“Don't keep sugar,” Levi told us, “but I got some sourwood honey that's good.”
“I'd love some,” I said.
Orvid merely shook his head.
Levi went to the trunk at the foot of his bed, reached in, came back with an unopened mason jar filled with dark amber honey. He pulled a teaspoon from the dish drainer beside his sink and handed the honey and spoon to me.
“Honey's a present too,” he explained. “I ain't had none.”
“Thank you.”
We sat for a moment. I mixed the honey into my coffee, Orvid sipped his, Levi stared blankly.
“I know it's late for you,” I said to Levi, setting my spoon down on the table.
“It is.”
Levi stood, took my spoon away, fetched a dish towel, wiped the place where I'd laid the spoon, examined the spot, wiped again.
“But I won't sleep this night,” he continued once he was satisfied with his cleaning work.
“I understand. I've met the man who was here tonight. He frightens me too.”
Levi laughed, but it was not a pleasant sound. It was a noise filled with rebuke.
“I have no fear of the demon,” Levi said, his voice rising. “I shun sleep tonight in case of his return. I cannot have him soil this place, the home and place of worship of my congregation and my family. I stand a sentinel.”
“And we're disturbing you,” I said hurriedly.
I gulped my coffee, burned my tongue, and urged Orvid to do the same. Orvid's eyes were filled with questions, but I admired his trust in my instincts.
Levi stood, ready to see us out.
“I believe that the man will not return,” I said, taking my cup to Levi's sink. “You sent him away. He's gone.”
“When he come in my door, the sun was just set.” Levi's voice had calmed. “When he left, it was dark like now.”
“Thank you,” I said, not looking at him.
Levi went to the door, opened it, looked down. Orvid got out quickly. I lingered in front of Levi a moment.
“Will I see you again?” I asked.
It was a ritual parting, I'd done it with Levi several times before. I wasn't prepared for what happened.
His head shot up and his eyes pierced mine. His gaze locked me into my place as surely as if I had been bound by iron. He probed
every corner of my being with an overwhelming stare, and I felt a sting of electric shock across my face and down my arms.
“Yes,” he pronounced finally. “But time will pass, and we will be older.”
He looked down again, and I took a small step backward unsteadily.
“Good-bye, Preacher Levi,” I managed.
“Doctor,” he whispered.
As soon as I got out, the door closed silently behind me.
Rain washed my face.
Orvid couldn't contain himself long enough to make it to my truck.
“What the hell was that?” he whispered under his breath, more amused than anything else.
“You mean his prediction when I left?” I whispered back. “Wasn't that something?”
“I mean the whole thing,” Orvid answered. “What is that guy?”
“Get in the truck,” I insisted.
We climbed into my truck, soaked.
I was backing out onto the road that led to the highway before Orvid tried again.
“All right,” he declared, “let's start with the basics. What's wrong with the man?”
“There's nothing wrong with him,” I explained as we drove out onto the highway. “He's a fourth- or fifth-generation preacher in the same church as his father and grandfather, he's never touched a woman, and he regularly drinks poison and handles rattlesnakes. These are things that are bound to make a person colorful, but other than that, he's perfectly normal.”
“Like you or me.”
“Exactly.”
“Your definition of the word
normal
is so broad, I see now,” he accused, “as to render the word meaningless when you say it. I therefore reject his normalcy in favor of my opinion: that he is a loon.”
“Really,” I shot back. “The guy's been bitten a hundred times by snakes that would kill you or me.”
“That makes it worse,” Orvid insisted. “He's seriously abnormal.”
“And he lives in that sparse trailer because all the money he gets in his collection plate is given away to people in this community who need it, sick people, old, hungry children. I'd say we could use a few more abnormal citizens of his type. I mean in the world.”
“Well,” Orvid responded, somewhat meeker, “I'll give you that.”
“And P.S.,” I pressed, “he saw Hiram Frazier and recognized him for what he was.”
“He thought Hiram Frazier was a
demon
,” Orvid said, back to his incredulity.
“Do you think that's incorrect?” I asked, pulse increasing. “Let me tell you that most folk motifs are based on hyperbolic observation. I would say that a phrase like
demonic possession
is just another way of saying
irresistible compulsion or dissociative behavior.
Since language is only a system of symbols trying to explain observations, I'd say that calling Hiram Frazier a demon is more accurate than calling him schizophrenic. I know you agree with me to some extent because when I first met you, your choice was to make a very theatrical entrance based on the folklore of your stature. A little person is just a little person until hyperbole makes him supernatural, with extrahuman attributes. Unless you actually do live under a hill and forge miraculous iron.”
Rain pelted the truck as we headed west.
“Are you finished?” Orvid said after a moment.
“I think so,” I told him, pulse slowing.
