Ch. 2 Kathy Kohm: The Stranger

 

Chapter 2

    On that same Sunday afternoon of April 5th Jack Harry was at his farm a couple of miles from Christmas Lake Village when he heard a knock on the door.  He knew immediately that it was a stranger because he wasn’t expecting anyone and people did not just drop by his farm on a Sunday evening. A man with dark hair and muddy shoes and muddy pants was on the doorstep.  The man said that his car had gotten stuck in the mud and asked if Jack could help him out. He wondered if Jack knew a tow truck he could call. Instead, Jack got his 4 wheel drive truck and a chain and they headed down to where the car was stuck.  

    Jack lived on a farm off Indiana 162.  It is just 2.5 miles Northwest of Christmas Lake Village.  In 1981 the area was wooded and rural and not far from Abraham Lincoln’s boyhood home.  You can visit a recreation of his childhood cabin and homestead there. It was beautifully wooded and rural then.  In April the trees would have had just a few tiny buds on them and some of the foliage on the ground would be starting to green up. The woods around would have lots of dry brown briars, underbrush, fallen limbs, sticks and fallen leaves from last Fall. 

    Jack thought this was a very strange place to be stuck.  It was an old lane, a logging road that wasn’t really a road anymore. It was very muddy and overgrown and isolated. A great place to go mushroom hunting but not a great place to drive a little car. Someone would have to be really lost to turn down that road. The stranger said he had turned off looking for a place to pee.  He said he had been in Chrisney watching the NBA finals basketball game on t.v. with some friends and maybe he had had too many beers. Jack wondered why he had driven so far back down this boggy lane just to pee.  It seemed like you could have parked at the entrance and just walked back a little ways instead.

    The stranger said he had tried to get the car out himself but had no luck. He had even tried placing the floor mats under the tires to provide more traction.  The stranger seemed a bit nervous and sheepish.  Jack thought he was probably just embarrassed about getting his fancy little sports car hung up in the mud.  He seemed like a city boy.  He wasn’t really from around here. 

    Jack got the car out without too much trouble.  He noticed it was a Mazda because he was thinking about getting one like it.  The stranger thanked him and drove off slinging mud onto the highway as he went.  Jack went home, parked the truck and went into the house.  He couldn’t really shake the uneasiness that he felt.  Something was just not quite right about all this. 

    The stranger drove his Mazda just a couple of minutes down the road and made a right turn into Christmas Lake Village.  He gave a little wave as he passed the guard shack and the guard nodded.  There were quite a few people out walking as he drove the winding road back to his home there.  He went in and cleaned up.  As he packed his things in his car to head back to Evansville he could hear people calling Kathy’s name over and over.