Gods of Howl Mountain

by Taylor Brown

  “One to go.”

  “Who was it for?”

  “Don’t matter. I can make another one.”

  “Thank you.”

  The man nodded and pulled closed the door with the gentlest click.

  Rory crept to the corner of the restaurant and leaned to look. The two men were standing around his car. One was scribbling in a small notebook with a pencil nub, taking down the plate number, probably. The other stood idly by, white-shirted, his hair gleaming like an eight ball. His trousers were tweed, tucked into the high throats of jump boots.

  Agent Kingman.

  Rory pulled the burger from the bag and took a bite, chewing and watching. He couldn’t tell what they were saying. Finally the man worked the notebook back inside the inner pocket of his coat and the two of them headed inside. Rory could no longer see them around the corner, but he heard the bell ring as they walked in the door. He wadded the empty bag and stuck it in the pocket of his jacket, then got out his key. He refused the impulse to run. He simply walked to his car, got in, and reversed slowly out of his space, as any man would, easing into the street with hardly a touch of the throttle. He was around the first turn before he stepped into the gas.

  CHAPTER 15

  Pastor Adderholt stood in front of the worshipers, no pulpit. His face shone, the Book held high before him in both hands. He was staring at it.

  “Glory be to God,” he said.

  Amen.

  “Because there ain’t but One.”

  Hallelujah.

  “The Lord Victorious.”

  Yes, brother.

  “He that confirms the Word with signs following.”

  Yes, he does.

  “I read you from the Gospel of Mark, chapter sixteen, verse fifteen: ‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. But he that believeth not shall be damned.’”

  Yes, Lord.

  “‘And these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name shall they cast out devils. They shall speak with new tongues.’”

  Yes, Lord.

  “‘They shall take up serpents. And if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.’”

  Hallelujah.

  “Have we not witnessed these signs?”

  Yes, brother.

  “I wouldn’t back up on the Lord for nobody. Not for the whole world.”

  No, brother.

  “For he is the world.”

  Amen.

  “He is Lord in every corner of the earth. The King of every nation.”

  Praise him.

  “And he made all of us of the one blood.”

  He did.

  “In his image. No matter age nor color. No matter male nor female. We were made to praise him.”

  Glory be.

  “To receive the Spirit.”

  Yes, Lord.

  “That quickening power of the Holy Ghost, come down in a whirlwind.”

  Yes.

  “Shouting of victory in tongues.”

  A woman, stout with steel-gray hair, bolted upright from her chair. She began to pray aloud, a stream of praise that wound in and around the preacher’s words, shoring them, swelling them with greater power, like a wind. Then a boy in white shirtsleeves stood too, speaking of high kings and glory, of worlds without end. Then others stood. Beseeching, praising, singing. The prayers pouring out of them in unbroken concatenates, words whirling together in greater torrent, a single voice that flooded the room, crashed against the walls, thundered in the chest and lungs. The steel-haired woman began to jerk and spasm, her arms flung high above her head.

  “Shon-dama-ha-sai!” she said. “Holla-mo-shalla-ah-sai!”

  A steel guitar stung the air, crazed, and tambourines sounded their rattling tattoo. The people were dancing now, whirling and stomping, so many flaming tongues of flesh, and Rory was drawn into the fire, pulled by hands he did not see, his world set spinning, his body weightless as a cinder. Here an old man bounced up and down, his bald pate shining under the lights. There a fat woman shrieked as if stabbed. Rory wheeled and crashed into the girl, her breasts pushed against his chest, her eyes so green and bright. They seemed to flash at him, as if she could control their brightness. He felt them inside him like searchlights, finding him out, and it seemed it was only them here, their own room, and there was no one else. The hollow at the base of her white neck was full of sweat, asking for his tongue, her nipples button-hard against the fabric of her dress. But when he looked again to her eyes, they were directed above him, captive, in awe of the light.

  Just then the pastor came scooting down the aisle with a wooden box the size of an encyclopedia. The bodies parted before him, a great many cries thrust up at the sight. The box had a cane-weaved panel in the lid and brass hinges, and he handed it to one of the other men. The box began to pass around the room, hand to hand, slowly at first then faster, so fast it soon seemed to flutter above the floor of its own power, rising and falling with the flitting mania of a butterfly. When it got to Rory he felt it vibrate in his hand, as if there were a tiny motor inside, and when it got to the steel-haired woman she opened it.

