Hellbender (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 2)

by Miller, Jason Jack

  She had stuff from the envelope spread all over the ground and an old sheet of spiral notebook paper in her hand. The edges were still frayed from were it’d been yanked out of the metal rings. “What is that?”

  “I don’t know. You wrote it. Janie had it in here with a bunch of other stuff that doesn’t really seem to fit in with the rest. Personal mementos, I guess. Things to help her remember.” She passed the paper to me.

  I read it. Two fireflies, one moon, which is the light that leads them? One is bright and fills the sky while the other barely reaches the forest edge. Rising through hemlock and laurel like wayward summer flurries, a galaxy within the trees. How does an insect know more than the moon? That a shared creation always outshines the work of an individual, even if it isn’t as bright? I scrunched my nose. “Sorry. Kind of sucks.”

  “Henry, don’t be like that. It meant enough to Janie for her to keep it. So it says something about her.”

  I said, “Wonder why she liked it?”

  “You wrote it. Her big brother.” Alex said, “And because it is magical, too. Words have power, right?”

  I nodded, and decided to keep the rest of my words to myself for the time being. When the nuts were gone I took off my shirt and gave it to her. I turned around and said, “Put this on. We’ll hang your stuff up to dry.”

  She hung her coat on my finger and I hooked it over the knobby end of a dead limb. I spread the sleeves out as much as I could to air out.

  “Here,” she said, and handed me her little dress the same way.

  I held it up to my nose for just a second, but her smell had been washed away by the falls and the swim. I spread it over the low, dry laurel that shielded our little alcove from the rest of the world.

  “Let me know when I can turn around,” I said, kicking my sandals off. “Okay,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “You can turn around.”

  She lay in the soft pine needles, a halo of ferns curled around her head. She’d rolled my shirt into a ball, which she used like a pillow. Her soft skin glowed in the dim evening light. Tiny spruce needles clung to the moisture on her back and shoulders, to the delicate skin on the soft part of her arms, to the rounded curves of her thighs and calves. The needles covered her like a second skin.

  Between her legs she held a fern frond so that the tip curled just where her thighs met. She teased the frond between her legs, smiling with her eyes closed. She ran her other hand down her sternum to her belly button. “Don’t your shorts need to dry too?”

  I smiled, and stalled, embarrassed that I couldn’t hide my excitement. I dropped my shorts, then kicked them away. I lowered myself to my knees on the soft ground and kissed her. When my bare skin touched hers, lightning ran through my thighs, up to my scalp making my hair prickle. Her smooth skin only felt cold and wet for a second before warming to the same temperature as mine. Then warmer still, as our kiss went on.

  When our lips touched I cradled her head in my hand, her hair fell through my fingers. Her lips were softer than I remembered. Suddenly I wasn’t hungry. Suddenly I wasn’t afraid. She smiled at me, playfully, then found me with her hand.

  She closed her eyes, and took me inside.

  When she opened her eyes again her expression had changed. Her eyes wanted something more from me. Her mouth, no longer content to just kiss, let out a little breath. Then she bit her lower lip. She pulled my face down to her neck. I pushed her hair away with my cheek, her hot breath condensed on my cheek. I kissed her, and she melted, pulling me into her as far as I’d go.

  And when we finished I wanted to talk and laugh. But she became a little overwhelmed by emotion and cried. We had to put our clothes back on because the air was cold, even though I wanted to be wild, with her, forever. She finally calmed down, but by then, sleep waited just behind the sunset. I could smell it coming. We’d been trying to picture a life after all this. They were stupid, naïve dreams, but they acted just like a sedative, which was more than enough to erase, temporarily, the stress of these most recent days.

  This pause in the chase, this moment to stop and recount those things that I still had left, was the gem upon which I focused. With Alex sleeping, cradled in my arms, I considered what tomorrow and the day after would bring. Some early crickets called, shouting out the arrival of summer with their twitching ankles. Further down the canyon, peepers, gray tree frogs among them, announced they were ready to fertilize eggs. All while I tried to predict the future in a quiet pine grove halfway between the green path and the end of the world.

