Half-Made Girls

by Sam Witt

  She heard Joe’s truck rumble to life and opened her eyes with a start. He hung his left arm out of the truck and motioned her over.

  Stevie walked to the truck’s window on legs stiff with unresolved tension. The sudden reprieve, the belief she might not die in the next few minutes, made it hard to think. She stopped next to the truck, a foot from Joe. “I don’t understand.”

  Joe had both hands on the wheel; Stevie was relieved there was no gun in his fist. But his face was long and drawn, etched with lines she had never seen, as if Joe had aged years overnight. The usual flecks of gray shot through his black hair like ash through charred wood were joined by long wings of gray spreading from his temples back to his neck. “I can’t lose any more today. I can’t.”

  Stevie wanted to reach through the window, take Joe’s face in her hands and hold him until the pain went away. But she could feel the magic in the air, the churning currents that would turn everything ugly if she pressed her luck by touching him. Instead, she stood with her hands folded behind her, leaning forward on the tips of her toes, belly flat against the truck’s door. “You won’t lose me. I ain’ goin’ anywhere.”

  His sigh was long and painful, like a knotted chain dragged out of his lungs. “I need you to take Alasdair and get in the wind until this is over.”

  Stevie’s eyes glittered with anger. “You want me to just leave you?”

  “For now. Yes, I want you to get out of town until I’ve handled this.”

  The cool morning wind turned cold and whipped at Stevie’s hair. The darkness around her eyes deepened. “You need me here.”

  “This isn’t the time or place.”

  “This is the only time and place we got, now.” Stevie stepped back from the truck and tucked her thumbs into the front pockets of her weathered jeans. “What’s your plan?”

  “I’m going to do what the Long Man said. Talk to some people. Find out what they know, see if they can help.”

  Stevie scoffed, and the wind spun a wobbling dust devil around her feet. “Who’re you gonna trust, Joe, when you won’t trust your own wife to help you with this?”

  “It’s too dangerous. I can’t bring you and Al into this mess.”

  Stevie laughed. She touched the hollow of her throat, fingers twitching with agitation when they didn’t find her old cross there. She doubted she’d ever see it again. “Would you have turned away my mama’s aid in this darkest of times?”

  She watched Joe chew at the inside of his lip. He dropped his eyes. She reached in and rubbed his shoulder, a firm, grounding touch. “You need our help, even if you don’t want it. We’re already so deep into this mess there’s no gettin’ back out. Let me help you find our baby.”

  Joe didn’t say anything. His eyes were troubled, his hands trembling on the wheel. Then he nodded.

  Stevie patted his shoulder again and walked away, shaking with relief.

  “Stevie,” he called.

  She stopped, turned back, and shielded her eyes from the morning sun slashing down over the top of the Lodge.

  “When this is over,” he paused and she could feel him trying to put the words together, stringing them together one at a time in his thoughts before he let them pass his lips. “When this is over, there has to be a reckoning.”

  Stevie nodded. “I understand.”

  “For now, we need to figure out who we can trust. Who can help us fix this before we’re all dead.”

  Stevie grinned. “I know just the old men. But you aren’t going to like it.”

  She climbed back into the Rambler and fired up the old, faithful engine. She motioned for Joe to follow, and for the first time in their marriage, it felt right to be the one in the lead.

  CHAPTER 46

  JOE STRUGGLED TO keep up with Stevie as she threaded her way through the back roads of Pitchfork County. The Rambler was always disappearing out of sight around corners or vanishing over the tops of ridge lines, forcing Joe to push the old truck harder than was comfortable. By the time the Rambler bounced up the gravel road to the yarb doctor’s shack, Joe’s nerves were shot.

  Stevie was leaning back against the Rambler’s hood, shadowed eyes sparkling in the midmorning sun. “Get lost?”

  Joe snorted and shook his head. “That’s one way to kill us all, I guess. You’re driving like a maniac.”

  The front door of the old shack creaked open. Zeke emerged, blinking his yellowed eyes against the light. “Ya mind keepin’ it down out here? Old men need our sleep.”

