by Hank Early
I closed my eyes, breaking the languid gaze of the snake. I breathed slowly, easy, tasting the dust in the air, the scent of faraway rain on the wind.
When I opened my eyes, the snake had inched forward. I shifted my weight and leaned past his head to grab his tail. He struck at nothingness as I swung him out away from my body.
Choirboy barely had time to laugh before I spun and tossed the snake at his chest.
He put up the hand not holding the gun to ward off the flying creature, but it wasn’t enough. The snake wrapped itself around his arm and bit him in the face. He fired off three shots before he fell. All of them went over my head.
I sprinted toward the tunnel and my own gun, but there was another cottonmouth lying near it. I slid along the smooth rock, keeping my distance from both the gun and the snake, deciding I’d rather leave a thousand guns than ever touch a snake again.
I watched as Chester struggled with the snake. His body was shaking, but he still held the pistol, and it seemed like he was trying to hold the muzzle against the cottonmouth’s head.
Because I was watching his struggles, I almost missed it when the snake nearest me charged. I kicked out at it, missing, but warding it off momentarily. I didn’t wait to see what else it would do. I sprinted back into the tunnel and didn’t stop running until I’d come out on the other side.
36
Crawford was gone when I emerged again, but that didn’t surprise me. It actually made sense now why he didn’t want to go in. He knew what was happening. Hell, there was a good chance he’d helped set it up.
What I couldn’t figure out was how or why.
Crawford wouldn’t have connections with Choirboy. He didn’t even go to church. And Jessamine had made it clear she didn’t want any dealings with the Holy Flame.
And why would Crawford want to help Choirboy snuff me out? As I picked my way back down the rocky face, I came up with what seemed like the most plausible theory.
Crawford had been forced to help. That was the only explanation. Someone found out about our trip and saw it as a great opportunity to get rid of me. Hell, Crawford might have only been told to not go inside and to leave as soon as we parted. It was entirely possible he hadn’t even seen Choirboy going in after me.
But the first question still remained: How? If Crawford hadn’t told anyone, how did Choirboy find out? Crawford must have mentioned it to someone. Maybe one of his hiking buddies.
There was a lot to figure out, perhaps nothing more pressing than how I was going to handle the situation I’d just barely escaped. I knew the right thing to do was to go to the sheriff’s department and tell them I’d been attacked. Then I could take them to the place where I suspected they’d find Choirboy’s dead body. But there were two flaws in this approach: first, I wasn’t completely convinced Hank Shaw wouldn’t have been perfectly happy to see Choirboy succeed, and second, I couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t try to implicate me in his death, if for no other reason than to get me out of the state. Or lock me up. Either way, the backslider was gone, and the church was free to do whatever the hell it was doing.
Because it was doing something, right? If I truly believed Choirboy wasn’t acting on his own, then that meant me poking around about McCauley was really pissing off somebody at the church.
Lester?
It didn’t fit, but I certainly couldn’t rule him out. He was the preacher, the de facto head of the church. And he hated my guts.
And if not him, who? Billy Thrash seemed far too easygoing to engage in such drastic measures.
Hank Shaw? Like Lester, he hated me, but he’d never seemed like a true believer, just one more person hoping to catch a little bit of the wave my father created in this area with his prodigious gifts for initiating and mobilizing unquestioning hordes of followers.
Still, involved or not, I couldn’t trust Shaw to handle this situation fairly. I’d have to go another route.
When I made it back to the side of the road and the portable toilet, I tried my phone to see if I had any service yet. A bar showed up, and I immediately called Mary.
I didn’t know anyone else. Rufus, but Rufus didn’t have a phone other than the burner Mary gave him. Or a car. Not to mention vision.
Mary picked up on the third ring.
“Could you give me a ride?” I asked.
It was only when she’d agreed and I stood leaning against the old portable toilet that I remembered there was another possibility I hadn’t considered about who might have put Choirboy up to snuffing me out.
Maybe it really was my father.
* * *
Thirty minutes later, night had fallen, and I was sitting inside Mary’s Tahoe, trying to convince her the best plan of attack was for me to make an anonymous phone call.
It didn’t take long before she relented. As much as she wanted to trust the organization she worked for, it was becoming increasingly harder to do.
She made me repeat the tale three times before she finally seemed to accept it.
“So this Choirboy,” she said, “he’s like . . . what? A fundamentalist hit man?”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” I said. “But yeah. Good way to put it.”
“Do you think he might have killed McCauley?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible. I’d definitely put him at the top of the suspect list.”
“I hope he’s dead,” she said quietly. “There’s something deeply off about that man.”
A few minutes later, Jessamine’s came into view. The lot was filled, but I scanned every spot until I saw Crawford’s truck. He was inside the bar. I reminded myself that I’d decided on the anonymous call. That was the safest bet. I pointed to the payphone at the far end of the lot, and Mary let me off there.
I called the sheriff’s office and reported what had happened without leaving my name.
“Well?” Mary said when I came back to the Tahoe.
“I reported it. We’ll see if they do anything. My guess is that Choirboy is already dead.”
