“But you’re no Klansman,” said Jason.
“Oh, ain’t I?” He squinted at Jason. “If I ain’t a Klansman, then what am I?”
“I don’t know what you call yourself. But I saw you… or maybe someone like you… in the quarantine that night.”
“That night.” He snorted. “Must’ve missed each other, boy.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Had he and this James Bury fellow met up in the quarantine? The voice might’ve been the same—he might’ve been as tall. Or he mightn’t have been, of course.
But something in Bury’s stare said he wasn’t far from the mark. So Jason kept up.
“You were beggin’ forgiveness. Not for trying to kill a Negro doctor, I’m guessing.”
Bury looked at him hard, and Jason thought: I’m not the only one bluffing. He went on. “Because you tried to again, didn’t you? You were one of the ones who tried to kill Dr. Waggoner.”
Bury’s face hung still in the morning light. “In a minute,” he said, “I am going to ask you a question, and I want you to answer it truthful.”
“I ain’t tellin’ you who—”
“Not that.” James Bury set the chair straight and stood up and came over and sat down beside Jason, who could not help but flinch. Bury pretended as not to notice. “Before I ask you a question, I’ll tell you some things. That’ll help you give a better answer than this shit you’re speaking now.”
Jason didn’t say anything—just kept himself steady.
“I came to these parts before there was an Eliada. Why I came’s not your business in the particulars. There was some trouble up in Canada, put it that way. This was a good place to be; a quiet place. I learned my way around the hills, and the folk who lived here. And when Eliada came, with its hospital and its sawmill and its moneyed fucking fools… I learned to make myself useful. Know what’s most useful in Eliada?”
“Not woodcutting,” said Jason, and Bury laughed humourlessly.
“It’s tracking the folk that live here,” he said. “And I mean tracking. They live like animals, these folk, and they ain’t the kind of animals come running when you whistle.”
“You kill them too?”
“Be easier if we did,” said Bury, then corrected himself: “If the doctor did. No. He’s a scientist. Doesn’t kill folks if he can help it. So I and a couple other fellows’d climb up the mountain with him, and show ’em where the folks lived, and watch his back whilst he finished his business.”
Jason listened, and he watched too, and he saw that as the old man went on, it seemed more the old man was just that—a bent-over coot, telling stories over pipe smoke. Less a danger. Jason wondered if maybe he could take James Bury yet. And then did his best to hide that wondering.
“A year back, we climbed one of the mountains. There’s a clan living at the top of it. Folk call them Feeger. They don’t come down much, ever. And there were stories about them. The doctor—he got excited. There’s a book he’s got—The Jukes, it’s called. He started wondering if this family weren’t another of those…”
He went quiet at that, tucked his chin into his chest, and looked away. Jason might have been able to jump him then, but instead, he asked: “So is that Mister Juke out there… one of their children?”
Bury looked at him now. His eyes were wide and wet (almost, Jason thought, pleading).
“It was a child,” said Bury. “A beautiful child, full of light. I found it—me, James Bury… not the doctor—and I tell you, son. I could see the sky in its eyes. It went on forever.” And then, he made a fist, and Jason was sure he was going to strike… but he closed his eyes instead, and shook the fist in the air, and coughed.
“I got lost that night,” said Bury. “I been lost for most of the year. You said I tried to hang your nigger doctor, and you’re right. Because every so often—once every couple weeks, maybe—I could come up for air. And I figured, as things went on and got worse—that Mister Juke that Bergstrom was keeping, it wasn’t a beautiful child at all. So when it got out that night—when it went ranging… when that girl got sick with its seed…”
“Why’d you try to hang Waggoner?”
“Because, boy, no one in this town will hang Mister Juke. Hanging a nigger… I don’t care how many sermons Garrison Harper gives out about compassion and community and good fucking manners… .”
“You got them riled enough to forget their manners,” said Jason. “Long enough to string up Mister Juke at the same time.”
“Almost long enough.”
Jason made his move before he even thought about it—rolling back and kicking with both legs. He connected, but not as well as he needed to. One heel hit Bury in the jaw, just inches higher than his throat; the other, hard in the shoulder. It knocked Bury to his side; but he was able to roll, and twist—and like that, he had two hands at the base of Jason’s throat.
“Yeah,” said Bury, his fingers digging in under Jason’s collar bone, “we’re comin’ to my question now.” He pulled him close, and looked him in the eye as he hissed: “How do you get him out of your head?”
Jason cried out something that wasn’t a word and Bury held him tighter, if that were possible. “Don’t try to slip out of this one, boy. You see what I am capable of. Now you came here with something special. You got a gunfighter’s blood in you, and you are pretty clever but this thing—this thing talks like God in your head and you have seen it, and you have turned away from it. And stayed away. Somehow.
“Now, how?”
Jason felt hot flecks of spit on his face. Bury’s eyes, no longer hidden beneath his craggy brows, were wide and blood-rimmed. He looked old all right—older than God-damned Zeus. His hands were closing around his neck. This old man was going to strangle him. Jason twisted, tried to get free but Bury held tight.
“Damn it, boy!” Bury lifted his hands higher, and clamped them tight around Jason’s throat. And at once, Jason felt his wind cut off.
“I do not have much God-damned time, boy,” he growled. “I’ll snap that neck if you don’t—”
“You will do no such thing,” came a voice from behind him.
Jason looked over his shoulder at the open door. Aunt Germaine stood there. She was holding the revolver she’d carried onto his homestead at Cracked Wheel. It was levelled at both of them.
“Now unhand my nephew,” she said. “And raise your hands, Mr. Bury. I will not hesitate.”
“You wouldn’t—”
Germaine drew the hammer back.
“Mad cunt,” he said. But he let go of Jason.
“Now,” she said, “James Bury: you are relieved.”
The old man, Bury, took the white cloak from the peg, and slung it over his back. He and Jason met eyes once more before he hurried out the door. This time, there was no challenge, no fight to it. The mad look was gone—he was looking at a place far away. He blinked, and hurried off like a man with an appointment; an appointment he had no choice but to keep.
Jason wondered if that were not truly the case. Bury wanted to know one thing from Jason: how to stop Mister Juke from talking to him. Jason would have told him if he knew; he thought the shock of being cut turned it off. Maybe if he’d let Aunt Germaine shoot him in the belly, that would be enough of a jolt to quiet the voice telling him what to do.
Aunt Germaine shut the door as Bury’s footfalls turned hollow on the stairs and began to diminish. The revolver fell to her side, although she did not let go of it.
“Aunty, you ought put the pistol down,” said Jason. “Your hand is shaking, and I fear…”