It must've been after midnight when I woke up to pee. (Waking up to pee is a nightly event now that I'm well into my 70s. My urologist, Dr. Nichols, says the problem is my prostate gland. He gets to stick his finger up my ass because of it. At seventeen, my prostate was pink and in the trim and standing before [that's what prostate means: "standing before"] my bladder like a Swiss guard. Now my prostate is more like Jabba the Hut.) I unzipped my sleeping bag and climbed from the picnic table and walked to the river. The sound of water on water harmonized with the rippling of the river and the trilling of the spring peepers. I looked up and down the length of the river: There were no fires, no music, no drunken laughter. Just the trill and trickle of the night. All the campers were snug in their bags. They'd be up at first light to fish for trout. Roaring River has a beautiful, blue spring that flows from beneath a bluff and spills out to form a stream that winds through the campground. It's not really a river, and the stream rarely roars, but apparently, somebody a long time ago called it Roaring River and the name stuck. The spring of blue water is so deep that no one has ever been able to find the bottom, and the water is so cold that trout thrive in it. They even have a trout hatchery to stock the creek.
Anyhow, I finished, shook, and turned to look toward a bridge over the creek. A mercury light hung over one end of the bridge and bathed the road and guardrails in a melancholy light while beneath the bridge, a deep shadow hid the river and pilings. On the other side of the road were more tents and a bathhouse, but all was quiet there, too. The night air was thick with creek smells, and an occasional lightning bug blinked a dull yellow between me and the road embankment. My feet were wet with dew, and I had just reached the pavilion when I saw a shadowy form standing in the road beneath the mercury light. It looked to be a woman in a long, tattered dress with shawls hanging from her shoulders. Her face was distorted by the shadows and weak light, so I still couldn't make out what she looked like or even how old she was. The woman stood absolutely still, and then she began walking down the embankment in my direction.
What in the world? I thought.
She kept coming, and I tingled with fear. The light was behind her now, and I still couldn't see her face, but her hair hung limp and twisting to her shoulders, and the tatters of her dress swayed as she walked. I couldn't run, and I couldn't get back in my sleeping bag. So, I held my breath and waited while the blood pulsed in my ears.
Soon she stood before me, a heap of rags and shadows. I could smell her better than I could see her: She had a dank, cave-like smell, like a grave newly dug. Then she asked, "Er ya lost?" Her voice quavered, and she spoke in the tenor of the hills.
"No, ma'am. Not exactly. I just had to pee."
"Well, has ya lost anythin'?"
"My innocence, I guess. I left my home this evening, and I'm headed down to Arkansas. I have a memory."
"What town?"
"Don't know."
"I do."
"Ma'am?"
"Yestiddy may be leading you to hills made holy by the South Wind, but tomorry will lead you on to Onyx. Onyx, where the rivers flow from the mouths of caves and the water's sweet to drink! There you must heed an old man with ornery whiskers and stinkin' breath and a fallin' down cabin. Yea, all things lost er gonna be restored and lost and restored again, until the Day of Resurrection, when all things lost er raised to the glory of God Almighty."
"Where is Onyx?"
"In the Bible, that's where! Yea, in the Apocalypse of Saint John where the End Times are manifested, and the prophecies of the Returning Christ er fulfilled, and the Alpha and the Omega burn with holy fire."
"Okay—" I really wanted to know about the town of Onyx, where, apparently, I was to meet a man with ornery whiskers. But it's hard to hold rational discourse with an apparition, especially one who is eschatologically impassioned.
"Okay? That's it? Don't ya want to know what is to come: say, for example, if there be a gal down in Arkansas a-waitin' fer ya? That's the kind of thing most young men ask me. They come from Cassville and Washburn and Seligman, some from as fur away as Monett, and they bring me trifles. Sometimes they want to know what they're goin' to do by way of occupation. Or whether the draft is a-gonna take 'em. Or if they been drafted, will they be slain in the jungle? But you, all you can say is, 'Okay'? Give me somethin' to work with, boy!"
"Uh, my name is Otis. And you are . . .?"
"My name don't matter! I kin see what's hid and find what's lost and recover what shouldn't of ever been fashioned in the beginning."
"Okay—"
"Well, I reckon that is all ye can say! Good Lord! You ain't worth the trouble of climbin' outta my grave." And with that she disappeared into the night. The mercury light was still shining over the road, and the river was rippling behind me, but the old lady was gone. Then I heard, "Wait!" and she stood before me in the wet grass. She said, "The All-Noing showed me what's hid inside yer heart. Yer troubled with a query, an old, old query born again in the minds of many in these Last Days because of wars and rumors of wars and the power to burn the world and the stink of dead men who rule the nations!"
I said, "Ma'am; I'm so sorry, but I have the hardest time following you."
She took a step toward me; her dress dragged in the dew and left a trail of absence in the grass. "You walk this here earth and ask people, Why? Why does some fellas get to tell other fellas what to do? Whence floweth their authority?"
And I said, "I understand you now. That's exactly what I want to know."
The old woman drew nearer, and her smell was in my nostrils, and I looked through the darkness to see patches of skull through her cheeks and split lips and holes where her eyes should have been. She whispered, "I come from the other side, where souls er free, and All-power and No-power be the same, where to will is to be and being respects all. This here place"—and she swung her arm in an arc of inclusivity—"this earth, reeks of domination—of principalities and powers, thrones and dominions—and the smell of the grave is sweeter by far, sweet as honeysuckle in compare.
"So, go to Onyx! Speak to the whiskered man. He dabbles in riddles but tells the truth."
And this time she vanished for good. I sighed and got back in my sleeping bag. I had endured plenty of riddles, but I thought, "Guess I'd better go to Onyx now. Wherever it is."
The next morning a park ranger woke me up and told me I needed to move on, that he was about to give a presentation on snakes and poison ivy to the kids in the campground, and I was in his pavilion. That made sense, so I pulled up my jeans while I was still in my sleeping bag and got up. While I was packing my duffle bag, I told him about my encounter in the night, and he smiled and said, "So, you met Jean?"
"Jean?"
"Jean Wallace, the Witch of Roaring River. She died when her cabin burned back in the 40s. But she still comes about from time to time."
"She told me to go to Onyx. Do you know where that is?"
The park ranger frowned and said, "You'd best move on. I've got to give a demonstration."
"She said it's a town in Arkansas."
"Did you hear me? You need to move on. Now!"