Every Mountain Made Low

by Alex White

  Her stomach turned ice cold. She thought of Preacher Vernon and his men, strung up and buried in some godforsaken unmarked grave. “You’re crazy. That’s just... just crazy. The Con owns everything, you, me, the government... You aren’t the mayor, but everyone knows you run this damned – dang – place... and you want to kick them out? Aren’t you a VP or something?”

  “That’s just it, Nora. I know everything about them. All their emergency protocols, all their weapons locations, all their food storage, their critical infrastructure, power, hospitals and such – I’m an expert. I might be the only man who could pull off something like this. That’s why I need you.”

  She regarded him, searching for a joke, for some kind of play in his face. Instead, she found only zealous determination. He wanted her to spy for him? She could barely keep a set of friends in the Hole. And what if she were found out by the Consortium? She had about as much chance against them as a rabbit against a coyote – better just to keep her head down and hope no one has noticed her.

  This had to be a test. Sure. She’d heard of such things: the Con setting one person up to take all their friends down, too. Duke must have thought she was part of some kind of labor movement or something – maybe a union – because if he was actually plotting, he was a dead man. All the Consortium needed was one sniff of conspiracy, and they’d send their armies down here to raze Bellebrook to the ground.

  “Duke... sir, can I make a phone call? I haven’t told anyone where I am.”

  “You’re not going to tell anyone about your new job, are you?” he asked, producing a roll of bills and placing it in her palm. She’d never held so much money in her life.

  She gave him the smile she’d used on Jack a thousand times. “Of course not. I just want to tell my friend that I won’t be home tonight.”

  “That’s fine, dear. Hiram? Take Nora to my office and let her use the phone.” He closed her fingers around the cash. “I trust you understand that discretion is of utmost importance.”

  “Yes, sir.” Goddamn right it is. The Con was going to rip him to pieces when they figured out his game, and she wasn’t going to be collateral damage when they did.

  Hiram gestured for her to follow him, and the pair made their way back into the house. She noticed far less of the extravagant works of art as she passed through the halls, and Hiram kept grinning at her.

  Finally, she stopped, and he turned to look at her.

  “What?” he asked, not taking his smile off for a second.

  “Did you know he was going to offer me this?”

  He moved in close to her. He smelled of fine tobacco. “Of course. I helped pick you myself.”

  “So that’s what today was about? Hiring a spy?”

  “Nah. We’re still going to hire some maids, too.”

  She folded her arms. “I still don’t get it. Why me? Why not you?”

  “You’re nobody, no offense. You come from nowhere. People die down there every single day, and people cry for exactly that long – a single day. Your lives barely matter to anyone, which means a bright girl like you, with a little training, can go anywhere we need her to. No one has ever heard of you.”

  “And no one will care if something happens to me.”

  “That’s about the long and short of it.”

  She looked at the door and motioned him away. “Can I be alone?”

  “You’re not taking this as well as I’d expected.”

  She stared at him until eventually, he chuckled and left. She sat down in one of Duke’s cushy chairs and ran her fingers over the top of her roll of bills. She thought about carrying it down to her apartment on the seventh ring, and how some of the men that stalked about there already gave her predatory looks. Just existing made her a target for them, and now she had a boatload of cash.

  Duke wanted to send her into the lions’ den. Wasn’t there a Bible story about that too? She couldn’t remember. People in Atlanta would be looking for her when things went wrong – Consortium thugs with their black cars and shiny pistols. They’d want to know who’d been meddling in their affairs. What if Duke got caught out in the open and needed a bargaining chip or a scapegoat? The whole reason for her to be there was because he was afraid of doing it himself. He wanted her to set working folks in Atlanta up for a fall, and she couldn’t shake her discomfort.

  The overbearing, posh decorations of Duke’s office weighed down upon her. She’d never seen anywhere so fancy in her whole life. The big man could change hundreds of lives with a snap of his fingers, and she couldn’t even keep a lousy job. This was like a fight between gods, and if she stuck her nose into it, she’d wind up dead for sure. She knew who would win in the end, too. The Con always got their way.

