Lord of the Mountain

by William Ollie

  I wonder, Pitch thought as he took another drag. Whose meat hook that greasy bastard wound up on.

  He looked at his watch. “Hmm,” he said. “Eleven-o’clock. Guess we’d better get the show on the road.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  The call in the middle of the night was disturbing. Children were missing, Elmer Hicks dead, and Carlton Stone could tell by Jared’s carefully chosen words that Jared had something to do with Elmer’s death. He prayed for Jared and his son, for Jerry Hodges and Bobby Jackson, and Missy Thomas and her boys. Tossing and turning most of the night, he finally got up at daybreak and made his way into the kitchen, where, bleary-eyed, he got the morning coffee started. In the bathroom, he splashed water onto his face to startle himself awake. Once he had brushed his teeth, he returned to the bedroom where his wife lay sleeping, grabbed his clothes and shoes, and went back to the bathroom to dress.

  Coffee in hand, he walked to his car, got inside and drove out to Butcher’s Holler.

  He was comforting June Hodges when Alvie Ross Huckabee drove up in his police car, leading a pickup truck full of men into the Holler. Reverend Stone gathered the men around and wished them well, and as Luke led the hunting party into the mountainside, Carlton Stone offered up a hopeful prayer to his Lord and Savior. He stood on the front porch with June, holding her hand while Luke Hodges and the hunting party started up the mountain. When the last man disappeared into the tree line, Reverend Stone led June to her bedroom and guided her to the mattress. She lay on the bed, crying while Reverend Stone walked into the bathroom, where he soaked a washcloth with cold water, turned off the spigot and returned to the bedroom, and then laid the cool cloth over her eyes. When June drifted off to sleep, he went back to his car and headed for home.

  On his way to Peck’s Mill, he asked God to grant him the wisdom to understand what was going on around him, why He had taken Missy and her two little babies, and why these godless acts of violence had taken place in his peaceful mountain community. He was sure there was a reason, and if he read his Bible and prayed long and hard, God would make that reason known to him.

  Even more disturbing was the disappearance of Jerry Hodges and Bobby Jackson. At least he knew what happened to Missy and her boys. There was no mystery surrounding Jason and Elmer, either, except who had actually killed the young coal miner. Nobody knew what had happened to Jerry Hodges, only that he had gone off to play day before yesterday, and seemingly vanished off the face of the earth. Thirteen years to the day that Frankie Stapleton went missing.

  Thirteen.

  Thirteen sat down to the Last Supper, Christ and His Twelve Apostles. Judas, the betrayer of Christ, was considered to be the thirteenth participant. Thirteen is the number of rebellion, and the depravity of fallen man. Jesus taught about thirteen evils that proceed from the heart and defile the man. Nimrod, the thirteenth descendent of Adam, founded Babel. In the Book of Revelation, the dragon, Satan, is mentioned thirteen times.

  And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads. On his horns were ten crowns, and on his heads, blasphemous names. The beast was like a leopard, his feet those of a bear, the dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority.

  Jerry Hodges and Bobby Jackson. Frankie Stapleton and Johnny Briscomb. The similarities were downright frightening: two little boys who went missing on two consecutive days. Reverend Stone shuddered as he downshifted and pulled to a stop in front of his house, because he knew that thirteen was the Devil’s number.

  After killing the engine, he set the parking break and got out, and then stood for a moment admiring the white picket fence surrounding his two-bedroom house. A wooden swing hung from chains wrapped around and bolted to the sturdy branch of a tall oak in his front yard. Chirping baby birds danced in their nest, gathering around their mother, who was dangling a worm from her beak. The sun was out, and a brilliant blue sky stretched across the horizon.

  “What a beautiful day,” he said, and then made his way across the yard, onto the porch, rushing headlong into sweet, tantalizing smells that greeted him when he opened the door.

  “Carlton?”

  He followed the voice into the kitchen, where he found his wife leaning over the sink, balancing a pie on the windowsill. She turned at the sound of his footsteps, and smiled when she saw him.

