Emerald Hell Read online

  He didn’t shift to look at her. He hardly ever did. The face of her ghost was the face of the wife of the man he no longer was.

  Yet it could still make him think of mortal, dreadful things. “You don’t know what I’m hoping for.”

  “A’course I do. You still lookin’ for family. The one you gave up for God.”

  “Doesn’t that mean I deserve something?” he asked. His ruined voice was too awful for anyone living to note the whine in it, but the dead could tell. “Giving up all I had in worship to the Lord?”

  “If you done it for payment you ain’t done it from your heart or soul. You done it for the wrong reasons and blame Heaven for your own mistakes.”

  “I did it for love,”Jester argued, “but I expected my wife to stay true to me.”

  “I made my mistakes too, but there ain’t nothin’ wrong in a woman needin’ love. We gotta die alone but that don’t mean we need to live alone.”

  “I do,” he told her.

  “You ain’t alive.”

  She called him by his Christian name then, and the urge to look into her eyes was so great that he nearly turned to stare at her. But the selfish shadows twined around his body and held him tight, his face toward the endless glow of the bog where he’d find his daughter and grandchild.

  His wife who was now one with Glory said, “You been dead near twenty years gone and too foolish to draw water from the pool of the hereafter.”

  “Leave me,” he told her, and with nothing more than a hot breeze working across the forbidding earth, she did.

  ———

  When the sun broke through the pines Jester rose from the slain child’s blanket and entered the shack. Empty jugs of moonshine and bottles of wine littered the floor. He found the Ferris boys both still asleep.

  Their dreams were laid bare to him. Duffy relived the moment of murdering their mother and father, which filled him with a fierce pride and some small vestiges of guilt. Over the years the corn liquor had worn the slight twinges of shame almost entirely away and allowed him to grin as he slept. Thinking of how his mama had screamed and their daddy had sneered that moment, as if they’d always been expecting it. Maybe they had. Duffy was only eleven, but big and strong for his age. Same with Deeter, who was ten.

  They used freshly whittled ax handles they’d stolen from the dry goods store. Broke Daddy’s arms first, then Mamas legs next, then took turns taking a swing at first one and then the other, counting off so they’d be all even Steven. One-two, three-four, five-six, seven-eight. Got up to thirteen-fourteen before Farrell Ferris managed to drag himself from the shack and into the brush, where his sons followed him and watched him thrash among the thistles and catclaw briars. Deeter had gone back for the shotgun and used it to shoot Pa’s big toe off. The flat harsh noise of the boys’ laughter carried on into the deep sunset afterward, punctuated by a gentle but dramatic dripping, as if a spring rain had just risen over the woods.

  The fervent mind of Deeter Ferris played on the rape of a nameless woman they’d caught four years ago after she’d turned off the highway hoping to buy some gator skins to make into a pair of boots for her husband. She was just driving slow through Enigma hoping to run into somebody who might be a gator killer. Damn near everyone was, but she just so happened to run across the Ferris boys, sitting out in front of Coover’s garage while Coover finished reinforcing the suspension on their pickup in case they got into any more chases with the law through the hills while they were driving moon.

  The boys took her back to their place and sold her a fine bull skin. No trouble on their mind that day, just enjoying the feel of her cash money in their hands and the gorgeous sight of her. Full-breasted, bleach-headed, the stink of the city on her like a musk. Then she went and fouled it up by talking about her husband, who sounded like a right fine boy until she got to the part about him being a correctional officer in Chadabunk School for Wayward Youths, which was where the Ferris brothers had been sent for nine years after the murder of their parents.

  They reckoned if her husband was anything like the guards who’d brutalized them while they were there, then he was one self-righteous, billy club—wielding, ungodly perverted sumbitch who not only didn’t deserve himself a fine pair of gator boots, but didn’t justify having a right fine full-breasted, bleach-headed, musky wife neither.

  She kept asking, What’s the matter? as they tugged the gator skin out of her hands and took her purse away and Duffy got out her keys and drove her car away around back, and Deeter took her wrist and gently tugged her into the house. What’s the matter? What’s the matter? His muscles tightened and ached with remembering those words and how they’d soon contorted into screams.

