Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) (28 page)

Maybe
he had.
He was
tied to his bed.
But he’d be in jail, wouldn’t he?
A tree limb’s shadow shifted on the wall and became a nest of writhing snakes.
He’d seen s
nakes
all day,
scaly creatures
from the pages of
Bullfinch’s Mythology
.
But the creatures
Joshua
’d
see
n made the two-headed Hydra
laughable
,
the Cyclops no worse than a child’s stuffed animal.
Right now Joshua
could look on the face of Medusa
with no effect.
He
’d
stared at visions much worse than Medusa
all day.

“Paul?” Joshua
called softly.
The figure started, shook its head.
As the man moved, Josh knew this was
n’t
the elegant shadow his brother threw.

“Son?”

“Doc?”

“Hang on, boy, let me light this lamp down low here and get a look at you.”

“Don’t!”

“Ssssh. Don’t take on, now.
Just want to check your eyes, get you some water.”

A match hissed.
S
hadows
jumped to g
argantuan proportions as the lamplight flared, and then tapered slowly down to normal size as Everett adjusted the flame.
Everett gently lifted
Joshua’s
eyelids.

“Well.
Bloodshot, but all things considered, guess you’ll do.
What’s your name, son?”

“My name?”

“You ain’t had a real good day, son.
Humor the old man.
What’s your name?”

“Joshua.”

“Joshua what?”

“Joshua Devlin.”

“What’s my name?”

“Doc.”

“My real name.”

“Everett.
Everett Devlin.
Doc, where’s Paul?”

“Sleeping.
He’s had a right tiresome day himself.”

“Is he—is
he alright?”

“’Course he is.”

“What did I do?
He don’t
want to see me.
Does he?”

“Whoaaa,
son.
Here, sip this water.”
Everett held the glass to his lips.

Joshua drank
.
“What did I do?” he repeated.
“Something a
wful, I know it was, did I hurt Paul? Or Sadie?”

“No!”
said Everett forcefully.
“You didn’t hurt anybody.
But somebody sho
’
‘
nuff tried to hurt you.
Now, I sat with you
tonight so your brother and mother
could get some rest.
They been busy today, trying to figure all this out.
Be surprised what they’ve come up with.
And they goin’
to
be busier tomorrow, trying to see what’s the best way to handle this mare’s nest.”

“Ain’t no best way, Doc.
I got to tell ‘em—”

“You can tell ‘em tomorrow, son.
For tonight, you look to be recovering nicely and tomorrow, what you can tell us, that’ll be a big help.
You think your brother’s mad at you, don’t you, son?”

“He should be,” Joshua said bitterly.

“Well, he ain’t.
Nobody is.
Not your mother, not your brother, not me.
And everything’s goin’ to be just fine.”

“No, it ain’t.
World’s full of monsters, Doc.”

“Well, ain’t no monsters in this room, son.
Just your ol’ Papa.
You ain’t never called me that, and I understand why.
But in my heart, son, I’ve always been your
p
apa.
And
p
apas, they keep the monsters away.
So you lie back.
Tell you what,
I’m goin’ take these things off.”

Everett loosened the cloth bonds and slipped them off Josh’s wrists.

“We didn’t like it, but we didn’t know how long it’d take you to come back t
o us and we couldn’t chance you
hurting yourself.
Now, you just go back to sleep and in the morning, things’ll be a lot better.”

Joshua lay back.
He didn’t think things would be a bit better in the morning, but it would do no good to argue.
And Paul was alright.
Joshua began to fall back towards sleep but visions of his monsters crept forward from the back shadows of his eyes.

He glanced over at the chair.
“Papa?” he murmured.

Everett’s heart flipped in his chest. Joshua’d never called him Papa. Everett hadn’t believed he ever would.

“What, son?”

“The monsters.
They are real.”

“Well,” said Everett, “they ain’t coming past this
p
apa this night.
”

Chapter
Twenty-Eight

Paul strode briskly out
the front door the next morning.
First, he’d make the house calls he hadn’t made yesterday
morning. His afternoon was free
, since his
father was
taking his afternoon patients.

Joshua was
weak
but
clear-headed.
After weak tea and
dry toast
, the boy wept in shame
rec
ounting
the blo
od sacrifices, the sex orgies. He’d held nothing back, and Paul was a man on a mission.
He was taking that son-of-a-bitch down.
Paul halted abruptly
.
Bobby Ryles, Macon’s Chief of Police
, dismounted at the gate and
loop
ed
his horse’s reins over the wrought-iron fence.

Apprehension
swell
ed
in Paul’s stomach.
H
e
’d
certainly planned to meet with the
man that
afternoon,
but he didn’t
like the
Chief
coming to him.
Bobby Ryles liked his position of authority.
He did
n’t
move around Macon’s
streets himself very often. His visit signaled a sure sign of something wrong somewhere.

