Deadman's Crossing (2 page)

He waited for a time, called again, and was halfway through
calling when the door opened, and a man about five-foot-two with
a large droopy hat, holding a rifle, stuck himself part of the way
out of the cabin, said, “Who is it calling? You got a voice like a
bullfrog.”

“Reverend Jebidiah Mercer.”

“You ain’t come to preach none, have you?”

“No, sir. I find it does no good. I’m here to beg for a place
in your barn, a night under its roof. Something for my horse,
something for myself if it’s available. Most anything, as long as
water is involved.”

“Well,” said the man, “this seems to be the gathering place
tonight. Done got two others, and we just sat asses down to eat. I
got enough you want it, some hot beans and some old bread.”

“I would be most obliged, sir,” Jebidiah said.

“Oblige all you want. In the meantime, climb down from that
nag, put it in the barn, and come in and chow. They call me Old
Timer, but I ain’t that old. It’s ’cause most of my teeth are gone
and I’m crippled in a foot a horse stepped on. There’s a lantern just
inside the barn door. Light that up, and put it out when you finish,
come on back to the house.”

When Jebidiah finished grooming and feeding his horse with grain
in the barn, watering him, he came into the cabin, made a show
of pushing his long black coat back so that it revealed his ivory-handled .44 cartridge-converted revolvers. They were set so that
they leaned forward in their holsters, strapped close to the hips,
not draped low like punks wore them. Jebidiah liked to wear them
close to the natural swing of his hands. When he pulled them it
was a movement quick as the flick of a hummingbird’s wings, the
hammers clicking from the cock of his thumb, the guns barking,
spewing lead with amazing accuracy. He had practiced enough to
drive a cork into a bottle at about a hundred paces, and he could
do it in bad light. He chose to reveal his guns that way to show he
was ready for any attempted ambush. He reached up and pushed
his wide-brimmed black hat back on his head, showing black hair
gone gray-tipped. He thought having his hat tipped made him look
casual. It did not. His eyes always seemed aflame in an angry face.

Inside, the cabin was bright with kerosene lamp light, and the
kerosene smelled, and there were curls of black smoke twisting
about, mixing with gray smoke from the pipe of Old Timer, and
the cigarette of a young man with a badge pinned to his shirt.
Beside him, sitting on a chopping log by the fireplace, which was
too hot for the time of year, but was being used to heat up a pot
of beans, was a middle-aged man with a slight paunch and a face
that looked like it attracted thrown objects. He had his hat pushed
up a bit, and a shock of wheat-colored, sweaty hair hung on his
forehead. There was a cigarette in his mouth, half of it ash. He
twisted on the chopping log, and Jebidiah saw that his hands were
manacled together.

“I heard you say you was a preacher,” said the manacled man, as
he tossed the last of his smoke into the fireplace. “This here sure
ain’t God’s country.”

“Worse thing is,” said Jebidiah, “it’s exactly God’s country.”

The manacled man gave out with a snort, and grinned.

“Preacher,” said the younger man, “my name is Jim Taylor. I’m
a deputy for Sheriff Spradley, out of Nacogdoches. I’m taking this
man there for a trial, and most likely a hanging. He killed a fella
for a rifle and a horse. I see you tote guns, old style guns, but good
ones. Way you tote them, I’m suspecting you know how to use
them.”

“I’ve been known to hit what I aim at,” Jebidiah said, and sat
in a rickety chair at an equally rickety table. Old Timer put some
tin plates on the table, scratched his ass with a long wooden spoon,
then grabbed a rag and used it as a pot holder, lifted the hot bean pot
to the table. He popped the lid of the pot, used the ass-scratching
spoon to scoop a heap of beans onto plates. He brought over some
wooden cups and poured them full from a pitcher of water.

“Thing is,” the deputy said, “I could use some help. I don’t
know I can get back safe with this fella, havin’ not slept good in a
day or two. Was wondering, you and Old Timer here could watch
my back till morning? Wouldn’t even mind if you rode along with
me tomorrow, as sort of a backup. I could use a gun hand. Sheriff
might even give you a dollar for it.”

Old Timer, as if this conversation had not been going on,
brought over a bowl with some moldy biscuits in it, placed them
on the table. “Made them a week ago. They’ve gotten a bit ripe,
but you can scratch around the mold. I’ll warn you though, they’re
tough enough you could toss one hard and kill a chicken on the
run. So mind your teeth.”

“That how you lost yours, Old Timer?” the manacled man said.

“Probably part of them,” Old Timer said.

“What you say, preacher?” the deputy said. “You let me get
some sleep?”

“My problem lies in the fact that I need sleep,” Jebidiah said.
“I’ve been busy, and I’m what could be referred to as tuckered.”

“Guess I’m the only one that feels spry,” said the manacled man.

“No,” said Old Timer. “I feel right fresh myself.”

“Then it’s you and me, Old Timer,” the manacled man said,
and grinned, as if this meant something.

“You give me cause, fella, I’ll blow a hole in you and tell God
you got in a nest of termites.”

The manacled man gave his snort of a laugh again. He seemed
to be having a good old time.

“Me and Old Timer can work shifts,” Jebidiah said. “That okay
with you, Old Timer?”

“Peachy,” Old Timer said, and took another plate from the
table and filled it with beans. He gave this one to the manacled
man, who said, lifting his bound hands to take it, “What do I eat
it with?”

“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
pocket knife, 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
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 dustup. 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 a 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 days.”

“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.

“Turnoff 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.”