1. In Search of a Devil
I shot my answering machine today. Took out the old twelve gauge my father left me, and blew it to pieces. A silly, futile gesture, I know, but it illustrates my present state of mind, I think.
And it felt good. If not for an answering machine, my life would be completely different now. I would have missed Jonathan Creighton's call. I'd be less wise but far, far happier. And I'd still have some semblance of order and meaning in my life.
He left an innocent enough message:
"The office of Kathleen McKelston and Associates! Sounds like big business! How's it going, Mac? This is John Creighton calling. I’m going to be in the area later this week and I'd like to see you. Lunch or dinner— whatever's better. Give me a buzz." And he left a number with a 212 area code.
So simple, so forthright, giving no hint of where it would lead.
You work your way through life day by day, learning how to play the game, carving out your niche, making a place for yourself. You have some good luck, some bad luck, sometimes you make your own luck, and along the way you begin to think that you've figured out some of the answers— not all of them, of course, but enough to make you feel that you've learned something, that you've got a handle on life and just might be able to get a decent ride out of it. You start to think you're in control. Then along comes someone like Jonathan Creighton and he smashes everything. Not just your plans, your hopes, your dreams, but everything, up to and including your sense of what is real and what is not.
I'd heard nothing from or about him since college, and had thought of him only occasionally until that day in early August when he called my office. Intrigued, I returned his call and set a date for lunch.
That was my first mistake. If I'd had the slightest inkling of where that simple lunch with an old college lover would lead, I'd have slammed down the phone and fled to Europe, or the Orient, anywhere where Jonathan Creighton wasn't.
We'd met at a freshmen mixer at Rutgers University back in the sixties. Maybe we each picked up subliminal cues—we called them "vibes" in those days—that told us we shared a rural upbringing. We didn't dress like it, act like it, or feel like it, but we were a couple of Jersey hicks. I came from the Pemberton area, Jon came from another rural zone, but in North Jersey, near a place called Gilead. Despite that link, we were polar opposites in most other ways. I'm still amazed we hit it off. I was career-oriented while Jon was . . . well, he was a flake. He earned the name Crazy Creighton and he lived up to it every day. He never stayed with one thing long enough to allow anyone to pin him down. Always on to the Next New Thing before the crowd had tuned into it, always into the exotic and esoteric. Looking for the Truth, he'd say.
And as so often happens with people who are incompatible in so many ways, we found each other irresistible and fell madly in love.
Sophomore year we found an apartment off campus and moved in together. It was my first affair, and not at all a tranquil one. I read the strange books he'd find and I kept up with his strange hours, but I put my foot down when it came to the Pickman prints. There was something deeply disturbing about those paintings that went beyond their gruesome subject matter. Jon didn't fight me on it. He just smiled sadly in his condescending way, as if disappointed that I had missed the point, and rolled them up and put them away.
The thing that kept us together—at least for the year we were together—was our devotion to personal autonomy. We spent weeks of nights talking about how we had to take complete control of our own lives, and brainstorming how we were going to go about it. It seems so silly now, but that was the sixties, and we really discussed those sorts of things back then.
We lasted sophomore year and then we fell apart. It might have gone on longer if Creighton hadn't got in with the druggies. That was the path toward loss of all autonomy as far as I was concerned, but Creighton said you can't be free until you know what's real. And if drugs might reveal the Truth, he had to try them. Which was hippie bullshit as far as I was concerned. After that, we rarely ran into each other. He wound up living alone off campus in his senior year. Somehow he managed to graduate, with a degree in anthropology, and that was the last I'd heard of him.
But that doesn't mean he hadn't left his mark.
I suppose I'm what you might call a feminist. I don't belong to NOW and I don't march in the streets, but I don't let anyone leave footprints on my back simply because I'm a woman. I believe in myself and I guess I owe some of that to Jonathan Creighton. He always treated me as an equal. He never made an issue of it—it was simply implicit in his attitude that I was intelligent, competent, worthy of respect, able to stand on my own. It helped shape me. And I'll always revere him for that.
Lunch. I chose Rosario's on the Point Pleasant Beach side of the Manasquan Inlet, not so much for its food as for the view. Creighton was late and that didn't terribly surprise me. I didn't mind. I sipped a chablis spritzer and watched the party boats roll in from their half-day runs of bottom fishing. Then a voice with echoes of familiarity broke through my thoughts.
"Well, Mac, I see you haven't changed much."
I turned and was shocked at what I saw. I barely recognized Creighton. He'd always been thin to the point of emaciation. Could the plump, bearded, almost cherubic figure standing before me now be—?
"Jon? Is that you?"
"The one and only," he said and spread his arms.
We embraced briefly, then took our seats in a booth by the window. As he squeezed into the far side of the table, he called the waitress over and pointed to my glass.
"Two Lites for me and another of those for her."
At first glance I'd thought that Creighton's extra poundage made him look healthy for the first time in his life. His hair was still thick and dark brown, but despite his round, rosy cheeks, his eyes were sunken and too bright. He seemed jovial but I sensed a grim undertone. I wondered if he was still into drugs.
"Almost a quarter century since we were together," he said. "Hard to believe it's been that long. The years look as if they've been kind to you."
As far as looks go, I suppose that's true. I don't dye my hair, so there's a little gray tucked in with the red. But I've always had a young face. I don't wear makeup—with my high coloring and freckles, I don't need it.
"And you."
Which wasn't actually true. His open shirt collar was frayed and looked as if this might be the third time he'd worn it since it was last washed. His tweed sport coat was worn at the elbows and a good two sizes too small for him.
We spent the drinks, appetizers, and most of the entrées catching up on each other's lives. I told him about my small accounting firm, my marriage, my recent divorce.
"No children?"