  Out it came, unfurling into her arms. A black-phase timber rattler, a single slick-skinned muscle with a head like a weapon, an arrowlike point. Dark chevrons lined its back. She held it aloft, at the front of the room, as if in offering. It was coiled partly around her arm, the rest sliding high across the tips of her fingers, calm despite the mania, the forked tongue testing what new world was this. The rattle erect and vibrating, one more instrument in all that glory.

  * * *

  “Did you get an anointing?”

  “A what?”

  “When you receive the Holy Ghost. It’s called an anointing.”

  They were leaning on the side of Rory’s car. Whenever he looked at Christine’s eyes, his thoughts seemed to run aground, forgotten, his words gone stony on his tongue. Her hair tumbled from beneath a black felt cloche. Her bangs were cut straight across her brow, two long blades of hair loosed to frame her face. She looked like pictures of French girls he’d seen.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I never been one for church. But I felt something, I think. It’s like…” He paused.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked at his boots. “I felt it once before. Overseas. Like a place you can’t be touched.”

  “Touched?”

  “Hurt.”

  She took his hand.

  “Come on, I want to show you something.”

  She led him out of the yard of parked cars, past people dabbing the sweat from their brows and talking worldly matters now, workplace shifts and casseroles and the price of milk. Whether Eisenhower would be elected president next month. They passed a giant of a man, clad in mill clothes and sawdust, who’d taken the serpent from the steel-haired lady during the service and worn it writhing upon his head like a crown. Christine held fast to Rory’s hand, careless, it seemed, of what anyone thought. No one seemed to notice them. Their faces were buzzing, bright as spotlights. The Bunyan-size man waved. Rory saw a twin pair of bubbles in the web of his hand. Scars, as from the strike of fangs.

  Christine led them out back of the place, and they passed the very tank that now held whiskey. Rory thought of the deadly drink that Mark had spoken of. It shall not hurt them. He’d heard rumors of people testing that verse, too. Drinking poison. Strychnine.

  Christine led him past the rust-scabbed tank and onto a trail in the woods, an open corridor he never would have noticed on his own. Her feet were still bare from dancing, whispering along the path. Rory could feel the earth descending under his own heavy footfalls, the hard beat of his wooden foot. He felt he was being led into the dark by some secret being of the woods, some sylvan creature more perfect than man. The trail kept on and on, the pain in his leg hardly felt, until finally the trees broke onto a clearing of broomsedge, silver-gold under the moon, and in this little sea of grass lay a fl
eet of shored and abandoned rowboats.

  They were oriented in the same direction, canted ever so slightly on their keels. Their oars still sat in the locks, their hulls mossy with age. There were no signs of them being dragged, and Rory saw no path wide enough for such conveyance. They looked like a lost expedition, the flotilla of Louis and Clark run aground.

  “How’d they get here?”

  “That’s not the start of it.”

  She took his hand and led him into the field. Nearer, he saw they were full of water, strange mirrors turned up to the moon. He stood before one and saw dark shapes moving beneath the glassy surface, darting and curling, creatures thriving in these manmade ponds some quarter-mile from the lake. Christine pulled a glassine envelope the size of a playing card from the pocket of her dress and began sprinkling a yellow-gold dust on the surface of the pool, black petals of fins rising to surround the little islands of feed.

  “Maybe a tornado lifted them out of the lake and dropped them here,” he said. “I’ve heard of tornados raining fish.”

  “True,” she said. “Though unlikely.”

  “Maybe a eagle dropped a fish he caught.”

  She looked up at him; her green eyes glowed.

  “Well, he must of dropped a pair of them, don’t you think?” She winked, and Rory felt it in his chest like a sledge. He licked his lips.

  “You got a point there, I reckon.”

  “Anyhow, there’s fish in more than just this one, so it would take a clumsy bird.” She turned and leaned her butt against the edge of the boat, resting on her hands, and looked out across the field. “You got a smoke?”

