Chapter 03: A Chariot of Fire

The next morning, they took their breakfast on the back deck. A breeze lilted through, bringing the coolness of the night still nestled around the mountain top in dew and rising mist. A wedge of cornbread, hot out the skillet and drizzled with sorghum, breakfast sausage heavy with red pepper and sage, a handful of blueberries and pecans with a pint of buttermilk. God bless hippie mountain mamas.

Cillian in his slippers, sleeping pants and a white v-neck, clean-shaven and hair slicked from a morning swim in the pond, aviators with heavy tint, looked heavenward as they joined hands.

“Dear Lord, our sincere thanks for this fine meal. God bless and protect your faithful Servant, Atticus Remington Scutt. Set your Angels before him as a hedge of protection against the forces of Cain. Use your servant, Lord, to the fullest extent of your Blessings. Edify his Spirit. Give him the gift of Discernment. As your Prophet spoke, the tigers of wrath are more wise than the horses of instruction. God, use his Hands to smite the Evil-doers. Remind him of the Dominion that has been given him in this World. Grant us our Vengeance, oh Lord. Your Soldier of the Cross comes to bring Retribution. May he bring Evil to heel and Civilization to Darkness, all to the Glory and Power of your Name. Amen.”

Amen.

Then, before Gods, Nature and Old Man Mountain, Cillian anointed A.R. with a vial of olive oil, and he felt the Spirit of the Lord rush upon him.

“Son. I want you to take the Truck.”

A.R. caught his daddy’s eye and he paused, before nodding his sincere thanks.

A 1972 Chevy C10 with the original 350 big-block 402-inch V8, midnight-black-and-virgin-white two-tone paint with vivid UGA red leather interior with twenty inches of white-wall; the only vestige of his daddy’s connection to the outside world; the same vehicle that Cillian had taken down to the City to preach his Word.

They finished their breakfast in silent gratitude as the Sun rose high over that Promised Land, bringing a brief shower as it banished the Night.

A.R. cranked up the truck as Cillian approached.

“There’s a pistol in the glove box. Not a cannon but it’ll do for taking and saving lives.”

Cillian reached through the window, handing his Son a paper bag full of jerky, a flask of moonshine and a thermos of strawberry lemonade.

“Everything possible to be believ’d is an image of truth. Love you boy.”

“Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast. You too.”

 

Chapter 04: Southbound; Hellbound

A.R. glugged along with the windows cracked just enough to feel the breeze, tearing off pieces of jerky. The road wound down in wide, banking turns with trees walling in the sides of the mountain as it climbed up its own ladders of rocky striation.

It’s no coincidence that mountain roads curve. Drivers and other citizens of the mountain don’t have a choice but to adhere to the contours of the Natural.

The temperature began to rise as he neared the valley floor, and mountains became hills became fields became farms became exit- and on-ramps; the curves and lulls of synthesis turning into the bulwark of speed and efficiency that is the straight line.

Improvement makes straight roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.

Wherever Mankind might be found in the form of Civilization, straight lines will abide. Never faltering, they exist as impositions of Divine Will and Stewardship; God’s hand working through Man’s to add to Nature what is not apparent: structure, meaning, purpose. Of course, even Divinity must be renewed against the chaos of cycles and the entropies of time; one’s very own Mandate of Heaven.

Traffic slowed as he neared the Perimeter, and MARTA ran alongside as he passed the 285 loop, the King and Queen standing vigil, ever wary of Northward, then down 400 into the ‘city in the trees’. He loved that tree cover. As a boy, his mama had taken him to Stone Mountain and, standing on top, he could see every part of the World that mattered. Skyscrapers jutted out of rolling green clouds with the mountains in the distance watching the city with what had to have been silent appreciation for their time of movement and world-building was over.

Passing through the geometric oddities of Buckhead and on to the corridor of Atlanta, he glanced up at the sky from a city’s point of view. Mankind is the master of the line but hates the flatness of them, so he just keeps building up, something bigger, something higher, hoping the horizon has to end sometime. He wondered what would God have done if we had completed the Tower of Babel? What could He have done?

A.R. pulled onto I-20 and once again left the ironies of Civilization behind, heading toward the Georgia-Alabama line, the exits getting further and further apart as the lanes narrowed.

His thoughts turned to Ausby as he neared the turn-off. Teresa, Ausby’s mama, was Cillian’s sister. Of course, she had been the first person Cillian told about that angel or whatever the hell it was. She’d cried and cursed him and sent him back to his Mountain and his whores and his bullshit and his sinful ways of living, and Cillian had gone on a bender of epic proportions from the guilt. Wondering why he’d done it. Why’d he tell her. Why’d he have to be told. Waiting every day until that fateful day. Knowing what it meant if he was right. Wanting to be wrong but knowing what that meant too.