I shook my head. The marriage had gone sour, the divorce had been a nightmare. I wanted off the subject.
"But enough about me," I said. "What have you been up to?"
"Would you believe clinical psychology?"
"No," I said, too shocked to lie. "I wouldn't."
The Jonathan Creighton I'd known had been so eccentric, so out of step, so self-absorbed, I couldn't imagine him as a psychotherapist. Jonathan Creighton helping other people get their lives together—it was almost laughable.
He was the one laughing, however—good-naturedly, too.
"Yeah. It is hard to believe, but I went on to get a Master's, and then a Ph.D. Actually went into practice."
His voice trailed off.
"You're using the past tense," I said.
"Right. It didn't work out. The practice never got off the ground. But the problem was really within myself. I was using a form of reality therapy but it never worked as it should. And finally I realized why: I don't know— really know—what reality is. Nobody does."
This had an all too familiar ring to it. I tried to lighten things up before they got too heavy.
"Didn't someone once say that reality is what trips you up whenever you walk around with your eyes closed?"
Creighton's smile showed a touch of the old condescension that so infuriated some people.
"Yes, I suppose someone would say something like that. Anyway, I decided to go off and see if I could find out what reality really was. Did a lot of traveling. Wound up in a place called Miskatonic University. Ever heard of it?"
"In Massachusetts, isn't it?"
"That's the one. In a small town called Arkham. I hooked up with the anthropology department there—that was my undergraduate major, after all. But now I’ve left academe to write a book."
"A book?"
This was beginning to sound like a pretty disjointed life. But that shouldn't have surprised me.
"What a deal!" he said, his eyes sparkling. "I've got grants from Rutgers, Princeton, the American Folklore Society, the New Jersey Historical Society, and half a dozen others, just to write a book!"
"What's it about?"
"The origins of folktales. I'm going to select a few and trace them back to their roots. That's where you come in." "Oh?"
"I'm going to devote a significant chapter to the Jersey Devil."
"There've been whole books written about the Jersey Devil. Why don't you—“.
"I want real sources for this, Mac. Primary all the way. Nothing secondhand. This is going to be definitive."
"What can I do for you?"
"You're a Piney, aren't you?"
Resentment flashed through me. Even though people nowadays described themselves as "Piney" with a certain amount of pride, and I'd even seen bumper stickers touting "Piney Power," some of us still couldn't help bristling when an outsider said it. When I was a kid it was always used as a pejorative. Like "clam-digger" here on the coast. Fighting words. Officially it referred to the multigenerational natives of the great Pine Barrens that ran south from Route 70 all the way down to the lower end of the state. I've always hated the term. To me it was the equivalent of calling someone a redneck.
Which, to be honest, wasn't so far from the truth. The true Pineys are poor rural folk, often working truck farms and doing menial labor in the berry fields and cranberry bogs—a lot of them do indeed have red necks. Many are uneducated, or at best undereducated. Those who can afford wheels drive the prototypical battered pickup with the gun rack in the rear window. They even speak with an accent that sounds southern. They're Jersey hillbillies. Country bumpkins in the very heart of the industrial Northeast. Anachronisms. Pineys.
"Who told you that?" I said as levelly as I could.
"You did. Back in school." "Did I?"
It shook me to see how far I'd traveled from my roots. As a scared, naive, self-deprecating frosh at Rutgers I probably had indeed referred to myself as a Piney. Now I never mentioned the word, not in reference to myself or anyone else. I was a college-educated woman; I was a respected professional who spoke with a colorless Northeast accent. No one in his right mind would consider me a Piney.
"Well, that was just a gag," I said. "My family roots are back in the Pine Barrens, but I am by no stretch of the imagination a Piney. So I doubt I can help you."
"Oh, but you can! The McKelston name is big in the Barrens. Everybody knows it. You've got plenty of relatives there."
"Really? How do you know?"
Suddenly he looked sheepish.
"Because I've been into the Barrens a few times now. No one will open up to me. I'm an outsider. They don't trust me. Instead of answering my questions, they play games with me. They say they don't know what I'm talking about but they know someone who might, then they send me driving in circles. I was lost out there for two solid days last month. And believe me, I was getting scared. I thought I'd never find my way out."
"You wouldn't be the first. Plenty of people, many of them experienced hunters, have gone into the Barrens and never been seen again. You'd better stay out."
His hand darted across the table and clutched mine.
"You've got to help me, Kathy. My whole future hinges on this."
I was shocked. He'd always called me "Mac." Even in bed back in our college days he'd never called me "Kathy." Gently, I pulled my hand free, saying, "Come on, Jon—"
He leaned back and stared out the window at the circling gulls.
"If I do this right, do something really definitive, it may get me back into Miskatonic where I can finish my doctoral thesis."
I was immediately suspicious.
"I thought you said you 'left' Miskatonic, Jon. Why can't you get back in without it?"
" 'Irregularities,' " he said, still not looking at me. "The old farts in the antiquities department didn't like where my research was leading me."
"This 'reality' business?"
"Yes."
"They told you that?"
Now he looked at me.
"Not in so many words, but I could tell." He leaned forward. His eyes were brighter than ever. "They've got books and manuscripts locked in huge safes there, one-of-a-kind volumes from times most scholars think of as prehistory. I managed to get a pass, a forgery, that got me into the vaults. It's incredible what they have there, Mac. Incredible! I've got to get back there. Will you help me?"
His intensity was startling. And tantalizing.
"What would I have to do?"
"Just accompany me into the Pine Barrens. Just for a few trips. If I can use you as a reference, I know they'll talk to me about the Jersey Devil. After that, I can take it on my own. All I need is some straight answers from these people and I'll have my primary sources. I may be able to track a folk myth to its very roots! I'll give you credit in the book, I'll pay you, anything, Mac, just don't leave me twisting in the wind!"
