The Harvester

This is a story a fellow told me once back when I was living up around Eufaula, Georgia. I did some research and tried my best to get the facts straight.

***

In the late 1940’s Jerry and Paula bought a small farm in rural Georgia. Jerry had served in the war and now made a living working on transfer trucks. Paula worked as a school teacher at the local elementary. Jerry converted one of the old barns into a shop for working on trucks. He was the only person for miles around that had the knowledge and experience to repair the large vehicles. The couple had a great life together until one fateful morning in the late winter of 1952.

On this particular day, Paula was at work and Jerry was plowing the fields getting them ready to plant the season’s crops. Jerry was riding atop his old Ford tractor when he noticed an International Harvester truck from the 1930s pull up in front of his shop. Jerry shut down his tractor and crossed the dusty field headed to where his shop sat next to the quiet country lane. As he rounded the corner, Jerry saw the beat-up old truck sitting in the driveway. No one seemed to be around. Jerry glanced around the shop, which he always left open during the day. No one was there. He circled around the truck. The bed of the old International Harvester was a simple wood frame built sturdy and tall to hold whatever load could be piled high. It was presently empty and Jerry could see plainly that no one was in the back of the truck either. Now the young farmer was perplexed. He called out to see if the stranger who drove up to his farm would answer him, but the only reply he received was the late February winds whipping through the trees.

Now Jerry was really confused. He bent down to look under the truck. No one was there. He circled his shop, thinking someone must have stepped out back to relieve themselves. No one was there either. He looked up and down the lane to see if he could catch a glimpse of someone walking away. Still, no one. Jerry stood for a moment dumbfounded. After some contemplation he decided to climb back atop his tractor and finish plowing the field. He figured maybe the owner would show up and wave him down so Jerry could take a look at a some problem with the truck.

A couple of hours passed. Jerry finished his work in the field and decided to go have some lunch. He circled the truck and the shop once more to make sure no one was waiting for him. There was no one there. He called out once more. There was no reply.

Jerry sat alone in silence eating his egg salad sandwich. From where he was sitting in his kitchen he could see the side of his shop and the rear half of the old International Harvester truck. As he finished up his sandwich, Jerry decided he would phone the sheriff and have him come out and take a look at the truck. Jerry picked up the phone and then dialed the operator. Within a couple of minutes he was explaining the situation to the sheriff over the static-laden line. The sheriff told Jerry he would stop by later that afternoon to check it out.

When Paula came home there was her husband and the sheriff going over the truck. Jerry explained the situation to his wife. She didn’t seem too concerned and left the two men to their work. They noticed only a couple of odd things about the truck. For one, the key was jammed into the ignition. And two, there was a small puddle of water on the floorboard despite no obvious leaks or rain in the past several days. The sheriff took down the numbers off of the truck. He told Jerry that it would take up to a couple of weeks to get the owner’s information. The sheriff felt like someone would show up before then and instructed Jerry to call him when the owner of the truck turned up.

And so, the old truck sat in front of Jerry’s shop for a couple of days. Eventually someone else showed up with another truck for Jerry to work on and he had to move the old International Harvester. He climbed up into the cab. The small puddle of water was still on the floor. This intrigued Jerry because the windows had been rolled up tightly and there had been no rain for some time. The truck cranked up easily and ran well for such an old work horse. Jerry moved the truck off to the far side of the shop so it would be out of his way. He worked the rest of the day not giving the old truck a second thought.

Late that night, Jerry and Paula awoke to the sound of a truck starting up outside. Jerry told his wife to stay put. He grabbed his trusty Winchester 30-30 and his 6 volt flashlight and rushed out the door hoping to catch either a thief, or the owner of the International Harvester. Paula sat in the dark listening. The sound of the engine stopped. Then for several minutes there was only silence.

Soon Jerry returned looking pale and a little confused. Paula sprang out of bed and asked him what happened. Jerry fumbled through the house and made his way into the kitchen. He sat down at the table and asked Paula to brew some coffee. She asked him again what happened but he demanded some coffee first. Paula was upset. Jerry was never demanding with her. But, she could see her husband was visibly shaken. Jerry just sat there with his head in his hands staring at the table.

Later, over a nervous cup of coffee, Jerry explained what happened when he left the house to investigate the sound. He said that as he walked out the door he could see the headlights and taillights of the old truck lighting up the front and back of the shop. He could hear the truck running and he just knew he was going to catch someone in the cab. However, just before he rounded the corner of the shop, the lights cut off and the engine sputtered a few times then died. He told Paula how, as he rounded the corner, the truck was just sitting there eerily silent and still. Jerry had jumped on to the running board and shone his light in the cab expecting to see someone. But, he couldn’t see anything at all because the windows were all fogged up. He had flung the driver’s side door open but no one was there. He then began to walk around the truck shining his light around to see who was about. No one was there he told her. On a whim he decided to feel the tailpipe. It was ice cold. He then explained that he had popped open the hood of the truck to feel the headers. They were cold as well he said. Then, as he stood there, bent over under the hood, trying to figure out what was going on, he heard what sounded like someone trying to taking in a deep breath. But it sounded like they were choking on water.

Jerry stopped telling the story at this point. Paula wide-eyed asked him to continue. As Jerry sat the now empty cup of coffee down Paula noticed his hands were trembling. After a few moments of staring at the wall Jerry continued slowly, “I turned around real fast when I heard that sound, as I did, I hit my head on the hood and the flashlight fell to the ground. As it fell, I saw, standing there behind me, an old man wearing coveralls. Every inch of him was wet and water was dripping from his beard. He just stood there gasping for air. Then, my flashlight hit the ground and shattered. As the light went out, the man disappeared. I- I think I may have met the owner of the truck.”

