The Devil Walks in Mattingly (5 page)

He paused to drink from a barrel of water. A small path led from there to a high place along the ridge. Charlie followed it and found Taylor sitting on a large rotting log, scanning the valley below with a broken pair of binoculars. The spring sun had already bronzed his thick shoulders, turning them near the color of the ponytail hanging to the middle of his back. The edges of a wild-man’s beard, full and frayed, poked out from the sides of his jaw. Beside him on the log lay the tattered book he always kept near.

He said without turning, “Knew you was close, Charlie Givens.”

Charlie stopped. When he spoke, his words were colored with the slow drawl of the Virginia mountains. “Now, Taylor, that ain’t true. I’s quiet as a church mouse the whole way.”

“That may be your mind, but I know better.” Still with his back to Charlie, still scanning below. “You spooked a hawk when you crossed the gate. Hawk spooked a rabbit. Rabbit spooked a deer. Deer told the bear.”

“How you know that?”

“Bear told me.”

Charlie offered no response. Taylor spoke often of the monster that dwelled in the Hollow, which may nor may not have been a bear and may or may not have existed only in the dark labyrinth of Taylor Hathcock’s muddled mind. Charlie didn’t much care either way. He had more pressing issues.

“Well, I appreciate the lesson, Taylor, but I done bore your groceries all this way, an’ if I don’t go pay the water bill I’m gonna float.”

“Time’s drawn too short for that,” Taylor said. “Set those rations down here and perch yourself. We need a word.”

Charlie did as he was told, glad to unburden his arms if not his bladder. He placed the groceries (a box of Twinkies, a case of beer, two packs of pencils, three boxes of shotgun shells—always that, nothing more and nothing less) in the center of the log beside Taylor’s book and sat at the opposite end.

He asked, “You find Her yet?”

Taylor kept the binoculars trained on the valley and said no, but Charlie knew She was down there, had to be. He squinted his eyes and peered the dozen or so miles below. Tiny cars crawled like ants along thin ribbons of roads, funneling in and out of the small downtown.

“Look at them,” Taylor said. “Going everyplace and no place, all for naught. It pains me, Charlie. How you live down there in all that gaggle?”

Charlie watched the binoculars and wondered what Taylor saw. One of the lenses was cracked down the middle. Its opposite eyepiece was nothing more than an empty hole. By appearance alone, he thought the spyglasses would offer little more than a fuzzy image of whatever lay no more than five feet from Taylor’s nose.

“Well, I live in Camden, Taylor. That there’s Mattingly.”

Taylor took the binoculars from his face. He reached for his book and the nub of pencil that marked his place, then scrawled overtop words that were already there. Charlie averted his eyes, wanting to see but not daring.

Taylor finished and said, “All’s the same town and the same world, Charlie Givens. It’s a poison to the soul, and I want no part of it. They don’t come to my Holler. They say the devil walks here. You believe so?”

Charlie said he’d never even entertained such a thought and hoped Taylor wouldn’t perceive that lie, because there had been many a time over the years when Charlie made the
long walk back to the rusty gate believing the devil not only walked in Happy Hollow, he scarfed the beer and Twinkies Charlie bought him every month too. He crossed his legs (a difficult task for a man his size) and began a slow rocking back and forth.

“Found something last night,” Taylor said. “Down to the grove.”

Charlie stilled himself. “The grove? Somebody come up in the Holler?”

“No. Someone done come out.”

“Done come . . . ?” Charlie paused, trying to let that sink in, but found it only floated at the surface of his thick head. “Taylor, how’s that true?”

“Go tend your business,” Taylor said. “Meet me inside after. But hurry up, we gotta go soon.”

“Where we goin’?”

Taylor rose from the log and pointed to the sleepy town far below.

“Yonder.”

5

I found Hollis’s first official customer of the morning on my way back from Jenny. I wasn’t surprised at who it was. Bobby Barnes stood at the edge of the field and muttered a curse as he wiped a thick smear of manure from the bottom of his boot. I knew he’d panic, but I helloed anyway. Bobby flinched when he saw me and turned to run, then tripped when he forgot his foot was still in his hand.

“Now just hang on, Bobby,” I said. The walk back from Hollis’s clearing had helped repair my confidence. I was me
again—the fake me, but the me everyone was used to. Of course, that Bobby wasn’t carrying a shotgun also helped. “I don’t want no trouble.”

“I ain’t doin’ nothin’,” Bobby said. “Hand t’God, Jake, I’m just out walkin’ is all.”

