In the Valley of the Devil

by Hank Early

  He stood, and Ronnie hugged him again. Timmy turned to nod at me and then walked out of the room.

  26

  As much as I’d dreaded visiting with Lester, just thinking about the man who’d enter the room next made my skin crawl. Billy Thrash had been my father’s closest advisor and best friend for years. After Lester took over the reigns of the Holy Flame, Billy had used his influence to torture young girls he viewed as promiscuous. The fact that he genuinely believed he was doing them a favor said something about the depth of his depravity.

  “Maybe I should leave you two alone,” I said.

  “What? Hell no. I want you to see this.”

  “See what?”

  Ronnie smiled slyly. “You’ll see.”

  “If you’re planning on making a big scene, I think I’ll pass.”

  “Well, that’s no fun. Just hang around. As a friend.”

  There it was. Whenever Ronnie said that last bit—“as a friend”—I knew where things were heading. If I continued to argue, he’d say he’d been there when I needed a friend. After that, if I still didn’t give him what he wanted, I’d never hear the end of how he’d helped me bury my father, a reality I’d rather not continue to dwell on.

  I hated him for the hold he had on me. Hated him even while I found myself sympathizing with him. It was a weird, disorienting combination. He’d learned to hold me emotionally hostage in order to get me to like him, which made me dislike him even more. Yet, there was a huge part of me that believed maybe he had a point. After all, he really had been there for me. And somehow, despite it all, I found myself developing something that almost felt like positive feelings for him.

  A few minutes later, the door opened for the third time, and Billy Thrash—smiling Billy Thrash—walked into the room. The guard who led him in was smiling too, and it was clear Billy had been talking to him, and in an instant I saw how it was for Billy here. Not so different than how it had been for Billy on the outside. He had a magnetic personality, the kind that drew people to him and made you think, Wow, what a nice man. For years and years, I’d been perplexed by his close relationship with my father, because he was always so happy and friendly, while my father was a dour, angry man who saw only the worst in human nature.

  It took me nearly half a century to understand what Billy Thrash really was: an actor. He hid depravity under a veneer of joy, and even now, even knowing what I knew about him, I found myself reacting subconsciously to his shtick. He was that good.

  “There he is,” he called from across the room. I wasn’t sure if he meant me or Ronnie, but when he bypassed Ronnie and headed straight for me, arms extended for a big bear hug, I knew.

  I wasn’t sure why I stood to greet him or why I allowed myself to be wrapped up in his arms. It was just his power, I think. Or maybe for me it was the path of least resistance. I’d had a long day, and I was anxious to be back on the road, my mind focused on how to find Mary. Seeing Billy Thrash again was honestly something I’d never expected would happen.

  Ronnie snorted at our hug as his grandfather pounded me on the back. So much for him being angry at me for busting up his little child torture scheme.

  “I want to thank you, Earl,” he said. “You’ve truly proven that God can use any man, regardless of his faith. You opened my eyes. I see now, what I was doing was wrong. Those girls may have been lost, but I wasn’t helping them any. I should have spent that time on bended knee, in prayer, and saved us all a lot of misery.”

  He let go of me and for the first time seemed to notice Ronnie. “Hello, Ronald.”

  I was shocked when I looked at Ronnie and saw all of his confident swagger had vanished. He looked like an angry little boy.

  Billy stepped to the other side of the table and held out his arms. Ronnie looked for a second like he was about to say something, something mean, but then he shook his head and looked away from his grandfather.

  Billy smiled at me. “Young ones hold resentments sometimes. It’s the way of the world. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to come back around to what’s right.” He said all of this without a trace of irony. It was as if he believed we were the criminals and he was still a faultless preacher. Like my father, his capacity to deceive himself was unfettered by any sense of reality or common decency.

  We sat down, and I watched Ronnie, waiting for him to do whatever it was he planned on doing.

