Long About Ten Years

Decisions

The light had gone out of Sylvester’s eyes. His Sarah had passed long about ten years ago. He struggled alone all that time, working out in the fields feeding and tending to his animals which to him meant raising ’em up ’til they were fat enough to draw him a profit or more straight up, fat enough to die. That and just generally looking out for the necessary upkeep of the place. Sylvester looked down at the past ten years of cracks, creases, and calluses on his hands and thought; “Time and age sure have an unkind way of creeping up on a feller.”

Every crack in his hand or furrow in his brow could have told its own tale of his struggle without her there. But it’d be a lie to say that he missed her. A better-told truth would be to say that he missed, no, he outright resented her not being there to keep doing all those things that she used to do for him. Things that she dumped on him, things that he now has to do after she up and died on him.

Seemed to him like every which way he turned everything just kept working hard and fast against him. He kept thinking, “Nobody seems to care how hard it is on me havin’ to do every single thing day after day. Instead, all they talk about is her and how hard it must have been on her at the end! I been the one who’s been tryin’ for ten long years to rebuild some kind of existence out of the remains of this miserable, empty life she left me with, but naw, all they want to talk about is her!! Her!” In the hollow darkness of Sylvester’s mind, unconsciously, he gritted his teeth and thought in a growl, “Sarah!!”

Sylvester recalled all the times she rode him about gettin’ right with the Lord and how she kept using that word, “sinner” every time. Truth be told, he never much thought of himself as a godly man but he sure as Hell didn’t see himself as the Devil’s man either. Still, to him, it seemed like Sarah never missed a chance to remind him of every little thing that he did wrong and how those things just made the Devil smile. He didn’t need her continually reminding him of how ungodly he was even if she ended by saying that there was always hope for his soul. Truth be told, he knew down deep that her hope was all that he had.

But now, with her gone, he reckoned that he had probably come as close to the Pearly Gates as he would ever get and as such, he would just have to make do with that. But then, that was all right by him. Sylvester sometimes wondered though why he even bothered. Without her there the whole damn thing didn’t amount to a ruddy hill of beans or even a dirty pot to cook ’em in.

On towards twilight, he would oft find himself sitting up on the hill, their hill as they used to call it, a place where they’d go up and sit and spoon under moonlit skies and count shooting stars. In their younger days, she would pack a picnic lunch, and he would play hooky from his chores and she from hers. And that was alright by them. After all, it was their farm to run or let run down, and a day here or there wouldn’t matter one way or the other.

But now, he sat up there on that hill looking down at the little house they once had shared. That old Applegate shack that they thought was so great and that would change their lives. And the more he thought about it, the more his anger rose. Before long his fury just seemed to swell up inside until a new feeling came over him or maybe up out of him, one that he wouldn’t admit to having before. As he stared down at their little house he realized the feeling he was feeling was hate. Deep, pure, unvarnished hate. He hated the farm, he hated the animals, he hated the house he stared down upon, and most of all, he hated her! Immediately he realized that had Sarah been there, how hurt she would have been at that thought, and for just the smallest instant it hurt his heart but then at the same time…

“Gives you some relief though, don’t it?”

Sylvester jumped back like he’d been kicked square in the teeth by a mule but then quickly set himself aright as if nothing had happened. He hadn’t heard anyone coming down the hill, let alone the thought of anyone walking up behind him! And looking up, he saw a tall man with dark eyes he reckoned, he couldn’t really tell, the setting sun just about blotted him out. Instinctively, Sylvester raised his left hand to shade his eyes which gave him a better view, and he realized he was off just a bit. The man was an unusually tall man indeed, but rather than having dark eyes, his eyes looked more hazel, and he had a reddish, ruddy beard and was wearing a dark Fedora pulled low to the left eye.

And that tall man took a step forward and sat right down on the log next to Sylvester just where Sarah used to sit then he reached down and casually pulled a blade of grass from the ground and stuck it in his mouth to chew on. Perplexed, Sylvester studied on just the right words to say to this guy who had some nerve coming up behind him up there on his hill. He rehearsed them in the privacy of his mind so as not to reveal his desperate need for a nerve-calming shot of shine.

“Looky here son, this here’s private property - mine to be exact, and I don’t rightly recall havin’ sent you an invite to be on it! Yeah, that’ll get his attention,” he thought to himself. Then deciding to speak it, Sylvester hoped his voice wouldn’t tell on him or give him away ’cause something about this feller just didn’t sit right with him, something set his nerves on edge. But then before he could utter a single word,

“Why I don’t know why that is Sylvester, you ain’t got a thing in the world to fear from me.”

The man spoke right into Sylvester’s thoughts and never even moved his lips as he sat there staring off into the distance. “What the Hell?” Sylvester’s jaw dropped because he heard those words with his mind instead of his ears, and he knew good and well that he hadn’t yet said a word out loud to that stranger.