He was positively frantic by the time he finished speaking.
"Easy, Jon. Easy. Let me think."
Tax season was over and I had a loose schedule for the summer. And even if I was looking ahead to a tight schedule, so what? Frankly, the job wasn't anywhere near as satisfying as it once had been. The challenge of overcoming the business community's prejudice and doubts about a woman accountant, the thrill of building a string of clients, that was all over. Everything was mostly routine now. Plus, I no longer had a husband. No children to usher toward adulthood. I had to admit that my life was pretty empty at that moment. And so was I. Why not take a little time to inspect my roots and help Crazy Creighton put his life on track, if such a thing was possible? In the bargain maybe I could gain a little perspective on my own life.
"All right, Jon," I said. "I'll do it."
Creighton's eyes lit with true pleasure, a glow distinct from the feverish intensity since he'd sat down. He thrust both his hands toward me.
"I could kiss you, Mac! I can't tell you how much this means to me! You have no idea how important this is!"
He was right about that. No idea at all.
2. The Pine Barrens
Two days later we were ready to make our first foray into the woods.
Creighton was wearing a safari jacket when he picked me up in a slightly battered four-wheel-drive Jeep Wrangler.
"This isn't Africa we're headed for," I told him.
"I know. I like pockets. They hold all sorts of things."
I glanced in the rear compartment. He was surprisingly well equipped. I noticed a water cooler, a food chest, backpacks, and what looked like sleeping bags. I hoped he wasn't harboring any romantic ideas. I'd just split from one man and I wasn't looking for another, especially not Jonathan Creighton.
"I promised to help you look around. I didn't say anything about camping out."
He laughed. "I'm with you. Holiday Inn is my idea of roughing it. I was never a Boy Scout, but I do believe in being prepared. I've already been lost once in there."
"And we can do without that happening again. Got a compass?"
He nodded. "And maps. Even have a sextant."
"You actually know how to use one?"
"I learned."
I dimly remember being bothered then by his having a sextant, and not being quite sure why. Before I could say anything else, he tossed me the keys.
"You're the Piney. You drive."
"Still Mr. Macho, I see."
He laughed. I drove.
It's easy to get into the Pine Barrens from northern Ocean County. You just get on Route 70 and head west. About halfway between the Atlantic Ocean and Philadelphia, say, near a place known as Ongs Hat, you turn left. And wave bye-bye to the twentieth century, and civilization as you know it.
How do I describe the Pine Barrens to someone who's never been there? First of all, it's big. You have to fly over it in a small plane to appreciate just how big. The Barrens runs through seven counties, takes up one-fourth of the state, but since Jersey's not a big state, that doesn't tell the story. How does 2,000 square miles sound? Or a million acres? Almost the size of Yosemite National Park. Does that give you an idea of its vastness?
How do I describe what a wilderness this is? Maps will give you a clue. Look at a road map of New Jersey. If you don't happen to have one handy, imagine an oblong platter of spaghetti; now imagine what it looks like after someone's devoured most of the spaghetti out of the middle of the lower half, leaving only a few strands crossing the exposed plate. Same thing with a population density map—a big gaping hole in the southern half where the Pine Barrens sits. New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the U. S., averaging a thousand bodies per square mile. But the New York City suburbs in north Jersey teem with forty thousand per square mile. After you account for the crowds along the coast and in the cities and towns along the western interstate corridor, there aren't too many people left over when you get to the Pine Barrens. I've heard of an area of over a hundred thousand acres—that's in the neighborhood of 160 square miles—in the south-central Barrens with twenty-one known inhabitants. Twenty-one. One human being per eight square miles in an area that lies on the route through Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D. C.
Even when you take a turn off one of the state or federal roads that cut through the Barrens, you feel the isolation almost immediately. The forty- foot scrub pines close in behind you and quietly but oh so effectively cut you off from the rest of the world. I'll bet there are people who've lived to ripe old ages in the Barrens who have never seen a paved road. Conversely, there are no complete topographical maps of the Barrens because there are vast areas that no human eyes have ever seen.
Are you getting the picture?
"Where do we start?" Creighton asked as we crawled past the retirement villages along Route 70. This had been an empty stretch of road when I was a kid. Now it was Wrinkle City.
"We start at the capital."
"Trenton? I don't want to go to Trenton."
"Not the state capital. The capital of the pines. Used to be called Sha- mong Station. Now it's known as Chatsworth."
He pulled out his map and squinted through the index.
"Oh, right. I see it. Right smack in the middle of the Barrens. How big is it?"
"A veritable Piney megalopolis, my friend. Three hundred souls."
Creighton smiled, and for a second or two he seemed almost . . . innocent.
"Think we can get there before rush hour?"
3. Jasper Muiliner
I stuck to the main roads, taking 70 to 72 to 563, and we were there in no time.
"You'll see something here you won't see anyplace else in the Barrens," I said as I drove down Chatsworth's main street.
"Electricity?" Creighton said.
He didn't look up from the clutter of maps on his lap. He'd been following our progress on paper, mile by mile.
"No. Lawns. Years ago a number of families decided they wanted grass in their front yards. There's no topsoil to speak of out here; the ground's mostly sand. So they trucked in loads of topsoil and seeded themselves some lawns. Now they've got to cut them."
I drove past the general store and its three gas pumps out on the sidewalk.
"Esso, "Creighton said, staring at the sign over the pumps. "That says it all, doesn't it."
"That it do."
We continued on until we came to a sandy lot occupied by a single trailer. No lawn here.
"Who's this?" Creighton said, folding up his maps as I hopped out of the Wrangler.
"An old friend of the family."