Paula was scared out of her mind. Over the next few days she managed to come up with logical explanations for what her husband had experienced. Soon, she had it all figured out. A truck had driven by the farm late at night waking them both up. Jerry had rushed out, still half-asleep and mistook the lights of a truck driving off in the distance for the old International Harvester. Then, he had hit his head a little too hard and disoriented himself enough to think he had seen a ghost. It all made sense to her now. With this revised story in her her head she was able to sleep peacefully over the next few weeks. In fact, she just about forgot the whole incident.

One day, a couple of weeks later, Jerry was out working in the shop on a Saturday. He realized that he needed a part in order to complete the job he was working on. He climbed in his old Chevy pickup but it wouldn’t crank. Jerry looked his old pickup over but he didn’t really have the time to figure out what the problem was. He wanted to get to town quickly before the local dealership closed. He was about to get in his wife’s car but then he looked down at the grease on his clothes and thought better of it. That's when the idea hit him. The International Harvester was sitting there unused with at least a half tank of gas.

Jerry walked over to the truck. He paused for a moment as he thought about the ghostly encounter he had a few weeks back. It was a bright and sunny March morning. The sun and the chirping birds made the experience seem a world away now. Jerry decided that maybe his wife was right about him imagining the ghost man. He swung the driver’s side door open to find a small puddle of water on the floor board.

Paula had just pulled a loaf of raisin bread out of the oven when she heard a knock at the door. As she rounded the corner Paula could see through the old lace curtain that it was the sheriff. She opened the door.

“Good morning sheriff.”

“Is Jerry around?”

“He’s working out in the shop. Is something wrong?”
 
A dark, yet confused look crossed the sheriff’s face. “Well, I- I found out where the truck came from.” The sheriff said slowly. Then he paused, “I didn’t see Jerry out in his shop... or the truck.”
 
Paula was confused. “You mean Jerry’s truck?” she asked. It wasn’t uncommon for Jerry to head off for a quick trip to town without telling his wife.

“No ma’am, the International Harvester, it aint there.”

Paula ran out of the house quickly with the sheriff following right behind. She had a terrible feeling in her stomach. Sure enough, there was Jerry’s Chevy truck sitting there, but the International Harvester was gone. Paula couldn’t imagine why Jerry would go anywhere in that old truck.

The sheriff had a worried look on his face. He decided to tell Paula what he had learned. He related to her that the truck had come from up around the Gainesville area. The owner had brought the truck to an old man who owned a shop there. The truck needed to have some repairs done. The shop owner was never paid for the work and ended up keeping the truck for quite sometime. One day, when the old shop owner needed to move something heavy, he decided to use the big truck instead of his own. He and the truck were found several days later at the bottom of a lake. Apparently, the old man had run off the road, down an embankment, and straight into the lake. After the body was recovered the truck was hauled from the lake and sat at a salvage yard for months... until it disappeared. That’s the part no one understood. The truck was too badly damaged from all the water to ever run again. It just mysteriously vanished one night, like somebody climbed in and drove it away. It didn’t make any sense. “That was almost a year ago” the sheriff concluded.

Late the next afternoon Jerry’s body was pulled from a local cow pond. It seems Jerry must have lost control of the truck and over corrected. The truck cleared a fence and continued until it disappeared under the murky waters. A small herd of cows were the only witnesses. Several days later the truck was hauled out and taken to a local salvage yard.

Paula was devastated. Once the young school teacher started working again she had to alter her route to work in order to avoid passing by the salvage yard. She just couldn’t stand to see that damned old truck. Eventually, Paula sold the farm and moved to Atlanta. She remarried and had four kids with her new husband. She thought of Jerry often, but their days together seemed so distant, as if they were part of a past life.

One day, in 1982, Paula was traveling with her husband along the highway headed to the beach for a much-needed weekend break. The ride was long and she soon drifted off to sleep. Paula dreamt she saw Jerry driving away from their old farm in the big International Harvester truck. He was waiving goodbye to her with a sorrowful look on his face, as if he knew he would never see her again. She was suddenly startled awake.

“Relax” her husband said to her. I’m just pulling off the interstate for gas.

Once they stopped, Paula decided to go in and use the restroom. When she inquired about the location of the lady’s room the man behind the counter handed her a key and informed her it was located outside, around the corner of the building. Paula stepped back out into the breezy summer afternoon. As she rounded the corner of the service station the aging woman froze in place.

Sitting there before her was an old 1930’s International Harvester with a wooden bed. It looked identical to the truck. A set of wet footprints led away from the truck and disappeared into a abandoned lot next to the gas station.

A few moments later the visibly shaken woman handed the keys back to the store manager. A look of concern crossed his face.

“You alright mam?” he asked her.

“That truck,” Paula asked slowly “the old International Harvester, who’s truck is that?”

“I was hoping someone could tell me” the manager said. “It’s been sitting there empty since I came into work this morning.”

***

I heard a long time ago that the old truck was finally towed to a junkyard in the city of Fairhope, Georgia. When I passed that way a few years back I decided to go find the old 1930’s International Harvester so I could take some pictures. After some searching, I found the yard and pulled in. A greasy old man greeted me at the gate. I explained to him what I was looking for. He said he knew the truck well. He said I could drive back and see it but the lot was big and it might be easier if he just hopped in with me to show me where it was. Before I could object (the nice old man had a ripe odor), he was opening the passenger door and climbing in. We drove through the yard dodging piles of scrap metal and various other junk as we snaked our way to the back.

“It’s just around here” the nearly toothless man said as we rounded a large pile of old gas pumps. “There’s a tree growed up through the front of it...” he began to tell me as we made our final turn.

The old man’s eyes went wide. The tree was there. The truck was gone.