Hellbender (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 2)

by Miller, Jason Jack

  Ben said, “Seneca Rocks? Sure thing. I need to pick up a paycheck anyway.”

  “You back to guiding?” I said, thinking Ben had been trying to hide something from me.

  “Hell, no. Some freelancing stuff. Taking pictures for the website. Even got me a few magazine shoots. My lens is in demand and my days of fishing for tips from city folk are over.”

  Katy said, “So, that means you’ll finally be moving out of Jamie’s basement?”

  I smiled. He was getting cocky again and was glad Katy knocked him down a peg.

  Ben put his arm around Katy’s shoulder and squeezed her in a big hug. “Heck no. Why should I?”

  Katy tried to push him away. “Yeah, I guess you’d still have to grow up first.”

  “Stop it, Katy,” I said. “If you don’t have to grow up why should he?”

  “Ouch,” Ben said. “He knows us too well.”

  By the time we hit Seneca Rocks the sun was halfway into its trip to noon. Shadows stretched out from the mountains, hiding coolness in their breeches. At the climbing school, guides sipped coffee and stretched their ropes. Ben pulled right up to the porch. Tourists lingered by their cars, as far from the guides as was proper. The stoners were slack-lining, their gear littered picnic tables. One had dreadlocks and a shaggy beard. The smell of weed hit me as soon as I got out of the Jeep. Say what you will about raft guides, but at least they got wet once a day.

  “B.C.!” A pair of trustafarians shouted in unison as Ben emerged from his truck.

  “B.C.?” I said.

  Without a hint of shame, Ben replied, “Yeah, B.C. Before Collins, referring to a time when I was here, and then I wasn’t. You know, the good old days before my PTSD and raging temper.”

  “That doesn’t even make a little sense,” Alex said.

  “I know, but the kids like it. And I like to keep the gang happy.”

  A couple of his protégés eyeballed me. I did my best to show them that B.C. didn’t impress me half as much as he did them.

  Katy and Alex drifted over toward the little store, while Preston and me were left to look up at the big rock and talk about music and whatever. In a way I was kind of glad Ben came back to work here. Like, a return to normalcy could only be a good thing for him. When he got back from Afghanistan it took a long time for him to rebound. I thought he was going to end up in jail. Or worse.

  One of the stoners yelled from the porch, “B.C., you got a message.”

  He walked over to a bulletin board littered with classifieds and party invites. He went straight to a canary yellow Post-it, which only had four words on it.

  Ben, get home. Urgent.

  “Katy! We have to go!” He tore the note from the wall and sprinted back to the truck. The girls turned and quickly got back in. The old Jeep drifted forward even as he turned the key, leaving a dusty cloud in our wake. We left the parking lot and ripped up the mountain like a bobcat into a bird’s nest.

  “Katy, call your mom,” Ben said as he pushed the truck through gears it hadn’t fully used in a long time.

  She said, “No phone.”

  I said, “We left everything back at the house. Alex?”

  “No.”

  “Shit.”

  Nobody said anything else—speculation was almost as bad as a lie in times like these. But we were all thinking it was Pap, or an accident, one of the kids got hurt, Fenton flipped the tractor on the steep hill behind the barn, Chloe ran off with her boyfriend. The purpose of this line of thinking was to prepare me for the worst, to show me that no matter what happened I would have thought of it already. Besides, it’s never as bad as you think.

  We dropped down the backside of the Continental Divide like water falling from a cliff then followed the Dry Fork back downstream to its confluence with Red Creek. From the east, Roaring and Flatrock Plains watched without saying a word. Like they already knew.

  By the time we started our descent into Davis, Ben was racing an unseen opponent, maybe the devil himself. Whether it was illness, death, or some other unforeseen tragedy I couldn’t be certain. I knew I’d be there to support my family, a feeling I wasn’t capable of a few months ago. I’d wait at the hospital. I’d help with the farm or chores, whatever it took to get through this.

  We crossed the Blackwater and made a right onto our family’s crushed gravel lane. When Ben saw there were no vehicles at Pap’s house he kept going.

  Katy I said, “I hope it’s not Chloe.” Preston held her.

