I would like to post one of my published short stories, but because of contractual issues, I'm not able to do that at this time. Eventually the rights for those stories will revert back to me and you'll see some of them here. Until then, I'll rotate a few other stories in and out. Here is a tale I wrote overnight during a snow storm in January of 2007. Most magazine editors are looking for specific genres and since this story isn't a true mystery or genuine horror, I haven't attempted to find a market for it.

The Disappearance of Billy Starcham

By Chris Morrow    All Rights Reserved

The elderly woman on Chase’s right was completely unaware that it was her pungent floral perfume that was causing his eyes to water. She handed him a tissue and patted him on the knee while behind the podium, the minister talked about what a great guy Gary McDaniel had been. The scent of dozens of floral arrangements surrounding Gary’s casket, mixed with the flowery perfume of the old women, was playing hell with Chase’s allergies.

Chase turned to the woman and mouthed the words “thank you” as he wiped his eyes with the tissue. She nodded her head and then took her attention back to the minister allowing Chase to casually glance at his watch. He had hoped to get to town before the funeral and find someone that could give him some useful information, but the drive had taken two hours longer than expected because of the weather. He looked over at the casket that Gary McDaniel would call home for all eternity and conceded that things could be worse.

Outside the church, enormous snow flakes drifted lazily to the already frozen earth. If this assignment hadn’t been so important, Chase would have considered hitting the road. A year ago, he could have walked up to Jerry Brownback’s desk and said, “Sorry boss, but the weather down there was getting bad. I had to turn around and come back.” But those were different times. His quality of work had gone south since then, since Susan left him. Truth be told, everything in his life had gone south since then. He thought that maybe things were starting to look up when Brownback lobbied the feature editor and got him this assignment.

“Look, this will either get you back in management’s good graces, or you’ll be writing real estate listings. Don’t screw it up,” Brownback had told him.

The story was to be one in a series of Sunday features over strange phenomena and mysteries in the Midwest. The big dogs at the Post Dispatch knew the story would be nothing more than a rehash, but to do it right, Chase would need to get some new quotes. His research led him to Gary McDaniel. Three days before they were to meet, Chase called to confirm their appointment only to find that Gary was dead of a heart attack.

Chase counted twenty-nine people sitting in the pews of the Wilson’s Crossing Baptist Church. He wondered if the snow falling outside had prevented more from coming to pay their last respects. Wilson’s Crossing, right in the middle of the Ozark Mountains, wasn’t an easy place to reach when the roads were slick. The town itself was nothing more than a wide spot in the road – a dozen homes, the church, and a little bait store. A hand painted sign on the front of the store said Grady’s Bait ’N More. There was a small red neon sign in the window proclaiming “Cold Beer.” When the funeral service ended, that would be Chase’s next stop. Not for the beer, though a beer would certainly help take some of the edge off, but because it looked like the kind of place where folks like to talk.

Chase pried his eyes away from the window and realized that with his mind wandering, he hadn’t noticed that everyone else in the church had their head bowed while the minister led them in a prayer. He closed his eyes and bowed also, figuring that it was a little late for Gary McDaniel, but Chase himself could use some help.

Rather than follow the crowd past the coffin, he headed for the door. Before he stepped out into the cold, he looked back at Gary McDaniel -- lying placid, hands crossed over a Bible -- and wondered if Gary was taking any shiny little nuggets about the night William Starcham disappeared to the grave with him.

Walking to the compact Chevy he’d rented for the trip, Chase looked to the sky. The clouds overhead were thin, but large black ones loomed in the west and the look of them gave him an uncomfortable feeling.

Just down the street, stood Grady’s Bait ’N More. He decided to leave the car in the church parking lot and walk to the store. He reached the big front porch as an old pick-up pulled up to the door.

Chase stomped the snow from his shoes on the porch and watched as two old men he’d seen at the funeral climbed from the truck and made their way up the steps. All three of them entered the house-turned convenience store together. Chase paused just inside the door to shake off the cold as both men nodded in his direction and then promptly made their way to a pair of worn cushioned rockers sitting next to a big cast iron wood burner. From there they had a view out the Bait ’N More’s picture window of

Main Street

, the only paved road in town besides Highway V, which twisted its way fifteen miles to the interstate.

“Can I help you, son?”

Chase turned to see find that another older man had come through a door behind the counter. This man had also been at the funeral.

“I hope so,” said Chase, and he paused. He knew that he couldn’t come across as too eager, especially under the circumstances.