  “Well,” Billy said, “I want to thank you two for visiting an old man like me. Jesus said, ‘Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.’ Whether you two know it or not, you’re doing the Lord’s work.”

  Neither Ronnie nor I spoke. I felt like it was Ronnie’s show, but he wasn’t saying anything.

  “I heard the church has undergone a troubling transformation,” Billy said. “That saddens me.”

  “Why?” Ronnie said. “It couldn’t get no worse than when you tried to run it.” He spoke the words so quickly, they were almost unintelligible, but I could tell from Billy’s face he got the message.

  “Please, Ronald, do not put my sin on the entire church. Those people were God’s flock. I pray for them daily. I just fear that my transgression has led them astray, and now they are falling victim to a new, enticing form of Godless Christianity. The kind that does not acknowledge hell or the devil.”

  “So, you still believe in the supernatural?” I asked him.

  “Of course. How could I not? I’ve seen miracles with my own eyes, Earl. I’ve seen evil too.”

  “What about Old Nathaniel?” I said. I figured I might as well pick his brain too. If anybody had been around long enough to know the history, it would be Billy.”

  “Nathaniel? Sure, I remember those stories. I guess I’m showing my age because I remember when folks just called him Nathaniel. But I suppose even monsters can grow old.”

  “So you believe he’s real?”

  “Oh, without question. See, that’s the problem with our world today. People have forgotten the power and majesty of the world our Lord created. Demons have always walked this earth. Angels too.” His face twisted into a sly smile. “The real question, of course, is which one is Nathaniel? A demon or an angel?”

  Ronnie muttered something under his breath.

  “Sorry, did you say something, Ronald?”

  “I said, ‘Fuck you.’”

  Billy shook his head. “I still pray for you, boy. Just like I prayed for your father.”

  “Yeah,” Ronnie said, breathing heavily as if he’d just finished a long run. “That did a lot of good.”

  “My son and your father was a reprobate, Ronald. He denied all the help I tried to offer him. Believe me, I prayed for him more than I prayed for anybody else.”

  “You’re a piece of shit,” Ronnie said. It was quiet, meek almost.

  I decided to try to steer the conversation back to something useful. “Did you ever see him?”

  “Who? Nathaniel? Oh no. But I know a man who might have.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Name was Cedrick Vaughn. Cedrick used to own all that land out there in the valley—well, excepting the parts where the blacks live, but honestly, that land’s not fit for owning. Anyway, he was obsessed with the idea that Nathaniel existed and wanted to corral him. So, he went to work cultivating that cornfield, planting it just so, in the hopes that Nathaniel would be forced toward the trap he’d laid for him.”

  “Did it work?”

  Billy laughed. “No, the only thing Cedrick succeeded in doing was confusing himself. The problem was he couldn’t see the cornfield, not like he needed to. It was like creating a maze while you were inside it.”

  “He needed an aerial view?” I said, thinking of the binoculars in the water tower, and how I couldn’t really make anything out because I wasn’t high enough.

  “That’s right,” Billy said. “It’s funny too because, just before he died, he told me how he’d solved the problem. It was really ingenious and simple at the s
ame time. You know Summer Mountain is nearby, right? It’s closer to the cornfield than any other mountain.”

  Billy stopped and glanced over at Ronnie, who was muttering something.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said I fucking hate you. That you’re going to hell and that Jesus ain’t real.” Ronnie was practically growling the words now, and as much as I understood his need for rebellion, it was the worst possible time for it to happen. Billy had just been about to tell me something important.

  “Take it easy, Ronnie,” I said. “Go on, Billy.”

  But it was too late. Billy’s attention was now fully focused on his grandson. “I’m sorry you continue to fight the Lord, Ronnie.” He turned back to me. “And how about you, Earl? Do you still fight the Lord?”

  “I’m not a traditional believer,” I said, and instantly regretted even engaging. “Can we go back to the Old Nathaniel thing?”

