Call the Devil by His Oldest Name

by Sallie Bissell

  “You should bring Ruth some strawberries,” he told himself, remembering the old Cherokee legend of how when the first man and woman quarreled, the man brought the woman strawberries as a peace offering. He chuckled. How many repentant Tsalagi husbands had, in cen­turies past, relied upon the sweet red berries to assuage the wrath of their wives?

  “It’s probably worth a shot,” he decided, re­membering how Ruth smiled when he would revert to some old tribal custom that most people no longer remembered.

  As the day dawned clear and bright, the au­tumn foliage burned like fire in the trees over­ head. Maybe some tourist would come along. Maybe he could hitch a ride with some family who would be thrilled to give a full-blooded Cherokee Indian a lift to Murphy, North Carolina. Once he got to Tennessee, Clarinda could go back to Oklahoma, and he and Ruth and Lily could get back to normal.

  Fifteen

  October 13

  Early Sunday morning

  HE KNEW IT had gone too smoothly—Paz walking up through those pine trees carrying the baby, the still-sleeping child snuggling into Ru­perta’s bosom, the ease with which they had simply rolled back through the campground and onto the highway beyond. At first he thought Clootie’s Commit Your Life To Jesus card might be making his luck hold, but as soon as he merged onto I-75, Jesus bailed out. The baby woke up and started to shriek. Ruperta opened a bottle of the formula he’d bought, but the damn kid didn’t seem to know what to do with it. The baby’d take the rubber nipple in her mouth, then spit it out as if it were something nasty. The more Ruperta offered it, the angrier the brat grew, balling up her little fists and yowling like some bear cub separated from its mother.

  The racket continued for hours—the baby screaming, Ruperta jabbering in Spanish, Paz alternately swearing and crossing himself.

  Finally, when the hard, bright tongue of a headache began to lick around his eyes, Stump Logan turned, worn out, into a Kmart parking lot, understanding fully why some parents beat their babies to death. They must do it with great joy, relishing each blow as payback for all their suffering. Even Paz looked grateful as Stump or­dered him to leave Ruperta and the squalling kid in the van. For an hour he and the little wet­back strolled up and down the aisles, tossing items in their cart. By the time they returned, both Ruperta and the baby had fallen into an exhausted sleep, Ruperta’s dark hair damp with sweat, the baby’s diaper oozing with shit.

  Now they were in Chattanooga in room 114 of a ratty cinder-block motel called the Taj Ma­hal, rented from an Indian woman in an orange sari who wanted five dollars extra to supply them with a phone. Paz snored from one of the lumpy beds, while Ruperta and the baby slept in the other. Logan sat in a chair propped up against the door, studying a map of Tennessee and praying the baby would not wake up and cry again. The throbbing in his head had just be­gun to ease. If she woke up and brought it back to full flower, he’d have to kill her.

  He leaned over and lifted one corner of the water-stained curtains. Though it was still dark, the truck-driving couple he’d listened to farting and fucking all night were climbing back into the J.B. Hunt cab they’d driven up in. He checked his watch: 4:33. Almost time to get up. They had a lot to do today.

  He hobbled to the bathroom, then crept over and touched Paz on the shoulder.

  “Sí?” The little man jumped, instantly awake, alert as a fireman.

  “Get Ruperta up,” Stump ordered softly. “But don’t wake that damn baby!”

  Nodding, Paz leaned over his sleeping wife and put his hand on her shoulder. Ruperta shot up, rubbing her eyes, then immediately turned to the child.

  “Don’t wake her up!” Paz cautioned in a whisper. “She’ll give Gordo another headache.”

  “Sí,” Ruperta replied. She smiled down at the infant, then rose and hurried into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

  Stump looked at Walkingstick’s kid. The little brat slept on her stomach, her legs tucked under her, her butt high in the air. His timing was perfect.

  Grabbing one of his Kmart sacks, he sat down beside her. She flinched at the sudden bounc­ing of the bed, but didn’t wake. From the sack he withdrew a pair of small, sharply pointed scissors.

  “Señor?” Paz’s eyes widened.

