“I wasn’t planning on coming up here for some rescue mission. If he got himself into trouble then we can wash our hands of it and be done.” Ben taunted a copperhead with his stick. The snake reared, its angry black eyes glared. “Looks like a crow shit him onto a fence post and the sun done hatched him out. Poor kid.”
“You ever see anything like this?” Ben shook his head.
“What do you think it means?”
“Don’t mean a thing. Just something that happened, right?”
Greg stumbled back from the woods carrying an armload of branches. He dropped the bundle between me and Ben. “Cover him with these.” He pointed to the small pile he’d created.
Ben folded his arms.
Greg stamped his feet and got loud, saying, “Cover his body with these. Snakes won’t cross ash.”
I complied, laying branches over Billy’s legs and waist. The rattlers reared from the branches, just like Greg said they would. Ben finally submitted, dropping braches over Billy’s shoulders and head. An exodus of snakes slithered between the three of us and toward the river. Greg handed me a branch and gestured that we should try to clear the rest away ourselves. Even now I could see that Billy’s skin was pocked with a rash of bites.
“Holy shit.” I worked my ash branch beneath a fat old diamondback a little thicker than my wrist. It took several attempts to flip it into the rocks behind me.
“Faith,” Greg said. “They didn’t bite him because he had faith.”
“I don’t think so.”
“He’s done,” Ben said. “There are over a hundred bites. At least.” Convinced that Billy was dead, Ben dropped his stick into the rocks.
But I looked at the bites, which weren’t hemorrhaging with the blush of hemotoxin. There was no edema in the skin around the punctures. Not even any pus seeping from the holes. “He’s alive. Like something protected him,” I said. “Has to be more than luck.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Ben said. He knelt in the grass beside Billy’s body. “How do you know?”
“Jesus Christ, Ben. It’s called fucking Google. You ever see a rattlesnake bite?” I said, “These are all dry.”
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” Ben examined some of the bites on Billy’s wrist.
“I think your cousin is correct.” Greg slid a hand beneath Billy’s neck and listened for breath. “If pushed on the matter, I’d say that there’s not a drop of venom in his blood.”
“Look for the keys to his truck.” I helped Greg drag Billy out of the hole. “Billy, where are your keys?” I struggled to feel a pulse trickling through his veins. Blood clotted at the heads of the puncture wounds, thousands of them, like cities on a map.
“Fuck him. Save ourselves some trouble.” Ben strapped his bow back into his pack.
“Isn’t this what you wanted?” Greg said.
My anger rose at the suggestion. “No! This is not what I wanted. I want him to answer for the shit he pulled. If he’s dead then Jane’s death goes unanswered for. Somebody’s going to fucking answer for her. If he’s dead then it’s still an eye for an eye and this all goes on. But it can’t end until I find out what happened to my sister. Find his fucking keys.”
“Relax, Henry. No need to jump all over me.”
“I am going to jump all over you. I need you to help me, man. I need you on my side.”
While they looked I waited with Billy. No longer a villain, I saw him as he was. A mother’s son. A mouse trying to play cat. All I wanted was what I deserved for my loss. I didn’t need it paid back in pain and blood. His breathing came in wheezing gasps. A few times I even had to put my ear right next to his mouth to make sure he was still alive.
“Ben.”
He didn’t reply so I called his name again. “Ben!”
He jogged around the side of the building, breathing heavily. “Nothing at all.” “Did you check in the truck? Visor. Floor mat. In the wheel wells.” I quizzed him because I was afraid he might be lying. “Yeah. You want me to keep looking?”
“No. Run on down to the highway. See if you can flag somebody down.”
“Henry…”
“Just go, man. Flag somebody down and meet us on the fire road.”
Ben gave me a lingering look while he cinched his pack. He shook his head and began walking backward. For a second he paused, shoulders slumped.
“Find help,” I said. “Please, man.”
He turned and ran a steady jog that took him too slowly over the knuckle and out of sight.
Greg put a hand on my shoulder. “You don’t have to do this, you know?”
