The manacled man gave his snort of a laugh again. He seemed to be having a good old time.
'Me and Old Timer can work shifts,' Jebidiah said. 'That okay with you, Old Timer?'
'Peachy,' Old Timer said, and took another plate from the table and filled it with beans. He gave this one to the manacled man, who said, lifting his bound hands to take it, 'What do I eat it with?'
'Your mouth. Ain't got no extra spoons. And I ain't giving you a knife.'
The manacled man thought on this for a moment, grinned, lifted the plate and put his face close to the edge of it, sort of poured the beans toward his mouth. He lowered the plate and chewed. 'Reckon they taste scorched with or without a spoon.'
Jebidiah reached inside his coat, took out and opened up a pocket knife, used it to spear one of the biscuits, and to scrape the beans toward him.
'You come to the table, young fella,' Old Timer said to the deputy. 'I'll get my shotgun, he makes a move that ain't eatin', I'll blast him and the beans inside him into that fireplace there.'
Old Timer sat with a double barrel shotgun resting on his leg, pointed in the general direction of the manacled man. The deputy told all that his prisoner had done while he ate. Murdered women and children, shot a dog and a horse, and just for the hell of it, shot a cat off a fence, and set fire to an outhouse with a woman in it. He had also raped women, stuck a stick up a sheriff's ass, and killed him, and most likely shot other animals that might have been some good to somebody. Overall, he was tough on human beings, and equally as tough on livestock.
'I never did like animals,' the manacled man said. 'Carry fleas. And that woman in the outhouse stunk to high heaven. She ought to eat better. She needed burning.'
'Shut up,' the deputy said. 'This fella,' and he nodded toward the prisoner, 'his name is Bill Barrett, and he's the worst of the worst. Thing is, well, I'm not just tired, I'm a little wounded. He and I had a tussle. I hadn't surprised him, wouldn't be here today. I got a bullet graze in my hip. We had quite a dust up. I finally got him down by putting a gun barrel to his noggin' half a dozen times or so. I'm not hurt so bad, but I lost blood for a couple days. Weakened me. You'd ride along with me, Reverend, I'd appreciate it.'
'I'll consider it,' Jebidiah said. 'But I'm about my business.'
'Who you gonna preach to along here, 'sides us?' the deputy said.
'Don't even think about it,' Old Timer said. 'Just thinking about that Jesus foolishness makes my ass tired. Preaching makes me want to kill the preacher and cut my own throat. Being at a preachin' is like being tied down in a nest red bitin' ants.'
'At this point in my life,' Jebidiah said. 'I agree.'
There was a moment of silence in response to Jebidiah, then the deputy turned his attention to Old Timer. 'What's the fastest route to Nacogdoches?'
'Well now,' Old Timer said, 'you can keep going like you been going, following the road out front. And in time you'll run into a road, say thirty miles from here, and it goes left. That should take you right near Nacogdoches, which is another ten miles, though you'll have to make a turn somewhere up in there near the end of the trip. Ain't exactly sure where unless I'm looking at it. Whole trip, traveling at an even pace ought to take you two day.'
'You could go with us,' the deputy said. 'Make sure I find that road.'
'Could,' said Old Timer, 'but I won't. I don't ride so good anymore. My balls ache I ride a horse for too long. Last time I rode a pretty good piece, I had to squat over a pan of warm water and salt, soak my taters for an hour or so just so they'd fit back in my pants. '
'My balls ache just listening to you,' the prisoner said. 'Thing is, though, them swollen up like that, was probably the first time in your life you had man-sized balls, you old fart. You should have left them swollen.'
Old Timer cocked back the hammers on the double barrel. 'This here could go off.'
Bill just grinned, leaned his back against the fireplace, then jumped forward. For a moment, it looked as if Old Timer might cut him in half, but he realized what had happened.
'Oh yeah,' Old Timer said. 'That there's hot, stupid. Why they call it a fire place.'