  The ivory telephone sat, gilded and beautiful, on Duke’s polished hardwood desk. She didn’t have to use the telephone. She didn’t have anyone to call. Loxley didn’t own a phone and Jack couldn’t see her anymore. Perhaps she’d only wanted Hiram and Duke to think she wasn’t as small of a presence as they seemed to believe.

  She thumbed the rubber band on the bank roll. She’d have to give it back if she reneged on the agreement – years of pay just wasted. She sighed, stood and walked to the door, swinging it open to find Hiram patiently waiting on the other side. He made no attempt to disguise the fact that he’d been listening in.

  “Take me back to Duke,” she said.

  “As you wish, princess.”

  They wandered back through the halls, and she finally started to understand the house’s layout – not that it mattered, since she’d never be coming back here again. They found Duke as they’d left him, reclining on the back porch in spite of the cold.

  “You get things squared away with your friend?” he asked, his breath fogging the air.

  “With all due respect, sir, there’s no way I’m doing this,” she said.

  “You can’t mean that.” What was that look he gave her? Disappointment?

  “You know I appreciate the things you’ve given me today, sir. You’ve been really hospitable, and you’ve made me feel a sense of pride in myself again. However, spying on the Consortium for someone who works there is about the scariest thing I can think of.”

  “I don’t work for the Con anymore, dear. They just don’t know it yet.”

  “That means you’re due for a fall, Duke. I don’t care how big you are, they’re bigger.”

  He banged his palm on the armrest. “I could change these people’s lives! We could feed the hungry and heal the sick!”

  She recoiled from his sudden outburst. His cheeks flushed, and he tensed his grip on his rocker. A stray, snowy lock fell across his eyes. He must not have been used to hearing “no.” Perhaps no one had said it to him since he’d been a farmer. No matter. She was about to say it to him right then.

  She spoke slowly, to be clear on every word. “You’re going to have to do it without me.”

  His eyes widened; his brow furrowed in anger. When she’d first met him, she couldn’t have imagined him furious. Now, she couldn’t remember his smile.

  She stepped back. “And, uh... you’re not going to change my mind on that. I have friends here, and I’m not going to Atlanta.”

  He nodded once. “No, I’m sure you’re right, Nora. You’re not.”

  Cold steel crashed against the base of her skull, and the ground tumbled up to meet her.

  A Birth

  WHEN HER VISION returned, the world spun lazily, throbbing in time with her head. She swallowed, gagged on her dry tongue and groaned as she searched for her bearings.

  A single, naked bulb on a wire illuminated bare, brick walls. Black, plastic sheets covered the floor underneath her, the same kind she made at the factory. Her hands had been taped to a folding chair, as had her legs.

  “Help,” she slurred, and the weakness of her voice terrified her.

  “‘Think not that I am come to send peace on Earth,’” said Duke, stepping out of the shadows. “‘I did not come to bring peace
, but a sword.’”

  As the large man slid into focus, she noticed Hiram standing behind his boss, a pistol in his hand.

  “Please,” she said. “Please let me go. This ain’t right.”

  He came and knelt in front of her. “That’s true. It’s not...” He put a hand over hers. “It’s not right when innocents have to suffer for the wars of their betters. We have to run the Consortium out of this town, though, no matter the cost.”

  “I’ll help you, then. I’ll do whatever you want.”

  He squeezed her wrist through the tape. “I want you to pray with me.”

  Tears rolled down her cheeks. Cold fear gripped her stomach. “I... Okay, but –”

  “Nora, look at me,” he commanded.

  She obeyed, meeting his gaze.

  “If you pray, you will be spared.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because of the things you know about me. You’re right that the Con is a dangerous group of folks. I told you not to work for me unless you were sure, didn’t I? Now pray and be free.”

  She felt so scared she could barely move her lips. “Wh-what do you want me to say?”