“I kind of do.” I held my shaky hands up to the sunlight filtering through the tall trees. “This is my chance to have a say in this hundred-year thing going on between these two families. It’s my way of saying ‘I’m out’ and letting justice decide. I’m the one who has to show them that it can stop.”
I kneeled down beside the body, because to me, in its condition, that’s all it was. “His life is only worth what somebody will give for it if the killing goes on. Right now, that’s not much.”
With that, I heaved him over my shoulder into a fireman’s carry. I struggled to find footing, to find a rhythm over the loose gravel that led through the stream valley to the main highway. The forest around me overflowed with life: fresh club mosses painted the ground, ferns jumped through the leaf litter and shook their appendages in the gentle breeze, small frogs popped out of hibernation with a Devonian instinct to fertilize eggs. And here was Billy, slumped over my shoulder, barely breathing.
Greg trotted slowly alongside me and said very little. At times I could only muster a fast walk but I always made certain that I was at least moving forward. On the ascents I hurried, on the descents I crept forward with slow and steady feet. My back ached. My mind would not be free from thoughts of Jane and how much I missed her, and how guilty I felt for not being there, no matter how fast or how far I ran. Whenever I needed a breather I’d stop and put his body on the ground, but the thoughts remained. I listened to make sure he breathed, too.
At each downhill I thought for sure I could see the main road. Every time I began another climb I swore I’d had enough. Greg helped by encouraging me to keep putting one foot ahead of the other. He said very little until I stopped altogether, at which point he’d say, “Just a little further.”
My pace had slowed. I wondered if I’d ever see the end. In my mind a change occurred. I no longer wanted to carry him. I wanted to drop him and be done with it. But still my legs kept going, slowly, slowly, like the fading images of a bad dream. I set him down. I had no idea how far we’d gone.
“I’m fucking pathetic.” My words had no heft to them, like a mist rising from a river.
“Henry, you’ve done so much more than you had to. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Greg sat next to me. He felt Billy’s wrist for a pulse.
I slumped into one of the long shadows that fell across the road, oblivious to the mud and gravel. Somewhere out there it was mid-afternoon.
“Come now, you tried. You’ve made your point and I’m honored to have been a part of this endeavor.” Greg pulled a wool jacket from his pack, folded it and set it beneath Billy’s head.
I nodded. “You think it’s okay I can’t carry him any further?”
“More than okay. Just rest.”
But I couldn’t rest. And after sitting for at least an hour the sound of trucks came from the trees below us. I couldn’t tell if it was Ben arriving with help or the Lewis’s coming to finish me off.
“Should we hide?” I said.
Greg nodded, and we dragged Billy into the laurel. I positioned myself so I could see without being seen. I pressed myself into the ferns. Sunlight reflected off the windshield.
It was my pap’s truck.
“Ben!” I stumbled into the path of the second truck, the one Fenton’s nephew drove. He gave a pair of quick toots with his horn, and Jamie drifted backwards down the hill. Greg dragged
Billy out of the woods.
“Hey, man, you trying to carry him down to Summersville?” Ben hugged me like he did the night of the party.
Jamie cut it short. “Let’s hurry now, gentlemen. Get him in.” “He needs a doctor.” I pointed to Billy’s fading form.
“That’s why I didn’t come alone. He’ll drive Billy to the hospital and make sure he’s taken care of.” Jamie pointed at the other truck. His tone concerned me.
“What’s wrong?” I said. “It should be over now. Billy lied about his alibi. We need to call the cops about the house. We have a witness in Thomas and everything.”
Ben corrected me. “No, man. Plan’s changed. We have to hide.” He helped me lift Billy into the bed of the second truck.
“I don’t want to hide. Besides, Charlie couldn’t find his ass with both hands and a coon dog. I’m tired. I want to see Alex and go home. This stupid shit’s over.”
Ben tapped the hood of the second truck and waved.
Fenton’s nephew backed the truck down to a wide part of the road where he could do a three-point turn. He waved, then drove off with another pair of quick toots.
