Hellbender (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 2) (37 page)

Blood dripped from my palm where the thistle met my skin. “Now tell me about my family.”

I grabbed the shotgun barrel and rotated if clockwise a quarter turn, forcing Charlie’s jaw open wide. He squirmed and bit at the barrel. His eyes never left my hand.

I shoved the thistle into the back of his throat. Spines pointed back at me, digging into the soft flesh of his tonsils and tongue. I pushed it down even further with my thumb.

He choked, making sucking sounds like when you’re getting your teeth cleaned at the dentist. I pulled my hand out. Ben twisted the shotgun barrel and stood up. He reached out a hand and helped me to my feet.

Tears leapt from Charlie’s eyes. He wanted to pull the violating object from his throat, but it was too deep. The thorns muffled his screams. The seed pod ate all of his hate and rage. He twisted, and pushed himself up on his hands and knees, his head stayed down low while he suffered.

I said, “One day a plant’s going to sprout somewhere downstream. But instead of producing a purple flower, it’s going to germinate curses and screams. And instead of attracting bees it’s going to attract pity, because you, Charlie Lewis, are not going to be remembered kindly.”

His eyes bulged. He tried to cough, but the spines, angled away from his throat, wouldn’t let the thistle come out the same way it went in. Coughing seemed to be driving it deeper. He tried swallowing, but that didn’t work either.

He rolled to his knees, then stood, spinning wildly with the horror of his situation. His red cheeks bulged and his breaths sounded like wind through spruce trees. For the first time, Charlie Lewis didn’t have anything to say.

He drew his pistol, but Ben swung the shotgun and swatted it to the ground. It hit the gravel with a
clack
and bounced. Charlie spun a full circle still clutching his throat. He backed up two steps, then three more, and when the only thing left behind him was the river, he backed right off the edge.

I sat down on the tracks and shook my head. Ben collected the pistol from his ground, pulled the clip to check for rounds. He smiled, then handed it to me. “For snakes.”

I rolled onto my back, coughed and showed him the blood that came from my lungs on my hand. “Ben, I need to get to a hospital real bad.”

“I’ll get you to the truck.” He strained to lift me, but was too tired. Or I was too heavy. I tried to lift my arm over his shoulder and shook with the nausea of trauma.

Spastic contractions pushed acid up from my empty belly. The shaking was agonizing, but I refused to let go, to lie back down on that cold ground. As I realized the direness of my situation I looked for pity in Ben’s eyes. I looked for forgiveness.

“I’m going to get the truck and come back to get you.”

“Please don’t leave me here. I have to see Alex. I have to tell her….” I was beginning to feel dizzy and was afraid I’d black out. I knew Ben couldn’t hold me all night long.

“I can’t, man. Just wait here.” Ben attempted to set me back onto the ground.

“I don’t want to die alone, Ben. Please don’t put me down.” I grabbed his wrist with my hands. “I’ll walk with you. I have to.”

He helped me to my feet. I started to shuffle ahead and he said, “Hold up.”

I turned to see what he was looking at. Billy Lewis crossing the trestle. He had his hands in his pockets. Without so much as an acknowledgement, he began to walk on by us.

“What  do  you  think  you’re  doing?”  I  said,  somewhat  surprised  at  the authority in my voice.

“I’m going home. This was never my fight.” He went on down the tracks. “Bullshit,” I aimed Charlie’s pistol at him. “You’re as much a part of this as Charlie—”

“No!” He interrupted. “No. That’s not me. I’m not my family. You think this was the life I wanted to live? You think I aspired to be like him? I wanted to go to college. Get the fuck out of West Virginia.”

“Well, that ain’t going to happen “ I had to lean against Ben.

“What do you mean?” He pleaded. His voice grew frail.

“Don’t take another step.”

“Why did you save me back at the cabin then? I know what you did. Why? If you were only going to kill me now?” He took off his hat and held it out like he was begging for quarters.

“Because I maintained your innocence back then. I wanted to let you be tried and found innocent before making a judgment myself.”

