Gather Her Round

by Alex Bledsoe

  She knew the sudden urge to bring the girl along had come from the night winds, and that they always had a reason for things like this. But she wondered if all the prior women in her line, from Radella to Ruby Montana, had watched the tops of the trees wave just as she now did and wondered what the holy hell those reasons could possibly be? Because she did that a lot.

  Still, it was better than the one time the winds had spoken to her directly, in human words. That had been the scariest moment of her life, and she’d lacked the courage to turn and see who or what was actually speaking behind her. So when it came right down to it, she supposed living with hints was probably the best way to go.

  * * *

  Adam checked over his Marlin 336 rifle, an older and more battered version of the one Bliss Overbay used, as they stood beside Duncan’s car on Dunwoody Mountain, looking down on Half Pea Hollow. This ridge was opposite the one that overlooked the Rogers house, and far enough away that no one would hear them approach.

  Adam hadn’t gotten his dad’s Nosler, as Duncan suggested, because his dad would’ve known why without him having to say a word. The Marlin would be plenty of firepower, he was sure; he’d seen the way it shattered beer bottles and watermelons on the fencerow behind his house.

  As Duncan put on his orange safety vest, Adam said, “Can pigs see color?”

  “I don’t know,” Duncan muttered. His fingers fumbled with the Velcro, making the extra .30-30 shells in his pocket rattle. Sweat trickled down his neck under his hair, despite the cool morning. “I reckon not. Most animals can’t.”

  “Wild animals, yeah,” Adam said as he slid the last of the four cartridges into the magazine. “But pigs aren’t technically wild, or at least not all-the-way wild.”

  “Well, if we don’t find him, then we’ll know.”

  Adam paused and gazed out over the hollow below. “You know this is a wild-goose chase, right? The chances of us finding this thing are fucking slim to none.”

  “Too scared?” Duncan said, deliberately mocking.

  “I’m just not sure why we’re doing this, man. Yeah, it sounded great over a table full of beers yesterday afternoon, but now—”

  “We’re doing it for Kera,” Duncan said. “For what she meant to both of us.”

  Adam nodded. He looked out at the woods, let out a breath, and said, “I need to talk to you about something.”

  “What?” Duncan said, barely getting the word out past his suddenly constricted throat. Was Adam about to confess? If so, what would Duncan do then?

  Adam looked down for a long moment, then said, “Ah, forget it. I promised I’d keep it a secret, so I reckon I better.”

  “Does it have anything to do with the pig?” Duncan asked.

  “No,” Adam said honestly. “Not a thing.”

  “Then it ain’t important right now.”

  Duncan slowly loaded his own Winchester 94, making each motion deliberate so that his trembling fingers didn’t drop the cartridges. “I’ll go around the rim and come in from the other end of the valley. You start down, and we’ll meet somewhere in the middle.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Adam said. “Shouldn’t we stick together?”

  “We’d make too much noise,” Duncan said without looking up. Three shells were loaded, but it took him two tries to get the last one into the chamber. “And this way if he smells one of us and runs, he’ll run smack into the other one.”

  Adam leaned against the fender of his car. “You know what they say about this place, don’t you? About all the ghosts and haints and whatnot.”

  “You think that pig is a haint?” Duncan snapped.

  “Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, Duncan, I’m just talking. I mean, there are so many stories about this place. Some say the Yunwi Tsundi still live here.”

  “The Yunwi Tsundi aren’t real.”

  “I heard some of them came to Bronwyn Chess’s wedding.”

  “Did they catch a ride with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?”

  “What about the story of Lorena Minyard?”

  Duncan knew that story well enough; when he and Adam had been about eleven, Duncan’s older brother, Poole, had sent them screaming for the house during a night of backyard camping. Lorena Minyard had been a young mother living in Half Pea Hollow who grew sad and depressed after the death of her baby. She fell into a coma and supposedly died; however, when several other people experienced the same symptoms, only to recover, the family realized they might have buried Lorena alive. They exhumed her and, sure enough, it was clear she had awakened inside the coffin and tried to claw her way out. Now her ghost, as insane as she herself must have been in the last moments of her life, allegedly roamed Half Pea Hollow. Encountering her could send you into a similar deathlike coma, after which you were liable to wake in your own coffin.