  TEN

  In a dream I heard them approach. The gray haze of predawn was indistinguishable from the gray haze of my dream, so I didn’t roll over. My bones ached. My muscles needed a few more days to just not move. So I watched the forms creep, one by one, into the grove where we slept.

  Even when they waited, surveying, I remained still. After all, they were in my dream.

  My heart raced. My mouth wanted to scream. But my mind said, “Don’t worry about them. This is a dream. They can’t hurt you. Rest up.”

  But when I heard the crunch of bone, felt the warm rush of blood down the back of my throat, I knew it wasn’t a dream. The muddy tread of an old logging boot kept my head firmly planted in the old pine needles that were my pillow just seconds ago. When I instinctively put my hands to my nose to apply pressure to my injury, he kicked me again.

  “Stay down,” Darren Lewis said.

  I stopped struggling, but only to listen for some sign Alex was all right. Figuring I’d hear her cries or some other form of a struggle, it surprised me when Darren said, “Where’s the witch at?”

  If they didn’t know where she was then she was safe.

  “She drowned in the fucking stream, asshole,” I whispered.

  Darren leaned onto his boot, grinding the sole into my ear. His weight shifted and he got down on one knee. “What did you say?”

  With all the subtlety of spring turning into summer I grabbed a fistful of pine needles.

  “She’s dead, asshole.” I lobbed the needles at his face. Darren stepped back, trying to blink the debris out of his eyes.

  I rolled onto my knees and lunged at him, landing a solid right above his left eye. He reeled. I grabbed his oily hair and rubbed the pine needles further into his eye with the heel of my palm.

  Somebody grappled with me from behind. I tightened my grip on his hair like a leech on a pinkie toe. With my free hand I tried to grab his throat, his eyes, his ear—whatever I could pull off his head. Fighting dirty wasn’t dirty when it was for survival. Darren yelped and twisted and his companion threw me to the ground.

  I rolled away, reaching for my pistol. I squeezed off two shots. At least one of them produced blood. I turned to see whose.

  Len Lewis dropped to his knee. In a panic the Charlie’s nephew clutched his bloody shirt just below his rib cage. Trying to shrug off the pain, he made an attempt to stand, but wobbled and fell.

  I ran, but a glancing blow from an ax handle made me stumble into a rocky fern bed. To keep myself from crashing into the rocks I dropped the pistol. It hit with a clatter.

  The impact bloodied my palms, jarred my shoulder. I regained my balance and saw my escape routes evaporating one by one. Lewis’s men closed in on all sides. I sized each of them up, trying to figure out which would be the easiest to take. Danny Eddings and the other guy from Wildwood, Levi, were my best bet. But when Darren produced a shotgun I reconsidered.

  “On the ground, Collins,” he said.

  “Hey man,” I said from the dirt, “if this is about your girl, Lucinda…I’m sorry, your—”

  But I didn’t get to finish. Darren kicked rocks and dirt into my face.

  “Say what you want about Lucy, but as far as I can see her only weakness was ending Janie too quick. Danny knows.”

  Danny looked away. But it didn’t matter. The fuse was lit. I buried my face in the dirt. Outnumbered. Outgunned. At least I was smart enough to know when to give in. As long as Alex was o
ut there I’d do the smart thing.

  My muscles relaxed when I submitted. The mob—all of them in Lewis Lumber jackets and hats—moved in to feed. They beat me with ax handles and tree limbs. Some of them laughed. Levi asked if I could taste his dick whenever I kissed Alex.

  I tried to roll into a ball but they kept flattening me out. Danny and Levi would stand on my hands or forearms as the others whaled on me with oak limbs as thick as my wrist. Darren kept swatting my nose, making the tiny bones grind. Warm blood spilled over into my eyes. I tried to wipe it away so I could open them. A mixture of blood and mucus trickled down the back of my throat. The metallic burn tasted like hell, reminding me of the dark days after Jane’s funeral.

