Appalachian Galapagos (16 page)

Jimmy and Lukas were at the rear of the church, backs to the wall, eyes wide above their open mouths. Frank could smell their fear, an irritating stench that made him want to simultaneously stifle it and run away. He stepped away from the altar, nearly overwhelmed at the new power he could feel within his bones. He walked down the aisle towards his friends, his feet padding across the wooden floor. The congregation continued to pray, their mouths moving, though only a feathery whisper could be heard.

Frank stopped when he was only feet from the best friends he had ever had, his head cocking to the side as he took in their fear. Their bodies instantly relaxed as he touched their minds with his insight. He inhaled their dread, sucking it into his lungs.

Images from his past stirred in his mind as he stared into their eyes.

Fourteen-year-old Jimmy, laughing like a madman as he rode his bicycle over a homemade five-foot ramp and into the pond. Lukas smiling as he pulled a massive bass from the
Hiawasee
. Jimmy passing him a joint as they got wasted in the local cemetery, the light from the full moon giving the tombstones a bluish cast. Lukas doing an outrageously bad Karaoke version of "House of the Rising Sun" while he and Jimmy fell to the floor in overwhelming laughter. Jimmy shaking his hand when he left for the city, then pulling him into a quick and awkward embrace
.

One by one, he took the memories in, relishing in the feelings that they inspired. And in exchange, what he gave to them was a part of himself, the insight of what he had become.

Frank held his hairy arms towards his friends, almost in the pose of a crucifixion, beckoning to them with his chin.

Jimmy and Lukas stepped into the embrace, the Bigfoot's powerful arms stretching around their merely human frames. Frank gripped them fiercely, feeling their shaky forms shivering beneath his long, clawed fingers. The love he felt for them was breathtaking. Their friendship was something he would always treasure.

There was nothing in the world like the friends you grew up with.

When he let them go, they nearly fell to the floor, tears running down cheeks. Frank nodded languidly and gestured to the door.

Jimmy and Lukas opened it and fled, vanishing into the thickness of the kudzu night.

Frank turned to face the congregation, his congregation, their prayers already healing his sadness. He spoke, his voice a primordial
YAWP
. They stood up to embrace the newly resurrected messiah their faces stained with tears of happiness.

Brother Cletus was smiling so widely his cheekbones threatened to burst through his cheeks.

"Amen," he said, nodding softly.

Friends
Til
The Bitter End...The Acid of God...Skipping Stones...Darwin Awards...Dust in the Wind

Jimmy and Lukas watched the sun rise over the now calm waters of the
Hiawasee
. While they had been in the church, the run-off from the storm had disappeared. Now the water was like it always was: tantalizing, teasing. They had collapsed at the shore of the creek hours before, their bodies too tired to continue.

"I'm going to miss him, Lukas," Jimmy said, shaking his head. "You know, I still can't believe this happened."

"He's happy, Jimmy," Lukas said, tossing a rock into the water. "Didn't you feel him in your mind? I don't know how it's possible, but I felt him in mine. And I didn't just feel him, either. It was like Frank had become some sort of carrier of souls. I don't think I ever felt so connected in my life. I can't say it was a connection with God, but it sure felt spiritual. Frank was sad because he was
losin
'
everythin
', but he was happy too." He tossed another rock into the water, this one skipping three times. "I don't think he was ever more content in his whole life. Jimmy, when he came over to us, I saw
everythin
' we ever did together. It wasn't normal at all. I don't know if he's some kind of God, but I'm pretty damn certain he
found
Him."

Jimmy joined his friend at the bank of the
Hiawasee
. He reached down and grabbed a handful of stones and began to hurl them across the water, his body leaning sideways.

"I felt it too. I still don't know how to describe it. Like
droppin
'
holy acid
, or
somethin
'. When he looked at me, I saw everything we ever did together. Is that even possible?" Jimmy sighed, his breath coming out of his mouth in a long tired wheeze. "I still can't believe this happened. Poor Frank. I hope to God he's happy, man."

Lukas put his hand on his friend's arm. He was smiling. "You think he is, too, though. Don't you?"

Jimmy returned the smile, feeling the first of the morning sun warming up his face with its orange glow. "Yeah, I do. Frank found
somethin
' when he drank that stuff. Frank always did feel like a lost soul, didn't he? I don't think he was ever able to find whatever he was
lookin
' for. It haunted him, man. I think that's why he left us in the first place. At least he has that other Bigfoot with him now."

"I don't think it's even hit us yet, losing Frank like this. I think when he connected to us like that, it was his way of
tellin
' us that everything was gonna be okay. He was in a better place. Even though he was a Bigfoot, it was almost like he had evolved, or
somethin
'. I think we'll be
talkin
' about what happened out here for the rest of our lives. I don't think we'll ever be the same again. We're different too. I feel twenty years older. I feel twenty years younger. Weird." A stone skipped seven times and he smiled. "I still feel like I'm gonna break down and cry again any second now."

"Me too. Hell, just the thought that I ain't never gonna be able to tease him again hits me right in the gut. I loved him. We both loved him."

"The three of us together had magic. We've known that for almost thirty years."

"What the hell are we gonna tell the police?" asked Jimmy, changing the subject.

