The Buttonhook Men

When I was twelve, my mother and I spent Saturdays at the Feed & Seed in Carthage, Missouri, picking up fencing staples and chicken feed. My stepdad, Ray, stayed home to mend the sagging gate on the back pasture. He was a practical man, a retired lineman who didn’t believe in ghosts or signs. But that afternoon, our dog, a wiry terrier mix named Jasper, started barking at the tree line beyond the fence. Ray ignored him at first, squinting against the sun as he fed a new strand of barbed wire through the brace. Jasper wouldn’t quit, so Ray clicked off his pliers and wiped his brow. He looked to the fence and saw nothing but the wind pushing through the foxtails. He grunted and went back to work. A few minutes later, Jasper’s bark turned frantic, a high-pitched yipping that was almost a howl. Ray turned, annoyed, and that’s when he saw them. Three men standing just beyond the fence, in the shade of the old oak. They wore long, high-collared overcoats the color of dried blood, with brass buttons that caught the light. Their hats were wide-brimmed, pulled low, so Ray couldn’t see their faces. They stood perfectly still, like statues. Ray’s heart hammered. He rubbed his eyes with his calloused thumb and forefinger and looked again. They were gone. He stood there for a long moment, the pliers hanging slack in his hand, and then he walked to the house and called my mom’s cell, but she didn’t answer. When we came home, the truck loaded with sacks of cracked corn, Ray was sitting on the porch steps, staring at the fence. He told us what he’d seen, his voice flat, matter-of-fact, but his hands trembling slightly. Mom and I exchanged glances. I felt a cold draft despite the July heat. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay awake listening to the wind tick the window screen, and I felt a pressure at the back of my neck, like someone was watching from the dark. I pulled the blanket over my head. The next morning, the phone rang. It was our neighbor, Mrs. Hargrove, calling to tell us that her husband, old Tom Hargrove, had died the previous afternoon. He’d had a heart attack while walking his property line, just beyond our fence, near that same oak tree. Mom gasped and crossed herself. Ray went pale. He looked out the window at the fence line, and he said, almost to himself, “They were waiting for him.” We later learned that Tom Hargrove’s great-great-grandfather had fought in the Battle of Carthage, and had been buried nearby, in an unmarked grave. Ray never spoke of it again, but I noticed he started carrying a pocket watch that had belonged to his own great-grandfather, and he would check it when he passed the fence. I, too, have been careful ever since. I don’t go near that tree line after dusk, and if I hear Jasper growl at nothing, I go inside. The three men, I’ve come to believe, are not ghosts in the usual sense. They are witnesses, waiting for those who are about to cross over, to guide them home. But sometimes, I catch a glimpse of them from the kitchen window, standing by the fence, and I wonder if they’re still waiting, or if they’re counting the days until Ray and I join them. And I wonder why they never approach the house, why they only stand at the fence, as if they’re barred from coming closer. I’ve never told Ray this, but I have a theory: they’re buttonhooks, the kind that pulled the boots over the dead. They don’t come for the living. They wait for the soul to step out. And when it does, they’ll hook it and pull it into the next world. I think about that every time I see a long coat with brass buttons. And I’m very careful to wear a belt.