  The beating wore on. Pain came from my ribs, legs, shoulders and neck. But none of that pain could compare to the soft thud of memory, the sticky bite of angry emotion. They’d already taken so much from me. So much that the beating and physical pain had the same effect on me as a light snow does on the forest. I was numb to the throb, numb to the feelings that drove some to drink, others to suicide. Losing a sister made these beatings feel like a tough day at baseball practice.

  Somehow, I knew when I came through the other side, things would be bad, worse than I could imagine, probably. But as long as I was numb to it, as long as the scab that kept my emotions buried deep was thick, I’d fight again.

  And given the chance, I’d kill every last one of them.

  I awoke in darkness. High above, the sky was still dark blue, but here in the dense spruce forest dusk had come and gone sometime around noon. What remained was evening.

  Piecing together my day wasn’t that difficult. After being beaten I was forced to walk or crawl through streams and fog, over rock outcrops to the mangled camp that served as the Lewis base of operations. Had we been at sea, the trail of blood I left would’ve attracted every shark for a hundred square miles. As it was, my trail would serve only as a reminder of the bad choices I made, a biodegradable smear leading from the point of my submission to the point where my failure as a human being ended.

  All I had to do was not get caught and keep Alex safe.

  But my pap would say my greatest talent was the ability to fly all around the pretty little flowers and still land in shit.

  When we arrived at the camp I was tied to a tree, bound in baling twine in a drunken ceremony that had them spitting on me and pouring alcohol over my wounds. When they left all I had was the twine, which smelled a little sweet and organic, like dried grass. The scent was a sick reminder of the happy days baling hay at my pap’s farm. Tranquil August afternoons on the hay wagon, stacking bales in the barn with my uncles and cousins before sitting at a long outdoor table set with fried chicken, potatoes, fresh green beans and the first of the summer corn. My mom and dad were there. Jane was too.

  And each time I woke, the twiny restraint of the cord cutting into my bruises pushed the warmth of those summers back to the past where they belonged. The blood clotted around the fibers. Whenever I slumped or shifted the cuts ripped free.

  By nightfall camp was mostly quiet. Charlie and Darren and Billy and the rest came and went a half a dozen times. I couldn’t tell who was still there and who wasn’t. They were looking for Alex, no doubt, while I was left to entertain myself. Lights popped off and on in tents. Guys went into the trees to go see Miz Murphey. The smell of urine replaced the clean smell I’d taken a little comfort in.

  A large Dutch oven simmered over a layer of glowing coals. Once it was left to simmer it had been mostly ignored for alcohol. Old canvas tents stood mostly erect in a ramshackle fashion around the fire. None were closer than ten yards apart. Bottles of whiskey and beer hid amongst the mushrooms and stones.

  Except for the low hiss of the fire and crickets and the wind, the wheezing that accompanied my breathing was the only other sound. That particular sound made me wonder if they’d broken a rib or two. The grove was filled with a gray light, the light of my early morning dream, now real, in a day-long nightmare. But I knew I was awake.

  In my dreams I never felt pain.

  The gray came from a full moon. The silver light, so bright it cast shadows, fell upon trees as massive as Acropolis columns. It reflected off empty glass bottles, off the metal barrels of shotguns and rifles. In the forest all around me a chorus of crickets and cicadas kept me company. Time stopped moving forward in a straight line. It felt like a web, where one strand left diagonally, and always returned to the center via another strand, so I experienced the same patterns of pain and dreaming over and over again with only slight variations.

  Last night, with Alex, seemed like a different life. A whole other strand.

  A scream came from the trees. A wail like every wind on earth blowing through the eye of a needle. Thoughts of Alex had been the medicine that kept me sane. Knowing she was alone out there terrified me.

  The scent of musk overtook the scent of the burning wood. The scream came again, but this time from the edge of camp. Like a thousand stars shattering all at once, the mountain lioness announced her arrival. No doubt drawn by the smell of my blood, I couldn’t blame her for passing up such an easy meal.

  The pain. The loneliness. The thoughts of Alex. They were all I had left at the end.

