Southern Gods (13 page)

“Don’t want to be. Can’t even master myself. You got a license?”

“Course.”

Ingram took a drink of whiskey, set down the glass. In a drawer of the hotel room bureau, he found pen and paper. “Let me see it.” He copied down Rabbit’s name and license number. Then he looked at Rabbit and said, “I’m gonna deal it to you straight. I’ve been in this state for going on three days now, and I must’ve looked like a babe in the woods when I got here cause there’s… some—” Ingram paused, the word
things
on his tongue, and reconsidered. “There’s some folks that don’t want me poking around. Did a few things to me that weren’t so nice. I think they’re friends of this Hastur character. I mean to find out who.”

“You ain’t looking quite as fresh as a daisy, that’s for sure.”

“More like a Black-Eyed Susan, I’d say.” Both men laughed. “They call you Rabbit? My name’s Ingram, but they call me Bull.”

“The Rabbit and the Bull. I think we might have something there.”

Rabbit threw back his head and laughed. Ingram saw gold fillings in the back of his mouth, and smiled with the little man. He found himself enjoying Rabbit’s company. He couldn’t trust Rabbit as far as he could throw him, but he could probably throw him a good ways, if he wanted to.

“So, what can you tell me about Hastur?”

“Lots of things. None of ’em make much sense.”

“You ever seen him play?” Ingram asked, raising his eyebrows. “Heard his music?”

“Hell naw. I like the boogie-woogie—it’s like when they make the blues rock and roll like a man and woman in a bed, you know? But blues men without a band ain’t my thing. Can’t dance to it, and the ladies like to dance.”

“What have you heard ’bout him?”

“Shit. Everything. Like he’s the Devil in the flesh, that he just the opposite, a saint sent here to save… well, to save the black folks from the oppression of the white man.” Having said it, Rabbit looked at Ingram with a defiant glare. “Some ignorant black folks say he’s gonna bring round the end of the world with his voice, and carry us over the river Jordan into the promised land. But them country black folk say that ’bout every preacher from here to Memphis.”
Ingram sat thinking. He raised his swaddled hand to ease the swelling, and groaned. “I can believe some of that. See, I’ve heard his music.”

Rabbit said nothing, but his smile faded and he grew still.

“Don’t know why I’m telling you this. I guess I like you or maybe you got an honest face.”

“Shit,” Rabbit said. “That ain’t so. A hundred ladies know it from Des Arc to Dumas.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that a man in Memphis played me a recording of a radio station coming out of Arkansas, a pirated radio station, changing frequencies. You heard of that?”

“Yeah, I heard of it. I ain’t heard it.”

“He’d found the station and recorded part of a Hastur song. I haven’t heard nothing like that ever in my life, and I don’t mean that in a good way. I started getting worked up, like I wanted to kill somebody, like I was going crazy, like the bottom had dropped out of the well. Do you know what I mean?”

Rabbit nodded, face serious. “Like everything you ever known has died. Like it’s all over, ’cept for the crying.”

Ingram nodded. “Yes. Felt just like that. But I took the job anyway, to find a man. He’s got a family and I… I don’t have nothing really ’cept scars and time. This man, a white man, he’d been looking for Hastur. Now he’s missing. So I’m looking for two men now, Early Freeman—the white fella—and Ramblin’ John Hastur. But people and… things… keep getting in my way.”

He poured himself another glass, offered more to Rabbit.

“Naw. No more for me.”

Ingram sipped his drink, then shivered. “So, this is where we stand. Tomorrow, I’m going to Ruby’s, where Hastur is supposed to play.” Ingram took the rumpled mimeograph out of his shirt pocket and tossed it to Rabbit, who snatched it out of the air with deft fingers. “One man has gone missing looking for this fella and other… other… fucked up things have happened. I need a driver. I know I told that clerk downstairs five dollars, but I’ll pay you ten, cause it could be dangerous. But I need you to help me, get me to where I need to go. Without someone like you—” Ingram smiled, recognizing the strangeness of what he was saying. “Without a local, I don’t think I’ll have a chance here, I’ll meet another accident.”

