by Hank Early
“I didn’t know you drank.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Earl.”
“Like what?”
“I’m a father.”
“Excuse me?”
He nodded. “Got a daughter, but I don’t even know her. Have barely even seen her.”
“Who’s the—” I was about to say mother, but then the answer dawned on me.
“It was you. You’re the man Allison was dating from the Holy Flame.”
He nodded.
“What happened to the little girl?”
“Daddy sent her away. After Allison killed herself . . .” He let that hang there long enough for me to truly understand the horror he’d been through. Not one, but two women he’d loved had killed themselves.
“After that, Daddy wouldn’t hear of me raising the girl. He promised me he’d place her with a family in the church and we could stay in touch.”
“Why did you let him do that? He had no right.”
Lester looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “You’re the only person I’ve ever known who stood up to Daddy. Mama couldn’t do it. Hank Shaw—the meanest S-O-B I’ve ever known—couldn’t do it. Choirboy? Putty in Daddy’s fingers. And me? Oh, God, Earl, I was the worst. I wanted to please him so much. And even when that urge finally stopped, when I couldn’t do anything but loathe him, I still couldn’t stand up to him. I was still afraid.”
He began to sob, and my first instinct was to look away. It was simply the way I remembered our relationship working as young boys. We respected each other enough to pretend that our emotions, our fears, our paranoia that Daddy had instilled in each of us so deeply, none of it really existed. But we weren’t boys anymore. We were old men. Old and deeply broken. Both of us.
I went to him, and though he pushed me away at first, I persisted. Eventually he relented and let me embrace him.
The moment was brief, but when I straightened back up and released him, I was slammed with the certainty that it was one of the best, most right moments of my life.
He wiped his eyes clean and looked at me directly.
“Earl, the little girl . . . my little girl . . . it’s Baylee.”
57
“Burt wouldn’t let me see her,” he said after I got over my shock. “He said I was a two-time loser. That something about me caused females to commit suicide. I wondered if he wasn’t somehow right, and I didn’t fight it. Maybe, I reasoned, it was better for her not to know me.”
“No,” I said. “The common denominator with all three of those women isn’t you, Lester. It’s the church.”
He nodded. “I suspect you are right. Which brings me to the blackmail situation.”
I’d almost forgotten the blackmail he’d mentioned earlier.
“It started around the same time when people began to talk about Daddy being alive. I received letters with no return addresses. Inside were details about my relationship with Allison. And several other women I had . . .” He sucked in a breath again, and for a second, I thought the sobbing was going to come back, but he managed to stifle it and continue. “I had a problem. There were a lot of women. I didn’t think Daddy knew. But he did. He knew everything. He knew about the prostitutes, the one-night stands. He knew it all. That was what the letters said, that Brother RJ had told them of my dalliances.”
“Jesus,” I said. “What did they want?”
“That’s the thing,” he said. “It didn’t make sense. All they asked was that I keep doing my job. Don’t leave. Don’t rock the boat. I think one letter specifically requested I ‘keep my ears shut’ and not stick my ‘nose where it isn’t wanted.’ I was relieved. At first. I could do those things. But then the rumors started about the well. And then Bryant McCauley disappeared. Now I’m not sure what’s going on.”
Neither was I. But what seemed clear was that we had at least one of the same goals.
“I’m going to find Baylee tonight.”
“How?”
I pulled the map out of my blue jeans and handed it to him.
He shook it out and looked it over. “Let me get my gun,” he said.
When he came back a few minutes later, he was dressed in dark jeans and a lightweight raincoat. He scratched his head, hesitating.
“I want you to know,” he said, “that I forgive you.”
“You don’t have to say anything else,” I said.
He held up both hands. “Wait. Let me speak. I forgive you, and I hope you’ll do the same to me.”
“For what?”
“For this,” he said and lifted the back of his raincoat and took out his handgun.
“What are you doing, Lester?”
“I’m sorry. But they called just before you showed up. Said you’d escaped from jail. They said if you came by to hold you until they came back. I don’t believe you hurt Baylee, though.”
“Then why in God’s name are you doing this?”
“For the same reasons I’ve done everything in my life, Earl. I’m afraid. More afraid than ever because Daddy’s alive.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
“It’s true. I have proof. They told me where he was. Said they had pictures I could see.”
“You can’t see that they’re lying, Lester?”
“Maybe they are, but McCauley told me the same thing. And I sense it too. I’ve got to find out. They promised if I helped them, they’d let me see him.”
“You hate Daddy, Lester. You just told me that.”
He began to cry again. “I do hate him. But I also love him. In the end, aren’t they the very same thing? Don’t they both take a back seat to what you fear? That’s who I am,” he said. “I’m a man afraid.”
“So are you going to shoot me? I wouldn’t advise that. There’s a sheriff’s deputy sitting in the driveway.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think she’s going to be a problem, brother. I really don’t.” He was crying harder now, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen a soul more tormented. Not even Maggie.
“Daddy promised me if I did this, I could also talk to Jenny.”
“Jenny?”
“Baylee!” he said, swinging the gun wildly. “My daughter. Her real name is Jenny.”