  I tried to look through the brush to their house and told Ben to slow down when I saw Fenton and Rachael coming up the driveway. When Fenton waved at us to keep going Katy relaxed just a pinch. She squeezed Ben’s shoulder. Ben’s expression darkened. Jamie and Isabelle and my dad were the only ones left, the last houses on the lane. I squeezed my eyes shut, angry at whoever I could be angry at for the unfairness of this situation.

  Every part of me wanted to tell Ben it would be fine, but I didn’t believe it. Ben rubbed his eyes. I felt his pain. I couldn’t stand to see my friend like this.

  As we approached the turn-off I could smell wood smoke and found it hard to believe the party was just the night before last. A fierce guilt swept over me as I thought about the clean-up and how we’d left instead of helping out.

  Ben pulled up to his porch and jumped out of the truck. I followed him up the steps right up to the front door. Preston turned the truck off while the rest followed.

  “Dad,” he said. “Dad!”

  But Alex, not Jamie, replied. “Henry!”

  I ran onto the porch, and followed her finger across the field, past the tent and my pap’s truck, past my angry aunt and her consoling husband, past Chloe’s sad, tear-stained face. Behind them, where my front porch and bedroom window should’ve been, lay the collapsed, burnt structure that used to be my house.

  We ran toward it, but slowed when we realized there was nothing left to see. Too stunned to speak, I could only stare. Alex crumpled to the ground. I knelt beside her. Blue jays carried on in the sugar maples as if nothing bad had happened here.

  “Oh my. Oh my,” she cried. “It’s gone and it’s my fault. I’m so sorry. There’s nothing.” Warm tears streamed down her cheek and onto my arm. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

  “Henry,” Jamie said, “I’m sorry. I was coming back from campus when I saw the flames. But it was already too far gone. Isabelle called for help, but nobody came. Davis and Canaan were out on other calls down the mountain.”

  Slate clouds rolled in from the west. They were high and narrow, an indication that the weather was about to change. “My dad?”

  My pap said, “He left and didn’t say ‘dog.’” Jamie said, “Nobody’s seen him since.”

  I unclenched my fists and walked over to the smoky ruins. “It’s not your fault. It was Billy Lewis. This is exactly the kind of shit he pulled in high school. He burned that medical center in Elkins. He went beyond the law. I will too when I find him—”

  “Billy Lewis doesn’t know his ass from a burnt biscuit. And he has an alibi,” my pap said. “He was in PA last night. Fishing in Ohiopyle. He showed the cops receipts and everything.” Pap watched his old dog sniff out groundhogs at the edge of the yard. “Besides, this wasn’t arson, it was a robbery.”

  “How could you know that?” Jamie asked. “There’s no evidence—”

  “The witch’s hat knocked clean off the chimley.” The triangular cut stone that used to cap the chimney was lying in the grass. “That’s how they got in.”

  “I’ll bet he has an alibi. But I don’t care. This is it. I’m fixing to end this.” Blood rushed into my head. The adrenaline of rage made me dizzy. I walked over to my Jeep while massaging the pressure from my temples with my thumb and forefinger.

  But I could see that he’d taken care of my ride, too. The console was smashed. Somebody had pounded nails into the dashboard. All of its fluids had been bled onto the ground. Lifting the hood revealed slashed cables and a bottle of corn syrup, the
contents of which, no doubt, were gestating in the head.

  Fenton said, “I took a look at your Jeep already. Probably need a new engine.”

  I shook my head. No shit.

  “The police were here, but they still want to talk to you. You’re supposed to see the sheriff sometime this afternoon.” Rachael tried to deliver the news delicately, but even with a spoonful of honey it would’ve been a hard pill to swallow. “If it helps to know there’s good news, we found this.”

  “What is it?”

  She held up a small plastic bag. “Hair.”

  “Wouldn’t that have been put to better use as evidence?” My temper made me almost yell it.

  Katy, trying to prevent an all-out fight, said, “I’ll drive you to Parsons. I want to hear what they’re going to do about this.”

  “Now, Katy,” Jamie said, “Don’t stir the pot. Henry needs our support, not reasons to place blame before we have all the evidence we need.”

