Billy Creekmore Read online

  Billy

  Creekmore

  by Tracey Porter

  For my son, Sam

  Contents

  Part One

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  Part Two

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Part Three

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  EXTRAS

  Meet Tracey Porter

  Billy Creekmore: Behind the Scenes

  Fact, Fiction, or Fancy?

  Tracey Porter: The Reader

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  I didn’t want to tell Clyde about my powers with spirits. I was off to a new start and I didn’t want folks thinking of me as the boy with strange powers. Being the boy with the dangerous past was good enough for me. Ever since I knew Aunt Agnes didn’t blame me for my mother’s death, I was happy forgetting what folks used to say about me. But Clyde was awful blue. The anniversary of his father’s death was coming up. He didn’t have no desire to go sledding or take any interest in my stories about Walter Barnes.

  I took Clyde aside and whispered, “I’ll tell you what … I ain’t never told you this, ‘cause it’s cost me some trouble in the past, but I was born talkin’ to spirits. Sometimes they come to me, and sometimes they don’t. Maybe I could communicate with your pa’s ghost.”

  Part One

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE STRANGE CIRCUMSTANCES

  of My Birth

  and

  How I Came to Be Raised at

  THE GUARDIAN ANGELS HOME FOR BOYS

  Folks say I’m bound to be unlucky in life, for I was born at midnight on a Friday, the thirteenth of December, and Peggy says its certain

  I can commune with spirits. But I ain’t never seen any ghosts, not even my own mother, and wouldn’t that be the ghost I’d see if I could?

  Peggy put down her knife to give it some thought. “Maybe she figures you won’t recognize her. After all, you were only hours old when she died.”

  “Or maybe she’s a fearful ghost who won’t come to me since I’m what killed her. Now, don’t shake your head, Peggy! I know what folks say! I heard Mrs. Beadle tell you.”

  “I don’t believe it, Billy, and I don’t want you to, either.”

  But I did.

  The midwife who delivered me is kin to Mrs. Beadle, so the story was common knowledge. My birth alone nearly killed my mother, but it was the shock of me that did her in. It was 1895, the coldest winter in West Virginia’s recorded history. I entered the world as the clock struck twelve, silent and limp, my eyes closed. Then, as the midwife slapped some life into me, I started speaking. And it warn’t gurgles or babbles either, but real words. I raised a finger and pointed into space saying, “There! There!” my eyes shut, like I was stuck between worlds. It was unsettling and eerie, such a frightening thing to see that it stopped my mother’s heart. My pa, wild with loss, fearful and distressed, ran out in the night and never returned.

  “What about your pa?” asked Peggy. “Do you ever see the ghost of your pa?”

  “My pa’s not dead. At least he warn’t at Christmas. He sent me a picture postcard.”

  “Well, where is he then?”

  “I don’t know. He travels about and sends me a postcard every now and then.”

  “How sad, Billy!” Her face puckered up, and her eyes got wet. “Oh, but it’s not right to abandon your child, no matter how brokenhearted you might be!” She turned back to her chopping. Pieces of carrot flew about, and she moved quick and graceful in the kitchen despite her great size. I had risen before dawn to drink some tea and have a little talk. We were buddies, Peggy and me.

  “Tell me, Billy. What was on the postcard then?”

  “Picture of a paddleboat on the Ohio River. But that ain’t no clue to where he’s at. I get picture postcards from him once a year or more, all showin’ sight-seein’ type things—a suspension bridge, train station, a statue in a park….”

  “Does he leave an address for you to write him back?” asked Peggy.

  “Nope. But he always writes the same thing—‘with love from your pa.’”

  “Oh!” said Peggy in a voice sharp with pain, just like she got pricked with a pin. She pulled me into her arms to rock me back and forth like a baby. I quick set down my tea so I didn’t scald us. “Imagine leaving your only son in an orphanage while you rove about seeing the glories and curiosities of the world!”

