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“Junior! Buster! Gabor!”
That was Little Jakub. Where had his voice come from? The mist si-goggled it something fierce. Nothing was straight. Which way was the road? Should they go home? Home was where their mamas were. They wanted their mamas, though they’d never say so.
Junior Lee saw the glow first. It was off to the right, and he was sure it was the porch light of the company store in the miner camp. “Home’s just over yonder,” he said. “Come on. Hurry!” He didn’t want to be in the woods anymore, and he set off toward the comforting glow. It was so chilly. Junior Lee’s breath came out in puffs. The other boys were behind him. He could hear their footfalls back a ways. The crack of a branch.
“Keep up!” Junior Lee said and kept walking. But the woods didn’t look right. He was confused. The glow had moved off to his left some. And to his right. It was in two places at once. Three. “You see that?” he said.
No answer.
Junior Lee turned back. The boys were not behind him. “Jakub? Buster!” His voice echoed and was swallowed. “Gabor?” Another crack of a branch. Junior Lee whirled around. There was no need to call for the boys. They were there, carried in the arms of the ghosts streaming out of the woods. Jakub’s eyes were still open but unseeing. His head hung at a funny angle from his neck. What was left of Gabor and Buster made Junior Lee vomit into the leaves.
The ghosts kept coming, more and more. Some of the ghosts were ladies in very old black dresses and with white bonnets on their heads. Some were miners rotted through with the black lung. The glow had been from their headlamps, that third eye pulsing into the gloom. All of them were hungry. Their eyes, ringed in darkness, burned with it.
They opened their mouths and a liquid coursed from their ruined lips, black and thick, like they’d been chewing tobacco without stopping.
The ghosts spoke in one voice. “This world will be ours. But first, let us pay tribute.”
Junior Lee would never have to worry about a mine cave-in, never have to listen for the shrill warning of the canary. He would never work deep underground with his daddy, never wake in the night with a burbling cough, never turn fourteen. The ghosts would make sure of it.
Junior Lee fell down on his back.
“Please. Don’t,” the boy whimpered. His lips moved silently, praying to the god his ma and pa told him lived up in the sky. But that sky was infected now, bruised and angry. The birds screeched away from the swirling, seemingly endless hole at its center, and if Junior Lee hadn’t been so terrified, he might’ve marveled at this new sight—the soulless cloud eye shedding tears of blue light into a world that didn’t know it existed.
The ghosts surrounded Junior Lee.
They growled and bared their teeth: “All praise the King of Crows.”
The mountains swallowed up his screams.
Boley, Oklahoma
The town of Boley had been founded in 1903 in Creek Nation Indian Territory by descendants of African and Creek Freedmen, and in the subsequent years, it had grown to become a very prosperous town. That was why Mr. S. S. Jones had come to town with his film camera to document Boley’s success, to show others of his brethren that a dream was alive in Oklahoma. His guide, Mr. James Powell, proudly showed off the local bank and the oil derrick that produced more than two thousand barrels of crude per day. Yes, sir, things were very good in Boley.
It was mid-afternoon now and unseasonably warm on the dusty plains of frontier country. The two men perspired in their suits, ties, and hats, and so they took refuge on the front porch of the general store and sipped glasses of lemonade made cold with ice from Boley’s own ice plant. The two men removed their hats and let the gritty wind cool the sweat beaded along their neatly trimmed hairlines, compliments of Boley’s own, very busy barbershop. The men tipped their heads back and took in all that sky—so much sky it seemed like nothing could ever stop its reach.
“The land’s been very good to us,” Mr. Powell said proudly.
“I see that,” Mr. Jones said.
Mr. Powell couldn’t help noticing that Mr. Jones seemed miles away.
“Mr. Jones, I don’t mean to pry, but is something on your mind? Are you not enjoying your time here in Boley?”
“Oh, I’m enjoying my time tremendously. I was just thinking about something peculiar that happened on the trip out here. I guess it’s got me spooked. You ever hear of a town called Edna?”
Mr. Powell shook his head slowly. “Can’t say as it’s familiar to me. Is it nearby?”
“Farther east. About forty miles, maybe, on the railroad line.”
“What about it?”
“Well, I passed by it on my way to Stillwater last week. Saw it from the train window, you see. Looked like a nice little town. The train stopped for a few minutes to let some folks on. There were even some children who’d come down to the tracks to wave at us and hear the engineer toot the whistle. A week later, I passed by it again on my way back and…” He shook his head.
“What is it?”
Mr. Jones gave Mr. Powell a sideways glance. “Well. It wasn’t there anymore.”
Mr. Powell smiled with polite confusion. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
