Emerald Hell

Chapter 10

They carried the skiff down the shore's incline back to the stale waters and stobpoled out of the mired shallows. They made their way through the curving narrows out into the lake. There, Lament boated the pole, slotted two oars into metal rings, and rowed them across the basin.

When they reached the other side Lament appeared to be unsure of which direction to go. Stunted dead sycamores lined the shore of another dark inlet, thick with hummock islands, matted with roots and silt. He rowed as long as he could, until the oars were stirring up deposits of sediment, then groaned and wiped his brow.

"Hell, boy!" Lament said.

"What?"

"What?"

"Oh, I thought you were calling me," Hellboy told him.

"I'm calling you a damn heavy heifer. Come spell me for a while."

It took Hellboy a second to figure out what Lament meant, but once he understood he moved up in the boat and took a turn at the oars. They started going around in circles. After a minute he realized he had to ease up on drawing too hard with his right hand, and finally got a good rhythm going.

Lament played the mouth-harp and then started to quietly sing. The song sounded vaguely religious and a little silly, but Hellboy enjoyed the sound of Lament's vibrant voice and even found himself humming along. When he realized what he was doing he frowned, shut the hell up, and rowed harder.

Broken tupelo spotted the area, the earth heavy with a peaty loam smell. They were entering a bog of maiden cane and wide draperies of hanging moss. Hellboy had a difficult time imagining people living out here. It had its own beauty but he just couldn't picture church folk coming out so far into the morass to hold revivals. Parents bringing their children this far for baptism and confession and gospel singing. All this green would have to drive a normal person out of his mind.

The oars struck root and the water churned with silt. The prow of the boat got trapped in log litter and mounds of slough as the small hummock islands thickened and their passage tightened.

"We have to row through all that?" Hellboy asked.

"Too shallow to stob," Lament told him. "I got to admit to my quandary though." He pointed at a trampled mud bank nearby. "That's gator ground for sure. They're everywhere. Watch that next log comin' up."

"I see it."

"It ain't no log. He's a big ole boy. Ding him and he'll chew the skiff to pieces. Skirt right."

"You sure the girls came this way?"

"No," Lament said, and left it at that.

Struggling with the oars, Hellboy put some more muscle into it and got the boat moving at a fair clip despite the thick grass and jetsam.

"Does she know you're coming to help her?" he asked.

"No, me and Sarah ain't talked in a couple months."

"Why not?"

Lament blinked a lew times, like he couldn't believe the question. "I been adrift."

"But you somehow knew Jester was coming for her."

"I knew. I felt the shadows on me more than once, and I knew their intent."

Hellboy watched the hillbilly, thinking, Jesus, suspenders in this day and age. He felt oddly uneasy at the way Lament seemed to put him at ease. Humming along with that stupid mouth-harp, what was up with that? He knew he had to watch himself. Granny Lewt's spell might be working on him too well or the wet heat of the swamp was baking his brain, but something was having its effect.

Lament caught Hellboy's eye and said, "What?"

"I can't figure you out."

"Son, ain't we all got more than enough to do with figurin' on our ownselves? Without needin' to do it for other folks too?"

Sudden surface ripples broke against the side of the skiff. Drops of swamp water flew into Hellboy's face.

"We're coming to a bad spot," Lament said.

"A bad spot? What's that mean?"

"Can't you feel it?"

"No."

It would be nice to be able to feel a bad spot, Hellboy thought. Then he could step left or right instead of just plowing ahead the way he usually did. So no, he didn't feel a damn thing, and never did until some creep or another was trying to kill him.

But he could smell rain in the air, and he sensed how the swamp was beginning to hush and muse. "A storm's coming."

"It's already here," Lament told him.

A moment later the rain burst down upon them. One of those torrential downpours so powerful and immediate that they were both instantly as wet as if they'd fallen overboard. The wind rose and waves kicked up and washed over the bow. It was like they were lost at sea in a dinghy. Acres of watergrass waved about as if alive.

Hellboy realized they didn't have a pail and would very soon need to start bailing if they were going to stay afloat. Otherwise, they'd have to beach on one of the hummocks.

"I see a shack," Lament said. "Shore's closer than it looks."

"Is it the swamp village?"

"No, I don't think so. Just a loner out this far on the blackwater."

"We gonna knock and ask directions?"

"I reckon we will at that."

"But didn't you just say this was a bad spot?"

"I did," Lament said.

"Terrific."

It always came down to this. Heading into the place where you knew you shouldn't head.