Stumbling toward me, he said, “But I am. I didn’t do anything.” He finally realized that I wasn’t playing anymore.

“You weren’t in Morgantown the night Jane died?”

“No.”

“You didn’t hold her face down in her own bathtub then drive the body out to Deckers Creek?”

“No. You have to believe I didn’t do anything. Darren sent Lucinda and a couple of guys up to do it. Danny was one, I think.”

“So you had nothing to do with it?” I pulled out the sheet of paper that Alex gave me in the car and showed it to him.

He lowered his eyes. “So what? I wasn’t there in January.”

“Yeah, but you were there in December. Right? Following her when she ran, to where she lived, following her around town. To class. That’s what this says. You didn’t even try to hide it.” I put the campus police report back into my jacket. “You killed her. Maybe you didn’t pull the trigger, but you tied the rabbit to the tree and sicked the dogs on it, right?”

“No, man. That ain’t right.” He fell to his knees.

“You think they gave Janie a chance to negotiate before they did her?” He didn’t say anything.

“My little sister, who I held as a baby. Who I shared Christmases and a mother with. We got sick together and rode the bus together. We watched Saturday morning cartoons together. We shared a dog. She slept in my bed when my mom and dad fought. She was the kindest, sweetest girl I’ve ever known. All she wanted was a chance to not be caught up in this—this fucking whatever you guys got going. So I’m going to ask you again. Do you think they let her beg for her life? Or did they just do her? Like a fucking dog?”

“Man…I don’t know. You know I don’t know—” I pulled the trigger.

One shot. Right through the heart. Billy fell back into the gravel. His eyes watched rainclouds drift by, watched fireflies create their own version of a starry night.

And that was it.

The rain didn’t stop and the pain in my grinding ribs didn’t go away. My house wouldn’t be standing when I got home.

“It’s over.” I threw the pistol into the river. I was shaking.

This wouldn’t bring Jane back. Or Alex’s innocence. Or mine. Or Ben’s. I looked at him. I wanted somebody else to say it, because I sure as hell didn’t believe it.

He nodded. “It’s over,” he said, and led me back up the tracks.

EPILOGUE

My words were rooted in these hills, carried on the backs of the Irish farmers who followed the Potomac southwest instead of crossing the spruce-covered ridges of the Allegheny Front. My muscles formed from climbing white oaks and boulders, from hauling firewood. The mountain rivers that flashed through narrow canyon walls, over boulders and under high railroad bridges flowed through my veins. Laurel brakes that nestled beneath Pottsville sandstone ledges were my nursery. Sad fiddle tunes, played by old-timers beside a dying fire, were my genetic code.

In these mountains I’d seen floods, rockslides, forest fires and blizzards. One time I saw a bear defend her cubs from hunting dogs while I hid in the upper branches of an old oak. Later, on that same trip, I saw a blacksnake swallow her young to protect them when a hawk flew over. One time, near Smoke Hole I found a cave where thousands of bats roosted, then came back a year later to see that the Forest Service had barricaded its entrance to protect the few that remained. When I was really little I saw West Virginia’s last confirmed cougar trapped and beaten on the plains above Red Creek. Seeing it piss itself as the men clubbed it made me cry. I’ll never forget the musky smell of its urine.

From a clearing on Spruce Knob I spent weeks watching two comets, Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake, streak sunward in a cycle of rebirth as old as the solar system itself. Then on a September backpacking trip to Roaring Plains I saw the sky strangely empty of planes and contrails for three whole days, only to return to a world much different than the one I had left. Ben enlisted the next day.

In my short life dead rivers struggled back to life, the orange-stained rocks were the only reminders of a time when nothing would live in them. In my short life mountaintops disappeared, bulldozed into tender streams. None of this could I have seen from anywhere other than here.

And I couldn’t prove most of it.

From the north came a dose of color that bronzed the land. Reds and yellows settled on the woody denizens of Canaan Valley like a wash of wildfire. It was a warm October— summer just wouldn’t die so easily.

