The Bastard Hand (33 page)

“And just how would you know that? You aren’t old enough to play the part of the all-knowing wise old black man.”

“Older than my years, and all that.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Glad you’re here, though. Saves me the trouble of trying to find you.”

He cocked his head.

“I want to . . . well, I want to say I’m sorry. For the other night.”

He shrugged. “So where you goin’ now?”

“To Moker’s Hill.”

“Walkin’? That’ll take a solid hour, at least. Why you goin’ there?”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Huh. Not so all-knowing after all, are you? You wanna walk with me?”

He fell into step beside me and we walked down the middle of Swan Road. There was no traffic, and the woods around us shifted and sighed in the summer wind.

We walked in silence for several minutes, and then I said, “Did he rape her, China?”

He kept walking, didn’t look at me. “No, Charlie, he sure didn’t.”

More silence. We walked.

I said, “Why is he living with your family?”

He eyed me peripherally, seeming to deliberate. For a moment I thought he wasn’t going to answer, but he finally said, “The Garritys ain’t natural, Mr. . . . Charlie. The whole dang family’s screwed up. The old Widow, she . . . well, she done things to them kids that wasn’t right. Grown-up things that was just wrong. It shouldn’t be no surprise that Miss Elise and Mr. Jathed did wicked things together. And it should be even less a surprise that, eventually, they’d make a baby together.”

I said, “Is he . . . is Perrin alright? I mean . . .”

“You mean, is he retarded, or damaged, like, from being the product of that kinda evil?”

“Yeah.”

China shook his head. “No, thank the Lord Almighty. That boy’s as smart and happy as you could hope for. It’s like he ain’t even a Garrity. But then again, that’s ’zactly why Miss Elise asked us if he could come live with us. So that he wouldn’t be a Garrity. Was partly to hide the fact that she and Mr. Jathed had a baby together, but it was that, too. She wanted Perrin to grow up away from that house. Away from her and the Widow.”

“And Jathed?”

More silence, and I could sense China searching for the right words. After a moment, he said, “Mr. Jathed changed. I mean, I’m not saying that he suddenly went all pure and good and kind, like, but he . . . well, he found God, you know. It changed him. He was overcome with shame about what he’d done in the eyes of the Lord. He wanted to . . . I don’t know, confess his sins or something. Not just to God, but to everyone.”

“Why didn’t he?”

“The Widow Garrity wouldn’t let him. So Mr. Jathed was torn. Torn between loyalty to his family and loyalty to God.”

“What about Elise? What did she want to do?”

“Young Miss Garrity felt shame, I reckon. How could she not? But she didn’t wanna come clean. And I reckon I can hardly blame her. She and the Widow both begged Mr. Jathed not to tell the town about it. ’specially after Mr. Jathed became the pastor and the Garrity name was in such good standing in Cuba Landing.”

He stopped walking and I went a few steps before stopping myself and looking back at him.

He said, “It all reached a head about a year ago, Mr. Charlie.”

“What happened?”

“Mr. Jathed had to go to the conference, up in Memphis. The family was all torn apart. I heard the argument ’tween them all, cuz I was working in the garden. It wasn’t my meaning to, like, eavesdrop or nothing, but . . . I heard it all.”

He sounded strangely apologetic. His brow furrowed and he looked away from me. “Mr. Jathed had to go, and he was saying that, when he got back, it would all be different. When he got back, he would deliver a sermon to the congregation and he would tell the truth, at long last, about Perrin. He would take the boy back into the Garrity home and raise him up as his son. Even if it meant that the Garrity name would be destroyed forever and ever.”

China raised his eyes to mine. “He left that night, Mr. Charlie. He left and went on up to Memphis and somebody killed him.”

We stared at each other for a long moment. Sunlight broke through the leaves of the swaying trees and dappled on the road like paint, then went away as a cloud roiled overhead.

I said, “Who? Who killed him?”

“The biggest part of me, reckons it don’t matter anymore. If you know what I mean.”

And I did, I knew exactly what he meant. It didn’t matter, because what would either of us, what would any of us, do with the information? Turn the killer over to the police? Call in the cavalry? Bring about divine retribution our own selves?

We were all of us sinners.

But I still had to know. I said, “Was it Louis?”

