“Isn’t he lucky,” Callie said.
“Why’d he get turned into a frog?” I asked.
“He messed with women, and his wife was a witch and she done it ’cause he wouldn’t do right.”
“Good for her,” Callie said.
“He’s supposed to steal kids, take them back to the swamp for the frogs to eat.”
“Frogs don’t have teeth,” Callie said.
“They still eat.”
“Well, they aren’t big enough to eat children,” she said.
“Mostly the King Frog eats them. He’s got a crown on his head. He looks like a big colored man that squats like a frog. He ain’t exactly a man or a frog, but kinda both.”
“Maybe Chester would make a nice white frog to complement the black one,” Callie said. “He could be the Queen Frog . . . Think you could get me that frog recipe, Richard?”
“I thought you didn’t like Chester,” I said.
“I don’t. I liked him, you think I’d want him to be a frog?”
“Colored man’s wife turned him into a frog,” Richard said. “Didn’t she like him?”
“Not after she turned him into a frog,” Callie said.
“Ssshhhhhh,” Richard said. “That’s her house.”
“Whose house?” I asked.
“Hers. Margret’s. The girl got her head run over. The one that’s a ghost.”
A chill went over me. It was strange to think that I was perhaps walking ground she had walked.
Visible through the trees, beyond a stand of slick, slimy water, we could see a small, white, clapboard house. The moonlight leaned on it like a thug and made it very bright.
In the distance were other small houses. It was what some called a clapboard community.
“Her mother still lives there. Daddy says she shacks up with a nigger . . . a colored man. She’s a whore is what I hear.”
“You hear a lot,” Callie said.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means you hear all kinds of things, but that doesn’t mean all, or any of it, is true.”
“I tell you, that’s the house. That’s where Margret lived. Her body with the head cut off was found right around here somewheres. She wasn’t that far from home.”
“What’s that?” I said.
Down the tracks where they bent around the trees and the swamp land, I could see something bright. It didn’t have a definite color. Sometimes it seemed green, sometimes gold. It moved toward us bobbing up and down, as if it were being dribbled. Then it moved from side to side. Disappeared. Popped back into view and started moving toward us again.
“Someone coming down the tracks,” Callie said.
“Where’s the someone?” Richard said. “It’s the ghost. It’s Margret’s ghost.”
“With a flashlight,” Callie said.
The light nodded up and down, crossed over the tracks, floated up a bit, then veered into the woods, hung over the slimy water, came back to the edge of the tracks and moved toward us.
“If it’s a flashlight,” I said, “whoever is carrying it is very busy. And very acrobatic. And he can walk on water.”
The hairs on my neck and arms crawled, and I could feel my scalp constrict.
The light danced along the tracks, went past us.
“What is that?” Callie asked.
“I told you,” Richard said. “That’s her. The headless ghost. She’s out here with a light, looking for her head.”
“Where do ghosts get lights?” Callie said. “They go to a store and ask for a light? They buy ghostly flashlights?”
I looked at Callie. She talked cool, but I knew her well enough to know she had been startled.
We watched the light move down the tracks, pop into the woods, dance among the trees and on top of the water. Then, suddenly, it was gone.
I realized I had been holding my breath.
“I don’t know if that was a ghost,” I said. “But whatever it was, I’ve had enough. Let’s go home.”
“Let’s stay on this side of the tracks,” Callie said. “Maybe we’ll see it again.”
“I don’t want to see it again,” Richard said.
“Me neither,” I said.
“Oh, don’t be such Nellies. Come on.”
As we walked it became apparent that in the woods next to us, near the water, something was moving. We all heard it and we stopped to listen, and what was moving stopped as well. I looked at the trees and the glimmer of water between them, but I couldn’t see anyone.
We looked at one another, and without so much as a word, started moving again. As we did, the stepping alongside us started up, and this time I saw someone amongst the trees, moving quickly and carefully, darting from tree to tree. If that wasn’t enough, to my right, I heard a humming sound.
I turned, glanced. Nothing. But I knew what it was.
The rails. They were humming because a train was approaching.
Callie gave me a look that showed she was finally, and truly, frightened. “Walk faster,” she said.
We did. Much faster. So did our companion in the woods. And he was moving close to the edge of the trees, nearer to us. The train’s headlight flashed behind us, filled the night with a glow like a second moon. The whistle sounded and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Run,” Callie said. We broke and ran all out. Whoever, or whatever, was in the woods beside us began running as well; the harder we ran, the harder it ran.
I peered over my shoulder, saw a man lurch out of the woods, start sprinting behind us. I knew in a glance it must be Bubba Joe. His bulk was framed in the light of the train. His hat brim blew back and his coat trailed behind him like the rags of a wraith.
The train was chugging and puffing, popping sparks, blowing its whistle, telling anyone up the way that might listen it was coming fast and would soon cross the trestle bridge.
When it was almost on us, Callie, who was breathing heavy, said, “We got to cross the tracks. We don’t, he’ll catch us.”
She crossed, her long legs flying like those of a grasshopper. I went after her. Richard followed as the train passed and the wind of it blew up the back of my shirt and ruffled my hair. The train charged on, clanked and sparked the rails, filled our nostrils with the stench of charred oil and hot scraped metal.
Our pursuer was left on the other side of the track.
I looked down the track, observed it was a long train a winding. It would be coming for some time before it passed us. I bent over and gulped air and felt as if I were going to throw up. We had missed death by only a few feet. I wanted to grab Callie and start hitting her, and I wanted to grab her and kiss her, because if we hadn’t crossed, Bubba Joe, or whoever that was, would have caught us. I don’t know what he would have done with us, but he would have caught us.
I said, “I think that was Bubba Joe.”
“Could have just been some hobo,” Callie said, taking a deep breath.
“I don’t care who it was,” Richard said. “I’m goin’ home, and I don’t care if Daddy does catch me and give me a beatin’.”
We started walking away, then started running, and pretty soon we were on the wooded trail and the wind and the blowing leaves followed us all the way back to the sawmill. We paused there to get our breath. I looked up at the hanging metal ladder that led up to the upper level of what was left of the mill, heard the chute shift and creak in the breeze.
We got our bikes. Richard rode home. Me and Callie did the same.
Quietly, we put our bikes away, snuck into the house, talked briefly in my room about what we had done and seen. Callie finally wore out and went to bed.
All night I lay awake to look out the crack between the window and water fan, watching to see if Bubba Joe was there. I never saw him, and as the sun crept up, I became too tired to watch and fell sleep.