Lament pointed to an area on the far bank of a small lagoon-like cove that eased away to a slimy shore covered with leaves and dead branches. The turbulent waters bubbled violently with rain. Lizards ran along the weeds as Hellboy brought the boat to a stop and he and Lament slogged to shore, dragging the skiff behind them.

The gray hanging mossbeard flapped and danced in the wind. Lightning skewered the skies. Lament parted the cypress streamers and climbed past the massive trunks. Strangler-fig vines as fat as garden hoses tangled around his legs and he nearly fell over. Thunder pounded. Hellboy reached down and clutched a mighty handful of the fibrous jungle vine in his right fist and tore away great lengths of it.

"You've got my gratitude," Lament said.

"Sure."

They continued on for another fifty yards on a slow incline until Hellboy saw the shack. It was a little larger than Granny Lewt's place but just as ramshackle and desolate.

Lament drew his wet curls out of his eyes and said, "It's Granny Dodd's place."

"She Granny Lewt's sister?"

"So I've always reckoned."

"Well, I'm telling you right now," Hellboy said,"I'm not eating anything, and if she tries to make me or if she's got a big brute of a son who aims to push me around, I'm going to knock somebody through the roof."

"I thank you for lettin' me know your intentions," Lament said. "But Granny Dodd's been dead a few years. Only her granddaughter Megan lives out here. 'Leastways I think so."

The storm kicked up another notch and the wind heaved the trees around, dead branches whirling and flying by, lost in the surrounding titi brush. Wind roared and wailed, alive with purpose. Rain pummelled like the angry hands of children. Lament turned to look at Hellboy "There's evil will in the air." He pointed east. "Sun's still shinin' a mile or two off. Storm's breakin' right on top of us."

"Pretty standard where I go," Hellboy said. "Let's get inside."

They fought their way to the shack, both of them searching the heavy brush and mire for whatever they could see: pregnant girls, gators, walking shadows, who the hell knew what. Thunder shook the hanging willows and tattered beards of moss. Finally Lament got to the door of the shanty and pounded on it with the side of his fist.

A terrified woman's voice responded. "You go on and get away from my place now! I got me the two barrels of this here shotgun pointed right at you belly-high!"

"That you Megan Dodd? It's me, John Lament. You might remember me from some years back, when I used to sing in these parts as a child."

"You gotta be gone from here!"

Okay, Hellboy thought, so here it comes. The reason why this is such a bad spot.

"Why?" Lament asked.

"My man is gone. My husband… he… he gone away. He's been taken from me."

"Taken?" Lament asked. "By who? Who gone and done a thing like that, Megan Dodd?"

"You get on out of the blackwater now, you hear! Go on now!"

"Ain't no need to fear me or my friend here. Fact is, if you want a good belly laugh, feed him some turtle eggs."

"Hey!" Hellboy said. "Don't go starting any rumors."

"Ain't a rumor, it's a fact."

"What you want at my door?" Megan cried.

"I want to know if you've seen my Sarah and some other young ladies come through this way. They left Mrs. Hoopkins's home two days ago and I been trackin' them through the blackwater."

"No," Megan said, and that seemed to be the end of that.

"These are strange hours, and I need to find them."

"If they come this way they likely dead."

Lament froze in the rain and the wind hurtled and broke against his form at the door. He'd been bridling it well so far, but Hellboy could see how worried he was about Sarah and his unborn child. "Why do you say that? Who took your man, Megan?"

"Iffun you don't steer clear you gonna get took by Mama's girlies just as quick!"

"What are these girlies she's talking about?" Hellboy asked.

Lament shrugged. "I never heard tell of them before."

Hellboy could just see it. Roving bands of teenage girls, flaxen-haired and with their blouses knotted at their midriffs, wearing ragged jean shorts, glowering with cornflower blue eyes, running around in the swamp causing all sorts of damage. Men screaming and waving their arms in the air, ruffian girlies smacking them around. He turned up his ragged collar against the rain and scratched between his horns.

"Megan, let me in," Lament implored. "You gotta hold on now, and tell me what you're so afraid of. I felt it in the air, the cold and the cruel. What is it that's happened here since the last time I passed through."

"The Mama growed strong in the woolly patch," Megan whimpered. "I don't dare say she was never there before, 'cause Granny Dodd, she knowed about it, kept the Mama at bay. But when Granny died, her spells grew weak and the swamp gone bad."

