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"A Stubborn Man" by carlneeld

A stubborn man creates problems after his funeral

Category: Short Story

Tags: Fantasy, folk tale, humor

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A Stubborn Man

                     

Bo Cochran blew the head off his beer and took a deep draught. He coughed, grimaced, and wiped foam from his nose.

 

“Bitter, is it?” Dwayne Gallagher asked his only customer. The bartender and sole proprietor of the Sweet Home Mercantile, Hardware, and Billiards Emporium leaned over the bar to wipe up the beer that Bo spilled.

 

“Yep. Old Spoetzl gets kinda heavy-handed with the hops sometimes. But I like it like that.” Admiring his image in the mirror behind the bar, Bo ran a comb through his black hair. He wiped oil from the comb with a bar napkin before replacing it in his pocket.

 

“You still mooning over Mary Beth since she married Parker Mullins?” Dwayne wrung out the rag and leaned his elbows on the bar. “I always thought that she was sweet on you.”

 

“Well, I thought so too. But then Parker took after her and he was too stubborn to take no for an answer.” The bell over the door tinkled and Red Rattan strode across the barroom to take the stool next to Bo.

 

“We was just talking about Mary Beth marrying Parker instead of a more likeable sort like myself. You courted her too, didn’t you Red?”

 

“Court her?” Hell, I even wrote poetry for her.” He pointed to Joe’s beer and Dwayne drew him one of the same. “But parker kept after her until she relented.”

 

“Sounds like Parker Mullins outstubborned both of you. He always was a stubborn man.”

 

*****

 

Mary Beth Mullins woke with a start, heart pounding. Sweat soaked through the thin cotton gown that clung to her small, pointed breasts. She stared at her husband, Parker, lying beside her. His head hung over the top of the oak bed, his mop of sandy hair dusting the unpapered wall. His feet hung off the foot. Mary Beth called him a long drink of water. Except for the birthmark on his right buttock, his body appeared pale as a fish’s belly in the moonlight that flooded the room. She thought that the birthmark looked like the state of Texas without El Paso. Parker called her crazy: said it was a scalene triangle. But how can he know? He can’t see it on his butt.

 

Their gymnastic lovemaking had wadded the blue and white Double Wedding Ring quilt at the foot of their four-poster. Mama Mullins had given them that quilt and Mary Beth felt the old woman’s disapproving glare from where she watched their nightly activities in her oval, cherry wood frame. Mary Beth had wanted to hang the picture in the parlor; Parker insisted it belonged in the bedroom. And Parker Mullins was a stubborn man.

 

Mary Beth trembled. She knew she’d had a bad dream but couldn’t remember it.

 

The following night, she woke shivering. Something had scared her so badly that she wanted to scream but she couldn’t. Her inability to scream frightened her even more than whatever had made her want to scream. She sat up in bed, staring at the shadows the moonlight cast upon the rough pine floor and the rag rug she’d braided last year. Sweat dripped from the end of her freckled nose. The wind whispered in the treetops, a slight breeze ruffled the chintz curtains and tickled her short auburn hair. Mary Beth enjoyed the fragrance of cedar that it brought.

 

She couldn’t remember what she’d dreamed that frightened her so. She wondered if she’d had the same dream as before.

 

The third night frightened her even more. She woke with a gasp; her pulse roared in her ears. She quivered from end to end, neck tendons taut as banjo strings, straining to remember what she’d dreamed. She moved to the bentwood rocker in the corner, the place where she did her best thinking.

 

“Bad dream three nights runnin’ means somebody’s goin’ to die,” Grandma Weaver had told her when she was just a tike. “Somebody you love. Everybody knows that.” Was that just an old wives’ tale or did the old gal know what she was talkin’ about?

 

Mary Beth rocked faster.

 

Supposin’ she was right. Who do I love that could be in danger? Pa’s been kinda absent minded since Ma passed last winter and he’s puttin’ a new roof on the barn. Maybe he’s gonna fall off and break his neck. Or, Bobby Faye could die in childbirth; that ain’t uncommon. Then I wouldn’t have the niece or nephew I looked forward to. She’s due to foal in December.

 

In the distance, a dog barked. Once. Wonder what Grandma would say that means.

 

Could be Bubba. He works at the sawmill and someone’s always getting killed there, falling into a saw or getting buried in a pile of logs. One thing's for ***** sure: it won’t be Parker. He never does nothin’ more dangerous than eatin’ with a fork. And he does plenty of that. Mary Beth didn’t want anything to happen to her husband. However, she felt confident that if he should die, several suitors would race to her door.

 

A week later, Mary Beth noticed her husband scratching a red spot on the tip of his nose when he came in from slopping the hogs. “Kinda old to be getting’ pimples, ain’t ya Parker?”

 

“Ain’t a pimple. Must be a skeeter bite.”

 

“It’s October, dummy. Skeeters already gone south for the winter.”

 

“Leave me be, Mary Beth. I’m too tired to argue.”

 

When they woke the following morning, red dots covered Parker’s face. Some of the dots had joined into blotches.

 

“*****, Parker. You look like you been bobbin’ for poison ivy. You wanta put some lard on that?”

 

“You think that’d help? I don’t feel so pretty good neither.”

