Keeping Watch 2

 Keeping Watch 2

Corvin leaned against the charred porch post that once had his name carved into it, and looked out over the smoldering ruin that had been his cabin.

That had been his home.

They had broke camp and rode through the night towards the flickering orange glow, hoping it wasn’t the cabin.

The only thing left standing was the brick chimney. Once red, now blackened by the fire that had consumed everything else that he loved.

And maybe everything that he loved.

“They may have gotten out, Corv.”

He turned and looked at his father, still sitting on his horse. His voice was gentle and reassuring, but Corvin noticed the old man’s eyes kept darting from tree to tree, and he never took his hand off his gun.

Corvin didn’t say anything but walked to where his door used to stand. Brigit had begged him to use an unbroken piece of oak and then had him carve the intricate image on the front of it. Loops, and circles that went on and on in one continuous line, with a bulky and odd looking cross in the middle of it all with a shamrock in the middle of it.

He had never been terribly religious, and it wasn’t a traditional cross, but Brigit had been insistent and said it was named for the saint who she was named after.

So he sweated from the labor, and the fear of messing up the carving under her watchful eye. Between her drawn lines, and his steady hand, he was able to get it done to her satisfaction. He then at her insistence nailed horse shoes over it.

And now it was gone.

The horse shoes blackened and scattered in the mess all that remained of the doorway. He stepped through the openness where the door had once stood, his boots crunching on the still smoldering wood. His eyes scanned the floor, around the fireplace, and in the kitchen. Twisted items that he could identify, some he could not, but none of them were Brigit or the kids.

“You seeing anything, Corv?” his old man hollered out.

“No,” Corvin replied after a long sigh. “I..I don’t think they were here.”

“We probably shouldn’t stay too long.”

“I ain’t going nowhere till I find ‘em.”

“That ain’t what I meant, son.”

His dad looked at him, and Corvin knew that he was right.

“Alright, I just…”

He paused, eye catching a glint in the charcoaled rubbish. He knelt down and carefully plucked it from the ash. It lay in his palm, surprisingly cold given the heat coming up from everything around it. He rubbed his thumb over the medallion modeled after the Brigit’s cross that held her initials. His old man had made the medallion, and Corvin had given it to Brigit the night that Tom was born. She had given it to Jessy when she turned five.

“What’s that?”

Corvin almost jumped at his father’s voice. He grit his teeth and slid it into his chest pocket as he stood up.

“Best get to your place and get some supplies, pop.”

He mounted and as they turned the horses to ride towards the old man’s cabin, he pulled his horse up short and stared up into the tree line where his cabin door, lay in the boughs of the oak tree.

The door looked as though it had been plucked from the cabin and positioned carefully in the tree, its iron hinges and handle shining in the morning sun.

“How in tarnation…?” His old man followed his gaze. “How ya reckon that got up there?”

“I don’t know,” Corvin said. “But I damn sure intend to find out.” 

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2026. All rights reserved

Keeping Watch

Keeping Watch

“Momma said it was an omen,” Jessy said softly.

“Weren’t no omen, Jessy, just some angry old owl,” Tom replied. “Or maybe a bobcat.”

They sat hunkered down by the fireplace, waiting for their mother to return from their grandfather’s cabin just up the way.

Jessy set about combing and recombing her doll’s hair, and while she was distracted, Tom walked over to the window. He peered out from behind the shabby curtain, hoping to see his momma walking up the footpath, or maybe even Papa coming back.

The only thing he saw was the pale moonlight silhouetting the trees as their boughs swayed gently in the wind, and their leaves shimmering silver with a ripple of each gust like a giant fish circling their cabin in the night.

He almost missed it. It was blending in with the branches of the swaying tree limbs, but it wasn’t moving, and that’s what drew his eye. They looked like a deer’s antlers, but the were too long, too thick, and sat too high.

In fact, they sat atop a head that was nearly double the size of the biggest buck he had ever seen, and it stood a few feet higher than a proper deer should.

He squinted at it, trying to figure out how the tree was making that shape, but the more he stared, the more it seemed to come into focus. It had a human-like shoulder, and an arm…not a leg, but an arm from that shoulder was bent to what looked like a large and very clawed hand that was holding onto the tree.

“Is it out there?”

Tom jumped back and almost tripped over his sister behind him.

“What…You… You can’t sneak up on me like that, Jessy!”

She stared up at him with wide eyes.

“Is the banshee out there?” She whispered.

Jessy tried to ease back the curtain to take her own look

“Ain’t no banshee out there,” Tom shot back pulling the curtain down and trying to nudge her back to the fire. “Weren’t out there when momma said she heard one neither.”

He tried to sound certain, but that…thing…outside made him wonder.

“Then why did momma say to keep a watch out?”

Tom shrugged. “We barred the door. She wants us to watch out for Pa coming back, or if she comes back before Pa so that they aren’t stuck out there all night.”

“Then why hasn’t momma returned?”

“Maybe ol’ buck slipped his tether again, and her and grandad are trying to get him back before she can ride back down. You know what a wanderer he can be up the hill. With all grandad’s horses, he thinks he’s in heaven.”

“Well,” Jessy said slowly. “How come Pa hasn’t come back from hunting?”

“Probably just got a late start back,” Tom said. “It happened last time I went with him. Remember, we didn’t get back till almost midnight!”

Jessy had returned to sit beside the fire. She was quiet, holding her dolly close as she stared into the fire. He thought that he had reassured her until he saw the tell-tale glimmer of a tear sliding down her cheek.

“Listen, Jessy,” he tried. “Pa says Momma still believes in the stuff she grew up with back in the old country. She heard an angry old owl and wanted to go find Grandad to search for Pa since he’s late.”

Jessy nodded, and curled up next to him on the floor, her dolly now serving as her pillow. Tom quietly got up and looked out the window again.

Nothing but darkness with small breaks of moonlight.

He double checked the wooden bar on the door. It was tight and proper.

He walked back to the fire, threw some wood on to keep it burning, and returned to his place on the floor. He kept his face towards the window and the door to keep vigil for his parents, or morning, whichever happened to come first.

 ***

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2026. All rights reserved