I kept my gait slow and stopped, reaching out my right hand to help him up. Bobby refused and managed it himself.

“And of all the hollers around here, you just so happen to pick Hollis’s for your morning constitutional?”

Bobby’s shoulders hitched twice when he shrugged. I looked away with a kind of embarrassment. Not even lunchtime, and he’d already come down with the shakes. I thought it awful, what people could become. Then I remembered the jar in my hand and thought of myself.

“This here’s good a place as any,” he told me. “You got nothin’ on me, Sheriff. You know that.”

“Easy,” I said.

I held up the bulging dish towel in my left hand. Bobby’s eyes burned a wide hole in my gut. Just like that, what swagger I’d found was lost again. The man in front of me stood a good six inches shorter and weighed all of 120 pounds, but I felt smaller. I often did. That’s a way of looking at yourself that you never get used to.

“You been to see Jenny?” he asked.

I ignored his question and said, “Funny I should run into you, Bobby. Your name came up last night. Zach got in a tussle with a boy at school. You remember the one we had?”

“I remember you sucker punchin’ me for lookin’ at Kate’s delicates, which I
weren’t
,” he said. “Now state your aim, Jake. I can run fast, and I see you dint come up here with that dad-blamed tommyhawk neither.”

I had him dead to rights, of course. I knew what Bobby
was doing there, and it was absolutely in my power to turn him around and send him back to town empty-handed. But I couldn’t. I was just as much in the wrong as he was—more so, given the jar in my hand. I didn’t want trouble. And to be honest, I pitied Bobby Barnes. Always had.

“Bessie’s in the truck,” I said. “Which is where I’m heading. I aim to keep moving and head to town.”

Bobby shuffled his weight from left to right, like he was dancing on hot coals. I figured that was likely how his insides felt.

“So I can pass?” he asked. “You ain’t gonna cleave my head and run me in?”

“Law only applies to what’s been done, Bobby. Ain’t gonna run you in for what you’ll likely do. So I’m gonna go ahead and let you finish your walk, and you can thank me by not telling anyone I was here and by enjoying the fruits of your labor down at the shop instead of on the road. That sound like something we can agree on?”

Bobby took a step forward and extended his hand. I caught it between spasms. “You got that, Jake. You’re a good man.” He shuffled past and on into the woods, then turned just outside a slant of morning light. “Hey, Jake? You feelin’ all right? You look some peaked.”

“I’m fine.”

He looked at his feet and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his frayed jeans. “I never saw nothin’. That day on the playground with Kate, I mean. I was lookin’, but I didn’t see. You tell her that for me?”

“I will. You be careful, Bobby. And mind what I told you.”

Bobby nodded as that single regret slipped away. I’ll say I was envious. Doesn’t sound right, being jealous of the town drunk. And yet Bobby had just managed to lay down a small
part of the heavy shame only Hollis’s drink could help him shoulder. That was something I’d never managed myself.

I kept the jar out of sight as the farmhouse neared, then I veered right to the barn and my old Chevy Blazer. I placed the moonshine in the passenger seat next to Bessie and eased away. If Edith Devereaux saw me, she’s never said.

The road turned from dirt to pavement a few miles ahead. An early warm spell had convinced me to remove the top over the back end of the truck. I settled into the seat and hoped the combination of sun and wind would keep me awake. Thoughts of Jenny and Bobby melted into a buzzing nothingness. The hum of the tires was steady, womb-like. My eyes fluttered. I opened them wide. They fluttered again. My body sank deeper into the seat. I knew what was happening, which was bad enough, and I knew there was nothing I could do about it, which was worse. People say it’s the mind that rules the body. I’m here to say sometimes that’s not true at all. My mind knew I was going asleep at forty miles an hour just as much as it knew something worse than running off the road would happen if I did. But my eyes didn’t care, and closed they went. They would’ve stayed that way had the Blazer not fallen out of the mountain’s shadow just then, signaling my return to the civilized world of cell towers and wireless calls. The phone lying on the console erupted into a fit of beeps and chirps that made me gasp and bolt forward. I righted the truck before it drifted off the road and stuck the phone to my ear.

“This is Jake.”

“Hey, Daddy,” Zach said. “Where you been?”

I swallowed hard and tried to find my breath. White pinpricks gathered into globs of gray in front of my eyes. I coughed into my hand.

“Had to run an errand,” I said. “What’s your momma doing?”

