by Ronald Kelly
The dog rose to his feet when he saw Boyd coming. He bounded to the edge of the porch and let out a mournful howl. It was his way of saying “howdy.”
Boyd reached down and scratched the hound behind his floppy ears. “Hey there, Nailhead!” he said, smiling. “Have you missed me, boy?”
“I’ll say he missed your ornery carcass,” Caleb told him. “Me, too, for that matter. You realize it’s been a good three-and-a-half months since the last time you came visiting?”
Boyd shook his head. “Has it been that long?”
“It surely has,” said Caleb. “What the hell have you been up to, boy?”
The carpenter’s spirits began to backslide again. “Come on in the cabin and I’ll fill you in.”
They entered the cabin, leaving the redbone outside. A fire crackled in the stone hearth, casting a flickering glow over the cabin’s single room. “Let me brighten things up a bit here,” said Caleb. He lifted the chimney of a Coleman lantern sitting on an oak table and lit the wick with a sulfur match. “Pardon the mess. I ain’t had company in so long, I’ve kinda let things go.”
As the glow of the lantern increased, Boyd saw that he was right. Dirty dishes littered the table, and all manner of objects cluttered the hardwood floor: half-tanned skins nailed to stretching boards, hunting and gun magazines that lay partially read, and a carpet of pine shavings where Caleb had done a hell of a lot of whittling. It was the telltale sign of a lifelong bachelor… or a very lonely man. In Vanleer’s case, both.
“Have a seat by the hearth there and I’ll fetch the firewater,” invited the mountain man. “Then you can give your confessional, so to speak.”
Boyd laughed. He walked over to the wooden bench that sat before the fireplace and sat down, utterly exhausted. He tried to blank his mind to all the bad that had happened to him that day, but it just kept coming back. That regretful look on Ed Grant’s face as he handed him the severance check. The ambush by Joan and her deceitful mother in the kitchen of his former home. Paul’s hurt and Bessie’s innocent hopefulness. And the ruptured tire on his truck, he mustn’t forget that.
The next thing he knew, Caleb Vanleer was sitting down on the bench next to him, a couple of pint bell jars in his hands. They were filled to the rim with clear liquid. “There you go, tenderfoot. Grade A, hundred-percent panther piss.”
Boyd took the jar of corn liquor and raised it to his nose. The very smell of it burnt the lining of his nostrils and made his eyes water. Yes, it was genuine white lightning like only Caleb could make it. Boyd wondered why the law had never paid Vanleer a call, still-busting ax in hand. But he already knew the answer to that: Eagle Point wasn’t in Green Hollow’s jurisdiction, or that of Sevier County, for that matter. It was actually government property and part of Smoky Mountain National Park, even though Caleb owned a small piece of it—his family had held the deed going on two hundred years now. Boyd was sure the federal government had gotten wind of Vanleer’s private distillery, but so far they’d done nothing about it. Maybe they didn’t feel he was worth the trouble. Or maybe it was due to a guilty conscience. Caleb had been royally screwed by his own countrymen, or, more precisely, the ones who occupied that pentagon-shaped building up in Washington, D.C.
Boyd looked down at the jar in his hand and suddenly he was no longer in Vanleer’s mountain cabin. He was back in Joan’s kitchen, sitting on the floor, laughing his damned fool head off while his children stared at him with wide, frightened eyes. That memory, however foggy, made him think twice—but only for a moment. Abruptly, everything else came flooding back—his inability to keep a steady job and the possible loss of his wife and children, among other things—and the pain seemed too much for him to bear.
He lifted the jar to his lips and took a long swallow of moonshine. It went down smooth as silk, with hardly any burn to it at all. But he knew the liquor was a bald-faced liar. He sat there and waited until it made its way down to his belly. That’s when it hit him. The sour mash bloomed in his stomach, filling his gut with warmth and a jolt like pure, unharnessed lightning.
“Good?” asked Caleb with a big grin.
Boyd tried to return the smile, but it came out looking lame and more than a little guilty. “First drink I’ve had in three months, Caleb.”
