Boom. Panic struck. All love for my labors vanquished.
I grabbed my pack, flew from the place--down to the boat I scrambled, oar-slashing any web or leaf that might try to stop me. I landed at full pant, dug my hot heels to avoid entry into a thick net of gauze--where gauzy tendons strung down from an outcropping rock--to the boat. The boat was anch.o.r.ed. The boat lay swathed in a web coc.o.o.n. Revulsion rose in my throat. I reached my hand into the sticky lump where I knew the motor must be and attempted to yank the starter cord. I could only pull a few inches before it bound up. The motor in there was choked with fibers. And the sun was setting on my lake.
Sunset? This was only morning. But the sun dropped lower, into the east. Or was it west?
How could I have been so misled? I saw an ember dying over the wrong jag of trees for this to be morning. The lake loomed darker and darker before me as I realized I had slept the day somehow. It was sunset now--no, there went the last glimmer--it was first twilight, and I would have to swim through this murk to escape my isle and lake. These mountains lost their light quickly, there was no telling what lurked in the mesh and goo beneath that brackish surface; it would be full dark before I had swum halfway and so I must confess. I lost my nerve. I would wait until morning, yes spinner, I would wait until morning. I would dump most of my pack, keeping only the essentials for my return. I would swim this lake in warm daylight and it would not be so bad. I would swim and swim and blind my fear-streaked mind with each stroke, until I landed on that dark sh.o.r.e over there. I would escape. G.o.ddammit. I and my technique would triumph. Rabidly sc.r.a.ping clean my fingers, I could barely tolerate such time until I flung myself down this mountain toward home.
Soon, I was back inside this shack on stilts. And I remember most of last night, as I crouched here on the rope bed, waiting. Desperate for the eking darkness to come and go, afraid to step out that door over there until night"s pa.s.sage. Waiting those long hours with ghastly antic.i.p.ation, waiting for the shine to come, for a nimbus in that window.
And now it is here. But I am too late, too late for the leaving. Sleep must have spirited me away sometime in those wicked hours. I remember, I dreamt for the first time since my arrival in this place, I dreamt I was here and waiting and wide awake. I heard locust-throated voices calling wooooodrowwooodrow then tizzytizzypoooooke. I dreamt of a thousand spidery feet tapping outside my black windows and I heard music, a zither"s waltz drifting across the lake, drifting as I drifted from wakeful agony to dreaming terrors.
Too late, I have wakened and lying here my eyelids come unglued. I can see the day is fruitless for me. I cannot mooove. Sunrays sift in through the phantasm of webs. The room is glutted with silken whispers. Can"t you hear them? The spinner won"t show itself, not yet, but the spinner speaks to me. I can only listen. I am pinned to the bed by webs, swaddled in a web coc.o.o.n like the boat, webbing wraps around my face, my mouth. Who is that I hear, skittering on the porch? Oooooo, isle spinner. Forsake me, please. You must let me goooo for I am lost. I must surrender now and let eyes tell the story.
T H E B I T E.
Rang-a-dang-dangggg, Lady dear. Shake out your cobwebs and your big bouncy sugar plums. The alarm rang away her sweet midnight siesta. She came around, sneezed--saw it was 3 a.m. alright--and remembered some dreamy remnant about a creepy woman, a Lych woman, at her kitchen window. The Lych woman shined a fancy mirror through the gla.s.s so Lady Floy could see her new chiseled cheekbones and movie star smile.
But now the big girl was jangled awake, yearning for her good man"s return. That"s why she always set the clock. So she could be there with open arms, ready for his homecoming.
She got up and drank a warm NuGrape while she waited on the divan. She spread her huge body lengthwise on the cushions like a centerfold in a red rayon tent, her pudgy toes gripping the padded arm of the divan. The hula lamp gave a soft green glow to her bosom.
About 3:35 she heard his motorcycle. She heard his feet scuffing outside. He was loose of course. He only dragged his feet when he was loose. Always the same refrain. He came in the door, leaned his 110-volt guitar in the corner.
"Lovell?" she murmured, sitting upright.
"Hullo baby," he drawled, veering sidelong toward the kitchen. She wished he would put on some meat. The gold palomino vest looked sloppy around his ribs.
"Where ya goin, doll?" she asked, standing barefoot.