 

Parker spent the day in the rocker by the fireplace. He read Jude the Obscure until his eyes began to swell shut. “Best not let Pastor Threadgill catch you readin’ that. He’ll call you out in church for sure come Sunday.”

 

The next day, a rash covered Parker’s florid face. Swelling had increased dramatically and patches of skin had turned black. The whites of his eyes had an orange cast. “Your face looks like two persimmons stuck in a rotten tomato,” Mary Beth sympathized. “I’ll ride to town and fetch Doc Wambach.”

 

“Don’t need no doctor,” Parker protested through chattering teeth. “I know better than any damned doctor. He’d just put that icy stethoscope against my ribs. He’d stick a thermometer up my butt and tell me to quit smoking. And I ain’t goin’ to do it. Hand me my jug and get all the quilts. I’m going to bed and sweat it out.” He was a stubborn man.

 

Being somewhat stubborn herself, Mary Beth rode for the doctor in spite of his tirade. “Stay outta the larder while I’m gone,” she yelled over her shoulder as she left.

 

Doc Wambach said he wasn’t sure but suspected that Parker had been in combat with a spider and had lost the battle. “One of them brown recluse fellas, I expect.” He left a bitter tonic that he told Parker to take three times a day with meals. “It’ll make you feel better if it don’t kill you.”

 

“If he takes it with meals, Doc, that’d be six a day.”

 

For several days, Parker coughed, hacked, and spit up blood-laced phlegm. He complained of the heat one minute and shivered the next. He weakened by the hour. With the help of Doc Wambach’s elixir and Mary Beth’s tender ministrations, he lingered until the day his urine turned black. He was a stubborn man.

 

His wife watched as Parker Mullins, soaked with sweat, drunk, and sleeping soundly, passed into the next life on All Saint’s Eve, 1900.

 

Mary Beth rocked and cried. Although her husband had been a stubborn man, he’d loved her and treated her well. She would miss him. However, his passing didn’t surprise her. Although she couldn’t remember her dreams, she knew that they had warned her.

 

Mary Beth covered all the mirrors in the house as soon as Parker died. She’d learned from her grandmother that if you didn’t cover mirrors when a person dies in the house, the image of the deceased would remain in them forever. Mary Beth didn’t believe that. However, the old woman had proven right about the three bad dreams so she wouldn’t risk uncovered mirrors now. She loved her husband but didn't want his image to hang around in the mirrors and discourage future suitors. At twenty-five, she didn’t plan to remain a widow long.

 

Doc Wambach signed the death certificate. Mr. Holtzclaw, the undertaker, filled the corpse with embalming fluid, dressed it in a new black suit, and put it in a satin lined pine coffin. “He looks more natural than he did naturally,” mourners commented at the open casket funeral. Reverend Threadgill spoke over the remains at the burying, emphasizing Parker’s generosity, making only passing reference to his stubbornness.

 

After she buried her husband, Mary Beth and the mourners returned to her cabin on Little Sandy Creek and sat around the parlor talking. They opened windows and doors; the heat from fifteen bodies quickly heated the low ceilinged room. Some sat on the ladder-back, wicker-bottomed kitchen chairs, others on the fieldstone hearth. Mary Beth sat in Parker’s favorite rocker by the fireplace. A few milled around the room sampling the provisions they’d brought. The fragrance of spare ribs, beans, peach cobbler, and applejack filled the small room. Plates and glasses rattled, feet shuffled, and mourners chattered. All agreed that they’d miss old Parker.

 

“He was willful as an ox,” said Petunia Graner, her voice doing justice to her two hundred pounds. “But he was my brother and I loved him dearly.”

 

“You’re right, Pet,” Bo Cochran agreed. “He was hard-nosed. But I never had a neighbor more willing to loan a mule. We’ll ***** sure miss him.”

 

“He’d give you the shirt off his back if he thought you was cold,” offered Red Rattan. “Never backed down from an argument, though. I got the scars to prove it.”

 

“It’s time we talked only about his good points and ignored his stubborn side,” Dwayne Gallagher suggested.

 

Others repeated more tales of Parker’s willingness to help others. Quietly, Mary Beth wept and rocked.

 

“Hush! What’s that?” She heard the creaking before the others. Jumping to her feet, she peered out the front door. Seeing nothing, she opened the screen door and stepped onto the porch. There, leaning back against the wall in his favorite chair, sat Parker Mullins, grinning broadly. Dirt covered his good suit, grass laced his hair, and red scratches marked his hands. Mud caked his broken fingernails.

 

Bile burned Mary Beth’s throat. She trembled. Goosebumps rose on her arms.

 

“What you doing out here, Parker?” she wheezed, turning pale.

 

“Well, y’all was saying nice things about me and I wanted to hear them.”

 

“We just buried you. We hafta say nice things about you, true or not,” she blubbered between sobs. “Well, I ain’t surprised. I shoulda known that you was too stubborn to die quietly like other folks. As long as you’re home, come on in.”

 

“Howdy, friends,” Parker laughed as he stomped into the room, bumping his head on the lantern that hung from the half-timber ceiling joist. “***** that smarts.” He brought an icy chill and the smell of death with him. The mourners could see his cold breath in the warm air of the house.