The mountain man frowned. He thought about Boyd’s family—that pretty wife of his and those two fine young’uns. “Uh-oh,” he said. “Did I do something I shouldn’t have here? You mean you’ve been on the wagon for three whole months?”
“That’s right,” said Boyd. He laughed bitterly. “But tonight I fell off it right good. And hopefully I’ll get run over by it in the process.”
Concern shown in Vanleer’s eyes. “Boyd, this ain’t like you. I’ve known you since you were a tadpole and I’ve never seen you this down before.”
Caleb reached for the jar in Boyd’s hand, but the carpenter jerked it away. He took another long swig of liquor.
“When you hear what’s been going on lately, you won’t be trying to take this away from me,” he told him. “You’ll likely be trying to pour it down my throat with a funnel.”
“I doubt that,” said Caleb. “But if you want to tell me about it, hey, my ears are primed and ready.”
Boyd set the jar of moonshine atop his knee and thought to himself for a moment. Then he proceeded to tell Caleb Vanleer about everything that had taken place after that snowy night when Joan had kicked his drunken butt out of the house. When he was finally finished, he sat there on the bench, head hanging low and tears in his eyes.
“Do you blame me now?” he asked in barely a whisper.
“Can’t say I really do,” said Caleb. He patted his friend on the knee. “But pickling yourself with this ol’ rotgut ain’t gonna get you your family back, son. Hell, just the opposite.”
Boyd couldn’t help but grin. “Since when did you become so high and mighty, Caleb?”
Vanleer’s eyes grew stony, knocking the grin right off the younger man’s face. “I ain’t preaching you no sermon, Boyd,” he said flatly. “That ain’t no job for me, of all people.” He turned and stared gravely into the crackling flames of the hearth. “Lord knows, my life hasn’t turned out the way I once hoped it would.”
Boyd couldn’t help but pity the old mountain man. One wouldn’t know by looking at him, but Caleb Vanleer had once been a Green Beret, and a full-bird colonel to boot. He had also done three tours of duty in Vietnam, and that in itself had proven to be his downfall. Boyd didn’t really know the true story, only bits and pieces. During a tunnel rat mission in the Central Highlands, Vanleer had suffered some sort of trauma. A trauma that had, for some unknown reason, caused a loss of memory, erasing a short but significant period of time from Caleb’s mind. Unable to account for the disappearance of those who had entered the Vietcong tunnel with him, Vanleer was stripped of his rank and kicked out of the military.
Caleb drew a nice pension, but the damage had been done. He became a mountain hermit, trading his fatigues and M16 for tanned buckskins and a muzzle-loading rifle. Almost twenty-five years had passed since Caleb had been found roaming the jungle by a recon patrol and, even after all that time, he still couldn’t break the barrier that prevented him from remembering what had actually happened to him and his fellow tunnel rats.
He looked over and saw that the old man was still staring at the flames, as if they somehow held a key to that distant mystery. He could see the frustration in every line of the mountain man’s face. But Boyd knew he was wasting his time. Whatever happened back there in Nam was ancient history and it was one page of Vanleer’s life that would probably be lost forever.
“Caleb?” he said softly. “I didn’t mean to stir up that old shit again.”
The buckskinner shrugged. “It comes back to haunt me every now and then,” he said. “Ain’t no big deal. I can handle it.”
“You always were the crummiest liar I ever come across,” said Boyd, punching the man in the arm.
Caleb looked
at him for a moment, then chuckled. “I reckon you’re right about that.” He eyed Boyd, seeing the same troubled look in his eyes that shone in his own. “I figure it’s gonna take more than a little ol’ pint jar of this confounded stump-likker to chase these blues away, don’t you?”
Boyd thought about it for second. “Yep. I’d say so.”
“Then I’ll go fetch that jug,” said Vanleer. He stood up and walked to the footlocker where he kept a gallon of his homemade hooch, ready for such downhearted occasions.
Boyd stared at the whiskey in his hand, then downed the rest in a couple of gulps. As the liquor burned its way into his bloodstream, he began to forget the promise he had made to himself. And at that moment, he really didn’t give a damn whether he stuck to it or not.