"I guess we're just gonna have to say he must have drowned in the
Hiawasee
. It's not a crime to be drunk and stupid, is it? I know in my heart that Frank would not want us to tell what really happened. The police and newspaper people will be all over that church in hours if we say one goddamned word. And who knows what they'll do to Frank."

"This from the guy who wanted to make a million from the sale of a dead Bigfoot?"

"Yeah. Well. That was then, this is now. We'll just sort of tell the truth. We got blasted on Budweiser and tried to ride the bass boat with no fuckin' paddles down river right after a big fuckin' storm. Frank didn't make it." He turned to Jimmy and grinned. "There is one thing that we can do, you know. Yep, I guess Frank's gonna be on that Darwin list he was
talkin
' about after all. Ha! It's almost funny when you think about it."

Jimmy nodded. "Frank would appreciate that after all this shit." He snickered. "
Winnin
' a Darwin award. We could accept it on his behalf and pretend to be a couple of redneck idiots." He paused and stared hard at the languid water. "You believe in God now, Lukas?"

Lukas stared into his friend's eyes and placed a hand upon his shoulder. "I always did, my friend. I always did."

Frank watched his friends from the far shore, the Bitch-Be-Quick Stick clutched in his leathery grasp. The rays of the sun warmed his back. The wind tickled his fur. Seventeen monarch butterflies rested on his outstretched arm, understanding that he could do them no harm.

A fox darted through his trunk-sized legs, hard on the trail of a rabbit, now long gone. A crow flew by and Frank understood the impertinent caw.

His life was different now. He was connected to the universe in a way he'd never imagined. The strains of an old song mixed with a happy memory. No longer was he "
Dust in the Wind"
.

He had become the wind.

An old Greek once said that anybody can become angry, but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, is not within everybody's power and is not easy. It takes a rare determination to demonstrate anger perfectly, and
Dicky
Sims had that quality of determination.

Dicky
Sims was angry

What he'd done was not easy. His anger had cost him everything. Absolutely everything.

His job had been lost when he'd used the energetic explanations of his nail gun to punctuate the end of an argument he'd had with his site foreman.

His marriage had been lost when, after three weeks of not bothering to speak to his wife for even the most mundane matter, she'd determined he was an Uncaring Bastard, packed up the kids and moved to her mother's.

His house had been lost as he sat in the front yard after a seventy-two hour binge, his lawn chair resting unevenly upon a mound of empty beer cans. When the fire trucks arrived, he was eating Ballpark Franks, their taste slightly noxious from the taint of melting carpet and furniture.

His wife never realized that by ignoring her, he'd saved her. She didn't know the true shallowness of his self control. Each breath, each itch of the skin enraged him to the point he wanted to lash out...

...to hurt.

...to maim.

...to kill.

His silence had been the truest love. His silence had kept her alive. She would have argued. She wouldn't have understood. How could he have explained to her that he loved another? Not in the way he loved her with fluttering heart and sweaty palms, but a different kind of love. The love of a man for a man. The love one friend has for another that no wife could ever match.

How could he explain to her that he was going on a journey of redemption and that she wasn't invited?

Squatting in the green mire of the trough he wolfed down the corn and burnt chicken gristle as if it were his last meal, for truly, any day could be his last. A large sow butted him twice, squealing her outrage at his selfishness. He spun and growled, his file-sharpened teeth promising another scar, a lost ear or a gutting from loin to jowl. The old bitch just didn't understand. He was king of the holding pen. He got first feed.

Dicky
Sims shoved his head into the congealing mess once more, teeth concentrating on food as his gaze followed the
sow.
Not
no
, but fuck no
. No way was she gonna keep him from feeding. He needed the energy. Everything he'd waited for and everything he'd begged for would occur tonight under the lights of The Pit and he was damned if he was going to let some fat, saggy momma-pig cheat him out of it.

The day had been one of those special days when the rhythms of the earth matched the rhythms of the man. By all accounts the day should have been ruined with the constant hazy drizzle, but for sure, it was a fisherman's dream. It had been the middle of August. Water moccasins were shedding their skins in sun-crazed undulations. Every rock along the river was a shrine to renewal as the vipers lay blind, waiting and ready to snap at a breeze.

The rain showed no signs of letting up—which was fine, because it would have taken an earthquake, a volcanic disaster and fires falling from the heavens to keep
Dicky
and Willy Pete from fishing. Of all the things in their Appalachian universe, fishing was the only thing that allowed them the purity of silence.

No screaming kids. No bitching wives. No bosses to hassle them. No inane television programming to drive them mad. Just the pure solace of a mixed pine forest and a lonely river meandering through Tennessee farm country.

Willy Pete had heard about the river from a bass man—that breed of fisherman who mysteriously appreciated the lazy strength of a fish even a ten-year old could catch, over the sinewy muscles of the hyperactive trout. As the story went, the river had been a mistake. Not the fact it existed, of course, but the fact that a drunken forestry worker had once dumped a truckload of trout there ten years before. Not normal hatchery trout either.
Lunkers
ranging from sixteen to thirty inches, each capable of fighting harder than a bass twice their size had suddenly found themselves part of the Jacob Mountain ecosystem.