"Samwich..."
"Wait, I"ll make you a sandwich. But talk to me, talk to this baby first."
He rotated on his bootheel, bleary-eyed, unsteady in the kitchen door. She beckoned with a thick greenish finger.
"C"mere..." she whispered.
He was wary. His screwed-up eyes goggled from corner to corner of the dim parlor, then back to her. He scuffed over and she folded her arms around his scrawny hips. Smothered in the folds of her teats and belly, he coughed, a weak ragged cough that reeked smoke and gin.
Her thin lips kissed an earlobe. "Didja sang good? Did they go fer ye doll?"
He closed his eyes and tried not to puke. He loved her. How could he tell her he was sick but still loved her?
"Ummm-hmmm, sure, sang gooood," he fumbled, "sang d.a.m.n good, heh heh."
"And they loved ye up, didn"t they doll?"
"Afffer while. Afffer while they"uzzz hootin real d.a.m.n good."
"I"m so proud o"you."
"Thank ye, hon. I"m proud yeeew tooo."
She tongued his ear ca.n.a.l. "So let"s count the boodle."
"Awww, the booodle..."
Her head reared back, her raw, pink eyes searching, trying to catch his restless gaze.
"Give baby the cash." She was firm, crushing him into her chest.
"Dammmmn, woman, I fergits to tell ye. Din"t git no boodle tonight. Mr. Bull was short on his till, couldn"t pay me right off. Pay me nex.x.x weeeek..." He wriggled a little, wanting his onion sandwich.
She didn"t let go.
"Yer a-lyin to me now, ain"t ye? So"s you kin spend it on more dranks and other nookies, ain"t ya? Just tell me where it"s hid this time and I"ll fix ya a bite to eat."
He shook his long face with fervor.
"Bull din"t pay...pay nex.x.x week."
Her grip released him, he sank away and she walloped him upside the ear with a glancing blow. He fell towards the floor but she caught him then threw his lank body across the room.
The hula lamp exploded.
She waddled over, grabbing him by the scruff, pitching him hard into the front door. A new crack split in the door panel as he bled and slumped forward, mumbling something useless.
"Where"s the cash, p.r.i.c.k?" she spat like the adder.
He gave no answer. Yet.
She flipped him over easy as a fried egg. Why did he make her take steps? She hated to take steps. But one way or the other, he would cough up green if it took all the livelong night.
She doused him with warm NuGrape, then leapt, bellyflopping on his golden palomino.
T H E H O L E A N D D O B B E R "S H E A D.
Dob sat on Pearlwick Road late of a hot summer"s morning. His head hurt and he shunned the red heifer munching milkweed behind him. He was pretty dang mad, dog-dang it.
The stump he sat on was pinching his rump, splinters made him squirm and fidget, but he was working fervidly on a thing or two and did not think to sit elsewhere. The dog-dang geechees down at w.i.l.l.y Jay"s store, those datburn Boyetts and those toe-sucking Van Smittle twins, why Dob was ready to tell them all how to suck the bad persimmon. Nary a one was anything but a seed of Satan. His Nonny had warned him, hadn"t she, warned him from her sickbed that Cayuga Ridge was a vile, Philistine place? It was almost a town wasn"t it? And towns were mighty wicked. You didn"t have to go to Bearcat Grammar to figure that out. Dob was nearly thirty and he"d never seen a thing that a hornbook or schoolhouse could teach him that was worth fiddling with. Only the greedy and the G.o.dless h.e.l.lbound guttertrash would take their pleasures in movie magazines or goldl.u.s.t or dog-dang cigarettes; that was all schools taught you. Well, didn"t she tell him that too? And now he was the goat again. But he wasn"t gonna be the goat for long, no sir, he"d get himself a box of sulphur and feed it to their mules in a sugarbeet or pee in their cisterns, maybe. He"d just get a big stick and chunk it at something or somebody or maybe he wouldn"t. Maybe he"d just sit here and pray for a cholera or Bob Nottingham to come through town and strike them all dead. That would serve them. Then their snooty souls would rue the day they sneered at hocus-pocus.