  Katie Lynn Stone stood barefoot in front of her husband, wearing a light blue dress decorated with stars and half moons. Long black hair fell across her narrow shoulders. The slight touch of makeup she wore gave her face a rosy hue, and when Carlton looked into her hazel eyes, he knew that she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on.

  “How are they?” she asked.

  “June’s pretty upset.”

  “Of course she is.”

  “I comforted her best I could. She was sleeping when I left her.”

  “What about Millie Jackson?”

  “I’ll go see her in a little while. I wanted to stop off and see you first. Maybe get a bite to eat.” He walked over to his wife, smiling as he wiped a smudge of flour off the tip of her nose. “You’re so beautiful.”

  “Well,” she said. “Ain’t you the sweet one.” On tiptoes, she hugged him and pecked his cheek.

  Carlton looped an arm around her waist. The telephone jangled in the living room and Katie Lynn stepped back. “Go on and answer it,” she said. “Maybe it’s good news. I’ll fix you a ham sandwich while you’re gone.”

  Carlton walked down the hallway to the living room, and picked up the phone.

  “Hallo, Reverend,” a strangely familiar voice taunted, and then, almost as if issuing a challenge: “Can a rich man… get into Heaven?”

  Carlton Stone dropped the receiver onto the couch, eyes glazing over as he shuffled across the hardwood floor into an adjoining room, where he stood for a moment before sliding open a desk drawer and rummaging through it. Then, turning, he stalked out of the room and headed back to the kitchen, where Katie Lynn turned to see her husband staring at her as if he didn’t even know who she was.

  “Carlton?” she said. “What’re you doing with that gun?”

  And Carlton Stone raised his .45, centering it on his wife, mumbling “Fuck you, God” as the trigger was pulled and Katie Lynn’s head exploded like an overfilled water balloon, slamming her backwards into the refrigerator while blood, gore and chunks of skull rained down to the floor she collapsed upon.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Earl was starving. After their round of lovemaking, Vonda had trotted off with barely enough time to make it to work, leaving Earl with two pieces of dry toast under his belt. He sat at his desk, fantasizing about roast beef and Kelly’s Diner, the huge sandwich that would look so good sitting in front of him. Slices of rare beef, it would have, piled high on a crisp bed of fresh, green lettuce, tomatoes… wedges of dill pickles on the side.

  Of course, when he opened his eyes, the sandwich was gone.

  He had spent the last hour fielding telephone calls from worried and irate citizens. A couple of people offering to help had been told to keep their eyes open, because there really wasn’t much else they could do. It didn’t look good. He had pretty much given up on Jerry, whose broken body would probably be found resting on a pile of rocks in some old abandoned mine shaft—if it was found at all. And Bobby Jackson? Earl sighed and shook his head.

  He was leaning back in his chair, yawning and stretching his fists towards the ceiling when the telephone rang. Probably another irate mother, or Judge Croft busting his balls about Elmer Hicks.

  He picked up the handset.

  “Sheriff Peters,” he said.

  “Sheriff, this is Sheryl Matthews.”

  Great. Earl sighed. Another frightened housewife, or a busybody.

  “I live next door to Carlton Stone, the reverend out at Whitley Baptist?”

  “Yes ma’am, I know who he is.”

  “Sheriff, I just heard a gunshot over there.”

  Christ
. “A gunshot? Are you sure it was a gunshot?”

  “Sheriff, I grew up on a farm with a sister and five brothers. I know what a gunshot sounds like. You need to get on out to the preacher’s house. Quick!”

  “Yes, ma’am.” And as an afterthought, he added, “Mrs. Matthews, you stay put ‘til I get there.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I will. But, please, hurry.”

  “I’m leaving now,” Earl said, and then stood up, all thoughts of roast beef and dill pickles a distant memory as he hurried out to his car.

  He arrived at Peck’s Mill to find Sheryl Matthews standing by her front porch swing, staring out at Reverend Carlton Stone, who sat next door on his front steps with his head buried in his hands. Sheryl, who ran down the stairs and through her yard, caught up with Earl in the middle of Reverend Stone’s cement walkway. “I hollered and asked him what happened but he wouldn’t answer me,” she whispered. “I asked him if he was all right and he just sat there. Something’s wrong, Sheriff.”