Lament tried the latch on the door and found it jammed. The resistance caught him off-guard and he spun in the silt and slime frothing beneath her shack, pitched sideways, and nearly dropped into it. Hellboy caught him and righted him, and their faces burned gold and then white in the flare of another eruption of lightning.

"Don't you come in," Megan Dodd whispered, her face pressed to the slats, the glint off her eyes and wet lips shining through the cracks in the planks.

"Why not?" Lament asked. "If you're afearin' this Mama and her girlies and your man gone missin', seems to me you'd be wan-tin' someone nearby to look out for you."

"It ain't me I'm a'fearin' for. You got to get on 'fore she learns you're here." The panic in her voice took on the tone of hysteria-words clipped with a little girl squeak, as if she were trying to crawl inside herself, or claw her way out.

Hellboy realized the whole wall of the shanty was groaning in protest beneath the heaving wind's onslaught, leaning horribly to one side. The years of rain and Spanish moss bleeding into the wood had rotted it until it was hardly more than tissue. He was afraid the next strong gust might blow the whole place down on the woman's head.

"Stand away," he told Lament, who refused to move aside.

"We can't push our ways in."

"Why not? I mean, it's wet out here. It's really wet out here."

"We can't go in unless we're invited."

"What are you, a vampire?"

"I abide by a code of manners."

"So do I," Hellboy said. "But it's really wet." He stuck out one finger against the knob and gave a little push. The door popped open and there was Megan Dodd, staring at them. She was holding the shotgun but the shells had broken open in her hands and the shot had spilled onto the floor. He could see they were so old they'd rotted in the humidity.

Long, dirty-blonde hair dangling mostly in her face, braided loosely on the left and clipped in tufts with broken pink barrettes on the right, Megan Dodd, granddaughter of another one of these witchy women had dark unforgiving eyes and a sorrowful presence. Who knew how many jars full of weirdo bits and pieces might be around here?

Middle-aged but with an air of inexperience to her, as if she'd been held back from the world and knew nothing beyond a hundred yards of the shanty. Both shoulder-straps had slid down her arms. The catclaw briar scars, sycamore scratches, and welts didn't mar her flesh in the least. Anywhere else she'd have appeared ridiculously child-like, but here it seemed natural, and more than that, perhaps even necessary. A peculiar and powerful musk like a bull gator's pervaded the shack.

She rushed across the wooden floor and hung back against the far wall. "Get away from me, O Lucifer, Son of the Morning!"

Lament moved, grabbed the shotgun out of her hand, and said, "He only looks like Lucifer. But he's a man of principle and his heart is righteous."

"You sure about that?"

"I'm certain. And look close-"

She peered at Hellboy for a moment and said, "Oh, those is Granny Lewt's eyes!"

Again with the eyes. He wondered when the eyes were going to wear off, or if when he got back to the rest of the world everybody would be commenting on his old lady eyes.

Megan came to some decision. "If she trusts him, I suppose I will too."

"What's going on here?" Lament asked. "Tell me what happened." An emerald wash of light ignited the side of her ashen face as she passed a window. The caramel-colored freckles flecking her cheeks stood out as if etched, until she fairly glowed in the interior of the shack. She pressed close to Lament. Slowly, she brought her mouth to his ear. "You been gone a long while, John Lament, but I remember your all-night sings in the church tents when you was a child. You had the most beautiful voice. That still the truth?"

"I don't know," he said. "I ain't sung much in recent times."

Hellboy almost mentioned the little song he'd sung in the row-boat on the way over, which in its own way had been beautiful and captivating.

"Are you still a friend to the folks of Enigma?"

"You know I am."

"And the swamp folk too?"

"Yes. I'm your friend, Megan. Now you take a breath and calm down some and tell me what's going on."

"You shoulda been gone, you shoulda gone, John." A bark of frustration broke from her.

"Who are these girlies you keep mentionin'?"

Her face darkened with futility. "I can't rightly say. Granny Dodd never let me go out too far in the lowland meadows. I used to watch her throw her potions in the water and do those rituals out 'neath the moon, and afterward she'd sleep for two days straight so tired from makin' her spells'a protection. She done warned me and my man Jorry, but he never did listen to her much. Always used to say she wasn't right in her head. But Granny tole us that Mama's girlies had a special need for men 'cause they could be easily called away."

"Called away how?"

