The Gauis Turner Diary

 Here's some fiction I submitted for a local paper's Spook Story series  October 2017

Earlier this month when the impressive house finally came up for tax sale by the Minister of Finance office in Fredericton, I was beyond excited -- We’d heard the amazing history, learned about the significance of the landmark and about the contributions of the shipbuilding industry in Albert County -- and now we were the proud owners of what everyone else called the Turner House at ShipYard Park.

Unfortunately, since the last time we’d been in the house about two years ago,, it had suffered from the hands of thoughtless vandals whose ignorance of the value of the 200-plus year old structure was clear.  Beautiful antique porcelain bathroom fixtures were smashed, doors and windows broken, and the previous tenant’s contents strewn about with apparent reckless abandon -- books, papers, photographs, journals, videos, and artifacts, leaking roof peaks had allowed rain, snow, and probably creatures to invade and contribute to the decay and destruction.

There was a ton of work just getting things organized and cleaned before we could set to the task of repairing broken plaster, re-glazing smashed windows, fixing and replacing bathrooms, kitchen appliances and getting electrical and plumbing reconnections working safely.  It was exhausting, daunting, and I just didn’t remember it being so bad when we first saw the abandoned home.  

With broom, shovels, rubber gloves, and dust masks, we started filling rubbermaid trash bins with the mildewed books and ruined photographs intending to burn them, but as we scooped pile after pile of nasty, damp, and black mold paperwork I saw a leather-bound book with very old fashioned writing on the cover, and thought it was probably a special keepsake Harry Potter type book of some sort, since it looked newer and undamaged unlike all the others we were obviously going to destroy.

When I opened the cover, my heart started racing when I read the hand-written words:  To a keen pair, suitably matched, joined today, 16 August, in the year of Our Lord, 1876.  Gaius Samuel Turner and  Lucy E. Stiles.  May you find each day forward a gift and of accomplished industrious purpose. 

We stopped work immediately, and promptly sat down among the debris and started turning the pages that displayed intricately cut out his-and-her silhouettes, unfamiliar ingredient lists for short recipes reading: build a bigger fyre box than usual for a very hot oven and add several soft pinches of asafoetida to a spoon-drop dough.  

Though the writing appeared to be feminine, it became more clear the more we read on that it was Gaius’ writing, as he logged and accounted lumber orders, railway schedules, the death of his mother:

 “Elizabeth Colpitts, kindest model of motherhood and goodness has most dearly departed, I shall not bear witness to another woman as fine save my own dear Lucy, who shares this day’s sorrow with me.”

Page after page of daily notes, meals shared, notable neighbours, kindnesses extended, weather anomalies, trade business, lazy workhands on the property and at the shipyard, and then we read words of increasing desperation as he described Lucy’s failing health, including Dr. visits, elixirs mixed, tinctures administered and finally her quietly slipping into an “unwakeable slumber” when she was pronounced dead.

“I feel she hasn’t yet left us, she is now utterly still but I cannot accept that my soul is not somehow still attached wyth her.  How is it possible to not acknowledge what I have been told as fact, and begin to wonder if I, too, am facing such a journey as grief has gripped me in mind and body this cold spring of 1892.”

Entry after entry describes how he implored the Doctor to revive her, that for several days before her burial he felt certain she was in a fast, deep, sleep, and that he was determined that she could be woken.

“My mynd is not so beset with denial.   Though my education did not benefit from study of the human body, I surely must be intelligent enough to know her spirit has not left, so must trust that quackery does not confound the good Doctor to know that her life has ended, as mine will one day, too.”

It was sad to continue to read, as he described his own failing health, his time in General Assembly and the distractions in Fredericton that served to take his mind away from Lucy’s impending burial. 

“To bury a wife who in death is still vibrant is an abomination -- I am told tyme and tyme repeatedly that she is gone but how is it to be that our bond was too strong to allow me to believe it is not so, or for anyone else to think I’m not mad with grief to consider it true -- she did not perish; my final kiss to her cool, not death-cold, forehead still returned her familiar loving connection.”

He wrote less and less, and final entries in early April, 1892, were becoming more scant -- Then blank, and we remember we learned in the archives that was the year he died -- after a “lengthy illness”.  How grief takes its toll.  

We put the special book aside, a treasured keepsake to be sure.  And talked about how powerful the mind is to allow him to continue to believe that she never really died, and drove him to near madness which in those days most certainly must have contributed to what was described as his lengthy illness.

We resumed our task of cleaning, sorting -- now with a more careful eye to treasure hunting hoping to uncover more valuable archives.  We filled the bin and took it out back to dig a burn pit.  Using an old maddock found in the shed, and a brand new shovel from Kent’s we both set to breaking up the overgrowth and dig down a safe distance from the neglected back lot behind the house, careful to spread dirt wide so the dry grasses wouldn’t catch fire.  The new shovel was more helpful than the maddock and each dig produced good moist soil to pile to the side of a trench we dug to dump the burnable house debris.  