Chapter Eight
The five-acre lot of the Green Hollow Drive-In Theater was packed that night. There were a dozen rows in all, and most were filled to capacity with cars, pickup trucks, and vans. Some folks watched the big sixty-foot screen with rapt interest, stuffing their faces with popcorn, hot dogs, and big, salty pretzels. Others couldn’t care less about the movie that was playing. They wrestled passionately in their back seats, steaming up the windows and seeing how many hickeys could fit on the average-sized neck. A few kids ran from row to row, laughing and playing. It was cool that late March night, but no one seemed to care. They had waited all winter for the drive-in to open back up and were now taking full advantage of it.
One person in the crowd derived no enjoyment from the movie as he stared through the bug-speckled windshield of his truck at the images on the big screen. Dud Craven sat and watched the picture dully, the bulky metal speaker hooked on his window emitting tiny screams and snarls. The drive-in was showing a double feature that night and it was just Dud’s luck that it turned out to be a couple of horror flicks: The Lost Boys and The Howling. Vampires and werewolves. Dud shuddered. Why couldn’t it have been a couple of teenage sex comedies, or something like that?
Dud’s stomach grumbled. The beans and taters hadn’t mixed well with the corn whiskey and he was suffering a bad case of indigestion. He took out his pocket watch and checked the time. It was a little past eleven-thirty.
He glanced back at the screen. Kiefer Sutherland was snarling into the camera, fangs exposed and eyes glowing an ugly blood red. Dud closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he opened them and glanced in the Dodge’s rearview mirror. He could see the reflection of the truck’s back window and the bed just beyond. Dud could faintly make out the dark bulge of a canvas tarp draped over something long and rectangular.
Dud thought of what lay underneath that tarpaulin, as well as his reason for being there. Just thinking about it made him skittish. He turned his gaze back out the windshield, but not at the leather-clad undead on the movie screen. Instead, he watched the eleven rows of cars and trucks that stretched before him.
A couple of boys about six or seven years old ran, giggling, between two cars in the tenth row. Dud’s blood ran cold. He prayed that they wouldn’t reach the twelfth and last row. He didn’t think he could stand it if they did.
He glanced out his side window. The last row on the lot usually offered the best seat in the house. But oddly enough, it was nearly empty that night. There was a Ford Escort parked to the far left, its occupants more interested in kissing and groping than anything else. The rest of the row directly behind the concession stand was mercifully empty.
Dud heard a door slam directly ahead of him. A pretty blonde girl, maybe sixteen, was leaving a souped-up Nissan truck in the eleventh row. She was dressed in a pair of tight jeans and an oversized letterman jacket. Burgundy and white, the colors of the Green Hollow Gladiators. She leaned through the open window, arguing with her boyfriend for a heated moment. Then she turned around and stomped off toward the concession stand.
The farmer’s heart began to pound. He knew this would be the one; he could sense it. He watched as the girl walked past the entrance that led into the snack bar, instead heading for a doorway near the back of the building. A sign over the door read LADIES.
She was gone from sight only a second when Dud heard a dull scraping noise, the sound of wood grating against wood. He looked in the rearview mirror again.
The tarp rose a foot or so, then eased back down. He waited for the lurching shudder of someone’s weight on the truck bed, but it never came. Dud watched for a black form to leap over the tailgate and merge with the darkness, but he knew he wouldn’t see it. Not in the mirror.
His stomach boiled and he tasted bile in the back of his throat. He would have given his eye tooth for a roll of Tums at that moment. His hands clenched the steering wheel nervously. The palm of his left hand was a little tender, but that was all.
Dud turned and looked toward the women’s rest room. For a long moment, the doorway remained empty. Maybe she’s already done her business and left, he thought hopefully. But a moment later, there she was, pushing the door open and stepping out into the night.
The farmer swallowed dryly and watched. She turned toward the concession stand as if intending to go in.
Then she paused and looked around like she had heard something. A little smile crossed her pretty face. She said something and started toward the back corner of the cinderblock building.
Don’t! Dud yelled in his mind. Just turn around and walk away.
