Then the wind blew and he was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Vernon Ray had to stretch his legs and take unnatural steps to walk the crumbling creosote crossties. Railroads were made for the travel of big steel monsters and not boys, though Dex seemed to be doing fine with his hopping motion. But Dex was a jock, a linebacker who could already bench press 10 reps of his body weight, and owner of enough bowling trophies to melt down and cast as a statue of a general on horseback. So he could hop and get away with it.
If Vernon Ray tried to hop, it would probably look like some prissy little ballet move, so he settled for what felt like a manly stride, even though the motion strained the backs of his knees.
Bobby somehow floated along with an easy grace, but then Bobby made every action look cool. And though Dex could probably beat up both of them with one hand tied behind his back, Bobby was in the lead, moving down the track like a locomotive that was right on schedule. Dex followed, fanning the light along the rails and crossties ahead. Vernon Ray, the caboose, could come uncoupled and the train would keep rolling. Except, probably, Bobby would feel the loss of weight and the new ease of acceleration.
As if everything had to be a metaphor . . . .
“And then that doofus Deputy Dawg shot at me and I heard the bullet whistling through the trees over my head,” Dex said.
“Bet you about crapped your pants,” Bobby said.
“Hell, I was too scared to be scared, if you know what I mean. I was running like I was going in for the winning touchdown and Kitty Hawkins was waiting at the goalpost with her legs spread.”
“How do you know he shot at you?” Vernon Ray asked.
Dex stopped and Vernon Ray had to brace himself and get his balance to keep from pitching forward into Dex’s back. Bobby continued down the track, even though he must have noticed their shoes had stopped flapping behind him in that rollicking train rhythm. Vernon Ray would have to deal with this one alone.
“Because I was the one they were chasing,” Dex said without turning. “I was the only one who had enough balls to go for it. You sissy-boys sat there whining for mercy. You ain’t figured out yet that the system don’t allow no mercy.”
Though Dex had meant it as a challenge for Bobby as well, Bobby kept right on motoring. The lights of Titusville cast a gray gauze against the black ceiling of night sky. The creek clinked and gurgled, sounding merry despite the runoff from the town’s parking lots and gutters. The wind was soft in the trees and Vernon Ray spun a metaphor of gently beating wings until Dex yanked him back to reality.
“So he shot at me because I’m worth shooting,” Dex said. “But the second time, I don’t think he shot at me.”
Bobby, now 50 feet ahead, stopped and yelled back at them. “Come on, guys, we can make it to Planet Zero before it closes.”
Bobby tossed rocks from the gravel rail bed into the tide of encroaching kudzu until the two boys caught up. Dex said, “I was just telling V-Girl here about getting shot at. It was a better rush than sniffing glue, I can tell you that.”
“If he had hit you, you’d probably be singing a different tune,” Bobby said.
“Yeah,” Vernon Ray said, emboldened. “Like ‘Precious Memories’ or whatever else they do at a funeral.”
“Big deal,” Dex said. “I ain’t scared of dying. The preacher saved me so I got a free ride from here on out.”
Vernon Ray was about to dispute Dex’s theological justification, but it was hard to argue with a true believer. And Vernon Ray was jealous, because Dex had a destination after death, a shimmering, pillowy heaven where everyone was happy and nobody was different.
Plus he got to commit all the sins he could pack into a lifetime and not alter the eternal outcome one tiny bit. Vernon Ray had nothing waiting after death, no peaceful rest that he could anticipate, and his soul was a train rolling into a strange, misty tunnel that—
“What was he shooting at, then?” Bobby asked, spinning a rock into the trees that lined the creek. Lights from passing cars on the highway blinked amid the dying foliage. The smell of roadkill skunk drifted over.
“Nearest I can figure, it was that weird wino dude,” Dex said.
“Wino?”
“Yeah. Kinda makes you wonder why cops get to carry guns and normal folks don’t. If they’re that freaking loopy, they ought to join the Army where they can kill all the people they want.”
“As long as they’re brown,” Vernon Ray said.
“You don’t know nothing,” Dex countered. “Them ragheads attacked us on our own soil and—”
“What about the wino?” Bobby said, cutting off Dex’s favorite jingoistic rant, no doubt learned from his father and endlessly recited down at the bowling alley.
