Among The Trees
By John W. Vander Velden
I’ve lived my whole life on this farm. My grandpa bought it in the twenties, it’s as
much a part of the family as my Great Aunt Joan. After my father took over the place, the first
bit of land he added was an eighty-acre parcel that banked against the Salley
River to the north. He bought other
pieces during his care of this place, as have I. The farm is near a thousand acres now a days,
but I can remember stories told me my whole life about that north piece, the
land along the river.
I was just a boy when I first heard about the house
among the trees. The thing was dad
bought that land for the thirty acres of loam it contained. He gave little thought to the wood that
covered more than half, an out of the way place few went. As a boy I wandered out to those trees, a
good long hard walk from our house, and I thought about what Mr. Gaines told me
years before.
The trees there are tall and old like none I’d seen
anywhere else. I’ve been told that wood
contains some of the last old forest hardwood in the state. I wouldn’t know. But years ago when I pushed through the
brambles to get within the shade of that forest I saw no house, big or
small. But near the center, even though
it was within the deep shade of the tall canopy above, was a thicket. A large patch of hawthorn that made an
impenetrable mass.
Now my grandsons have walked beneath those trees upon
soil my feet have rarely trod for nearly fifty years. Even so they go there
seldom. It is not the distance, almost a
mile across farmland, that keeps them away.
It s not that they avoid the outdoors, for both have a deep love of
nature. I heard a hint of why they
wandered others places at dinner just last month. Mike said, “there’s something creepy among
those trees, grandpa.” He shook his
head, “it makes my skin crawl.” His younger brother Lee nodded.
I’d like to have said there was nothing to fear in
them woods, but fact is I’d had those same feelings myself, each time I go
among those trees.
It’s my son Robert’s farm now, but I help when I
can. The weather’s been cold this
October and harvest begun early. The
other day while I helped him run corn in that back field, while the sky was the
deepest blue and no cloud in sight, a small wisp of smoke rose out from among
those trees. If a body would have closed
their eyes and breathed three times slowly before reopening them, they would
have missed it entirely. But I saw it
and made my way into that wood that stands along the banks of the Salley River.
It took a bit but I came to that Hawthorn brush and I knew. I don’t know how I knew the smoke had come
from inside that thorn blocked way, but I did.
I stood afront that bunch of brambles. Not a leaf remained, only trunk, branch,
thorn, and the red berries the birds love.
The Hawthorns heavy wit em. That’s
when I notice how quiet it was, just the breeze through the trees high above.
Not a bird to be seen or heard. Weren’t
no squirrels about either.
As I stared at those thorny berry covered branches and
a wonderin’ where the birds and squirrels might be I saw it. There was an old house within that brambled
mess. I shook my head, couldn’t believe
what I was a seein’ but sure enough a wood frame house had been completely
surrounded by the trees.
I come back with some loppers and a chain saw the next
day and me and Mike we cut us a hole through them branches and found the front
door. How long them trees had swallowed up the place I could not guess, but it
was strange that none of those Hawthorns or any other plants for that matter
grew in a way that actually touched the house.
They grew complete around and above it but not a twig brushed against
the siding or roof.
Mike told me we ought to forget that we found the
house and just pick up our stuff and go.
But I said, “Now just wait a minute Mike, all we got here is some old
house.” Though I must admit that things
seemed more than a bit odd.
“If you don’t mind,” Mike said then, “I’ll just wait
out there.” He pointed to the space beyond. I nodded and carefully went up the
steps surprised the wood held me. I
carefully placed one foot afront the other and crossed the porch to the door.
Once the house had been painted, white it seemed
though so little remained of the yellowed covering, it was hard ta tell. The
windows that faced the porch were full paned, not a single glass of the six
light on each was broken. I took hold of the doorknob drew a breath and gave it
a gentle turn. Surprised the door opened smoothly without a single creak. But that weren’t nothing to the shock I found
when I stepped inside. Expecting a dark
place full of dust and dirt and broken down stuff all over I found nothing of
the kind. It was all clean, and
everything was just like a body lived there.
Not a spider’s web or dust bunny to be found. It caused me to stop a minute and draw a breath,
while my eyes became adjusted to the dimness.
There were rugs on the floor, a coupe of overstuffed
chairs in the parlor as well as a sofa. Tables and oil lamps stood in their
places, a magazine dated October 15, 1897 lay on the top of a table next to one
of the chairs. And everything was, like I said, clean as if expectin’ company.
I looked back glad ta see the door yet stood wide open
and wonderin’ if I was dreaming. I
didn’t climb the stairs, but made my way to the kitchen. Dishes were washed and
put away, still sparkling clean in the cupboard. The sink was empty, and the hand pump was
primed and workin’. But the oddest thing of all was the cook stove…still warm.
I’d seen enough and glad Mike hadn’t followed. His eyes said it all, as I come out just as
fast as these old legs would carry me. “We’d best be going I told him as I
picked up the chain saw, and pointed for him to grab the ax and loppers.
The door shut with a loud bang as we turned to
leave. I looked over my shoulder stopped
just a second certain I could see the branches growin’ right before my
eyes. I shook my head as I hurried the
boy ahead of me and we rushed out to my truck parked just beyond the forest’s
edge.
We’d been home in a flash, but the fool thing wouldn’t
start. I tried again and again until the
battery gave up the ghost.
The walk home was long for these tired old bones, but
I had no real answers for the boy’s questions as we made our way across the
open country. I couldn’t say why, but
the further we got from that wood the better I felt. It was a silly notion to be sure.
