Piety

A Story by Ron Sanders

Prey or predator, man or monster.

Over time, the lure of mythology runs across the board, East to West.

In the hierarchy of humankind, the supposed channeler--the witch doctor, the shaman, the evangelist (or in this strange little tucked-away tale, the patriarch) always holds sway.

It’s all tribal.

You think your belief system is based upon logic; but it’s the exact opposite. You’ve adopted a belief that works in your favor, and that the rest of the tribe will always vouchsafe. You’ve originated nothing. All believers share a common happy ending. Doesn’t matter the deity; it’s the “belief” that’s in charge.

Not you.

So cover your animal ways with the occasional Sunday genuflection, the rosary, the crucifix, the clove of garlic.

You’re safe.

Whatever you do, just don’t ever, ever THINK.

Live: Procreate. Embrace a side, savage your enemy. Apologize. Complete the checklists, repeat. Smile big for the Big Camera.

Repent. You’re in; you’re Accepted! So flaunt that cell phone!

We love you just the way you are.

Piety

Old Malachi raced down the grade like the Devil was after him. Halfway to Piety he whirled and posed menacingly, all fang and fire, but the big staghound’s glory days were behind him. He stood panting on trembling legs, his eyes glazing, and for a moment seemed hypnotized by the rising moon. In his imagination he snapped back at those pink staring eyes, reared at that gray hairy frame, bristled at that odd, not-quite human smell. Hacking ferociously, old Mal continued his skid in a flurry of tumbling pebbles and rising dust.

Abel’s eyes popped open.

There it was again. All that racket could only be Job’s squeamish hound. Still fully dressed against the cold, the boy hopped out of bed and threw open his window to another crystal clear West Virginia morning. Abel could see what appeared to be a pack of lanky ghosts moving dreamily up the pine-lined grade connecting Piety with the Shepherd’s Mound valley overlook. The ghosts were lost in trees, reappeared writhing in moonlight, were lost again. The sound of hounds after prey was just beginning to carry when Malachi staggered into the settlement making enough noise to raise the dead. In seconds light was streaming from every window. Abel pulled on his heaviest coat and gloves, tiptoed downstairs, and gently disengaged his father’s Winchester from above the mantel. He would have stepped outside but for a hairy hand on his shoulder.

Saul spun his son around and slowly unclenched his poised fist. He ran the hand up and down his face, gradually washing the fury from his expression. His eyes, still puffy with sleep, swept the faces gathering outside his door. “You maybe fixin on runnin off with the only rifle I got, boy?” He snatched the Winchester, grabbed the jamb and leaned out. “Somebody shut that animal up!” Malachi was caught short, gagging in his master’s chokehold.

Saul would have reached for a lamp, but a full moon was tearing up the black morning sky. He studied his neighbors from the doorway’s hollow, spat, and called, “Boy!” Abel’s older brother limped through the crowd, fighting to keep tall.

“Dogs treed a bear, sir.”

Gabriel had to force his voice above a whisper. Saul’s first-born lived in a ramshackle shed behind the house, out of view of healthy men and women. Piety’s patriarch made certain, long ago, that the settlement’s forty-odd residents were perfectly clear on genetics: blame for the young man’s condition must fall solely on the mother’s side.

Gabriel raised a deformed arm against the inferno in his father’s eyes: Saul was known to whip his sons like dogs in public.

Saul swatted the arm away and shook the Winchester in Abel’s face. “Next time you try that, boy, you’d best not let go so easy.” He waited. “Hear?”

Abel looked away. “I hear you.”

“Then, damn your eyes, don’t forget it!”

As Saul tromped into the night the crowd immediately halved, leaving him plenty of room to stride. A muscle worked convulsively in Abel’s jaw. He stepped outside with his heart in his fists.

Saul paused in a dirty pool of moonlight. He took his time filling and tamping a pipe, smoked thoughtfully for a while. There was very little eye contact. Aaron and Matthew, he noted, were as always armed with family Bibles. Saul smiled back coldly, his nod almost imperceptible in the bowl’s gentle flare. In this lull Gabriel slipped around the house, reappearing almost immediately with a pitchfork in one hand and a five-pound sledge in the other. He thrust the tines against Abel’s chest. Abel snatched the handle and stared hard at his father’s back.

Saul commenced a measured assault on the grade, flanked by his sons. Neighbors gathered in a loose trailing mob. The distant wailing of hounds was fading, but it was hard to tell whether they were receding in relation to the men or had been cut off by the pines. As the pace picked up, Saul cocked the Winchester and fired a single round. The hounds, recognizing the report, quieted immediately.

In less than a minute the first brown shape came whimpering downhill, quickly followed by four others. The dogs swam miserably around Saul, snapping at one another and gnashing the air. No additional commands would be necessary.

That single blast dramatically increased the party’s excitement. Men bunched into a hard driving line, their breaths puffing out like the steam plumes of racing locomotives. Saul pushed the pace harder still, the sides of his opened greatcoat swinging back and forth as he marched.