Bill readjusted himself, so that his back wasn't against the stones. He said, 'I'm gonna cut this deputy's pecker off, come back here, make you fry it up and eat it.'
'You're gonna shit and fall back in it,' Old Timer said. 'That's all you're gonna do.'
When things had calmed down again, the deputy said to Old Timer, 'There's no faster route?'
Old timer thought for a moment. 'None you'd want to take.'
'What's that mean?' the deputy said.
Old Timer slowly lowered the hammers on the shotgun, smiling at Bill all the while. When he had them lowered, he turned his head, looked at the deputy. 'Well, there's Deadman's Road.'
'What's wrong with that?' the deputy asked.
'All manner of things. Used to be called Cemetery Road. Couple years back that changed.'
Jebidiah's interest was aroused. 'Tell us about it, Old Timer.'
'Now I ain't one to believe in hogwash, but there's a story about the road, and I got it from someone you might say was the horse's mouth.'
'A ghost story, that's choice,' said Bill.
'How much time would the road cut off going to Nacogdoches?' the deputy asked.
'Near a day,' Old Timer said.
'Damn. Then that's the way I got to go,' the deputy said.
'Turn off for it ain't far from here, but I wouldn't recommend it,' Old Timer said. 'I ain't much for Jesus, but I believe in haints, things like that. Living out here in this thicket, you see some strange things. There's gods ain't got nothing to do with Jesus or Moses, or any of that bunch. There's older gods than that. Indians talk about them.'
'I'm not afraid of any Indian gods,' the deputy said.
'Maybe not,' Old Timer said, 'but these gods, even the Indians ain't fond of them. They ain't their gods. These gods are older than the Indian folk their ownselfs. Indians try not to stir them up. They worship their own.'
'And why would this road be different than any other?' Jebidiah asked. 'What does it have to do with ancient gods?'
Old Timer grinned. 'You're just wanting to challenge it, ain't you, Reverend? Prove how strong your god is. You weren't no preacher, you'd be a gunfighter, I reckon. Or, maybe you are just that. A gunfighter preacher.'
'I'm not that fond of my god,' Jebidiah said, 'but I have been given a duty. Drive out evil. Evil as my god sees it. If these gods are evil, and they're in my path, then I have to confront them.'
'They're evil, all right,' Old Timer said.
'Tell us about them,' Jebidiah said.
'Gil Gimet was a bee keeper,' Old timer said. 'He raised honey, and lived off of Deadman's Road. Known then as Cemetery Road. That's 'cause there was a graveyard down there. It had some old Spanish graves in it, some said Conquistadores who tromped through here but didn't tromp out. I know there was some Indians buried there, early Christian Indians, I reckon. Certainly there were stones and crosses up and Indian names on the crosses. Maybe mixed breeds. Lots of intermarrying around here. Anyway, there were all manner people buried up there. The dead ground don't care what color you are when you go in, 'cause in the end, we're all gonna be the color of dirt.'
'Hell, ' Bill said. 'You're already the color of dirt. And you smell like some pretty old dirt at that.'
'You gonna keep on, mister,' Old Timer said, 'and you're gonna wind up having the undertaker wipe your ass.' Old Timer cocked back the hammers on the shotgun again. 'This here gun could go off accidently. Could happen, and who here is gonna argue it didn't?'
'Not me,' the deputy said. 'It would be easier on me you were dead, Bill.'
Bill looked at the Reverend. 'Yeah, but that wouldn't set right with the Reverend, would it, Reverend?'
'Actually, I wouldn't care one way or another. I'm not a man of peace, and I'm not a forgiver, even if what you did wasn't done to me. I think we're all rich and deep in sin. Maybe none of us are worthy of forgiveness.'
Bill sunk a little at his seat. No one was even remotely on his side. Old Timer continued with his story.
'This here bee keeper, Gimet, he wasn't known as much of a man. Mean-hearted is how he was thunk of. I knowed him, and I didn't like him. I seen him snatch up a little dog once and cut the tail off of it with his knife, just
