AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

CLASSIFICATION: X-FILE, HUMOR

RATING: R (for...well, just about everything)

SUMMARY: Mulder and Scully go to a town called Final,
Mississippi to investigate a crime that apparently did
*not* happen.

ARCHIVE: If you want it, you can have it.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a story about the South. Or, rather,
it's about the mystique of the South. When we think of
Mississippi, we think of a hot stew of weirdness and evil.
That mystique has more than a bit of truth to back it up,
but the real thing is a lot more complex than that. Still,
the mystique is fun to play around with.

DEDICATIONS: I would like to say "thank you" to Caroline
Willoughby who first read this and to Laurie Haynes who
edited it.

I would also like to dedicate this story to the KKK who
figure so prominently in my tale. Guys, I would just like
to say...fuck you in the nose!

FEEDBACK must be delivered to ottercrk@sover.net where
it will be brooded over on lonely winter nights.

DISCLAIMER: All right, Chris Carter. "The X-Files" is your
baby. However, if the issue is money, let's look at a few
facts. Not only have watched I your show faithfully (and
"Millennium" pretty faithfully as well), I have purchased
all four "soundtracks," four videotapes and three tie-in
books. I saw the movie three times, twice at a matinee and
once on video. My mother has gotten me an X-File calendar
twice for Christmas and for my birthday, I got to go to
the Expo in New York City on both Saturday and Sunday.
That's a lot of money that got spent. I think you owe *me*
a little something.

Pay up, you suntanned bastard.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A.C. Burnside glared at the crowd as if he was about to
beat them all with his guitar. In the close quarters of The
Shithole, he could probably cleave off the heads of five
people with one swoop of his Gibson.

"All right, you mammy-fuckers, this is the time to
listen!" he growled into the microphone, his big voice made
bigger and just loud enough to get through the din of the
audience's cat-calls, whistles and hollers.

"This next number is a sing-a-long! And I better hear all
you mammy-fuckers sing or I'm gonna chase your smelly asses
out of here! That means you, you, you and you!" With each
'you,' A.C. pointed at an individual person who responded
with a cheer or a grin. Nobody looked too intimidated even
though A.C. didn't seem to be kidding and he did, in fact,
own the bar.

Standing near the doorway, Ben Hedge tensed his large
shoulders. If A.C. ordered him to haul somebody out, then
he was required to do it quicker than shit down a greased
plank. Sometimes, he had do it because the person in
question was making trouble, but simply pissing off A.C.
was also a good way to get yourself tossed out of the
Shithole. And A.C. was always pissed off about something.
Luckily, most of the people who got the shaft from the bar
owner/blues musician took it in good humor. It was even
regarded as a rite of passage in Final, Mississippi.

However, occasionally, someone did not take it in good
humor.

That's when Ben had to move onto the next level.

The woman behind the bar had witnessed A.C.'s temper
longer than Ben had. She was A.C.'s sister, after all. Zola
Burnside believed in God because divine intervention was
the only explanation for her brother's relatively unscathed
life. Here he was, a hot-tempered black man living in the
only state that gave a double-digit percentage of its
electorate to David Duke's presidential campaign...a man
who presided over a blues bar with the highest potency of
alcohol and the least effective air conditioning in the
whole South...a man who took offense at the slightest
affront...yet he had managed to have only a few scars on
his body and a large circle of friends. Or acquaintances,
anyway.

That's why she didn't mind serving the drinks at the
Shithole or think much about supplying A.C.'s Home Brew to
anyone who wanted it. (A.C.'s Home Brew was a mixture
brewed in his own still. Its exact ingredients have been
rumored to be a wide range of items from paint remover to
buckshot to weeds plucked from the ground next to an
outhouse.) She calmly regarded the bar's packed array of
heads and torsos that danced, sweated and occasionally fell
out-of-sight. What others would see as a drunken crowd
ready to go nuts, she saw a sign of the bar's success. Even
before the clock turned nine, the Shithole would usually be
full of people encased between rotting wooden walls covered
with autographed photos of blue musicians who had the
strange fortune to wind up playing in the bar. ("Damn, this
place really is a shithole."---Lil' Ed Williams.) The very
fact that this joint could make money indicated that the
Good Lord looked over A.C. Burnside.

Of course, it could have been someone else other than God
that A.C. had made a bargain with. But Zola doubted that
person would have anything to do with her brother.

She managed to catch Ben's eyes through the crowd. He
communicated his tension to her. She replied with a smile.

Ben smiled back. Zola had that effect on him. Only she
could have convinced him to have faith in the luck of A.C.
What he liked best about her of all the women he had known
was that she could always soothe him. Even their lovemaking
could calm him down. Usually, sex made Ben's heart slam
back and forth in his chest, leaving him overly excited and
unsettled. After a hour in Zola's bed, he was ready to just
stretch out and take a nap. "You have a Valium pussy," he
once told her. (He discovered that women don't really
regard this as a compliment.)

With one last exhortation to the "mammy-fuckers," A.C. and
his band struck up "Smokestack Lightnin'."

"Can't you hear me crying?" A.C. called out as if his
heart could actually be broken. And every last person in
that bar responded, even Ben and Zola. The sound of "Whoa-
HOOOOO" went straight back to the band. A.C. nodded, but
didn't smile. He had demanded no less than this great moan.

