Willow Wood Road: I am with you always forever.
Willow Wood Road
Willow Wood Road
I am with you always, forever.
Parts One and Two
Micah Sherwood
First E-Book edition Copyright © 2015 by Michael Hallecook
1st Edition, September 2015
2nd Edition, May 2016
Willow Wood Road is a work of fiction inspired by true incidents and events. Names of people and some locations in the story have been changed out of respect for their privacy. Names used which resemble living or dead persons are entirely coincidental.
All rights are reserved, and no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including internet usage, without the written permission of the author, his representative or publisher, except in the form of a brief quotation embodied in critical articles or reviews.
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To die will be
an awfully big adventure.
(Peter Pan)
Contents
Part 1: The House
Chapter 1: First Visit
Chapter 2: The White Place
Chapter 3: “It is what it is!”
Chapter 4: Doctor Visit
Chapter 5: “A Turnip Cannot Become a Rabbit”
Chapter 6: Mrs. Gracy
Chapter 7: The Reverie
Chapter 8: Pranks
Chapter 9: The Storm
Chapter 10: Shorty’s
Chapter 11: The Creek
Chapter 12: Jackie
Chapter 13: Whispers
Chapter 14: Imaginal Kingdoms
Chapter 15: Church
Chapter 16: Anadarko
Chapter 17: Sleep Walking
Chapter 18: Mr. Dorsey
Part Two: The Barn
Chapter 19: Ute Lake
Chapter 20: Bit and Bridle
Chapter 21: Gene
Chapter 22: School Day
Chapter 23: Capulin, New Mexico
Chapter 24: Raggéd
Chapter 25: Mr. Terry
Chapter 26: Bang
Chapter 27: Otis Cantu
Chapter 28: Déjà Vu Dreams
Chapter 29: ‘hawk
Chapter 30: Supernal Butterflies
Chapter 31: Styx
Chapter 32: Dane’s Story
Chapter 33: Sum quia esse opto
Chapter 34: The Holiday
Chapter 35: The Antelope People
Chapter 36: Cory’s Tale
Chapter 37: Shadow Monkeys
Chapter 38: Harold
Chapter 39: Make-Believe World
Chapter 40: And Then
Willow Wood Road: Lavender and Sage
Micah’s Ride: Imaginal Verses and Phantom Dreams
Notes:
Part 1: The House
Chapter 1: First Visit
The wind, the unending prairie wind, swirled around the boy. It sang the song of migrating antelope and mule deer that roam the gullies and grasslands of the Texas High Plains. The snake and the groundhog, the rabbit and the roadrunner, were and are the dominant residents of this treeless hinterland, and Micah could hear their whispers in the unending breeze.
Humans are an invasive species. The Comanche and Kiowa once hunted here. But millennia before them, the Antelope Peoples lived along the Canadian River. Their hunters camped along arroyos and in canyons where sweet spring water sprouted from of the Ogallala aquifer. For Europeans, the Panhandle was a place folks travelled through and not a destination they intentionally visited. Only the hardiest people settled here. And once established, only inertia kept them in the open and unprotected plains.
The house rested on the front third of the lot. Its beige brick complimented the earth and clay on which it set. Cotton clouds sailed across the bright blue sky as the morning temperatures reached into the mid-70s. Children perceive reality differently than adults. They look at things as an amalgam, a mental construct that for most people disappears with age. The wind was part of the house as were the mists in the firmament and the thistles growing in the dirt. Micah did not see the individual brush strokes of a creator. He saw rather the completed portrait, a unity of all things harmoniously existing in the mind of something unknowable.
He stood near the road looking at the large second story window. It reflected the morning sun through the splatters of new paint. The house was big (at least to Micah it was big) with three levels and three flights of stairs. He loved stairs because they were portals separating alternate dimensions of space. Micah was attuned to the idea of differing dimensions.
The youngster walked around the front yard looking at the purple blossoms of the prairie thistle. The air was warm for late February and wild flowers were already blooming. Horny toads scampered about in abundance. Micah figured he would catch a few to take home, but he had to watch out for ones with yellow bellies because they spit blood—through their eyes no less.
Another house rested on the barren clay to the north. Beyond that, the grasslands spread-out forever. Micah figured that there was nothing but mesquite and barbed-wire fences separating him from the North Pole. He turned back to once again face the house. It was surrounded by creamy loose clay excavated by the builders. Except for the thistle and a few green tumble weeds, the yard was bare. The backyard was identical to the front except bigger, and there was a six foot drop toward the rear of the lot that formed a terrace next to the alleyway. From his vantage point looking west, he could see that the house sat at the apex of a valley, the terrain falling probably a hundred feet to a small creek a quarter mile away.
