Broken Branch

by John Mantooth

  “Thanks, Mrs. Trudy,” Ben said. He nodded at James and bunched the blanket up under his arm. He took off into the rain, as the lightning flashed all around him. It went dark again, and he was gone.

  James said nothing and went back inside the house.

  Trudy watched the storm for a long time before going to bed herself.

  20

  The fire wasn’t as bad as Trudy thought. Early reports the next morning said that it was mostly out and by the time it reached the creek, it’d be gone completely. The sun came out, and the community seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Otto called a meeting to thank God that the storm did no visible damage to either the homes in the clearing or the small progress that had been made on the church.

  Trudy spent the day preparing for leaving. She saw no reason to do her chores. She’d only continued them to keep up appearances, but she realized now, the rest of Broken Branch was too busy to notice whether she did or didn’t do them. By the time anyone realized their clothes weren’t washed, she would be gone. She packed a single suitcase with clothes and supplies, knowing it would slow them down, but she figured once they were gone from Broken Branch they could go as slow as they wanted to.

  But where would they go?

  She’d thought about trying to go back to Birmingham, but she’d burned many bridges there after her father’s death. People who might have helped her once would no longer be willing to after she’d refused to speak at her father’s funeral. Everyone had assumed her ungrateful. She didn’t blame them, and she didn’t try to explain how the thought of confronting the memory of her father made her feel helpless and weak. It touched her own doubt, her failure to find something greater, something that existed outside of herself. She hated herself for this weakness and even welcomed the derision of the other family members and friends. She deserved it all.

  She’d wanted a clean break from that time in her life. She’d looked forward to a more authentic life, a more authentic faith, which she felt James possessed, but she’d been wrong. She’d been so stupid then, so young. This time she had her priorities straight. Her children had to survive, and they had to survive intact. There was no telling what the environment of this place might do to them. Trudy had already witnessed its effect on Rodney and shuddered to imagine how much worse it would be if his attacks ever came to light. She owed them a chance to find their own salvation, even if she’d missed her own.

  It made her sad to think like this because her whole life had been shaped by the search for something she couldn’t explain, something that couldn’t be perverted by Otto and James’s selfish interpretation, and she would continue to look for it once she had abandoned this place forever. Yet she understood instinctively that one day she’d remember Broken Branch and wonder. Not about its people or what happened to Otto and James. Sure, those would be minor curiosities, but mostly she’d think about G.L. and the swamp. The storm shelter he’d known about. In two nights she would be leaving with a few regrets. One was obvious: the years she’d wasted with James. But without him she wouldn’t have Rodney or Mary, and without them she might as well have died with her father. They were her life, and nothing could change that. Her only real regret would be leaving without knowing why she’d come here in the first place. Without—she thought, realizing it clearly for the first time—finding God.

  21

  On the night before she was to leave, Trudy woke suddenly, sitting upright in bed. This time there was no rain, and silence lay over the house. It felt unnatural, and for a moment she lay there trying to understand why she was awake.

  Then she knew. They needed to leave tonight. Tomorrow might be too late. It was just a feeling, but the feeling was powerful. Suddenly she was filled with despair by her stupidity. Why had she waited so long? What was special about Saturday night, when any night would have been fine?

  She rose, silently, careful not to wake James. The last thing she needed was him waking up. She found the old suitcase and packed it with the supplies she’d shoved into a drawer earlier that day. She took it out to the porch and zipped it up.

  “Evening,” a voice said. She nearly jumped out of her skin.

  She turned and saw Ben sitting on his porch, his pale skin illuminated in the moonlight.

  “You frightened me.”

  “I thought you didn’t scare.”

  She said nothing. She didn’t want him to be there. She didn’t want to talk. Any sound risked waking James.

  “I don’t think you understood me last night, Trudy. About how much I admired your courage. About how I wished I had the same.”

  “That’s fine. Listen, I can’t speak right now.”

  “Going somewhere?”

  Suddenly she didn’t trust him. She couldn’t say why. “No. I just couldn’t sleep.”

  “What’s the suitcase for?”

  She looked down at her suitcase. What could she say?

  “We’re leaving tonight. I just have to wake the kids.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “There’s no need to wake them. You’re going to change your mind.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  He stood. “I want to show you something.”

  “I don’t have time for this, Ben.”

  He stepped off his porch. He was fully dressed. He still had his boots on.

  “What if I told you that I wasn’t going to let you go?”

  She looked at him. He was a large man, larger than James or Otto. Only Earl was taller, but she wasn’t sure he was as broad and muscular as Ben. Trudy felt the first jolt of panic hitting her system.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I just want you to see something, Trudy. Like I said last night. I don’t bite.” He reached out his hand for her like he wanted to help her down the steps. “I meant all those things I said about you. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  “Then leave me alone. Let me leave.”

  “I can’t do that, Trudy. For your own good, I can’t. I think you know this.”

  It was true. She did know it.

