by Ronald Kelly
As she walked away, my eyes lingered on her hips and buttocks, clad in tight gingham. I felt myself stiffen beneath the table, but held my lust at bay… at least for the time being. I commenced to eating, slathering the bread with churned butter and forking meat and taters into my mouth like I was shoveling a grave before the threat of rain.
My supper was interrupted by the scrape of chair legs against the sawdust-covered boards of the tavern floor. I glanced up to see Scar-face edging around the gambling table and ambling toward me. He wore a shapeless black hat, woolen britches, mule-eared boots, and a faded undershirt with a multitude of stains upon the front and sleeves, some identifiable, some not. At least a couple of them were blood. I would have bet even money that it was not his own.
As he walked over and stood opposite my table, the others got up and followed, either out of curiosity or as reinforcements. My appetite fled and my nerves were high, for I was not a confrontational man. I am not a small man by any means—well over six feet, lean and rawboned. But I was no longer a young man, either, well into my late fifties. I was not afraid of this man, but I wasn’t aching to fight him. The scars upon his face and knuckles, and the long-bladed Arkansas Toothpick sheathed at his hip, told me that I was not his match. He was accustomed to poker, carousing, and bare-knuckle brawling… and here I was sitting there with a Bible and a teacup.
“You come in here aiming to preach?” he asked. His voice sounded like creek gravel in a butter churn.
“I shall, if ears and hearts are willing,” I told him truthfully. “Are yours?”
“Shit, no!” he cussed. He lifted my cup to his lips and spat tobacco juice into it. “If there’s anyone in Kentucky bound for the gates of Hell, it’s me, Ike Loftis.”
“I’m grieved to hear that, my friend,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “A soul is like a hungry man, Mr. Loftis. In need of its spiritual meat and taters. I’d say yours is malnourished and lean to the bone.”
“I hate preachermen,” Ike Loftis told me, leaning forward with both hands on the table. Even that way, he was as tall as most men. “All uppity with their fine, fancy words and their noses in the air. Spouting God and Gospel and fire and brimstone, telling me what to do and be. Wanting to drag me down to the crick and baptize me! I don’t take a bath but once a month, let alone get wet to cleanse my soul.”
I was growing weary of the man’s tirade and my patience was wearing thin. And so my tongue took reign and spoke what should have been left unspoken. “A little water? Is that what you’re afraid of, man?” I jabbed the needle in further by laughing. “It seems that those scars on your face are no match for the yellow streak that runs down your back!”
Ike Loftis grinned at me, looked over his shoulders at his buddies, and then lashed out at me without warning. His fist struck me across the left eye and his jagged thumb nail cut a divot of hide from the side of my nose, from tip to cheekbone. I went crashing backward out of my chair, and the rear of my skull struck the log wall. Addled, I felt two of his cronies lift me to my feet. I raised my head in time to see Loftis rush in and punch me in the gut so hard that it felt like his knuckles brushed my backbone. It had the desired effect and I swiftly vomited my supper upon the open pages of my Bible.
He was about to give me another one, when a woman’s voice rang out. “Turn that fella loose!”
We all looked over and there was Clementine with a cast iron cooking skillet in her fist.
“Are you serious, girl?” asked Ike Loftis. “Threaten me with a frying pan, will you?”
He took a menacing step toward her and her opposite hand swung around from behind her back. This one held a small Derringer pistol with over-and-under barrels. It looked to be of large caliber, perhaps a forty-five. “You can either have your head caved in, or a second belly button, take your pick.”
Ike Loftis halted dead in his tracks. The other fellows unhanded me and I stumbled away. I took up my coat, saddlebags, and my soiled Bible from the table.
“You’d best leave, Mr. Preacher-man,” Clementine told me. Her eyes and the Derringer were still directed in Ike’s direction.
Hurting and humiliated, I did as she suggested. I walked across the road to the livery stable. Exhausted, my face throbbing and swelling from the punch in the eye, I collapsed in an empty stable and lay upon the straw. My stomach ached from Loftis’s assault and I felt as though I might puke a second time, but didn’t.
A few minutes later, I heard the livery door opened. Was it Loftis and his men coming to finish what they had begun? No… it was dear Clementine. She had my unfinished supper plate in one hand and a bowl of warm water in the other.
