Kornwolf

by Tristan Egolf

  He told himself—over and over and over …

  Something stirred in the ditch up ahead, interrupting his reverie. Scanning the road, he saw no sign of movement. A raccoon, probably.

  He went back to guiding the mare through the dark. The moon wasn’t up yet. The fields were quiet.

  Then more rustling caught his attention—followed by a slap on the asphalt behind him—a muffled patter trailing his wagon, yet no sign of spotlights, no rhythm of wheels …

  Before he could turn to look, before he could register any cause for alarm, a figure emerged from the blackness behind him. It vaulted up onto his buggy and dropped into place in the passenger seat by his side. Jonathan nearly leapt out of his skin. The mare reared up, came down and, kicking, thrashed in the riding gear. The buggy rocked back on two wheels, then dropped to the road with a crash.

  A peal of laughter went up beside Jonathan.

  He nearly flew off his perch in terror …

  While heaving to steady the mare, he tasted the smell of decay. He knew that stench.

  But the voice to follow was something new:

  “Sapperlot!” Ephraim howled maniacally.

  Jonathan’s blood ran cold in his veins.

  He ventured a sidelong glance to confirm.

  It was Bontrager, all right—only, he looked even worse, more diseased, than he had a week earlier. Jonathan hadn’t laid eyes on him since—though he had been expecting a midnight visit. Ephraim’s appearance was hard to believe. The side of his face was covered with scabs. His hair was shiny with grease in the starlight. His shoulders were hunched. His clothing was torn. His eyes were a sickly, yellowish hue. (In English, the word “abject” came to mind.) And that grin, that predatory, downturned leer was enough to wring blood from a whipping post. There was something so foul and repugnant about it that, even while bearing Ephraim’s likeness, it couldn’t have resembled him less.

  Twitching, he snickered: “To smell of the fear coming out of you, Becker. For cod-oil rancor.” He hawked a clot of phlegm and gulped it, peering around. “You’ll shet in your hosen.”

  Gripped with terror as Jonathan may have been, he was equally flabbergasted. He didn’t know whether to ask after cod-oil rancor, or how it was Ephraim had spoken …

  Almost as though in reply, Ephraim went on. “Kumfermierung,” in Py. Dutch, then in English: “talk of a mute hitherto”—and in German: “Nicht mehr.”

  Leaning forward, he started to root through the trunk.

  “Where’s the stucco, Becker?”

  “The what?” asked Jonathan, dabbing the sweat from his forehead.

  “The stucco!” Ephraim snapped: “You know: the spirits—the swallop, damn it!”

  Jonathan cringed. “I haven’t been drinking.”

  Ephraim pounded the dash. “Bah!” His expression twisted. He snarled in disgust. “And nary a gleam o’ the crimson either.”

  Never had Jonathan stopped to wonder how Ephraim’s voice, in another lifetime, removed from this setting, might have sounded. Upon reflection, he would have imagined a gruff falsetto—or maybe a low-ended monotone, even a raspy mutter. But never this gurgling, phlegm-clotted basso profundo. It wouldn’t have entered his mind.

  Again, he was left with the feeling that, somehow, Ephraim was gone, playing host to another. The entity turning his trunk upside down for tobacco and liquor and meat had emerged from a bottomless pit to make off with his friend. And no one would tell him, Jonathan, otherwise.

  Fannie, sadly, would have concurred.

  “Speaking of whom—” The figure sat up.

  Jonathan’s body went stiff with terror.

  Ephraim cackled. “Mind your oats!” He resumed with a hiss. “In relinquishing grievances: come to announce ceremonial rites!”

  Jonathan tried not to look too confused.

  “Gemutlichtzeit!” Ephraim continued, sharply pounding the top of his legs. He leapt from the buggy. “Excuse us.” He shot off the pavement, dodging back into the ditch.

  And no sooner gone than a line of Orderly buggies topped the hill in the distance. Torches were mounted to each of their frames. There were four of them, blazing along at a clip.

