“What? What has to be done?”
“Billy,” the other man said quietly, “I need to talk to you, boy…”
“Talk to me, damn it!” John’s face flamed.
Ramona’s voice was as soft as a cool breeze, but carried strength as well. “Tell him,” she said.
“All right.” Chatham inserted his toothpick again, looking from Billy to John and back again. “Yes ma’am, I will. First off, I want you all to know I don’t believe in…in haunts.” He gave a little lopsided grin that slipped off his uneasy face like thin grease. “Nosir! Lamar Chatham never believed in anything he couldn’t see! But, you know, the world’s just full of superstitious folks who believe in rabbit’s feet and demons and…and especially haunts. Now you take rugged men who work hard for a livin’, and who work in a place that maybe—maybe—is dangerous. Sometimes they can be more superstitious than a gaggle of old farm women.” He let out a nervous burp of a laugh, his cheeks swelling like a bullfrog’s. “Link Patterson’s been dead three days, and now he’s buried. But…sometimes superstitions can get hold of a man’s mind and just gnaw at him. They can chew a man down to nothin’.”
“Like that damned saw did to Link,” John said bitterly, all hopes of a job dashed to the winds. And worse, this bastard Chatham wanted Billy!
“Yeah. Maybe so. Sawmill’s closed now. Shut down.”
“About time some work was done to make that place safe. Those belts and drive gears ain’t been changed for years, I hear tell.”
“Maybe. Well, that ain’t the reason the mill’s shut down, Creekmore.” He poked the toothpick at an offending bit of barbecue. “The mill’s shut down,” he said, “because the men won’t work. I hired new ones. They walked out on me in less than an hour, yesterday. Production’s fallin’ behind. We turn a pretty fair profit, but too many days like these last few and”—he whistled and drew the stump of his index finger across his thick neck in a slashing gesture—“the whole town suffers for it. Hell, the sawmill is Hawthorne!”
“So what’s that to us?”
“I came to see your wife because of who she is, and what her reputation says she can do…”
“Get off my land.”
“Now just a min—”
“GET OFF, I SAID!” he roared, and rushed the porch. Chatham stayed planted like a slab of wood, his thickset body tensed for a fight. He’d been a logging man since he was old enough to swing an ax, and he’d never run from a tangle yet in any of the rough camps where muscle was king. His posture and steady glare flared a warning, and John stopped halfway up the porch steps, his fists knotted and the cords in his neck as tense as piano wires. “Maybe you’ve got money,” John snarled, “and maybe you wear fancy suits and fancy rings and you can work men like dogs, but this is my land, mister! And I’m tellin’ you to move off of it, right now!”
“Creekmore,” Chatham said with a hiss of breath between his teeth, “I own half this town. My brother owns the other half. Paper can be torn up, do you understand me? It can be misplaced. Listen, I don’t want no trouble. Hell, I’m tryin’ to offer your boy a job and pay him for it, too! Now back off, man!”
In the porch swing, Ramona saw the trapped-animal look in her husband’s eyes, and her heart ached. She sat with her hands clasped in her lap as John said, “I don’t… I don’t…want you here…”
And then Billy was coming up the steps, passing his father. He walked right up to Lamar Chatham and looked him directly in the eyes. “Are you threatening my father, Mr. Chatham?”
“No. ’Course not. Hell, there’s a lot of steam needs to be blowed off around here! Ain’t that right, John?”
The other man whispered, “Damn you…damn you…”
“What is it you want with me?” Billy asked him.
“Like I say, I had a long talk with your mother. We came to an understandin’, and she’s asked me to talk to you…”
John made a strangling sound; then he stepped back down the stairs and stood facing the pond. He clamped his hands to his ears.
Chatham paid him no attention. “I don’t believe in haunts, Billy. No such thing in my book. But a lot of the men do. They won’t work and I had to close the mill because…because of the saw Link Patterson stuck his hand into.”
“The saw? What about it?”
Chatham glanced uneasily at Ramona Creekmore, then looked back into the boy’s face. There were amber glints in Billy’s eyes, and his gaze seemed so deeply penetrating Chatham thought he felt the short hairs at the back of his neck stir. Chatham said, “The saw screams. Like a man.”