  “Will you let me go after you . . . after you show me whatever it is you want to show me?”

  He seemed to consider this. “That won’t be up to me.”

  “Who, then? Otto?”

  Ben shrugged. “God, Trudy. Everything is up to God.”

  22

  She followed him across the clearing, the ground still muddy from the previous night’s storm. He took her deep into the woods in a direction she’d never been. Now that she thought about it, there were many directions she’d never explored in these woods. Like most of the people in Broken Branch, her world consisted of the clearing, the meadow, and the creek. Everything else just seemed like endless trees, not worth navigating.

  The best she could reckon, they were heading north. She knew some of the men spoke of another highway in this direction. Otto and James hiked to it to trade sometimes and often came back with fresh fruit in the spring and summer.

  The thought of running crossed her mind more than once. But each time she got up the nerve to bolt, Ben would turn around as if checking on her. Of course he’s checking, Trudy thought. And once he sees me run, he’ll pounce on me. She could imagine the rest, so she kept walking, thinking only of Rodney and Mary, sleeping in their beds, wishing she’d left one night sooner. Or several years sooner.

  They walked for a very long time. Longer than Trudy had thought possible. Surely the woods would end soon, but they didn’t. If anything, they grew denser as the trail twisted and turned. At last, they came to a place where the trees broke, not unlike the main clearing in Broken Branch. Here, Trudy could see the sky, the large moon, peeking through the clouds, hanging full and fat directly above them, the stars frozen in place, and Trudy remembered what G.L. had said about the stars falling on the night of his birth. She wish
ed they were falling now, flaming over the land. She would have liked to see it, and she wondered how some were blessed to see fire from heaven while others only looked upon a frozen sky.

  But the sky was not why Ben had brought her here.

  Gradually, by increments of moonshine, her eyes adjusted. She looked out upon a single, powerfully built tree, not unlike the one that dominated the center of Broken Branch. Then she changed her mind. This was no oak. It was a large willow, its drooping branches creating a natural veil over the trunk. Ben pointed at the tangled limbs, the vines twisted together and swaying as one thing in the wind.

  “I don’t see,” she said.

  “Come closer.”

  She did, and the wind shifted and the mass in the willow blew toward her, inching forward. She stopped. The smell. Oh, Lord, the smell was too strong. She covered her mouth and turned away, gagging.

  “You’ll get used to it. When I came on him a few days back, it was the smell that brought me. Thought it was a dead animal. Imagine the fear that I felt when I saw who it was.”

  Who it was? Trudy felt her knees go weak and collapsed to the ground. Though she didn’t want to, she turned to look at the thing tangled in the willow branches. It spun slowly, and as it did the clouds drifted clear of the moon and she saw his face, his sweet, dead, dreaming face.

  Simpson. Trudy screamed, howling out into the night until Ben clamped his hand over her mouth and whispered that it was okay, okay, okay, that God was in control today, tomorrow, forever, but Trudy kept screaming into his hand, until her voice came back and echoed inside her open mouth, falling as silent and impotent as everything else.

  23

  “Breathe,” Ben said. “Just concentrate on breathing.”

  Trudy sat down heavily on the ground and buried her face in her hands. She couldn’t bear to look at it, not one second more. What creature could have done such a thing?

  “I was out with my bow, hunting, the other day when I found it,” Ben said. “I went and got James and Otto. Otto was pretty torn up about it. First time I ever knew him to be speechless. Then I reminded him that God was in control. That this tree was God’s will. James agreed with me, Trudy. It was tough seeing Otto so scared, so weak. Me and James tried to explain to him that this was the fulfillment of the prophecy God gave him, and I think eventually, he come around, but you know Otto, he loves people, and he always loved that boy.”

  “Loved? What does Otto know about love?”

  “I saw him, Trudy. I thought the same thing, but this wasn’t the work of no man.” He held out a hand to help her up. “Let me show you.”

  Reluctantly she took his hand and stood up. As terrible as it sounded, he had been right about the smell. It was still there, but somehow it didn’t seem as pungent, as offensive to her as before. Yet her stomach continued to roll like there was an ocean inside her, thick and warm and unsettled with grief and sickness. She thought of the demon, and she wondered if this would finally be enough to wake him from his restless slumber.

  “See,” Ben said, turning the body. “It’s like he got tangled up in the branches and suffocated. There’s not a mark on the boy anywhere.”

  Trudy couldn’t make herself look. The simple truth was that she didn’t care. Marks or no marks, it wouldn’t change what she felt burning inside her. Otto had done this. Otto had killed him and hung him up so the others would see, so the others would continue to fear the God he claimed to know so intimately.

  “Who else has seen this?” Trudy said, regaining some of her composure.

  Ben put a hand on her shoulder. “Everyone, Trudy. Except the children.”

  Her mouth dropped open as she realized why everyone had been so quiet and aloof around her the last few days.

  “Why?”

