Echoes of the Fall

by Hank Early

  “Wait a few minutes and call again. He probably thinks it’s a spam call.”

  “Right.”

  But before Ronnie could call again, the phone rang. “It’s him,” Ronnie said.

  “Well, do your thing. And turn the speaker on.”

  “North Central GBI,” Ronnie said.

  “What?” The voice on the other end sounded angry.

  “This is the GBI, Mr. Blevins. We’ve been following up on some reports about your school. Some parents have contacted us directly hoping to get our support.”

  “Who called you?”

  Jesus, he was buying it. I had to give Ronnie credit. He was selling it.

  “I can’t reveal those names, sir. I apologize for the lateness of the hour, but I felt like it was only right to give you a heads-up. We know all about Sister and what she’s been doing with the boys. We’d like to bring you in for a conversation in the morning, see if you might be amenable to working with us. We’re trying to nail down some details about Sister. Would you be able to help us with that, Mr. Blevins?”

  Damn, he was good. There was no trace of Ronnie’s usual hillbilly drawl, the cagey way he talked like he was always expecting somebody to contradict him and he had to keep his guard up. This was matter-of-fact talk, fast and grammatically correct. I’d had no idea.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Agent Pete Nichols. Keep in mind, Mr. Blevins, that a refusal to cooperate will likely mean you’ll be indicted along with Sister. We only extend this invitation out of deference to your and Randy Harden’s relationship with Mr. Walsh.”

  “Jeb? He knows about this?”

  “We’re trying to keep him out of it, actually. We can keep you out of it too if you cooperate.”

  He was silent for a moment. The whole world was silent, waiting. Everything seemed to hinge on his response. When it came, I felt my heart sink. “You ain’t got nothing. If you did, Jeb would have already told me about it.”

  Damn, he was right about that. I waited to see what Ronnie would do next, but he played it cool.

  “Well, if that’s the way you want it. Fine by me. We’ll get what we need on Sister eventually, and when we do, we’ll remember that you refused to cooperate.”

  There was a silence followed by the sound of someone typing on a keyboard.

  “Mr. Blevins?”

  “Give me a sec.”

  “I have other calls to make.”

  More typing. Deep breathing.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said at last.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Who the hell is this?”

  “I’ve already told you—”

  “Fuck off with the GBI. I just looked up this number. It belongs to that detective, Earl Marcus. Only I don’t think it’s him, so who the hell are you?”

  “I’m the man who’s heading to Sister’s house right now. Going to get my friend Rufus back, and kill your girlfriend,” Ronnie said, and his drawl was back, never missing a beat.

  “You fucking try it, asshole. Just go on and try it.”

  “We’ll talk later,” Ronnie said. “After she’s dead.”

  He clicked off.

  I turned on the interior light to see him better. “Nice work,” I said. “Do you think it’ll draw him out?”

  Ronnie handed me the phone. “Time will tell.”

  58

  Rufus woke to hands on his shoulders, shaking him.

  “Bathroom,” one of the men said. The other one was already untying him. Once his feet and hands were free, he stood up and stretched his aching torso to his full height. Before falling asleep again, he’d been working the chair across the room. He estimated he was only a few feet from the hearth now. That is, assuming the hearth was even there to begin with. He was blind, for God’s sake. There was no way he could know what was in the room. Except somehow he did. He’d seen it.

  On the way to the bathroom, he stuck out his left hand.

  “What are you doing?” one of the men said.

  “Getting my bearings. I’m blind, if you hadn’t noticed.”

  “You don’t need bearings,” the man said, and pushed his arm back down, but not before he’d touched the stone around the fireplace. It was there. He had a way out. He had an escape.

  When they brought him back from the bathroom, they sat him down in the chair and retied him. He waited until he felt the rope tighten around his ankles and grimaced. “Ow, that hurts. Could you loosen it just a tad? Look, I ain’t going nowhere, all right? I don’t even know where the fuck I am.”

  Neither man responded, but Rufus noticed the rope around his ankles was left alone, not loosened, but not tightened either.

  “Where you boys been? I was hollering for you a while back. Like to piss my pants.”

  No reply. Of course there wasn’t.

  “Listen, before you go, I want to ask what she’s got on you. Savanna, that is. If it’s sex, just run as far as you can. Get away from her. If it’s something else, maybe you want to talk about it? I could help you.”

  He didn’t expect an answer; in fact, he was just talking now because he was starting to go crazy being alone so much without anyone to talk to. He was about to ask another question he didn’t expect an answer to when one of the men spoke.

  “What did you say?” Rufus was so stunned he couldn’t process the words.

  “I said, there’s nobody that can help us.”

  “Now, that’s not true. You boys Christians?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I can’t fault you there. I’m not much of one myself. Don’t believe in all that heaven-and-hell stuff. But I’ve always liked Jesus. Can’t imagine he was perfect like they say, but he definitely had the right idea.”

  “Hell’s real.”

  “Come again?”

  “You heard me.”

  That hit Rufus pretty hard. Maybe it was real. Weren’t his moments with the shadow girl evidence enough of that? If that wasn’t hell, what else would you call it?

