Interfictions (24 page)

I heard Mama's voice, way back in the distance, talking about planting seeds—.—.—.—

Then Cole slapped me upside the head, just like Pa used to do when I got lost in there, and it all came back.

"Let's take a look in those wagons, Cole. That alright with you?"

Cole shook his head, then helped me stand up again.

Lot of the carts was empty.

Lots more weren't.

I looked inside the rotting Heaven-carts. Bones and cloth, sometimes even skin like leather holding the pieces together. A God-damned mess, and I wasn't cursing when I said it.

Cole snickered when I blasphemed. “Don't think God had nothin' to do with this. Just looks like a lot of folk don't care much about redemption. Leastwise, not ‘less it's their own."

"Pa doesn't deserve this. Don't know who these folks were,” and I turned a circle, arms up, taking in all the unsaved dead, “but Pa ain't staying here. He's taking the narrow path."

"Fine. You want to carry him first?"

I looked around at all the abandoned carts, and all I could think of was Ma. She always had some use for everything, no matter how old and worn. She used to say it was a sin to waste anything, even if it was broken.

Rope and wood, canvas and linen—this place wasn't a graveyard, not if you looked at it like Ma would've.

"Give me some help, little brother, and we won't have to carry him at all."

For one of the few times in his life, Cole didn't give me any backtalk.

The trail was there, if you looked real hard.

Me and Cole pulled Pa behind us on a makeshift stretcher. We'd put pieces together, a bit of frayed rope here, some canvas from an old cart there, couple of cart-handles, even some linen from one of the old skeletons. Cole got that—I figured we could use it, but I couldn't make myself unwrap the bones. I wanted to try and bolt some wheels on there, but we couldn't make a new shaft, so we wound up just dragging the contraption behind us.

Still, it was better than having to carry Pa's stiff body.

Besides Pa, the only things we took from our own Heaven-cart were our water-skins and some wrapped vittles, mostly hardtack and waxed cheese. Some folks had thrown prayer-beads and luck-wreaths in the cart with Pa, but we figured we didn't need to carry anything we didn't have to.

Good thing, too. The way up got harder and harder, and sometimes me and Cole had to pick up Pa's stretcher and balance him over our heads to make it through a tight turn. My arms hated me, and even Cole trembled whenever we got the chance to put Pa down.

We hit a nice flat expanse, and Pa went down without us even trying to agree about it. The sky turned purple while we caught our breath, and the air got chillier. My clothes clung to my body, wet with sweat and colder by the minute. Pa's body, tethered to the stretcher by fraying ropes, looked too solid in its wrappings, like a petrified log.

No heavier than the weight of the Cross, as Ma used to remind us when we complained about hard tasks.

Cole flopped on the ground spread-eagle, eyes closed and breathing rough.

"That's it for today, Ben. We ain't making the top any time soon, and I need some food and rest. My back don't like Pa much right about now."

I wanted to argue some, but truth was I couldn't take another step. Cole was bigger than me, stronger, and he probably could've gone another mile or two, but I figured he was giving me an out.

That's what I figured, anyway. Been wrong before, will be again.

Just not about Cole.

Baby?

Mama's talking.
I hear you, Ma.

Don't be afraid, son. You're on the right path. I think your Daddy's calling
—.—.—.—

"Ben."

Even the moon had drifted off. “What's wrong? Pa move or something?"

"Why are you doing this?"

I remembered Ma's voice from the dream, but the words got lost when I opened my eyes. Cole sat by the remains of our campfire, staring at me. I don't think he'd slept a wink since we settled down for the night.

"What, sleeping? Snoring?"

"You know what I mean."

I could barely make out Pa's body at the edge of the embers' glow, out of reach of stray sparks. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I just don't know what you're askin'. Why are
you
doing it?"

Cole shrugged, looked out past Pa into the darkness. “—'Cause you are, I guess. Don't really have a choice, comes down to it."

"You always got a choice, Cole. If nobody ever had choices, we'd all be pure good or pure evil, no two ways about it. There wouldn't be no need for Redemption Mountain, ‘cause we'd know where people were goin' when they died, no question."

"That's Reverend-talk again. You might as well go join the church-school and learn to read, way you go on."

