Great Grandpa's Ghost
The farm sat deep in the valley shrouded by early morning mist. The roof on the clapboard house sagged a bit; an upstairs window had been broken by the limb of a near-by tree as lightening and wind of a recent storm had dragged it down. Its massive trunk sprawled across the yard just missing the front porch by inches. Other out buildings gave evidence of their rodent occupants. An early Twentieth Century plow lay mired in wild vine growth. The rusted out shell of a 1930's pick-up lay on the upper end of the barn lot; both of its doors unhinged and propped alongside the front fender. Inside the cab, the seat had long become filling for squirrels and mice nests. Its surface held only bits of leather and the tops of rusty springs. The windshield remained in tact, oddly enough. None of the trees and shrubs that grew in abundance around it had shattered that old untinted, now filthy, glass.
The road leading down the hill to the farm building was steep and treacherous with deep ruts and deeper ditches on each side. Beyond the ditches, shrubs and cedar trees had taken over the once lush hillside pasture. One could barely see twenty yards beyond the edge of the old dirt road. Ruts in the road developed from washing soil and lack of rock much more than traveling vehicles. No one could get back into these acres without four-wheel-drive. Well, one could walk--if they were slow and careful where they stepped lest they trample over brush or snake, even in the middle of the road.
The road, once the driveway to the main farm buildings, crossed the creek twice before reaching the farm. One must cross the creek three times if they were going to the house. The bridge over the first crossing at the very bottom of the hill had long caved in leaving only a few oak support trusses unevenly spread across the expanse of the no longer existing bridge. Tommy’s Dad had to steer his four-wheel-drive pick-up around the stone frame of the bridge, down the steep bank into the creek, across the rocky bottom and up the other side. If it had rained heavily within the previous week, no one would cross the creek here. The second creek crossing still held a culvert, rusty, washed-out and narrow, but crossable.
Everything this mid-November morning was frost-covered and misty. The moon still glowed in a slowly dawning sky. Through the beam, the shadow of the moving pick-up meandered along the overgrown drive. The sun would begin to rise in less than half an hour.
Tommy saw all of these things as he clung to the dash. He watched the eerie before- dawn mist settling along the ground of the quiet vacant farm. Nothing registered much. He was too excited.
He had passed the Hunter Safety Tests so Dad said he could hunt in a deer stand alone this year. Last week, they had 'fixed' his stand in the barn loft beside the big window facing south. They had also built one up in the woods further east for Dad directly parallel to the window where Tommy would sit. They would both shoot south. Dad said he had a good view of the barn so he would see when Tommy shot a deer. Tommy was determined to shoot a big deer.
Tommy hunted with his father the previous year when Dad shot a ten-point buck the first morning of the annual hunt. Tommy liked the way his Mom prepared venison steaks. They made really good deer sausage from the deer, too. But the most exciting thing was that Dad had taken that buck's head to a taxidermist to have it mounted. 'Mr. Buck' now held prominence over the mantle in the living room at home.
It was exciting to watch his father shoot that buck but it would be more exciting when he shot one. Tommy was going to shoot the biggest one this year. He was sure of it.
"I shot several deer from that same window where you're going to sit," Dad said. "So did your grandpa."
"Think Great-grandpa did to?" Tommy asked.
"Probably," Dad replied. "He grew up here. Lived in that farmhouse all of his life. I started hunting here on this farm when I was about your age."
In fact, Tommy’s great-great-grandfather had come from Germany about a hundred years ago and after purchasing this very farm, had survived many a successful hunting season growing grapes to make wine on the hillside. The rock remains of the old wine cellar stood in the woods some distance from the driveway. Its walls still curved into the hillside even though its roof had long caved away.
The barn stood alone a safe distance from the creek (should it flood during a heavy rain). No barnyard fences stood any longer. Haphazard logs strewn here and there gave evidence of the split rail fence that once kept animals penned all around the barn. The sides of the barn were tin, once painted grey. Now, the sides were so faded and rusted the building appeared as a dark hulk looming ahead.
Little wind blew this morning, no more then a slight breeze swaying the limbs of the trees now and then. The frosty air nipped Tommy’s lungs as he climbed from the truck causing him to inhale even more sharply and hold his breath as if seeking to keep it in his lungs until they grew warm. His exhaled breath frosted the air in front of his mouth like a full grey cloud. He gasped in a large gulp of air and blew it out all at once just for fun.
