A Corpse's Nightmare

by Phillip DePoy

  “I am Elder James,” he said in a strong voice, “and we are the Sons of Wingfield.”

  Everyone except for Andrews and me answered as one: “All are welcome here.”

  “Brother Travis,” said Elder James, “please tell our new friends the illustrious origin of our order.”

  “Gladly,” Travis answered, standing, shotgun by his side. “We are the spiritual Sons of Edward Wingfield, the first president of America, born 1550 in Stonely, Huntingdonshire; died in 1631, a member of Parliament. He chartered Jamestown from King James in the year of our Lord 1606 and came to Virginia in 1607. He had recruited one hundred and five good white men, all of whom took the Oath of Allegiance and the Oath of Supremacy. We take those oaths to honor his ways as the first American.”

  Travis sat down.

  I could tell that Andrews was squirming to say something, and I was doing my best with glances and some attempt at telepathy to keep him from speaking up. Luckily, Elder James took the floor in a decidedly dramatic way.

  “Lord!” he shouted from the podium.

  Nearly everyone in the room jumped.

  “Hear me!” he went on, top volume. “We are beset on every side by the heathen, the Godless, the colored filth, the aberrant faith, the wayward, the wicked, and the lost. For over four hundred years we have worked to keep our land free of this contamination. We continue to labor, ridding this world of pestilence and fraction. Wading in the waters of our cankered blood we pull out the disease and purge it from the body of our state. Let no unclean thing touch us, Lord. Let no rank contagion foul our soil. Let no sore, no sickness, no salt of silt betray our skin, our bones, or the purity of our fiber. Snow is white, Lord; moon is white. Sun white hot, and sea-tops white. Rain is cleansing, wind is raking: silence in our footsteps and our single-minded purpose. Bring us the storm, and let us use the thunder. Bring us the storm, let lightning be our sword. Bring us the storm, and let us bend the wind for You, toward your terrible Word, Your awful reckoning. Bring us the storm, Lord, Thy will be done.”

  The crowd roared as one. “Thy will be done!”

  Travis leaned close to me and whispered, “You can see why they didn’t want you here.”

  I nodded, but I had no idea what he was talking about. I had certainly seen lots of church services in small towns and hidden mountain halls. Often they were dark, and filled with the Wrath of God rather than the Love of Jesus. This had been different. There had been no Bible verse, no mention of Christ, no admonition against sin or accusation of the group’s danger from satanic influences.

  This was a political rally.

  Andrews saw that Travis had spoken to me, though clearly hadn’t heard what he’d said.

  “Someone named Edward Wingfield, from England, was the first president of America?” he whispered.

  “He was elected,” Travis said in ordinary tones, “as the president of the Jamestown colony in 1607, in May of that year. He would have continued to rule, except for the fact that he made the men work too hard, and they resented it. They got rid of him and Smith took over, kissed up to the dark-skins, the forest monkeys all over there, and got us headed in the wrong direction right away. Don’t you agree?”

  Andrews smiled. “I’m not even certain I understand what you just said. Maybe it’s the accent. I sometime have a hard time understanding certain American dialects. Same thing happens to me in Minnesota.”

  Of course, Andrews had lived in Georgia for more than twelve years. He was engaging in a kind of deliberate irritation often used to provoke anyone he felt might be guilty of possessing an inferior IQ. I knew I would have to put at stop to it, or Travis would become dangerous. And Andrews was wrong. Travis wasn’t stupid.

  “I’m more interested in the society,” I interrupted. “I’ve done a significant amount of research in these mountains for years, and I’ve never even heard a whisper of this group.”

  “That could be,” Travis allowed, “because your interest is primarily academic, as opposed to participatory. I believe it’s true that when people around here see you coming, they know you want to study them. That very relationship can produce a certain behavior that alters your findings. The very act of observation can change what is observed. A lesson we learn, for example, from even a casual examination of the study of subatomic physics.”