We’d been picking stone from our old fences since September without fear of snakes. Fenton would hitch the hay wagon to the tractor while my grandma and Rachael rustled up lunch, except on Saturdays when WVU was playing. Champ led the way on his trails. Rusty hips and over fifty dog-years-worth of knowledge were better than a human sense of direction any day. I’d never seen the sky so blue, the mornings so foggy, or the afternoons as crisp as I did that October.

Preston and Katy proved to be lazier than I could’ve ever imagined. They entertained my pap with music while he supervised and drank, but never got drunk. Jamie and my dad butted heads about every little detail, making me wonder how their houses ever got built the first time around. Greg was more than happy to swing a hammer in order to keep eating my aunt’s cooking.

Only Ben was absent. I knew when he said he had to ‘finish his mission’ a long time would pass before I saw him again. Yesterday he called me from Florida to say he was looking for a way to Mexico. I knew I had to tell Jamie.

Pumpkins and gourds appeared on front porches alongside bundled cornstalks, the only real sign, besides the leaves, that fall had arrived. Apple butter had already been made and canned, the cellars were filling up fast with sauces and pickled veggies.

All we had was a foundation. The rubble from the fire had been cleared. The scent of smoke barely lingered on the high, dry grass that used to be, and would become once again, my front yard. We bought lumber, framing timbers and plywood sheets. Coils of electrical wire and insulation waited in Jamie’s shed. We had windows and doors picked out, flooring, appliances and fixtures on their way.

At the moment it wasn’t much to look at. A hole in the dirt surrounded by weeds. But we’d build our lives on those stone walls, and all that would come after would be stronger because of our commitment.

Alex bent down to plant some of the spruce seedlings we’d collected from other parts of my pap’s farm. A pair of gray kittens played in the topsoil, grabbed her hand shovel, chased milkweed seeds. Her tank top rode up, and for a second I glimpsed the crescent-moon-shaped scar that’d come to grace the small of her back.

That scar. I wondered if it would ever fade. The raised tissue was the only blemish on her otherwise perfect body. I still felt it was my fault, and probably would until I died. My regret followed me like a shadow. I was always aware of it. But it was thin, without substance, compared to the hope we held for each other.

Now when I looked at her I’d know our love had been borne upon the backs of a thousand dreams and many more nightmares. Yet we still lived to laugh and smile. This long dream that we’d been living wouldn’t end by the influence of nature or men. This dream was ours to hold, to keep, to write as only we could.

Blood is not thicker than water. Family isn’t who you are born to, but with whom you choose to spend your life.

THE HELLBENDER  FAMILY

I’d like to start by giving a very special thanks to
Hellbender
’s visual godfather, Mr. Brad Vetter of Hatch Show Print for the amazing cover art. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but your creation is worth many more. At least 98,000, give or take a few.

A very special thanks goes out to Jim Sherraden of Hatch Show Print for his tremendous patience. I think a book most certainly should be judged by its cover. And I thank you from the very bottom of my heart for helping make this one happen.

Since
Hellbender
served as my thesis for Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction program, I have to thank all my SHU cousins for helping me make this book special, especially my critique partners: Alex Spoerer, Glenn Garrabrant, Kim Howe, Venessa Guinta and Maria V. Snyder. I would also like to thank my SHU uncles, Pat Picciarelli, who offered forceful encouragement without ever having to resort to force and Timons Esaias, who provided logic and wisdom when I couldn’t muster enough of my own. I grimace at the thought of studying under lesser men.

I’d like to send a very special thank-you to my cousins from the West Virginia contingency—Alton and Elizabeth Byers and the rest of the gang who were with The Mountain Institute way back in the fall 2003 for familiarizing me with a West Virginia that I didn’t know existed, and most of all, for introducing me to Gerald Milnes, who opened my eyes to a whole new Appalachia. Two nights in that big yurt with Gerald, his fiddle and his stories (and a few jugs of Carlo Rossi) and I end up with enough material for two books and counting. He’s the first living legend I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.