Ben said, “Henry, the game just got a little more complicated. They believe you came here to murder Billy.”
“Murder! I tried to save his life. We need to call the sheriff.”
“He won’t help. He came looking for you this morning at the house. He said he had a warrant on its way.” Jamie dropped his truck’s tailgate.
From the passenger side window my pap said, “I suspect it’s just a ruse meant to paint you as a murderer.”
Ben added, “They’re coming to get you. They got a regular posse. More like a lynch mob, I guess. I heard it from the truck driver I hitched a ride with.”
“To arrest me? For what? I didn’t do anything.”
“They’re not coming to arrest you, Henry.” Ben climbed into the bed of the truck and took a seat near the cab. “They’re coming to kill you.”
The power of the ancient forest was apparent from the moment the sun passed overhead. The old trucks sputtered through shadows, choked on the heavy air and tripped over the gnarled knobby roots that stretched like veins from the tremendous oaks and pines. Emerald moss poured from the giants and spilled out onto the dark gray boulders that poked through the humus. I could only stare. Even with a map and compass I’d be lost in this wilderness I used to know like my own front porch.
The truck bucked furiously, threatening to bounce the three of us out at every turn and stream crossing. Somehow, Champ scored a front seat while Ben and Greg and I fought just to hang on in the back. The tires knocked rocks loose and the truck skidded from side to side. Even though I couldn’t see the bottom, I knew the river was down there somewhere.
Laurels and rhododendrons, heavier than the combined weight of all the rock in the Blackwater, reached waxy leaves into our space, clawing at our hats and shirts. We clutched at the tailgate and wooden slats enclosing the bed. Canvas tents and crates filled with venison and beef on ice and canned vegetables slid back and forth with the constant jostling.
We fled the Shavers Fork watershed and returned to the Blackwater via Otter Creek. When the old green path hit the ridge top, pine gave way to spruce that blocked out nearly all of the sunlight. The faint glow of headlights did little to pierce the darkness.
I kept a cautious eye on the forest and cursed my mind for the tricks it played. It was bad enough to be running from an enemy I really didn’t understand, but creating new, unseen enemies in my head was plain stupid. I should have at least been able to control my thoughts—I knew there weren’t ghosts in the basement and I knew there were none in this wilderness either. But who needed rationality when you had shell casings filled with powder and lead, shotguns and pistols and the hot-headedness that came when sparks were left uncovered?
I didn’t even know where to place blame anymore. I knew what caused the immediate round of hostility, but for me this all went back to Jane. The years should have stitched these wounds long ago. The Lewis name should have been as meaningless to me as Jones or Johnson. But scars have a way of getting scraped back open. I could give two shits about Charlie Lewis and his land and his disputed family possessions. Only my life, and the way I wanted to live it, mattered to me anymore. If I decided to walk away without their blood under my fingernails, that was my business. After all, this was my story.
The sky opened up when we crossed the rocky ridge top. Gray clouds slid down from the west, threatening rain. At this point too much precipitation would be a disaster. Knee-high mud and swollen streams would do little to help our cause. With the road made impassable, we’d be trapped.
“It’ll hold off,” Ben said as I watched the sky. “I hope so.”
“Even if it does rain it will be little more than a drizzle. Those clouds talk big, but are too emaciated to do any damage.” Greg casually pondered the front. “But it may mean colder weather is nearly upon us.”
“Cold wouldn’t matter so much to me.” Fuck the weather and all this small talk, I wish I could’ve said. But I knew Ben and Greg were just trying to be kind.
“It’ll pass.” Ben took in the wide view. “All of it. You and Alex will be happier than a pair of dogs guarding a moonshine still. You guys can hold hands and play kissy face. It’s all good. We just got to put this baby to rest first.”
I couldn’t figure out whether Ben actually believed what he’d said or not. He knew what I knew, yet insisted on acting like the spring hadn’t yet dried up.
And that we were drinking cold, clean water instead of mud.
“Alex is the girlfriend, I suppose?” Greg loosened his boot laces and stretched his legs.
