by Taylor Brown
She was hunting ginseng, the potent root that loved the moist darknesses of the east-facing slopes, the earth kept rich and black by the thick canopy of crisscrossed branches that stood like veins against the sky, lacing the ground in shadow. It was a root she used in teas and tonics, in vialed liquor potions for all manner of ills: digestion and appetite and lethargy, fainting and blood troubles and masculine vigor. She combined it for various uses with yellowroot and black cherry, with parsley or corn silk or whiskey.
Her father had been bad to drink, a whiskey-breathed man of strange bents, but he could find ginseng better than anyone on the mountain. So good, people got to calling him a sang-witch. As a girl, she thought it was a sixth sense of some kind, a nose for the elusive root that grew pale and fleshy as a man’s organ beneath the ground. Only later would the old granny woman teach her to read the earth and signs. She would learn to search for sang on east- and north-facing slopes, in the company of bloodroot and goldenseal and other companions, in patches of light understory that would not overshade the small leaflets.
The old woman said that, in the Far East, the tiger was lord and protector of the ginseng, and the ancient people of Manchuria once kept patches of the holy root hidden high in the mountains, ever guarded by their god-beast of fire and ink. There were no tigers in these mountains, but perhaps a panther still roamed. Granny stopped, listening, and moved on.
The woods were wet about her, the dying leaves slick and heavy and dark. Tiny beads of moisture hovered in the fuzz of the sweater she wore, and fugitive streaks of wet-dark hair fell from the bun cinched atop her head. They clung to her face. She stepped gently through a clutch of thorny briars and found a patch of yellowed leaves of the sort she sought. She bent to the earth and began to remove the woodsy litter from the base of a three-leafed plant, creating a one-foot halo of bare earth about the sprout. Then, gently, she began to dig away the dirt with her bare hands, revealing the neck of the root. She counted seven bud-scars there, from the seasonal death of the leaves, making the plant at least six years old. She dug further, seeing which way the main root grew into the earth. Finally she brought forth the mattock, chipping and picking at the soil, careful not to damage the fibrous offshoots of the main root, fine as hairs in the churned-up ground. She harvested what she could, filling her pouch, and squeezed the seeds from the berries back into the holes she’d dug.
Done, she carried on, stepping through the slick undergrowth, her footfalls muffled on the sodden leaves. She crossed the same creek she had the week before, in pursuit of her panther-cat, and continued on until she arrived at the old side road. Just the rumor of a drive to some disappeared homestead farther up the mountain. Perhaps a jumble of foundation stones lorded over by weeds and snakes. The previous Sunday’s tire tracks were pocked now with mountain traffic, the marks of hooves and paws and bird feet. She dug in the deep pocket of her skirt, bringing up one of the crude iron caltrops she’d stowed there. It rested upon her palm like a piece from the childhood game of jacks, only spiked, shaped to blow any tire that rolled over it. Rory and Eli had installed a pouch of the mean little stars beneath the trunk of the Ford, the release actuated by a string that ran up through the floorboard between the driver’s legs. In a drawer in the toolshed, she’d found the extras.
She bent to her knees and began to dig at the earth with the mattock, chipping and picking until she opened a small hollow in one of the wheel ruts. Here she planted the caltrop, an evil seed of things to come. Then she moved farther down the rut, opening a second small hollow, sowing her irons along the road.
* * *
Saturday Rory started his run without supper. Eustace had already gone inside by the time they finished filling the tank, and the door was closed, and neither he nor Eli wanted to chance a sight of what those old bodies were doing in there. He knew there was a roast in a pot on the stove, waiting for him, and pork gravy besides. Gravy that slowed the blood, thickened it, made you less worried about revenuers waiting around every bend, about hard beds and iron bars in places like Chillicothe, Ohio, where federal violators were sent. It made you less worried about the green eyes of a girl, and what they saw when they looked at you, at your broken body and worshipful face.