They’d kept a watchful eye, but two hundred sixty days is a long time, and everyone, but Cillian, had almost forgot the date by then, and Ausby was a young girl, and she went down yonder for a softball tournament like she’d done so many times before but never made it back home like she always had, like she should have done, like she was expecting to.

A.R. didn’t know if they had told her. Didn’t know if it would’ve made a difference. A photographer had found her in a creek. That was all he knew so far, beyond that she was gone and always would be.

A.R. pulled off the interstate and headed South.

He’d talked to Boss earlier that morning and, after pleasantries, they’d decided on meeting at Boss’ house before getting on their way.

A.R. pulled into a little subdivision of two-car-garage split-level houses. Seemed every other driveway had a fishing boat. Every single porch had an American flag. Somebody would be grilling something later that evening.

Boss was two-hundred-fifty pounds of cornbred-cornfed and been such since he was about sixteen years old. He’d got called up to be a D1 linebacker, but girls and partying were more his scene at the time. He lived in the back of a cul-de-sac where he’d now parked his county-issued cruiser on the road, seeing fit to wheel out his 1970 Dodge Challenger, which he was standing next to eating a popsicle, grinning like an absolute fool.

Boss’ cheeks filled his face like they had since he was a baby and he wore the same comb over fade that he had since high school. Though a couple inches shorter, he lifted A.R. up into a bear-hug.

“Sunnovagun. I whip out my beauty queen, and you bring ol’ stud muffin round here tryna haul her off!”

“What’s going on, hoss?”

A.R. clapped him on the back as he put him down. They were a long way from roman candle wars and BB guns, but it’s amazing what a little shared history can do.

“How’s Maggie and the babies?”

“Nah, they’re good. Off to the grocery store. We were talking about grilling something tonight. You gonna be staying with us, right? You want a popsicle?”

“That’s the plan. Nah, I’m good.”

“How was the service? Sorry I couldn’t be there. Being this close to it all, ya know. And one of the kids was…ah fuck it, I’m lying. I just couldn’t see her again, man. I just couldn’t.”

“All good. Closed casket kinda messed me up. It’s good you didn’t see the family yet. You dealing with all this shit down here.”

“Yeah, next time I see them I wanna give ‘em some good news. Let’s say we get on this shit then.”

“For sure.”

Boss chewed his popsicle stick as he backed up, the old muscle car purring like some great cat waiting to roar.

“That photographer that Ausby was found by? I got him meeting us at the corner store. We’ll talk to him then talk this one out. Fella’s name’s Weinstein.”

“Like the Jew? I saw all those billboards in Atlanta. Looked unnatural.”

“I’d imagine so. Looks the type.”

They pulled up to a stop sign that led to not much more than a stretch of road. Boss looked over, his eyes gleaming.

He whooped and punched the gas. A.R grabbed the ‘oh-shit’ handle.

The engine roared its red-line as yellow dashes became one long blur, trees hurtled by under an impossibly blue sky not moving at all.

Boss slammed on the brakes after a quarter mile, and smoke filled the air as they screeched to a halt. He slapped the dashboard.

“Wooooo! You hear that shit?! Huh?! Let me translate that for you. That’s how you say ‘Ah Hell Yeah’ in 700 horsepower! Goddamn!”

He smiled wildly at A.R. before turning sheepish.

“Man, sorry, man. I had to get it out. This Ausby thing has had me all fucked up. Gotta find your joys where you can get ‘em, ya know?”

“Nah, don’t even worry about it. I needed that too. Goddamn.”

They drove along in silence, hearts pounding, the smiles on the edges of their lips dissipating a mile at a time.

“So this Weinstein dude. He a suspect?”

“Naw, not anymore than he has to be. Seems like a nice enough dude. Genuinely shook up when I talked to him. Real respectful of Ausby. Didn’t know we was kin. Still doesn’t.”

“So y’all don’t have anybody? Figured small towns still looked out for each other, at least knew what was going on.”

“Things have changed, man. We got lucky with our neighborhood but most everybody stays inside. Too many new people bringing their bullshit where it ain’t wanted. This Weinstein dude’s only been here for six months. I’ve seen so many smooth-talking city rats come down here shake rattle and rolling, thinking they just dumbfounded the country folk. Hell, there’s folks saying we coulda-shoulda-woulda just string ‘em up.”

“Man, New Yorkers are scared shitless of out here. Europeans too.”

“You’ve been up there before?”

“Nah.”

