Steve Vernon Special Edition Gift Pack, Vol 1

by Vernon, Steve

  Lon was right.

  She wasn't human.

  She just stood there, manhandling me with three feet of rusty steel scythe blade imbedded into her bowels. I heard the handle of the scythe snap in two. I pushed against the blade, trying to catch and twist it.

  All at once she lay still.

  I watched the blood soak into the dirt.

  She had to be dead.

  I headed out of the barn and stumbled towards the little trail to the road. I found the trail and fear broke me into a poorly-constructed facsimile of a run. I pushed forward, each step a pain-filled agony. Shattered bones gritted with each step I took. The trail slowly widened. I was certain I recognized some of the landscape. Any minute now I would come to the wreck of my car.

  I rounded a bend in the path.

  There before me stood an ancient trailer, squatting upon a stretch of hard cleared land. In the distance a weathered barn awaited my return.

  The land was grey.

  So terribly grey.

  A shape emerged from the barn. Female and running straight towards me.

  For a crazy half moment I thought it was Annie.

  Only it wasn't.

  It was Sheba, of course.

  I turned and plunged back into the woods. Maybe I could escape her by running overland. Maybe if I kept away from the trail I would not be fooled by whatever spell she had woven.

  I should have known better.

  Hadn't Lon told me how much she'd loved these woods?

  I glanced behind me. A small white shape flickered between the trees.

  She was gaining on me.

  I didn't look behind again. I saved everything for the run.

  Just for a moment I thought I was going to make it.

  And then a second shape appeared in front of me. I couldn't stop myself. I ran straight into the carcass of the buck. Only the dead buck wasn't hanging from the tree where Lon had slung it. It was standing there on its own four legs, just waiting for me, its abdominal cavity gaping like an open mouth.

  Slim white arms gently enfolded me from behind.

  Held me fast, caressed me just once and then squeezed.

  This last story of the collection is one I am very proud of in that originally appeared in Richard Chizmar's anthology collection Shivers V (2009). I have long been a fan of chain-gang movies – and one of my favorites of the genre is COOL HAND LUKE. So naturally, I wanted to write something that sang to that tune and I think it pretty good job of it – so I'm going to let this tale tell itself.

  The Forever Long Road of Olan Walker

  I'm the teller, and I'm telling you it was the craziest thing anyone seen. An army of reporters, politicians, and police, trying to figure what emptied an Alabama work farm of sixty-eight convicts. What left a dozen bosses and twice as many gunbulls cindered down to charcoaled bone.

  I'm the only one who survived.

  Sort of.

  I ain't even here. You can't see me, and you sure as hell don't want to hear me.

  I'm just telling, a forever long way from you.

  So stand there in the Alabama sun, scratching your heads and your asses while pretending to know what you're looking at, because this is how it all unwound.

  Easter Monday, 1952. It was a day like any other. The slat truck rolled into camp with half a dozen new convicts. A couple of vagrants, one drunk, one assaulter and one assaultee.

  And Olan Walker.

  Olan Walker was first out of the slat truck and he could have slid through one of the slats. That man was nothing but lank. Lean as a dog in Lent. Lean as hunger, thinner than prison soup. Looked like he ate nothing but wind and shadow all his life. If there was a king and queen of skinny; a duke of rawbone, an earl of gaunt and a prince of scrawny - well Olan Walker was the lord of them all.

  Still, size don't mean much when you're wearing a chain. Big man, small man, it's all the same when you wear steel. Chain shorts you down, bit by bit, until you're nothing more than a speck of walking dirt on a long dusty road.

  So there we were, standing in the work camp, watching the slat truck unload.

  Boss Brady was talking, as usual. Always got to be a talker. Fellow who can't breathe without making noise. That was Boss Brady. Mean little man in a mean little body. Short, with an unhealthy pudge. Face as brown and hard as a walnut. Imagine a fellow you'd dislike from hello, wrap him in a suit of cantanker, and you're standing somewhere close to Boss Brady.

  Isn't a whole lot left of Boss Brady now.

  He got it first.

  "They call me Boss Brady," he bellowed.

  We stood and listened. Was easier than walking or working. Didn't listen too hard. Seen and heard this a thousand times.