The next day my boy Robert took us back with jumper
cables and chain if that were ta fail, but the truck was gone, just gone. That
was when I told my son of what we had found, of the house surrounded but not
touched by the thorny Hawthorns, and what I found inside. He looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Truth is, if someone had told me a yarn like
that I’d thought the same thing. But the truck was gone and the only tracks,
other than the ones we made a commin’ headed across the rows of harvested corn
stalks off toward the west fence line.
We followed those treads bouncing over thousands of
rows. At the edge of the farm the tracks went on across the Mitchel’s, cutting
a diagonal across the still standing soybeans. We sat there a shakin’ our heads
and a lookin’, wondering who took my old truck and where they were a bound.
The next day Sherriff Andrew Dodson come pullin’ in to
the farm. I’d expected him to bring us new about the Ford I’d reported stole.
“Glen we they found your truck,” he said his eyes focused on me hard. “It was
in Gillan’s pasture. You know the
Gilllan Farm?”
“Heard of them, they dairy over west edge of the
county.” I was a wondering why somebody would take my truck there.
Sherriff Dodson shook his head. “It seems the truck
run out of gas tearing up the fences and the pasture too.” He tilted his head
slightly, drawing down his left eyelid halfway. “But that’s not the strangest
part.”
“The strangest part?” I asked. It seemed to me that
takin’ a guy’s truck fifteen miles across country only to drive around some
farmer’s field until it didn’t go no more was just plain weird.
“The Gillans called saying that, what was left of
their herd had run off. That I should stop by and have a look see.”
I blinked. “Left of their herd?”
The Sheriff nodded firmly. “Carl, it was an awful
sight, six cows scattered across the field blood and hide all over the battered
front of that brown truck of yours.”
“He use my truck to run down milk cows?”
Again he nodded. “Like nothing I ever saw before.”
It nearly knocked me off my feet. I shook my head not
able to believe what I was a hearin’.
“Spent the day helping Joe and Jack Gillan find the
rest.” Sheriff Dodson went on. “Joe told me this morning that though the truck
is hauled away and the fences are fixed, none of the cattle will go out in the
pasture again.” The Sheriff pursed his lips. “He’s blaming you.”
“Blaming me?”
“I don’t see any grounds, but be warned, Joseph is
might angry.” Sheriff Dodson look around the farm. “Your truck is in impound.
We’ll do our best to figure out who took it.” He turned to look at me. “What do
you want us to do with your ford truck when we’re done?”
“It’s old and not worth much, I’ll come down Sheriff,
and look it over. Decide then.”
But my old truck and those slaughtered cows were not
the end of things. For that same night someone took off with Herman Stoke’s
Massey Ferguson tractor. Drove it through Albert Morrison’s shed and set fire
to it in a neighbor’s corn field. It took units from three departments to keep the
blaze from spreadin’.
Later a Mr. Kline was awakened when somebody stole his
Buick LeSabere right out of his garage. He said the racket of that Buick
backing right through the closed overhead woke him and the misses. When he got
to the window he saw it tearing across the yard and disappear in the darkness.
That old Buick was pretty beat up when they found it stuck in a bean field a
few farms over.
But that night had not yet ended when a couple of
teenagers parked on an out-of–the-way dirt road in Handlin County got their
romancin’ interrupted by a great big green John Deere Combine that come a
roarin’ across the field their way. Bouncin through standing corn without its
lights, twelve rows just plugged with stalks stacked most of the way up to the
cab, the diesel a screamin’ as the machine came at them in road gear. I don’t
s’spect anyone’ll be courtin’ on that stretch of gravel anytime soon.
If a body were to look down across the country the next
day they would see a near straight line of mayhem from the trees on Salley
River west south west to where they found that John Deere nosed into a ditch in
west Handlin County. A path of destruction like that of a twister. Everybody’s scratchin’ their head on what
exactly happened that night.
Days later Mike and I went back to that woods at the
north edge of the farm, those trees along the Salley. It was broad daylight,
‘cause nobody with good sense would go there at night. We came near that old
abandoned house that had been swallowed up.
The front door stood open and anglely, tore loose from its top
hinge. It was then I decided that those
Hawthorns did not mean to keep me or others out, but to hold something evil locked
away. I guess I feel guilty that I am
responsible for helpin’ whatever evil had been held there among the trees.
11/10/2018 (2182 Words)
The thrill of holding the
first copy of my book cannot be measured with a ruler. The wonderful people I
have met while I promoted Misty Creek
will long be remembered. Watching my son graduate from Purdue University will
always be a pinnacle of my life, though moving him out of state carries its own
melancholy. Life goes on and to the fortunate it brings new things, but it is
up to us to reach out and grab the golden ring isn’t it.
So a new year stands
before me and I have no idea what it will bring. But that’s the magic of it. To
be wide open to the 365 days of possibilities. Yes, there will be setbacks.
Yes, there will be things I would rather not face, but must. Yes, there will be
heartbreak. But there will also be those amazing moments, fantastic sunrises
and sets, the huge full moon when it breaks the horizon, there will be friends
and laughter, and there will always be love. And that is the greatest thing of all.
The thrill of holding the
first copy of my book cannot be measured with a ruler. The wonderful people I
have met while I promoted Misty Creek
will long be remembered. Watching my son graduate from Purdue University will
always be a pinnacle of my life, though moving him out of state carries its own
melancholy. Life goes on and to the fortunate it brings new things, but it is
up to us to reach out and grab the golden ring isn’t it.
So a new year stands
before me and I have no idea what it will bring. But that’s the magic of it. To
be wide open to the 365 days of possibilities. Yes, there will be setbacks.
Yes, there will be things I would rather not face, but must. Yes, there will be
heartbreak. But there will also be those amazing moments, fantastic sunrises
and sets, the huge full moon when it breaks the horizon, there will be friends
and laughter, and there will always be love. And that is the greatest thing of all.
