Gary Crawford - October 2011

Long Arm of the Law

by

Gary D. Crawford

“Think they’ll come over tonight?” whispered Charley out of the darkness. Jeb could hear the eagerness in the boy’s voice. He was tense, too, but not with excitement. Jeb was worried.
“Reckon so,” replied Gus softly. “Ethel heard one of them Hovey boys saying he was going out tonight. Don’t think he meant to a church social.”
Charley climbed into Gus’ tonging boat and Jeb handed up the three rifles, muzzle loaders from the Civil War now fifteen years past. A few bands of fog had moved in low over the cool water, the way gun smoke sometimes did across a battlefield. When Gus climbed aboard, Jeb asked the question he’d been wanting to ask.
“Well, Gus, did you get it?”
“She’s under the tarp, boys,” said Gus. “Take a look.” Avoiding any noise that might carry across the water, Jeb untied the piece of canvas. And there she was – a six pounder – a relic of the second war with England back in 1812. For sixty years and more the little cannon had lain in a barn near San Domingo Creek, now the property of a farmer who owed Gus a favor. Last week, he’d helped Gus dismount it and bolt it to a frame Gus had built inside his tonging boat. The cannon wouldn’t need to swivel; they’s aim the boat. Then, with a half-dozen round-shot, Gus had sailed back into the Bay and anchored off Coaches Neck, at the far end of Poplar Island.
“You know how she works, right, Gus?” asked Charley.
“Reckon so. Used field pieces like this during the War, though they were some bigger.”
They waited now, hidden under the shadow of the trees lining the shore, not far from a splendid oyster bed that lay just offshore. Like other shallow beds, it was reserved for tongers. Dredgers were supposed to hunt oysters out in deep water, where tongs couldn’t reach. But the demand for Chesapeake oysters – “white gold,” some called them – had skyrocketed, and the competition was getting nasty. Some dredgers were slipping in at night to poach the shallow bars.
The tongers fought back, but log canoes and tonging skiffs were no match for heavy dredge-boats with their big crews. Recently, gunfire had been heard in these waters on dark nights, especially when the fog came down. During the war, rifles used the deadly Minié bullets, which the Americans called simply “mini-balls.” Hundreds of them had been fired over and around this coveted oyster bed.
But despite their resistance, the bar was rapidly being scraped away and the tongers were desperate to save it. Tonight, Gus, Jeb and Charley planned to up the ante.
“We won’t aim directly at ‘em, boys,” explained Gus. “Nobody needs to get hurt. They’ll be so scared by the thunderin’ blast, they’ll not come poaching’ here for quite a spell.”
That was the plan. Jeb and Charley watched closely as the old vet placed a packet of gunpowder wrapped in paper into the muzzle and pushed it down with a swab on a stick. Then he carefully dropped in a ball, then a piece of cloth wadding, and tamped it down gently. Then he inserted the fuse.
“So you just put in a charge, drop in the ball and wad, tamp it down, and light her off, right?” asked Charley.
“That’s about it,” nodded Gus. “’Course, you have to remember to….hush!”
All fell silent as Gus threw up his hand; Jeb’s heart thumped as they strained their ears. Again they heard it – a soft thud, a rattle, then a quiet splash. “Drudgers!” whispered Charley.
Jeb looked at Gus, who was moving his head from side to side to get the direction. “Believe you’re right, boy.” He shoved his pole into the mud and silently swung the heavy boat around. Soon they made out the sleek shape of a bugeye, straining along in the light breeze, one dredge overboard.
Gus waited until the cannon was bearing just ahead of the bugeye, then fired. “Ka-boom!” The boat rocked, the gun crashed like a thunderclap, and the whole area lit up. The poachers’ frightened faces, open-mouthed, were frozen in the sudden glare as the echo rolled back from Poplar and the mainland.
“Whoo-ey!” yelled Charley. “Let’s get ’em again!” He grabbed another powder charge and pushed it down the barrel; Jeb handed him the swab. Gus was watching the dredgers as the glare faded, curious to see what they might do. Suddenly he turned and shouted, “Charley! Wait!” Charley was ramming the powder home into the hot barrel, with bits of wadding still burning inside. “You have to swab it out before you reload…!” cried Gus. But of course it was too late.
The charge ignited suddenly and there was a second roar – but this time laced with a scream. Charley slumped down against the hull, his face a mask of pain. Horrified, Jeb saw blood pouring from where Charley’s arm used to be. “Jeb, my arm is gone,” cried Charley. “Oh, lordy, please! Where’s my arm!?”
Two hours later they were all on the mainland. Charley’s stump had been cauterized and the wound stitched up. Jeb had scooped the arm out of the water, but the humerus was shredded midway between elbow and shoulder. Charley begged for the doctor to sew it back on, but it was quite impossible.
So ended one of the many tragedies of the oyster wars. Charley pulled through all right, but none of them would ever forget that terrible October night.
When Jim Morton, the barber who also served as undertaker, declined to give it a proper burial, pharmacist Fred Johnson told Jeb he’d take it. He preserved it in a big jar of formaldehyde and kept it in the Pharmacy as a curiosity. For many years, it brooded on a shelf in the back room, giving everyone the shivers, especially the children.

