She was weeping.
Them fellows never found the n.i.g.g.e.r, did they. Or the youngun.
We don"t know, she sobbed. They never came back.
Wait, Smonk said. If them fellers never come back, then who the h.e.l.l was all those sons-of-b.i.t.c.hes got killed yesterday?
Mrs. Tate"s breath hitched. Strays, she said. Men who showed up over the years. Drummers, some. Some thrown off riverboats. Others lost in the woods. Running from the law. We needed them to work the fields. We took them as our husbands and as the husbands of our daughters. We let them have any job they wanted to make them stay. We let them have their way with us when they wanted, with our daughters, hoping for boy children so we might find our promised child.
What if a fellow didn"t want his youngun bit by a mad-dog?
Any man who objected was given to Lazarus the Redeemer.
Boards creaking, Smonk moved around front so she could see him. He lowered his good eye to within a foot of her face and she turned away. Loose strands of her white hair stirring in gusts of his breath.
Please, she said. Go ahead and kill me.
Shhhhh. He raised his swordblade to her cheek and turned her to face him. When she wouldn"t open her eyes, he prized them apart with his fingernails.
Don"t ye recognize ye sister"s son? he said.
Meanwhile, a riveted Walton watched the old Negro and the unidentified white woman-age hard to judge from her back. He"d heard almost everything the colored man had said, a tale worthy of that delightful E. A. Poe, indeed, a tale he"d not have believed except he heard it with his own ears. And as earlier today he himself had witnessed the churlish villain "Smonk" in the flesh, Walton felt no need to doubt the veracity of the Negro"s narration.
Now the young woman in her fetching dress tottered and the "darky" reached over the fire to steady her. When she turned away and Walton saw her face, he clapped his hand over his lips. It was her!
Evavangeline!
He stopped breathing.
He"d found her!
This ain"t from no licker, she was yelling to the old colored man. She raised her shaking hands and s.n.a.t.c.hed her arm away from him and her face seemed like it might cry. I got em ain"t I? The ray bees?
Rabies? Walton thought.
They got me, the girl cried, ain"t they?
Naw, miss. You gone be fine, the colored man said. He coughed. Jest don"t bite n.o.body ye don"t want dead.
A kind of "Typhoid Mary"? Walton wondered.
My head"s hurting, the girl said.
I speck it is.
Why you telling me this s.h.i.t?
Cause you got to go back up in there. Back up in Old Texas.
The girl sat down. To a bunch of old witches that done put me in jail once? Sorry to disappoint ye, Mister Ike, but I"m gone pa.s.s. I got a itch to get going north and nothing"s gone sway it.
Miss, he said. Old Texas is north. You gone pa.s.s right thew it. That itch ye got ain"t nothing more than burning ray bees in the air. It"s piles of dogs and c.o.o.ns and possums burning all around. You done smelled it and followed it here.
I ain"t smelled nothing.
And while ye there, Ike said, in Old Texas, ye might think about collecting that pa.s.sel of younguns, including that McKissick boy. Help em find they way home.
Walton thought, Children. In peril!
How come you don"t go git em? Evavangeline asked.
The old man looked into the fire. I"m done for, he said. He opened his coat and Walton saw that his shirt was b.l.o.o.d.y.
The girl was silent. Then she said, When "d ye catch one?
His eyes shut. For the first time he seemed pained. When I was rescuing you, miss.
She came across the fire and sat down next to him and put her hand on his arm and listened as he talked quietly, so low Walton couldn"t hear. The girl didn"t move for several minutes after he"d had his say. Then she got to her feet and walked away from the Negro, away from Walton, to the edge of the trees.
It"s one more thing, he said, looking directly at Walton where he eavesdropped from hiding.
She paused. You gone be all right?
Yeah, he said. Jest don"t go in that church. Whatever ye do.
Meanwhile, William R. McKissick Junior used his head to b.u.mp at a board overhead. Then another. When he found a loose one he lay on his back and kicked it free and stuck his head through the floor. Instantly he s.n.a.t.c.hed it back, the smell awful. Holding his breath, he tried it again and slipped his entire body through and up into the room. It was dark but he could see shoes and the ends of benches and an aisle down the middle.
Hey, he said. He rose into the church.
No answer. The pews, from where he stood, seemed full of boys his age.
Hey! he called, stepping away from the hole. Ye bunch a town sissies.