“Don't you think it's a little odd that we decide to visit Preacher Levi and, mirabile dictu, the man we're after has been to visit only a few minutes or hours earlier?”
“I have a theory,” I announced.
“I can't wait.”
“I believe that Hiram Frazier wants to be caught. I think he's deliberately leaving us a trail.”
Orvid sighed.
“That old chestnut,” he said, shaking his head. “Cheap police psychology. The criminal always wants to be apprehended.”
“No, I think it's deeper than that with Frazier. I think he wants
something more than apprehension. He wants release, and he's somehow gotten the idea that I can give it to him.”
“Wait,” Orvid said, deliberately taking in a deep breath. “What on earth makes you think that?”
“He thinks we're kindred spirits,” I offered uncomfortably. “Brothers.”
“Why?” Orvid was clearly baffled.
“He's the dark matter, I'm the light matter. Equal opposites.”
“No idea what you're talking about.”
“Frazier's looking for something. And he's looking everywhere. Didn't it occur to you that Frazier and Preacher Levi are potentially kindred? With one or two shifts in the hazard of life's events, one could be the other.”
“There but for fortune.” Orvid nodded.
“Right.”
“Let's start over.” Orvid's voice changed again, this time all business. “Several things about Preacher Levi, do you mind?”
“Of course not.”
“First, then. He had a cross with a snake on it. Isn't that a satanic symbol?”
“Absolutely not,” I said firmly. “Jesus tells us in John three:fourteen. âAs Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.' The goldsmith Hieronymus Magdeburger created a series of coins in the sixteenth century called the Serpent Lifted Up with Jesus crucified on one side, and a serpent twining the cross on the other. And in a fifteenth-century painting by Piero di Cosimo called
St. John the Evangelist
, St. John is blessing a Communion cup that holds a coiled snake. This kind of iconography abounds.”
“Fine. Dr. Know-it-all.” Orvid cleared his throat. “What about the fact that you insisted on leaving just as Preacher Levi began revealing that our quarry had been in his trailer?”
“Preacher Levi was in the middle of a trance-prayer when we barged in on him. I've seen it before. That's the reason he seemed sullen, or vague. He was barely conscious. He was really anxious to
get back to his altered state. It was hard for him to move, talk to us, wash a spoon.”
“All right, I give up.” Orvid was doing his best to take it all in. “So explain the fact that the man doesn't seem to have electricity but
does
possess a very chic coffee press.”
“Most of the
things
that Levi has,” I said, smiling, “are gifts from parishioners. Some of them are things he can give away, but some are given to him in such a way as to make him obliged to use them. I don't understand his rules concerning which is which, but I've observed in previous meetings with him that some of these things, though they embarrass or inconvenience him, absolutely must be used in the course of his daily life. The French press was obviously one of those things. He does have electricity in the trailer, by the way. He just doesn't like to use it.”
Orvid stared out the window for a moment, watching a landscape drenched in black and green fly by.
“And you somehow have the idea that Frazier is leaving us a trail?” he finally asked. “You're pretty sure?”
I looked at him for a second, admiring the way he had obviously assimilated the information I'd given him, made judgments, and arrived at conclusions.
“I am.”
“Then we're on the right path, I suppose.” Orvid laid his head back. “Do you still want to stop at the Dillard House?”
“I'm still hungry, but I think it would be best to stay on the road now. Hiram Frazier's in Adairsville.”
Orvid laughed.
“Already?” he asked. “Did he fly?”
“I'm serious.” I stared at the black highway. “I have a feeling about it. He's there now.”
I didn't want to tell Orvid about the visceral tug in my chest, a part of my solar plexus that seemed drawn to something darker than night. I didn't want to admit to myself that it might have been Hiram Frazier calling me.
I don't know if Orvid thought that the sound of my voice was
convincing enough, or if he finally decided that I was out of my mind.
Either way, he didn't say another word.
I drove fast. He closed his eyes, appeared to sleep until we were all the way to the outskirts of Adairsville, and the moon was at the top of a gray, gravel sky.
The streets leading to the historic downtown section of Adairsville were empty; everyone was asleep. Though the moon was barely visible behind charcoal clouds, light rain laid a shroud over everything, obscuring light and softening shadows. I had no desire to look at my watch; I thought it must be past one o'clock in the morning.
“Frazier seems to follow the rail lines,” I said sleepily, hoping to rouse Orvid. “I believe he's been a train hopper for some time, so he would know that the tracks lead to Adairsville. It's a famous station, the beginning site of a great Civil War train chase. In some ways it's the mother of Georgia train stations, especially to old-timers. And it's on the way to Chattanooga, which would send Frazier toward Pistol Creek, his home.”
“He's not
really
going home,” Orvid said to me, stirring.
“No,” I countered a little impatiently, “he's headed in that direction so it will be easy to follow. Easy for me.”
“Oh, for Christ sake,” Orvid muttered.