Halloween 1951
Early in October the old druggist passed away and his son Wilbur took over the odd building with the pointed roof like a witch’s cap. It still was called Johnson’s Pharmacy, but with no pharmacist it was just the local soda fountain, with candy, cigarettes, and other miscellany.
Still standing in the back room, however, was that big jar with its grisly artifact. The formaldehyde had slowed the decay and preserved the arm long past its time. But the years hadn’t been kind to it, for the flesh hung in white loops and strands, festooning the bones. Some “material” now lay at the bottom of the jug.
All agreed it was pretty disgusting, though it remained a source of fascination for some. Few now could remember whose arm it was or how he came to lose it. “Some guy named Charley got his arm blowed off,” was about all Wilbur could say.
The arm had always given him the willies, however. Now that he was in charge, he decided he’d seen it long enough. He had his youngest brother, Harkin, working for him, and he gave him the job of getting rid of it.
“What am I supposed to do with it, throw it in the Bay?” he exclaimed.
“Absolutely not. It come out of the Bay and they say it belonged to a brave man. Wouldn’t be right to dump it back in.”
Harkin screwed up his face. “What then?”
“Just bury it, you lunk-head! What do you think?”
Harkin went white. “I ain’t touching that thing. Nossir.”
“Come on, Harky, you don’t have to touch it! Put the whole jar in the hole and cover it up. Is that so hard?”
“I guess not,” muttered a very doubtful Harkin, picturing the scene in his mind’s eye. “Where should I plant it?”
Wilbur returned to counting cigarette packs. “Who cares? Out in the woods somewheres. And I want it out of here by tomorrow, y’hear?”
Not wanting anyone to see him carrying that gruesome jar, Harkin waited till after dark. Then, after people were at home listening to the radio or in bed, he slipped out of the house, grabbed a shovel, and went over to the Pharmacy. The quarter moon gave just enough light for him to make out shapes on the backroom shelf. He stood in front of that jar and took a deep breath. “Oh, my,” he whispered. “Wilbur is going to owe me for this, big-time.”
The jar was tall and far too heavy to carry in one hand. Harkin pinned the shovel under his arm and, reluctantly, embraced the jar. Fortunately, it was too dark to see what was floating inside. As he lifted, the liquid sloshed around and then he sensed a soft bump as something bumped against the glass. Harkin walked carefully, very much hoping to avoid more bumps.
Once outside, however, the moonlight seemed to seek out the arm, causing what skin was left to glow eerily on the other side of the glass, just inches from his face.
He tried not to look at it, he really did. But you try not looking at something like that, so close to your eyes – or to your mouth. In the movies you can close or cover your eyes, but Harkin knew he couldn’t do either of those things. He needed his eyes wide open. After all, it was dark and he was walking with a heavy glass jar, with a…well…you know.
Coming gingerly across the back yard, he stepped out of the shadow of the Pharmacy. Suddenly the light from the single street lamp fell full upon the object in the jar. It caught Harkin by surprise and he stopped, sloshing the contents of the jar. He gasped as another piece of flesh slipped off the fore-arm. He couldn’t avoid watching the loose bit drift down, back and forth, to the bottom of the jar. When he moved the jar away from his face, the shovel fell to the ground. He tried to catch it, missed, the jar slipped to one side, he lunged, trying to restore his hold. But the jar dropped onto the hard ground and smashed open, gushing its contents onto the sparse grass.
He couldn’t believe he’d done it. How could he be so clumsy? Wilbur was always saying he was clumsy. He would be furious. But wait!
Wilbur didn’t need to know, did he? He wanted the arm buried? Fine, Harkin would bury it – right there behind the Pharmacy – the broken glass, the…fluid…and what remained of that awful arm. Quickly he began to dig. The stench was overpowering, worse than anything he had known. Even shoveling fish guts was nothing compared to this. This reek was something more than rotten…it smelled old.
How much time went by, he didn’t know, but he dug feverishly into the hard Delmarva clay, slamming the shovel down with both hands. Finally, panting in exhaustion, he stopped. The hole was deep enough, wasn’t it? Oh, it had to be! Quickly, he scraped pieces of glass into the hole until he saw no more. Finally, the moment came. He couldn’t put it off, he couldn’t ask someone else to do it, or anything. No way out. The arm had to dropped into the hole. He knew he had to do it right, and on the first try, or his gumption would be gone.
He gently slid the blade of the shovel under the forearm – or what was left of it – and lifted. To his surprise, it all came up in one hideous piece. Carefully (oh so carefully), he turned around so he could move the shovel slowly (oh so slowly) over the hole. And then he tipped the shovel. The arm slithered into the hole with a horrible plopping sound.
Harkin wasted not a second. Feverishly, he threw dirt into the hole, covering the thing forever. In moments, he was tamping down the earth, smoothing it out, feathering the loose soil into the surrounding turf. He gathered some dry grass and a few big catalpa leaves, arranging them artfully around the area. Then, only then, did his heartbeat slow and return to normal.
The next morning, he came over to the Pharmacy by the back way, strolling past the grave site. It was barely noticeable. He found Wilbur working inside.
“Can I get a Tootsie Roll, on the house?” Harkin asked. Wilbur said, “OK, but just one. Say, did you take care of that old arm, like I asked you?”
“Yep,” replied Harkin, unwrapping the candy.
“So where’d you put it?”
“Never mind where. I got rid of it for you. And I think I deserve more than one lousy Tootsie-Roll.”
“OK, OK, take two.”
Harkin reached in and grabbed a handful—then suddenly stopped. He didn’t much like seeing his arm in the jar that way….

