In the Valley of the Devil

by Hank Early

I considered telling Lester about my final encounter with Daddy. Hell, if anybody deserved to know, it was him, but the time didn’t feel right. He was obviously still haunted by the man. I realized now that what I had misread as prison “breaking” him had, in fact, been the same thing that had always dogged him—our father. Somehow, he was still obsessed with the man, and I didn’t think telling him I’d killed him and buried his body in the mountains was a wise idea just now.

  “No,” I said. “I didn’t find him. He never overcame death, Lester. He was just a man.”

  Miraculously, this seemed to cheer him up a little. He reached out for me and hugged me again. “Thanks, Earl.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said, even though I wasn’t completely sure what I’d done other than lie to him. But maybe his thankfulness was a sign. I’d done the right thing.

  When Lester pulled away, he looked over at Ronnie. “Would you mind giving us a minute?”

  Ronnie raised his eyebrows and tried to appear offended, but Lester didn’t notice, and I was used to his histrionics and said nothing. He sighed, seeing neither of us was going to take the bait, and stood up. “I’ll just see if they sell smokes around here.”

  Lester and I watched him walk over to the guard window and ask to be let out. When the door closed behind him, Lester turned and looked me over.

  “What?” I said.

  “I’m just trying to understand it,” he said.

  “Understand what?”

  Lester shook his head. “You always did like to push the boundaries.”

  “What in the hell are you talking about, Lester?”

  He glanced back at the door before turning to me. “Ronnie Thrash. He’s a loser, Earl. Why would you bring him here?”

  Now it was my turn to sigh. I should have known it would be about Ronnie. Seemed like everybody I cared about was telling me to stay the hell away from him. I might have listened to them too, but I didn’t have that luxury anymore. And as much as I hated to admit it, the Ronnie thing had gone beyond just needing him to keep his mouth shut about what had happened between me and my father. I really did need him now. He was my ticket to a world I couldn’t access otherwise. Not to mention, now that I’d helped his niece and nephew, we’d become even more inextricably bound.

  “Look, Ronnie’s not perfect, Lester, but none of us are.”

  “He’s a thug, Earl. You know that. He has no plan for his life other than getting high and getting drunk.”

  I felt myself growing angry. I didn’t want that. I’d spent my life trying to reconcile with my brother and then ended up indirectly being responsible for him going to prison. Add to that my failure to visit him for over a year. No, I simply couldn’t live with myself if I lost my temper now.

  I’d keep my damned mouth shut. Change the subject. “So,” I said, “any news from your lawyer?”

  “I’m serious, Earl. As your brother, I’m telling you, don’t let this guy into your life. He’s a loser.”

  “Damn it, Lester. Let it go.”

  “Are you using drugs, Earl?”

  I slammed my fist on the table. “You’re being awfully self-righteous for a man whose great plan in life was pastoring a church that did far more harm than good,” I said.

  “Earl,” Lester said, reaching across the table and touching my hand softly, as if he wished to calm me, “you know I was oblivious to all that. I only wanted to do good. It’s like I said when I testified, my sins are ones of omission. Sure, I was in charge, but those things that happened don’t reflect who I am.” He patted the back of my hand again, and I felt the desperation in his touch. He badly wanted me to agree, to forgive him and clear his conscience.

  But I wasn’t about to do any such thing. “That’s your problem, Lester. You’re oblivious to everything. You never could see the way Daddy was tearing you apart. And when I saw it and left, you doubled-down on the fundamentalism, didn’t you? Hell, you can’t ever figure out the right side to be on, can you?”

  “Not everybody can be as smart as Earl Marcus. Have a little humility, Earl. You’ve made a hell of a lot of mistakes in your life too.” He withdrew his hand from mine and curled his fingers into a fist.

  My ears were hot, and my head felt like it might explode at any minute. I was past the point of thinking clearly, and that was why I said what I did.

  “The only mistake I ever made was not taking Maggie out of the mountains sooner.”

  Maggie. The very mention of her name changed the air in the room. The family at the other table fell silent, sensing it too.

