Wicked Temper Part 10

For the fifth night in turn, her love had not met her on the clover meadow. Autumn was losing grip. Each evening came chillier than the last. Was she forsaken, Val wondered, would she ever lie with her porcelain lady again? Her dear heart had vanished. Gone like the breath of life evaporating from Val's lips, evaporating from her most faithful mule, Lizzie, who Val spurred gently but earnestly, down toward the hooky slew.

She had waited too long by the glen. Now, Valjean was in a dire race back to bed before her papa woke and found her missing. He was an early riser, often checking his precious brood before anyone else awoke. How many times had she, as an infant girl, rubbed her eyes to see Jake Shea gleaming from the candle-lit doorway? How many mornings had Val been first downstairs, or so she thought, and found him by the kitchen stove thumbing the tobacco-stained pages of his almanac? Maybe that's why she still kept to home. She wouldn't know any other way.

Valjean was just approaching a blind twist in the trail when she heard the voice.

She yanked Lizzie back, the voice, voices, nay--the conversation caught them both short. Heart pounding, Valjean slid off the mule then led with one hand on the halter.

She did not care for encounters at this strange hour, whoever they might be; mortal, daemon, Lych or Nottingham. Twice in her nocturnal retreats, she had chanced to see weird Old Ephron Lych, a genuine by-G.o.d Lych, astride his own mule in the wee hours, head hung low, going nowhere in particular with his sc.r.a.p-bottle baggage clinking softly. You could never count the chipped gla.s.s decanters, cruets and bud vases strung across his saddle. Fortunately, she had been above the road both times so she did not catch Old Ephron's eye. But this time there was no mistaking the casual cadences of men--men speaking up ahead--just around the leafy tangle where this path doglegged. Lizzie's hooves kept clomping damply and Valjean was afraid the men might hear.

"...not direckly, no, but I seen em suffer n'bleed come rainy season. Tree frogs er the like..."

Cautious, she peeked around the snag--then sighed, easy. It was just Kasper John Turlow. He was alone.

He stood tall and stark in the road before her, even taller than Valjean with his slumped, swaybacked posture, one hand in his trouser pocket, a lit cigarette suspended in the other.

She was okay. Why, Kasper John was about the gentlest soul hereabouts. Kasper John didn't mess with anybody. He hardly ever spake. Kasper John's known opinion was a tip and a wave before going on about his business. But he was sure talking now, low-grinding talk, steady, with a red ember's glow pinched betwixt his two fingers, inches from his muttering lips.

"...come ter think of it, yer right," Kasper John droned, "Doobelle Sim tole me the how of it. Says ye kin soak him in turpentine'n he'll still be yaller dog Democrat."

He took a drag on the cigarette, listened--then continued his conversation. His eyes were fixed askew from Valjean who paused just a few feet away. He was addressing someone she could not see. Someone not there.

He stopped droning again and nodded, hearing the unheard. Was he privy to some ghost or haint?

"That's rot, that's rot," he said in agreement, taking another drag. "Yep, you got that rot, everwhichaway the boo smoke blows, that feller'll foller..."

Tugging her mule's halter, Valjean took the next step towards crinkly Kasper John, then the next. She was close enough to touch him. Yet, he was unaware of her, or so it would appear.

"Hidy, Kasper John," she gulped.

"...whuther it's foot-was.h.i.+n Baptist er foot-choppin Regulator Man..." his voice crept along, eyes trained on his unseen companion, his starch white s.h.i.+rt b.u.t.toned to his adam's apple.

Valjean tried to judge his expression in the darklight. Indeed, it was no expression at all.

"...er even a mealy-mouthed Metherdist. And ye know whut ther railroad boss said about that..."

"Kasper John? It's me. Valjean Shea."

"...that might jist git ye thirty ter life in the poky without no by the by..."

He listened, shook his head, then spake again: "Naw, naw...don't know hows tizzypoke went..."

She shut up. She didn't pester him anymore. Valjean led the mule past his unfazed eyes. She began to quiver, watching him as she pa.s.sed, thoughts of her porcelain lover and Kasper John dovetailing inside her lovesick soul.

He was still holding conversation as she leapt back onto Lizzie and spurred the mule. She heard Kasper John's creeping voice all the way home to Coffin Holler, she heard him buried under the coverlet of her lonely bed and all the next day besides.

H U S H A B Y E W H I T E R T H A N.

E T E R N I T Y I S L O N G.

( or P E R D I T I O N B Y A N Y O T H E R N A M E ).

