Cold moon over Babylon

by McDowell, Michael

  The light failed to go on. “Is that the bulb?” he asked automatically.

  Evelyn stood nervously, and tried to turn on the television set. Again, nothing happened.

  “Power lines are down too,” said Jerry grimly. Evelyn broke into fresh tears.

  “Oh, Grandma, don’t go on like that! You crying won't do us a bit of good! It won’t get Margaret back here any faster! It won’t turn the lights back on!”

  Evelyn turned away from him, and stifled her sobbing against the back of her hand.

  “I’m sorry,” said Jerry quietly, “just tell me where the candles are.”

  Evelyn didn’t answer for a moment, but when she turned back toward him from the window, she had stopped weeping entirely. Her voice was low and even: “I’ll get the candles, Jerry. I want you to take the car into Babylon and look for Margaret.”

  Jerry remained still, then said carefully: “No, I'm not going to do it. Margaret’s inside somewhere, safe and sound, and she’ll call us when she can. If I go out in that, I could have a wreck easy, and we got to have that car to get the berries to Pensacola. How are we going to afford another car if I have a wreck?”

  “Do you want me to go?” said Evelyn slowly. “Because if you don’t go, I will...”

  “I’ll go,” said Jerry sullenly, and rose from the couch.

  Knowing that nothing would keep out the water, Jerry didn’t bother to put on boots or a coat. He took the keys from the hail table, and dashed out the front door.

  Evelyn Larkin stood in the darkened hallway, convulsively gripping the wooden frame of the screen door, and watched Jerry break through the sheet of water that crashed off the roof onto the front steps.

  Most of the yard in front of the house was sheeted in standing water. This shallow pond was deepest over the depressed driveway. The station wagon got halfway to the highway—throwing up chest-high waves of chalky red water—before it stalled, then died. Evelyn turned away despairingly.

  Jerry pushed open the car door, and strode awkwardly through the ankle-deep mud. He jumped up the front steps, avoiding those he knew to be rotten. The curtain of water falling from the roof closed mockingly behind him.

  Jerry removed his sodden shoes and socks, rolled up the cuffs of his jeans, and stepped silently into the house. He climbed the stairs three at the time. On the way to his bedroom he paused at his grandmother’s door. She stood, her back to him, staring out the window at the road into Babylon, and at the bridge that crossed the Styx.

  They were trapped on the blueberry farm that night.

  The rain kept up, with a small abatement every hour or so that they hoped was a sign that the storm had passed over, but in a few moments the rain picked up again with increased vehemence. The power and telephone lines were not repaired, and the station wagon remained mired in the driveway.

  Evelyn and Jerry sat together in the little parlor at the front of the house. But for the continuing lightning, two candles on the mantelpiece were the only illumination. They talked for perhaps ten minutes out of every hour, repeating for their comfort all the possible innocuous reasons for Margaret’s having failed to return. Again and again, Evelyn declared her inability to rest until Margaret was back with her. But by eleven, she was dozing, though starting at the thunder, and protesting feebly at the disturbing dreams that came inexorably upon her.

  She woke once, and found the room wholly dark. The clock on the mantel ticked loudly, and its faint green luminous dial read half-past one. The candles on either side had gone out, but she could smell the burnt wicks still.

  She rose groggily, holding on to the arm of the chair, and propelled herself to the window. This had been raised slightly, and the damp air blew softly through the azaleas that bordered the house. The rain had stopped, and the clouds broken to the south. The waning crescent moon shone lividly pale over the water that lay above the level of the grass in most parts of the yard. The house seemed to have floated into a shallow colorless sea.

  A man leapt out of the bushes that clustered near the Styx River bridge. His black silhouette splashed silently through that calm sea toward the house.

  Evelyn screamed for Jerry. She turned away, breathing heavily, and stumbled toward the hallway. She slammed the front door shut, and fumbled with the key in the lock. It fell to the floor before she could turn it. Evelyn dropped to her knees. With her face pressed against the door, she ran her hands frantically over the rough floor until she had retrieved the key. She pressed it back into the lock, and turned it forcefully. The bolt shot.