  Katy said, “Jamie, Henry needs somebody to stand beside him, not behind him.” Even though she didn’t raise her voice when she said it, her tone was clear. Preston looked away, a quiet voicing of his disapproval.

  “Katy’s right,” Rachael said. “This is the time to fight back. We need to change the way they see us. They don’t think we’re a threat.”

  “No, Rachael. That’s what you and Katy and Dad need. But this won’t change anything.” I’d never heard Jamie raise his voice before. “Between his hotheadedness and your bullheadedness somebody’s going to get killed.”

  My pap said, “You’re out of line, son.”

  Jamie let out a breath that he’d been holding. “No, Dad. You know what happens. You all need to listen to me.” His hands shook when he spoke.

  To avoid further confrontation with Jamie, Rachael asked me, “What did you have in there? That they could have taken?”

  “Just our stuff, I guess.” Things from growing up. Things I wanted to show Alex. Pictures of my mom and dad. Tapes to listen to. Old yearbooks. “Our clothes and whatever was in our suitcases. Our phones.”

  “What about pictures? Did you have pictures of each other?” Rachael asked, sounding like she was already afraid of the answer.

  “On my laptop. And on my cell.” Alex’s voice sounded like it came from a thousand miles away. She stood by the old porch, looking for the kittens, I presumed.

  Rachael crossed her arms. “Alex, listen to me. Did you have a hairbrush in one of your bags?”

  “Yes, I had a brush,” she said, apologetically.

  “Henry, you should’ve known better. How could you be so careless?” She put her hand over her mouth and continued to stare into the smoldering foundation.

  “God damn it. Hair magic? I’m looking at a pile of ashes and you’re worried about hair magic?”

  “Henry, you need to focus on what’s real here,” Rachael said. “The Lewises are looking for something. Something old, that may have belonged to grandma. You need to think, really think, about what else was in there.”

  I stuck my hand into my pocket and hooked my mom’s old ring with my pinkie. I showed her. “Found it in my dad’s closet. It was mom’s. Pap’s mom gave it to her when they got married, right?”

  “There it is,” Rachael said. “That’s what they’re looking for, right? What Lucinda Tasso and Odelia have been going on about?”

  Jamie said, “Yup. I’d say that’s it. If you don’t mind, Henry, you might want to let Rachael hang onto that. At least for now.”

  I looked at my pap, and he nodded.

  Alex watched me walk it over and drop it in Rachael’s hand.

  For a few minutes nobody said anything. Jamie finally broke the silence. “I spoke with the fire marshal. He assured me this matter would receive his attention. Let’s give him a week, okay?”

  Jamie spoke with his hands. His palms were turned toward the sky as a gesture of his peaceful intentions. “He’ll have a report by the end of the week.”

  My pap said. “Well, I already made a few calls to Elkins. The fire marshal was dragging his feet. We’ll get that son of a bitch.”

  “Please, Dad,” Jamie said. “Let’s not make assumptions. This is bad enough as is.”

  Fenton said, “I’ll ret up here. Don’t worry about any of this.”

  Alex put her head on my shoulder. Rachael brushed the hair back from her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

  Ben put his arm around me and said, “What do you want me to do? Anything—just let me know.”

  “I don’t know.” My vocal cords seized up as I was about to suggest we find and kill Billy Lewis. “Me and Katy will go talk to the sheriff. Why don’t you and Alex go to Ohiopyle. Check out Billy’s alibi. Ask if anybody actually saw him up there.”

  Sleep came to me in fits, like light from a firefly. I was too tired to doze and staying angry took a lot of energy. And it was the first time in a while Alex hadn’t been with me.

  My rage had returned. A physical rage that penetrated my skin and consumed me like a virus. And we all know a virus feeds on blood.

  Making this a blood feud.

  I scolded myself for going down that path. It ended at a scary place I knew all too well. No need to plow up old graves.

  But my physical rage had become a problem. It came when my fists were clenched, when my toes were curled, when my eyes were closed. This physical rage would explode in time. The only thing I could control was the size of the explosion.

  Headlights crossed the window, illuminating the small droplets of rain that fell. A car door slammed shut. Just one. So I rolled over to face the door.

  Somebody climbed the stairs.