This was Jasper Mulliner's place. He was some sort of an uncle—on my mother's side, I think. But distant blood relationships are nothing special in the Barrens. An awful lot of people are related in one way or another. Some said he was a descendant of the notorious bandit of the pines, Joseph Muiliner. Jasper had never confirmed that, but he'd never denied it, either.
I knocked on the door, wondering who would answer. I wasn't even sure Jasper was still alive. But when the door opened, I immediately recognized the grizzled old head that poked through the opening.
"You're not sellin' anything, are you?" he said.
"Nothing, Mr. Mulliner," I said. "I'm Kathleen McKelston. I don't know if you remember me, but—"
His eyes lit as his face broke into a toothless grin.
"Danny's girl? The one who got the college scholarship? Sure I remember you! Come on in!"
Jasper was wearing khaki shorts, a sleeveless orange T-shirt, and duck boots—no socks. His white hair was neatly combed and he was freshly shaved. He'd been a salt hay farmer in his younger days and his hands were still callused from it. He'd moved on to overseeing a cranberry bog in his later years. His skin was a weathered brown and looked tougher than saddle leather. The inside of the trailer reminded me more of a low-ceilinged freight car than a home, but it was clean. The presence of the television set told me he had electricity but I saw no phone nor any sign of running water.
I introduced him to Creighton and we settled onto a three-legged stool and a pair of ladderback chairs as I spent the better part of half an hour telling him about my life since leaving the Barrens and answering questions about my mother and how she was doing since my father died. Then he went into a soliloquy about what a great man my father was. I let him run on, pretending to be listening, but turning my mind to other things. Not because I disagreed with him, but because it had been barely a year since Dad had dropped dead and I was still hurting.
Dad had not been your typical Piney. Although he loved the Barrens as much as anyone else who grew up here, he'd known there was a bigger though not necessarily better life beyond them. That bigger world didn't interest him in the least, but just because he was content with where he was didn't mean that I'd be. He wanted to allow his only child a choice. He knew I'd need a decent education if that choice was to be meaningful. And to provide that education for me, he did what few Pineys like to do: He took a steady job.
That's not to say that Pineys are afraid of hard work. Far from it. They'll break their backs at any job they're doing. It's simply that they don't like to be tied down to the same job day after day, month after month. Most of them have grown up flowing with the cycle of the Barrens. Spring is for gathering sphagnum moss to sell to the florists and nurseries. In June and July they work the blueberry and huckleberry fields. In the fall they move into the bogs for the cranberry harvest. And in the cold of winter they cut cordwood, or cut holly and mistletoe, or go "pineballing"—collecting pine cones to sell. None of this is easy work. But it's not the same work. And that's what matters.
The Piney attitude toward jobs is the most laid back you'll ever encounter. That's because they're in such close harmony with their surroundings. They know that with all the pure water all around them and flowing beneath their feet, they'll never go thirsty. With all the wild vegetation around them, they'll never lack for fruit and vegetables. And whenever the meat supply gets low, they pick up a rifle and head into the brush for squirrel, rabbit, or venison, whatever the season.
When I neared fourteen, my father bit the bullet and moved us close to Pemberton where he took a job with a well-drilling crew. It was steady work, with benefits, and I got to go to Pemberton High. He pushed me to take my schoolwork seriously, and I did. My high grades coupled with my gender and low socioeconomic status earned me a full ride—room, board, and tuition—at Rutgers. As soon as that was settled, he was ready to move back into the Barrens. But my mother had become used to the conveniences and amenities of town living. She wanted to stay in Pemberton. So they stayed.
I still can't help but wonder whether Dad might have lived longer if he'd moved back into the woods. I've never mentioned that to my mother, of course.
When Jasper paused, I jumped in: "My friend Jon's doing a book and he's devoting a chapter to the Jersey Devil."
"Is that so?" Jasper said. "And you brought him to me, did you?"
"Well, Dad always told me there weren't many folks in the Pines you didn't know, and not much that went on that you didn't know about."
The old man beamed and did what many Pineys do: He repeated a phrase three times.
"Did he now? Did he now? Did he really now? Ain't that somethin'! I do believe that calls for a little jack."
As Jasper turned and reached into his cupboard, Creighton threw me a questioning look.
"Applejack," I told him.
He smiled. "Ah. Jersey lightning."
Jasper turned back with three glasses and a brown quart jug. With a practiced hand he poured two fingers' worth into each and handed them to us. The tumblers were smudged and maybe a little crusty, but I wasn't worried about germs. There's never been a germ that could stand up to straight jack from Jasper Mulliner's still. I remember siphoning some off from my father's jug and sneaking off into the brush at night to meet a couple of my girlfriends from high school, and we'd sit around and sing and get plastered.
I could tell by the way the vapor singed my nasal membranes that this was from a potent batch. I neglected to tell Creighton to go slow. As I took a respectful sip, he tossed his off. I watched him wince as he swallowed, saw his face grow red and his eyes begin to water.
"Whoa!" he said hoarsely. "You could etch glass with that stuff!" He caught Jasper looking at him sideways and held out his glass. "But delicious! Could I have just a drop more?"
"Help yourself," Jasper said, pouring him another couple of fingers. "Plenty more where this came from. But down it slow. This here's sippin' whiskey. You go puttin' too much of it down like that and you'll get apple palsy. Slow and leisurely does it when you're drinking Gus Sooy's best."
"This isn't yours?" I said.
"Naw! I stopped that long time ago. Too much trouble and gettin' too civilized 'round here. Besides, Gus's jack is as good as mine ever was. Maybe better."
He set the jug on the floor between us.
"About that Jersey Devil," I said, prompting him before he got off on another tangent.