Quietly, she knelt next to me and, dipping her apron into the water, dabbed at the ugly cut that ran across the side of my nose. It was a touching thing, reminding me of the woman with the alabaster box in the book of Luke, who had anointed our Lord Jesus. “I’m sorry about Ike and the others,” she said softly. “T’was a harsh and evil way to treat a man of God.”
“Satan marches upon every hill and vale, good lady,” I told her. “And occupies the form of man. Mr. Loftis is one of them.”
As she administered her mercy, her blouse gaped open and I looked upon the swell of her womanly chest. A song of Solomon came to mind. Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, who feed among the lilies. She noticed my attention and smiled boldly, her eyes doing a sparkling green dance. Then she leaned forward and kissed me upon the lips. Hungrily, I returned the favor.
“I shall surely burn in hell for that,” she whispered, setting the bowl aside.
“Passion is a gift from God,” I told her. “Among the wicked, it is sinful… among the good and true it is a blessing to be claimed.” I ran my hand beneath her skirt and found that she wore no bloomers. Her portal was moist and willing. “Shouldn’t you return to your work?” I asked her.
“My shift is finished for the night,” she said. “But my work has just begun.”
Clementine cast herself upon me and took the reins. Luckily, the blows I had suffered had not extended below the buckle of my belt and my performance was steady and strong. Afterward, we lay in the hay together. The odor of straw, manure, and our carnal abandonment filled our nostrils, conjuring primitive emotions as ancient as the fall of Adam and Eve.
“Do your wounds pain you?” she asked, tracing her fingers along an inflamed mark upon my bare stomach, which would undoubtedly turn into a bruise by daybreak.
“I have suffered worse before,” I told her truthfully.
Afterward, dear Clementine slept beside me, naked, only a horse blanket separating her from the cool night air of early spring. As I gazed upon her beauty, the Spirit cast conviction upon my heart and I grieved upon the sin that was committed. Beneath her plump and pink flesh, I saw the demon temptress revealed and, for a moment and only a moment, I considered taking a curve-bladed scythe from the barn wall and smiting her across the head… cleaving her skull in half. The impulse faded, though, and I knelt in the hay and prayed fervently for the both of us. As I pen these words, I knowing that I must rise, dress, and prepare Winnie for travel in only a few, short hours. And then make my departure secretively, without a farewell or a final temptation to be shared betwixt us.
March 14th
The terrain grew more isolated and desolate with each mile I traveled. The road upon which I rode grew dark as the shadows of encroaching trees blotted out the morning sun. Winnie behaved totally unlike herself—skittish and slow in her gait, as though sensing something dark and dreadful ahead. I, too, sensed an oppressive thing forthcoming, like a premonition, looming before us, yet unseen.
At noon, we left the shadowy forest and stood upon a rocky ridge dappled with scrubby sycamore and outcroppings of limestone and shale. I consumed a meager lunch of dried jerky and even drier cornbread and looked down upon a picturesque village in a lush, green valley. Pastureland lay in patchwork squares of yellow and green to both sides of the wooded copse where white-washed houses a
nd storefronts stretched on both sides of the roadway. Just beyond the township, a creek as long and crooked as a slithering snake cut across the land and, beside it, stood a small white church with a tall steeple and narrow, stain-glassed windows. Next to it was a clovered rise bearing a lonesome cemetery, festooned with gravestones and surrounded by a low fence of ornate wrought iron.
For all outward appearances, it would seem to be a happy, friendly town. I was soon to discover that I had been deceived by the falsity of first impression.
I descended into the valley by a steep and winding road that was no more than a rutted pathway, scarcely big enough to accommodate a horse and rider, let alone a wagon or surrey. From that vantage point, I looked out across the landscape and saw the mountain for the first time. It towered above the little village like a giant—massive, imposing, strangely oppressive in nature. Unlike the vivid greens and yellows of the valley, its wooded slopes were oddly dark, like some great cloud overhead had blocked out the sunlight, casting a dense shadow over its entire area. This was an illusion… there was no such cloud. It was simply that the trees and vegetation were of a darker hue for some inexplicable reason. Simply looking upon it caused me to shudder, as though a cool finger of unknown origin had ran along my spine, from my pelvis to the base of my skull.
