| Unseen Odds: Spiritual
Happenings, Ghostly Tales, and Spooky Pranks From Long Ago Excerpt-One Good Turn I had to be the last person on earth. It was the only explanation that made sense. I hadn’t seen another living being for days and days, and now it seemed forever since the snow had begun falling, working relentlessly to bury me alive. My hopeless heart could think of no other explanation except that there wasn’t any one else beyond the frozen whiteness piling up against my log cabin tomb. I stared despondently out the window, my eyes unfocused and my mind turned inward, stumbling around the desperate ache of slow starvation. What am I doing here? The question came unbidden, without anger or recrimination. Even as I asked, I knew the answer. Love had brought me here. I loved Rick more than a gingerbread-trimmed house in town with warm fires blazing in every hearth, more than a pantry stocked with readily available food from the general store, more than a pianoforte, indeed, more than anything on earth. That’s why I was sitting alone on this homestead in the wild and beautiful Teton Mountains. While my parents approved of Rick, they didn’t approve of his lifestyle. They had feared for both my safety and my sanity when he had told them of his dream to homestead lush meadow acreage in a remote Teton valley. They had done their best to persuade him to take a job in town instead. To Rick’s credit, he had listened to them before discussing the matter with me. As he spoke to me of living and working in town, the light in his eyes faded and his countenance drooped. I looked across the table into his weary face, giving in to a sudden surge of compassion. He was willing to work a job he didn’t like and live where he didn’t want to just for me. What he didn’t know is that I wouldn’t be happy unless he was. “Rick,” I’d said, taking one of his hands in both of mine. “Yes, Asa,” he said, looking at me with strange, dull eyes that didn’t belong on my beloved’s face. “I know what I want to do.” I could see him stiffen as he braced himself for my words. “What?” A slow smile crept over my face. “I think we should homestead.” Rick’s mouth dropped open as his eyes lit up. “Really, Asa? You really want to?” If I’d had any doubts before, seeing his face come alive quenched them all. “Yes,” I said, unable to stop from smiling. “I want to homestead with you.” So here I was, two days ride from town, homemaking in a rough log cabin that Rick and I had built ourselves on a spread that was as beautiful as heaven must be. In the summer, a stream of pure water tumbled through the meadow close to the cabin, and trees stood as sentries along the mountain wall that protected our little valley from winds that would otherwise cripple cornstalks and batter wheat grass down flat. In the six month’s we’d been married, I hadn’t felt deprived of neighbors. Rick was all I needed. We had the occasional Indians stopping by, curious folk who had never been threatening. Even so, the first sight of them always gave me a start. Rick was never afraid. Usually I went with Rick on his trips to town. I liked to see what was new in the general store and catch up on the news, but the last time he’d gone, I was the way of women, and suffering from cramps. The last thing I wanted to do was ride a horse. Rick had been three days late getting home. I paced the floor, imagining his broken body lying at the bottom of some ravine. I checked out the window hundreds of times a day, wondering with a catch in my heart if he’d been waylaid and beaten by robbers who stole his horse and clothes before leaving him wounded and defenseless in the wilderness. At last, when my fingernails were chewed down to the quick, I saw him riding up the trail through a halo of sun-brightened autumn leaves. I burst from the house and ran to meet him. He swung off his horse and threw his muscular arms around my waist, hugging me so hard that my feet left the ground. I had a pretty good stranglehold around his neck, too. When we finally broke apart, he began untying bundles from the back of his patient pack horse, shooting me frequent looks that melted my heart down into my toes. “I was scared to death,” I said as I opened my arms for a bag of rice. “Why were you gone so long?” “On my way to town I came across an old Indian lying on the mountainside,” he said. He slung a full saddlebag over one of his shoulders and hefted a sack of sugar in the other. “The man was so sick and weak, he could barely move.” I hurried ahead of Rick and opened the cabin door. As soon as we’d dropped our supplies onto the table, I asked, “What was the matter?” Rick shook his head slightly. “I don’t know. He looked awfully old. His face was all wrinkles, and the lines from his nose to his mouth were deep as canyons.” Rick linked my hand in his and we walked outside. “Funny thing is, he