Boondocks Fantasy

D.L. Stever is the youngest grandma you ever saw and is emerging as a fiction writer. She is previously published in Terribly Twisted Tales and Timeshares. A veteran of the U.S. military, D.L. enjoys working in her yard, digging and planting with hopes that things will grow like they are supposed to according to directions—which is not always the case. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband of many years and one dominating Yorkshire terrier.

My momma’s friend, Old Josie Miller, lived over on Bear Creek, and once a month Momma would bake a pie or cake to take for a visit with Miss Josie. Miss Josie would always cut the dessert and give Willard and me a slice along with a cool glass of sassafras tea. She never ate a piece in front of us.

Miss Josie lived alone in a gap set back from the dusty dirt road. A graveyard filled with her relatives clung to the top of the mountain on the left, and a lone grave lay on a knoll on the right. The latter was where her husband Jacob lay buried, close enough so she could keep watch over him, “until the Lord called her home,” she once said.

“Tell us a scary story, Miss Josie,” Willard and I would plead. Growing up in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky where the supernatural abounded, many a dark evening my brother and I sat enthralled as we listened to stories of apparitions, mysterious lights, and strange sounds.

“One evening, as it was gettin’ pretty dark outside,” she said, “I got my pail and went out around the hill to the barn to milk the cow. I was standing in the doorway, not far from the graveyard, and I saw Roosevelt Run-ions coming toward me on the path.”

“Roosevelt was walking really quite almost like his feet wasn’t touching the ground, like he was floating. He had a pick and a shovel swung up over his shoulder. Roosevelt’s head was down like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.” Miss Josie shook her head, gray hairs coming loose from her braid, looking like threads from a spiderweb caught in a slight breeze.

“I called to him, ‘Roosevelt,’ I said, ‘where are you going this late in the evening? Ain’t nothin’ that way but the graveyard.’ Roosevelt didn’t say anything or act like he had heard me. He just kept walking, and I called louder, ‘Roosevelt, where are you goin’ around that way?’ No answer from Roosevelt.” Miss Josie poured us another glass of tea before continuing.

“It was a mystery to me why he wouldn’t say anything. I watched as he stopped and sat on a big rock that was by the path leading up to the graveyard. Old Bossie mooed, and I turned to her. And then when I looked back, Roosevelt had disappeared. Well, I couldn’t figure out where he had gone. He couldn’t have got up the hill that quick because it’s almost straight up.”

“Well, sir, I got the shivers and hurried back home to get Jacob to come and bring the lantern to hold whilst I milked the cow.” She served me and Willard each a second piece of pie.

“Now mind you, early the next morning before the mist had lifted, we looked out and saw Roosevelt Run-ions going around the hill with a pick and shovel slung across his shoulders. His head was down and he was just a bawlin’. I went out and asked him what the matter was and what he was doing around here last night. I just couldn’t contain my curiosity. Old Roosevelt looked up with his tear-stained face and sighed the saddest sigh I ever did hear. ‘I didn’t come this way last night, Josie,’ he told me. ‘I was home by the bed of my youngest boy. He died about twilight last evening and now I am going up to dig his grave.’ I shed a tear, too.”

“Anyway, Old Roosevelt did exactly as he had done the evening before. He went on around the hill to the rock leading up to the graveyard, and there he sat and cried. Finally, he went on up the hill.

“Well, I never did hear of the ghost of a living person, but I guess what I saw the night before was just that, a premonition maybe, and I saw it just as plain as I am looking at you right now.”

“When I was a girl,” Miss Josie began, “I loved a young man that my paw didn’t approve of. Owen was wild, always fightin’ and causin’ trouble. We would meet by that big oak tree that still stands down the road a piece. We would talk about our future together, but I knew my paw would never allow me to marry him.”

“My Paw didn’t approve,” she repeated. “One night Owen was out drinkin’ and gamblin’. He got into a fight with another man who pulled a gun. Well, Owen ran to get away from him. He was chased and shot dead right across the road from the oak tree we met by. I was so hurt, but finally I began to get over the loss.”

“I will finish it,” she said with a touch of finality to her voice. “Some months later a bunch of us was walkin’ home from church on a night that was as black as pitch. Everybody walked to and from revival back in them days. We walked in a line all strung out across the dirt road. We walked, because nobody owned a car up in our holler. We were singin’ and havin’ a good time. But when we reached the oak tree everybody quieted down and remembered Owen dyin’ across the road in the ditch.”

She sighed and hesitated a few moments, “Suddenly, a little light appeared at the ditch by the edge of the road and started creeping across right in front of our feet. We stopped to watch it, and I bet it passed about five inches in front of my toes and stopped for a few seconds then went slowly on across ’til it reached the oak tree. It shimmered there for a few seconds, and then it went out. Chills went up my back, and I wasn’t the only one cryin’. I know it was the spirit of Owen remindin’ me to not forget him, and I never have. I see him at times.”

Momma said it was gettin’ dark, and we needed to get home. As we walked down the road in the moonlight and came up to the old oak tree, it cast a black shadow across the road. I clung to Momma’s hand and shut my eyes till we were way past it. I didn’t want to see Owen if he decided to show up that night, and as far as I know, he never did again.

But we did see Miss Josie. Momma kept bringing her pies and cakes that she never ate in front of us, and she kept telling us stories. It wasn’t until I was all grown up and ready to move off on my own that I learned Miss Josie was dead . . . had been dead for all the years I knew her. No wonder she never ate a bite of Momma’s desserts.

Her grave sat up on that mountainside with all her other relatives, and several of them had such strong ties to the holler that they roamed the world too. Some of them take up residence in Miss Josie’s house from time to time, but others have their own places, all of them mingling with the living folks who traipse around the land that straddles Bear Creek.