SCREAMING WITH THE CANNIBALS

Twenty-Two

127 Twenty-Two The battered Triumph was jumping and making odd noises and each time I leaned it into a turn I wondered if the engine would still be there when I straightened up and tried to accelerate. It was difficult to tell when the Triumph was making odd noises. It made so many noises that a noise had to be particularly odd in order for me to notice. But I was noticing now. I eased off on the throttle and let the old bike drift, down and off through the easy straight stretches and around gentle turns that seemed to have been built only to relieve the monotony of flat-road driving in South Carolina. The land had been ironed out, pressed down, the hills of Virginia and the western Carolinas pounded down to make the smaller hills that got even farther apart with each mile I rode toward the sea. Toward the sea, where I had never been. Then the hills broadened, shortened and became nothing more than rolling , hardened dunes supporting stands of tall, scraggly, long-needled pines that stood in the shadows, ranked and specter-like, their scent drifting, loaded on the warm air that flowed over my old Air Force goggles and pushed against my face. It hadn’t been hard to decide to leave Bean Camp. Like I said, I didn’t have to decide at all. When the cover of the baptismal tank slammed into Abel Hitch my first reaction was to run. Just run, anywhere. But I knew I couldn’t do that. The heavy sound of the dropping cover kept thudding into the inside of my head and I knew I couldn’t leave until I looked, until I saw for sure. I slid over the edge of the railing and dropped to the floor of the church. 128 The cover was as heavy as it looked. The water seeping down the front of the tank had a faint red tinge and when I gripped the dripping edge of the cover and lifted, my stomach knotted hard against my belt. The cover came up slightly and a pair of eyes picked up the loose light of the church and glittered back at me. Abel’s eyes. I dropped the cover and vomited down the front of the tank. I believe that was the only time I ever made a donation in church. But I didn’t run. Not right then. I guess I just had to see. I got my stomach under control, closed my eyes and pushed the cover all the way back and it balanced there, just like before, just like Abel had done it. And I looked down into the half-face of Abel Hitch, floating in the water. His chin was against his chest, his lips pulled back in some twisted snarl of an unformed curse. His eyes caught the light and stared into the ceiling, the faint glimmer of surprise still fading in the depths of them. There was nothing above his eyes. His head just stopped there, a sharp angle careening away above his eyebrows, leaving the face a mutilated work of a mad sculptor with nothing more to be seen in water turned red and cobbled from the blood and brains of Abel Hitch. I lowered the cover, and I ran. There was no telling what they might do when they found Abel Hitch. No telling what Ruth Ella may have said after I ran from the church the night before. No telling what Luther might think, or what he might do. I did the only thing I could think of. I sneaked back to Eli’s barn, snaked in through a busted window at the end of the equipment shed, and waited. There was no one there. In less than fifteen minutes I was on the old Triumph. 129 Pine branches hung claw-like over the road and rained dead needles on the pavement where the wind would sweep them along, gathering them in shallow rows and patches, their dry color blending with the faded gray of road tar that baked in the Carolina sun. Several times, as I leaned into a turn, I felt the wheels of the motorcycle struggle to keep traction and once, in the late evening, when I was not paying attention, the front of the bike slid straight to the right, scooting off the road and...