I didn't like the way Cole was talking. Scared me some, truth to tell. “That ain't just talk, Cole. We all learn right from wrong sooner or later. Pa just—.—.—."

"Pa just didn't know how to tell the difference?” Cole pulled up close to me, watching my face, his eyes glimmering with ember-sparks.

"Don't do that, Cole. Don't pretend you know what I was thinkin'. Pa had a hard time of things, is all."

"He beat us, Ben. He drank and carried on something fierce. Just ‘cause he never killed nobody or run off with someone's wife or stole from his neighbors, that don't make him worth savin'."

I didn't want to listen to this anymore. Pa was Pa.
Our
Pa, our flesh, our blood. “If he wasn't worth tryin' to save, why you think Ma married him in the first place?"

Cole laughed, but it was a Devil-laugh, dark and nasty, filled with secrets. “Pa always said you was a mama's boy, Ben. You know that? Nope, guess you wouldn't. He only told me, times when we was in the fields workin' and you was starin' off into space like you do. He'd say, ‘Cole, I want you to look good and hard at your brother. That's what happens when you let a woman have too much time in a boy's life. I done failed Ben, but you ain't goin' down that same road. I promise you that, son, I surely swear it.'—"

"You're lyin', Cole. You want me to hate Pa and give up tryin' to save his soul.” But Cole's voice even sounded like Pa's when he told me all that, and I knew Pa'd probably said it. I knew Cole got beat lots more than me, too, back before Ma died.

Once she was gone it all evened out.

Cole quit smiling. He lay back down and closed his fire-touched eyes.

"Yeah. I'm lyin'. Go back to sleep."

"Cole, I—"

"But think about this, big brother. If Pa was so great, if he wasn't just a mean old
sumbitch
—.—.—.” Cole's voice got soft as the crackling embers, but I heard him, heard him inside where the words kept burning long after he said them.

".—.—.—then why did Ma kill herself?"

Cole slept after that. I stayed up, looking into the red glow of the dying fire and searching for Ma's face in the ashes.

I don't know when I fell asleep, but when I woke up Cole was gone. Took the food, all the water-skins but one, and left me there sleeping. Didn't even bother to leave me the flint-stone.

Don't know where he planned on going. Back down the mountain? What would he tell the folks back home? He got tired and left? Pa wasn't worth it?

I died on the way?

The fire was dead-cold, and the fog was up. The sun snuck some rays around the mountain, but I couldn't make out much more than ghost-shapes dancing around me. I thought about all those bodies left behind in the Heaven-carts, and all the souls trapped here, never able to reach the end of their journey.

They stood there in the mist. They
were
the mist.

I heard their voices. No words, just moans and whispers, like they wanted me to help them all but they didn't know how to ask proper. Lots of lost folk, praying for someone to come take them up the mountain.

Maybe I heard Pa's voice out there. Maybe he needed to tell me something—

Lord, oh Lord, I forgot about Pa's body.

I ignored the voices best I could, and the mist finally died off in the morning light.

Pa's body lay there, his fine linen wrappings sliced up and flapping in the breeze. I saw his skin peeking out through the deepest cuts, gray and all dried-up, like something a snake left behind. Cole left Pa's head covered—guess maybe even my little brother didn't have the guts to look at Pa when he did this.

Pa's wrapped head rested on a pile of broken sticks, torn canvas, and frayed rope. Took me a full minute before I figured out what Cole had done.

The stretcher.

Cole took Pa's last chance for making Redemption and turned it into a pillow. I swear I heard Cole's voice, deep and nasty like it was last night.

Sleep real good now, Pa. Don't say I never done nothin' for you.

I wondered how I could've slept through the noise. Wondered if maybe I'd heard something in my sleep and decided not to wake up on purpose.

And all them other voices came back right about then, saying one word, over and over.

No, no, no, no, no
—.—.—.—

Make a man outta you yet, boy.

I carried Pa over my left shoulder for a while, ‘till I felt something dripping down my chest, warm and sticky.

Wasn't Pa's blood, he was nice and dry. Don't know what they do to bodies before the trip up Redemption, but Pa didn't seep or drip or smell. I thought he was heavy when we started out, but a grown man should've weighed more than Pa did, all said and done.