  Rory lit a Lucky Strike for her, the small flame throbbing in the night.

  She sucked on the cigarette, holding one arm across her stomach.

  “Thing is,” she said, “I don’t even think I want to know how these boats got here. I think I’d rather be free to wonder, you know? It’s the mystery that gets me. The not-knowing.”

  There was a flower in the band of her hat, colored the bloodiest red. A scarlet begonia, perhaps. A tiny heart. Rory felt the urge to touch it, to test whether it was real or not.

  “Is that how you feel in there?” He cocked his head back in the direction of the church.

  “No. In there I’m sure. I know. It’s the other ninety-nine percent of the time I don’t.”

  “So you keep going back?”

  She nodded. “It’s the wanting to reach it again. That certainty. When I know we’re more than just blood and meat. That we have spirits inside us that don’t die. You can’t take up a serpent without believing that, without knowing it.”

  She sucked on the cigarette, her cheeks going dark. Rory watched her, his eyes tracing the pale blue veins in her arm.

  “Have you ever taken one up?”

  She nodded.

  “Once. The Spirit moved me to it.”

  Rory felt the burn of jealousy in his gut, hot as whiskey. He wanted to be the thing that moved her, the beast sliding through her fingers.

  “Has anyone ever been bit?”

  “Sure. If nobody ever got bit, what would be the point? If you can know everything, there’s no need for faith.”

  Rory leaned over the gunwale of the boat, staring into the mirror of water.

  “I don’t know. There’s some things I’d like to know.”

  “Like what?”

  He started to tell her of his mother, but the words wouldn’t come. His throat seemed too small, the things he would say too large and sharp-cornered to come out. They stayed stuck in his chest, embedded like shrapnel in a wound. All that came was a heavy breath whistling through his teeth. She took his arm and sidled closer, so close he could smell the sweet reek of her, of sweat and woman and cedar, a scent dabbed at the base of her throat or exuded from her skin.

  He could feel one of her breasts against his arm, pert as a bird, and he could feel something else. He looked down, surprised to see her leg crossed toward him, her toes set over the laces of his boot. His wooden foot. He couldn’t look away. Her foot was pale and clean in the moonlight, slightly curved, tiny crescent moons capping the nails. She slid the foot fully atop his boot now, crosswise. Her sole was arched, hugging.

  He swallowed hard.

  Her toes curled against him. A small gesture, big as anything. When he looked up she was waiting to be kissed. A short wait.

  CHAPTER 16

  The pastor was standing near Rory’s car when they emerged from the woods. His head was slightly cocked, his eyes grazing the swells and contours of the vehicle’s body. He looked like a Sunday tire-kicker at the car lot.

  “She ain’t for sale,” said Rory.

  The man looked up. He had on the same white shirt he always wore, short-sleeved and starched, and a straight black necktie with a winking tie pin. A thin silver watch looked almost effeminate on his wrist.

  “Evening,” he said. He looked to Christine. “I don’t believe you’ve introduced me to our new friend.”

  Rory felt her stiffen slightly beside him.

  “Rory, this is Pastor Asa Adderholt. My daddy.”

  Rory’s spine snapped to attention.

  The man reached out to shake. “Rory…?”

  “Docherty.”

  The preacher’s hand was dry and coarse, strong, and he held Rory’s hand a moment before letting go, as if taking his pulse. Rory tried not to look at the one eye staring off into its own place, seeming to see things outside his ken.

  “Docherty,” he said. “I know that name.”

  Rory nodded, his chest swelling up.

  “There was an incident, in 1930, down in the valley before they flooded it. It involved Bonni Docherty. My mother.”

  Pastor Adderholt stiffened.

  “I’m sorry, son. I remember that. I always heard she was a sweet girl.”

  “So did I,” said Rory.

  The man nodded and took a step sideways from them, toward the door of the Ford, his gaze lingering a long moment on the tail of the car. He had that black hair, too black for his age, for the battled lines of his face. Vanity, perhaps, or something else.

  “And you live in the mountains now?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And what is it you do there?”

  Rory rubbed his tongue against the back of his teeth.

