The Devil Walks in Mattingly

by Billy Coffey

  “Reckon I’ll scar, Daddy?”

  “I think by morning you’ll give your momma a fright, but I doubt you’ll scar.”

  He reached for the arm I was using to prop myself up and turned it to the lamplight. A thick ridge of pale skin no wider than Zach’s fingernail stretched from just inside my elbow to near my wrist.

  “I wish I could have a scar like yours,” he said. “It’s cool. Allie says scars make the man.”

  “I mean to make sure you never have a scar like this,” I whispered. “That’s why we had to have this little talk. Now you get on to sleep.” I bent and kissed Zach’s head, careful of the bad places. What came next were the words I said to my son every night, what every child should hear from his father and what I never heard from my own. “I love you, and I’m proud of you.”

  “Love you and proud too, Daddy.”

  I stepped over the quiet town lying in shadow on the floor and left Zach to sleep. Kate waited under the covers in the next room. The thick ringed binder that was her constant companion leaned open against her raised knees. Her almond eyes were bunched, and her finger twirled at the ends of hair as black and smooth as a raven’s wing. She might as well have been back in high school, cramming for a test.

  “Something preying on your mind, miss?” I asked.

  She looked up from a worn page. “More than one thing. How’d it go?”

  “As good as it could. He’ll make peace Monday.”

  She closed the notebook and clicked off her bedside lamp as I eased into bed. “You tell him about coming to my rescue in the second grade when Bobby Barnes tried to get a look at my underwear?”

  “Seeing as how that would defeat the purpose, I left that part out.” I settled in and added, “Last thing I want is the sins of the father being visited on the son.”

  I sighed as smells of green grass and Easter breezes rose from the pillow. Frogs sang along a prattling creek beyond the open window. Far away a train whistled as it lumbered through the center of town. I was nearly gone, and I both welcomed and feared the going. Kate took my hand beneath the covers.

  “Jake Barnett, you are the best man I’ve ever known.” She paused before voicing what else had been preying on her mind: “Will you sleep?”

  Part of me—the same wishful thinking that would reach for a ringing phone in the middle of the night believing it was just a wrong number—said, “Yes.”

  “Maybe they’d go away if you just talked to me.”

  Maybe, I thought. But there had been little talk of they in the past weeks, at least on my part, just as there had been little talk of Kate’s notebook over the years on hers. I guess that’s how it is in most marriages. You learn what to talk about and what to leave alone, what to share and what to hold close. We were no different. Our lives both together and apart had taught us the same undeniable fact—secrets make people who they are.

  I brought our joined hands up, turning mine to kiss hers. “Know what I love most about you?”

  “Mmm?”

  “Your hand fits perfect in mine.”

  With Zach asleep in the next room and Kate nearly there (“Wake me if you need me,” she mumbled, to which I replied I wouldn’t because there would be no need), I struggled for words to send heavenward that would keep Phillip away. Simple prayer hadn’t worked from the beginning, nor the desperate pleas in the weeks that followed. Now it had been a month, and my tired mind was twisted such that I no longer believed grace would end my nightmares, but some magical arrangement of vowels and consonants.

  I reached beneath the covers and touched Kate’s thigh, hoping her nearness would keep my sleep quiet. Or, if not, that her nearness would shame me into keeping quiet. In many ways, that was the worst part of what I suffered—not the dreams themselves, but those frantic bellows upon waking that betrayed a fear I’d long kept locked inside. I kissed the top of Kate’s head and closed my eyes. The last whisper on my lips was a petition for rest now, rest finally, that I would sleep, and then I wake standing atop the pile of rocks along the riverbank and I know it’s happening, it’s happening again, and no prayer and no wishing can take me from this place—this grave. My home and bed and family are gone, left in some faraway place, and I know the distance between where I am and where I was is best measured in time rather than distance.

  The Hollow lies in late day around me. An orange-red sun licks the tips of an endless sea of gnarled trees rising from the spoiled earth like punished souls. And there are butterflies, butterflies everywhere. White ones, covering the mound of rocks beneath me like fallen snow. They flap their wings opencloseopen in a hot, vapid wind that engulfs me. But even that sight does not frighten me as much as the sight of who lies at my feet.

