Call the Devil by His Oldest Name (8 page)

Ten

LOGAN PARKED EDWINA'S van
between an Airstream trailer with Florida plates and an old VW van that was covered in bumper stickers. A couple of elderly Floridians puttered around the Airstream, seemingly having blundered into the rally by mistake. On the other side, a tattooed man lifted his hand once in greeting, then disap­peared with his girlfriend into the van. Shortly thereafter it began rocking, its worn shocks an­nouncing each pelvic thrust with a loud metal­lic squeak. Ruperta pointed out the window and giggled, murmuring the word
t
ó
rtolos
.

Logan walked over to a fiery red maple tree, unwrapped a Hershey bar, and considered the pair he'd brought with him. He'd always sus­pected Paz was ducking the cops; now he was certain. Innocent men do not sink down in their seats when they pass state troopers, sweat dotting their foreheads. The migrant workers he'd dealt with in Pisgah County knew the border dance so well that getting busted provoked nothing more than resigned irritation, yet Paz had looked at those troopers like a rabbit cornered by dogs. The INS didn't instill that kind of terror in any­body. The little bastard must be in very deep shit down Mexico way.

He took a bite of chocolate, hoping it would calm the manic thrum inside him. Ruperta, on the other hand, had surprised him. Though she'd seemed upset when he'd likened the Indians to Gypsies, she had not shown the wide-eyed, Hail Mary kind of fear he'd expected. Even now she was chattering to Paz, slyly praising three strapping male Indians who wore nothing but deerskin breechclouts between their legs and a smear of rusty paint across their faces. He sighed. He would have to keep an eye on these two. Paz for one reason, Ruperta for quite another.

He finished his candy bar and walked over toward Paz, letting his old sheriff's gaze impart his meaning.
I've got you by the short hairs, amigo. And you're gonna jump when I say so.

“Come on, you two,” he said as Paz pulled Ruperta closer. “Let's go for a little walk.”

He followed behind the Mexican couple as they strolled through rows of campers, all parked beneath various tribal totems nailed to the trees. It was happy hour in Native America. Senecas from New York were drinking Genessee beer while Alabama Choctaws nipped from a bottle of Jack Daniel's. Two Rappahannock women de­canted a plastic jug of homemade scuppernong wine while their husbands argued about the Redskins football team.

Logan watched the two ahead of him. Ruperta was clutching Paz's hand, whispering in his ear every time she spotted someone in native costume. Paz took scant interest in the feathers and war paint; he scanned the crowd nervously, as if looking for someone he knew.

They crested the hill of trailers to find a small cove. A stage had been set up at the far end, where hundreds of Indians crowded around a rock band. To Logan it looked like any other rock concert, but when the breeze turned in their direction, he caught the smell of fry-bread and smoky sage. The mix of aromas sent a sudden wave of nausea through him, and he hurried Paz and Ruperta on up the hill. Puking at strange odors was another little gift from Ms. Crow, one he'd prefer not to exhibit in the middle of a crowd.

As they walked, he noticed other demonstrators were joining the rally. Green-shirted Appalachian ecologists passed out leaflets about the dangerously high ozone levels in the Smoky Mountains, while a group called the Saviors of the Southern Forests tried to torch a dummy made up to look like the congressman from western North Carolina, reputed to be nothing more than a pawn of the timber lobby. As the causes and the numbers of protesters grew, Logan realized that the rally had grown too big for them to just happen upon one woman and a baby. He would have to find another way to locate Walkingstick's wife. He stopped for a moment to let Paz and Ruperta listen to the music, then stepped over to a long-haired man wearing one of the red SOB staff shirts. He hated to leave even a wisp of a trail for the cops to follow, but he had no choice.

“Say, buddy, do you know where I might find some Cherokees named Walkingstick?”

“Let me check.” The young man, who had a turquoise stud stuck in one nostril, peered at the clipboard he was carrying. “Cherokees are over by the volleyball court.” He pointed to the other side of the cove. “But Ruth Walkingstick's be­hind the stage. Next to Gabe Benge, according to this.”

“Thanks.” Logan smiled. He waited until the young man moved farther down the hill, then he eased back over to Paz and Ruperta.

“Come on,” he told them. “We need to go this way.''

