The Devil Walks in Mattingly

by Billy Coffey

  Charlie did as he was told, glad to unburden his arms if not his bladder. He placed the groceries (a box of Twinkies, a case of beer, two packs of pencils, three boxes of shotgun shells—always that, nothing more and nothing less) in the center of the log beside Taylor’s book and sat at the opposite end.

  He asked, “You find Her yet?”

  Taylor kept the binoculars trained on the valley and said no, but Charlie knew She was down there, had to be. He squinted his eyes and peered the dozen or so miles below. Tiny cars crawled like ants along thin ribbons of roads, funneling in and out of the small downtown.

  “Look at them,” Taylor said. “Going everyplace and no place, all for naught. It pains me, Charlie. How you live down there in all that gaggle?”

  Charlie watched the binoculars and wondered what Taylor saw. One of the lenses was cracked down the middle. Its opposite eyepiece was nothing more than an empty hole. By appearance alone, he thought the spyglasses would offer little more than a fuzzy image of whatever lay no more than five feet from Taylor’s nose.

  “Well, I live in Camden, Taylor. That there’s Mattingly.”

  Taylor took the binoculars from his face. He reached for his book and the nub of pencil that marked his place, then scrawled overtop words that were already there. Charlie averted his eyes, wanting to see but not daring.

  Taylor finished and said, “All’s the same town and the same world, Charlie Givens. It’s a poison to the soul, and I want no part of it. They don’t come to my Holler. They say the devil walks here. You believe so?”

  Charlie said he’d never even entertained such a thought and hoped Taylor wouldn’t perceive that lie, because there had been many a time over the years when Charlie made the long walk back to the rusty gate believing the devil not only walked in Happy Hollow, he scarfed the beer and Twinkies Charlie bought him every month too. He crossed his legs (a difficult task for a man his size) and began a slow rocking back and forth.

  “Found something last night,” Taylor said. “Down to the grove.”

  Charlie stilled himself. “The grove? Somebody come up in the Holler?”

  “No. Someone done come out.”

  “Done come . . . ?” Charlie paused, trying to let that sink in, but found it only floated at the surface of his thick head. “Taylor, how’s that true?”

  “Go tend your business,” Taylor said. “Meet me inside after. But hurry up, we gotta go soon.”

  “Where we goin’?”

  Taylor rose from the log and pointed to the sleepy town far below.

  “Yonder.”

  5

  I found Hollis’s first official customer of the morning on my way back from Jenny. I wasn’t surprised at who it was. Bobby Barnes stood at the edge of the field and muttered a curse as he wiped a thick smear of manure from the bottom of his boot. I knew he’d panic, but I helloed anyway. Bobby flinched when he saw me and turned to run, then tripped when he forgot his foot was still in his hand.

  “Now just hang on, Bobby,” I said. The walk back from Hollis’s clearing had helped repair my confidence. I was me again—the fake me, but the me everyone was used to. Of course, that Bobby wasn’t carrying a shotgun also helped. “I don’t want no trouble.”

  “I ain’t doin’ nothin’,” Bobby said. “Hand t’God, Jake, I’m just out walkin’ is all.”

  I kept my gait slow and stopped, reaching out my right hand to help him up. Bobby refused and managed it himself.

  “And of all the hollers around here, you just so happen to pick Hollis’s for your morning constitutional?”

  Bobby’s shoulders hitched twice when he shrugged. I looked away with a kind of embarrassment. Not even lunchtime, and he’d already come down with the shakes. I thought it awful, what people could become. Then I remembered the jar in my hand and thought of myself.

  “This here’s good a place as any,” he told me. “You got nothin’ on me, Sheriff. You know that.”

  “Easy,” I said.

  I held up the bulging dish towel in my left hand. Bobby’s eyes burned a wide hole in my gut. Just like that, what swagger I’d found was lost again. The man in front of me stood a good six inches shorter and weighed all of 120 pounds, but I felt smaller. I often did. That’s a way of looking at yourself that you never get used to.

  “You been to see Jenny?” he asked.

  I ignored his question and said, “Funny I should run into you, Bobby. Your name came up last night. Zach got in a tussle with a boy at school. You remember the one we had?”