  He placed a warm hand on her wrist, and her skin crawled at his touch. “Our Father, who art in Heaven...”

  She swallowed, choking on her spit. She spluttered. “Our Father, who art in Heaven...”

  “Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

  She repeated each word as spoken, and her eyes drifted to Hiram. He yanked back the slide on his pistol, and the room rang with an awful, metal snap. Her heart thudded, and she screamed.

  Duke seized her chin and pulled her face back to his, so close she could smell his breath. “Look at me, child. Look at me. It’s going to be all right. You’re going to say a prayer, and we’re going to take you back to your friends.”

  “Yeah... Okay...” Just say the words and get back to Loxley. Whatever he fucking wants, just do it.

  “Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom...”

  She repeated as she was told, stammering half the words. Hiram took a step closer, and it was like the room chilled by fifty degrees. He was an ice cube on her spine.

  “Look at me, Nora. And the power, and the glory.”

  Hiram took another step closer. She was so cold.

  “And the p-power and glory. What is he doing? Get him away from me!”

  Duke led her as though spoon feeding a child. “Forever. Amen.”

  “Please don’t let him near me. Please,” she sobbed. “I’ll do whatever you want!”

  “Say it, Nora. Be saved. All you have to do is ask.”

  With quivering lips, she said, “Forever. Amen. Now please let me go. You said you’d let me live. You promised. Please, you promised.”

  Duke patted her arm and stood. “You’re going to live forever in the embrace of our heavenly Father, Nora Vickers. You’re one of the lucky ones.”

  Hiram put the gun to her head, and she screamed a final plea.

  Chapter Seven

  Sleepyhead

  LOXLEY STARTLED AWAKE with a cry so loud the walls rang. Her fingers curled under, hard as marble, like the rest of her stiff body. Spasm after spasm rocked her, each one taking her higher than the rest, until releasing her with a sudden calm. She lay very still, infused with pain into every muscle and joint. She took whistling breaths between clenched teeth and focused on the dark ceiling.

  She rolled to one side, the convulsions not fully subsided, and slapped a palm to the ground. She pressed down, pushing up onto her hands and knees, and very nearly fainted. Loxley looked down to her forearm to see a bright bruise peeking out from under her sleeve. She pulled it back to see Alvin Kimball’s handprint, throbbing fresh and red. Her throat burned, and she reached up to touch her sensitive skin, feeling another bruise around her neck. She needed to get to a mirror.

  Her eyes darted over to Nora’s body. It lay in peace: a cold hunk of meat. The blood around the bullet wound was completely congealed, and the corpse had lost much of the shock it held before. It still hurt to look at her, but there was no suddenness in it. When she looked at Nora’s loose arrangement of limbs, posed in no particular fashion, she understood that the body had been dumped here.

  Loxley had borne witness to the last day of Nora’s life. She knew it like she knew up from down. So many people’s eyes passed through her mind – Nora was always watching eyes. So many things had been left unsaid, too. Nora had never spoken of how she felt about things, and in the end, it got her killed. Loxley couldn’t understand why her friend had kept so much to herself.

  She wished Nora had told her everything, especially that day at the market. Loxley would have kissed her.

  She allowed herself a moment to be with her friend, to try and remember everything about the body. Then, it was time to get up and get away. She’d come here for answers, and she’d gotten more than she ever expected.

  She staggered to her feet, her knees knocking as she did.

  “Loxa-lox... Time to get up, up, up.”

  Her strength returned to her in waves. She brushed the hair out of her eyes and let out a long breath. Why was she still alive? Where was Nora’s ghost? A ghost would kill her if it could, right? Was it still there? Would it torture her? Would she have to feel its touch again? She felt her overalls for her hooked pruning knife and let herself relax a bit, as foolish as that might be. What would she do? Stab the spirit?

