The Origins of Miller's Crossing Read online

  The origins of miller’s crossing

  David Clark

  CONTENTS

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  Also by David Clark

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  1

  The newly drawn night brought with it a familiar friend in the form of a dense mist to the 18th century Scottish fishing town of St. Margret’s Hope. One might call it fog, but fog does not soak you as you walk through it, like this did. With the disappearance of the last light of day, darkness reigned for a few fleeting hours until the rise of the full moon. The white light from their lunar visitor cast eerie shadows behind every home, stone wall, and hill. In the distance, dogs howled at the object. Other livestock, such as cows and sheep, normally never paid any attention to the moon, but tonight was no normal night.

  With a fresh log on the fire, William Miller settled in for the night. Before he headed in, his animals seemed restless. Something not all that uncommon. Many times, an approaching change in the weather was to blame. When night fell, the restlessness became worse. They were not overly vocal, with long mournful calls. Their calls were short and stressed, and they were not still. From inside his stone home, he heard them, but ignored them. He told himself they would settle down, but the crash he heard out in their pen told a different story.

  William slid his feet into his brown hide boots, and grabbed his grey sporran. After a long bout with wolves two summers ago, William and his neighbor, John Sanders, came up with the idea to keep a sporran packed with rocks to grab in a hurry. He pulled two rocks out to have at the ready as he threw open his door. He ran to the pen, with every expectation of finding one or two wolves roaming around, or maybe a stray dog from one of the neighboring farms. A chill went up the back of his neck, and he dropped the rocks to the ground and put his hands on his hips.

  “You should be used to them by now,” he said to the animals. The ‘them’ he spoke of were three flickering human forms that roamed across his pasture a few hundred yards away from his livestock. William watched them. Instead of moving straight across and away, they wandered and meandered here and there. The ‘theres’ were further away from him and his livestock, but the ‘heres’ brought them close.

  When they reached the edge of his land, they circled back instead of crossing through. William knew this would continue for the rest of the night if he did not put a stop to it. He walked out to greet them and stopped right in their path. Two of them moved around him. The third went right through. In all outward appearance, they didn’t even know he was there. The cold icy chill from being passed through was a sensation that William never got used to, no matter how many times it had happened. Feeling one’s internal organs shiver and shake was as close to death he could go without dying himself.

  “Now, just go on and leave. No need to cause any trouble here,” William said. All three continued to walk away from him. He hadn’t got their attention. Reaching into his sporran. He retrieved a single rock and then tossed it at the three specters. It passed straight through the middle one and prompted no reaction. “That never works,” William said under his breath. It was true, that never worked. Simple actions, like talking, rarely did. He could count the number of times it had on one hand. But he had to hope. It was a better option than what he usually did.

  “Ya! Ya!”, he yelled as he ran toward them from behind. When he reached them, he zigzagged through them, over and over again. The first pass through never got their attention. They would keep moving, just as these did, but if he did it enough, they would notice and move away from him. The only question was, could he stand the ice-cold grip he felt every time he did.

  On the third pass, the one on the right took notice. A weathered old gentleman, with a wrinkled face and straggly white hair, turned toward William. The empty sockets he had for eyes followed William as he danced around them in an attempt to herd them like a sheep dog. It was working. They moved straight across to the other side. William’s movements cut them off each time they tried to turn. If they ignored him, he ran through them to remind him of his presence. Each time he did so, their demeanor changed. The pleasant chaps on a nice stroll through his pasture were now rather irritated. Their hollow eyes, and the scowls on their faces, watched him. The mouths moved on two of them, as if they attempted to lecture or warn him, but nothing came out.

  This dance continued across his land, and across the trail that separated his and the next, but he didn’t stop. He wanted to make sure they didn’t come back that night. He continued on until he felt they were far enough away from his farm to cause any trouble. If they caused anyone else trouble, that was none of his concern. His goal was a good night’s sleep. There wasn’t much of the night left, but at least it would be peaceful.

  He bid his ghastly friends adieu and bowed as they passed by. When he stood up, he came face to face with the weathered old man that had taken an interest in him. The man reached out with his flickering arm of blue mist and grabbed him by the back of the neck. Its icy touch felt like a thousand pins pricking the surface of his skin. The man leaned forward and contorted its face to twice its normal size and screamed right at him. This was a sound that William heard, there was no mistaking it. William screamed in response, and fell backwards onto the damp grass as the three continued on and disappeared into the mist.

  “William, is that you?”, asked a sleepy John Sanders. William’s neighbor approached. He held a single candle lantern as he scanned the dark fog-covered ground with his eyes. He was two years younger than William, but had a wife and two strapping boys, ages five and seven.

  “Ya, over here.”

