Southern Gods (18 page)

“After breakfast we went walking in the dark wood, looking for Indian arrowheads. Couldn’t find none but we walked down to the river to see if we could get some driftwood to make a fort—”

“Driftwood makes the best fort cause it’s smooth from the water,” Fisk volunteered.

Lenora turned to glare at him for interrupting her story, then, after a suitable length, turned back to the adults.

“When we came to the river, Franny saw a little boat snagged in the branches of a tree, bumping up against the shore. First we thought folks might be fishing or hunting till we looked in it. There’s a man. Dead and dried blood all over him. We ran all the way back here to get you.”

Alice pushed away from the table. “All right, then. Let’s go see this dead man.”

Lenora looked down at her mother’s slippers and said, “You ain’t gonna get very far in them.”

Alice frowned, looking over her matronly bust at her nightgown and slippers. Sarah laughed, and Alice turned her frown toward the other woman. Sarah stood and said, “Alice, why don’t you get dressed and then go get some of Reuben’s boys to meet us at the river. I’ll go with the children.”

Alice looked at Sarah, as if surprised by her words. Usually Alice made the decisions.

Sarah grinned. “At least I’ve got on real shoes.”

There was a moment when she thought Alice would argue. But, reluctantly, Alice nodded.

Sarah’s shoes were heavy with mud a few minutes later as they trudged through the wood behind the house. The sky was overcast, turning the light hazy and casting the wood into a sepia scene of browns and blacks and whites. The day was cool and moist and rich odors burst up as each footstep marred the ground. The children chirped away like earthbound birds, happy with the new adventure.

Sarah smelled the river before she saw it. It smelled like dirt and fish and…
yes…
dead things.

“Lenora, show me where the man is. Franny, you stay with Fisk, please.”

Sarah maneuvered herself over the driftwood logs and down the mud slope toward the bank behind Lenora. She could see a small craft, its rope tangled in submerged branches, its outboard motor caught in the bank’s brush. The hull knocked against a log mired in the muddy shore. Climbing to the top of the log, Sarah looked inside the flat-bottom.

There was a giant in the boat. The man streaked with blood and grime lay on the wooden hull. His hand was wrapped with a bandage, and black blood caked the side of his head and spotted his chest and arm. His skin was pale.

Sarah called back to the other children. “Franny, Fisk! Run tell Alice we’re gonna need extra men to move him. Jesus, he’s massive.”

She managed to get herself from the top of the log into the boat, and once it stopped rocking, she perched herself to one side of the giant and tentatively reached out to touch his cheek.

Sarah gasped. “Lenora, run as fast as you can and tell them that he’s alive and we need to get Dr. Polk. Hurry!”

In his pocket, Sarah found his wallet and a bottle of pills. The Tennessee license revealed his name to be Lewis Patrick Ingram. A veteran Marine. From Memphis.

Sarah brushed his hair out of his face. She wet her hand in the river and, lacking a towel or bandana, used her wet fingers to wipe some of the grime from his face and forehead.

He moaned and shifted slightly.

“It’s all right. Sssh. It’s okay. We’re gonna get you to a doctor.”

With his face clean, he looked somewhat boyish, his face strangely unlined except for small crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. His straight, well-formed features were marred only by the fierce, strange scratches streaking away from his eyes.

Even unconscious, he looked earnest and uncomplicated. Squatting next to him in the unsure balance of the boat, Sarah felt intense compassion for this man, wounded and lost on waters carrying him where he knew not.

“Why are you crying, Mommy?” Franny asked from the shore.

Sarah jumped. She turned, looked at Franny, and wiped her eyes. “What? Oh, honey, you startled me! I thought you went with Fisk.”

“I couldn’t keep up with Fisk. He runs too fast. So I came back to stay with you. Sometimes the dark woods scare me.”

Sarah put a hand on the man’s chest, feeling his heart beat.

“This man has wounds all over him. I can’t understand how he got them.”

“But why are you crying?”

“Oh, honey… I feel sorry for this man. He’s lost and hurt, and I don’t know if there’s anything sadder than that.”