  I glanced at Andrews. “Travis is possessed of one of the most remarkable minds I’ve ever come across,” I said quietly.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Travis said. He exhibited no false modesty.

  Andrews nodded. He instantly realized his mistake, and, to his credit, had decided not to talk.

  “I’ve known him,” I continued, “or, heard about him, at least, for most of my life. He and I were the only children in our elementary school who were reading on a college level by the third grade. After that I believe that Travis became home-schooled.”

  “My parents,” he explained to Andrews, “did not have faith in the local school system. They instilled in me a certain secret knowledge the likes of which could never be taught in a government-run educational situation. Most people do not remotely have the ability to absorb a vast awareness of the human condition.”

  Andrews nodded again, avoiding eye contact with Travis. I had also seen that behavior in Andrews. He appeared to be submissively deferential when, in fact, he was preparing to attack. I’d seen him behave exactly that same way in several rugby matches—just before he’d beaten a referee into the ground. I wasn’t certain why he felt such ire toward Travis, unless he had rightly ascertained that Travis was, to a very large extent, insane with barely contained rage.

  So I spoke up quickly once more. “You mentioned an Oath of Allegiance and—”

  “Anti-Pope,” Travis snapped, eyes locked onto Andrews. “Our allegiance is to our own.”

  “Yes,” I answered uncertainly.

  “I was raised Church of England,” Andrews said proudly. “We started all that.”

  “You know, Travis,” I said instantly, “your observation is very interesting to me—that I might influence the behavior of my folk informants just by the very fact that I think of them as informants. Of course, I’ve worried about that for most of my so-called academic career. Or, not so much worried about it as realized it was a problem. Until, that is, I came to the conclusion that any conversation between any two people carries with it a certain degree of that gestalt. The idea that I’m observing the conversation from my own point of view as well as participating in it, and the other person is doing exactly the same thing, renders any conversation a dilemma. That concept can drive you mad, or it can make you decide that all conversation is futile, or, as I finally decided, it can redouble your effort to genuinely listen to another human being—in every conversation, large or small. So—”

  “Dr. Devilin,” Elder James interrupted from his podium, “I sense that you are a confused man.”

  All eyes turned toward Elder James.

  “You are a man who suffers from deep inner conflict,” he continued. “A man who wants so badly to know himself, but is, at the same time, terrified of what he will discover.”

  Andrews couldn’t resist. “Someone’s been reading your diary,” he whispered.

  “Did our friend from foreign shores have a question?” Elder James boomed, glaring at Andrews.

  Before I could stop him, Andrews stood.

  “Yes I do.” He glanced in Travis’s direction. “Do you people meet all the time? We were here having barbecue this morning, and some of these men were going to a meeting then.”

  “We are in special meetings,” Elder James responded, working hard to demonstrate his patience. “Several groups of brothers have gathered. We have visitors from far and near with us today, with many more services to come. But that really isn’t your question, is it, brother Englishman?”

  “Dr. Andrews is currently full of questions,” I mumbled, mostly to Travis.

  “I can see that on his face.” Travis nodded, and then called out, “
Ask the one question that’s on your face, Dr. Andrews.”

  “It’s not a question so much as an observation,” he said thoughtfully, as if he were in a graduate student discussion group. “I am actually familiar with Edward Maria Wingfield. He was born in 1550 at Stonely Priory in Huntingdon, which is now Cambridge. He was the son of Thomas and Margaret, and was raised Church of England. The middle name, pronounced mah-RYE-uh, derived from Mary Tudor, sister of King Henry the Eighth. The father had renounced his calling as a priest, and died when young Edward was seven. As a young man Edward was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn, the law school, and by 1593 he was a member of Parliament. And in 1605, his money got progress toward the Jamestown Colony moving.”

  Many of the men in the room were nodding. Elder James began to smile.

  “You speak like one of us,” he said, clearly surprised. “You have some of our knowledge, and, perhaps, share our convictions.”

