Untitled

"Suddenly
Silently
The evil’s out to play
A Fright Night
Is mine tonight
A whimper takes the bait

The darkness is grooming a bountiful plight
A canopy of evil, will detect the weak
The young starling won’t take flight
The joy of violence begins to peak"

John Walter Scott - (Upon entering the Summit County Jail, John Walter Scott began to speak the following poem to the guards. He continued this activity for 3 hours until sedated for his own protection)

The Summit County jail was not your normal, run of the mill jail. For one, it was located in the tiny town of Summit Valley, MI, population 523. The jail was no more than a holding cell with a terribly worn pine desk that was used by the sheriff. You see, Summit Valley does not see an abundance of crime. It never has. As a matter of fact, the jail was previously used by the Summit Valley Senior Citizens Society as a part-time meeting spot/bingo hall. After the death of Elizabeth Turley last year, the President of the Society, the size of the Summit Valley Seniors group was lessoned to 5 active members. It was decided by the remaining members of the group that there was no need for a meeting place and after Elizabeth’s death, the county allowed the community to turn the senior center into a jail. It just never seemed the same after Elizabeth’s death.

The day that John Walter Scott arrived to the Summit County jail was much like every other day in the valley. The sounds of logging trucks rumbling down the highway competed with the sounds of nature and ole’ man Parsons barking dogs. This little one-light town is a picturesque slice of Americana. There are folks in Summit Valley that still put their home baked pies out on the window frame to cool. The town is simply put: a Rockwell painting. Not much of anything happens and if it does happen, it happens slow and deliberate. The town’s citizens would have it no other way. Slow and steady. Slow and steady.

It was a crisp morning, the dew still clinging to the landscape and a slight fog hung over Traveler’s gulch. Traveler’s gulch in the morning is quite a site. Created in the 1920’s, it was designed by the Army Corp of Engineers to act as a spillway in case Big Lakes Damn could not handle the rainfall. Big Lakes Damn was the largest project in the state in 1918; it was developed to supply the entire region with electricity and power. Upon its completion, a slight design error was exposed, when at capacity, the damn would not allow the overflow run-off water to properly exit into the Sand River. Traveler’s Gulch was the fix. The gulch would act as the overflow canal and could be used to help the local farmers irrigate their land during the dry months of summer. In the end, the gulch became the savior the project needed to be successful. Over the years, the gulch had become a favorite meeting spot for the local youth for its use as a swimming and fishing hole. The kids also used the gulch as a make-out spot and it became known informally as ‘party creek”. Once a week, Sheriff Bigsby would make the short drive from town to the gulch to make sure that nothing out of the ordinary was occurring. Nothing out of the ordinary ever really occurred, so the trip the gulch was a way Sheriff Bigsby could get out of the jail and stretch his legs.

Sherrif Carl Bigsby is a big man; a better description would be obese. Nonetheless, the sheriff was a jovial man with an abundance of reason. Sheriff Bigsby enjoyed the responsibilities of being the town’s sheriff. He loved to talk, cared about the community and did not mind helping the elder citizens of Summit Valley when asked. On this chilly morning, the sheriff had planned on taking his weekly trip to the gulch and after, he would meet ‘ole man Parsons for coffee at his farm, which was conveniently located close to the gulch.

The patrol car was having a hard time making up Plowman’s pass, the hill just before the gulch. Sheriff Bigsby had planned on having the engine tuned up, but kept putting it off in favor of helping Sarah Rinebolt roof her house. The slumbering sound of the engine climbing the hill broke the silence of morning. The sheriff told himself that after coffee with ‘ole man Parsons, he would stop by the Summit Car Care Center and have Grady, the owner and only mechanic in town, take a look at the problem.

The sheriff’s patrol car mustered the energy to make it up Plowman’s pass and the sheriff backed off the accelerator to lesson the noise the vehicle was producing. The sheriff’s eyes were fixed straight ahead on the road as he pondered just what was wrong with the town’s only police car. As the sheriff approached the gulch, he noticed a man standing in the middle of the road with his hands above his head. What confused the sheriff right off was that the man appeared to be covered in blood, or at least a substance of the same consistency, with the same color. The sheriff immediately pulled his patrol car off the road to investigate. As he exited the vehicle, he noticed that the man covered in blood was motionless and that he was mumbling to himself that was inaudible to the sheriff. The sheriff walked slowly up to the where the man was standing in the road and asked “Excuse me sir, are you alright?” The man was covered in blood from head to toe. His face was expressionless, except for the light blue eyes that appeared fixed on a place far away from Summit Valley. The sheriff asked “are you hurt? What happened, son?” By now, the sheriff was able to make out that the man was reciting what appeared to be a poem but because he was speaking softly, the sheriff was unsure of what the poem was about. Suddenly, the man fixed his eyes on the sheriff. The sheriff slowly dropped his right hand down to his gun and took a step away from this bloody man. John Walter Scott extended his left arm and pointed it towards the gulch. He kept extending his arm and pointing towards the gulch. The sheriff looked in the direction of the gulch and asked “is there somebody else down there, son?” A crooked little smile now adorned the face of John Walter Scott and he broke his silence to the sheriff. “The evil was out to play, it wasn’t my fault” There was not a look of fear or consequence on the face of John Walter Scott, only the alarming little smile of a man with a terrible secret. The sheriff was confused by now and growing more concerned by the bloody stranger's actions. “Did you hurt somebody?”the sheriff reluctantly asked as he kept him hand on his holstered gun. The eyes of John Walter Scott swung back around to meet the sheriff’s. “No sir, she hurt me and the evil was out to play” Sheriff Bigsby told the man to turn around and put his hands behind his back. He made sure to back up his command with a strong voice. He thought to himself that he was not going to play around anymore with this man until he found out exactly what was happening. The man surprisingly turned around slowly and complied with the sheriff’s request. The sheriff handcuffed the man and walked him back to his patrol car, all the while; John Walter Scott’s face carried the wry smile of a man who held onto to a secret. The sheriff was a bit unnerved at this point and wondering what would await him at the end of trail of blood that led down to the gulch. He would take what seemed like the first breath he had taken since he stopped to investigate this bloody man standing in the middle of the road. He began the descent down the access road to Traveler’s Gulch not knowing what awaited him at the bottom.