J.Pea nuzzled the snow, snooping for frozen gooseberries. Just another caintrip. His grey paws clawed and dug, down to the hard earth beneath; an angry hunger ate into his belly as he sniffed, but all scent was distant, stolen by the ice. For a moment, he held a dim, darting memory of warmer, less hungry days. But it left him. J.Pea grunted then lapped at the ground. It gave up nothing. Suddenly--his feral eyes s.h.i.+fted--in a flash, he loped up the s...o...b..nk, bounding into piney woods.

Within the trees, all became dark and crystalline. Little stirred, not leaf or feather or ferret, nothing dared to stir here. He prowled through hushed timber and it stood hushed because of him. He sensed this. Knew it without question, without knowing he knew. He was life. Yes. He was life itself. Around him and above, a thousand tiny souls quivered in their hovels or held a communal breath, not daring to move or twitter on their frozen branches. He was life and life was a cold traveler through these s...o...b..und hills, forever ravening and crafty.

J.Pea panted then dipped his grizzled snout, burrowing under a dead clot of crabapple boughs, his long tail flicking and breaking icicles as he pushed deeper into the thicket, making a dugout for himself. The icicles broke like tinkling bells; his muscles coiled. Here he crouched on four paws. Only his ears would twitch, each tufted point pivoting silently at any hint of movement in the forest. He would watch and wait his turn.

Fortune was with him. J.Pea's belly did not wait long.

A crystal branch cracked-- --and he heard it; his ear tuft pitched toward the sound, aching for another signal. Was it an oak straining under the weight of winter? No, he heard another crackle, and another as the spoor flexed his nostrils.

There. It was there. A scroungy monkrat. The monkrat came snarfing around a dim tangle of rootwork, off to J.Pea's right. The monkrat twitched its whiskers and ruffled up zagging troughs of snow as it came.

J.Pea twitched his whiskers as well. His eyes slit.

But he let it come. Closer. The monkrat was upwind, unaware of J.Pea's golden-eyed gaze behind his clot of branches. The s...o...b..ry little creature looked and darted, snarfed and foraged the snow, coming abreast of the thicket before J.Pea went eyes wide. J.Pea sprang. Quickly, it was over. A plea piped from the tiny throat as J.Pea's jaws crushed the monkrat, piercing its windpipe and quealching its pleas forever. Blood sprayed the icy crust beneath the pines, the warm red flow refres.h.i.+ng and vital as it stained J.Pea's fangs, as he thrashed and tore at the flinching carca.s.s.

He settled for a moment, hunkered beneath the pine canopy, the monkrat lifeless and secure in his great downy-grey paws. J.Pea began devouring fur and flesh. The cold stinging air mingled with the raw blood in his nose. He had barely eaten the monkrat's haunch when he heard voices. Voices of men.

His head thrust out--alert as his blooded muzzle whipped around, eyes hot in the direction of the breaking forest. They drew near, approaching, footfalls crunching the snow. They whispered back and forth, but their man sounds boomed fearsome in J.Pea's ears.

"Tole her that kitty would take ther train ter Memphis if she didn't watch out..."

"Hesh er ye'll skeer the sidemeat..."

Their man gibber meant nothing to J.Pea as he leapt up--monkrat clenched in his b.l.o.o.d.y teeth, an icy gust knifing through the needles--and he whirled, das.h.i.+ng off with his kill, away from the intruders. He would return to his rock den and fill his belly there, away from the awful spoor of men. Their voices fell far behind him. Soon they would find his dark stain.

J.Pea left the treeline then made a fast track down a craggy ridge, galloping boldly through the snow. Hot s...o...b..r flushed from his nostrils as he ran, the bone and gristle of the monkrat locked in his fevered bite. He rounded a granite k.n.o.b, within site of his burrow--and the big man stood there, surprised. The big man wore fur himself, bear fur, and he carried the fire stick.

J.Pea froze, spraddle-legged in the white flurry. The big man bit down, smelling of fear, of life.

"Gawdamighty," it hissed.

J.Pea dropped the monkrat then backed away, grrrrrrowling, golden eyes flas.h.i.+ng. He snarled at the intruder, snapped and snarled with his blood-dripping fangs.

The big man raised the fire stick and the stick exploded at J.Pea. KA BOOOOOOOOM!

