Emerald Hell

Chapter 19

People walked up and greeted them, making a fuss, calling for a doctor, and offering skins of clean water, wine, and whiskey.

Hellboy gulped down two bags of water, hardly taking a breath between them. Weird to think this place with so much marsh and quagmire and rain would make him as dry as if he'd crossed the Kara Kum desert. It wasn't an exaggeration. He'd crossed the Kara Kum desert once, and this was worse.

He was surprised at the size of the town. Someone mentions a swamp village you think maybe seven or eight shacks, a handful of folks carving out some kind of hardscrabble life. But as he looked about he saw more and more buildings in the distance, larger homes, a kind of main street with stores on it. The hum of gas-run generators thrummed beneath all the other noise.

The channels of swamp water ran between houses, and small bridges had been built to span them. There were stables, chicken coops, and barns. He saw goats and pigs in small corrals. Several skiffs sat at the sycamore-lined bank of a large creek that led back into the deeper bog.

Teens fished beside their fathers. He saw tots pushed along in baby carts. This was a true community, as real as any other town he'd been in, and he knew without asking that it had no name.

When he was sated he turned and saw people still scuttling around Lament, who was lying on a cushioned bench on a nearby veranda. An old white-haired man with a bushy silver mustache and thick glasses, who actually looked like a small-town doctor, turned out to be a small-town doctor. He even carried a black bag. His shirt was buttoned to the collar and he wore a string tie and walked through the crowd with an air of controlled annoyance. When he reached Lament the doc immediately began to examine him.

"Quit makin' such a bother over me," Lament said, "I tell you I'm all right."

"Hush now, we all got our chores to attend and jobs to do. So let me do mine."

"Forget that. Is Sarah here? Tell me she's here."

"She is, and she's fine, so now you just settle yourself."

"I need to see her!"

The old man cleaned his glasses with the ends of his tie. "If you want to see Sarah again you'll hold still. You've got a broken rib poised to enter your lung, and you must've dropped two or three pints of blood already."

"Oh, that ain't so much."

"It ain't much when you're drinking moonshine, but it's plenty to lose from your pulmonary system. You're a mass of lacerations, abrasions, contusions, acute edema, hairline fractures, and exhaustion."

"You just like haulin' out fancy words."

"Hush and lie back or I'm a'gonna conk you with a rock."

Lament lay down and allowed the doc to do his work. Hellboy wasn't sure what he'd been expecting the old man to pull from his bag, maybe leeches and mud packs, eyes of newt and a jar labeled Doc's Gallbladder, but he was impressed when he saw the doc filling a needle with antibiotics. Afterward, he used a staple gun to close Lament's gator scratches and other wounds, and bandaged the busted ribs.

The doc washed his hands in a metal bowl and pointed at Hell-boy. "You next, friend."

"I'm okay."

Doc sighed, threw back his head, and stared at the heavens. "Lord save me from such hardheaded, steely roughnecks." He glowered at Hellboy. "Son, my name's Doc Wayburn. I'm seventy-one years old and I can measure out with a yardstick the distance I've got left before I reach the Elysian Fields. You gonna make me waste my precious remaining days arguing with you too?"

Hellboy was more afraid of the old guy conking him with a rock. "Okay, I'll settle in and try to be a good patient."

He sat beside Lament on the bench and Doc Wayburn inspected his wounds, gingerly removing the torn strips of his coat and prodding here and there.

"You a veteran, son?" the doc asked.

"What makes you say that?"

"These are field dressings. Nicely done too. You been on the battleground."

"I've seen my share of scrapes."

"Of that I'm sure, son."

Doc Wayburn continued his ministrations, taking care of the wounds, dressing and suturing a few injuries Hellboy hadn't even been aware of, considering how battered he was. His left hoof had cracked at the edge, and the doc ran off to a nearby home and returned with a petroleum-based sealant. He said, "It'll take a few months for the split to grow out. Until then, you might consider shoeing it to keep the crack from getting worse. We got a good old boy blacksmith can fix that right up."

"Thanks for your help, I'll be fine."

"As you say, then. I got some more rounds to make." And with that he smoothed down his thick mustache and marched off through town.

The children brought plates of food and Lament and Hellboy sat side by side on the veranda, tired and neatly bandaged, eating and drinking wine. Hellboy didn't know what was on his plate and he was glad nobody told him. He wasn't about to ask.

"Doc Wayburn told me Sarah's fine," Lament said.

"I heard. That's good. Where is she?"

"I don't know, but if she don't show up in the next few minutes I'm a'gonna go lookin'."