  “Little of this,” he said. “Little of that.”

  The pastor cut an eye at him.

  “Tough business to make a living in.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Lot of sinner-work up there.”

  “Daddy,” said Christine.

  “Yes, sir,” said Rory. “There’s a lot of people hungry, too.”

  The pastor nodded. Nobody was arguing that.

  “We come up out of the valley in thirty-one,” he said. “Just after I lost my eye. Timber-cutting accident.” He cleared his throat. “That loss was a gift. Best I ever got, save Christine.” He touched her arm a moment. “It woke me up to the Lord. Sometimes he takes something from you to make you see.”

  Just then a little boy ran up. The pastor bent down, the boy cupping his hands to the man’s ear. Adderholt nodded, then stood again.

  “This is my son, Clyde, Christine’s little brother. He wants to be introduced.”

  The boy had a pie-shaped face, pinched, with narrow eyes. He was maybe ten, dressed like a miniature of his father: white shirt, black tie, hair slicked in a gleaming ducktail.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” said Rory.

  The boy stepped forward to take his hand, nodded, then stepped back in line with his father. He had the most concentrated look about him. Suspicious of the world, perhaps. Certainly of Rory. Like it was his duty to sort it all out.

  Rory looked to the pastor.

  “What was it you did in the valley?” he said. “Before they flooded it?”

  The man shifted his head, settling his one good eye on Rory’s face.

  “Little of this,” he said. “Little of that.”


  That eye: an old stone well, mossy and black with depth, that must hold all manner of secrets at its bottom. Rory wondered whether he would have to put it out.

  * * *

  He had just crossed the dam out of town when he picked up a set of headlights in his rearview mirror, a pair of stars growing quickly brighter. He was running the speed limit, the motor drumming along in top gear, and he waited for the car to pass. Instead the machine ran right up on his bumper, riding him close, and the high-beams burst into the cabin. Rory downshifted into second gear, raising the motor to a growl. There was no siren. Perhaps town boys bored on a Saturday night, or some tripper trying to pull his chain. Rory let them hover close, then floored the accelerator. The motor exploded with power, squawking the tires and shoving him into the seat, but the headlights stayed right on his tail.

  Not town boys, then.

  Soon the land began to undulate, the black pavement rising and dropping through forests of oak and hickory, understories of dogwood and gum, the outlying timber that fed the big furniture mills of the state. He knew an old farm road was coming up, which formed a crossroads with a logging road after half a mile. Both roads were unpaved, and he could blind his pursuers in a cloud of dust. He rounded a bend, the roadside breaking onto a wide expanse of reaped tobacco fields, furrows of red clay shooting off to either side. Far in the distance, the dull gleam of the tin-roofed curing barns.

  Ahead was the turn-in. He would slow, then heel the wheel hard over and go screaming between the fields, past the barns and onto the logging road in a storm of dust, his pursuers blinded and lost. But in the last moment before the turn, he thought better of the idea. He couldn’t say why. He coasted past the road, peering a long moment into its darkness, then short-shifted into third, settling to legal speed. Soon the fields ended, the hardwoods again pressed close, and the lights began to fall away, dimming, the car finally making a U-turn at a gravel turnout in the road. The driver seemed to lose interest when he didn’t take the old tobacco road.

  CHAPTER 17

  Granny May sat beneath the white sickle of moon, smoking her pipe. She did not plan on going to sleep this night. Eustace was already gone, disappeared into the mountain’s upper heights, and Rory would not be home until the hour before dawn. She had her shotgun laid on the side table, loaded with triple-aught buck, and her sling of shells lay across her shoulder, the rows of paper shells nestled between her breasts. If that panther-man came calling again for blood, it would be tonight. The moon was mainly in shadow, the menfolk all gone. A good night for panthers and haints, for shape-shifters, for murderers of old women. It wasn’t dying that she feared, it was dying bad: leaving her grandboy alone in the world, unprotected, his wounds unhealed. Death, which walked ever through these mountains, knew she would not go down easy. If some dark upstart came prowling out of the shadows, thinking she had not a world of fight in her heart, they would be informed from the throat of her scattergun.