Short Story: "The Debt"

This piece of short fiction has a darker tone to it. It involves a few characters and locations of Laketown and its environs. I hope you enjoy it.

You askin’ me if I seen this man out here? Yeah I seen him plenty. Momma seen him too. I can tell you a wee story about ‘im, if you got time. A family yarn, you might say.

What’s yer name. Bill Holly? Pleased to make your acquaintance. From yer what? Par’normal agency? Well I ain’t heard of no such thing. Mind you we don’t see many city folk out here, we keep to the old ways. My name is Jerome Smyth. Some people call me “Ironclaw”. Make yerself comfortable, pull up a stool by the stove there.

You come from Laketown today? Turned off route twelve at the old iron works Mr. Holly? Come through Pickett’s forest an’ over the hill? Yep. I was brought up here in Caldwell, still some ways out of City o’ Laketown. Used to be a lot of people livin’ out here when the iron works was still op’ ratin’, but that was years ago. They’re all gone now. Dug a lot of them a good home.

I see you raisin’ yer brow at my name. They don’t call me “Ironclaw” for nothin’! They seen what I can do, those what give me that name. They seen what I can do, an’ they respect me for what I can do with my hands.

I don’t give no respect to a man at the trigger end of a ten gauge, and don’t I expect it when I’m at that end neither. An’ I ain’t afeared of that. I ain’t scared of a pair of iron claws or a ten gauge. There’s many a time in my life I’ve been near beggin’ that someone pull the trigger on me. That never scared me ‘cause that’s something I could see. I could see the buckshot comin’ out of the barrel. I could see it shootin’ for my head. No sweat, Mr. Holly. It’s what you can’t see, that’s what you should be afeared of. It’s what don’t go away when the buckshot blows out other side of yer brains, that’s what I’m afeared of.

I reckon you know what I’m talkin’ about. You ain’t got no ten gauge, have you, Mr. Holly?

Nope, I di’n think so.

I got my name “Ironclaw” on account of this fierce pair of dukes. These have seen me good stead for my diggin’ work, an’ kept a plenty score of good fer nothin’s away from our home. We get a few customers from town. They come around and want to give some city person a good home in the ground, so I’m usually happy to oblige. Sometimes they come wavin’ their guns, but they don’t give me no fear. Them’s the type that don’t walk out of here. Them that do, they’re the one’s that gave me my name.

Daddy was a gravedigger too. Brought me up with a belt and a jack boot. He called it his own private graveyard. We was always off the beaten track, even back in those days. He worked hisself to the bone.

In his time, Daddy dug a lot of people around here a good home, an’ even some of yer Laketown folk. Some say even ol’ Tom Moth, who owned the mansion in Laketown, found his way out here. I don’t know about that one, though. I reckon he’s still livin’ somewhere in his ol’ mansion.

You askin’ me if I seen this man out here? Yep, I seen him. Skinny feller with an old foreign hat like Charlie Chaplin, an’ tappin’ his walking cane on the graves. He’s got a face you know but you can’t really see. He come around all times, day or night. He ain’t yer campfire spook, this ol’ devil.

Sometimes he come sweepin’ up through the headstones like a rush of wind swirlin’ the dead leaves, except the leaves are still, and you can’t see nobody. But yer heart is pumpin’, an’ the sweat’s drippin’ between yer toes, an’ you can feel that he’s right there, right under the sycamore tree. We all seen him, plenty times. The whole family. Hardly talked about him mind. But we all saw him.

Daddy made a deal with ‘im, when I was a young whipper. That’s why he never came back that day he set out to mend the bridge with Momma. I stayed back in the cottage. Daddy headed out with his ol’ leather tool belt, hammer and nails slappin’, Momma skippin’ along behind.

Momma said Daddy had a debt to square, said he had to pay the piper to save his family. I figured ol' Charlie must have been a music man too. Momma came back home that night with a bundle of clothes. She piled them into the wood stove, and stoked it up real good, and the flames were lickin’ the black stones like it was Christmas night, ‘cept it was a hot July an’ the skeeters were bitin’. We didn’t see ol’ Charlie for a long time after that. I missed my Daddy sore.

A few summers on, I was fishin’ fer browns near the bridge an’ I reeled in Daddy’s old hammer. When I showed it to Momma, she said nothin’. Just looked quiet and prayerful and looked up at the blue sky, an’ the sun shone off her face, like she was an’ angel. That same night I saw her give the hammer to Charlie, that ol’ devil.

You gotta go Mr. Holly? You don’t want a cup of rye? No? Alright then, you take care of yerself now. Once again, Jerome Smyth, pleased to make yer acquaintance.

Before you leave, let me say this. Things have been real peaceful around here lately. The winds have been low, the river ain’t been in flood for many a year, an’ business has been pretty good. An’ when the wind does blow up the leaves around the sycamore tree, I don’t see ol’ Charlie no more.

But Momma does. She’s been seein’ him a lot lately, an’ chattin’ about ‘im, an' makin' too much noise. Now she’s tellin’ me that ol’ Charlie wants to make a deal with me. I ask her - “aint’ Daddy already paid that debt”?

She puts her hands together like she’s prayin’, an’ goes all quiet an’ angel like. She looks up to heaven with her doe eyes an’ tells me – “Daddy’s still paying it, dear, even as we speak.”

That’s what I’m afeared of.

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