Welp, I had to cut this down considerably to fit it on a single post, but let's see how it goes. Here's my entry. If you need a title or something like that, we'll call it "Tales from Uncle Louie".
Lefevre is a five-square-mile patch of land out in the back hills up towards the Yuba area, a little ways west of where the state bends inwards and slides around the rich part of Nevada. It was supposedly named for a French general who first explored the region, although the story regarding this is different every time it’s told. It’ll take you about an hour to get there from the nearest town, mostly because it’s only reachable via rugged dirt road and you have to drive slow. On the bright side, there’s no traffic. The place used to be a mining camp which evolved into a city and then de-evolved into a conglomeration of rickety wooden facades supported by dust-beaten beams, the sight of which would be enough to cause a fire chief to break down into open weeping. Some misinformed group of ill-fated fools in the mid-1800s apparently thought that they could strike it rich by laying a claim away from where most of the main gold rush hysteria was occurring. 27 years and about half a mountain’s worth of hydraulic battering proved them woefully incorrect, but in the meantime, entrepreneurs who set up shop in what became a quickly-growing town made a fortune off the miners. As they increased their wealth, most of them began moving away, seeking greater ventures with better monetary opportunities out in the big cities now that they’d cut their teeth and learned the necessary tricks of the trade. It was mostly the miners themselves and their families who stayed behind. By the early 1900s, none of the original shopkeepers were left. None, that is, save for Uncle Louie.
Uncle Louie isn’t really my uncle. In fact, I’m not sure if he’s anybody’s actual uncle. It’s what we heard Jerome call him, so it’s what we called him, too. Jerome’s the only one who knows him, and Jerome is also the only reason we ever visit Lefevre. He’ll bring it up in casual conversation, saying something like “We ran out of sugar for the lemonade. Uncle Louie’s store carries that special brand, you know? The one that makes everything taste so good. Wouldn’t be the same without it. Let’s go get some.” We’d always have nothing better to do, so of course we’d all drive up to the town. The sugar story and others like it were all pretty cheap pretenses. Heck, I’ve seen soup cans on display in that rotting shack that I swear were from the 1960s. I guess that the old man’s like family to him, some remnant of his past he shoots the breeze with out of nostalgia more than anything else. Sam’s always browsing through the sale items like it’s a museum. Me, I just go there to remind myself that the place is even real.
Uncle Louie’s a strange sort of man, really. The way he talks about himself and what’s around him gives off the impression that he’s more wizened imp than man. He dresses as if birthed from a Bret Harte story and somehow never leaves that rocking chair of his. All transactions are carried out in cash only, in exact change, delivered directly to his personage. He tells us he moved out to town from Kansas back in the Gold Rush days, when he was in the prime of his life. We know it’s not true, but he is pretty old. We humor him, anyways. He met a young woman named Odessa who ran the laundry, and together, the both of them opened up the general store. None of us have any idea what happened to her, and he usually nods off before we get the chance to ask. Sam says he killed her, burned the body, and hid the ashes somewhere. He’ll always pull one of the decorations off the wall, pretend to observe it with an appraiser’s eye, then wave it in the air and go “Look, guys! Think Odessa’s in this?” The joke got stale after about the first couple of times he did it, but today, he’d picked out a particularly unique object: a large sledgehammer supported by a couple worn yet impressively sturdy brackets. Seemingly everything in the shop has a tall tale attached to it, and God help you if you make the fatal mistake of inquiring about the history of an object while in a rush. Sam, having never been particularly bright, did exactly that.
Struggling intensely under the weight of the massive hammer in his arms, Sam faltered for a moment before setting the head of it down with a dull thud that I was sure should’ve broken the floor, and gently twirled it a bit to admire the handicraft. It was a mighty piece of work, about four feet long with a wide square head, and a scrawled engraving on the handle. It surprised me that Sam was able to even move the thing, much less lift it. After looking it over, he loudly proclaimed “Hey, Uncle Louie? What’s this thing? Is this where you put Odessa?” The banjo music stopped, the sound of heels rhythmically tapping against the floor ceased, and we immediately knew we were trapped.