“Well, after that first shot, I ducked under a big shelf of rock,” Dex said. “You know how up on the ridge the boulders poke out of the ground. I figured, barring a ricochet, I’d be safe until the cops got tired of looking. I mean, I can outrun any cop in the county, but I haven’t figured out how to outrun a bullet yet.”
“Keep training,” Bobby said. “Maybe you got muscles somewhere besides your head.”
“Hey,” Dex said. “I’d rather run than try to talk my way out of it. Vernon Ray can use them big words and do okay in front of a juvie judge, but I been down that road before. Daddy’s lawyer is smart, but at the end of the day those pig porkers all kneel down at the same trough.”
“What’s that got to do with the wino?” Vernon Ray asked.
Dex gave him a shove, and Vernon Ray’s ankle caught on the rail. He nearly tumbled backwards off the bank and toward the creek, but Bobby grabbed his shirt sleeve.
“Come on, Dex,” Bobby said. “Don’t be a dickhead. Just tell us the story.”
“This creepy old guy was walking around on the ridge,” Dex said. “Probably been hanging out in the Hole and knocking back bottles of MD 20/20 and malt liquor 40’s.”
“That’s dumb,” Bobby said. “The place is two miles from the nearest package store and there’s plenty of places to tip a bottle downtown.”
“Well, he’s white, and only niggers and Mexicans can get away with loitering downtown.”
Vernon Ray wondered what would happen when Dex got to heaven and realized that blacks and Hispanics had been saved as well, and that the blood of Jesus had also washed away the sins of people who didn’t bowl 230 or listen to Toby Keith. God’s unconditional love extended to everyone except the homosexuals, that much was clear.
“Okay, so how do you know it was a wino?” Bobby asked, obviously trying to change the subject.
“His clothes looked like junk you’d pick out of a dumpster at a thrift shop,” Dex said. “All raggedy and dirty, like he’d been sleeping in them for a hundred years.”
Or maybe 150? Vernon Ray wasn’t sure exactly what he’d encountered in the Hole, but if the mountain was coughing out whatever dead things it had swallowed during the war, then maybe one of the deserters was walking loose. Or floating, or whatever ghosts did.
Which obviously messes up any Earth-based theology. Because if the soldier was dead, then he should have gone on to whatever afterlife had been promised by his faith. Unless he had no faith, and his was the fate of all who didn’t believe. Unless the dead soldier was a homosexual, then . . . .
Vernon Ray was still confused by all the contradictions, but he was getting the feeling that the eternal afterlife was going to be a lonely place. He moved closer to Bobby. The fall night had suddenly grown chillier.
“That don’t explain why the cop shot at him,” Bobby said.
“Didn’t you hear what I’ve been saying?” Dex said. “Those guys are nuttier than a corn turd. Anyway, the wino kept on hoofing it over the ridge, and then the cops were yelling at each other and I waited about 10 minutes and hustled my ass down the back side of the mountain and headed home. What happened to you guys?”
In the dim light, Vernon Ray couldn’t see Bobby’s face but could feel that ocean-eyed gaze on him. Bobby was
waiting for Vernon Ray to spill whatever had happened in the Hole. Bobby hadn’t bought the story that Vernon Ray had bumped his head and gotten a little dizzy and confused.
Well, the “confused” part had been no lie, but babbling about being dragged into the dark depths by an unseen force might have cemented Vernon Ray’s reputation as the sole occupant of La La Land, a fairy spud in his own private Idaho.
“When they fired the shots, the other cop went running into the woods and the shopkeeper guy freaked out and ran in the opposite direction,” Vernon Ray said. “We dicked around a little until the coast was clear and then beat it out of there.”
“The only beating you do is your own meat,” Dex said.
“Dex, you’re the only guy on the planet who would eat a bullet over a pack of smokes, then brag about it at his own funeral,” Bobby said.
“All I’m saying is I’m going for it,” Dex said. “You guys can pansy-pwance around the edges but I’m walking right through the front door.”
“Come on,” Bobby said, taking the lead again. “I want to get to the comic shop before it closes. There’s a new Hulk I want to get.”