  “I remember you sucker punchin’ me for lookin’ at Kate’s delicates, which I weren’t,” he said. “Now state your aim, Jake. I can run fast, and I see you dint come up here with that dad-blamed tommyhawk neither.”

  I had him dead to rights, of course. I knew what Bobby was doing there, and it was absolutely in my power to turn him around and send him back to town empty-handed. But I couldn’t. I was just as much in the wrong as he was—more so, given the jar in my hand. I didn’t want trouble. And to be honest, I pitied Bobby Barnes. Always had.

  “Bessie’s in the truck,” I said. “Which is where I’m heading. I aim to keep moving and head to town.”

  Bobby shuffled his weight from left to right, like he was dancing on hot coals. I figured that was likely how his insides felt.

  “So I can pass?” he asked. “You ain’t gonna cleave my head and run me in?”

  “Law only applies to what’s been done, Bobby. Ain’t gonna run you in for what you’ll likely do. So I’m gonna go ahead and let you finish your walk, and you can thank me by not telling anyone I was here and by enjoying the fruits of your labor down at the shop instead of on the road. That sound like something we can agree on?”

  Bobby took a step forward and extended his hand. I caught it between spasms. “You got that, Jake. You’re a good man.” He shuffled past and on into the woods, then turned just outside a slant of morning light. “Hey, Jake? You feelin’ all right? You look some peaked.”

  “I’m fine.”

  He looked at his feet and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his frayed jeans. “I never saw nothin’. That day on the playground with Kate, I mean. I was lookin’, but I didn’t see. You tell her that for me?”

  “I will. You be careful, Bobby. And mind what I told you.”

  Bobby nodded as that single regret slipped away. I’ll say I was envious. Doesn’t sound right, being jealous of the town drunk. And yet Bobby had just managed to lay down a small part of the heavy shame only Hollis’s drink could help him shoulder. That was something I’d never managed myself.

  I kept the jar out of sight as the farmhouse neared, then I veered right to the barn and my old Chevy Blazer. I placed the moonshine in the passenger seat next to Bessie and eased away. If Edith Devereaux saw me, she’s never said.

  The road turned from dirt to pavement a few miles ahead. An early warm spell had convinced me to remove the top over the back end of the truck. I settled into the seat and hoped the combination of sun and wind would keep me awake. Thoughts of Jenny and Bobby melted into a buzzing nothingness. The hum of the tires was steady, womb-like. My eyes fluttered. I opened them wide. They fluttered again. My body sank deeper into the seat. I knew what was happening, which was bad enough, and I knew there was nothing I could do about it, which was worse. People say it’s the mind that rules the body. I’m here to say sometimes that’s not true at all. My mind knew I was going asleep at forty miles an hour just as much as it knew something worse than running off the road would happen if I did. But my eyes didn’t care, and closed they went. They would’ve stayed that way had the Blazer not fallen out of the mountain’s shadow just then, signaling my return to the civilized world of cell towers and wireless calls. The phone lying on the console erupted into a fit of beeps and chirps that made me gasp and bolt forward. I righted the truck before it drifted off the road and stuck the phone to my ear.

  “This is Jake.”

  “Hey, Daddy,” Zach said. “Where you been?”


  I swallowed hard and tried to find my breath. White pinpricks gathered into globs of gray in front of my eyes. I coughed into my hand.

  “Had to run an errand,” I said. “What’s your momma doing?”

  “She went out to the Texaco for a name. She tried callin’ you, but you dint answer.”

  “She didn’t leave you there alone, did she?” I asked.

  “Nosir, Doc March’s here. We’re playin’ checkers. Momma called him to come look at my eye. Doc says it’s a beaut.”

  The road ahead curved to the right. Beyond that stood Andy Sommerville’s BP. That’s where I’d stop. Gather myself. Get some coffee. Andy was always good company, and if worst came to worst, he’d give me a ride back to the office. I’d just say the Blazer was acting up.

  “You comin’ in now, Daddy? Can I throw Bessie some when you get here?”

  My words came out thick and drawn: “Gonna stop at the BP first. You and Doc been manning the phones for me?”

  “Yessir,” he said. “Ain’t nobody called but Mr. Justus.”

  My heartbeat went from barely to thundering, making that spot hurt in my chest. I squeezed the steering wheel. “You know better than to talk to him, Zach.”

