The snaketree was the biggest cypress I'd ever seen. We called it the snaketree on account of the way the roots curled. Least that's what I'd been told.
They opened the slat truck gates. We started walking, feet following feet, like a human centipede. The road stretched out ahead of us, like a forever kind of snake.
"Short steps! Short steps!" the yell went out.
Men on the chain kept slow pace. Didn't pay to high step. One man falls, the whole chainline falls with him.
"How come they park so far away?" Olan Walker asked.
He was chained right behind me. Usually bad luck to have a new boy walking behind you, but Olan Walker fell in step like a regimental trooper.
"Any convict lights out, he got a long walk to get to wheels, way I figure it."
"Maybe they just like to see us sweat," Olan Walker said with a laugh.
"Maybe."
"What you used to do, out there?"
"Worked in a bank," I said. "I was a teller."
"Now what brings a banker to a chain? You rob it maybe? Am I walking beside a dangerous man?"
He grinned, all wildlike. Seeing Olan Walker grin was like catching a glimpse of a two handed saw flying out of the trunk of a one hundred year old walnut tree.
I shook my head.
"Boss's daughter," I explained. "Said she was older than I guessed she was, only she wasn't."
Olan Walker laughed.
"She pretty?"
"Pretty ain't big enough a word," I said. "Think about moonbeams and apple blossoms. She looked at me, I had to talk to her. Wasn't nothing I could do about it."
I stared like I could see her standing there in that field, and for a moment I thought I saw her, hovering over the snaketree.
"Dark eyes," I said. "What the moon looks like round the other side. Kind of eyes that tug you like a low rip tide. One look, bam, you snagged."
Olan Walker grinned.
"Trapdoor spider," he said. "Bam, you snagged."
I nodded.
"You ever see eyes like that on a woman, Olan Walker?"
He looked to the trees like an army of strangers.
"Yeah," he said. "Just the once."
He shook his head, trying to lose a memory.
"A banker."
Shook his head and laughed out loud.
"A teller," I corrected.
He grinned like a snake in an egghouse.
"Yeah, All-Your-Wishes, you be the teller, for sure."
Days are long on the chain. The morning rolled like frozen slow.
We worked the road, hacked the scrub and cursed. The gunbulls cursed at us when the going got slow. The bosses cursed the gunbulls for fear of the Captain. The air was thick with curses, like swamp water thick with wrigglers. If God was listening I hoped he wore a damn good pair of ear plugs.
We hacked through sawgrass and palmetto so sharp a wrong step'd lay a man's ankle wide to the bone. Got to be careful, cutting yourself on the road. There's fever rot and gangrene, blood boil and leprosy. You open a hole in your skin, ain't no telling what crawls inside.
The gunbulls poured kerosene to heal the blisters up. Ain't no balm on the Alabama chainline. Nothing but snake oil, sweat, and rot.
I looked up to where the preachers tell us heaven is. Just to rest my eyes. Never been much of a God believing man. Seen too much wrong to believe heaven isn't more than a gravedigger's joke.
Hell is here. We walk it every day. If there's a heaven, the bosses own it. Walking skies of eternity, waving whips and chains and telling us how good it's for us.
"What you staring at boy?" Brady hollered.
Hit me with what was left of his walking stick, in case I hadn't heard him holler.
"Just blinking the sky out of my eyes boss. Getting right back to work."
I noticed, even though it was hotter than a fire in a pepper grinder, Boss Brady wore a glove on the hand Olan Walker touched.
Scratched at it most the day, but it hadn't begun to stink.
Not yet.
"So what'd you do?" I asked Olan Walker.
"Talking when I should've been listening."
"Tell me about it."
He shook his head no.
"Let's just say I'm passing time. Just waiting for a train, is all."
"No train out here on the road."
"There's an old story. A train that rolls through the heavens, picking up souls. I'm going to ride that long crazy train into the wild dark night. Ain't ever coming back."
"You sure about that?"
"Nobody's sure of nothing. But one thing I know. There's a gray lady been looking for me, and she'll be driving that train."