 

The sight of the man they’d just buried disrupted the grieving. All except Mary Beth vacated the house immediately. Some used doors; others used windows. None lingered.

  

“They’re a rowdy bunch, ain’t they?”

 

"Now Parker, you know you're dead!” the widow blurted. “Why are you here scarin’ folks ‘stead of in your grave where you belong?” Her voice quaked.

 

"Dead," shouted Parker. "Who you calling dead? I feel more alive than before my face swelled up." He lowered the temperature each time he opened his mouth.

 

"You may not feel dead, but you sure ‘nuff look dead.” As Mary Beth’s fear subsided, her confusion increased. “Doc Wambach says you're dead, the undertaker embalmed you, and Reverend Threadgill prayed over you. You think you know better than three people who make a living dealing with dead folks? You get back in the grave where you belong!"

 

"No! I ain't going back to any grave until I feel dead," Parker shouted, his corpse chilling the room. Mary Beth built a fire and Parker moved closer to warm his cold hands and feet.

 

The next day, and for many days thereafter, Parker sat by the fire and rocked. As weeks passed, nights turned cold, oak leaves turned to gold. The brilliant red of the blueberry bush at the end of the porch made Mary Beth wonder if it glowed in the dark. She looked forward to spring; maybe he’d move to the porch in warmer weather.

 

“Parker, why don’t you go get back in your box? I ain’t getting’ any younger and there won’t be no suitors come callin’ with a corpse in the house.”

 

“You can’t have any suitors, Mary Beth. We’re still married and you know that Reverend Threadgill won’t hold with your receivin’ courters while I’m up and about.”

 

Mary Beth scowled. Parker rocked and grinned.

 

After he’d sat around for a few weeks, his skin turned a dusty gray. Every time he moved, his joints creaked like hinges in need of oil; sometimes they popped like gunfire. Worse, the smell of rotting flesh spread throughout the house and yard. Downwind neighbors complained on those days the strong breeze carried Parker’s rotting aroma to their kitchens and spoiled their dinners.

 

"Getting kind of brittle, ain't you, Parker?" Mary Beth asked as days passed and his creaking and popping increased.

 

"Maybe, but what's worse are these ***** worms. They make me itch."

 

“Well, if you’d lie in your grave like you’re supposed to, them worms might crawl around in the dirt and leave you alone.” He continued to sit and rock. He was a stubborn man.

 

No one visited the widow Mullins since Parker returned. She craved real, live, human companionship; conversation with a cold, stinking, dead man didn't fulfill her social needs. She looked forward to shopping for her next husband and wondered how long Parker’s corpse would last.

 

Mary Beth couldn’t collect the life insurance. “You say Parker’s dead,” the insurance adjuster told her. “The undertaker agrees. Doc Wambach and Reverend Threadgill say so too. Howsomever, yawl’s opinions aren’t as important as Parker’s. I can’t pay death benefits ‘til he admits he’s dead and stays in his grave.”

 

“I’d wait for the money, Mrs. Mullins, if Parker was using the coffin,” the undertaker sympathized. “But since he’s home again, I’ll have to take it back. I’ve got paying customers who need burying, you know.”

 

Her dead husband sitting around, rocking, creaking, popping, and stinking up the house, exasperated Mary Beth. She knew she had to do something but didn't know what. She lost patience.

 

"Don't just sit there, Parker!" She yelled at him the day his left ear fell off. "Get off your bony butt and help with the chores. You can rest when you lie in your grave.”

 

As his flesh rotted and fell away, bones showed in several places. Long strips of flesh hung by an end and swayed in the breeze as he rocked until they finally broke loose and fell to the floor.

 

"You could at least sweep up your own rotten meat and take it out to feed the hogs," Mary Beth protested. “Or take it down to the graveyard and throw it in your hole where it belongs.”

 

Parker looked weary as he lifted his bones from the rocker, swept the dead meat scattered around the floor into a pile, and put it into a bucket. He picked up the bucket by the handle and started for the pigpen, scattering squawking chickens as he shuffled through the flock. Halfway to the sty, the weight of the bucket became too much for his weakened frame; his left arm broke loose at the shoulder and fell to the ground. He grabbed the handle with his remaining hand and slowly dragged it to the pigs.

 

"Don't be such a baby," Mary Beth scolded when he complained about the loss of his arm. "You've still got your right arm. Get the axe and chop some kindling."

 

Parker muttered under his breath but did as she asked. He placed a small cedar limb on the chopping block and as he raised the axe high over his head, his right leg dropped off. As he fell, the hatchet cut the head off an unfortunate hen that had chosen an inopportune time to pass by.

 

"***** you, Parker," Mary Beth yelled. "You just killed my best layer. I wish you’d give up and admit you’re dead before you kill the other animals too.” She stamped her foot. “Well, grab her and drag your sorry bag of bones up here on the porch.” Using right arm and left leg, he slithered across the yard on his belly, leaving a trail of ribs and other assorted bones in his wake.

 

"You can sit on the steps while you pluck her," his wife told him. "But if you want dumplings, you'll have to go to town for flour."

