The Man with the Spook Eye
by Jim Wright

Ricky trudged through the field, looking for rocks. Ahead, his dad steered the old tractor as it clattered along, churning up a smudge of dust. The tractor pulled a wagon that bumped across the furrows of the plowed field carrying a load of fresh-picked stones. Three other figures flanked the wagon with Ricky, scanning the ground as they tramped. These were his sisters and brother, Frecka, Linny, and Tom, all pressed into service like Ricky to clear large stones off the field before planting corn.  As they marched, one then another would spot a stone, amble over, hoist it, and stagger back to the wagon to toss it onto the growing rock pile.

Ricky was eleven and already knew plenty about the relativity of time—how the seconds could slow and congeal during church or when his mother left him alone in the Pontiac Bonneville during visits to town because he was a nuisance and hazard to her grocery shopping at the A&P. But picking stone felt like it registered on a scale with no end in this lifetime—maybe glacier time or eternity. The tractor would crisscross the field, tracing an unending labyrinth through a trackless desert. The stones he picked seemed limitless and unremarkable as potatoes. 

But today, as on all days, the long raveling journey did eventually end, as the last rocks were plucked from the field. With a happy shout, the pickers all hopped on the wagon. The tractor drove to a corner of the field that bordered the woods and pulled to a stop in the shade of the trees. Ricky peered over the side of the wagon into a dark ravine half-filled with a large rock mound. 

The pickers worked with energy, pitching stones onto the rockpile. As the last stone arced into the darkness of the ravine, Dad started up the tractor again. It lurched forward in a cloud of blue exhaust, nosing up the path toward home. As the tractor gained speed, Ricky slipped off the wagon side and waved. “Going to the woods,” he shouted to the others. “Be home in a little while.” His sisters and brother sat with legs hanging off the bouncing wagon, waving back. Soon the tractor was far up the path, rattling like a can of pebbles. It passed behind a hedgerow and was gone. 

Ricky turned toward the impassive face of the woods fronting the field. For a moment, he studied the shadows, then took a deep breath and ducked into the trees. The air was hushed. Overhead, the leafy canopy cast a green sun-dappled shade, rustling lightly. 

Ricky imagined he was a fish, darting through a huge pond ceilinged with lily pads. He quickly found his stride and loped along deer paths toward a far part of the woods that was his secret kingdom. Soon Ricky could see the land sloping upward. As he climbed, the stately woods thinned, and Ricky crossed into his realm: a five-acre stand of younger trees that had taken over an abandoned farmstead. Here, the afternoon sun streamed through the broken canopy to light up the ground in a dazzling pattern. 

Ricky shouldered through a clutter of tangled undergrowth and stepped into a small clearing. Just ahead, he spied his secret castle—a low, crumbling stone foundation surrounded by an overgrown wall of scrubby bushes and berry vines. The foundation was a remnant of a haybarn long since rotted away. Along one side of its enveloping thicket, a shadowy entrance rose up from a granite threshold. 

Ricky ran to the opening and peered in. He saw what he thought at first was a pair of wolf eyes locked on him. Ricky blinked in confusion. He looked again. 

As his vision focused, he made out the figure of a man seated in front of a smokey fire and now staring calmly into the flames. Ricky moved back to the edge of the opening and peeked in.  The stranger was old, maybe as old as Ricky’s uncle. He had a shaggy head of salt-and-pepper hair. The man looked tall and wore a pair of worn jeans. He had on a sleeveless undershirt that came down tight across a hard dome belly. The man held one hand extended. Across his flexing fingers a silver dollar rolled back and forth as if alive. The man closed the dollar in his fist, shook it twice, and opened it. The dollar had vanished! Another fist-shake and the dollar reappeared, to crawl again like a salamander through his fingers.

The interior of the ruined barn was a half-step down, with a floor of weedy, hard-packed earth covered with leaf litter. Trees and bushes crowded the outer edges of the foundation like battlements of green, framing open sky overhead. The man continued to sit, working his enchanted coin. On the fire, a pot bubbled and gave off a tasty smell. A large canvas rucksack lay propped nearby. 

