yame (5 page)

"Manuscript," Westmore corrected.

"Uh-huh, and it was the-the..." She chewed her bottom lip. "
Mot
-ik, er,
krotik,
er, puh-
not
-ik." Her bare shoulders stumped. "Dang, I don't know the actual name he calt it."

Westmore reached forward as if eager. "I'd like to see that phonetic translation, Easter."

She unsnapped the metal rings and withdrew a single leaf.

He couldn't
imagine
what this could be. And why would she be so intent on Westmore reading it?
The tape recorder,
he remembered.
Something about a good-luck prayer...
Only a few lines comprised the phonetic rendering.
Simple.
He picked up the memo-corder. "Okay, Easter. Here goes," and he pressed the record button, trained his eyes on the transcribed lines, and read aloud, "Guh'narl'ebb, druh'nug lee eye snub negg add'uk zynn...ee'uh, ee'uh, fuh'tay'gun, nem'blud duv...yog'saw'thoth..."

He released the record button. "There ya go, Easter. Anytime you want to hear the good-luck prayer"
—he pointed—"just press this bigger black button."

Her eyes widened, fascinated, as he played the strange muttering back for her. A tear rolled down her cheek; the simple and rather absurd task left her choked up. "This means more ta me than ya can know, Westmore
—
"
suddenly her hand was on his thigh, then she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

Fuck,
Westmore thought again. Just the feel of her hand so harmlessly on his thigh made his penis cringe. "No problem at all," he said, trying to act unaffected.
After I take her home...I'm jerking off. Big time.
He looked at the vellum once more before he returned it to her. "This is really very interesting, Easter. If you like, I can give you the name and number of an antique book dealer. He'd probably pay a lot of money for that sheet, as well as whatever else you've got in that book."

She looked taken aback. "Oh, but
—my! I could
never
sell it. It's what my Grandpop left me, been in the family fer hunnerts'a years, from even before they come here."

Westmore smiled. "Easter, you and your world are so
enviable.
In my world,
everything's
about money. People do anything for it; money's their
god.
That's all they live there lives for. It's so refreshing to meet someone like you; you act like you don't even care about money."

She replaced the sheets, then put the binder back into the rucksack. "Ain't never had much use fer money. Wouldn't never wanna have ta rely on it. The more folks get ta needin' money...the less
real
they is."

"Well said."

"Among hillfolk, if anything, money's like a disease, and it's the things folks want it fer that messes 'em all up or even destroys 'em." Did she gulp? "'S'what happen ta my fine husband, Noot." She was staring out as she spoke. "I got me a daughter
— Linette's her name—and I'se afraid Linette's one'a them people who were just born bad..."

Kind of an odd thing to say about your daughter,
Westmore mused.

"Noot were a
wonderful
man, and I'se loved him so much. Married over twennie years, we was. He was everything ta me... But then it was Linette who got herself all inta this stuff they call
meth.
Lotta folks gettin' inta that. Used ta be it were the moonshine that turn folks lives inside-out, but fer the younger ones? It's the meth."

"It's stuff like that that's ruining the whole country, I'm afraid."

She nodded blankly. "And it were Linette, mine'n Noot's
flesh'n blood,
who got Noot 'dicted to it too. Then, see, all of a sudden-like, they start ta needin'
money
to buy it. And the meth? It's that damn stuff made my own husband up'n fall in
love
with my daughter..."

Holy SHIT! This is getting real heavy, real fast!

"It's the way it make 'em
feel
Westmore, that make 'em turn bad. So, Noot, he start
sellin'
stuff 'round the house, solt a lot'a the gold things Grandpop left, and jewels been in my family fer ages, and Linette, it were far worse things
she
do fer the money. Thing's I'd be ashamed ta tell ya..."

Westmore didn't have to wonder. He struggled for some consoling words but all he managed was, "Easter, don't dredge up things that upset you."

There, again, she smiled oh-so-gently. "Aw, I ain't upset. Noot, like I tolt ya, he's dead now 'cos of her, but like Grandpop say, death is just the spirit movin' on ta the next place it's s'posed ta be..."

"Of course," Westmore blabbered.

"Ever mornin' of ever day I wake up, I'd say ta Noot, 'You are my everything,' and I'd have
done
anything for him. Anything. And it were
true,
and he
knowed
that. And then..." The long pause was worse than if she'd sobbed. "I lost it all."

This was tragic. Westmore barely knew her but he couldn't
help feeling
for her. However, even after all she'd let out, she still had that tiny smile.

It was the worst part of all: the smile was all she had now to counter her life-upheaving loss.

She was looking at him; not out of self-pity but something as simple as curiosity. "You ever love someone that much, Westmore? So much ya'd do
anything
fer 'em?"

Westmore felt staggered; he could scarcely answer, and with this he found that he envied her even more. He answered rigidly, and in a tone that he hoped sounded only half-serious: "I'm afraid the avenues of
love
are something I've never found room for in my life..."

"Aw. That's too bad. 'cos when it's real, like me'n Noot
—it's the most
wonderful
thing." Her voice lowered. "Guess I got as 'dicted to my love fer him as he got ta that meth...and Linette..."

Westmore put the car in gear, desperate for a subject-change. "Well, now that your prayer's recorded, you can show me the Crafter house, then I'll drive you home." He pulled out of the lot, then followed some preliminary instructions from Easter, and then they were off.