 

"Mary Beth Mullins," he sighed as he crawled onto the porch, "I'm beginning to think you're right. Maybe I am dead. Anyway, if all you're going to do is nag, I think I'd rather be.” Parker had discovered the limits of his stubbornness. “Gather up my bones and take me back to the cemetery and I'll stay in my box." Mary Beth hadn’t told him the undertaker had repossessed the coffin.

 

The widow Mullins collected all her husband’s bones in a gunnysack. She put on her deerskin jacket with the fleece lining, her blue knit wool cap with the red tassel, and her rubber boots. As she ambled toward the graveyard on the path beside the creek, wind blown leaves piled around the shrubbery under the pewter colored sky. Other leaves clung to their branches as if life depended upon it. The smell of burning wood from neighboring fireplaces hung heavy in the air. “There’ll be frost in the morning,” Mary Beth told the bone sack.

 

Every few yards, a bone fell out of a hole in the corner of the sack. As each dropped to the ground, she kicked it into the creek. When she reached the cemetery, the sack hung limp and Parker Mullins’ bones decorated a two-mile stretch of Little Sandy Creek bottom. Mary Beth threw the sack into the empty grave, happy for the first time since her first frightening dream. Confident that Parker wouldn’t be able to put himself back together and could never again decide he wasn’t dead, she laughed aloud.

 

The following day, Mary Beth visited Petunia Graner. She told her sister-in-law that Parker wouldn’t return and about how she’d scattered his bones in the creek on the way to the cemetery. Petunia told her husband, Carl. Carl told a waitress at the Coffee Cup Café in Hallettsville who told her pastor. The pastor relayed the information to his flock and soon, everyone in the county knew the story. The insurance man paid Mary Beth $5,000 death benefits.

 

Once Parker could no longer stink up the house and frighten the timid, friends, relatives, and neighbors began to visit Mary Beth again. Some brought covered dishes. Others brought jars of home-made. In time, her home became a local gathering place. Neighboring men helped the widow maintain her small farm and her social life became much as before her husband had taken sick.

 

Mary Beth Mullins received no suitors.

 

*****

 

In the Sweet Home Mercantile, Hardware, and Billiards Emporium, Bo Cochran blew the head off his beer and took a deep draught. He coughed, grimaced, and wiped foam from his nose.

 

“Bitter, is it?” Dwayne Gallagher asked. “I thought you like it that way.” He wiped up the beer that Bo spilled.

 

Bo admired his image in the mirror behind the bar and combed his hair.

 

The bell over the door tinkled and Red Rattan took the stool next to Bo.

 

“We was just talking about how no one is fishing the Little sandy no more,” Bo told him.

 

“Course they won’t. They’s scared of what they might catch.”

 

Dwayne drew a schooner of Shiner lager and slid it down the bar to Red. “I thought you two would be out at the Mullins place courting Mary Beth. Now that Parker’s gone, I mean. And all them other young bucks, too.”

 

“Hell no,” Bo said. “Ain’t a man in the county that wants to court a woman who nagged her husband into his grave.”

 

“Yeah. Even if he was already dead,” Red agreed.




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Category Name: My Thoughts

I did not enjoy this story. I am not even sure what problem the protagonist faced. This story was okay. The story would have been better if the author had introduced the problem differently and made it feel more pressing. I really enjoyed this story. The author did a good job pulling me into the story by introducing an immediate and important problem for the protagonist.

This section is for overall comments and general ideas. The score should reflect how much you enjoyed the story.

Category Name: Character Development

The characters were not dynamic, credible, interesting, memorable or unique. I don’t care about or understand the characters because they were poorly developed. The characters were somewhat dynamic, credible, interesting, memorable and unique. I partially understood the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the characters. I somewhat connected with and care about the characters. The characters were very dynamic, credible, interesting, memorable and unique. I thoroughly understood their thoughts, feelings and actions. I felt connected with and cared about the characters.

This is act of bringing a character to life on the page. It is a combination of the author’s description of the character and the character’s dialog, action, and thoughts. Though all characters should be believable, the protagonist and antagonist are usually the most developed characters.

Category Name: Plot

I finished reading the story so the plot must have unfolded, but I am not sure what the plot was. The characters did not achieve or grow by solving the problems they faced in this story. There were definite wrinkles in the way the plot unfolded leading to the final conflict. The plot was loosely tied to the achievement and growth of the characters. The way the protagonist overcame some of the problems flowed unnaturally with the story. I could see the plot unfolding through a series of escalating problems that lead to the final conflict. The plot helped me understand the achievements and growth of the characters. The way the protagonist overcame the problems flowed naturally with the st

In fiction a plot is all the events in a story, particularly rendered towards the achievement of some particular artistic or emotional effect. In other words it's what mostly happened in the story. The plot draws the reader into the character's lives and helps the reader understand the choices that the characters make.

Category Name: Dialog

The dialog seemed like cold words on paper. I had a hard time following it. I didn’t learn very much about the characters through the dialog. Through the dialog I could sometimes see the characters learn and grow while occasionally discovering new facets of their personalities. The dialog was generally consistent with the character. Through the dialog I could see the characters learn and grow while simultaneously discovering new facets of their personalities. The dialog was true to the character and it helped me understand the characters emotions.