  “Henry,” Ben whispered as he flipped the light switch. “Get up, man.”

  “Where’s Alex?” I said, rubbing the drowsiness out of my eyes. “Left her with Katy. Put some clothes on.”

  All that I had left to wear was what I had with me yesterday. Pretty much everything else was ash and smoke. I buttoned an old flannel shirt and pulled my sweatshirt over top while looking for my shorts. I stretched as Ben pulled a pack from his closet and filled it with clothes.

  “Where are we going?” I tried to adjust to the light.

  “Jesus, Henry. Sometimes I think you couldn’t pour piss out of a boot with instructions written on the bottom. We’re going to get him. I know where he is. C’mon, I’ll tell you in the truck.” Ben spun, scanning his room’s dark corners for I don’t know what.

  “Tell me now, Ben. I need something, anything.” I found my old ball cap tangled in the sheets and pulled it on.

  “He was in Ohiopyle last night. Your friend, Duff? He saw Billy at the gas station.” Ben began pulling dresser drawers open and tossing clothes onto the floor.

  “Shit. So you guys talked to Duff?”

  “Yeah, Alex knew where to go. We went up to that bar. It didn’t take much for her to get people talking.” Ben dropped to the floor by the bed.

  “And?”

  “Yeah, Smurf saw him at breakfast today. I thought our goose was cooked. But just now I stopped to get gas in Thomas. Homer O’Dell was working there.” He pulled out old shoeboxes, flipped the lids off and emptied their contents on the floor.

  “Homer?” I said, not able to put a face with the protégé.

  “We red-pointed October Sky at Judy Gap a few years back. Anyway, Billy came in late last night and bought a roll of snuff. He told Homer that he was going hunting for a few days and forgot to pick some up.” Ben sat up on his knees and looked around the room.

  “What are you saying?” I heard the words, but wasn’t sure what they meant.

  “He drove all night to set up his alibis.” Ben looked me in the eyes, for the first time breaking away from his frenetic search. “It’s all a scheme, man. He drives to Ohiopyle, gets his receipts and makes sure somebody sees him, then drives back down here and commits the crime. But the stupid fuck screwed up.” Ben smiled when he said it.

  “How do you know where to find him?”
<
br />   “Homer told me they got a cabin on the other side of Shaver’s Fork. We can take the train almost right to it.”

  “We should get the sheriff.” I tried to be rational. But Ben wasn’t making it easy.

  “Screw that, man. Katy told us what Lucinda did. That bitch is so cold butter won’t melt in her mouth.”

  “Word gets around.”

  “Yeah man, it does. Look, I finally got you back home. I’m going to do whatever it takes to keep you here. Alex is special. I feel like I’ve known her since I was five. So if I can’t do this for you I’ll do it for her.” Ben went back into his closet and produced a shoebox which he set between his knees.

  “When you say it like that…Ben, I can’t afford any more weight on my conscience.”

  “That’s why I’m here.” He took an old pistol and a box of rounds out of a shoebox and threw them into the pack.

  I had to look away. “Ben…”

  “For snakes. Let’s go.” He tossed the old pack over his shoulder.

  “We’re not going to harm anybody. We just need a confession. Nobody gets hurt. Promise me.” Weakness, just one of many character flaws, made me relent. But I was born flawed, and that—not weakness—made me follow Ben down the stairs.

  Outside the cold rain drops penetrated my shirts like little bullets. My muscles took to shivering, but warmth was still too far away. Ben’s Jeep was full of heat, though. When I sat down I almost felt Alex’s touch on the cushion where she’d been sitting. The engine came alive and blew its hot breath into the cab, easing my shivering a little. When we pulled onto the dark lane I could only stare at the remains of my house and my Jeep. The top was still down. The only thing I ever owned was little more than a rain bucket now.

  At the edge of town Ben pulled a fat joint from the ashtray and lit it. I watched the tip glow, then closed my eyes as the sweetness of escape burned in my nose. Ben held his hit in, then passed it my way. “Here.”

  Dim street lights barely penetrated the rain. The whole scene reminded me of a night back in high school when Ben drove me down to Parsons the first time the sheriff hauled my dad off to jail. I took a big hit, let the smoke deep into my lungs.