  Jester woke them with some reluctance, sharing in their joy and madness, and said, “It’s time.”

  “Where we goin’?” Duffy asked.

  “Into the swamp now. To find my Sarah.”

  “Pregnant girls in there, they likely gator bait already, bloated and ripening in some mud hole.”

  “No, they’re alive, and we’ll reach them tonight.”

  “And that big ole red fella?”

  “If he stands in my way he’ll suffer for it.”

  “We gonna need a skiff,” Deeter said. “Ours got sunk the last big rain.”

  “You were drunk,” Jester said, “and spilled moon on yourself while smoking a cigar you stole from a traveling soap salesman. You burned yourself and jumped in the water and the boat sank.”

  The Ferris boys watched him, the hinges of their jaws throbbing and the cold fear in their eyes, the way it should be.

  A minute later Duffy scratched at his soft, golden stubble.

  “Plume Wallace got one down in the bottoms that he keep tied outside his shanty, over by Scutt’s Landing. He’s always on the lookout for crawfish.”

  “He ain’t gonna like us takin’ it. And he’s got a shotgun.”

  Duffy opened an unpainted closet door and withdrew a twelve-gauge pump. “Well hell, looky there, so do we.”

  “Reckon I never liked that old boy much anyways.”

  “Let’s go,” Brother Jester said.

  Chapter 9

  A low-lying mist shrouded the emerald hell, coiling upon the green darkness as the sky, the color of a bruise, grew brighter. Quickly the world amassed weight and substance, minute by minute growing in clarity, as if great hands were shaping each detail of life from scratch.

  “Wake up, son,” Lament said, and shook Hellboy’s shoulder.

  Hellboy was already awake, still curled beneath the blanket, staring at his stone fist. It was clenched tightly as if he’d been holding onto something. Even now he was a little worried to let go of whatever it was. He’d been dreaming deeply but he couldn’t remember of what, and it took a while before he was able to open his hand and see that it was empty.

  He sat up and noticed how the swamp not only looked much different in the light of day, but felt it as well. Fertile and vital but no longer imposing, there was a beauty here that he hadn’t seen in the dark. Hummocks of scrub surrounded the tongue of land where they camped. Oleander and geranium blossoms added even more color so that the green jungle no longer overwhelmed.

  The world around assailed him with so much noise that at first he almost hadn’t been able to hear it. There were the sounds of crows, bullfrogs, polecats, skinks, egrets, squirrels, and ducks.

  Hellboy was stiff and still sore from mixing it up with the gators. Gingerly he untied his makeshift bandages and was surprised to see his wounds looked clean and on their way to healing. He flexed his leg, did some deep knee-bends, and loosened up.

  Checking the special cartridges on his belt, he held one up to the sun to make sure it wasn’t damaged.

  “What you got there?” Lament asked.

  “A blood-soaked splinter taken from the wheel that broke the back of St. Catherine.”

  “Saints? Son, this is Southern Baptist Country. They ain’t afraid of saints ‘round here. They’re afraid o
f Revenuers.”

  Hellboy persisted. “Stops djinn and Ambassadors of Mammon in their tracks, let me tell you. Guaranteed to slow down any member of the infernal order.”

  “Well, you’ll surely hear a hoot of joy from me iffun we come ‘cross any infernal order members thisaway.”

  Cool winds washed over the lake and whispered through the loblolly and catclaw briar. The old lady’s ears told him which trees were which just by the sound of their leaves rippling in the breeze.

  Pawing through his rucksack, Lament drew out provisions and started cooking breakfast. Hellboy spotted canisters of milk that should’ve curdled in this heat. He said, “Can I have a drink?”

  Lament handed over the milk. Hellboy sipped it cautiously at first, and then drank deeply It was cold and fresh. “Where’d you get this?”

  “In town.”

  “Yesterday afternoon?”

  “Tha’s right.”

  “It should’ve gone bad by now.”

