The Devil Walks in Mattingly

by Billy Coffey

  Lucy huddled against the wall long after her father had gone. It was just her and the creaking walls.

  9

  For the first time that day (for the first time in weeks), I felt relaxed. Evening air rushed through the truck, drowning me in the outside and drowning out Zach’s warbling from the backseat. Kate was on the phone with Timmy. Her notebook lay open across her lap, the pages pinned down by her right hand.

  She’d been speaking of Lucy before Timmy called. I’d nodded in all the right places and said all the right things, more than happy to discuss Kate’s newest name if it kept conversation well away from my dreams. That pretending didn’t feel right. Felt, really, like another lie. I’d done that a lot to Kate in the years we’d known each other, which practically meant our entire lives. I told myself it wasn’t so much a slew of falsehoods as it was the continuation of one—like legs extending out from the same hairy spider—but that notion offered little comfort.

  “Jake’s got a call,” Kate said into the phone. “It’s almost eight, Timmy. Nobody’s gonna come in there this time of night on a Saturday. Close up and come on as soon as you can. Joey and Frankie will be there.” She grinned, said, “Good, love you,” then switched to the other line. “Hello?”

  I took my eyes from the road long enough to see the color drain from her face. Kate’s back stiffened against the seat, allowing the wind to tousle her hair. Zach kept to his singing in the backseat (something by Brad Paisley, I think, but maybe not), sweetly oblivious to the storm about to gather.

  “Don’t call,” Kate said. That and nothing more. But it was the way she slapped the phone closed rather than those two words that turned my head again.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  Her mouth moved and sputtered as though searching for what to say—a name, any name, would do. None came but the truth: “Justus.”

  My hand gripped the wheel. My shoulders tightened. Kate opened the phone again. She checked the number Justus had used and said she didn’t recognize it. One of those prepaid cell phones, I guessed.

  “How did he get hold of your cell number, Jake? He’s always just called the office.”

  “He’s got a lot of friends left in town, Kate. You know that.” I considered leaving it at that, but didn’t. I’m still not sure if that decision arose from the small bowl of wisdom inside me or the large reservoir of exhaustion. “He called the office this morning. Zach answered.”

  It was subtle (I thought perhaps a little too subtle), but I hoped Kate would hear the admonishment underneath—If you’d been at the office watching our boy rather than out putting another name in your book, Zach wouldn’t have had to do that.

  “What’d he want?” she asked.

  “What’s he ever want?”

  Kate shook her head and ran a hand through her hair. The wind tousled it again. “How can you arrest him when you don’t even know where he is? That man hasn’t set foot in town for seven years.”

  “He’s up in Crawford’s Gap,” I said. That was a truth my weariness made me forget to keep silent. That was another symptom since the nightmares began, one that Doc March had forgotten to mention alongside the loss of weight and the depression: all those things I’d kept unsaid trickled out through the cracks worn into me. “Don’t know where exactly, but he knows I can find him if I want. That’s why he calls.”

  The disappointment on Kate’s face was plain even through the long shadows of the trees across her face. “How long’ve you known where he is?”

  I shrugged. “While now.”

  “So you won’t find him.”

  It wasn’t a question, what Kate said. It was a statement. And though it pained me, I knew she was right.

  “I won’t,” I said.

  Zach squealed from the backseat. I looked through the mirror and saw him rubbing his arm, the victim of a wayward bug.

  “I’m sorry he called,” Kate said. “Really sorry, Jake. That’s just one more thing you don’t need right now.”

  “I’d really rather not talk about it, Kate.”

  But I knew we would, and I knew the reason why. Justus was a problem to fix, maybe one even bigger than what I’d been dreaming about, and Kate fancied herself a fixer of problems—out to right wobbly lives one name at a time in the hopes that it might right her own. I eased down on the gas. The sooner we got to Peter and Abigail’s, the sooner Justus could be set aside.

  From the back Zach said, “Hey, Daddy, lookit what flew in here.”