Maybe Zola is right, Ben thought. Maybe God is looking
after A.C. Can't figure out the fuck why, but it looks like
this night will turn out fine, after all.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Johnny McDonald clutched his Bible to his chest and
wondered if he dared to enter Hell again.

When he had come the last time, he hadn't been alone. The
assault on the satanic establishment whose name he couldn't
dare utter was supposed to have been a great triumph for
Young Christians for Change. As they had marched across the
railroad tracks and through the streets of the "black half"
of Final, he had felt a general like in God's army.
Marching with him were the representatives of a new
generation who would turn their back on the godless ways of
a fallen America. They were going to show the Devil himself
that not all teenagers were in the sway of his evil music.
And they would throw down the gauntlet in his own camp.

The six of them had burst into the Shi...the bar. There
they were, six white, well-scrubbed faces before an ocean
of black, sweating ones. The two young women in their group
frowned in disapproval at the naked shoulders and lengthy
display of leg on the female patrons. The young men stood
with them, ready to put the armor of their ironed white
shirts and well-polished black shoes between their women's
chastity and the sin that choked the bar's air.

Johnny held up his Bible and cried out, "Repent!"

And for one quiet moment, he could feel the Lord's power
surging through him, a mighty force that no one could
withstand.

In the next moment, every one of the Young Christians for
Change had been tossed outside. All except for Johnny. He
spent the rest of the night tied up and gagged on the
stage, laid out next to the drums. For many hellish hours,
his ears were punished with that evil (yet strangely
enticing) music. He could feel it vibrating through the hot
stage under him. The sinful bar owner would occasionally
place his boot on him, tapping out the music's tempo on his
back to the audience's wicked delight. However, that wasn't
the most humiliating, enraging thing about that night. He
had led this Christian assault on this bar in the hopes of
freeing at least one soul. That one soul was the other
guitarist in the bar, a young man who was none other than
the son of the pastor of Final Baptist Church. Somehow,
his black teenage peer had been seduced into this pit.

He had tried desperately to convince the preacher of the
danger posed to her son. She would only smile and said, "I
have confidence in the goodness of my son's soul. And
whatever you may think of A.C., he's a caring man at heart.
My son is in strong, capable hands."

"God have mercy on you," Johnny shot back and marched away.

This was to be expected. Just because a woman was the
daughter of the town's last preacher doesn't mean that she
should be entrusted with the spiritual life of the
community. Granted that this woman had a certain...effect
on people, but a man was a man and a woman was a woman. If
you let the latter take over, then everything falls apart
into wickedness and despair. He knew that a lot of people
in town felt the same way. He waited for the day on which
he would overthrow the presumptuous woman from her position
and appoint a more deserving person in her place.

Now, it was time to make a stand. It was time to show the
preacher how a real spiritual leader works. And he would
start by saving the soul of her son.

You would think that the son would appreciate this.

Instead, the preacher's son did nothing to help him. When
Johnny had looked up at him with a plea in his eyes as he
laid on the stage, the guitarist only shrugged and turned
to the audience.

It had angered Johnny so much that he lodged a complaint
with the Chief. Of course, he should have known better.
The Chief was always going to side with the woman that he
lusted after and, besides, he was one of THOSE people. He
only said, "Johnny, you were lucky that A.C. didn't shove
a bottle up your ass."

It turned out that the other members of Young Christians
for Change agreed with the Chief. When he proposed
another raid on the bar, they declined. Cowards, Johnny
thought. Did they not trust in the Lord?

It was his own trust in God that brought Johnny McDonald
back to Hornet Street. He stood a few blocks away from that
unspeakable bar, attempting to work enough up righteousness
to make a solo assault. The heathen music could reach his
ears.

"Fare you well...never see you no more...can't you hear me
crying..." "Whoa-HOOOOO..."

Johnny shuddered. He just didn't understand black people.
One moment they could play such holy music, the next they
were wailing the devil's tunes.

He took several breaths, praying his strength up. While he
was doing this, he saw a car pull up to the curb next to
the bar. He wondered why it was parking there and not in
the lot behind the bar.

Then he saw four white sheets and he pissed in his pants.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Ben was almost enjoying himself---the music was so good,
the audience was so happy, Zola was looking so fine---when
he saw the worried look on the face of Malcolm Burnside, Jr.

One thing that you were sure of in the Shithole---how ever
rowdy things might get, none of it touched Malcolm. He
would stand by A.C. on the tiny stage, oblivious to the
rants of his uncle as he checked on his guitar or looked
calmly over the screaming audience. No matter how scorching
hot the music felt, he would pluck his strings with a cool
detachment. (In contrast, the drummer had been playing with
A.C. for over a decade and he still looked tempted to throw
a cymbal at his band leader's head.) You could have said
that Malcolm had gotten that coolness from his father but
Malcolm had never known his daddy. Besides, there was
something else to Malcolm...he seemed to be watching you
from the clouds...

That's why Ben took notice when Malcolm looked towards the
back of the Shithole, fear and uncertainty in his eyes. The
bouncer got himself ready for anything.

Unfortunately, he wasn't ready enough.

One bullet is enough to kill a man. Twenty bullets broke
through the door and Ben Hedge was in the pathway of all of
them. He felt one piece of himself fall away, then another
and another. People turned to see him getting chopped up
into chunks the size of bread loaves. Those in the back
were sprayed with blood. One person was knocked unconscious
by a flying shoulder bone.