“My name is Chase Stanton and I work for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I’m sorry to hear about the passing of Mr. McDaniel.” He was talking as much to the two men in the rockers as he was to the store’s proprietor.

“I had an appointment to talk with Mr. McDaniel about William Starcham and I was hoping that I might find someone else to discuss the night he disappeared. Do you gentleman know anyone who I might be able to talk with?”

The man behind the counter glanced at the two in the rockers. Chase turned toward them and in unison they looked him up and down. Finally one of them took a pipe from his coat pocket, put it in his mouth and sat forward in his chair.

“Hell . . .  might as well. I mean, Gary’s gone and we won’t be too much behind him, right Jake?” he looked to the other man, who gave a little nod. The one who had been speaking reached in the bib pocket of his overalls and took out a match. He pinched it to life and lit his pipe, sat back in his chair and added, “Might as well bore this young fella for a while.”

The other man, Jake, picked up the pace of his rocking. He had a sour look on his face. “What do you think Grady? Mind if we take up some of your day?”

The man behind the counter appeared to be a couple years younger than the other two, though Chase still would have guessed him to be at least sixty-five.

“You old fools take up my time every day. Besides, what else am I gonna do on a day like this.” He motioned toward the big picture window. Outside the wind seemed to have picked up. Little tornados of snow darted back and forth in the street.

“Have a seat, son,” said the man seated next to Jake.

Chase approached him and offered his hand. “Chase Stanton. I appreciate this.”

 “Calvin Walters, but everyone calls me Cal.” Cal smiled, his gray hair was ruffled from the stocking cap he’d had on when he walked in. He wasn’t a big man, but his grip was strong.

“Nice to meet you Cal,” said Chase, extending his hand to the other man, who took it with his left hand. That combined with his crooked smile told Chase that at some time Jake had had a stroke, though his speech wasn’t slurred.

“Jake Coleburn. Good to know you,” he said.

Chase took the empty chair next to Jake. The warmth from the wood burning stove felt great. He took off his jacket and set it on the hardwood floor next to him. When he looked up, the owner of the store had joined them and was handing a couple of cans of cola to the other men.

“Get you something?” he asked Chase. Chase wasn’t thirsty, but he thought buying something from the man was the least he could do for letting him invade his business.

“Sure, a Coke will be great. And I’ll pay for theirs too,” said Chase, gesturing toward Jake and Cal. The store owner laughed.

“Oh, well that’ll be a first. These two have been runnin’ a tab for their sodas since I moved to town and opened this place twenty years ago,” he said.

Cal stamped his foot and exclaimed, “For what he charges us for the beer, the pops damn sure ought to be free!”

Jake shouted an “Amen.”

The store owner shook his head at both of them and then turned back to Chase. “By the way son, my name is Thompson Grady, but everyone just calls me Grady.” Slowly, with the help of a cane, he made his way to a cooler full of soft drinks.

“Shall we get down to business?” asked Cal.

“Certainly,” said Chase, removing a small note pad and a pen from his pocket. Most of his contemporaries record their interviews, but Chase always opted for good old ink and paper. Tape recorders have a tendency to put people on the defensive.

“The newspaper is running a weekly special feature about mysterious occurrences in the Midwest and the disappearance of William Starcham and the strange lights people saw in the sky that night certainly fit that bill.”

Jake interrupted him. “We best refer to him as Billy Starcham, or I’ll forget who the hell we’re talking about.”

“Sure,” said Chase, adding, “Did you know him?”

“Know him?” exclaimed Cal. “We were hunting with him the night he disappeared.”

Chase felt his jaw drop. A reporter should never be surprised by anything. A good poker face serves a reporter well – show emotion and people clam up. Chase had read dozens of stories about that night and even watched two television specials on it and in all of them, Gary McDaniel said they he and Starcham had been alone in the woods.

Chase’s look of surprise seemed to delight Cal, who was smiling broadly with is pipe crooked between his teeth.

“Didn’t know that did you son?”

Honestly, no I . . . I didn’t.”

“Jake and me decided at the last minute to go out with Gary and Billy coon hunting that night. You see, we’d had plans to meet up in Hollow Grove with a couple girls and go to a movie, but it snowed all day and their folks wouldn’t let them, so at the last minute we met up with the boys and headed out to the timber,” he said.

Jake followed him, “It was January 26, 1954, but of course you’ve got the date. Let’s see, I’m seventy-three, so I guess I would’a been about twenty then. Cal here is two years older than me and I can’t remember how old Billy was.” His voice trailed off.