Behind him was a table. Still eyeing the shadowy audience, he swept his hand over the dust until he felt a box of matches. He turned, his breath held. The box rattled in his fingers. He snapped the first stick in half and dropped the second. The third flared, showing a pair of candles on the table. He lit them and held both candles out before him and faced to the room like a celebrant, and, remembering to breathe, stepped into the aisle. Flickering down the front pews and hazy in the rows behind were the faces of boys. Dozens of boys. All wearing neckties, dark church suits. Some of their heads were c.o.c.ked to the side and some tilted forward, showing widow"s peaks and cowlicks. Some tilted back. Many of their eyes were closed, others half-mast. They looked sleepy. Their mouths were open. William R. McKissick Junior bent closer to the front row. Some of the boys seemed to be tied with twine to keep them upright. Their cheeks were drawn and gray.
Hey, sissies, he whispered. I can whirp ye all.
As if in answer, a c.o.c.kroach flickered across the face closest to him and William R. McKissick Junior banged back into the table, its leg chirping on the floor. He clambered underneath dropping the candles and scrabbled out the other side overturning the pulpit and began to claw the floor for the hole he"d used to get in. He couldn"t find it, couldn"t find it, couldn"t find it. h.e.l.l Mary! he yelled. Behind him, in the light from the burning rug, the heads were moving.
13.
THE FIRE.
MEANWHILE, SOUTH END OF TOWN, MCKISSICK SLOWED HIS HORSE and leapt off despite his aching side and broken wrist. He splashed water from the trough onto his face and covered his privates with his hand as a guard-lady approached down the hill with a shotgun trained on him. He moved behind the trough to hide his p.e.c.k.e.r and b.a.l.l.s and recognized the attractive daughter of Hobbs the undertaker. He bet Smonk had bedded her. She frowned at him, the blood, his burnt skin.
Bailiff McKissick? Is that you?
Yeah. You can go on put that gun down.
She pointed it away from him and craned her neck to see his crotch. You all right? Who done that to ye head? It"s all swoll. She circled and he circled opposite her, keeping the trough between them.
Can I borry ye wrap yonder?
She looked doubtful a moment then unsnagged it from her shoulders and tossed it over the water. He caught it and fastened it around his waist.
She watched him. Did ye find Smonk?
I did.
And done with him?
Yeah. Have ye seen Willie?
Naw, but Mrs. Tate might did. They fount a bunch a younguns. Praise Jesus ye killed him. You want to come back to our barn?
Not jest yet, he said. Stay here. If ye hear shooting, get behind the trough yonder and murder whoever comes running.
She let him pa.s.s, inspecting his b.u.t.tocks, and he put Smonk"s over & under under his arm and crutched up the hill with his broken wrist held by his heart. He hobbled along the backs of buildings to the Tate house where he tried the rear door handle. It was unlocked so he entered and stood within the hall in the dark. He clicked the rifle"s safety off and the sound was enormous in the room. He squeaked open the parlor door, inserting the barrels, and saw Mrs. Tate sitting by her dead husband.
Bailiff McKissick? She strained to see. Is that you?
He stepped into the room.
Yes ma"am, he said. I"ll give ye Smonk"s eye if ye know where my boy is-!
A giant hand had fallen upon his head. McKissick felt himself turned like an auger. Hot breath blasted his face, flecks of blood in his eyes. The rifle slipped from his grip and Smonk"s other hand caught it before it landed.
Thank ye for bringing this Winchester back, fellow, he said. I was always partial to it. Now where"s my f.u.c.king eye?
First tell me where my boy is.
Smonk pushed McKissick"s head away like a tent evangelical and the bailiff backpedaled toward the detonator and fell beside it and knocked it askant with his broken arm.
Get up, killer. Smonk checked the 45-70"s loads and snapped the gun shut and lurched over to McKissick, the room seeming to tilt with his weight. Give me my eye.
The bailiff had no strength left and no feeling in his broken wrist. His side was bleeding, his head felt like an anvil. He noticed the detonator and spidered his good hand up to the corner of the casing and seized the bottom of the plunger the way a man grips an ax.
Back, he panted, or I"ll blow it.
Including ye boy, Smonk said. He"s down yonder other end of town with a bunch of younguns these old wh.o.r.es stold. Auntie here and her coven of witches is fixing to turn they mad-dog on em.
McKissick"s grip failed and his hand melted from the handle. Willie? He"s here?