had a bow and quiver of arrows with him, like he was out hunting, although it didn’t seem he’d be able to get around well even on a good day.” Rick took up the horse’s reins and we headed toward the barn. “What happened to him?” I asked. “I put him on my horse and walked until I found his village,” Rick said. “The tribe came running when they saw us. Seems they’d missed him, and were getting ready to go out looking when we showed up. Once they took over and he was settled, they insisted I stay and eat with them.” Rick squeezed my hand as we entered the barn. “They can’t cook anywhere near as good as you can, Asa, but I didn’t want to hurt their feelings, so I stayed.” Rick let go of my hand so he could loosen the saddle. “I wouldn’t have expected anything less of you,” I said, my heart warming at the goodness of this man I was lucky enough to call my husband. When our provisions again ran low and Rick was ready to make another supply run, I told him I didn’t want to go. He turned startled eyes to me. “Why not?” he asked. “I just don’t feel like it,” I hedged. He’d shot me a look full of such hurt that I blurted, “How am I supposed to surprise you if you’re always hanging around?” “Surprise?” he asked. Really, his open mouthed expression was quite comical. “Look here,” I said as patiently as I could. “It’s nearly Christmas. If you don’t know what that means, then I’m not going to explain it to you. You’ll just have to wait and see. Now get out of here and stop asking questions!” Rick’s face cleared and he flashed me an adorable smile. “Well, if that’s the way you feel about it, I’ll just get out of here,” he said cheerfully. “You do that,” I said. He stepped close to me and said, “I should be back in four or five days.” “I know that,” I said. Rick moved his face closer to mine. “The sooner gone, the sooner I get back,” he said softly. Then he kissed me, warm and long. I sighed with happiness as he broke away and swung up onto his horse. He tipped his hat to me before he turned and rode down the trail. When I went to the cupboard to make supper, I was dismayed to find that the mice had gotten into the flour and rice, and had somehow managed to tip over the molasses jar. Sweet brown goo stained the rough wooden boards in my cupboard. I recoiled at the sight that bore a disturbingly close resemblance to spilled blood. I managed to salvage a cup of rice, but the flour was tracked with paw prints and mouse droppings. The sight of it turned my stomach. I still had some salt, two pieces of jerked meat, and half a loaf of bread. With the lone squash left over from our garden, I figured I could make do until Rick came home. I kept my meals small, eating only a few bites, chewing slowly and telling myself that I was full. Rick would be home soon. I had hope, until it started to snow. Now my brain was so clouded, I couldn’t remember anything but snow. Rick’s new sweater was knitted and wrapped in brown paper with one of my old hair ribbons tied around it. It no longer gave me pleasure to imagine Rick opening his present on Christmas morning. Every good thought had been driven from my head by the sharp pains of relentless hunger, which had now dulled into a steady ache. Whenever I stood up, dizziness washed over me and my trembling legs seemed only just able to carry me from one place to another. Mostly I sat in the rocking chair, too weak to push the rockers into motion. Between the giddy flurries of white, I could see that the snow was piling as high as the woodshed roof. Soon I’d have to go out and clear the narrow path. My foggy brain latched onto the thought that I wouldn’t want to starve to death and freeze to death, too. I’d go out soon, after I rested. Heavy pounding on my door yanked me from a dream filled with roast beef and boiled potatoes swimming in gravy. “Rick!” I called, my heart alive with hope. I struggled to my feet and stumbled to the door, fumbling with the latch before pulling it open. My heart about leaped out of my chest when I found myself face to face with an old Indian man. Intelligent black eyes looked out at me from the web of wrinkles that criss-crossed his face. Deep lines ran from either side of his nose to the corners of his mouth. “Oh!” I gasped, a curious mixture of fear and relief chasing around in my head. Here was proof at last that I wasn’t the only person left on earth. Yet should I be afraid? Why had he come? As if to answer my unspoken question, the Indian raised his arm. I flinched before I noticed the pair of rabbits dangling from the old brown hand. The Indian had brought me food. Instantly, I opened the door wider. “Come in,” I invited, moving my hand toward the middle of the cabin just in case he didn’t understand English. He shook his head and held the rabbits out to me. I took them. He turned and walked away into the snow, a quiver of arrows hanging