Stories from the Middle of Nowhere

 Last night in the chatroom several of us found that we wanted to write but had a hard time getting something written.  We sort of challenged ourselves and here is my story.

Mrs. M. and the Bus-stop Ghosts

By Budgie

(Told to her by Mrs. M. in 1976)

    If you travel Hwy 281 north from the beach south of Brownsville, and if you stay on that road as it weaves and slithers toward Canada, you will find yourself in a little town in the middle of a big state many miles from anywhere. Coming up from the south you see a yellow blinky light at a small highway junction.  If you turn eastward you find another blinky light a ways down the road and another highway junction.  But if you stay on the road of the first yellow blinky light you will pass the truck weigh-station and the beginnings of this little town.  The town follows the southern side of a low sloping hill and curls around to the northern side. You have followed the Southern Pacific Railway northward on your right; and its tracks does not curl around the hill, but goes straight and seems to angle off to the right. In the 70’s you could still see the Harvey House off northward a few hundred yards at the northeast corner of the town.  On the south side though, there isn’t much to see at first.  A road angled off to the left, a few old houses, barely visible under elm trees.  On the right was a Best Western Motel and almost opposite it on the left was another motel.  That one was slightly elevated and had a swimming pool—the only one in town. It was for guests only---sigh---unless the city coughed up some money to rent it for the summer months for school programs.  Then the pumps broke down more and more frequently---then it was empty---then it was filled in---then the whole place was bulldozed. But that was later, back in the early 70’s, if you drove a few blocks past the motel and pool, you saw the first stores. A whole block of two story buildings on the west side looking rather old fashioned and made of stone. Red painted railroad buildings of wood on the east side looking rather weathered.  The first building on the west side was the Bus-stop café. The corner of the lot was vacant and that is where the buses pulled in for a short break.  The place had another name, but I can’t remember it and anyway it was always the Bus-stop because the …bus…stopped… there.  I only ate at the Bus-stop once or twice and I think I got sick both times.

   I remember that my students were horrified that I even went in there.  ‘It’s haunted Miss!’ They swore it was. Teenagers or adults working at the Bus-stop Café would find holes in the pies, bits of the cake-icing smushed down, dishes falling on the floor when no one was around. Most laughed it off, but occasionally one of them would just quit and vow never to go back.  ‘I felt a hand, Miss.’ ‘I felt a cold breath on my neck, Miss.’ ‘Something touched me, Miss.’ Girls rarely worked there for more than a few weeks.  The boys stayed longer out of machismo.  Only the owners stayed on year after year; but even then the place was sold and resold many times. Newcomers to town like myself were told the haunting stories, I think, just to see how we would react. I was polite; didn’t believe them myself.  I thought the stories were excuses for pilferage and clumsiness and a reason to quit. ‘So who are these ghosts and why are they there?’  ‘Dunno, Miss.’

   Everybody who lived any length of time in that little town knew of the ghosts but only Mrs. M… knew the true story.  Mrs. M. was my neighbor.  The first year in the little town, I had rented a private home, but it was sold so I moved into a tiny house called a teacherage. There were 6 of these little houses on school property forming a block of small homes.  They were deteriorating but still livable.  Furnished in castoffs, it was cheap and after a few years I had saved enough to buy a nice old home for myself.  My house sat on the middle lot of three narrow lots—all three were mine!--- and my next door neighbor was Mr. and Mrs. M.  Mr. M. was a retired railroader and Mrs. M. his long-suffering spouse.  Later, I realized that she had been like my mother-in-law, so soft-spoken that at times you could barely hear her when she talked, soft but uncowed and steel underneath. Although Mrs. M. was in her 80’s when I knew her, she was quite healthy.  She drove everywhere in her big car, went to church every Sunday, had friends all over town.  She was always dressed well, neat and sedate, her curly hair always styled. She kept her house clean, mowed her yard, her car was washed at the Texaco once a month.  She had hated her husband for more than 50 years and had birthed and raised 8 kids in a town where the closest hospital was 40 miles away.  Whether at my house or hers, she would sit and talk non-stop—for hours if I had the time.  Some little time after I moved in, her husband passed away.  She didn’t come over as often then but one day, during the summer, I think it was, she popped by and seemed quite excited.