She looked at Franny. The girl’s luminous face was framed by a bright halo of wild hair.

Franny said, “Oh. That is sad. But what if he’s a bad man?”

Sarah looked back at the man’s face.
That’s the question, isn’t it? With all men. But he doesn’t look bad, he just looks… lost.

Sarah heard field-hands approaching through the wood, their calls muffled by the forest, obscured by the soft gurgle of the river, the knocking of the boat against the driftwood.

Franny turned, looking into the wood.

“Go get them, honey, and lead them back here,” Sarah said.

It took six men in all to raise the giant. In the end, two of them had to go back to the farm and get a plank of wood to carry the injured man back to the Big House. They dropped him once, in the wood, when a branch scratched at one of the bearer’s faces and he released his corner of the plank, spilling the giant to the ground with a thump. Sarah nearly screeched at the men. They ducked their heads and looked chagrined. The giant was half-mired in mud and leafy debris from the tumble. Sarah worried for the state of the man’s injuries, fearing infection.

Alice met them on the steps, waving frantically.

“Dr. Polk’s coming! I got the bed ready in the front guest room. You put him there, hear?”

The porters nodded, and among themselves decided it would be better going through the front door, so they carried the man around the house, through the front entryway, and up the grand stairway with Sarah, Franny, Fisk, and Lenora following like acolytes in a procession.

The men rolled the giant into the double bed of the guest room, smearing the covers with dirt. Alice bustled in, bearing towels and a steaming pot of water. Briskly, she took charge of the scene, barking orders at the field-hands.

“Festus, take off his shoe! Mike, start unbuttoning his shirt and mind the covers! Don’t get more dirt on them than already there, hear? Sarah, go down and wait for Dr. Polk, should be getting here sometime soon. And take these children with you! Go on, Fisk. Git!”

Sarah, the children, and all the porters except for Festus and Mike fled the guest room. On the way back downstairs, Sarah heard her mother yelling for her.

Sarah poked her head in her mother’s door. “Are you alright, Momma?”

Her mother sat upright in bed, her face mottled and angry. “What in the goddamned world is going on out there? What is going on in my house?”

“Momma, I don’t have a lot of time to explain but I’ll tell you everything later when I bring your sip. The children found a badly injured man by the river, and Dr. Polk is coming to tend to him.”

“Do we know this man, Sarah?”

“No. He’s a stranger, Momma. And hurt too.”

“If we don’t know him, why the hell is he in my house? Why didn’t you just leave him?”

Sarah looked at her mother and shook her head.

Elizabeth’s gaze remained fixed on her daughter, the silence between them lengthening, until finally she turned away and muttered, “You always were a weakling, girl. If it wasn’t for Alice you’d never have survived.” She placed her withered hands in her lap and shook her head, looking at the light from the window. “When Polk is done with the man, send him in here to see me.”

***

Dr. Polk arrived nearly an hour later.

Good thing no one was choking to death or we would already have had the funeral by now.

Doddering and ancient, Dr. Polk had treated Sarah as girl. She remembered him with more hair. He carried a black physician’s bag and wore a dark gray suit with a somber blue tie and glasses, which he continually pushed back on his nose. A small man, he took dainty steps, Sarah noticed, as she escorted him up to the guest room.

With the help of her two porters, Alice had managed to undress, wash, and get the injured giant under the covers. Dr. Polk examined him and undressed the giant’s injured right hand. As he unwound the black bandages, a rotten smell filled the room, making Sarah gag.

“Well, this hand was professionally bandaged,” Dr. Polk said. “But it’s obviously in need of a change. We’ll keep the plaster splint. Ah, Sarah, take this. Can you clean it up for me?”

He handed her a hard piece of yellowed plaster in the shape of a crooked shovel. Alice moved forward, and began to wash the man’s injured right hand.

“Just use some rubbing alcohol and try and clean it up. I’ve got gauze and bandages here. His hand is broken but this injury is older than this one here.” He pointed at the man’s skull. “And here.” He pointed at his heart. “Strange thing is, he’s got a pretty vicious bite wound on his arm, too, that looks like it might be getting infected. Hmm.”

