Mr. Shivers

CHAPTER THREE

The other two men were seated around the campfire, the short fat one and the slender handsome one Connelly had seen before. They looked up when he approached and the slender one’s hands dipped into his coat.

“Easy,” said the leader, striding over to them. “I’ve brought him here myself.”

“Didn’t ask us,” said the portly one indignantly.

“No, I’m afraid I didn’t. It was spur of the moment, brought on by providence.” The leader sat down upon a log they had picked up as a crude seat. “Come,” he said. “Come and sit. Fire’s warm and the night’s dropping fast. Come and sit.”

Connelly walked over to them, still careful, and sat.

“You look pretty beat,” said the portly one to Connelly.

“The man was attacked,” said the leader. “While he slept. Two men trying to roll a drunk, only he didn’t turn out to be drunk. Is that so?”

Connelly shrugged, nodded. “What’s going to happen?”

“Happen?” asked the leader.

“Yeah,” he said, and jerked his head in the direction of the town. “About that?”

“To you, you mean? Probably nothing. I doubt if that’s the first mugging those folks witnessed. Though maybe the first that wasn’t successful. Hungry times breed discontent. Here, I have yet to learn your name, sir,” said the leader, grinning again. “What would you go by?”

Connelly didn’t think to answer. The slender one was still watching him calmly and Connelly did not take his sights off of him.

“Fair enough,” said the leader. “I am Pike. They call me Reverend Pike, for I was once a man of God. I still am a man of God, in my own way, but with no flock. It’s better this way. I was never much of a shepherd. I always preferred the sword to the crook.” Pike swatted at the slender one with his cap. “Introduce yourself.”

“What?” he said.

“Introduce yourself,” said Pike.

“Why should I? I don’t know him at all.”

“He can fight, that’s why. And he’s here looking for the same man we are. And he wants what we want.”

“And what’s that?”

“Blood,” said Pike simply, and produced two dead rabbits from his sack.

The slender one observed Connelly for a while longer and shrugged. “I’m Hammond.”

“Jakob Hammond,” said Pike, and grinned. “With a ‘k.’ ”

“Yes,” said Hammond tersely.

“But Lord only knows what your family’s surname was back in Europe.”

“Something different, to be sure,” said Hammond.

Pike looked at Connelly. “Mr. Hammond here is a Jew,” he said.

They seemed to expect something from him, having said that. “Oh?” Connelly said.

“Yes.”

“Never seen a Jew before.”

Hammond laughed. “Well, I can’t say you were missing out on much. I’ll do my best to make a good impression. Where do you come from to never meet a Jew?”

“Tennessee.”

“You’ll find that Jews are a rarity in most of this nation, Hammond,” said Pike.

“So I’m learning.”

“And that over there is Mr. Roosevelt,” said Pike. “Like the leader of our great nation. Though he says he’s of no relation, unless he’s been drinking.”

Roosevelt tipped his hat. “Nice to meet you,” he said.

“As are we all,” said Pike. “Now. What would your name be?”

“Connelly.”

“Connelly,” repeated Pike. “Good name. And good that a man worries about giving his name, Mr. Connelly. Names are important things. They’re a part of you. A name can get a man into trouble. Seems like not long ago openness was a virtue. In days like these, it’s a risk. Get rid of it while you can.”

“They’re just words,” said Hammond. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Maybe so,” said Pike, and took out a small, well-cared-for knife and began skinning and gutting the rabbits, cutting off their feet and taking handfuls of their innards and flinging them away into the night. He wiped his hands on his pants as he began upon the second.

As he worked Connelly glanced sideways at the other two men, watching them in the closer light. Roosevelt was strangely dressed in some semblance of dignity, sporting a natty waistcoat with only two remaining buttons, both barely holding on under the pressure of his girth. On his head he wore an old bowler that had lost its fabric long ago. Hammond was far younger than any of them, several years from thirty at least. He wore a simple coat and pants with suspenders, but his hair was carefully slicked back. It smelled of camphor and oil, even in the smoke of the fire. He had a rushed look about him, as though he had run out of town in the middle of the night and had been running ever since.

“Why did you bring him here, Pike?” asked Hammond.