Category Name: Setting

The setting created a haze in my mind that detracted from the story. I am lost in time and space because I don’t know when or where this story takes place. The setting was described adequately, but not well enough to bring it to life in my mind. The setting did not add to or detract from the story. I am pretty sure I know when and where the story takes place. The author engaged all of my senses while vividly describing the setting. The setting helped me better understand the setting and plot. I know when and where this story takes place.

The setting is where a story takes place. The choice of setting and its description helps the story come alive in the mind of the reader. Appropriate setting contributes to the plot and mood of the story.

Category Name: Mechanics

The story contained so many mechanical errors that it was hard to follow the plot or understand certain sentences or paragraphs. Occasional mechanical errors were distracting, but these errors did not inhibit me from being able to understand the plot or connect with characters in the story. I rarely if ever noticed mechanical errors. As far as I could tell, the writing was clear and correct.

Mechanics includes sentence structure, verb agreement, grammar, spelling, voice, punctuation and aspects of basic style.

Note: The purpose of ReviewFuse reviews is NOT to provide comprehensive copy editing, but rather to "ignite creativity." Reviewers should not feel obliged to point out every grammar or spelling error (though they certainly can if they wish), but should focus on this area only to the degree that errors make a story hard to follow or understand.

Inline comments are the most helpful and important aspects of your review.

Click on a paragraph or highlight text from the paragraph to provide inline comments. While detailed grammar correction is welcome, the purpose of inline commenting is to spark the author's creativity. This is best done by expressing feelings, questions, and concerns you have about the story while you are reading.

1. A Stubborn Man

2.                      

3. Bo Cochran blew the head off his beer and took a deep draught. He coughed, grimaced, and wiped foam from his nose.

4.  

5. “Bitter, is it?” Dwayne Gallagher asked his only customer. The bartender and sole proprietor of the Sweet Home Mercantile, Hardware, and Billiards Emporium leaned over the bar to wipe up the beer that Bo spilled.

6.  

7. “Yep. Old Spoetzl gets kinda heavy-handed with the hops sometimes. But I like it like that.” Admiring his image in the mirror behind the bar, Bo ran a comb through his black hair. He wiped oil from the comb with a bar napkin before replacing it in his pocket.

8.  

9. “You still mooning over Mary Beth since she married Parker Mullins?” Dwayne wrung out the rag and leaned his elbows on the bar. “I always thought that she was sweet on you.”

10.  

11. “Well, I thought so too. But then Parker took after her and he was too stubborn to take no for an answer.” The bell over the door tinkled and Red Rattan strode across the barroom to take the stool next to Bo.

12.  

13. “We was just talking about Mary Beth marrying Parker instead of a more likeable sort like myself. You courted her too, didn’t you Red?”

14.  

15. “Court her?” Hell, I even wrote poetry for her.” He pointed to Joe’s beer and Dwayne drew him one of the same. “But parker kept after her until she relented.”

16.  

17. “Sounds like Parker Mullins outstubborned both of you. He always was a stubborn man.”

18.  

19. *****

20.  

21. Mary Beth Mullins woke with a start, heart pounding. Sweat soaked through the thin cotton gown that clung to her small, pointed breasts. She stared at her husband, Parker, lying beside her. His head hung over the top of the oak bed, his mop of sandy hair dusting the unpapered wall. His feet hung off the foot. Mary Beth called him a long drink of water. Except for the birthmark on his right buttock, his body appeared pale as a fish’s belly in the moonlight that flooded the room. She thought that the birthmark looked like the state of Texas without El Paso. Parker called her crazy: said it was a scalene triangle. But how can he know? He can’t see it on his butt.

22.  

23. Their gymnastic lovemaking had wadded the blue and white Double Wedding Ring quilt at the foot of their four-poster. Mama Mullins had given them that quilt and Mary Beth felt the old woman’s disapproving glare from where she watched their nightly activities in her oval, cherry wood frame. Mary Beth had wanted to hang the picture in the parlor; Parker insisted it belonged in the bedroom. And Parker Mullins was a stubborn man.

24.  

25. Mary Beth trembled. She knew she’d had a bad dream but couldn’t remember it.

26.  

27. The following night, she woke shivering. Something had scared her so badly that she wanted to scream but she couldn’t. Her inability to scream frightened her even more than whatever had made her want to scream. She sat up in bed, staring at the shadows the moonlight cast upon the rough pine floor and the rag rug she’d braided last year. Sweat dripped from the end of her freckled nose. The wind whispered in the treetops, a slight breeze ruffled the chintz curtains and tickled her short auburn hair. Mary Beth enjoyed the fragrance of cedar that it brought.

28.  

29. She couldn’t remember what she’d dreamed that frightened her so. She wondered if she’d had the same dream as before.

30.  

31. The third night frightened her even more. She woke with a gasp; her pulse roared in her ears. She quivered from end to end, neck tendons taut as banjo strings, straining to remember what she’d dreamed. She moved to the bentwood rocker in the corner, the place where she did her best thinking.

32.  

33. “Bad dream three nights runnin’ means somebody’s goin’ to die,” Grandma Weaver had told her when she was just a tike. “Somebody you love. Everybody knows that.” Was that just an old wives’ tale or did the old gal know what she was talkin’ about?

34.  

35. Mary Beth rocked faster.

36.  

