His head feels like it weighs a ton as he raises it to look at the old man, who smiles at him. “You might not think it, Wintry, but you’ve been through worse.”
“You do this?” Wintry asks. “You bring me back?”
“No. You brought yourself back. Crawled out in a hurry once you saw there was nothin’ could be done for your woman, or anyone else in there for that matter. Survival instinct got you out. Just like it got you out of prison. Just like it got you through life so far.”
Wintry understands what he’s being told, but he disagrees. He’s never suffered like this before, and suffering is no stranger to him.
“You’re a fighter,” Cadaver says. “Always have been, my friend.”
Wintry swallows a burning breath, and though his new kind of pain has inspired him to use his voice for the first time in fourteen years, it won’t come.
There is the creak and pop of old bones and Cadaver is suddenly hunkered down next to him, his eyes pockets of shadow in a pillowcase face, the smile still twisting lips that look sewn from dirty thread. “I can help you,” he whispers. “I can end this for you. Give you what you want. It’s why I’m here.”
Wintry shakes his head. Cadaver is the devil. He knows that now, and though what education he has comes from the street, the dingy alleys and shaded corners back in Atlanta, his fists the pen, hard faces his pages, he’s smart enough to know the devil never offers anything without taking something in return.
“Let me be.”
Cadaver sighs. It’s the sound of a cold breeze on a summer’s day. “You don’t want me to do that.”
“You…don’t know what I want, and can’t tell me neither. Go. Let me alone.”
“I can end your sufferin’. All of it. I can free you from the ghosts. I can give you the chance to clear your soul. I can help you save yourself.”
Wintry tries to smile but it’s as if fishing hooks are holding the skin of his face together. His flesh sings with agony. He shudders, restrains a gasp. At length, he sags, adopting the repose of death, though that mercy stays maddeningly out of his reach. “What you want from me?” he asks, licking his lips with a sandpaper tongue. “What will you take?”
Cadaver shrugs. “Nothin’.”
“You lyin’.”
“That’s one thing I never do. There’s never any call for it.”
“So you goan…set me free just cause you a nice…guy, huh?”
“No. You’re goin’ to free yourself. All I’m goin’ to do is tell you how.”
Before Wintry has a chance to say more, Cadaver stands and peers off toward the amber glow of the fire on the hill. Eddie’s is still burning, the air still reeks of smoke and burned flesh, though how much of that is from himself, Wintry can’t tell.
“You taught kids how to fight, Wintry. You trained them to defend themselves and inadvertently made them murderers. You beat a man to death with your bare hands, usin’ what your no-good father made you learn from him. He compensated for his abuse of you by teachin’ you how to use violence to get what you want. He hoped you’d use it on him someday if he pushed you hard enough. Hoped more than anythin’ that you’d deal him a fatal blow and set him free of his misery. But you never did. You let him die by his own clock because it was the kind of fight you were guaranteed to win. Tonight, if you want an escape from your own skin, you’re goin’ to have to fight one last time, use those hams of yours and beat your demons into submission.”
“Can’t,” is all Wintry can say.
Cadaver clucks his tongue. “You will if you want to be with your beloved when death does come for you.”
“Can’t fight.”
“You can and will. It’s the only way.”
Wintry frowns, winces. The expression yanks on burnt nerves. “Who?”
Cadaver is by his side again, breathing foul breath in his face that ignites the ruined flesh. “Tonight, my friend, you’re goin’ to fight the fight you dreamed of for years through frustrated adolescent tears.”
Wintry bares his teeth, feels anger cocooned in pain squirrel its way up his throat. “
Cadaver leans in close, his blind eye like a distant view of an icy sun. His whisper is almost reverential in tone. “Daddy.”
I should sleep. I’m dog-tired, and stinking of grave dirt and old blood that’s going to stay now that the rain’s finally giving up the ghost. I don’t look back at the tavern, though the heat’s dropping. Eddie’s’ll finish it’s burning soon enough. Whatever Gracie’s putting back into that place isn’t anything the fire’s going to be able to touch. Not tonight, or more accurately—as a quick check of my watch tells me—this morning.
Not this fire, but maybe the next catastrophe that blows in when folks’ sins start outweighing virtue.
Out there, past the willows and pines and beech and scrub, the sky’s starting to lighten like someone’s holding a flashlight down under the bedclothes. It won’t take long to spread, but when it does and that horizon catches fire proper, it won’t make Milestone any prettier. It’ll only send long shadows racing toward the borders.
There’s dirt caked beneath my fingernails and my knuckles are throbbing something fierce. Should’ve asked Gracie if she could conjure me up a shovel, but it’s a little late. The whore’s not buried deep, but she’s planted all the same. If I put all my weight on the earth when I pack it down, it sinks until if I poked a finger into the grave I’d be able to feel her under there, so I go gentle, patting it with my hands until there’s only a slight soggy hump in the earth to say anyone’s here at all.
In a few hours there’ll be stragglers on the streets as folks make their way to the church on Hymn Street. They don’t want to go, not when they know God has fled the place, but they’ll be there same as they always are, afraid Reverend Hill will come find them if they don’t, as he’s done in the past. They don’t yet know he’s dead, of course, so maybe if there’s time and I’m still breathing I’ll cruise on by the place and let them know. It’ll be worth it just to see their relief that the old bastard is finally gone from their lives.
But what’s gotta be done’s gotta be done soon before there are too many people around to see it. Business of this kind always goes on when the town’s quiet, so people can wake up in the morning and tell themselves nothing strange has happened while they’ve slept and the world’s just as dark and shitty as it ever was without being helped along by sinners.
I finish patting down the grave, then retrieve the bottle of whiskey Gracie was good enough to send along with me without me asking for it, and I head for my truck.
I’m going to drive with the windows down so the cold keeps me awake, and alert, so I can try to pull some inspiration from my ass and figure out how I’m going to handle Kyle, who Gracie tells me is all set to sell me out.
“Can I get out?”
I know what Brody wants, and I guess I should give it to him. The man has a right to say goodbye to his woman. But I’m not going to. I doubt he gave the family and friends of the people he’s killed such consideration.
Rich coming from me, I know.
“Just sit back and keep quiet.”
“C’mon man…just a few minutes. I’m not going to run.”
“Maybe later. Right now I’ve got some business to attend to.”
I put the truck in gear and ignore his protests from the back seat. He’s putting on quite a show, thrashing, spitting, cursing, but for all of that I’ve got the strangest feeling he really doesn’t care all that much that his girl’s dead. Not sure why that suspicion takes hold of me, but there it is. Maybe I’m way off base; maybe not. For now there’s no way of knowing.
“I can’t believe you, you hick son of a bitch. This isn’t fair and you know it.”
“Yeah, I do, but your little crime spree took away any privileges you might think you deserve.”
“She told me it was a mistake coming this way, you know. Should have listened to her.”
“Yeah, you should have.”
The truck rolls down the hill, the tires splashing through potholes in the dirt road that have filled with rain.
