The Pembar

Racetrack Hollow contains a remote branch of Norris Lake cradled by the Tennessee hills. It is so quiet there that you can hear the airflow over a bird’s wings. Today I listened to the glossy black vultures circling around the shore at the shallow end of one of the coves. So charmed was I by their graces that I did not notice what had attracted them.

I paddled on to the very end of the cove, where the lake ended in a small marsh surrounded by forest. Some distance behind me, the sound of breaking branches shattered the quiet. This was followed immediately by a “thump,” like a bag of wet cement hitting the sandy bank. The vultures scattered.

I turned my bright yellow kayak back toward the lake to see what the commotion was about, but nothing immediately suggested the cause. Soon the peace was shattered by grunting.

There was a large man wearing little but a carroty tan, dragging something heavy along the ground just inside the tree line. He was pulling it behind him on a long rope and struggling quite a bit. Sweat flowed off of him, and I could smell it.

My heart skipped a beat. Clearly I had blundered into some grim fairy tale, with ogres and sacks of children.

The “ogre” was definitely coming my way. Crap! I paddled the bright yellow kayak into the reeds. He stopped and sniffed the air. Oh God! I was next—I prayed to Jesus like the proper Southern I wasn’t.

My prayers were answered by three men in a patched-up fishing boat who had zoomed into the isolated narrow cove between me and the ogre. They were dropping a man with a life jacket into the cold lake and rigging some sort of rope system on the boat.

The boatman drawled out, “Hey, Mike! Wan’a ride?!”

Ah, so the orange ogre was a Mike. Who knew? I had been hoping for something a little more like Lorthor. It would almost be humiliating to be clubbed to death by Mike the Ogre.

Mike was now standing on the bank shoving clean sand over a large dark stain that ran down into the lake. Still sweating. Still smelling—or was that the smell of rotting flesh?

“No, not today,” he replied.

“We’re begin’in to think you don’t like us!” The boatman drawled.

“I’d rather be doing what y’all are doin than what I’m doin,” Mike answered grimly.

The boatman attached the rope from the rigging in his boat to the man in the water, and when he’d finished, he said, “Well, Mike, while you’re at it, why don’t you get ya a knife and cut down

“I already cut him down. He’s goooone. I just need to cover up his spot,” said Mike, gesturing to the dark stain at his feet.

“Blood in the sand? Mr. Pembar?—I’m dead!” I thought.

The boatman revved his engine, waved farewell to Mike, and with a backfire and plume of black smoke, took off down the lake dragging the man in the life jacket, who was apparently belly skiing. They looked like they were having a good time of it. Not the sort of activity one would expect people to do after casually discussing a murder—but this was Tennessee.

I waited in the reeds while Mike the Ogre finished shoving the blood-soaked sand into the lake. The rotting flesh smell was mixing with the water around me. It was getting hot. My fear-seat was attracting mosquitoes.

Finally, I paddled back to my cabin as fast as I could, puzzling about what I had just witnessed. My family had no answers about what a “Pembar” might be, though they did recall hearing a gunshot in the direction of the cove the previous evening. We debated the merits of calling the authorities. We spent the rest of the day at the lake a bit uneasy. No one wanted to go for a swim.

Near dinner time, there was a knock at the side door.

“Who would a’come here?” said my stepmother with a shaky voice.

I peeked out the window. It was Mike! He was wearing a Nike T-shirt and cutoffs—a considerable improvement from this morning.

“I know y’all are in thar,” he bellowed.

The three of us bumped around each other in a quiet panic. My stepmother tried in vain to get a call to connect.

Pound! Pound! Pound! Pound! thundered Mike’s fist on the door.

“We are had,” I whispered.

My dad went and found the cabin’s only tiny maintenance hammer. It was one of those ones that had been enameled all over with little blue flowers like a teacup.

I swallowed hard. “We need to face our fate head on,” I said grimly.

Dad positioned himself and the insufficient hammer behind the door.

I opened the door.

Mike stood there staring at me with his fist raised.

“Howdy,” he grunted.

Dad raised the little hammer.

“Good evening,” my suddenly dry throat choked out.

“Y’all are new? Wanna come for dinner?”

“Very kind, but we have plans,” I said.

I could hear my father making little hesitant shuffling noises behind the door, gearing up to launch his attack.

“Made too much stew,” Mike persisted as if my objection did not register.

My curiosity warred with my survival instinct.

“What kind’a stew?” I asked.

“AAHAHHHH!” My dad shot around the door, eyes bulging, just as Mike replied, “I caught me a big black bar—and them bar make—” Dad brought his tiny blue-flowered hammer down on Mike’s skull.

Mike looked dazed for an instant as he tried to piece together what had just happened. Then his large orange features twisted in pain. “OOUCH!” Mike screamed, hopping around holding his head. “Meaner’n a stripped snake!”

My stepmother slammed the door and locked it.

“I should’ve known! Y’all are monsters!” Mike bellowed through the door.

We could hear him whimpering as he stomped off down to the lake.

I opened the door and started to yell, “Sorry! We thought—”

“I don’t care! Ain’t NEVER sharing my bar stew with you!”