  “I think we’ve talked enough,” Duncan said. “Let’s get to hunting.” He hoped Adam mistook his nervousness for eagerness. He looked his friend over, imagining those casual motions stilled, that mobile face in a rigid mask of death. Could he really do this? Sure, his friend had betrayed him, but then again, so had his girlfriend. But he couldn’t avenge himself on her, not anymore. And didn’t his honor demand this?

  “How big do you think he is?” Adam asked as he fastened the straps on his own orange vest.

  Duncan held up his rifle. “Not so big a .30-30 won’t send him to that great barbecue smoker in the sky.”

  Adam nodded, then gave Duncan a long, serious look. “You sure about this? You sure this is what you want to do? You’ll remember this all your life, whenever you think about Kera. Is that what you want?”

  It took all Duncan’s self-control not to shoot the smug bastard right there. What will you remember? he wanted to ask. Those pictures she sent you? Fucking her in your truck while I trusted you both?

  “It’s what I want,” he said without meeting Adam’s eyes.

  “All right.” The forest was now visible, but there were still plenty of pockets of shadow down in the valley. “I’ll text you when I get to the other end. Then we can start toward the middle. Hopefully one of us will flush it out pretty quick.” He half saluted with the barrel of his rifle.

  Duncan watched Adam proceed down through the briars and finally disappear into the thick trees. Duncan gave him time to get out of both sight and hearing; then he moved, almost running, along the trail that ran along the top of the ridge. He wasn’t planning to wait for Adam’s text; he intended to be there at the mid-valley rendezvous much, much earlier.

  Half Pea Hollow was, geographically speaking, a fairly standard little sub-valley off the main one that held Needsville. A spring-fed creek ran through the middle of it, but most of its route was hidden by thick greenery, so it was seldom fished. There were a few trails, mostly deer paths wide enough for hunters to use if inclined, but the land belonged to no one. On paper, he knew someone held the title, but like a lot of Cloud County, it couldn’t be bought, or sold, or inherited. It simply stayed the way it had always been.

  The air filled with gnats as he ran, spattering against his face. He spat out those that touched his lips, and wiped at the air with his free hand. He also disturbed a flock of wild turkeys crossing the trail, and sent them gobbling and squawking in every direction. So much for sneaking.

  As he ran, the rifle clutched against his chest, a song rose in his mind over the sound of his breathing and his beating heart. It wasn’t one he’d listened to in months, maybe years, but it had been a favorite: Crooked Still’s version of the old chestnut, “Flora, the Lily of the West.”

  Of course, as a Tufa, he knew the song by its older variation, “Handsome Mary.” But it was the same tune, and although it was told from a male perspective, Aoife O’Donavan’s plaintive voice carried more genuine ache than any man he’d ever heard sing it.

  When first I came to Louisville, some pleasure there to find,

  A handsome girl from Michigan, so pleasing my mind.

  Her rosy ch
eeks and sparkling eyes, like arrows pierced my breast,

  They called her Handsome Mary, the Lily of the West.

  He was exhausted by the time he reached the other end of Half Pea Valley. Running with a gun was harder than he thought, and finally he had to sit down to catch his breath. He knew he was losing precious time off his plan, but he just didn’t have the endurance, and his residual hangover didn’t help.

  Crows cawed overhead, and a cool breeze swept up out of the shadows below. At last he got to his feet, worked the lever to move a cartridge into the chamber, and started down the hill toward his rendezvous.

  10

  At about the same time, Jack Cates and the WHOMP team inspected the destroyed corral trap in the cool morning. Dolph wrangled two dogs on leashes, while the others finished readying their weapons.

  In person, the damage was even more significant than it had appeared on the computer monitor, and drove home the power of the animal they sought. The metal was not only twisted, but in places torn like tissue paper, as well, the remains ground into the churned-up dirt. The automatic feeder had been toppled, and they startled a bunch of crows feeding on the spill.