Willow Creek was lined with mostly cottonwoods and very few willows. It meandered northward becoming bare of trees where the arroyo cut a deeper ravine and meandered out of sight. The house on Willow Wood was three blocks from the slow flowing creek. Micah stood at an elevation higher than the rooftops of the houses sitting closest to the stream; the nearest one was probably 35 yards from and 25 feet higher than the arroyo itself. On the other side of the creek were more houses and a new elementary school where workers moved about like ants as they finished its construction.
The prairie was painted a pastel pink and yellow; populated with fine green grass, yuccas, and olive colored mesquite—a scruffy and muted landscape the pioneers named the Golden Spread. The scene felt harmonious to the boy, simple and uncomplicated. Micah watched the gently undulating steppe spread beyond the horizon unencumbered except for barbed wire fences and a few grazing longhorns. He walked toward the back of the property to the alley, kicking clods of clay until spotting a bright piece of flint, deep red and purple and white with a touch of blue. He picked it up and found the first of many arrowheads that he would eventually discover scattered along the creek and the skirting rangelands.
“Get in here,” his mother called.
Micah pocketed the flint and ran into the house through the back garage door and to the front entrance, stopping to watch a black lizard with a blue stripe down its back scamper up the stairs. The entry-hall was opened to the top floor and was finished in what his momma called “hard-rock maple” with a large milk-glass chandelier hanging from the ceiling. At this point, he could either go upstairs where the living room, kitchen, a suite of bedrooms and bathroom were situated or downstairs where the den, uti
lity room, storage and two more bedrooms were located. He heard his parents and sister upstairs, so he went down.
The den felt as big as his current home. He stood and studied the room before running around it in circles. Elaine, his sister, soon joined him. After a couple of circuits, he stepped into the smaller bedroom. Windows filled two of the upper walls allowing sunlight to brighten the pastel green paint and the yellow-brown floor. The downstairs was partially underground, so the windows set a few inches above dirt level. Micah liked this room.
“This is my room, not yours,” his sister, Elaine, yelled. She was four years younger than her brother and would start school in September. Micah would be in the fourth grade.
His older brother, Greg, did not come with them. He was almost seven years older than Micah and had a job after school. He was also in the Navy Reserves. He knew that Greg would have his choice of rooms since he was the oldest kid still living at home.
The brothers were close, even though their dispositions could not be more different. Greg was an extrovert, sporty, had many friends, and always knew the right thing to say at the right moment. Greg was happiest when his friends were around. Micah, however, was introverted and solitary. Most of the talking he did was a silent and personal conversation within his mind. He was content to discover things on his own far away from people and crowds. He had no problem entertaining himself. Sometimes people misinterpreted his quiet façade for docility. This was a mistake. When he felt mistreated or his ideals challenged, Micah would fight, mostly with argument, but he had no aversion to physicality when pushed too far. This would often get him into trouble both at home and in school.
The Navy Reserves were a subject of great concern to his mom and dad. Greg joined the Reserves in order to get away from the draft—the Navy sounded much better than the Army or Marines where he could end up if drafted. In 1964, Vietnam shadowed every aspect of life. Once, after walking home from school, Micah was surprised when he opened the front door to discover a Navy recruiter sitting on the sofa speaking with his mom. Greg needed parental permission to join due to his age. Momma sighed and signed the papers. In a little over a year, Greg would be on a ship heading for Asia. There he would land marines on Vietnamese beaches while dodging bullets fired by the Vietcong hidden in the trees. Greg had been wounded in one of the landings—he woke up with bodies stacked on him—the medics thought he was dead.
Micah went into the larger bedroom. It was dusky; a single window rested under the outside stairs. Even on the sunniest day the room would be in a profound gloom, but the darkness went beyond just the lack of sunlight; the air was heavy, stagnant. Inside a large closet was a small door about the height and thrice the width of Micah. The boy opened it and found a small cave-like chamber. His dad called it a central utility room.
Micah hated this bedroom.
His mom and dad were soon walking around the den, so he with Elaine following went upstairs where the atmosphere was sunny and bright, and the warm winter sun blazed through the windows everywhere. The living room connected to the stairs and was separated by a book case and planter which was taller than Micah. He climbed on top of the divider and looked down to the front landing. It was a long drop to the ground, so he quickly retreated.
The picture window overlooked Willow Wood, an asphalt paved Road without sidewalks. The houses were on quarter acre lots, each unique, each with a personality of its own. This appeared strange to Micah who grew up in a neighborhood of small and congested 1950 era houses in northeast Amarillo.
He walked past the stairs, glimpsing down toward the front door, and went into the kitchen. The maple wood carried into the dining room where massive windows on two walls looked into the backyard and over the other houses to the tree lined creek. Micah looked out of the north facing window and studied the endless steppe, awed by the simple beauty painted on his world. Micah saw and felt things that others were unable to appreciate. The blue sky abutting against the ruddy earth streaked with green and yellow sent him into a euphoric daydream. He was prone to daydreams.
