November Mourns

by Tom Piccirilli

  “No, I think I’ve done about all I can do.”

  “Are you leaving?”

  “No, I’m going to stay.”

  “For a while?”

  She tried to keep some hope lit inside, believing that he would achieve something in this world, manage to take her with him despite their past, the baby, everything else.

  “Yes, only for a while.”

  And there it was, the smile that opened him wide.

  She entwined herself around him as tightly as she could and forced him inside her, pulling him deeper, holding him there and clinging even tighter, until some of his wounds began to open. This wasn’t for pleasure or even love. She wanted a child to make up for the one they’d lost. The same way Tandy Mae had wanted a girl to make up for losing Megan. His blood spattered between them.

  Afterwards, when she finally released him, Shad fell back on the mattress and wondered if he could’ve gotten away from the hollow if only his father hadn’t called him in prison.

  Elfie rubbed her thumb over his knuckles—the nail a heavy cream color in the darkness, and filed very smooth—back and forth just like all the times before, patting him like, Baby, baby, all will be fine, go sleep now.

  She leaned in to kiss him and her lips were cold, but no colder than his own.

  AT DAWN, SHAD HEARD DRUNKEN LAUGHTER OUT IN the brush behind the house and followed the sound. Jake Hapgood squatted beside Becka Dudlow on a tree stump with his hand inside her blouse, stoned out of his mind on meth and moon.

  Becka turned her angry teeth on him and started nibbling at his chin, raising tiny welts on his skin. Jake didn’t notice. His hair hung down in his eyes and he tilted his head at Shad without focusing on him. A loose, malicious titter eased from Jake’s throat and kept going on and on, as if he couldn’t stop laughing at himself, couldn’t fully believe he was here. All the slickness was gone.

  Shad grabbed Jake by the chin and squeezed hard enough to feel the loose teeth inside his friend’s jaw about to give way in their sick gums. It didn’t surprise him much. The moon gets us all in the end.

  He moved a step off and felt a gun barrel pressing into his back.

  Preacher Dudlow stood behind him, one hand over his mammoth belly and the other holding the .38 very firmly. No gloves this time, but the man was still sucking at the edges of his mustache.

  Well now, Shad thought.

  He figured the reverend wasn’t there for him, so he just slid out of the way to the left a little until the barrel was pointing at Becka on the stump. Jake’s hand continued to work vigorously at one breast.

  Dudlow didn’t have a coat on but still wore his bright red hunter’s cap with the flaps down over his ears. The knitted scarf his mother had made remained wrapped twice around his throat and trailing over his shoulders, down to his ankles. The aroma of Mrs. Swoozie’s boysenberry pie wafted off Dudlow’s chin.

  “We all have our temptations,” Shad said, referencing their last conversation at Megan’s and Mama’s graves. When you threw somebody’s own words back at them they hit much harder than anything you could come up with on your own.

  “So true,” Dudlow answered.

  Shad tried to remember how it went. “So human of us. It’s a divine test. We’re fated to quarrel with our flaws.”

  “I’ve quit fighting,” Dudlow said. “Are you going to try to stop me from what I’m about to do?”

  “No,” Shad said, a little surprised at himself. But it was the truth.

  “You know where she goes? What she’s been doing?”

  “Yes.”

  Dudlow pulled a face, showing his purple tongue. “It’s disgraceful. Disgusting. All my fault. I didn’t keep to my own house!”

  “Then you can’t blame her completely.”

  “No, no, you’re right. You’re quite right about that, yes indeed.”

  He handled the gun too easily, without any respect. He turned it one way and the other, as if he was going to hold it up to his eye, peer into it, start thumbing the hammer back—click, click, click . . . bang! Turn this all into a stupid gag from a French farce. Like he’d wind up with ash on his face, a little cut on his nose, everybody giggling.

  Dudlow shifted from foot to foot, sometimes catching the ends of the scarf under his heels.

  Shad said, “You told me you weren’t a fool. You said you took your responsibilities in safeguarding your congregation very seriously.”

