In the Valley of the Devil

by Hank Early

  52

  Later, I pieced it together in fragments, the way you do when you’ve been dead and the world with all its light you take for granted goes on without you.

  The first fragment I remembered was Mary crying, her tears covering my face like rain. I tried to speak but couldn’t. She told me to rest. I closed my eyes and rested.

  Then I remembered being in an ambulance as paramedics discussed how long I’d been dead.

  “Ten minutes, according to the woman.”

  “Ten minutes is impossible.”

  “So is losing this much blood and still being alive.”

  After that the memories grew increasingly more scattershot. Mary’s face. Rufus’s hand on my shoulder. A deputy—no, two deputies—at my bedside, nodding, talking to themselves or maybe a doctor, maybe someone else.

  Me, waking up and asking a nurse if they’d caught Old Nathaniel.

  “Who, dear?”

  “Old Nathaniel?”

  “I know they caught a lot of men. You and your girlfriend did a good thing.”

  “What about Jeb Walsh? Did they catch him?”

  She shook her head and pointed to the television I’d previously been unaware of. It showed Walsh taking questions at a press conference somewhere. His right eye was dark and swollen from where the metal paperweight had hit him. “Can you turn it up?” I asked, but the nurse was gone, and I was too sleepy to listen anyway. Later, I’d hear a replay of the conference. He was calling me a hero and saying how the county needed to move beyond its violent history. And that was why when he was in the House, he’d work hard to clean up areas of corruption like this one.

  Me waking up sometime later and thinking how I might be the only man in the world to be bitten by a venomous snake, struck by lightning, and killed at the hands of a mountain legend. And yet, I was still alive.

  That had to mean something, right?

  I wasn’t sure.

  I’d never been very sure of much.

  Except that wasn’t true, was it? I was sure that I loved Mary Hawkins. Which is why the worst thing I’ve ever experienced wasn’t dying. It wasn’t being bitten in the face by that cottonmouth or being struck by lightning on top of a windy mountain.

  The worst thing that ever happened to me lasted for eight days, the time in which I had to live without her.

  * * *

  While I was dead, Mary got the knife out of my arm and plunged it into Old Nathaniel’s back.

  That’s what I was told anyway. It’s easy enough to imagine. Mary’s damned tough, tougher than me, and I don’t say that lightly.

  She watched him stagger back toward the river and then steady himself before stumbling into the swift water. She said the blood from his wound flowed out in front of him as the current carried him away.

  They still haven’t found him. Which—I won’t lie—gives me pause. I still think about the strawberry-shaped tattoo on his neck. Every time I see a person I don’t know these days, my eyes involuntarily go to their neck, just to see.

  When he was gone, Mary gave me mouth-to-mouth. She pounded on my chest and did a lot of screaming. When the paramedics arrived, they said she was still screaming at me, and she didn’t even realize I’d started breathing again.

  People always ask me what I remember from those ten minutes. It would be nice to tell them I remember all the clichés, a long dark tunnel with a bright light at the end, that I saw my own body as I rose into heaven, or that my life even flashed before my eyes. The truth is, I don’t remember any of that.

  The only glimmer I have of my time on the “other side” was a feeling of being loved. That was it. I didn’t have a body or a mind or anything except that feeling. It was a warm bath around me, and I think it sustained me. I think it proves all you really need to know about this world. Evil is planted and evil blooms and evil infects, but love transcends all of it. Even death.

  * * *

  The fallout was like nothing I’d ever seen. I thought taking my father’s church down had been big. The Agents of Change had their fingers in nearly everything: local churches, banks, the sheriff’s department, even the manager at the local coffee shop was arrested. But none of them had strawberry-shaped tattoos on their necks. I checked.

  The worst part was who didn’t go down.

  Lane Jefferson was arrested and awaiting trial for participating in a criminal conspiracy, kidnapping, and attempted murder.

  Taggart Monroe was in custody, awaiting trial for murder, criminal conspiracy, and attempted murder. The FBI, who were called as support, found his stash of snuff films and are actively trying to track down everyone else who was involved. The early estimate is that he was responsible for no less than eight deaths.

