Deadman's Crossing (3 page)

“And why would this road be different than any other?”
Jebidiah asked. “What does it have to do with ancient gods?”

Old Timer grinned. “You’re just wanting to challenge it, ain’t
you, Reverend? Prove how strong your god is. You weren’t no
preacher, you’d be a gunfighter, I reckon. Or, maybe you are just
that. A gunfighter preacher.”

“I’m not that fond of my god,” Jebidiah said, “but I have been
given a duty. Drive out evil. Evil as my god sees it. If these gods are
evil, and they’re in my path, then I have to confront them.”

“They’re evil, all right,” Old Timer said.

“Tell us about them,” Jebidiah said.

“Gil Gimet was a beekeeper,” Old Timer said. “He raised honey,
and lived off of Deadman’s Road. Known then as Cemetery Road.
That’s ’cause there was a graveyard down there. It had some old
Spanish graves in it, some said Conquistadores who tromped
through here but didn’t tromp out. I know there was some Indians
buried there, early Christian Indians, I reckon. Certainly there
were stones and crosses up and Indian names on the crosses.
Maybe mixed breeds. Lots of intermarrying around here. Anyway,
there were all manner people buried up there. The dead ground
don’t care what color you are when you go in, ’cause in the end,
we’re all gonna be the color of dirt.”

“Hell,” Bill said. “You’re already the color of dirt. And you
smell like some pretty old dirt at that.”

“You gonna keep on, mister,” Old Timer said, “and you’re
gonna wind up having the undertaker wipe your ass.” Old Timer
cocked back the hammers on the shotgun again. “This here gun
could go off accidently. Could happen, and who here is gonna
argue it didn’t?”

“Not me,” the deputy said. “It would be easier on me you were
dead, Bill.”

Bill looked at the Reverend. “Yeah, but that wouldn’t set right
with the Reverend, would it Reverend?”

“Actually, I wouldn’t care one way or another. I’m not a man of
peace, and I’m not a forgiver, even if what you did wasn’t done to
me. I think we’re all rich and deep in sin. Maybe none of us are
worthy of forgiveness.”

Bill sunk a little at his seat. No one was even remotely on his
side. Old Timer continued with his story.

“This here beekeeper, Gimet, he wasn’t known as much of a
man. Mean-hearted is how he was thunk of. I knowed him, and
I didn’t like him. I seen him snatch up a little dog once and cut
the tail off of it with his knife, just ’cause he thought it was funny.
Boy who owned the dog tried to fight back, and Gimet, he cut
the boy on the arm. No one did nothin’ about it. Ain’t no real law
in these parts, you see, and wasn’t nobody brave enough to do
nothin’. Me included. And he did lots of other mean things, even
killed a couple of men, and claimed self-defense. Might have been,
but Gimet was always into something, and whatever he was into
always turned out with someone dead, or hurt, or humiliated.”

“Bill here sounds like he could be Gimet’s brother,” the deputy
said.

“Oh, no,” Old Timer said, shaking his head. “This here scum-licker ain’t a bump on the mean old ass of Gimet. Gimet lived in
a little shack off Cemetery Road. He raised bees, and brought in
honey to sell at the community up the road. Guess you could even
call it a town. Schow is the way the place is known, on account of
a fella used to live up there was named Schow. He died and got ate
up by pigs. Right there in his own pen, just keeled over slopping
the hogs, and then they slopped him, all over that place. A store
got built on top of where Schow got et up, and that’s how the place
come by the name. Gimet took his honey in there to the store and
sold it, and even though he was a turd, he had some of the best
honey you ever smacked your mouth around. Wish I had me some
now. It was dark and rich, and sweeter than any sugar. Think that’s
one reason he got away with things. People don’t like killing and
such, but they damn sure like their honey.”

“This story got a point?” Bill said.

“You don’t like way I’m telling it,” Old Timer said, “why don’t
you think about how that rope’s gonna fit around your neck. That
ought to keep your thoughts occupied, right smart.”

Bill made a grunting noise, turned on his block of wood, as if to
show he wasn’t interested.

“Well, now, honey or not, sweet tooth, or not, everything has
an end to it. And thing was he took to a little gal, Mary Lynn
Twoshoe. She was a part Indian gal, a real looker, hair black as the
bottom of a well, eyes the same color, and she was just as fine in
the features as them pictures you see of them stage actresses. She
wasn’t five feet tall, and that hair of hers went all the way down
her back. Her daddy was dead. The pox got him. And her mama
wasn’t too well off, being sickly, and all. She made brooms out of
straw and branches she trimmed down. Sold a few of them, raised
a little garden and a hog. When all this happened, Mary Lynn was
probably thirteen, maybe fourteen. Wasn’t no older than that.”

“If you’re gonna tell a tale,” Bill said, “least don’t wander all
over the place.”

“So, you’re interested?” Old Timer said.

“What else I got to do?” Bill said.

“Go on,” Jebidiah said. “Tell us about Mary Lynn.”

Old Timer nodded. “Gimet took to her. Seen her around,
bringing the brooms her mama made into the store. He waited on
her, grabbed her, and just throwed her across his saddle kickin’
and screamin’, like he’d bought a sack of flour and was ridin’ it to
the house. Mack Collins, store owner came out and tried to stop
him. Well, he said something to him. About how he shouldn’t do
it, least that’s the way I heard it. He didn’t push much, and I can’t
blame him. Didn’t do good to cross Gimet. Anyway, Gimet just
said back to Mack, ‘Give her mama a big jar of honey. Tell her
that’s for her daughter. I’ll even make her another jar or two, if the
meat here’s as sweet as I’m expecting.’

