One-thumb Willoughby
Waiting for our trip makes me feel like a young’un waiting for Christmas. Mama and Aunt Freddie promised to make me a new dress, but Mama’s getting too far along to go clean to Skitter Falls. So Aunt Freddie and I go.
My nose loves Mr. Pender’s store. As soon as I hear the tinkle of the little bell over the door, smells greet me. The smoked aroma of bacon mingles with the scents of vinegar, lamp oil, fresh wood shavings, herbs, and spirits of turpentine.
Even the bolts of cloth have smells. Some have been there so long they smell like the store. Others have a fresh newness that makes me imagine far-away places where the cloth was made. I sniff them all, hankering after one that smells new. I choose a cotton, green as deep as forest shade and sprinkled with dainty yellow rosebuds.
While Mr. Pender wraps the fabric in paper to keep out the dust, words about the trip Grandpa planned burble out of me. “Can you imagine?” I squeal. “Gettysburg. Where the battle happened.”
Aunt Freddie nudges me quiet and shows me cards of buttons. All different colors and shapes. Shiny ones. Ones that resemble…
I look up as a bad smell treads through the store like a filthy beast, trampling the good smells and leaving its stink behind.
Hunkered over a counter of shotgun shells, stands One-Thumb Willoughby. His unkempt, stringy hair and beard haven’t seen shears in months, and the rest of him hasn’t bathed in quite a spell.
The man’s real name is Thaddeus, and he’s older than Grandpa. The reason for his nickname leaves smudges on that counter and makes my skin prickle. His grimy, thumbless right hand has more stories about it than he has remaining fingers. Some say he was born that way, others say he lost it in a knife fight, and some say he lopped off his own thumb to settle a bet.
Aunt Freddie holds up a card of bone buttons shaped like roses. “These’ll match the rose print of the dress,” she says.
I nod, brushing my fingers across my nose to try to rid it of One-Thumb Willoughby’s stench.
When Mr. Pender hands me my package, he winks and passes me a few butterscotch drops. He has given me candy for as long as I’ve had teeth, and butterscotch is my favorite. It’s one part of being treated like a young’un I don’t mind one speck.
Aunt Freddie pays for the fabric and buttons with money from Daddy. While she takes care of Grandpa’s money order to Sears, Roebuck, and Company for the new tent, I slip outside to eat my butterscotch in clean air.
I stand in the shade of a persimmon tree a stone’s pitch from the store, where a body can watch the falls spill over the edge of the mountain. I breathe in the scent of water, fixing to enjoy the taste of butterscotch, when the filthy-beast smell sneaks up behind me.
I turn to see One-Thumb Willoughby shuffle my way. His eye wrinkles form a permanent squint, and he squints right at me.
I back away as far as the water’s edge allows. But One-Thumb Willoughby comes closer, close enough for me to see that a toothbrush is another thing he hasn’t made use of in a spell.
“Dasn’t let ‘im go,” he croaks in a voice befitting a frog with a cold. “No need to conjure up devils from the past.”
“Ex…excuse me,” I stammer.
“The War was a dark time. Weren’t easy fer folks ta lay the past to rest. Don’t go treadin’ where ya might git more’n ya kin handle.”
“Are you talking about Grandpa?” I ask.
“Ya dasn’t let him go back ta that war place. If’n ya poke up ashes from the past, ya might start flames ya cain’t never put out.” He wags his black fingernail at me. “Mind my words. Don’t let him go.”
He ambles away until all that’s left of him is the stink. I am speechless as words swirl around inside my head. Devils from the past. More’n ya kin handle. Flames ya cain’t never put out.
Aunt Freddie comes from the store, and we start up the hill. I don’t reckon I’d let the old man’s words hang in my head, but if anybody knows devils, it’s One-Thumb Willoughby.
