Southern Gods

by John Hornor Jacobs

  Sarah remained silent.

  “It is a war against the other gods.”

  He’s crazy! Unbalanced. Or a drunk. Something.

  “Other gods?”

  “Yes, the other gods. Baal. Cybele. Mithras. Hastur. Chernobog. Rakshasa. Ahriman. More names that, I can see from the look on your face, you have never heard before. And why should you? This is secret knowledge, handed down through the years by scholars. The war waged by law and aided by the ascendancy of the Church.

  “In the Church we call them devils because it makes them easier to understand the story that the Church—that we—created. But they are gods. They are petty and small-minded, these gods. They are… what is the word? Capricious. Yes. It’s easy to mistake them for devils.”

  He stopped and bowed his head in thought.

  “They can enter you, if you’re weak, or invite them by mistake. People do invite them. Believe it.” Beleef hit. “They can shatter your mind and inhabit your flesh. It’s how they move through the world. But even killing the body doesn’t kill the god. They can travel without flesh. They’ve always been here. And there are new gods, new entities. They can die, and they can be born. From the ones that came before them, their parents, the Old Ones. The Prodigium.

  “The church needed to protect itself! And out of all of these gods, never was there evidence of the only God that we are desperate to exist. Yahweh.

  “But the Church has its own weight, its own momentum, its own plan, and an absence of proof that the entity that it worships does not exists is ignored, suppressed. Even with a multitude of real gods to choose from. The Church protects itself, first and foremost. And like anyone, or any nation under attack, we did our best to destroy those that threatened us. Strange things possessed our brethren, members of the church. We killed them… We did it through the destruction of knowledge. By destroying the liturgy of these gods, by destroying what we could of their books, their scrolls and tablets, by gaining ascendancy in the Roman Empire so that the full force of law could be brought to bear on their followers, the Christian Church effectively eradicated their worship, and so, to a certain extent, eradicated the gods themselves. Some. Not all. There are entities that do not depend on believers to exist. That is why this ‘little book’ does its best to seem like something harmless. To hide itself. But it is not harmless.”

  “You’re pulling my leg, right?” Sarah laughed. When his expression didn’t change, she said, “You should be in a padded cell. This is insane.” She pulled at her hands, trying to release them from his grip.

  “Sarah, listen. Opusculus Noctis was written not to summon the gods that the Christian church has warred against for centuries, but it was written to call up the… the Prodigium. The Old Ones. The parents of these gods. And if that should happen, there’s really no—”

  “You can’t be serious.” Sarah yanked her hands from Andrez grip, startling even herself. It couldn’t be true. She snatched Opusculus Noctis from the table and shoved it roughly into her purse, and pushed away from the table. “It’s 1951, for crying out loud, and this mumbo jumbo—”

  “Sarah, please listen to me. Opusculus is very, very dangerous. You can’t just—”

  She stood. Andrez stood as well, holding up his hands. “Sarah, I didn’t want to frighten you. I know it might seem crazy, but—”

  “No,” she said. “No. It’s all right. I’m sorry I wasted your time. Thank you for the tea.”

  She slowly backed to the door, not willing to turn her back to him. Andrez wrung his hands.

  “Sarah, do not translate any more of it!”

  When her hand touched the doorknob, she whirled and pulled the door open. Stiffly, she walked around the dilapidated church to the Plymouth. She kept her back straight, fearing any moment to feel his hand on her arm, jerking her around. She fumbled with her keys at the car.

  Later, sun in the west, Sarah drove with the windows down, smoking and thinking. The Prodigium! Gods and devils. He must be off his rocker.

  Only when she turned the Plymouth into the graveled, pecan-lined drive of the Big House did she realize that she had left the priest before learning what he knew about Uncle Gregor. Gregor Rheinhart, whom she’d loved. Gregor, who brought her presents, Russian dolls and dresses, from Paris. Fat Gregor. Itchy Gregor, all beard and belly. Always smelling of cherry tobacco and wine.

  Darkness had fallen by the time she pulled up at the Big House.

  A police car waited in the drive.