  “You boys got names?”

  “No.”

  “That can’t be right. Everybody’s got a name.”

  “We don’t.”

  He nodded. “Well, that must be terrible.”

  Neither man spoke. Rufus took the silence as agreement.

  A few moments later, he heard them retreat to their room.

  He leaned forward, putting his weight on his feet, lifting the chair. The ropes weren’t as tight as they’d been. He slid one foot forward and then the other. His legs screamed in pain, but he didn’t stop. He made it three more steps before putting the chair back down to rest.

  When he did, he saw the face of Harriet standing beside the falls, her hair blowing in the wind, the determination written on her face.

  “When I’m gone,” she said. “Tell them I’m dead. But tell them why I’m dead. You have to promise me.”

  He had promised her. Of course he had. He was a fool who didn’t understand his own role in her torture, how working for the very system that denied Harriet her right to be herself was just as evil as the men who’d started that institution, just as evil as the woman—Savanna—who’d spent her life capitalizing on it.

  “Please don’t do it,” he said. “There’s another way.”

  She was a pale wisp on the rock, the moon illuminating her marionette body, strings gone, burned in the long sun, now fading. Such an insignificant figure in the night. She could never make it across. And if she did, then what? There was a single ledge, an outcropping of crumbling rock she pointed to as her destination. Wouldn’t it be easier to climb the fence?

  “What about going out the front?” he said.

  “They’ll track me down within twenty-four hours. Blevins knows this mountain better than anyone. He’ll track me down and humiliate me. This is the only way. You know the story.”

  He did know the story. Two Indians. Both lost. Except Harriet somehow believed one of them had made it, and if he’d made it, so could she
. Rufus had to stop her. He stepped onto the rock with her.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “I’m going to tell them the truth. I’m going to tell them to come look for you.”

  She slid away from him, closer to the edge. The moonlight hit him then, and he felt lifted by it, filled with some kind of magic light he wished could carry him on from here forever. If he could feel that moon glow on him, if he could keep it in his breast, he would be able to do anything, live through and beyond any challenge.

  He reached out his hand. “Let’s sit and talk. We can look at the moon.”

  “I want to look at the moon as me,” she said. “Surely you can understand that.”

  She never gave him a chance to reply. She stepped off the ledge. He scrambled after her, peering down below. He saw her one ledge down, still ghostlike, still almost unreal. It all felt unreal. Just a few months ago, he’d been the good son, the good Christian, worshiping the fundamental tenants of RJ Marcus’s mountain faith. He’d managed to escape that and now he was here, trapped between heaven and hell, trying to find out who he was, and how he might move forward.

  “This is it,” she said from the ledge below. “Now it’s time for me to go.”

  He opened his mouth to respond, but the words stuck in his throat as he watched her begin her sprint. She leapt. Her body made it halfway across the void before it seemed to reach up and envelope her. She vanished. The world went dark, much like it would some weeks later when the shadow girl revealed she would never stop visiting him without a sacrifice.

  * * *

  The next morning, he stood with Deloach and Harden on the flat rock, looking down into the ravine.

  “She did it because of the way she was treated here,” he said again, determined not to let them change what he knew was the truth. “It’s not right to treat someone like that.”

  Deloach cursed again. He’d been cursing since he’d shown up ten minutes earlier and Rufus explained what had happened. Harden said little, standing with his arms crossed and spitting into the ravine occasionally.

  “That’s fine,” Deloach said, “but if you fucking tell any of this to the media or the police, you’re done here.”

  Rufus nodded. He’d expected that. In fact, he was done here regardless. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why he’d stayed on as long as he had. Savanna, probably. He’d been caught in her web, somehow, and it had taken this to get him out of it. He just wished he knew if Harriet had made it or not. After the second leap, he’d called out to her, begging her to give him some clue that she was still alive, but there had been no response. He’d squinted into the darkness, trying to find her against the other wall of the ravine, but found nothing but formless shadows. He couldn’t help but think she had not made it, that she’d never truly intended to make it. He’d stayed on the flat rock until the sun rose and he could see for himself that there was nothing in the ravine. She was gone. One way or the other, he doubted he’d ever see her again. All that was left was for him to do the right thing.

  “That’s okay,” he said. “I quit.”

  Harden cleared his throat. “You can quit, Rufus. I understand that. You feel like you’ve betrayed your personal values. That’s a bad place to be. You want to start over. I want that for you too.”

  Rufus stared at Harden. Was he being serious? “Thanks,” he said, still wary.

  He had a right to be. What Harden said next changed everything. Everything.

  “Of course, if you do decide to go that route, you’ll need to face up to your other sins.”

  “Other sins?”

  Harden shrugged and spat again. The wind blew some of the spittle onto Rufus. He ignored it.

  “Well, I wasn’t going to make a big deal about what you did with my niece, but since you aren’t willing to help us out, maybe I shouldn’t help you out.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You didn’t have sex with Savanna?”

  “I did, but that’s not illegal. What’s your point?”

  “Well, it might actually be illegal. Hell, it might be very illegal. See, the story she tells is that you raped her. Repeatedly. That she’d come to bring you food at night and you’d lock the door behind her and take what you wanted.”