  “Hold her still,” Stump ordered. “Let’s get this done before Ruperta gets out of the john.”

  Trembling, Paz did as he was told. Stump grabbed the dark fringe that curled around the back of the baby’s neck, then began to cut the hair that Lily Walkingstick had come into the world with, smiling as the locks fell into his palm, feathery as cornsilk.

  “Madre…” Paz whispered in horror as he watched the gleaming point of the scissors snipping around the child’s tender neck.

  Stump snipped just above her ears, dropping the dark hair on the sheet beside her. She began to stir and squirm when he started trimming the crown of her head. He cut on. Minutes later he stopped and smiled. Not one hair on the little girl’s head was now longer than half an inch. Edwina wouldn’t consider her much of a prize, but who cared what that old heifer thought?

  The bathroom door opened. “Madre de Díos!’’ Ruperta screamed as Lily began to cry. “What are you doing?”

  “Shut up!” Stump commanded. “These walls are like paper. Do you want the police to come?’’

  “Silencio, Ruperta!” Paz pleaded with his wife. “He isn’t hurting her.”

  “Just watch.” Stump grinned at the terrified Mexicans. “You’ll like this.”

  With Lily awake and squalling, he flipped her over, unsnapped her dirty white jumpsuit, and tugged it off. The cold air on her warm skin enraged the baby further, and she flailed at him with her fists and legs. Digging down into his sack again, he pulled out a new jumpsuit, this one blue with a tiny cowboy stitched on the front. By the time he’d stuffed her legs and arms into the garment and snapped it shut, Lily’s mouth was square with rage, her cheeks bright red. As tears rolled down the sides of her face and into her stubby hair, he scooped her up.

  “There,” he said proudly, showing her to the stunned Mexicans. “Lily Walkingstick has just become Willy Gonzalez. Meet your new parents, young man.”

  He thrust the screaming baby at Ruperta. She held Lily close, jiggling her on her shoulder until her shrill cries gradually faded into hiccuping sobs. Then she laid the little girl gently back down on the bed and started to unsnap the outfit he’d just put on her.

  “What are you doing?” Stump roared. Surely this chattering parrot of a woman wasn’t going to give him any grief.

  Ruperta shot him a dark look. “She needs her diaper changed, Señor.”

  Muttering to herself in Spanish, she lifted the child’s bottom and peeled away her diaper, revealing skin blistered with rosy bumps.

  “Did she have that yesterday?” Logan frowned at the angry rash.

  Paz shook his head. “Ruperta says nothing you bought the baby agrees with her. Not the milk, not the diapers, not the ointment for her bottom.”

  Stump shrugged. “Life sucks. She’ll just have to deal with it.”

  When Ruperta had the child buttoned back up, she tried to feed her another bottle of for­mula. As the baby began to twist her head away from the nipple all over again, Stump could tell her opinion of it had not changed. Feeling a fresh rivet of pain above his left eyebrow, he let himself out of the motel room. The Taj Mahal’s parking lot was empty, except for their van. He walked over and unlocked the driver’s door. He needed a smoke. He needed chocolate. Mostly he needed not to have that kid shrieking at him all day. He would try it as they’d planned, then, if Ruperta couldn’t keep that brat quiet, he would send her and Paz out to get some food and just mash a pillow down on her noisy little face. When they returned he’d tell them she’d had some kind of fit and died. Edwina would be furious at losing something she could turn into ready cash, but Edwina could go fuck herself. Right now all he cared about was
getting his trap line out for Mary Crow. For that, dead bait would work just as well as live.

  Sixteen

  THE BLOODHOUNDS FOUND nothing. Though they sniffed along the ground for the better part of two hours, all the scents led them in a large circle around the last place Lily had been seen—Ruth’s camper.

  “That’s because everybody carried her everywhere,” said one of the trackers as he loaded his weary dog back in his pickup truck. “If she’d been old enough to walk, she would have laid her own scent down. Moe could’ve followed that.” He looked at Ruth with mournful eyes that mirrored those of his canine friend. “I’m mighty sorry, ma’am.”

  “Thank you.” Ruth shook his hand and forced a smile. “Thank you for trying.”

