Chapter 2

While I was putting the last of my stuff in the camper, mom made breakfast for me. We ate and chatted and I teased her about her many men friends and warned her to be careful, as there were bugs even for folks her age. She swatted me for my impertinence, but grinned in recognition of my concern.

Driving out of the over 55 park was a milestone for me. I stopped at the first grocery store I came to for some lunch meat, a steak, some canned veggies, milk, coffee, coffee filters, and an eighteen pack of beer. There wasn't much room in the fridge, so I only put six cans in there. After checking to make sure the fridge was working fine on 12 volts, I went to the storage place, put my duffle bag with my old uniforms in the trailer, locked it, and headed south.

Interstate 75 goes in the direction I was most interested in. I didn't go very fast, about fifty-five to sixty, not to save fuel, but to gawk at the land as I went by. I stopped to top off the tank, which was low on fuel, and while inside the station, I picked up a couple of 'land for sale' brochures. I also bought a Kentucky roadmap, and a campground map. A lot of the places for sale were small, and priced way over what I could afford.

I had been good about saving my money for the last twenty years. In all of that time, the only cars I owned were what we used to call base cars, junkers that would pass a vehicle inspection, but really weren't worth much. The idea was to keep them running and get as much for them as you bought them for when you rotated out. I had been a farm boy and knew how to keep equipment running.

My cash balance, derived from twenty years of saving my salary and re-enlistment bonuses, was wonderful. Add to that my last year or so of paid unused leave time, and I had some good cash. Still, it wouldn't be enough for the big prices people were asking.

I was still too close to the big city, so I needed to keep traveling south. I was on Interstate 75, south of Lexington, near Berea, where there was an RV park, so I pulled in there and rented a space for the night.

It was early yet, so I wandered around and talked to a lot of people. The RV park owners knew everyone within fifty miles it seemed, and knew of land for sale everywhere. The man had several places that sounded good and were within my price range, so I had to get my pad and write them all down. I walked over to a gas station to get maps for three counties, and was able to mark places the park owner knew of that were for sale. It had been a good move to pull in here.

The best lead was pretty far down in the boondocks, south of a place called Stanton. The park owner had an old lady aunt who wanted to move up near him, and he said she would probably sell out cheap. He also told me she didn't have a phone and I should cautiously approach the house to make sure she could see that I was unarmed. She sounded like my kind of woman. He did say that I could write her a letter and she would tell me the same thing, 'Come on down.'

I was up early the next morning, made breakfast, did my dishes, and was ready to go. The park owner stopped by with an envelope and wanted to know if I was heading toward Stanton. When I nodded, he asked, "Give this to Eliza. Don't say much until she's read all of it. She may have to go get her glasses, but just stay where she can see you. When she reads this, she'll soften up some. Make sure to answer her honestly when she begins giving you the third degree. That old witch has always been able to tell when I was spoofing. Really, it was more like I was telling her stories." He added, "There is another town, south of where you will be, called Pine Ridge. Go there for an RV park; it doesn't have much else other than that. They might know of a place you could buy, as well."

This wasn't going to be that far from where I was. I would have to cut across to I64 before going south on what was called the 'Ben T. Combs Parkway' to Stanton, then at the split for Highway 213, look for a gas station with a road next to it that went east. It was a gravel and dirt road, but I was assured it was passable. The park owner told me there was one area that was a concrete ford, but the water never got high as it was a natural spring runoff creek going downhill.

At the split past Stanton, I stopped at a gas station for a cup of coffee and a short conversation. The owner of the gas station saw my hand drawn map and wanted to look at it. When he saw it, he commented, "That's Eliza's place. You better be careful going up her drive. She's a mite touchy about visitors."

The man thought for a second and made a mark on the map near Eliza's road. "This is old Ben's place. You'll know it for the Goat's Milk sign. Go get him and tell him you want to see Eliza. She knows him and he'll get you up there. That's a nice place she has, but she has let it get pretty run down. I don't think she's had power for a while. She just doesn't have the money for it."

The man was nice, but acted as if I didn't have a chance in hell of uprooting Eliza.

Instead of attempting to upset Eliza, I stopped at Ben's Goat's Milk sign and drove up the short lane to his place. Before I could get out of the truck, an old guy propped a rifle up on his porch next to his door and came walking toward me. I stepped out of the truck with my hands in sight, so he knew I wasn't a threat. He took his hands from inside his bib overalls and stuck one out to shake.

I had a conversation with him and he was all smiles. He kept telling me that if Eliza didn't want to do business with me, I might make him an offer. He kept telling me how much he was making on his sheep and llama wool. Seeing the condition of his place, I didn't think it was all that much.

Ben picked up his rifle and the two of us walked up Eliza's road. It was only about a half mile of Ben's constant chatter, as he pointed out various trees and telling me how much un-harvested timber there was around.