The man froze, the coin scissored between two fingers. He called out in a raspy voice: “I see you, boy. Why don’t you come introduce yourself?” 

Ricky held his breath and stood so still that he felt invisible. The man looked over. 

“I know you’re by the doorway, boy. I seen you. Come say hello.” 

Ricky hesitated, then exhaled and stepped into the opening. The man tilted his head back, studying Ricky up and down. One of his eyes was large, dark brown, and glittering, while the other was a filmy white marble. 

“Where’d you come from?”, the man asked finally. 

Ricky pointed vaguely over his shoulder: “Our farm is near here.” 

“Uh-huh. And what’s your name?” 

“Ricky.” 

The man’s eyes flicked left and right. “You alone?” he asked. 

Ricky pulled himself up. “Sure. I know these woods pretty good.” 

The man nodded. “I’ll bet you do,” he said. 

The man patted the ground next to him. “Ricky, you want to sit by the fire? There’s plenty of room.” The man said his name gently like he knew him. Ricky was silent. The man picked up a thick stick and poked the fire, tapping the pot lightly. 

“We’ll have lunch ready pretty soon.” 

“Nah, I’m not hungry,” said Ricky, but he stared hopefully at the pot. 

Then he looked at the man: “Who are you?”  

“Who am I?”, said the man, surprised. “Well, don’t you know?” Ricky shook his head. The man worked the coin again.

 “I’m the magic man,” he said. 

“There’s no such thing as magic,” said Ricky. 

“No such thing?”, the man exclaimed, holding up the coin. “Haven’t you been watching this silver dollar disappear from the world and come back again?” 

“That’s just hand tricks,” said Ricky, importantly. The man stared at him, flushing a little. 

“Well, how about the rabbit?”, the man said. 

“What rabbit?”, Ricky asked. 

“The one’s in this pot,” the man said. He gestured with his stick to the edge of the enclosure where a fresh pelt was pegged on a tree. “That’s his skin.” 

“Catching a rabbit isn’t magic,” Ricky said. 

 “Listen and you’ll change your mind,” said the man. “I am crippled as a foundered horse.” He pointed to his right hip. “I use a stick to get around. But this morning, I was hungry. Well, sir, didn’t I see that rabbit there peeking at me from the woods, just like you. Now, any farmer would’ve chased after ‘im with a shotgun. But not me. I just stared at him, used my snake-eye to dazzle him, used my voice to trance him. Then grabbed him up and snapped his neck. Krak!” The man twisted his hands as if wringing a wet towel and grinned.

Ricky tensed and took a small jump back. But the man just leaned toward the fire, the coin weaving again through his fingers. 

Ricky stepped back up, planting his foot on the threshold. He tapped his cheekbone: “Mister, what’s the matter with your eye?” 

The man shifted, fastening his marble eye on Ricky. “You talkin’ about this?”, he said, pointing. “There’s nothing wrong with it. That’s my spook eye.” 

“What d’you mean?” 

“I mean, son, with this special eye I can see all the ghosts and spirits that wander the world.” Ricky threw a look of exaggerated disbelief. 

“Think what you want,” the man said, “but it’s true. Demons and the unclean things that walk and fly and wail are visible to me. And I can whip ‘em!” 

“Where do you see ghosts?”, Ricky asked. 

“Go by any cemetery,” the man replied, “and I spot them lined up at the fence, mewing like cats. Hungry for our souls. Hell, I see two ghosts behind you right now!” The man pointed over Ricky’s head, his eyes zigging and zagging as if he were tracking the flight of swallows. Ricky shot a glance back over his shoulder. 

The man dropped his voice to a gentle growl: “Don’t you worry, though. You’re safe if you stick close. They’re afraid of me.” 

Suddenly, the coin flew from the man’s hand and landed in a pile of leaves on the far side of the fire. 

“Shoot,” the man said. “With my bum hip, it’ll take me half a day to find that dollar.” He paused. “Ricky, you can have it if you want. Finders, keepers.” 

