The Savage(92)

“Why would a local do such a trade?”

“Why would neighbors bound and burn another with motor oil and smoke out a family for slaughtering? Why not ban together and re-create all that has been squandered?”

Sheldon’s tone changed. “What are you speaking about?”

Everything that Dorn had witnessed over the days and months had gotten heavy on his soul. He wiped the images from his thoughts. “It’s no mind now. What August told me, Cotto’d wrung out Bill by enslaving his wife. Having Bill do his trapping in hopes to see his wife again. Reason for this, Bill knew the terrain and many in the area. Was trusted. And he’s crazy as two starved copperheads in a ten-gallon bucket fighting over a rat.”

“And August was alone, with no mother or sibs?”

Lantern light hovered in front of Dorn from Sheldon’s grip, showing hints of the cavern like a yawning mouth. The slouch of pain was cramping while an unrecognized sound grew. “No, they’d yet to take him but had removed his mother and siblings along with another female and her children.”

“Sad to view others doing to another as they are. Like the well water has been tainted by rabies. Making everyone rabid.”

Light shadowed onto the lumpy ceiling, where bats hung amongst the cordite of caramel grit. Water formed moist nipples, damp ran pasty down walls, and Dorn told Sheldon, “Like my father always told, some folk is like sketch lines, just black and white, never know a person’s true shade till shit hits the fan, only then is they true colors scratched between them lines for all to see.”

“Like a coloring book?”

Dorn shrugged. “They’s things he used to offer to me that never rang no sense until now, and all these barrels of shit has came rolling down the decline and ain’t stopped yet.”

“He’d a wealth of experiences. Knew what people was about. He was a good man. Though he always scared me, ’cause he rarely smiled.”

“Wasn’t much for him to smile about once Mother panned out on us, he seen the writing on the wall after that. Knew of the world and all of what it wasn’t. Taught me best he could till he’s poisoned by Dillard Alcorn and his gift of home brew.”

“How you know he’s poisoned?”

“’Cause he said he was after receiving them bottles delivered by Bellmont McGill from Alcorn years and years later, he’d let it sit and sit, holding out for who knows what, a special occasion.”

“How you know it wasn’t McGill? Some says he was a crook of man not to be crossed.”

Sheldon’s phrasing lit a matchbook beneath Dorn’s demeanor. “My father never done no wrong to McGill and McGill never done no ill to my father. Was no reasoning. They’d a mountain of respect for one another. He visited often. Shared conversations and brew to the wee hours of morning. The stories those two told. Naw, it was that fuckin’ Alcorn.”

The light before Dorn jerked violent. Squeak of swiveling lantern. The trek of footing halted. Sheldon raised her tone with “Don’t move.” She paused, extended her arm above her height. “They’s a mess of something shifting about our feet.”

Dorn looked down. His eyes searched for the adjustment of pitch-black. From behind came a rush of sound and flapping air. Sheldon said, “Serpents is all about the cavern’s floor.”

The mangy hound growled. Dorn watched the slither of reptile muscle scale over his boots. Some lay outstretched. Others coiled. Their tongues forked in and out. Their colors of black and gold. “Rat snakes is all they are.”

“Why the hell they gathering at your feet?”

“Wish I knew. Won’t none fang you. ’Sides, they ain’t venomous. Keep moving.”

Sounds from the rear grew and grew. Similar to an oncoming locomotive and Sheldon said, “You hear that?”

Screeches and the clap of veiny wing turned the decibel knob of sound and Dorn shouted, “Run!”

The slither of serpent stayed grounded. At a halt. Didn’t follow the trek of feet and paw that pushed forward with the hail of bats coming overhead. Snakes sensed and waited on nourishment that could not be seen within the dark but only heard or radared by the split tongues. The pat of rats’ feet trundled and squealed at the squirm and entrance into each of the serpent’s mouths. Dorn slapped at the air above his head with his good hand. His rifle jarred against his back, he tried to keep the winged creatures from his hair. The Sheldon girl did the same while holding the lantern light that bounced and bounced as they ran and ran. Moments and moments passed. Lungs burned. Mouths huffed and the air of light began to open more and more. From the mouth they came that opened into the forest of trees. Dorn grabbed Sheldon by the arm, jerked her to the outside wall of vegetation and small stones. Smothered her face into his chest. A hint of pain willed in his shoulder and the bats passed out into the day, the dog crouched down beside him.

From inside the cave came the sound of carbine. Shouts of a child’s youth. Dorn released Sheldon. Looked into her eyes. No hint of fear, only the rush of his heart. He told her, “They’s close. Must’ve interrupted those that mill in the stagnation.”

“You mean they come across the serpents?”

Dorn nodded. Still in Dorn’s clasp, unblinking, the Sheldon girl waited for something more. Never got it and she pulled from him.

Dorn pointed. “Straight downward is the church.”