  “I dint know it was him until he talked, Daddy. It ain’t my fault.”

  No, I thought. It wasn’t his fault. Not at all. If it was anyone’s, it was my wife’s.

  I asked, “What’d Mr. Justus want?”

  “He ast if you were gonna arrest him today. You gonna haul’m in, Daddy?”

  I forgot about sleep. Not even Phillip entered my thoughts. There was only room in my mind for Justus. Justus, and the fact he’d spoken to Zach instead of Kate.

  “Don’t think I will today,” I said. “Phone rings again, you let Doc answer. I’ll be there soon.”

  I hung up. Andy Sommerville was working a broom around the pumps when I passed. He waved. I didn’t wave back. Such things happen, I guess. We get too caught up in our own lives and forget how to be good neighbors. But I’ll say this: when the town came under siege and the world unraveled in the days that followed, I’d point to that moment as yet another failing in my life—I didn’t wave to Andy.

  6

  The table wasn’t much, just an empty spool of electrical wire that served as Taylor’s eating place, desk, and workbench. Charlie returned in short order carrying the groceries and a smile of relief. He sat and placed a beer and a Twinkie in front of himself, consuming both as though they made a fine meal.

  “I dunno, Taylor,” he said. “What we goin’ ta town for?” Charlie reached for the can on the table. Taylor watched him grab the illusory second can in his mind before taking hold of the real one. Two yellow crumbs fell from his jowls. “You ain’t been ta town since you was a young’un.”

  “Something, Charlie—’twas no mortal person—came up outta this Holler last night. Came up outta the grove, Charlie. Seen the marks myself, I did. Followed them all night on my hands and knees, leadin’ straight out this Holler town-ward. Meaning me to follow.”

  “What was they? Hoofprints?”

  Taylor shook his head. “Sneakers.”

  Both of them settled into an awed sort of silence that ended when Charlie asked, “Can I see the grove, Taylor?”

  Taylor shook his head. “You know I can’t do that, Charlie.”

  Charlie pursed his lips, leaving the half-finished Twinkie dangling in his hand. “It’s cause I ain’t awake, ain’t it? Because I am, Taylor. Hand t’God.”

  “It is,” Taylor said, “and you ain’t.”

  “So what you wanna do, go down there lookin’ for what came up outta here? Or are you lookin’ for Her?”

  “I’ll find it first,” Taylor said. “It’ll show me Her.”

  “I could find Her,” Charlie said. “You know that’s right, Taylor. All’s I need’s Her name. Shoot, prolly look it up right in the dad-blamed phone book for you.”

  Taylor folded his hand atop the table and talked low and slow, the way a teacher would explain high things to a low pupil. “Charlie, you can’t be privy to my unknowables. That expanse is just too big for you.”

  Charlie folded his hands, mimicking his friend. He stared at the four walls surrounding them. Taylor allowed this, hoping the distraction would help sway Charlie’s mind. Besides, it wouldn’t require much time to take in a cot, a busted mandolin, a fireplace, a shotgun, and a stack of wooden crates. Poking out from the crate on top was the bundle of ginseng Charlie would take with him when he left to sell back in Camden, payment for Taylor’s groceries.

  Taylor opened the book in front of him and covered it with his hand, lest Charlie see. He found a spot that wasn’t really empty and wrote, Charly gona help maybee.

  But Charlie said, “I cain’t do it, Taylor. You go down there, you’re apt to snap. We could get in trouble lookin’ all round for somethin’ you ain’t sure what it is. I been run in five times over in Camden, an’ I done got laid off. I gotta be still.”

  Taylor looked up and asked, “What’d you get laid off for?”

  Charlie slouched. “Took somebody’s microwave they put out. Boss man said it weren’t mine for the havin’, but dear Lord, all’s it was goin’ was on the truck.” He shook his head as though mourning the stupidity of his world. “Who gets fired for takin’ trash?”

  “Reckon a trash man does,” Taylor said. He wrote that down too. “Now look here, Charlie. Camden’s not our end, we got business in Mattingly.”

  Charlie shook his head. “I cain’t.”

