As Matt rushed to her side, another sound encroached upon blood swishing through his head. This was a low rumble that sounded as if the earth were about to crack open. Perhaps Satan himself was rising from his subterranean lair: he would appear in plumes of sulfuric smoke and bathed in the flickering fires of Hell, ready to do battle with his timeless nemesis for the possession of this single soul. At the same time, the glow around Mona intensified, like God was readying himself for this struggle and calling upon a legion of angels to watch His back.
Scooping his wife into his arms, Matt closed his eyes and clenched his teeth so tightly that it felt as if they were only moments away from shattering like porcelain. They couldn’t have her, either one. Jehovah, the Devil: he would fight them both, would pull ethereal arms from sockets to use as a clubs as he beat back the heavenly host and hordes of demonic warriors. He would stand over his dear, sweet Mona and unleash a fury that would make the Book of Revelation look like a lullaby.
The rumbling was now so loud that he could feel it vibrate within his chest and he opened eyes that were now as hard and cold as the chunks of sooty ice lining the road.
“They can’t have you, baby.” he whispered. “You’re mine….”
The glow was now so bright that it almost seemed as if they inhabited an island of daylight amid a darkened sea. And was it just his imagination or could he hear the frenetic squeal of fiddles, like a muffled call to arms for the gathering armies? But would either side actually choose The Devil Went Down To Georgia as the armageddic equivalent to fife and drums? For Matt was sure that’s what it was now: the Charlie Daniel’s Band turning an epic struggle between Good and Evil into nothing more than a hoedown.
The volume of the music increased and a thin voice wavered through the hillbilly onslaught.
“You folks need a lift?”
The words came from a thin, mustached man who leaned out the passenger window of a battered truck. For a moment, Matt simply crouched there as he blinked his eyes. Part of him was certain that it was nothing more than a trick of his mind; that if he were to run up to the truck it would dissipate like a mirage in the desert.
“That your woman, buddy? Looks like she’s ‘bout to freeze her tits off. C’mon… get your asses in here. We’ll give ya a lift.”
Matt threw up his hand to indicate that he’d heard the man and whispered to Mona as they struggled up from the snow.
“We’re gonna be okay, sweetie. See? Didn’t I tell you?”
The cab of the truck was cramped and had the lingering stench of urine for some reason. The driver, whose name they’d learned was Earl, took up most of the seat with his wide girth and the smaller one was wedged between him and Matt like mortar between bricks. Mona sat on her husband’s lap with her legs slightly off to the side and her head resting on his shoulder. Despite the warm air that had gusted over her face for the past ten minutes, she was just now beginning to regain feeling on the tip of her nose and earlobes.
“You folks are lucky we came along when we did. Highway patrol done closed down the road down near the bottom of the hill. You musta passed through just a short piece before, I reckon. Where you headin’ anyway?”
The one named Daryl seemed to do most of the talking with his brother only grunting a reply every now and then.
“Hunting cabin up near Slater’s Pass. Used to be my dad’s place back in the day.”
Earl glanced away from the road and studied the new passengers with a quick sweep of the eyes.
“Don’t look like no hunters to me.”
Mona giggled and hid her face in Matt’s hair as she shook her head. Patting his wife’s thigh, Matt grinned and a private joke seemed to pass between the two before he replied to the driver’s statement.
“You’d be surprised.”
“We’re on our honeymoon.” Mona finally chirped in. “Just got married the day before yesterday.”
“Hope your husband there fucks better ‘n he can drive.”
Earl’s words hung in the air for a moment and dissolved the smile from Matt’s face. His jaw clenched and Mona felt him stiffen beneath her as he took a slow breath through his nostrils.
“Now you wait just one minute, Mister, that’s my wife you’re talking—”
Daryl slapped him on the back and laughed as easily as if they were old friends sharing a joke over beers.
“Earl’s just ribbin’ ya, mister. Don’t pay him no mind.”
For a moment, the four of them sat in silence and listened to Dolly Parton beg Jolene not to take her man. The radio crackled and popped as the music struggled to maintain its dominance over static. Within moments, the song faded and was replaced by the deep baritone of the DJ.
“Comin’ right up, we’ve got some Waylon Jennings on tap followed by a shot of Patsy Cline. But first, the news….”
“How much farther did you say it was?”
“About eight, nine miles I reckon. ‘Course five of ’em are off the hard road. Be in for bit of a bumpy ride before we get to the house.”
“You sure she won’t mind? Your mother, I mean?” Mona asked.
When they’d first gotten in the truck, Daryl had said that a whore had a better chance of keeping her virginity than they had of finding a tow this time of night. The nearest town was Chester and, apparently, the sidewalk was rolled up right around the same time the sun went down. So the offer had been made for Matt and Mona to spend the night at their place and then, providing the coming storm didn’t knock the lines down, they could call for help in the morning. The newlyweds had balked at first, arguing that they couldn’t impose upon their kindness any further, but the brothers had insisted, countering that the only other alternative was dropping the two off alongside the road where they’d be in no better shape than when they were first picked up.
“Oh, Mama won’t care. She just loves company. ‘Specially a pretty young thing like you.”
“… unconfirmed reports that evidence was found at the dump site that may shed light on the identity of the murderer . .”
Mona shifted on Matt’s lap as if the cab of the truck had suddenly become too cramped and she glanced at her husband with eyes that seemed to be clouded with nervousness. He glanced at the two men and then gave her hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze.
“You fellas mind turning this crap off? Stuff like this tends to make my wife a little skittish.”
Earl glanced at the woman with the corners of his mouth turned up into something that was halfway between a smile and a sneer. His eyes sparkled in the light of the dashboard and his words seemed to spill out of his mouth in a mocking sing-song.
“Poor little girl scared of the big, bad wolf? That it, darlin’? Afraid it might hop outta these here trees and gobble you right up?”
“I… I’d just rather not hear about it, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Be over before ya know it. I ain’t missin’ out on Waylon.”
The rest of the trip passed in relative silence with only the soft strains of country music to combat the rumbling of the engine. True to Daryl’s word, they turned off the main road onto what was nothing more than a winding, dirt path buried beneath mounds of snow. The truck rattled and bounced through ruts so frequently that it almost felt as if the road was nothing more than a series of ruts and ridges; pine trees gradually overtook all other species and, after what seemed to be an eternity of jostling, the headlights finally revealed an old farmhouse in a clearing. The walls were gray with paint peeling from the faded boards and smoke curled from a chimney that jutted up from a tin roof pile high with snow. Only a single window had light spilling from it and, off to the side of the house, Matt could just make out the silhouette of some sort of shed.
“You folks wait here.” Earl ordered as he eased his bulk out of the truck. “Mama loves company, but she hates surprises. Won’t be more than a minute or two, I reckon.”
Daryl slid across the seat and followed his brother’s lead, winking at the couple just before he slammed the door shut.
“Y’all sit tight now. Don’t you go nowhere.”
The pair stomped the snow from their boots, opened a screen door so rusty that the creak of the hinges could be heard even from within the truck, and then disappeared into the house. Mona looked Matt in the eye as he curled his hair around her index finger.