  It was only a few seconds before John’s lantern illuminated William’s form on the ground. John extended a hand and helped his lifelong friend up onto his feet. William pulled at his shirt and kilt, now both soaked from the moisture on the ground.

  “What are you doing out here, and what was all that yelling?”

  “Didn’t you hear it?”, William asked.

  “Hear what?”, John responded. “All I heard was you. Screaming your bloody head off, like you were some wild dog or wolf. What was all that about?”

  Still pulling the cold wet clothing away from his already chilled body, William didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. The sheepish look on his face said it all.

  “Again?”

  “Three of them,” he said, as he held up three fingers in the candlelight to drive the point home.

  “Three?”, asked a weary John.

  A quick nod from William answered the question of his friend and neighbor.

  John looked to either side of them, and then turned around to look behind him. His sleepy eyes peered into the dark, but saw nothing. “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are they?”

  William threw his hands up, and looked at his friend. His eyebrows raised to cap the question marks in his eyes. “I lost track when I fell down.”

  John turned around and headed back toward his farmhouse. The circle of light th
at had encircled both of them receded and followed him. William found himself once again in the dark cool fog of the still night. “Go home, William. It’s a good thing I have been your friend for so long and understand. Someone else might think you aren’t right in the head. Chained up in some asylum is where you’d be.”

  William knew what he said was true. He had hidden this side of him from everyone, except John. John only knew because the truth was the only way to explain how he was acting. They were friends for as long as they could remember. Anytime they weren’t doing chores, or helping out on the farm, they could be found along the simple stone wall that separated their families properties. Probably up to no good. Many a day in their younger years was spent throwing small pebbles at birds and bugs. As they got older, they graduated to talking about girls, and plans to get out of this place. Sometimes they spent the afternoon taking sips out of a swiped jug of William’s father’s homemade whiskey, while talking of all the girls they never had the nerve to talk to.

  One early evening, after they were about a third of a jug deep, William had John hide the jug behind the wall. He’d seen a man walking toward them. John had done as he was asked, but questioned him. He didn’t see the man, and insisted he wasn’t there at all. John suggested William had more than his share of the whiskey. The closer the man came, the weirder William felt. He started to doubt his eyes and believed John had a point. Maybe he had had a bit too much that night. A cold sweat had developed on his neck, and pins prickled up and down his spine.

  It wasn’t long until William got a better look at the man. He flashed and flickered. There one second, and gone the next. Combined with the feeling that had come over his body, disbelief had set in. He rubbed both eyes hard with his hands. Each eyelid burped silently as he rubbed hard enough to force tears out the sides. When he opened them again, he was still there, and now closer than before.

  William hopped down off the wall and walked out to meet him. It didn’t take long for him to realize he could see straight through the man. When he reached him, he circled him as he continued to walk. The man paid no attention to William. Attempts to talk to him went ignored. When William reached out to tap him on the shoulder, he about passed out when his fingers went straight through the man’s shoulder.

  John accused him of putting him on, but after more and more occurrences of this with William over the years, he began to accept the truth, no matter out outlandish it was. His friend could see ghosts.

  “See you in the morning, John,” William called after his friend.

  John held up the lantern and grunted as he continued back to his house.

  William started his trek home. He took a look around every once in a while. It was just out of curiosity though; he knew he wouldn’t see anything. The feeling he always had when they were around was gone. A quick hop up and over the same stone wall he and John had spent many an afternoon at when they were younger, put him back on his land. His home wasn’t much further, which was good. The cold damp air, combined with his wet clothes created quite a chill in his bones. He passed his animal pen on the way to his farmhouse. They were all sleeping. No longer disturbed. That was good. William was tired, and wasn’t in the mood to hear them all night.

  2

  The midday sun chased away the fog of night. This was a daily battle. One that both sides won from time to time. If a score was kept, the North Sea would claim victory, with many a day seeing overcast clouds or dense fog for the entirety, denying the ground the warmth of sunlight. This contributed to the lush green hills that overlooked the stone buildings that lined the coast, and made good land for farming, one of two main professions in the village. You either farmed, or fished.

  William and John farmed. Partially because that was what their families did. William had two uncles that fished, and his grandfather did for a bit before settling on farming. He tried it once with one of his uncles when he was only thirteen. One shouldn’t really say only thirteen. At that age you are expected to start learning your trade. The decision of what that would be was one William had not made yet. The sea called to him. It would be cliché to call its image romantic, but to him it was magical. Every day boats headed out, and every night the fog rolled in. Then, one by one, the glimmer of a lantern hanging on the bow peered through the dense marine layer as each of the boats returned with their crew and their catch. Dozens of people rushed the wharf to assist in offloading the haul. Everyone worked well past the fall of darkness, until the work was done. Then they all retired to a local pub to share in drink, food, more drink, grand stories, and even more drink.