Halloween 2001
Ben Molton was a clever kid, too bright for his own good, people said. He was always up to mischief as a little boy, and now that he was a teenager, he was getting a reputation for being a real trouble-maker. He wasn’t a bully, exactly, but he was sneaky. Even his few friends couldn’t really trust him.
Some of the people in the neighborhood had lost patience with Ben, and most kept an eye on him when he was around. Old Man Phillips, in particular, knew that Ben was the one who had filched some tools out of his workshop. He couldn’t prove anything, but when Ben denied it, Phillips didn’t like the look in his eye. Another time, Phillips’ wife, Miss Minnie, caught him cutting across her back yard and she hollered at him, told him to stay out of her yard. Later she found two of her chickens missing.
Ben lived with his uncle and aunt down one of the side roads. He’d left home after his father had given him one licking too many. That side road met the main road beside a row of old buildings that had been there for nearly a century. Most were still in use; one was a bank, another had become an antique shop, the barber shop was empty. And then there was a vacant lot. That was where Johnson’s Pharmacy used to be, though it was long gone now.
Halloween was coming up and Ben decided the time was ripe to settle some scores. He collected some dog droppings in a paper bag and that night sneaked down to the Phillips place. He put the bag on the middle of the porch, set it on fire, and then banged hard on the front door, yelling “Trick or treat!” He ducked out of sight around the corner of the house.
It was Ms. Minnie who opened the door. “Henry!” she called out, when she saw the fire. She reached down for the bag to throw it off the porch but it fell apart as she picked it up. Just then, Ben shouted “Boo!!” as loud as he could. As Old Man Phillips came rushing out, Minnie lost her balance and fell down the front steps. He jumped forward in a vain attempt to catch her, crying “Min!” – but he heard the cry of pain when she went down hard on her side.
Ben, peeking around the side of the house, heard it, too. He knew she probably had broken something and that he had better skedaddle, fast. Phillips might have caught a glimpse of him. He ran hard, leaping back fences, cutting around sheds, behind parked cars, and skipping past gardens. As he neared the Main Road, he decided to cut behind the bank and across the vacant lot.
They found Ben the next morning at first light, walking slowly back to his own home, to his mother and father. He said he’d stayed out in the dark all night, but was vague about why. He said he wasn’t clear about what had happened, exactly. Certainly he was unable to explain how his hair had turned all white overnight, him being only nineteen.
Ben didn’t seem as surprised about it as everyone else, however. That wasn’t the only change in Ben. He became strangely quiet-spoken, even polite. He took up a collection in the neighborhood to help pay Ms. Minnie’s doctor bills for the broken hip she suffered on Halloween. People were surprised and pleased by Ben’s concern, and they contributed generously when he made his rounds.
The following month, Ben got a job and worked hard at it, never giving his boss any reason to regret hiring him. Yes, he definitely was a changed man. No one could explain it, but everyone agreed that the change sure was for the better, so they quit asking him about it. Nor did Ben himself ever say anything more about that Halloween night.
And he absolutely, positively, never let anyone get a close look at the horrible scars on his ankle, the wounds he got when he’d tried so desperately to break free. He couldn’t let anyone see. Because amidst those scars, even after they healed and faded, could be seen the unmistakable imprint of a bony hand, clamped impossibly tight.

Halloween 2011:
Author’s Note
Curiously, some parts of this bizarre tale are true.  The story of the mishap at Poplar Island is still told, and there is mention of the jar in the Pharmacy, though probably they are not linked as I have suggested here. The store, the barber shop, and the bank are all still there, right beside the vacant lot – where a pharmacy once stood.  But what happened in that lot is entirely fictitious.
I hope.

Gary Crawford and his wife, Susan, operate Crawford’s Nautical Books, a unique bookstore on Tilghman’s Island.