He lit a Lucky Strike and watched the smoke go sliding into the slipstream beyond the cracked window, hurried to its own unraveling. The days were shortening, only a keen edge of light over the dusky ranges to the west, the land growing softer as he descended, less angular. The roads reddening, cut from that long scar of clay that ran diagonal across the Carolinas, parallel to the mountains. The lifeblood of tobacco and cotton fields, the accumulated death of prehistoric ranges. The sky darkened. A thin blade of moon rose.
He pulled off on a side road and got out, leaving the car idling. He had an idea how those revenue men had pegged him last week: dust. The pale dust of mountain roads, when the foothills were red. He opened the trunk and removed an oil tin filled with water and a towel and doused the roof from the can’s metal spigot, watching the water cut through the chalklike dust that coated the doors and fenders. The water streaked down the body in crooked arcs, spreading like the skeletal underpinnings of a broken umbrella. He watched a long moment before beginning to wipe the body clean, the night-black paint flecked with stars.
* * *
The filling station stood lightless at the end of the road. It looked abandoned, a place that might well be sitting in the shadows at the bottom of the lake, fishes gliding past the pumps instead of cars. Rory wheeled the Ford around back of the place, bumping over the grass, toward the old double-bay repair shop set back under the trees. The roof was bloodied tin, the weeds uncut around the base of the structure. It was flanked by the giant cylinder of the gasoline storage tank, like a paint-flaked submarine. Written on the side: SINCLAIR H-C. The place looked a home for rats and snakes and squatters. The walls, once white, wore an eerie green film. The doors of the nearest bay swung out as he approached, pushed open from within, a man-size shadow fading back into the darkness.
Rory pulled the car into a square black maw. The loping idle of the engine grew loud in the confined space, and the doors swung closed behind him. Someone lit a lantern. Rory could make out the form of a man perched wide-kneed on a stool, thin as a vulture, the lantern dangling between his legs. The floor was spotted beneath him, stained from leaking oil pans and differentials.
The man turned up the flame, the orb of light swelling toward the corners of the room, and Rory saw it was an attendant from the service station in town. He wore a pair of oil-streaked coveralls. His chin was pointed, his face pocked and whiskered, his Adam’s apple bulbous and white. He left the lantern on the stool and approached the driver’s side window, grinning a hatchet grin, his mouth crowded with yellow teeth.
“Evening,” he said.
“Evening,” said Rory, cutting the engine.
The man pulled a red bandanna from his back pocket and wiped his hands.
“Fill her up?”
Rory clicked open his door. The man stepped back so he could step out.
“The opposite, I reckon.”
Rory opened the trunk. The man retrieved a hose and ran it into the tank, then knelt before a pump set in the corner. He primed the carburetor and yanked the pull-starter. The little motor rapped to life, loud and smoky in the small space. The hose had an inline flowmeter. The man clicked a flashlight at it and made a note in a small spiral notebook.
The hose climbed the wall and left the building through a window cracked just enough to let it through. A long snake of whiskey.
“Where’s it end up?”
The man scratched his head.
“Old gasoline tank, where you think?”
“That safe?”
“For who?”
“For the people drinking it.”
The man shrugged. “Ain’t my department.”
“What’s the idea, serve whiskey through the gas pumps?”
The man pushed out his bottom lip, coylik
e.
“You’re shitting me,” said Rory.
“Hey,” said the man, “I ain’t paid to have opinions. But if it works, you gonna have trip boys from all over—Charlotte, Winston, Raleigh—coming here to buy wholesale, filling their tanks with the stuff.”
“The Sheriff masterminding all this?”
The man sniffed. “I ain’t paid to name names, neither.”
“I ought to known,” said Rory. “I’m going out to smoke.”
The man shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Rory walked out through the side door. It was full dark. The wind was going, the moon dancing in silvery shards through the trees. He could hear the dull pounding of whiskey inside the great hollows of the tank. He pulled out his pack of Lucky Strikes and started across the grass, toward the filling station up at the side of the road, stepping around old tires crowned in weeds, lengths of chain and beached engine blocks. He leaned in the shadow of the building, resting his shoulder against the wall, and shielded the flame in the cup of his palms, lighting his cigarette.