Again he walked behind them, trying to disguise his limp as best he could. If Walkingstick hadn't fallen for his boar-hunt scam, he would recognize his lopsided gait in a heartbeat. Should that happen, the game would be over. Walkingstick would turn him in to the cops for sure—if he didn't just kill him outright.

They picked their way around the crowd, dodging golf carts carrying official SOB staff. They passed a tent with Army cots and a big red cross stitched on the top, then another, smaller tent labeled “Media Information.” As they neared the stage, Logan noticed a circle of women gossiping about something, laughing nosily. He recognized the thick Appalachian accents immediately. Cherokees. Though they all looked vaguely familiar, the woman he'd watched remove her blouse at Little Jump Off did not stand among them.

The Walkingsticks must be at their camp, he decided, walking a little faster. Mommy and baby, for sure. If his luck held, Daddy would not be accompanying them.

He directed them onto a path that led off the main road. It meandered through the trees for fifty yards, then bottomed out along a creek. Suddenly he saw it. A secluded campsite with two vehicles parked side-by-side. One was a camper van with an orange University of Tennessee flag dangling from its aerial. The other was a clunky, modified Chevy pickup with North Carolina tags.

He turned to Paz and Ruperta. Paz was eyeing everything—the trees, the creek, even the honeysuckle bushes. Still looking for something, Logan thought. Or for someone.

“Follow me,” he whispered to the pair. “Quietly.”

This time, he led the way. They followed him without question, crossing the creek on large, flat rocks and slipping into the trees along the other side of the bank. When they reached a rhododendron thicket directly behind Walkingstick's trailer, they stopped. Ruperta started to say something, then hushed: a baby began crying.

“Come on, come on,” Logan urged as he peered through the thick green leaves. “Show me who's there.”

Then it happened. Almost as if on command, the screen door of the trailer squeaked open and the woman from Little Jump Off stepped out. Walkingstick did not follow; instead, another woman came to the camper door, the baby yowling in her arms.

“All I have to do is announce Benjamin Goodeagle,” Walkingstick's wife was telling the other woman. ”Then I'll come back and you can go to the party.”

“How can I get her to quit crying?” asked her young friend, awkwardly jiggling the child.

“Play the Mozart CD,” Walkingstick's wife called over her shoulder. “Or the Hopi flute music. I'll be back in ten minutes.”

“Don't lose track of the time,” the other woman called. “My party starts at six.”

The younger woman watched as Walking­stick's wife headed up the path toward the stage, then she and the wailing baby disappeared into the camper. Logan felt a surge of satisfaction. No Walkingstick. No man. Not any kind of security at all. Just two women, and one of them would rather be partying than baby-sitting that child. Everything was going according to plan.

“You're gonna get your wish, Miss Babysitter,” he murmured as strains of soothing classical music began to float from the camper. “This time tomorrow, you can dance the night away. Quieting Lily Walkingstick won't be a problem at all.”

At that same moment, another man had Lily Walkingstick on his mind: Jonathan Walkingstick sat on the hood of his truck, watching the sun slide behind the pine trees above him. The dying sky blazed brilliant pink—just the color of the little cap and shawl Aunt Little Tom had knitted for little Lily. What an asshole he'd been, coming down here. He should have just sucked it up and gone with his wife. Even if Ruth had become hard to get along with, at least he could have kept his child safe from the hundred different hands that would beg to hold her, away from the various noxious breaths that would blow their germs in her face.

“Idiot,” he chastised himself. “You don't deserve a child like Lily.”

After Ruth left, he'd kept the store open until noon, then driven three hours on roads that went from paved to graveled to mud, finally winding up here, at the bottom of a mountain on the banks of Dick's Creek. For two more hours he'd sat, growing cold and impatient, listening to the distant shrill of screech owl and the gurgle of the creek beside him.

Motionless, he gazed into the darkening woods, watching as a fat, hunched-back raccoon crept out of the underbrush toward the creek. The diurnal animals were bedding down for the night, leaving the world to their nocturnal colleagues. Soon owls would begin swooping down on voles and field mice; skunks would leave their burrows to claw grubs from rotten logs. He had done nothing to improve his fam­ily's lot this day. In fact, he'd spent this entire afternoon sitting on his butt, waiting for this son-of-a-bitch to show up.

