Southern Gods (9 page)

Ingram pulled out a smoke and lit it with trembling hands.

Why did he stop? Let me live?

Ingram felt his anger building—a strange echo of the feeling he’d had with the rough sound of the silhouette—his resolve to see this job through calcifying to some rock-hard permanence. With every throb of ripped face, his anger grew.

I’m gonna find that bastard if it’s the last thing I ever do, so help me God.

It was Ingram’s version of prayer, and he didn’t know even if he meant Early Freeman or Derwood Miller or the silhouette by the side of the road.

The coupe trundled through the night, crunching its way back Cherrylog Road.

On Main Street, Dougan’s pharmacy was closed, but KBRI was still lit. Ingram drove the coupe slowly past the building. Couch was in the booth window, head bent, ministering to his flock, an electric priest sending out his blessings at 1570 kilohertz with one thousand watts of power. But Ingram wanted no more conversing with Couch, no more dissembling; thinking about it now, he realized it was only the girl’s presence that had kept him from forcing the truth out of Couch. With cracked bones and blood. Maybe too much blood.

He pulled the coupe around the back of the KBRI building, parking in the shadows of the tower. Ingram exited the coupe and tested the building’s rear doors; both were locked. He went back to the car, lit a cigarette, and sat fiddling with the radio, tuning in KBRI.

Ingram watched for Derwood, smoking and taking sips from the pint of whiskey he kept under his seat. From his bag he took a white undershirt, poured some whiskey on it, and dabbed at the scratches on his face.

Jesus. Did a number on myself. What the hell happened back there?

Couch’s voice sounded sonorous and lulling even through the speakers of the coupe. Ingram leaned back in his seat and dozed.

When Derwood took the air at 10 PM, Ingram sat upright and cursed, looking around the lot, wishing he had watched the front door.

“Welcome, ya’ll, to KBRI’s evening programming. I’m Derwood Millah, and tonight we got a real treat for you, the new single from Little Rock’s own Jim Cannon. Later we’ll spin some of the Memphis favorites but right now I don’t want you to forget that everybody needs some plumbing work sometimes. Pipes get clogged, food gets down the drain and not to mention hair and other stuff… ooh. But there’s a solution to all of these problems. That’s right, if you need help with your plumbing, be sure to call W.T. Grant and Son Plumbers, right here in Brinkley, and they’ll come by and—”

Derwood’s voice wasn’t as smooth as Couch’s but what he lacked in polish, he made up for with enthusiasm. When Derwood began playing music, Ingram sat upright.

Rhythm and blues, he called it.

It came through the speakers like a dream, a deep pulsing dream. He started with Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who sang a throaty spiritual. He followed it with Robert Johnson, who cried of hell hounds and debt. When Derwood announced a Helios artist, Hubert Washington, Ingram started the coupe, maneuvered it out of the parking lot, and drove back to Cherrylog Road.

He parked the coupe away from the house, out of sight, and walked back down the road, his footsteps crunching on gravel. It was dark now, an intermittent cloud-cover partially obscuring the stars. The sap rested easily in his hand, the .38 cold and reassuring in the small of his back.

He went around to the back of the house, found a door, and smashed the window with the sap. Inside, he flipped a kitchen light and looked around. A picture of a man with a woman and infant, bundled in winter clothes. Nothing more to indicate family.

Might be his ex. Miller, a shabby, solitary male. The house reeked with the stench of unwashed bodies and trash, yet it was relatively clean. Ingram walked around the first floor, flipping on lights and opening closets, cabinets, anything. Finding nothing of interest, he went back to the kitchen, turning off lights as he went, and pulled a fresh bottle of milk and a wedge of cheese from the main compartment of the ice box. He sat his .38 down beside the milk bottle, and took a seat facing the kitchen door. Using his pocket knife, he curled slices away from the cheddar and popped them into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully.

He sat sipping milk, eating cheese, at the flimsy wooden table until he heard the car pull up to the front of the house. He hummed the Sister Rosetta Tharpe song he’d heard earlier.