"Right. The ol' Devil. He used to be known as the Leeds' Devil. I'm sure you've heard various versions of the story, but I'll tell you the real one. That ol' devil's been around a spell, better'n two and a half centuries. All started back around 1730 or so. That was when Mrs. Leeds of Estellville found herself in the family way for the thirteenth time. Now she was so fed up and angry about this that she cried out, 'I hope this time it's the Devil!' Well now, Someone must've been listenin' that night, because she got her wish. When that thirteenth baby was born, it was an ugly-faced thing, born with teeth like no one'd ever seen before, and it had a curly, sharp- pointed tail, and leathery wings like a bat. It bit its mother and flew out through the window. It grew up out in the pine wilds, stealing and eating chickens and small piglets at first, then graduating to cows, children, even growed men. All they ever found of its victims was their bones, and they was chipped and nicked by powerful sharp teeth. Some say it's dead now, some say it'll never die. Every so often someone says he shot and killed it, but most folks think it can't be killed. It gets blamed for every missing chicken and every pig or cow that wanders off, and so after a while you think it's just an ol' Piney folktale. But it's out there. It's out there. It's surely out there."
"Have you ever seen it?" Creighton asked. He was sipping his jack with respect this time around.
"Saw its shadow. It was up on Apple Pie Hill, up at the top, in the days before they put up the firetower. Before you was born, Kathleen. I'd been out doing some summer hunting, tracking a big ol' stag. You know what a climb Apple Pie is, dontcha?"
I nodded. "Sure do."
It didn't look like much of a hill. No cliffs or precipices, just a slow incline that seemed to go on forever. You didn't have to do much more than walk to get to the top, but you were bushed when you finally reached it.
"Anyways, I was about three-quarters the way up when it got too dark to do any more tracking. Well, I was tired and it was a warm summer night so's I just settled down on the pine needles and decided I'd spend the night. I had some jerky and some pone and my jug." He pointed to the floor. "Just like that one. You two be sure to help yourselves, hear me?"
"I'm fine," I said.
I saw Creighton reach for the jug. He could always handle a lot. I was already feeling my two sips. It was getting warmer in here by the minute.
"Anyways," Jasper went on, "I was sitting there chewing and sipping when I saw some pine lights."
Creighton started in mid-pour and spilled some applejack over his hand. He was suddenly very alert, almost tense.
"Pine lights?" he said. "You saw pine lights? Where were they?"
"So you've heard of the pine lights, have you?"
"I sure have. I've been doing my homework. Where did you see them? Were they moving?"
"They were streaming across the crest of Apple Pie Hill, just skirting the tops of the trees."
Creighton put his tumbler down and began fumbling with his map.
"Apple Pie Hill... I remember seeing that somewhere. Here it is." He jabbed his finger down on the map as if he were driving a spike into the hill. "Okay. So you were on Apple Pie Hill when you saw the pine lights. How many were there?"
"A whole town's worth of them, maybe a hunnert, more than I've ever seen before or since."
"How fast were they going?"
"Different speeds. Different sizes. Some gliding peacefully, some zipping along, moving past the slower ones. Looked like the turnpike on a summer weekend."
Creighton leaned forward, his eyes brighter than ever.
"Tell me about it."
Something about Creighton's intensity disturbed me. All of a sudden he'd become an avid listener. He'd been listening politely to Jasper's retelling of the Jersey Devil story, but he'd seemed more interested in the applejack than in the tale. He hadn't bothered to check the location of Apple Pie Hill when Jasper had said he'd seen the Jersey Devil there, but he'd been in a rush to find it at the first mention of the pine lights.
The pine lights. I'd heard of them but I'd never seen one. People tended to catch sight of them on summer nights, mostly toward the end of the season. Some said it was ball lightning or some form of St. Elmo's fire, some called it swamp gas, and some said it was the souls of dead Pineys coming back for periodic visits. Why was Creighton so interested?
"Well," Jasper said, "I spotted one or two moving along the crest of the hill and didn't think too much of it. I spot a couple just about every summer. Then I saw a few more. And then a few more. I got a little excited and decided to get up to the top of Apple Pie and see what was going on. I was breathing hard by the time I got there. I stopped and looked up and there they was, flowing along the treetops forty feet above me, pale yellow, some Ping-Pong size and some big as beach balls, all moving in the same direction."
"What direction?" Creighton said. If he leaned forward any farther, he was going to fall off his stool. "Which way were they going?"
"I'm getting to that, son," Jasper said. "Just hold your horses. So as I was saying, I was standing there watching them flow against the clear night sky, and I was feeling this strange tightness in my chest, like I was witnessing something I shouldn't. But I couldn't tear my eyes away. And then they thinned out and was gone. They'd all passed. So I did something crazy. I climbed a tree to see where they was going. Something in my gut told me not to, but I was filled with this wonder, almost like holy rapture. So I climbed as far as I could, until the tree started to bend with my weight and
the branches got too thin to hold me. And I watched them go. They was strung out in a long trail, dipping down when the land dipped down, and moving up when the land rose, moving just above the tops of the pines, like they was being pulled along strings." He looked at Creighton. "And they was heading southwest."
"You're sure of that?"
Jasper looked insulted. "Course I'm sure of that. Bear Swamp Hill was behind my left shoulder, and everybody knows Bear Swamp is east of Apple Pie. Those lights was on their way southwest."
"And this was the summer?"
"Nigh on to Labor Day, if I 'member correct."
"And you were on the crest of Apple Pie Hill?"
"The tippy top."
"Great!" He began folding his map.
"I thought you wanted to hear about the Jersey Devil."
"I do, I do."
"Then how come you're asking me all these questions about the lights and not asking me about my meeting with the Devil?"
I hid a smile. Jasper was as sharp as ever.