"Sounds like a trapdoor spider to me," I said.
He grinned.
"Like you said, bam, I was snagged a hell of a long time ago."
I laughed at that.
"You a conjure man?" I asked.
"What you think?"
"Whole camp says you are."
"Didn't ask what they thought. Asked what you thought."
"I seen what you did to Boss Brady's hand."
He smiled like a kid catching a ball.
"I ain't done doing for old Boss Brady."
I looked to where Brady stood. He was scratching his hand like to tear it off.
"Scratch and scratch, Boss," Olan Walker said. "Jingle jangle, jingle jangle. You ain't done itching yet. You and all your company."
He turned back to me.
"See them fellows over there?"
I looked where he nodded.
"The bosses?" I asked.
"Not them. Look past them. Look hard."
I looked, and that's when I saw them.
Old Beelzebub and his whole circle of demons holding court by the roadside, just watching us convicts work. Frogs like men, and toads that walked like big dogs, a big old star faced thing hovering just over the snaketree. And hanging out of that snaketree was the biggest snake I'd ever seen. Dangling like a whip vine from the branches of that cypress. Head hung down around the earth, tail tickled itself somewhere up near the face of the moon. Staring at me, moon and snake, eyes wider than an ocean wide pie pan. In the eye I saw a thousand more snakes wrapped like the veins of a drunkard's morning stare. In each snake eye I saw a thousand more, down and down and down.
"They're taking notes," Olan Walker said. "Kind of like study, you understand. They're taking notes on how hell ought to be run."
I seen one of them wink at me. Sharing some kind of secret joke. I blinked too hard, and they were gone. Like they'd never been.
Only I wasn't so certain.
Olan Walker stared into the distance, listening for a voice.
"They out there, all the time. You just got to know how to look past them."
He spat on the ground.
"Yeah, I'm a conjure man. A houngan. A boujou man. Make medicine with the Loa. Pray to Damballah. Listen to the spirits talk and the dead rotted things mutter."
"Voodoo? I heard tell of that up in New Orleans."
"My people call it boujou, but it's all the same," Olan Walker said. "These hills, these fields, even this goddamn road. It's all full of the boujou spirit. It's in the bones of the land. You can't walk it, you can't work it, without it touching you."
"So what else can you do?"
He stared into the distance, like he was listening for an answer.
Finally it came.
"I can make it rain snakes," he said.
And before the end of the week he did just that.
Third day was when it happened.
Started like any other day. The camp bell, the trucks, the walk.
But it ended like nothing I'd seen before.
We worked the rough part of the day. Now we rested under the snaketree.
Should've knowed, lying under a tree like that. But it only made sense. Was the biggest shade tree handy. The bosses sat in the trucks, sipping on soda pop, where else we gonna take our nap?
Brady stood separate fro
m the rest. He'd been hanging back all day, like he was trying to hide.
I lay in the shade of the snaketree. When I looked up a big old tree snake dangled about my face, twisting and unwrapping like a bolt of slow lightning.
"Damn!"
I sat up quicker than Lazarus. Grabbed a rake. Would have broke that snake's skull bone, except Olan Walker was quicker than me. He slid his hand and caught the snake by its neck.
"Let me kill it," I said.
"Snake don't mean no harm," Olan Walker said. "It's bound by its own chain to this earth, just doing what it's supposed to do. Can't help being made the way it was."
Bang!
The snake's head exploded like a fourth of July thundercracker.
Me and Olan Walker whirled like Jesus called us.
There was Boss Brady, standing and grinning, smoking pistol in hand.
He walked on over, his grin getting bigger as he got closer, like a truck barreling down on a headlight struck deer.
I could see why he'd been hanging back. Looked like a half dozen lepers standing on two legs. Face ran like meat gone rancid, moldering and alive with maggots.
Olan Walker grew as still as death.
"Did I kill your pet?" Brady asked. "I seen you petting that thing. Big old fellow like you, a snake petter? Who'd have thought it?"