“With that, he slapped Mary Lynn on the ass and rode off with
her.”

“Sounds like my kind of guy,” Bill said.

“I have become irritated with you now,” Jebidiah said. “Might I
suggest you shut your mouth before I pistol whip you.”

Bill glared at Jebidiah, but the Reverend’s gaze was as dead and
menacing as the barrels of Old Timer’s shotgun.

“Rest of the story is kind of grim,” Old Timer said. “Gimet
took her off to his house, and had his way with her. So many times
he damn near killed her, and then he turned her loose, or got so
drunk she was able to get loose. Time she walked down Cemetery
Road, made it back to town, well, she was bleeding so bad from
having been used so rough, she collapsed. She lived a day and died
from loss of blood. Her mother, out of her sick bed, rode a mule
out there to the cemetery on Cemetery Road. I told you she was
Indian, and she knew some Indian ways, and she knew about them
old gods that wasn’t none of the gods of her people, but she still
knew about them.

“She knew some signs to draw in cemetery dirt. I don’t know
the whole of it, but she did some things, and she did it on some
old grave out there, and the last thing she did was she cut her own
throat, died right there, her blood running on top of that grave and
them pictures she drawed in the dirt.”

“Don’t see how that done her no good,” the deputy said.

“Maybe it didn’t, but folks think it did,” Old Timer said.
“Community that had been pushed around by Gimet, finally
had enough, went out there in mass to hang his ass, shoot him,
whatever it took. Got to his cabin they found Gimet dead outside
his shack. His eyes had been torn out, or blown out is how they
looked. Skin was peeled off his head, just leaving the skull and a
few hairs. His chest was ripped open, and his insides was gone,
exceptin’ the bones in there. And them bees of his had nested in
the hole in his chest, had done gone about making honey. Was
buzzing out of that hole, his mouth, empty eyes, nose, or where his
nose used to be. I figure they’d rolled him over, tore off his pants,
they’d have been coming out of his asshole.”

“How come you weren’t out there with them?” Bill said. “How
come this is all stuff you heard?”

“Because I was a coward when it come to Gimet,” Old Timer
said. “That’s why. Told myself wouldn’t never be a coward again,
no matter what. I should have been with them. Didn’t matter no
how. He was done good and dead, them bees all in him. What was
done then is the crowd got kind of loco, tore off his clothes, hooked
his feet up to a horse and dragged him through a blackberry patch,
them bees just burstin’ out and hummin’ all around him. All that
ain’t right, but I think I’d been with them, knowing who he was
and all the things he’d done, I might have been loco too. They
dumped him out on the cemetery to let him rot, took that girl’s
mother home to be buried some place better. Wasn’t no more than
a few nights later that folks started seeing Gimet. They said he
walked at night, when the moon was at least half, or full, like it
is now. Number of folks seen him, said he loped alongside the
road, following their horses, grabbing hold of the tail if he could,
trying to pull horse and rider down, or pull himself up on the back
of their mounts. Said them bees was still in him. Bees black as
flies, and angry whirling all about him, and coming from inside
him. Worse, there was a larger number of folks took that road that
wasn’t never seen again. It was figured Gimet got them.”

“Horse shit,” the deputy said. “No disrespect, Old Timer.
You’ve treated me all right, that’s for sure. But a ghost chasing
folks down. I don’t buy that.”

“Don’t have to buy it,” Old Timer said. “I ain’t trying to sell
it to you none. Don’t have to believe it. And I don’t think it’s no
ghost anyway. I think that girl’s mother, she done something to let
them old gods out for awhile, sicked them on that bastard, used
her own life as a sacrifice, that’s what I think. And them gods,
them things from somewhere else, they ripped him up like that.
Them bees is part of that too. They ain’t no regular honey bees.
They’re some other kind of bees. Some kind of fitting death for a
bee raiser, is my guess.”

“That’s silly,” the deputy said.

“I don’t know,” Jebidiah said. “The Indian woman may only
have succeeded in killing him in this life. She may not have
understood all that she did. Didn’t know she was giving him an
opportunity to live again...or maybe that is the curse. Though
there are plenty others have to suffer for it.”

“Like the folks didn’t do nothing when Gimet was alive,” Old
Time said. “Folks like me that let what went on go on.”

Jebidiah nodded. “Maybe.”

The deputy looked at Jebidiah. “Not you too, Reverend. You
should know better than that. There ain’t but one true god, and
ain’t none of that hoodoo business got a drop of truth to it.”

“If there’s one god,” Jebidiah said, “there can be many. They
are at war with one another, that’s how it works, or so I think. I’ve
seen some things that have shook my faith in the one true god,
the one I’m servant to. And what is our god but hoodoo? It’s all
hoodoo, my friend.”

“Okay. What things have you seen, Reverend?” the deputy
asked.

“No use describing it to you, young man,” Jebidiah said. “You
wouldn’t believe me. But I’ve recently come from Mud Creek. It
had an infestation of a sort. That town burned down, and I had a
hand in it.”

“Mud Creek,” Old Timer said. “I been there.”

“Only thing there now,” Jebidiah said, “is some charred wood.”

“Ain’t the first time it’s burned down,” Old Timer said. “Some
fool always rebuilds it, and with it always comes some kind of ugliness. I’ll tell you straight. I don’t doubt your word at all, Reverend.”