Creighton looked confused for a moment. An expression darted across his face. It was only there for a second, but I caught it. Furtiveness. Then he leaned forward and spoke to Jasper in a confidential tone.
"Don't tell anybody this, but I think they're connected. The pine lights and the Jersey Devil. Connected."
Jasper leaned back. "You know, you might have something there. Cause it was while I was up that tree that I spotted the ol' Devil himself. Or at least his shadow. I was watching the lights flow out of sight when I heard this noise in the brush. It had a slithery sound to it. I looked down and there was this dark shape moving below. And you know what? It was heading in the same direction as the lights. What do you think of that?"
Creighton's voice oozed sincerity.
"I think that's damn interesting, Jasper."
I thought they both were shoveling it, but I couldn't decide who was carrying the bigger load.
"But don't you go getting too interested in those pine lights, son. Gus Sooy says they're bad medicine."
"The guy who made this jack?" I said, holding up my empty tumbler.
"The very same. Gus says there's lots of pine light activity in his neighborhood every summer. Told me I was a fool for climbing that tree. Says he wouldn't get near one of those lights for all the tea in China."
I noticed that Creighton was tense again.
"Where's this Gus Sooy's neighborhood?" he said. "Does he live in Chatsworth?"
Jasper burst out laughing.
"Gus live in Chatsworth? That's a good 'un! Gus Sooy's an old Hessian who lives way out in the wildest part of the pines. Never catch him near a city like this!"
City? I didn't challenge him on that.
"Where do we find him then?" Creighton said, his expression like a kid who's been told there's a cache of M&M's hidden somewhere nearby.
"Not easy," Jasper said. "Gus done a good job of getting himself well away from everybody. He's well away. Yes, he's well away. But if you go down to Apple Pie Hill and head along the road there that runs along its south flank, and you follow that about two mile and turn south onto the sand road by Applegate's cranberry bog, then follow that for about ten- twelve mile till you come to the fork where you bear left, then go right again at the cripple beyond it, then it's a good ten mile down that road till you get to the big red cedar—"
Creighton was scribbling furiously.
"I'm not sure I know what a red cedar looks like," I said.
"You'll know it," Jasper said. "Its kind don't grow naturally around here. Gus planted it there a good many year ago so people could find their way to him. The right people," he said, eyeing Creighton. "People who want to buy his wares, if you get my meaning."
I nodded. I got his meaning: Gus made his living off his still.
"Anyways, you turn right at the red cedar and go to the end of the road. Then you've got to get out and walk about a third of the way up the hill. That's where you'll find Gus Sooy."
I tried to drive the route across a mental map in my head. I couldn't get there. My map was blank where he was sending us. But I was amazed at how far I did get. As a Piney, even a girl, you've got to develop a good sense of where you are, got to have a store of maps in your head that you can picture by reflex, otherwise you'll spend most of your time being lost. Even with a good library of mental maps, you'll still get lost occasionally. I could still travel my old maps. The skill must be like the proverbial bicycle— once you've learned, you never forget.
I had a sense that Gus Sooy's place was somewhere far down in Burlington County, near Atlantic County. But county lines don't mean much in the Pinelands.
"That's really in the middle of nowhere!" I said.
"That it is, Kathy, that it is. That it surely is. It's on the slope of Razor- back Hill."
Creighton shuffled through his maps again.
"Razorback . . . Razorback . . . there's no Razorback Hill here."
"That's because it ain't much of a hill. But it's there all right. Just 'cause it ain't on your diddly map don't mean it ain't there. Lots of things ain't on that map."
Creighton rose to his feet.
"Maybe we can run out there now and buy some of this applejack from him. What do you say, Mac?"
"We've got time."
I had a feeling he truly did want to buy some of Sooy's jack, but I was sure some questions about the pine lights would come up during the transaction.
"Better bring your own jugs if you're goin," Jasper said. "Gus don't carry no spares. You can buy some from the Buzbys at the general store."
"Will do," I said.
I thanked him and promised I'd say hello to my mom for him, then I joined Creighton out at the Wrangler. He had one of his maps unfolded on the hood and was drawing a line southwest from Apple Pie Hill through the emptiest part of the Barrens.
"What's that for?" I asked.
"I don't know just yet. We'll see if it comes to mean anything."
It would. Sooner than either of us realized.
I bought a gallon-sized brown jug at the Chatsworth general store; Creighton bought two.
"I want this Sooy fellow to be real glad to see me!"
I drove us down 563, then off to Apple Pie Hill. We got south of it and began following Jasper's directions. Creighton read while I drove.
"What the hell's a cripple?" he said.
“That's a spong with no cedars."
"Ah! That clears up everything!"
"A spong is a low wet spot; if it's got cedars growing around it, it's a cripple. What could be clearer?"
"I'm not sure, but I know I'll think of something. By the way, why's this Sooy fellow called a Hessian? Mulliner doesn't really think he's—?"
"Of course not. Sooy's an old German name around the Pine Barrens. Comes from the Hessians who deserted the British Army and fled into the woods after the battle of Trenton."
"The Revolution."
"Sure. This sand road we're riding on now was here three hundred-odd years ago as a wagon trail. It probably hasn't changed any since. Might even have been used by the smugglers who used to unload freight in the marshes and move it overland through the Pines to avoid port taxes in New York and Philly. A lot of them settled in here. So did a good number of Tories and Loyalists who were chased from their land after the Revolution. Some of them probably arrived dressed in tar and feathers and little else. The Lenape Indians settled in here, too, so did Quakers who were kicked out of their churches for taking up arms during the Revolution."
Creighton laughed. "Sounds like Australia! Didn't anyone besides outcasts settle here?"
"Sure. Bog iron was a major industry. This was the center of the colonial iron production. Most of the cannonballs fired against the British in the Revolution and the War of 1812 were forged right here in the Pine Barrens."