The one thing he would never notice was this: the tiny carcass of the blue-bottle fly was no longer on the dash. Instead, the insect was walking around now on one of the rear windows.

***

Only minutes had lapsed before they were out of Pulaski and on some main semi-rural road. Pastures and farmland passed by as the late-afternoon sun threatened to bring on early evening. "Now just take this next turn here," she said, "onto the Tick Neck Road
—
"

Westmore laughed. "Now
that's
a name for a road, Easter."

She seemed not to hear him, instead relaxing back into the rental's plush seat. That gentle smile had never left her face. She seemed to be reflecting inner thoughts, and Westmore could only presume they were
nice
thoughts in spite of what she'd implied earlier.
Incest,
he thought. Was it a cliche, or something more?

Just another tainted facet of humanity. Not just rednecks, not just backwoods people and trailer parks. It's everywhere
—the pursuit of the forbidden. Addiction, lust, lies, incest, greed... None of it picks favorites, we just PRETEND it does.

It was forcible mental insistence that ordered him to keep his eyes off her body, yet all the while, his penis stayed three-quarters erect.

When the a/c was too much, he turned it off and lowered the windows. His next cigarette felt euphoric.

"Been a spell since I'se rode in a car," she said. Her black hair sifted in the breeze.

"I wish I didn't have to own one. Flat tires, insurance, road rage, traffic jams." He shook his head. "I almost wish I lived out here."

She chuckled. "Depends on how's yer made up. Hill-life ain't fer all folks, but I'm fine by it."

"You've lived in the area your whole life?"

"Oh, yeah, an so's my whole family since just after that war they calt, I think, the
Civil
War. But the land's given us dang near everything we ever need."

His eyes looked through her window, partly to gaze at the sweeping farmland but also to steal a cringing glance at the formidable nipples printing against her top. "It's really a treat for me to see all this: farms, pastures, graze land."

"Well, enjoy it while'se ya can 'cos it'll be behind us shortly, and we'll be in the deep woods. In fact"
—she leaned forward, squinting. "This next turn comin' up,
but be careful."

More excitement of the non-sexual variety stirred in Westmore. He was about to see the Crafter house. He turned into the narrow lane which seemed compressed by centuries-old trees on either side.

"This here's the Governor's Bridge Road..." She was leaning forward again. "And...and
—here! This
turn."

The car slowed into the opening of what appeared to be a long, dirt-paved driveway that proceeded up. E. CRAFTER, read the large metal mailbox, but time and weather had reduced the letters to near invisibility.
Gotta snap a pic of that too.
Westmore's palms were sweating. "How much farther?" he asked, but the next blink answered his question. At the top of the incline, the house loomed.

"And that there," she said, "is the Crafter house."

The tree-walled road emptied into a tree-walled clearing in which the house sat. Classic semi-Georgian and Edwardian architecture struggled to stand out from sheer dilapidation. Great bow windows swelled from the first story, garrets studded the second, while the higher turret on the north wing seemed somehow to invite inspection. Oddly, though, no windows had been broken, and the great stained-glass tympanum remained intact as well. Was the house actually
leaning?
Westmore studied the second-story and thought he spied a face in one of the dreary panes.

Ridiculous...

At the rim of trees, the sun began to sink.

"I can't believe it," Westmore muttered. "Thank you..."

She smiled.

He was about to get out with his camera when a chill caught him. Were the hairs on the back of his neck sticking up? The facade of the cryptic house, for only a second, seemed to have transformed into a collapsed, screaming face.

"Um..." He fidgeted. "I think I'll wait til tomorrow to take pictures and have a look around. It's...getting dark."

"Ain't nothin' wrong admittin' you ain't keen on goin' up there at dark. Me? I wouldn't go up there fer
nothin',
night or day."

Yeah, this is...a little too unnerving for sundown...

He backed up and proceeded back down the drive, ecstatic yet subdued. What would he find when he
did
look around?

"Take this turn here. Then it ain't much farther."

Westmore drove on. The high trees allowed only a smidgen of light. Part of his consciousness remained advertent on the woman, the other part on the house.
My work's laid out for me now...thanks to her.
He noticed then that a quick glance into the passenger-side rearview showed her bosom.
Damn it...
Eventually she'd get wise if he didn't stop. He felt like a cad: using her knowledge to forward his career, and using her body for masturbation-fodder.
Man of the Year, yes sir. That's me.

Ten minutes later, they turned onto a road with another howler of a name
—HOG NECK ROAD— and not long after she guided him up a very narrow dirt lane that was scarcely more than a foot path. Darkness nearly swallowed them.

"Here we is," she announced. "Don't mind the dark. I never leave candles burnin' if'n no one's there."

"Oh, so your daughter isn't home now?"

She shook her head.

Westmore's headlights lit a long, L-shaped shack with strips of tin for a roof. Wooden planks composed the walls, darkened by some crude varnish; it made the structure look black. Westmore knew then that he'd truly penetrated another world.

For some reason, the moment felt awkward, "Again, I can't thank you enough for giving me all this information about Crafter."

"Why, it was my pleasure, Westmore."

"Say, are there any motels nearby?"

"Well, shore. A lot on the highway, but closer"
—she touched her chin—"yeah, there's the Gilman House in Luntville. It ain't fancy but it's cheap."

"Sounds perfect
—
"