   I don’t know why she started telling me this story.  I don’t know to this day, if the story she related to me was recent, but I had the impression it was perhaps 20 years earlier; but then again maybe not.  She came to the door that day, her hair a bit frazzled and wind-blown, plopped herself down on my old sofa and began to tell this story:

   ‘You have to understand, Budgie, this town could have been a wonderful place to live. The Harvey House had dances every Saturday night and we would dance ‘til dawn sometimes.  But there had been Prohibition, then the Depression, then the War.  The homesteaders were gone, the railroad ran this place and most of all, He ran this place.’ (Now, I know she told me his name and I can’t remember if he was the sheriff or the police-chief.  I never seem to have paper and pencil handy and only later realized that I should have taken notes.  So, I’ll just call him Sheriff R.) ‘It was a tough town and it took a tough man to keep the law, but he was also vicious and corrupt and everyone who worked for him was the same.  If it was illegal he was mixed up in it.  His favorite spot was the Bus-stop. Of course, it wasn’t the Bus-stop then, it was his saloon.  He ran the bar and had an illegal gambling room in the back.’

  ‘You see, I was out walking and I saw Rosie (not her real name). Rosie was standing in front of her gate in her nightgown!  I asked her what was going on and she said, ‘I’m going to die soon and I have to tell somebody.  I’ve known you for years and you’re a good person, Maggie (again not a real name). It’s Sheriff R., he killed them, Maggie.’  ‘What are you talking about, killed who?’ ‘Years ago, they were a middle-aged couple…maybe retired…traveling.  They were sightseeing around and came through here, but stopped…maybe to get gas or a meal or to stay the night (back then we had a hotel here just a few doors down from the Bus-stop).  They heard about the gambling—gossip around town, I guess; and they went to the Bus-stop.  They had a nice car, nice clothes, and plenty of money so Sheriff R. let them gamble.’

   Remember, I am relating what Mrs. M. told me she heard from Rosie and that was more than 35 years ago.  I know I don’t have all the details, but during this night, something went wrong.  Maybe there were accusations of cheating, maybe someone got greedy.  For whatever reason, Sheriff R. murdered both them.  There were witnesses.  Either Rosie, or her husband, or a relative was there; she knew what had happened.  Disposing of two bodies, in a small town where everyone knows what everyone is doing almost all of the time would have been difficult in broad daylight; so Sheriff R. thought up a quick cold way.  He had the floorboards pulled up and a shallow hole dug right there in the Bus-stop.  Into the hole went the bodies, the dirt, floorboards back in place.  He paid a guy to drive the car south. Paid him enough to leave the car and then disappear.  He couldn’t leave the car even in a small city 100 miles away.  It would draw too much attention to the little town and Sheriff R. There was nothing but two trees and a saloon in all those miles. The car and its travels would be easy to trace; so he instructed the fellow to drive onto El Paso.  Big city cops could handle that problem.  No one breathed a word.  Some time later, year or two or more, a middle-aged man and his son came through town.  ‘Seems his brother and sister-in-law were missing.  Their car was found in El Paso.  Back-tracking their trip; have you seen this car, these people?’  They stayed a couple of days…no one talked…they left to go on searching.

  ‘Budgie, Rose said she was going to die and two days later she was dead!’  Mrs. M. went home and I wish I had written it all down right then.  Strange how a story travels down the years, Rose told Mrs. M; Mrs. M told me, and now I have told you.  The buildings are gone now.  Fallen down, burned down, torn down and hauled away.  But I can get a location on a Google map and mark it for you.  The foundations are gone, you wouldn’t have to dig too deep…..