It was that drummer. Fritzy. That gold-grubbing drummer. What could he possibly know about magic? Dob took the tract out of his pouch and read over it again. He could barely shape the words with his lips, but it was printed in pretty curly letters like her Old Testament stories, saying, THE MYSTERIES OF THE HUMAN MIND, COIN MANIPULATION AND LEGERDEMAIN can be yours if you order now and receive MASTER LOKI"S MAGICIAN KIT AND WIZARD"S MANUAL, for a mere $6.88 or only $2.88 with three books of COLUMBIA GOLD STAMPS. Impress and delight your friends, AMAZE your family, with this plethora of secrets from the mystic art of MAGIC. Also included, MASTER LOKI THE MESMERTIST leads you through hithertofore privities of MIND READING and VENTRILOQUISM; ancient translations will permit you to MARVEL others with ASTONISHING FEATS of psychic intuition. Just imagine THE WORLD AT YOUR COMMAND, awed by your INCREDIBLE POWERS which, once you"ve unlocked them, none can ever take away. ASTOUNDING SUCCESS AND CONFIDENCE can be YOURS if you order now.
Hadn"t that drummer started it all by handing him this tract, right after Dob bought his Black Draught elixir from w.i.l.l.y Jay? Dob turned around and there that drummer stood flashing his teeth, sa.s.sy as you please, having just restocked w.i.l.l.y Jay"s punchboard display and taken orders for Swede playing cards from the boys by the cold stove. Dob had seen the drummer before, had bought a trick bullfrog from him once in fact, and was happy enough to see him again. In nothing flat, that fat drummer Fritzy had a sample Master Loki Kit out of the bag and open while Dob picked his way gingerly through some big scary words on the tract.
"Come now, Dobber mah boy, wouldn"t you find your higher calling in some of this, an egg that evaporates, a domino that changes spots....why I sold over twenty of these kits last week in Roanoke due purely to the miraculous appeal of the water-into-wine trick alone."
"Owny Jesus kin change water inter wine," Dob offered, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his face at the fancy paper his thumb was smearing with bear grease. He"d always been interested in such things though. It was sorely tempting as the drummer bandied items from the sample kit.
"You are quick as a trout, dear Dobber, but this is magic we talkin about boy, magic, see? Yes indeedy dooo. And this Master Loki, he"s about the best there is, him bein plumb famous on the subject. Maybe not to you or me, but throughout Asia and the Europeen societies he is widely revered, and that"s purely resulting from his invention of the Magic Snuff Box I now hold before you."
"Gawww," said Dobber, reaching for the snuff box"s lid, "howzit work?"
"That I couldn"t tell you," sputtered the drummer, whisking it away. "Having failed to read the enclosed pamphlet or Master Loki"s Wizard Manual, I am wholly ignorant of the process by which these fine illusions are achieved. But I a.s.sure you, they"ll perform splendidly or else the Fourteen Day Good-As-Gold Guarantee will relieve your investment..."
"Whudzat mean?"
"You get your money back."
"Daaaawg-dang. Don"t sound too bad. Ain"t got but a nickel two penny though."
w.i.l.l.y Jay snickered behind him. Dob jerked his eye as w.i.l.l.y returned to buffing his bra.s.s register, dead serious. Everything was okay. w.i.l.l.y Jay was his friend and wouldn"t make him the goat. Just about then, Dob realized the boys by the stove hadn"t stopped their snickering at all, if anything, their chortles got sloppier. Nursy Jane shushed the boys, slitting her eyes at them over a shelf of liniment.
"Well sir, Dobber, I can see your problem. Course, you could start up now on my weekly payment plan, two bits a week and this treasure trove would be yours in time for St. Nick..."
"It looks awful special, but..." Dob wanted the powers that waited for him in Master Loki"s kit, and maybe he could get the money from Toodlem"s baby jar, but his neck reddened as the boys t.i.ttered, whispering and wagging at him. Yes, he was their goat. Dob"s eyes rolled towards them, then back. "b.u.t.ta...b.u.t.ta..." He hated to miss his one chance at earthly glory; the Lord couldn"t begrudge him a little peekaboo at the mysteries of life, at His Glorious Creation. But they did. His begrudgers. As if they ever fretted about the reaping. They had always made him the goat. "...b.u.t.ta...I don"t believe I oughter, thank ye, no, don"t believe I oughter."
"A crying shame, but your wife," Fritzy the drummer added, "Dobber, I hope your wife took favorably to the rosebud toilet water I sold her last spring..."