  From the smoky blackness at the far end of the camp a figure approached. I’d resigned myself to being beaten again. Offered up as a sacrifice to the wild. But it was late. Whoever waited there most likely had been awoken by the noise or had been meant to keep an eye on me. The fire killed my night vision—I could only see a blurred outline, a small silhouette. Like Billy’s. Perhaps he had come to free me, maybe he wanted to repay me for saving him from the snakes. Maybe he just felt guilty that I was suffering. My spirits rose when I thought, maybe, the universe was a fair place after all. Hope felt just like whiskey under the right circumstances.

  It’d be up to him to explain to the others why he released me. Or lie. If he was smart that’s what he’d do. Play dumb and pretend I escaped on my own. That’s what I’d do in his place.

  I thought about what I’d say, then realized it wasn’t him. It was Alex.

  She strode past the tents carrying a nosegay of wildflowers and herbs. The firelight and moonlight reflecting off her worn white dress and jacket cast a subtle glow. Perhaps my eyes were still gummy with blood and tears, but she appeared to be standing in a halo of her own light.

  She moved silently, her boots barely touched the ground. The still night would bear sound for a hundred miles, yet she made none.

  The stillness. The light. I knew she’d find me, and I didn’t even believe in angels. But that’s what she was. Relief made my knees weak, but I had to be strong for just a few more minutes. When I slumped, the twine dug into me, so I stood as tall as I could.

  I would last for a few more seconds—she wouldn’t make me wait any longer. A few more seconds until we’d be on the run again, forever if necessary. Seeing her made me realize what was important, made me realize that a house was wherever you and your beloved were.

  “Alex,” I whispered, but the night was so still I was afraid to say it any louder. She paused by the pot simmering on the slow fire. Dinner, breakfast, and everything in between for these guys. For a moment I was afraid that she, too, was a dream.

  “Alex,” I whispered again.

  She looked at me, put her finger to her lip, then blew me a kiss.

  A hallucination? I hated not being able to trust what I saw.

  She plucked petals and leaves from the nosegay then dropped them one by one into the pot. In the strange light of the fire and moon all the colors looked the same. One by one, silver leaves, stems, petals and berries fell into the mix like precipitation from a late spring snow.

  “Alex,” I said, more desperately.

  But she took her time. I waited, content in the knowledge I’d be done with this tree and back on the run as soon as she finished. I waited, knowing my love was there for me.

  “Hey.”

  The
crickets became still. I scolded myself for saying it too loudly.

  She was meticulous in her method. Waiting killed me. After long minutes she finished. She looked at the tents to see that all was quiet. On silent steps she approached. I breathed with great relief. The relaxation of the muscles in my back and legs forced me to slump, causing greater pain. But I sucked it up, knowing I’d be free.

  “Alex, you’re here. I knew you’d find me—”

  She hushed me with a finger to my lips. I looked in her hand for a blade or stone.

  “How are you going to cut—”

  She hushed me again, then whispered, “Water hemlock, black nightshade, mayapple, bloodroot. Pokeweed, hellebore, dogbane and snakeroot. Death camas, baneberry, oleander, graveyard weed. Laurel, inkberry, monkshood, moonseed.”

  At that she turned, and disappeared into the darkness.

  ELEVEN

  The new day found me still scarecrow-ed against my post, shivering. Night and sunrise had lasted for years. In and out of dreams and nightmares and sleep and blacking out. The coming and going of the men in camp. The torture in my cuts had morphed from a perpetual stinging and burning to an agonizing itch. Like being wrapped in greenbrier jaggers. Dried blood caked the twine; clots made me one with my bindings. The cold had only amplified the pain.

  The worst pain came from abandonment. I expected to be free right now, and wondered how much of last night was a dream. I kept telling myself Alex wouldn’t have left me. My thoughts and fantasies were all focused on her return. My rescue.

  Even when the sun grew higher and brighter, I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. A downpour of flower petals, the white petals of mountain laurel and dogwood had coated the campsite. They fell on my shoulders like snowflakes. They fell on the tents, stumps and logs around camp. Floral snow had fallen upon the carcasses of the deer Lewis’s men had poached and butchered yesterday. Late spring winter had fallen onto the branches of the trees, the spruces and oaks dipped low with the weight of the petal blizzard. Almost two feet of it.