from her back. He’d heard almost everything the colored man had said, a tale worthy of that delightful E. A. Poe, indeed, a tale he’d not have believed except he heard it with his own ears. And as earlier today he himself had witnessed the churlish villain “Smonk” in the flesh, Walton felt no need to doubt the veracity of the Negro’s narration.
Now the young woman in her fetching dress tottered and the “darky” reached over the fire to steady her. When she turned away and Walton saw her face, he clapped his hand over his lips. It was her!
Evavangeline!
He stopped breathing.
He’d found her!
This ain’t from no licker, she was yelling to the old colored man. She raised her shaking hands and snatched her arm away from him and her face seemed like it might cry. I got em ain’t I? The ray bees?
Rabies? Walton thought.
They got me, the girl cried, ain’t they?
Naw, miss. You gone be fine, the colored man said. He coughed. Jest don’t bite nobody ye don’t want dead.
A kind of “Typhoid Mary”? Walton wondered.
My head’s hurting, the girl said.
I speck it is.
Why you telling me this shit?
Cause you got to go back up in there. Back up in Old Texas.
The girl sat down. To a bunch of old witches that done put me in jail once? Sorry to disappoint ye, Mister Ike, but I’m gone pass. I got a itch to get going north and nothing’s gone sway it.
Miss, he said. Old Texas
I ain’t smelled nothing.
And while ye there, Ike said, in Old Texas, ye might think about collecting that passel of younguns, including that McKissick boy. Help em find they way home.
Walton thought,
How come you don’t go git em? Evavangeline asked.
The old man looked into the fire. I’m done for, he said. He opened his coat and Walton saw that his shirt was bloody.
The girl was silent. Then she said, When ’d ye catch one?
His eyes shut. For the first time he seemed pained. When I was rescuing you, miss.
She came across the fire and sat down next to him and put her hand on his arm and listened as he talked quietly, so low Walton couldn’t hear. The girl didn’t move for several minutes after he’d had his say. Then she got to her feet and walked away from the Negro, away from Walton, to the edge of the trees.
It’s one more thing, he said, looking directly at Walton where he eavesdropped from hiding.
She paused. You gone be all right?
Yeah, he said. Jest don’t go in that church. Whatever ye do.
Meanwhile, William R. McKissick Junior used his head to bump at a board overhead. Then another. When he found a loose one he lay on his back and kicked it free and stuck his head through the floor. Instantly he snatched it back, the smell awful. Holding his breath, he tried it again and slipped his entire body through and up into the room. It was dark but he could see shoes and the ends of benches and an aisle down the middle.
Hey, he said. He rose into the church.
No answer. The pews, from where he stood, seemed full of boys his age.
Hey! he called, stepping away from the hole. Ye bunch a town sissies.
Behind him was a table. Still eyeing the shadowy audience, he swept his hand over the dust until he felt a box of matches. He turned, his breath held. The box rattled in his fingers. He snapped the first stick in half and dropped the second. The third flared, showing a pair of candles on the table. He lit them and held both candles out before him and faced to the room like a celebrant, and, remembering to breathe, stepped into the aisle. Flickering down the front pews and hazy in the rows behind were the faces of boys. Dozens of boys. All wearing neckties, dark church suits. Some of their heads were cocked to the side and some tilted forward, showing widow’s peaks and cowlicks. Some tilted back. Many of their eyes were closed, others half-mast. They looked sleepy. Their mouths were open. William R. McKissick Junior bent closer to the front row. Some of the boys seemed to be tied with twine to keep them upright. Their cheeks were drawn and gray.
Hey, sissies, he whispered. I can whirp ye all.
As if in answer, a cockroach flickered across the face closest to him and William R. McKissick Junior banged back into the table, its leg chirping on the floor. He clambered underneath dropping the candles and scrabbled out the other side overturning the pulpit and began to claw the floor for the hole he’d used to get in. He couldn’t find it, couldn’t find it, couldn’t find it. Hell Mary! he yelled. Behind him, in the light from the burning rug, the heads were moving.
13 THE FIRE
MEANWHILE, SOUTH END OF TOWN, MCKISSICK SLOWED HIS HORSE and leapt off despite his aching side and broken wrist. He splashed water from the trough onto his face and covered his privates with his hand as a guard-lady approached down the hill with a shotgun trained on him. He moved behind the trough to hide his pecker and balls and recognized the attractive daughter of Hobbs the undertaker. He bet Smonk had bedded her. She frowned at him, the blood, his burnt skin.
Bailiff McKissick? Is that you?
Yeah. You can go on put that gun down.
She pointed it away from him and craned her neck to see his crotch. You all right? Who done that to ye head? It’s all swoll. She circled and he circled opposite her, keeping the trough between them.
Can I borry ye wrap yonder?
She looked doubtful a moment then unsnagged it from her shoulders and tossed it over the water. He caught it and fastened it around his waist.
She watched him. Did ye find Smonk?
I did.
And done with him?
Yeah. Have ye seen Willie?
Naw, but Mrs. Tate might did. They fount a bunch a younguns. Praise Jesus ye killed him. You want to come back to our barn?
Not jest yet, he said. Stay here. If ye hear shooting, get behind the trough yonder and murder whoever comes running.
She let him pass, inspecting his buttocks, and he put Smonk’s over & under under his arm and crutched up the hill with his broken wrist held by his heart. He hobbled along the backs of buildings to the Tate house where he tried the rear door handle. It was unlocked so he entered and stood within the hall in the dark. He clicked the rifle’s safety off and the sound was enormous in the room. He squeaked open the parlor door, inserting the barrels, and saw Mrs. Tate sitting by her dead husband.
Bailiff McKissick? She strained to see. Is that you?
He stepped into the room.
Yes ma’am, he said. I’ll give ye Smonk’s eye if ye know where my boy is—!
A giant hand had fallen upon his head. McKissick felt himself turned like an auger. Hot breath blasted his face, flecks of blood in his eyes. The rifle slipped from his grip and Smonk’s other hand caught it before it landed.
Thank ye for bringing this Winchester back, fellow, he said. I was always partial to it. Now where’s my
