THE BLACK OAK

Yvonne like most college grads left West Virginia chasing opportunities, but after eight years of city life she had returned home. She had turned her love of photography into a new career ditching the 9 to 5.  As a photographer Appalachia was a gold mine. People could say what they wanted about her home state but there was no denying that the tree covered mountains were beautiful.  Be it  the snow-covered bare branches in the winter, the lush green leaves in the summer or the beautiful golds and reds of autumn.

 

Fall being her favorite season she took the opportunity this cool October afternoon provided and journeyed out; taking a road she had never been down.  Bull Tail Hollow was right off highway 460. She was like a kid in a candy store  capturing more than one hundred eighty fall foliage shots  and she could have stayed all day  but hunger had made it hard to focus.  She looked for a place to turn around on the one lane road and noticed it widened into gravel ahead.  As she pulled in for her U-turn that’s when she saw it one hundred yards down in a field an old dilapidated barn and farmhouse.    Old barns were great photo ops but even more intriguing  than their wooden skeletons was the large tree standing beside it.



She ignored the faded no trespassing sign nailed to a tree and headed down the dirt road .  She got out and circled the tree, snapping shots as she went.  There were no leaves on its branches or on the ground beneath which was odd for this time of year.  She ran her fingers along the deep-ridged trunk and was instantly hit a sense of foreboding and feeling of being watched.



“No trespassing, didn’t you read the sign?”  Someone yelled.



She jumped. She hadn’t heard anyone. But a man to on the road  by her SUV shotgun in hand.



“No I didn’t see a sign she lied.”  Walking toward him.



“You not from ‘round here.” He drawled through a near toothless mouth.“Can’t be, if you was you’d know not to

come down this road whether you saw the sign or not.”



She swallowed hard.  In retrospect it was foolish. That’s how women got raped and murdered by gun toting rednecks.



“I’m sorry for trespassing on your land, it’s just I’m a photograhpher and this tree captivated me.”

“ The black oak tends to do that.  Ain’t my land no ways.  Not anymore.”

“So does the tree have a story?”  She was relieved that the gun now rested over his left shoulder.

He was silent as if debating with himself if he should tell her or not.

“Story goes back in ‘57  a colored fella had taken this road walking.  Wasn’t from‘ round these parts couldn’t be local said he spoke with a funny accent. ‘Sides a coloreds knew this was Klan country and it was death to be caught out here day or night.  They beat and tortured him even cutting off body parts to keep as souvenirs.  He stopped briefly seeing the look of disgust on her face then continued  “but while they did this to him he laughed and mocked them in a foreign tongue until they strung him up from that oak .  That didn’t kill him though, he was still kicking, laughing and taunting in that strange language with a noose ‘round his neck.  They set him on fire and still they heard his strangled words  and the hissing wheeze of his laugh.  They seemed scared all ‘cept  Emmett Hicks, imperial wizard of the KKK he went into his house yonder and went to bed with that tree still  ablaze and the smoldering carcass of that boy lying right there beneath.  When he woke next morning the body was gone.  After that night ol’ Emmett or the others didn’t get no rest and within three months’ time all sixteen men were dead either by their own hands or someone else’s. “

“Did you know any of the men?”

“  Emmett was my uncle I tried living here with my family.  Because of the tree’s  dark past I had cut it down and blasted the stump outta the ground only to find it back with it bare black branches bigger.  Stronger.  That was the last straw. Whatever evil is connected to it wouldn’t let us rest anyway we always felt like we was in danger.  We left and never looked back I drive by occasional and make sure some drunk ain’t wandered out here that’s when I saw you. Enjoy your pictures lady but don’t ever come out here again.”



Yvonne was sure the man had added the little supernatural twist to take the sting off the hateful truth about uncle being a member of the Ku Klux Klan.



Yvonne scanned through the developed pix deciding which ones would go into a calendar for next year then she  got to the first of the black oak shots and decided after hearing the story of a brutal hate crime she no longer wanted the and started to feed the glossies into the paper shredder one by one.  Then stopped her heart rose fast and hard in her throat  there was a man in the last few photos.  she knew hadn’t taken shots of  the hillbilly he hadn’t been that close to the tree this man was  African America. black as an ace of spade. His full lips formed a grin that showed his pearly white teeth but there was nothing friendly about that too-many-teeth-for-a-human smile or those black piercing eyes malevolent in their intent. The hair stood up on the back of her neck and the uneasiness she had felt at the tree had grown to full blown fear. This wasn’t just a picture but a presence  her instincts told her to run, for if she didn’t she would die a cruel death and that would only be the beginning