Chaneysville Incident by David Bradley Read Free Book Online

ghosts. Adults laughed about all that. But they never went beyond the crown of the Hill. Children dared each other to take the first few steps, to go and bring back a rock or a bit of brush from beyond the point where the path made its first precipitous drop and vanished into the undergrowth; those with imagination and bravery—like Bill—would go far enough not to be seen, wait awhile, then come back, claiming to have discovered…almost anything. I never did that; I had no imagination, and before I ever mustered sufficient courage my life changed: Moses Washington went hunting and came home dead, and Old Jack Crawley came for me.
    I had awakened in the night. I had been bathed and soothed and fed and put to bed like a baby and, exhausted, I had slept through the heat of the afternoon and the cool of the evening. Now darkness lay on the mountains, and the blaze of daylight heat was a barely recalled name. Air that was almost cold poured through the window beside my bed, and gusts of wind billowed the curtains and slammed insects against the screen. For a long time I lay there in the darkness, listening to Bill’s light snores coming from across the room, wondering what it was that Old Jack had wanted. I tried to reason it out, but I could not. And then I realized why it was that he had frightened me, had frightened everybody: none of them knew what he had wanted. Whatever had frightened them, it had been something they were only guessing at. For some reason, that seemed wrong to me; or not wrong—pointless. And then it came to me: I would go now and find Old Jack, go and find him and ask him what he wanted.
    And so I slipped out of bed, being careful not to let the mattress creak—my mother claimed to be a light sleeper, but it had always seemed to me that she never slept at all. I found my sneakers beside the bed, moved carefully across the floor to where my pants hung on a peg. Carrying shoes and pants. I made my way to the window. It took me only a moment to slip through it onto the porch roof, then to put the screen back in place. I sat on the roof and slipped my pants on over my pajama bottoms, pulled my sneakers on. Then I made the drop to the ground. It was a lot farther than I had thought, and I landed hard, my knees jarring up into my chin. I tasted blood silvery in my mouth but I did not cry out, I just climbed to my feet and stood hauling air into my lungs and looking around.
    I had never been out in the darkness like that before, without someone there to guide me and hold my hand. But I wasn’t afraid, and I moved away from the house and stood at the top of the Avenue looking down. The Hill was dark. In the Town the streetlights were pale yellow, spaced like markers. I turned and started up the slope, finding the path with no difficulty; it was easy to see by the light of the full moon, which hung silver white in the sky. I moved confidently in that light for the first few yards, but then the path took its first big drop, and the moon vanished behind the Hill, and the trees closed over me. I lost my footing and my courage at the same time; as I tried to turn back I found myself slipping and sliding, all out of control, my arms windmilling as I fought for balance. I fell and rolled, it seemed, forever, finally coming to a stop against a pine tree. I was hurt and scratched, but too stunned to cry. I just lay there, with pine needles and pebbles digging into my back, listening to the night.
    I had never done that before. I had heard the sounds—there was nothing new in the chirpings of crickets or the musical croakings of spring frogs—but I had never lain in the darkness listening to them. Suddenly I forgot my scratches. I listened to the faint rustlings in the underbrush, the creakings of the trees moving in the wind, the calling of nightbirds at whose names I could not guess. It was pleasant, and the world seemed a warm and friendly place. I got to my feet and regained the path, and moved ahead, feeling