Dead Men (and Women) Walking by Anthology Read Free Book Online Page B

well.
It stood about waist high on me and was still in pretty good shape.
It was a good four feet in diameter. The only thing that was
missing was its wood frame that had held the pulley and crank.
Other than that it looked as if all of the bricks were in place
with very little deterioration.
    Buster opened another beer
and drank it down. He walked over to the well and dropped the can
into the well. It clanked a hollow clank that echoed up from the
bottom of the well when it hit.
    “ Aww. . . I guess the
well’s all dried out,” he said sarcastically. Buster spat into the
well.
    I looked at him in
disbelief, my excitement clearly gone now.
    “ Legend tells us, Johnny,
my boy, that this thing is a wishing well. Let’s see if it’s true.”
Buster had a wild-eyed look on his face. “They say Miss Catherine
was tossed into this very well, way back in... umm. . . what year
was that Mr. John-Miester?”
    Buster was starting to get a
good buzz going by now. I didn’t realize it until then that he had
drank both six packs already. I think he had gone back for a couple
of more beers sometime while we were cleaning away the brush from
the well. Four of those beers were already gone.
    “ 1803, Buster,” I said,
solemnly.
    “ Yeah. That’s it. Way back
in eighteen hundred zero and three. Some bitch got thrown into this
well, right here two hundred years ago by her somewhat pissed off
boyfriend. So, they decide to close this crap hole off to the
public to keep people from disappearing, getting hurt or getting
their asses killed. Well, that’s fine and damn dandy. If all that
crap is true, I wanna see the bitch for myself. I want to see Miss
Catherine.”
    I stood listening to his
drunken tirade. I had had about all I wanted to hear when he
started his wishing well chant.
    “ Oh, wishing well, oh
wishing well, please do kiss and tell. Bring sweet Miss Catherine
back from Hell.”
    “ Buster!” I
yelled.
    “ What?” he yelled
back.
    Visions of Butch and the
Chihuahua popped into my head again.
    Ka-pow. Ka-thump.
    Hey, Buster, you’re sauced,
Buster. Do yah hear me, Buster?
    Shut-up.
    Ka-pow. Ka-thump.
    Yeah. . . yeah, sure,
Buster. That’s Buster. He’s my hero. He ain’t afraid of
anything.
    “ What?” Buster yelled
again, snapping me away from the vision.
    “ Buster,” I started.
“Bobby, you’re drunk. Come on, let’s go. Let’s go home.”
    “ I’m not drunk,” he said
defensively. “I’ve just got a good buzz working. I’m
fine.”
    “ Yeah, whatever,” I said as
I turned and began to walk back toward the truck.
    “ Hey, Johnny, where yah
going?”
    “ To the truck, Bobby,” I
said. “It’s after three and it’s going to be getting dark in a
couple of hours. You can stay here as long as you want, but I’m
going back to the truck where I’ll be waiting for you. And the damn
doors will be locked.”
    I walked off.
    Buster ran up behind me,
grabbing me by the arm. He spun me around to face him. The smell of
beer on his breath hit me hard. I stepped back to get some fresh
air.
    “ Johnny, I’m
sorry.”
    “ No, you’re
not.”
    “ Johnny, I mean it, I’m
sorry,” he said again.
    “ So,” I said, trying not to
let him get to me.
    “ Can you just stick around
a little longer?”
    “ No, Bobby,” I said
quickly. “I’m tired of the way you’ve been acting all day. You go
ahead and stay. I’m out of here.”
    “ Wait, Johnny,” he said as
he grabbed my arm again. “Let’s just see the water. Can you do that
for me? Let me see the water? Then we’ll leave, I swear
it.”
    It was a rarity that Buster
pleaded with me, which is what he was doing then. I knew he was
being sincere in saying we would leave. He had sworn to it, and for
Buster that was as good as gold.
    I stood looking at the
ground. For the first time I realized there wasn’t much light in
the swamp. We cast no shadows anywhere. Neither did any of the
trees.
    “ Give me the keys to your
truck,” I said. “Then,