  Sheriff Patterson was also in lockup, awaiting trial for so many charges I couldn’t keep track of them all.

  Frank Bentley, Jeb Walsh, Mayor Keith, and Preston Argent were still free men, and the scary part was they’d inserted themselves into the scandal as heroes, and most of the public seemed to be buying it.

  Walsh was gearing up for his run for the House of Representatives, and Bentley and Keith were big supporters. Argent—I still couldn’t believe this—was going to run for sheriff. And from the looks of things, he was going to run unopposed.

  Then there was Ronnie. I might have suffered the most bodily harm during the whole ordeal, but Ronnie’s suffering was the cruelest and the most unfair. Despite what he did to save Mary and me—not to mention ultimately expose the snuff film ring—he was arrested for manslaughter. When he’d come flying through the cornfield in that monster truck, he’d killed a man, and though both Mary and I pleaded his case, the FBI agents who ran the investigation took an immediate dislike to Ronnie’s attitude and smart mouth. On top of that, the district attorney and Ronnie had a past. They’d had run-ins, and he didn’t get the same leniency, the same benefit of the doubt that Mary and I did. His trial was still forthcoming, but they’d stacked the charges against him, and it didn’t look good: breaking and entering, resisting arrest, manslaughter, some more drug charges for what they’d found in his truck.

  He was being held in the county jail until his trial or until he made bail, which was set at twenty-five thousand, well beyond what Rufus, Mary, and I could scrape together.

  I didn’t even get a chance to explain about being in the hospital before he lit into me. I promised him I’d plead his case to the DA. And I did, but they didn’t listen. Everyone there told me the same thing: Ronnie Thrash has had this coming for a long time.

  I told them they were wrong, but it was like talking to a wall. One that didn’t have any seams or a way through it.

  Each subsequent visit with Ronnie was worse. He ranted and raved, accusing me of abandoning him. Telling me he’d always known I was using him. I promised him this wasn’t the case, but I couldn’t help feeling guilty anyway. I’d managed to get off free because the DA called my actions “necessary and even heroic.” I’d called him repeatedly to tell him that I couldn’t have done any of it without Ronnie, but he wouldn’t listen.

  “You’re wrong to feel guilty for that little shit,” he said. “He would turn on you the first chance he gets.”

  I might have believed that once, but not anymore. Ronnie was angry. He had a right to be. But when push came to shove, I actually wanted him in my corner. As crazy as he was, I’d take him in a heartbeat over most men.

  Despite it all, I don’t regret my friendship with Ronnie, only that it got so fucked by circumstances beyond my control. He’s a little like me and maybe a little like Rufus. We were all shuffled out into the world hopeful and filled with light but found the rest of the world was crooked and there were dark corners in every part of it. We stumbled along, stretching that innate goodness out until we ran low and felt anger at the world and the way our parents had set it up. We lashed out and rebelled, but even in that there was a pureness, a grace. But somewhere along the way, we ran into dead ends, those empty places in the crooked darkness that d
idn’t make sense, places we could not navigate.

  Which is all to say, I get why Ronnie was angry. I get why he was hurt. I never did reciprocate the loyalty he offered me, and it took me far too long to trust him.

  * * *

  I was in the valley of the devil for eight days, but the repercussions lasted a long time afterward. Rehab took energy I didn’t know I possessed. I wanted to quit so many times, and still do, even though winter is over and the spring is almost here. I’ll be fifty-two next month, and a few people have told me it’s time to make a change.

  Mary was the first. We’d gone out together on a warm March day, me testing my hip and shoulder and how my side would hold it all together as we walked our old path in the mountains, leading toward the cave where we’d found the first skull, where I’d met Patterson for the first time, when she took my hand and squeezed.

  “The special election takes place in June,” she said.

  “Yep. We need to get the word out for James Briggs.”

  “Yeah, except … well, when you were in the hospital, Rufus and me and Susan had a chance to meet Briggs. He’s a great guy. He’d do wonders for this county.”