  Earl looked at the reverend, who had raised his head from his hands and was now staring straight ahead, tears streaming down his face. Sheryl Matthews was right: something was wrong here. Earl continued up the walkway with Sheryl right on his heels. When he got within a foot or so of Reverend Stone, he stopped and asked the reverend what had happened.

  But Carlton Stone just sat on the steps, sniffling, while tears slid down his face.

  “Reverend?”

  “Reverend Stone, are you all right?” Sheryl asked him.

  “I killed her.”

  “You what?” Earl said.

  Sheryl gasped as Earl hurried up the stairs and into the house, through the living room and down the hallway, checking both bedrooms and the bathroom before walking back through the living room and into the kitchen, where he found Katie Lynn Stone lying face up in a pool of dark red blood, one lifeless eye gazing up at the kitchen ceiling; half her face and the top half of her skull missing from her right cheekbone up, where the good reverend had pumped a single forty-five caliber bullet into her head. Matted hair and blood, bits of bone and brain matter were splattered across the front of the refrigerator, whose formerly smooth white finish now had a sticky red smear running across its front, caused by the bullet that passed through Katie Lynn’s head before tearing a jagged hole into the metal door.

  Even with all the horrible events he had witnessed lately, Earl had never seen anything like this. And the quietly serene abode of the town’s preacher was the last place he would have expected it to happen. He moved to the kitchen sink and splashed some cold water onto his face, and saw a cherry pie sitting in the window. The gooey, thick, red trails of pie filling that had leaked onto the patterned white porcelain dish reminded him of the blood-spattered icebox, and he pushed the pie off the window sill, sending it plummeting to the ground outside with a sickening splat.

  Earl returned to the front porch, where Sheryl Matthews had her arms around the sobbing reverend’s shoulders. He paused for a moment, and then walked down the steps and stood directly in front of him. “Why, Carlton?”

  Carlton Stone looked up at Earl through bloodshot eyes. A minute went by, then another, and Earl asked again, this time with a much harder edge to his voice, “Why’d you do it?”

  “I don’t know,” the preacher said, wiping at his tears. “I barely remember what happened. It’s like I was dreaming, and I woke up and found out it wasn’t a dream.”

  “Reverend Stone, I don’t know what it was, but it sure as hell wasn’t no dream.” Earl stood quietly for a moment. He looked at the startled neighbor, and then back at the preacher. “Well,” he said. “Let’s go, Reverend.” And then turning to Sheryl, “Whatever you do, Mrs. Matthews, don’t go in there.”

  “Don’t you worry, Sheriff,” she said. “I won’t.”

  And then Earl grabbed Reverend Stone by his arm and led him to the car, ushered the blubbering preacher into the back seat and got behind the wheel, started the engine and sped off toward town.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Ezra Butcher, using one hand to shield his eyes against the midday sun reflecting off the water, used the other to control the throttle of a twin-cylinder, 3-horsepower outboard motor. Brand spanking new, he’d had it shipped straight from the Outboard Marine Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And what a beaut it was: aluminum… lightweight. Sure as hell beat rowing. Any other time he would have been delighted to have his boys on the water on such a glorious day, but there was nothing glorious about dragging grappling hooks along the bottom of the Guyan river.

  Starting at the outskirts of Slag Town, at the river’s narrowest point, they had made their way upstream. So far their efforts had produced nothing but tree branches. Although Charlie had pulled up an old rusted refrigerator door. And that was fine with Ezra. Better an old rusty door than Bobby Jackson’s bloated and battered body.

  While Ezra and his sons were tooling along the river, Henry Walker and his son were heading through Butcher’s Holler, on their way back to town. He and Junior had been patrolling the outskirts of town on the off chance they might run across one of the missing boys. From the backwoods trails snaking up Seeker’s Mountain to the dusty dirt roads of Butcher’s Holler, they had spent the better part of the morning driving through the countryside. It was certainly worth a try, Henry had thought. But their efforts had so far garnered them nothing but disappointment. They’d grown weary, and hungry, and had decided to head back to town for a bite to eat.