  “Enigma cows is fit.”

  Looked like Lament was making eggs, but much larger than those of a chicken. Hellboy watched him crack the shells and pour the yolks into a skillet he placed over the fire.

  “Your stomach still distressing you any?” Lament asked.

  Hellboy was surprised it wasn’t. He was actually hungry. “No. I think I can eat.”

  “Glad to hear it. Pull up a patch of log here and come have breakfast. We got miles to cover and I fear the weather is gonna change. Now get you some bacon and corn griddle cakes.”

  “I like pancakes.”

  It took Lament ten minutes to make breakfast and serve it on tin plates. Until Hellboy took his first bite he hadn’t realized how famished he was. The pancakes were sweeter and fluffier than he was used to, covered with a thick honey syrup. He ate quickly, enjoying himself. The bacon was thick and burned just right. The eggs were unlike anything he’d ever tasted before.

  He knew he should let it slide, but he just had to ask. “What kind of eggs are these?”

  “Turtle,” Lament said.

  Hellboy flipped his plate over into the dirt.”Gah!”

  It got Lament chuckling softly again. Then snickering as he tried to hold in his laughter, but eventually it got away from him and he started guffawing, clutching his belly.

  “It’s not funny!” Hellboy shouted, though he found he was grinning himself. Strange to discover his mood had lifted in such an odd place as this. Still, a few minutes later, he realized he couldn’t fully quit staring at his hand, trying to remember the dream.

  “It wasn’t a nightmare,” Lament said, carrying the plates to the water’s edge, where he washed them. “Not entirely. He come ‘round visitin’, Brother Jester did.”

  Hellboy didn’t see any tracks in the dirt besides Lament’s boots and his own hoof prints. “When? How?”

  “He’s got gifts. He’s been blessed by the archangels. They haven’t turned their backs on him just because he went crazy and became a killer. That’s not their way. If they done that to everyone in the Bible who’d done lost their grace, there’d be no heroes at all. Sinning and redemption are at least as important as purity. They’re fated to be with him no matter what evil he might do. They bear witness and whisper truths in his ear that no man should hear. Their shadows drop favors at his feet. They’re just children lost without a heavenly father, searching for an earthly one. It’s no wonder the prophets were all mad.”

  Angels. You just couldn’t trust them. “Granny Lewt said you had a history with the walking darkness.”

  “Oh fer sure,” Lament said, breaking camp, gathering up his provisions and repacking them. “I known him for a good long while now. Lot of rumors follow that old boy ‘round.”

  “Granny said the same thing of you.”

  Lament nodded. “She’s right on both counts.”

  “Who is he to you?”

  “When I was a child, he was the man I wanted to grow up to be. Righteous, strong, full of God’s word and a need to bring comfort and blessing to those who hurt. A man, I’m inclined to believe, much like yourself.”

  “And then he found out Bliss Nail was fooling around with his wife.”

  “That’s right. And he went insane. Killed his own wife. Almost murdered Sarah in her crib.”

  “What stopped him?”

  A gliding shadow moved out across the tree line and cut across the bright blue sky. Hellboy looked up and reached for his pistol, but it was only a white egret sailing through the air, its bill filled with squirming worms as it headed for its nest.

  Lament was staring into space, lost in thought. His eyes cleared and his brow furrowed with the intensity of his memories.

  “I did,” he said. “I wasn’t hardly eight years old, but I’d been singing gospel since I was old enough to speak. He had another name then. He come to town ... this was up in the Appalachians, way back in the mountain woods ... and he found me preachin’. He was famous by then, and I was but an orphan looked after by the whole town. Good God-lovin’ folk, well, they wanted him to teach me in the ways of a travellin’ pastor. So together we went off, and eventually come back to Enigma together. We preached in the swamps for a while ‘fore he even set foot in his own house again. He loved the Word that much.”

  “It doesn’t take much to derail a good man.”

  “That’s the truth. He found his wife holding a newborn wasn’t his own. Took no time at all for his heart to turn stone hateful. He run for the hatchet and I tried to stop him, but couldn’t do much.”

