November Mourns

by Tom Piccirilli

  “So, you’ll stay?” Gabriel asked.

  “Yes, if you’ll have me.” Where else would he go?

  “Of course we will. Jerilyn will make up one of the guest rooms for you. Although the house seconds as a communal center of sorts there’s still plenty of free space. We’ll talk more in the morning about your sister if you like.”

  This huge home just for Gabriel’s family and the snakes. Shad could hear them thumping and knocking about in their containers somewhere deeper in the house. “Thank you.”

  The sisters looked at him and he looked back, wondering how far into perdition he’d already fallen and how much further he had left to go.

  Chapter Fourteen

  IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT SHAD AWOKE naked on his feet, standing at the side of the bed. Jerilyn sat next to him, her open hand on his slick back. The room was filled with a muted pink light from where she’d thrown her slip over the small nightstand lamp. He was breathless and his chest hair was heavy with sweat.

  He was aware of the nearness of her beautiful body, and the pattern of drying salt on her belly and between her breasts. A fine mist of perspiration still coated her flesh. That heady scent of jasmine wafted through the room. Shad’s breath came in bites. There was a remote sense of satisfaction within him—no, it was satiation. He struggled to remember their lovemaking and couldn’t. Your own mind was sometimes the worst gyp of all.

  She grinned and her teeth were bright in the shadows. “You’re not him, but it’s okay, we still had fun together.” Jerilyn leaned back upon the pillows, spread herself over the sheets. “You’re a nice-looking boy. I like your body. And those streaks of white hair.”

  He’d missed so much of what had happened that he felt dispossessed and displaced before her. He should be flattering her or cooing other soft words, but the proper time had already passed by.

  “Who are you waiting for?” he asked.

  “It’s not for you to know.”

  Shad tried to search out the truth in Jerilyn’s eyes, but saw only a glistening of love that wasn’t for him. “You really write him letters and send them off on the creek?”

  “Yes.”

  “Aren’t you upset that he doesn’t get to read them?”

  “He does read them. He quotes from them when he comes to me.”

  “But you said you thought I was him. Don’t you know who he is?”

  She kissed him.

  A storm now shrieked outside, blustery winds tearing at the clapboards and tossing shingles. The rafters groaned and creaked furiously. When he’d moved Tushie Kline up to reading poems, Shad had to explain about metaphor and symbolism. How what happened in a man was paralleled in the heavens. As above, so below.

  Tushie Kline marveled at that, and asked, “Like the depletion of the ozone could be a symbol for man’s spiritual bankruptcy? Ain’t that some fucked-up shit right there?”

  “Mags,” Shad whispered, and scanned the corners of the room searching for her. “I’m losing you.”

  “Who’s that?” Jerilyn asked. “A girl? Mags?”

  “My sister.”

  “Losing her? Now? But didn’t you say she was dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “How’d she die?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Staring at him in the darkness, Jerilyn stirred and crept across the bed, reaching for him. She took his hand and tried to pull him to her, but he wouldn’t go.

  “Why are you here, Shad Jenkins?”

  “Tell me everything your father didn’t.”

  She curled and twined among the blankets, and her breasts swayed and her eyes lit and he wanted to fall on her. He drew back a step.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “Like what?”

  “About what goes on here.”

  “He told you the truth . . . well, except for about the snakes drawing out the poison in Great-great Grandpa Saul’s leg. That’s not so. After a few days trapped down in the mine he ate the snakes. His leg was crushed and taken off by the cave-in so he ate his leg too. If you can call eating bits of yourself being a cannibal, then he was one.”

  “Goddamn.”

  She turned over in the pink light, and the glow worked itself against her skin and Shad started to sweat again. “But Daddy was right, the snakes did help save Saul. From starvation and thirst anyways.”

  He couldn’t stand it anymore. He moved to her and she drew him down on the bed, wrapping her arms around his back as he kissed her. In a minute it became much rougher, and her laughter grew harsh and dizzying.