China frowned, stopped walking. He looked at me. “No,” he said. “It was me, Mr. Charlie.”

That took a second to sink in.

Ignoring my silence, he said, “I did it for the boy, not for the Garrity name. Mr. Jathed maybe had God on his side, but I don’t care nothing about that. Perrin couldn’t go back to that home. Never.”

China and I kept walking in silence after that, and our black calm was undisturbed by other humans for a long while. I was keenly aware of the animals in the forests surrounding us, even when we would pass by other big houses on Swan Road. Birds cried all around, possums and snakes and raccoons rooted through the kudzu and underbrush and I knew that even they were guilty, even they had bloody mouths and beaks. I didn’t feel so alone.

At the road that, another half mile south, turned into Main, we paused. China said, “I’m gonna be cutting through town to get back home, Mr. Charlie.”

“Yeah.”

“I reckon I’ll see you around.”

I shook my head. “I reckon not, China.”

He looked at me, and nodded. “Okay, then.” He didn’t smile or shrug. He only put out his slim, long-fingered hand.

I shook it. “Take care of Perrin, China. Be a good father to him.”

“I ain’t his father, Mr. Charlie. I’m his brother.”

“No. You’re his father. Someone has to be.”

He looked ready to say something else, but apparently thought better of it. He nodded again and said, “I reckon that’s true. I’ll do my best by the boy, I promise.”

Then he turned around and loped off down Main.

I watched him go, kept watching until he disappeared below the rise.

When he was gone, I pulled Jathed Garrity’s Bible out of my pocket and looked at it. The bullet hole right through the center, right through the O in Holy. I opened it up to the inside cover page and read the inscription: To Jathed, with love, Kimberly Garrity.

Not “to my son”, or “from your loving mother”. Evil old bitch. I wondered if this Bible, this bland gift from his mother, had been the catalyst for Jathed’s transformation.

But, like China said, it hardly mattered anymore.

I closed the Bible up, wound back my arm, and threw it as hard as I could into the chill, dark woods. I didn’t hear it hit the ground.

The walk there wasn’t so bad, but climbing up Moker’s Hill pretty much did me in. I trudged up the slope, not paying any attention this time to the kudzu that tickled my ankles, not worrying about snakes lurking out of sight. I was tired, more tired than I’d ever been in my life.

When I made the clearing, I saw Tassie peeking out the window and then she vanished and appeared at the door.

“Charlie,” she said, and her voice sounded strange and tight. “Jesus, Charlie, thank God it’s you.”

She glanced nervously around the clearing and the edge of the woods. I noticed dark circles cradling her eyes. She took my arm and pulled me in the cabin and shut the door behind us. “There’s someone out there,” she said.

Something about the earnestness in her tone made me want to laugh, it was so not like her. But I checked it and went to the door and peered out. Nothing. Just the trees and the clearing and not a living thing in sight.

“I don’t see anyone.”

“Well . . . there’s no one there now, yeah, but . . .”

I looked at her and she sighed, exasperated. “Listen. I don’t wanna sound all melodramatic and like that, but, Jesus, man. I don’t think I’ve ever been more goddamn terrified.”

“What the hell are you—”

“All night,” she said. “All night long. I kept . . . hearing things out there.”

“Animals, Tassie. Granted, you haven’t had a lot of experience with nature, but there are these things called animals, see. They live in the woods.”

She punched me in the chest, not playfully. “Fucker. I’m not kidding around. There was someone out there last night. I heard him at the door, and . . . and I kept hearing him. Just when I thought he’d left, I’d hear him again, like . . . like footsteps near the door, you know? And then I saw a face, at the window, and I couldn’t help it, I screamed, and then he was gone.”

“What—”

“And he laughed. He laughed at me. All fucking night, Charlie, I couldn’t sleep at all, I was fucking terrified. And I think he’s still out there.”

I nodded, finally understanding, and put my hand on her arm.

“No, he’s not. He’s not out there anymore.”

She jerked away from me. “How the hell would you know? And where the hell have you been, anyway? You think I came down here to hide in some shitty-smelling cabin with a giant goddamn cross on the wall and the smell of booze but no goddamn booze? We have to get out of here, you understand? We have to get the fuck out. It was those gangsters, Charlie, those goddamn gangsters, and if we don’t get out now we’re fucking dead.”