J.Pea felt his chest erupt, saw the white snowpack splatter red with flecks of grey fur-- --and the rifle's report s.n.a.t.c.hed J.Pea from his caintrip. The shot echoed through the hills as J.Pea noticed himself leaning against the ancient gatepost at the foot of Riddle Top. The axe was still in his hand, but his chestnut sack lay dropped in the snow. It took him a spell to recover his senses. His mouth was dry. His jaws ached.

J.Pea took deep, bracing breaths of the mountain air, as he had learned to do when a caintrip shook him seriously. His grandmammer had warned him, told him that these caintrips were not entirely harmless. He had to be careful. He could not control their coming. So he had to keep his wits. He was standing on the outer flank of a ruined homestead, a place long gone. And suddenly this s...o...b..und afternoon seemed glum and forbidden to him.He bent for his sack and a blooddrop fell upon the snow, spreading like a ruby snowflake. J.Pea touched his upper lip. His tooth was bleeding. He took a clump of snow and held it to his tooth until the bloodflow was stanched; then he cleaned his face with several handfuls of the chilling stuff.

J.Pea picked up the gunny sack and shouldered the axe. The Shea clan's Chriskindl tree would have to wait until tomorrow. He heard no more gunshots, but the huge pawprints he had detected in the snow around the homestead were still vexing him, nagging at him as he pulled the heavy wool coat tighter against the wind's bristles. Then he heard himself singing.

Ooooh that monkrat he cry poorly, Ooooh that monkrat, don't he moan?

J.Pea Shea turned down his earflaps, his nose and cheeks were plum as he trudged back through the snowdrifts toward Coffin Holler where a feast awaited. Life had hushed him today and he wanted to go home.

T H E A X E M A N 'S S H I F T.

Voltage. Bzzzz. That's what this b.i.t.c.h was all about. Eeee-leck-trix.x.xity, baby. For his first attack--Lovell Starling plugged his amp, slung his rhinestone-braid guitar strap and shot straight into Axeman's s.h.i.+ft.

CHICKA-CHICKA-TWAAAAAAAANG!.

It was quite a shock. Fisticuffs broke out stage left. The Big Bad Fryday Brawl was on. Lovell bent strings till they were white-hot, chasing demons with his big guitar until the whole roadhouse woke up screaming, mercy mama, screaming for more. He sang like a nighthawk soaring, then swooping for the kill. Lovell booted a b.l.o.o.d.y trucker off the bandstand as his third gut-torn, staccato guitar break ripped loose, took over.

Whaaaaayh.e.l.l, Everbody lose they heads on the Axeman's s.h.i.+ft--

h.e.l.l, he might be getting old, but his axe never aged a day. A dental plate ricocheted off the mikestand. Call the doctor.

"Hook it, daddy, hook it!" they pled.

"Gawdawmighty--" he cried, spiraling down his frets.

Smoke swirled, glittering swirls in velvet black ether. Out the corner of his eye, Lovell saw the Bull's mallet strike paydirt, a body dropped, ending the stageside ruckus just as Lovell skidded through the last bars of Axeman's s.h.i.+ft. The applause never let up; he gave no second chances before kicking out all stops on Generator 13, another h.e.l.lbent boogie of his own:

Pack yer grip--yay,ya-yay, Don't a-gimme no lip--nuh-naw, naw, naw, Gen-a-rator Thirt-ta-ta-ta-teen gone generate yer fireballin, caterwaulin, hot steeeelhaulin maaachine, baaaaaaaaaby!

When he how-wooow-woooowled like the wolf train Lovell's jaw still popped. Jesus, would that snap in his jaw never heal? Water crackled in his left ear. But the crowd didn't hear it. They heard the chugalug, the boomlayboom, the squall in his right digits, the gunshot in his picker, the G.o.dawful beat and the glory. They rode that train around the horn and back, stamping their feet, begging for release from Fireball Lovell, that wild-eyed, jumping-blues engineer who would not let go. Baptismal juices flowed, salty lather dripping from his long pointed sideburns and devilish Van d.y.k.e beard, evil and black, G.o.dd.a.m.n the grey. The Posse Men, Bull Hannah's house bluegra.s.s band, did their best to keep up.

Sure, Lovell gave his crew the wink during a neck-choking lick. The boys did all right. For bluegra.s.s pickers. Tip Lee's doghouse ba.s.s thumped up a storm and Lovell only wished for drums.

Most of this raunchy cl.u.s.terf.u.c.k had come for mountain dirges, backholler tunes--and daddy, weren't you surprised to get Loco Lovell Starling instead? It was a late booking. But d.a.m.ned if they didn't take to his shenanigans like dirty ducks to water. Didn't they just always. After Generator he would try his jump tempo Sic Em Dogs On Down. He stole to survive.