Toilet water? Dob didn"t know that Toodlem had fancied any toilet waters, muchless bought them, but he fibbed and said she had fancied hers well enough. Dob was already begging salvation for his teeny white lie, one of the constant prayers he kept going in his head, as he shuffled out the door. When the screen slammed he heard Charly Boyett say abberkadabber and alakazam. What"s that, asked one of the Van Smittle twins and Charly said he had just made dopey Dobber disappear. Dob could still hear their rowdy gee-haws as he rode the red heifer around the Livery and started up Pearlwick Road. What did he care about reapermeat? He didn"t care a whit.
Dob didn"t have to be a Wizard for the Devil, why, he could be a Wizard for the Good Lord. Like a Living Commandment. A spellbinder for Jesus: that sure would addle some sinners. Wasn"t little Dobber Magee the b.u.t.t of their horseplay ever since he and the kids that goaded him were big enough to waddle? They were seeds of Satan alright, d.a.m.ned and didn"t know it. Nonny had told him so and she would tell him what scripture to hurl at those Boyetts and Van Smittles too if she wasn"t six years dead and playing harpsichord for the one-and-only Christ Lord Jesus. Folks around Cayuga Ridge were always spooking him about how he tended to walk badly and dribble when he ate until he just didn"t eat around any of them anymore. What fussed him the most was when kids and some that hadn"t been kids for a long time would poke fun at his wandering eye.
The left one, this was the lazy pupil that vexed them; the one that sometimes made him look cross-eyed when it wasn"t looking out the window for itself, paying no attention to the rest of his lumpen face. They shouldn"t make jokes about his eye. Once--the only time he had been to school--Dob spent two days in grade three of Mrs. Marston"s cla.s.s, but only because the old constable, Newt the n.o.ble Jackson, had come up Coffin Holler and sat on Nonny"s porch and told her how little Dobber had to go to school, it being the next thing to a law. Nonny said all she was concerned with was the laws of Holy writ and Old Newt"s soul salvation, but she let him go anyway. They were the longest two days of Dob"s life, what with having to wear shoes and even the girls laughing at him because he couldn"t stand up and do his ciphers. His Nonny taught him what Bible words he needed to know, but those ciphers were just evil cat-scratchings as far as he could tell, and his failure to make sense of them must surely have been due, largely, to his wandering eye, the way Dob saw it. What could a peck of satan"s seeds know about telling twos from sevens with a wandering eye.Fortunately, his dear Nonny wasn"t here to see the ridicule he had borne this morning. It would put a crack in her heart, not to mention the notion that he had lain with an Injun girl and even stooped to marry her. But it seemed he"d gone astray in so many ways since Nonny"s death that a few more wouldn"t matter; besides he could always repent. Didn"t Jesus save the thieves on the cross from h.e.l.lfire? h.e.l.lfire if He didn"t. Down to the wire and they repented yeah boy and, hanging up there on Golgotha, that sweet Jesus gave them both early parole. It made Dob feel good, knowing he was better off than any common sneak thief, dog-dang it.
He was plucking another splinter from his rump, perplexing on why Toodlem might fool with toilet water, when Dob spied Fritzy the drummer coming up the road with his carpetbag. The drummer already wore a grin and waved an open b.u.t.termilk bottle, dowdy in that round crazy-twill suit of his.
"Hidy dooo," the drummer hailed as Dob got to his feet.
The drummer stopped but Dob could not speak for a moment.
"Dobber, ahm surprised at you lad, kitty got your tongue? Huh? This b.i.t.c.h of a sun git to your head?"
"Uh....naaaw..." Dobber Magee didn"t feel so good. There was a queer, sickening knot growing inside his throat; it made him feel strange and outside himself somehow. He couldn"t believe this dog-dang drummer could stand here grinning with his milk moustache, grinning with such holy powers in his hand. This queer sensation Dob felt, it smelled like rose toilet water.
"Take it easy, beau..." Fritzy put a touch on Dob"s shoulder.
The drummer"s b.u.t.termilk bottle spake, saying GOSPELTIME MILK - "Sweetest O"er The Land".
"Awwww....uh...goin up ter visit, see some folks?"
