Drummer Boy: A Supernatural Thriller (17 page)

“This creepy old guy was walking around on the ridge,” Dex said. “Probably been hanging out in the Hole and knocking back bottles of MD 20/20 and malt liquor 40’s.”

“That’s dumb,” Bobby said. “The place is two miles from the nearest package store and there’s plenty of places to tip a bottle downtown.”

“Well, he’s white, and only niggers and Mexicans can get away with loitering downtown.”

Vernon Ray wondered what would happen when Dex got to heaven and realized that blacks and Hispanics had been saved as well, and that the blood of Jesus had also washed away the sins of people who didn’t bowl 230 or listen to Toby Keith. God’s unconditional love extended to everyone except the homosexuals, that much was clear.

“Okay, so how do you know it was a wino?” Bobby asked, obviously trying to change the subject.

“His clothes looked like junk you’d pick out of a dumpster at a thrift shop,” Dex said. “All raggedy and dirty, like he’d been sleeping in them for a hundred years.”

Or maybe 150?
Vernon Ray wasn’t sure exactly what he’d encountered in the Hole, but if the mountain was coughing out whatever dead things it had swallowed during the war, then maybe one of the deserters was walking loose. Or floating, or whatever ghosts did.

Which obviously messes up any Earth-based theology. Because if the soldier was dead, then he should have gone on to whatever afterlife had been promised by his faith. Unless he had no faith, and his was the fate of all who didn’t believe. Unless the dead soldier was a homosexual, then . . . .

Vernon Ray was still confused by all the contradictions, but he was getting the feeling that the eternal afterlife was going to be a lonely place. He moved closer to Bobby. The fall night had suddenly grown chillier.

“That don’t explain why the cop shot at him,” Bobby said.

“Didn’t you hear what I’ve been saying?” Dex said. “Those guys are nuttier than a corn turd. Anyway, the wino kept on hoofing it over the ridge, and then the cops were yelling at each other and I waited about 10 minutes and hustled my ass down the back side of the mountain and headed home. What happened to you guys?”

In the dim light, Vernon Ray couldn’t see Bobby’s face but could feel that ocean-eyed gaze on him. Bobby was waiting for Vernon Ray to spill whatever had happened in the Hole. Bobby hadn’t bought the story that Vernon Ray had bumped his head and gotten a little dizzy and confused.

Well, the “confused” part had been no lie, but babbling about being dragged into the dark depths by an unseen force might have cemented Vernon Ray’s reputation as the sole occupant of La La Land, a fairy spud in his own private Idaho.

“When they fired the shots, the other cop went running into the woods and the shopkeeper guy freaked out and ran in the opposite direction,” Vernon Ray said. “We dicked around a little until the coast was clear and then beat it out of there.”

“The only beating you do is your own meat,” Dex said.

“Dex, you’re the only guy on the planet who would eat a bullet over a pack of smokes, then brag about it at his own funeral,” Bobby said.

“All I’m saying is I’m going for it,” Dex said. “You guys can pansy-pwance around the edges but I’m walking right through the front door.”

“Come on,” Bobby said, taking the lead again. “I want to get to the comic shop before it closes. There’s a new Hulk I want to get.”

“Fine,” Dex said. “Give Vernon Ray something to look at besides his mom’s panties.”

“And no stealing this time,” Bobby called back over his shoulder.

Their feet crunched on gravel for a minute before Dex stopped again. “Sheriff came out to my house,” he said, with evident pride.

“You get charged?” Vernon Ray said, knowing Mac McCallister let some of the town’s top attorneys bowl on the house. Cops occasionally got a freebie, too, but only lawyers got the beer to go with it.

“Hell, no,” Dex said. “My old man read him the riot act.”

“He ask you about Mulatto Mountain?”

“I never even talked to him. But I’m supposed to go down to the office tomorrow. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sheriff Fiddlefart wants to pin a few charges on me just for old time’s sake.”

“Shh,” Bobby hissed. “Somebody’s coming.”

The railroad tracks were the boys’ usual route into town, unless they braved the highway on their bikes. More often, Bobby and Vernon Ray went without Dex, heading for comics, ice cream, mall loitering, or other buddy activity.

They rarely encountered anyone on the tracks, and in Twenty-First Century America, any adults conveyed by their legs instead of a fossil-fuel vehicle were considered odd and somehow subversive. Namely, cons and dregs, people too poor for cars, or those nabbed for multiple DWI’s. People to be avoided if you were a kid with a little money in your pocket.

