Unraveled (15 page)

“Look out!”

Mark startled me and I heard the buzz of a rattlesnake. Let me tell you, that sound is completely different than that dead snake's rattle on the road. This one was hot and dusty and deadly.

That's when I saw a big old diamondback coiled beside the door.

I danced back and jumped to the side into the tall grass growing up against the chicken house. A sharp pain in my left foot told me I was bit. Someone screamed, and I realized it was me.

Chapter Twenty-eight

The Wraith walked away with both hands in his pockets, feeling two large pressure washers he'd removed from the equipment towering overhead. The spur-of-the-moment sabotage wouldn't do anything but provide entertainment at some point in his last couple of nights in Lamar County. But who knew? Maybe it would spark a different kind of fire that would stir things up even more.

***

Cody dropped by his office for only a few minutes when Judge O.C. Rains came in. “Boy, you done stirred up a hornet's nest.”

“I've been waiting for you.”

“By-dog, don't you think you shoulda asked me first, maybe gone about it a different way?”

“You talking about those signs?”

“I am.”

Cody's eyes crinkled at the corners. Their conversation was a different version of the same one Ned and O.C. had been repeating for years. “They needed to come down, O.C.”

“So you took the bull by the horns.”

“Yep. In case you didn't notice, they're gone from the bathrooms, too. We don't have colored and white sections anymore.”

“Signs don't matter. Folks'll keep using the ones they're used to, or think they're supposed to.”

“They will for a while, but eventually someone'll forget, or new folks will come through and they'll drink from either one.”

“Things are pretty tense around here right now. Don't you think you should have waited until this war is over with?”

“There's more than one war going on in this world right now. There's never a good time, O.C. You know that as well as I do. Reverend King's dead, folks are fighting in the streets and burning their own neighborhoods down, there's Vietnam, kids marching, and mark my words, one of these days somebody's gonna shoot some of them for doing it. I can't do anything about all that, but I can damn sure make a few small changes here.”

Judge Rains sighed. “Son, I know you got beaucoup problems right now. You don't need to borrow trouble.”

“Ain't borrowing it. It's already here. I fought in Vietnam with colored men. They did the same jobs as me, and we didn't have black and white latrines, or hooches, or tables in the chow hall, when we had one. I knew a full-blood Cherokee over there, too.

“It was just men who looked a little different on the outside, but were the same when we bled and I saw more than a few of 'em die for this country, and this town, and this courthouse where they couldn't get a drink of water but from a certain fountain. That ain't right.”

“Well, I know things are changing, but sometimes they change a little too fast.”

“It'll get better.”

“Fine then.” His eyes roamed over the office. “You making any headway on this clan feud of yours?”

Cody went with the change in conversation. “Not as much as I'd like. Anna's working on it with John.”

“'cause you need to separate yourself from it all.”

“We figured that'd be best. Something's going on and we're trying to get to the bottom of it.”

“What have you found out?”

Cody shrugged. “Not a lot. I don't understand everything I know about it, yet. The trouble started with the wreck, but the first killing started the night the fair set up. There's no way to know why Merle Mayfield was killed, but I believe it has something to do with Frank and Maggie going off the dam.”

“You reckon there's something else involved? Whiskey-making, or a dispute over territory, maybe?”

“I thought of that, but the Clays haven't made any whiskey since before the war. The Mayfields never did, as far as I know. I talked to Bill Snow who checked the car out.” Cody rocked back in his chair. “He couldn't find hide nor hair of anything wrong with the steering or the brakes.”

“We couldn't-a picked two worse people to put in a car and die together.” O.C. crossed his legs and thought for a moment. “Let me ask you a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“You're behind that desk because a lot of circumstantial evidence points to you. You don't think that's a coincidence, do you?”

Cody leaned back in his chair, thinking. “Of course not. Somebody's intentionally trying to tie me into it, but I don't know no more than you do. I'm just picking at it.”

“What?”

“Like Ned would do. Pick at it until something happens.”

“You can't do it from right there.”

“I'm already doing it. I got John, Anna, and Ned out there scratching around. They'll turn something up.”

“Well, I hope they plow straight and fast.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

The snake's fangs bit deep and pain shrieked up my leg. I screamed and ran for the house, hearing that big ol' diamondback still rattling long and loud behind me. Mark shot around me before I reached the gate and grabbed a hoe that was leaning against the smokehouse. He spun and the last I saw of him was headed back to the chicken house.

I kept going to the porch and dropped onto the edge, my heart beating so hard that I could hear it in my ears. My asthma rose up and I started gasping for breath. My foot throbbed and I pulled off my tennis shoe without untying the laces.

I was already swimmy-headed. My stomach rose at the thought of that nasty thing's mouth and those fangs it'd buried in my flesh. I laid back on the boards and imagined the poison running through my veins. My stomach rolled at the thought.

Panic rose. There was no one in the house to help me. I knew what was going to happen, because I'd seen snakebit dogs. Their heads swole up the size of #5 washtubs and they sometimes died, all bloated up and moaning at the end.