As we reached the top of a steep incline of the road, I could see a small cabin with a machine shed that was considerably bigger than a double-wide city garage, a couple of small log buildings, and a small two floor barn. You could tell it had two floors because of how tall it was, and a closed door about halfway to the roof. A couple of dogs announced our presence, and a lady armed with a double barrel shotgun came walking out, carrying it with one hand on the forestock, or as some call it, the 'forearm' and the other hand at the trigger guard.

"Who you got there, Ben? Who you bringing out here? Stay right there until I decide if I want to talk to you or him."

Ben hollered, "The man was told to come see you by your nephew up near Lexington. I think he wants to live up here and wants to talk to you about buying your place."

You could see the lady thinking about it, until she finally waved the barrel of the shotgun toward an old picnic table and told us, "Come sit. I'll get us some spring water. Don't have no coffee made, and if I did, I probably wouldn't share the way it costs anymore. Come sit."

The lady went inside and came out without her shotgun. She was carrying a big pitcher and some glasses. She poured three glasses of water and sat across from Ben and me. I had pulled the envelope from my pocket and as I handed it her, I said "Byron, at his RV park, gave me this for you. I should have said I had it before you went in so you wouldn't have to go back for your reading glasses."

Eliza looked up at me, squinting, and told me, "Don't need no reading glasses. Besides, I got them right here in my underclothes pocket next to my pistol. Let me read this. Byron knows I don't read so fast, but is constantly sending me letters."

Ben elbowed me. "Eliza is a good reader. She reads my stuff to me when I get a letter. I don't have a lot of kin like she does, but I get letters from the electric company and the county all the time."

Eliza looked up at Ben. "Those are bills, you old fool. Them ain't letters. A letter is like this and tells you something. A bill is just a way of asking you to pay for something. Now hush up and let me read this. It's most of a whole page."

Eliza began sitting up straight and was smiling when she was done. She carefully folded the envelope and deposited it with her glasses in her secret underwear pocket. I'm sure it was right next to her pistol.

I loved this old lady.

"So's you was in the Army all your life?"

"Not all my life, Ma'am, just the last twenty years. I went in after I finished high school."

She was smiling. "A lot of the kids don't finish high school out here. They used to run off to the coal mines when they got to be sixteen, but now they have to wait until they are eighteen. What they do now is cut timber and poach. There's a lot of them moonshinin', but the revenuers are thick as thieves around here. This is a dry county, you know. You got to go all the way to Wolfe County to buy something legal. Grow corn or buy a lot of sugar, and you will have a visitor. The kids are growing that funny tobacco and make money from that too. I'm told they take it to the city where city people pay a lot of money for it. They oughta just let the kids work the mines."

Eliza turned back to face me. "So you did spend all your growed up life in the Army?"

I nodded and answered, "Yes, Ma'am."

"See what the Army does for a young man, Ben. They teach them to be respectful, 'yes Sir', 'no Sir', 'yes Ma'am', 'no Ma'am'. That's the way it ought to be."

The lady patted her bosom where she had deposited the letter. "Byron says you want to live out here and you have money to buy me out. I'm not going to go cheap, because I'll have to live in the city. Byron says I'll need at least," she took a big breath, "A hundred thousand dollars to make it along with my government pension money. I worked in Lexington during the war, building war cars, you know, Jeeps, and they paid me regular. They took out pension money and have been sending it to me for the last ten years. Byron keeps it for me right now, but he shows me how much is in the bank. He has a little book he keeps all of those numbers in."

She squinted at me again. "Can you give me that hundred thousand?"

"Ma'am, I can do that, but I might want to look at the property to see what you have. Can you show me?"

The lady smiled. "You got your walking shoes on, Honey? Let me show you around. The place isn't very big, but it's all up and down."

Ben said to us, "You two don't need me no more. I need to go back to shearing them sheep I have in the barn."

When Ben was out of earshot, she said, "Those sheep ain't in the barn. He shears them right in the big room in his house. He's too lazy and cheap to build a barn like I done."

As we walked, Eliza described her place, "I have two hundred and five acres of beautiful property. There is only about fifty acres total in the three meadows where you can grow anything. I have cleared field roads to those and they aren't difficult to get to. I have five natural springs that flow down the mountain and join the creek down at the base of the mountain. You drove through the big one. I have water in the house from the spring, but it's too cold to bathe in. I have to heat water up for that.

"Don't tell nobody, but I have six good sized caves and several smaller ones on the property. My husband used to make wine. There is a good grape vineyard that I've kept up. I take the grapes to market when they come in. If you was to want to make wine, the press is still in the cave, along with a lot of barrels. I think there might be a dozen or so barrels in there with wine still in 'em. I don't drink that fancy stuff. I'd rather have a taste of shine. If you were to get a license, you could sell the wine you make, but not local. I don't know what all it takes, but it can be done. Bud only made enough for him and the neighbors."

We were walking through what looked like an orchard. "There are two kinds of apple trees and some pear trees. There are enough apples that you can sell quite a few at the market. I'm beginning to have trouble climbing up to harvest them apples and pears. It's not easy work."