There was one-half second where the music stopped and
everyone watched in silence as Ben fell apart. Screaming
followed, of course. Right as the screaming started, the
chewed-up door was kicked easily off its hinges and four
people in white robes rushed in. They quickly formed a
line, their eyes staring out from their hoods and their
machine guns facing the crowd that was pushing itself back
to a space that didn't exist, cramming themselves into a
knot of flesh, sucking out the air that was needed to
sustain their screams. Zola had grabbed a rifle from under
the bar. A.C. was going for a gun that he kept behind a
speaker.

Malcolm was just standing still. He wasn't looking at the
hooded invaders. He was staring at a man standing behind
them. A bowler hat topped off this man's short body while a
black dress suit led down from his neck to his black shoes.
He was waving his hands at Malcolm, eyes wide behind his
spectacles as he shouted out a no that only the black
teenager could hear.

"Fuck it," Malcolm muttered.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Julius Grant sat in the car and wondered who invented
circus peanuts. Maybe it was that George Washington Carver,
he thought. That boy was always doing things with peanuts,
wasn't he? Thought up peanut butter, he did. That it itself
was a miracle-and-a-half, but if he had come up with circus
peanuts as well, then Carver was probably the greatest man
who ever lived. Boy probably deserved a blow job from the
Virgin Mary herself.

Julius munched on the orange circus peanuts as the screams
and gunfire continued inside the Shithole. In a few
moments, there were no more screams, but the gunfire lasted
awhile longer.

Yep, nothing like circus peanuts.

The four hooded men fled the Shithole and jumped into the
car. In a few seconds, the bar was a distant spot in the
rear view mirror.

"We did it," one of them said, exhausted and exhilarated
at the same time. "We really did it."

"Yep," Julius said, munching the last peanut and crumbling
up the plastic bag. "Now let's see if anything grows where
we just took a shit."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Johnny McDonald looked carefully out from the dark alley
he had retreated into. His whole body was trembling. He
made sure that the car carrying the Klan members was out-of-
sight. Then he vomited.

He looked at the Shithole. The next thing he knew, he was
walking towards there. Why are you doing this? he asked.
You know what you're going to see. Just call the police.
Don't look inside. Don't go through that doorway. Don't...

There was blood everywhere, streaked up and down the
walls, forming puddles at your feet, sprinkled across the
ceiling.

That wasn't surprising.

There were burning holes in the walls, shards of smashed
bottles, clothing torn into shreds, speakers and guitars
throwing off sparks.

That wasn't surprising, either.

What was surprising was that people were standing up. They
looked dazed but, despite the blood and damage all around
them, they looked completely unharmed.

On the stage, Malcolm watched over them with his busted
guitar at his side. They stared back at the withdrawn
expression on his face. He seemed to be a hundred feet
above them.

Then A.C. saw Johnny and his wide eyes.

"What are you lookin' at, mammy-fucker?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (2 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Chief Meyer Spiegelman felt like a schmuck. A southern-
fried schmuck. A durn putz.

Why am I doing this? he thought. Why am I wasting time
with this bullshit?

He opened a drawer on his desk. He stared at the inside
for a few seconds, then he closed it and sighed.

Sounds could be heard in the reception area -- a couple of
visitors. He could make out the word "agents." One of his
officers yelled out, "Chief, someone here to see you!" He
forced himself off his chair and left his office.

He was a bit surprised when he saw Agents Fox Mulder and
Dana Scully. He had expected to see a couple of pale-
skinned geeks in glasses. After all, what other kind of
person wastes time with investigating "paranormal
phenomena?" (He had abso-fucking-lutely no idea what that
meant.)

Instead, he found two very good-looking people who were
dressed well enough to make him jealous of an FBI agent's
salary. They waited for him behind the dividing line
between the main office area and the front foyer. The man
was tall and dark-haired with a long nose that gave his
handsome features the right amount of character. The woman
had red hair that curved gracefully down her head and blue
eyes that said, "I'm short, I'm a woman, but I'm not the
receptacle for your bullshit."

They looked like the lead actors of a fancy Hollywood
show. Spiegelman's two patrolmen, on the other hand, looked
like understudies for Boss Hogg. They were standing next to
the snack table, red faces snickering as they added more
doughnuts to bellies that squeezed themselves over their
gun belts.

"Chief Spiegelman, I'm Agent Mulder," the dark-haired man
said. "This is Agent..."

"How many Spics does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" one
of the patrolmen inquired of the other.

"I don't know," the other replied with a giggle. "How
many?" Before the wit could come with up the answer,
Spiegelman hollered at them. "Damn, ain't you two the very
pride of Final's police department? I'm just overjoyed that
these two FBI agents could see you working your fat asses
off!"

The two officers stared at Spiegelman, both angry and
humiliated, powder flaking off the doughnuts in their
frozen hands.

"And...this is Agent Scully," Mulder said slowly.

Spiegelman glanced at Mulder and said, "Hey." Then he
directed another growl towards his patrol officers.

"Call me a kike."

The policemen said nothing.

"I know you call me that behind my back. Why don't you go
ahead and get it out in the air instead of holding it
behind your yellow teeth?"

