In the Valley of the Devil

by Hank Early

  “You’re all show,” he said. “But that’s not surprising.”

  Again, the man seemed to have a gift for innuendo, especially of the racist variety.

  My instincts at that point were telling me to step forward and punch him in the face. The problem was the inevitable trouble it would get me in. Not with the law—I could handle that—but with Mary. She’d made it abundantly clear she didn’t want me fighting her battles.

  So I waited, gritting the hell out of my teeth.

  Mary unwrapped a piece of gum and stuck it in her mouth. Her courage had always stunned me; hell, sometimes it shamed me because I knew, deep in my heart, I didn’t have half of the intestinal fortitude she did, and this time was no exception.

  She smacked the gum for a few seconds and nodded. “It’s rare for me to say this, Mr. Walsh, but I read your book, and I can’t think of a more pathetic excuse for a man than you. Your words are incapable of hurting me. It would be like getting upset because some kind of wild animal didn’t like me.” She shook her head, laughing a little. “Actually, I might get upset about that. But not about you.”

  Walsh laughed, a cruel high sound that seemed almost surreal in the otherwise silent street. “Wild animal? That’s rich.” His smile vanished. “All God’s creatures great and small—I try to remind myself when I see someone I’m tempted to lash out at, God loves them all.” He stepped past Mary and started up the steps before stopping and looking back over his shoulder. “But then again, I’m not God, am I? I’m just a poor sinner. Because ‘all have sinned and fallen short of the grace of God.’ Even little old me, and I’m not going to lie: I love it that God can forgive, brothers and sisters. It means, no matter what I might do, I can stand before the Lord clean and pure as the driven snow. Goodbye. If you’d like those books signed, I’ll be here Saturday afternoon. Oh, and after that, we’re having a big town square rally in support of traditional values next Thursday. It’s already making national news. We’re going to have good people from all over the country come in.” He looked right at Mary again. “You might not want to come to that one. Some of these boys … well, they’re angry about what’s happening to our country, and I’m afraid they aren’t too afraid to point the finger at those who are responsible.” He nodded at me. “I’d love to have the rest of you folks join us for that, though.”

  Then he and his bodyguard were gone, and I reached for Mary’s hand. She gripped mine tightly, the only small indication she gave that she was in fact shaken by his words.

  2

  Late September found north Georgia still hungover from a long, hot summer. The leaves dropped like wild birds, swirling to the soft, still warm ground. The threat of rain was always somewhere, on one distant horizon or the other, and as the calendar slouched toward October, the moon returned, its hooked countenance blooming into the slow sideways smile of a drunk after a long night at the bar.

  Despite the run-in with Walsh, Mary and I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and go for a walk, ranging out from my mountain home, exploring the eastern side of Pointer Mountain. It was rare for her to be off on a Monday, so we meant to enjoy the opportunity and spend the day outside. Over the last year, we’d made a pastime out of finding new and hidden caves. They’re scattered all over these mountains, and it gave us something to do and something to wonder about. This afternoon, we found two within a half mile of each other. The first was cool and damp and small, a shallow divot in the mountainside. We used it to escape a brief thunderstorm, me holding Mary tight as the thunder shook the mountain. We watched it rain, and I tried to not to think about any of the things that had been bothering me, the thoughts of evil and what Jeb Walsh’s presence in these mountains could mean. Unlike so many other times when I tried to focus on the positive, it was so much easier when I was with Mary. Everything seemed a little easier when she was around.

  After the storm ended and we stepped out of the cave into the open space of the world, I pointed up the ridge to a large boulder perched precariously on the ledge above a five-hundred-foot drop into pine trees and old logging roads that now lay as dormant and secret as the caves.

  “You up for a climb?’ I said.

  Mary was fifteen years younger than me and in good shape, but sometimes she preferred to walk leisurely while I had a hard time resisting anything that could be explored.

  She squeezed my hand. “I think I see another cave up there.”

  I squinted into the morning sun. There was a dark slash in the rock wall. A cave or maybe just a shadow. “Then we have to go,” I said, joking but also serious. If she didn’t want to go, I’d come back later with Goose, my Mastiff-Shepherd mix, and explore it on my own. I’d always had a hard time leaving any mystery alone.

  She leaned in and kissed my neck. “I’ll bet it’s private.”

  I nearly carried her up the hill.

  * * *

  Once inside, I saw immediately it was a proper cave, not just a little overhang. I pulled out the penlight I kept on my keychain, and flicked it on. The light spread out in front of us, illuminating a stone floor and some mildewed bedding someone had left from a previous amorous encounter. What I didn’t see was a back wall.

  “This thing is deep.”

  Mary’s hand was resting lightly in mine, and she intensified the pressure just the slightest bit. These were the kinds of things she did that turned me on. Since our relationship had started just over a year ago, she’d taught me to appreciate even the most simple gestures.

  I pulled her deeper into the cave. The temperature dropped as we moved, and the darkness seemed to soak into the light that was out in front of us, dimming it and rendering it more ineffectual as we pressed toward the hidden regions of the cave.