  “My, you’re a feisty one, Mr. Jenkins,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d have the energy for another go, considering the day you’ve had.”

  Something broke deep within the center of his chest and a small moan escaped him. He champed it short for fear he wouldn’t stop until he was wailing. He bent her to his will and buried his face in her throat and her unstoppable pulse snapped savagely against his tongue.

  Grappling sticker bushes pivoted wildly outside the window, scratching at the glass like manic children wanting in. The heavy rain sheeted and lapped across the pane. It formed peering liquid faces that glowered and sneered from all angles, looking in at him, scrutinizing, hating.

  WHEN HE AWOKE NEXT HE WAS ON HIS FEET AGAIN, with dawn inching through the wet branches framed in the morning light. Rebi was naked and creeping closer on all fours.

  She rose up like a rattler, arms at her sides, and touched his belly once with her lips.

  She looked up from under a fan of dark hair hanging in her eyes, and she kissed him harder, raked him with her teeth. Her expression remained the same as the first moment he’d met her. Insolent, petulant. He didn’t mind it as much now since there was a cunning in there hidden among wayward promises.

  The rain had eased back to a drizzle. She reached up and gripped his wrists, casually holding them the way she’d held the ringnecks in her hands. She bit deeper, trying to draw blood but hadn’t managed to yet.

  The room was now filled with a sullen blue light from where she’d thrown her skirt over the lamp. She glanced up at him, released his skin, and said, “So, you’re a night walker, are you?”

  “Yes.” You couldn’t really play coy when you were wandering around in somebody else’s house with your goodies hanging loose.

  “I smell my sister on you. You have at her?”

  “We were together. Where is she?”

  “Not here. I knew she’d be along quick. That’s fine. You ain’t him but you can have me too, if you want.”

  The living fire of his rage carried him across the room and back again to her until she was staggering in his embrace. He tightened his hold on her until she let out a heated grunt of pain. “Who? Who the hell are you girls waiting for?”

  “You’re gonna hurt me.”

  “You might be right.”

  “Do it. You can if you want. Hurt me, it’s all right.”

  “Tell me his name.”

  “He ain’t got a name that matters, not one worth saying. We’re here together and I want you right now.”

  His temper could only save him for so much longer. In another minute he wouldn’t be able to talk. “I want to know about him. Why he’s so special. Why you won’t say his name.”

  “What’s it any of your concern? Why do you care so much?”

  “It might have something to do with my sister,” he told her, feeling farther away from Mags than ever.

  “How can that be?” Rebi asked. “You surely are out of your head.”

  “Do you write to him too?”

  “Nah, I ain’t much good with pen and letters like Jerilyn. ’Sides, all I need do is talk into the southern wind, and he hears me.”

  Shad let out a bark of derisive laughter. “And you think I’m cracked, eh?”

  “More than most, I’d venture. But that’s all right. I’ll take some of your pain away for a time.” She slid against his bare flesh, smoothing her breasts into him, using her nails on his s
kin.

  “What the hell do you want with me?”

  She reared as if he’d just backhanded her across the nose. “I’d think that was pretty damn clear.”

  “No,” he said. “It’s not.”

  “Are you afflicted? I got my own pains too.”

  He checked the corners of the room, searching for his departed mother or his lost sister. It was distressing to learn that you couldn’t make your way through the world without somebody dead to show you the way.

  The seeping, dour blue light only made Rebi appear more alive to him, full of grim and intense charms. He looked down and saw fine traces in the dust on the floor on the far side of the bed. He hadn’t stepped there.

  Grabbing the footboard, he pulled the bed aside.

  Jerilyn’s body lay on the floor, as if she were only sleeping, with a slight smile on her lips.

  Shad whimpered, “God no.”

  He kneeled and brought his hand to her throat, where he’d buried his face only hours before. He was so cold that for a moment she felt much warmer than him. Her icy blue flesh turned a terrible red where he touched her.