Elaine ran past him and out the back door. This got the boy’s attention, and he followed his sister. The door was six feet above the ground, so a deck and stairs were built to access the rear yard. Micah liked the deck where he could peer across the Texas landscape. He studied the herd of longhorns grazing among the mesquite not more than a block away. A meadowlark rested on a large piece of clay; the yellow and black bird watched a lizard run pass and disappear into a hole in the ground.
“Kids, go get in the car,” his mother yelled. “It’s time to leave.”
“That is my side,” Elaine screamed as she jumped in. Regardless of which seat Micah took, Elaine would have declared it as hers. That pretty much clarified their relationship.
The 1962 Bel Air was alone in the driveway. Micah studied his parents who stood at the front door talking. His mother was animated. Millie’s voice carried a good distance, and her arms were in motion as she made a verbal point to her husband (Micah thought she looked like a band conductor). Bill had his hands folded under his arms. He never had much to say unless he had a few shots of bourbon first. The conversation continued as they got into the car, Bill driving and Millie talking.
“We can’t afford it!” Bill made a single factual statement. He was a lineman and made decent money, but they were already struggling financially without incurring a larger mortgage.
“We’ll make it fine,” Millie promised. “I can add hours at the hospital if we need more money.”
“We should move,” Elaine yelled out. “That place is big, and I already have my bedroom picked, and I want purple curtains!”
The discussion ended, but Micah continued the conversation inside his energetic mind. The nine year old boy was both happy and horrified at the possibility of living in the house on Willow Wood.
Chapter 2: The White Place
The atmosphere in the car was heavy and silent. Elaine’s jabbering yielded to the oppressive air of the moving vehicle. Micah was good at reading people and interpreting moods. His mother was clenching her jaw; her eyes gazing at the roadway directly ahead and never altering her stare to-or-fro. His dad grasped the steering wheel tightly with sweat beading on his forehead then dribbling down the left side of his face. The car was flying across the prairie road. Micah knew that the quiet would soon give way to a whopper of an argument, something he dreaded.
The car pulled into the carport of the little house. Micah was out of the car and running down the road to the park before anyone else had opened a door. His mom may have hollered at him. If so, he did not hear it (and it would not have mattered anyway). He was running hard and was not going to suffer through one of their quarrels.
Bill and Millie were famous for their fights. Micah had heard some really outstanding stories from Greg. One that stood-out was an argument that occurred right after he was born. Greg said he came home from a ballgame one Saturday afternoon…
“You could hear the yelling two blocks away,” Greg was always animated when he retold stories.
“There was no way I was going in the house, so I sat under the window outside Sissy’s bedroom. That’s where your crib was, and you were crying almost as loud as they were yelling.”
“’He is sick, Bill, what do you want me to do?’ Mom was not pleading only explaining loudly.”
“’Shut him up, that’s what I want you to do,’ pop demanded. ‘Shut him up or I’m leaving.’”
“’Well don’t let the door hit you in the ass.’ Momma can cuss better than any sailor.”
“It became pretty quiet so I peeked in through the window. Mom was at the foot of the crib, and the old man was at your head. You were screaming like someone jabbed you with a needle. Dad looked at mom then turned and reached down to pick you up.”
“’Don’t you touch that baby you drunk son-of-a-bitch,’ and mom took a step forward. As she moved, she picked up an empty coke bottle by the neck and smacked the old man on the head. He was
on the floor, and momma was watching him bleed all over the place. He was dazed because he uttered not a word, but the expression on his face said, ‘What the hell!’”
“Mom went to the phone and called Sissy home and told me to look after ‘little Micah’ while she took daddy to the hospital.”
“After several hours, mom drives up with dad in the passenger’s seat. He had a dozen stitches in his forehead, but he was laughing, and mom was laughing—the hospital must be a cool place I figured.”
“I went to the living room to see what was so funny. Margie and Paul from across the street had come over, and dad was retelling the story.”
“’Yeah, and the doc asked me how I ‘became injured,’ and I told him I tripped and hit my head on the table, but ole Millie had told him separately that it was a mowing accident.’ And then dad pointed to the kitchen table where the coke bottle was standing, and everyone started laughing again including me and Sissy.”
“And that is how the old man got that dent and scar on his forehead,” Greg giggled.
Micah wondered if momma was going to smack his dad again today. If so, he wasn’t going to be around for it. He played in the park for a couple of hours until hunger and the need to pee overcame any anxiety he had. He walked home. The house was fight-free, so he went to the bathroom and then to the kitchen where his dad was in his chair staring at nothing. Momma was cooking supper, and Elaine was running around the backyard.
The boy touched the piece of flint in his pocket. Thoughts of the house on Willow Wood popped into his mind. He went to the swing by the garden.
“Why did you leave me? I wanted to go to the park too,” Elaine whined and then pushed him.
“Be quiet brat!” Micah grumbled at his sister.
His thoughts returned to Willow Wood and the big bedroom downstairs. He really loathed that room. It overshadowed the rest of the house and its big yard.