  Chapter 13

  She sat in the car, gripping the wheel, looking at the Big House. For a moment, blood filled her vision like a shroud.

  It was horribly clear—the giant had risen while she’d been gone and painted the walls of the Big House in her family’s blood. In her mind’s eye, Alice lay bleeding in the kitchen, her head nearly severed. Fisk and Lenora lay beside her, bathed in sticky, blackening blood. And on the kitchen table…

  On the kitchen table was Franny, splayed open like the carcass of some animal.

  She shook her head, trying to clear the horrible vision. It clung, as sticky as blood, and flashed behind her eyes every time she blinked.

  She left the car and approached the Big House on trembling legs. She paused at the door, terrified at what she might find beyond.

  Wouldn’t there be more police cars? Wouldn’t there be ambulances?

  She turned the knob and swung open the door.

  Sheriff Jay Wocziak stood in the atrium of the Big House, hat in hand, speaking with Alice in hushed tones. They both turned as the front door opened.

  Sarah shivered.

  “Is everything…”

  Alice came to her.

  “Is everyone all right? I thought that—”

  “You thought what?”

  “Everyone was dead. That the man had woken up and…”

  Alice stayed silent, but her eyes softened and she drew Sarah into a tight, fierce hug.

  “I thought—”

  “I know what you thought. But know this—I woulda laid that man flat, busted his ass with your momma’s shotgun, before he’d ever lay a finger on Fisk or Franny. Or Lenora. Believe that.”

  They were in the orchard again and Alice’s eyes blazed, holding the cudgel she came so close to braining the Alexander boy with.

  Finally, Sarah nodded.

  “Now, get yourself together, Miss Thing. Beansy is here,” Alice said. And again Sarah was amazed that she could be so imperious yet infuse her words with love. It was almost as though she’d become the daughter Sarah should have been. Strong. Fierce. Unafraid.

  Sarah shivered again, almost ashamed of the feeling. That she’d been weak and so full of doubt and bloody thoughts.

  What kind of mother thinks those things?

  But she nodded.

  “Sarah.” Beansy nodded to her, his Adam’s apple bobbing dramatically. “It’s good to see you, girl. Let me look at you.” Sheriff Wocziak been a friend of Sarah’s as a child, and now he smiled at her in a way so familiar, she thought of Gethsemane Elementary playground, where she had first kissed a boy. Beans, they had called him affectionately.

  “Hey, Beansy. God, it’s been—”

  “A long time, that’s for sure. Dang sure. I’d heard you’d come back, and I’ve been meaning to get on by, check in with Alice and,” he looked up, toward the hall by the gallery and Sarah’s mother’s room, “your mother. But I’ve been so danged busy with, you know, sheriffing I haven’t had a chance.”

  Sarah came forward and hugged him, smiling at his discomfort with her body’s closeness. He felt like a lumpy board underneath the fabric, all bones and skin. “It’s good to see you too, Beansy. You still married to Louise?”

  He shuffled his feet and turned his hat in his hands. “Yup. Kids are getting up there too. Lil Jerry just bout to hit ten. Of course, Louise and me got started a tad earlier than you did.”

  Sarah nodded. “Have you been waiting for me long?”

  “Naw. I’m waiting for… Alice w
as just going upstairs to… well… the reason I’m here is—”

  “You’re here to see the man. Ingram.”

  “That his name? He got identification?”

  “Yes.” She frowned. “How did you learn about him?”

  “Let me just run upstairs and check on him,” said Alice.

  He grinned. “Phyllis. She overheard Dr. Polk calling around to hospitals, asking if they’d admitted any folks with obvious battery or gunshot wounds. How’dya think I found out?”

  “Have you seen him?”

  “Not yet.”

  From above, Alice’s voice came. “He’s still out. Moaning.” She looked down, over the railing, at Sarah and Wocziak and winked. “Why don’t y’all come on up, take a peek at him.”

  Sarah and Wocziak mounted the stair to the gallery. As they climbed, he shoved his hat onto his head fiercely, as if preparing himself for some confrontation.

