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Authors: Phillip Depoy

BOOK: The Witch's Grave
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“I'n care,” he mumbled, softer. “Big albino freak.”
“Why is the body naked?” Andrews whispered to me. “And did you know the dead man was the Deveroes' cousin?”
“Of course.” I glared at the drunken boys, willing them to silence. “As to why the clothes are gone, I wouldn't have a clue.”
“God help Able Carter now,” Andrews said, watching the policemen try to muscle the teenagers away from the scene, “especially after what happened Thursday night.”
“I think that's a little different from what Girlinda and I talked about,” Skid finally allowed. “For one thing, she said Able and Truevine
had a lovers' spat. Didn't say it had to do with Harding. Or maybe she did and I wasn't listening.”
Andrews shivered. He'd thrown on a T-shirt and his black jeans, wandered barefoot out of the house when he heard all the commotion, two hours earlier. His blond hair was a bird's nest; he was nearly a foot taller than anyone else at the scene. He rubbed his arms, stood next to Skidmore wanting to ask a question. They'd become friendly during Andrews's last visit to the mountains, but the deputy was in no way disposed to idle conversation.
“What is it?” Skid asked, his face drained.
“Why is the body naked?”
“I don't know,” he answered, irritated.
“And how did those drunks see it way down at the bottom of this ravine in the middle of the night?” Andrews went on. “Don't you think that's suspicious? Are you holding them?”
Skidmore sighed. “It was a full moon and them kids has crawled all over these woods they whole lives. No, I'm not holding them. In fact, I'd like them as far away from me as possible.”
“But—” Andrews protested.
“Skid's right,” I interrupted. “Those creatures are as cowardly as they are stupid. If they'd killed a man, they'd have vanished. They wouldn't laugh; they'd hide.”
“I guess,” Andrews said reluctantly. “But I don't like what this mess does to our investigation.”
I had to smile.
Our investigation.
“This does seem to complicate matters,” I agreed with Andrews, moving away from the edge of the path into a spot of early-morning sunlight. “Stand over here; it's a little warmer.”
I watched Skidmore as he walked a few feet from us to sit in the front seat of his squad car. He began working on the initial written report. His squad car radio demanded attention; he talked shortly. After he hung up he looked even more tired. He was running for sheriff in the coming November elections; I thought it was taking a toll. His opponent was a local businessman who enjoyed deer hunting and thought it a significant qualification for the job. That candidacy
was supported financially by Jackson Pinhurst, uncle of the deceased. Our Sheriff Maddox had died suddenly—dressed only in a red raincoat and saddle oxfords, in the arms of another man's wife. There wasn't much open discussion of it.
Skid deserved to win. No one knew more about Blue Mountain or cared half as much. His spirit was clear and his determination to do
right
belonged in another century, but the politics wore on him, choosing a slogan, campaign colors, making a list of promises.
“Dev!” he called, standing up.
I yawned.
“Linda told me she called you last night,” he said, tossing his clipboard onto the seat.
“She wanted me to help find Able.”
“I know,” he complained. “But the thing is you got to stay out of it for the most part. They say it looks bad for me to have help on a thing like this.”
I felt the word
they,
in this particular case, meant one Tommy Tineeta, Skid's campaign manager from Rabun Gap.
“Of course I don't want to get in the way.” I smiled. “Tell Tommy I said hello.”
“That ain't it,” he shot back. “Shut up.”
The hospital employees had gotten the body on the stretcher and were making their way back up the slope toward the ambulance.
“I just want you to keep a low profile,” he concluded.
“I've come home to do research,” I said. “Everyone knows that. They're familiar with the kind of work I'm doing, know it involves talking to everyone. What would be the harm if I asked a few extra questions in the course of my folklore interviews?”
“Something like that,” he agreed.
“That way Tommy T. won't make your campaign more miserable than it already is.”
“Mr. Tineeta is a smart man, Dev.” But Skid hardly sounded convinced.
