. She sensed what it meant to me and she was right. God bless her, I could not have wanted anything more.
I learned of that knife many years earlier, when I was a small boy and came across it on my grandpa’s dresser. He let me hold it and took me outside to the porch swing and told me the story that I’m going to tell you now. As that afternoon turned into evening and the locusts began their song, I was swept away into another time and one of the most powerful tales I’ve ever heard.
This is how he told it to me.
I was born 1915 and grew up in the Ozarks which are
actually mountains although most people think of them as big hills.
Some folks just came here from somewhere’s else. They came to work
it, to cut the timber or dig out the ore, to kill and skin the game
or what have you. But to me, it was home and I wanted no other.
We lived in Ozark County, along the White River near Mary’s Hollow where the hills roll high and wide, so close to heaven every day was like a dream. Oh, life was hard, sure enough, but we were happy with it just the same. My daddy farmed as best he could on the rocky soil and raised some hogs and chickens too, of course, everyone did. I mostly helped out or worked with Mr. Wall at the feed store in Dora.
I was about fifteen, I suppose, when I got to know Eli Wickham. Eli was about my age and I just thought he was a pretty special kinda guy. Nicer’n hell, smart too and just a lot of fun to be with. Mature for a seventeen year old.
We were classmates after his school was combined into ours for some reason. We hit it off right from the get go. Many afternoons we’d go fishing in the creek or hunting rabbits or squirrel deep in the woods. We were at that age when girls were interesting and Eli was real handsome, you know, so wherever he was there was likely some girls not too far off. That was another reason I liked Eli.
He called me Spike for some reason. Maybe something do with the way I would get in a jam and refuse to back down. A billy goat chased me up a tree once and Eli was laughing his butt off, hollerin, “All right, Spike! I think you got him just about where you want him!”
Anyway, I had another friend at that time, a skinny little guy named Fred Katz. His last name was really something longer but everyone just said it ‘Katz’. Freddie and I were somewhat alike, in that we were always getting picked on by the bigger kids. I was too dumb to back down and took my lumps because of it. But poor Freddie was a coward, I guess you’d say, and was known to actually run away from a fight, often chased home crying and terrified. Lotta kids called him Fraidie Katz.
You could say I felt sorry for him, because it just wasn’t right the way they treated him. He didn’t deserve it and was no harm to anyone, but the more he shied away from trouble, the more it came looking for him.
So it was with some surprise that summer afternoon in ‘32 when Freddie, now sixteen, rode up to our house on a beat up, smoking, but highly desirable Harley Davidson 45! He had worked afternoons and weekends at the dry goods store in Branson for two years, saving every penny, until he could afford the forty dollars it cost to buy Roger Baskins’ old motorcycle.
Why, hell, I tell you, I was impressed! The silence was deafening after he shut it off. I could barely speak, just walking around it as it ticked and clinked, cooling its hot steel in the afternoon shade. I can still see it, the red paint chipped and faded, patches of rust subdued beneath a skim of coal oil, the leather seat cracked, the tires scuffed and tired, fender braces bent and re-straightened, a spoke or two missing from the wheels. But God almighty, it was beautiful. No, it was so damned exciting, so different from anything that either of us was familiar with, we both just stood there under the Elm tree, grinning and twitching, walking around it saying “Whadya think?” and “Damn!” and “I love it” and “Yeah, me too!”
Daddy came out and joined the slow dance around the machine, adding comments and admirations, pointing out this and that, cautioning against certain practices and urging for others. He congratulated Freddie, who he had never met, and invited him to stay for supper. Daddy was like that, mama too.
Freddie said thanks, but he was off to Eli Wickham’s and wanted to know if I could go too. Daddy said sure, he reckoned. Didn’t we want to stay for supper first?
It was about that time that Eli had begun to take Freddie under his fraternal wing, much the same as he had done me two years earlier. Eli wasn’t into that pecking order stuff that went on at school, he was just what you’d call a good old boy that liked everyone except Danny O’Neil and his thugs. They were the school bullies.
Danny and his boys didn’t mess with Eli cause Eli was bigger than they were. Not really bigger, I guess, just more mature and hard as he needed to be. On the one occasion Danny and Eli had butted heads over Doris Bryant, Eli just slapped Danny so hard he didn’t get up and that was the end of that.
So anyway, Eli liked me for some reason and I liked Freddie, so Eli liked Freddie too. Freddie liked me because he didn’t have any other friends and he really liked Eli because he knew that no one would screw with him anymore if he was Eli’s friend.
Thus, Freddie wanted to show his new old motorcycle to Eli and take him for a ride. Eli had an Indian Chief he was fixing up so Freddie knew he would appreciate the Harley. And off we went down the twisty dirt roads seven miles to Eli’s daddy’s farm outside Siloam Springs.