  “You were only a kid,” Hellboy said.

  “And didn’t fare so well. He brained me pretty good, ole Jester did. Then he went and murdered his wife, a kind and generous lady by all accounts. I prayed with the blood running out of me, and managed to stumble to where he was plannin’ on stranglin’ Sarah in her crib. And I prayed. A part of him that hadn’t gone crazy and evil yet heard me. Anyway, he didn’t get to kill her.”

  They finished packing up the goods together and Hellboy helped Lament load everything into the skiff. They both looked around one last time to make sure nothing had been left behind. Before they started off, Hellboy had one last thing he wanted to know.

  “Are you the father of Sarah’s baby?”

  Lament glanced up, genuine shock and appall written into his features. “Considering we just met a few hours ago, and we haven’t so much as shared a sip of moonshine yet, or even bad a bite of gray squirrel or possum together, or passed a corncob pipe back and forth, and you done spit out the eggs I made, I reckon I don’t see how it’s any of your damn business, friend.”

  Hellboy shrugged. Jeez, these people were sensitive. “Okay. So where are we going?”

  “Other side of the basin breaks up into more inlets that flush back into the marshes. The shanty town’s in that direction.”

  “You’ve been there?”

  “Not since I was a child. Me and Jester preached there once. But I recollect that’s the way to go. The blackwater has a way of letting you know if you’re aimin’ right or wrong.”

  “How’s that?”

  “It either kills you or it don’t.”

  Hellboy thought, That’s what I get for asking. “Will we catch up to them today?”

  “I reckon so. Sarah can move through the swamp with ease, but them other girls swole with chile have to be slowing her down some. Come on and help me with the skiff.”

  The keel of the boat had sunk a foot into the mud and they both had to grip an end and work it hard side to side before they could lift it to clear the rut. With a loud gurgle the drying muck gave way and the skiff came free.

  “Hey,” Hellboy said. “Something’s been on my mind. Why’d you call me princely?” It had been a damn strange thing to hear.

  Lament stared at Hellboy’s head, or perhaps at the spot in the air just above his head, and his eyes gleamed with what could be a sad and distant knowledge he couldn’t fully understand himself.

  “Seems to me you’re someone des
tined to wear a crown, tha’s all.”

  Chapter 10

  They carried the skiff down the shore’s incline back to the stale waters and stobpoled out of the mired shallows. They made their way through the curving narrows out into the lake. There, Lament boated the pole, slotted two oars into metal rings, and rowed them across the basin.

  When they reached the other side Lament appeared to be unsure of which direction to go. Stunted dead sycamores lined the shore of another dark inlet, thick with hummock islands, matted with roots and silt. He rowed as long as he could, until the oars were stirring up deposits of sediment, then groaned and wiped his brow.

  “Hell, boy!” Lament said.

  “What?”

  “What?”

  “Oh, I thought you were calling me,” Hellboy told him.

  “I’m calling you a damn heavy heifer. Come spell me for a while.”

  It took Hellboy a second to figure out what Lament meant, but once he understood he moved up in the boat and took a turn at the oars. They started going around in circles. After a minute he realized he had to ease up on drawing too hard with his right hand, and finally got a good rhythm going.

  Lament played the mouth-harp and then started to quietly sing. The song sounded vaguely religious and a little silly, but Hellboy enjoyed the sound of Lament’s vibrant voice and even found himself humming along. When he realized what he was doing he frowned, shut the hell up, and rowed harder.

  Broken tupelo spotted the area, the earth heavy with a peaty loam smell. They were entering a bog of maiden cane and wide draperies of hanging moss. Hellboy had a difficult time imagining people living out here. It had its own beauty but he just couldn’t picture church folk coming out so far into the morass to hold revivals. Parents bringing their children this far for baptism and confession and gospel singing. All this green would have to drive a normal person out of his mind.

  The oars struck root and the water churned with silt. The prow of the boat got trapped in log litter and mounds of slough as the small hummock islands thickened and their passage tightened.