Jake seemed to still be a little shaken from recalling that night and Chase wasn’t the only one to notice. Grady, who’d returned with Chase’s cola, started to hand Chase the can and stopped.

“Gentleman,” Grady said in a grand voice that Chase imagined the old man might use behind the podium of a meeting of the local chapter of Caribou or something. “It’s a bit early, but en light of the fact that we buried our friend today and now we’re digging up the past and all, I make a motion we abandon the five o’clock rule and open the good cooler a few minutes early. I won’t be having any customers today that don’t already know we’re a bunch of old lushes.”

“I second the motion,” said Jake, reaching in the bib pocket of his overalls and pulling out a wad of bills. “And I’ll buy the first round,” he added.

“Mr. Stanton, you like a cold beer? It couldn’t be any colder unless we set it out on the porch,” said Grady.

“I better not, I have a long drive back,” said Chase.

“Not tonight,” added Cal. “You won’t be goin’ nowhere on account of that,” he said, aiming a stubby finger at the window.

The dark clouds had arrived and had brought with them freezing rain. Somehow Chase had failed to notice the icy mix plunking down on the roof. Suddenly it seemed very loud.

“I reckon where you’re from, they get the roads scraped pretty quick, but ’round here they take their time and that ice on top of the snow, well, that ain’t no good,” said Grady, adding, “I hope they don’t need your story today.”

Chase shook his head and said, “I didn’t see a motel on my way in”.

“I have a sofa on wheels I can bring out for you,” said Grady.

Chase had a feeling that he could make it back to the interstate if he left immediately, but his instinct told him there was a story here. He walked to the window. Already a glassy film was covering the power lines. Grady noticed it too.

“Won’t be long till the power goes out. These two old coots don’t have wood-burners, so I’m stuck with them tonight. If they leave those chairs, it’ll only be to relieve themselves,” Grady said, looking over his bifocals at the two old men. To Chase he added, “Might as well make it three guests.”

Experience told Chase that when people were interested in talking, a smart reporter takes them up on it.

“That’s very nice of you,” said Chase, adding, “I’ve got a couple of days to get my story in, so if it’s not an inconvenience, I’ll take you up on the offer.”

Grady nodded and Chase started to reach for his cell phone, but remembered that there wasn’t anyone at home to call.

“Four Miller Lites,” said Cal, and Grady made his way to the beer cooler. To Chase he said, “How about you tell us what you know and then we’ll pick it up from there.”

They drank their beers while Chase relayed what his research had told him about that night. Conventional wisdom was to let the interviewee tell the story while the interviewer kept his mouth shut unless asking questions, but this didn’t in any way resemble a conventional situation. He recapped published reports of how McDaniel, who was twenty-two at the time, and Starcham, who was twenty-four, went hunting despite the temperature being in the teens; how their dogs had treed a raccoon and they were trying to get a fix on it to shoot it out of the tree when a series of lights appeared in the southern sky. The lights, moving slowly to the east, had been so bright that people over a twenty mile radius had called the authorities claiming to see everything from a UFO to an airliner down. As the story went, Starcham’s dog went berserk and ran off and he went after it while McDaniel stood dumbfounded looking skyward. No one ever saw Starcham again. There was an investigation, and a grand jury was called, but no charges were ever brought.

When he finished, Chase looked out the window where the afternoon light was waning and the icy rain was coming down in sheets. He gave up any lingering hope of sleeping in his own bed that night and downed the rest of his beer.

“This round is on the house,” said Grady and he started to get up, but Chase beat him to the punch.

“Please, let me. It’s the least I can do,” he said and he went to the cooler, but Grady got up anyway and made his way over to the counter where an old cash register sat next to a little dusty radio. Grady turned it on and classical music filled the room, helping to drown out the thumping of ice on the roof.

Chase handed each of them a beer and gave Grady a ten.

“This Tchaikovsky?” asked Jake.

“You mean Jack-off-sky?” bellowed Cal and gave his own knee a good smack with his open palm.

Grady, who was standing next to the cash register staring down at a catalog, never looked up. “Chopin.”

Chase, who was feeling more comfortable, had to ask.

“Don’t take this wrong, but I kind-of figured you guys were more the bluegrass or country type.”

“He’s been educating us,” said Cal, who was still hee-hawing over his previous comment.

“We gave up ten years ago and learned to embrace it, so long as he lets us catch Paul Harvey,” said Jake.

For the next half hour, the four of them sat around the stove, drinking their beers and discussing the weather, the state of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team, and as Chase’s own grandfather would have said, “shooting the bull.”