“Somewhere in what's left of Frazier's mind is a realization of what he's done. Maybe there's enough
preacher
still left in him to force him to stand up to what he's done.”
“I reject that. There's nothing human left in the guy. I know these people. They've burned out anything worthwhile with a careless combination of drugs, alcohol, and a complete lack of accountability.”
“I see.” I made my voice as cold as I could. “Well, if I were in their shoes, I would hope for a more charitable assessment of my situation.”
“Not every wandering spirit is a romantic figure, Doctor,” Orvid said, his voice hissing. “Mostly they're criminals and mental patients, you understand that.”
I slowed the truck.
“I understand that we disagree about this.” I shot him a look. “But you and I both believe that he's here, or headed this way. It was your idea to come here in the first place, remember?”
“Frazier would follow the rails.” Orvid shrugged. “And the fact is that he probably did tell the guys at the trestle in Pine City that he was going to Adairsville. We didn't give them time to think up a good lie, these guys are always slow on the uptake.”
“Then why are you arguing with me about his being here?”
“I just don't see how he would have gotten here this quickly.”
“He was ahead of us at New Hope,” I insisted. “How do you think that happened? He presents a pathetic figure in the rain. I picked him up hitchhiking; others would do the same.”
“Maybe. Or could he have hopped a train?” Orvid suggested. “A train would have gotten here faster than we could, given the rainy conditions.”
“And the fact that the roads I took curve around very strangely, but the rails are a straighter shot here.”
“So maybe it is possible that he's already here.” Orvid seemed to be waking up. “Where do we start?”
“The old train depot downtown was turned into a welcome center or something,” I said, thinking, “but it seems to me there's an abandoned textile mill, further down the tracks, that some of the old-timers told me about on one of my collecting tapes. It would be the perfect place to get out of the storm until morning. It's secluded, and its very close to the tracks.”
“Great place to wait for the next train, in other words. You're sure you know where this mill is?”
“Not exactly”âI peered into the nightâ“but I can find the historic depot. It's right downtown and Adairsville's old main street is only a block long or so. We can follow the tracks north from there.”
“Worth a try.”
I headed for the old center of town. The first thing we saw was the station house. It had been nicely restored, painted yellow, and it was the only thing lit up. No one was there, of course, but it was cheery. A sign told us that we had arrived at the town welcome center, a tourist bureau, and start place for the reenactment of “the Great Chase” involving the General, a Civil War train.
I had a moment of odd reflection. I thought of how the centers of most towns in the mountains were occupied by Civil War memorials. The vanquished always feel the sting of war more than the victors. And when Grant was in the White House, a Southern sense of hopelessness was exceeded only by a dark, righteous-seeming rage. That president had been commander of the conquerors, a Union general who had approved of Sherman's burning scar in the land where our homes and lives had once dwelled. Still, I wondered if replacing the brooding sense of loss with a bright, shiny tourist center wasn't somehow eroding a bit of the character of the South.
As luck would have it, I was roused from such ridiculous flights of pensivity by a bright, shiny tourist sign:
Old Mill
. There was even an arrow.
“I'm guessing it's that way,” Orvid said, deadpan, pointing the same direction as the arrow.
“Could be,” I allowed, turning the truck.
As the lights of the tourist center faded behind us and the road turned into shadow, I was surprised to let out a sigh of relief. I was actually more comfortable in the dark. Why that would be I couldn't guess, but the answer would soon become all too obvious.
Â
The old mill loomed ahead of us like the bones of a huge dead animal. A rusted Parthenon, moonlight shot through it exactly the way beams of light broke holes in the high November clouds.
High, black weeds made a nest for the carcass, and wind shook the trees around it, a harsh, warning whisper in the rustle of the leaves. Here and there a shadow darted. I was glad I wasn't alone.
“Nice place,” Orvid said softly. “Perfect for the man we're after, don't you think?”
“I do.”
I turned off the truck engine and my headlights. The landscape around us took on a dusted gloom in the pale moonlight.
We sat for a moment, surveying the weird desolation. All four walls were partially standing, the roof was gone. No window had glass in it, no door was closed. The hulk was made mostly of brick, some wood, the occasional stone. Some sort of vine had taken over the better part of the back of the building. It was impossible to tell what the vine was in the dark, but it looked like poison ivy to me. Most of the recesses of the place were pitch-black, impenetrable. The glaze of white moonbeams across the tops of bricks only made the dark places darker.
“In some ways,” Orvid said, barely above a whisper, “this is beautiful.”
“You see where the entrance used to be,” I said, ignoring his sad aesthetic judgment, “over there by the big oak?”
Next to a leafless black trunk, the ruin of a doorway seemed the best spot to enter, a double-wide space relatively free of debris and vegetation.
“Let's go,” he answered, nodding.