The blood was mine. I just forgot what I was doing and used my cart-shoulder. All those broke blisters got rubbed raw and started bleeding.

Moved the body, kept on walking. Pa wasn't so heavy after all, now I'd put my mind to it.

Pebbles shifted under my feet, like to broke my toes more than once. I learned to walk careful, get a good footing before I took another step. Roots that looked to be strong enough to break Redemption's face until I grabbed at them tore out of crannies with one half-assed tug. Deer-trails petered out before they hit water.

Redemption Mountain was making fun of me.

C'mon, boy. Show me your ma didn't take all the piss and vinegar out of you. Keep on climbin', boy. Prove your brother wrong.

I kept on climbing.

Put some back into it, boy! Prove you got somethin' between your legs ‘sides skeeter bites! Show me what you got hangin' in your sack!

Rock and scraggly bush, then no roots or branches at all, just crags and shale and a long blank face of mountain—.—.—.—

Wrong way, boy! Ain't you got no sense? Go back down and hit this damn mountain where it counts. Watch the ground, find the trail, work boy work boy work work work—

My feet hit more loose gravel and I fell over, Pa's weight dragging me down so fast I couldn't even try to balance myself. I landed on my knees first, felt a sharp pain and heard bone snap, and twisted toward the hard face of the mountain, trying to save Pa and me together.

Something tore across my back, a knife cutting a canyon down my spine. I waited for the fall down Redemption.

And I just lay there. Hard rock under me, Pa's body stiff and cold on top of me. My knees played dead and my back screamed with pure burning hurt, but I didn't feel like I broke anything inside.

I shoved Pa off, slow and careful. Something under me rolled around like kindling.

I managed to pull myself up, hugging the face of the mountain for all I was worth.

Bones.

Scattered around my feet, strung together with tatters of rotted cloth bindings. Lots of the bones were broke, and I saw fresh blood on some of them, my blood, dripping down a rib here or a leg there, like they was trying to come alive again.

Pa rested there in the pile, waiting to join up with his kin, knee-bone to cheek-bone, spine to ribcage. My knees felt like vine-rot melons and my spine wanted to tear away and head off to a better place.

Pa looked comfortable.

I stood there and laughed, thinking of Cole and Pa and all them folk down at the foot of the mountain.

'Cause, see, someone made it this far. Not everybody gave up with the carts.

That was pretty much it for the day. I fell down by Pa's body and slept with him, there between the bones.

I dreamed about Mama—.—.—.—

Coming in from the fields, me and Cole and Pa tired and sweaty and aching, ready for dinner, ready for the hot-sweet smell of Ma's cooking, and Pa lights up first, his nose working faster than his body ever did.

He runs, hits the back porch, slams through the dutch-door before me and Cole even know something's wrong, and—

No.

Coming in from the fields, me and Cole and Pa tired and sweaty and—

No.

Coming in from the fields—

No, and no, and no again, and the dream keeps playing over and over and I know it's wrong, it ain't true, it's a lie in my head that don't do nobody no good but me.

Want to wake up now. Can I wake up now? Pa's getting mighty lonely, he needs to get up that mountain and be with the rest of the redeemed
—.—.—.—

Ma's voice.
Remember, child. The path won't be easier if you pave it with lies.

I come in from the fields. Been stuck in my head again, and Pa slapped me and cussed me all day, but I just kept slipping away.

"Go on home, boy. You ain't no good to anybody like that. Me and your brother'll finish up here, you see if you can help your Mama with dinner."

"Do some
girl's
work,” I heard Cole snigger, but Pa slapped Cole harder than he slapped me and Cole shut up fast.

Skip-skip
, the dream jerks around. Ma's not on the porch shelling peas.
Skip-skip
, and the kitchen stove's cold, no fire lit, much less banked.
Skip-skip
, and I'm out of the house, calling for Ma, ain't no place she'd be but
home
, and now I'm soaked and aching, looking for Ma, looking and looking for Ma Ma Ma—

Skip. Skip.
Lord oh Lord, please let me skip this—

—But there I am in the barn, wondering if some critter got in there and spooked one of the milk-cows, and I hear a bat squeaking, but it's broad daylight, can't be a bat—