“He's a transplant from New Orleans, he claims,” I explained to Andrews. “Sounds more New Jersey to me. Skidmore's campaign
manager.” Skid had only hired him in reaction to his opponent's boss. Jackson Pinhurst was our town power broker, Boss Tweed in discount Armani suits, cigar like a smokestack, eyebrows like a hedge.
“Running for sheriff,” Skid told Andrews, shy for some reason.
“Not a better man in the state for that job,” Andrews said, clutching his own elbows. “I'm freezing. I'm going back to the cabin. Can't stop shivering.” He looked down the path to my place.
“This ain't right, Fever,” Skid said, watching the paramedics wrangle the body into the ambulance. “I never had to investigate a murder of somebody I knew. Not to mention I have no idea what we'll do with the body after the autopsy.”
“Call the Peaker family in Rabun County,” I suggested.
“What are you two talking about?” Andrews rubbed his bare arms trying to warm himself, more irritated by the moment. “You have a funeral parlor here in town; I've driven by it.”
“That's the problem,” Skidmore said as the ambulance door slammed shut.
“Harding Pinhurst,” I told Andrews, “was the only mortician we had in this county. The place you're talking about was his.”
The rest of Saturday was more typical of October in the mountains: it rained and no one else found a dead body.
It had been a wet year in general; autumn foliage was everything the local businessmen could want. Cool air and fire leaves meant weekend visitors. In cities south of Blue Mountain it could still reach ninety in October, but I lit a fire at night in my cabin, shivered every morning waking up. Strangers from Atlanta filled the streets of town, buying $40 quilts for $200 and marveling at the food in Etta's diner: fried okra, boiled field peas, iced tea one part water to two parts sugar.
The town square had not changed in a hundred years. I left Blue Mountain at age sixteen, went to Burrison University, then Europe, returned to the States to run a folklore department, watched that department fade away. All the while my hometown took little notice, altered less. I found comfort in that, made my troubles less significant, held the center of things together.
Built around an antebellum courthouse and the obligatory Confederate Memorial statue, the town's four streets, each a true direction of the compass, headed away from the center. They would all eventually wind up lost on some shadowy upward slope. Over one mountain southward, drivers might find their way back down to Dahlonega and pan for gold before heading on to Atlanta. Otherwise the roads led into a tangle of dirt and gravel that could keep strangers wandering for hours with no apparent aim or outcome. An open
labyrinth, these roads served to protect us from prying tourists.
My grandfather's rocking chair is not your quaint antique.
Strangers in these mountains were treated as coldly as rain in the morning. After dark they might find a warm place by the stove, grudging acceptance, and the most potent alcohol known to humankind. If they were lucky.
Town square was filled with chestnut trees that crazed the air with a yellow too brilliant to see; the eye was forced away by the light. All around them the ground was littered with the dead leaves and the recollection of a hundred autumns past.
Benches were unoccupied in the drizzle but sidewalks clattered and shopkeepers were courteous.
There had already been a brief meeting of these businessmen: tight-lipped agreement to keep the murder quiet. Dying leaves are good for business, dead morticians less so.
I sat in Etta's place talking to Deputy Needle; Andrews had decided to sleep in. The noise of the place was as pungent as the smell. Thirty conversations intertwined, a knot in the air like muscadine vines. Seventeen vegetables, all cooked for three days and nights in half a gallon of fat, steamed the air. Every Formica table was occupied, all booths full. Skid and I sat at the counter on green stools, their chrome stems sprouting like mushrooms from the linoleum floor to the vinyl seats. Sunday dinner after church always packed the place.
“I got to check on some lab work this morning, got some ideas. You'll be going up to talk to Junie.” He swallowed the last of his cornbread muffin. “She's always first on your list.”
Cornbread was as much an implement as a menu item. Held in the left hand, it pushed errant morsels left on the plate toward the waiting fork. The value was twofold: not even the smallest dot of collard greens could escape the combined efforts of bread and fork, and when the process was done the cornbread had collected the juice and gravy on the plate, and served as a reminder, when eaten, of what the meal had been.
“I will.” I wiped my mouth with the folded paper towel. “I have a plan.”