  Andrews held up his index finger and spoke rapid fire. “Not quite. I am merely an Englishman who knows his country. Wingfield was a paranoid idiot who nearly destroyed the Jamestown Colony because of his terror of the indigenous population in this country. He set the buildings in a place that he felt would be easy to defend from attack but was, in all other ways, useless. The land he chose could not grow crops and people began to starve to death. His solution was to work the men harder until many grew sick and died. He was eventually deposed from his position and sent packing, back to England, never to return to the New World again. If that had not happened, there would likely be no America at all. No English-speaking America, at least. So when I say that you are extremely wrong-headed—”

  I flew to my feet. “I see absolutely no reason to listen to this foreigner tell us about our own country!”

  Travis only smiled. “Nice try, Fever.”

  He took hold of his shotgun, but did not point it at me, or at Andrews.

  Elder James was still smiling. “Dr. Devilin, I believe the time for all prevarication is at an end. You were warned not to come here. Your truck was shot. Travis told you to clear out. And still, here you are. Are you determined to be the author of your own undoing?”

  “Aren’t we all?” I asked. “But I hope you will believe me when I say that I do not have the same disrespect for your enclave as does Dr. Andrews. He has disdain for every organization on the planet. That is the truth. He despises all religions equally, all forms of government, all systems of economics and, as far as I can determine, every sporting rule ever written.”

  “I do.” Andrews nodded enthusiastically.

  “I, on the other hand,” I went on, “would very much like to know what I’ve done to this august assemblage to provoke such ire as evidenced by a shattered truck window, and such rejection at the hands of my old school chum Travis.”

  A silence hung in the hall, a winding sheet of nameless fears and unspoken accusations. It muffled my ears as if I’d been deafened.

  At last Elder James spoke up. “Could we all take our seats, and continue with the meeting?”

  Everyone sat, some more reluctantly than others.

  “We were about to catalogue our accomplishments since the last meeting,” the Elder continued, “but that is not for outside ears. So I will, instead, encourage our members to witness. Anyone who wishes to do so may tell our guests why he has joined our group. This is our practice whenever strangers, potential new members, or women are present.”

  Some of the men looked down at the floor, clearly uncomfortable at the prospect of speaking in front of the rest. Travis, as I might have suspected, stood once more, laying his shotgun on the bench beside him.

  “As you all know, my father helped to start this particular chapter,” he began, avoiding my gaze, “but Sons of Wingfield would be considered the oldest fraternal organization in America. And we have chapters all over the country. All part of this nation. We’re made up of autonomous groups that work in their own communities. Each club raises its own funds and chooses its own projects to improve the lives of all community residents. Members must be of legal age and believe in a Supreme Being.”

  “So this is like a Rotary Club,” Andrews interjected, “or the Rosicrucians.”

  Travis smiled and turned his way. “You’d best not make light of the group, Dr. Andrews.”

  Andrews closed his mouth immediately and his face went white. I have no idea how Travis managed it, but his sentence had been one of the most threatening group of syllables I had ever heard. Clearly Andrews had felt the same.

  “We derive from the original settlers of the Jamestown Colony,” Travis went on. “When John Smith took over, several of our founders kept, in secret, to Wingfield’s precepts and dictates.”

  “And those are—?” I asked as politely as I could possibly manage to.

  “That our country was meant for certain people,” he said immediately, “and not for others. The rest of our pledge belongs only to the initiated.”

  “Yes.” I looked down. “I see.”

  “You think that you know us,” Travis snapped viciously. “But you don’t.”

  “Hang on a minute,” Andrews chimed in, unwisely, I thought. “Why did you make such a point of telling us that you have chapters all over the country? You said it twice.”

  “I did?” Travis asked.

  But he asked in such a way as to make me realize that he knew he had mentioned it twice. He was trying to tell us something.

  “Travis,” Elder James said softly, “I think you might could tell your friend who shot up his truck.”