  Phillip. Always Phillip.

  My eyes dip to his sprawled body. The hood of his sweatshirt is pulled tight, hiding his face. His arms and legs splay out at grotesque slants, his right hand reaching for the glasses that have fallen near the swirling river. I fight my thoughts, trying to push away the knowing that Phillip reached for his glasses because he wanted to see, and yet I think it nonetheless because that’s what I thought that day.

  Beside me, a sharp rock the size of a deflated basketball lies atop the pile. I pick the stone up and lay it on one of Phillip’s broken arms. I turn, knowing another stone has taken the place of the one I just moved, another always does, because this is a nightmare and it’s always this nightmare and please, God, wake me before Phillip speaks.

  I heft the sharp rock I find at my feet, feeling the strain in my back. It goes over Phillip’s head and face. The next conceals most of his bloody shorts, the stones after cover his legs and feet, on and on, stone after stone, just as I’ve done every night for the last thirty. And just as all those other nights, when I heft the final stone that will cover Phillip forever, I turn to see his body lying fresh upon the others I’ve just laid. And from beneath the sweat-shirt’s hood comes a pained voice that is soft and far away:

  You can’t do it, Jake, he says.

  I shrink back in horror. The butterflies twitch and flutter

  (opencloseopen)

  and I shake my head NO, NO this cannot be, and I bend to where another stone has appeared. I place it over Phillip’s arm, building the pile ever higher.

  You can’t, Jake. Do you know why?

  I weep. I weep because I do know and because Phillip has told me before and he’ll tell me again.

  Because you’re a dead man, Jake. You’re a dead man and he’s coming and you’ll remember true, because I want an end.

  I look over my shoulder and around the river’s bend, all the way to where the tall cone of Indian Hill rises beyond. No one is coming.

  He is, Jake. I’m coming too. I’m coming for you and you’re a dead man. See? I have something for you.

  Phillip reaches out with the fist I’ve not yet covered. His fingers turn upward to the sky as the white butterflies around us leap. I scream. It is a howling wail swallowed by flapping wings that sound as thunder in the twilight around us. I tumble down the pile of rocks that cannot cover Phillip McBride and run toward the hill, toward home, and though I always say I will not stumble, I always do because I once did. My feet slip and spill me forward, and I feel the skin between the elbow and wrist of my left arm rip open against the rocks. There is no time to lie in shock of the blood that spills from that wound, no time to think of what I’ve done, because Phillip’s heavy footfalls come behind me and I hear him say that he’s coming, he’s coming and I’m dead. His dead hand grabs hold of me, pulling, and I cried out into the pillow beneath my face.

  The hand on me was Kate’s. It was her screams I heard. Not simply out of fear for me, but for the blood dripping from my scarred left arm.

  2

  Kate Barnett let the phone ring three times that next morning, unsure why anyone would squander their Saturday by calling the sheriff’s office on purpose. She eased her left hand to her mouth to stifle a yawn, spotted a dollop of Jake’s dried blood on her
fingertips, and wiped them on her jeans. The blood was still there when she brought her hand back and the phone chirped for the second time. By the third, Kate had already replayed the previous night in her thoughts: how she had bandaged her husband’s arm and it had taken her an hour to calm him down, how it had then taken another for Jake to calm her, and how they had both finished the night as they had every night for the past month—her asleep in bed, Jake waiting for the sun from the porch rocker.

  She picked up the phone before it could ring again and found herself in the middle of her usual “Sheriff’s office, this is Kate.” The voice that greeted her was Timmy Griffith’s, Kate’s brother and owner of the Texaco on the outskirts of town. Their conversation was brief, and Kate said she’d be right over. She tried calling Jake, wanting to ask how he was and where he was and how long he would be, but got only his voicemail. Doc March was at the office, having stopped by at Kate’s request to check Zach’s eye. The doc volunteered to help man phones that likely wouldn’t ring. Zach leaped at the chance to be in charge and bid his mother to go, especially upon his discovery of why his momma was in such a rush.

