I got off the interstate onto a farm-to-market road. At the stop sign, I looked both ways for any gas station. To the left, I saw ranch land, fences, and trees. No cattle. To the right, I saw the same scene. I turned right and proceeded almost three miles before that scenery changed.
I slowed as I passed an old farmhouse with a caved-in roof. The rafters and joists were exposed, weathered, and rotten. My guess was the last occupants left fifty years or more ago. The place was devoid of windows and doors and any memories. The little shed barely visible behind the house was either a wellhouse or their outhouse. I drove on.
I slowed again as I passed a house, probably built in the 1950s. Its windows were boarded up with sheets of plywood – a stark contrast to the wood siding with paint peeling and falling away. Did they leave in a hurry? I wondered to myself.
I continued onward and passed many more houses – some occupied and some not. One was burnt to the ground. Half-burnt hay bales were stacked beside a lean-to contrasted with a rusted tricycle swallowed in the weeds. Another appeared move-in ready with a metal horse barn with several stalls and a breezeway where a truck could be parked, but the grass and weeds were knee-deep around the property. A barely readable ‘For Sale’ sign leaned against a fence post. Looking down at the dashboard, the gas gauge told me I would be walking soon if I didn’t find a station.
I passed several more vacant houses as the landscape transitioned from farmland to forested wetland. I must be getting near a river or a lake, I said to myself as I saw a few swamp white oaks and cottonwood trees but mostly standing water and marshy meadows full of forbs and ferns. The natural beauty drew me so much that I almost missed the road’s curving. I slowed to a stop to read a rusting sign:
Eau Mort, Texas
Just ahead
Maybe I can find a gas station before the gas tank swings from ‘E’ back to ‘F’ for ‘Fumes.’
The little village had one cemetery, two stop signs, three stores, four dogs, and five houses. And no cops. The village could be called a one-horse town, but there weren’t any horses. By all rights, the little wide spot in the road called Eau Mort, Texas should have died, shriveled up, and blown away a century or two ago. Even its name meant Dead Water, but maybe that should read Dead in the Water. The Sabine River had swallowed the cemetery so many times that about a third of the graves were in the water, and most of the remaining tombstones had washed away or been buried forever in the mud.
The village sat on a peninsula of land jutting out into Toledo Bend Reservoir, and the area was sparse, with a few lighted houses but no streetlights. The unnamed swamp between the village and the lake was dark and creepy. On the shore around the swamp were trees that once had been majestic but now fought for their survival as the death shroud of kudzu suffocated them. In the 1930s and 1940s, farmers were encouraged by government scientists to plant kudzu to hold the soil that might otherwise wash away in a flood. It worked, but people noticed too late that kudzu climbed, coiled, covered, and devoured shrubs, plants, trees, electric poles, streets, and houses. The kudzu at the swamp’s edge was so thick that birds could not build nests.
One house I passed seemed to list at a precarious angle but refused to fall over. The house was dark. It was built somewhere between the beginning of time and the Spanish Civil War and has not been painted or repaired since that point in time. The house was so old and tired that the paint did not have the energy to fall off.
The right side of the house had once been grand. It was a two-story home, but most of its tile roof has now disintegrated. The dormer room on the right side perhaps had been a child’s bedroom. Its windows now resembled broken teeth staring down at anyone who dared enter the yard. The pointed parapet room on the left might have been a playroom or an office. That room was charred from a lightning strike or a fire many unknown years before.
The left side of the house was a single-story addition to the original home and included the remains of a solarium beside the kitchen. Another room beside the kitchen may have been used as a drawing room. This section of the house seemed to be folding in on itself and pulling away from the rest of the structure. Kudzu was already invading the house’s gaps and searching for something to devour. I drove on after staring at the house for some time.
As my starving engine sputtered, I coasted into the Carrington Gas Station and Convenience Store. The gas station and store were owned and operated by Angel Broussard, the 57-year-old, one-tooth wonder with red hair and a .45 Colt revolver strapped to her side. She looked older than dirt and probably was. “Whatcha need, Sonny?” she snorted as she spat out a huge loogie.
“Please fill my car with gas,” I stammered at the sight before me, especially the gun. Angel’s father found that gun in the mud on the Sabine River after the Louisiana Maneuvers concluded before the US Army entered World War II. She wore green bib overalls over a red flannel shirt with the pistol and holster in a prominent sight for anyone who wished to start something. Her one tooth was black from all the years she chewed tobacco. “I makes mah own blend out of Levi Garrett Chewing Tobacco, Tube Rose Snuff, and Chicory,” she said as her smile displayed that solitary, crooked tooth. “It’s shor gots a kick, and that‘ll put lead in yur pencil. That’s for damn shor!” she snorted and cackled as she blew her nose with an oily rag.
I almost gagged, then quickly changed the subject. “I passed an old, ramshackle house back a couple of miles. It must have been something in its day.”
Angel grew reserved as she looked around her, then turned back to lock her eyes with mine. “You mean Bubba’s house?”
“I don’t know the name, and I didn’t get out of my car. But the place intrigued me. It is a time capsule of days gone by and a different way of living. It’s an example of the road less traveled and almost forgotten.”
Angel did not respond, perhaps ignoring me. She kept looking around for some evil specter to accost her.
“What can you tell me about the house and the family who lived there?” I pressed on, then regretted having done so.
Angel stood back as she finished filling my gas tank. She almost seemed … well, reluctant … no, afraid to speak. Her voice became guarded as she said, “No one knows Bubba’s last name. No one remembers ever meeting him. No one ever sees him in town. And he never receives any mail here at the store. Nobody knows when that house was built. Nobody knows when Bubba moved in, and nobody cares. And you should stay the hell away from there!”
“Why?”
“Only if you enjoy livin’,” she replied softly as she folded her arms in a defensive stance.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Death lives there,” Angel replied as her shaking hand wiped her mouth with her oily rag. “Death …” and her voice trailed off.
After several moments of silence, I asked, “How much do I owe you?”
“Just leave! Drive on!” she yelled in a tremulous voice.
As I drove off hurriedly, I watched her in my rearview mirror. I couldn’t hear what she said, but she rapidly and repeatedly made the sign of the cross. My mouth was dry as I sped faster. “I said the house was an example of the road less traveled and almost forgotten. Now, I can never forget it!”