He looked at Pleasure Island across the street. The place was quiet at this hour, the people just making their way out into the dark. By midnight you would be able to put your hand on the metal siding and feel the throbbing hollows within, the walls corrugated beneath your hand like the rib cage of some prehistoric beast. Madam Erma there inside, directing her girls. He wondered, if he weren’t born, would it be Granny running that place. Granny with blood buried in her rings, money tucked between her breasts. Her girls beneath her, working in the honeycomb of stalls, each a daughter on a bed in the dark.
He heard the loping throb of a built motor, saw the twin stars of headlights rise flickering through the tunneled trees that led to the lake. The car slowed to a halt in the road. The Sheriff’s Oldsmobile, the paint glistening like poured milk under the moon. The car had a grumpy idle, restless, like it couldn’t wait to do something wicked. The shotgun window began to roll down.
Rory threw down his cigarette—they must have seen the red cherry of ash—and pushed himself from the wall. He walked toward the open window. It was too dark to see inside, and as he walked between the old fuel pumps he had the sudden feeling that he was about to be shot. A long barrel through a dark window, a bright flash, a lead hammer through the belly. Over quick if you were lucky. He flexed, as if that might help.
No shot.
The Sheriff was riding shotgun. He wore a rabbit-felt trilby with a feather in the hatband, the hat slightly cocked as he worked his gums with a toothpick. His jaw muscles danced beneath the thin flesh of his face. Hard to imagine what he might have eaten down there at the lake. Rory pictured the granite riprap that armored the shoreline, pale-shouldered in darkness, and beyond that the black surface of the lake, a liquid cavern rumored to hold all manner of secrets and beasts and bodies.
“Mr. Docherty.”
“Sheriff.”
“Enjoying the fresh air?”
“I was.” Until you showed up.
“Good,” he said. “I knew you’d come to your senses.”
“It wasn’t really up to me.”
“No,” said the Sheriff. “I reckon it wasn’t.”
Rory leaned forward, placing one hand on the domed hood of the Oldsmobile.
“Tell me something. Is it true what they say?”
The Sheriff looked at Rory’s hand resting there on the hood.
“What’s that?”
“That you got a built motor in here will run any tripper’s?”
The Sheriff dug the toothpick against his canine.
“What do you think?”
Rory smiled. “I know one it won’t.”
“The thing is, Mr. Docherty, I don’t need it to.”
“No?”
“If I ever want you, Mr. Docherty, you’ll come to me.”
He tapped the dash. The deputy pulled the column shift down into gear. Rory stepped back as the car pulled away from him, the rear tire crackling just past his foot. He listened as the big motor rumbled away between the trees.
“Pricks.”
* * *
The diner shone like a beacon in the good part of town, a gleaming fixture of steel and glass and light. The people looked flawless through the picture windows, like display models of the species. The waitresses moved back and forth above them in pink uniforms and perky white hats. They carried steaming pots of coffee and milkshakes in steel cups, thick china plates of mounded roasts and mashed potatoes. Rory felt the hot rush of saliva under his tongue. He slid the thumping Ford into an empty space and got out.
The place went quiet as the bell rang at the door, a river of faces turning to look. Rory felt the stained overalls he was wearing, the battered leather jacket, the prewar car in the lot. Still he stared straight back at their soft round faces—faces soft as eggs—until they fell back to their plates. There they whispered, as if praying over their meatloaves and milkshakes. Rory took a seat at the near end of the counter, closest to the door, and the oldest waitress came over. Up close, her face looked like a sheet of newsprint wadded up and flattened out, crosshatched with wrinkles. You could tell she used to be pretty.
“Want to see a menu, sugar?”
Her voice rasped hard from her throat, and Rory could hear the years of smoke and shouting.
“No, ma’am. I’ll just have a burger, fries, and a coffee, please.”
“Cheese on your burger?”
“No, ma’am.”