"That"s right. That"s it Dob. You know I never miss a run through Coffin Holler or Tutweiller"s Snoot. But that new Pontiac o"mine, she don"t do so well on these rough grades. Thought I"d park it outside the Livery while I walk off the rest, just like I"ve always done."
"Sure did take a shine t"yer magic bag."
"It ain"t a magic bag, Dobber, it"s Master Loki"s Magic Kit in the bag."
Dob had a sudden vision of Toodlem"s baby money hidden in that blue jar. "I--I got me ten dollar."
"Do tell. Marvelous. Ten dollars you say. That would be more than enough, yes...hmmm, maybe I should let you take a second gander at the merchandise before you commit yourself."
As Fritzy set down his satchel, he bent to open it and Dob clouted him on the dome, then swiveled around behind and locked the red-faced drummer in a shoulder hold, wrenching, yanking, until he heard the drummer yodel and his neck snap. b.u.t.termilk and gla.s.s fell smashing. Dob let go as Fritzy slumped into a heap alongside the bag. Looking around, he found a heavy stick and whacked the drummer"s skull a couple of licks for good measure.
After checking the road for gawkers, Dob stuffed the bag under a gooseberry bush, then he threw the drummer across the heifer"s back and led her off the road, down into the woods. He was popping sweat, knowing he had to find a place to bury the drummer before he ran across anybody. Dob tugged at the heifer"s halter, wooing her until she was coaxed down into the bottom of a steep ravine. Then he led her upcountry through deep tree cover until he reached a spot in the shadow of Choat"s Peak, a spot where a trail he knew about began up the backside of Old Riddle Top; leading to Lord knew what and the hainted doings up there.
But down here, behind a great boulder entwined with a gnarling black gum tree, Dob began to dig his hole. He dug for the better part of an hour with nothing but his clawing hands. After a while, winded, he got up and pulled the drummer off the heifer"s back, laying him out alongside the hole and to Dob"s disappointment, it was obvious the hole would need to be deeper, much deeper. He went back to clawing at the wormy, mulchy earth, resuming his prayers avengeth me, me, delivereth from ther violent man--working himself into a full-throttle frenzy.
Apparently, however, Dob had not been a complete success in his murder of poor Fritzy the drummer, because the fall from the heifer"s back had begun to revive Fritzy who opened his eyes and saw that d.a.m.n Dobber Magee, sweaty and testifying and digging himself a hole.
The next thing Dob knew, the once-dead drummer leapt up resurrected--he leapt and dumped a large stone on Dob"s noggin before racing off. "Oooph!" Dob grunted. Down the ravine the drummer ran, where his crazy-twill suit was quickly swallowed by trees. The stoning didn"t knock Dob out, but it did overwhelm him as he flattened out on the ground, groaning while blood trickled out of his hair. Somewhere, dimly, in the back of his mind Dob realized that the drummer was gone--would go get others most likely--and there would be a trial or maybe not and dopey Dobber would be hanged for his sins just like his Nonny had suspected. He winced, trying to squeeze his eyes shut until this new twist of fate was scrunched from existance, but it did no good. The vision of Toodlem laying daffodils on Dob"s grave and marrying some other, smarter man was simply too strong and just when Dob had begun to contemplate throwing himself off Choat"s Peak he heard the voice.
"Dob, ye dunderhead, stop yer snivelin."
Dob opened his eyes. No one stood over him. He raised up and looked askance at the murmuring trees, but they murmured nothing he could understand. Then he heard it again.
"Say Dobber boy, look down hyere afore ye put a crick in yer neck."
It was the hole, a raspy voice from the hole. With great dread, Dob rolled onto his knees and peered into the hole--where he beheld a face. But not just any face. It was the face of an old moonfaced baby, encased in black earth at the bottom of his hole. And this face spake again in a raspy sputter.
"Ye sure took long enough a-digging this hole, I thought you"d never git to me afore that drummer woke up and poleaxed ye."
"Daaaaawg-dang," Dob heard himself say, eyes agog.
"I figured you"d say that."
"Wh-whud ye doin down in there?" asked Dob.
"This is my bein, down in hyere. Yers is up there."
Dob began to shuffle, itching to help. "Wait, wait--ye want me to dig ye on out--?"
"No--stop---I don"t need no more digging done, they ain"t much more o"me to see and what there is ain"t perty."
"H-how long ye been down there."