She followed my eyes to Crawford’s truck. “What are you staring at?”
“He’s inside Jessamine’s.”
“Are you thinking about confronting him?”
“I am.”
“Maybe you should slow down a little, Earl. If you’re right about Shaw and the department, it really is you and me out on an island.”
I heard what she was saying, and what’s more, it even made sense to me, yet I couldn’t seem to stop myself from doing what I wanted to do.
“Maybe you should just stay here,” I said.
“Nope. If you go in, I go in. From here on out, we don’t split up.”
“Wrong. After this, we totally split up. You can’t afford to be seen with me.”
She pursed her lips. Her nostrils flared, and her eyes narrowed to two dark beads. She looked fierce, and I realized she was exactly the kind of person I needed in my corner. “Somebody tried to kill you today, Earl. I’m not leaving your side. Especially not to let you walk in there on a Saturday night.”
She had a point. The lot was filled with pickup trucks. It would probably be a rough crowd in there, but at least I could take comfort in the knowledge that my father’s followers would never let themselves be caught dead in a bar.
“Stay,” I said again, but mostly just to make myself feel like I’d tried. She was coming, and I could see there wasn’t any way to stop her.
37
Country music and the chatter of forty or fifty buzzed or drunk folks rang in my ears as I pulled open the front door. I wasn’t two steps inside before sweat broke out on my back and under my arms. Dozens of pairs of eyes looked me over and then darted quickly to Mary, and I realized it was one thing to come in here at lunch with a black woman, but it was altogether different at night, with the crowd like this.
And it really was a rough-looking crowd. There’s not very many ordinary folks in these mountains. People tend to go one of two ways: there’s the fundamentalists, wi
th all their psychological problems and misogynistic culture, and there’s the heathens, who tend to wash away their guilt for not being in church with gallons of whiskey and beer. Drugs too. Both populations are dangerous and thrive off violence and intimidation. Both groups are angry. Both groups have a history of racial prejudice and are more than willing to engage in violence.
The good thing about a bar is you knew which group you are dealing with.
Mary and I found the last two open barstools and slid onto them. The bartender threw a glance our way, and I held up two fingers and said, “Beers.”
The beers came, and I sucked mine down, not realizing how thirsty I’d been from the hike, not to mention the near-death experience.
I turned around on the stool to look the place over. It didn’t take me long to find Crawford. He was sitting at a table over in the corner with Jessamine and a couple of other folks.
I elbowed Mary and nodded in Crawford’s direction.
“What are you planning?” she whispered.
“Just a chat. Nothing more.”
“Good, because there are two deputies at the other end of the bar who would like nothing better than to bust your ass, not to mention show me up.”
“Come again?”
She pointed to her left, and I made the deputies immediately. They both had short dark hair and five-o’clock shadows. They were both big dudes. One of them big with muscles and the other just big. They were tossing back boilermakers and laughing.
“Now why would two fine gentlemen like that have it in for me?”
“Are you kidding? Shaw has told everyone at the station about you. He’s got them convinced you’re the Antichrist or something. And they hate me just as bad or worse. See, I’m your friend. And I’m a black woman. Right now, those are just about the two worst things a person can be in this county.”
I stroked my beard and tried to put myself in Mary’s shoes. I couldn’t. Basically, I would have turned tail and run a long time ago. She was damned tough.
“I appreciate it,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“You sticking with me.”
“Yeah. It hasn’t been easy. Especially because you won’t even tell me why everybody hates you so much.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. And I really was. For the first time, I realized what a prick I’d been for not telling her. Yet even as I understood that, I found myself resistant to the idea.
I scanned the bar one more time, my eyes roaming to the farthest reaches of the big room. That was when I spotted Ronnie Thrash sitting at the table where Mary and I had eaten lunch a few days back. He was surrounded by his boys, and he was looking directly at me.
I nodded at him.
He looked away.
“Wish me luck,” I said. I pushed off the barstool and made my way slowly over to Crawford and Jessamine’s table.
As I got closer, I grabbed an empty chair from a nearby table and set it down across from Crawford.
“Howdy,” I said and sat down.
The two people on either side of me slid apart to make room. They were both women somewhere north of seventy, and one of them tutted at my rudeness.
Crawford’s eyes were wide. He didn’t speak.
“We don’t want no trouble, Earl.” It was Jessamine.
“Neither do I.”
I kept my eyes on Crawford.
“Baby,” he said, “why don’t you and your friends go back to the kitchen and let me and Earl talk about our hike?”
Jessamine bristled at this. “I told you it was trouble to get involved with them.”
“No trouble,” Crawford said. “Just a misunderstanding.”
Jessamine stood, and her friends followed suit. Just before leaving, she leaned over and whispered in my ear. “I got a shotgun in back. I ain’t afraid to use it.”
I nodded, still keeping my eyes on Crawford.
Once they were out of earshot, I said, “I expect you’re a little surprised to see me.”
He shrugged. “Don’t know why I should be.”
“I’m like the second dead man you’ve seen this year, huh?”