  “Well, there’s a lot of us out there, Earl, who have differences on some of the minor details. Baptism by immersion or baptism by other means. Some among us even believe that the handling of snakes is an outdated mode of worship. What I’m saying is, I understand your past. I understand what you’ve been through, and I want you to know, there’s still room for you in God’s kingdom.”

  I’d honestly believed that my father’s faith held no more surprises for me. I was sure I’d already run the gauntlet of trying to be saved by people from the Holy Flame. Hell, the Holy Flame didn’t exist anymore, and its last surviving remnants—my brother and Billy here—were serving out multiple-year sentences in a maximum-security prison. Yet here I was, listening to another conversion spiel. It never ended with these people. Why did it not surprise me that the one time Billy Thrash was about to be helpful, he interrupted himself to try to save me, yet again?

  Billy—seemingly oblivious to my resistance, as he’d always been—kept right on talking about the kingdom of God and how he’d learned to lean on Him even more while in prison, and how the Lord had showed him a day, after he was released from these bonds, when he’d rebuild his church. Meanwhile, I was aware of Ronnie across the table from me. He was growing increasingly more agitated. It started with a small facial tic, blinking his left eye repeatedly, but soon grew into the curling and uncurling of his fingers and the tensing of his entire body.

  “I really wanted to hear about your friend,” I said.

  “Oh, forgive me,” Billy said. “I get carried away when I talk about the Lord and His blessings. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Cedrick designed a great—”

  I never heard the rest.

  I lunged across the table just in time to impede the swing. It went wide, grazing the old man’s earlobe. But Ronnie wasn’t done. He leaned in again, despite the hold I had on him, and tried another swing. Billy stumbled out of his chair and to his feet.

  I held Ronnie down. It took everything I had to do it. He was so angry, his body bucked beneath mine, shaking the table.

  “I think I understand what this was all about now,” Billy said. “You want information, and Ronald wants a fight. Well, you’ll get neither from me. And to think, I was willing to trust that you two had godly motivations today.”

  Ronnie lunged again, and I decided to just let him go. From the expression on his face and the speed at which he moved, I was pretty sure he meant to kill the old man. Lucky for both of us, a guard stepped into the room right then, his revolver drawn.

  “Easy there,” he said.

  Ronnie stopped and held his hands up.

  We waited, watching as they escorted Billy out, but not before he told me he was still praying for me. He didn’t say anything to Ronnie.

  27

  “You should have let me,” Ronnie said as we made the drive back to Coulee County. “I don’t care if they would have arrested me. Would have been worth it. Why’d you stop me? I thought you hated him too.”

  I squeezed the steering wheel tightly. “I tried to stop you because he was about to tell me something that would have helped me find Mary. That was a stupid ass thing to do.”

  Ronnie looked crushed. “Sorry, Earl.”

  I sighed and focused on the road. I did feel badly for Ronnie. It was obvious to me now where most of his issues stemmed from. It wasn’t so much that his grandfather had wanted to save him but more that he seemed indifferent to Ronnie, instead focusing all his attention on me. It was a shitty way for a grown man to behave, but I wouldn’t have expected anything else from Billy Thrash.

  “Billy’s full of shit anyway. Whatever he was going to tell you wouldn’t have been true.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Hell, I know I am.”

  I was silent. I saw his point but didn’t think it applied in this situation. Billy didn’t even know that Mary was missing. For all he knew, I was just curious.

  “You still want me to help you out?” Ronnie said.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I figured you might be done with me.”

  “Well,” I said, “there’s many that would be, that’s for sure.”

  “But not you?”

  I sighed. “Not me.”

  Ronnie didn’t say anything, but I snuck a glance at him and saw that he was smiling—not grinning. Ronnie grinned all the time, and there was a manic kind of joy in that grin, the kind of joy that delighted in seeing the world burn. This wasn’t a grin. It was a smile, and I thought there was something real in it, maybe even hopeful.

  “What now?” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean since we’re still working together. What do we do now?”