  “That sucker must stand four feet high at the shoulder,” Dolph said, holding the leashes on two mountain cur mixes who sniffed the ground and looked up the slope in silent expectation.

  “That ain’t far off,” Max said. He was still upset about blowing the chance to finish this the previous night.

  “Maybe we should go over to the National Guard armory and ask about borrowing a bazooka,” Dolph added.

  Max looked at the tree where the trail cam was mounted. It leaned a few degrees to one side, and the ground was disturbed where one of the major roots had tried to pull free. “If I hadn’t been sitting right there watching it, I never would believe a hog could do this.”

  He ran his hand over a spot where the bark had been rubbed away. The surface was sticky from exposed sap, and thick bristles adhered to it.

  “It’s just an animal,” Bronwyn said. “It’s big, but it’s not that tough.”

  “Say that after them tusks get ahold of your legs,” Dolph said. “When they run past you, they shake their heads, like this. They’ll cut you up good.”

  “I ain’t saying it’s not dangerous,” she continued. “A brown recluse is dangerous, but it can’t stop a well-placed shoe, now, can it?”

  “Just remember this: If one gets after you, jump up in a tree and make sure you pull your legs up after you.”

  Dolph passed the dogs’ leashes to Jack and pulled a plastic squirt bottle from a side pocket of his camouflage pants. “Everyone rub some of this on your exposed skin.”

  Max took it, opened the lid, and sniffed. “Good gravy, Dolph, what is that shit?”

  “Not shit,” Dolph said. “Piss. Pig piss.”

  “I ain’t rubbing pig piss on my skin,” he said, and handed the bottle to Bronwyn. “Here, honey. Tell me this don’t stink.”

  “Call me ‘honey’ again, Max, and pig piss will be the least of your problems.” She handed it to Jack. “I washed all my clothes in baking soda last night, and showered in it this morning. I’m neutral.”

  Jack handed the bottle and leashes back to Dolph. He indicated the Key-Wick scent dispenser hung on a leather thong around his neck. “I got a whole bagful if anybody else needs one.”

  “I reckon I’ll take one, then,” Dolph grumbled. “Don’t want to be the only one who smells like a pig wet his pants.”

  When they were ready, with walkie-talkies distributed, all their cell phones on vibrate, and anything that jingled out of their pockets, Jack faced them. “We’ll follow the creek up into Half Pea Hollow. The tracks lead back up that way. When we spot it, don’t hesitate, and don’t ask for permission. If you have a shot, take it.”

  “Absolutely,” Bronwyn said.

  “I know we’re also supposed to kill any and all wild pigs we run up on, like we have in the past,” Jack continued, “but on this particular trip, we don’t want to scare off the reason we’re out here. If we spot the big one and take him down, then you can pick off any of the others dumb enough to stick around.” To Dolph, he said, “You reckon them dogs are ready?”

  He rubbed their heads with familiar affection. One, Random, was a light brown, while Hobo was darker, with a hint of pit bull in his broad head. Like most mountain curs, they waited in total silence, the same way they would pursue any animal they were set on. Typically Dolph knew they’d cornered their prey when he heard the hog’s distinctive panicky squeal. “Any readier and they’d be dragging me after ’em.”

  “You really think they’re up to tackling that monster?” Max asked.

  Dolph was actually worried about that, but he wasn’t going to cast aspersions on his dogs. “Better worry if the hog’ll last until we get to him.”

  “Let ’em go, then,” Jack said.

  Dolph unsnapped the leads, and the dogs took off along the stream, Hobo running along the bank, Random splashing through the water. One of them let out a lone bark that echoed in the morning silence. In moments they’d vanished around the bend into Half Pea Hollow.

  “Reckon where this creek starts?” Dolph asked as he straightened up and rubbed his lower back.

  “A spring up in Half Pea Hollow, I suppose,” Max said.

  “Anyone ever seen it?”

  They turned to Bronwyn. “Not me,” she said.

  “You’re a—” Max stopped before he put his foot in his mouth. “Local.”

  “I don’t know every square inch of the place. I’ve only been up there once, with Tony Cator, and we were … otherwise occupied.” She smiled a little at the memory.

  “Ever hear about the King of the Forest?” Dolph asked.