Bobby stepped off the tracks and skidded down the bank to the vines and shrubs bordering the creek. Vernon Ray followed, sensing no real anxiety in his friend, but making the safe move nonetheless. Dex flicked off the flashlight and stood for a moment with his hands on his hips, as if welcoming a chance to prove himself king of the road.

“Come on, Dex,” Bobby said, as Vernon Ray crouched beside him in the weedy concealment.

“We got a right to be on the track,” he said.

“What if it’s a cop?” Vernon Ray said, though the notion of any officer straying half a mile from the cushy front seat of his cruiser was a little ludicrous.

“No flashlight,” Dex said. “Plus he already saw ours.”

“He won’t know where we are,” Bobby said, confirming Vernon Ray’s belief that only an adult male would be brave, foolish, or drunk enough to wander down the tracks after dark. “You can’t judge distance for crap in the dark.”

Dex paused for another moment, as if to let Bobby know that he wasn’t about to follow orders, as if Vernon Ray could be a whipped little puppy dog but Dex by God was top dog in a pack of one. Then he stepped over the rail and eased down the bank. He slipped once and landed on his rear in the damp grass, and his “Shee-it!” hissed out loudly enough to tip off whoever was coming.

As Dex wiped at the back of his jeans and stood in the kudzu and briars, Vernon Ray spun a fantasy that they were three Rebel scouts, waiting for a locomotive to come barreling down the tracks so they could get an idea of Grant’s numbers and strategy. Or, better yet, they could be spies, risking death by hanging in order to foul up Sherman’s March and Gen. Stoneman’s incursion into the North Carolina mountains. Daddy would be proud.

Vernon Ray strained to hear the approaching footsteps over the gurgling of the creek. Maybe Bobby had misjudged and it was a platoon, Union infantry rooting out rebel rabble. If so, they were dead meat for sure. But Vernon Ray wasn’t about to let his comrades swing at the business end of a hemp rope. No, he would dash right up to the platoon, yell, “Come and get me, you Lincoln-loving Johnny Yank!” and flee into the woods. Sure, they’d catch him, and he’d dance on air with his eyeballs bugging, but his buddies would have a chance to escape.

He didn’t realize he was actually about to bolt up the bank until he felt Bobby’s hand on his shoulder. “Easy, V-Ray,” Bobby whispered.

A stand of thin pines lined each side of the tracks, swallowing the approaching man in the shadows. Despite a weak grimace of moon overhead and the fuzzy glow cast by Titusville’s various storefronts and streetlights, they wouldn’t be able to see him until he reached the spot where the boys had left the tracks. The rushing creek covered any sound of footfalls.

Thirty seconds passed, with Bobby’s breath near Vernon Ray’s ear, and even the distant highway fell silent. Vernon Ray felt a surge of warmth at the closeness of his friend, and a feather tickled the inside of his stomach. The man must have stopped in the concealment of darkness and Vernon Ray imagined him waiting just as they were, perhaps also wondering who was sharing the tracks in the night. Maybe the man was afraid, too. It was easy to imagine a group of boys as a gang of hooligans out to rob and plunder.

Then the edge of the shadow swelled and a piece of it broke off. The man stepped into the graylight and moved down the tracks, his head tilted forward in determination. The hollow eyes were hard to see, but they were as black as the shadows that had spawned them, and the pale jaw was clenched into a creased dimple. This was a dude with a destination, and he wasn’t about to let anyone stop him.

“Holy freak-a-holey,” Dex said, a rare note of reverence in his voice.

“What?” Bobby whispered.

“It’s
him
.”

“Him?”

“The wino from Mulatto Mountain.”

“He doesn’t look drunk,” Vernon Ray said. The man’s shabby clothes hung as if they had rotted for years on a clothesline. The jacket appeared to be wool, and the cotton trousers were wrinkled and soiled. Though the jacket was open, it still had a couple of brass buttons gone green with age. A strap was slung over one shoulder, and a rounded object bounced off his right hip.

The man was close enough now that they could have hit him with a rock, but even if Dex had been in a frolicking, rabble-rousing mood, the man’s odd gait would have given him pause. The man’s feet were not visible from their low vantage point, but his legs appeared to be out of synch with his rate of motion, as if he were walking on ice and was being pushed forward by a strong, cold wind.