Pike turned the second rabbit over in his bloody hands on his bloody trousers, his entire being occupied in his work as he guided the edge of the blade through the gristle and meat of the carcass. Soon it no longer resembled a rabbit, no longer resembled anything at all. He took the feet and the head, then cupped the entrails in his hands and tossed them down the hill.

“I should burn them, maybe,” said Pike. “Make a stink, sure, but that’s better than bringing wolves or coyotes. But I doubt if wolves or coyotes roam a place such as this.”

He sat back down and spitted the rabbits and strung them up on two stakes. All three of them stopped to look at the rabbits and they listened to the fat begin to bubble and pop and hiss. Then their eyes moved to Connelly.

“To break bread is a holy thing,” said Pike. “What can you share?”

Connelly reached into his satchel and took out a single can of beans. Hammond laughed. “Beans! A can of beans. The bread and butter of a knight of the road. Here, I have an opener. Let me open it and toss her on.”

“Been living off of them for a while,” said Connelly. “Cheap.”

“That’s true,” said Roosevelt. “My brother lived on nothing but beans for years. Said it did his stomach good. But good God, it sure didn’t do any good for his house. Every single room smelled like something had died in it. I kept telling him to keep his windows open, he kept saying he didn’t smell anything.”

“Well,” said Hammond, “we’ll make sure to sleep upwind of you, then.”

They smiled and laughed, and Connelly relaxed a little more.

The beans cooked just off the fire underneath the rabbits, catching stray drippings, which Hammond said would add to their flavor. They watched the meal cook with a deep gravity.

“It’ll be ready soon,” said Hammond.

“And then we’ll talk,” said Pike.

Pike lifted the spits off of the fire when the hares began to crackle. They took out knives and peeled off ribs and legs and ate, fingers and lips shining with grease. Connelly ate with them. They had not cooked long so the meat was gamy and full of fat. After the can of beans cooled they passed it around, their knives dipping down to the lip of the can and then up to their open mouths, gray and yellow teeth shining in the fire. They gnawed at the bones and pulled off gristle, then placed the bones in a pot and poured in water and began a stew. They watched it heat up without speaking. Against the backdrop of the stars their glistening, mournful faces resembled men burning alive.

Connelly looked upon these strangers sitting underneath the broken-dish moon, watching meat sing and hiss on a paltry fire with quiet, lost eyes. Somewhere a train wailed and the earth shook, but they did not move. And then he recognized in these men something that was also in himself, for they were men who had been struck deaf and dumb by a terrible grief. Men who had been robbed not only of contentment and joy but the capacity to have such things. They slept in the hills not because they wished to but because they could not sleep in the camp. Such a place was forbidden to them.

“God is great,” said Pike finally. “The Lord is good to us. He guided these rabbits to our traps and so gave us this bounty today. And He has also guided this man to us, I shall say, and so I also say He has a purpose to us as we do to Him, and when the Lord speaks we should listen.”

Across the fire Hammond and Roosevelt glanced at each other. Hammond rolled his eyes slightly.

“How far have you come, Mr. Connelly?” asked Pike.

“Far. Memphis. It was my home.”

“And that was where you met him? The scarred man?”

“Never met him,” said Connelly softly.

“But encountered him? Was that the city that started you here?”

Connelly nodded.

“How long ago was that?”

“Three weeks. Maybe more. Been coming by foot and train. I hitched a ride where I could. It was tough going. No one’s heading west now. Not from the east, at least.”

“We ran into that,” said Hammond. “Boy, did we.”

“He is, though,” said Pike.

They shifted uncomfortably, unsure if they wanted to broach the topic.

“Who is he?” said Connelly. “The man with the scars? What’s he done to you?”

“Why?” said Roosevelt. “What’s he done to you?”

Connelly said nothing.

“You shouldn’t worry so,” said Pike softly. “You and we are much alike. All of us here, we are alike.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Pike frowned at him sadly. “I mean that we have all lost someone to this man.”

Connelly stared at them. The men looked back, grim-faced and silent.

“No,” whispered Connelly. “I don’t believe it. No.”