Something pale passed between the trees. The men and dogs swung around a stand of sage, and so came upon a bare patch of hillside. Now Abel was certain he saw a ghostly shape hurrying through a copse of immature pines. There was a reddish double flash as it turned back its head. The apparition vanished.

“Git!” Saul spat.

The hounds broke uphill and disappeared in the trees. A minute later the men stormed the copse and burst upon a rocky alcove nestled in pines. There the hounds had cornered their prey.

The body of men automatically fanned out in a crescent, sealing off the space. Although the hounds lunged ferociously, they were in no mood to attack. Whatever they’d pinned had them spooked.

It certainly wasn’t a bear, though it was broad enough, and furry enough, to give that impression. The coat was a dull gray, covering everything except the mask, feet, and palms. Abel thought it behaved a lot like a man; in the way it stood upright without rearing, and in the way it swung its arms as it paced. But its hunched carriage and small head were absolutely unlike any human he’d encountered. As he watched the milling hounds he was reminded of the biblical Daniel, complacent in a den of lions.

Saul’s impression couldn’t have been more to the contrary. He was picturing himself as the central figure in a swirling display; a fearless superior in complete command. From this vantage he looked down on the scene, saw himself raise the rifle and draw a bead. When he cocked the Winchester the creature started. Every man expected it to rear or bolt, so there was complete surprise when it looked passively into Saul’s face and meekly lowered its head.

Not a man imagined Saul had the guts to arbitrarily perform what amounted to an execution without provocation. But there he was, stepping forward deliberately, each pace marked by a blast from the Winchester.

Abel caught up before the echoes had died. “What’d you go and shoot it for, Pa?” He’d never seen such a cold-hearted act.

“So help me, boy…” Saul lowered the rifle as the hounds bellied up, sniffing and crying oddly.

A voice in the crowd called, “Still kickin.” Saul jabbed it twice, noting critically how it squirmed. Three shots had penetrated the chest, yet the escape of vital juices was mild.

Abel went down on one knee and sniffed. He closely studied the pink frothing mask. “What in the name of God is it?”

“Old Man,” Gabriel whispered. “The Old Man of the Woods.”

Saul’s shook his head sardonically. “If my guess is any good it ain’t nothin made in the name of God.” He turned on the pressing bodies. “Now, you all get back. I mean it!” Saul studied the curious white faces, the moonlit crucifixes, the brandished Bibles, and said with condescension, “Now, now, now--we all seen what we seen. This Thing creepin about. Good dogs actin like a bunch of women.” He poked it with his rifle and snorted, “Name of God…”

“But it wasn’t doin nothin!” Abel protested. “Didn’t come at us, didn’t try to run.”

Gabriel shook his head bravely. “You listen to Pa.” He raised the sledge like a blacksmith, cocked his head. “You aim to finish it off, sir? Or you want me to?”

Saul draped a casual arm over the stunted boy’s shoulders. “You run home, Gabe, and you fetch me a box of rail spikes, just the sharpest you can find.”

“Sir?” Gabriel swallowed, looking from the prone Unknown to that familiar fire in his father’s eyes. He dropped his head miserably, lowering the sledgehammer.

“Well, well,” Saul cooed, “ain’t we all sweet and soft now, little Gabriel? Just like your poor, disappointed Mommy would have wanted.”

“Sir, I--”

“Do it!” Saul spat. “And don’t you be tardy! I’m comin on mighty mean in my old age.”

The Old Man thrashed wildly as the first spike ripped into flesh. Abel and Gabriel, clinging to handfuls of fur, would have been hurled aside if not for the quick support of half a dozen shouting men. The crowd swirled around the action hungrily, their moon-washed faces passing from bone-white to deep shadow--as Saul again raised the hammer, and again slammed it down. The final blow drove the spike solidly into wood. The Old Man whipped his head side to side and bowed his back. A shudder ran up his length.

When the crowd piled on he flailed hysterically. A fresh spike was driven through his left calf. The Old Man threw open his mouth in a long, wrenching shriek. The other leg was quickly impaled. He ceased screaming and froze in a wretched arch, favoring the wounded areas. The least move produced unbelievable agony.

Saul stood sweating, slowly clenching and unclenching his fingers, sucking saliva from the corners of his mouth. The primitive thrill passed from his eyes, and he relaxed.

“By God, sir,” Gabriel managed, “that oughta--that should oughta show who’s boss!”

“Look;” Abel whispered, as a series of spasms contorted the thing’s pink, pug-like face, “it’s still alive!”

Gabriel clamped a claw on Saul’s hammer arm. “Needs a couple more whacks, sir, is all. Just a couple more.”