  One of the buttons down the back of her blouse popped off, and it was hard to breathe, being squeezed so tight in her doughy arms. Otherwise, I’m sure I’d have cried with her at my pitiful state. I was ten years old, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to be held and loved every now and then. I was alone in the world, my mother dead, my father traveling about in places unknown, too filled with mourning and dread to raise me as his son.

  In time Peggy let up on me, but before she did, she held me at arm’s length and looked me plain in the face.

  “Do you see spirits, Billy? Any at all? Do they talk to you?”

  I shook my head. Truth be told, I was afraid of having the gift of communicating with spirits. It’s what killed my mother and made my father leave. “Sometimes I sense ‘em, though,” I admitted to Peggy. “I’ll feel my skin tingle right here,” I said, touching my temples, “and it’s almost like they’re hoverin’ off to the side, just where I can’t see, but I ain’t never seen one. Sometimes I pretend to see ‘em when I don’t. But please don’t tell no one I said so.”

  “I won’t,” said Peggy in a worried voice, “but one day they’ll come to you, and until then you better stop pretending. Telling lies about seeing spirits is an awful sin.”

  “I know,” I said. “But I don’t think God minds if I tell a story to give folks somethin’ to think about, or else to save myself from Mr. Beadle. Remember how bad he hurt Herbert Mullens?”

  “Heavens, yes, poor lamb,” said Peggy. Then she crossed herself and moved her lips. Herbert was just a sparrow of a boy, slight and twitchy, only six years old when Mr. Beadle tore into him for dropping a basket of eggs. He was so scared, so injured by the beating, that he stopped talking and had to be taken to the home for children who are deaf and blind and otherwise can’t find a way in the world. Peggy said a quick prayer for him, as was her habit whenever she heard of Mr. Beadle thrashing one of the boys. No doubt she’d be praying for him later on. After she cooked our breakfast, she walked all the way to Albright to go to mass, for she was Catholic, and couldn’t go to our chapel.

  “Whatever your reasons, Billy, don’t get used to lying. You’ll be lost if you do. Promise God in your prayers that you won’t lie no more.”

  “I will, Peggy,” I answered. I looked at her long as I could, but shifted my eyes to the ground as soon as she went back to her cooking. I couldn’t bear to tell her that praying didn’t make no sense to me, at least not the prayers the preacher
and the Beadles made us say.

  By now light was edging over the mountains. A pot of oatmeal was bubbling away, and four plates of biscuits, one for each table of boys, waited on the counter. It was Sabbath day, and, for one day of the week, Mr. Beadle wanted us well fed. Chapel was after breakfast, and he didn’t want none of us fainting from hunger or disturbing the services with a growling stomach. I grabbed a biscuit and was all ready to pop it in my mouth when Peggy grabbed my wrist.

  “Hide yourself, Billy,” she whispered, for sure enough Mr. Beadle was swinging open the door and stomping into the dining hall. I slipped under a table while Peggy made herself busy rattling the pots and bustling about.

  “Good morning, Peggy.” Mr. Beadle’s voice filled the room like a preacher’s. From my hiding place I could see he was wearing his work boots, a dreadful sight, for it meant Mr. Beadle had some project in mind. He was plum full of himself, as usual. He went on and on in his proud voice, giving Peggy directions about using lard instead of butter and not spoiling us with sugar in our oatmeal. He counted the cans on the pantry shelf, eyed the salamis hanging from the ceiling, and emptied the purse Peggy kept behind the chopping block. He counted the coins, telling Peggy she was spending too much on our meals, then went on to describe the fancy plans he had for his and Mrs. Beadle’s Sunday dinner.

  “Our dear friend Mr. Colder will be dining with us this evening, and I’d like you to serve chicken, if you please. Chicken with dumplings.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Beadle. Just as you like it. I surely will, sir.” Peggy had her own cleverness with words. She warn’t fast with a story like I was, but she knew just what to say and what tone to use with Mr. Beadle. I saw her skirts sway, and I knew she was nodding respectful at his every word.