“Fine,” Dex said. “Give Vernon Ray something to look at besides his mom’s panties.”
“And no stealing this time,” Bobby called back over his shoulder.
Their feet crunched on gravel for a minute before Dex stopped again. “Sheriff came out to my house,” he said, with evident pride.
“You get charged?” Vernon Ray said, knowing Mac McCallister let some of the town’s top attorneys bowl on the house. Cops occasionally got a freebie, too, but only lawyers got the beer to go with it.
“Hell, no,” Dex said. “My old man read him the riot act.”
“He ask you about Mulatto Mountain?”
“I never even talked to him. But I’m supposed to go down to the office tomorrow. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sheriff Fiddlefart wants to pin a few charges on me just for old time’s sake.”
“Shh,” Bobby hissed. “Somebody’s coming.”
The railroad tracks were the boys’ usual route into town, unless they braved the highway on their bikes. More often, Bobby and Vernon Ray went without Dex, heading for comics, ice cream, mall loitering, or other buddy activity.
They rarely encountered anyone on the tracks, and in Twenty-First Century America, any adults conveyed by their legs instead of a fossil-fuel vehicle were considered odd and somehow subversive. Namely, cons and dregs, people too poor for cars, or those nabbed for multiple DWI’s. People to be avoided if you were a kid with a little money in your pocket.
Bobby stepped off the tracks and skidded down the bank to the vines and shrubs bordering the creek. Vernon Ray followed, sensing no real anxiety in his friend, but making the safe move nonetheless. Dex flicked off the flashlight and stood for a moment with his hands on his hips, as if welcoming a chance to prove himself king of the road.
“Come on, Dex,” Bobby said, as Vernon Ray crouched beside him in the weedy concealment.
“We got a right to be on the track,” he said.
“What if it’s a cop?” Vernon Ray said, though the notion of any officer straying half a mile from the cushy front seat of his cruiser was a little ludicrous.
“No flashlight,” Dex said. “Plus he already saw ours.”
“He won’t know where we are,” Bobby said, confirming Vernon Ray’s belief that only an adult male would be brave, foolish, or drunk enough to wander down the tracks after dark. “You can’t judge distance for crap in the dark.”
Dex paused for another moment, as if to let Bobby know that he wasn’t about to follow orders, as if Vernon Ray could be a whipped little puppy dog but Dex by God was top dog in a pack of one. Then he stepped over the rail and eased down the bank. He slipped once and landed on his rear in the damp grass, and his “Shee-it!” hissed out loudly enough to tip off whoever was coming.
As Dex wiped at the back of his jeans and stood in the kudzu and briars, Vernon Ray spun a fantasy that they were three Rebel scouts, waiting for a locomotive to come barreling down the tracks so they could get an idea of Grant’s numbers and strategy. Or, better yet, they could be spies, risking death by hanging in order to foul up Sherman’s March and Gen. Stoneman’s incursion into the North Carolina mountains. Daddy would be proud.
Vernon Ray strained to hear the approaching footsteps over the gurgling of the creek. Maybe Bobby had misjudged and it was a platoon, Union infantry rooting out rebel rabble. If so, they were dead meat for sure. But Vernon Ray wasn’t about to let his comrades swing at the business end of a hemp rope. No, he would dash right up to the platoon, yell, “Come and get me, you Lincoln-loving Johnny Yank!” and flee into the woods. Sure, they’d catch him, and he’d dance on air with his eyeballs bugging, but his buddies would have a chance to escape.
He didn’t realize he was actually about to bolt up the bank until he felt Bobby’s hand on his shoulder. “Easy, V-Ray,” Bobby whispered.
A stand of thin pines lined each side of the tracks, swallowing the approaching man in the shadows. Despite a weak grimace of moon overhead and the fuzzy glow cast by Titusville’s various storefronts and streetlights, they wouldn’t be able to see him until he reached the spot where the boys had left the tracks. The rushing creek covered any sound of footfalls.
Thirty seconds passed, with Bobby’s breath near Vernon Ray’s ear, and even the distant highway fell silent. Vernon Ray felt a surge of warmth at the closeness of his friend, and a feather tickled the inside of his stomach. The man must have stopped in the concealment of darkness and Vernon Ray imagined him waiting just as they were, perhaps also wondering who was sharing the tracks in the night. Maybe the man was afraid, too. It was easy to imagine a group of boys as a gang of hooligans out to rob and plunder.