  “I do. I thought—” His mouth worked impotently, and he started bending his knees like a child about to break into a wail.

  When it got bad, you always wanted to drop and call for Mama.

  “What did you think, Reverend?”

  “I thought it would be you.”

  “Me?”

  “That you were the one primed and set to go off, Shad Jenkins. That you were going to kill and take some of us to hell with you.”

  “The only one I want is whoever killed my sister.”

  “So you say.”

  “We all have our frustrations. Maybe you just need to be a touch more forgiving.”

  “Actually, I believe I may prefer being a martyr too much. I’ve known about this for a time, but—I was trapped by my own pride. By the burden of my cross. Of her, my wife.”

  “That’s why it’s called a burden, because you have to carry it.”

  Jake must’ve pinched a serious amount of Becka’s flesh because she let out a bizarre little yeep noise at that moment and her eyes cleared for an instant. She saw her husband standing there, the pistol trained on her, and an expression of solace filled her face. Dudlow saw it and let loose with a whimper and held the .38 out straight at her face.

  “Stop me,” he begged.

  “No.”

  “I beseech you.”

  “No.”

  If Shad made a snatch for the gun Dudlow would have the excuse he needed to give himself up to his pain and squeeze the trigger. He wouldn’t feel the pressure of guilt because he’d always be able to throw the blame on Shad’s involvement.

  So they had to wait. It didn’t take long. Jake and Becka passed out after a couple of minutes, their heads clunking forward together into something like a maimed kiss. They fell off the tree stump.

  Morning mist rose from the ground and plied between their bodies, pressed into a swirl by their ragged breathing and snorting. Dudlow threw down the pistol, let out a manic cry, whirled around, and ran from the thicket.

  Shad picked up the .38 and started back to the house, then thought better of it. He should get rid of the pistol, maybe hide it somewhere, but couldn’t think of a proper spot. Peel up floorboards in Mrs. Rhyerson’s attic? Under the porch?

  He considered burying it or carrying it down to the river and hurling it in. He’d never even held a handgun before and the compact nature of its power kept drawing his attention.

  He turned it one way and the other, as if he was going to hold it up to his eye, peer into it, start thumbing the hammer back—click, click, click . . .

  Finally, he walked back to Jake and Becka and tossed the gun in the same place Dudlow had.

  You didn’t always have to have the answers. It was hard enough just keeping the bullet out of your brain.

  ELFIE TOOK HIM INTO TOWN AND DROPPED HIM OFF at the end of the road leading to Pa’s house. He leaned over to kiss her good-bye. Although their mouths met with some passion, he couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d gotten whatever she might need from him and there was nothing left. He shut the door and she stomped the pedal getting away. The tires spit dirt across his knees.

  Shad slowly walked home. Pa wasn’t there. Wherever he’d gone, he’d taken Lament with him. The ’Stang sat out in front, freshly waxed. Dave Fox must’ve found it weeks ago and had it brought over to Tub Gattling’s shop. This time, Tub hadn’t been able to control himself. The car now had an enhanced carriage and augmented suspension. Tub must’ve been certain that Shad was running moon again. The window had been fixed and Tub’s bill sat on the dashb
oard. It was reasonable.

  The keys were in the ’Stang and he started the engine, listening to it thrum until some of his strength and calm seemed to be returning to him.

  Shad shut off the car and moved from it with a heaviness he hadn’t felt when leaving Elfie. On the porch, he was surprised to see that Pa’s chessboard was missing. He stepped into the house. The always loaded shotgun rested in the corner.

  He stood in Megan’s empty room for a while before telling her, “I’m sorry.”

  Everything he’d done since getting out of the can had been botched right down the line. The snakes were loose. There was blood on his hands. The hollow was getting crazier, and so was he.

  Shad looked through Megan’s bedroom again, hunting for any clue. Her clothes, magazines, schoolbooks. Dave Fox had done all this as well. Searched through her things wearing a pair of latex gloves. Inspecting different parts of the house, looking around the yard some. If Dave had found nothing suspicious, what chance did Shad have?