"Where'd everybody go?"
"A place called Pittsburgh. There was more iron there and it was cheaper to produce. The furnaces here tried to shift over to glass production but they were running out of wood to keep them going. Each furnace consumed something like a thousand acres of pine a year. With the charcoal industry, the lumber industry, even the cedar shake industry all adding to the daily toll on the tree population, the Barrens couldn't keep up with the demand. The whole economy collapsed after the Civil War. Which probably saved the area from becoming a desert."
I noticed the underbrush between the ruts getting higher, slapping against the front bumper as we passed, a sure sign that not many people came this way. Then I spotted the red cedar. Jasper had been right—it didn't look like it belonged here. We turned right and drove until we came to a cul-de-sac at the base of a hill. Three rusting cars hugged the bushes along the perimeter.
"This must be the place," I said.
"This is not a place. This is nowhere."
We grabbed our jugs and walked up the path. About a third of the way up the slope we broke into a clearing with a slant-roofed shack in the far left corner. It looked maybe twenty feet on a side, and was covered with tarpaper that was peeling away in spots, exposing the plywood beneath. Somewhere behind the shack a dog had begun to bark.
Creighton said, "Finally!" and started forward.
I laid a hand on his arm.
"Call out first," I told him. "Otherwise we may be ducking buckshot."
He thought I was joking at first, then saw that I meant it.
"You're serious?"
"We're dressed like city folk. We could be revenuers. He'll shoot first and ask questions later."
"Hello in the house!" Creighton cried. "Jasper Mulliner sent us! Can we come up?"
A wizened figure appeared on the front step, a twelve gauge cradled in his arms.
"How'd he send you?"
"By way of the red cedar, Mr. Sooy!" I replied.
"C'mon up then!"
Where Jasper had been neat, Gus Sooy was slovenly. His white hair looked like a deranged bird had tried to nest in it; for a shirt he wore the stained top from a set of long johns and had canvas pants secured around his waist with coarse rope. His lower face was obscured by a huge white beard, stained around the mouth. An Appalachian Santa Claus, going to seed in the off-season.
We followed him into the single room of his home. The floor was covered with a mismatched assortment of throw rugs and carpet remnants. A bed sat in the far left corner, a kerosene stove was immediately to our right. Set about the room were a number of Aladdin lamps with the tall flues. Dominating the scene was a heavy-legged kitchen table with an enamel top.
We introduced ourselves and Gus said he'd met my father years ago.
“So what brings you two kids out here to see Gus Sooy?"
I had to smile, not just at the way he managed to ignore the jugs we were carrying, but at being referred to as a "kid." A long time since anyone had called me that. I wouldn't let anyone call me a "girl" these days, but somehow I didn't mind "kid."
"Today we tasted some of the best applejack in the world," Creighton said with convincing sincerity, "and Jasper told us you were the source." He slammed his two jugs on the table. "Fill 'em up!"
I placed my own jug next to Creighton's.
"I gotta warn you," Gus said. "It's five dollars a quart."
"Five dollars!" Creighton said.
"Yeah," Gus added quickly, "but seein' as you're buying so much at once—"
"Don't get me wrong, Mr. Sooy. I wasn't saying the price is too high. I was just shocked that you'd be selling such high-grade sipping whiskey for such a low price."
"You were?" The old man beamed with delight. "It is awful good, isn't it?"
"That it is, sir. That it is. That it surely is."
I almost burst out laughing. I don't know how Creighton managed to keep a straight face.
Gus held up a finger. "You kids stay right here. I'll dip into my stock and be back in a jiffy."
We both broke down into helpless laughter as soon as he was gone.
"You're laying it on awful thick," I said when I caught my breath.
"I know, but he's lapping up every bit."
Gus returned in a few minutes with two gallon jugs of his own.
"Hadn't we ought to test this first before you begin filling our jugs?" Creighton said.
"Not a bad idea. No, sir, not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all."
Creighton produced some paper cups from one of the pockets in his safari jacket and placed them on the table. Gus poured. We all sipped.
"This is even smoother than what Jasper served us. How do you do it, Mr. Sooy?"
"That's a secret," he said with a wink as he brought out a funnel and began decanting from his jugs into ours.
I brought up Jon's book and Gus launched into a slightly different version of the Jersey Devil story, saying it was born in Leeds, which is at the opposite end of the Pine Barrens from Estellville. Otherwise the tales were almost identical.
"Jasper says he saw the Devil once," Creighton said as Gus topped off the last of our jugs.
"If he says he did, then he did. That'll be sixty dollar."
Creighton gave him three twenties.
"And now I'd like to buy you a drink, Mr. Sooy."
"Call me Gus. And I don't mind if I do."
Creighton was overly generous, I thought, with the way he filled the three paper cups. I didn't want any more, but I felt I had to keep up appearances. I sipped while the men quaffed.
"Jasper told us about the time he saw the Jersey Devil. He mentioned seeing pine lights at the same time."
I sensed rather than saw Gus stiffen.
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. He said you see pine lights around here all the time. Is that true?
"You interested in pine lights or the Jersey Devil, boy?"
"Both. I'm interested in all the folktales of the Pines."
"Well, don't get too interested in the pine lights."
"Why not?"
"Just don't."
I watched Creighton tip his jug and refill Gus's cup.
"A toast!" Creighton said, lifting his cup. "To the Pine Barrens!"
"I'll drink to that!" Gus said, and drained his cup.
Creighton followed suit, causing his eyes to fill with tears. I sipped while he poured another round.
"To the Jersey Devil!" Creighton cried, hoisting his cup again.
And again they both tossed off their drinks. And then another round.
"To the pine lights!"