A little later, Bull himself came up for a couple of his trademark mandolin jigs. One of the Posse Men, a beau named Dexter, stepped forward to strum and harmonize on Going Up Caney. Bull sang tenor. Lovell helped out with a cus.h.i.+on of jazz chords. It worked, didn't it? He watched them cheer, those hardscrabble faces, roaring, clapping callous into callous. After twenty years of this, he saw jacka.s.ses clap and roar in his sleep. Mud pounders in their one good s.h.i.+rt, young rutheaded sharpies fresh and damp out of the patch--making payments on a s.h.i.+ny serge cowboy suit. Hairjobs slicker than a n.i.g.g.e.r's heel. And the women. There was always the women. Not many good gals, thank goodness, just yards and yards of the bad. Painted, waxed and plenty willing. His people. They cheered Bull off the stage. That giant, fearless, G.o.d-fearing rascal loved every last squeal as he hung his mandolin back over the bar where it swung nightly from the wild boar's snout. Of course, by this time--POW-CHICKKKA-POW-POW--TWAAAAAANG!--Lovell was rocking the joint again.

"Give it to meeeee, son!" the gals hollered, shaking their hips.

"Woooowooo yeah!" their menfolk railed, those p.i.s.s-eyed, hip-haunching b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

"Slaughter em," Dexter winked.

Lovell played for six hours, until shortly after two a.m. when he was still greasing the tracks with a slow, lowdown killing machine called Backdoor To Glory. The house was mostly dizzy, vacuum-packed flesh when he finally flipped off his amp.

Inside Bull's Gladiola Lounge, the folks puked venom. Blue toxins of sweat, greedy s.e.x and racked desperation. A gall of spent anger at their own sorry lives. That's how Lovell saw them, his face dripping. Outside lay the icy, snow-bitten hills. Inside this roadhouse was venom, their only blue-veined venom. You could go to Jesus but first you had h.e.l.l to pay. And now, one by one, they badgered and filed out that door, wanting more, talking trash, giving Bull Hannah h.e.l.l as they headed home through the snow, trudging back to their cold, cold lives.

Lovell looked down and the no-good devil had busted a D-string during his last number.

Two hours later, the roadhouse was dark, getting nippier by the hour as Lovell camped alongside the woodstove in Bull's back office. He was stoned and alone. His favorite disposition. The only remedy for that fine Hershey bar supper. He would have preferred to doctor some slum-gullion, loaded with onion. Sage and black pepper. Two things he could d.a.m.n well do: Lovell knew how to outpick and outcook any punk in the Hillbilly Sweepstakes. Outside, yesterday's blizzard revived itself. The wind clattered tinny signs, playing a mean snare on the attic fan. If this kept up, those roads would be nothing but gla.s.s and snowdrifts. Tomorrow night at Bull's looked to be a bust.

Lovell sat on the floor, wrapped in a horse blanket, rolling more laughing tobacco in brown paper. His fingers were slow but sure. He had already popped his little pink pill. The beer made Lovell's eardrum swell; the jawbone ached after a night's singing, but no matter G.o.ddammit.

He would not go home. She was home waiting for him and he would not oblige. f.u.c.k her. She should never have walloped his ear.

Floy.

Floy, Fla-Floy, Floy.

f.u.c.k her.

Fortunately for Lovell, good old Bull Hannah didn't mind his favorite picker parking overnight at the club. Why, Lovell even had his own key. Hadn't he been busting his nut long enough at this racket to rate a few keys after all? Couldn't anybody, any-body see that? Couldn't she by-Jesus see that much? Well, his Triumph motorcycle sat outside in the freeze. And she had thrown a rod on the Buick, so she couldn't even come looking for him. Thank the Lord for itty-bitty favors and pa.s.s the churchkey.

Lovell found his churchkey, pierced another can of Jax. It was good to be drunk. Knee-walking, goggle-eyed, d.i.c.k-dragging drunk. Christ if he couldn't still knee-walk his way to the mike and play another six hour set without slipping a beat. If he only had a D-string.