The fat police officers looked down.

"Well?"

"You're a kike..." one of the cops finally mumbled.

"And you're a couple of whale-sized rednecks with roadkill
for brains. Now this is what we call a mutual understanding."

Spiegelman turned back to the FBI agents. "Follow me," he
said politely.

Mulder and Scully followed the chief to his office, too aware
of the loathing in the policemen's eyes and the guns hanging
at their sides.

"You're probably wondering why I keep them on my team,"
Spiegelman observed after he closed the door.

"Actually, we were wondering if you are in any kind of
physical danger from your own subordinates," Scully told him.

Spiegelman turned his body to her, those six-feet-two-
inches of wide muscle poised carefully on his boots. His
face was as blank as an unplugged TV.

"I ain't worried," he told her. "Have a seat."

Mulder and Scully sat down in front of his desk, a little
quickly.

"I keep them on because I need all the men I can get," he
explained as he took his own chair. "Final has a population
of 700. Small, but that's still a lot for just two people."

"Two?"

"Me and Sally Ash, my one good officer. If nothing else,
those two pissants can stop a few bullets before they reach
us. And they got nowhere else to look for work."

He waved a hand through the air, tossing the subject away.
"Now, about why I asked you here..."

"Yes," Mulder said. "You seem to have an unusual situation
here."

A little smile pulled on Spiegelman's mouth. "You think so?"

"Well...from you told us, you have a crime that has been
witnessed but never happened."

"What I have is some scripture-sucking kid who has used a
yellow highlighter on Revelations so much that the fumes of
the ink has gone to his brain. Next thing you know, he'll
be seeing statues of Jesus bleeding out of their dicks or
something."

Mulder cleared his throat and said, "I'm familiar with the
history of reported religious visions. I'm also aware that
much of it is delusional. However, what Johnny McDonald has
testified to observing deviates from the standard motifs of
spiritual visitation."

"Which is another way of saying someone has imagined a
whole new brand of shit."

Mulder looked at Scully. She looked back at him, then
turned to Spiegelman. "Chief, why did you ask us here?"

Spiegelman turned away in his chair and rubbed his eyes.
"Well...to tell you the truth, I called you people as a
favor to a friend."

"Who is ...?"

"Nadine. Reverend Nadine Burnside. Her son was in the
Shithole when...this supposedly happened."

"The what?"

"It's the name of the bar. Nadine's brother-in-law owns
the place and Malcolm plays music there. Look..." His chair
squeaked back in their direction. "...if you want to tell
me to go stuff this case up my Semitic ass, then you're
more than welcome. If Nadine...if the reverend hadn't
begged me to look into it, I wouldn't give a shit about it
myself. Now, I know sweet f.a. about how to deal with this.
I called you up because I hear that this is your specialty.
So, what do you say?"

Mulder smiled. "First of all, Chief, wasting time is my
specialty as my partner will tell you. Second of all, I
think there is something to this story. Johnny may have
actually witnessed something that night. Maybe not exactly
what he says it is, but let's see if we can find the truth
in his fantasy."

Spiegelman looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, "If
you don't mind me asking, Agent Mulder, you wouldn't be of
the same background as me, would you?"

Scully waited for Mulder's answer. She wanted to know this
herself.

Mulder's smile got longer. "That's for me to know and for
you to find out."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"The Lord was there that night. He sent his angels to
protect the sinners because God loves us all from the most
holy to the most corrupt. With his never-ending power, he
held back Death itself. The flesh was healed and the wounds
were erased. For anyone that might doubt His love and
grace, look to the bar named the Sh...look to that bar and
know that nothing is beyond His..."

"This is an interrogation, not a prayer revival, you dumb
little cracker," Spiegelman snarled. "Just tell these folks
what you think you saw."

Johnny McDonald sighed inside. He knew that the chief
wouldn't understand. His race just couldn't see the light,
even if they were the Chosen People. He doubted that the
male FBI agent with the chief would understand either. That
nose, that name...such a dead giveaway,

On the other hand, the woman was wearing a crucifix. He
had taken special notice of it because it was suspended
next to two firm-looking breasts, both just the right size
to fill a man's hand.

"I will only talk to her."

"Of all the..." Spiegelman started.

"I'm sure it will be all right," Mulder interrupted. "Do
you mind, Scully?"

"If that's what makes Mr. McDonald comfortable."

"Then come along, Chief."

Spiegelman frowned, but opened the door and exited the
interrogation room. Before he left, Mulder whispered into
Scully's ear, "If you need help, just speak out in tongues."

"Now," Scully said, looking straight at the young man
sitting across from her at a table. "What happened?"

McDonald told her everything, taking note of her eyes and
lips and, of course, that gold cross against her black-
suited chest. He took no offense at anything she asked him,
only saying  "no, ma'am" to questions about his drinking
habits and any possibility of head trauma.

When she was satisfied with his answers, Scully told him
that he had been very helpful.

"I see you're a believer, Agent Scully."

She glanced down at her cross. "Yes. I am."

He leaned forward, drawing those breasts closer to him.
"Do you also believe that a miracle has taken place?" he
said.

"It's too soon for me to make a conclusion. Of course,
the Catholic heritage has no shortage of..."

"Catholic?"

"Yes."

Johnny lurched back from Scully as images of blood-filled
cups and the Pope leading murderous armies flashed through
his mind.