  When we finally reached the back wall, we touched the cool stone with our hands, mine following hers as she slid it lightly over the dampness. I wondered how deep we were into the mountain now and how many other lovers had stood in this same place, their hands intermingled on the ancient stone. I moved mine over hers, enveloping it, as her body melted against my own.

  Sometimes making love with Mary was a kind of sensory overload. Because she lived in Atlanta, our time was tantalizingly brief, mostly comprised of weekends and sometimes not even then if she was busy with a case. I often wished I could remember our love-making with more detail when I was alone in the house with Goose, but all that would come to me was an intoxicating swirl of need and more need followed by the sweetest relief, my hands tangled in her short, kinky hair, my mouth pressed so hard against hers, we breathed for each other.

  It might have been the same on that morning in the cave, but when our bodies took over, we slammed ourselves into the back wall and something rattled near our heads and then fell, hitting my shoulder.

  It landed on the cave floor with a loud thunk.

  “What was that?” Mary said.

  “I don’t care,” I said, and pressed her against the cave wall.

  * * *

  When it was over, Mary found my keys that I’d dropped in the moment of passion and turned on the penlight. She moved it over my face, and I closed my eyes. Somehow the damp stone floor felt comfortable, and sleep was not out of the question.

  I was almost there, fading into a blissfulness that my life had too long been without, when Mary gasped. I sat up and found the penlight she’d dropped near my leg. I reached for it, but my hand found something else instead. It was solid and cold and hard. My fingers slipped into a hole, and for a mad second I thought it was a bowling ball, but then Mary picked up the penlight and shone it at what I held.

  A skull.

  I let go immediately, causing it to roll across the cave with a sickening clatter. When it stopped rolling, Mary knelt, shining the penlight at it for a closer look.

  “Is it human?” I said, but I already knew the answer.

  “Yeah. And it’s been here awhile. She turned it over to examine the other side. “I don’t see any signs of trauma.”

  “Wher
e’s the rest of the body?” I said.

  “Good question.” She stood, shining the light at the back wall again. She moved the light in wide arcs, and that was when we saw the writing: “AOC.”

  She kept moving the light, and there was another bit below that: “Old Nathaniel.”

  “Is it blood?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer.

  I touched the letters, sliding my fingers across them. They didn’t feel any different than the wall did when we’d touched it earlier, our hands intertwined. The letters didn’t feel different, but I did. I felt like I’d taken a knife to the gut. All of the wonder and glory from earlier seemed gone now, replaced by a silent despair.

  People had made love here, but someone else had used it as a sick kind of temple, a shrine to something dark and unspeakable.

  Suddenly, I needed to be free of the cave. I needed to find some light and some air that had been touched by the warmth of the sun.

  “You okay?” Mary said.

  “Yeah,” I said, but I wasn’t okay. I was stumbling out of the cave, trying not to think about my father or the cave I’d found him in just over a year ago. The cave where I’d finally confronted him and all the sickness he’d put inside me. The place where I’d sent him to a flaming death.

  Once outside, I felt better almost immediately. The sun was shining brightly, and the rain had moved on. I sat down on the ground beside the big rock and wondered exactly what we’d unearthed.

  3

  Sheriff Doug Patterson was a tall, laconic young man with thick sideburns and an easygoing manner that made me like him right away.

  He showed up carrying two water bottles and was accompanied by a deputy who introduced herself in a slow drawl as Lacey Barnes.

  “I read about you,” Jefferson said. “In the papers.”

  It was a line I’d heard a lot recently. Ever since the article had come out detailing how Mary and I had taken down my father’s church, my fledgling PI business had taken off. Apparently, people around here actually did read the newspapers.

  I waited to see where he was going with the newspaper thing, but he only turned toward the cave entrance. “In here?”

  “Yeah,” Mary said.

  Patterson nodded at his deputy, who carried a large Maglite. She flipped it on and started inside the cave. Patterson motioned for Mary to go ahead of him, and I brought up the rear.

  Under the glare of the Maglite, the cave looked different. It was smaller somehow. Deputy Barnes waved the light around until it fell on the skull. She held it still as Patterson walked over for a better look. He put his hands on his knees and bent over, studying it.

  He grunted and reached for the skull. Once in his hand, he walked to the cave’s exit. I followed him out and stood beside him as he turned the skull over in his hands.

  “It’s fake,” he said.

  “What?”

  He held the skull out. “Look on the very top,” he said.

  He rotated the skull until I saw a slight crack in the top. “It’s a crack,” I said.

  “Nope, it’s a slot.” He weighed the skull in his big hand before tossing it out over the ridge. I watched it tumble into the undergrowth below and disappear into the vines.

  “Hey, why’d you do that?”

  He shrugged. “It’s a toy. You take a butter knife and stick it in the slot to pry off the top. Then you put the batteries in. I’ll bet the eyes light up or some shit.”

  “Are you sure?” I said.

  “Shit, I showed it to you.”

  I nodded. Showing it to me might be stretching it a little, but I could definitely see how the crack could have been a slot for batteries. “I’m sorry I wasted your time,” I said.

  “No worries. It looked real to me too in the cave. You mentioned some writing?”

  He followed me back to the cave.

  Inside, we found Deputy Barnes and Mary studying the writing.