Eli’s family was mountain folks although they were more sophisticated than you might imagine. His daddy was a blacksmith and poet that played fiddle at the county fair dances. His mama was an attractive woman whose face once graced Ivory soap box labels and who made clothes for the ladies at their church.
We found Eli in the back yard, in the work shed actually. He was very talented and made some of the most beautiful fishing lures and flies you’ve ever seen. His corn knives and machetes were preferred by the farmers in the area for their ability to hold an edge and he could always sell a few when he wanted a little pocket money.
It seemed like the Wickham’s were a happy family and that Eli was a loved son. He could box, chop wood like a maniac and run faster than anyone in the county but also had a nice singing voice, wonderful sense of humor and a real artistic ability. He came walking out when we rode up.
Eli too, did the manly slow dance around the Harley, saying many of the same things Freddie, Dad and I had just said at my house. It was good though, to say them all over again. He put his arm around Freddie’s shoulder and said ‘Good for you, Freddie, you got a damn good one here!’ and I know Freddie probably couldn’t have been happier, prouder or more grateful to Eli for the comment and for his new friendship. Freddie must have just loved Eli - in a manly way, of course.
After a while Eli told us to come look at what he was up to. We followed him into the work shed and a wonderland of colorful lures and flies, some fantastic and some so realistic they looked like they had just been plucked off a birch tree. On his work bench were several lengths of steel cut from wagon springs. He had heated them red and beat them into rough knife blanks.
Two of them he had ground and shaped into handsome finished knives. The blades were sleek and smooth, blue black from the forge, polished by sand in a piece of calf skin until they glowed. On each he had fitted a bone quillon and stone bolster on either ends of the grip. The grips were encrusted with what first appeared to be jewels.
“Its glass,” he said, holding them up to the light. Eli had taken a red tail light lens from a junk car and pieces of broken beer bottles, heated them to the melting point and artfully applied the colored glass to the knife grips where they bonded and smoothed to a glossy finish.
Freddie and I were at a loss for words beyond Wow and Holy Crap. We were in the presence of true artistic genius and felt too humble to speak. He handed the knives to us.
I think Freddie said something like “Eli, this red and brown glass, with the light shining through it, looks like blood and… honey.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I like that. We’ll call it Blood and Honey. You keep it.”
Freddie was stunned. “What? No, this is worth a lot of money!”
“Baloney,” Eli said, “It’s yours. I’ll be offended if you don’t take it.”
“Are you serious?” Freddie’s face was lit up so bright you could have read a newspaper by him on a moonless night.
“And that one’s yours, Spike,” Eli said, indicating the knife with the blue glass handle.
“Whoa! Really? What’re you doing, pal? Giving away all your good knives?”
“ I made that with Vicks VapoRub bottles.”
“Wow, it’s beautiful, Eli. I don’t know what to say except Thanks!”
“No problem. Hey guys, I got the Indian running this morning. What’s say we go for a ride?”
“That’s perfect!” Freddie said.
“We can get a cherry soda at the fountain in Richville. My treat,” I added.
And we were off again, Freddie and I with our new prized knives and Eli with a big grin. I rode on the back of Freddie’s Harley since the Indian didn’t have a rear saddle.
…
Twin Bridges Road which ran from Eli’s house to Richville was typical 1930s Ozark road. Twisty, hilly gravel, some mud and no pavement. It crossed the White River and Spring Creek with two identical timber bridges about a mile apart. Spring Creek was a docile little stream except during spring rains but the White was a joy to behold, its powerful current rumbling over large mossy boulders, churning its cold waters past deep, cool forests and sunny meadows.
We went barreling along at 45 or 50 miles an hour and it felt like a hundred. On curves and such we’d drop back down to crawling speed before taking off again on the straight. The dust was flying and we were hoopin and hollerin to beat the band. It was a beautiful summer day and great fun!
Armstad’s Dairy was hard to miss. It was one of the biggest buildings in the county and stretched along Richville’s main street. You could actually smell the cream as you approached it. At one end was a soda fountain where they sold glass jugs of cold whole milk, cream and butter. The shop owner was an older guy who, if he liked you, might put an extra scoop on your banana split or more cherries in your soda.
We were halfway through our sodas and talking about all the things we were going to do when we grew up. Doris Bryant, the prettiest girl in school walked in with Becky Galt and another girl I only knew as Annie. Everybody played coy for a while then Eli hollered over to them and they came and sat with us.
It was getting real interesting, at least for us boys, but then Annie looked out the window and said, “What’s that?”
“A Harley and an Indian,” Eli replied with his big ole grin.
“No, that!” She pointed.
“Holy Moley!”
Outside, a roiling black storm front was advancing over the hills at the edge of town. The clouds quivered with lightning pulses and the leaves on the trees began to churn white. A swirl of newspaper and dust went skittering down the street.