"Is there a problem?" Scully asked quietly.

"Well...I suppose that you can't help it."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I can kick him around for a bit, if you like."

"There's no need for Southern chivalry, Chief."

"Nothing chivalrous about it," Spiegelman told Scully.
"The boy just has it coming."

"I sense a bit of hostility from you, Chief," Mulder said.

"That little prick thinks he can be a better preacher than
Nadine. The really fucked-up thing is that he might end up
getting the job. Nadine is a great preacher, but this is
still a cracker town that has trouble with the idea of a
woman being the head of a church."

"Or a Jew being Chief of Police?"

Spiegelman frowned, not at Mulder but at the whole
population of Final.

Scully cleared her throat.

Spiegelman shook his head. "Sorry about that. Well, Agent
Scully, what did you make of his story?"

"As Agent Mulder said, there might be some truth in his
tale. I suggest that we start with the elements in it that
sound most probable."

"That would be the Klan shooting at a bar full of black
people," Mulder commented. "Chief, did you talk with the
owner of the, uh...the Shithole?"

"A.C.? I called him up and asked if there had been any
trouble that night. He said, 'Nope, it was as quiet as two
white people fucking.'"

"Ah. Okay. Well, did you go down there yourself to look
for any signs of gunfire?"

Spiegelman looked at Mulder. "That would be saying that
A.C. lied to me. I don't feel like calling him that under
any circumstances, especially when I have only the word of
some pimply-faced Bible-beater."

"Maybe he's afraid that the Klan will retaliate if he
talks."

Spiegelman got a good laugh out of that.

"If the Klan ever tried to attack his bar," he chortled,
"then A.C. would track them down so he could make a
necklace out of their nuts. Since that hasn't happened, I'm
even more doubtful that Johnny's story is true."

"Then why don't we make sure?"

"How so?"

"Are there any local chapters of the Klan around?"

Spiegelman raised his eyebrows. "You ask that in
Mississippi?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The house looked pretty much like they expected. Holes
were bitten into the screen door. An brown oil drum rested
pointlessly in a lawn that was nourishing an empire of
weeds. An old rebel flag jutted out defiantly under the
shine of the roof's aluminum tiles.

"Fred!" Spiegelman called out. "Fred Udell, you in here?"

"Go away!" a high-pitched voice shot back.

Spiegelman motioned to Mulder and Scully who followed him
into the house where they found more of the expected -- a
television set with a knob on it, gray tape all over the
furniture, "The Turner Diaries" and "Mein Kampf" on the
shelves, commemorative dishes in a display case.

"I said, go away!" Udell hollered. "I'm taking a shit!"

"We can wait," Spiegelman said as they followed the voice
to the bathroom door.

"It's diarrhea!"

There was a sound like a walrus sneezing. Everybody winced
as a smell crept out from under the door. It was the kind
of scent that would have been drawn in comic books as a
wide brown line curving back and forth through the air.

"Oh, man..." Udell groaned.

"Then we'll talk right here," Spiegelman told him.

"Ah, Chief, what is this all about?"

"A couple of nights ago, someone reported that the Klan
tried to shoot up A.C.'s bar."

There was a moment of silence from behind the door.

"Well, was there?" Udell said. Spiegelman glanced at
Mulder and Scully, then said, "It's kind of hard to say."

"What do you mean? Were there any bodies? Did anybody get
killed?"

"No. No one got killed."

"Then what the fuck is the deal? I'm telling you, niggers
get killed, people pick on the Klan. Niggers don't get
killed, people still pick on the Klan."

"That's not a nice word, Mr. Udell," Mulder commented.

"Who the hell is..."

The walrus sneeze again.

"...that, Chief?"

"I'm Agent Fox Mulder from the FBI."

"Oh, that's great. Now, they're sending in the federal
kikes."

Scully saw the look on the two men and decided to step in.
"Mister Udell, it's best that you cooperate in this matter."

"And who are you?"

"I'm Agent Dana Scully. I'm also with the FBI."

"Well, I'll tell you what, Dana. You take your lesbo ass
and go back to..."

Mulder kicked the door in. Before anyone could stop him,
he strode into the bathroom, headed for the sun-burned,
long-necked man sitting on the toilet with his pants
lowered to the cracked tiles.

"Hey, man!" Udell shrieked.

Mulder stood over Udell and placed a hand against the wall
behind him. He had a little smile on his face.

"That's not a nice word, either, Mr. Udell," he commented.

"Mulder..." Scully started, but her partner held up a
hand. She looked to the chief. Spiegelman was uncertain
about all this.

"It's just a simple question," Mulder continued. "You're
the leader of the local Klan chapter, their Grand High
Wizard or Elf or whatever. Did you and your pointy-headed
wonders lead a raid on the Shithole?"

A twitch jumped in Udell's cheek.

"Well, did you?"

Another spurt jettisoned into the water. Udell closed his
eyes.

"Look me in the eyes, Udell."

He slowly lifted his eyelids.

"Now, tell me."

The Adam's apple in Udell's throat went up and down.

Then he said, "You can't prove we were."

Mulder stared into Udell's eyes for a few moments before
he said, "That will be all, Mister Udell."

He went to the door, stopped there and looked back. "Oh,
by the way..."