  Stevie slid around the hood of the Rambler and threw her arms around the old man’s shoulders, holding him tight and burying her face in the tobacco-stained bush of his beard. She eased back, holding him at arm’s length. “Don’t tell me you don’t have breakfast ready for us?”

  Zeke swatted Stevie’s arms away and hitched out the front of his crusty bib overalls to show off the xylophone bars of his ribs. “Don’t eat much these days. Got yer tea on, though.”

  Stevie followed the old man into his crumbling shack, and Joe followed her. He could feel Alasdair staring holes in them from the Rambler. Whatever else had happened last night, Alasdair held no trust for Joe, it seemed.

  The three of them gathered in the shack’s main room, where Joe had watched the possessed girl writhing in her bonds the day before. The chair seemed to rock gently even when empty, a reminder of the evils it had held. Joe sat on the far side of the room from it and its chains, eyes wary. He wasn’t sure how badly his strength had eroded since the attack on the Long Man and didn’t want to put it to the test.

  Zeke poured each of them copper mugs of steaming sassafras tea, then pulled up a stool opposite Joe, next to Stevie. “Well, little miss, much as I ‘preciate yer company, I reckon this ain’ a social call. Owls been quiet all night, and them squirrels won’t shut the hell up about yer trouble fer nothin’.”

  Stevie nodded and sipped her tea. Standing against the wall, she blended into the shadows and seemed somehow larger, more imposing. “There’s a darkness in the county. Something I can’t explain. We need your help.”

  Zeke chuckled and licked tea from his mustache. “I’m an old man who knows the words to cast out them demons what settle in the weak and unwilling. I ain’ a witch. I sure as hell ain’ a Night Marshal. Not sure what ya need from the likes of me.”

  Joe cleared his throat to speak, but Stevie cut him off. “You know this county, you know its people. You can help us talk to them, figure out what’s going on before it’s too late.”

  The old man’s eyes never left Joe’s. “Might be it’s a little late to come around askin’ fer that kind of help. Might be ya shoulda been talkin’ to me and the rest afore all the shit started rainin’ down ‘round yer ears, yeah?”

  Joe felt the old anger rise up like a cobra about to strike but choked it back. He wasn’t here to stir up more trouble. He was here to ask for help. He glanced at Stevie, and she nodded. She’d kicked it off, but he was going to have to carry the ball the rest of the way if he wanted this old man’s help. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes. But I thought I was doing right, thought I was doing things different than my father because what he’d done didn’t end so well.”

  Zeke’s watery eyes didn’t blink as he held Joe’s gaze. The old man seemed to be looking for something, peering into Joe for an answer to a question he didn’t want to ask. “Must be bad if’n ya come all this way with yer hat in hand.”

  Joe raked a hand back through his hair, reminded again of his lost hat. “It’s bad. Worst I’ve ever seen or heard tell. They’ve turned the sheriff. Killed a couple dozen people that I know of. Tried to kill me more times than I care to count. There’s a sickness. And it’s spreading.”

  The old man poured tea into his cup, topped off Stevie and Joe. He took a sip from his cup and smacked his lips over the scattered pegs of his remaining teeth. “But they done somethin’ else, yeah? Spirits are whisperin’ up and down the holler about yer baby girl. Like to kept me up all night with their jawin’.”r />
  Joe shook his head. “If you knew, then why ask?”

  “Because I wonder about ya. About whether what ya do is fer you or fer Pitchfork and its people.” Zeke sipped more tea and rubbed his shrunken belly. “Because if ya’d come here askin’ me fer a personal favor, might be I’d be less willin’ to help.”

  Joe looked down into the pinkish tea in his cup, into the rainbow swirl of sassafras oil floating in the copper mug. “I’m not going to lie. I want my girl back. But these people are going to bring the whole county down if someone doesn’t stop them. Whatever’s behind this, I don’t think its plan ends here either.”