  Kate said, “Not talking about Justus won’t make him go away. I know what a bad place he put you in, Jake. I begrudge him for that just as much as you do. But he did what he thought was right. You might not think so, I might not think so, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in town who’d blame him. Other than Mayor Wallis, maybe.”

  “What kind of town do we live in if everybody takes up for a man who shot three innocents just out to do their job?” I asked. “He could’ve killed them, Kate.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “And that matters?”

  Kate shook her head.

  “See, Daddy?” Zach asked.

  A truck approached around the next corner. It swerved a bit, first toward the center line and then to the white of the shoulder. Gray smoke billowed from the busted tailpipe. As our vehicles neared, I could see two men.

  Zach tried once more to get my attention—“Daddy, see?”

  “What, Zach?”

  I looked into the mirror. Zach held up one small hand as my body went slack. Pinched between his thumb and forefinger was a dead white butterfly, its wings flapping

  (openclosedopen)

  in the dry current of air. I spun around in my seat—“No, Zach!”—and swiped at his fingers to get the horrible thing away. The Blazer drifted toward the middle of the road. Zach yelped when my hand hit his. He did not let go.

  “Jake!” Kate screamed. Her voice was faraway, frantic. “Jake, what are you doing?”

  I slapped Zach’s hand again. He cried out. Words and emotions jumbled together in his mouth and came out in something that sounded like, “Maa, maa!”

  I reached out

  —“Jake, there’s a truck”—

  and closed my palm around the butterfly, feeling its dead wings buckle and break. I threw it

  —“JAKE”—

  out the window, then turned to see the truck in the opposite lane bearing down on us. I turned the wheel just as the driver blew the horn. Kate gripped me with both hands as the Blazer corrected itself. I threw up my left hand and offered an apologetic wave as the truck passed. It was not returned. Kate’s eyes were black pools of fear and shock.

  “I’m sorry,” I told her. “Sorry. Zach?” I looked into the rearview mirror. Zach’s face was ashen. Shiny paths of forded tears ran from his eyes. “Zach, I’m so sorry, buddy. I didn’t mean to do that. I thought it was . . .”

  (I have something for you, Jake)

  “. . . something else. Are you okay?”

  Zach nodded in a way that said he wasn’t right then but maybe later.

  Kate’s hands still gripped me. “Jake, what in the world were you doing?”

  “Sorry,” I said again.

  I looked into the mirror as the battered pickup rounded the curve behind us. In the dwindling light I saw a man’s face peering from the grimy rear window.

  Had I seen that face clearly, I still wouldn’t have recognized Taylor Hathcock. I’d never seen the man before, as far as I knew. But for those brief seconds, he and Kate and I were brought together again. And just as the first time, what followed was death.

  10

  The first place they saw was the BP. The building was little more than a bricked white square with a few aging pumps out front. A sign at the edge of the road announced the price of regular gasoline. On the small marquee below that was a single word—PRAY. Taylor knew that to Charlie it was just another Mom & Pop in just another town, no different from the thousands of others that pockmarked rural
America everywhere. But to Taylor that building marked the borderland of a world both foreign and evil. Yet it was too late to turn back, even if it had been in his heart to do so. To town was where the tracks from the grove led—to town and to Her—and Taylor would follow no matter his fear.

  He’d allowed Charlie rest and all the beer needed to harden what softness remained in him. The result had left him stumbling and weak. The walk through the Hollow to the rusty gate had taken hours. By the time they reached Mattingly, night had fallen and Taylor longed for home. He reminded himself that great tasks made good men. That conviction alone bolstered him. For in all the things Taylor Hathcock had grown to want, none burned hotter in him than the desire to be a good man.

  Charlie pulled in without direction and said, “This here’s the place, Taylor, I can feel it.” Taylor felt no such pull and closed his book. Charlie’s eyes were two angry slits that still fumed from the way they’d almost been run off the road. Taylor believed that for Charlie Givens, any place would’ve been the right place just now.