Udell shifted his eyes in the agent's direction.

"Make sure you get lots of fiber."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

As Spiegelman drove them away in his police car, he said,
"I'm not sure you should have done that, Agent Mulder."

"I thought you would have liked it, Chief."

"I'm not above getting rough. But I like to do it with
cause. We don't know if anything happened at..."

"They were there. They were there with guns."

Spiegelman glanced at Mulder. Scully asked, "How can you
be sure?"

"I looked into his eyes. He was there with his buddies and
he was there to kill."

"All right," Spiegelman said. "Then how come nobody got
killed?"

"They missed?"

"Agent Mulder...if Johnny is telling the truth, they went
in there heavily armed. And there's very little cover in
the Shithole. How could they have missed?"

"That would have been a miracle, wouldn't it?"

Spiegelman looked at Mulder again, then shook his head.

"Okay, Mulder," Scully said. "Try this one. You're a KKK
member who has just tried to kill a bunch of black people.
They all survive."

"Right. A miracle."

"Didn't Mr. Udell seem -- despite his condition -- a
little too relaxed?"

"Hmmm."

"She's right, Mulder," Spiegelman said. "That son-of-a-
bitch should have been over the Mississippi border by now.
If a miracle like that did take place, any Klan member
wouldn't be waiting around in his house and taking a shit.
He would be hiding in the hills, too scared to show himself."

Mulder said nothing.

"Well?"

"Questions, questions, questions," Mulder said with a lazy
air. Before Scully or Spiegelman could respond (her with
weariness and him with a curse), he added, "I would like to
see Mr. Burnside."

Spiegelman sighed. "All right. But I'm waiting in the car."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A few sounds really got on Julius Grant's nerves --
jackhammers, car alarms, Garth Brooks and the sound of Fred
Udell's voice.

"That kike chief was here!" Udell screeched over the
phone. "And he had a couple of FBI agents with him!"

"That's something special," Julius replied in a casual tone
though his body was tense despite being laid across a chair
covered in genuine yak hair. The sound of Fred Udell had
that effect on him.

"They're going to find out what happened!"

"Nothing happened, Fred. You know that."

"Oh, Jesus, Mr. Grant...I mean, you told us to expect
something like this, but...man, this is the weirdest
fucking shit I've seen. Those niggers were dead."

"And now they're not. Hallelujah."

"I hope like hell you know what you're doing."

"Absolutely."

"I'm only doing this because I believe that it will
protect the white race."

"Fred, after I'm done, you'll be able to march through
Harlem and lynch Puff Daddy, Jesse Jackson and Toni
Morrison from the nearest flagpole. On job applications,
the question on race will have two boxes to check --
'white' or 'mud people.' There will be models walking down
the runways in white robes and pointed hoods. UPN will be
shut down forever. And you...you, Fred, will have the
biggest dick in the world."

The silence on the other end was the sound of Fred Udell
taking in that vision.

"But, Fred?"

"Yes, Mr. Grant?"

"This can only work if...we...all...stay...calm."

"Yes, sir. I'm calm."

"Good. Now return to your shitting."

"Yes, sir."

Julius hung up the phone and wondered why did plans like
this always required the help of assholes. A great
trumpeting sound shot through an open window.

"Okay, okay, Stonewall," Julius grumbled. "I'm coming."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH(Part 3 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Mulder and Scully heard the shots right after they got out
of Spiegelman's car. They dropped down to the front lawn of
A.C. Burnside's house, their guns drawn and pointed at his
front door.

Spiegelman called out to them from the curb where he was
parked. "It's okay," he said casually. "Just go on in."

They looked back at the chief. He impatiently waved them
inside. Mulder and Scully then looked at each other.
Another shot banged inside the house.

They climbed to their feet, brushing off the long brown
marks from their clothes. A.C.'s lawn was more dirt than
grass. Planted into the ground were signs that read "If
you're selling something, fuck off!" and "If you're here to
save my soul, fuck off!" and so on and so on. All the
windows on the house had iron bars and a sledgehammer
couldn't knock off the lock on that door.

They could hear another sound beside the occasional
gunshot. A guitar was being played and a voice was singing,
unperturbed by the gunfire. The voice had strong, firm
qualities, but it sang quietly.

"Down in old Mexico, where a child will slap your face.
"Down in old Mexico, where a child will slap your face.
"They make bread with cotton powder.
"Drink gunpowder to kill the taste."

Mulder rang the doorbell which let off a chime that he
recognized as "Got My Mojo Working."

"But it just don't work on you," he said to his partner
with a raised eyebrow.

"There's a reason for that," she informed him.

The guitar player stopped singing. A few moments later,
the door was opened by a tall, thin black youth. His face
still had the softness of teenage years, but there was
nothing soft in his eyes. It wasn't an unfriendly look.,
but he seemed to be testing the two FBI agents. "May I help
you two?" he asked.

Mulder pulled out his badge. "I'm Agent Fox Mulder from..."

Another gunshot echoed from inside the house. Mulder took
a moment before continuing.

"... the FBI. This is my partner, Dana Scully."

A tiny smile touched the young man's face. "You're finally
busting my uncle's still?"

"No. We're here to talk to Mr. Burnside about a reported
incident at his bar."

The young man slowly nodded.

"Excuse me," Scully said, "but are you the son of Nadine
Burnside?"