“Hurry up,” Dad said. “You need to get settled before day light. Can you get up to the loft alone?”
“Sure!” Tommy replied eagerly. Of course he could. He gathered up his rifle and binoculars.
“Where are your shells?” Dad asked.
“In my pocket,” Tommy answered.
“Don’t place them in the chamber until you are settled in your seat. Want that thermos?”
Tommy nodded as he picked up the thermos too. It was filled with hot chocolate. He could feel the thermos’s warmth through his gloves. He also had a sandwich tucked in this other coat pocket. “Shells on one side; food on the other,” he thought almost giddily. He was all set.
Dad had parked the pickup beneath the overhang on the barn where it would be difficult for any one to see—even deer. Now, he slipped the binoculars around his neck and carefully lay the rifle over one arm, gripping the thermos in his other hand.
Dad gathered up his gear and closed both truck doors carefully so they made no noise. "I'll be in my stand in five minutes," he said.
"You don't put your shells into the rifle chamber until you're sitting down either," Tommy told him.
Dad just grinned as he trudged off into the woods.
The barn door located beneath the overhang was heavy. It groaned as Tommy heaved it open and closed behind him with a dull thud. For a moment, all was dark before his eyes focused in the dim light. Scurrying feet told him rodents burrowed in the old hay covering the stall floors on either side of a raised walkway. Straight ahead the stair rose to the loft.
Made of wide, low steps the stair was easy to climb. The open windows of the loft drew early morning light, enough he could see the 'stand' he and his father had arranged. Flat plywood sheets provided a back wall on two sides to curtail any breeze blowing through from the open north window. He was given a clear view of the stair and a comfortable place to sit in a lawn chair drawn near the south window. The windowsill was wide enough to balance his rifle so he would not have to bear all of its weight while he waited.
He sat down and hurriedly placed his shells in the chamber of his rifle. He was careful to leave the rifle on 'safety', especially as he picked up the thermos of hot chocolate. He wasn't thirsty. Rather, his gloved fingers sought the warmth penetrating from that tubular tumbler.
Then he sat. Waiting silently. His gaze lazily roamed the wooded hillside to the south. The sun was just beginning to rise over the eastern hillside casting shadows among the trees below the barn. He heard squirrels chattering in the near-by trees. He heard mice scurrying in the old hay at the opposite end of the loft. He heard a step on the stair.
Puzzled, Tommy turned his head just as an old man emerged onto the loft. He was a tall man with white hair and kind eyes. Eyes like Tommy's father's. It was odd that the old man wore no coat--only grey pants with suspenders covering a dark shirt. Soft shoes covered his feet. An enormous smile covered his face. The old man's eyes twinkled merrily behind wire rimmed glasses and his smile stretched from ear to ear. He didn't speak. He just stood there at the head of the stair.
"What do you want?" Tommy asked in confusion. "Who are you?"
Tommy was startled but he wasn't afraid. The cold chill did not begin to creep along his spine until the old man faded away right into thin air. In less than a minute Tommy found himself staring at the blank wall behind the stair.
Tommy sat dumbstruck; momentarily frozen with shock. He shivered as he blinked and blinked again. Where a kindly looking old man stood seconds before now only a north breeze whispered from the window beyond.
Then he remembered a picture taken when he was a baby. He sat on an old man's lap on the front porch of the house on this very farm. He wasn't quite a year old and the old man was his great-grandfather who had died less than a month after that picture was taken. The way his great-grandfather smiled in that picture was the same way the old man had smiled at him moments before. He was dressed identical to that in the picture, too.
"Great-Grandpa?" Tommy asked, glancing toward the stair once more. Only the wind rustled; only the mice squeaked in reply.
Was his great-grandpa smiling because he approved of Tommy's continuing a 'family tradition'? Dad had said both his father and grandfather had hunted their first deer from this barn window.
"Well, I won't shoot any deer wondering about that now," Tommy told himself. He determinedly took up his rifle but he couldn't resist one more glance toward the stair.
The sun had risen over the bluff now. Were those antlers peeking around the trunk of that tree just down the holler?