Brady got closer. He stunk like a battlefield. Felt his shadow like a cold weight upon my body. As dark as that tree was, Boss Brady's shadow was that much darker.
"You take that snake to the cook, conjure man. Make you a nice stew for your supper. You'd like that, wouldn't you, you old snake eater?"
He leaned back with one hand and scratched the meat of his ass. I heard the skin piling wet beneath his fingernails, it had got that quiet.
"I don't know what you done to me conjure man, but you got to pay."
Olan Walker's eyes grew hard and black as the bullet heads peeking from the cylinders of Boss Brady's pistol.
Quick as a needle pulling thread the snake healed. Opened its mouth and hissed at Boss Brady.
BANG!
The second bullet was louder than the first. Took the second head off that snake like a cap off a beer bottle.
"Next bullet takes off your hand, conjure man. Try and heal that."
Olan Walker let his arm sink to his side. Let the snake slide head-stump down to the earth. It slid through his loosened fingers like a chain sliding through a tackle block.
Only he stopped at the tail.
He cracked the snake like a whip. The dead snake struck his right leg shackle, shattering it like a piece of glass. Sound of the crack made the bullets seem voiceless.
At that crack snakes poured from the tree. Their bodies slid about my shoulders and face like burning rain.
Boss Brady went crazy. Snakes landed on his face and back. He kept screaming they were biting him. Waved his arms and fired his gun until it refused to speak.
When the smoke and crazy cleared Olan Walker stood with the dead snake dangled in his hands. His big red hat shoved back jaunty on his skull like a rooster's topknot. Brady stared at the dead snake, afraid it'd stand up and bite him.
Olan Walker let the dead snake slip from his fingers.
He pointed at Boss Brady.
Brady flinched like he'd been struck.
"Seems you carrying a little extra cargo in your drawers, Boss."
Whether or not Brady marbled his drawers didn't matter. Everyone laughed. Some from fear, some because they couldn't think of anything better to do.
The gunbulls ran around trying to keep order. I seen some of them grinning too, but only when they figured Boss Brady wasn't looking.
Brady stared bullet holes into Olan Walker.
"Any more conjuring," he said in a real quiet voice. "And we kill him."
He pointed at me. I tried to make myself invisible, but it didn't work. Knowing Boss Brady emptied his gun should have helped, but it didn't.
We'd all seen that snake killed, too.
Olan Walker nodded, like he'd accept what Boss Brady said.
"Fetch me Black Betty," Brady ordered.
Then everything got real quiet.
Black Betty was the law maker. A leather strap about the width of a fat boss's hand, maybe as long as a man's shoulder to his fingertips. Three layers of leather stiffened with sweat and blood. Like a piece of swamp oak, grown mean. Right down both sides run a string of brass grommets, like you'd tack around a shoe-lace hole. Like being whipped with a cuttlefish, them grommets would catch a convict's skin and pull it off his bones like salt taffy.
I seen men beat to fish glue, when the boss's piss was up.
The gunbulls grabbed Olan Walker. Then Boss Brady set to work. Laid Olan Walker's back open, until his skin hung in flaps skinned down from his shoulder bones, and his spine looked like the hair of a burning woman.
Was the damndest thing I'd ever seen. Chunks of Brady fell like moldy turds. Every time he'd take a chunk off Olan Walker, a piece of his self fell down.
He kept on whipping. Had the feeling he'd keep whipping until there was nothing holding the whip but a handful of hate.
We'd seen Olan Walker hang on the rack like nothing could bother him. He was a conjure man, and knew no pain. But they got to him that day. No man could stand up to the whipping he took.
He leaned against the tree, laughing and weeping and howling like no one emotion was big enough for his agonizing body.
I've heard screech owls yell for the devil by moonlight. I've heard the mockingbird call for a sinner's soul. I've heard the wet black swallow of my mother's last breath as lung rot took her down into the hard long night.
But I never heard nothing like the sounds Olan Walker made that day.
I ain't sure what happened first. Either Boss Brady's arm gave out, or Olan Walker got tired of standing. Both men fell, like they were tied with an invisible chain.