  “So get on with yer big ol’ bangstick and put ‘em down.” Zeke laughed. The racket of his rattling humor sent a trio of crows flitting from the rafters. “That’s how ya do it, yeah? There’s only three of them girls, just go knock on their door and blast ‘em. Why come botherin’ me about it?”

  Stevie crouched down between the men and held her mug out for a refill. She waited for Zeke to start pouring, then said, “Seeing more than the usual number of patients these days? More girls come in here with the demons? More boys with strange dreams and blood on their hands they can’t explain?”

  Zeke tugged at his beard and looked away from Stevie to put the tea pot back on its little warmer. “Might be. That’s my business.”

  “All right then.” Stevie drained her cup and handed it back to the yarb doctor. She stood up and brushed the dust off the knees of her jeans. “Thank you for your hospitality, Zeke. We’ll be headin’ on, I reckon.”

  Joe sighed and stood as well. He needed these people to help him, but couldn’t find the words to convince them that it was in their best interest to cooperate until this problem was cleared up. He felt drawn thin, exhausted, too tired to think straight. His forehead itched like he had an ant bite festering between his eyes. He reached out to shake the old man’s hand, but Zeke was staring after Stevie as she let herself out of his little house.

  The yarb doctor took the Night Marshal’s hand and squeezed it tighter than Joe thought the old man’s skeletal fingers could manage. “I don’t trust ya to do what’s right, push comes to shove, ya know that.”

  Joe nodded and returned the old man’s grip. “You and I haven’t seen eye to eye, I get that. But things have changed.”

  Zeke grimaced. “Don’t give two shits about things.”

  “I’ve changed. Believe that.”

  The old man’s grip tightened. “Oh, I want to, sir. Believe ya me, I want to. But should I?”

  “Only if you think this county’s worth saving. I’m not going to stop fighting to save it, but without your help, I reckon it’s a losing battle.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Zeke chuckled and shook Joe’s hand. “We do this, yer gonna listen to the old man, yeah? No more blowin’ holes in people what pissed ya off. Yeah?”

  “Can’t promise not to shoot people if they got it coming.” Joe wrapped his other hand around Zeke’s grip. “But I can swear to you that I’ll try and find other ways to fix things where I can.”

  The yarb doctor nodded and pulled himself up off his stool with Joe’s help. “Right, then. Grab my cane there, yeah? We’ll go have a jabber with some of the workers, see if we find the bottom of this pile of shit.”

  Joe took the gnarled wooden cane from its resting spot in the corner, trying to pretend he didn’t feel the zing of power that surged through it at his touch. There were carvings all up and down its length, strange figures and symbols, beasts and men cavorting in tiny scenes that made his eyes water when he looked at them.

  Zeke took the cane out of Joe’s hands and leaned on it. “Remember what ya swore in my home, Night Marshal.”

  Joe nodded and headed out into the bright morning air. “I’ll remember.”

  Zeke joined him and tapped Joe’s toe with his cane. “Good. Because yer not the only one who knows how to kill a man.”

  Joe stared after the yarb doctor, who hobbled over to the old truck and hauled himself up into the cab.

  Zeke poked his head out of the passenger-side window. “Come on then, afore yer wife gets the idea I’m gonna ride with her. My heart’s not up to that mess.”

  Joe laughed and made his way to the truck. Despite the yarb doctor’s dire warning, Joe’s mood was lifting. There was hope, just a glimmer of a chance, but it was something.

  The Night Marshal started the truck and prayed he could reach that little slice of hope before it was too late for all of them.

  CHAPTER 47

  THREE PALE BOYS stood on a small bench behind Preacher Walker’s chair, oiled hands gliding over his naked, hunched shoulders. They massaged the knots from his muscles, teasing the tension from the meat of his back, pushing fragrant oils into his pores. The old man sighed and opened his eyes to take in his visitors.

  He clamped an old, rust-pitted pair of forceps onto the flab a few inches above the deep crater of his navel. “Can one of you lend me a hand?”

  Stevie left Joe’s side before he could stop her and crouched at the preacher’s right knee, taking the forceps in her left hand. The fat old man pulled her wrist back to lift a section of his belly into a thick peak.

