Devil Tree

by Vernon, Steve

  Could it?

  She looked down at her swollen stomach. She was certain her belly had grown since she’d begun her escape attempt, just hours ago. How many days would the devil tree give her, how many moments did she have left?

  She moved faster. She tired at the faster pace, and slowed to catch her breath, looking briefly behind her.

  You not gonna leave, white woman, you never gonna leave.

  Tamsen resumed her pace, not stopping to look behind.

  We all gonna stay here, white and black and red, down here in the valley, down here in hell, we’re all together down here forever.

  Faster and faster.

  We gonna be down here for all time.

  Tamsen fell at the foot of a massive, ancient tree. She looked up, startled, fearful that she’d fallen at the base of the devil tree, Duvall’s tree. It was not but it might as well have been. In a moment of resignation she dropped the axe. It’d take days to fell such a thing. She heard laughter in the wind and stopped up her ears.

  “Damn you.”

  She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and stared at the tree.

  “You will fall.”

  She turned for the axe. What she saw then finally beat her, tangled in the trees behind her like a massive spider web. Her thread-trail had looped and relooped and knotted about the branches of every tree that she had passed.

  How had this happened?

  No wind could have done such a thing, not in such a short time as had elapsed since she had last looked back. It was the woman in the wind or the valley or the tree or all three of them together. Maybe it was herself, as well. She could not trust anyone now. The valley had beaten her.

  She fell to her knees, and wept pine-scented tears.

  4

  As surely as rain enters the soil and the river enters the sea, Lucas’s footsteps lead down to Duvall’s cabin, the place of meat and death. He lifted the boughs he’d laid across the doorway. The smoke inside had settled, although its bitter resinous tang filled the lean-to. He gathered moss and kindling and relit the small fire. Then, on an impulse, he pulled the boughs across the doorway from the inside, sealing himself and the meat within.

  The buck’s head was where he’d hung it over the fire. Despite the smoke and the cold winter, the flies had found it and upon its features there crawled a mass of maggots. Eating, feeding and growing; life and death moves fast in the valley. From out of this sea of corruption Duvall’s face leered and laughed, and then it was the face of Lucas, and then it was the face of a small dark savage and as Lucas bowed to the torrent of rot, the face began to talk.

  5

  Tamsen began to walk.

  She stepped around the tree that blocked her way, not wasting her time in futile chopping. In her right hand she carried the axe, in her left the sewing basket. She’d almost dropped the basket, but it was the last gift her mother had given her, so she kept it, not minding the burden.

  It was cold and she felt even colder as if all her vitality had been stripped from her. She passed another tree, a pine. She paused just long enough to vomit a hot chowdery mess that splattered her leggings and hissed as its heat fell upon the cold of the snow and the roots. Bits of steam staled upwards from it like breath from a sleeping animal before settling into the dirt.

  “Drink your fill,” she muttered.

  She wiped her mouth with a bit of sour snow. She took a hesitant step, her eyes fixed upon the distant horizon.

  The valley spun around her.

  She closed her eyes against the illusion and took a second blind step.

  “I’ll beat you yet,” she husked out, almost believing herself.

  6

  (it was in the summer, the head said, more years than I can count, I set forth to be a sailor, a grand adventure says I, but the crew was a tacky lot, and I did not take kindly to their abuse, nor did they take to me, save Peter, young Peter, with his dreams of far away treasure and rare and tasty tidbits

  we set off, me and a score of other like minded souls, on board the Kronos, a high topped schooner, just as sweet as you please, setting sail for the promised land, Cathay, far away and mysterious but we struck ice, and there were no north west passages to be had, just the ice, a sea of ice, all glittering like the diamond’s of young Peter’s dream ship treasure and Peter slept with me, oh some of the crew talked, but to hell with them said I)

  She’s coming.