37. Supposin’ she was right. Who do I love that could be in danger? Pa’s been kinda absent minded since Ma passed last winter and he’s puttin’ a new roof on the barn. Maybe he’s gonna fall off and break his neck. Or, Bobby Faye could die in childbirth; that ain’t uncommon. Then I wouldn’t have the niece or nephew I looked forward to. She’s due to foal in December.

38.  

39. In the distance, a dog barked. Once. Wonder what Grandma would say that means.

40.  

41. Could be Bubba. He works at the sawmill and someone’s always getting killed there, falling into a saw or getting buried in a pile of logs. One thing's for ***** sure: it won’t be Parker. He never does nothin’ more dangerous than eatin’ with a fork. And he does plenty of that. Mary Beth didn’t want anything to happen to her husband. However, she felt confident that if he should die, several suitors would race to her door.

42.  

43. A week later, Mary Beth noticed her husband scratching a red spot on the tip of his nose when he came in from slopping the hogs. “Kinda old to be getting’ pimples, ain’t ya Parker?”

44.  

45. “Ain’t a pimple. Must be a skeeter bite.”

46.  

47. “It’s October, dummy. Skeeters already gone south for the winter.”

48.  

49. “Leave me be, Mary Beth. I’m too tired to argue.”

50.  

51. When they woke the following morning, red dots covered Parker’s face. Some of the dots had joined into blotches.

52.  

53. “*****, Parker. You look like you been bobbin’ for poison ivy. You wanta put some lard on that?”

54.  

55. “You think that’d help? I don’t feel so pretty good neither.”

56.  

57. Parker spent the day in the rocker by the fireplace. He read Jude the Obscure until his eyes began to swell shut. “Best not let Pastor Threadgill catch you readin’ that. He’ll call you out in church for sure come Sunday.”

58.  

59. The next day, a rash covered Parker’s florid face. Swelling had increased dramatically and patches of skin had turned black. The whites of his eyes had an orange cast. “Your face looks like two persimmons stuck in a rotten tomato,” Mary Beth sympathized. “I’ll ride to town and fetch Doc Wambach.”

60.  

61. “Don’t need no doctor,” Parker protested through chattering teeth. “I know better than any damned doctor. He’d just put that icy stethoscope against my ribs. He’d stick a thermometer up my butt and tell me to quit smoking. And I ain’t goin’ to do it. Hand me my jug and get all the quilts. I’m going to bed and sweat it out.” He was a stubborn man.

62.  

63. Being somewhat stubborn herself, Mary Beth rode for the doctor in spite of his tirade. “Stay outta the larder while I’m gone,” she yelled over her shoulder as she left.

64.  

65. Doc Wambach said he wasn’t sure but suspected that Parker had been in combat with a spider and had lost the battle. “One of them brown recluse fellas, I expect.” He left a bitter tonic that he told Parker to take three times a day with meals. “It’ll make you feel better if it don’t kill you.”

66.  

67. “If he takes it with meals, Doc, that’d be six a day.”

68.  

69. For several days, Parker coughed, hacked, and spit up blood-laced phlegm. He complained of the heat one minute and shivered the next. He weakened by the hour. With the help of Doc Wambach’s elixir and Mary Beth’s tender ministrations, he lingered until the day his urine turned black. He was a stubborn man.

70.  

71. His wife watched as Parker Mullins, soaked with sweat, drunk, and sleeping soundly, passed into the next life on All Saint’s Eve, 1900.

72.  

73. Mary Beth rocked and cried. Although her husband had been a stubborn man, he’d loved her and treated her well. She would miss him. However, his passing didn’t surprise her. Although she couldn’t remember her dreams, she knew that they had warned her.

74.  

75. Mary Beth covered all the mirrors in the house as soon as Parker died. She’d learned from her grandmother that if you didn’t cover mirrors when a person dies in the house, the image of the deceased would remain in them forever. Mary Beth didn’t believe that. However, the old woman had proven right about the three bad dreams so she wouldn’t risk uncovered mirrors now. She loved her husband but didn't want his image to hang around in the mirrors and discourage future suitors. At twenty-five, she didn’t plan to remain a widow long.

76.  

77. Doc Wambach signed the death certificate. Mr. Holtzclaw, the undertaker, filled the corpse with embalming fluid, dressed it in a new black suit, and put it in a satin lined pine coffin. “He looks more natural than he did naturally,” mourners commented at the open casket funeral. Reverend Threadgill spoke over the remains at the burying, emphasizing Parker’s generosity, making only passing reference to his stubbornness.

78.  

79. After she buried her husband, Mary Beth and the mourners returned to her cabin on Little Sandy Creek and sat around the parlor talking. They opened windows and doors; the heat from fifteen bodies quickly heated the low ceilinged room. Some sat on the ladder-back, wicker-bottomed kitchen chairs, others on the fieldstone hearth. Mary Beth sat in Parker’s favorite rocker by the fireplace. A few milled around the room sampling the provisions they’d brought. The fragrance of spare ribs, beans, peach cobbler, and applejack filled the small room. Plates and glasses rattled, feet shuffled, and mourners chattered. All agreed that they’d miss old Parker.

80.  