Mark appeared beside me and dropped the hoe by the porch. “Bad?”

“Bad enough.”

“Lemme look at it.”

“We don't have time. I can feel the poison. It's already got to my head. Go call for help.”

He charged into the house, letting the screen door slap behind him. He started hollering like he was getting help. It seemed like I waited for an hour before he came back out. “Phone's still not working.”

“Oh no.”

“I hollered into the receiver, to see if whoever left it off the hook could hear me, but no one answered. I'll take your bike up to the store.”

“It has a flat.”

“All right. I'll run and get help. You stay right where you are. They say you're not supposed to do anything but lay still if you've been snakebit.”

“I should have remembered that back at the chicken house. You're gonna have to cut Xs in the fang marks and suck out the poison.”

“That don't work except on television and in the movies.”

“How do you know that?”

“My Uncle Bart told me. He was bit by a water moccasin and they had to take him to Hugo. His leg swelled up and the flesh around the bites sloughed off and…” he drifted off, realizing what he was saying. “You're wheezing. Is it the snakebite already?”

“No. The asthma.”

“Stay right there and don't move.”

He ran back inside and came out with my puffer. “Here. Use this. What else do you want me to do?”

I stuck the plastic nozzle in my mouth and squeezed the gray bulb, taking two deep breaths full of vaporized medicine. My lungs tickled. “Run for help, but first, get one of those evidence jars of whiskey out of the smokehouse. My foot's killing me, and I need something. Grandpa always said a dose of whiskey is as good as anything the doctor can give you.”

There was a line of dusty mason jars full of white lightning on the top shelf in the smokehouse that smelled of dirt dauber nests and dust. Under that was a rancid odor of old grease drippings from when they cured meat in there. Each evidence jar was labeled with a date and name from the man who ran the still.

Mark jumped off the porch, long hair flying. His footsteps crunched across the driveway, heading toward the smokehouse. Still flat on my back, I pumped the bulb and sucked in a second dose of medicine. My lungs eased, but the hand holding the light plastic atomizer felt heavy.

Hootie came out from under the porch and laid down beside me, whimpering. He knew I was bit. It reminded me that Carlo, Grandpa's old yard dog, was bit by a snake once. He lived, but didn't look good for a long time.

Mark was back. He grunted as he unscrewed the lid. “Shouldn't have got the oldest jar, but I didn't want Grandpa to get mad if I got one of the newest ones.” The rusty ring finally turned. “Them others might not be through the courts yet.”

I was aggravated by all the talking and the fact that he was more worried about the evidence than me. Mark tossed the ring away and used his fingernails under the lid to pry it off. He knelt down. “Here, take a big drink.”

I raised up on one elbow and took the full jar. The oily, acrid smell of pure grain alcohol cut through my sinuses. I took a little sip and fire shot down my goozle.

“Hold your nose and take a big old swaller. You need to drink more'n that little bitty ol' sip.”

Mark wasn't the one snakebit and drinking pure, uncut moonshine, but he was probably right. I held my nose and took a big swallow, then another and another, like I was drinking ice water. The fumes raced back up my sinuses again when I turned my nose loose. I breathed out and took to coughing like I had the croup.

Mark frowned, watching me. “How'd it taste?”

I coughed again. “Like coal oil.”

“Better take another dose. It'll help while I'm gone. I'll be back as soon as I can.”

He vanished and I took one more drink that went down a lot easier than the first, then laid back again. I thought about what he'd said about his uncle and hoped my leg wouldn't swell up the size of a foot log. I wanted to raise up and look, but my head was really heavy and it felt like a boat anchor.

I went swimmy-headed again and tried to raise a hand, but nothing worked right.

The poison was working its way through me.

Someone laughed. My eyes grew heavy. When I was little, I liked to rub 'em until bright lights flickered and shot in all directions. Sometimes when I was dozing off for a nap, or at night, faces appeared and disappeared in the darkness behind my lids, floating around like planets.

This time something different happened. Instead of lights, or interesting faces, I saw smiles. Bright, painted, ghastly smiles. Some large, some small. Smiles painted like clown mouths floated past. Sometimes the big red lips separated to show straight white teeth, but one of them had fangs like that diamondback.

Bales of hay ricocheted through the smiles, bumping them softly, and sending them running spinning into space. My face was clammy with sweat.

Mirrors.

Mirrors reflecting my face.

Screams of laughter.

Manes of long red hair.

A dark man floated behind my eyelids like a scuba diver in dark water. An Indian with wheels for feet pushed him away and grinned wide.

He's a wraith.

A wraith.

The wraith floated downward, holding a giant crescent wrench that bloomed into a bouquet of bright, colorful lights.

I smelled popcorn, cotton candy, and rotting carcasses.

Everything around me swirled downward, like someone pulled the plug in a bathtub. I was sucked into the hole of spinning colors before darkness took me and insane laughter filled my ears.