When Winnie and I had reached the floor of the valley, we came upon a signpost with two placards nailed to it. One read MILLER’S CREEK, while the other read NAMELESS. The latter one bothered me somewhat; for what reason, I had no idea. Why would someone think so little of their township to call it Nameless? Another thing that was disturbing was the manner in which someone had deliberately tried to mark out the name itself with a broad stroke of red barn paint. The attempt had failed, however. The black letters that spelled NAMELESS had bled through, bold and defiant, leaving the opposing paint fading and peeling… a distant memory.
I rode onward and entered the little town of Miller’s Creek. As I traveled the main thoroughfare, the I of well-being and normalcy broke away like shattering crockery, revealing the raw nerves underneath. Only a few people could be seen on the street: a woman sweeping the porch of a general mercantile, two children playing marbles in the mouth of an alleyway, and a man loading sacks of grain into the back of a flatbed wagon in front of a feed store. As I passed and tipped my hat, they glared at me contemptuously and went about their business without acknowledgement. The two young boys even gathered their cat’s eyes and aggies, and disappeared between the two buildings, as though frightened. From the windows of stores and houses I saw faces, stiff and suspicious, staring out at me, following my every move. Even as I watched, quite a few blinds were drawn against me.
I must admit, I felt a wave of relief wash through me as I reached the small bridge that spanned the babbling vein of Miller’s Creek and took leave of that hamlet. I regarded the white church as though it were an oasis in a hostile desert and reined Winnie toward it. A short, overweight man in a white shirt and black britches and vestments was on the southern side of the roof, hammering fresh shingles into place. I threw up my hand and called out to him. “Hello there, brother!” I said cheerfully.
I didn’t receive the greeting that I expected. The pastor peered at me through thick-lensed eyeglasses and scowled. “What do you want?” he demanded.
At first I was unsure of how to respond. “Oh, nothing… just a traveling man of God, searching for souls to save.”
“Well, everyone in this town receives their spiritual counseling within these walls,” said the portly gentleman. “I see to that myself.”
I simply shrugged and looked further down the road. It was clear that I was unwelcome in the township of Miller’s Creek, Kentucky. “Very well, good sir. I reckon I’ll ride onward then… maybe see if the residents of Nameless are in need of God’s word and spiritual restoration.”
The pastor’s ruddy face grew as pale as a bed sheet. “You wait there!” he yelled down. “You just wait right there!”
I swung down off of Winnie and stood there watching as he carefully made his way down the ladder. Then he was on the ground, grabbing my elbow, and hustling me up the steps of the little church. “We must speak!” he told me, although he looked as though he thoroughly dreaded the notion.
Before I could utter another word, we were inside the sanctuary and occupying one of the long, hardwood pews. The man mopped his perspiring brow with a handkerchief and then extended a chubby hand. “I am Pastor Elias Bentley,” he told me.
I took his hand and exchanged a curt pressing of the flesh. “Reverend Josiah Craven from Eastern Tennessee.”
If the man found pleasure in meeting me, there was no indication. He stared nervously toward one of the stained-glass windows. He could not see the shadowy swell of the mountain through its colorful panes, but that didn’t matter. He knew it was there nonetheless.
“Reverend Craven,” he said, taking a deep breath as though he were about to submerge into some dark, fathomless depth, “under no circumstance must you journey to the township of Nameless… or even set foot upon Twilight Mountain.”
I must have looked quite comical as my eyebrows rose nearly to my hairline. “Twilight Mountain?”
“The accursed parcel of land on which Nameless exists,” Pastor Bentley told me. “As you leave here and near it, I implore you to deny the narrow path ahead and turn either east or west.” He grabbed a gold chain and withdrew a pocket watch from a vest pocket. Flipping the lid open, he consulted the time. “To travel across the mountain in broad daylight would be foolhardy at best, but to tread its earth in the dark of night would be pure madness!”
“And what would be there to harm me, good sir?”
