Stories (2011) (75 page)

"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."

"Horseshit," 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, sicced 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
honeybees. 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 Timer 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."

"Thing is," the deputy said, "I don't believe
in no haints. That's the shortest road, and it's the road I'm gonna take."

"I wouldn't," Old Timer said.

"Thanks for the advice. But no one goes with me or
does, that's the road I'm taking, provided it cuts a day off my trip."

"I'm going with you," Jebidiah said. "My job
is to strike at evil. Not to walk around it."

"I'd go during the day," Old Timer said.
"Ain't no one seen Gimet in the day, or when the moon is thin or not at
all. But way it is now, it's full, and will be again tomorrow night. I'd ride
hard tomorrow, you're determined to go. Get there as soon as you can, before
dark."

"I'm for getting there," the deputy said.
"I'm for getting back to Nacogdoches, and getting this bastard in a
cell."

"I'll go with you," Jebidiah said. "But I
want to be there at night. I want to take Deadman's Road at that time. I want
to see if Gimet is there. And if he is, send him to his final death. Defy those
dark gods the girl's mother called up.

Defy them and loose my god on him. What I'd suggest is you
get some rest, Deputy. Old Timer here can watch a bit, then I'll take over.
That way we all get some rest. We can chain this fellow to a tree outside, we
have to. We should both get slept up to the gills, then leave here mid-day,
after a good dinner, head out for Deadman's Road. Long as we're there by
nightfall."

"That ought to bring you right on it," Old Timer
said. "You take Deadman's Road. When you get to the fork, where the road
ends, you go right. Ain't no one ever seen Gimet beyond that spot, or in front
of where the road begins. He's tied to that stretch, way I heard it."

"Good enough," the deputy said. "I find this
all foolish, but if I can get some rest, and have you ride along with me,
Reverend, then I'm game. And I'll be fine with getting there at night."

–•–

Next morning they slept late, and had an early lunch. Beans
and hard biscuits again, a bit of stewed squirrel. Old Timer had shot the
rodent that morning while Jebidiah watched Bill sit on his ass, his hands
chained around a tree in the front yard. Inside the cabin, the deputy had
continued to sleep.

But now they all sat outside eating, except for Bill.

"What about me?" Bill asked, tugging at his
chained hands.

"When we finish," Old Timer said. "Don't know
if any of the squirrel will be left, but we got them biscuits for you. I can
promise you some of them. I might even let you rub one of them around in my
plate, sop up some squirrel gravy."

"Those biscuits are awful," Bill said.

"Ain't they," Old Timer said.

Bill turned his attention to Jebidiah. "Preacher, you
ought to just go on and leave me and the boy here alone. Ain't smart for you to
ride along, 'cause I get loose, ain't just the deputy that's gonna pay. I'll
put you on the list."

"After what I've seen in this life," Jebidiah
said, "you are nothing to me. An insect. . . . So, add me to your
list."

"Let's feed him," the deputy said, nodding at
Bill, "and get to moving. I'm feeling rested and want to get this ball
started."

–•–

The moon had begun to rise when they rode in sight of
Deadman's Road.

The white crossroad sign was sticking up beside the road.
Trees and brush had grown up around it, and between the limbs and the shadows,
the crudely painted words on the sign were halfway readable in the waning
light. The wind had picked up and was grabbing at leaves, plucking them from
the ground, tumbling them about, tearing them from trees and tossing them
across the narrow, clay road with a sound like mice scuttling in straw.

"Fall always depresses me," the deputy said, halting
his horse, taking a swig from his canteen.

"Life is a cycle," Jebidiah said. "You're
born, you suffer, then you're punished."

The deputy turned in his saddle to look at Jebidiah.
"You ain't much on that resurrection and reward, are you?"

"No, I'm not."

"I don't know about you," the deputy said,
"but I wish we hadn't gotten here so late. I'd rather have gone through in
the day."

"Thought you weren't a believer in spooks?" Bill
said, and made with his now familiar snort. "You said it didn't matter to
you."

The deputy didn't look at Bill when he spoke. "I wasn't
here then. Place has a look I don't like. And I don't enjoy temptin' things.
Even if I don't believe in them."

"That's the silliest thing I ever heard," Bill
said.

"Wanted me with you," Jebidiah said. "You had
to wait."

"You mean to see something, don't you, preacher?"
Bill said.

"If there is something to see," Jebidiah said.

"You believe Old Timer's story?" the deputy said.
"I mean, really?"

"Perhaps."