A loud CLUNK stopped us both short on our efforts and we realized we were hitting wood not rock.  Worried that we’d unearthed the top to an old septic or cistern we brushed away the dirt and found that more of its length was still under more soil, so we cleared away several rocks, cut off a few hindering roots and realized it was all very thick plank wood.  More treasure?  We jumped to the immediate conclusion that it was ship board from the shipyard, and used the shovel to dig under its edge to see if we could pry it out!

For this, the maddock was of more use, so with its broad flat curved end we wiggled it under the longest edge of the plank and levered and leaned and pried back and forth until it SPRANG up with a crack so loud it startled us with its surprising release and we both fell backward on the freshly created mound of dirt behind us.

What we thought was just a long and wide plank of ship building material was anything but.  What was revealed was instead the lid of a coffin and its contents. Not a skeleton like you see in movies, cartoons, or halloween decorations but a cluster of bones, cloth, hair and STINK.

We just sat and stared.  It was too unbelieveable.  After the plank so quickly popped up,  time just seemed to slow down.  The smell slowly assaulted us, the vision took some moments to realize, the reality of what we were looking at didn’t set in for several minutes.  We held hands and just took it in.

Then we saw it.  The underside of the plank.  The deep scratches in the wood that were NOT caused by the maddock.  The gouges, the splinters, the broken finger bones, so many broken finger bones…..Gaius was right….Lucy hadn’t been dead, afterall.  

Naming Crooked Creek Covered Bridge #3

Here's a little story I wrote for a local Spooky Story edition of a local periodical.  October 2017 

Naming Crooked Creek Bridge #3

Crisp air, vibrant fall colours, a picnic lunch, and probably the last use I’d get out of my well-worn hiking boots -- we tossed water bottles and phone charger into the car.  I wanted to capture all those colours to get us through the long winter ahead.

Though there are many covered bridges in Albert County, we’d never made the trek to Crooked Creek # 3.  There’s the 45 Road, Sawmill Creek, Midland Road, and others -- we’d even ventured out to King’s County to visit more of those long-standing icons of New Brunswick.  But the more strenuous hike up the old logging road to see #3 kept putting me off; I love scenery, but not exertion and sweating.

Naturally I’d read all about the history of the bridges, but it’s the local stories that have been told in the post office lobby, standing with ice cream or coffee in front of Crooked Creek Convenience Store at the corner, or shared while shuffling the deck at card parties.

It’s the old-timers that have the best tales.  “If it isn’t true, it ‘oughta be!”, “Well, I heard it from a man who knows a fella who sez it’s true!”, and “anyway, take it as you hear it; my salt shaker don’t spill”.... So who knows what story is factual, augmented, entirely made up, embellished; they’re the fabric of the stories of our rural county living.

Before heading out, we stopped at the Buddha Bear coffee roasting cafe in Alma, and asked for extra sugar -- “I’ll need the energy today!” I told Peter, one of the owners.  When he asked what our plans for the day were, I explained our destination, shared my enthusiasm for exploring the last on our list of Albert County covered bridges, and asked if he’d been there yet.

Then I heard a harrumph at the coffee bar, and looked over to see an unfamiliar, older gray-haired man, with both hands wrapped around his mug of coffee, “Silly pursuits.” he muttered. I dropped my shoulders, and tsked.  “Don’t say that!” I cheerfully responded, “It’s a beautiful fall day, and we’re off on a fun little adventure; you’ll spoil it.”

“SPOIL IT?!” he barked back, “I’ll tell you about spoiling things…..how ‘bout a spoiled LIFE?”

Not knowing how to respond, we just watched him.  It was a little un-nerving, and we certainly didn’t want to engage with a hostile curmudgeon just as we were about to set out for a fun-filled day, but something seemed sad and lonely about him.  So we hesitated a moment more to see if what he’d say next.

He shifted a little, looked up slightly, and quickly glanced back and forth at both of us a few times.  “You married?” 

“Yes! 36 years ago this week, actually” I was proud to answer.  “That’s why we’re off this morning, an annual fall-colour outing to celebrate.”

“Yeah, well I was married once a long time ago -- longer than that in fact, and he looked back to his coffee cup with what looked like an odd mix of resentment and longing.  He made me nervous, so I nudged us along and said, “We’d better get going….” and he said quietly said, “Oh, sure, you love birds head off to that Bridge # 3 …. You’re so young, you probably don’t even know why it’s named that”…...looking up he met our faces, looked boldly, challengingly, and waited; his silence demanding a response.

