Crow Shine

by Alan Baxter

  CROW SHINE

  Alan Baxter

  ~ ~

  For my dad, John Baxter, who told me to never give up

  ~ ~

  Crow Shine by Alan Baxter

  Published by Ticonderoga Publications

  Copyright (c) Alan Baxter 2016

  Introduction copyright (c) Joanne Anderton 2016

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise) without the express prior written permission of the copyright holder concerned. The Acknowledgements constitutes an extension of this page.

  Designed and edited by Russell B. Farr

  A Cataloging-in-Publications entry for this title is available from The National Library of Australia.

  ISBN 978-1-925212-39-6 (limited hardcover)

  978-1-925212-40-2 (trade hardcover)

  978-1-925212-41-9 (trade paperback)

  978-1-925212-42-6 (ebook)

  Ticonderoga Publications

  PO Box 29 Greenwood

  Western Australia 6924

  Australia

  www.ticonderogapublications.com

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  The author would like to thank . . .

  . . . so many people are involved in the making of a good book, and I truly hope this is a good book. Writers work in solitude, but nothing is created alone. I have many thanks to give, and I hope I don't forget anyone.

  Firstly to Russell B. Farr and Liz Grzyb of Ticonderoga Publications, not only for this book, but for all the great work they do, and for their faith in me, here and elsewhere.

  To my agent, Alex Adsett, for her tireless support and relentless front line assaults.

  To my writerly friends who have beta read these stories, read early copies of this book, or contributed in some way to this collection or its contents, especially Joanne Anderton, Angela Slatter, Kaaron Warren, Laird Barron, Nathan Ballingrud, Paul Haines, Andrew McKiernan, Lisa L. Hannett. To count myself among you feeds my soul. I know the moment this goes to print I’ll realise someone important has been missed from this list and I’m so sorry! Mea culpa.

  To all my other wonderful writerly friends not mentioned above, but who are no less a part of my journey, my tribe, my passion. You know who you are and you know I love you. Your support, our community, means the world to me.

  To all the editors and publishers who have put their trust, expertise and dollars behind these stories. Great editors are a wondrous breed.

  To the literary giants who inspired and continue to inspire me, too numerous to mention.

  To anyone who affected my life, whether positively or negatively. Parts of you all live in here. Some of you died in here.

  And most importantly, to the two people who make my life worth living and remind me daily that while darkness lurks everywhere, so too does light: Halinka and Arlo, I love you guys more than good single malt whisky.

  Lastly, to you, dear reader: Thank you.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Crow Shine

  The Beat Of A Pale Wing

  Tiny Lives

  Roll The Bones

  Old Promise, New Blood

  All the Wealth in the World

  In The Name Of The Father

  Fear Is The Sin

  The Chart of the Vagrant Mariner

  The Darkest Shade Of Grey

  A Strong Urge To Fly

  Reaching For Ruins

  Shadows of the Lonely Dead

  Punishment of the Sun

  The Fathomed Wreck To See

  Not The Worst Of Sins

  The Old Magic

  Mephisto

  The Darkness in Clara

  Afterword

  About the author

  Introduction

  Joanne Anderton

  There are spaces in between realms, places that ride the fine line between the gritty and the magical, where every choice we make is weighed, and there is very little light at the end of the tunnel. These are the places Alan Baxter takes us to.

  The stories in Crow Shine explore the nature of these boundaries, and the people and places that balance on their edge . . . or cross them completely. There are choices that must be made, and the consequences of these choices to be endured. An ever-present thread of darkness weaves through the collection, sometimes stark and black and given form, sometimes a creeping sense of hopelessness simmering beneath the surface. And at the heart of every single story is a deep understanding of what makes us human - the good, and the bad.

  “Crow Shine” is a story original to this collection and the perfect piece to name it after. It is quintessential Alan Baxter story telling. In it, the main character Clyde and his mysterious Grandpa cross lines both magical and personal. They step into a world somewhere between our mundane reality and a place as black as a crow’s wing. Dark magic and soulful music combine to create an intoxicating choice - a drink powerful in more ways than one. We bear witness to Clyde’s temptation and understand the choices he makes, even the betrayals, all the while fully aware that he and the people he loves will suffer the consequences. Of course, Clyde is aware of it too, and knows the path he has chosen will bring him darkness. Is he powerless to change course, or just too weak? Are any of us really in control of the decisions we make?

  The between places in “The Old Magic”, also original to this collection, are completely different - but no less powerful. A eulogy to a life lived too long, the story winds between the present and the past, blending memory and magic. Erin is blessed - or is it cursed? - with magical power that allows her to help others but always sets her apart. As she reminisces about her past and the loves she has lost, we comes to realize that she inhabits an in between place of her own. She exists on the edge of society, perpetually isolated between the real world with its inexorable progression of years, and her own space seemingly out of time. The story is poignant, wistful, and the creeping horror of Erin’s situation is so understated we don’t even feel it at first. A very human horror of loss, with an ending that feels at once heartbreaking and inevitable.