But she didn’t. She reached the far corner and playfully looked around.
That was when a shadow loomed out of nowhere. Dud saw the blonde recoil, her mouth opening for a scream. Then, silently, the patch of blackness swallowed her whole and she was gone.
Dud’s heart felt like it was going to jump out of his throat. He turned frightened eyes toward the entrance of the concession stand, then the rows of cars that sloped gently down the hillside. As far as he could tell, no one had seen a thing. No one but him.
He glanced back at the darkness beyond the building. He knew what was there. A trash dumpster, followed by a couple of acres of woods and scrubby underbrush. Dud peered into the dark, but he could detect no movement.
Maybe she got away, he thought. Then an image of Grandpappy Craven came to mind, eyes burning hungrily from beneath bushy brows. He shook his head. Fat chance.
Dud sat there for what seemed like an eternity, but was actually no more than five minutes. Then he smelled something. He identified the odor at once. It was the rich, coppery scent of freshly-let blood. He had bagged enough deer in his time to know the stench of death when he smelled it.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when someone rapped gently on the rear window. By the time he looked into the mirror, the tarp-draped lid of the casket was already settling back into place.
Dud knew what the signal meant. He cranked the ignition. It stuttered for a moment and, for a second, the farmer had the horrible feeling that the battery had gone dead on him. “Come on,” he muttered. “Come on, damn it!”
He tried again. This time the ignition took hold and the engine rumbled into life. Dud unclipped the speaker from his window, returned it to its post, then rolled up the window. He glanced in the rearview mirror again. The box underneath the cover was still. To anyone looking, it would resemble a pile of junk beneath an old tarp and nothing more.
But fortunately, no one was looking. Dud slowly pulled away from the last row and made his way toward the one and only exit lane. He drove at a creep, doing his best not to draw anyone’s attention. As far as he could tell, he didn’t. The climax of the vampire movie was taking place and everyone’s eyes were glued to the flashing of wooden stakes and the spurting of blood.
Dud made it past the first row and the big concrete-and-wood screen. As he drove by the ticket booth, the boy inside—a pimply teenager with a crewcut—glanced up from his Playboy and waved at him. Dud gave the kid a sickly smile and threw up a finger in reply.
A moment later, Dud was on the main highway and heading back for the mountains. He wanted to stamp on the gas and let her fly, but he didn
’t dare. He drove the Dodge well below the speed limit, trying to remain as inconspicuous as he possibly could.
Chapter Nine
Boyd felt like a freight train had run over his head several times.
As he crossed the Green Hollow city limits, he glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was a quarter past eight in the morning.
He had been up since sunrise, putting his truck back into commission. Boyd recalled little about the night before. All he remembered was several hours of drinking, laughing, and crying before he eventually passed out. The next thing he knew, Caleb was shaking him awake, looking as sober as a judge. Apparently, the mountain man was immune to his own moonshine. But Boyd hadn’t been quite so lucky. His first drunk after three months of abstinence had been a doozy. And the price he had paid was a hangover that felt like a small nuclear weapon had been detonated inside his skull.
It had only taken a half hour to pull the truck out of the gully with Caleb’s four-by-four and fix its ruptured tire. Then Boyd was on his way home again, feeling like hell, as well as more than a little guilty and ashamed.
As he drove along Highway 321, he hit a small pothole. The impact—although a little one—sent Boyd’s head into a renewed fit of throbbing. “Serves you right, Andrews,” he told himself. “Payback for being so damned stupid.”
Up ahead, he saw a Jim Dandy market. He pulled into the parking lot, then carefully climbed out of the truck, taking his time. Once inside the store, he gathered up what he would need: a can of tomato juice, a bottle of Louisiana hot sauce, and a dozen eggs. He paid for the items—breaking his last twenty in the process—then headed back to his truck. Once he was behind the wheel, he opened the glove compartment and took out the Dixie cups he always kept there. He opened the can of tomato juice with his Swiss army knife and filled the cup three-quarters full. Then he broke a couple of the eggs into the juice, followed by a generous dose of the hot sauce.