Then it got dark. One moment it was blind naked sunshine, next it was blacker than twice boiled pitch. A storm cloud the size of Missouri rolled in from the heavens.
Olan Walker raised his hands like he was letting go. Let a long wail loose from somewhere round the bottom of his soul.
He'd been keeping that back for a long lonesome time.
That's when the first lightning struck. Took Boss Brady, right where he knelt. Sizzled his fat and hatred like pork fried down to cracklings.
Olan Walker stood up. It was like watching a fallen tree getting back up. He stepped from his skin like a snake sliding out of a three year old hide. Looked as smooth and unblemished as a fresh born baby.
Looked down at me and smiled.
I hid my eyes, his smile was that terrible scary.
The lightning came in sheets and chains. Struck neat as arrows, slicing links of US grade steel as easy as a hot razor through fresh chilled butter.
One of the gunbulls unlimbered his shotgun.
The lightning fried him down to bones.
It played about what was left of Boss Brady. His moldering carcass jittered and twitched like a sinner finding instant religion.
The gunbulls and bosses ran as fast as they could.
The lightning picked them off like rats in a cheese barrel.
Miles away lightning struck the Captain's bungalow. The camp, the kitchen, even the camp bell.
Miles further a bolt of lightning sizzled out of a cloudless sky and crashed into Government House. Charbroiled the governor like a seasoned steak while he was sitting over his afternoon tea.
Some men swore Olan Walker was struck by lightning. Blasted to dust and ashes.
I know better.
I don't know what I saw, but I'll tell you what happened. That cloud rolled down and touched the dirt, and Olan Walker stepped into that cloud like a man stepping onto a train. Waved goodbye, but nobody saw him but me.
None of the bosses or gunbulls survived. The camp burned to the ground. The convicts ran for the hills. Some were caught, some got away. Nobody told the same story.
I lay under the snaketree, long after the last gunbull died. Long after the last convict ran. Long after Olan Walker stepped into that cloud and waved goodbye.
As I lay there I saw a long gray woman, standing atop the tree.
There's stories of a voodoo queen up around New Orleans. She can turn a man's blood to ash with a wave of her hand. Shrivel a man's snake down to worm size with a single cold laugh.
As powerful as that voodoo queen was, she'd bow down and kiss the muddy feet of this gray woman of the snake tree.
"That boss," the gray woman said in a slow molasses voice. "He killed a lot of my friends, you know?"
Maggots of the purest white crawled through the dead snakes and bosses alike. The rotting meat perfumed the air worse than skunk spray. The wind held its breath in disgust, or maybe awe.
"Where'd Olan Walker go?" I asked.
The gray lady pointed to the sky. I looked up. There, in broad daylight, was the stretch of stars my daddy called the hunter's belt. And beyond that stretch was a thousand more stars that had names my daddy never knew.
"Climb the tree," she said. "The hunters'll be coming."
I didn't want to.
Stared there, at the tree.
Seen the skin of Olan Walker, all that was left of him, grinning at me like a laughing suit of long johns. The gap of his tongueless mouth gaping like an open grave. The wind caught it, drifted it upwards like a tattered flag of surrender.
Bam, I was snagged.
I climbed the tree. When the police and posses and politicians gathered I was high above them, hidden in the branches.
I saw birds fly by. Snakes hung like moss from the branches. Bats chased mosquitoes. A big barn owl stared at me.
There were other things as well. The bark of the tree crawled with them. Shapes and tatters and visions of things that danced in nightmares.
Nothing I saw seemed concerned with me or the men below.
I saw the gray woman, high above it all, looking down and smiling like I was made of solid gold and emeralds. Her mouth looked like an ivory rainbow. I had to get up to where she was waiting for me.
I heard Olan's slow laughing voice talking of trapdoor spiders.
I struck out like a sailor clambering a mast. Climbing higher until I was way past where the tree ought to have stopped growing.
Steve Vernon Special Edition Gift Pack, Vol 1 Page 17