  They followed Alice down the long gallery, through the hall to the guest room, the rich Persian rugs and cypress walls absorbing the sounds of their footfalls. Alice had lit the hallway lamp, which threw long shadows behind them.

  “So, I called Doc Polk,” Wocziak said. “And he told me this guy’s been torn up something fierce. I mean multiple wounds.”

  “That’s right. He looks like he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  He glanced sidelong at her as they came to the door. He raised a thin eyebrow and squinted. “That right? A broken fist, a knife wound, a bite mark too? Sounds to me like he was in the wrong place a few too many times. Like maybe he is the wrong place, his ownself.”

  Alice looked over her shoulder at them. In a lowered voice, she said, “Here we is. Y’all keep your voices down.” She opened the door and moved into the room.

  Inside the room, Wocziak whistled. “Damnation. A regular hoss, he is.” He took off his hat.

  Ingram lay sprawled on the bed, the thin bed linens covering his privates like an oversized loin-cloth. His pale skin blended with the white bandages littering the landscape of his body. Head, chest, arm, and hand—all were covered in stark white gauze.

  Wocziak whistled again. “I wouldn’t want to tangle with this one. Look at his hands.”

  “Dr. Polk said he’s got a fracture.”

  “Naw. Not that one. The good one. He could pick up a watermelon with that hand. Criminy. Look at his knuckles. The brute’s got scars on his scars. Seen his fair share of fighting, that’s for sure. That’s for dang sure.”

  Wocziak turned to Sarah and rested his hand on the butt of his gun.

  “Listen, Sarah. This fella’s no dang good. All you have to do is look at him. He’s a brute and a bruiser. Looks like he makes his living by using his fists.” He gulped, his Adam’s apple working underneath his skin. “I don’t usually say things like this, especially to folk who ain’t deputized, but… I order you to call me the minute he wakes up. You hear? The exact minute. I don’t want to hear anything out of your mouth other than yes sir. You got kids here, remember?”

  Sarah looked at him closely. “Yessir,” she said, wrinkling her nose, “Sheriff Beansy.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Dang it, Sarah. This is serious.”

  She thought of the bloody kitchen and her smiled died. She nodded.

  Wocziak dug at his belt and handed over a pair of handcuffs. He took a small key from his pocket.

  “I ain’t supposed to do this, but here. I got another set in the car. I suggest you handcuff him to the bed.”

  Alice held her hand out for Sarah to give her the handcuffs.

  “No, Alice. I’ll keep them.”

  There was a spark of anger on Alice’s face but she said nothing. She wasn’t going to let this pass.

  Later, after Wocziak drove off into the night in his cruiser, Sarah took her purse and went into the library, placing Opusculus Noctis face up on the livid green blotter of the desk. She followed it with the yellow paper of her own poor translation.

  For a while, she sat at the desk, holding the handcuffs in her hands, turning them over and over and making the metal teeth click through the latches. Why can’t I control my feelings? I just bolted out of Andrez’s house. My head’s filled with bloody images. I’m out of control. I’ve never felt like this before.

  But that wasn’t true. She’s felt as lost and uncontrolled once before.

  ***

  It was 1944 and Christmas was coming while her father lay abed, dying. The stroke that felled him in the field rendered half of his body useless. He slurred his speech horribly, lips dead on his left side, spittle flying when he tried to talk. He slammed a balled fist on his leg in frustration and railed at the use of his wheelchair, such anger at his traitorous body that Sarah felt he’d hurt himself if he could. But his lopsided body, once so strong and proud, denied him even that. Sarah told herself to try to remember him as he was before the stroke, gray eyed, gray haired, and hard of jaw. A lord, truly, as far as anyone here in these United States could be considered a lord.

  As a young man, before the first Great War, he’d left the dim grains and moist dirt of the Arkansas fields and traveled East, across the sea to Europe, and found his way to Heidelberg to study there. Sarah thought of that time in his life like some splendid, roseate myth in which he wandered Europe seeking wisdom, tutored by wise men. And Gregor had gone with him, the rake, the jester, owning nothing and caring for nothing except laughter and love and revelry. And his brother.