A couple more people came up and said hello to Lament, treating him with some reverence, even celebrity. When they'd gone Hellboy said, "I thought you hadn't been here since you were a boy."

"I haven't."

"Then how do they all know you?"

"Some know your name too. You gonna ask them about that as well?"

Hellboy figured that he'd made the papers at least a couple of times even down here. "That's different."

"Mayhap."

"Enough with the mayhaps already."

"I know a good many of these folk from Enigma. Some of 'em have, ah, retired from town life and come out here to live. Others come because of their children. Some you might say commute between Enigma and the village. And some, well, you know-"

"I know? What do I know?"

Lament said, "Some I know from my dreams."

The children began to dance again, and the folk returned to their food and their music. Who knew a washboard and an empty jug and three strings drawn up a broom handle could create such complete and rich songs? More clapboard doors clattered in the wind. The air was full of laughter. Fishboy Lenny just hung in the background, waving his flippers. Hellboy waved back and the kid spun in happy circles.

Hellboy looked closely at the people, seeing the slight mutations in many of them. He saw webbed hands and vestigial gills in several people. Others who had animal-like, reptilian, or insectoid features. Maybe their mutations were just a leap in genetic adaptation to their swampy surroundings.

Pointing up the main street, he said to Lament, "I'm going to take a look around this way."

"I think I'll head in the other direction. Give a shout if you run into any more mischief. It'll be getting dark soon."

With that they stood and began to move off, Hellboy thinking maybe Fishboy Lenny could lead him around the town, show him the sights, the corn crib and the place where they shucked oysters or caught crawfish, or whatever it was that they did, but before lie took two steps Lament gripped his elbow. "Hold on, son. Town elder is a'comin'."

"Who would that be?"

"This here would be Granny McCulver."

Hellboy thought, Well sure, of course, another granny. What else had he been expecting?

This granny was a hell of a lot different from Granny Lewt, that was for certain. She was young and a stone knockout. She had all her limbs and features. As she moved among her people, the crowd parted to let her by. The music rose and the song grew in strength. He felt the pleasant pressure of her power exerting itself. The great force of her character.

He didn't know where the granny part came into it at all-she looked about thirty on the outside. A very fine and well-endowed thirty. He couldn't figure out exactly how she'd made it to granny status, but decided to put off the question as be stared.

"Son, your tongue is danglin'," Lament said.

"Oh boy."

Her glossy, lustrous black hair fell about her shoulders and swirled in the breeze. Eyes like burnished black diamonds were emphasized even more by her pale, heart-shaped face. She grinned with slightly parted rose-petal lips, her perfect white teeth shining through.

The pumpkin-headed kid stood nearby and smiled so widely, with his head tipped to one side, that he nearly fell over. She patted the little tuft of hair at the top of his dome and the kid swooned. Hellboy didn't blame him.

He breathed, "Wow."

She strode up and said, "John Lament, we welcome you to our village once more, and your friend as well. It's been some time since you've visited, and quite a changed sight this must be for you."

With a little nod of deference, Lament said, "Ma'am McCulver, nice to see you again."

Hellboy figured he'd just follow the routine. He nodded too, as in, yep, yep, well all righty then, and said, "Ma'am McCulver, how's it going?"

Lament stood there like he might be poised for anything, the hinges of his jaw tight and pulsing, and she said, "Ease your mind, John, Sarah and her two companions are at my home, resting."

Lament actually slumped and Hellboy had to reach out to keep him from falling. "Thank the Lord."

"They arrived last night, in the dark without hardly any moon. She found her way here because she was meant to. Becky Sue Cabbot was with her, ready to burst, and round about sunup she gave birth to a lovely baby girl. But Sarah and young Hortense-"

Hellboy thought, Hortense, ah jeez…

"-Millford, they're still holding on, though it won't be long now."

But Hellboy realized girls named Hortense, they were made of stern stuff. For her to have come through that slough, all this way, heavy with child, it brought his chin up in respect.

The rain began again, a slight drizzle that no one acknowledged, not even Hellboy who was getting used to it. Ma'am McCulver brushed a hand across her forehead and drew her hair to the side, and her force and beauty radiated even more strongly. He wondered if it was a bewitching, if he was really staring at some century-old hag trying to pull a fast one. He had charms that might break the illusion if there was one, but he decided, Why make life even tougher?

"Tell me what happened out there," she said. "I know the blackwater has been restless and a'grieved, the land agitated lately. I heard screaming and terrible crying at the rim of my ear, and a voice begging to burn away the children. Tell me, which children are in danger?"

Lament related the story of the Mother Tree and Mama's girlies. "It wasn't what I wanted, but we had no choice. There are fields of dead men out there in the wet grasses."

