THE USUAL NOTE FROM LB: From the summer of 2002 to the spring of 2010, Gwen the Beautiful and I were the proud and often exhausted owners of a beautiful Ozarks property we called Cloud Creek Ranch.
In many ways, the ranch was paradise. But it was a paradise with a price that started going up before we even knew it existed. Here’s another Monday musing about our adventure and the lessons we learned.
Oh, and if y’all detect any irony, please believe me when I say it comes straight from the universe and not your kindly Uncle Larry B.
by Larry Brody
The woman who calls herself Ceres and says her life is “dedicated to the damning of demons and their banishment to hell” e-mailed me a couple of days ago.
This was the second time I’ve heard from her, the first being a phone call in which she told me that, “everything bad that has happened over the past few years to those you love has been caused by a demon dwelling in a cave nearby. You must vanquish the demon. If necessary, I’ll come to where you are so that together we can drive it away.”
This time, via e-mail, Ceres said, “The demon is going to strike soon. You’re headed for a difficult fight.”
Now that, speaking of hell, is a hell of a message to come home to after a quiet outdoor afternoon.
I’d already done some research on the commercial cave Ceres had talked about when she first contacted me. The Paradise County Clerk’s office had directed me to the realtor who’d brokered the most recent sale of the property. Turned out to be someone I knew. (If I hadn’t known him he’d have known me anyway; that’s a given in a town as small as ours.)
Neil the Realtor and I had met one of the times I’d spoken to the local Rotary Club. When he heard what I wanted to know, he’d been eager to help.
“Never heard about any suspicious activity in the Cavern,” he’d said. “Oh, there was that time we came for services and a bunch of stalactites and stalagmites in the Cathedral Room were broken, but it turned out to be some high school kids on a dare.
“They were kind of ‘devilish,’ you could say,” he added with a smile, “but I really wouldn’t call Toby Jackson and his buddies demons. They’re all too human, like the rest of us.”
“Has the current owner talked to you about any mysterious doings, or other problems?”
“Current owners live in Alaska. They were going to do a major renovation, but we just don’t get enough tourists in these parts to make operating it worthwhile. I talked to the caretaker, though, after I read what you wrote about the place, and she just laughed.”
Since that conversation, I hadn’t thought much about the Cavern, and I’d given even less thought to Ceres. So I found the fact that she’d contacted me again both puzzling and disturbing. It just felt wrong.
I talked to Doug the Dog Breeder about this, and he shook his head. “You know what a lot of people do when something some other person is doing makes the hairs on the back of their neck stand up, Larry B?”
I knew I was supposed to have the answer, but I didn’t. Doug, who’s a former Texas Ranger, sighed. “They go to the law, Larry B, is what they do. I don’t want to be reading into things, but when somebody says you’re going to have trouble, it could be because they’re going to start some.
“That phone call and the e-mail, what they feel like to me is a certain type of wrong. Especially the e-mail. It feels like a threat.”
At this, those hairs on the back of my neck that Doug mentioned came to full attention.
“Who’d want to threaten me?”
“Could be anybody. A neighbor you’re not getting along with. A friend who’s not as friendly as you think. Or somebody from hundreds or thousands of miles away. Might not even be the same person who called. You’re not exactly the master of the low profile, you know. Your writing appears all over the place, and your old TV shows do too, with your name plastered up there at the beginning and sometimes also at the end.”
“But why not just a ‘Hi, how are you?’ like I usually get? Why a threat?”
“Person may hate you. Want to hurt you. More likely, admires you. Wants to be part of your life. There’s only one way to find out.”
“Which is?”
“You’ve got to report this, Larry B. To the County Sheriff. And the State Attorney. Oh, and that e-mail thing, it puts this in the purview of the Feds.”
Doug the Dog Breeder knows his stuff. I’ve just returned from the Sheriff’s office and a load of paperwork. If a demon really is threatening my Paradise, and it’s an all too human one, I’m happy to let the law handle it. But I’m also talking directly to the Universe about the situation right now.
You know, just in case.