  He returned, the Southern son, educated in Germany and home prodigal and strong to take up the burden and honor of responsibility: the family farm. She imagined his train trip back, the darkened fields passing her father’s window like faint dirges sung in the dark, each one a threat and a promise, a trunk of books riding with him, while Gregor drank and cursed, sometimes in French, sometimes in German. And coming home, her father found a woman who matched his force of will in equal measure; she matched his fortune with her own.

  Miles upon miles of farmland he owned, more than any landowner in the state other than the state. And as his influence and wisdom and money grew, he acquired other things, the Gethsemane Mercantile, the John Deere tractor dealership, the Kerr-McGehee service station at the corner of Pulaski and Main. He held controlling interest in the First Bank of Gethsemane, and held outright and in toto the Grain Exchange on the outskirts of town. If you lived and breathed, ate or drank, drove or rode, at some point, you came before a representative of James Ware Rheinhart or one of his minions. And Gregor remained always at his side, his red hair like a fire-brand blazing, his booming laugh a challenge and a promise as well.

  Love and pride brought James Ware Rheinhart low.

  Baird, Sarah’s brother, took a round in the gut at Bastogne, and came home in a pine box, draped in a flag. But it was her father who never recovered. He took to walking his land, his fields, face dark and eyes startling in their aspect. He frightened Sarah, and made her cry. Sometimes she wanted to scream at him, “But I’m still here!” But she couldn’t, the words died on her lips when she saw his wounded eyes and fierce expression.

  They found him insensible in a field of wheat, the stalks like spears rising around him. When Gregor came home and discovered what had happened, he tore at his hair, ripped his clothes, drank whiskey furiously, and wept. His grief was as big as Gregor himself.

  The strokes kept coming. Micro-strokes, Dr. Polk called them, each one passing unseen through her father’s body like ghosts fleeting through flesh. Then he was gone, come from the earth to labor on it and then return to it. They buried him in the family graveyard among the pecan trees.

  Through it all, Gregor was there. He ushered his brother into the ground, face red from crying and stinking of whiskey. Sarah remembered. She’d felt lost and desperate, like a tiny boat on a storm-tossed sea, infinitesimal on the massive bosom of ocean. Her emotions careened out of control—she wanted to weep for her father, she wanted to kill him for dying without ever truly having seen her.

  It rained t
he night before the funeral and the sky was still moist from the downpour, the earth sodden and loose, eager to receive James Rheinhart’s body. In the Big House atrium before the service, Gregor raged that he couldn’t be one of the pallbearers.

  “Goddamn it! You’re drunk,” her mother had yelled at Gregor. Sarah winced at her mother’s language. She stood in the dining room, looking into the atrium where Elizabeth Rheinhart and Gregor argued.

  “You’re his brother, why don’t you act like it?”

  “That’s right, Elizabeth. I’m his damned brother! I should help carry him, just like—just like I did all through his life!”

  “Carry him? Pfah. He carried you, the profligate fool. Drunk and maudlin and useless except for your arcane family studies. You and James, always closeting yourself in the library, going on book buying trips—as if that was what you were really doing. I wouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t pouring over pornographic Grecian urns when you left, or whoring in Memphis.” She paused, smoothing her dress. Sarah blinked, eyes raw from a night of crying. Her mother seemed indomitable and unafraid. If anything, she seemed enraged by her husband’s death.

  “Why can’t you act like a man?” Elizabeth spat. “Go drink some coffee, take a shower, get ready for the funeral.”

  “I’m going to speak.”

  “So speak.”

  “Not now, you damned Xanthippe. At the service.”

  Her slap echoed in the vaulted atrium. “I’ll remind you that he was my husband. And here, you blubber like a child. I won’t have you doing it at the service.”

  Gregor touched his cheek. The red of his skin showed through even the red of his beard. He smiled.

  “Gods, you’re a trial. It’s a wonder Ware didn’t throttle you to keep you silent.” He took out a silver flask, twisted off the cap, making small eek eek sounds, and drank deeply. “I’ll speak, and there’s nothing you can do about it, woman.”