  It seemed an odd turn of events, although not much of what was happening in the small, strange hall made sense to me. I assumed, at the time, that I was continuing my flirtation with divided realities: some of what I saw and felt was real, some was imaginary.

  “A hunter did it,” Travis said to the Elder. “I already told them that.”

  “But he was not from around here, Dr. Devilin,” Elder James said, leaning down hard on his podium. “People come from all over America to hunt wild boar in Georgia. Some even come from as far away as Chicago.”

  “Chicago.” Travis nodded.

  “I bring it up, son,” the elder continued, “because I want you to know how seriously we take pride in our local families. It does not matter to most of us what your mother did, or how your father made a living, or even that you yourself left us for such a long while. You and your family are deeply troubled, wrong about most things, and too odd to ever be close to most of us. But you’re one of ours. You’re our trouble. You’re our mess.”

  Andrews nodded, clearly reading things in the words, and in the room, that I could not. “The man who shot at us,” he said, “was from Chicago. He’s been hunting. And he’s a member of your society.”

  “What?” I asked, hushed. “Chicago?”

  Andrews turned my way. “That’s why there’s such a palpable air of ambivalence in this hall. One of their members shot at you, for some reason, so they have allegiance to him. But he’s a Yankee and an outsider, and they also have some obligation to you as well.”

  I cocked my head, not quite certain I’d correctly heard what he was saying. “If I weren’t brain-traumatized would I have come to the same conclusions as you’ve just done?”

  “Honestly?” Andrews asked. “Probably before I did.”

  “I feel a little light-headed,” I told him.

  “We’re going to continue with our meeting now,” Elder James interrupted. “It might be time for you all to leave on back home.”

  Andrews stood immediately. “Excellent.”

  He grabbed my arm before I could speak, and in dizzying seconds we were out the door and into the night.

  19.

  We were on Highway 76 before we spoke again.

  “Am I still hallucinating,” I finally asked, “or did you actually have a better insight into what was going on in that hall than I did?”

  “Sorry.” He smiled. “You can’t be Holmes every day of your life. Sometime
s you have to be Watson.”

  “Then tell me, Sherlock,” I sneered, “what did I miss?”

  “The main thing,” he said instantly, as if he’d been holding his breath waiting to tell me, “is that you don’t seem to read this Travis person.”

  “In what way?”

  “You don’t trust him, that’s obvious. I mean it’s obvious to him, too. So you see everything he does through a filter of suspicion. That colors your reaction and you miss the subtleties of his communication. You and he have some sort of subconscious connection that you don’t seem to recognize—but he does.”

  “You’ve been reading too much Jung again.” I slumped a little in my seat.

  “As it happens,” he said, “The Red Book has just come out in a very lovely hardback coffee-table edition.”

  “The Red Book?” I tried to focus. “That’s Jung’s diary after he broke up with Freud?”

  “It’s the Holy Grail of the Unconscious,” he answered, “but that’s hardly the point. The point is that you can’t see Travis the way I can. First I’d like to know why that’s true, but second and more important: I think you ought to fix that. Because he just told you, as best he could, who tried to kill you.”

  I let that sink in. I allowed certain buried memories to rise to the surface, like letting old ghosts out of a crypt.

  “Travis was from one of the families that delighted in torturing my parents when I was little,” I began. “Travis himself was a member of the bully enclave that impelled me to leave Blue Mountain as soon as I could. He’s very smart, I know that, but his intellectual abilities don’t do him any good because of his disposition toward bile. He hates almost everything. And it’s a kind of white-hot sickness; it festers his blood and boils his brain. He’s the all-American psychotic racist, he loathes women and revels in degrading them, and anyone who doesn’t see things his way is supposed to be exterminated while he swears and screams and spits at them. He’s the primary pestilence on the green tree of our nation and I wouldn’t mind if he sank into a pit of flesh-eating vipers.”