22
TWILIGHT FRAMED THE SAWMILL against a sky of blue and gold. Shards of sunlight lay across the gravel parking lot like pieces of broken glass, and bunked piles of timber threw dark blue shadows.
“You drink yet, boy?” Lamar Chatham asked as he switched off the pickup’s ignition and took the keys out.
“No sir.”
“Time you started. Open that glove compartment there and fetch the bottle.”
It was a flask of moonshine that Billy could smell even before Chatham uncapped it. The man took a swig and closed his eyes; Billy could almost see the veins in his bulbous nose lighting up. “You believe me when I say I don’t think there’s such a thing as a haunt?”
“Yes sir.”
“Well, I’m a goddamned liar, boy. Sheeeit! My old daddy used to tell me ghost stories that made the hair on my ass curl! You won’t catch me closer than a mile to a cemetery, that’s for truth!” He passed the flask to Billy. “Mind you now, I don’t care what you or your momma can or can’t do. I’ve heard the stories about your mother, and I was there that night at the Falconer tent revival. That was one hell of an uproar. Once you go in my mill and…do whatever it is that has to be done, then I figure my men will come on back to work. And I’ll make sure every last one of them knows what you did…even if you don’t do a damned thing. Get my drift?”
Billy nodded. His insides were quaking. When he’d said he would help Mr. Chatham, his father had looked at him as if he were a leper. But Mr. Chantham had said he’d pay fifty dollars and so wasn’t it right, Billy reasoned, that he help out the family as much as he could? Still, he didn’t know exactly what he was supposed to do; he’d brought his good-luck piece of coal, but he knew that whatever had to be done would have to come from inside him, and he was on his own. Before he’d left the house, his mother had taken him inside and talked to him quietly, telling him that his time had come now, and he would have to do the best he could. Oh, she’d said, she could go with him this time to give him confidence, but it would all be his work anyway; there might not even be anything in the sawmill, she’d told him, but if there was it could be part of Link Patterson, in agony and unable to find its way across. Draw it to you with trust, and remember the lessons your grandmother taught you. Most importantly: blank the fear out of your mind, if you can, and let the revenant find you. It’ll be searching for help, and it’ll be drawn to you as if you were a candle in the dark.
As Billy had climbed into the white pickup truck, Ramona had stood on the porch and said to him, “Remember, son: no fear. I love you.”
The light was slowly fading. Billy sniffed at the moonshine and then took a drink. It felt like lava at the back of his throat, and bubbled down his gullet searing tissues all the way to his stomach; it reminded him of the stuff Gram had made him drink to clean his stomach out before he’d gone into the smokehouse.
Sometimes at night, on the edge of sleep, he seemed to relive that entire strange experience. He’d stayed inside that sweltering smokehouse for three days, wrapped in the heavy blanket, with nothing to eat and only home-brewed “medicines” to drink. Lulled by the fierce heat, he’d drifted in the dark, losing all sense of time and space; his body had seemed cumbersome, like a suit of armor, trapping his real self within it. He was aware, though locked into sleep, of his mother and Gram looking in on him, and sitting with him for a while: he could tell the difference in their heartbeat,
in their rhythms of breathing, in the aromas of their bodies and the sound of air parting around them as they moved. The crackling of the burning wood and leaves had become a kind of music alternating between soft harmony and rough pandemonium; smoke at the ceiling rustled like a silk shirt as it brushed the boards.
When he’d finally awakened and had been allowed out of the smokehouse, the morning sunlight had pierced his skin like needles, and the quiet forests had seemed a riot of cacophonous noise. It was several more days yet before his senses had settled down enough for him to feel comfortable again, yet even so he was and had remained fantastically aware of colors, aromas, and sounds; thus the pain was terrible when they’d returned home from Gram’s, and his father had hit Ramona a backhanded blow across the face and then stropped Billy with a belt. Then the house was filled with his father’s voice, torn between begging their forgiveness and loudly reading Bible verses.