“Don’t. It’s got the energy, but it’s a toilet. Kinda filth you have to be born in or sold on to admire. I’ve been up there a couple times for conferences. You know what surprised me?”

“What?”

“How good Jew food is, like kosher and delis and all that. You think New York and you think hot dogs or pizza, right?”

“I do love a Reuben and a pickle.”

“Heaven better have me a big ol’ pastrami and rye option is all I’m saying. Guess you can’t call it a cuisine. Just gets imported on repeat, but goddamn, cream cheese and lux, pastrami, corned beef, it’s all delicious. Except for those stupid ass black and white cookies.”

“Eh, it all goes on a bagel anyways.”

“Oy vey!”

They pulled in, chuckling, trying to fight the inevitable. Boss already in it, hoping to help A.R. just a little bit before he wasn’t the same again. Seeing the man who was the first to see Ausby as she would now always be put the nail in that coffin real tight.

“He looks spooked.”

“Yeah. He didn’t see anyone, but it’s looking like he might have scared them off in the middle of it. It wudn’t pretty, cousin.”

Weinstein stepped out of his little, electric hatchback, New York sphincter tightened, squinting behind oversized glasses. There wasn’t anything rugged about the man, but his features darted in that mousy, half-cocked way only city folk’s do. A large, mohawked woman sat in the passenger seat but did not exit the vehicle. A.R. could see binoculars and lens cases through the back windshield, directly underneath of which was a large sticker of a great and sprawling tree, its roots exposed and mirroring the breadth of the branches above.

“Not used to driving a car in New York. That little thing has some zip to it though.”

“Morning, Mr. Weinstein. This is Atticus Remington Scutt. He’s been brought on as a consultant.”

“That is an incredible name, Mr. Scutt.”

“Morning, thank you.”

“‘Preciate you meeting us real quick. We won’t be long, but if you could recount your story for Mr. Scutt, it’d be helpful.”

“Of course. So I was hanging out with my roommate, the one in the car right now, who is also a lawyer in the city, and she got called away. I am an avid bird-watcher, as is my friend, and I happened to be sent a post on my bird-watching forum that there was a particularly rich spot out you guys’s way where one could see a large group of Chuck-will’s-widow. During the day-time, no less! You wouldn’t know, but these are mostly nocturnal. So to have some during the day is a rare treat, especially during the middle of the summer. Usually, they only do such a thing when migrating, but the thrill of the hunt and all that.”

“Mr. Weinstein, as we are on something of a schedule, could you reiterate the point where you found the deceased?”

Weinstein’s eyes receded behind his glasses as his memories spilled forward, the kind of memories you can’t espouse on auto-pilot. You’re forced to relive them; one of life’s cruelties.

“Right. Sorry. Um, well I found the deceased, Ausby, in a shallow creek.”

Boss elaborated.

“Hunter’s Creek. No runoff or anything, more bottom of a gully like.”

“Yes. She was lying face-down, and, of course, you don’t really expect that or even know what to do. As you know, she was not dressed.”

A.R. looked down.

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

He raised his head.

“Nah, continue, please.”

“At first, I thought she was just skinny-dipping. Like floating on her back? But then I see her face is in the water, so I run down as fast as I can. I trip over some roots but then I crawl over there to turn her. That’s when I see what had been done to her. It was horrible. I try to call the police, but there’s no service, so I climb up on top of the hill and finally got in touch. After that, I just waited with her. It really is horrible. I wanted to hold her hand or move her out of the water or something, but you know they say don’t touch a body.”

That baby out there floating in the water, fish nibbling, decay, rot. God and science knows what else happens to a body in that forsaken condition. The media had tried to make it a brief human interest piece, but it was nothing but a spectacle veneered in tragedy.

A.R. turned.

“Mr. Weinstein, did you take any pictures of the body?”

“What? What! No! Absolutely not. I have already turned in my camera. How dare you!”

Boss stepped between them.

“It’s alright. It’s alright. You see, Mr. Scutt is just following the same line of inquiry that we did. You acted honorably, Mr. Weinstein. Thank you.”

“I hope so. I hope you catch the bastard.”

“Don’t suppose you still looking for those grits you had asked about?”

“No. No, I don’t think so. Maybe next time.”

They bid Weinstein goodbye, and he pulled out with his little, electric vehicle humming toward the city.

A.R. watched him go.

“Seems like he’s telling the truth.”

“Yeah. I think so. His testimony doesn’t help much, but I figure it’s best to do it this way. Gotta ease into this kinda pit, man. You go headfirst, you ain’t coming out.”

Boss took a breath.

“Alright, man. Let’s run in here and get the necessities. Get this shit over with.”