XI

Word finally came back about James Fletcher’s whereabouts. After he hadn’t shown up for the funeral service for his father, Jim Sheckle sent letters inquiring on his status, and once again breaking the news of his father’s passing. The replies were simple, albeit unusual.

James Fletcher, who had suckled at his mother’s teat for far too long, and overall was a fine young lad, did not care to make his way back to Virginia for his father’s funeral service or the search for his mother. He was doing just fine in Chicago, and busy enough running a construction company with his good friend, Neil. Though he suggested that perhaps his mother had gone to New York, like she’d always wanted.

On March 17th he hurried home with his boy from the Landry farm, stayed up all night with a pistol aimed at the door and refused to sleep. The next night he did the same. Not for fear of something in the darkness, just out of precaution. The following night, nightmares plagued him.

He dreamt of Hardy Fletcher being torn to shreds. His body convulsing as it folded, and of Sheryl Fletcher being dragged by the hair out to her husband’s barn and thrown in with the pigs. He dreamt of a creature of the woods kneeling over a hog, chewing its mud-covered skin and biting through flesh even as it squealed. Sheryl had died of fright. Her heart gave out.

Then he dreamt of Matthew Landry and a poor boy with a Georgian accent. He saw poor Lee and Eveline being thrown from their home by soldiers, and swimming across the river, being taken by the rapids to the shore. He watched as Caroline buried her husband outside his burning barn, and he dreamt of the eldest Landry boy putting a gun to his father’s head and pulling the trigger.

The remainder of March had gone by with little incident. The Thrice farm had lost a ram and an ewe, both in healthy condition. Mr. Hindel found the ram just outside his estate a week later, decapitated. The estate was on the other side of Chancellorsville, closer to the courthouse. How it ended up there nobody knew.

By April, he had given up any hope of finding Sheryl or her body. He still asked his folk to keep an eye on the roads, and the woods, but deep down felt no assurance he would ever see her again.

Eleven days into the month, there was a pounding on his front door.

“Who’s there?” he asked. The sun hadn’t yet come up, and he held his pistol with one hand while he rubbed his eyes with the other. Thomas was beginning to stir in the bed.

“It’s Lee, Mr… I mean Sheriff Sheckle. Lee Landry. With Hosea, sir. We need you.”

Sheriff Sheckle opened the door and found the young boy looking up at him. His eyes were wide, but sunken, and pressured red from tears. The sheriff looked up and found Hosea on a horse, with a rifle slung over his shoulder and a pistol in his hand.

“They gave you a firearm?” the sheriff asked.

“Best hurry, sir. If you see me with this,” Hosea waved the gun, “you know it's bad. We found Sheryl Fletcher, sir, but the rest I’ll leave to Master Emmett.”

Sheriff Sheckle ran to his dresser, pulling on his slacks and a clean shirt. He urged his son to do the same, and both were out of the house and saddling their horses before Lee had a chance to feed Mo an apple. Minutes later, they were riding north.

“I need you to tell me what I’m walking into,” the sheriff told Hosea. The boys were riding ahead. Thomas rocked back and forth on his horse, falling asleep to the clacking metronome of the horses’ hooves. Jim noticed that Lee’s eyes wandered. He watched the sides of the road, the woods. He looked ahead, he looked behind, and while he had one hand on his reins the other rested on a holstered knife.

“Like I said, I should let Master Emmett tell you. Though I can tell you what’s happened before tonight.”

They spoke in hushed tones, allowing the whispering of the woods to cover their voices. The sheriff asked few questions, taking in the story from the man who had warned him all those years ago. He listened, and thought of all of those who knew the rules and refused to believe in them. All those who had called him a fanatic, and all those times he had elected to ignore the rules himself very recently.

“Why not come to me last night?” he asked.

“Emmett feels it’s proper that he should protect his own family. He needs no law, no military, and no faction. Just him, his boys, and his property.”

They rode through the entry to the Landry homestead, and the land felt eerily quiet. The soil was tilled and ready for seed, if it had not been planted already. The trees on one edge of the property stood completely still, not a breeze coming from them. The dim light from the rising sun to the east gave the barn and house a red tint that made the sheriff’s stomach twist, and up ahead Jim saw his old friend standing on the roof of his house, a skinny farmhand by his side.

“What’s he doing up there?”

“He’ll tell you, sir.”

“Hosea, it’s Sheriff or it’s Jim, I ain’t a master or a sir to you.” Emmett gave brief glances as they approached, and a tight nod as they dismounted. He told Hosea to collect Clyde from inside, and when the larger of the two farmhands ducked underneath the doorframe, Emmett tossed him the rifle. The landowner climbed down and waved the sheriff inside.

“Not up in your nest today?”

“No,” Emmett replied. “I don’t know what to make of this, and I doubt you will either. All I can tell you is I swear to the Almighty I have no idea how she ended up under my floor.”

The stench hit him at once. He covered his nose with his sleeve and put out a hand to keep his son outside.

“No,” Emmett said. “It’s rancid, but safer inside. Let him come.”

Jim nodded to his son and waved him in, breathing deep through his nose as he did. His empty stomach rolled, but he restrained himself.

“It will get better,” Caroline said. She had large black bags under her eyes. Now that the sheriff looked around the room, they all did. Emmett’s were the largest and darkest, except for perhaps his daughter who sat comatose next to her mother. “We haven't noticed it for weeks, and suddenly it just starts when we tear up the floor. Unbelievable.”

“She’s talking about this,” Emmett said, standing over a hole in the floor. An axe lay next to his foot, and the sheriff paid careful attention to it as he approached. He leaned over the opening, and saw the origin of the stench.

