Webb Pages: The Phantom Ridge Runner
Copyright © 2008 K. Edgar Winchester
I don’t know if any’a you have ever noticed, but haints are a particularly peculiar lot. I recall a trip good ol’ Warbucks and me made one evening, as we made our way deep into the Nantahala Forest to visit that old snake preacher, Jedidiah. It was my first time traversing them woods to get to Jedidiah’s home on my own, the tiny, tin-roofed, abbey known to my good friend Dr. Watkins as The Stronghold of Fortitude and, not surprisingly, I’d lost my way. I’d been there once before, with Doc Watkins and Nitsua the troll prince, but all I could remember was that it sat somewhere between the big mountain, Mt. Cullowhee, and a foothill called Chunky Gal. There’d been some worries stirring about concerning a ghost that has hainted a mountain road in them parts for many a’year now. Old lady Crumpet sent me and Warbucks to get help from the old preacher-man.
The sun was beginning to set, as we came upon a rusty trailer home sitting out in the middle of them woods all alone. The wind was blowing a bit, as a storm was brewing in the west and heading this way, therefore I was in a bit of a hurry. Them mountains were always wet during the Spring, which is why ever’thin is so dern green around here I suppose. But there was a grizzly old man sitting out beside that rickety trailer just a’smokin his pipe and staring off at something; couldn’t tell what. We walked over to him to make sure we were at least still headed in the right direction, but the old man didn’t budge, not to say hello, ner nothing.
“Excuse me… sir?” I inquired.
He didn’t respond, not even so much as a twitch. He sat there with an almost catatonic stare.
“Sir? Would you be kind enough to tell me if this is the road to the abbey up below Chunky Gal?”
Still no response.
“Sir?”
And once again… nothing.
“I’m sorry to have bothered you,” I told him, as me and Warbucks turned to get back on the trail. We’d only managed to walk a few feet when…
“DANGER!” he shouted.
We jolted to a halt, turned, and walked back to him.
“What was that sir?”
But the man was silent again.
“Excuse me, but did you say… danger?” I asked.
He didn’t even blink.
“Ok, well… thank you,” I said, looking puzzled, as we turned again to resume our course, and again we’d gotten just a few feet towards the road when…
“DEVIL’S PASS!” he barked, nearly scaring me outta’ my socks! And again we turned back to him.
“I’m sorry sir… did you say something else?” I asked, again perplexed, and on my way to being vexed.
Again there was no response at all from that strange, hairy, old man. This time, however, we waited for a moment to see if he’d say something else. He said nothing.
“We thank you for your time… we’ll be on our way now,” I said, growing a little agitated. Again, we walked a few feet towards the road, then…
“RIDDLE!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.
I rolled my eyes, then turned again to approach the old codger, and I was losing my patience..
“Please, sir… If you’re gonna’ help us, then tell us we are headed in the right direction. Is this the way to Chunky Gal?” .
And again, no response. I sighed, frustrated. We were getting nowhere talking to this man, and the storm was getting closer by the minute..
“We’re going now,” I said, firmly, and I purposed in my heart not to turn around if he hollered again… but my curiosity always gets the better of me, without fail.
“PHANTOM RIDGE-RUNNER!!” he shouted
At this point I was becoming quite irritated with the old feller, as I stormed back over to him.
“If you have something to say old man, then just say it! Stop playing these games, please!” I scolded. He finally turned his head my way.
“Wh-Who are you?” he looked at me, terrified. “And why’r you shoutin’ at me?”
“I’ve been here for the last ten minutes trying to get your help, and every time I start to leave you shout something at me that I can barely make out. What is it? What are you trying to tell me?”
“Impossible!” the man gruffly argued, furling his fuzzy gray eyebrows. “I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
“You don’t remember me walkin’ up to you from the road?” I asked.
“Nope,” he said. “I don’t.”
“Good night sir!” I said with a fussy growl, and me and Warbucks resumed our trek.
“Where ya’ headed?” the old man asked.
We turned and ran back.
“What?” I asked him.
“I said… Where ya’ headed?” he asked again, starin’ at me with inquisitive, wrinkled, eyes.
“I told you, already. We’re headed for Chunky Gal. Is it far from here?”
The man didn’t answer. He just continued starin’ at me with those huge eyes.
“I said we’re headed for Chunky Gal!” I hollered, thinking the man to be hard of hearing.
I waited for an answer, staring back at the old fool. I waved my hand in his face, but he didn’t blink.
“This one’s a few bricks short of a full load, Warbucks. Let’s get outta’ here.”