“You didn’t need to. I have this way about me, I can sorta read folks. ‘Uncanny,’ I’ve been told by more than a few, and I can read you. I can hear your thoughts, so-to-speak and you needn’t even make a peep.” The sound of stranger’s voice tore against the silence of the gathering darkness as he spoke out loud, “But if it makes you feel any better, we can talk outright like common folks and not cause yourself any further distress if you’d druther.”

Sylvester sat upright and thought about this odd man, his eyes fixed on the stranger, and then he nodded slowly, trying to regain whatever composure he once might have had. Then clearing his throat, Sylvester said, “I reckon that might be better, but you’re still on my land without an invite feller.”

“Am I?!” the stranger asked sharply, his nostrils flaring. “Seems to me, you all but hollered for me to come up this way! Sittin’ up here on your high hill, chewing on and contemplating on all that hate you’re carrying around. Hell son, that’s my invite. You’d be surprised how many folks call for me in their hatred. ‘Cause when they begin to hatin’ that’s when I come a-runnin’! But now you Sylvester, your kind of hate was a slow burn, it took you a spell to lean into it. And I figured I might have to wait on you to come around, but then I got the luxury of havin’ time, and I knew could afford to wait on you up to a certain point.

Now don’t get me wrong, once I saw it starting to brew I knew I ran the risk that it might fizzle out any given day, or week, or month if I waited on it too long. That is, depending on how many of them sickening sweetheart memories of her tried to slip in. But I was bettin’ on ya Son, and you came through, sure as your name’s what it is. I mean, look around you, don’t no bank have a mortgage on this place, land’s yours free and clear, same with your animals and such. You get your crops out in a timely fashion, your stock to market, you ain’t yet all broke down in your body. Boy, you really ain’t got too much to complain about. And I could have easily wandered on through to the next county,” the tall man chuckled, “‘cause you know them folks up there keep me hoppin’, that’s for sure, but then I kept hearing it a-callin’.”

“Hearing what?” Sylvester asked with a throat so dry, he thought he’d heave wheat any minute.

The man sighed somewhat impatiently. “Her, Sylvester, your hatred for her. That was too good for me to pass up. So I’m up here on your hill to make you a little proposition.” The stranger turned and looked right at him, looked straight through him more exactly. Smiling, he said, “I reckon by now, you probably got yourself an idea about who I might be, don’t you old-timer.”

Swallowing a lump, Sylvester nodded his wordless answer. Wasn’t no use pretending this was all a bad dream. Sylvester knew. Sure as the world he knew! “But how could this be?”

Then interrupting his thoughts once again the stranger said, “Because, it is as sure as the world Sylvester. The world is where I walk; it’s where I live. But now never mind all them stories and lies you might’ve heard about me cause it ain’t so much who I am to you, as it is what I can do for you that really matters.” He extended his hand for a handshake. “Now, what’d ya say? You ready to do some business?”

Sylvester wanted to listen to that small voice whispering in his ear telling him to just get up, say his farewells and not let dark beat him back down the hill, but there was something insanely irresistible about this odd visitor, something vile yet compelling. Just something repulsively appealing in that old man sitting there with his hand stuck out. With a look somewhere between contempt and disgust on his face, the stranger continued on. “Now son, let me tell you something about them voices in your ear. These old hills are full of voices that always seem to get louder ’round nightfall.” The stranger said. “Sometimes that old wind howls thru them branches crying out them night melodies that can send a chill like an ice-pick right thru your heart. Next thing you know it drops all the way down ’til it wraps clean round your spine like one them boa constrictors just looking to squeeze the life right out of you from the inside out.”

Grinning now through green gaped teeth, the stranger leaned in way too close to Sylvester for his liking, and said with a heavy noxious breath, “Well I say, pay ’em no mind Slyyyyy.”

Again, Sylvester jerked sideways falling back, this time, by the stomach-turning sickening stench of the old man’s breath and he said, “Sarah called me Sly durin’ our alone times, but not never ’round other folks. Said it was only ’tween her and me. Ain’t nobody knowed I was called by that name!!”

Still grinning the stranger said, “Looks like we got something in common old-timer. Folks all over call me by different names. Some out of hate, others out of fear, but when it comes right down to it, they all call me Slyyyy.” Just then he reared back and roared out a laughter that sounded like three mountain lions a having their way with a baby lamb caught in a thicket with nowhere to run. Then quicker than a sidewinder strike, that Devil was on Sylvester blowing his hot, biting venomous breath deep into his lungs hissing; “SSSLLLYYYY…”

Immediately Sylvester’s gut heaved and rolled like he’d been kicked by the south end of a northbound mule as he inhaled the strangers’ poisonous sulfur-laden breath. And just before he saw the stars ‘Do Si Do’ round the moon taking away the last of his consciousness, he realized that maybe, just maybe, he shouldn’t have emptied that extra mason jar of 200 proof shine.