I stood, leaving a ten-dollar bill on the counter under my fork. He stood. “I'd expect no less.” He stretched, toothpick in his teeth. Nothing says
fine dining
like a splinter in the mouth.
“I want to record her current version of
‘Black-haired Lass,'
if she still sings it.”
“Don't know that one,” he admitted, waving to Etta, who was nearly asleep by the register.
Etta's white bun lolled on the back of a mule-eared chair, gnarled hands rested in the folds of her rumpled drab apron. She gave no acknowledgment.
“It's about a girl with three brothers,” I told him as we made our way between the tables, “who killed her suitor in the twilight of the year.”
“Which might lead to more current events,” he said, pushing the door open. “I see that.”
The rain had stopped; there was a cardinal on my truck. I didn't want to be the one to disturb it. The old Ford held up well. Originally my father's, the '47 pickup had been rebuilt by a student of mine in 1997, its dark green a perfect canvas for the bird's dash of red. I stood on the sidewalk, arms folded, watching the clouds roll across the mountain.
“All these years,” I said to Skidmore, “and I'm still surprised when you understand the subtlety of my plans.”
He slung open the door to his squad car, wiping water onto his tan uniform pants. “You think a university education and visit to Europe give you an edge, but you fail to realize that I am God's holy instrument when it comes to being subtle.” With that he spat his toothpick into the street, sniffed, hawked into the gutter, and tipped his hat. “Dr. Devilin.”
 
The drive to June's house was a matter of ten minutes; the air was delicious after the rain. Skidmore knew June had always been a better mother to me than anyone else alive. I pressed the accelerator unconsciously. Fields flew by; the highway rose upward, aiming me to the sky. The white house was set in black bottom soil between three
mountains. Even from a distance, it seemed more cared for than other homes along the same road. The sun shot through a rip in the clouds, gave the edges of new-harvested corn sheaves a gold they could only borrow and would never pay back. Everything about the place had an angel's attention.
I couldn't help thinking about the odd, personal ghost story she often used to tell when she sang “Black-haired Lass.” June Cotage, wife of a Pentecostal snake-handling preacher about whom I had written many articles, was among the kindest souls on earth. Her soft singing voice held centuries of unrequited loves, unfair trials, lost travelers; new mornings. But the ghost story was very real to her.
When she was a young girl, the war in Vietnam had just started, but her beau enlisted and didn't come home. She got a government letter that told her he was “Missing in Action.” She still thought he would come back and went to visit the veterans hospital in Atlanta once a month, hoping to find someone who knew him. After two years, she met an older man there who was recuperating from his wounds. He'd lost a leg, along with the heart to go home. They got to talking because he was from Bee's Holler, not too far from Blue Mountain. His name was Kenly, and he claimed he'd known her beau. He told June that her boyfriend had died in the same battle that had taken his leg.
He tried to comfort her, said she'd find somebody new by and by, but June was inconsolable.
Kenly got out of the hospital in the autumn of 1967, and throughout the rest of that year he paid regular visits to Blue Mountain. June always asked Kenly to stay and take supper with her family, which he seemed glad to do. He had no family of his own. The talk was always good and the food was fine; they often got into the spirit of trading stories. He was a religious man, a Baptist. He told the old story of Diverus and Lazarus.
Diverus was rich, and he gave a feast and invited all the well-to-do. There was food for a hundred; only thirty were present. Lazarus, the poorest man in town, came begging at the door. And what did Diverus do? He sent out his hungry dogs to bite Lazarus away. But
the dogs had better hearts than that and took pity on Lazarus, licked his wounds. Lazarus petted them all and called them by name. So Diverus sent out his bodyguards to beat Lazarus away. They had not taken one step for him when the power to raise their arms left them; they couldn't move. So Diverus himself went to the door and called to Lazarus, “Go away!” So Lazarus left and that night he died. Starved to death. Two angels out of heaven came to guide his soul home. “There is a place prepared in heaven on an angel's knee.” The next night, Diverus died from gluttony. Two serpents out of hell came to guide his soul to its reward: “Come with us. Because you turned away a beggar, you have to stay in hell until you find a place to sit on a serpent's knee.” Diverus is there to this day, because he hasn't yet found the knee of any snake. So if a stranger comes to the door, don't turn him away. Have him in by the fire, and fill him with food. That wandering stranger may be brother Lazarus, come to our door.