  (a cabin boy’s place is in the hold and that was where we spent our days, for there was not much to do on an icebound schooner, except to hack at the ice as it climbed the ropes and timbers, and idle hands being what they were, Peter and me got to doing, can’t really recall who started it, maybe me, maybe the boy, but it passed the time, and it was a comfort, what with the women so faraway from that icy horizon

  well Smithstone, a great burly sailorman, fresh from a trader, got to thinking about Peter, and up and told me – she’s coming – that Peter was sleeping with him from now on, well that was all she took, and me and Smithstone got to fighting and he dealt me a nasty blow to the ribs, but I caught hold of his left ear and chewed it off, I can still remember the taste of his flesh and that took the wind out of old Smithstone’s sails)

  She’s coming.

  (well I kept that ear, and I hung it on a bit of twine, wrapped around my neck, and when it got cold and the rations were cut, I’d suck on it, like it were a bit of young Peter’s flesh, and it sort of gave me a meaty feeling for a while)

  She’s coming.

  And the head began to sing.

  7

  The horizon endlessly receded. Try as Tamsen might she could not reach the far off ridges and leave the valley. Her despair dug in its heels. She fought back against tears.

  “I am not beaten yet.”

  She had another plan. She could find her way down to the river and follow it outwards. A river’s not that hard to find, now was it?

  She stepped across a fallen log and then another and then she saw the lean-to, huddled in the center of the clearing, ringed by ashes. There was smoke. Lucas must be in there, judging by the smoke and fire. She felt cold and weak. A moment’s rest, then, and a bit of warmth was all she needed.

  She made her way into the clearing and as she grew closer she heard a low dirge-like singing, a sea chantey of sorts, and the smell of roasting meat.

  We cannot save him.

  Tamsen startled like a frightened doe and for a moment she thought she saw the Indian woman standing outside the lean-to within the circle of ashes.

  He’s done for now.

  A voice spoke behind her. It sounded like Delta. Tamsen wouldn’t look.

  And then beyond the lean-to, standing atop a small drift of snow, Tamsen saw the great black buck.

  He is the tree.

  And then they were all gone and in their place stood her husband, stinking of smoke and meat and ancient madness.

  Chapter Twenty–Two

  Lucas sprang from the lean to, mattock in hand, throwing aside the flimsy door of pine boughs and appearing in what seemed to be a cloud of smoke.

  “Not our fault,” he said. “Not our fault.”

  Tamsen stepped back, raising the axe instinctively.

  “Hungry, we were just hungry,” he danced about like a mad pagan. “That’s all we were.”

  “Lucas, get hold of yourself.”

  He dropped the mattock and wrapped both of his arms about himself in a lunatic’s embrace and laughed. “Peter got a hold, Peter’s down in the hold, holding on, oh how we held, holding him in my belly still.”

  She turned and headed for the river. Fire be damned. She needed to flee, but Lucas was in front of her madly capering, herding her like a shepherd.

  “Peter had hold, he held me, don’t you see,” his voice cracked, a bell yielding to babble tongue, “He held me.”

  Tamsen tried to step around. She told herself her husband wasn’t there. He’d vanished a long time ago. He’d left her or was taken but he was not
there.

  “He held me, don’t you see? He held me and I held him, round the throat, round the throat, I was hungry!”

  He crumpled before her, weeping. She saw her chance, she could take it, and leave. He could not stop her. He was gone.

  Leave now, cold woman, the tree holds him, no one else, never anyone else, he holds the tree holds him holds me.

  Tamsen looked back seeing the threads tattering the trees, all of the distant knots fluttering like flags of location, all tied and tangled together. She stepped around her husband as one might step around a chained dog. He was gone. She steeled herself against his weeping and began to walk.

  She got as far as the woods, and then she turned back.

  Her heart would not let her go.

  2

  Lucas lay in Tamsen’s arms, resting his head against her swollen abdomen. He whimpered like a beaten puppy. She held him and rocked gently. She thought to sing to him but the words stuck in her mouth. Instead she recited the Lord’s Prayer and as much of the twenty-third psalm as she could remember.