Billy looked at the golden streamers of cloud across the sky and thought of how the papier-mâché decorations would look in the Fayette County High gym on May Night. He wanted very much to go to that dance, to fit in with all the others; he knew it might be his last chance. If he said no to Mr. Chatham now, if he let everybody know he was just a scared kid who didn’t know anything about haunts or spirits, then maybe he could ask Melissa Pettus, and maybe she’d go with him to May Night and he’d get a job as a mechanic in Fayette and everything would be just fine for the rest of his life. Anyway, he’d hardly known Link Patterson, so what was he doing here?
Chatham said nervously, “I want to get through with this before it gets dark. Okay?”
Billy’s shoulders slowly sagged forward. He got out of the truck.
They walked in silence up the wooden steps to the sawmill’s entrance. Chatham fumbled with a ring of keys and then unlocked the door; before he stepped inside he reached in and switched on several banks of dimly glowing blubs that studded the raftered ceiling.
Greased machinery gleamed in the mixture of electric light and the last orange sunlight that filtered through a series of high, narrow windows. The smells of dust, woodsap, and machine oil thickened the air, and the place seemed hazed with a residue of sawdust. Chatham closed the door and motioned to the far end of the building. “It happened up there, right at the headrig. I’ll show you.” His voice sounded hollow in the silence.
Chatham stopped ten feet away from the headrig and pointed at it. Billy approached the saw, his shoes stirring up whorls of dust, and gingerly touched the large, jagged teeth. “He should’ve been wearin’ safety glasses,” Chatham said. “It wasn’t my fault. Punky timber comes in all the time, it’s a fact of life. He…he died about where you’re standin’.”
Billy looked at the floor. Sawdust had been spread over a huge brown stain; his mind went back to the stained floor in the Booker house, the hideous mark of death hidden with newspapers. The saw’s teeth were cold against his hand; if he was supposed to feel anything here, he didn’t: no electric shock, no sudden sure realization, nothing.
“I’m gonna turn it on now,” Chatham said quietly. “You’d best stand back.”
Billy retreated a few paces and put his hands in his pockets, gripping in his right hand the lump of coal. Chatham unlocked a small red box mounted to the wall; there was a series of red buttons and a red lever. He slowly pulled the lever down and Billy heard a generator come to life. The lights brightened.
A chain rattled, and an engine moaned as it gained power. The headrig’s circular saw began spinning, slowly at first, then rapidly picking up speed until it was a silver-blue blur. It hummed—a machine sound, Billy thought; not a human sound at all. He could feel Mr. Chatham watching him. He thought of faking it, of pretending to hear something because Chatham seemed to expect it. But no, no, that wouldn’t be right. He looked over his shoulder and raised his voice to be heard above the saw’s metallic noise. “I don’t hear any…”
The saw’s voice abruptly changed; it made a shrill sound like a startled cry of pain, then what might have been a harsh grunt of surprise. The noise rippled and faded, and then the machine-humming had returned again.
Billy stared at it, his jaw slack. He wasn’t certain what he’d heard; now the saw was quiet, running almost silently but for the clatter of chains. He stepped away from it a few paces, and heard Chatham’s harsh breathing behind him.
And then there was a high, terrible scream—an eerie union of a human voice and the sound of the spinning saw—that reverberated through the mill.
The scream faded and died; then came back, stronger than before, more frantic and anguished. With the third scream the windows rattled in their loose casements. Billy had broken out in a cold sweat, the urge to flee from this place gnawing at the back of his neck; he put his hands to his ears to block out the next scream, but be heard it in his bones. He twisted around, saw Chatham’s bleached face and terror-stricken eyes; the man was reaching for the lever, to cut power to the headrig.
The scream carried a high note of desperate pleading; and it was the same scream over and over, rising in the same pattern of notes to an abrupt end. Billy’s decision was made: whatever this was, he wouldn’t run from it. “No!” he shouted. Chatham froze. “Don’t turn it off!” Each scream was seemingly louder than the one before, each one freezing his spine a little harder. He had to get outside to think, he had to figure out what to do, he couldn’t stand this sound anymore and his whole brain was about to burst open…
Billy turned and started for the door, his hands clamped over his ears. Just a machine noise, he told himself. That’s all…that’s all…that’s…
The sound suddenly changed pitch. Through the screaming there was a hushed metallic whisper that stopped the boy in his tracks.