Eventually, the conversation meandered back to the matter at hand.

“Here’s what happened,” said Cal, who dug down in that front pocket again, this time for a can of snuff. He put in a big dip, reached behind his chair and pulled out a coffee can and spit in it.

“We went out that night and it was colder than a well digger’s ass. There was a northerly wind that damn near cut us in half when we piled out of Billy’s ’47 Ford. Hell, the dogs didn’t even want to be out there. All four of us brought flasks with us and that helped cut the cold a little, but mainly, it made us fool enough to be out in it,” said Cal.

The power flickered off for a moment, but came back.

“Well, it didn’t take the dogs long to pick up a scent and they took off into the timber like they were on the heels of the devil himself and we followed, slipping and sliding on that new snow and trying not to fall on our guns. We caught up to them where they’d treed the varmint. As I recall, I had an old Red Bone Coon Hound named Scarlet, and you Jake, didn’t you have a Red Bone, or was yours a Black and Tan?”

Jake had pushed back deeper in his chair and just shook his head. Once again, Chase got the impression that reliving that night was taking a toll on Jake.

Cal started up again, “Any way, there were five dogs. I think Gary might have brought two. Well, the tree was full of snow and we were having a hell of a time finding that coon up there, even with four flashlights. That’s when this enormous light filled the sky to the south. I remember I tumbled over backward when I first saw it and slid down to the bank of a little creek. By the time I got to my feet and climbed up to where the other boys were, the dogs had been spooked and gone howling in ten different directions. It was like they’d heard some sound that we couldn’t hear.”

“Was there any sound that you could hear coming from whatever was putting off the light?” asked Chase.

Both Cal and Jake shook their heads. Chase looked over at Grady, who was on the edge of his seat. Clearly he had heard the over-reported version of events that night many times and was just as captivated by this new information as Chase was.

Cal continued. “I can’t speak for the other guys, but I was scared. We talked it over right there and because those dogs were expensive and it takes lot of work to turn a hound into a good coon dog, and because it was so cold that if we left them out there, they might freeze, we decided we’d better go after them and we split up. By then that light was moving away from us. I remember that I didn’t get far from that spot before I realized it was the worst decision I made that night -- heading out into the woods alone with that thing up there.”

To Jake, Chase asked, “What did you think it was?”

Barely audible over the classical music and the storm, Jake responded.

“I figured it was some military project. I still think that may have been what it was. The war had been over for about ten years and there was talk that the Nazis had developed some strange weapons. I figured if it wasn’t ours, it was something the Russians had stolen from Hitler’s boys after the war.”

“You think the Russians might have taken Billy?” Cal asked Jake. Chase was surprised by the question. Clearly the two hadn’t discussed that night with the media, but he figured they had at least talked about it between themselves.

Jake turned toward Cal and shrugged his shoulders. Then he set his empty can of beer down on the floor next to his chair.

“I believe Billy’s bones are still out there in those woods somewhere. I think . . . I think someone will find his bones buried out there someday and then there won’t be people sayin’ he was taken away in a UFO,” said Jake.

“We shouldn’t have split up,” added Cal somberly.

Again there was a long pause. This time Grady broke the silence by asking if any of them would like him to cook them some soup.

“Only if it comes out of a can,” said Cal, with a chuckle.

Suddenly the power went out. The only light was the orange glow from the wood burner. When one of the old men broke wind all four of them burst out laughing.

“Not too close to the fire you old fool!” exclaimed Grady. Chase wasn’t sure who he was talking to, but that didn’t matter. It occurred to him that he was at a Geriatric Boy Scout meeting and he couldn’t help but smile. He also smiled because this story would not only help him secure his position as a reporter at the Post-Dispatch, but somehow he had a feeling that this experience, on some deeper level, might help him get his life back together. He understood that for two men in this room, reliving that night was both a trial and a relief - that facing your demons wasn’t a choice, it was inevitable.

“I’m going to fetch my kerosene lantern so I can make sure you bastards don’t go pilfering beers,” said Grady, who like only a man in his own home can, negotiated the darkness, found the lantern and lit it.

“Here’s another round,” said Grady, passing out more cans of cold beer.

They drank them while Grady made soup and they ate it by the lantern’s light. When they were finished Grady turned to Cal.

“Go on, I’m dying to hear the rest of the story.”

“Well, I found Billy’s dog cowering in a holler. If I’m not mistaken that dog didn’t live through the winter. I led him back to the truck. Soon Gary returned with two of the other dogs. We stood there for a while freezing our asses off. Eventually my dog and one of the others made their way back on their own. We decided to head back into the woods to look for the others, and that’s when we ran into Jake. We decided to warm ourselves in the truck and then went back out and called for him until dawn,” said Cal.