  They parked near the front doors and found the store empty. Charlie stopped just inside and locked his drunken eyes on the first shiny thing he saw—a display of bug repellant. Taylor left him there and roamed aisles of sealed bags and drinks trapped in plastic bottles.

  “Yo,” he called. “Anybody here?” When no one answered, he turned to Charlie and said, “See? This here promises to be as undemanding as I thought, Charlie Givens.”

  “Undemandin’ as you thought,” Charlie said. But there was a look of disappointment on his face, like he’d gotten all dressed up for the prom only to have his date not show. “I need me some beer, Taylor. I’m all antsy.”

  “Well, get you some and get paid out that register so we can go. I got a sneaker-wearin’ something to locate.”

  The side door opened before Charlie could move. Two people walked through. At first Taylor thought the old man in front was the one whose trail had led them there, went so far as to see if there were sneakers on the man’s feet, but was saddened to find an old pair of boots there instead. Yet there was a curious glint to him, a shine that Taylor found unsettling. Years of hard living in the Hollow had taught him to see what others could not, and what Taylor saw in that old man were secrets he could not decipher. His eyes met Taylor’s. The old man smiled. Taylor couldn’t understand why until he stepped aside. Then he knew.

  The boy behind was still of schooling age, no older than Taylor when he had came to the Hollow to stay. His clothes were baggy and his hair unkempt. Wide eyes peeked out from behind pale skin that looked stretched too tight. Taylor saw a crushing sadness in the boy, some deep and unknown pain he took as proof that Charlie had been right after all. This was the place. And their arrival had been no mere twist of chance; it had been destiny.

  “You work here?” Charlie asked.

  It was a man who answered. “Sure do. How ya doing?”

  “Here he is, Taylor,” Charlie said. “I found’m.”

  Taylor kept his eyes on the boy. To the man, he said, “Yo, where’s your beer, old-timer?”

  “Don’t sell any.”

  The old man kept his smile. Taylor saw what was written there—I’m so glad you came, this boy hurts so.

  “You don’t sell no beer? You hear that, Charlie? This man ain’t got no beer to sell.”

  “Man don’t sell no beer’s a stupid man,” Charlie said, and then something—either blood thirst or alcohol—made him bend over and laugh.

  “There’s a Texaco down the road a-ways,” the man said. “Timmy’ll sell you some beer.”

  He looked at Taylor and smiled again, as though that information was important.

  Taylor nodded, understanding. “You tryin’ to get rid of us?”

  “Nope, just trying to help you out and trying to close up.”

  Just trying to help you out, Taylor thought. He asked, “You got a bathroom in here?”

  “Back in the corner.”

  Taylor moved to the back of the store, his body pulsing with adrenaline. He found the door and flipped a switch inside that bathed the small room in a pale yellow and started a rickety fan in the ceiling. A toilet sat in the corner, a sink and mirror to the right. Taylor went to the mirror, drawn there by what he saw.

  The river that cut through the Hollow flowed too fast and too gray to offer reflection, and Taylor had kept away from the still pools of rainwater and melted snow that settled in the deep places of the forest. He feared if he ever beheld himself, what he’d find staring back would be more monster than good man. Yet what looked back at him now was no demon, but a hoary face worn old before his time. The reflection did not frighten him, but it tired Taylor of what he’d been brought there to do. He remembered in his former life the farm next to his grandpappy’s burning on one cold January night, and the firemen who had charged headlong into the flames. They had been normal men—town men—called to do extraordinary things. Not because it had been what they’d wanted to do, but because it was their duty. Taylor felt much like those men now.

  He tightened the leather braid around his hair and jerked the door open to find Charlie pointing a lighter at the boy. The old man had put himself between them. He held a push broom at his side.

  “What’s goin’ on here?” Taylor asked.

  Charlie said, “Sissy boy over there’s tryin’ to preach t’me. Says I shouldn’t have no beer.”

  “That right, sissy boy?” Taylor asked. He made a motion toward him, a slight waving of the hand that said, Don’t worry, son, I’ll be strong even if you can’t. “You ain’t got age enough to be shootin’ off your mouth like that to us.”