For a moment, Ricky looked intently where he thought the coin had fallen. He shrugged: “I should be getting home.” 

“Sure,” said the man. “Your folks’re  probably worried about you. But before you go, think you’re smart enough to solve a riddle?” 

“Maybe,” said Ricky. 

“OK, here’s one,” said the man. “The more of this you have, the less you see. Now, what is it?” 

Ricky thought. “I don’t know…rain, maybe?” 

“No,” said the man. “It’s darkness. Rain was a smart guess, though.” 

Ricky started to turn away from the entrance, when the man called, “Hey, don’t leave without pitching me a riddle.  Come on now, fair’s fair.” 

Ricky scrunched his face in thought. Then he lit up: “OK, I remember one I heard…If you feed me, you make me live. If you give me a drink, you kill me. What am I?” 

The man closed his eyes and thought. He puffed out a long sigh. 

“Oh, that’s a tough one,” he said. He poked at the flames. “Fire’s getting low. Need to find more wood.” He chuckled and wagged a finger. “Don’t run off until I get back. I’ll crack your riddle for sure.” 

The man labored to his feet, big and unsteady, clutching a large branch as a staff. He hobbled out of the enclosure, wincing as he stepped up and over the threshold. Ricky drew back and watched the man shamble bearlike off to the right into a cluster of trees. 

Ricky listened as the sound of rustling grew fainter and faded into the distance. Then he hopped down into the leafy rectangle of the ruined barn, running over to where he thought he had seen the coin fall. He knelt and combed his hands hurriedly through the ground cover, flinging twigs and leaves into the air as he went. As he made one final scoop, Ricky felt the hard metallic disk slap against his fingers. He palmed it, pulled it close to his face, and studied the silver dollar. It shone in the half-light. There was the face of a lady on the front, almost worn away. The dollar nestled in Ricky’s hand like pirate treasure. He shot a look toward the entrance but could hear nothing. 

Ricky noticed a log at his feet that stretched in a diagonal across half of the enclosure floor. A strange pattern ran along the top of it. Ricky stooped for a closer look. A long string of little stick people had been carved into the log. The figures were all tumbled and intertwined and pressed up against one another. Ricky was mystified about what they were doing—yet they made him feel slightly sick. He turned to leave but sucked in his breath as the man came trotting briskly up to block the entrance. 

When the man saw Ricky standing wide-eyed inside the enclosure, his good eye gleamed and his face creased into a huge smile. 

“Well, boy, looks like you’re not going anywheres.” The man tapped his stick lightly against his thigh. “Oh, and I couldn’t guess your riddle,” he said in a honeyed voice. “What is it?” 

Ricky looked left, then right, as if dazed. The man laughed. 

Then Rick’s expression changed. He looked hard at the stranger. 

“Fire,” he said. “It’s fire.” 

He ran three steps, picked up the large canvas rucksack, and flung it into the glowing coals, knocking the pot over with a loud hiss. 

“Son of a bitch!”, the man shrieked. He leaped over the threshold and fumbled to retrieve the smoking rucksack. At the same time, Ricky ducked low and ran in a curve around the side of the enclosure to reach the entrance just as the man flung the rucksack into a corner and whirled to pursue him. 

“God damn you!”, the man shouted. “I’ll catch you and skin you!” Ricky shot into the sunlight and plunged into the scrub. The noise the man made in pursuit was prodigious as he cursed and thrashed and stumbled through the undergrowth. But Ricky sped on, quick as a silvery fish. Soon he was running in silence.

When Ricky reached home, the other kids were in the yard playing Kick the Can. Ignoring their invitations to join the game, he climbed into the tall sugar maple in the corner of the yard and spent the afternoon watching the hayfield that ran down to the woods. He waited for the stranger to emerge, raging, from the line of trees at the bottom of the field. No one came.

Rick said nothing about the magic man. He did not want to get into trouble. But he carried the silver dollar in his pocket for luck. The faded face of the lady on the coin was serene and strong, his protector against ghosts. And strangers.

photo Wikimedia Commons