  “A nice, plump chicken, Peggy. And a pie! A peach pie! Only the best for Mr. Colder, our dear friend, who is taking on another of our boys to apprentice in the glass factory.”

  “Is he now, Mr. Beadle? And isn’t that a wonderful thing, learning such a valuable trade as that.”

  Mr. Colder was the foreman at the glass factory over in Morgantown, and he often came to Sunday dinner. Every now and then, he took one of the older boys away to work in the factory.

  “Yes, indeed, Peggy. Wonderful it is for the fortunate lad, and for us, too, I might add. For as you well know, boys eat so much as they get older! The expense, Peggy! The expense of running an orphanage for these destitute boys of ignoble parentage! Why, Mrs. Beadle and I feed and clothe them, only to live like paupers ourselves! And my dear wife is ruining her frail health trying to educate them! Surely our reward lies in Heaven, for our charity brings us no earthly riches.”

  I was of two minds at that moment. One was reacting in a downright negative way to his speech about himself, and the other was busy pondering who was lucky enough to be leaving the orphanage. How in Heaven’s name could Mr. Beadle think of himself as a charitable man! Why, we boys were being charitable to him! We slaved away, working his farm, and getting nothing for it but beatings, rags, and barely enough food to keep us alive.

  All of us looked forward to leaving the orphanage and going to work in the glass factory. Why, a boy could make sixty-five cents a day, and it was a glorious thing to get away from Mr. Beadle and see something new in the world. Would it be Walter Barnes or Willis Dawson? Both of them was twelve, but Walter was tall for his age and Willis didn’t seem to have no sense. Once I overheard Mr. Colder tell the Beadles that only small boys could tend the furnace. How old was Meek Jones? I wondered. Warn’t he old enough? He was smaller than the others, that’s for sure. If I had money, I’d bet on Walter Barnes, I thought. He’s big for his age, but nimble enough. I myself would be happy as pie to go off to work in Mr. Colder’s factory. Waiting two more years was plain torture.

  On and on Mr. Beadle went about all the hardships he and his wife suffered while providing for us boys. Peggy listened and murmured, “God loves you for it, sir,” and “Rest assured your glory lies in Heaven,” while stirring the pot. In general, I’m more curious than angry, so I was able to sit still and wonder instead of rushing out to tell Mr. Beadle how wrong he was about himself.

  Soon the boys came stumbling in, bleary eyed and hungry. Peggy eyed me to get going. It was easy to scoot out and join the group unseen. Altogether, there was nineteen of us boys, and when Mr. Beadle was in the dining hall, we followed the rules for mealtime with a deadly seriousness. We took our places at the table, prayed piously, then began to eat.

  “Lord help us,” whispered little Rufus Twilly to the table of boys. “Mr. Beadle’s in his work boots.” Rufus slept in the cot next to me and warn’t more than eight years old. He was freckled all over, even on his eyelids.

  “Sure is,” I replied. “I heard him tell Peggy Mr. Colder’s comin’ to supper tonight. Bet he’s got his mind set on fixin’ the fence that goes round his house. You know how he likes things to look just so when Mr. Colder comes to visit.”

  “Just as long as he’s far away from me,” answered Rufus.

  “He’ll fix that fence, but he won’t fix our roof,” said Walter Barnes. “Rain soaks us in our beds at night but he don’t care none.” Walter was slumping over his bowl of oatmeal with his knees knocking the underside of the table. I was about to mention I heard Mr. Colder would be taking one of the older boys away with him, but I thought better of it. Walter seemed to be turning meaner and meaner as time wore on. No telling how he might handle this type of news.

  It was the grandest meal of the week, with two biscuits for everyone, but none of us could enjoy it. Mr. Beadle walked between the tables, carrying his hickory switch and watching us like we was convicts. It warn’t no way to eat.

  “Hurry, boys!” His voice boomed through the dining hall. Spoons clinked against bowls, and the plate of biscuits emptied lickety-split. “The preacher is waiting for you, and there are chores after that. There’s no rest for those disposed to sin, not even on the Sabbath!”