  No one said anything until Max inquired, “The what?”

  “Story I used to hear when I was the warden. They say the biggest deer in the world, big as an elk, lives in this area. They call him the King of the Forest. He has two female coyotes who follow him around.”

  “Never heard that,” Max said.

  “On nights when everything’s right, they can turn into people. A man with the antlers of a stag, and two beautiful women. Sometimes they trick people into coming into the woods, and they’re never seen again.”

  “That sounds like an old wives’ tale,” Bronwyn said. “And I know some old wives.”

  “So you’ve never heard about it?”

  “I’ve heard about the Tooth Fairy and leprechauns; should I believe in them, too?”

  “I ain’t saying I believe in them, just that it’s interesting.” Dolph let it drop at that, but he did note that Bronwyn had not, at any point, denied their existence.

  Jack said, “Let’s go,” and they headed off after the dogs.

  * * *

  Duncan paused. Had he just heard a dog bark? Over the thundering of his own heart, he listened for anything else: the crunch of leaves, the snap of a twig, the flap of wings as startled birds took to the sky. He heard nothing except the distant, soft keening of a cicada.

  He tried to slow his pulse with long, deep breaths, but it wasn’t racing because of his exertion. He was excited, but not in a good way. This was close enough to terror that he couldn’t tell the difference, and if he stopped to think about it, he might never get moving again.

  Was he really planning to murder one of his best friends? There could be no colder blood than this, elaborately setting Adam up to walk right into his sights, innocent and unaware. He thought back to their childhood, attending the old schoolhouse before the big county school was built. They were in the first graduating class from the new facility, and like everyone in their class, they hated it. It didn’t help that the principal, Mr. Stall, strode the halls like a Nazi commandant, yelling about PDAs back when it meant “public displays of affection” and making sure no one had any sort of fun.

  He had been there with Adam the night they’d backed his truck up to the new school’s double doors, intending to leave tire m
arks on the fresh concrete. Only the combination of alcohol, pot, and nerves made Adam back up just a hair too much, smashing the outer glass. They’d left tire marks, all right, as they tore out of there, giggling in terror and shouting in triumph when it became obvious no one was following. Everyone knew they’d done it, including Mr. Stall, but no one could prove it. So they got away scot-free, and became minor celebrities for a brief time.

  Well, “scot-free” wasn’t entirely accurate. Nothing happened in Cloud County that old, now-dead Rockhouse Hicks didn’t know about, and he definitely knew about this. The Tufa legends began and ended with him, and he wielded a kind of power unlikely ever to be seen in this county again, unless that little Harris girl grew up a lot meaner than she appeared. (Duncan had seen her publicly facedown an enemy, and even offer that enemy a gun to shoot her with, when she’d been only twelve. Rockhouse, on the other hand, would’ve sent someone to shoot that same enemy from a safe distance.)

  So Rockhouse had showed up at his parents’ farm at dinnertime a few days later, spewing obscenities about punk kids and their worthless parents. Duncan had never seen his father turn so red before, and yet he’d said nothing back, because you didn’t have a smart mouth around that old man. If you did, things would happen to you that could never be traced back, but that Rockhouse was without a doubt responsible for. Duncan had been grounded for two weeks, with no TV and, worse, no music. There was hardly a worse punishment for a Tufa, even one with faint Tufa blood like him.

  Now he reflected how glad, how motherfucking delighted he was that Rockhouse was no longer around. Junior Damo was nothing compared to the old man.

  But beneath these memories, beneath his current thoughts, that song about Handsome Mary continued to run.

  I courted her awhile, in hopes her love to gain,

  But she proved false to me, which caused me much pain.

  She robbed me of my liberty, deprived me of my rest,

  They called her Handsome Mary, the Lily of the West.…

  * * *

  The WHOMP team moved along the stream. They’d passed through the ravine and were now deep in Half Pea Hollow. The valley had never been logged, burned, or otherwise cleared. Jack had studied satellite pictures, topographical surveys, even Google Maps of the area, but had gotten very little useful information. This was one of those isolated places that could be learned only by walking its trails. If there were trails.