  She shambled to the door and shoved it open. Only an empty hallway lay on the other side, its sickly lights buzzing and flickering. Three flickers and a buzz, then four, then two – no pattern. She was too far from her house and needed to get home, to sleep in her bed and forget the prickly world that lay beyond her walls. She could dive back in tomorrow, but for now, this wasn’t her world. This was a land where the ghosts showed her bizarre stories and Birdie didn’t hate her.

  Time to get home, time to get home.

  She scuttled out the door, closing it behind her. She pulled it to, looking both ways down the hallway – no one. Her eyes darted nervously about, searching for the ghost, but she no longer felt the miasma of its presence. The air seemed freer, cleaner. She traveled downstairs and into the lobby, which had struck her as a dimly-lit, terrifying place the last time she’d been there. It had been morning then, but now the last rays of the sun bounced across the dirty tiles like a mud puddle. How long had she been in Nora’s apartment? Was it still the same day?

  She stepped onto the street and saw Hiram McClintock standing at the corner, leaning against a light pole.

  Goosebumps crawled across her skin, and the blood drained from her face. Nora may have noticed his eyes, but the first thing Loxley saw were his long legs, sure-footed and strong. He had broad shoulders and big hands, too, and though he looked on the skinny side, Loxley knew better – he was built to kill.

  He hadn’t seen her, yet.

  You don’t look strangers in the eye, Loxie. Makes people bother you. You go about your business when you’re out there, you hear me? If she kept her head down, maybe Hiram wouldn’t see her. Just do what momma says. Don’t look at him. Keep walking. What did momma know, though? She’d been wrong about Officer Crutchfield; maybe she didn’t know about Hiram, either. Maybe her mother couldn’t tell her a thing about bad people.

  Nora knew so much from looking at a person’s eyes – whether or not they were angry, or lying, or sad. Loxley had to figure out other ways to know a person’s intent, and she was usually wrong. What was he here for? Was he mad? Maybe she could try to be like Nora and look him in the eye. She glanced up at him.

  He was staring straight at her.

  Loxley saw nothing in his expression, and she quickly looked away. Her hands balled into tight fists without her permission, and she forced herself to relax. He stood between her and home, so s
he changed course and started walking west. She could circle back around. She didn’t have to go near him.

  Why was he still here? He’d dumped Nora’s body a day before. It didn’t make sense to come back and hang around. Nora had once told her that people from the lowers didn’t matter at all, that they could just disappear. If that was true, why risk revealing himself? She looked again.

  He was following her.

  Blood rushed through her veins, and she felt her thumping pulse in her neck. She skipped a step, not really meaning to. Don’t look back again. Just keep walking. Hiram will go away. She placed each footfall away from the cracks in the pavement, just as she had in the Bazaar, and she fell into a rhythm that becalmed her nerves. When she looked back, the killer was just a stone’s throw behind her.

  She bolted.

  Loxley’s legs had grown stronger from years of hauling produce up and down flights of stairs, but she wasn’t built for speed. She had to duck and weave, vaulting over piles of trash. The world became electric beneath her feet.

  The winter wind roared in her ears, deafening her and drowning out the surprised shouts of bystanders. Ahead of her was Rockford Mills, the abandoned building where she’d gotten her piping for the garden. She rounded the base of a fire escape and scampered up the ladder, not daring to look down. Once atop the first platform, she kicked in the window and clambered through, avoiding the jagged edges.

  Rockford was very dangerous, with falling debris, collapsing floors and the dozens of vagrants who called the place home. If she did not tread carefully, she could be killed by the building instead of Hiram. With her heart in her throat, she pressed on into the innards of the abandoned mill.

  She whipped open the door to the colossal sewing room and saw two dozen iron girders standing silently as they waited for her to pass through. This place had once been full of workers, but now only spiders and homeless folks remained. Not even the slightest scrap of value had been preserved. So many details surged forward as she made her way across the room, the cobwebbed fixtures, the dozens of rivets lining the wooden floor in a speckled pattern, the hundreds of parallel cracks that ran from the boards underfoot. Hiram cursed somewhere in the hallway behind her.