“Mr. Connelly, I wonder if you’d be willing to let me guess at your past,” said Pike. “I feel I may know it pretty well. Is that all right?” He considered it and said, “You are a quiet man, sir, if I may say so. You speak when spoken to and at all other times would prefer to attract little attention. I could see you living a peaceful life, not a life of means, per se, but one of quiet dignity, a… a modest but satisfying job working with your hands and a small family whom you held dearly. And at some point, not too long ago, a scarred man came into your life. It seemed a chance meeting, one of no importance, and yet later… Later, you found this man to have taken everything you cherished, all at once. I cannot and will not guess at what he took from you, Mr. Connelly, that is a private matter to you and should not be given to conjecture. But whatever it was, you cannot go home. You cannot. And neither can we.”

Connelly stared into his lap, listening but refusing to believe.

“We all run into him,” said Roosevelt. “All of us. We all come to find him. By road and rail, we come.”

“Yes,” said Pike.

“And we’ll go further,” said Hammond. “All the way across the country, if need be. Which we nearly already have done.”

Pike said, “Hammond?”

“Yes?” said Hammond.

“Tell him how you came here. Tell him what started you here.”

Hammond looked at him. Pike nodded. “Go on,” he said.

There was a moment of silence and Hammond said, “It was in Massachusetts. That was my home. My town, Winthrop. I was born there. I still remember it, like it was yesterday. I-I saw him outside my home, a man in a coat that may have been black but had been worn and patched so many times it was gray. His face was scarred, here and here,” he said, indicating the cheeks, “and here around the temple, mottling his eyes. He was watching my home. I didn’t know why. He was watching when I left for work one day. When I came home the front door had been broken in and I… I went to the kitchen and found my parents there.”

Hammond anxiously toyed with a little knife and pursed his lips. “They were old. Couldn’t fight back. Not much, at least. I don’t know why. I don’t. I don’t know why. He was just there, then… then he broke in, robbed them, and… and then he was gone. The police couldn’t find anything, and then we heard a rumor that he had gotten a ride south, down to Pennsylvania. The police followed and they tried to find something but couldn’t, so I did. I went out looking. I don’t know why I did that, either. It didn’t make sense to try and do anything else. That house and that town and that whole life was something gone to me. But I tracked him there, then heard whispers, rumors of a man like that headed further south, so I came south. That was nearly six months ago. He has taken me across the nation. I’ve seen more than I have in my life before and more than I ever wanted to see, but I’ve never seen him. I’ve just been hearing things. The man with the scarred face. Mr. Shivers, as the hobos call him.”

Connelly snapped his head up.

“You recognize the name?” said Hammond.

“Yes.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“They talk about him like he’s not real,” said Connelly. “Like he’s a myth. Or the devil.”

“I think they’re getting him mixed up,” said Pike. “There may have once been a story of a Mr. Shivers, of the midnight man, but there’s this man out there and they’ve heard of him too and they get the two mixed up. They give him a name. It makes him easier for us to find, that’s for sure.”

“He’s a man,” said Hammond. “A man like you or I. He moves like one and he eats like one and he sleeps and shits like one. He’s not a ghost story and he’s not a ghost, no matter what the hobos say. We’ve all seen him. He looks man enough for me.”

“He travels on the rails and hitches rides where he can, like you,” said Roosevelt. “Like us. That’s how he gets away, city to city and county to county. I was in Chicago when he found me. There were bad times and he came. Made them worse, I guess.”

“How did it happen?” asked Connelly.

Roosevelt shifted in his seat. “Quickly. Work had been getting scarce at a factory I was at, this bumshit canning factory, and there was talk of a riot or a union and the entire place was just waiting for something to happen. Something bad. There had been beatings, union busters coming in and finding who said what and just beating the hell out of those fellas. And then he came. A ragged man in a ragged coat, with a great, ruined mouth and black eyes, ugly eyes. Like puddles of oil sitting in the road.” Roosevelt began to roll a cigarette. “Don’t know what he did. Maybe he said something. Maybe he hit someone. He was hanging around for a while and then one day the brawl just broke out and every man who could get a weapon was running into it, and the cops got into it and it seemed like the whole precinct was up in arms, fighting in an alley behind the goddamn factory. I don’t know what he did, but I know he done something.