  “Did you do that?” Rebi whispered with an animal excitement. No sadness or fear, just her breath quickly becoming a rapid panting. “You kill her?”

  “No.”

  “You must’ve.”

  “I’m telling you no,” he said, wondering and despairing.

  “You sure about that, Shad Jenkins?” Her mouth pressed against his ear, and she licked him.

  “For Christ’s sake, Rebi, shut up.”

  “Don’t boss me. I don’t take guff from killers.”

  He dragged the bed aside even farther, seeing that the dust had other trails in it, spelling out words.

  Run

  Now

  “Is that from him?” Shad asked. “The one you were expecting?”

  “I don’t know. He don’t write me ever. Sounds like it’s for you though. Maybe you wrote it yourself.”

  He checked his fingers to see if they were dirty. He couldn’t tell in the dim light. Not even after he’d tore her skirt from the lamp and held his hands out in front.

  Rebi moved on the bed, waggled the backs of her fingers against his naked ass. He nearly jumped into the wall. She tried to get her mouth on him again. He gripped her by the shoulders and pushed her away, but she only hauled him to her again.

  “I want you,” she said.

  “Oh Jesus Christ.”

  He had to get control, had to focus. Get C-Block solid again. Tighten up his guts before he got sick all over the floor. He forced himself to calm down. You had to deal with one thing at a time.

  Like you couldn’t have two gorgeous girls coming after you any other damn day. No, had to be now like this, with a corpse under the bed and your dried spit dappling the body.

  But the rage had its own will. It rose and ran inside him, moved him along until he’d grabbed Rebi and flung her across the bed. She let out a sharp laugh, part burlesque and part accommodating, as she twisted and tried to yank him down into her.

  You learned to pay heed to the dead breath on your neck.

  Shad clutched his pants and started to get dressed. He heard doors opening around the house and abruptly he knew that his life was in danger. The hills were being cute, playing him like this.

  He grabbed his boots. He wanted to make sure he had something on his feet in case he had to run. He unlocked the window and opened it, thinking, Yeah, this really is a punch line. Traveling salesman nails the farmer’s daughters and then has to hop out the window with his pants half on. Except the wooden track of the frame had warped over the years and the window wouldn’t go all the way up.

  “Someone’s comin’,” Rebi said. “You better jump.”

  Lucas Gabriel burst through the doorway wearing only white long johns and heavy cotton socks, looking like he hadn’t slept a minute during the night. He rushed inside and barely glanced at Jerilyn’s corpse. His hand rested on the butt of an old army .45 that smelled like the ass end of Da Nang.

  “I wasn’t sure if you were him or not,” Gabriel said. “Him with another face on.”

  “What’s that mean?” Shad said. “What’s all this about faces?”

  “But you’re not him, are you?”

  “I told you who I am, Mr. Gabriel.”

  “You’re just another moon-running townie bastard poisoning our people!”

  Shad didn’t know why that annoyed him so much, but it did. He started to growl a curse but thought better of it. The man’s daughter had been murdered, even if he didn’t seem to care much at the moment.

  A peculiar situation that just kept getting worse, begetting more and more strange things.

  Gabriel hunched as if to charge forward with his knobby hairless skull. He was letting the compressed force within him free, and it wasn’t going to stop rushing out until more blood spilled. Shad saw that Gabriel’s throat, without the collar and tie to cover it, was also covered with snakebite scars.

  Those washed-out eyes of grit and rubble gazed at him in confusion and pain.

  “I haven’t done anything, Mr. Gabriel.”

  “Yes you have. You don’t even know what it is you’ve done.”

  “Call the sheriff’s office. Get Increase Wintel or Dave Fox up here. We need this looked into.”

  “I don’t know them, and we don’t want any more hollow outsiders. I’ll handle this myself.”

  That had the nuance of a threat but no will behind it. Shad thought he could cover the distance between them before Gabriel could pull his gun, but the man didn’t seem to want to draw.