“I don’t even understand why you’d say that.”
“Sure you do. What I want to know is two things: Who came to you? And how did they know?”
He took a swallow of beer. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Earl. I waited for you outside the tunnel, but you never showed.”
“Cut the horseshit, Crawford.” I leaned across the table. “There’s a sheriff’s deputy ready to arrest your ass if I just say her the word. But if you’ll tell me what I need to know, then I’ll call her off. Easy as that.”
He grimaced. “Listen, I’m in a bad place here, okay? I don’t know how they knew—because I didn’t tell a damned soul about the plans for our little hike—but these two guys paid me and Jessamine a visit. One of them . . . Shit. One of them wasn’t right. He had these eyes, big and bugged out of his head. He never blinked. Kept quoting scripture at us and actually went through our bookshelves and pulled out some of my books. He threw them on the back patio and set them on fire. Said they weren’t ‘holy books’ and he couldn’t in good conscience be around them.”
“Was he tall? Wears his pants hiked high? His shirt tucked in? A bad dye job and a comb-over?”
Crawford nodded.
“I know the guy. What about the other man? Who was he?”
“That’s what I meant by being in a bad place. The other guy . . .” He leaned forward and pushed some empty glasses to the side. He motioned for me to meet him halfway.
“The other guy’s sitting right up there at the bar.”
He nodded to the two deputies. Both were turned, facing us.
“Which one?”
“The stocky one.”
I recognized him now. Shaw had called him Roger. He was the one who had caught me snooping around the kudzu. My back was still sore from where he’d ground the heel of his boot into my spine.
“He’s a cop. What can I say to a cop?”
“So, what, they threatened you?”
“I’m really afraid right now,” he said. “They’re looking over here.”
I nodded. “Okay. I understand. We may talk more later.”
“Where are you going?”
“To talk to these assholes.”
“Please don’t. They’ll know I told you,” he said, nearly whining the words.
“They already know,” I said as I slid the chair away from the table.
* * *
When they saw me coming, both deputies turned around and focused on their boilermakers. There were no seats available, so I actually had to tap Roger on the back to get his attention.
“I’m drinking,” he said. “Come back later.”
“I need a word with you,” I said.
“Here’s two: fuck off.”
I grabbed the back of his shirt and dragged him off the barstool. He was damned heavy, like trying to tug a couch across the den with one hand, but once I got his weight shifted, gravity did the rest.
He landed hard on the floor and tried immediately to get up, but I stuck my boot over his throat and pressed it down. He gagged on his words.
The other deputy seemed too surprised to react, which was what I hoped would happen. He was going for his piece when I put an elbow into his chin. He fell back against the bar.
I let off Roger and bent down to get his gun. He was still trying to find his wind when I got his piece out and pointed it at his head. “You and me, Roger. Outside. Right now.”
He said nothing as he clambered to his feet. I pointed to a side door, and he nodded. He was coughing, still trying to clear his airway.
I checked the other deputy. He had his hand near his jacket. “Don’t,” I said. “Unless you’re stupid enough to think I won’t shoot him. Then go ahead and take a chance.”
He held up, watching as I pushed Roger toward the door. I scanned the bar as we headed out. Every eye in the place wa
s fixed on me. I tried to find Mary. She was sitting on the stool, a look of resignation across her face. I shook my head sharply when she started to rise. She sat back down. Good move. She couldn’t afford the trouble she’d get in if she actually helped me do what I was about to do. I pushed the side door open and motioned for Roger to step outside.
* * *
“You know this ain’t going to end well for you, right, asshole? You have assaulted a sheriff’s deputy and taken his firearm, and now you’re pointing it at him. You are a stupid, stupid prick.”
“You left out the part about you helping to organize a fucking hit on me. I think that might be a factor if this shit ever goes to court,” I said.
“Maybe. But this is Coulee County, Mr. Marcus. We do things the way we do things. Sheriff Shaw said you did his daughter wrong a long time ago. He said you were a fucking bacteria that Coulee County couldn’t afford to host.”
“So Shaw put you up to this?”
“Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I punched him right in the mouth. I’m not going to lie—it felt really, really good.
“It ain’t Shaw,” he said after he’d spit out a tooth.
“Then who?”
“It’s the same man it’s always been in this county. Don’t matter who you are, where you go, what you believe, this man calls the shots.”
“Who, goddamnit?”
He spat a glob of blood onto my boots. “Seems like you of all people would know, Earl. It’s your daddy.”
I hit him again.
38
I left Roger on the ground, bleeding and mumbling to himself. It was too much to process. My father was dead.
He was, goddamnit.
I kicked a trash can into the alley between First Look Video and Jessamine’s. It clattered across the pavement and rolled off into the grass behind the parking lot.
Heat lightning flashed over the mountains, and my world flickered as if I’d become little more than an actor in an old film. I had to make some kind of progress. As much as I didn’t want him to be alive, there was too much that suggested otherwise to ignore the possibility. If my father was alive, if he was indeed “calling the shots,” I had to find him. I had to look him in the eye. And if he wasn’t, then I had to know that too.