“DON’T GOOOO!!!” the old feller grabbed my wrist and began shouting. “Thar’s danger in Devil’s Pass! DON’T GO! You mustn’t go, ya’ hear? If’n y’uns go through thar y’uns’ll DIE! [choke...cough...cough...wheeeeze].”
He then fell over on the ground, which was all I needed—to get caught there in them spooky woods in the middle of a storm with a corpse. Scared he’uz dead or something, I bent over and urgently shook him.
“Mister, are you alright?” I desperately queried. “MISTER?”
He then sat up with a jerk!
“Who are ya’, and what d’ya’ want?” he aggressively inquired again.
“You were sayin’ there is danger in Devil’s Pass. Is this about the ghost?”
Now everyone in Tusquitee’d heard some disturbing stories about a hainted stretch’a road through a holler called Devil’s Pass, a stretch’a road we were headed to on our trek to see the preacher-man, a stretch’a road that wasn’t far from that run down old trailer, the same stretch’a road we were supposed to get Jedidiah to investigate. And while I didn’t like the overtones of my spooky encounter with that bearded old coot, I found myself worriedly seeking whatever it was he knew.
“You know?” the old feller laughed, and joyfully stood to his feet. “Y-You know ’bout the haint?” he asked, almost in tears.
“I’ve heard rumors mostly,” I replied. “What can you tell me?”
“The phantom ridge-runner is a haint, in a hainted car!” he shivered, as he began his sorted tale. “After midnight he mercilessly runs his victims over on th’road coming down into the holler from around Blood Mountain! In th’middle’a th’night he comes, his engine just a’screamin like a banshee! Thar ain’t nowhere ta’ run off’a that road Thar’s bogs in either direction off’a that road! In terror his victims turn and run, but he just keeps appearin’ in front of’em, just’a playin’ with’em. And if’n they don’t run off and git swallered up in one of them thar bogs, If’n they live long enough, he asks’m a riddle. If’n they’s ta’ answer the riddle right he let’s ’em go, free to continue on their way unfettered.”
“And what happens if they answer the riddle wrong?” I asked.
He stared out into space once again.
“I said, what happens if they answer his riddle wrong?”
And there was nothing more out of him.
The wind blew fiercely through the trees that eerily towered overhead, and I knew it wouldn’t be long til’ dark. Seriously wanting to get through that holler before midnight, me and Warbucks turned and left that trailer and that strange old man where he stood, starin’ off into who knows where. We hiked further down the trail, headed straight for Devil’s Pass, as I remembered that old holler road lead from Blood Mountain right past Chunky Gal, headed for Franklin. I wasn’t at all sure we could make it before midnight, so me and Bucksy jogged most of the way… but it was further than I’d anticipated.
We’d reached that mountain road, and it was sometime after dark, a good while after dark as a matter of fact; no telling what time it was. I had my flashlight out and shined it on the ground, and as we trudged on down that dark gravel road we came upon a sign that read:
DEVIL’S PASS!
PROSEED AT YER OWN RISK!!
I began to get a little nervous. We did as the sign said, and we proceeded, but we hadn’t stepped two feet from that sign when a bright pair of headlights came on in the distance. I could hear the revving of a monstrous eight cylinder engine, and a second or two later that car was headed right towards us, and in a hurry, too. We stepped off to the side of the road to let it pass, but then I noticed it wasn’t gonna’ pass. No, I reckon that car came right at us, and as fast as lightening. Warbucks and I ran into the woods as fast as we could. When I stopped and turned around the car was gone without a trace, and the road was quiet.
“You saw it too, didn’t ya’ boy?” I asked Warbucks.
I knew he’d seen it cos’ he was running just as fast to get out of the way as I was. Slowly, we walked back to the road and resumed course. Then, just like before, way ahead of us, them headlights came on again. Again the car came at us at top speed, engine roaring. It was far away at first, then it was right up at us all of a sudden like. Again me and Warbucks ran into the woods, and again, when we turned around, the car was gone.
“We’re gonna’ have to stay here in the woods, Bucksy,” I said, out of breath, “and walk along the side of the road.”
But when I tried to walk my feet wouldn’t move. Sure as shootin’, I was stuck in a bog and slowly sinking!
“Great… Warbucks, I’m sinking! Give me a hand!”
Warbucks came over, clamped onto my back pack, and pulled me free of the bog.
“Thanks boy,” I said. “I guess we don’t have a choice but to face down that haint all by ourselves, without Jedidiah.”