"That's right. Name's Malcolm. Malcolm, Jr."

He held out his hand. Both the two agents shook it and
felt his long fingers.

"So," Malcolm said. "a reported incident, huh?"

"Yes. Is your uncle in?"

Bang. "Take that, you mammy-fucker!"

The smile on Malcolm's face got bigger. "Oh, he's in. Come
on."

Malcolm led them to the living room, then called out "A.C.!"

"What?!"

"A couple of FBI agents are here to see you!"

There was a moment of silence during which Malcolm sat
down in a chair and picked up his guitar again.

Then a door swung open and a man in his early forties came
marching down a narrow hallway. He was a short, compact man
with a balding head. He looked like a bullet on legs. And
speaking of bullets, a gun was in his hand, its barrel
pointing to the floor.

Naturally, Mulder and Scully tensed up.

"What do you two federal mammy-fuckers want?"

Before they could form any reasonable response, Malcolm
cleared his throat. A.C. glared at his nephew who looked
calmly back as he held out his hand.

A.C. slapped the gun into Malcolm's hand. Malcolm placed
it on the floor and then concentrated on his guitar, making
the strings vibrate with a fluid rhythm.

"Well?" A.C. shouted.

"Well," Scully said in her best "your-fire-can't-melt-my-
ice" voice, "what were you shooting at in there?"

"Nothin'. That's my growlery. Whenever I want to let off a
little steam, I go in there and fire a few bullets into the
walls."

The walls must look like a beehive now, Mulder thought.
"You know," he said in his best "let's-be-friendly-with-the-
lunatic" voice, "there's a character in a Charles Dickens
novel who has something called a 'growlery.'"

A.C. slowly turned his eyes to Mulder and stared at him
for a heartbeat.

Then he yelled, "I know that, you mammy-fucker! You think
that I could think up something like that by myself?"

"Well..."

A.C. pointed at his nephew. "Malcolm gave me a copy of
'Bleak House' to read. He's been keeping me updated on the
fucking glory that is Western Civilization."

"That's right," Malcolm said without looking up. "I have."

"Nice book. Too much of that whiny Esther Summerson bitch,
though. I liked that bad-ass Inspector Bucket."

"Uh, Mr. Burnside..." Scully began.

"The name is A.C. You want something to drink?"

"No."

"I do. Take a seat and I'll be back in a second."

A.C. left the room. Mulder and Scully dutifully sat down
on a couch whose springs creaked like turning gears. As
A.C. searched through a refrigerator, Malcolm took up his
song again.

"The women down in Mexico, they're as bad as bad can be.
"The women down in Mexico, they're as bad as bad can be.
"They eat rattlesnakes for breakfast
"And drink the rattlesnakes' blood for tea."

A.C. came back, a moist bottle of beer in his hand. He
gulped down a cup full, then asked, "You two came down here
just to talk about books?"

Mulder said, "We came here because someone reported that
the KKK attacked your bar a few nights ago."

A moment of silence.

"Don't know where you heard that," A.C. said in an even
voice. "'Cause it didn't happen. If it did happen, I
wouldn't be here talking with you. I would be trying to
track down those pointy-headed mammy-fuckers so I can..."

"Make a necklace out of their testicles?"

"Yeah and then sell it for half-price at Bloomingdale's."
Another swig of beer was tossed down A.C.'s throat. Malcolm
kept playing effortlessly.

Mulder turned to the younger man. "Do you play down at
your uncle's bar?"

"You mean, the Shithole?" Malcolm answered, still looking
at his guitar.

"Yes. The Shithole."

"Yeah, I play there a lot. Me and A.C. are in the house
band."

"You see anything strange recently down there?"

"Now wait a minute," A.C. interrupted, pointing his
bottle's neck at a Mulder like a sword. "I'm the one who
gets the goddamned questions and not..."

"Shut up, A.C.," Malcolm said, his voice still as cool as
ever. Much to Mulder and Scully's surprise, A.C. did shut up.

"I have witnessed a lot of strange things," Malcolm
continued, the guitar singing under his touch. "I've seen a
parked car with no driver suddenly move all the way down
the street and then stop. I've woken up in my bed to see
this old man with a guitar, but only for a second before he
vanishes. I once got on a bus and saw crickets all over the
floor, on the seats, on the passengers. Nobody was
complaining. In the bar itself...well, I've seen plenty
there, too."

He suddenly stopped playing and he looked up. "I've never
seen the Klan attack the bar, though. We've been lucky."

Nobody moved or spoke for many seconds.

Then Mulder said, "I understand that the bar has been
closed."

"Renovations."

"When will you be open?"

Malcolm studied Mulder's face, then said, "Tonight."

A.C. looked sharply at his nephew.

Mulder then stood up and said, "Thank you very much. Come
on, Scully."

Scully left with her partner who looked a little
bewildered by him. A.C. watched them outside through a
window.

"They're with Chief Spiegelman. What the fuck is that
Jewboy up to?"

"I don't know, but that Mulder guy didn't believe us."
Malcolm did a quick scale of notes up the guitar.

A.C. turned to him. "You know, I say when it's time my
goddamned bar is open."

"Well, is it time?"

A.C. wiped off his mouth. "Boy, it don't matter if it is
open. Nobody is going to come. Not if Muddy Waters and
Robert Johnson themselves were playing tonight. People are
spooked and they are spooked good."