  The old woman raised herself weakly and dizzily. She feared that the man would appear at the parlor window, or that she would hear his steps on the porch. She climbed the stairs to wake Jerry in his room. She felt that the intruder was standing at the front door, peering through the glass, watching her ascend the stairs.

  Her heart beating dangerously fast, Evelyn pushed open the door of Jerry's room, and gasped his name. His bed was away from the window, and she could not see into that dark corner. Rushing toward the bed, she collided with: a chair, and fell sprawling over the undisturbed covers. Jerry wasn’t there.

  Then feverishly the thought occurred to her that it was perhaps Jerry that she had seen leap through the bushes. With this timorous hope to strengthen her, she limped to her own bedroom and cautiously approached the window. She drew the curtains closed, then peered out of one corner onto the property.

  There was now no movement near the bridge; even the wind had died down. But a feeble light moved erratically through the blueberry patch, the gleam of a weak flashlight. Evelyn threw her hand over her mouth, realizing in relief that it must be Jerry, checking on the berries after the rain. Earlier, he had been looking at the condition of the bridge. She pulled a small chair to the window, and gazed out of a little corner of a pane, still fearful until certain it was Jerry. At last she saw him directly below, coming to the front of the house. She hurried downstairs to unlock the door for him.

  “Oh, Jerry,” she cried, weeping though she had meant not to. “I was so frightened! I saw you in the yard, and I didn’t know who it was!”

  “I’m sorry,” said Jerry. “I didn’t think you were going to wake up. I went to check the berries. And I had a look at the bridge.” He sighed, and moved into the parlor. “We're not going to have a good year. The storm came at the worst possible time.” He shook his head morosely.

  “What about the bridge?” his grandmother asked. “Margaret has to get across that bridge.”

  “About five planks gone, I guess. Three of ’em right together near our side, and the water’s high, so it was a risk just going out on it. I’ll work on it as soon as it’s light out. I put up the Bridge Out sign on the other side, but I guess people in Babylon’ll know enough not to try to get over the bridge tonight.”

  “What about Margaret?! What if Margaret tries to get home tonight, and she sees that sign and she turns back?”

  “Margaret’s not gone come out tonight. She’ll stay wherever she is, and come back in the morning. By that time, I’ll have the bridge fixed.”

  Jerry helped his grandmother up the stairs tenderly, bringing a candle to put on her bedside table. “I don’t need it, Jerry darling, the moon is bright tonight. It doesn’t matter anyway, since I won’t be able to get a wink without Margaret in the house, even though I know she's all right, we just don’t know where she is, that’s all. I’m old, and I worry, and I just can’t help it—I love you and Margaret too much for my own good.”

  Jerry hugged his grandmother goodnight, and went to his own room, softly closing the door behind him. He returned to Evelyn's room several minutes later, and said softly: “Go to sleep, Grandma. Go to sleep and we’ll see Margaret in the morning. She may even be back by the time you wake up. Margaret gets up early, and she hates strange beds, she says. I’m going to close the curtains, Grandma...” He stood for a moment at the window, and glanced over the scene below him; the scrap of moon was reflected on the Styx at a point just a few
feet downstream of the bridge, and was reflected calmly, though Jerry knew with what swirling intensity the water flowed tonight. He pulled the thin lengths of patterned fabric together and whispered, “I don’t know about you, but the brightness of the smallest moon can keep me awake all night long.”

  In times of heavy rain, the black waters of the Styx swell rapidly and flow with alarming swiftness. The stream is short but strong, and the land about it drains quickly through many thousands of unnamed, uncharted tributaries: Creeks, branches, brooks, runs of water that flow quietly into the river every twenty feet or so, along both sides of its course. Three small brooks, that dry up entirely in drought, trickle through the blueberry patch itself. Because of these innumerable fingers of water, the river rises quickly in storm, and remains high for some time.

  On this night, beneath the Styx River bridge, the water rose inch by inch along the rotting pilings. Tree branches, new fallen or suddenly dislodged, were caught briefly against the posts, knocked one to the other, and then were swept crazily downstream, where no other bridge would interrupt their progress.