And Bucksy licked my face in agreement. Again, we approached the road, and again the strange car appeared ahead of us, but we dared not run into the woods again, for fear of being caught up in another bog. The wind blew, and lightening flashed off in the distance. The ghostly car roared and fumed as it barreled in at us on that midnight road. But if we were to get to the old preacher we had no choice but to meet this haintly devil, head on. I closed my eyes and listened for them angels, I listened to hear their eerie song in the roar of the phantom ridge-runner’s horrible phantom-car engine. I listened to hear their song in the rising wind, and in the swishing and creaking of the trees, and in the thunder. I tightened my fists as I prayed, asking God to gird my gumption, and to help us get through the test we were facing. Then I felt the peace of God, I felt his warm breath on my face. I opened my eyes, directing a fierce gaze at our adversary. I folded my arms… and didn’t do a thing.
At the last moment the phantom’s translucent car scrubbed to a halt in the gravel. A terrible cloud of smoke and dust surrounded him. I just breathed it in. He was right on us save for about ten inches or so, as he pushed in on the gas pedal, making that giant engine rev. It was loud, and deafening. I could understand the ’screaming banshee’ metaphor. I looked over to the driver’s side and couldn’t believe my eyes. Behind the steering wheel was the white translucent figure of a man. It was a real ghost! Until then the only ghosts I had ever come across were them hainted trees from Buford’s Gully, the ones Nitsua and Bath Sheba’d helped me exorcise several weeks ago. Then I remembered the new cross I had obtained from Jedidiah, the one tucked under my sweater. During our encounter with them trees I’d lost the last one. I reached in, pulled it out, and gripped it tightly in my right hand.
The phatom driver was smiling at me with an evil translucent smile, and laughing. But with God by my side I could see right through it all… no pun intended.
“Goin’ somewhar?” he cackled.
“Yes,” I answered. “We’re going to the…”
“Then y’uns must win against me in a little contest, or be trapped here with me forever!” he rudely interrupted.
“Alright,” I agreed, seeing as I didn’t have much choice in the matter. “What sort of contest?”
“I will ask y’uns a riddle. If’n y’uns guess the riddle, then y’uns get to ask me one. If’n I don’t guess your riddle, you win. If’n I do guess the riddle, I win.”
“Ok then. Ask your riddle,” I said, growing more impatient.
“Not so fast youngin!” he yelled. “We’ns got t’make a little wager first.”
“Ok, what do you wager?” I asked him, knowing full well I had nothing to offer, so I felt it safe to agree.
“You first!” he demanded.
“Well, what do you want?” I inquired. “Tell me what you want from me should you win.”
“If’n I win, I get yer soul!” He cackled into the wind, which howled loudly overhead, and another bolt of lightening flashed somewhere in the distance.
“What do I get if I win?” I cautiously inquired.
“Yer freedom!” he cackled.
I thought for a minute, then said…
“Ok, I accept your wager, but I propose we double the odds.”
He was silent for a moment, then…
“What do y’uns propose?” he asked.
“If You win, you get both me and the most precious thing I have to give, my dog Warbucks.”
Warbucks did a doggie double-take and let off with a concerned whine.
“Don’t worry, boy,” I whispered. “If I lose I’ll just jump on your back and you can blink us outta’ here.”
Of course why we didn’t just blink outta’ there already I couldn’t really tell ya’. I guess we were meant to be there, on that dark stretch’a road. I reckon something powerful was at work, something unseen, and something as powerful as the storm that was whoopin’ it up all around us that night. Leaves came loose from their branches and flew around us in a whirl.
“I like it,” said the hillbilly haint. “But what do I give you should y’uns somehow win?”
“If I win we not only get our freedom, but you give up the most precious thing to you… your car.”
Loudly, he cackled; his laughter seemed to fill the woods around us. Again lightening flashed far away, and thunder cracked.
“I accept yer wager, but I gotta’ say it, just fer the record… y’uns don’t stand a chance!”
He shut off his car’s engine and sat in there with his window rolled down, with the wind all the while blowing his translucent hair. He pulled out a haint cigarette, and lit it with his haint thumb. He then shook his thumb and it went out. After taking a long drag of his lucid cigarette he turned his gaze to me… I think (I could see right through him, after all) and said…
“I git t’go first.”
Bucksy and I waited patiently, albeit anxiously, for that backwoods specter to come up with his riddle. He rubbed his ghostly chin with his ghostly finger and thought for a long few moments, until a light came on in his soulless phantom eyes… I think.
“Ar’right.” he rumbled. “I got one fer’ye’”
I listened carefully.