"Lord, if only I'd known about it sooner, but I've been distracted with events here. Since my sister's passing, I've struggled with new responsibilities. The town's growing faster than we can handle. Our numbers have become so inflated, even though so many of our kin have gone missing these last few weeks."

"A good many of them won't be returnin'."

"If only I'd been paying greater attention," she said, her lovely face folding into grimness. "But village concerns draw me from my leanings, the ways of my mothers and sisters. We're having this celebration to remind us of all we have, and to fight our growing despair."

"And to protect yourselves. The music has charms."

"Yes. The walking darkness approaches. I sense it. And times have grown rougher these past few years. The chemical dumping is becoming worse all the time. Too much time is spent in Enigma barring roads and keeping a lookout for the trucks. The soil and river fights us more and more. There's less fish. The gator poachers kill off whole strains."

Hellboy said, "I might be able to help."

"How?"

"I can make a call."

Ma'am McCulver didn't seem to understand. "Call? Call whom?"

"I work for some people who have pull. We'll track it down. I'll do my best make it stop."

"They won't stop, they'll simply go elsewhere. Another corner of a different swamp."

He shrugged. "You're probably right," he admitted, "but we do what we can, right?"

Still, she smiled and said, "I hear the deep truth in your voice. Thank you for your willingness to aid us."

"Sure."

Pushed to his very edge, Lament said, "I need to see Sarah."

"Of course," the gorgeous granny told him, "I'll take you to her."

In the soft rain, they walked the length of the village past cabins, pinewood shacks, and tin-roofed sheds. Several of the children came along, including the pumpkin-headed kid and Fish-boy Lenny, who murmured and muttered together, occasionally laughing.

Led by Ma'am McCulver, the party moved steadily toward a three-story coffee-colored house in the distance. Hellboy heard babies crying again, sometimes in his ears and sometimes, it felt like, at the back of his head. The granny woman glanced his way from time to time, smiling vaguely.

As they approached her home he saw it had a whitewashed wraparound veranda bordered by palm trees and sugarcane. Three teenage girls sat out on porch swing cut from fresh pine. One held a baby in her arms. Lament's step began to speed up until he was almost running. Losing a few pints of blood didn't mean much in the face of love. One of the pregnant girls broke from the others and moved to meet him.

So this was Sarah.

He could see touches of Bliss Nail in her right off. The same steel-gray eyes full of tenacious strength, unyielding and with a hint of defiance in even her most modest gestures. She wasn't exactly what you'd call beautiful, but there was an attractive and compelling earthiness to her that really struck him.

Still not even twenty, her long brown hair was edged with strands of silver. It sort of matched Lament's white streak. These two kids with such youthful vigor and intensity, but somehow brushed by age, tragedy, and worldliness.

She and Lament held each other and moved in close, cheek to cheek, his mouth at her ear whispering, her lips pressing along his jaw line. Lament eased his hand over her bulging belly, and Hellboy knew what would be coming next.

He started to count off… one, two, three, four… and then looked over at Ma'am McCulver and saw that she was doing the same thing. They both let out a sigh just as a growl of thunder grumbled overhead.

"I couldn't wait for you," Sarah said to Lament. "I felt the devil's breath on my neck and knew we had to get on out of Enigma. I knew you must be worryin' somethin' dreadful but I thought it best to move on."

"I know that," he told her. "I'm sorry I was late gettin' to you. We had some trials along the way. I wouldn't have gotten through at all if not for this fella right here though."

Lament put his hand on Hellboy's shoulder and drew him closer. Sarah smiled at him and said, "Thank you for what you did for my John."

It was the kind of thing that made you go, Aw shucks, 'twern't nuthin',but Hellboy resisted. It was harder than he expected. "I was just doing what I had to do. Someone has to."

"Ain't no man's mere service to save another. It's a calling of the courageous."

He didn't know what to say to that so he let it go by. "You and your friends are the brave ones, battling through the swamp in your, ah, condition."

"We had us a time, with Becky Sue all but ready to have her baby girl in the bottom of the skiff, but thank the Lord, she managed to hold off." She turned to Lament. "The dreams, John."

"I know, I've had ray share as well."

"But mine… the baby. I woke two nights ago and found a pair of bullfrogs on my belly croakin' together. I fear. I fear a'mighty."

"Don't… it's gonna be all right. Whatever happens, it's the Lords will and we'll trust in that."

Hellboy wondered if he should talk about his own dream last night, except he couldn't remember what it was about. But it had been there and it had meant something.