Cal leaned over and gave Chase’s knee a little smack. “Now here’s the answer to the question that’s been bugging you all night; why didn’t we admit we were there? Well, the night before me and Billy had been down in Claremont drinking beer at a little hole in the wall and we’d gotten pretty soused. While we were playing pool he accused me of cheating and one thing led to another. We got in a fist fight out in front of the place, right in the middle of the main drag. Half the town saw it. He bloodied my lip and I busted up his nose pretty good. Fearing I might be arrested, I got in my car and drove away leaving him standing there cussing me. I’d had a few run-ins with the law and didn’t want to push it. He ended up calling Jenny, his fiancé, but it was a twenty-five mile drive, so he had to just stand there bleeding until she got there.

“By the next day we’d sobered up and were no longer mad at each other, but I was afraid that the sheriff wouldn’t believe that. They’d think I did something to get back at him in them woods. Lord knows I had plenty of reason, he’d stolen Jenny away from me not six months before all that, but he and I had made-up and I’d forgiven him. And if that wasn’t all, just to complicate the situation more, while looking for those dogs, I fell again and this time my rifle went off. I figured they’d check my gun, see it was fired and I’d be in a hell of a trouble.”

Cal looked to Jake to take over, but he motioned with his good hand for Cal to continue, so Cal went on.

“We decided that Gary would drop us off at my farm house and then go to town, alert the cops, and get a search party looking for Billy. He wouldn’t mention us at all and if anyone asked where I was that night, Jake here would be my alibi.”

“And over all these years, neither of you, nor Gary for that matter ever said anything to anyone about your having been there?” asked Chase.

“Nope. We joined the search party that morning. There were about thirty of us that scoured them woods and we never found a thing. Since then, we haven’t talked about it much. I mean, Gary talked, but he never mentioned us.

“Gary McDaniel was a saint of a man and he took Billy’s disappearing real hard. I reckon he never got over it. I think it was the not knowing that tore him up,” said Cal, adding, “He and Billy had been real good friends. He was going to be the best man in Billy and Jenny’s wedding. The rumor for a long time was that Billy got cold feet about the wedding and walked out to the highway, hitched a ride and ran off.”

Chase asked the obvious question, “Why now? Why tell me?”

The two old men looked at each other for a moment and then Cal sat forward in his chair and spoke. “Jake and I talked it over the day we heard about Gary. I think I can speak for both of us when I say that we’re tired of dragging this ten ton lie around,” said Cal, who turned to Jake and asked, “That right?”

“You have no idea,” said Jake, his voice shaky.

The lantern sat in the center of the circle on the floor. A soft orange glow painted strange expressions on the faces of the three old men.

“Jake?” asked Cal.

With a grunt, Jake leaned forward in his chair and pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket, blew his nose, wadded it up and stuffed it back where it came from. He stood up and walked to the window. Outside it was pitch-black. Occasionally there would be a loud pop when the weight of the ice would snap a tree limb and then a crash when it hit the ground.

His back to them, Jake began to speak. “I took off into the woods looking for those dogs and thinking that I might piss down my leg if that light got any closer. I kept thinking I was going to see a little green man hiding behind the next tree.

“After a while the light disappeared and I calmed down a bit. I was hollering for those dogs and thinking that I was gonna get frost bite. I’d stepped in a little stream and my foot broke the ice and somehow I’d gotten water down in my boot. I wandered around the woods thinking I might be lost, when I came to the dirt road that ran along the north side of the section we were hunting. I recognized the spot. My aunt Annie lived down that way, so I decided I would walk to her house and warm up. I was a little embarrassed about it because I figured the others were freezing their asses off out there looking for my dog, but I was drunk and didn’t care. It was about a quarter of a mile. Her and husband Clayton had the only house out that way.”

“I remember her,” said Cal. “It was hard not to take notice of that woman, she was a looker.”

Jake paused for a moment and steadied himself against the window sill.

“I climbed their porch and hesitated for a moment. I could hear a woman’s loud crying inside and so I started to turn around and leave when the door burst open and there was Clayton. He had something in his arms. He looked at me and his eyes were completely vacant. His face was as white as the snow covering their porch.

“I started to say something, but I was confused. Then I realized what he was holding. . . it was . . . in his arms was Billy. Billy’s head hung all crooked. What happened next, I have regretted every day that came after. I leaned close to Billy’s face and could see a single stream of blood running from his nose and his eyes were open. He was dead.”