  The trackers drove off, just as the radio in Dula’s squad car began to squawk. Dula scurried over to catch the call. A static-filled dispatch crackled through the campsite. Finally Dula signed off and walked toward them like a man with a pipe bomb up his ass.

  “Okay, folks. Here’s the deal. Quite a scrap broke out down by the condo site. John Black Fox’s boys set a couple of bulldozers on fire and the construction workers are retaliating by tearing up the campground. Two men were assaulted, and I just got word that the governor has officially expressed a lack of confidence in our local authorities. He’s sending in the National Guard to keep order. It might be better for everyone involved, Mrs. Walkingstick, if you just went home.”

  “Go home?” cried Ruth. “What about Lily?”

  “Your husband has your child, Mrs. Walking­ stick. Go home and wait for him. He’ll cool off and come back.”

  “Why can’t you understand?” Ruth shook her head wildly. “Jonathan would not do that. Joe Little Bear stole Lily! You’ve got to find her! I’m an American citizen. It’s my right to demand that—”

  “Okay, okay.” Dula held up one hand, as if a crazed woman was one problem more than he could tolerate. “Go down to my office in town. You can set up your camper in my parking lot, at least until your baby shows up. Otherwise, I can’t assure your safety. Those construction boys are mad as hell and they’re lookin’ to crack some heads.”

  “But you’ll keep searching for her?” Ruth asked frantically.

  “As long as I can, Mrs. Walkingstick.”

  Mary helped Ruth and Clarinda pack up the camper, then she followed them, along with Gabe Benge, down to Sheriff Dula’s office in Tremont. They parked at the back of the lot, un­derneath some tulip trees whose yellow leaves were big as dinner plates. As Mary got out of her Miata, Clarinda was already striding toward Gabe Benge’s van, her spike heels clicking across the pavement. Ruth paced around Jonathan’s truck in a tight circle, as if motion of any kind was preferable to standing still.

  Mary went over and put an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, Ruth. Let’s go sit down.” They joined Clarinda inside Benge’s van. They all crowded around the tiny dinette, their knees bumping.

  “When did you last call about Jonathan?” Mary asked Ruth.

  “I called Aunt Little Tom, the state troopers, the tribal cops, and the Forest Service about fifteen minutes ago.”

  “Anybody seen him?”

  “Not a soul.” Fighting back tears, Ruth fin­gered the buttons on the cell phone. “They promised to send him here, though, if they do. Aunt Little Tom said she would call all the ladies in her canasta club and organize a prayer circle.”

  “Ruth, is there anybody else you can think of who might have any reason at all to take Lily?” Mary asked.

  “Nobody.” As she gripped Mary’s hand, tears rolled down Ruth’s cheeks. “Isn’t there anything else we can do? If I have to sit here and make cell phone calls all day, I’ll go crazy.”

  Mary knew she was right. They needed jobs.

  Busy fingers kept worried minds from wandering into territories that were simply too terrible to consider. Her gaze fell on the photocopied sketch of Joe Little Bear that was lying on top of Benge’s tiny refrigerator. She smiled. She’d just thought of something they could all do.

  Half an hour later, Benge returned to the camper with thirty more copies of the Joe Little Bear sketch. Mary, Gabe, and Ruth divided them up and set out in three different directions, leaving Clarinda in the van with instructions to call Little Jump Off every fifteen minutes. Ruth and Benge headed to the big Baptist church on the edge of the square, figuring that most of this little town would be there on Sunday morning. Mary covered the religious recalcitrants, electing to go from house to house along Mountain View Drive. Most of Tremont was indeed in church, but she did get a few responses—two young mothers home with sick children, who clutched them tighter when she showed them her picture; a retired Army colonel who swore he’d shoot Joe Little Bear on sight, no questions asked.

  “No, sir,” Mary protested, terrified that this man might, indeed, kill some innocent stranger. “If you see this man, just call nine-one-one. Please.”

  Assured of the colonel’s cooperation, she worked her way down the rest of the street, then hurried back to Dula’s office. On the way she met Benge, headed back from the other end of town.