Ingram waited. He heard creaks on the porch steps, the ratchet of the key in the front door, and then heavy footfalls coming toward the kitchen.

Derwood Miller walked into the kitchen with his mouth open, eyes wide in unbelief. A stringy man, dressed in cheap clothes that hung loose on his frame, Derwood nervously ran a hand through over-greased hair and glanced from Ingram, to the milk and cheese, to the gun.

Ingram smiled, nodding at the opposite chair.

“Derwood?”

He didn’t bother with exclamations of protest. Derwood crossed his arms over his narrow chest, standing in a yellow pool of light, eyes boring in to Ingram.

“Yeah. That’s me. What’re you doing in my house?”

“Waiting for you,” Ingram said, hooking the chair with his foot and sliding it toward Miller. “Have a seat.”

His eyes shifted from the gun to the milk then Ingram again. He sat down on the offered chair like a dog sitting down to a meal from an unknown hand.

“Derwood, earlier tonight, I was attacked right out in front of your house by… someone—something—I can’t explain.” He pointed toward the bloody streaks on his face. “You can see I got the short end of that stick.”

Ingram reached forward and pulled the pack of cigarettes out of Derwood’s shirt pocket. He took one for himself and offered one to the other man. Derwood shook his head. Ingram lit his.

“I can’t explain it, so I won’t even try.” He blew the smoke toward Miller and dropped the match on the floor.

Ingram sat quietly for a long while, smoking, blowing the smoke into the other man’s face. He picked a loose fleck of tobacco from his teeth. He took a speck of lint from his slacks and smoothed the fabric.

Eventually, he raised his head, looked at Derwood, and said, “Tell me everything you know about a man named Early Freeman. If you lie, if you leave anything out, you’ll regret it.”

Miller swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.

“I know Early through work, deejaying at KBRI. He comes through about once a month, takes Mr. Couch to lunch and drops off some forty-fives, then moves on to the next radio station, the next town. That’s about it.”

“Mr. Couch said you’ve spent some time with him. Tell me.”

“Well…” Miller’s eyes flicked around the kitchen looking for something, some way out of this unexpected domestic interrogation. “Sometimes, we’d go drinking, you know, roll out to the Stockyard tonk, out near the county line, and Early would always do the buying, long as I made sure I spun his records. Which was fine with me cause I would’ve spun ’em anyway. They’re good.”

“Tonk?”

“Yeah. Honky-tonk. A blues joint. We’d listen to the blues, drink beer, or Coke and whiskey.”

“It a Negro establishment?”

“Yeah, but they know me there. They play the best blues, even on the juke. Most weekends, there’s a player, or a band. It’s good. Folks don’t know what they’re missing.”

Ingram paused to think, flicking the ash of his cigarette onto the floor. “So, when was the last time you saw Early?”

“Same day Mr. Couch did. He told me you’d been by asking after Early.”

“He take you drinking that night?”

“Yeah, he did. We went out to the tonk, like I was telling you, and pretty much got our bellies tight, you know?”

“He mention where he was off to next?”

“Said he was gonna head down to England, visit the folks over at KENG.”

That matched what Ruth Freeman had told him about Early’s last phone call.

“What do you know about Ramblin’ John Hastur?”

The outraged flush of red drained from his cheeks like water from a cracked glass, his eyes pulled tight as if to ward off a blow. Miller brought his hands into his lap, like a schoolboy, and clasped them together.

“Nothin.’ I don’t know nothing ’bout him.”

Ingram clubbed Miller across the face with the sap. Miller looked at Ingram with surprise, an expression of pure bewilderment on his face. He toppled onto the linoleum of the kitchen floor.

Ingram snatched the front of Miller’s shirt, lifted him, then placed him back in his chair.

“What do you know about Ramblin’ John Hastur?” Ingram said slowly.

Miller swayed in his chair and reached a hand up to touch his rapidly swelling cheek. His hand came away bloody.

“I know… I don’t know nothing,” Miller said, looking Ingram straight in the eyes and saying it slowly. “Nothing.”