  Only this time was different.

  "We gonna give you a red hat," Boss Brady went on, as a gunbull plunked a barn red palmetto wove hat on top of Olan Walker's head.

  That caught our attention.

  Olan Walker was to be a member of the Red Hat Gang. They were the rough boys. The trouble makers. As penance they had to work twice as hard as the rest of us. Wore those palmetto hats to stand out. Nice targets in the Alabama sun.

  We wondered what Olan Walker did to earn a red hat, fresh out of the slat truck.

  It didn't seem to bother him none. He stood as calm as Moses standing before pharaoh. Like he was standing somewhere else, a forever long way from here.

  The camp blacksmith banged the kingbolt into the right leg shackle. Always put the right shackle on first. Man chained round his right ain't likely to kick with his left.

  "You get to wear these chains," Boss Brady said, like he was inviting Olan Walker to tea.

  Then he grinned a mean kind of grin. Only kind of grin Boss Brady ever wore. Kind of grin made you think of liar snakes and guilty apples.

  "That's thirteen links, in't boy?" Boss Brady said. "Thirteen links of honest US grade steel, hung between your legs like a rusty tallywhacker. Make some sweet music. Jingle jangle. You just wait, boy. Come tomorrow you'll be counting each jing jang as another second passed in the service of the Alabama State Gov'ment."

  Olan Walker grinned like a secret. Spoke the first words we heard him say.

  "For such a little peckerhole you sure do a lot of talking."

  That let the cougar out of the cave.

  Brady reared back. Let fly with his walking stick.

  Olan Walker caught the stick like a man snagging a crippled blowfly.

  Brady was bear fat and hate. He leaned into the cane. His eyes glowed like fresh coals. Spittle flew from his lips. The gristle about his eyepits coiled and popped like a nest of snakes.

  Olan Walker took it all and turned it right back.

  Brady's cane was made from the dogwood root. Toughest wood growing on God's good earth. When it broke the snap was loud as any shot fired.

  I swear I saw the stump of Brady's cane, twisting in Olan Walker's fist like a fresh caught eel.

  Brady hung onto half a cane, his knuckles squeezed white.

  Tried to find his pride back with words.

  "Think you're tough, boy?" he asked. "Ain't seen nothing until you've seen the road. You wearing a chain, now."

  "We all wear chains, boss," Olan Walker said. "Free and prison alike. Chains of rot and misery, like a bunch of gourds left in the sun."

  Brady spat in the dirt. Seemed to hiss and sizzle where the spit hit home.

  "You crack wise all you like. That chain'll wear the sass and cider out of your bones."

  Right then and there we thought Olan Walker was some kind of walking god, but the chain went on him just the same.

  Chain between the legs is bad enough, but each man wore a linkup. Three fat feet of chain drug behind you like a tail. One end bradded to the middle of the ankle chain. Free end hammered into a small shackle ring. The gunbulls used the linkup to marry us convicts together on the march. Just a snap of the ring, and you was a link in a chain stretched down the Alabama roadway.

  The blacksmith fussed wit
h the fit, on account of Olan Walker's leanness. Tapped the kingbolt into the left leg shackle.

  "Make sure you bang that kingbolt snug," Brady warned. "You coming down awful light on that hammer, in't you boy?"

  That was for the backtalk.

  Brady gave the chain a hard shake, like he was checking on its snug. We knew he was just showing us his piss.

  "Jingle jangle. Jingle jangle. Like walking with a bull rattler slung between your anklebones, in't boy?"

  Olan Walker smiled like that was the funniest thing he'd heard. It was a strange kind of smile, not cheery at all. More like the grin an alligator might give you right after it bit off your middle leg.

  You don't grin at no free man when you're wearing Alabama steel.

  "Don't you be grinning at me, convict," Brady warned.

  He pulled his hand back from the chain. Stared like he'd seen a snake.

  "Damn," he swore.

  His hand was bleeding. Red spilling over the chain and dust around it. Must have been a sharp spot.

  Brady cuffed the blacksmith with the bloody side of his hand.

  "Damn your eyes, boy. Why don't you file that steel down better than that?"