We both got out quickly. For my part, I was trying not to think too much about what we might find in the place, fearing what that thinking might do to my resolve. Orvid, on the other hand, seemed eager to forage.
As we moved toward the entrance, small sounds distracted us: night birds, or bats, stirred up the air high above our heads; something moved in the denser woods beyond the entrance door.
“What was that?” I whispered.
“Possum?” Orvid said without thinking. “Come on.”
He plunged forward, taking the last few steps faster than I did, and hopped through the door.
“Wait,” I called, still whispering.
I followed where he had gone.
Orvid stood in the middle of bits of brick and dried-out weeds. A pool of moonlight lay just beyond where he stood, his silhouette etched against it. Before I could say anything, he grabbed the top of his cane and drew out a vicious silver blade; it looked three feet long.
“What the hell are you doing?” I stammered, stumbling toward him.
“Sh!” Orvid answered, electric eyes glancing my way.
“No, seriously,” I demanded, “what do you think you're going to do with that?”
“Do?” he responded, lowering the blade a little. “I'm going to kill Hiram Frazier.”
“Kill him?” I froze.
“Yes,” Orvid shot back, irritated. “What were you going to do?”
“Take him to Skidmore,” I answered, my face clearly stunned by his revelation.
Orvid rested the tip of his weapon gently on the ground.
“How were you going to do that?” he asked, amused.
“I was going to, that's all.”
“You don't think he might disagree with your suggestion?”
“Yes, but I'd convince him.”
“This man is not someone you can reason with,” Orvid objected. “He doesn't have those faculties any longer. Surely you must realize that.”
“I'm much bigger than he is.”
“Eppie Waldrup is bigger than you are, and you dropped him down your front porch like a sack of wet cement. And P.S.: everyone's bigger than I am.”
All I needed was an image of Georgie, the man at the train trestle laid out on the ground, to apprehend his point.
“Fine,” I said quickly, “but no matter what, I didn't chase him to kill him.”
“Why not, exactly?”
“Because that's not something you
do
!” I exploded. “You don't chase down a derelict and cut his head off because you're pretty sure he was involved in an accident.”
“I wasn't going to cut his head off,” Orvid began. “But now that you mention it, that would be fairly decisive.”
“That's hardly the key issue. You want to kill him!”
“I'm
going
to kill him.”
I could see the look in Orvid's eye, even in the dim light. There was no doubt, no hesitation there. His intention was clear. If we found Frazier, Orvid would dispatch him instantly. I knew it.
“Orvid,” I said, starting over, “let's discuss this.”
“Nothing to discuss,” he said firmly.
“Well,” I said, folding my arms, “I really can't stand by while you murder someone. Would you kill me too?”
“Of course not,” he said. “All I'd have to do is disable you for a moment.”
Reminding myself again that I'd recently seen him disable a man with no effort whatsoever, I took a different tack.
“Skidmore knows I'm looking for Frazier. At the very least, he'll eventually ask me if I found anything. I won't lie to him, I've already told you that. I'd have to tell him what you did.”
“Judy and I are moving after this,” Orvid said, a smile on his lips. “Somewhere in Europe, I think. The main thing that was keeping her in Georgia was the Dyson girls, so that's done with. She's ready to move. We'd disappear. You and Deputy Dogg would never even find Frazier's body, let alone Judy and me. There'd simply be no case.”
“Orvid,” I fumed, “we can't actually be having an argument about killing a human being, can we? I mean, I just can't let that happen. I'd do everything I could to stop you. I mean it.”
“Why?” he exploded. “Isn't Lucinda in torment because Tess and Rory are dead? Isn't she wondering how and why a thing like that
can happen? Wouldn't you do anything to give her some respite from that?”
“Yes,” I said, taking a step toward him, “but her solution would never be to murder the man responsible!”
“Well,” he answered, calming. “There's where Lucinda and Judy are different. Hunting down Hiram Frazier and killing him, that was more or less Judy's idea.”
“Judy wants you to kill him?” I couldn't believe it.
“She does,” he said, breathing deeply to calm himself. “In fact, she hasn't let up on me since we came to the conclusion that Frazier was responsible for the accident.”
“No,” I insisted, “we haven't come to any conclusion about that, we're just speculating. That's another good reason not to hack off his head, we're just
guessing
!”
“I'm not going to hack off his head,” Orvid snarled. “Why do you keep saying that?”
“Well, what else would you do with that scythe?”
“Plenty,” Orvid answered. “Nick the jugular, cut the hamstrings, come up under the sternum for the heart, slip in at the back of his head, base of the medulla oblongata.”
I stopped breathing. It was suddenly clear to me that Orvid had done that sort of thing before.
“We're absolutely at cross-purposes,” I said quietly, steeling my voice. “I can't be a party to this. I'm going home.”
I turned my back on the man with the sword and headed toward the doorway.