“Is that… Sheryl?” he asked, rubbing his arm under his nose.

“We think so,” Emmett said. “Look at the jewelry. Looks like hers, doesn’t it?”

“How did Sheryl Fletcher get under your house?” Jim asked.

“Hell if I know. Eveline saw a spot in the floor, something was trying to punch through, we dug up a body. That’s all I can tell you.”

“How long ago?”

“Maybe seven hours? Eight?” Emmett replied.

“Is there any other way under the house?”

“No.”

The sheriff jumped down into the hole, only knee-deep. He poked around at the dirt surrounding the body, consciously trying not to touch it. He kicked at a piece of loose dirt and started a small crumble. Bending down, he saw a streak of light.

“It’s possible somebody dug underneath the house, under the foundation that your daddy put up. Maybe in the middle of the night, dragged the body under, and packed the dirt back in?”

“How long do you think that would have taken?” Caroline asked.

“From experience, I can say all night and then some,” Hosea said. “I was here when we put this house up. I was young, but I remember it. We packed that dirt down so nobody could get under there, Master Landry was very specific how he wanted this. Used to be rolling. Not like those hills out there, but this land wasn’t flat like it is now. The house used to be down where our beds are, they moved it here to be closer to the river.”

“So you don’t think it could be done?” the sheriff asked.

“No, sheriff. They had to dig all that dirt out, drag the body under, pack it in tight, and put all that dirt back without making a peep or having Mrs. Landry here notice in the morning while tending to her garden. Mrs. Fletcher here wasn’t put there naturally.”

The sheriff pulled a splinter out of the floor and began poking at the body’s face. Skin began sliding away from bone.

“You have an old rug, Emmett?”

—

Sheriff Sheckle and Emmett Landry wrapped the body in a rug that had been crusted and faded from muddied boots, and brought her outside.

“Mind if I borrow your wagon? I don’t think Juniper would appreciate Mrs. Fletcher’s stink on her coat, and I’m not prepared to hear about it riding all the way out to the courthouse.”

“Go ahead, I won’t be needing it for a while,” Emmett responded.

“You don’t plan on leaving the county, do you? I’m going to need you to stay here for questioning. Wish I had my damn ledger with me.” He dropped his end of the carpet on the stoop. The sun had finally crested the horizon, and the warmth of spring washed over him, though he noticed that Emmett continued to shiver.

“No. My family is here, I won’t be leaving this place until everything is resolved.”

“And how do you plan on doing that, Master Emmett?” Hosea stepped out of the house and gently shut the door behind him. “We’ve broken the rules, and we’ve angered the woods.”

The sheriff quickly put himself between master and slave. “Hosea, I can respect your candor, but I still have no evidence that a spirit killed this woman and until I do, I would appreciate it if there were no more murders. Particularly not one such as the man standing next to me killing you in cold blood for that comment.” He looked at Emmett. “Mr. Landry, in an official capacity I would direct you to keep all members of this farm, both family and farmhands, inside your home at all times during the night hours. From dusk until dawn. During the day, move about in pairs. I’ll be directing the rest of the county to do the same.”

“Fine. I was likely to suggest that anyway,” Emmett said. “Hosea, grab the others and go collect your things, you’ll be moving into the house tonight.”

“I think everything we have is inside already, Master Emmett.” Hosea turned and walked back over the threshold. Jim could hear him deliver the news that they’d all be sleeping under one roof to the others.

“What about Matthew?” Jim asked.

“What about him?”

“I haven’t seen him yet. Hosea tells me you were attacked yesterday. Is he okay?”

“He has a twisted leg and a bullet through his foot—”

“How the hell did he catch a bullet?”

“He… shot himself, and perhaps had a womanly curse as well. He was chasing her as if he were in love with her.”

“So he shot himself while running after a woman. Do you believe that to be the case?”

“The more I think about it, the more I believe he believed that was the case. He was an animal, chasing after her. It was obsessive.”

“You don’t think it was possessive?”

“What are you implying?”

“Emmett, I'm trying to gather the facts. In the last month I’ve found Hardy chopped up in his hearth and his wife dead underneath your floor with no apparent cause of death. Not to mention at least two suspicious trinkets found in the woods, unless Caroline was just so enamored with the first she crafted that one above the cupboard as a backup? And the fact that you were chased by a woman who could run on all fours after you shot her, your son tried to bite off your hand after striking you with your own whip, and then supposedly shot himself in the foot…” Emmett grimaced and shrank at the mention of Matthew’s violence. “I need to have Sheryl properly inspected, but as far as I could tell there was no bodily harm, and even if there was I’m not certain a coroner could decipher it with how far rotted she is. Not to mention the missing animals, the occasional petty theft, and hysteria over Fredericksburg…”

“So what do you need from me?”

“I need you to remain here, with your family, until I say otherwise. Do not leave the farm, but for the love of God keep yourselves protected. I don’t understand it, but something is happening.”

He extended a hand and Emmett shook it.

“Also maybe get some sleep.”

He called for his boy and the two of them loaded Sheryl Fletcher’s body into Emmett Landry’s wagon. He fixed his horse Juniper to it, and drove off with his son riding beside him. He waved to the family standing at the front of the house before turning onto the main road and feeling relief wash over him.

“I don’t like that place,” Thomas said.

Jim watched the house disappear from view. The trees remained still. Birds were silent, there were no squirrels running from branch to branch, and no chirping of crickets. The land just on the edge of the Allegheny Mountains felt dead, with no whispers to be heard.

“Me neither,” the sheriff replied. He picked up the pace, putting as much distance between him and his old friend as he could.