Then the man’s jaw hinged downward, the thin lips parted, and a black maw opened. “
Churr-rainnnnnnn
.”

“The hell was that?” Dex said.

“He said something,” Bobby said.

“That wasn’t a word. That didn’t even come from his mouth.”

Vernon Ray had the same impression. The sound had not been directional, and if Dex hadn’t also noted it, Vernon Ray would have assumed he’d imagined it. The man continued his peculiar locomotion, and was nearly out of sight when Vernon Ray noticed the dented tin canteen slung over the man’s pack. It glowed silver in the moonlight. A symbol was stamped into the dull tin. The distance was too great to discern the letters, but their shape suggested a familiar acronym.

C.S.A.

Confederate States of America.

Then the man was gone, and the silence that had descended in his wake gave way to night noises, the merry creek, the hiss of distant tires against asphalt, the wind in the dying leaves.

“The hell was that?” Dex repeated.

“Something from the Hole,” Vernon Ray said. “He was wearing a kepi. A Rebel cap.”

“Come on,” Dex said, raising his voice. “You ain’t pulling that noise, are you?”

“He’s headed toward Mulatto,” Bobby said.

“You taking this shrimp’s side?” Dex said. “Trying to scare me with your stupid little ghost stories?”

“I’m not trying anything,” Bobby said. “I’m just saying.”

“He was wearing a Civil War uniform,” Vernon Ray said. “Natural fiber. That looked like an army-issued canteen, and those are pretty rare.”

“Yeah, right,” Dex said. “He’s probably some loser that came in early for the reenactment. A rebel without a clue.”

“Okay,” Bobby said. “Suppose he is. Let’s follow him.”

Vernon Ray recalled the man’s weird steps and how he’d moved faster than his legs should have carried him. Dex must have been thinking the same thing, because he said, “I don’t want to waste my Saturday night tailing a wino. He’s probably up there puking a rainbow of Kountry Kwencher.”

“V-Ray?” Bobby asked, and Vernon Ray felt a sudden rush of warmth and appreciation. Bobby was giving equal weight to both opinions and letting his vote count as much as Dex’s. Vernon Ray wasn’t sure what would happen if he voted against Dex, but in truth he didn’t
want
to know if the man was a long-dead soldier who had crawled out of the Hole and gotten lost and was now wandering the Earth in search of a place to belong.

“Dex is right,” Vernon Ray said. “The comic store’s more fun.”

“Damn straight,” Dex said, emboldened. “Those comic-book chicks got some gazongas you could play water volleyball with and never come up for air. Plus Whizzer might be hanging around and we can score a joint.”

Vernon Ray had resisted his friends’ attempts to lure him into trying marijuana, but tonight might be different. Since reality was becoming increasingly unreliable, an altered state suggested comfort, though he was afraid that if he indulged in a trip to the outer limits of fantasy, he might not return.

Then again, he had little worth returning to: a bastard of a dad, few friends, and strange changes below his waist that didn’t seem to know in which direction to point. Vernon Ray was as lost as the Churr-rain man, whether he was a wino or a Civil War ghost.

“I’m with Dex,” Vernon Ray said.

“This don’t mean we’re going steady, sweetheart,” Dex taunted.

“Okay,” Bobby said. “Majority rules.”

Bobby stood aside and let Dex lead them back onto the tracks and toward town. Vernon Ray wasn’t sure whether Bobby was secretly disappointed or not, and he was too afraid to ask.

The morning was crisp and its breath held the threat of frost. Hardy was braced by the chill and always found the sunrise a glorious miracle that only the Lord could concoct. The only thing cockeyed about it, at least from his flesh-and-blood perspective in the opening of the barn, was that the sun made its virgin appearance each day over Mulatto Mountain, painting the peak in red and gold like it was getting licked with hellfire.

Since it was Sunday morning, the developers’ bulldozers were silent. Even the roosters seemed sleepy, crowing like they didn’t give a darn whether they impressed the hens or not. The cattle were scattered across the sloping pasture, working the sweet fall grass. Wood smoke from the chimney whisked across his face, momentarily masking the aroma of manure and the rotting tomatoes in the garden.

Donnie was playing in a stall, the one where Hardy kept clean straw. Whether inside the house or in the barn, he had to keep his son penned up. And he wasn’t sure whether the headshrinking doctors at health department were right when they said Donnie would be better off in a state hospital. Couldn’t be much worse than pacing around in a stall like a blind horse.