  “Hell,” I said. “I’d elect Goose sheriff before I voted for that Argent crook.”

  “I know. But a lot of people don’t know what you and I know, and if we try to get the word out, they’ll just say its sour grapes and mudslinging.”

  I shrugged and tried to disguise a wince as my arm flashed with pain. “I don’t know. I think he’s going to lose. A lot of people are suspicious of Argent because he’s an outsider. Briggs isn’t.”

  “True,” Mary said. “If I had to lay odds, I think in a fair election Briggs has a good shot. But my concern is what happens after he wins.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s going to have to stand up to Walsh and Keith. I’m not sure he’s cut out for that.”

  I sighed. “Not many are, unfortunately.”

  We walked a little farther until the cave at the top of the rise came into view.

  “You’re right,” she said. “Not many are. But then, there are some who seem born to stand up to those who would abuse their power.”

  I knew what she was hinting at, but I didn’t let on. The very idea was so foreign to me, so inconceivable. Sheriffs were men like Hank Shaw or Doug Patterson. Not men like me. I worked outside of the law and begged forgiveness later.

  Mary let it go. But Rufus didn’t.

  * * *

  We went to visit Virginia and Briscoe at their new foster home a week later. Susan came with us, along with a bag full of books she’d purchased after I told her about Virginia’s love of reading. Mary had to work, so it was just the three of us. Rufus had been on me a lot to run for sheriff, but he’d yet to wear me down. It was a job for someone else, I kept telling him. Not me.

  I had a good argument too: “We’ll be fine no matter what happens. Hell, we survived the last one and his buddy’s snuff films.”

  That had made Rufus go silent, but it was one of those silences that spoke louder than words. It was a waiting kind of silence, as if the right moment to reply hadn’t turned up yet.

  He found it when I sat down with Briscoe in my lap. The boy giggled at me and tugged on my beard.

  Rufus sat on the couch beside me. The foster parents seemed like good people. Their house was nice, and they hadn’t ruled out adopting both kids. I was rooting for that.

  “Some weren’t as lucky as us,” he said.

  “Huh?” I said. “What are talking about?”

  “I’m talking about these kids and that brother of the girl in the trailer park. I’m talking about those other skulls.”

  “Rufus, this isn’t the time…”

  “The hell it ain’t. This is the very best time. While you got that boy in your arms and that girl is here. That’s why you have to run. Me and you and Mary will be all right. Even if Argent gets the job. But not them. Those kids need every chance we can give them.”

  It was my turn to be silent. I wanted to ignore his words. I wanted to sigh and tell him he wasn’t in control of my life. But I was too busy looking at Briscoe’s big brown eyes. I realized I wasn’t really in control of my own life either. Sometimes you didn’t have a choice. Sometimes, the choice came down to doing whatever it took to look at yourself in the mirror and sleep at night.

  It was like the thing with Ronnie. He did what he had to do. There wasn’t any reward except doing it. All things being equal, I think he would have done it again. And look what it got him.

  Goddamn world.

  There should be a better way. One where we don’t have to fight so hard for a way to get along, to make sense, to find a damned place where we didn’t have to worry about the undertow of evil that seemed so pervasive among us all.

  I didn’t want to run for sheriff. But I figured it wouldn’t kill me, and there were a lot of things out there that would. I’d learned that much for sure.

  ALSO AVAILABLE BY HANK EARLY

  Heaven’s Crooked Finger

  Author Biography

  Hank Early is a middle school teacher and writer located in Central Alabama. He enjoys good beer, strong coffee, and wild storms. He’s married and has two kids who are constantly giving him ideas for his next novel. This is his second Earl Marcus mystery.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by John Mantooth

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.

  Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.

  Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.

  ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-68331-592-6

  ISBN (ePub): 978-1-68331-593-3

  ISBN (ePDF): 978-1-68331-594-0

  Cover design by Melanie Sun

  Book design by Jennifer Canzone

  Printed in the United States.

  www.crookedlanebooks.com

  Crooked Lane Books

  34 West 27th St., 10th Floor

  New York, NY 10001

  First Edition: July 2018

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