She stepped back to the kitchen window.
“One patty!”
Rory saw a black man working the kitchen, sweating amid banks of stainless equipment. New meat hissed on the griddle. The waitress set a mug in front of Rory and poured the coffee steaming from the pot, one hand on her hip.
“You from around here?”
“Not really.”
Her eyes flicked out at the parking lot, seeing the car, and she might have smiled, just one corner of her crinkled mouth.
“Cream and sugar?”
“No, ma’am, thank you.”
She nodded and took the pot back to the warmer.
Rory got out his pack of Luckies and slapped them against his palm. He lit one and set the pack and lighter on the counter in front of him, one atop the other. The bell jingled and in walked a wide man in a ragged tweed coat, such as a schoolteacher or newspaperman might wear. He clomped down the aisle and mounted a stool two down from Rory’s, swinging his leg over the top like it was a horse. He wore little wire eyeglasses, lenses the size of quarters, and a black glove over one hand. A waitress crossed behind him. He followed the plumlike swing of her bottom, entranced, and then he looked toward Rory. His eyes fell on the lighter—the eagle, globe, and anchor soldered to the front. He lifted the gloved hand, pointing.
“Dubya-Two?”
“Korea.”
“Who with?”
“Marines, Three-Five.”
The man leaned back and whistled.
“Chosin Few?”
Rory nodded, then caught himself looking at the glove. The man saw this and held his hand an inch off the counter, fingers spread, considering it like something he might buy at the store.
“Ilu River,” he said. “Pacific.” He closed the hand, opened it. “You wouldn’t want to see it without the glove. Not before you ate your dinner. But I got to keep it, at least.”
Rory didn’t say anything about what he’d gotten to keep or hadn’t. The waitress came by and refilled his coffee, then poured one for the man.
“You want your regular, Harmon?”
He smiled up at her.
“By God, Darlene, you done something with your hair?”
The woman stood slightly taller, blushing. She palmed the bun crowning her head.
“I might of.”
“Hell, I like it. And yes’m, my regular would be just wonderful.”
She turned and walked down toward the other end of the counter, refilling mugs, a little extra bounce in her step. The man poured
an avalanche of sugar into his coffee, stirred it viciously. He looked up at Rory.
“Tell me, son. What you think about the Hell Bomb?”
“The what?”
“The H-bomb, man. Hydrogen.”
Rory shook his head.
“Don’t know much about it, to be honest.”
“Rumor is they’re gonna blow one before the year is out. Eniwetok Atoll. Don’t you read the papers?”
“Not that often.”
“They say it’ll make the A-bomb look like a runt. Thousand times more powerful. Big enough to end the world.” The man leaned toward him. “They say the Russians aren’t far behind. We might should of done like Patton said, driven the fuckers out of Berlin and not stopped till Moscow.”
“You say they’re testing it in the Pacific, this H-bomb?”
“That’s the word.” The man shrugged, gulped down half his coffee before setting it back on the counter. “Least they found something to do with all those fucking islands.”
Just then Rory’s burger arrived. The waitress leaned in close as she set it down.
“You might should of ordered to go.”
She cut her eyes toward the parking lot, and Rory followed the look. A white Ford had pulled into the lot and two men in ties emerged. Their faces were shaved clean, their spines regiment-straight. Revenuers. They might as well have square heads.
Already Rory’s coupe had caught their attention. They moseyed toward it, fingers perched on their waistbands.
“They eat here?”
“Couple nights a week.”
Rory stood from his stool.
“Is there a back way out of here?”
She nodded. “On through the kitchen.”
He started down the counter, then stopped.
“My bill.”
“I got it,” said the old Marine. “Best get.”
“Thank you,” said Rory. He clopped around the counter and the waitress led him through the kitchen and the cook opened the door for him. Rory turned and looked up at them from the back stoop.
“Thank y’all.”
The waitress only winked, disappearing, and the black man held up a finger. He reached behind the door and handed Rory a brown paper bag, grease-spotted and warm.