  Lester sat back in his chair, twisting his face up into a scowl. “There he is, ladies and gentlemen! The real Earl Marcus in all of his asshole glory.” He stood up. “Don’t bother coming to see me again, okay?”

  He waved at the guard, who came in and escorted him out.

  And just like that, I’d undone any goodwill I’d built between the two of us during my brief visit.

  25

  “Who’s Maggie?” Ronnie asked while we waited for Timmy Lambert to come out.

  “What? You were listening?”

  “Hell, that door ain’t that thick. Was hard not to.”

  “That was a shitty thing to do,” I said.

  “Well, I just want to say I appreciate you defending me.”

  “I wasn’t doing that.”

  “Well, that ain’t what I heard.”

  I was tempted to keep arguing, but to what end? Letting it go seemed like the wisest choice.

  “Oh, I remember,” he said. “Maggie. She was that girl that killed herself and blamed it on you.”

  “That wasn’t what happened.”

  He shrugged. “Nothing like a pretty girl to split two brothers apart. It seems like ya’ll could move on by now, though.”

  “Don’t ever listen in on my conversations again.”

  “Sure, Earl. Sorry about that. Oh, here he comes.”

  I looked up in time to see the door swing open. A mountain of a man stepped inside. He wore a long beard and longer hair that was streaked with gray. The sleeves of his jumpsuit were rolled up far enough to show off massive tattooed biceps. He looked like an older version of Hulk Hogan if he’d been arrested as a young man and spent most of his life in prison.

  The contrast between Timmy Lambert and my brother could not have been more stark. Everything about Lambert screamed confidence. Where Lester looked broken by prison, Lambert appeared to be bolstered by his environment, like a king finally returned to his kingdom.

  He saw Ronnie and nodded. Ronnie stood up and the two men embraced, patting each other on the back. Lambert dwarfed Ronnie, causing the smaller man to look like a child hugging his daddy. The embrace ended.

  “Hell,” Lambert said. “This is a nice treat. Only been in a week and already got visitors.”

  “Got somebody who wants to ask you some questions,” Ronnie said.

  Lambert nodded at me suspiciously and then looked back at Ronnie. “You vouching for this guy? I smell po-po all over him.”

  Ronnie laughed. “This here is Earl Marcus, Timmy. You remember how me and my daddy used to talk about the kid that stood up to Brother RJ?”

  Lambert’s eyes moved from me back to Ronnie. His face showed no expression. He either didn’t remember or didn’t care, it appeared. Then all at once, he nodded. “Yeah. That’s him?”

  “The one and fucking only.”

  Lambert sat down across from me. “I’m Timmy,” he said.

  “Earl.”

  He didn’t extend a hand, so I kept mine under the table and waited.

  “I got nothing but love for Ronnie, and I heard about you when I was a kid. I used to like that story about how you stood up to your Daddy a lot, so that’s why I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and talk to you, understand?”

  Ordinarily, I would have told him to fuck off. I didn’t deal well with people who made it clear they were doing me a favor to speak to me. But I couldn’t afford to ruin this opportunity.
/>   “Got it,” I said.

  He reached out a monster-sized hand, and I let it engulf mine.

  “Now what’s this about?”

  I looked at Ronnie, who’d taken a seat beside Lambert. Ronnie held his hands out as if to say, “It’s your show.”

  “Do you know a man named Lane Jefferson?”

  Lambert leaned back in his chair, his eyes narrowing. I couldn’t tell if he was angry or just surprised by the question.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I know him. What about him?”

  I hesitated, trying to decide how to best phrase my next question. The problem was, I didn’t know just how much Lambert might be willing to protect Lane. Were they close friends? Was there loyalty there? Or did Lambert even give a shit?

  At the last minute, I decided to go in a different direction. “I was wondering if you know anything about any white supremacy groups in Coulee County.”

  “White supremacy? What makes you think I’d know about that?”

  I looked at Ronnie. Ronnie nodded. “Yeah, um, I remembered you were sort of … you know, racist.”