Ingram rapped Derwood’s head twice with the sap, and the man slumped back into the chair, unconscious.

Ingram stood. He moved across the room and rummaged in the kitchen cabinets and closets. In an adjoining hall, he found a cylinder of nylon rope and returned to the kitchen. He bound Miller’s hands and feet. He tied his body to the chair. Taking a pot from an open cabinet, he filled it with water and dumped it on Miller’s head.

Miller spluttered. He twisted his body, looked down in surprise at the rope binding him.

Ingram patted Miller’s cheek. “Here’s the deal, pard. I’m not gonna hit you again. You’re gonna tell me everything you know about Ramblin’ John Hastur or I’m gonna pick up this chair, with you in it, and take you outside, where that fucking thing attacked me. I’m gonna set you down on the edge of the wood, out of sight of the road, and let you think about what you know and you don’t know. I’ll come back tomorrow and we’ll have this conversation again, if there’s anything left of you.”

A growing horror filled Miller’s face as Ingram spoke, and Ingram felt it too. The blackness. The memory of a silhouette approaching. A black, open mouth, emanating sound. The idea of leaving Miller out there, on the edge of the woods like a sacrifice—no, an offering, he thought suddenly—horrified him. And just as suddenly, Ingram knew—
he knew—
that if he did leave Miller on the wood’s edge, the offering would be accepted and he’d be able to parlay with the black creature.

“No,” Miller said. “I’ll spill.”

“Then spill, goddammit. I’m tired of waiting. And I might not like it—you definitely won’t—but I’ll do as I fucking say and put you out there.” Ingram motioned toward the dark windows at the front of the house.

“They call him the Yellow King. Or the Tattered Man. He plays and sings his songs with the Devil’s voice.”

“Who’s they?”

“Negroes. Black folk all around. Poor white folk who work the fields. Sharecroppers and wood folk, you know, them that live on the edges of the bayou, or the river, and fish for a living. You hear ’em sometimes, talking ’bout him, when you’re at the store, or passing ’em on the street. You know? His name just sorta starts getting heard.”

Ingram nodded.
It’s the fucking middle ages out here. No Errol Flynn in sight.

“And what do they say?”

“That Ramblin’ John sings with the Devil’s voice and plays with the Devil’s hands. That when he sings, it’s like he’s casting a spell. That he’s got songs that if you heard them, they’d drive you mad. That his songs can raise the dead.” Miller paused here, uncertain. “They say his voice can get a woman with child if she hears it full.”

Ingram grew cold, remembering the song on the pirated radio station. The black thing in the dark, making that unholy sound. He reached up to touch his face and caught himself.

“Did Early ask you about him?”

Miller looked as sheepish as was possible with a swelling, bloody cheek, and said, “Yes.”

“And you told him just what you told me, didn’t you?”

Miller nodded.

Ingram grunted. “OK, Derwood. One more question. What do you know about this radio station? The pirate radio station.”

Miller exhaled, almost relieved. “Early asked me about that too. I heard it… I heard it once, late at night after my shift. I went… wild. Before I could stop myself, I went to her bedroom. My wife.” He bowed his head. He sobbed. “She left the next day, took the kids.”

“That’s tough, soldier.”

Derwood stayed that way for a long while. Finally, he sniffed and raised his head.

“It’s always on a different frequency. It’s always on at a different time of night and that… well… they play Ramblin’ John songs. Full ones. If everything they say is true, it’s a good thing they shift frequencies every time they broadcast because if you always knew where you could tune in to ’em, the whole world might go crazy, or fall under Ramblin’ John’s spell.” Miller smiled as he said this, recognizing the absurdity of the statement. He winced with the pain of his skin drawing tight on his cheek.

Ingram dropped his smoke to the kitchen floor and crushed it with his wingtip. “OK, Derwood. That’ll do. You got any candles?”

“Yeah,” Miller said, looking toward a cabinet. “There’s a box of ’em right in there. What’dya need candles for?”

Ingram stood and retrieved the box. He stopped, and turned back to Miller. “Lemme ask you one more thing, and I guess you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”