  Farmers, well, farmed.

  His uncle, Logan Miller, offered to take him out with his crew to show him the ropes one day. William didn’t hesitate to ask his father before he jumped at it. No concern was given to any disappointment or rejection his father may have felt for his rush to consider a different path.

  It was a rather calm day, but being the first time William had ever been on a boat of any type, he had no sea legs, and struggled to keep both his balance and his last meal. The former he lost more than the latter. There was more to the profession than he had expected. Tons of preparation, handled by the two youngest members of the crew, Harris Lonston and Oliver Walling. Both a mere two months older than himself, by the calendar, but their time on board had produced two burly men. Harris, with long locks of red hair, and Oliver, with a mass of dark hair. Their job, was everything but actual fishing. They cut bait, ensured all hooks were baited and ready. When one of the four others on board called “hook”, both would run to that man’s side. Each stood waiting with large metal hooks in their hands. Once the fish was at the side of the boat, they reached over and thrust the points of the hooks into the shiny-scaled side of the fish. With a single move, they heaved the fish up over the railing and onto the deck. William’s uncle then took control of the fish. He cut, gutted, and filleted, right there on the boat. The head and the guts were thrown back overboard, with bits reused for bait. Logan explained to William that he did this by himself, as he didn’t trust anyone else not to over-cut the fish, robbing them of usable weight.

  William had taken his turn at cutting bait and loading the hooks. It hadn’t taken long for him to get into a rhythm, despite the smell. On one occasion, he turned, with both hands holding bits of fish for the hooks, and felt a tingle along the back of his neck. Not wanting to lose what was left of his last meal in front of everyone, he steadied his legs and swallowed hard to bury the feeling. It didn’t go away. It intensified. When he rounded the main mast, he ran face to face into the image of an old white-haired man, skin weathered and waterlogged. His stare blank, and mouth mumbling without making a sound.

  “Boy, you ok?”, asked Finlay Leigh, a large mass of a man who spent much of the trip sharing jokes with his uncle, most of which went straight over William’s head. He would have to trust the thundering laughs that erupted from each of the men as a sign that they were funny. William saw Finlay looking at him through the old man. This was not the first time William had seen a ghost, not by a long shot, but it was the worst time possible. He wanted to show he was strong and capable. These men wouldn’t understand. If he tried to tell them, it would be an end to his time onboard.

  “Yep,” he said, as strong and stout as he could muster. Maybe even overdoing it a bit. William stepped through the man, and brushed off the cold chill so no one would notice.

  As the afternoon waned, the sea showed more of its character. Storms formed along the horizon and headed their way. Just the simple task of walking took on a new challenge. The deck rose to meet, or dropped away from, every step. When he didn’t have to move, he stayed clamped to the railing with his eyes locked on the center of the ship. The others moved with ease. They seemed to enjoy the extra challenge, along with the spray of water over every exterior edge.

  There was no concern on anyone’s face, except William’s, until the boat rocked to port under the edge of a wave. The water washed over the deck sending everyone
sprawling on the wooden planks. Loose buckets, line, and hooks, were last seen going over the starboard side.

  “Put into the waves!” yelled Finlay.

  “It is. They are coming from all sides!” responded Logan, from the helm.

  From where William sat, he could confirm what his uncle had said. He felt the boat rocking forward and back in the waves, while others hit them on the broadsides, sending the boat twisting from side to side. His uncle stood stone-still and locked onto the scene ahead of them. His arms turned the wheel to trace the path his brain had mapped through each of the approaching waves. Harris and Oliver had taken up positions similar to William. The child in each of them emerged above their more mature exteriors. They trembled, eyes darting from side to side at the crash of each wave.

  That was the last William saw of them, at least onboard the boat. A single crash rolled it over, the sail and mast both submerged in another wave that had approached from the opposite side. Cracks and pops thundered all around them, but it was not from the storm. Large beams of cedar were giving way under the great strain, signaling the beginning of the end.

  The only other sound William remembered hearing, other than the sound of the wind, the stinging rain, and the boat breaking apart, was a single laugh and bellow from Finlay, “She’s ah going to win this one fellows.”

  William didn’t remember when he went into the water. Nor did he remember how the rest of the boat broke up. He knew the section of railing he had hung onto was still tight in his grasp when he made it to the surface. If it hadn’t been for that section of wood, he was sure he would be on his way to the bottom. Instead, they both floated up to the surface and rode the waves of the tempest.

  The waves outlasted the wind and rain. It was at the crest of one of those towering waves that William saw how close to the shore he was. He kicked hard, and hung on to his savior. Up and down the waves they went, until he reached a point where each of the waves rushed toward the shore, giving him a welcome push. The last crash of the wave sent him flipping head over ass onto the beach