  For a minute I thought Lambert was going to break Ronnie in half, but just about the time I was going to call for the guard, Lambert let out a crazed laugh. “Scared you, didn’t I?”

  Ronnie breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh shit, don’t do that, Timmy.”

  “Yeah, I used to be. I’m trying to take a broader view these days. You know after what happened with my dog and all.” He shrugged as if it were all water under the bridge. “I’m trying to judge every man on how he treats me. If you’re black and you treat me like shit, I’m going to call you out. If you’re black and you treat me with respect, I’ll do the same for you.” He turned to look at me. “You trying to join up or something?”

  I considered lying, but something told me he’d know, so I shook my head instead. “No. I just have some questions. Do you know a man named Jeb Walsh or Preston Argent, by any chance?”

  Timmy stuck out his lower lip, considering. “Don’t think so. Maybe they go by something else? Sometimes dudes have handles. I used to be called Pit, back when I gave a damn. Now, Timmy is good enough because I don’t fucking care who knows how I live. You know what I’m saying?”

  “I hear you,” I said, even though I didn’t really understand what he was talking about. “Let’s go back to Lane Jefferson. Did you do any work for him?”

  “Sure. So did Ronnie. And if you’re wondering if Lane is a white—what did you call it? Supremacist?—I’d say yes, but not like most men I know. He’s got all these theories and shit. Says he doesn’t hate black people, just wants to see them returned to Africa.”

  “Anything else you can think of?”

  “He belongs to this group. I can’t remember what they’re called, but it’s a bunch of white dudes who meet and talk about blacks and Jews and how they’re ruining the fucking world.”

  “Do you know anyone else in the group?”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  He shrugged. “I went to his house once up on Summer Mountain. I don’t remember his name, but I got the feeling he and Lane were close. Lane liked me. Not enough to invite me into his inner circle or nothing, but I think that’s where it was heading. This party, up on Summer Mountain, was something to see. Shit, there were women there that could make the Pope get hard. And these assholes are telling me to watch a movie. I think they were disappointed when I didn’t give a damn about the movie.”

  I had so many questions, I didn’t know exactly where to begin. I decided to start with the basics.

  “What was the man’s name? Who threw the party?”

  “See, that’s where it gets fuzzy. I remember he had a weird name. Like a kid’s game or something. Hell, I ain’t never been that good with names. Faces? Faces, I can do, but names just kind of go in and come right back out.”

  “Okay,” I said. “What was the movie about?”

  “So, this dude—the one who’s name I can’t remember—is apparently some movie director. It was his movie, and best I could tell it was about this old man who lived way out in the country. Early in the movie, he falls out in the field and breaks his leg. Has to drag himself back to the house and take care of it because his car won’t start. Some dudes wearing black masks show up and try to break into his house. He starts killing them. I stopped watching after a while. Too much pussy there to worry with a stupid movie.”

  He rubbed his face, and I got a glimpse of a tattoo on the back of his upper arm, near his elbow. It was a deep yellow circle, outlined in black. In the middle of the circle were what appeared to be two axe handles. And in the middle of those was a skull.

  He saw me looking and moved his arm closer for a better view. “That’s from the warehouse,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I saw it on the cars that would come in and out. It was a sticker. That was where I worked for Lane mostly. Up on Summer Mountain, guarding that fucking warehouse.”

  “Told you,” Ronnie said.

  “I thought it looked badass,” Lambert said, ignoring Ronnie, “so I got my tattoo artist buddy to do it for me. Hell, he worked the warehouse too when he wasn’t giving tattoos. Dude made bank on the tattoos.”

  “Mind if I take a photo?”

  “Suit yourself. I don’t give a fuck.”

  After taking a couple of shots, I asked him if he could give me directions to the warehouse.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “There was something serious going on in there. I ain’t stupid. I talk, but I don’t blab.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t give a fuck whether you understand or not. I ain’t giving you directions. Next question.”