“Things of an awful and sinister nature, Reverend Craven!” he said. “Nary a songbird, squirrel, or deer make their home there, not even a lowly insect, and for good reason!” He glanced toward the northern window again, then lowered his voice. “Those who walk there should not walk at all.”
I frowned at him, becoming distraught with his puzzling advice. “Whatever do you mean, man?”
“The undead, sir! Nosferatu! Quite simply put… vampires!”
I could not help myself. I threw back my head and laughed. “Surely you can’t expect me to take you seriously, Pastor! Vampires! Why, not even the Scriptures speak of them. Just old wives’ tales, that is all.”
“No, sir, it is true!” he exclaimed sternly. “At the sinking of the evening sun, they arise and roam the mountain freely.” He shuddered almost violently. “And sometimes they come here… if they can not find what they seek elsewhere.”
“You mean a blood-devouring entity? Like the one in the novel by Bram Stoker?”
“Yes, I know the book of which you speak… and that is precisely the type of fiend of which I speak.” He reached out and grasped me firmly by my left shoulder. His fingers possessed the tenacity of a bear trap. “And, most of all, beware the Wanderer!”
“The Wanderer?” I had to ask. “And who is he?”
“Not he, Craven, but her!” He dropped his head and said a brief prayer, then turned those wild, magnified eyes back upon me. “A tall and willowy woman with hair as black as a raven and skin as pale as a winter’s snow. Her eyes, though—her eyes—they are as red as a whore’s painted lips! They say her teeth are as long and sharp as those of a wolf and that she hungers for the crimson flow of human blood!”
Pastor Bentley certainly was a man handy with words and, I would hazard to guess, quite adept with a pulpit sermon. “But have you ever laid eyes upon this woman you speak of? This Wanderer?”
“Surely not and thankful for it!” he told me. “But she is there. Therefore you must heed my words and give Twilight Mountain a wide berth.”
“Why, it would take me two days to ride around that mountain and only one to go across it,” I said. “Besides, the good folks of Nameless may be of need of what I have to offer.”
His hold on my shoulder grew more frantic… and painful. “But, Reverend Craven�
�� there are no good folks in Nameless! The place is abandoned! Only the Wanderer and her followers dwell within the empty buildings… or rather the floorboards beneath them.”
The man was so fervent in his beliefs that I began to wonder if he might be a lunatic… along with everyone else in the settlement of Miller’s Creek. And so I did the reasonable thing… I lied. “Very well. I will heed your warning and journey around the offensive mountain.”
“God be praised!” Bentley exclaimed. “I knew you were a sensible man. Now you must stay here the night and then resume your travels in the morning. I insist!”
I would not be swayed into staying however. “I appreciate your hospitality, Pastor, but I really must be going.”
He looked uncertain. “But shouldn’t you wait until the morning? There are only three or four hours of daylight left.”
But I would not take no for an answer. I politely excused myself, climbed aboard Winnie, and headed out of town, leaving that puzzled and distraught man of God on his doorstep.
As I rode away from the village, the shadow of Twilight Mountain engulfed me. Approaching it, I took neither the east nor the west road, but the one that wound directly up its steep grade, through its shadowy forests, toward the peak and the shunned town called Nameless.
Little did I know, I was never to be the same man again once I arrived there. Or, truthfully, even a man at all.
March 15th
Much has taken place during the past few hours; some of which I understand and some of which I do not. To lose one’s self… to feel the cold bite of Death and then return, no longer what you once were, but much more… it is both disconcerting and exhilarating.
The journey up the face of Twilight Mountain was grueling and curiously fascinating. Pastor Bentley had been correct; there seemed to be no wildlife there. As I rode for hours, I saw no sign of critters, large or small, and nary a gnat or mosquito pestered me or the mule. Winnie was skittish at times, particularly when the trail descended into long stretches of dense shadow where no sunlight penetrated the canopy of interlaced tree branches above us. Halfway up we came upon another sign that read NAMELESS—2 MILES and I knew that we were on the right track. Several times, however, I felt as though we had traveled the same stretch of road before and I experienced a strange sensation of disorientation and déjà vu. There was also an overpowering sense of being watched that plagued me during the mountainous climb. From the tenseness of her muscles beneath me and her nervous behavior, I knew that Winnie was of the same opinion.