  “It’s fake,” I said.

  “What?” Mary said. “I looked at it myself.”

  “It was a really good imitation,” Patterson said. “Easy mistake to make. Now, what do we have here?”

  I looked at the writing again, trying to make sense of it, as Patterson did the same.

  “AOC,” he said. “Old Nathaniel. Why am I not surprised?”

  “What do you mean?” Mary asked.

  “They’ve been showing up everywhere these days. Just last week, I was called out to Corn Valley—you know, the trailer park out there?—to investigate some graffiti someone had sprayed on one of the trailers. One of the kids had recently run off, and the mother thinks the graffiti had something to do with it.”

  “Run off?” Mary said. “Or was taken?”

  Sheriff Patterson shrugged. “Run off. He was eighteen and lived in the armpit of north Georgia. The racists in this county … Jesus, if I was a young black man, I’d get the hell out too.”

  “So what does it mean?” I asked. “Who’s Old Nathaniel?”

  “Hell, I was hoping you could tell me. I’m a Tennessee boy. According to that news story I read, you were born and raised right here in these mountains. Way I understand it, Old Nathaniel is a local legend. You don’t know it?”

  “I don’t think I do. But then again, I was immune to a lot of the local legends. My father made sure I only got exposed to the ones that took place way over in the Middle East a long time ago.”

  “I know who he is,” Mary said. Her voice sounded abnormally quiet and unsure. I resisted the urge to put my arms around her.

  “Granny told me about him when I was a little girl. She said he was supposed to stalk the valley, and he liked to eat little black children.”

  “Jesus,” I said.

  “Yeah, it was scary even for me up in the mountains. Even when Granny made sure to tell me it was just some made-up thing to scare the kids from coming up and bothering the white folks.”

  “What about the other thing?” I asked. “AOC?”

  “No idea,” Mary said.

  “Yeah, I’m stumped on that one too,” Patterson said.

  We were all quiet for a moment. I felt suddenly conscious of the struggles Mary’d had to face that the rest of us hadn’t.

  “Teenagers,” Patterson said at last. “I’ll bet that’s who we’re dealing with.”

  “Probably so,” I said. I looked at Mary. It was hard to read her face in the darkness, but I hoped she agreed. What else could it be?

  “Well,” Patterson said when we were back outside. “I’m glad I got to meet the famous Earl Marcus, anyway. I’d been meaning to give you a ring.”

  “Why’s that?”

  He made a face, stiffening his lip, squinting out across the ridge at a hawk. “I just thought it would be good to meet. You know, in case you needed my help or I ever needed yours.”

  I let his words sink in. It felt strange to have a positive, mutually respectful relationship with a sheriff. My relationship with the last one had been the complete opposite.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.

  “You do that.” He nodded at Mary. “Nice to meet you.”

  Mary and I stood at the top of the incline and watched as they made their way down the steep slope.

  When they were out of earshot, Mary leaned over and kissed my neck. “I’m so glad,” she said.

  “About what?”

  “About the skull being fake.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well,” she said, her voice softening in that special way that made me weak at the knees. “I didn’t want to ruin a perfectly good memory with the thought of a human skull.”

  “Ah, so you enjoyed yourself?”

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. Her lips found mine, and mine found hers, and I knew that it was the only answer I’d ever need in this world.

  * * *

  That night we saw more storms, and Mary and I stayed up late into the night, sitting on the porch of the house we’d once shared, talking about the future
. Goose, the dog whose life I’d saved just a few feet away from where we sat now, lay near our feet, watching Mary closely. He loved her nearly as much as me and reveled in her presence whenever she was around. As usual, it didn’t take me long to get around to the thing that stayed on my mind and was frequently on the tip of my tongue.

  “You should move back.”

  She nuzzled my neck, kissing it lightly and murmured, “I work in Atlanta.”

  “Of course, but you work in Atlanta because the sheriff was a racist here, right? But there’s a new sheriff. He’s not racist. At least he didn’t seem racist.”

  She nodded. “True. He didn’t seem racist.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means what it means. You never really know.”

  “Never?”

  I felt her shrug.

  “What about me?”

  “What about you?”

  “Am I racist?”

  “Earl Marcus, we’re all racist. At least a little bit.”

  I didn’t really like that answer but decided to let it go. Besides, I needed to get back to the real thing I wanted to talk about.

  “You could move back in. We could have a life together.”

  “We already do.”

  “Yeah, if you count once a week. If that.”

  “Look,” she said, sitting up and facing me. “Let’s just let things play out, okay? I’m not the kind of woman to rush into anything. I like what we have here. There’s a rhythm to it.”

  “A rhythm?”

  “That’s right. And look at you. Just like a man—always trying to rush the rhythm.”

  “Well, when it feels good…”

  She shook her head and laughed. “I know. You just can’t control yourself.”

  We barely slept at all that night.

  4

  I thought I might be in love with Mary Hawkins.

  There were a lot of reasons why I shouldn’t be, and first among them was that she was fifteen years younger than me. Another was that she lived an hour away in Atlanta and had a busy career of her own. The final reason was that I was not very good at being in love with anyone.