  I glanced at Ronnie. He raised his eyebrows slightly but otherwise kept his expression neutral, which told me a lot. Ronnie never kept his expression neutral. I decided it would be a good idea to move on.

  “I heard you have another tattoo?” I said. “One of a local legend?”

  “Oh, Old Nathaniel.” He grinned. “Gotta take my shirt off to show you that one. Probably not a good idea. These guards already don’t like me.”

  “It’s fine. I’m curious, though, why you would choose an old legend like Old Nathaniel?”

  “Legend? Shit, he ain’t no legend.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’ve seen him.”

  I glanced at Ronnie. He raised his eyebrows at me but said nothing. “You’ve seen him?”

  “Yep. Earlier this summer, right about the time my girl and my pit bull got tangled up. I was working one night for Lane, and there was a full moon. I remember that because it already had me spooked. Full moons make the cornfield different.” He looked at Ronnie. “You know what I mean, right?”

  Ronnie nodded. I couldn’t tell if he was just going along or if he really believed it.

  “Anyway, I was up on the north end, near the train trestle and the river. And that cornfield—shit—it ain’t got no rhyme or reason to it, but occasionally there’s a path, almost like somebody was trying to make a way to get around in it but wanted to keep it a secret from everybody else. I was taking a piss, right by one of those long paths and, way down on the other end, I saw the bastard walk by.”

  “Wait, it was dark, and you saw him ‘way down on the other end?’”

  Lambert shot me a look of pure irritation. It wasn’t hard to imagine that he’d make the leap quickly from irritation to violence.

  “The fucking moon,” he said. “I already told you it makes everything different.”

  “Okay,” I said. “What did he look like?”

  “Tall. Walked with big strides. Wore a mask. Shit, let me just show you.” He lifted his orange top on one side, revealing a large, smooth gut and hairy nipples. Just above his left nipple was a detailed color tattoo of Old Nathaniel. He was depicted as standing in the middle of a row of cornstalks, holding a long, slightly
curved knife. He wore gray clothes and a brown burlap sack with holes cut out for his eyes. His eyes were bright yellow and seemed to be alive with a supernatural power.

  “That’s some fucking detail,” Ronnie said. “Who did it?”

  “That’s the thing. This is how I know I didn’t imagine it. Had it done down at the crossing, over by Small Mountain. The only tattoo artist I ever met who didn’t have a single tattoo. Like I said, I don’t do good with names, but he knows me. Everybody knows Pit. But here’s the thing. I came in and he says, ‘What do you want?’ and I says, ‘You ever hear of Old Nathaniel?’ He says he has. I tell him I saw the bastard, and I want it to look just like he really looks. At this point, I’m expecting him to laugh and ask me what I really want, but he just gets out a sheet of paper and sketches out pretty much exactly what you see here.

  “Which means, he’s seen him too. So, I didn’t imagine it.”

  I looked at the tattoo closely. “Do you have any idea who it is?”

  “Who what is?”

  “The man wearing the costume?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about? The man wearing the costume is Old Nathaniel.”

  “You really believe this is some phantom that’s been stalking the cornfield since the 1800s?”

  Lambert nodded. “Okay, I see how it sounds when you put it like that. I only know what I saw. And it looked pretty real to me.”

  I nodded. “Okay, can you think of anything else? Anything at all about Lane Jefferson or Old Nathaniel or even this man on Summer Mountain?”

  “I told you everything I know. Like I said, Lane wanted to get me in the inner circle. I think they wanted, you know, like, some young blood in their group, but then I think his friend was disappointed I didn’t dig the movie. Who knows, maybe I’d be there now if I hadn’t gotten pissed at Julie and her kid.”

  I let that go. Being reminded of exactly what kind of a man I was talking to made me feel a little sick to my stomach. It was time to wrap this up.

  “Thanks for meeting with us,” I said.

  Timmy Lambert shook his head. “Any time. I enjoy talking. Hell, prison ain’t so bad. Lots of people say it is, but I do all right. Still, it’s nice to have visitors. Ya’ll come back, sometime, okay?”