  Joe raised an eyebrow to the yarb doctor, who gave a short, sharp shake of his head as if reluctant to pass judgment on what they were watching. Preacher Walker had his own ways, methods and practices passed down to him along the chain of men who had served the Red Oak before him.

  Joe and Zeke stood near the study’s sole door, both eager to get out of the small room as soon as possible. The ceiling, a massive tangle of pale roots, felt too low, and the moist, earthen walls felt much too close. The air was thick with the odor of turned earth and mulched leaves, causing Joe to pluck at his collar and rub his nose.

  The preacher held the ivory handle of an heirloom straight razor and flicked its blade between his index and middle finger. He pressed the sharpened edge against his flesh. “Hold it still, please.”

  The old man hummed, his voice a deep bass throb that filled his little home. A trio of high, sweet voices rose from the throats of the little boys, who went on rubbing his broad shoulders while weaving an angelic harmony with their mouths.

  The razor hissed, its silver edge parting the old man’s deep-brown flesh to reveal the curded layers of lumpy yellow fat within. His humming gave way to full-throated singing, wordless and powerful, as he carved away the triangular flap of flesh.

  Stevie flinched when the gobbet of meat popped free of the preacher’s body and spritzed hot droplets of blood across her face and neck. Her eyes stung with the blood. Its smell overpowered her senses. For a brief moment, she was surrounded by hissing shadows that smelled of dirt and burgeoning life. She blinked the blood away and was back in the preacher’s room, holding a hunk of the old man’s fat in the forceps’ teeth.

  One of the boys slid around the preacher and took the forceps from Stevie, his hands steady and sure as he lowered the fatty slab into a wooden bowl that sat on a low pedestal to the preacher’s left. Then he returned to his position behind the humming man.

  The preacher settled back in his creaking rocking chair and hooked his fingers into the corners of his wound. He spread the bloody edges and shivered, an ecstatic smile hooking up the corners of his mouth. He seemed withdrawn, sunken into himself, but his words were loud and firm. “The sacrament of the Red Oak,” he explained to his visitors. He held nothing back, showing them the heart of his worship, the nature of his religion.

  The boys reached up and plucked the tip of an alabaster tap root from the tangle of the ceiling. Two of them untangled the pale fiber free of the other roots, while the third eased its questing tip into the preacher’s gaping wound. The trio worked in unison, their delicate, precise motions like the clockwork of synchronized machines. They stopped only when the wound was packed with coils of moist, thirsty wood. Then they disappeared into the shadows behind the preacher and took the wooden bowl with them.

  Stevie stared as the white flesh o
f the tap root flushed pink, then deep red as the old tree sucked at the life juices of its preacher. She flinched when Walker’s heavy hand fell on her shoulder.

  “There, child, in this church the act of communion must go both ways. As we feed upon the fruits of the old tree, so too does it require sustenance of us.” He finished his sentence with a little gasp and patted the jiggling mound of his belly. “I have plenty to spare, as you can see.”

  Stevie brushed her hands on the thighs of her faded jeans and cleared her throat. “Preacher, we’re tryin’ to figure out —”

  Walker waved his hand, and his rumbling voice cut Stevie off. “Of course I know. My church was defiled by this mess. What is your husband going to do about that?”

  Stevie put on her best smile, though she could feel Joe’s anger simmering behind her. “He aims to put a stop to it.”

  “No.” Preacher Walker leaned forward, winced at the tug in his gut from the taproot buried there, and leaned back. “No ‘ands’ or ‘buts’ or ‘maybes’. Your husband has harassed the members of my flock and myself for years. He has thought often of taking fire to the Red Oak and threatened me and mine when the mood arose. Now that he is caught out in a time of need, he comes to me and asks for my help?”

  Joe struggled to keep his groans under control. The Red Oak congregation had a long and bloody history in Pitchfork, from good old-fashioned witch burnings to home-grown pogroms against rival religions. Even Joe’s father had ridden them hard. Left to their own devices, the members of this religion tended to wind themselves up and lash out at any convenient targets.