  Taylor tried to keep his voice daddy-like and found it near impossible. This was why he’d never taken Charlie to the grove, why Charlie had never been told Her name. Because when you got right down to the center of Charlie Givens, what you found was weakness. Weakness so complete that one could respond with no less than pity.

  “Charlie Givens,” he said, “you ain’t but a worthless nothing.”

  It was as if those words grew teeth when spoken and bit down on Charlie’s ears when heard. His eyes watered. “Don’t go sayin’ that, Taylor.”

  “Now I know that pains.” Taylor laid the pencil down and rested his hand atop Charlie’s, squeezed it, telling him it would all be fine. “But it’s gotta be said. This here’s a place of Truth. And this here being that sort of place, I’m bound to say it. Why, Charlie, you’re no more useful than that busted mandolin against the wall. Everything in this cabin was put here for me—put here for a purpose. All except that. It just sits there, broken with no use. Like you. I was once like that m’self. But no more. I ain’t no nothing now, Charlie Givens. I’m a king.” He spread his arms to moldy walls and lifted his head to the sagging ceiling. “This here’s my castle. Free and beholden to none, Charlie, that’s me. Now let me ask you this: You wanna be a king?”

  “I do,” Charlie said, and Taylor believed he meant it well enough. He also believed Charlie had a slanted view of what that truly meant. Taylor thought Charlie’s idea of kingship might even mean living in a dead forest full of eyes and spending all his time watching through a pair of broken spyglasses at a town he hated for a Her he hated even more.

  “Ain’t much changed for you, though, has it?” Taylor asked. “Don’t nobody pay you no mind, because you don’t matter. You live in a little ol’ trailer and spend your days on back of a trash truck. That’s all the world reckons you’re worth—picking up what nobody wants no more. And now you ain’t even good enough for that.”

  Charlie’s eyes settled on the table. He whispered, “Cain’t even be no trash man.”

  “Well now, that just means you’re meant for greater things,” Taylor said. “You help me, Charlie. I don’t know what’s lingering for us down there, but I know it’ll lead me to Her. All’s I gotta do’s find what’s in those sneakers. But I can’t do it singly. You’re right, I forgot how to step in a town. I been in paradise too long.” He slapped the table at that, making Charlie jump. “But see there? I need you. That’s something. And you help me, I’ll help you
right back. Might as well get you some money while we’re down there, seeing as how you’re recently unwaged. Right? Lots of vendors down there. We can stop at the first place we see.”

  In the end Taylor knew that would be what swayed Charlie’s mind. Not Truth, just simple greed. Taylor thought that tragic, as he thought all things were beyond the Hollow.

  “Reckon it ain’t hard to risk it all if you ain’t got nothin’,” Charlie said.

  Taylor picked up his pencil—Charly gona help!—and smiled. He said, “Well, that’s just fine, Charlie. Let’s get on, then. It’s a long walk to the gate. And don’t you worry about those eyes on the going. I’ll keep you.”

  Charlie rose and went to the door with a posture taller than Taylor had seen. That was good; Charlie needed some swagger to him. Taylor placed his book in the back pocket of his jeans. He paused at the door and looked at the shotgun resting against the crates, wanted to take it, then decided no. He rummaged through the topmost crate along the wall instead, pushing aside Charlie’s ginseng. Mixed in with a length of rope, a hunting knife, two hammers, fishing line, and spare cloth was a folded burlap sack containing the flint blade he’d carved long ago. Taylor considered taking that, believing the extra protection would be necessary. Then he felt the power seeping out from the sack and opted for the hunting knife instead. Taylor walked outside feeling a bit taller himself. It was good, knowing one’s purpose. Having a destiny. Especially if that destiny set you upon a path that led to only one end.

  7

  The clean pair of jeans and denim shirt I’d left the house wearing that morning had turned to a stained canvas of leaves and dirt by the time I reached the sheriff’s office. Kate had returned from the Texaco. She was at her desk scribbling in her notebook when I walked in. Zach and Doc March huddled over a game of checkers near the wide front window. I shook from exhaustion and what that exhaustion had almost done. The world looked like it had gone slanted. I smiled and straightened my shoulders as I walked into the foyer (nothing to see here, that smile said, just a man going about his morning), but then I stumbled over the gallon of gray paint I’d used to freshen up the front door the previous day. Kate went to me as Doc March rose.