  “Ever notice how we’re more wicked on the days he needs somethin’ done?” asked Walter Barnes.

  “Hush!” whispered Rufus. I shot Walter a glance, too. Just being around Walter made us nervous. Mr. Beadle was likely to turn around and give anyone near him a few lashes for encouraging him. Maybe Mr. Beadle would send Walter off to the glassworks, seeing how he was near big enough to stand up to him.

  A few boys stayed behind to sweep the crumbs and help Peggy clean the dishes. But soon enough, all of us was out in the pale light, walking the path along the Cheat River to chapel. It was an angry stretch of water, too dangerous for wading and no good for fishing. On a windless night we could hear it from our dormitory, whispering with menace, threatening any hope we had of running away. I picked up a rock and threw it deep into the trees, longing to hear a rich thunk of it landing in a patch of still water. I didn’t hear anything but the rush of the river, as if she was laughing at me. I threw two more rocks just to mock her back. Oh yes I will, I told her. I’ll leave this place someday.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I Frighten

  THE SNAKE-HANDLING

  PREACHER

  and

  MR. BEADLE,

  THEN I TELL RUFUS A SECRET

  By the time the sun filled the chapel, the preacher was deep in his sermon, and everything about us was a sin. Copperheads and rattlers coiled round both wrists, and he was slogging back and forth, telling us we was destined for hell. He was a rickety man with a curved back and bent knees. His cheeks were sunk from all the teeth missing in the back of his mouth. Talking about our sins filled him with energy. He went on and on, huffing and puffing like he was putting out a fire.

  “And those that’s filled with envy, and those that’s filled with wrath, and those that’s born to debtors and thieves and the wanton—all of you sitting here is halfway to the Devil….”

  “For land’s sake, can’t we do nothin’ right?” whispered Rufus. “I can’t help it if my daddy’s in jail.” Like me, Rufus’s mother was dead, but h
e knew where his daddy was—locked in the jailhouse for stealing a ham.

  “Nope,” I whispered back, “seems like we was sinnin’ the moment we was born poor.”

  The preacher started calling boys up to the altar so they could see how the snakes warn’t daring to strike ‘cause he was filled with righteousness. First he called up Meek Jones, the humblest, scar’dest boy at the orphanage.

  “Meek’s ‘bout as sinful as a daisy,” whispered Rufus.

  “I’d like to see him call Walter Barnes,” I whispered back, rolling my eyes at the thought. “He’d kick those snakes right outta his hands.”

  Well, I should’ve known to keep to myself in church. The preacher’s eyes were roaming the aisles, and he managed to glance my way just as my eyes was rolling in my head. He thought I was talking to a spirit and giving him the evil eye. He staggered back like I’d hit him with a pole.

  “Lord in Heaven!” he called out, trembling in front of the altar. “There’s one among us conversing with a demon! Right here in God’s house!”

  Well, the snakes started rattling and hissing because of his own nervousness, but the preacher didn’t realize that. “Don’t do it, Billy Creekmore!” he called out. “Don’t tell these serpents to strike me!”

  Next thing you know, Mr. Beadle stomped over to me. His switch was out, and he was all set to save the preacher by beating me outta my bad intention. Fortunately, my mind started ticking, and my mouth filled with words. Just in time, I stumbled out to the aisle and fell to my knees, lying my head off, and calling out for everyone to hear,

  “Oh, please, dear Lord, take away this evil spirit! It’s tellin’ me awful things! It’s set to harm the preacher here in your church! Oh, please, take it away!” I waved my arms about and dropped my head like I couldn’t bear seeing what was before me.

  Well, if I told you my act managed to stop Mr. Beadle in his tracks while getting every set of eyes and ears glued on me at the same time, I would not be lying. Everyone thought they were witnessing someone fighting off a spirit and talking to God. It was silent ‘cept for me, and I was halfway between believing myself and laughing out loud with the power I felt. This time, storytelling saved me from the switch, and I was right relieved.