81. “He was willful as an ox,” said Petunia Graner, her voice doing justice to her two hundred pounds. “But he was my brother and I loved him dearly.”

82.  

83. “You’re right, Pet,” Bo Cochran agreed. “He was hard-nosed. But I never had a neighbor more willing to loan a mule. We’ll ***** sure miss him.”

84.  

85. “He’d give you the shirt off his back if he thought you was cold,” offered Red Rattan. “Never backed down from an argument, though. I got the scars to prove it.”

86.  

87. “It’s time we talked only about his good points and ignored his stubborn side,” Dwayne Gallagher suggested.

88.  

89. Others repeated more tales of Parker’s willingness to help others. Quietly, Mary Beth wept and rocked.

90.  

91. “Hush! What’s that?” She heard the creaking before the others. Jumping to her feet, she peered out the front door. Seeing nothing, she opened the screen door and stepped onto the porch. There, leaning back against the wall in his favorite chair, sat Parker Mullins, grinning broadly. Dirt covered his good suit, grass laced his hair, and red scratches marked his hands. Mud caked his broken fingernails.

92.  

93. Bile burned Mary Beth’s throat. She trembled. Goosebumps rose on her arms.

94.  

95. “What you doing out here, Parker?” she wheezed, turning pale.

96.  

97. “Well, y’all was saying nice things about me and I wanted to hear them.”

98.  

99. “We just buried you. We hafta say nice things about you, true or not,” she blubbered between sobs. “Well, I ain’t surprised. I shoulda known that you was too stubborn to die quietly like other folks. As long as you’re home, come on in.”

100.  

101. “Howdy, friends,” Parker laughed as he stomped into the room, bumping his head on the lantern that hung from the half-timber ceiling joist. “***** that smarts.” He brought an icy chill and the smell of death with him. The mourners could see his cold breath in the warm air of the house.

102.  

103. The sight of the man they’d just buried disrupted the grieving. All except Mary Beth vacated the house immediately. Some used doors; others used windows. None lingered.

104.   

105. “They’re a rowdy bunch, ain’t they?”

106.  

107. "Now Parker, you know you're dead!” the widow blurted. “Why are you here scarin’ folks ‘stead of in your grave where you belong?” Her voice quaked.

108.  

109. "Dead," shouted Parker. "Who you calling dead? I feel more alive than before my face swelled up." He lowered the temperature each time he opened his mouth.

110.  

111. "You may not feel dead, but you sure ‘nuff look dead.” As Mary Beth’s fear subsided, her confusion increased. “Doc Wambach says you're dead, the undertaker embalmed you, and Reverend Threadgill prayed over you. You think you know better than three people who make a living dealing with dead folks? You get back in the grave where you belong!"

112.  

113. "No! I ain't going back to any grave until I feel dead," Parker shouted, his corpse chilling the room. Mary Beth built a fire and Parker moved closer to warm his cold hands and feet.

114.  

115. The next day, and for many days thereafter, Parker sat by the fire and rocked. As weeks passed, nights turned cold, oak leaves turned to gold. The brilliant red of the blueberry bush at the end of the porch made Mary Beth wonder if it glowed in the dark. She looked forward to spring; maybe he’d move to the porch in warmer weather.

116.  

117. “Parker, why don’t you go get back in your box? I ain’t getting’ any younger and there won’t be no suitors come callin’ with a corpse in the house.”

118.  

119. “You can’t have any suitors, Mary Beth. We’re still married and you know that Reverend Threadgill won’t hold with your receivin’ courters while I’m up and about.”

120.  

121. Mary Beth scowled. Parker rocked and grinned.

122.  

123. After he’d sat around for a few weeks, his skin turned a dusty gray. Every time he moved, his joints creaked like hinges in need of oil; sometimes they popped like gunfire. Worse, the smell of rotting flesh spread throughout the house and yard. Downwind neighbors complained on those days the strong breeze carried Parker’s rotting aroma to their kitchens and spoiled their dinners.

124.  

125. "Getting kind of brittle, ain't you, Parker?" Mary Beth asked as days passed and his creaking and popping increased.

126.  

127. "Maybe, but what's worse are these ***** worms. They make me itch."

128.  

129. “Well, if you’d lie in your grave like you’re supposed to, them worms might crawl around in the dirt and leave you alone.” He continued to sit and rock. He was a stubborn man.

130.  

131. No one visited the widow Mullins since Parker returned. She craved real, live, human companionship; conversation with a cold, stinking, dead man didn't fulfill her social needs. She looked forward to shopping for her next husband and wondered how long Parker’s corpse would last.

132.  

133. Mary Beth couldn’t collect the life insurance. “You say Parker’s dead,” the insurance adjuster told her. “The undertaker agrees. Doc Wambach and Reverend Threadgill say so too. Howsomever, yawl’s opinions aren’t as important as Parker’s. I can’t pay death benefits ‘til he admits he’s dead and stays in his grave.”

134.  

135. “I’d wait for the money, Mrs. Mullins, if Parker was using the coffin,” the undertaker sympathized. “But since he’s home again, I’ll have to take it back. I’ve got paying customers who need burying, you know.”

136.  

137. Her dead husband sitting around, rocking, creaking, popping, and stinking up the house, exasperated Mary Beth. She knew she had to do something but didn't know what. She lost patience.

