My Summer Vacation

When you are going to college and paying your own way, you sometimes have to do jobs you would never think about doing.  In the summer of 1964, I did one of those jobs.  Have you ever thought about what must be done when a lake if formed behind a dam?  Personally, I did not know, and I now wish I had never learned.  A high school friend of mine, call him Sirrah.  After graduation, he calls me and tells me “My uncle has found the greatest job for us.  The pay will be $7.50 per hour.”  In 1964, that is an unbelievable amount of money.  As part of the hiring process, we had to attend an orientation.  They explained that Beaver Lake would cover many cemeteries. The bodies in each of these cemeteries had to be accounted for and moved to a new location. For $7.50 an hour, I could do just about anything.  A few of my friends sighed up for this job.  The contracting company would supply us with housing on site.  We would work on-site for two weeks and after taking a medical physical, we would have five days off with pay.  This job was not for everyone and at the orientation; there was an attempt to weed out some of the applicants.  Several people left after getting sick watching the film.  I was tough, and I was going to stick it out no matter what.  As long, as Sirrah was going to do it, I was going to make it.  Not everyone who got the job should have taken the job.  One who should not have taken the job was Jerry Don Mercer.  Jerry Don Mercer physically was a football star, but mentally he was a mental basket case, even before we started. 

When we started on a site, a bulldozer would blade off a couple of feet of over burden.  Our first job was to locate the graves by smoothing the sides of the trench.  When the sides of the trenches where smooth it was easy to see the disturbed dirt of a grave.  There were many graves in the cemeteries we worked that had no head stones.  There were graves that dated back to the 1840’s.  When a grave was located, a backhoe would remove some of the soil but not touch the coffin.  One of us workers would get down in the grave and poke around to see if we could locate the casket if one was present.  If there was a casket, we would determine how we were going to remove the body.  A casket does not last a long time underground.  They collapse within a few months.  The older graves where the more pleasant and easiest to remove.   All artifacts in the grave had to be removed and placed in a wax-lined box and sealed.  Sometimes this amounted to removing bones of the deceased some time removing an intact body and sometime a not intact body.  Our favorites were the graves where the casket was enclosed in a vault.  I say favorite sarcastically.    Removing the vault in most cases was an easy task.  We just had to put a chain about the vault and use the backhoe to remove the vault.  We had to account for each body so even when the casket was intact or in  a vault the casket had to be opened.   An inventory was made of any artifacts found in the casket.

   The quality of vaults varies and that brings us to the story.  Two people worked on a grave at one time.  Sirrah and Jerry Don  Mercer were working a vault. Remember john Mercer was a Big boy. When to overburden was removed jerry Don Mercer jumped down into the grave.  The concrete top of the vault collapsed.  The collapse buried Jerry don Mercer under dirt and debris.  Sirrah started digging John out and called for help.  Before long, we were all digging John out.  When we got him out, he looked bad but he was breathing.  We did not have cell phones at that time and the supervisor had to drive to the nearest phone to call for an ambulance.  While the supervisor was gone, Jerry Don started hallucinating.  He thought the woman he had fallen on was coming to take him back.  He started screaming and thrashing around.  Remember he is a big boy and the members of the crew could not hold him.  He ran into the woods and we could not get him to come back.  He had disappeared.  The Foreman, when he got back made us form a search party to fine Jerry Don Mercer.  We went into the woods looking for John Mercer.  We searched until it started getting dark.  The supervisor left again to call the sheriff’s office.  We had to explain what had happened.  The sheriff contacted local guides and trackers.  We even had bloodhounds.  I can assure you a bloodhound could track Jerry Don Mercer blind folded.  Remember he fell into the casket onto the body, which had been in a vault.  The sheriff and his deputies searched the whole night and thought they had trails to follow they could not find Jerry Don Mercer.  John’s parents where contacted and they came to the site.  They tried to get John to come out but he would not come back.  We took off the next day to help with the search.  It seems that half the city of Rogers was looking for Jerry Don Mercer.   Our supervisor told us after we retired from searching that day we would have to go back to work in the morning.  In the morning, we worked as usually but one person short.  The supervisor said he would have a replacement by noon.   Everything went find all day.  As nightfall came, we started a campfire, set, and talked about poor Jerry Don.  At round ten o’clock, we all retired to the crew trailer to get a night’s sleep.  Around 1:30 we were awaken by the god-awfulness noise I had ever heard.  Next, there was a loud thud on the door of the trailer.  Reluctantly we all went to the door.  As we opened, a strong odor was present a odor we had gotten used to, it was the smell of rotting decaying human flesh.  A large pig was on the ground in front of the trailer.  The throat of that pig looked as if something had taken a bite out of its neck.  We all knew we would not get a good night sleep.  All through the night, we could hear this mournful howling.  We tried to convince ourselves that it was just coyotes but we all knew it was Jerry Don.  

The next day an armed guard from the sheriff’s office was posted at our site.  This made us feel a little better.  Around midnight, we heard a struggle and a scream and then nothing.  Armed with flash light and courage in numbers, we when out to see what happened.   There again was the terrible smell.  Our guard was lying upon the ground with a paperback book sticking out of this mouth.  We could see the guard was dead.  The book in later years became an important part to the story.  Many older people call it the Fu Manchu murder after the title to the book.  The murder was never solved, but we knew from the smell who had done it.  When you are in North West Arkansas, ask someone who is older than 60 about the Fu Manchu murder.  They will tell you a similar story, but unless it comes from one of us that were there, they do not know the whole story.

I saw Jerry Don Mercer a few months later.  A group of high school friends went on a fishing trip at Sugar Creek hollow.  The game and fish commission was offering rewards for gars.  Therefore, this was a fun way to make a little money.  As I remember, it was fifty cents for each gar head you brought in to any of the local bait shops.  While everyone was fishing, I walked up the Creek for a mile and found what looked like a good spot for gar.  After an hour or so of pulling in gar my attention as caught by a sound and a familiar smell   I looked across the creek, I saw Jerry Don Mercer naked and covered with mud and blood.   I called to him, he squealed like a wild hog.  I threw down my fishing rod and ran back to where the others were fishing.  They did not believe me until I took them to the place where my rod and reel were lying upon the ground.   He was not there but they could smell him.  People camping on Beaver Lake will often talk about the strange noises and the terrible smell.  They think it is dead fish.  No, It is Jerry Don Mercer still being chased by the woman in the vault.