  “Yea though I walk through the valley,” she quoted, and the first pain hit, followed closely by the second. A strange fire kindled within Lucas’s cold eyes, as if he sensed her timing.

  “You are with child,” he said in a wet hungry voice. “You’re going to have more babies.”

  Babies. The damnable plural fell upon her ears like a hammer blow.

  “And they’re coming, too.”

  She nodded mutely.

  “They belong to Duvall’s tree,” he said with a grin of glee. “They will go to their father.”

  “The babies,” She began before correcting herself. “The baby is mine. I will have it for my own.”

  “Not your own. You will have it, yes, who else could? That is what the woman is for. But the babies belong to their father.”

  She stood abruptly. “The baby is mine. I will have it. I will keep it.”

  “Babies,” Lucas crooned, crawling towards her, reaching for her. “You will have babies.”

  “The baby is mine.”

  She stepped back and walked away. She didn’t see her husband reach for the mattock, picking it and himself up from the ground. She didn’t see him creep stealthily after her. She felt mildly dizzy and reached for the trunk of a nearby tree to steady herself. As she touched its bark, the third birthing pain doubled her over. She didn’t see her husband running up behind her, the mattock held high above his head like a sacrificial blade.

  3

  Jacob, Jacob, where are you Jacob?

  The ground swam before Tamsen, the distant promise of freedom laughed like thunder over the mountains. She looked up just in time to see Lucas running towards her, molasses slow, the mattock raised high over his head like a great war-axe.

  She swung her own axe, crossways and low, catching him across his ankle and toppling him over like a dead tree. He came up cursing, the molasses gone. The mattock glinted. He caught her hip with its shaft. A dull thud of agony shouted in her leg bones. All feeling blinked out and the leg gave way. She threw her weight into one last axe swing and thought she had missed.

  She crumpled like a worn out rag doll and lay there waiting for the blows to fall. Not blow but blows – that damnable plural again. She heard the sound, s-s-s. The mattock whistled through the air like a snake – s-s-s – but it was not a snake, nor the mattock.

  It was Lucas, prostrate on the ground, the breath whistling wetly through what looked to be a broken jaw, s-s-s, where the flat of the axe had caught him. He kicked, once, twice, and then lay still.

  Dead? She didn’t bother checking. Her husband was gone.

  She had to leave.

  The river waited.

  4

  She found the water easily. A long, slow, wet tongue running by the valley. Was that Delta standing by the river? Tamsen could see her, bound in her ducking stool, legs kicking high over the water, laughing and weeping and straining against the gag that would not let her confess.

  You think you’re safe, don’t ya?

  Tamsen paid the spirit woman no heed. Her eyes were set on the deer, standing on the other side of the river. The deer was her only hope and it was moving away, not waiting for her to follow. She ran, trying not to think of Lucas.

  He was gone.

  She tried not to listen to Delta’s laughter. She tried not to count the pains that took her, one-two-three, each worse than the next, each threatening to bring her to her knees.

  “I’m not beaten,” she whispered, a litany against the pain.

  You are too, you just don’t know it.

  The river ran straight and true and could not lie. All she had to do was follow it downstream, down to where it would run to the Greensnake, to the ocean, to the clear land, to freedom. Maybe starvation, maybe a frozen winter death, it didn’t matter. Whatever happened, she would be free. The baby would be hers, and her own life hers. Maybe even her death. She didn’t belong to anyone. Not the valley, not Lucas, not anyone.

  Free.

  The river turned and turned again, running ahead of her, leaving her behind. She felt motionless, as if she were running in place. She stopped to splash a bit of water on her face. The water was cool and burned with winter chill, refreshing and dangerous.

  Could a person’s face freeze? It could, she supposed. It was just so much meat.

  She heard her husband’s words again. “I am hungry.”