  You could be cornered in a room with an open door and a half-opened window. Shad couldn’t defuse the situation. Couldn’t truly even make the attempt. Not with both Gabriel daughters in the room, one on the bed, one under it.

  Gabriel’s eyes narrowed and he worked his lips, staring at Rebi naked between the messy sheets. She reached over for her blouse and put it on. She moved to stand beside Shad and sort of slumped against his shoulder. Her skin still burned. Was she baiting Shad or her old man, and for what purpose?

  “She isn’t for you,” Gabriel said.

  “That so?” Shad asked. “Who then? Tell me his name.”

  There it was, coming around to the same question, sounding like an owl. Unable to do anything except go who who who fucking who.

  “He’ll show you no mercy.” Gabriel’s voice took on a plaintive note.

  “Who won’t?”

  “He’ll drag you down into the gorge with the other doomed.”

  “Fairly vicious talk for a man of God.”

  “Would you expect any more from a snake handler?”

  “Yes.”

  Whatever was going on in this house had started a long time ago. Shad knew he was the catalyst that had forced someone else’s hand, and Jerilyn had paid the price. He wanted to ask the man why he wasn’t crying. Why the bastard wasn’t showing any regret or true anger. What he was really afraid of. And who who who fucking who.

  But Shad didn’t want to shock Gabriel from his paralysis. He turned to Rebi, hoping she’d say something calming and reassuring, take the edge off, but she only let out a slow grin that was pure backwoods jezebel. Any other time it would’ve made him hum, but now he could only groan.

  The man took another step, angling sideways to show off the handle of the pistol. He flexed his fingers, inched his hand closer to the butt of the gun.

  “Don’t do that,” Shad said. “I can’t smell a trace of oil. You haven’t cleaned that .45 in years. It’ll take off your hand. Or your damn head.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “I told you.”

  “You said nothing of consequence! What are you doing in my house? You’re no friend. You don’t hear the word.”

  Like it was all in playfulness, Gabriel actually put his hand on the gun and began to tug it loose.

  As if you were just supposed to stand there and wait for it to clear leathe
r.

  “Don’t!”

  If they were mouthy, you let them run with their talk. It gave you a wedge while they went along posturing. But when they were quiet and slow you knew they were already disconnected.

  Shad slapped out with his left hand and smacked the .45 to the ground, swung around with his right, and drove a fist into Gabriel’s face. The man fell back into the door and the wood tore loose from the top hinge. His mouth spurted and a streak of blood curved down the wall.

  Rebi coiled beside Shad, her arms writhing over him, and said, “Kill him. Kill my daddy.”

  Their Jesus had hellfire in his eyes. You couldn’t forget it.

  A scream resounded in the corridor. It had to be Mrs. Gabriel. He didn’t remember her features and couldn’t see her now in the shadowed recesses of the house. There are some people who are in your story but not of it.

  “I was right,” Gabriel said. “You didn’t come here with an open heart lookin’ for the Lord.”

  “You’re a real contrary bastard, you know that? Why don’t you tend to your own house?”

  “He’ll find you eventually.”

  “Will he?” Shad would ask one final time and then let it go. “Who’s the serpent stalking your garden, Gabriel?”

  He saw a blur of black motion in the trees, coming toward the house from the shack next door. He knew it would be the Wegg brothers with more guns. Shad pushed past Gabriel but Rebi reached around from in back and hugged him. “No need for fussin’. You got no reason to fear ordinary fool men.”

  He shoved her off and started for the door again, but Hart and Howell Wegg were already inside, keyed up by the scream. Hart held a rifle. Howell carried one of the Plexiglas containers filled with snakes.

  These people and their snakes, like bringing over a crumb cake.

  There was no animosity in their faces. Nothing like when Little Pepe had lumbered closer, intent on doing the job.

  The Plexiglas canister opened and the rattlers came pouring out in heaps, twining and slithering among each other, spreading across the floor.

  They uncoiled and several flowed directly for Shad as if they’d always hated him.

  Hart lifted the rifle, took a step forward, and swung it around.