“Clootie Duncan,
” he read aloud, pulling the gum wrapper from his pocket for the third time.
“Dick's Creek Trail Head, 4:00, Fri. aft.”

This was the place, and he'd been here since three o'clock. He'd thought it odd from the get go, driving this deep into the forest this late in the day, but the guy had promised him five hundred dollars for a two-day hunt. Hell, for that much money, he'd have taken him out for snipes at midnight.

“Five more minutes,” he muttered, watching the coon dip its paw into the creek, then rub water all over its masked snout. Five more minutes, then Clootie Duncan could hunt frigging boar all by himself. He was going to scramble back up that road and get over to Tremont, Ten­nessee. If he drove hard, he could make it by midnight. Then Ruth could save all the bones she wanted, Clarinda could get laid, and he could keep his Lily safe again.

Cheered by that thought, he scooted off the hood of the truck humming “Brown-Eyed Girl,” the tune that bubbled through his subcon­scious like a subterranean spring. As the last rays of sunlight disappeared behind the mountains, the cool air grew cold, and he began to feel the damp of the creek deep in his bones. He reached inside the truck and retrieved his jacket, won­dering what Lily was doing right now. Probably eating supper, he decided. They will have found their campsite, set up the little pop-up camper. Ruth will have met with that Benge character while Clarinda will be out meeting God knows who. He frowned. He didn't like the idea of Clarinda even touching Lily. Every time she took the child in her arms, he fought the urge to rush Lily upstairs and give her a bath.

He looked up into the sky again. Venus had risen, a dim gold twinkle of light that grew brighter as the minutes passed. It was getting late. “Your five minutes are up, Duncan. I'm call­ing the game.” Shaking his head, he chuckled. For the first time in his hunting guide career, he'd been stood up.

He got back in Ruth's small pickup, glad he'd given her his Chevy. As expertly as Ruth handled breast-feeding and political rallies, when it came to auto maintenance, she sucked. Though she nicknamed her little Toyota “Whirlaway” and always kept it clean, she neglected to change the oil or the water or even fill the gas tank beyond a quarter full. He'd topped off her tank and in­flated the tires before he left Little Jump Off, but the clutch was living on borrowed time. He'd warned her about it fifty times, but she couldn't seem to break the habit of riding it as she tried to get accustomed to the steep grades and twist­ing curves of mountain driving.

“Okay, Whirlaway,” he said as he started the engine. “Let's get the hell out of here.”

The engine caught like a champ. Shoving the gearshift into reverse, he backed away from the creek, his tires slipping a little on the mud. He turned on his lights to illuminate what the For­est Service laughably called a road, then he headed back up the mountain. He drove quickly, trying not to get bogged down in the mud, un­til, without warning, Whirlaway balked. Jumping and bucking like a horse, the truck stopped moving. Though the engine hummed as steadily as before, it went not an inch farther as a bitter, burning smell flooded the cab.

“Aw, fuck!” he cried. He opened the door, watching the truck's rear wheels as he gunned the engine. The burning-rubber smell grew stronger, but the wheels just quivered instead of turning. He turned off the motor and lay his head against the steering wheel, breathing in the acrid air. Here, in the cold and the dark, in mid­dle of this sinkhole in the mountains,Whirlaway had given up the ghost. The clutch that his wife had for months abused had chosen this particular moment to die.

“Shit!” He thumped the steering wheel with his palm and tried to figure out what to do. He could wait here and hope that Clootie Duncan showed up, or he could get out and walk to the little town of Murphy. Since he hadn't seen a single car since he'd pulled off Route 129 two hours ago, he doubted any kind of cavalry was going to come to his rescue. Murphy was at least fifteen miles away. If he left now, he could get there before midnight, but everything would be closed, and he really didn't want to pay for a mo­tel room. Paying for a new clutch would be bad enough. Better to stay here, get some rest, and hike out around dawn. That way he'd reach Murphy by the time the parts store opened. He could get his clutch and maybe persuade some­body to give him a lift back here.

“Sorry, Lily,” he said aloud, reaching in the back for his cooler of food. “Daddy's coming, but not for a little while.”