Ingram sipped his drink again and watched Rabbit. Rabbit took a pack of Pall Malls out of his perfectly creased pants, shook a cigarette out of the pack, tamped the cigarette on his wrist, then lit the tip with a match, all done with slow, deliberate motions as Ingram looked on, waiting for his answer.

Then he smiled. “I’ll do it for twenty. Half up front.”

Ingram motioned to Rabbit for a smoke. Rabbit packed another one on his wrist, then, with a little flourish, twisted the end to keep the loose tobacco in. He handed it to Ingram, who lit it with a match. The larger man coughed.

“Okay. Ten up front. Ten when you get me back here. I’ll buy your drinks.”

“Deal.” The smaller man grinned. “I guess I will take another drink. And that ten up front.” Rabbit grinned even larger, gold flashing in his mouth.

The two men sat for a while, smoking Rabbit’s cigarettes, drinking Ingram’s whiskey. It was night now; Ingram reached out and flipped on the radio, began searching through the frequencies, static hissing. After a while, Rabbit stood, straightened his pants legs, and said, “Well, I best be on my way home. Dark already, and I need to lay out some clothes for tomorrow night. Been a long time since I’ve been to Ruby’s so I need to look tight.”

Ingram dug out his keys, tossed them to the smaller man. “Take the coupe, green, parked out front. Make sure you can drive her. Gas comes out of your end—you’re getting paid enough. If you’ve got a gun, I’d take a little time and make friends with her again, if you haven’t held her for a while. Just in case.”

“I guess you’re paying me enough. But we’ll have to settle up if I actually have to shoot some fool.”

“Understood. Be here in time to get me there before the main act starts. Hastur.”

“Mr. Ingram, I’m your man, tomorrow at least. Be here, bells on, five o’clock.”

When the door shut, Ingram poured another drink and turned back to the radio, searching.

Chapter 8

A
fter the night Franny went missing, Sarah relented on the child’s sleeping arrangements. Some nights, she would allow Franny to sleep with Lenora and Fisk. But the nights when she kept Franny with her, they slept together. Those nights, she curled against her daughter in a quiet, desperate half-circle, her body curled around the sleeping form of her child, her arm laid over Franny, her nose in the child’s hair, breathing her scent, watching her chest rise and fall. Watching her eyes move underneath her eyelids.

Sarah, as she bathed Franny, treated the luminous child like some object of worship, silently ministering to the girl as Franny talked through her day.

“Then Fisk said he saw a snake in the woods and Lenora said he didn’t and I was scared, a little. But Fisk is brave and he told me to stand behind him when we went into the woods, and we walked for a while, Fisk was going to show us the snake. He called it a fat snake. That’s funny, don’t you think, Mommy? A fat snake.”

Sarah lathered up Franny’s hair with baby shampoo. She loved the smell and feel of the soap, so soothing to her. “That does sound funny, baby. Did you see one? Did Fisk show you a fat snake?”

“We walked to the river, not too far from here, through that wood.” Franny pointed to the window, out over the fallow field, toward the dark wood. Sarah leaned over the claw-footed tub and dipped a ladle full of water, then gently poured it over Franny’s head, rinsing soap away from her hair in rivulets.

“You all go there? Into the woods?” She frowned. “I don’t know if you should be going in there without an adult.”

“
Mommy
.” Franny was irritated and frightened all at once. “Mommy, it’s fine. I’m with Fisk and Lenora. Fisk is eight and Lenora is ten. And I’m not scared. It’s
not
scary. It’s just dark but the sun comes through the leaves some too.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about, honey. I need to know exactly where you are at all times. It can be dangerous in the country. Okay?”

“Okay. I’ll tell you.”

Sarah placed her hands on Franny’s shoulders and turned her gently toward her. “Really? Promise me you won’t wander off and not tell me where you’re going.”

“I promise, Mommy. Really. I will.”

Sarah took a deep breath, sighed, and chewed her lip. “Okay.”