…..”um, no I guess not, really…..”

He leaned back, picked up his coffee cup, took a sip, and started a story we’ll never forget.

I was young, about to be married, working in the woods, logging, hauling timber, cutting lumber, and it was the loneliest work I’d ever done.  Long exhausting days followed by dark cold nights spent in solitude that seemed even longer than the day.  

For my wedding, I hauled myself out of the woods at the end of the work season, crossed the Crooked Creek Bridge -- that was the name of it in those days -- ready to see my girl, get married, and end my days and nights of loneliness.   

He took another sip of coffee, nodding, remembering….he looked at us again, we looked at each other wondering if we should interrupt and just head off, but his look compelled us to stay for more of his narration.

In those days, we hauled our loads out of the woods by ground-skidding.  Horse teams, strong men, grappling, block and tackle, it was crummy work -- see what I did there?  The crummy was the wagon that took the crew out to the work site….yeah, you folks have no idea…..I was a feller, all right -- but when I came out of the solitude of the woods, I was a son-of-a-***** of a fella. -- excuse me, for that last one, Ma’m” 

-- he gave me a wink, and raised his cup to me for the apology, then to Peter for a refill on his coffee.

Well, that job got me enough to pay for my wedding and for a horse, so I bought it and hooked that old filly right up to our wagon, said “I DO”, and took my new bride out for our first ride together.  She cuddled right up to me on the box seat, and it was right nice.  But just as we were about to cross that Crooked Creek Bridge, that old filly reared, and jostled us all about, nearly tossing us out, and I worked hard to get her under control.  

As he described the incident, it looked like he was still holding the reins in one hand while holding on to his now invisible bride.  He bucked and jerked still seated on his bar seat, and we all felt the relief as he described the calm after the struggle.  

“That’s ONE” he said.

Well, we continued on, all calmed down and back again my dear bride slid close next to me, and just as we exited the other side of the bridge, didn’t that old horse do the same thing again…

Now he stood, pantomiming the actions, grimacing at the strength it took, his dark eyes were fully recalling the danger, the power of that horse, and the skill required to rein it back to safely righting their wagon.  

He sat back down, winded, took another sip of coffee, and said, “That’s TWO” and loudly clanked his cup back on the wooden bar as he sharply said the word TWO.

Well, by now, I’d had my fill of this uncooperative old horse, and decided to return it back to get my money back so I turned that horse right back around and headed back across the bridge to go home ….  He paused in thought.  Yup, so back through that bridge we go, and by now, naturally, my bride…. she’s disappointed, and scared, and all discombobulated, and don’t you know it just as we’re about to go into that covered bridge, don't she do it again,  

The old man JUMPS up, startling us, and he WHINNIES loudly!  We look over at Peter, who is captivated by what’s going on, and we are immediately redirected to the antics of this old-timer galloping, bucking, rearing, snorting, and pulling, imitating the horse’s actions this time instead of his own to control it.  We watched, wide eyed until he sat down.

He mopped his brow, caught his breath, sipped his coffee and quietly, flatly, resignedly stated,

“That’s THREE.”

And then he slowly and dramatically silently play acted;  pulling a gun out of his pocket, loading a bullet, cocking the imaginary gun, aimed precisely away from us, and yelled,

“BANG”

We ALL startled.

I shot that horse, and let her fall dead down the embankment.  We walked home in silence, leaving the wagon behind.

Thinking that was the end of the story, we grimaced.  Looking at Peter, back to each other, then around the cafe -- still no one else had come in, and it was awkward.

Well, it doesn’t end there, you see, when we got home, my new bride, she pouted and sulked.  I put on a fire, set the kettle on for a boil.  She just sat there.  Wouldn’t say a word.  Shock, I s'pose.  

We had some tea, and then I went round to the neighbour’s to borrow his horse to retrieve my wagon, and didn’t she insist that she come along, still quiet as a mouse.  We walked that horse back up the road to the bridge, and there was my wagon, and that’s when she first spoke again.  

He reached into his back pocket for his wallet and took out a 10 dollar bill, laying it on the bar securing it under his nearly empty cup.  Then he opened his wallet wide to show us a very old black and white photo of a plain woman in a simple wedding dress holding a small nosegay.  

That’s how she looked on our wedding day.  The day that she left me at Crooked Creek Covered Bridge # 3. 

You see when she finally broke her silence she cried, she nagged, she whined, she complained, she just wouldn’t stop talking saying things like …..”what kind of a honeymoon is this?  First, your impatience with an old horse, your temper, walking all that way on the muddy road in my beautiful dress….she rattled on and on.  Oh I listened.  I took it all.  When she got eventually got winded and fell silent again, I simply said to her, I said.

“That’s ONE”