  Timmy had a name to give her.

  Kate made the drive across town to the Texaco and gathered her notebook from the seat of her rusting Chevy truck. She found Timmy waiting behind the counter. He dried his giant paws on a red-and-white checkered apron three sizes too small. Kate stifled a grin at the bits of chicken breading dangling from the front. Timmy called himself an entrepreneur and the Texaco a modern convenience store. Kate had misgivings about the former (she knew few entrepreneurs who kept both a shotgun and a spit cup under the counter), but she harbored no doubts of the latter. Not that it counted for much, but the Texaco was the most technologically able business in Mattingly.

  She tilted her chin up and kissed Timmy’s cheek. “I see you’re busy this morning.”

  “Hey, sis,” Timmy said. “Thanks for coming by.”

  “Always a pleasure. So you got a name for me?”

  “I do—Lucy Seekins.”

  Kate sat the binder atop the counter and flipped through the thick stack of papers. The earliest entries were all but faded and saved from disintegration only by the thick layer of Scotch tape that preserved them. The names on those first pages had been written in a young and idealistic script—i’s dotted with tiny hearts, smiley faces that marked successes—and corresponded to dates that began shortly after Phillip’s death. She turned to a page with 211 scrawled in the upper right corner and wrote Lucy’s name.

  “Don’t think I know her,” she said. “I’ll have to do some digging.”

  Timmy said, “No need,” and pointed through the doors behind her. “Lives across the street.”

  Kate looked up but not around. “The Kingman house?”

  “The very one. Moved in back before school started. Don’t know much about her daddy, never seen her momma. Divorced, I guess. Lucy’s in here quite a bit, though. Seen that black Beemer around town?”

  “That’s hers?”

  He nodded. “Lucy’s on her own mostly. Dad works. Chased her outta here a few days ago for trying to swipe smokes and drinks. Told her I’d call Jake if I caught her in here again. She’s trouble if I’ve ever seen it. Always got a different boy with her too.”

  That last bit piqued Kate’s interest. “Who are the boys?”

  “Johnny Adkins, lately. I told him Lucy was trouble and that I might have to let his daddy know. The rest of ’em?” Timmy shrugged. “You’d know before I would. From what I’ve seen, it’s anyone who’ll give her the time of day. She’s walking a fine line, Katie. Just go talk to her. You don’t have to do any sneaking about.”

  Kate tapped her fingernails on the counter. She certainly felt sorry for the girl (which wasn’t saying much, Kate generally felt sorry for everyone), but she knew there was little she could offer. Folk who drove fancy cars and lived in fancy houses were not the sort Kate tended to.

  Still, it was a name.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll go.”

  Timmy beamed. It was all white teeth and pink gums.

  “Still coming tonight?” Kate asked.

  “Might be late, but I’ll be there.”

  “Good. Call me later.”

  Kate pecked her brother’s cheek again and left, waving to the driver of an old John Deere as she pulled out and across the road. Her truck kicked up a cloud of dust against a clear morning sky as it pulled up Kingman Hill. She stopped at the mouth of a large driveway in the shadow of the towering maples and magnolias that circled the old stone manor. A cobbled walk led to a set of massive concrete steps. A ten-speed bicycle stood there, its tires worn and its handlebars duct taped. Kate climbed the steps to a wide porch and took in her surroundings. There were no rocking chairs or swings from which to enjoy the view, which covered not only the Texaco but most of Mattingly’s downtown and the mountains beyond. The lawn was thick and lush and bore no signs of play. The old flower gardens lay barren. The bicycle below her seemed the only thing on the hill that had recently been used.

  Kate was reaching for the brass knocker when the front door flung open, jarring both her and the half-naked boy about to step out. Their eyes met in a moment of panicked recognition.

  “Johnny?” she asked.

  The boy twisted away, fumbling with his jeans. Kate stepped back and turned away, but not before noticing the logo above the left front pocket and how new those jeans were. That it was Johnny Adkins was bad enough. That Johnny was nearly naked and trying to pull on a pair of Wranglers Kate herself had left on his front porch two weeks before was worse. She waved her notebook over her eyes like a shield.