  They slowed on approaching. Jonathan recognized Jonas Tulk at the head of the pack.

  They surrounded his buggy, halting him. Slowly, Tulk leaned out of the driver’s seat.

  “Riding alone?” he spoke in Plain Folk. “Yes? What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”

  “No sir,” Jonathan said with impatience. “I’m on my way to visit the Hostlers.”

  Tulk’s expression, a wall-eyed, cadaverous leer, was discernible now in the shadows. “Ach!” He spoke with imperious rancor. “Your verschproche.”

  “And her family,” Jonathan emphasized.

  Tulk leaned forward and spat on the pavement.

  Jon waited.

  Tulk shook his head. “And what about your supper gang?”

  “Sir?” said Jonathan.

  A voice from the back of the line called out. “Where’s Colin Graybill?”—and someone else, seemingly Amos Ziegler: “And Samuel Hoff?”

  They were lined up in silhouette, crows on a fence post, around him. Their features were lost in the darkness.

  Tulk demanded. “Have you seen them?”

  Jonathan answered, “No, sir.”

  They stared.

  He waited.

  “Ach! You wouldn’t lie to us, Becker?”

  “No, sir,” he repeated.

  From Tulk, more directly: “And how about Bontrager?”

  Already braced for the question, Jonathan answered it calmly, unflinchingly. “No, sir. Not for a week now.”

  Ziegler’s voice (or was that a Stoltzfus?)—cried out: “He hasn’t been home for a week.”

  “You know that, Becker,” said Tulk with annoyance.

  Jonathan swallowed, replying in earnest. “No. I didn’t. He hasn’t … (?) …”

  Tulk completed his sentence, repeating: “… been home.”

  Starlight shone on the pavement between them.

  Jon, having heard enough, gripped his reins. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  He angled his wagon around their group and continued east.

  He couldn’t abide by the Tulks any more than the Zieglers—and, least of them all, the Stoltzfi. It was a good thing the church was dissolving. Maybe these vultures would fly to Ohio.

  From up the hill, he turned to spot their line of torches moving west. He continued on Welshtown Road, regaining his breath and, eventually, leveling out. The fields and ditches around him were quiet. He started to wonder if Ephraim had fled …

  Then a shadow whirled out of the darkness and slammed back into the seat beside him.

  There was that smell again …

  “No!” shouted Ephraim, resuming his frantic search of the trunk. “No tobacco. No transistor. No fermentation.”

  He dove to the pavement and circled the wagon, howling. “No fermentation! No swallop!”

  The pacer reared up again. Ephraim slapped its flank while hurtling back to his seat.

  Jonathan’s heart was thumping painfully. Sweat ran into his eyes and burned.

  “More cod-oil rancor!” his passenger growled. “Cowardice! Listen to why for have come now to—”

  Suddenly, something caught in his throat. He vomited over the side of the buggy. It splashed on the pavement.

  More laughter: “Excuse us, it*”—wiping his chin with a sleeve. “—to deliver an invitation.” He turned, at last, toward stating his purpose: “Disappointment in Becker’s failure to notify cohorts: a farewell in order.” His yellowish eyes went wide in the darkness. He drew a hissing intake of breath.

  In the awkward silence to follow, Jonathan ventured a word in reply: “A farewell?”

  Ephraim snapped out of it. “Yes!” He twitched. “A farewell to Bontrager, not all of wrath unto Becker forgiven, and sister blessed.”

  Jonathan reeled. The language was growing more incompre
hensible every moment. “Farewell to Bontrager?”

  Ephraim tossed his head. “*No reprieve for the wicked* …” He cleared his throat with a gurgle. At once he looked painfully vulnerable. “*Look at us, Becker. Shall never endureth. Thy neighbor’s wife.” He shook his head. “Shall never endureth.” His vulnerability gave way to spite. “A parting of ways, then—a celebration!” Nudging Jonathan’s ribs, he bellowed, “Saturday night”—his breath a wind of rancid putrefaction. “The farm.”