Jebidiah clucked to his horse and took the lead.

–•–

When they turned onto Deadman's Road, Jebidiah paused and
removed a small, fat Bible from his saddlebag.

The deputy paused too, forcing Bill to pause as well.
"You ain't as ornery as I thought," the deputy said. "You want
the peace of the Bible just like anyone else."

"There is no peace in this book," Jebidiah said.
"That's a real confusion.

Bible isn't anything but a book of terror, and that's how
God is: terrible. But the book has power. And we might need it."

"I don't know what to think about you, Reverend,"
the deputy said.

"Ain't nothin' you can think about a man that's gone
loco," Bill said. "I don't want to stay with no man that's
loco."

"You get an idea to run, Bill, I can shoot you off your
horse," the deputy said. "Close range with my revolver, far range
with my rifle. You don't want to try it."

"It's still a long way to Nacogdoches," Bill said.

–•–

The road was narrow and of red clay. It stretched far ahead
like a band of blood, turned sharply to the right around a wooded curve where it
was a dark as the bottom of Jonah's whale. The blowing leaves seemed especially
intense on the road, scraping dryly about, winding in the air like giant
hornets. The trees, which grew thick, bent in the wind, from right to left.
This naturally led the trio to take to the left side of the road.

The farther they went down the road, the darker it became.
By the time they got to the curve, the woods were so thick, and the thunderous
skies had grown so dark, the moon was barely visible; its light was as weak as
a sick baby's grip.

When they had traveled for some time, the deputy said,
obviously feeling good about it, "There ain't nothing out here 'sides what
you would expect. A possum maybe. The wind."

"Good for you, then," Jebidiah said. "Good
for us all."

"You sound disappointed to me," the deputy said.

"My line of work isn't far from yours, Deputy. I look
for bad guys of a sort, and try and send them to hell . . . or in some cases,
back to hell."

And then, almost simultaneous with a flash of lightning,
something crossed the road not far in front of them.

"What the hell was that?" Bill said, coming out of
what had been a near stupor.

"It looked like a man," the deputy said.

"Could have been," Jebidiah said. "Could have
been."

"What do you think it was?"

"You don't want to know."

"I do."

"Gimet," Jebidiah said.

–•–

The sky let the moon loose for a moment, and its light
spread through the trees and across the road. In the light there were insects,
a large wad of them, buzzing about in the air.

"Bees," Bill said. "Damn if them ain't bees.
And at night. That ain't right."

"You an expert on bees?" the deputy asked.

"He's right," Jebidiah said. "And look,
they're gone now."

"Flew off," the deputy said.

"No . . . no, they didn't," Bill said. "I was
watching, and they didn't fly nowhere. They're just gone. One moment they were
there, then they was gone, and that's all there is to it. They're like
ghosts."

"You done gone crazy," the deputy said.

"They are not insects of this earth," Jebidiah
said. "They are familiars."

"What?" Bill said.

"They assist evil, or evil beings," Jebidiah said.
"In this case, Gimet.

They're like a witches black cat familiar. Familiars take on
animal shapes, insects, that sort of thing."

"That's ridiculous," the deputy said. "That
don't make no kind of sense at all."

"Whatever you say," Jebidiah said, "but I
would keep my eyes alert, and my senses raw. Wouldn't hurt to keep your
revolvers loose in their holsters. You could well need them. Though, come to
think of it, your revolvers won't be much use."

"What the hell does that mean?" Bill said.

Jebidiah didn't answer. He continued to urge his horse on,
something that was becoming a bit more difficult as they went. All of the
horses snorted and turned their heads left and right, tugged at their bits;
their ears went back and their eyes went wide.

"Holy hell," Bill said, "what's that?"

Jebidiah and the deputy turned to look at him. Bill was
turned in the saddle, looking back. They looked too, just in time to see
something that looked pale blue in the moonlight dive into the brush on the
other side of the road. Black dots followed, swarmed in the moonlight, then
darted into the bushes behind the pale, blue thing like a load of buckshot.

"What was that?" the deputy said. His voice
sounded as if it had been pistol-whipped.

"Already told you," Jebidiah said.

"That couldn't have been nothing human," the
deputy said.

"Don't you get it?" Bill said. "That's what
the preacher is trying to tell you.

It's Gimet, and he ain't nowhere alive. His skin was blue.
And he's all messed up.

I seen more than you did. I got a good look. And them bees.
We ought to break out and ride hard."

"Do as you choose," the Reverend said. "I
don't intend to."

"And why not?" Bill said.