  “That’s ludicrous.”

  “Is it? You’re a big man, Rufus. She’s just a little slip of a thing. And maybe you’ve noticed … she can be very convincing.”

  Rufus felt like he’d been deflated, like someone had popped both of his lungs and he couldn’t get any air. His instinct was to go to Savanna to see if she would really do this to him, but he realized he didn’t have to. Of course she would. It was probably the reason she’d had sex with him to begin with.

  He looked at Deloach, as if for some help. Surely one of these men had some sense of right or wrong, but Deloach was smiling, happy as a lark. Rufus sat down on the rock. He looked at the sky. The moon was gone. The sun was so bright, he couldn’t see. He closed his eyes.

  * * *

  The rest had felt inescapable. He knew now, of course, nothing was inescapable. Sometimes it was painful, but there was always a way out. Harriet had taught him that. Perhaps she was really alive. Savanna certainly seemed to think so.

  He leaned forward again, wincing at the pain in his thighs. He stepped forward five times, quickly, bearing the pain. On the fifth step, he felt something rough and hard in front of him. The hearth. Escape was always possible.

  He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t think. He could see it in his mind’s eye. None of this was possible, he knew. Yet it was happening. He’d seen the hearth in his dream, except he’d never believed his sleep paralysis was a function of dreaming. He didn’t give a fuck what the science said. The shadow girl was real, and he’d seen her in this room.

  He pivoted the chair around, then shifted his hips as hard as he could, smashing the legs into the hearth. Again and again, he swung the legs, until he heard them splinter. He stood, his hands still bound around the backrest of the chair. But his legs were free now, the rope around them slipped away, and he stepped from the hearth carrying what remained of the chair.

  He heard the bedroom door open as he slammed his body into the door leading to the outside. It popped open and he fell into the grass, rolling. He smelled honeysuckle, felt the hot sun, the wet grass, and he was happy for just those small things. He did not want to die without feeling them again. The men shouted for him to stop, but he just continued to roll down a hill. Rocks cut his arms and tore his shirt. The backrest of the chair was pulverized, and his hands were freed.

  He stood up, stumbling forward. Something was wrong. The ground gave way beneath him. He walked on the air.

  And then he fell.

  59

  We didn’t have to wait long. A Cadillac drove by about a half hour later. It was nearly dark now, but I kept my lights off as I pulled into the road behind it.

  I followed the Cadillac down the mountain and east along 52. By the time the Caddy pulled off the main road and onto another mountain road, it was completely dark. I kept the headlights off and maintained as much distance as I dared, focusing on the tiny red taillights in front of me.

  The road rose in front of us, narrowing and turning like a snake. Off to our right, I saw the lights of the small town of Brethren. We continued up the mountain.

  Over my many years working as a private investigator, I’d followed a lot of people in this same way, headlights off, chasing their red taillights, but I’d never done it on a twisty mountain road like this one. Eventually I felt Ronnie growing tense in the seat next to me, especially when we caught a glimpse of what was coming in the glow of the Caddy’s headlights. The road wrapped around a rocky bluff, tightening itself like a belt. There was barely enough space for a vehicle on the road, and any mistake would cause a long plummet into a dark valley and an almost certain death.

  The taillights disappeared around the bend.

  “Turn your lights on now. He’s on the o
ther side of the mountain,” Ronnie said. “He won’t be able to see them.”

  I considered doing just that, but then thought better of it. Any inkling the driver of the Cadillac had that he was being followed would be a problem.

  “Open your door,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “So you can see the ledge. Tell me if I get too close.”

  Ronnie did as I asked.

  “Can you see anything?”

  “Maybe. It’s so fucking dark. Where’s the moon when you need it?”

  “It’s too cloudy. Give your eyes time to adjust.”

  While I was waiting for that, I drove slowly, my foot just barely touching the gas. I rolled down the window on my side and stuck a hand out, feeling for the stone wall. Once I touched it, I cut the wheel to the left, inching even closer to the wall, hugging it until I heard the scrape of the side mirror against rock.

  “You’re good over here,” Ronnie said. “Just don’t straighten it out, or this tire will be in the air.”

  Eventually, with me touching the wall on my side and Ronnie looking out on his, we made it around the bend. The taillights were in front of us again, far away, and much higher than we were. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought the Caddy was on a totally different mountain, but that was just the way the road rose. I dropped the truck into second and started to make the climb.

  We followed the Caddy like this for about twenty minutes. I became more convinced that the driver was either Blevins or Harden himself.

  I was beginning to wonder if we’d ever get there when I heard Ronnie whistle.

  “What?”

  “Slow down.”

  “Why?”

  “Somebody’s in the road.”

  I squinted hard as I slowed the truck. Sure enough, two figures stood in the road. One of them was smoking a cigarette.

  “You think it’s the Hill Brothers?” Ronnie asked.

  “Yeah, Blevins had to have called ahead.”

  “What now?” Ronnie asked.

  “We pretend to be lost,” I said.

  “And then what?”

  “We go back.”

  “But we ain’t even seen it yet.”