Smonk had advanced. He edged the detonator away with his foot and touched the fallen man"s throat with the tip of his sword and traced it down his gullet, slowly, a long welt in its wake and then a faint line of blood.
My...Willie? McKissick gasped.
Smonk straddled the bailiff and sat so hard upon the man"s chest that blood spewed out of his mouth and burst like a fist from his wound, a penny like magic in Smonk"s fingernails.
Here"s ye tip, bailiff, he said. I thank ye for my rifle"s safe return.
I would, McKissick gasped. Wouldn"t take no penny from you- I insist, Smonk growled, and with a slight lift of his eyebrows he ground the coin into McKissick"s left eye socket with his thumb. Under him the man"s shoulders shuddered and his legs kicked and floundered. Mrs. Tate screamed until Smonk reached his free hand up and cranked the broom handle and she blacked out. Meanwhile the one-eye had snaked his long trigger finger around the side of the bailiff"s head and dug it into his earhole. He wormed it deep in the ca.n.a.l past a spongy substance until his finger touched his thumb.
Two hummingbirds, McKissick"s mouth said without sound. Father and son.
And he expired.
Smonk groped to his feet using a rail of wainscotting and lifted the man once an a.s.sa.s.sin, once a bailiff into the air by his head and held him there limply like a large catfish and raked his sword down McKissick"s front. Among what sloshed across the rug was one rolling eye.
Evavangeline trotted to the edge of the woods and kicked off her shoes and scrabbled up an oak and wove to the tree"s topmost where the capping branchwork was thin as her own interlaced fingers. She swayed among the leaves as if she weighed nothing at all, the dark squares and rectangles of Old Texas in the distance like blocks laid out by a child and painted otherworldly by the moon"s red glare. This town Ike had called cursed by G.o.d for what it did. Where the people reached. What they pulled out.
Eugene is pure evil turned into G.o.d"s right hand, Ike had whispered in her ear, and it done swept thew Old Texas. It took the men, that right hand. Took em all. And it"s time for the other hand to land.
She"d said, He"s my daddy, ain"t he?
Ike hadn"t answered except to say, You don"t need to see him. No matter what.
Now in the sky the girl"s hair blew. It was up to her. Kill the women. Rescue the children. Don"t see Smonk. Well h.e.l.l Mary, she told the air.
Back at the campfire, Walton stepped out of the bramble behind where the old Negro had lain down. The Philadelphian had a cudgel of wood for his weapon and was half-drunk from his flask. As he closed in on the p.r.o.ne man, he raised the log high.
You gone hit me with that, the Negro said, make it a good shot. Jest one, if ye will.
Walton"s club froze. He circled the fire lowering his arm until he could see the man"s face. There was blood on the ground and an empty pail.
The lost Mountie, said the Negro.
Yes. It is I, Phail Walton. We met earlier. I"m afraid I"m somewhat tipsy.
Forget earlier, the man said. It seemed to hurt him to speak. You been spying on me bout a hour, so you know you got to go help that girl. Help her git them younguns out that town fore Smonk blow ever thing up or them ladies feeds em to they mad-dog.
Sir, Walton said. Excuse me. I have a few question, if you don"t- But the man"s eyes had closed.
Sir? Sir?
Walton waited in the immensity of trees. Around them the night. When he looked up he saw how far-scattered were the stars which were but an infinitesimal amount of G.o.d"s power and reach. The unscrolling dust cast by His hand.
He knelt at the Negro"s side and folded the man"s hands over his chest and placed the Danbury hat over his face. He relieved him of his scattergun and a skinning knife. Had he his logbook he"d have written a receipt. Then he was glad he didn"t have it. He closed his eyes. Lord, he prayed silently, I do not know this man from your own Adam made from dirt, but I cannot name a thing I"ve witnessed of him that causes me to question his integrity. In fact, one thing I can truthfully say of him is this: "He hath bested a fool." Travel with me, O Lord, on this journey to save Thy children. I ask it of You in Your Own Name. Amen.
Meanwhile, Evavangeline descended the tree like something poured down its trunk and landed in a crouch. She left her shoes on the ground and ran through the woods and fields to the outskirts of Old Texas. She watched the row of houses in back of the stores, the dark windows. She scampered unnoticed by the moon over the dry gra.s.s toward the first house and entered through the back door, easy as it was to pick with a nail.