"I ain't got no idea, but called they were. After she died some of the menfolk from 'round these parts went missin' and then my Jorry got to thinkin' maybe somethin' was wrong after all. He never drifted too far to get the gator meat. But three days ago Jorry went out into the watergrass prairie and never come back. I spent all night and the next mornin' lookin' for him, but I failed. The girlies musta got him, and they gonna get you too iffun you stay here too long."

Dejection crowded Lament's face. He'd been hoping for more information about Sarah. He glanced at Hellboy and Hellboy told him, "Don't worry, we'll find her."

"I fear I done lost her trail already, and now the storm's gonna blow away any other sign. We'll stay until it passes and then be off."

"Back to Enigma," Megan said.

"No, I got to find her."

"She's likely dead as my Jorry."

"You done despair too easy, Megan Dodd, didn't your granny teach you no better than that? I gotta keep lookin' for my Sarah, and if I come across your Jorry, I'll send him back home quick-like."

Rain came on stronger, and the walls shimmied.

Hellboy warily took a sniff, and went into a fit gagging on the musk. When it finally ended, his throat was raw. "Christ, what is that?"

"I dunno," Megan said. "It started a week or so back, and gets stronger with the storms."

Taking up post at the window, Hellboy alternately stared out at the wet emerald hell and glanced down at his right hand, wondering what it was that he'd been holding onto in his nightmares. He kept getting the feeling that someone knew things about him that they shouldn't know, perhaps things he didn't even know himself or couldn't remember, and it pissed him off. He didn't like the idea of a rogue preacher out there spreading harm but still being blessed by Heaven. He realized then he very much wanted to meet this Brother Jester.

Lament and the girl talked about the swamp village. She'd never been there but she had an idea of where it was and which backwaters and inlets to take in order to get there. They had a different way of talking about water and mud and jungle than he'd ever heard. Sort of like how the Eskimos supposedly have a hundred different ways to describe ice and snow. Maybe it was true. He couldn't differentiate, but Lament seemed to understand the girl's ambiguous directions.

When the storm, calmed some Hellboy looked over his shoulder and Lament was already saying goodbye to Megan Dodd.

She walked up to Hellboy and told him, "You jest watch out for Mamas girlies. You a man, like any other, least when it comes to that."

"Lady, give me a break, huh?"

Lament led him from the shack and the two slogged through the gurgling mud and mire back to the skiff.

"We'll find them," Hellboy said. "Take your own advice and don't despair."

"I'm doin' my best. But I fear."

The rain had cooled the swamp down, and the terrain had shifted dramatically with the deluge. The blackwater had risen enough that they didn't need to row the skiff anymore. The tangled roots and islands of matted branches were mostly underwater now, and as they pushed off they each reached for the stobpole.

"You done your part with the oars in the shallows," Lament said. "I'll take a turn."

"I don't like to just sit. I like to keep busy."

They each held the stobpole tightly. There was a moment when it could've gone either way. Hellboy could imagine the two of them slugging it out over which one got to shove the tiny boat around in the slimy inlets. They both needed action and wanted to let off a little steam. Hellboy just couldn't sit there staring at the glowing green any longer, trapped between boredom and serious tension.

Finally Lament released the stobpole. "Iffun you say, son. I'll guide us. Keep to the left here past the prairie grasses. I s'pect it's not the way Sarah and the girls came, but we'll hopefully meet up on the other side of this strait. The swamp village should be out thataway."

"You think we'll run into this Mama she was talking about?"

"Your guess is right as mine. Granny Dodd had her some real power to her, like her sisters. I reckon we'll find out what she was makin' or what she was fightin' soon enough."

Hellboy stobbed the skiff past the Spanish moss and along the inlets. Lament pointed and told him when to turn and how to avoid the jetsam. They worked well together like that for fifteen minutes. The skies cleared and the sun shone powerfully down. Lament signaled for Hellboy to stop.

"What's the matter?"

Drifting slowly in an eddy leading to a tussock of bull grass, low out on a sand bank, rested a crutch.

Poling more quickly as the skiff bumped up against the knolls and mounds of morass, Hellboy saw an overturned rowboat further along the bank.

Lament searched the waters. "Nothing else here I can spot. No bodies."

Hellboy nodded and saw a blur of black motion at the corner of his eye. He raised his chin and looked up.

"Hey!" Hellboy said.

"What is it?"

"I saw something."

"What?"

He pointed with his stone hand. "A girl."

Lament shielded his eyes from the sun and said, "Where? What girl?"

"A naked girl," Hellboy told him. "She was covered in flowers, way up in the trees, waving to me. Her eyes entirely black. As midnight."