  Jonathan, staring ahead in terrified indecision, mumbled, “The farm?”

  Ephraim twisted his neck and spat. “The Schlabach Farm. What’s the matter with Becker?”

  Saturday night was October 30th.

  “I have to work until ten o’clock,” muttered Jonathan, searching for any excuse.

  For the first time, Ephraim turned his bloodshot, burning gaze directly on Jonathan: “The market closes at eight on Saturday,” he said with rage underscoring his tone. “Don’t lie to us, Becker. Deception becometh the Reaper. Midnight. Alone. No excuses.”

  Jonathan, chilled to the marrow, watched as, without any further remark, Ephraim leapt from his buggy, hopped over the ditch and, fleet-footed, made off into a field of stubble. A few hundred yards to the west, he dropped out of sight—and, along with him, Jonathan’s blessings.

  After a lifetime of weighing the balances, God had turned His back on the Bontragers.

  Jonathan, however anguished, could no longer hope to deny that his friend was The Devil.

  Roddy had always been cool as rain in the hours directly preceding a fight. Tonight was no different: delayed in the entry hall, robed and wrapped, with a cap on his head, he looked steady, calm. He was up on his toes. He had worked up a proper sweat. He was ready.

  Likewise, Syd Gajecki, a registered nurse from Yorc, stood waiting patiently. Tonight would be Syd’s three hundredth bout as a cut man (the source of an earlier toast), and his seventh time in as many years to serve in Roddy’s corner professionally.

  It would be Brynmor’s first, on the other hand. But, to his credit, he looked prepared—standing with a towel draped over one shoulder, his black satin ring jacket catching the glare, “The Unbelievable” woven into his front left pocket, green on black, with rubber gloves on his flexing hands, holding an empty plastic bucket. He stood there eagerly. Game as the wild.

  Jack hoped the kid didn’t fall on his head.

  Flushing, The Coach dug into a pocket and twisted the lid on his medicine vial. He washed two tablets down with water, tossing his head back. Just for good measure.

  A door swung open.

  The roar of the crowd flooded in. Some guards were beckoning urgently.

  Twenty-four hours of maddening downtime had led to this moment.

  They started forward.

  Even though, circumstantially, Roddy had received more media attention that week than he had in the course of his whole career, there was still no broadcasting crew in place to escort him from the entry hall into the ring. Which was probably just as well, as, for one thing, the network cameramen were famously obnoxious and never failed to test Jack’s patience, and two: the sound men ended up blundering Roddy’s chosen walk-in music (Funkadelic’s “Back in Our Minds”), airing instead some Jimmy Buffett wannabe’s ditty on gin-soaked barmaids.

  At least they were out of the dressing room, Jack thought—albeit trailing the odor of mold. And, at least, as had already been suggested, Roddy had plenty of friends in the house: down from the balcony, up from the pit and across the floor in a surging roar (the Blue Palomino, Philth Town’s most prestigious fight hall, was packed to the rafters)—cries of “We love you, Roddy!” and “Kill this motherfucker!” went out all around them. In spite of the absence of network coverage, his entry was greeted with loud hosannas—some of it coming from long-term acquaintances, friends of both Roddy and Jack, and the West Side—sparring partners from Yorc and Horaceburg, coaches and colleagues from amateur days—but even more strangers intent on seeing The Cobra go down by any means. Whatever the odds, however shadowed by Fido Jones’s wider renown, Philth Town belonged, at least in predominant fashion this evening, to Roddy Lowe.

  In the ring, the cameras finally got to him, circling, swarming like ravenous sharks. Roddy moved past them with confidence, walked to the farthest corner and raised one glove to a group of supporters above in the balcony. A roaring wave of cheers rained down on him. Grinning, he thumped his chest and waved back.

  Down in front, Jack overheard one of the network commentator’s referencing Roddy’s fight with Rosario five years back. Behind him, Ronald Travers was seated with two of his heavies, yukking it up.