“My friend Tommy died. Someone took a wrench and busted his head open. His eyes filled with blood and one came out and his jaw was like it had no bone. And my brother-in-law died there, too. Someone busted up his ribs and he bled to death, in his heart and lungs. My sister… My sister went… She wasn’t right,” Roosevelt said finally. “She never got over it. Cried all the time, always crying, and she never got out of bed. They put her in an institution. One day I come in to see her and she… she didn’t know my name. She kept asking me if I had any gum, just a stick of gum, it’d taste so good.

“So I just ran. I ran south. I was in the back of some truck, full of illegals and migrants, and someone said they had heard about a barfight in a town outside of Cincinnati and some fella had been cut up good. And the man who done it, well, he was some man with a cut-up face, they thought. Scarred as hell, they said. So I came south. And I met Pike. And we met Hammond. As you’ve met us. That was long ago. Almost a year. Almost a year before I met Hammond.”

“And I ran into him in Atlanta,” said Pike. “Where he killed my friend. Cut his throat. But that was longer than any of you. For I tell you now that I have been looking for this man for four years of my life. And still he has eluded me. Not until just recently did I know that I was not alone. There are others. This man is far worse than even you can imagine, Mr. Connelly. If we are here, then there are many others.”

“And what has he done to you?” asked Roosevelt.

Connelly just bowed his head.

“Sometimes there are no words,” said Pike. “There are no words.”

“What the hell is he?” Connelly said.

“We don’t know,” said Hammond. “We don’t, for sure. He’s motivated to kill and he’s smart enough to keep moving, and it’s getting a lot easier now because the whole goddamn country is moving with him. Migrant workers are everywhere. Everyone is looking for something better. And among them, there’s him. Something drives him to do this, I don’t know what.”

“Some madness, maybe,” said Pike. “Some disease of the brain that urges him to butchery. I’ve heard of such men, like Jack the Ripper in London, years and years ago. Perhaps he’s one of them. He goes from town to town, stalks someone for a few days, then strikes and moves on.”

“But now he’s doing something strange,” Roosevelt said. “He’s not moving with people anymore, but against them. He’s going west, into the plains, while everyone else is trying to leave them.”

“Lot of people going west from them, though,” said Connelly. “People from Oklahoma and Kansas and the Dakotas. They’re going west.”

“That is true,” said Pike. “We’ve considered he’s trying to join with them. It’d be far easier to hide there. A whole country has been unsettled. These are dark times, and they are getting darker, I think. But we’re close. Closer than we’ve ever been before.”

Connelly said, “And if you find him, you’ll kill him.”

They did not react at first. Then Pike said, “Yes. We will. Would we not be justified in doing so? Would not God and this nation look approvingly on us if we were to kill him, Mr. Connelly?”

“I don’t know about God,” said Connelly. “I know less about God than I do the nation. I don’t think about that. I don’t need to. Some things don’t need to be thought about. You just do them. And I aim to.”

“I can understand that,” said Hammond.

Pike stirred the fire again. “Will you come with us, then? Will you join with us?”

“You know I will.”

“I don’t. What I want may be different from you. Because there’s no going back, and no turning aside here. I said at the start of this that I would die finding him if it came to it and kill if I had to. Would you be willing to do that?”

Connelly shrugged.

“You can’t say. But listen, friend. Listen to me, now, Mr. Connelly, you must listen—should a man raise his hand to us and come between us and our quarry, it is in our righteous duty under God to strike that man down if need be. Nothing matters but the road and the man, and where the two meet.” His greasy fingers crisscrossed over the fire. “Nothing matters but where this ends. And it will end, regardless of the cost, and it will end in blood. For everyone he’s taken from us and for those he’s taken from others, it will end in blood. Will it not, Mr. Connelly? Will it not?”

Connelly stared into the fire, hunched over his lap, his eyes aglow and his hands clenched. He said, “I suppose so.”

“Then that is settled,” said Pike, and spat into the fire. They watched it sizzle among the embers.

“But he ain’t here,” said Connelly. “No one saw him.”

“He’s not here any longer, no,” said Hammond.

“We heard from some people in the camp,” said Roosevelt. “Some folk in there said they seen a man with a cut-up face in Oklahoma, just across the border. He’s headed south. They saw him in Shireden, not much more of a town than Rennah. But that’s where he’s at. That’s where he’ll be. That’s what’s next.”

“Amen,” said Pike.

And to that they had nothing more to say, and turned to sleep.