  There wasn’t any choice. When you hit the wall you backed up a few steps and ran at it again. Shad checked the floorboards, the back of the closet for secret panels, and the molding around the doors. Teenage girls would have their hiding spots, their special places to keep their treasures. He searched for the pad she’d used down at Tandy Mae’s farm, where she wrote her love poems and notes and set them loose on the river.

  He was so careful that it took over two hours to cover every inch of the entire room. He turned up nothing.

  A knock at the front door spun him around as if he’d been mule-kicked. The silence of the house had gotten so deeply inside him that he barked Megan’s name. You didn’t know how far you’d gone until something pulled you back a half inch.

  Shad opened the door and there stood Dave Fox, dressed as always in his sharply creased gray uniform, with his massive arms hanging at his sides.

  “Been looking for you.”

  “You already found me, though, didn’t you?”

  “I ran into Doc Bollar a week or so ago passed out with his feet in the river. He’s going to get hypothermia that way, you just wait. Frostbite, and he’ll need his feet amputated. Anyway, I prodded him a touch, and in his stupor he mentioned you were at the Patchee place.”

  Of course, Dave would know it wasn’t really called the Lusk farm like Shad had always thought. “Were you skulking around up there?”

  “A little. Peeked in the windows some. Since he didn’t know anything except that you’d been shot, and since you weren’t going anywhere and appeared to be recovering, I let it go.”

  Dave Fox drew his line in the sand and kicked the shit out of everybody to one side and let everyone on the other side slide. “Thanks.”

  “He kept calling you the luckiest son of a bitch ever, the way the bullet missed all your internal goodies. I figured you’d show up at Mrs. Rhyerson’s when you were ready.”

  “So you watched her place and spotted me there last night.”

  “On my night patrol. I didn’t want to ruin your reunion with Elfie Dansforth, so I didn’t bother you then.”

  “You waited until now. Don’t you ever sleep?”

  “No.” Dave shifted, and the porch slats creaked beneath his weight. “I thought we could chat.”

  “Come in and pull up a chair.”

  Dave didn’t sit. Shad felt compelled to stand and face the deputy despite the weariness settled heavily in Shad’s shoulders. Dave saw the exhaustion in him and put a wide hand on Shad’s chest and pressed him back until he was seated on the couch.

  “Goddamn Doc,” Dave said. “He should have insisted you go to a hospital.”

  “He did.”

  “Then he should’ve come got me or the sheriff.”

  “Doc wanted to.”

  “And you’re the damn fool who talked him out of it.”

  “You’re going to hurt my feelings soon.”

  “To hell with that. Red and Lottie Sublett suffered through a couple of weeks of guilt, then came down into town. They thought their eldest boy had shot you and you crawled off into the woods to die. That weirdo kid had them half-convinced you were an FBI agent and the bureau was planning a full-scale attack on Red’s still. That what happened?”

  “No, I’m not an undercover Fed,” Shad said.

  “I mean about him shooting you.”

  “No, Osgood missed.”

  With the gun belt rasping, Dave did a slow turn, his gaze steely, making sure Shad realized this was a serious moment. “We’re not going to play it this way. None of this going around in circles showing how cute and witty you are. Out with it. The snake handlers do this?”

  “No.”

  “All of them up there, they live the same way. They’re disassociated. They think killing a man is no different than skinning a hare.”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  Not exactly, but how was he going to explain it? You could only go so far with the truth before you had to talk about Hellfire Christ. And the ghost of your mother. And the fact that you had killed a man with your bare hands.

  “I think you’re lying to me,” Dave said. “And I haven’t heard a whisper of what actually happened.”

  “You going to take me in for getting shot?”

  “It’s a crime not to report it.”

  But Dave wouldn’t play it that way, dragging Shad into Increase Wintel’s office for something so crappy. Not the guy who’d broken up the Boxcars ring in Okra County in two hours, all on his own. Killing three men and the madam, shot twice in the thigh by a .22, and not slowing up a step.