  Olan Walker kept grinning. Then he laughed. A mournish tuneful kind of laugh. Like a cold lonesome wind blowing through the belly of a hollowed out tree.

  Brady curled his hand into a fist. Only made the bleeding worse.

  Olan Walker reached out, viper quick. Caught Brady's hand.

  Grinning was bad, laughing worse, but you never touch a boss.

  A gunbull stepped up like he'd been called. Slammed a shotgun butt hard into Olan Walker's spine.

  Olan Walker let go of Brady's hand. Not because of the shotgun. He'd just finished what he wanted to do.

  When he removed his hand the bleeding stopped.

  Brady held his hand up like fine cut crystal.

  That's when we knew. Olan Walker was a conjure man. Only way to heal by touch.

  Brady snatched the blacksmith's hammer. Stood there, pale as a fresh bled pig, hanging onto that hammer like he was going to use it.

  Only hitting wasn't Brady's way. Easier to get a gunbull to do it for him.

  "Hit him in the legs," Brady ordered. "So's he'll feel it tomorrow."

  The gunbull swung the shotgun hard into that soft hole behind the kneecap.

  Olan Walker slid to his knees like he was getting set to pray. Didn't fall. Was more like he let himself go down.

  And once down, close to the dirt, he said one word.

  "Rot," Olan Walker said.

  Said it like it sounded. Said it so you smelled the stink of mushrooms creeping a mold ridden carcass. Trash heaps, and puss running in the sun. Fruit gone too ripe. You felt it, way he said it. Tasted it back in your throat like swallowed spit.

  "Throw this bastard in the stocks," Brady said. "We'll show him rot."

  Only he didn't sound certain. Not near as certain as Olan Walker sounded when he said that one terrible word.

  Olan Walker let the gunbull and blacksmith drag him to his feet.

  "You full of spite and piss right now, but we got something for you," Brady said. "You just watch. Just wait. That's all you're gonna do, is watch and wait."

  He whirled, set to punish us all.

  "You all watch. The eyes of God and Alabama and Boss Brady are burning down on all you boys out here. And that's for God damned certain sure."

  Boss Brady had that right.

  The eyes of God were watching, certain sure.

  The eyes of God, and something a hell of a lot older than that.

  The stocks were hanging pain. A rack made of hard hickory. They hung you from it by your hands and feet, legs jackknifed up until you could lean forward and kiss your kneecaps if the mood struck you.

  They ratcheted Olan Walker up until his assbone hung inches from dirt. The stocks creaked. Sounded ready to break. Prayed for that every time but they never did.

  Olan Walker hung there, two or three goddamned inches from the dirt.

  You got to understand the feeling of that. Knowing if you could stretch your spine a couple notches you could hold your weight with your butt. Only you can't. You hang there until your arms and legs scream. Ain't your mouth starts working first. It's arms and legs, the knives of your hipbones wormgrinding into your gut.

  I seen one man last in the stocks without screaming for God's mercy. He was crazier than a waltzing pig. Wasn't much the bosses could do that'd stick.

  Olan Walker was different, but just as crazy. Hung there grinning like we were feeding him milk and cream. Only it wasn't no friendly grin. Made the grin he gave Brady look easy as a handshake. Kind of grin a man grins on his thousandth year in hell, after the king devil wore his brains out tormenting you. After your body decided it couldn't bother to hurt no more.

  Nobody should grin that way, but Olan Walker hung in the rack the way a man hangs in a summer hammock, the rest of that first long morning.

  They cut him down at dinner.

  The gunbull fetched him a plate of beans. Handed to him dainty and scared, like Olan Walker was a one man nest of cottonmouth snakes.

  Olan Walker hunkered down next to the rack, like he and it were old buddies.

  Nobody got too close that first day. Was like they smelled a storm coming and Olan was a tall tree. Didn't want to stand too close for fear of a lightning strike.

  Somebody had to talk to him. Let him know the laws of the camp.

  So I mustered up my courage and walked on over.

  "Howdy," I said.

  "Howdy hey," he answered back.

  "Name's Aloysius. Aloysius Hutterford."

  Olan Walker liked the sound of that.