“Put-thet-there-down-boy-don’t-you-know-no manners?” was the response, between rough swings of a hat beating Sam.
“That’s a mighty dangerous hammer you got there, boy. Ain’t no toy to be foolin’ ‘round with. That used to belong to Casey Jones.”
“Casey Jones? The engineer?” foolishly asked Jerome before being bombarded with a few flicks of the hat.
“Don’t-you-interrupt-me-who’s-tellin’-this-story then? Now, as I was sayin’...used to belong to Casey Jones. He got it handed down to him from Pecos Bill, who won it in a card game offa Daniel Boone. Ol’ Danny got it as a gift from Daniel Webster on account o’ them bein’ fellow Daniels ‘n’ all, and sly ol’ Webster bought it off John Henry’s son, who got it from John Henry. That right there is John Henry’s hammer, the same one he drove the last spike into the Big Bend Tunnel with. Yup.”
His head started to sink back and we could see he was preparing for a nap. Deciding that fate had chosen to show us favor, I picked up the jar of molasses we came for and quietly tiptoed towards the door while Jerome laid a five on the counter. Sam, on the other hand, got the notion in his mind that it was only right to replace the hammer in its original spot on the wall. This proved to be an unwise move, as the weight of it kept him from being able to lift it to the correct height. It slammed against the floor before we could reach him to help. Uncle Louie immediately woke up and continued as if nothing had happened.
“Yessir, it’s a mighty special hammer. Forged from metal mined off an injun burial ground. Lets ya summon the spirits of all the other folks who had it after they’re dead ‘n’ gone. Casey Jones could swing it like a pro. He’d use it to make repairs on the No. 638. Had his own famous whistle they’d recognize ‘im by, got the notes engraved on the handle.”
“How’d you get a hold of it?” asked Jerome.
“Casey walked up in here one day lookin’ to buy a toy fer his son. Said to me ‘Uncle Louie,’ he did. Said to me, ‘I’m lookin’ to buy a toy fer my son,’ ‘n’ threw a nickel on the counter.”
The old man started to drop off again. Now intrigued by the story, Jerome prodded him a bit to hear it out to its finish.
“What’d you say to him?”
“Told ‘im what he got wa’n’t worth a sample o’ Mabel’s huckleberry jam ‘n’ told ‘im to go home.”
“You met Casey Jones and chased him out of your store?!”
“Hesh up, boy!” cried Uncle Louie, as Jerome backed away out of instinct to avoid the sweep of the hat. “Did I say he left the store just then? Ain’t got no patience, youngsters these days. Anyway, I says to him, says ‘Tell you what, son. If you got something’ worth tradin’, we kin make ourselves a trade.’ Says to me, ‘I got this here hammer,’ ‘n’ lays it down on the counter. I look it over, see it’s a fine piece of workmanship, ‘n’ let ‘im have the toy. Little wood train’s what it was. Painted real nice. So he left that hammer, said he’d be back fer it one day. As you kin see, it’s still there waitin’ fer him, so don’t mess around with it, lest ya gum up and cleave a mountain or two on accident.”
With this, he began cackling and yukking to himself, then immediately nodded forwards and began snoring. We helped Sam put the hammer back and tiptoed out of the store. As soon as I shut the door behind us, we laughed to ourselves, as well as engaged in a bit of minor celebration over managing to escape without getting a multi-hour lecture. Careful to avoid the steps, we hopped off the wood platform and onto the dirt. We decided to mill around town for a little while longer so I could take a few pictures. In the meanwhile, Sam began whistling, and clapping his hands to keep time. Annoyed by the noise, I asked him what the tune was in the hopes that the momentary distraction would cause him to lose his place.
“It’s the tune on the handle of that hammer,” he said.
“You can read music?”
“You didn’t know?”
“I didn’t know you could read at all.”
He smirked and, much to my dismay, returned to whistling. I did my best to ignore him as I lazily watched the train pull into the station.
“Come on, you guys. We’re gonna be late,” said Jerome as we followed him, hustling over to the 638 and piling inside.
It was only once we’d gotten home that we realized we forgot the car.