  “Was she smiling?” Shad asked.

  It almost made Dave frown. “What’s this?”

  Maybe it was Shad’s enunciation. He was always repeating himself, so maybe he wasn’t speaking clearly enough. Right now, his tongue felt too large and sharp for his mouth. He had to sound the words out slow and carefully, the way he used to make Tushie Kline do it. “Was . . . she . . . smiling?”

  “Are you talking about Megan?”

  “I want to see her.”

  “Shad Jenkins, she’s been buried for—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I want to see a picture. You cops must’ve taken plenty of photos, even if it was a death by misadventure. I need to know if she was smiling.”

  Turning his back, Dave Fox shambled across the room for the door. “You can live without knowing something like that. I’m going to pay my respects to Megan and your ma. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Use the time to reflect on how you want this to play out.”

  “Sure.”

  Shad got up and watched Dave walk down the road and up the knoll toward the graves. Pa would have Megan’s unfinished headstone somewhere out back, where he poured his pain and misgivings and loneliness into each blow of the chisel. If you cut your grief and anguish into something from the earth, would it be taken away? Or did it just taint the world around you with human weakness?

  Maybe both.

  Shad moved to his old bedroom, sat on the bed ready to stretch out, and heard an odd crinkling beneath the sheets. His breath caught.

  He drew back the comforter and there, laid out on his pillow, was a sheet of lined paper.

  He recognized Megan’s handwriting and suddenly the sweat rose and began writhing across his face.

  I love you but I can’t have you. I will not give this letter to the wind or the water. You won’t have it. I’ll take it home and hide it where you’ll never find it. If you take me into darkness, I’ll still love you, but you know you’ll pay a price. This letter is my heart, and my heart will remain mine, no matter what happens next.

  Oh Mags.

  He was trembling so hard that the page tore down the middle.

  Jesus Christ, she left it here for me on my own bed, and I never even checked.

  That’s all she’d wanted him to do since he’d come back home. Just to look in his room.

  He had to hold the two sections of paper back together.

  We’r
e not what we choose to be, David. We’re chosen. You by God, and I by you.

  David.

  Oh.

  So look at that, he was here all the time.

  Of course he was. And he’s behind you right now. His breath is colder than the flesh of your sister, and the shotgun’s in the other room.

  Shad didn’t even have the one small chance he’d been banking on. He would turn and throw everything he had into one swing aimed directly for the point of Dave’s chin, and Dave would be a step ahead of him and watch the fist approach much too slowly, and he would catch Shad’s wrist in his huge hand, pull him close into the crook of his powerful arm, and put a hammerlock on Shad’s throat until the blood squeezed out from the indent of his eyes. He wasn’t going to make it but there was nothing left to do.

  “Don’t try it,” Dave said softly, so very far ahead of him.

  Shad turned around and Dave Fox was there, staring at the note in his hand. This was it, the final act he’d been waiting for, and it wasn’t going to play out anything like he’d been hoping. He dropped the two pieces of paper and they dipped and twirled to the floor.

  Always a mile behind. He stared at Dave’s chest and imagined Megan in those arms, leaning up to kiss the deputy’s lips and catching her cheek against the curved edge of the badge pinned there.

  That’s where the scratch came from.

  “What happened, Dave?” Shad asked. All the rage had fled now that he needed it most. His voice was hardly more than a whine. He had to lean on the corner post of the headboard to keep from going over. “Why did you kill my baby sister?”

  “I didn’t. But I couldn’t save her either,” Dave admitted casually. “The hills use my body on occasion, to take what they want.”

  “Then why do you look so guilty, Dave, if it’s not your fault?”

  Dave didn’t look guilty in the slightest and he knew it. “I fight but I fail. This is who I am, the purpose given to me. I was chosen.”

  “By what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Shad’s knees were ready to give and he had to lean more heavily on the perfectly sanded wood of the bed his father had made. It was so smooth it felt like he might fall through it like fog.