Sarah thought about her endless summer afternoons exploring the fields and forests around the Big House as a girl; with Alice there had been adventures, a wonderful sprawling childhood, field upon field and day after day, wide open and unrestrained.

She smiled and tweaked Franny under her arm, tickling her ribcage. Franny squealed, splashing in the murky water.

The laughing felt good. She wished there was more times like this with her daughter, more time spent together, happy. Fisk and Lenora filled Franny’s world right now, and Sarah was just a touchstone to visit while the children tested the boundaries of their bodies, their minds, and the land around them.

“So, did you see a snake?”

Franny nodded. Then giggled. “He was fat! And black all over, lying on a log right by the water. Fisk threw a rock at it, and it slithered into the river.” Franny held out her hands to indicated something large. Water splashed Sarah’s leg. “And the
river
… it was huge. Have you ever been to the river, Mommy? We could barely see across it. Fisk said it was the Arkansas River, and Lenora said that’s right and then I saw a man across the river standing in the trees. He was a black man.”

She held up her hand to her eye, the index and thumb barely separated. “And he was only this big. That’s how big the river is. And he was looking at me, I could tell. Fisk and Lenora didn’t see him, but I did. They were looking at the big boat that was coming up the river. Fisk said its name was the
Hellion
, said it was painted on the side. What’s a hellion?”

Sarah smiled and said, “I don’t know, baby. I’d have to see the boat. Was it big?”

Franny looked puzzled, then nodded again. “But it was kinda hard to tell how big it was because the river is so much bigger. Mommy, do you think someone could swim across the river?”

Sarah poured more bath water on the girl’s pale shoulders. “No, honey, I don’t think there’s any way a person could swim across the river.”

Franny looked slightly relieved. Sarah asked, “Did Fisk say that he was going to swim across the river?”

Franny didn’t answer, just looked at the wall and shook her head again.

“Well, if he ever tries to, you run and tell Alice or me, because the river is very dangerous. It’s not like swimming in Old River Lake. The river has currents that can carry you off, or suck you under water. Promise me you’ll never swim in the river.”

“I don’t want the black man to swim across the river.” Franny turned in the bath, and said earnestly, “I will never swim in the river, Mommy, because there are snakes in the river. It’s scary.”

Sarah leaned forward, kissed her daughter on the nose. “Good, punkin. But we’ll go to Old River Lake real soon, and you and Fisk and Lenora can swim again. How’s that sound? Good?”

I hope to God she doesn’t find out that Old River has snakes too.

The girl nodded. “Can I sleep with Lenora and Fisk tonight?”

“I wanted you to be my snuggle buddy.”

“Please?” She drew out the word into multiple syllables. “Please, can I?”

Sarah brushed a loose strand of hair back from her face, and tucked it behind her ear. “If you get dried off, comb your hair, and brush your teeth, then we’ll go down and ask Alice.”

Franny squealed, sloshing gray water in the tub. “You’re the best-est Mommy in the whole world.” She splashed Sarah with water again as she held out her arms to encompass everything.

“I hope so, baby. I hope so.”

Alice was puttering around in the kitchen when Franny and Sarah entered. She took one look at Franny, glanced at Sarah’s despondent face, and smiled ruefully. “Franny, I think they’re still up. You go tee-tee and then get in bed, child.”

Franny scampered off, disappearing into Alice’s quarters. Alice turned to Sarah, said, “Don’t look at me like somebody shot your dog, girl. Looks to me like Fisk and Lenora are her first friends, and living here under the same roof, they’re gonna want to be together.” Alice turned around to the sink, started washing the dishes.

“I feel like I’m losing my baby to you. This place.”

Alice stiffened. “You done some stupid things in your time, girl—and that Jim was the
most—
but that’s the dumbest thing you
ever
said.”

It was surprising that she could feel such anger toward her oldest friend, but there it was, burning bright. It felt like a hot ember smoldering in her stomach. Blood rushed to her cheeks.

“And Calvin was—”

Alice slammed a plate down into the sink. There was a sharp crack. She turned, her eyes pained and weathered at the edges.

“We ain’t talking bout
me,
Sarah. We talking about
you.
”