Gus wouldn't drink to that one. I was glad. I don't think either of them would have remained standing if he had.
"Have you seen any pine lights lately, Gus," Creighton said.
"You don't give up, do you, boy," the old man said.
"It's an affliction."
"So it is. All right. Sure. I see 'em all the time. Saw some last night.”
“Really? Where?"
"None of your business."
"Why not?"
"Because you'll probably try to do something stupid like catch one, and then I'll be responsible for what happened to you and this young lady here. Not on my conscience, no thank you."
"I wouldn't dream of trying to catch one of those things!" Creighton said.
"Well, if you did you wouldn't be the first. Peggy Clevenger was the first." Gus lifted his head and looked at me. "You heard of Peggy Clevenger, ain't you, Miss McKelston?"
I nodded. "Sure. The Witch of the Pines. In the old days people used to put salt over their doors to keep her away."
Creighton began scribbling.
"No kidding? This is great! What about her and the pine lights?"
" Peggy was a Hessian, like me. Lived over in Pasadena. Not the California Pasadena, the Pines Pasadena. A few miles east of Mount Misery. The town's gone now, like it never been. But she lived thereabouts by herself in a small cabin, and people said she had all sorts of strange powers, like she could change her shape and become a rabbit or a snake. I don't know about that stuff, but I heard from someone who should know that she was powerful interested in the pine lights. She told this fella one day that she had caught one of the pine lights, put a spell on it, and brought it down."
Creighton had stopped writing. He was staring at Gus.
"How could she . . . ?"
"Don't know," Gus said, draining his cup and shaking his head. "But that very night her cabin burned to the ground. They found her blackened and burned body among the ashes the next morning. So I tell you, kids, it ain't a good idea to get too interested in the pine lights."
"I don't want to capture one," Creighton said. "I don't even want to see one. I just want to know where other people have seen them. How can that be dangerous?"
Gus thought about that. And while he was thinking, Creighton poured him another cupful.
"Don't s'pose it would do any harm to show you where they was," he said after a long slow sip.
"Then it's settled. Let's go.”
We gathered up the jugs and headed out into the late afternoon sunshine. The fresh air was like a tonic. It perked me up but didn't dissipate the effects of all the jack I'd consumed.
When we reached the Wrangler, Creighton pulled out his sextant and compass.
"Before we go, there's something I've got to do."
Gus and I watched in silence as he took his sightings and scribbled in his notebook. Then he spread his map out on the hood again.
"What's up?" I said.
"I'm putting Razorback Hill on the map," he said.
He jotted his readings on the map and drew a circle. Before he folded everything up, I glanced over his shoulder and noticed that the line he had drawn from Apple Pie Hill ran right by the circle that was Razorback Hill.
"You through dawdlin?" Gus said.
"Sure am. You want to ride in front?"
"No thanks," Gus said, heading for the rusty DeSoto. "I'll drive myself and you kids follow."
I said, "Won't it be easier if we all go together?"
"Hell no! You kids have been drinkin'!"
When we stopped laughing, we pulled ourselves into the Wrangler and followed the old Hessian back up his private sand road.
5. The Firing Place
"I used to make charcoal here when I was young," Gus said.
We were standing in a small clearing surrounded by young pines. Before us was a shallow sandy depression, choked with weeds.
"This used to be my firing place. It was deeper then. I made some fine charcoal here before the big companies started selling their bags of 'brickettes.' “He fairly spat the word. "Ain't no way any one of those smelly little things was ever part of a tree, I'll tell you that."
"Is this where you saw the lights, Gus?" Creighton said. "Were they moving?"
Gus said, "You got a one-track mind, don't you, boy?" He glanced around. "Yeah, this is where I saw them. Saw them here last night and I saw them here fifty years ago, and I seen them near about every summer in between. Lots of memories here. I remember how while I was letting my charcoal burn I'd use the time to hunt up box turtles."
"And sell them as snail hunters?" I said.
I'd heard of box turtle hunting—another Pinelands mini-industry—but I'd never met anyone who'd actually done it.
"Sure. Folks in Philadelphia buy all I could find. They liked to let them loose in their cellars to keep the snails and slugs under control."
"The lights, Gus," Creighton said. "Which way were they going?"
"They was goin' the same way they always went when I seen them here. That way."
He was pointing southeast.
"Are you sure?"
"Sure as shit, boy." Gus's tone was getting testy, but he quickly turned to me. " 'Scuse me, miss," then back to Creighton. "I was standing back there right where my car is when about a half dozen of them swooped in low right overhead—not a hunting swoop, but a floaty sort of swoop—and traveled away over that pitch pine there with the split top."
"Good!" said Creighton, eyeing the sky.
A thick sheet of cloud was pulling up from the west, encroaching on the sinking sun. Out came the sextant and compass. Creighton took his readings, wrote his numbers, then took a bearing on the tree Gus had pointed out. A slow, satisfied smile crept over his face as he drew the latest line on his map. He folded it up before I had a chance to see where that line went. I didn't have to see. His next question told me.
"Say, Gus," he said offhandedly. "What's on the far side of Razorback Hill?"
Gus turned on Creighton like an angry bear.
"Nothing! There's nothing there! So don't you even think about going over there!"
Creighton's smile was amused. "I was only asking. No harm in a little question, is there?"
"There is. There is. Yes, there surely is! Especially when those questions is the wrong ones. And you've been asking a whole lot of wrong questions, boy. Questions that's gonna get you in a whole mess of bad trouble if you don't get smart and learn that certain things is best left alone. You hear me?
He sounded like a character from one of those old Frankenstein movies.
"I hear you," Creighton said, "and I appreciate your concern. But can you tell me the best way to get to the other side of that hill?”
Gus threw up his hands with an angry growl.