There was an edge of hysteria to her anger that threatened to bloom out of control. I said, “It wasn’t the gangsters.”

“Fuck you, it wasn’t the gangsters—”

“It wasn’t the goddamn gangsters, Tassie. They don’t know we’re here. They have no idea where we are, okay?”

“We aren’t safe here, I don’t care what you say.”

“We aren’t safe for too much longer, that’s true. But it doesn’t matter, because we’re leaving. Now.”

She looked ready to say something else, but stopped short. “We are? You got the money you were talking about?”

“I . . . yeah. I got some money.”

Her brows furrowed. “Some money? Wait a minute, what do you mean, some money?”

“I got enough.”

“Enough for what? Fuck, Charlie, I don’t like the sound of that, not one little bit.”

She stood there with her hands on her hips, staring knife points at me, and I suddenly felt a great affection for her. The money-hungry little bitch. I could love her, damnit.

“I got more than I started with. Now come on. We’re getting out of here, now.”

Then her eyes got wide and she stepped back from me, slowly.

I said, “What’s the problem?”

“Charlie . . . you . . . your hands. . . . Jesus, your hands. . . .”

I didn’t have to look, of course. But I did. They were glowing again, the sharp yellow light pouring out of my fingertips, and how the hell had that happened without me feeling it or knowing it was happening?

I held them up, flexed my fingers, tried to will the light away. Tassie’s face was etched with horror. She took another step back, near the giant cross, and I said, “It’s okay. It’s okay, Tassie, don’t be afraid.”

But it was no good. How could I expect her not to be afraid when I was afraid myself? I couldn’t control it this time, I couldn’t stop it.

“What . . . what’s happening to you?”

“Nothing. Please, Tassie, it’s okay.”

The light grew stronger and my hands started to ache like I’d been punching a brick wall or chopping wood for hours. I gritted my teeth and concentrated hard on pushing the light away, but it only grew stronger, oozing like honey all the way up to my wrists.

Tassie whispered, “Jesus, Charlie. What are you?”

And then the voice from the open door behind me, the voice I knew deep in my gut would be there.

“Don’t you know what he is?” Reverend Childe said. “He’s the Devil, little girlie. He’s the Anti-Christ.”

Stupidly, I moved toward him, hands outstretched, ready to end it once and for all. The light flared out of my fingers. He shook his head, almost sadly, and touched my hand.

The light died. Guttered out like a candle stump.

He said, “You forget already, Charlie old son? You forget whose side God is on?”

Tassie had been moving slowly away from us, toward the far side of the room. He turned to her, grinning, said, “Well, howdy there, you pretty little thing. And just how did you end up in this mess?”

She didn’t answer, only stared at the two of us. I knew her well enough to know that she was pulling her shit together, already formulating a plan for getting the hell out.

He said, “You know, you come along at an interesting time, girlie. Your man Charlie here done caused me a bit of trouble down the church.” He chuckled, the good-natured victim of an innocent practical joke. “Got me good, he sure did, I gotta hand it to him. You look at the fella, you think he’d be a pretty dim bulb, but once in awhile . . . once in awhile he can get off a zinger. He surely can.”

He turned his attention back to me. “You kinda left me in a bind back there, Charlie. If you don’t mind me saying, that was downright rude. I barely got out of that church with my ass in one piece.” Still grinning. “Kinda funny, really. Everyone all slack-jawed and unbelieving. And then, little by little, realization dawning. You know. Some of them, most of them, just kinda stood up and looked at me, all stunned, and then just shuffled out. A few of them called me some pretty hurtful names. One or two tried to take a swing at me, but our wonderful law enforcement boys held ’em back.”

He strolled further into the room, looked up at the big cross. He stuck his hands in his pockets and said, almost wistfully, “A couple of them even cried. How ’bout that?”

When he looked at me again, the grin was gone and cold anger flashed in his eyes. “They cried. What does that tell you, Charlie? What does that tell you?” He gritted his teeth, and his next words were a hiss. “I was so close . . . so . . . fucking . . . close.”

I said, “Reverend—”

“And you ruined it. You ruined it all. You . . . you piss-ant little head case. Everything I worked for. Everything I’ve spent the last fucking year trying to accomplish, you just step right in and foul up the whole fucking thing.”