Spring 2007 (9 page)

“If you’re gonna tell a tale,” Bill said, “least don’t
wander all over the place.”

“So, you’re interested?” Old Timer said.

“What else I got to do?” Bill said.

“Go on,” Jebidiah said. “Tell us about Mary Lynn.”

Old Timer nodded. “Gimet took to her. Seen her around,
bringing the brooms her mama made into the store. He waited on her, grabbed
her, and just throwed her across his saddle kickin’ and screamin’, like he’d
bought a sack of flour and was ridin’ it to the house. Mack Collins, store
owner came out and tried to stop him. Well, he said something to him. About how
he shouldn’t do it, least that’s the way I heard it. He didn’t push much, and I
can’t blame him. Didn’t do good to cross Gimet. Anyway, Gimet just said back to
Mack, ‘Give her mama a big jar of honey. Tell her that’s for her daughter. I’ll
even make her another jar or two, if the meat here’s as sweet as I’m
expecting.’

“With that, he slapped Mary Lynn on the ass and rode off
with her.”

“Sounds like my kind of guy,” Bill said.

“I have become irritated with you now,” Jebidiah said.
“Might I suggest you shut your mouth before I pistol whip you.”

Bill glared at Jebidiah, but the Reverend’s gaze was as
dead and menacing as the barrels of Old Timer’s shotgun.

“Rest of the story is kind of grim,” Old Timer said.
“Gimet took her off to his house, and had his way with her. So many times he
damn near killed her, and then he turned her lose, or got so drunk she was able
to get loose. Time she walked down Cemetery Road, made it back to town, well,
she was bleeding so bad from having been used so rough, she collapsed. She
lived a day and died from loss of blood. Her mother, out of her sick bed, rode
a mule out there to the cemetery on Cemetery Road. I told you she was Indian,
and she knew some Indian ways, and she knew about them old gods that wasn’t
none of the gods of her people, but she still knew about them.

“She knew some signs to draw in cemetery dirt. I don’t
know the whole of it, but she did some things, and she did it on some old grave
out there, and the last thing she did was she cut her own throat, died right
there, her blood running on top of that grave and them pictures she drawed in the
dirt.”

“Don’t see how that done her no good,” the deputy said.

“Maybe it didn’t, but folks think it did,” Old Timer
said. “Community that had been pushed around by Gimet, finally had enough, went
out there in mass to hang his ass, shoot him, whatever it took. Got to his
cabin they found Gimet dead outside his shack. His eyes had been torn out, or
blown out is how they looked. Skin was peeled off his head, just leaving the
skull and a few hairs. His chest was ripped open, and his insides was gone,
exceptin’ the bones in there. And them bees of his had nested in the hole in
his chest, had done gone about making honey. Was buzzing out of that hole, his
mouth, empty eyes, nose, or where his nose used to be. I figure they’d rolled
him over, tore off his pants, they’d have been coming out of his asshole.”

“How come you weren’t out there with them?” Bill said.
“How come this is all stuff you heard?”

“Because I was a coward when it come to Gimet,” Old
Timer said. “That’s why. Told myself wouldn’t never be a coward again, no
matter what. I should have been with them. Didn’t matter no how. He was done
good and dead, them bees all in him. What was done then is the crowd got kind
of loco, tore off his clothes, hooked his feet up to a horse and dragged him
through a blackberry patch, them bees just burstin’ out and hummin’ all around
him. All that ain’t right, but I think I’d been with them, knowing who he was
and all the things he’d done, I might have been loco too. They dumped him out
on the cemetery to let him rot, took that girl’s mother home to be buried some
place better. Wasn’t no more than a few nights later that folks started seeing
Gimet. They said he walked at night, when the moon was at least half, or full,
like it is now. Number of folks seen him, said he loped alongside the road,
following their horses, grabbing hold of the tail if he could, trying to pull
horse and rider down, or pull himself up on the back of their mounts. Said them
bees was still in him. Bees black as flies, and angry whirling all about him,
and coming from inside him. Worse, there was a larger number of folks took that
road that wasn’t never seen again. It was figured Gimet got them.”