“Okay,” I said. “Just calm down. I don’t know why you think Mary isn’t out there anymore.”
“I never said that. Look out the window.”
I walked over to the window and peered out.
Mary’s Tahoe was still parked in the driveway, but there was another car behind it. There was something on the ground in the front yard. I leaned in squinting and understood it was Mary. Someone else walked up and kicked her hard.
The doorbell rang.
“I’m so sorry, Earl. I really am.” He walked over to the door and swung it open.
58
After the shock wore off of seeing Choirboy alive again, I couldn’t stop looking at his face. I saw now I’d been lucky when the cottonmouth had bitten me. I still had scarring, but most of it was hidden beneath the scraggly gray of my beard. Choirboy’s face was rotting away before my very eyes. While the left side seemed normal, the right side appeared to be in the midst of a metamorphosis. The white of his cheekbone was exposed, and much of his flesh had turned black and scabrous like charred meat. Except for one area, just to the right of his lips that had turned white and was riddled with tiny pustules, mushrooms blooming in the scorched field of his face.
Despite it all, he smiled, causing the right side of his face to crack and ooze white puss down his chin. He wiped it away like it was an afterthought, and with his other hand motioned at me with my 9mm. The same gun I’d left with him in my father’s sanctuary, truly expecting not to ever see it or him ever again.
“Hey, Earl,” he said. “It’s time to meet your maker.”
“You already tried that twice,” I said. “Seems like you would just give it up.”
“Third time’s a charm,” he said. “Snakes . . .” He shook his head, and
for a horrifying instant, I thought a charred piece of his cheek was going to slip free, but it only shifted and stayed attached to the rest of the necrotic tissue. “Snakes ain’t always the most efficient way of getting a man to see the error of his ways. But lightning . . . it’s the very crooked finger of God. It’ll make you fear the Lord.” His wound split open as he smiled, and more pus oozed out over his lips and teeth. “Or it’ll kill you.” He leaned around me and saw Lester standing in the den. “Hello, Lester. I thank God you came around. I know it’s tough to turn on your kin, but the Lord said, ‘Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.’ That’s from the gospel of Matthew.”
A voice called out behind him. “We ready?”
“Ready,” he answered.
Choirboy led me outside to where Hank Shaw and Roger Peterson stood over Mary. Her eyes were open, and she seemed calm. I saw no marks or bruises. But I’d seen one of them kicking her. A rage was kindled inside me. At that moment, I would have killed both of them if given the chance.
Mary must have seen the look in my eyes because she said, “I’m fine, Earl. Don’t do something you’ll regret.”
Hank Shaw laughed. “His whole life has been nothing but one regret after another. Stubborn little bastard. You should have just stayed in jail. When I heard they were trying to kill you, I thought it would be a better solution, less mess for me to clean up, but then the word came down.”
“From who?” I asked.
He glanced at Lester and grinned. “Your daddy, of course. God’s right-hand man.”
That was when I understood. Daddy wasn’t alive, but it helped Shaw and Choirboy if everybody believed he was. Who could question the authority of an ascended RJ Marcus?
“You’re full of shit.” I turned to Lester. “They’re playing us both.”
“Oh, come on now, boys,” Shaw said. “Don’t be doubters. You know your father never could tolerate a doubter.”
“My father is dead,” I said.
“Correction—he was dead. But now he lives atop Long Finger Mountain. He’s ascended and become God’s true voice in the wilderness.” I let it go, mostly because when I looked at Lester, I could see he was on the verge of falling apart. If it helped him to think Daddy was alive, let him think it. There was something else too. Something that nagged at me. Something that didn’t quite fit the narrative, the one that suggested it was all just a hoax perpetrated by Hank Shaw. Why have McCauley contact me? Unless he went rogue and did it on his own. But that didn’t fly either. McCauley was a follower. He never did anything on his own. Which brought me back to the possibility that Daddy was still alive.
Could it be possible Shaw didn’t know?
59
We followed a road so narrow, Shaw was forced to keep his speed under five miles an hour to avoid sliding off the side of the mountain. The road was muddy, and the rain continued to fall, making each moment more hazardous than the last.
Mary and I sat on either side of Lester in the back of the Tahoe. Roger and Shaw were in front, while Choirboy rode in the very back, his presence hard to forget not only because of the fetid smell of his rotting face but also because of his breathing, which I noticed had become more and more labored. I wondered how long he had left and made a mental note to attack him first when the time came.
I didn’t know exactly what they had planned for us, but I knew two things: it would almost certainly involve lightning, and it wouldn’t end well.
Lester was quiet as we drove. He seemed severely agitated and continued to slap at his neck and give me sidelong glances.
I put a hand on his knee and squeezed. I wasn’t angry at him. He’d done what he had to do. If anyone could understand Daddy’s power, it was me. To be angry at him would feel like the ultimate betrayal of the only person in the entire world who could ever really understand me. We’d been born into this shit together, just a year and a half apart, and I knew exactly why he had done what he did. He did it for the same reason I’d done so many things in my life—because I was still desperate for my father’s love and approval. More than that even, I wanted to understand the man, to affix some causality to his nature. Maybe that was the faith I needed to find. Maybe it was simply an assurance that there was a reason my father had burned my world down and had taken without hesitation everything he could from every person he’d ever met and been able to manipulate.
