Unwelcome
Philip Johnson
Prologue
Good and bad things often come into our lives without warning, and that's how it was with Ben Whitehead. A simple impulsive notion to alter his homeward travels just so he could spend a short time dwelling on a place and time from his childhood. All so innocent and understandable. Something that many might consider doing, especially on an impulse. Who would ever think that something so innocuous could ever lead to a whole string of life altering events? Events that ranged from entertaining, to adventurous, and on to very frightening and even deadly.
Chapter One
The old man was the quintessential farmer. His face was like tough and very tanned leather, and tufts of sun bleached and windblown hair bristled from under his old weathered cap. His coveralls were worn and faded, and his shoes, that were the color of dust, looked old and heavy and had laces running zigzag up the front.
He stopped his tractor at his rusty barbed wire fence, and leaning on the fender he said, "Looks like you got everything under control."
"Pretty much. I saw that board in the road with the huge nail sticking up, but not in time to avoid it, so I stopped so I'd have this wide spot to change my tire that I knew would be flat in minutes. I have to say, this road is a tough one."
"Ain't it though. I've tried to talk to the county about it a couple of times, but it was about as productive as milkin' a dry cow." He watched me for another second and then told me, "Don't see a lot of unfamiliar cars out this way. You ain't lost are ya?"
I stopped what I was doing and straightened the kink in my back for a second, and then looked up at him before I said, "Now that's a good question. You ever heard of the Palmer place?"
The old man studied me like I'd just crawled out from under a rock before he said, "Palmer you say?"
"Yeah. They were...or are, or whatever, relatives of mine. I'm not even sure I'd know them if I saw them, but I found something in my parent's junk that mentioned the old place here on Yancy Road. I found myself fairly close, so decided to see if I could find them."
"You said your parent's junk?"
"Right, they died in a car crash a couple of years ago."
"Well sorry to hear that. Finish with what you're doin' and come to the house. I'll take a short spell from what I'm doin' and we can sit on the porch and talk about the Palmer place."
"I don't want to take you away from your labors."
"Son, I'm seventy four and I've been laborin' hard all my life, so half an hour taken out of my day now won't put me in the poor house."
"Then thanks, and I'll be up there directly." As he hooked a short turn with his tractor, I thought about what I had just said. Did I really just say, up there directly? Where the hell did that come from? Changing the tire next to the old sagging fence wire was about as close to the country or a farm as I'd been in a lot of years.
He was standing on his porch waiting for me as I pulled up and got out of the car. I made my way up the short and narrow sidewalk and up the two weathered steps onto the porch. I extended my hand and told him, "I'm Ben Whitehead."
"Nice to meet ya Ben, I'm Noah Sarat. Take a seat," and he dropped onto an old dark wood rocker and leaned back. The nearest thing to him was the squeaky swing, so I eased down and tried to hold still as he said, "So about the Palmer place. Tell me what you know or remember about it."
"Well, when I was pretty young, we'd come out here to visit relatives. I remember very little actually, except for being curious about the farm animals. It wasn't much as farms go. A subsistence farm really."
"That would be about right."
"So you do know where it is then."
"I do," he said, but then asked me, "What do you remember about your relatives that lived there?"
"Nothing much at all. Well there was an aunt Nessie or Nettie, or something like that, but I'm sure she's long since dead by now."
"Now I'm not saying I believe what I'm gonna tell ya. You know how stories can get started. Before ya know it, those stories have been repeated so often they take on a life of their own and are treated like gospel."
"Especially in small towns."
"That's true. Well anyway, the house is empty now. Up for sale for back taxes or something like that. The bank owns it I think, or the county does, I don't know. I was there some time back. The fields caught fire late in the fall. What with all the weeds that had been allowed to grow unchecked, and the long dry spell, well...it was a fire in the making. I used my tractor to help contain it along one side. Anyway, the old house and the outbuildings looked pretty solid. Nothin' fancy, but nice."
"And those stories?"
"I hate to be guilty of even repeatin' them, but I will, at least what little I have heard and can remember. I will say this as fact because I talked to them a few times. They were a strange and standoffish lot. On occasion I saw other cars there, so I guess they had friends come in from someplace, but none that were local that I ever saw or heard about."
"Not very sociable then I guess."
Old Noah almost snorted when I said that and then he added, "Not very sociable is right. Cold as a witches heart." Then he laughed and said, "That's funny because one of the stories is they practiced witchcraft there."
"I wonder what was heard or seen that would start that story."
"I don't deal in gossip, so I don't know. I heard that sometimes, well into the night, and maybe all night, lights would be on in one of those outbuildings. Well there hasn't been livestock there in many years so they weren't tending to animals."
"Who owns the property surrounding the place?"
"Well I own the property on this side, and that farm is maybe sixty acres, and I think Stanley Cooper owns the other side and behind it. So you say you just want to satisfy your curiosity?"
"That's about it. Like I said, I have nice memories of the old place. I was maybe twelve or so and I'd play in the hay or swing on the big rope that hung down from that big upper door where the hay would go up and into the loft. Things like that. Things that a lot of kids did that lived in the country back then I suppose." I looked at him then and asked, "Noah, would I get into trouble if I wandered around out there just to see if I can rustle up some of those memories?"
"Well I can't imagine why you would, but I'll call Sheriff Ensley and tell him you ain't there to steal anything."
"I'd appreciate that, but if it's empty, I don't imagine there's much to steal anyway."
"It's all furnished, right down to some dishes still on the kitchen table and food in the cupboard. They just up and left late one night and never came back. They just disappeared is what I heard."