  "All-your-wishes?" He said molasses slow.

  Looked straight into my eyes. Was like staring down the loaded bores of a double barreled shotgun.

  "You shall have all your wishes, All-Your-Wishes. I guarantee that."

  "How you know what I wish for?"

  "Your feet are sore, ain't they? And you wishing to sit down, ain't you? Well sit you down, All-Your-Wishes Hutterford. Sit you on down."

  I sat down.

  "There you go, All-Your-Wishes. Your wish has come true."

  I grinned at his prediction. Wasn't much of a trick. Out here on the work farm a man's feet are always looking for an excuse to sit down.

  Then he laughed. A big deep bottom of the well long way from anywhere kind of laugh. Kind of laugh makes you laugh right along with.

  His smile widened. Hard to imagine a man could smile as hard as Olan Walker.

  "You be careful now, laughing that way. Guards get to watching us," I warned.

  "God is watching us. Isn't that what that peckerwood Brady said?"

  I looked around quick, in case somebody heard. Brady was watching, but not too close. His looking and listening weren't turned on. He picked at his hand like he'd dipped it in cooties.

  "The eyes of God are watching," Olan Walker went on. "And he's most likely grinning. Thanking what's above him that he don't have to work like us."

  "Ain't no one above God."

  "Didn't say nothing about no one," Olan Walker replied. "Funny ain't it? How close God and guard sound. Like walking and working. Jingle jangle, jingle jangle."

  "How'd you last on the rack like you did? Never seen a man take pain like that."

  "We all walk through pain. Ain't no way around it. Way I figure, they don't think it hurts me, won't put me back on it. Kind of makes it fruitless, you understand."

  "They don't hurt you that way, they find another way. They got boxes they stuff you in, holes they bury you in, guns and sticks and knives, and they got Black Betty."

  I didn't like talking about Black Betty. Bad luck even mentioning her.

  So I went on.

  "They'll stake you over a nest of ants. Let them clamor over you until you're screaming for a bullet. Some of the pissier bosses like to nick you with a knife."

  "Like Boss Brady?"
>
  I nodded.

  "Like Boss Brady. Once he staked out old Chigger John. They peeled Chigger off that anthill, he itched for three whole months. Claimed the ants laid eggs in his blood. Could feel them crawling underneath his skin. After three months, old Chigger opened his throat with a rusty train spike."

  "Help any with the itching?" Olan Walker asked with a grin.

  I had to grin back.

  "You just keep yourself right with the law of the camp, and you won't have to worry about any of that."

  "What law?"

  "Boss law, mostly. Handed down. See, the Governor created the Captain. And the Captain, he created the Bosses. The Bosses created the Gunbulls. Captain's above everybody. He answers only to the Governor. Governor answers to whoever got the deepest pockets. I ain't too sure where God fits in."

  "Maybe he gets a cut from the governor."

  I laughed at that.

  '"Only thing I'm sure of is they all been created to piss on us convicts."

  "And we ain't got an umbrella in sight," Olan Walker finished. "Are the gunbulls free men?"

  "Naw. They just convicts pretending to be Bosses. The Bosses let them carry shotguns, but they all empty. Bosses got the ammo. That's the law."

  "That ain't the law," Olan Walker said. "That's book law, not my law. There's a law of the land and a law of the book. The two don't ever see eye to eyeball. Two laws be like a snake, looking at its own poophole and seeing the biggest burrow he ever rooted in. Damn funny when it takes a bite."

  He shook his head slow, like he had all the time in the world.

  "No sir. The law of the land and the law of the book ain't ever supposed to meet. They's eternal strangers, like God and old Scratch. They ain't never meant to be more than passing acquaintances."

  And that was Olan Walker's thoughts on the law.

  The second morning begun like slow thunder.

  The camp bell woke us. A rail of rusty iron hung on a rusty chain. The oldest gunbull banged it every morning like he was beating the judgment bell. Like it was the last thing he'd do before God up and walked him down the road.

  The sky was streaked with red, like the yolk of an egg kissed too hard by the rooster. Was a long walk through hell today. All we had to look forward to was a dinner of beans, and an afternoon nap under the snaketree.