  “Otto didn’t think you were ready. He said you were planning on leaving and this would set you off. He said he didn’t want to see you make a mistake. But I knew better, Trudy. I knew you were brave but not stupid. I knew you’d see the evidence in front of your eyes.”

  She shook her head and backed away from him.

  “Trudy. Please,” he said. “Please don’t look at me like that.”

  “I know you meant well, Ben, but the fear has got you locked down. You need to get past it and see what’s happening here.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m leaving. Just like I planned. Otto was right, you know. This only makes me want out faster.”

  He came toward her fast, and for a second, she thought he might try to physically stop her, but then he pulled back, holding his hands up. “I’m not crazy, Trudy,” he said. “I care about you. I know that’s a sin, and I’ll probably burn in hell for it, but I can’t deny it anymore. I’ve watched you for so long. I . . .” He trailed off.

  Trudy stepped forward and kissed his cheek. “Thanks for telling me. That took courage. It takes even more to look at what’s here and understand the truth. I hope you’ll find it before it’s too late, Ben.”

  With that, she turned and left him standing beside the willow tree. She didn’t look back, not because she didn’t want to, but because she couldn’t afford to lift her eyes from the target: getting her children out of Broken Branch.

  24

  She got lost. The trees and the wind and the light of the moon seemed to conspire with her fear to confuse her, to give rise to a swelling panic in her breast. What time was it? Which way back to the clearing? And when she found it at last, would it be too late? Morning would mean another day to wait. Another day and anything bad could happen, and then it might be too late, and her children would be sentenced to a life in Broken Branch, the unwitting victims of the evil that saturated the place like water does a sponge.

  Turning around in a wild panic, Trudy could think only of praying, because she was truly lost, but prayer seemed like a betrayal of sorts, a nod in the very direction she was trying to escape. It didn’t matter in the end, though. She prayed anyway. She said the words aloud, praying for calm, for direction, for the strength to defeat the fear that was trying to grow over her like creeping kudzu. One minute, she knew, you were fighting it, hacking away at the vines, and the next minute you were covered in it, buried deep, staring up at a sky blotted out by knots and twists and dark things that multiplied every time you closed your eyes in fear.

  By the time she realized she was in the quicksand, she was already sinking. She’d heard others talk of the quicksand, but she’d never actually been out to it before. She flailed, looking for something to grab hold of, for some purchase, but there was nothing. Her body stiffened and felt heavy. She was sinking. She was going to die.

  “You’ll want to watch your step,” a voice said from behind her.

  There was one chilling instant when she thought the voice belonged to Otto, that he’d somehow found her, but then it came again, and she knew the voice belonged to someone else, someone older and wiser than Otto. It belonged to G.L.

  “Give me your hand.”

  A gnarled hand found hers and began pulling her back. He was weak—old and out of breath almost before he started—but as he pulled, she stepped gingerly and together they were able to get her body out. She lay, huffing, on dry ground. He knelt beside her.

  “You’re a long way from home. Are you looking for the swamp?”

  She couldn’t say why, but she felt an overwhelming desire to tell him yes, that was exactly where she was going. Instead, she said, “No, I’m trying to get back home.”

  He stood up, the scars on his chest catching the moonlight as it filtered through the trees. They looked alive in the moonshine, and Trudy found that she had to resist the urge to touch them, to prod them with her finger and see how they responded.

  “Ain’t we all?” he said.

  “Can you help me?”

  “I know these woods pretty good, so I reckon I can.”

  She s
tood up. “I’m sorry for the way Otto treated you,” she said.

  He shrugged. “I never did hold with no ministers. It’s the folks that claim to know God the most that seem like they really know him the least.”

  Trudy told herself she’d try to remember that if she ever got out of this place, but then a cloud passed over the moon and the woods went unnaturally dark. A chill rolled fast across her skin and she felt a deep fear that such a day might not ever come.

  25

  “I better leave you here,” he said when they reached the edge of the clearing. “Besides, I’m going to get back to the swamp.”

  Morning was almost upon the forest. A dim light had already started blanketing the upper reaches of the trees, and she knew from rising early many times over the last few years that full light would come quickly from this point on, and with it, Broken Branch would wake up. Still, she had to ask G.L. a question.

  “How do you get to the swamp?”

  G.L. grinned. “I reckon that’s the sort of thing you’ve got to find out on your own.” As he had done when they first met, he tipped an imaginary hat at her and disappeared into the woods.

  Trudy didn’t waste another second. As the darkness lifted, she took one look at the clearing and saw no activity. She sprinted toward her front porch for the suitcase and her two children.

  26

  She lied to Rodney and Mary. It seemed like the best bet to get them out quickly.

  “Otto wants everybody to meet at the road,” she said. “For a special announcement.”

  She figured Rodney would be unlikely to question this as he had already developed his father’s penchant for unquestioning loyalty to Otto.

  “Why?” Mary said. “I’m sleepy.”

  “He wants all the children to remain silent,” she said. “You’ll know why when we get there.”