Then the edge of the shadow swelled and a piece of it broke off. The man stepped into the graylight and moved down the tracks, his head tilted forward in determination. The hollow eyes were hard to see, but they were as black as the shadows that had spawned them, and the pale jaw was clenched into a creased dimple. This was a dude with a destination, and he wasn’t about to let anyone stop him.
“Holy freak-a-holey,” Dex said, a rare note of reverence in his voice.
“What?” Bobby whispered.
“It’s him.”
“Him?”
“The wino from Mulatto Mountain.”
“He doesn’t look drunk,” Vernon Ray said. The man’s shabby clothes hung as if they had rotted for years on a clothesline. The jacket appeared to be wool, and the cotton trousers were wrinkled and soiled. Though the jacket was open, it still had a couple of brass buttons gone green with age. A strap was slung over one shoulder, and a rounded object bounced off his right hip.
The man was close enough now that they could have hit him with a rock, but even if Dex had been in a frolicking, rabble-rousing mood, the man’s odd gait would have given him pause. The man’s feet were not visible from their low vantage point, but his legs appeared to be out of synch with his rate of motion, as if he were walking on ice and was being pushed forward by a strong, cold wind.
Then the man’s jaw hinged downward, the thin lips parted, and a black maw opened. “Churr-rainnnnnnn.”
“The hell was that?” Dex said.
“He said something,” Bobby said.
“That wasn’t a word. That didn’t even come from his mouth.”
Vernon Ray had the same impression. The sound had not been directional, and if Dex hadn’t also noted it, Vernon Ray would have assumed he’d imagined it. The man continued his peculiar locomotion, and was nearly out of sight when Vernon Ray noticed the dented tin canteen slung over the man’s pack. It glowed silver in the moonlight. A symbol was stamped into the dull tin. The distance was too great to discern the letters, but their shape suggested a familiar acronym.
C.S.A.
Confederate States of America.
Then the man was gone, and the silence that had descended in his wake gave wa
y to night noises, the merry creek, the hiss of distant tires against asphalt, the wind in the dying leaves.
“The hell was that?” Dex repeated.
“Something from the Hole,” Vernon Ray said. “He was wearing a kepi. A Rebel cap.”
“Come on,” Dex said, raising his voice. “You ain’t pulling that noise, are you?”
“He’s headed toward Mulatto,” Bobby said.
“You taking this shrimp’s side?” Dex said. “Trying to scare me with your stupid little ghost stories?”
“I’m not trying anything,” Bobby said. “I’m just saying.”
“He was wearing a Civil War uniform,” Vernon Ray said. “Natural fiber. That looked like an army-issued canteen, and those are pretty rare.”
“Yeah, right,” Dex said. “He’s probably some loser that came in early for the reenactment. A rebel without a clue.”
“Okay,” Bobby said. “Suppose he is. Let’s follow him.”
Vernon Ray recalled the man’s weird steps and how he’d moved faster than his legs should have carried him. Dex must have been thinking the same thing, because he said, “I don’t want to waste my Saturday night tailing a wino. He’s probably up there puking a rainbow of Kountry Kwencher.”
“V-Ray?” Bobby asked, and Vernon Ray felt a sudden rush of warmth and appreciation. Bobby was giving equal weight to both opinions and letting his vote count as much as Dex’s. Vernon Ray wasn’t sure what would happen if he voted against Dex, but in truth he didn’t want to know if the man was a long-dead soldier who had crawled out of the Hole and gotten lost and was now wandering the Earth in search of a place to belong.
“Dex is right,” Vernon Ray said. “The comic store’s more fun.”
“Damn straight,” Dex said, emboldened. “Those comic-book chicks got some gazongas you could play water volleyball with and never come up for air. Plus Whizzer might be hanging around and we can score a joint.”
Vernon Ray had resisted his friends’ attempts to lure him into trying marijuana, but tonight might be different. Since reality was becoming increasingly unreliable, an altered state suggested comfort, though he was afraid that if he indulged in a trip to the outer limits of fantasy, he might not return.
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