  “But I do,” the old man said. “Now I’m telling you boys for the last time—you get out of here. Now. Closing time.”

  Charlie watched them, fingering the lighter in his hand. The man turned to the boy and said, “Eric, you get along. Like I said, closing time. You two fellas get out of here too.”

  The boy—Eric—moved away and said, “I’ll see you soon, Andy.”

  Taylor extended his left arm as the boy walked past, his mouth saying, “Come on, buddy, we ain’t got no beef, right?” and his heart saying, Do not think ill of me for what I do, but speak well of me in that sleepless land. He wrapped his arm around the boy’s back. There came a whisper—“This may sting,” as Taylor pulled the knife. He thrust the blade toward the boy’s neck and a voice from somewhere deep inside him screamed not to wake the boy there, wake him anywhere but there, and Taylor did not understand why but he obeyed that voice nonetheless, such was the power of its pleading. The knife veered away at the last moment and found the boy’s chest and stomach instead.

  The boy’s eyes widened with sudden realization—Taylor saw it as the first stirrings after a long dream—and he went limp in Taylor’s arms.

  The old man screamed a shout that Taylor took as thanks-giving until he turned to see the broom handle arching downward. It connected with the top of Taylor’s head, rending the world into swirls of blacks and reds, knocking him to the floor. Taylor rolled as the world spun, searching for his attacker, wanting an answer for why his assault had come. Charlie leaped forward. The old man caught him with the broken end of the broom, driving him back in a shout of agony. Charlie grabbed the can of bug spray and depressed the button directly over the lighter’s exposed flame. The fireball seemed the wrath of God Himself, consuming the man’s shoulders and head and dropping him beside the boy.

  Charlie ran for the register and shouted, “C’mon, man.”

  Taylor rolled over and stared into the boy’s eyes. “Wake,” he said. “Wake, O Sleeper!”

  Andy moved. Taylor stilled him with the broken end of the broom handle. Taylor considered waking him then thought no, one was enough.

  One was plenty.

  He looked at the boy again as Charlie stumbled for the door. Taylor bent low and whispered into the boy’s ear, “Don’t mourn me. You’re free now, and you’re welcome.”

  Charlie was
already in the truck, roaring the engine. Taylor walked through the doors just as those firemen had come through the blackened hole of his grandpappy’s neighbors’ farmhouse years before, beaten and tired and smelling of fire. He climbed into the passenger’s seat, reached over, and turned off the ignition.

  “What you doin’?” Charlie asked. “We gotta roll outta here, Taylor.” He reached for the keys.

  Taylor slapped him away. “We’ll do nothing but honor this moment, Charlie Givens. So why don’t you shut that gas hole under your nose and do just that.”

  “What? Taylor, you’re cra—”

  “I said shut up.”

  Charlie did. He had that look about him again, like a child just after he’d been whupped. Taylor hated that look not for what it was but for how it made him feel. “Don’t nobody know this town more’n me, Charlie.” His voice was calmer now. “I say we’re safe. So you just hush.”

  Charlie drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and divided his attention between the empty road, the gash on his head, and the tranquil bodies inside the store. When all three proved too stressful, he counted the money in his hand.

  “You think I’m a good man, Charlie?” Taylor asked.

  Charlie kept counting. He reached the end of the roll and counted again. He looked confused. “What’d you say?”

  “I woke that boy,” Taylor said.

  “That what you call it?” Charlie asked. “’Cause I guarantee you he was more awake five minutes ago than he is right now. You dint say that was the plan, Taylor. We all in now. Robbin’s one thing, but butchery’s another. They catch us, we’ll ride the lightning up’n Greenville for sure. I tole you you’d snap.” He waved the cash drawer’s haul in Taylor’s eyes. “Fifteen dollars. You believe that? What kinda business that codger have when all’s he got’s fifteen lousy dollars in the kitty? That won’t even pay for gas.”

  Taylor’s bloody hands shook. His mind roiled in what sounded like a chorus of shouts. It was Andy’s voice that rose to the top.