138.  

139. "Don't just sit there, Parker!" She yelled at him the day his left ear fell off. "Get off your bony butt and help with the chores. You can rest when you lie in your grave.”

140.  

141. As his flesh rotted and fell away, bones showed in several places. Long strips of flesh hung by an end and swayed in the breeze as he rocked until they finally broke loose and fell to the floor.

142.  

143. "You could at least sweep up your own rotten meat and take it out to feed the hogs," Mary Beth protested. “Or take it down to the graveyard and throw it in your hole where it belongs.”

144.  

145. Parker looked weary as he lifted his bones from the rocker, swept the dead meat scattered around the floor into a pile, and put it into a bucket. He picked up the bucket by the handle and started for the pigpen, scattering squawking chickens as he shuffled through the flock. Halfway to the sty, the weight of the bucket became too much for his weakened frame; his left arm broke loose at the shoulder and fell to the ground. He grabbed the handle with his remaining hand and slowly dragged it to the pigs.

146.  

147. "Don't be such a baby," Mary Beth scolded when he complained about the loss of his arm. "You've still got your right arm. Get the axe and chop some kindling."

148.  

149. Parker muttered under his breath but did as she asked. He placed a small cedar limb on the chopping block and as he raised the axe high over his head, his right leg dropped off. As he fell, the hatchet cut the head off an unfortunate hen that had chosen an inopportune time to pass by.

150.  

151. "***** you, Parker," Mary Beth yelled. "You just killed my best layer. I wish you’d give up and admit you’re dead before you kill the other animals too.” She stamped her foot. “Well, grab her and drag your sorry bag of bones up here on the porch.” Using right arm and left leg, he slithered across the yard on his belly, leaving a trail of ribs and other assorted bones in his wake.

152.  

153. "You can sit on the steps while you pluck her," his wife told him. "But if you want dumplings, you'll have to go to town for flour."

154.  

155. "Mary Beth Mullins," he sighed as he crawled onto the porch, "I'm beginning to think you're right. Maybe I am dead. Anyway, if all you're going to do is nag, I think I'd rather be.” Parker had discovered the limits of his stubbornness. “Gather up my bones and take me back to the cemetery and I'll stay in my box." Mary Beth hadn’t told him the undertaker had repossessed the coffin.

156.  

157. The widow Mullins collected all her husband’s bones in a gunnysack. She put on her deerskin jacket with the fleece lining, her blue knit wool cap with the red tassel, and her rubber boots. As she ambled toward the graveyard on the path beside the creek, wind blown leaves piled around the shrubbery under the pewter colored sky. Other leaves clung to their branches as if life depended upon it. The smell of burning wood from neighboring fireplaces hung heavy in the air. “There’ll be frost in the morning,” Mary Beth told the bone sack.

158.  

159. Every few yards, a bone fell out of a hole in the corner of the sack. As each dropped to the ground, she kicked it into the creek. When she reached the cemetery, the sack hung limp and Parker Mullins’ bones decorated a two-mile stretch of Little Sandy Creek bottom. Mary Beth threw the sack into the empty grave, happy for the first time since her first frightening dream. Confident that Parker wouldn’t be able to put himself back together and could never again decide he wasn’t dead, she laughed aloud.

160.  

161. The following day, Mary Beth visited Petunia Graner. She told her sister-in-law that Parker wouldn’t return and about how she’d scattered his bones in the creek on the way to the cemetery. Petunia told her husband, Carl. Carl told a waitress at the Coffee Cup Café in Hallettsville who told her pastor. The pastor relayed the information to his flock and soon, everyone in the county knew the story. The insurance man paid Mary Beth $5,000 death benefits.

162.  

163. Once Parker could no longer stink up the house and frighten the timid, friends, relatives, and neighbors began to visit Mary Beth again. Some brought covered dishes. Others brought jars of home-made. In time, her home became a local gathering place. Neighboring men helped the widow maintain her small farm and her social life became much as before her husband had taken sick.

164.  

165. Mary Beth Mullins received no suitors.

166.  

167. *****

168.  

169. In the Sweet Home Mercantile, Hardware, and Billiards Emporium, Bo Cochran blew the head off his beer and took a deep draught. He coughed, grimaced, and wiped foam from his nose.

170.  

171. “Bitter, is it?” Dwayne Gallagher asked. “I thought you like it that way.” He wiped up the beer that Bo spilled.

172.  

173. Bo admired his image in the mirror behind the bar and combed his hair.

174.  

175. The bell over the door tinkled and Red Rattan took the stool next to Bo.

176.  

177. “We was just talking about how no one is fishing the Little sandy no more,” Bo told him.

178.  

179. “Course they won’t. They’s scared of what they might catch.”

180.  

181. Dwayne drew a schooner of Shiner lager and slid it down the bar to Red. “I thought you two would be out at the Mullins place courting Mary Beth. Now that Parker’s gone, I mean. And all them other young bucks, too.”

182.  

183. “Hell no,” Bo said. “Ain’t a man in the county that wants to court a woman who nagged her husband into his grave.”

184.  

185. “Yeah. Even if he was already dead,” Red agreed.

186.

187.

188.

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