Chapter Thirty

The Wraith stepped outside, rubbing his knuckles. He glared back over his shoulder at the crying woman curled on the floor. Absolutely no one questioned his whereabouts. It had been a long, busy night and now he had to work at his new job. He adjusted his loose clothes, pulled on a pair of thin white gloves, and smiled at a passing stranger
.

***

Mark ran as fast as his legs could pump. He hadn't been back in Miss Becky's house but a few days and already bad things were happening. Now Top was dying from snakebite. The sorry-assed Grover was right, he wasn't half worth nothin' at all because he'd brought bad medicine to the Parkers.

He ran as hard as he could to Uncle Mason's house, because that's how he already thought of them, him and Aunt Wanda, but when he beat on their locked door there was nobody home. Farther down was Top's Uncle Cliff's house, but they didn't have a phone, and he was probably up at the store anyway.

That's when he remembered Miss Sweet passing in Ralston's car on their way to doctor that poor family down on the slough. They hadn't come back by, so he figured she'd still be there. He had a choice, run the rest of the way to the store, or cut through the pasture behind Uncle Mason's house and catch the dirt road to the bottoms that led to the slough.

He wondered if he was doing wrong by heading out to find Miss Sweet. He could just as easily run down the highway to the store, but then someone would have to call for help, or they'd insist on driving to the house to look at Top, and by the time they decided to get him to the hospital, he'd be dead.

Mark's mind shifted gears as he ran, one part worrying about Top, the other studying on the fact that he was back living with Miss Becky, but now they'd have to bury his friend. He was useless, nothing more than a stray that Aunt Tillie and Grover should have pulled over down at the creek bridge to dump out like a dog. They'd done something similar to his second cousin when she was sick all the time. They got tired of spending money they didn't have on her and the next thing Mark knew she was gone. He never knew for sure what they did with her, but she never came back and neither of the adults ever talked about it afterwards.

Now, here he was back with the greatest family in the world and he'd let Top get bit by a big old rattlesnake. It was him who should've opened the door to that chicken house. Feeding the cows was his idea, thinking he needed to do more to earn his keep, but since Top was their real blood, Mark figured he needed to hang back and let him be the leader.

Top needed that anyway, to not be a follower all the time but to be in charge.

Damn it!

He sprinted across the pasture, running like a house afire. Cows laying in the shade of an oak bellered and scattered. An old bull grunted to his feet and pawed the dirt, warning him away.

The pasture led downhill and the grass was close cropped from the cattle. Mark had enough speed and angle to leap a five-strand barbed-wire fence. The grass on that side was thicker, and slowed him down.

He pounded down a cow trail. Any other time it would have felt good, running with the wind in his face. His mama once told him their people were runners and could go all day if they needed to, but that was long ago back in the Olden Days. Running to run and running for help was altogether different because Mark was terrified that Top was dying.

He came to a line of trees and ducked under a low limb. Vines grabbed at his clothes slowing him even more. A thorn slashed his face, but he broke through in no time. The next barbed-wire fence was growed up, and he had to climb over using the sagging wires as rungs, cutting his palm with one of the rusty barbs. Two steps later, he stumbled onto the packed gravel and dirt road and took off running again free and easy now that he was warmed up.

It wasn't far to the shack, and Ralston's car was parked out in their dirt yard beside a tire swing. Miss Sweet was sitting on the porch like she was tired. Ralston slouched in the front seat of their car with the door open and one foot on the ground.

“Miss Sweet! Ralston! Help!”

Miss Sweet straightened and set down jar of what looked like tea. “My lands, what's wrong, honey?”

Ralston jumped out of the car as Mark slid to a stop. He grabbed the boy's shoulders. “You're Mark, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Where you coming from?”

Over his shoulder, Miss Sweet made her way off the edge of the porch and waddled toward them on short, bowed legs. She was a big woman and her hair was grayer than the last time Mark saw her. “Tell us, baby. What's the matter?”

His chest filled with deep shudders at her soft, sincere voice full of concern. His legs suddenly lost their strength and he had to hold himself upright against their dented car. “Top's been snakebit by a big old rattler and nobody's home.”

The old healer threw both hands in the air. “Sweet Jesus! Where'd it bite him?”

“On the foot.”

“How long's it been?”

“Long enough to run down here and a few minutes besides.”

A baby's cough carried across the porch.

She was already opening the car door. “Ralston, get my bag from out the house.”

“Yessum.” He darted around the car, but the young man who lived there came outside with the bag in his hand first. Ralston grabbed it and turned to leave.

The toddler's daddy held out a 'toesack. “Wait. I ain't got no money, but here's our pay.”

Without a word, Ralston grabbed it and shot off the porch. Mark was already in the backseat when Ralston poked the sack and her bag through the open back glass and dropped them on the floorboard. Seconds later, they were throwing up a roostertail of dust on the way back to the house.

Mark leaned back, hoping they'd get there in time. A Dominicker hen stuck her head out of a hole in the 'toesack on the floorboard and clucked at him, and it seemed almost normal.