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 is north. You gone pass right thew it. That itch ye got ain’t nothing more than burning ray bees in the air. It’s piles of dogs and coons and possums burning all around. You done smelled it and followed it here.
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, Children. In peril!
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 fucking eye?
First tell me where my boy is.
Smonk pushed McKissick’s head away like a tent evangelical and the bailiff backpedaled toward the detonator and fell beside it and knocked it askant with his broken arm.
Get up, killer. Smonk checked the 45-70’s loads and snapped the gun shut and lurched over to McKissick, the room seeming to tilt with his weight. Give me my eye.
The bailiff had no strength left and no feeling in his broken wrist. His side was bleeding, his head felt like an anvil. He noticed the detonator and spidered his good hand up to the corner of the casing and seized the bottom of the plunger the way a man grips an ax.
Back, he panted, or I’ll blow it.
Including ye boy, Smonk said. He’s down yonder other end of town with a bunch of younguns these old whores stold. Auntie here and her coven of witches is fixing to turn they mad-dog on em.
McKissick’s grip failed and his hand melted from the handle. Willie? He’s here?
Smonk had advanced. He edged the detonator away with his foot and touched the fallen man’s throat with the tip of his sword and traced it down his gullet, slowly, a long welt in its wake and then a faint line of blood.
My…Willie? McKissick gasped.
Smonk straddled the bailiff and sat so hard upon the man’s chest that blood spewed out of his mouth and burst like a fist from his wound, a penny like magic in Smonk’s fingernails.
Here’s ye tip, bailiff, he said. I thank ye for my rifle’s safe return.
I would, McKissick gasped. Wouldn’t take no penny from you—
I insist, Smonk growled, and with a slight lift of his eyebrows he ground the coin into McKissick’s left eye socket with his thumb. Under him the man’s shoulders shuddered and his legs kicked and floundered. Mrs. Tate screamed until Smonk reached his free hand up and cranked the broom handle and she blacked out. Meanwhile the one-eye had snaked his long trigger finger around the side of the bailiff’s head and dug it into his earhole. He wormed it deep in the canal past a spongy substance until his finger touched his thumb.