  “I thought you and Ruth were at the Baptist church,” she said as he fell into step beside her. “We split up. Ruth took the Baptists. I canvassed the Methodists at the other end of town.”

  “Any luck?”

  He shook his head. “People are pretty upset about us coming to protest. I got the feeling no one wants to have anything more to do with any Native American problems.”

  Traffic was heavy for Sunday morning in a small mountain town; Indians seemed intent on reaching the SOB rally, tourists seemed equally intent on getting away from the demonstrations. Benge stopped at a little café called the Green Trout Grill. “Let’s go in here. We can show them our sketch and maybe get a cup of coffee.”

  The place was empty, except for a teenage boy who slumped behind the cash register, playing a game on the restaurant’s computer. Reluctantly he looked up from the screen. “Table or booth?”

  “Booth,” said Gabe.

  He handed them menus. “Order anything. We’re serving both breakfast and lunch.”

  “Bring us two cups of coffee now, please,” Gabe told him. “And keep it coming.”

  They sat at a booth beneath the front window. Once the boy brought them mugs of hot coffee, they ordered ham sandwiches, two for here, two more to go. The boy shuffled back to the kitchen; they sat in exhausted silence, watching the line of campers and cars that crawled past the window.

  The coffee was hot and strong and reminded Mary of the stuff Jim Falkner used to brew in his office, when they worked late and needed an extra jolt of caffeine to keep going. She smiled at the memory; she loved and sorely missed her old boss. The thought of him brought back the office; the thought of the office brought back Dwayne Pugh. In less than twenty-four hours, his trial would resume. Although she felt reasonably confident about wrangling with Virginia Kwan again, she knew that unless either Lily or Jonathan turned up soon, she was going to have to stay here. She couldn’t leave Ruth alone, in the care of her nitwit cousin and a sheriff who didn’t seem at all convinced Lily had been abducted. She would give it a couple more hours, then she’d call Danika and instruct her to ask for a continuance. Mott would be pissed beyond all reason, but who cared? Lily Walkingstick was missing. Mary opened her purse and pulled out her phone to get Danika up to speed when she noticed that the e-mail icon was blinking. Odd, she thought. She’d deleted all her work e-mail yesterday afternoon, and no one ever sent anything from Deckard on Sunday mornings.

  Must be Danika, she decided as she punched the READ option. Already working at the office. But when she saw the message on the little screen, her heart turned to ice.

  “Good God,” she whispered. “I’ve got an e-mail.”

  Benge gave her an odd glance. “So?”

  She turned the phone so he could see it. �
��It’s a picture of Lily Walkingstick!”

  Seventeen

  “WHAT THE HELL?” Benge stared at the tiny screen, uncomprehending.

  She fumbled with the phone, uncertain about all its features. She’d never received a picture on the thing before, and though the tiny image looked out of focus and bizarre, she knew it was definitely Lily Walkingstick.

  “Where is she?”

  “I can’t tell.” Why hadn’t she paid more attention when Hobson handed these phones out? “The screen’s so small, it’s hard to see the details—”

  Just then the boy sauntered back to the table with their sandwiches. “Y’all want any dessert or anything?” he asked, eager to slap their ticket on the table and return to his computer.

  “Are you hooked up to the Net over there?” Benge asked him.

  “America Online.”

  “You got a printer attached?”

  The boy shrugged. “An old one. Prints about one page an hour.”

  Benge pulled out his wallet and handed the boy a twenty-dollar bill. “Ten of that is for lunch. The rest is yours if you can get us online and give us ten minutes of time.”

  The kid’s pudgy face lit up. “Sure. Come on over.”

  Behind the counter, he shut down a game called “Saracen Assassin” and logged on. As the pleasant male voice bid them welcome, the boy relinquished his chair. Gabe Benge held it out for Mary.

  “Go to your server at work,” he instructed her. “Download the image from there. The graphics might be better.”

  Mary navigated quickly to the Deckard County server, typing her password in at the prompt. Instantly a larger version of her e-mail filled the screen. The computer warned her not to open the attached file unless she knew who sent it, but she ignored the warning. If she crashed this kid’s computer, she’d see that he got it fixed.