Billleeeee…
“Jesus Christ!” Chatham croaked. He was plastered against the wall, his face shiny with sweat. “It…knows you’re here! It knows you!”
Billy turned and shouted, “It’s just a noise, that’s all! It’s just a…just a…” The words choked in his throat; when his voice bubbled up again it was in a frantic yell: “You’re dead! You’re dead! You’re…!”
Above the headrig a light bulb popped and exploded, raining hot fragments of glass. Then another in the next row of bulbs; blue sparks of electricity leaped from the sockets.
“It’s a demon! It’s the goddamned Devil himself!” Chatham grasped the red lever and started to throw it. Above his head a bulb exploded and glass hornets stung the man’s scalp; he yelped in pain and huddled to the floor, his arms up to protect his head. Two more blubs blew at the same time, zigzagging arcs of electricity. The air was full of ozone, and Billy could feel his hair dancing on his head.
Billlleeeee… Billlleeeee… Billlleeeee…
“STOP IT!” Bulbs were popping all across the mill now, glass tinkling down into the machinery like off-key piano notes. An instant of sheer panic shook through Billy, but he stood firm until it had passed. No fear, he remembered his mother saying. And then he tasted blood in his mouth and realized he’d bitten into his lower lip. He concentrated on rooting himself to the floor, on clinging to what his mother had told him before he’d left the house. The mill’s air had turned tumultuous, thick and hazed; most of the bulbs had exploded, the rest throwing harsh shadows. “STOP IT!” Billy shouted again. “STOP IT, MR. PATTERSON!”
Down at the other end of the mill, another bulb popped. The saw’s scream faltered, fading to a low moan, a rumbling that seemed to shake the floor. He’d called the thing by name, Billy realized, and that had made a difference. It was, in its own way responding. He stepped past the cowering man on the floor. “You don’t have to stay here anymore!” Billy shouted. “You can…you can go on to where you’re supposed to be! Don’t you understand?”
Softer: Billlleeeee… Billlleeeee…
“You don’t belong here anymore! You’ve got to go on!”
Billlleeeee…
“LISTEN TO ME! You…you can’t go home anymore, not to your wife
and kids. You’ve just got to…stop trying so hard to stay here. There’s no sense in…” And then something seemed to crash into him, staggering him back; he moaned, feeling panic bloom in his head like a dark flower. He went to his knees in the sawdust, and his head was jarred as a savage pain sliced into his left eye. There was a burning fever of rage and agony in him, bubbling up to the top of his throat; and then his mouth opened as if it had been forced by rough, spectral hands, and he heard himself cry out, “No no its not my time yet! I want to be back again, I’m lost, I’m lost and I can’t find my way back!…”
Chatham whined like a dog, watching the boy writhe and jerk.
Billy shook his head to clear it. He shouted, “You can’t come back! I saw Link Patterson buried today! You can’t come back, you have to let everything go! No no I’m lost, I’ve got to find my way back! You have to rest and forget the pain! You have to help me I’m lost oh God help me!” And then he howled in torment, because he’d had the quick and clear vision of his right hand being chewed away to bloody bone; he cradled the phantom injury to his chest, and rocked back and forth with tears streaming down his cheeks. “I feel it!” he moaned. “I feel how it was for you! Oh God…please…just let the pain go, let everything go…just rest and let go. No fear…no fear…no…”
The headrig vibrated, about to tear its cleats from the floor. Billy looked up, saw something like a thin blue haze between him and the machine. It undulated and began to take on the shape of a man. “You don’t have to be afraid,” Billy whispered. His arm was on fire, and he gritted his teeth to hold back a scream. “I’ve got the pain now. Just…”
And then the blue haze moved toward him, thickening and roiling; when it touched him he was enveloped with cold and sheer dread, and he recoiled from it, trying to crawl away through the dust. Terror of the unknown swept through him, and he clenched his hands against the floor as if resisting a huge frigid wave. He heard himself shrieking, “…let gooooooooo!…”