  Margaret Larkin’s bicycle was caught in a cold deep gully of the Styx, the wheels and handlebars lodged among slime-covered black stones. Silt was already beginning to fill in beneath this new obstruction in the river’s course. Margaret’s body, her head downstream, stirred gently, as if turning in delicious sleep.

  Already, the young girl’s clothing was being loosened by the flow of water down the length of her body. Fragments of cloth ripped by her killer’s knife tumbled solemnly toward the Perdido. Margaret’s eyelids and mouth had been pushed wide open. As if expressing wonder at sudden death, she gaped sightless through the black cold waters of the Styx to the moon overhead,

  Evelyn woke at seven, past her accustomed hour, and felt ashamed that she had slept when she ought to have been worrying about her granddaughter, Jerry’s conjecture that Margaret might be back by the time that she got out of bed made Evelyn tremble with the hope that if she went downstairs, she would find the girl sitting in the front parlor, making coffee in the kitchen or rocking slowly in the swing on the front porch. The old woman lay motionless hoping for noise in another part of the house, proof of Margaret’s presence.

  The house was still.

  The window was open behind the thin curtains, and Evelyn heard an echoed hammering, that she knew to be Jerry nailing new planks onto the Styx River bridge. She rose and from the window stared at Jerry’s kneeling figure on the distant bridge. The morning sun cast dappled green shadows all around her grandson. For a startled happy moment, Evelyn saw Margaret standing behind Jerry, waving her hands and remonstrating, but when the figure was suddenly no longer there, Evelyn realized it was only a trick of her imagination and the morning sunlight.

  After she had dressed, Evelyn descended the stairs slowly. She pushed the button that turned on the overhead light in the dining room, to check if the power had returned; it had. She was just about to try the telephone when Jerry came through the front door. “I've already made the calls, Grandma,”

  “Where’s Margaret,” demanded Evelyn, “when is she coming back?”

  I called Mr. Perry. He said that Margaret helped him at the school until five, and then she left. He said she was on her way back here, on her bicycle. He said she probably stopped at somebody’s house on the way because it looked like a storm, and she didn’t want to get caught in it.” Jerry did not tell his grandmother that Warren Perry had sounded very worried, and that this explanation was one that Jerry had supplied the teacher; Mr. Perry had merely agreed to it hopefully.

  “Where’s Margaret...?” cried Evelyn again.

  “I called Annie-Leigh Hooker. She hadn't seen Margaret since day before yesterday. But yesterday afternoon Annie-Leigh was working at the store until six. She didn’t get home until well after the rain had started, and so if Margaret went by her house, she wouldn’t have known about it.”

  “Who else did you call? D’you call all her friends? Margaret has so many friends, so many people like her. Maybe...” Evelyn moved into the parlor, distracted.

  “No,” said Jerry softly, “I didn’t call anybody else. I guess it makes sense now to go in and talk to the sheriff.”

  A little after eight o’clock, Evelyn and Jerry Larkin crossed the Styx River bridge on their way into Babylon. The waters of the river still were swollen and black. Large leafed branches and small dead animals floated downstream, knocked about under the bridge, and then tumbled unchecked down to the junction of the Styx with the Perdido.

  As they went over, Jerry could hear the difference in sound made by the old and new boards. Maintaining the bridge was a bothersome responsibility, but it had never been so onerous as this morning. The old boards had been swollen with dampness, and gave rottenly beneath his slender weight. It was a wonder that any car made it over at all, Jerry thought. Small spots of sunlight flickered on the boards around him, and he grew dizzy staring into the black agitated water that flowed beneath the bridge. It swirled in strange eddies, with black foam. Holding onto the edge of a plank for support? Jerry had leaned down and stared into the water, which seemed thicker and muddier than he had ever known it in his life. A scarlet and green woodpecker, its head twisted backwards, pitched suddenly into sight, spun twice around one of the pilings, and then was cast up on the sandbar where once Jerry and Margaret had dug for pirate treasure.