June always told it that just as Kenly finished his story there came a knock on her kitchen door.
A stranger stood there, his hair unkempt, his beard unshorn, clothes barely enough to save modesty. His bones were clear to see in the pale moonlight, his eyes hollow and lifeless.
After Kenly's story, June felt she had to let him in.
The stranger moved over the threshold and into the warmth of the kitchen like a revenant. It was a full quarter of an hour before he stopped shivering. He ate three full plates of food and was slowing on his fourth before he could look up again.
He said, “I have no idea where I am. I don't know my name nor my kin nor life at all. I'm a traveling creature.”
June told him, “Get over by the stove.”
“What place is this?” the stranger asked.
“Blue Mountain.”
At this he seemed disturbed. “What year?”
“It's Nineteen sixty-seven,” June answered. “Where've you been? Who are you?”
“I fought in the war. I was wounded and left for dead. Spent time
as a prisoner. The Lord was my salvation. More wandering. The mind is cloudy.”
He pulled back his hair to show a terrible scar on the side of his head and drew back his thin coat to show another in his side.
“They've all but healed now,” he told everyone in the kitchen, “but I'm a ghost. I don't have much memory and scarcely any reasoning. I know I'm looking for someone. I can't find her, but I see her every night in my dreams, and I hear her voice every day. I'm tired to death, but I'm not weary of the search. I want to go home, and I've toiled to get there. I'll never rest until I find her.”
With that he took a broken locket from around his neck. “She gave me this on the day I shipped out. I'll know her when I find her; she'll know me no matter how much we've changed. She kept the other half of this locket.”
Then, every time she told the story, June would reach up to her throat and show me a silver chain.
“Here it is around my neck,” she'd say. “This is the match, the other half. That stranger was Hezekiah Cotage, who is now my husband.”
The story never failed to give me a pleasant chill, however much she embellished it over the years. As I pulled my truck beside her white Buick and reached for my ancient Wollenzak tape recorder, I half-hoped she would tell it again.
I got out of the truck, glanced at the little pillows on the porch rockers embroidered by June's hand with medieval scenes from the Book of Revelation: four skeletal horsemen, angels drowning in blood. All with her gentle touch.
June did not attend her husband's services. Hers was a more sedate religion, despite the images from her needlework. True, she often told me, all life was suffering and there would be a terrible judgment in the last days. God would harvest the wheat and burn the chaff, but there was no need being harsh about it.
The instant my foot hit the first step to the porch she was at the screen door.
“Hey, sweetheart,” she said, standing on the threshold.
“June.”
“You want you a little bite to eat?”
“I've just come from Etta's.”
She stepped back into her dark living room. It was small, smelled of wood smoke and fifty years of cooking. The windows had not been opened since 1962; the curtains had been closed most of that time. Family portraits on the mantel stared at me, the door hushed as it closed.
“I see you got your machine.” She was already headed for the kitchen.
“I have to send the publisher something by Thanksgiving.” I followed her. “I was hoping you'd sing today.”
The kitchen was brighter, the surfaces glittering. She moved into the light, I was struck by how much older she looked since I'd come home. I remembered her hair auburn; now it was snow. Her ginger eyes were encased in wrinkles. The long gray dress didn't help; the hard black shoes made matters worse—she was a parody of age.
An ancient percolator was plugged into the wall by the sink and she went to it immediately, poured without asking me, and handed over a cup of hot black water.
“You know this coffee's not strong enough to get itself out of bed,” I told her, setting the cup down on the counter.
“What you come to record?” She was always nervous around the tape player, even when it wasn't on.
I plugged the Wollenzak into the wall by the coffeemaker and took the microphone out of my pocket, a Shure Vocalmaster, my favorite. I'd made a cushioned stand so it could sit on the tabletop without picking up stray noise. People would tap the table, bump it; sounded like thunder on the tape.

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