“Sort of. I miss her. I’m trying not to worry, but I have a bad feeling.”
“Henry,” Ben said, “Rachael and Katy are tenacious. And, they can all knock witches. You know they’ll shoot first and then ask questions. Better yet, they’ll have Alex shooting.”
Ben leaned against the tailgate, his arms propped like he was at the beach rather than on the run. “Seriously, Katy’s probably already indoctrinating her to the ways of Clan Collins. Alex’ll be hanging mayapple from your headboard and hiding rowan branches in your coat.”
“So, these ladies know about old magic?” Greg said, his eyes wide at the new turn the conversation had taken. “Blinking milk, and all that?”
“Something like that. But my point is you got nothing to worry about, Henry. Alex’s safer than a bear cub in June.”
“Yeah, I get it. But that doesn’t make me feel much better. I have a hard time putting my faith in magic, Ben.”
“Trust us. That’s what family’s for.”
It would’ve have been easier to trust them if there weren’t so many variables. I could find faith in the fact that people I trusted wouldn’t let me down, but my trust ended there. Beyond that there was little we could do to limit the actions of people hell-bent on living like they needed no justification for their actions. If Charlie Lewis decided he was wronged, then by God, he was wronged. Fate didn’t have a hand in this ordeal. This was simply people at their worst.
At the bottom of Otter Creek we followed the Dry Fork up to its junction with Red Run. The rocky banks were low to the water. All around us mosses and ferns fought for moisture. The bluets speckled the green banks with faint blue pinpoints creating a galaxy in miniature. Wild bleeding hearts stared, sleepy eyed, at hawthorns, oaks, and ash, perhaps looking for fairies, perhaps just readying the ground for the Indian pipes and Pink Lady’s Slipper that would pop forth any day now.
On the slopes of Mozark Mountain, we bounced through a weedy clearing where an old logging town had once stood. The only recognizable structure was the stony foundation of an old hotel where wood hicks and gandy dancers could drink and fight without worrying about their bosses. We passed long-dead coal shafts where miners had labored beneath the earth, dreaming of daylight and fresh air.
When we reentered wilderness, we left beh
ind any ties we had to the modern, mechanized world for good. We knew all we had was all we carried with us. If things got really bad we could only rely upon ourselves.
The forest lining Red Run was greater than any I’d ever seen. Monster oak trees, ten feet across at the height of a man’s waist, crowded the old green path we followed up to the camp. Giant poplars stretched hundreds of feet into the air, quickly stifling any talk of redwoods and giant sequoias.
We bumped up the path. The streams were wilder, the cliffs rockier, the laurel hells thicker than any I’d ever seen. This forest wasn’t the product of conservation, planning and management. This forest was the product of seeds and sunlight. Thunderstorms and blizzards.
This forest and its dark, woody depths held secrets. Held fables.
This was a fairy tale forest, an abomination of imagination and nightmares. Every tale that began ‘Once upon a time’ has a forest like this present at its birth. Demons and devils evolved from the wolves and serpents that played midwife to the birth of such tales. Thorny greenbrier served as the cradle.
In all of this our role was a small one. We were nothing more than a small drop of milk sliding down, down, down to the navel.
Fenton and his brother, Ray, had established camp where Red Run fell from the high country in a dramatic series of cascades. Just upstream from the falls, the water arrived from a turkey foot of three streams. Ray had set up two large, canvas army tents and had been waiting for the poles from our truck to begin setting up the third. Fenton tended to the fire. Preston sat near the fire ring, like he wasn’t so sure what to do without a guitar in his hands. As soon as he saw Jamie he drifted over to help unload the truck.
Airborne moisture painted the forest air with the scent of dissolved minerals and tannic acid from the bogs on the mountain top plains. The tea-stained water swept through the narrow walls of the gorge like cold wind through a thin jacket. Even though it was clean my pap refused to drink it. Said he could taste his little sister in it, even though they found her body further down in the Blackwater. He’d only drink spring water from the farm anymore. Or his stump hole whiskey.
Hellbender (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 2) Page 17