  Henry, paused at a stop sign, eased the pickup into gear, as Junior said, “Look, Daddy. There goes Marty Donlan’s old Model T.”

  As soon as Carlton Stone hung up with Jared Thomas last night, he was on the line with Marty Donlan. Marty didn’t really think any of this mess had anything to do with what had happened to John Chambers’ nephew and those other kids, but after hearing what Reverend Stone had to say about the Biblical meaning of the number thirteen, he wasn’t taking any chances. He kept Marty Jr. and Wanda out of school, closed the store and took his family for a leisurely drive out to Coker County. Traveling the old mountain roads took his mind off the missing children, far away from what Ezra Butcher might find when he dragged his grappling hooks through the river. And Marty Junior was happy to be out of school on a Thursday morning—Wanda, too. But they couldn’t stay away forever, and Marty had decided to head on back to town, maybe open the store after all.

  “Looky there, Daddy,” Junior said, pointing at Henry Walker’s pickup as it pulled onto the road behind them.

  Marty waved his arm through the open window. “Good man,” he said, when the overweight mechanic waved back. He rounded a curve, passing the cutoff that would lead him up Seeker’s Mountain, continuing on toward the Main Street Bridge.

  “Can we go to Kelly’s Diner?” Junior asked him.

  “I don’t see why not,” his father said, as Shelva laid a gentle hand on his leg.

  “I wanta milkshake,” said seven year old Wanda, and Marty laughed.

  “We’ll see, honey,” Shelva said.

  “Hurry up, Daddy!”

  “Almost there, sweetheart,” Marty said, looking out to his left, at Ezra Butcher and his boys tooling along on water as smooth as glass. Sighing, he looked back at the bridge, turned the steering wheel sharp to the left and stomped on the gas pedal, spinning the wheels wildly as the car lurched sideways and sailed over the embankment.

  “Marty!” Shelva cried out, as her husband stared listlessly through the windshield as if he didn’t even know she was there, the tilting car plunging headlong toward the rocky riverbank lifting the shrieking children out of their seats, tossing their bodies forward as Ezra Butcher and his boys craned their heads at the howling engine.

  In the space of a few seconds, Ezra and company saw: Marty Donlan gazing impassively out the windshield, Shelva screaming and pounding her fists against his chest; the two children, already in mid-flight, flattened against the roof of the car, eyes wide with fright, their thin little arms held out as
if instinctively preparing to cushion the fall, which came with a sickeningly loud metallic crunch when the car slammed the ground and folded up like an accordion, glass shattering as Junior and his sister exploded through the windshield, flipping like rag dolls along the rocky ground while Shelva’s lower body caught on the dashboard; her upper torso and face pounding the hood as the flipping car ground her against the riverbank and the engine tore free of its mounts, bouncing atop Marty Jr. and Wanda, crushing them against the ground as it tumbled end over end along the muddy bank.

  “Holy Christ!” Ezra cried out, as Henry Walker and Harvey Lain, who had just come into view at the top of the embankment, began scrambling down to the riverbank, Henry slipping and skidding the last twelve feet to the bottom while another face appeared by the roadside, and it too started down the steep wall of dirt.

  “We goin’ over there, Daddy?” Junior asked.

  “Nothing we can do for them folks, Junior. Nothing ‘cept go and get the hearse.”

  “Where’re we gonna put ‘em?” Charlie asked.

  “Just have to make do, son,” Ezra Butcher said, and then turned up the throttle and headed back downriver.

  * * *

  On the way back to town, Earl tried once more to find out why a preacher, of all people, would murder his own wife. “Help me out here, will you, Reverend? I need to understand why you did this.”

  “I don’t know, Earl… I… just don’t know.”

  “Did you and Katie Lynn have a fight, some kind of argument?”

  Carlton Stone sat in the back seat, silently staring out the window. As the houses and fields rushed by, he tried desperately to understand what had happened and why. He couldn’t, and he never would. There was no reason for him to have killed his wife. Katie Lynn was a wonderful woman, a fine wife whom he had loved with all his heart. At Earl’s urging, he tried to remember how it had happened. Did they fight? He didn’t think so. What did they do directly before the incident?