  Whereas “The Old Magic” reflects on a lifetime’s worth of difficult choices, “Tiny Lives” focuses on just one. The biggest one. What are we willing to give up for the people we love? “Tiny Lives” is a gorgeous and sad little story about love and sacrifice, told through the image of intricate clockwork toys literally given tiny lives. And then in “Old Promise, New Blood” Alan deals with the consequences of a choice already made. What happens to those left behind? The main character must deal with the fallout of the choice his father made - the dark magic he bargained with, and the son he was forced to sacrifice as a result. Thank you for not making me choose, his father says at one point, as the main character’s twin brother offers himself up. A sacrifice neither the main character, nor his father, has the strength to make.

  This archetypal human weakness is at the heart of “The Darkness in Clara”, in which the darkness that is present in so many of Alan’s stories is given form. Michelle must deal with the fallout of her beloved Clara’s choice to take her own life. As she travels to the small country town where Clara grew up, she is forced to deal with small mindedness and bigotry . . . and something much darker. Remote country towns with uneasy residents and long buried secrets have a long tradition in horror and dark fiction. They are boundary places in themselves - the edge of civilization, where a small human presence struggles against the all-surrounding emptiness. “A Strong Urge to Fly”, another original story to the collection, makes use of a similar setting. A tiny town, far from home, right on the edge of the sea. A classic horror story, c
omplete with creepy old woman and her eccentric house full of highly unusual cats, the story offers up a common horror trait - choose to break the rules, and suffer the consequences.

  These are only a small selection of stories from a collection that will appeal to those of us who enjoy the darkness, and the bittersweet sting of a not quite happy ending. But we do not take the darkness away with us when we read one of Alan Baxter’s stories. He might guide us to those spaces between worlds, and cross boundaries that should not be crossed, and force us to bare witness to hard choices and dark consequences - but that’s not what stays with us. Instead, it’s the fundamental humanity at the core of every single tale.

  Because life is like that sometimes. There is darkness and choices and lines we should not cross but do. Alan’s stories grip us, and engage us, and sometimes horrify us, because we have all been there too, in one way or the other.

  Joanne Anderton

  September 2016

  Crow Shine

  Clyde drove his old Ford through dense trees, Robert Johnson on the stereo battling the knock and growl of the almost-dead engine. Tires crunched gravel and hard dirt on the narrow road. When the track ended, Clyde pulled up and left the motor running, enjoying the meagre efforts of the air-conditioning for a moment longer.

  He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of gum, stared at it in disgust. He hated the stuff. If only he had the courage to ask Melanie out, rather than simply buying shit he didn’t need from her over the pharmacy counter. She always looked at him so sly, little tip of the head. She knew, for God’s sake. Why was he such a coward? He threw the junk into the passenger footwell.

  He’d keep learning from Grandpa, absorb that legendary blues prowess. Then maybe Clyde would feel he had something with which to impress Mel, that made him special enough for her attention.

  He killed the engine and stepped from the car into the cruel bayou heat, glanced up into the twisted branches of bald cypress trees, hung with veils of Spanish moss like old men’s beards. Sweat instantly trickled down his back.

  He reverently lifted Grandpa’s rosewood guitar off the back seat, fret-stoned and restrung, fresh from the music store - there was no instrument on God’s earth more beautiful - and stalked off through the trees.

  As he got close, he smelled wood smoke on the air, thought momentarily about Grandpa’s tin and copper still, but the aroma was wrong. His breath caught at the sight of blackened, smoking stumps on the water’s edge, a skeletal parody of what had once been his grandpa’s secret place. He broke into a run.

  Everything was silent devastation, twisted metal and blackened remains, burned almost to nothing. Stark, broken bones jutting from the tranquil water. Clyde desperately hoped the old man was somewhere else.

  Movement not a yard away caught his eye as hot sun glanced off the satin sheen of dark feathers and a glistening eye tipped left then right. Clyde frowned at the bird, perched on one sooty stub, disturbed by its calm, its indifference to his proximity. He waved a hand and the crow flapped its wings in response, and cawed. Clyde took a heavy step forward and the corvid hopped to a higher piece of burned wall, out of reach but not much farther away.

  “Goddamn you, creature.”

  Insects buzzed and ticked in the humid air, other wild things whistled and hooted. Nothing else for miles around. Even his daddy didn’t know about this place. Clyde himself wasn’t supposed to, except for the day after his eighth birthday when he’d followed Grandpa, sneaking and scurrying in pursuit as the aging bluesman ambled out through the bayou.

  Then Grandpa had spotted him and his creased face had folded up in a scowl. “The hell you doin’, Clyde?”

  “Sorry, Grandpa, I was just curious.”

  “Can’t a man have any privacy?”

  Clyde had hung his head and one perfect drop of contrition had hit the scuffed and dirty toe of his sneaker.

  “Don’t snivel, you’re here now,” Grandpa had said. “Come on in. You tell a soul about this place and I’ll have your hide, you understand?”

  Clyde had kept that secret for fifteen years, and learned guitar at the man’s knee. But he had never shared the crystal clear moonshine that made his grandpa famous. He would sit and watch the old man get drunk while playing the most moving blues in the state. Everyone agreed, no one could hold a candle to Moonshine McCreary.