The pumpkin-headed kid loped up onto the porch out of the drizzle and the others followed. He bent and made faces at Becky Sue Cabbot's newborn. Hellboy was introduced to her and Hortense Millford, two stern-faced, sunburned, tired-looking young women, one of whom had just delivered a child and the other close to bearing her own.

The music from the other end of the village drifted in and brought with it a sense of solace. Now Hellboy knew what Lament had meant when he said the music had charms. The songs were spells of protection. Just because Ma'am McCulver was easy on the eyes didn't mean she didn't know a little something about spell casting.

They moved into the house and he was a bit surprised to see it was sparsely decorated, without all the batwings, frogs' tongues, bubbling cauldrons, and magical potions of Granny Lewt's home.

More thunder groaned. He thought that whatever was going to happen would have to happen soon. That was just the way of these things. Ma'am McCulver gave him the look again and this time he stared back. There was a humanity and sadness in her eyes that worked its way into his chest.

Suddenly Sarah's face twisted as if in pain, and her back straightened. She hissed through her teeth and reached out to grip Lament's arm. He held onto her tightly.

"It's startin'," she said.

"Now?" Lament asked, then frowned that he'd say such an asinine thing. But it was a father's prerogative to be a little dopey when his kid was being born.

"Contractions. Damn, that felt odd. Not sure what I was ex-pectin' but I wasn't expectin' that."

Sometimes you were glad when you were proven right and sometimes you weren't. Hellboy thought, Yeah, the kid's got to come along just before the big beat down.

He said, "Take her to the bedroom. Stay with her." He told the pumpkin-headed kid, "You, think you could go get Doc Way-burn?"

The boy nodded eagerly and took off through the village.

Hellboy asked,"Which way do you think Jester will be coming from?"

"Most probably the creek," Ma'am McCulver said,pointing."Tt connects to the river. It isn't an easy pass, but if he remembers his way, that's how he'll come."

"It's getting dark and the storm's about the break over us. It's been my experience that that's when the trouble usually hits, I'm going to go see what I can see."

Torn by responsibility, Lament's eyes filled with concern. "You're gonna need my help."

He was ready to leave his girl. For the good of the rest of them. Jesus, the guy had heart. Hellboy said, "You stay here. Don't do anything crazy."

"You ain't seen crazy yet, son."

"Let me handle it."

"You? That's my true foe. Why'm I gonna let you handle it?"

"I've been doing this a long time. I can handle my self. You just watch over your girlfriend and your baby. That's what this is about, remember?"

With a bleak expression, Lament narrowed his eyes. Hellboy laid a hand on his shoulder and said, "Trust me."

"I do."

"Well, all right then."

All the tension seemed to snap from Lament then. "Don't forget, he's got the Ferris boys with him. Don't be fooled by their graceful features, they're killers."

"If it's one thing I'm not fooled by, it's graceful features."

"So you say."

Sarah, struggling to mask her pain, said, "The Ferris boys comin' here too?"

"Yeah, he roped them in."

They exchanged a glance heavy with meaning.

Fishboy Lenny went, "Fweep mwash. Wooph."

Ma'am McCulver said, "I wish to help but I'll be unable to do so." She stared out the window at the brush, the land, the homes. "He performed miracles here. He saved lives. He healed the ill, the crippled, the blind. He brought God down to us when the Lord did not listen to us. And since then the divine has not left us. The very land itself owes him. Do you understand?"

Hellboy shook his head. "No."

"My sisters and I have always been a part of the swamp. We can effect little change on its nature, on the things that it wants."

"Things that the swamp wants?"

"Yes. We help where we can but we are, like all, merely slaves to the greater forces about us."

He didn't quite understand, but enchantresses and goblin kings and trolls often talked like this. Even Lament did it, saying how the magic knew him. Sometimes you just had to nod and go forward on your own. Most of the time, in fact.

Hellboy started for the door but the granny witch stepped in front of him, blocking his way. She leaned forward and he expected maybe a kiss for his troubles, which would've been just fine under the circumstances.

"Hold still," she said.

"What is it?"

When her hands touched him he watched as a black spark skittered across his stone fist. There was nothing to it, he felt no different at all, but in the light of the setting sun he could see a shadow slowly making its way over the ridge of his knuckles. He didn't know what that meant but it couldn't be good. He plucked at it and couldn't touch it. Ma'am McCulver, though, snatched at it and somehow got a grip. She tugged at the small piece of darkness and tore it from Hellboy. She held it in her pale hand where it coursed across her fingers, tame and almost loving.

"I dreamt of shadows," Hellboy said, remembering.

"And they dream of you," she told him. "The night's nearly upon us. Jester will arrive soon."

"He's already here," Fishboy Lenny said. Then,"Fwashh fweep!"