“It crawls; It walks; It has no arms’r legs, yet with this it feeds th’leviathan which roars fiercely, th’mighty beast whom, without it, cannot be fed; whom, without this, will lie dormant, neither living nor dead, this beast which must be fed.”
He looked at me and raised a creepy translucent eyebrow.
“Answer me this riddle,” he inharmoniously moaned. He seemed quite melodramatic for a ghost.
I had to admit it, I was impressed. He didn’t look very smart, but then again I’d never seed no ghost face to face before, so I guess it would be hard for me to tell the smart haints from the dumb ones. I thought about his riddle for a while, then answered.
“The answer is… a fuel pump.”
The haint pitched a fit in the driver’s side of his car, and there was another lightening flash.
“Dad blame it! How’d y’guess?” he angrily inquired.
“Well, you’re a ridge-runner, which means you only know about two things… moonshine and cars. ’It crawls; It walks’ refers to motion.”
But I was only warming up.
“’Yet it has no arms or legs’ means it does not move under it’s own power. That was easy, but what wasn’t so easy was figuring out what IT is, which would ultimately reveal what THIS is.”
The phantom grew an expression of, “Huh?” across his see-through visage.
“’It feeds the leviathan’… This is what clued out moonshine as, ’the leviathan’ is obviously a car. ’The mighty beast whom, without IT, cannot be fed’ was where the clue was.
“Now, since the leviathan is a car… ’cannot be fed’ would have to refer to petrol… gasoline. Yet the petrol cannot move under it’s own power, and without the fuel pump to pump the gasoline to the engine the beast would surely ’lie dormant’, going nowhere.”
The phantom ridge-runner sulked. It seems he didn’t like it at all that I guessed his riddle. Seems he must’ve been used to stumping folks, so much so that he acted like a child who didn’t get their way. He then turned his ghoulish gaze my way once more, and again, raising a haintly brow.
“Ok, gord head’n ask me yer dern riddle.”
I thought for a minute, then shouted in the wind…
“It’s huge, yet it moves quick; On a silken strand it drops! A victim it ensnares, then flies into the shadows for a night cap!”
He thought for a while, then for a moment it seemed that life flickered in them lifeless translucent eyes once more.
“That’s easy!” he elated, thinking he had me skunked. “It’s a spider!” he guffawed.
“No!” I shouted. “You didn’t listen to all the clues!”
“Yer lyin’! The answer IS a spider!” he angrily bellowed, and lightening struck a tree nearby. Bucksy and I jumped with a start.
“’On a silken strand it drops…’” he roared. “…a victim it ensnares… it flies into the shadows for a night cap,’ a NIGHT CAP bein’ a DRINK, and spiders DRINK blood! And y’uns said FLIES referin’ to a FLY, cos’ spiders don’t fly! I listened to all the clues! The answer’s got to be a spider!”
He pitched a ghostly fit.
“No, you forgot one HUGE clue!” I yelled out to him in the wind. “FLIES wasn’t even a clue at all! I started the riddle with ’It’s HUGE, yet it moves quick’! The answer to my riddle is… a GIANT spider!” I gleefully exclaimed. “I WIN!”
Then Warbucks and I braced ourselves for the worst. We weren’t sure what to expect. Visions of this ghostly moonshiner popping his top and performing unmentionable haintly deeds to us suddenly flooded my head.
“A GIANT spider?”
Lightening again flashed, striking yet another tree. The phantom ridge-runner looked as if he was about to boil over for sure. He banged on the steering wheel of his phantom car with his phantom fist, then punched a phantom hole in his car’s phantom roof. It was obvious he had no control over his phantom temper.
“RRRAAAAAAAAARRRGGGGGGGG!!!” he roared.
Then, all of a sudden, his demeanor changed from that of anger to one of sadness. His phantom car slowly faded away. He plopped to the ground as his phantom driver’s seat vanished into nothing. He folded his legs, propped his face up on his fist, and began sulking.
“You win,” he moped. “You can go on ’bout yer biz’ness.”
With that, Warbucks and I were off to Chunky Gal. We walked a few feet away, then turned around to see the translucent haint fade into nothing. The wind blew litter across the road where he once sat. That was the last anyone ever saw of the phantom ridge-runner. With his car he was the terror of Devil’s Pass, a stealer of lives and souls. Without his car he was nothing but a lonely old haint, destined to do nothing but wander these woods, forever and ever. I said a brief thank-you to God.
We turned and followed that access road into the night, hoping we were indeed on the right track, and hoping we’d get somewhere before we were soaked to the bone, as the crisp, cool, rain finally fell from the black clouds that loomed high in the sky.
THE END