  “Hey, Mrs. B.”

  Kate heard him stumble for what she hoped was his shirt (and one she hoped she hadn’t bought along with the jeans).

  “Sorry. Didn’t . . . didn’t know that was you. Or anybody. Sorry.”

  A sweaty wind passed her, followed by the sound of bare feet padding down the steps and the click of a kickstand. Then came the sound of two worn rubber tires and a shaky, “Sorry, Mrs. B,” as Johnny scampered away. Only then did Kate look—not back to him, but to the open door in front of her.

  She took a deep breath to remind herself this was a name and it was page 211 (more, the bottom of page 211, which meant 212 was close), and called, “Hello? Lucy?”

  No answer came. Kate stepped through the doorway into a grand foyer dominated by an antique grandfather clock. She heard singing from the room to her left, high-pitched and off key—the voice of someone trying too hard to sound too good. Kate looked into what she found was a living room. Several wing chairs and a love seat had been tastefully placed around a large leather sofa. Pillows covered the thick carpet. A stone hearth dominated almost the entire far wall, beside which was the biggest television Kate had ever seen. She passed her eyes over that briefly. What had her attention at the moment was the wooden mantel above the hearth. The collection of framed pictures there unsettled her in a way she could not define.

  She turned toward the movement in the corner of her right eye and saw a young girl facing a mirror in the opposite corner, swaying to music piped through a pair of hot-pink earphones. Only one of her eyes and half of her nose and mouth were visible through the glass. She was short for her age, with a head of long and full auburn hair. Her legs were thick, almost stubby, and connected to hips Kate thought destined to grow east and west as the years went on. The left back pocket of her shorts hung inside out and limp. Her white polo shirt hitched up in the back, exposing bulging love handles and a back the color of chalk. To Kate, the girl looked like someone who longed to be pretty and knew she never would be.

  She had yet to see Kate in the doorway, focusing instead on taming her hair with gentle, almost loving caresses of the brush in her hand. She turned the bristles down and brought the handle to her mouth (This girl thinks she’s Martina McBride, Kate thought) when her eyes met Kate’s through the mirror. The brush dropped. She spun around.

&
nbsp; “Lucy Seekins?” Kate asked.

  The girl retreated a step and thumped her heel against the wall’s molding. Kate switched her notebook to her left hand and held her right up.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Didn’t mean to scare you. Are you Lucy Seekins?”

  A nod. “What are you doing in my house?”

  “I knocked,” Kate said. “Guess you didn’t hear me over your music. You’ve a lovely voice.”

  It was a small lie, one Kate hoped would smooth things over. Lucy didn’t appear thankful.

  “I’m sorry,” Kate said again. “I’m just a little flustered, I guess. I saw Johnny Adkins leaving. He was all . . .” Kate shook her head. “Bared and . . . well, Johnny knows me.”

  Lucy winked. “Well, I’d say Johnny knows me a little better now. He’s my boyfriend, you see. Miss . . .”

  “Barnett,” Kate said. “Kate Barnett.”

  Lucy backed away from the wall. She straightened herself as though remembering this was her house.

  “Maybe you should tell me why you’re here, Ms. Barnett. Otherwise I’m sure you can find your way out, seeing as how you found your way in.”

  Kate moved to the sofa and then thought better of it, considering the slanted cushions and tossed pillows she found there. She took one of the high-back chairs near the window instead. A stack of books sat upon the small end table beside her. Kate studied them.

  “Your daddy a philosophy buff? Never could understand that stuff myself.”

  “They’re mine,” Lucy said, “and please don’t touch them.”

  Kate didn’t. “Pretty heavy reading for someone your age. They for school?”

  “No, for me. We all need to get our answers from somewhere, Ms. Barnett.” Lucy bent for her brush. “Where do you get yours?”

  “Church, I suppose.”

  Lucy straightened and rolled her eyes. “You’re not here to give me Jesus, are you? Because I’m afraid I’ll just stick to my books. Church brings God down to man. I’m more interested in what lifts man to God.”