  She wiped the water off of her face and resumed her headlong exodus. She stared at the great black buck, watching from across the river, now further away than ever. She looked longingly towards the opposite shore. Where was Moses with his river-parting staff? Where was God when she really needed him?

  She waved her axe as if she might part the river herself. As if in a dream the waters peeled back, leaving a thin muddy path for her to cross over. She blinked. Had she gone mad? But in this valley what could truly surprise her?

  She stepped forward. If she drowned perhaps her dead body and child would wash downstream to freedom.

  She took her first step.

  The mud was thick and deep. She wished she’d been more particular about her miracles. She wished she’d chosen to walk upon the waters rather than part them. Bits of weed and algae clung to her muddled feet. A grounded fish flapped furiously before her and she daintily stepped over it. She started anxiously as her elbow grazed the great wall of water that the river had become, fearful lest her intrusion send the river-wall crashing down upon her head.

  She could see the mighty buck standing at the end of the water’s tunnel, silently promising to carry her to freedom. Then, as she drew closer he faded, and the shadows about him grew to a darker more familiar shape.

  It was the tree. Standing in its familiar glen, its unlit boughs spread wide in a welcoming embrace like some dark savior. Telling her wordlessly that she could not escape. Time and distance had twisted and brought her to where she had tried to escape.

  She was beaten, had been beaten for a very long time.

  “You cannot beat me,” she said, in a whisper which she didn’t believe.

  She stepped back and the walls of the river began to tremble. She felt the darkness, the dead fish, the taint and the all encompassing piney smell. She stood stock still, resolutely determined to drown before stepping any closer to that damnable tree.

  And then the river was gone, vanished, had never been. The valley, full of lies and deceit, had tricked her one last time. All that was left was the mocking laughter of the water witch, ringing in Tamsen’s ears.

  Then the pains took her, again and again and she felt shadowy stirrings within her body. It was time. She fell into the welcoming darkness. The last sight she saw was a pine needle dangling over her head, over her belly, suspended on a long thin spider’ thread, spinning round and round and round.

  Chapter Twenty–Three

  It was as cold as the frozen north. Lucas dreamed of young Peter in his arms on the ship while Duvall shouted from
somewhere out in the darkness.

  – WAKE UP –

  The deer’s head nestled close to Lucas, whispering deep lulling secrets buried fathom’s deep in Lucas’s slumbering brain in a voice that sounded just like Peter.

  “Lucas, teach me, and we learned together and the food ran out and the graves we’d dug in the snow opened up and the bodies disappeared but the cook didn’t ask no questions. The crew ate hearty and the skipper says polar bears but it weren’t no bears.”

  The dead deer kept whispering and Lucas kept hearing Peter’s voice.

  “Teach me, we are hungry, let me taste you.”

  Soon Lucas lost the strength for the skin game and the two of them, man and boy, lay together in the darkness of the hold while the crew had their way up top, most figuring the two were dead or run off or just gone, in that same way the bodies were just gone, and the old sea cook served the stew and no one asked any questions

  And out in the darkness Duvall continued to shout.

  – WAKE UP –

  And the deer kept whispering and the hunger took Lucas and Peter grew sickly and got to moaning and it fair to set Lucas’s nerves on edge and one night he reached for the boy and tasted him, tasted him with his teeth.

  – WAKE UP –

  And then Duvall’s voice vanished and Lucas sat up in the mouth of the lean-to with Peter’s name on his lips and the dead deer’s head close and rotting and the sudden movement made the whole forest spin.

  “Something is wrong,” Lucas whispered to the dead deer. He saw the boy again and kissed the rotting deer skull with a passion verged on desperation, tearing at the rotting flesh and chewing it down like it was manna from some dark thankless heaven.

  2

  The noose slid easily through Tamsen’s hands.

  A skull appeared, almost growing out of the earth as it stared up at her, grinning with its dirty yellowed teeth. Within the darkened pits of the skull’s eyes she saw pictures, stories and secrets.