“Storm coming!” the shop owner said.
“Uh, Doris, ladies, I think we’re going to have to take off now,” Eli said.
Being young and dumb, we just left the girls there and walked out to the motorcycles.
“Which way is it headed?”
“Looks like West.”
“Or Northwest.”
We studied it for a minute as it was still six or eight miles out.
Finally, we decided it was making a direct course for Richville and that, if we hurried, we could get out of town before it caught us. Daylight was falling and we did not want to get caught overnight while it stormed and we had no place to stay.
We fired up the bikes and roared off while the girls watched from the soda fountain.
It was all the excuse we needed to really open the motorcycles up. We went bustin down the road, fast as we could, the wind in our hair and lightning at our backs.
We might have made it but the road got rough with ruts and potholes and we had to slow down or risk killing ourselves! In a few minutes, it became clear that the storm was either bigger or faster than we expected, for the wind picked up, the temperature dropped and big fat rain drops began to fall.
We pressed on as it began to rain and blow. The lightning, too, was fearsome, stabbing into the treelines around us, the thunder booming and exploding, a really dangerous situation. But we were caught, no place to hide and nothing to do but keep going. We had to see if we could out run it.
The road smoothed out a bit and we picked up some speed. Squinting now against the rain and starting to feel a chill.
We must have gone half the twelve miles back home when it happened. Eli was in front. We dove down into a wooded area between the two bridges where the trees hang over the road. It was getting late in the day and the sudden darkness kinda caught us by surprise.
At first, we didn’t really know what we were seeing until we were right up on it. A large tree had blown down onto the road, its limbs were broken and pointed toward us like jagged spears.
Eli must of hit a piece of wood because his bike’s front wheel caught and the whole thing flipped, end for end. Eli and his Indian were thrown into the tree. Freddie swerved and tried to get stopped but we ended up crashing too and sliding down into the mess.
For a minute, it just seemed comical. My butt and hands were scraped up, Freddie ripped the ass out of his pants, and we were soaked to the bone, so our first reaction was to laugh. But then it became not so funny.
I had trouble getting up, my knee was bleeding through my pants.
“Damn! You all right?” Freddie asked, still not sure if I was seriously injured. It was hard to hear over the storm.
I got up on one leg and lowered my trousers. It was a bad gash and the knee cap looked crooked. It also hurt like hell.
Freddie picked up the Harley and put it on the kickstand. It looked relatively undamaged.
“Eli! You okay?” I hollered.
Eli didn’t answer.
We slowly limped over to where Eli was still in the tree and were shocked at what we saw. He was groaning and gasping, a broken limb the size of my wrist was jammed through his stomach, just under the flesh, and out the other side, right through his shirt.
“Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.” Freddie was beside himself. “He’s hurt.”
“Eli, don’t move,” I offered, trying to remember what little first aid I thought I knew.
“Don’t worry Everett,” Eli said with a weak smile, “I don’t feel like goin anywhere just yet.” Funny, he didn’t call me Spike that time.
“Yeah, well, let’s take a look at you, buddy.” Freddie said, kneeling beside him, trying to sound calm. His voice was quivering and his hands were trembling. The rain began to slacken a little.
I hated the sight of blood, always had. Pathetic for a farm boy, but true. Seeing the thick red goo oozing from between Eli’s fingers made me queasy to say the least. Then it hit me, gut blood, the smell of gut blood, hot and coppery. And also Eli’s bowels had let go. I felt sick.
He was badly injured and I began to get scared as I appraised our situation. One man down, another on one leg, getting dark, miles from anywhere. And Freddie was pale as a ghost too.
Eli’s head was bobbing, his eyes looked funny and I knew he was barely hanging on. The pain must have been intense. To this day, I’m amazed he didn’t go into shock.
“Okay, look Freddie,” I said, trying not to think about my knee. I put both hands on his shoulders and looked him firm in the eyes. “Freddie, listen, Eli’s bad hurt. We gotta stop that bleeding and get him to help soon. I need you to get it together here, understand?”
Freddie nodded, but he was looking down at Eli and struggling to keep his wits. I could see his lips trembling.
I carefully lowered myself down by Eli , careful to keep my leg straight. I gently pulled his shirt back and almost vomited. The tree limb had speared him just beneath the flesh. Part of his gut was exposed and I knew better than to try and pull the limb out. He would have bled to death on the spot.
I wished we had a saw. The knives Eli made might have eventually cut through the limb but it would take a long time and time was something we didn’t have much of.
“I’ll go get help,” Freddie said.
“No time, Fred,” Eli said. “See that blood? It ain’t stopping.”
“He’s right,” I added. “Hopefully somebody will come by soon.” Lightning struck nearby, followed almost immediately by a loud boom.