Saul slowly turned his head. The full moon made Gabriel’s face a ghastly mask of morbid excitement. Behind him, a dozen others displayed a gamut of expressions; from shock and revulsion to anticipation and bloodlust. By his quick and intuitive appraisal, Saul knew just where his support lay. He addressed those squeamish faces frostily, his heart brimming with contempt.

“Lord,” he said evenly, “I don’t make no claim as to knowin everthin what goes on. I’m a simple man, and not above basic corruption. But I knows sin when I sees it, and I hereby grudge all them cowards what defies your bidding.” He shook the hammer, flicked blood from his fingers. “God, gimme the strength to do what’s got to be done.”

Saul draped his arms around his sons’ shoulders. “Now I want you boys to stand this critter up in plain sight, so’s everybody can see what I’m doin’s right.” He squeezed their arms affably, a kindly coach trying to drum up a little enthusiasm. “Somethin special’s happenin here, boys! Somethin important! The Good Lord is testin us with this wicked monster--no other explanation possible.” He gently steered them to the pine’s rotted base and nudged the pitchfork with the toe of his boot. “Dig.”

Saul relit his pipe and smoked patiently, facing the nervous crowd while Gabriel and Abel dug out a hole to post the pine. There came a nightmarish scream as his boys stood the tree upright, followed by a round of moans from the neighbors.

Saul smoked with affected nonchalance, for the first time in as long as he could remember battling a troubled conscience. It was that damned animal; wilting instead of defending itself, making him look bad in front of everybody. He turned back.

The thing’s feet just touched the ground. A series of sobs escaped in irregular spurts, tapering to wet, hacking coughs. Gravity was pulling at the Old Man’s length, stretching his wounds.

Saul watched, fascinated.

But as moonlight played over that flat, tormented face, the cinched lids peeled apart and their opposing eyes locked.

Saul shook from his widow’s peak to his pinched, curling toes. Was this really It--that half-seen, scurrying creature of legend…sasquatch, troll, bogeyman, troglodyte; the fabled relic caught somewhere between man and subman…and would his god have created something so hideous and furtive, so passive? His words came back to haunt him--was this some sort of test? Just as blind ego was coming to his rescue, the thing’s eyes rolled up and it renewed its moaning, but now with depth and continuity.

A hail of rocks battered the creature up and down. When the stoning ceased, Saul picked up Gabriel’s hammer and a single spike. He guessed where the animal’s heart should be. As he began his slow approach his doubt pursued him relentlessly. Lord, give me courage. Guide my hand, guide my heart.

Each new blow brought on a fresh convulsion, until the Old Man’s frame crimped in a steady head-to-toe tremor. Eventually there could be no more pain. Nerves relaxed, violent contractions became feeble spasms.

The blows stopped.

Through a veil of blood the Old Man saw Saul step back, saw him grab a Bible from one man and a pitchfork from another. Saul weighed one against the other; the book in his left hand, the weapon in his right. He raised the pitchfork and held it high, hesitated.

The Old Man stared into eyes that glistened with an unfathomable rage. He stiffened and looked away, to where the tops of pines cut a jagged pattern in the false dawn, as Saul aimed the pitchfork for his throat, and with a grunt drove it home.

Just before sunrise Saul trudged back up the grade, bleary-eyed and uniquely troubled, the Winchester cradled loosely in his arm. Every time he’d begun to drift, the white cramp of conscience rocked him right back up. He needed to face his demon in the flesh, rather than have it stare back meekly in his imagination--and this time without the presence of all those skittish neighbors. More than this, he needed that mocking gray monster as a trophy, was fully prepared to tear it down and drag it back to Piety. With each boot’s crunch he grew in confidence, and by the time he stormed round the copse he was his unshakable old, jerky-tough self again.

Dogs, or some other big carnivores, had made quick work of the intruder, and now there wasn’t much left; just a knot of gristly strands still fixed to the pine. The anticlimax was so unfair Saul froze right where he was, reduced to a minor observer in a very dim big picture. And, as he stood nonplussed, dawn’s first ray burned down the hills, brilliantly lighting the scene. An unprecedented pang of shame dropped him to his knees.

For a while his mind was blank. Only gradually did he become aware of the stench of his sweat, of the crushing ache in his head, of the oddly sour taste of cold metal. With a most unmanly cry, Saul tore the Winchester’s barrel from his mouth and dropped the rifle between his knees. He struggled to his feet. In the warming wash of sun Saul was a tempest of conflicting emotions, at war with himself as much as his environment.

The pine’s leaning shadow fell across his eyes.

Saul looked up. Black with rage, he went ballistic on the affixed remnants; ripping the strands free with his nails, trying to tear out the spike using only his hands. When that failed, he grabbed the Winchester by the barrel and smashed the stock repeatedly against the spike, succeeding only in rocking it aside before shattering the stock completely.

Saul collapsed with the effort, one arm clinging to the pine, the other dead at his side. When he again found his feet it was a bright new day.

Saul pushed off and, embracing his chest, staggered back down the grade to break the news.

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