If he only had a D-string he could lay them flat, but what was the percentage in that? Did he even care anymore? It was supposed to be different by now. He was supposed to have the mansion on high and the Lincoln Continental, the record deals and the Hollywood contracts. Lovell took stock of the jammed office. Broom. Desk. Ledgers. Spittoon. His f-holed Gibson Super 400 axe lay atop cardboard crates of soda straws and napkins. After twenty-plus years of trying to peddle his stripe of goosed-up, electrified countryman's blues, he was about tuckered out. He dragged Floy through every tinpot juke and beerhall in the Mid-South before returning home, busted. She was his bag to drag. All those years had told him one thing. These dirteaters might go for his electrified shenanigans. Bull Hannah might even hire him weekends. But the big record men in the big cities weren't buying. Lately, another rumor teased Lovell as so many had teased before. He had heard tell of some stud burning up the local radio down in Natchez or Memphis somewhere, some mercury-throated white boy stomping the blues. They said this crazy dee-jay had made a record on him and was looking for even more boogaloo kings.

Lovell had heard such nonsense before. If he were a younger man, if it had not been so many long years since he first carved a slot in his guitar so he might screw a P90 cobalt-mag pickup into the maple sunburst, why, he would run that silly a.s.s rumor down. And he would draw up empty like he had always done. It was good to be drunk. No radio receptions intruded this far. If be f.u.c.king d.a.m.ned. Nashville wanted the jug and fiddle stuff while New York wanted horns and strings.

Lovell wanted another Jax. He opened his fifth and lay scribbling s.n.a.t.c.hes of lyric on a manila envelope. After a while, his pencil drew werewolves and goblins along the edge.

He would have to go home in the morning so dawn and dread clung together in his brain pan. She would beat h.e.l.l out of him if he didn't fork over tonight's pay. He was weary. Weary of the dirteaters and the beaver-go-round, weary of chasing his tail, and G.o.ddam it, he was tired of her. Floy. And being tired of Floy made him wonder sometimes if he wasn't sour on his guitar too. What had the axe ever gotten him really, except a sc.r.a.pbook of failures, some forgotten poontang and endless nights of super-charged euphoria that hooked him like morphine. He came back night after night, pick in hand, needing the thrill, the j.i.s.m. Often his fingers bled on stage, he needed it so bad.

Other than his nightly jolt, Lovell had nothing or next to it. Floy had kin hereabouts. Lovell's clan had died out. Oh, he owned his axe and glitter strap outright, his bike, a gold palomino vest; and there was six acres of wet Alabama real estate he had never seen, willed by his nasty Great Grandma Zee, may she rest or die trying. A son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h-born-Satan, that's what she called him. Grammy Zee once smashed all his demo records in a crutch-swinging rage and recently Lovell, her runaway, runamok great-grandbaby, was glad she had done it. When you were flat-a.s.s nowhere you did not need 78 revolutions per minute. Mirrors were reminder enough.

Yes friends, Lovell Starling was tuckered out. Fireball Lovell, p.i.s.sing blood. He had quite plucking his silver hairs. Floy wanted to dye his mop, but he wouldn't sit still for her. Dye your own rat's nest, b.i.t.c.h, not mine. That's what he told her. There were nights he just needed to kill something, anything. Somebody.

As he dozed off behind the stove, Lovell wondered what point there would be in hiding an old boy's silver. He had to yawn and face the music. The axeman's glory days were done. But he was getting tougher. Tougher than wise.

The next morning, Sat.u.r.day morning, was bitter cold, hushed and bright with glorification. Lovell let himself out of the club. He was so wasted, it didn't faze him much when he realized the frosty Triumph's battery was dead. His bones hurt as he shuffled glumly toward Ewe Springs on foot, guitar strapped across his chest. He would have to reckon with Floy. A third of his pay was in his shoe, with a third stashed back at Bull's in the boar's gullet. He took an old, seldom-used shortcut through the remains of J.C. Dixon's s...o...b..und lumbercamp, then began walking upcountry along Six Bucket Run. Hungover and ailing like a son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h-born-Satan, Lovell was whistling a rag nonetheless when the long, green Reo swept around the bend.

Over three hundred pounds of Floy Starling sat in the icy, unsealed privy. She was tugging on her rottenest tooth. It was tricky business. Floy wore her flounciest, ritzy dress and did not want bloodstains around her cleavage, or worse--for her hem to snag in the pothole. This was her favorite dress of the scores in her boudoir. And, surprise, surprise, Lovell refused to pop for it, the cheap t.u.r.d. She had to coldc.o.c.k him when he came in drunk after the show. Floy wished he would quite making her roll him for the dough. But this little c.o.c.ktail was worth every dollar-a-day Miss Doobelle spent st.i.tching it. She knew gals who would sell their kids for such a dress. Champagne satin with a taffeta bodice.