While I was writing "My Thoughts on What Happened to Timmy Carmichael", I came upon something that I initially dismissed. In fact, it was but a memory of my own that stirred that mention. It was a long time ago...
I am a lucky man, and by that, I mean there are those in my life whom have been there through the worst as well as the best reaching back to those most awkward days of youth. In particular, the kid who told me on the the first day of freshman science class that "that's not your seat, asshole" when indeed it was. Best Man at my wedding and first choice if such weirdness were to pass my way again. 40 years now and still, even when distance demands time. He's also the polar opposite of me in that if we both walked through the same crowded room, I would reach the other side without having spoken with or even been seen by anyone. Meanwhile, he'd have made friends with everyone and will have taken over the hosting duties regardless where the party was held. He is my brother as much as if he were blood.
We would occasionally go hunting together. This was his gig, his game. I myself was ambivalent to a degree whether or not that which we sought ever came into view. If it did, great... and that was the best turkey I ever ate! But if it didn't pan out like usual, so what? A few days away from the world in the lush desert lands or high on a windswept mountain solved at least a year's worth of stress. That was the value I held most, that and getting really stoned around a campfire on a freezing night with a bottle of something amber filling our cups.
As far as any success though? Again, wild turkeys are really, really good and he being handy with food, the gang feasted that following weekend on fowl prepared two different ways. Of other things? Well, did you know that you can see the most beautiful Wapiti and Pronghorn when you're looking for Deer? And speaking of which, coming upon two bucks just standing there and staring at you with each hosting massive racks of antlers while you're looking for Wapiti (elk)? And don't even get me started on the slippery nature of the Javalina. Also, let's just say that I enjoyed quite a few naps on hillsides courtesy of always carrying a stash. Awkward when you wake up an hour later a few feet down the hill from where you started...
Well, one of these trips was to the Chiricahua Mountains in the southeastern corner of Arizona. Peccaries were the prize, or at least that sought. I'm not even sure we saw a deer wander in the distance that trip. What we did find though was a very old and decrepit shack of a barn. I cannot recall the date exact on the grave not far away, but on the old newspaper I fished out from between two old beams, it was the same printed there but with a divergence of at least a decade. I know not what happened to that old paper... it was frail and I wanted to try to piece it together but at nearly 90 years old, I was just surprised it existed at all. I suspect it just got lost in a move one day, either that or it will be found 80 years from now in the ruins of a place I once lived. Either way, it was that newspaper I found stuffed between two beams in this old, collapsing building that inspired one little moment in that story remembering Timmy Carmichael.
Completely unrelated and having nothing at all to do with anything I just rambled there, in "The Night Hans Kroeger Came Back", I tossed in a line mentioning a tragedy unresolved, one inspired by the events of that story and taking place, the best could be guessed, about a month hence. The crime mentioned in passing hinted of a family ruined and its patriarch gone. That was pretty much it. The whole mention consumed less words than this very sentence here.
There are some characters that come to life for me as I work. This is not of intent. Millicent Flores Kearns, one of my most beloved, was not the focus in her introductions. Neither was Leopold Tarkenfeld. He had appeared only in two stories at this point, one in a role not even deserving the mention of his name. He was actually in a third as well, but I know now that he was completely off as well as in-camera and it took me a couple years and some serious investigation to prove that. At this point, his presence is felt direct or less so in eight stories as well as the project I'm ignoring so as to write this. Leopold has proven a gift that promises steep returns.
I now have names. I know what was in those folded pages found by those boys. I know whose house those ruins were and what happened there. In lieu of the fact that no other documentation survives from that night of shortened breath, we must rely on what is available. "The Journal of Caleb Walsh" explains everything quite clearly in words claimed his own. It is these words we are privy to, thanks to the fine investigative work the colleagues of one individual, a professor at an exclusive university, as they gathered what they could to explain his disappearance.
This document, this journal, was published by HellBound Books in 2020 in the anthology "Ghosts, Spirits and Specters Vol. II". In a bit of delightful coincidence, "The Journal of Caleb Walsh", written early September of 2017, was my 16th Tale. It was also the 16th Tale of the Bajazid accepted for publication. I am very proud of this story in the way it connects extremely disparate elements from wildly different Tales and times. As well, the production quality of the books released by HellBound Books is something to treasure. Please, this is an anthology rich in talent and it was an honor being included, pick up a copy. You will not be disappointed. You will also learn about an accountant I'd like you to meet.
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