Maybe we were both afraid he might have been right all along. After all, as enlightened as I liked to think I was, I’d allowed a “dead” man to lead me along by the goddamn nose. How had that happened unless there wasn’t a part of me that believed he had overcome death, that he’d fulfilled his own prophecy and grown omnipotent in his second life?
But if he was still alive, how did that jive with Shaw’s cavalier and insulting attitude toward my father? Hadn’t Shaw alluded to a falling out over my punishment? Was it possible he’d been waiting all these years to capitalize on my father’s prophecy of ascension?
It made sense on so many levels. Choirboy would be easy enough to manipulate. Lester was a bit of a problem, but the blackmail had done the trick. And the torture? What better way to make it seem like Daddy was pulling the strings than to do what Daddy did best: torture young girls.
But there was still a piece that didn’t fit. More than a few, actually. Why the map? Why the clue about the sermon I’d listened to?
The sermon. I remembered suddenly the part of the sermon where Daddy spoke of familiarity breeding contempt. He’d seen their rebellion coming. I felt like I was close to getting my head around it when the Tahoe slowed to a stop.
“Go on,” Shaw said.
I peered through the rain and tried to see why we’d stopped. Roger climbed out, and I watched him walking out in front of the headlights to swing open a wooden gate festooned with barbed wire. Lightning broke the darkness suddenly, revealing the mouth of a cave behind the gate.
Shaw pulled the Tahoe through the gate and stopped the vehicle.
“Get them out,” he said to Choirboy, who dutifully jumped out of the back of the vehicle and came around to open my door.
I had a mind to punch him as soon as the door opened but decided not to at the last minute. Roger and Hank both had weapons. It would be too easy for one of them to shoot me and Mary before I was able to retrieve his gun. No, there would have to be a better moment. I’d be patient, wait it out.
Choirboy pushed me around to Mary’s side of the truck. He got her out, and Roger came back holding his own weapon. Together they escorted us toward the mouth of the cave.
I thought of the map in my back pocket, thankful none of them had tried to search me yet. All that pain and suffering to find it, and in the end, I didn’t need it at all.
Except . . .
I thought of the strange list of names on the back. What could it mean? It was yet another code I hadn’t been able to crack.
Inside the cave, Shaw lit a lantern and hung it on a sharp outcrop of rock. The space was smaller than I’d expected, just a tiny gathering area with three openings—corridors, which I suspected led farther into the mountain. There was also a wooden crate near the far left corridor. Roger walked over to it and took the lid off. He rummaged around for a moment before coming back with two long strands of thin wire.
He held one of them out to Hank, who turned to Mary with it. “Put your hands out,” he said.
She did as requested, and he looped the thin wire around her wrists and tied a knot. Then he tightened it so hard, she gasped. Blood crept around the edges of her wrist and onto her palms.
“You’re going to kill her like that,” I said.
“Shut up,” Shaw said as he took the other piece of wire from Roger. “Out,” he said.
I refused to put my hands out. He nodded at Choirboy, who grinned and knocked me on the forehead with a balled fist. Not expecting the blow, I lost my balance and fell to the cave floor. Shaw leane
d over me and wrapped the wire around one fist and then the other before pulling it tight and drawing my wrists together. He didn’t stop pulling when I screamed; in fact, it seemed to encourage him to pull it tighter. I felt the wire dig through my flesh and made myself be quiet. Finally, the tightening stopped. My hands went numb. I watched as both Roger and Choirboy pulled on thick, insulated gloves. Then they each took one of the wires like a lead—Choirboy grabbing mine and Roger grabbing Mary’s—and pulled us toward the far left corridor.
Shaw carried the lantern, casting the light out in front of us as we were pulled into the darkness. Somewhere overhead, I could hear rainwater rushing down the side of the mountain and thunder rolling out like a rapid beating of a large drum.
We turned to the left again, and the new passage was more narrow than the first. I felt the slick walls on each of my arms as we squeezed through.
We took two more turns before they pulled Mary and me to the left. This corridor was wider, and light flickered all around us. We were close. The thunder grew louder. I suspected we were near the end of the tunnel and I’d see the well of my dreams soon.
It didn’t take me long to find out. The corridor opened up into the sky, and we were pulled out into the rain, onto a narrow ridge where the air itself felt alive with a charge of power that prickled my skin and made my hair stand on end.
There was so much to see, it took me a moment to process it all. The first thing was the lightning. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It struck over and over again in the same spot, once every couple of seconds, each time blinding me anew, making me shield my eyes, disturbing my equilibrium.
When the barrage of lightning finally lapsed, I was able to take in the rest of the ridge. The well. It was much like the dream, except the roof of the well and the hand crank for drawing up the bucket were missing. Instead, someone had inserted a long metal pole into its mouth. It rose some forty or fifty feet into the sky, and it was at the top of this where the lightning struck.