  Always sipping from a clay bottle while he picked the songs of melancholy angels from that rosewood guitar, his voice a gravelly resonance from somewhere beyond this world. The man had skills, but Clyde knew the real power was in the ’shine.

  “I shouldn’t play for you, boy!” Moonshine would bark, as Clyde would gasp at the drag against his soul. But he’d play on, take a bit more from his grandson, before yelling and sending the young man off home.

  “This is my shame, boy,” Grandpa had drunkenly slurred late one night, gesturing with the bottle as pale smoke wreathed his grey curls. “When I’m gone, you don’t ever let it be yours, you hear? My recipe dies with me.”

  But Clyde had long since figured it out, and secretly pencilled his notes and sketches, spying as the old man brewed.

  He stepped carefully onto the porch of the shack, hoping he didn’t go through the burned wood into the swamp beneath. His heart stuttered when he snagged sight of a scorched foot sticking out of burned up denim. He moved around and the rest of Moonshine McCreary was slowly revealed. Clyde jumped as the crow squawked its laughter at him, and then he was crying.

  “Grandpa!”

  Loss was a tornado through his chest. Despite all the old man had taken, there was no one Clyde loved more. He crouched by the corpse and it was not a pleasant sight. What flesh remained was bubbled and blistered, parts of the man, including his lower jaw, were nowhere to be seen.

  The crow hopped down and Clyde tried to shoo it away again, but it danced back out of his reach. Clyde surged to his feet and hollered, swung a foot to kick the foul carrion eater. As it leaped skyward he tripped and fell, but managed to hold the guitar high, away from damage, and scuffed his cheek a little on the floorboards.

  He sat up, rested the instrument across his lap, saw his sweat-sheened face mirrored in the deep red, polished surface. His mind drifted to his notebook in the glovebox of his crappy car. Lots of Moonshine’s songs, lyrics and chord progressions were in there, along with little scraps of his own inspiration he meant to work on further. And on the front page, a list of ingredients, times, temperatures. The thing Grandpa had guarded with a furious passion. There was a sketch of the still, particulars of its haphazard construction. Clyde knew its energy only worked for the old man, but now he was gone . . . Well, now maybe it belonged to Clyde.

  He was guilt-ridden, considering his inheritance not two yards from Grandpa’s blackened corpse, but at last it was his turn. He pictured Melanie’s smooth curves and a smile tugged his lips. He glanced across at the gruesome remains. Honestly, if Moonshine was going to go, this was probably the best way, accidentally blowing himself to pieces with his secret still.

  Clyde knew it wouldn’t take much to rebuild and take on the making of Moonshine McCreary’s signature blend. He had to hope its power would come to him. The dark bird, high on a blackened beam, laughed and ducked, almost as though it approved of his silent resolution.

  Clyde headed carefully off the smoking wreck and made his way back to the car to call the police and his father. Pa wouldn’t give a shit, he never wanted anything to do with Moonshine, and gave up warning Clyde away years ago, but he had to be told. People needed to know the legend had died. The blues community state-wide would be in mourning.

  *

  The funeral was a circus of local media and milling hangers-on. Everyone wanted to say they’d been there the day they put Moonshine McCreary in the ground. Clyde was seething by the time it was over, but the wake was a much quieter affair. Only family and their closest friends were invited, the location kept secret until passed around by word of mouth at the graveside. Marie’s, one
hour.

  Clyde sat in the small lounge room, the smell of coffee and bourbon and Alice’s cakes redolent through the house. Fans turned lazily, but did little to push away the heat. He lifted Grandpa’s rosewood guitar, that he had refused to relinquish since that dark day, and put it across his knees. The room hushed.

  “I’m happy to play for y’all,” Clyde said. “I’m nothing like the artist he was. No one was, is or ever will be, but I’ll do all I can to bring some honor to his memory.”

  His fingers caressed the strings and he sang three of his Grandpa’s favorites before tears stole his voice.

  He endured the hugs and assurances of love, grateful for them though all he really wanted was solitude. As soon as it felt reasonable, he excused himself to go and continue the rebuild in the bayou.

  *

  Even before the still was fully reconstructed, Clyde found some courage to talk to Melanie more often. She was so very sympathetic for his loss and, though he lacked the mettle to actually ask her out, he felt they grew closer over time. He continued to be plagued by a mild guilt as the shack was returned to its former glory, and the still reconstructed. Fresh copper pipes and a new stainless steel boiling vessel were held together by bits of tin and garbage, even some of the scorched remains of its original design. And Mel herself asked sidelong about the old man’s famous brew, probing with the curiosity everyone shared; how much did Clyde know? And she even seemed to hint that perhaps he should leave it well alone. But Grandpa’s legacy was more important to him than anyone’s conservatively cautious mindset.

  While he worked in the heat, that damn crow - could it really be the same one? - beset him every day, ducking and dancing, shouting for attention. He began to think perhaps Grandpa had tamed the creature and it was used to human company. But he wondered why he’d never seen the bird before.