Stories (2011) (74 page)

"Your mouth. Ain't got no extra spoons. And I ain't giving
you a knife."

The manacled man thought on this for a moment, grinned,
lifted the plate and put his face close to the edge of it, sort of poured the
beans toward his mouth. He lowered the plate and chewed. "Reckon they
taste scorched with or without a spoon."

Jebidiah reached inside his coat, took out and opened up a
pocketknife, used it to spear one of the biscuits, and to scrape the beans
toward him.

"You come to the table, young fella," Old Timer
said to the deputy. "I'll get my shotgun, he makes a move that ain't
eatin', I'll blast him and the beans inside him into that fireplace
there."

–•–

Old Timer sat with a double-barrel shotgun resting on his
leg, pointed in the general direction of the manacled man. The deputy told all
that his prisoner had done while he ate. Murdered women and children, shot a
dog and a horse, and just for the hell of it, shot a cat off a fence, and set
fire to an outhouse with a woman in it. He had also raped women, stuck a stick
up a sheriff's ass, and killed him, and most likely shot other animals that
might have been some good to somebody. Overall, he was tough on human beings,
and equally as tough on livestock.

"I never did like animals," the manacled man said.
"Carry fleas. And that woman in the outhouse stunk to high heaven. She
ought to eat better. She needed burning."

"Shut up," the deputy said. "This
fella," and he nodded toward the prisoner, "his name is Bill Barrett,
and he's the worst of the worst. Thing is, well, I'm not just tired, I'm a
little wounded. He and I had a tussle. I hadn't surprised him, wouldn't be here
today. I got a bullet graze in my hip. We had quite a dust-up. I finally got
him down by putting a gun barrel to his noggin' half a dozen times or so. I'm
not hurt so bad, but I lost blood for a couple days. Weakened me. You'd ride
along with me, Reverend, I'd appreciate it."

"I'll consider it," Jebidiah said. "But I'm
about my business."

"Who you gonna preach to along here, 'sides us?"
the deputy said.

"Don't even think about it," Old Timer said.
"Just thinking about that Jesus foolishness makes my ass tired. Preaching
makes me want to kill the preacher and cut my own throat. Being at a preachin'
is like being tied down in a nest red bitin' ants."

"At this point in my life," Jebidiah said. "I
agree."

There was a moment of silence in response to Jebidiah, then
the deputy turned his attention to Old Timer. "What's the fastest route to
Nacogdoches?"

"Well now," Old Timer said, "you can keep
going like you been going, following the road out front. And in time you'll run
into a road, say thirty miles from here, and it goes left. That should take you
right near Nacogdoches, which is another ten miles, though you'll have to make
a turn somewhere up in there near the end of the trip. Ain't exactly sure where
unless I'm looking at it. Whole trip, traveling at an even pace, ought to take
you two day."

"You could go with us," the deputy said.
"Make sure I find that road."

"Could," said Old Timer, "but I won't. I
don't ride so good anymore. My balls ache I ride a horse for too long. Last
time I rode a pretty good piece, I had to squat over a pan of warm water and
salt, soak my taters for an hour or so just so they'd fit back in my pants.
"

"My balls ache just listening to you," the
prisoner said. "Thing is, though, them swollen up like that, was probably
the first time in your life you had man-sized balls, you old fart. You should
have left them swollen."

Old Timer cocked back the hammers on the double-barrel.
"This here could go off."

Bill just grinned, leaned his back against the fireplace,
then jumped forward. For a moment, it looked as if Old Timer might cut him in
half, but he realized what had happened.

"Oh yeah," Old Timer said. "That there's hot,
stupid. Why they call it a fireplace."

Bill readjusted himself, so that his back wasn't against the
stones. He said,

"I'm gonna cut this deputy's pecker off, come back
here, make you fry it up and eat it."

"You're gonna shit and fall back in it," Old Timer
said. "That's all you're gonna do."

When things had calmed down again, the deputy said to Old
Timer,

"There's no faster route?"

Old Timer thought for a moment. "None you'd want to
take."

"What's that mean?" the deputy said.

Old Timer slowly lowered the hammers on the shotgun, smiling
at Bill all the while. When he had them lowered, he turned his head, looked at
the deputy.

"Well, there's Deadman's Road."

"What's wrong with that?" the deputy asked.

"All manner of things. Used to be called Cemetery Road.
Couple years back that changed."

Jebidiah's interest was aroused. "Tell us about it, Old
Timer."

"Now I ain't one to believe in hogwash, but there's a
story about the road, and I got it from someone you might say was the horse's
mouth."

"A ghost story, that's choice," said Bill.

"How much time would the road cut off going to
Nacogdoches?" the deputy asked.

"Near a day," Old Timer said.

"Damn. Then that's the way I got to go," the
deputy said.

"Turn off for it ain't far from here, but I wouldn't
recommend it," Old Timer said. "I ain't much for Jesus, but I believe
in haints, things like that. Living out here in this thicket, you see some
strange things. There's gods ain't got nothing to do with Jesus or Moses, or
any of that bunch. There's older gods than that.

Indians talk about them."

"I'm not afraid of any Indian gods," the deputy
said.

"Maybe not," Old Timer said, "but these gods,
even the Indians ain't fond of them. They ain't their gods. These gods are
older than the Indian folk their ownselfs. Indians try not to stir them up.
They worship their own."

"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 accidentally. 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 in 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
sickbed, 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."