from his back and bow slung over his shoulder. I didn’t stay to watch him disappear into the storm. I was too busy stoking the fire in the stove and thinking of food. After I had eaten both rabbits, I had enough strength to go outside and clear the woodshed path. I carried in two big armloads of wood and gratefully settled in for a sound night’s sleep. In the morning I woke to the familiar pangs of hunger, now sharpened with the recent reminder of food. Why had I eaten both rabbits? I berated myself. I could have saved one for breakfast. Tears of frustration burned my eyes. If only I could live like a bear and sleep until spring, it would solve everything. Maybe I’d just stay in bed anyway. There was no reason for me to get up. It would be so much easier just to lie here and sleep forever and ever. I wiped the tears out of my eyes and turned my head toward the window. I stared out the small pane of glass, not daring to believe what I saw. The snow had stopped. My heart lifted with hope, and I swung my feet out of bed. Sunlight was beginning to spread over an unbroken expanse of white. Now Rick would come home. I boiled the rabbit bones and made a thin broth to drink before I busied myself straightening the house and stockpiling the firewood, trying my best to ignore the hunger that complained and rumbled around in my stomach. As the weak winter sun began dropping in the sky, my spirits dropped, too. My repeated trips to the window to look for Rick were all wasted. I never spied him riding to my rescue along the snow-clogged trail. The knock was startling and unexpected. I hurried to open the door and found the same old Indian who had been there the day before. I smiled and invited him in again. He didn’t reply, but he held out a bird that was as big as a chicken. When I took it, he held out his other hand to me. His cupped palm was full of a tangle of brown shreds of what looked like bark. I looked at him, puzzled. He swirled his fingers over the palm full of bark, then made his hand into a cup shape and pretended to drink from it. “Oh! Tea!” I said, excited that we were communicating. The Indian nodded, and the corners of his mouth curved up. The lines from his mouth to his nose deepened even further, like two small canyons. I suddenly realized that this must be the Indian Rick had rescued. I smiled and nodded at the old man and held my hand out toward him. He dumped the bark into it, then turned and walked away. I hurried inside and made my solitary meal. I carefully saved the soft under feathers that I plucked from the wild bird. If I could get enough by next Christmas, I would make Rick a new pillow. The silent Indian continued to bring me food once a day. I invited him in each time, thinking that he might want to step inside and warm himself, but he never did. One day I was raking ashes out of the stove, idly wondering what the old Indian would bring me for my supper, when I heard a shout. I hurried to the window and stared in amazement at a horse and rider plowing through chest-deep snow before I screamed, “Rick!” I ran to the door and flung it open. “Asa!” Rick yelled. He slid off the horse’s back and struggled through the snow toward me. “Rick!” I called again. Tears spilled down my cheeks as Rick grabbed me into his arms so hard it hurt. I didn’t complain. I was too busy crying into his coat. When at last he pulled away, tears were running down his face and losing themselves in his beard. “Asa, I was so worried when I couldn’t get back here, I thought…,” he didn’t finish. His face crumpled and he hugged me to him again. “I wasn’t sure you were coming back,” I said through my tears. “Oh, Asa, I’ll always come back to you,” Rick said thickly. He pulled away and looked into my eyes. “I started back as soon as I could, but I got lost in the snow. Some of the Indians from the tribe I told you about last time found me and took me to their camp. They made me stay with them until it was safe to travel. It seemed like an eternity.” “Then they must have sent the old hunter,” I said. Rick tipped his head at me in confusion. “What old hunter?” he asked. “You know. The one you found on your last trip that was too sick to move.” Rick’s eyes went wide. “The one with the wrinkles and the mouth lines as deep as canyons,” I reminded him. Rick closed his mouth and swallowed. “What about him?” he asked slowly. “He brought me food while you were gone,” I said. Rick looked around the snow filled landscape. “When did you see him last?” he asked. “Just yesterday,” I said, watching my husband’s face. He was acting so strangely. “He brought me a leg of venison.” Rickshook his head. “He couldn’t have, Asa.” “But he did!” I insisted. Rick gripped my hands in his. “It couldn’t have been him,” Rick said, searching my eyes with his. “He died the day after I left him with his people.” |
TABLE OF CONTENTS: |