Dr. Polk stared at the large man, rubbing his chin and thinking.

“A bite wound?” Sarah asked. “From a dog?”

“No, not a dog. It looks like a bite wound from a human mouth, which would explain the infection. The wound in his chest appears to be a very shallow knife wound. And his hand appears to be what we call a ‘boxer’s break,’ an injury common to fist-fighters and brawlers. The wound on his scalp—which looks like it might’ve concussed him—it was made by something sharp and metal, at least that’s what the wound is telling me. Clean edges, not ragged.”

Alice harumphed but continued to clean the man’s injured hand.

“Strange.” Dr. Polk lifted the coverlet shrouding the giant’s legs. “He’s various abrasions and contusions, the kind of scratches and bruises you’d get in fights. Multiple fights.” He shook his head. “One thing’s for sure, this man has done major violence to someone, and more recently, had major violence done to him. I wouldn’t much like to live in his world.”

The doctor unpacked a large roll of gauze and some cotton pads and medical tape and went to work alongside Alice, cleaning and bandaging the giant.

“Whatever happened to him, Sarah, you’d be well advised to call Sheriff Wocziak and let him know who you’ve found. I heard on the radio this morning that a lot of people died in a fire two counties over, and they don’t know if it was an accident or arson. Ruby’s on the Bayou, I believe they said. How did the children find this man?”

Sarah was reluctant to answer. She looked at the man in the bed, his brown hair and boyish features.

She didn’t have to answer, Alice did it for her. “They found him in a boat that got itself tangled in the rushes. Must’ve been floating downriver away from the scene of the crime.”

“Crime?” Sarah asked. “We don’t know where he comes from, or why he was hurt. Why don’t we let him tell us that before we make plans to hang him.”

Alice stopped washing the man’s hand, and turned to Sarah. She raised an eyebrow as if to say, “What’re you doing, girl?”

Dr. Polk tore a piece of white tape off a roll and said, “It’s up to you. It’s quite possible he’ll never come out of this coma, but he appears to be breathing well. Once we get his wounds cleaned, I’ll set you up with a saline drip and some pain killers should he wake up. Penicillin for the infection. And I’ll make sure to drop by in a couple of days.” He looked at Sarah, eyebrows raised.

“Of course, doctor. We’ll take care of the bill, at least until we figure out who he is. He’s got some cash in his wallet, if all else fails, and he—”

Dr. Polk cleared his throat. “Well, there’s always that possibility. But I doubt it. If he was going to die, he would have done so. This man could have endured any of these wounds taken individually. Easily.” The doctor laughed then, a dry chuckle. “But look at him. He’s gigantic. He has to have the constitution of a bull to survive all of these wounds. Indeed, I’ve never seen a more impressive collection of injuries in my career as a doctor.” He smiled, pleased to have seen something new. “Anyway, please be careful around him, Sarah. He’ll be weak for a long time, but by the looks of him, he could be dangerous.”

Sarah remained in the room, watching as Alice and the doctor ministered to the injured man. After they were finished, Dr. Polk winked at Alice and said, “Alice, good work. Should you ever want a position as my assistant—”

Alice laughed, bright and embarrassed. “Dr. Polk, you is sweet. But you know the Rheinharts are my people. If I wasn’t here to watch over them, they’d all be like this here fella, bedridden. Hungry. Mangy too, probably.”

Sarah grinned then. “Oh, yes, doctor, that reminds me. Momma asked to see you before you go.”

Dr. Polk’s smile curdled. “I guess that makes sense. It’s been what, four weeks since my last visit?”

Alice snorted. “No. ’Bout six months, Doc. April, I think it was, or early May.”

“Well, yes. Of course, I’ll see her.”

Once he was gone, Alice and Sarah burst into peals of laughter, familiar with his reluctance to see Sarah’s mother, happy it was not them. The strain of the morning slowly drained from Sarah as the giggles subsided. She hadn’t realized how tense she’d been throughout the doctor’s visit.