  Chapter 7

  In the country around Babylon, where the ground is soft and rarely disturbed, rattlesnakes breed profusely, and are an ever present danger to hunters, the owners of livestock, and indeed to all who live near the piney woods. To rid the area of a substantial number of snakes, the Chamber of Commerce of Babylon holds a rattlesnake rodeo each year during the reptile’s mating season. A prize is offered for the largest caught, and at the closing there is a barbecue at which everyone in town grimaces and tastes cooked rattlesnake meat and then decides that it cannot be distinguished from Kentucky Fried Chicken.

  The difficulty is that the snakes must be brought in alive. This would seem a nonsensical demand, since the point of the event is to clear the county of the vipers; but the hunters all declare there is no sport in simply killing them. A large wire cage, twenty feet long, ten feet wide, and six feet high is constructed behind the town hail, and there the live snakes are kept until the end of the Rodeo.

  The snakes are easy to catch. Practice will teach you to find their holes; you become familiar with their favorite type of ground, and just the ‘look” of it all. The apparatus is not complicated: a sturdy broom handle with a wire loop at the end, which can be pulled taut. The loop is placed over the snake’s hole, and then the ground just about is prodded sharply. The only trick is that when the rattler slithers out of the hole and through the loop, the wire must be pulled tight immediately. To fail to secure the snake just behind the jaws is potentially lethal. It doesn’t matter how much the rattles flail in the air if the head of the enraged snake is kept far away. The rattler is then thrust into a large double croker sack—burlap bags used to store farm produce and fodder—and the loop let slacken. The operation is dangerous insofar as rattlesnakes are always dangerous to be near; but better to approach them with a broomstick and a loop of wire, than to come upon them unawares.

  Sheriff Ted Hale had made it a rule that no boy under sixteen was allowed to participate in the rodeo. This injunction was to keep young boys from foolishly coaxing rattlesnakes out of their holes—but Hale generously allowed those under the requisite age to accompany their fathers and elder brothers on these summer expeditions.

  Ted Hale’s office was a high narrow room at the back of the town hall; it overlooked the rattlesnake pen. The walls of the office were painted green to a height of ten feet, and had been badly peeling for the past three years. Above a picture molding was a three-foot section of white plaster that had yellowed with cigarette smoke. A ceiling fan that was rarely oiled whirred noisily from March through November, but the sheriff was thankful
that it covered the incessant rattle and hiss of the snakes throughout the month of July.

  Three newspaper photos of a younger and slimmer Ted Hale apprehending criminals—clutching them by their collars as he might have held up a string of fish—were hung on the wall next to the frosted-glass door. About twenty framed pictures of Belinda Hale were grouped on the other side: Belinda in the first grade through the twelfth, Belinda at the junior-senior prom, Belinda at the cheerleader clinic at the University of Mississippi, Belinda in the rotunda of the capitol in Tallahassee shaking hands with the governor.

  On the morning after the worst thunderstorm that Babylon had seen in a number of years, Ted Hale sat hunched over his desk, trying to keep the crumbs of his second doughnut off the file folders that were set before him. He already had spilled his coffee on a letter from the head of the Florida Highway Patrol. Hale was a largeboned man, who would never really be fat; but he would never really be slender again either. His voice was low pitched, and so slow that it gave him the constant air of consideration and cunning.

  He was brushing the doughnut crumbs off his desk into his lap, when the door to his office, about fifteen feet away at the far end of the room, was opened, jay Neal, his youngest officer, twenty-three, gangling, shy, and terrified of firearms, stood with his hand on the knob, and was about to speak, when Evelyn Larkin and her grandson rushed past him into the room.

  “I told ’em you hadn’t even finished your coffee,” protested Neal in a shrill voice, but Hale ignored him.

  “Hey, Miz Larkin,” he said slowly. “How you doing, Jerry? I heard Belinda talking last night on the phone about how good your berries was gone be this—”

  “Berries are gone,” said Jerry shortly.

  “Well—” began the sheriff.

  “Sheriff,” interrupted Evelyn impatiently, “we cain’t find Margaret. We don’t know where Margaret is—”

  Hale motioned them to take the two chairs in front of his desk. They had been removed from the ruins of the Piney Woods Baptist Church Sunday school building after it burned, and still bore scorch marks on the ladder backs.