“Horse shit,” the deputy said. “No disrespect, Old
Timer. You’ve treated me all right, that’s for sure. But a ghost chasing folks
down. I don’t buy that.”

“Don’t have to buy it,” Old Timer said. “I ain’t trying
to sell it to you none. Don’t have to believe it. And I don’t think it’s no
ghost anyway. I think that girl’s mother, she done something to let them old
gods out for awhile, sicked them on that bastard, used her own life as a
sacrifice, that’s what I think. And them gods, them things from somewhere else,
they ripped him up like that. Them bees is part of that too. They ain’t no
regular honey bee. They’re some other kind of bees. Some kind of fitting death
for a bee raiser, is my guess.”

“That’s silly,” the deputy said.

“I don’t know,” Jebidiah said. “The Indian woman may
only have succeeded in killing him in this life. She may not have understood
all that she did. Didn’t know she was giving him an opportunity to live
again…Or maybe that is the curse. Though there are plenty others have to suffer
for it.”

“Like the folks didn’t do nothing when Gimet was alive,”
Old Time said. “ Folks like me that let what went on go on.”

Jebidiah nodded. “Maybe.”

The deputy looked at Jebidiah. “Not you too, Reverend.
You should know better than that. There ain’t but one true god, and ain’t none
of that hoodoo business got a drop of truth to it.”

“If there’s one god,” Jebidiah said, “there can be many.
They are at war with one another, that’s how it works, or so I think. I’ve seen
some things that have shook my faith in the one true god, the one I’m servant
to. And what is our god but hoodoo? It’s all hoodoo, my friend.”

“Okay. What things have you seen, Reverend?” the deputy
asked.

“No use describing it to you, young man,” Jebidiah said.
“You wouldn’t believe me. But I’ve recently come from Mud Creek. It had an
infestation of a sort. That town burned down, and I had a hand in it.”

“Mud Creek,” Old Timer said. “I been there.”

“Only thing there now,” Jebidiah said, “is some charred
wood.”

“Ain’t the first time it’s burned down,” Old Timer said.
“Some fool always rebuilds it, and with it always comes some kind of ugliness.
I’ll tell you straight. I don’t doubt your word at all, Reverend.”

“Thing is,” the deputy said, “I don’t believe in no
haints. That’s the shortest road, and it’s the road I’m gonna take.”

“I wouldn’t,” Old Timer said.

“Thanks for the advice. But no one goes with me or does,
that’s the road I’m taking, provided it cuts a day off my trip.”

“I’m going with you,” Jebidiah said. “My job is striking
at evil. Not to walk around it.”

“I’d go during the day,” Old Timer said. “Ain’t no one
seen Gimet in the day, or when the moon is thin or not at all. But way it is
now, it’s full, and will be again tomorrow night. I’d ride hard tomorrow,
you’re determined to go. Get there as soon as you can, before dark.”

“I’m for getting there,” the deputy said. “I’m for
getting back to Nacogdoches, and getting this bastard in a cell.”

“I’ll go with you,” Jebidiah said. “But I want to be
there at night. I want to take Deadman’s Road at that time. I want to see if
Gimet is there. And if he is, send him to his final death. Defy those dark gods
the girl’s mother called up. Defy them and loose my god on him. What I’d
suggest is you get some rest, deputy. Old Timer here can watch a bit, then I’ll
take over. That way we all get some rest. We can chain this fellow to a tree
outside, we have to. We should both get slept up to the gills, then leave here
mid-day, after a good dinner, head out for Deadman’s Road. Long as we’re there
by nightfall.”

“That ought to bring you right on it,” Old Timer said.
“You take Deadman’s Road. When you get to the fork, where the road ends, you go
right. Ain’t no one ever seen Gimet beyond that spot, or in front of where the
road begins. He’s tied to that stretch, way I heard it.”

“Good enough,” the deputy said. “I find this all foolish,
but if I can get some rest, and have you ride along with me, Reverend, then I’m
game. And I’ll be fine with getting there at night.”