“’Morning, Paul,” called the Chief, heading up the walk.
“Glad I caught you.”

“You
’re
out early this morning, Chief.”
Paul strode easily forward to meet him, holding out his hand.

“Yeah, well, probably out chasing smoke clouds but what the hell?
Got to earn my money somehow.
You got a minute or two ‘fore you head out?
See you already about to start your rounds.”

“Certainly.
Let’s sit on the porch.
Or would you like to come in and have a cup of coffee?”
Pa
ul didn’t want him in the house. S
uppose Joshua had a sudden relapse and
started screaming warnings of
monsters?
No choice, though.
Southern hospitality
made the invitation mandatory.

“Oh, no, no,” disclaimed the Chief, dropping easily into one of the front porch rocking chairs.
“Thanks, but I’ve already had my limit for the day.
Where’s your boy?”

“My boy?”

“Your nigger.
Joshua, ain’t that his name?
Don’t usually see you go out without him.”

Paul bit his lip.
“He isn’t feeling well today.”

“Don’t want to go out in the heat, probably.
Either that or he’s got a stomachache from raidin’ somebody’s watermelon patch.”

“What can I do for you this morning, Chief?”

Chief Ryles settled back and rocked comfortably.
“Love these rocking chairs,” he said.
“Ain’t a front porch without one.
Tell the truth, Paul, I ain’t sure you can do anything for me.
But I thought, Paul Devlin.
Now, if any white man in Macon has an ear in Niggertown, it’s him.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“Well, see
, we’ve been getting some pretty
disturbing reports over the telegraph lately.
Took a while to
get to us, but they’re spreadin’
on down the line.”

“What sort of reports?”

“Been havin’ a lot of trouble with the niggers lately in Mississippi and Alabama.
Just one incident wouldn’t have made it over here but damned if these things don’t seem to have a pattern.”

“Mississippi and Alabama are pretty far away, Chief.”

“Yeah, they are.
They are at that.
And it don’t seem widespread, these things happening a good distance apart, but damned if they ain’t unusual.
Seems like whole damn towns been going up in flames.
That’s after most of the white folks already been butchered.
And I mean butchered.
Like cows.”

The low wave of apprehension in Paul’s stomach moved up into his chest.

“Where?”

“Well, first one was just this little farm community over in Mississippi.
Name of Tonka Creek.
It was bad.
I mean, it was damn bad.
So t
he
neighboring
town sort of sent out an alert for folks to be on the lookout for trouble.
And the same thing happen
ed over in Alabama
‘bout seven months later.
Little place called Seven Cedars.
And then again in another little spot.
Tarper
,
Alabama down on the gulf coast.
And see here, the thing is, these places are too far apart for it to be just a general wave of nigger trouble.
More like maybe there’s some troublemaker moving around.
See what I mean?”

Paul saw, al
l
right.

“Macon’s
a long way from Alabama, Chief.”

“It is,” the Chief agreed.
“It is at that.
But see here, the thing is, I’ve had the damn
d
est reports lately.
And not just me, either, Hank Eason’s ‘bout to pull his hair out.”

Hank Eason was the Sheriff of Bibb County, the law enforcement official charged with overseeing the peace of the sprawling mid-Georgia county.

“How so?”

“Livestock’s been disappearing.
At first, it was just o
ne or two incidents, but lately?
Hank, his farmers ‘bout to drive him crazy.
Somebody’s been raiding their herds.”

“Always been cattle thieves,” Paul observed.

“That’s so.
But usually, folks that steal stock want it ‘cause they’re hungry, like vagrants on the move and all, or they want it to resell.
And to do that, they got to herd ‘em out of the area.
And to herd cattle, they got to be big enough to walk a good distance.
These boys, they’re losing all their new calves.
Now don’t that beat all?”

“Well, it’s
odd.
But I don’t see what that’s got to do with these other things,” lied Paul,
who saw the connection very clearly.

“Thing is, Paul, there was one or two survivors from Seven Cedars.
Folks out of town that night, visitin’ relations.
And there were three from Tarper.
Tarper was the biggest.
Now, damned if those folks don’t say pretty much the same thing happened over there.
And they also say the local niggers, they changed a good bit in the month or so before the big blood baths.
Seems like they started, well, disappearing at night.
Nobody knows ‘xactly where to.
And they also
say—hin
d
sight
being the best sight, l
ike my Granny used to say—they also say
seems like they recollect a new nigger being in town.
Big man,
real big.
Who seemed to have just a deal of influence with the locals.”

Paul felt a sudden uplift of his spirits.
Cain wasn’t as smart as he thought he was, not as careful.
Maybe he could just dump this in Bobby Ryles’ lap
and the
whole thing
could be
over and done with.