  “I got plans this afternoon, but tomorrow I’d like to visit the tattoo artist Lambert talked about. The one who has seen Old Nathaniel. You know where we can find him?”

  “I’ll figure it out. Can you pick me up?”

  “Sure.”

  “What time?”

  “Early.”

  “Most of these joints don’t open early. Think noon to seven.”

  “Okay, I’ll call you in the morning. Don’t get wasted. Tomorrow is important. I want to see if this guy can help get us find the hidden warehouse on Summer Mountain.”

  “Got it. No problem.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  He was still smiling. “Sure thing.”

  “What were you thinking the other day? When you tried to rob your sister?”

  “Heh. I wasn’t really robbing her. I was robbing Lane. She ain’t got no money. That’s why she takes up with men like Lane. She’s a good-looking woman. Hell, she’s my sister, but that don’t make me blind to what’s going on. She does what a man like Lane Jefferson wants, and in return he feeds the kids and supplies her drugs. I just thought maybe I could get a little of his money because, well, I ain’t too proud to admit it, Earl, the damned siding business is for shit these days.”

  I didn’t bother arguing with him about his “siding business” again. Instead, I just drove, trying to concentrate on the new information I’d learned from Lambert. I replayed our conversation in my mind, trying to make sense of it. I felt like I’d begun to gather the pieces, and if I could just twist them around some, I’d begin to see how some of them might fit together.

  Like the film director who lived on Summer Mountain. The one who’s name reminded Lambert of a kid’s game …

  Tag. Tag Monroe. That was the man Lane Jefferson was supposedly visiting on the night Mary disappeared.

  I looked over at Ronnie. “Tag Monroe. That’s the movie director. You know anything about him?”

  He shook his head. “No. But Lane used to work in movies. I do know that.”

  “How’d you find that out?”

  “Wanda told me. Said he built sets out in Hollywood for a while. Probably how they know each other.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense. Did Wanda ever tell you anything else about Lane?”

  “She hated the bastard. He was abusive and mean and she was afraid he’d hit Virginia.
”

  “Jesus. Why didn’t she leave—?”

  I stopped myself. I knew exactly why. The drugs. It occurred to me that drug addiction was the kind of evil my mother had believed in, the kind that got inside you. Except, when it finally ended you, it ended too.

  Or did it? Wasn’t I forgetting a huge component of the addiction? It wouldn’t end when Wanda was gone. Those kids would bear the brunt of that evil for the rest of their lives, and eventually they’d love someone enough to pass it on.

  I felt sick suddenly at the hopelessness of it all. Finding Mary consumed me, but finding her would be only a single good thing in a vast sea of evil.

  “Yo, Earl,” Ronnie said. “You missed the turn.”

  I shook my head, slowing my truck and made a U-turn, heading back toward Riley, my mind as unsettled as it had been since I was young and dealing with the fallout of learning that none of the stuff my father had taught me about God was true.

  Now a new question plagued me: What if my mother had been right about evil all along?

  * * *

  I got Ronnie home just in time to take Rufus to the library. He tried to talk me out of it, telling me I needed to be looking for Mary. I explained that this was looking for Mary.

  “I want to confront Jeb Walsh about his little bootlicker lawyer.”

  “Okay then,” Rufus said, “that sounds like a plan.”

  Rufus and I made it to the library just in time to slip inside the auditorium before they closed the doors. It was standing room only at that point, and I marveled at the people who sat eagerly in the chairs, holding copies of Walsh’s book that they hoped to get signed. The small stage was empty when we came in, save for a table with a stack of Walsh’s books and a microphone lying beside them.

  “How big is the crowd?” Rufus asked.

  “Big. We’re going to have to stand.”

  “No problem. Anybody else here for the same reasons we are, or are they all buying his shit?”

  I looked around, scanning the faces, checking for books or T-shirts that made each person’s affiliation clear. “Let’s just say it looks like we’re in the minority.”