Jake turned toward them, but looked away. He cleared his throat with a gravely hack and continued.

“Clayton didn’t say a word. He walked right past me like I was a ghost and dragged Billy, naked from the waist up, down the porch and around the side of the house toward the barn. I couldn’t move. It was like someone had kicked me in the crotch and taken my wind. I stood there bent over at the waist for a long time and when I was finally able to breath again I noticed the door standing wide open. Inside was my Aunt Annie laying naked, face down on the couch, sobbing into a pillow.

“You see, Clayton worked up in Kansas City at that time. The railroad had sent him up there and he couldn’t afford to drive back but every other weekend. The weather had gotten bad and he’d decided to come home to make sure his family was okay. They had no phone so Annie had no idea that when Billy showed up at her door that night drunk, cold, and itchin’ for her, that her husband was on his way too.”

Chase looked at Cal, who was sitting forward in his chair tapping his foot nervously. Grady had his hands clasped to either side of his head with an expression of shock plastered on his wrinkled old face.

Jake dug his handkerchief out of his pocket and honked his nose into it and buried it again.

“I walked out of there and left the door open behind me. I don’t believe Annie ever knew I had been there. I followed Clayton. I remember the crunch of the ice under my boots as I walked. There was light pouring out of the barn and when I was about fifty feet from it, his old pick-up roared to life. I was standing in the lane that led to the road, and he steered that truck right for me. He stopped a foot from me and leaned out his window. In that gruff old voice of his he said, ‘He’s been doing it to her for a long time. I knew someone was.’ He never got out of the truck, and I couldn’t see his face; could just hear him. He said, ‘I didn’t mean to kill the boy. I walked in and there they were and . . . Get out of my way boy.’ I did and he drove off.”

Cal was nodding his head as if he understood everything. He turned to Jake, who quickly looked away.

“I stood there for a long time. When I’d stepped in the house Annie’s sobbin’ wasn’t the only thing I heard. I also heard their baby upstairs. That baby needed a daddy. . . Annie was my momma’s little sister and what that would have done to Momma. . .”

In a hushed tone, as if he were talking only to himself, Jake mumbled, “In those days if you took another man’s wife, well that was the risk you run.”

Cal uttered a tone of agreement.

In a whisper Jake added, “I made up my mind to keep quiet. Even after Clayton died in a car accident five years later, I never told a soul.”

Jake drew in a deep breath, exhaled fifty years of anxiety into the air and collapsed into his chair.

Chase turned to Cal, who was staring at the lantern.

“It don’t surprise me much. Billy had a way with women. He was like a dog on point around the pretty ones. I never did know what Jenny saw in him. He just swooped in and stole her from me. Of course, I ended up marrying her later. That was in 1962,” said Cal. To Chase he added, “She passed on two years ago this spring.”

“You know,” said Grady, “I never did think Clayton Junior looked like his pop. I don’t suppose . . .”

“Absolutely,” said Jake, adding, “He was the spitting image of Billy.”

Cal added, “Junior still lives up in that very house; took it when his momma passed on.”

His head in his hands, Jake mumbled, “The thing I regret the most, was Gary. I mean, he never did know the truth. After a while, I wanted to tell him, but I didn’t know how. Seeing him there in that casket today, I guess I decided I’d lived with this thing long enough.”

“Well, Gary knows the truth now,” said Cal.

Under his breath Jake said, “Guess I could have told the story without it being to a reporter, but at this moment in time, it had to come out.”

 Cal leaned forward in his seat and fixed his eye on Chase. “Now it’s our turn to ask you a question – your story, how’s it gonna go?”

It was getting late. Chase could see the old men slowing down. The emotion of the evening along with the beer and the fact that they were sitting in the dark, was taking a toll on them.

“How about we sleep on it and I’ll tell you in the morning, because I honestly don’t know” said Chase.

Grady rolled out a cot for him and brought the other two men blankets before he went to bed himself. It wasn’t long before the two in the rocker-recliners were snoring loudly. Chase slept fitfully. He awoke at dawn to the sound of a snow plow clearing Highway V. He pulled on his shoes, wrote a quick note to the men and slipped out the front door.

The note said, “Thank you again for your hospitality and for sharing your recollections of that night in 1954. What happened that night to William (Billy) Starcham truly was a mystery. I was asked to write a story about that mystery, and that is what I’ll do. Some mysteries are better left unsolved. Chase”