“She went out to the Texaco for a name. She tried callin’ you, but you dint answer.”

“She didn’t leave you there alone, did she?” I asked.

“Nosir, Doc March’s here. We’re playin’ checkers. Momma called him to come look at my eye. Doc says it’s a beaut.”

The road ahead curved to the right. Beyond that stood Andy Sommerville’s BP. That’s where I’d stop. Gather myself. Get some coffee. Andy was always good company, and if worst came to worst, he’d give me a ride back to the office. I’d just say the Blazer was acting up.

“You comin’ in now, Daddy? Can I throw Bessie some when you get here?”

My words came out thick and drawn: “Gonna stop at the BP first. You and Doc been manning the phones for me?”

“Yessir,” he said. “Ain’t nobody called but Mr. Justus.”

My heartbeat went from barely to thundering, making that spot hurt in my chest. I squeezed the steering wheel. “You know better than to talk to him, Zach.”

“I dint know it was him until he talked, Daddy. It ain’t my fault.”

No, I thought. It wasn’t his fault. Not at all. If it was anyone’s, it was my wife’s.

I asked, “What’d Mr. Justus want?”

“He ast if you were gonna arrest him today. You gonna haul’m in, Daddy?”

I forgot about sleep. Not even Phillip entered my thoughts. There was only room in my mind for Justus. Justus, and the fact he’d spoken to Zach instead of Kate.

“Don’t think I will today,” I said. “Phone rings again, you let Doc answer. I’ll be there soon.”

I hung up. Andy Sommerville was working a broom around the pumps when I passed. He waved. I didn’t wave back. Such
things happen, I guess. We get too caught up in our own lives and forget how to be good neighbors. But I’ll say this: when the town came under siege and the world unraveled in the days that followed, I’d point to that moment as yet another failing in my life—I didn’t wave to Andy.

6

The table wasn’t much, just an empty spool of electrical wire that served as Taylor’s eating place, desk, and workbench. Charlie returned in short order carrying the groceries and a smile of relief. He sat and placed a beer and a Twinkie in front of himself, consuming both as though they made a fine meal.

“I dunno, Taylor,” he said. “What we goin’ ta town for?” Charlie reached for the can on the table. Taylor watched him grab the illusory second can in his mind before taking hold of the real one. Two yellow crumbs fell from his jowls. “You ain’t been ta town since you was a young’un.”

“Something, Charlie—’twas no mortal person—came up outta this Holler last night. Came up outta the
grove
, Charlie. Seen the marks myself, I did. Followed them all night on my hands and knees, leadin’ straight out this Holler town-ward. Meaning me to follow.”

“What was they? Hoofprints?”

Taylor shook his head.
“Sneakers.”

Both of them settled into an awed sort of silence that ended when Charlie asked, “Can I see the grove, Taylor?”

Taylor shook his head. “You know I can’t do that, Charlie.”

Charlie pursed his lips, leaving the half-finished Twinkie dangling in his hand. “It’s cause I ain’t awake, ain’t it? Because I am, Taylor. Hand t’God.”

“It is,” Taylor said, “and you ain’t.”

“So what you wanna do, go down there lookin’ for what came up outta here? Or are you lookin’ for Her?”

“I’ll find it first,” Taylor said. “It’ll show me Her.”

“I could find Her,” Charlie said. “You know that’s right, Taylor. All’s I need’s Her name. Shoot, prolly look it up right in the dad-blamed phone book for you.”

Taylor folded his hand atop the table and talked low and slow, the way a teacher would explain high things to a low pupil. “Charlie, you can’t be privy to my unknowables. That expanse is just too big for you.”

Charlie folded his hands, mimicking his friend. He stared at the four walls surrounding them. Taylor allowed this, hoping the distraction would help sway Charlie’s mind. Besides, it wouldn’t require much time to take in a cot, a busted mandolin, a fireplace, a shotgun, and a stack of wooden crates. Poking out from the crate on top was the bundle of ginseng Charlie would take with him when he left to sell back in Camden, payment for Taylor’s groceries.

Taylor opened the book in front of him and covered it with his hand, lest Charlie see. He found a spot that wasn’t really empty and wrote,
Charly
gona
help maybee.

But Charlie said, “I cain’t do it, Taylor. You go down there, you’re apt to snap. We could get in trouble lookin’ all round for somethin’ you ain’t sure what it is. I been run in five times over in Camden, an’ I done got laid off. I gotta be still.”