  Syd was shaking hands with the referee, Dale Smoger, an up-standing cat. Smoger looked over to Jack and waved. Jack returned the gesture warmly. It was good to have one honest man in the house. The Blue Palomino’s management often insisted on appointing its own referees. All three judges at ringside belonged to Travers, but at least the ref was dependable.

  After a one-minute cut to commercials, during which Jack stood quietly off in the corner, preparing himself for the schmaltz, the house lights suddenly dropped. Here it came.

  All week long, The Cobra’s people would have been at work on the consummate walk-in to counter the fact that their fighter had made such an ass of himself at the West Side Gym. Network television normally didn’t provide for walk-in coverage at all. But Jones, based on his uncanny knack for whipping up bloodlust with cheap theatrics, was different, apparently. That, or Travers had arranged for a lone exception, $omehow.

  Either way, it was hard to imagine that, of all the cards this club had hosted, The Cobra, unlike thousands of journeymen, veterans and contenders from days gone by, would now be showcased sauntering into the ring like a common professional wrestler. He really did know how to make people hate him. Even Jack, who normally wasn’t as easily riled by a fighter as by a crooked promoter, couldn’t help wanting, on principle, to see this kid get his ass handed to him.

  The gradually sloped, carpeted walkway lined with flashing, pinpoint lights extending from the upstairs dressing room area, straight through the crowd and down to the ring must’ve taken four days of labor to erect. And The Cobra would milk it for all it was worth. But first, he would let the music play …

  Jack, through the years, had grown accustomed to hip-hop, dance and gangsta rap—and other music he couldn’t label. But the blaring, discordant, cacophonous roar from the speakers at present was something new. More like a wood saw tearing through a carload of trapped gorillas, it was downright painful: for the life of him, Jack couldn’t figure out what kind of gadgetry might produce such noise.

  The crowd, on the other hand, seemed more incensed by The Cobra’s arrival, at last, than the soundtrack. The moment his figure appeared at the top of the ramp, a murderous boo went up. His silhouette, bathed in a cloud of dry ice and flashing strobe lights, began to gyrate—flexing his arms and legs, first, then bobbing his head, then bucking his pelvis. The club guards started to line up, forming a human shield on both sides of the walkway.

  The spectacle might have been funny—might even have worked—had it not dragged on for so long. Jones didn’t even emerge from his cloud at the top of the ramp for over a minute. And once he had done so, at last, appearing in tiger-skin trunks and tasseled footwear, he walked down the ramp at a torturous crawl, often backtracking, stalling just for effect. With an almost comically smug leer, he taunted the crowd to no suffering end.

  In the ring, the delay was beginning to wear on Roddy, who was pacing spirited circles. At first, he hadn’t minded so much. In a way, he had been enjoying the show. However, by now, these antics had exceeded good form and were leaning toward calculated insult. Jack stepped forward to calm his fighter. He gripped Roddy’s shoulders. “Don’t let it get to you.”

  Which was sound advice in itself. But not so easily put into practice.

  As Jones drew ever nearer to the ring, his rate of advance was stal
led even further. The network technicians began to signal their desperate need to cut to commercials. The Cobra paid them little mind. On reaching the ring, he paused at the top of the stairs to blow the crowd a kiss. After playing it up for another delay without taking a flying bottle to the head, he turned and, first getting a hold on the top rope and flexing once, twice, three times, followed through on the forward momentum, with both legs swung to the side, then over the top. He came down, pedaling forward, and reared up in Roddy’s face with a cackling sneer.

  This time Roddy kept his cool. He was game. They were inches apart, squaring off …

  The rest of The Cobra’s posse, led by “Green Dog” Williams, flooded the ring.

  Green Dog, one of the older trainers in Philth Town, had probably burned more bridges than any figure in regional boxing, other than Blye, for the past twenty years. His famously hot-headed temperament had led to more bad relations than should have been possible. Even though Jack hadn’t seen him in a while, he had dealt with Green Dog on countless occasions. Ronald Travers was likely the only promoter left who would cut him a break.