***

Next morning they slept late, and had an early lunch.
Beans and hard biscuits again, a bit of stewed squirrel. Old Timer had shot the
rodent that morning while Jebidiah watched Bill sit on his ass, his hands
chained around a tree in the front yard. Inside the cabin, the deputy had
continued to sleep.

But now they all sat outside eating, except for Bill.

“What about me?” Bill asked, tugging at his chained
hands.

“When we finish,” Old Timer said. “Don’t know if any of
the squirrel will be left, but we got them biscuits for you. I can promise you
some of them. I might even let you rub one of them around in my plate, sop up
some squirrel gravy.”

“Those biscuits are awful,” Bill said.

“Ain’t they,” Old Timer said.

Bill turned his attention to Jebidiah. “Preacher, you
ought to just go on and leave me and the boy here alone. Ain’t smart for you to
ride along, cause I get loose, ain’t just the deputy that’s gonna pay. I’ll put
you on the list.”

“After what I’ve seen in this life,” Jebidiah said, “you
are nothing to me. An insect…So, add me to your list.”

“Let’s feed him,” the deputy said, nodding at Bill, “and
get to moving. I’m feeling rested and want to get this ball started.”

***

The moon had begun to rise when they rode in sight of
Deadman’s Road. The white cross road sign was sticking up beside the road.
Trees and brush had grown up around it, and between the limbs and the shadows,
the crudely painted words on the sign were halfway readable in the waning
light. The wind had picked up and was grabbing at leaves, plucking them from
the ground, tumbling them about, tearing them from trees and tossing them
across the narrow, clay road with a sound like mice scuttling in straw.

“Fall always depresses me,” the deputy said, halting his
horse, taking a swig from his canteen.

“Life is a cycle,” Jebidiah said. “You’re born, you
suffer, then you’re punished.”

The deputy turned in his saddle to look at Jebidiah.
“You ain’t much on that resurrection and reward, are you?”

“No, I’m not.”

“I don’t know about you,” the deputy said, “but I wish
we hadn’t gotten here so late. I’d rather have gone through in the day.”

“Thought you weren’t a believer in spooks?” Bill said,
and made with his now familiar snort. “You said it didn’t matter to you.”

The deputy didn’t look at Bill when he spoke. “I wasn’t
here then. Place has a look I don’t like. And I don’t enjoy temptin’ things.
Even if I don’t believe in them.”

“That’s the silliest thing I ever heard,” Bill said.

“Wanted me with you,” Jebidiah said. “You had to wait.”

“You mean to see something, don’t you, preacher?” Bill
said.

“If there is something to see,” Jebidiah said.

“You believe Old Timer’s story?” the deputy said. “I
mean, really?”

“Perhaps.”

Jebidiah clucked to his horse and took the lead.

***

When they turned onto Deadman’s Road, Jebidiah paused
and removed a small, fat bible from his saddlebag.

The deputy paused too, forcing Bill to pause as well.
“You ain’t as ornery as I thought,” the deputy said. “You want the peace of the
bible just like anyone else.”

“There is no peace in this book,” Jebidiah said. “That’s
a real confusion. Bible isn’t anything but a book of terror, and that’s how God
is: Terrible. But the book has power. And we might need it.”

“I don’t know what to think about you, Reverend,” the
deputy said.

“Ain’t nothin’ you can think about a man that’s gone
loco,” Bill said. “I don’t want to stay with no man that’s loco.”

“You get an idea to run, Bill, I can shoot you off your
horse,” the deputy said. “Close range with my revolver, far range with my
rifle. You don’t want to try it.”

“It’s still a long way to Nacogdoches,” Bill said.

***

The road was narrow and of red clay. It stretched far
ahead like a band of blood, turned sharply to the right around a wooded curve
where it was a dark as the bottom of Jonah’s whale. The blowing leaves seemed
especially intense on the road, scrapping dryly about, winding in the air like
giant hornets. The trees, which grew thick, bent in the wind, from right to
left. This naturally led the trio to take to the left side of the road.

The farther they went down the road, the darker it
became. By the time they got to the curve, the woods were so thick, and the
thunderous skies had grown so dark, the moon was barely visible; its light was
as weak as a sick baby’s grip.