We had walked around the meadows, looked at two pigs, a steer, and a calf she had, and she topped it off by showing me the chicken house in the back, almost against a rock bluff. She said, "The damn chickens are setting on eggs and chicks out in the grass. Their chicks are all gonna die from the cold or animals getting 'em, but chickens don't listen. If you ever get them chickens back in the yard, keep 'em there if you want the eggs."

We walked over to the barn where she showed me her prize Jersey cow. "This girl gives about five gallons a day. I use her milk for butter, buttermilk, and baking. I drink some too, but I have to keep the bottles in the running spring water. The spring house is like my refrigerator when I don't have power. I can't afford it sometimes, and tell them REA people to shut it off until I get money."

We walked back to the picnic table and sat. She poured us some more spring water, but it wasn't as cool any more. She looked at me intently. "What do you really think, can you pay me what I need?"

It was my turn. "Eliza, I think I might have to give you more than what you're talking about. I will go into the county seat and check the tax assessment. That way I'll know what's fair."

"No need to do that, Mike, I got them papers right here at the house. I haven't had the money to pay the taxes yet, but I figured I could pay up when I sold the place."

Eliza went into the house and came back with some papers. The county sends out the last assessment and the estimated millage in January, so people can pay their taxes before the end of the year. She wasn't showing arrears, only what she would need to pay for this year's bill. The choker was the assessed value. Her two hundred and five acres was assessed as limited, difficult farmland, with buildings marked as rundown. I can imagine some shyster coming along and offering Eliza the assessed amount of forty-seven thousand dollars. That would be like 235 dollars an acre. Anything less than five hundred would be thievery.

She held out two more tax bills, "These are for the land on the other side of the mountain. I own it, but it isn't worth anything because you can't hardly get to it. There isn't any farmland unless you were to clear it and build a road over to it. If you don't want it, I'm going to let the guvment have it for taxes. It ain't worth nothing."

She went on to tell me, "It's actually two different parcels, the upper and the lower. Bud bought the lower parcel when the Jorgensons sold out. He bought the northern parcel when nobody paid the taxes after the horrible times that family had."

I looked at the bills and hunted for the size. They stated the combined two parcels were about two hundred and forty acres, more or less, but both are considered un-farmable and non-sustainable. The taxes for that much ground were less than a hundred dollars, and the land assessment was listed as twenty-five hundred dollars.

When Eliza saw I was through looking at the papers, she said, "If you can pay me the money I need, I'll sell to you. If you will pay the taxes for me, I'll give you that other land. You might be able to harvest timber, but most of the cutters don't want to work that hard to get it out of there. They's enough nut trees back there, you know, walnut and hickory, you could sell nuts if you was to gather 'em."

She was trying to sell me on the place. "You know you could be like me and live here free with just the butter and egg money. Watch your money during the year and you'll have your tax money. You really don't need the REA if you don't mind trying to read by lamp or candle. This is really a good deal."

The older lady was nervously wiping her hands on her apron, so I calmed her, "I will buy your land and pay your taxes. I will also do what I can to help you get to where you want to be. I'll pay you extra for your cow, steer, calf, pigs, and chickens.

"What I will do is to pay you, let's say five hundred an acre for your main land, and fifty dollars an acre for the other side of the mountain, sight unseen."

Eliza looked at me. "You got that kind of money? Are you rich? I thought you was in the Army for the last twenty years."

"Eliza, the Army pays good money now, and I make even more because I was hurt in the service and I was a Master Sergeant when I retired. I saved my money the whole time. I don't spend money on silly stuff, so I have some money saved. Yes, I have enough for what I offered."

Eliza stuck her hand across the table. "Deal. I wish I was younger; I'd take you on as a lover in a heartbeat. I could have treated you right. Bud died when I wasn't forty yet, and who would believe I'd live this long. The one thing Bud did do was buy this land way back when, and he left me with a stake. When can I move?"

I was almost laughing. "Tell you what, I'll take these tax bills into the county seat and find a lawyer to transfer the land. I'll have to get the money transferred into a bank account for you."

Eliza wanted me to do something special with the money. "Put the money into the account Byron has for me. That's what I'm going to live on."

Eliza was smiling, but then a cloud came over her face. "I didn't tell you everything about up here. I hope it don't change your mind. We're haunted. There's a ghost that has lived up here for the last ten years or so. I've seen it, or her, twice, and I know old Ben has seen it a few times. She doesn't bother anyone, but she's out there. She will come near sometimes, but the dogs are not afraid of her. Are you afraid of ghosts?"

"I don't have an answer to that, Eliza. How many people know about your ghost?"

The lady waved her hand in circles. "Everyone around here. They all think she lives on my part of the mountain, but she's not seen very often. So far, only Ben, me, and men who hunt the property have had a glimpse of her. One second she's there, the next she's gone. She's scary enough that hardly anyone hunts here anymore. The deer are beginning to overrun the fields around the area."