"Tonight, I'm going to start it off solo," Malcolm said as
if he hadn't heard A.C. "If that's all right."

A.C. looked at Malcolm sitting casually in the chair and
strumming the guitar. Finally he said, "Yeah. Sure. Why
not? You're a better fucking player than I am."

"Thank you, A.C."

A.C. watched Malcolm for a few more moments, then he
grabbed his gun off the floor and left for the growlery,
sucking his bottle of beer dry.

Malcolm's fingers drew out gentle notes as the gunfire
resumed. "Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson together," he
mused. "I wonder if I could..."

"No, no, no, no!"

Malcolm looked up to see an agitated face under a bowler
hat and a body trembling in a black suit.

"Don't, don't even think that!" the man with the bowler
hat stammered.

Malcolm shrugged. "Just a thought."

"You are treading on thin ice as it were, young man. What
you did in that bar was...understandable. It was a quick
impulse on your part. But it should not be..."

"Okay, okay. I won't do it again. Don't get your balls all
twisted up." Malcolm looked at the other man's pants. "You
do have balls in there, right?"

The man in the bowler hat clenched his fists. "I'm aware
that you don't think much of me. That's fine. But you're my
responsibility and I'm doing my best to keep this situation
from getting out of control. Because if it does, then HE
will get involved and that's the last thing..."

"Down in old Mexico, they're as wild as wild can be,"
Malcolm sang as his fingers picked up the melody again.

"Malcolm, this is serious!"

"Down in old Mexico, they're as wild as wild can be..."

The man in the bowler hat shook his head. Then he
vanished. Malcolm's voice echoed through the space he left.

"I'm leaving this country
"Because they don't kill them fast enough for me."

Bang. "That one was for the mammy you fuck, mammy-fucker!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Main Street in Final, Mississippi had a dusty, faded
quality. Not like, say, a daguerreotype. Those old photos
have a beauty of their own unique fashion. This collection
of stores along the cracked street looked like a magazine
left out in the desert or an empty sardine tin at the
bottom of a garbage can. They didn't look quaint, merely
old and run-down. The hardware dealer appeared to have bent
nails in its inventory. The newsstand probably specialized
in porno and "Reader's Digest." Let us not think about what
they serve down at "Joe's Diner."

The people that could be seen did not change your
impression. The old men who wandered up the sidewalk or sat
on the bench had no stories to tell. They just seemed
hollow and glass-eyed. There were also teenagers with torn
jeans and shirts with no sleeves, their eyes shifting back
and forth as they drank and smoke, looking desperately for
something to shake them out of their boredom. Shopkeepers
and waitresses watched the outside with intense suspicion.

As they stepped out of their rental car, Scully knew that
she and her partner stuck out like a turd in a bowl of
Fruit Loops. She looked around her with her arms crossed
over her chest as Mulder entered a phone booth and looked
through a warped copy of the Yellow Pages.

She caught the attention of a group of young men. One of
them puckered his lips at her and grabbed his crotch, much
to the delight of his companions.

Scully lifted up her coat so they could see her gun. They
immediately moved to another part of the street.

"What are you doing, Scully?" Mulder asked.

"Just scratching myself. I guess practice does make
perfect."

"What?"

"All those times that you've ditched me has served you
well. You ditched Chief Spiegelman expertly."

"How good can I be at ditching? You always find me."

Before Scully could reply to that, Mulder said, "Here she
is. Nadine Burnside. 40 Messenger Road." He put aside the
Yellow Pages and took a small map out of his jacket.
"Luckily, I got a map of Final from the chief's office. Not
that we have a lot of area to cover."

"I can see why you want to talk with Reverend Burnside,
but why don't you want the chief around?"

"Come on, Scully. Where's your woman's intuition?"

Scully looked at Mulder's smile and said, "You think that
Spiegelman has a thing for the town preacher?"

"That's why I told him that we were headed back to the
hotel, 'pending further developments.' A man can get quite
testy if he thinks you're intimidating the woman he loves."

"Is that why you kicked your way into Udell's bathroom?"

Mulder's hand froze as he reached for the car door.

"Or was that just your idea of chivalry?" Scully asked.

He looked at the woman next to him for a moment, then
said, "Oh, you mean that 'lesbo' comment."

"Yes."

With a straight face, Mulder said, "No, actually, I
thought that he was talking about me."

With an equally straight face, Scully answered, "Mulder,
you're riding in the trunk."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Nathaniel Leed hated it when people interrupted his
experiments. The abrupt sound of his mother's voice almost
made his scalpel twitch and ruin some delicate work.

"NAAAA-THAN!"

"WHAT, MOM!"

"YOUR FRIEND, MR. UDELL, CALLED! HE SAID THAT YOU HAVE A
MEETING TONIGHT!"

Nathan rolled his eyes. "OKAY! THANKS, MOM!"

"ARE YOU ALL RIGHT DOWN THERE?"

"YES, MOM!"

"DO YOU WANT ANYTHING TO EAT? SOME COOKIES?"

"NO, MOM!"

"ALL RIGHT THEN!"

Nathaniel sighed and returned to his work. Just what he
needed. Another one of Fred 'Worrywart' Udell's meetings.
Nathaniel wondered why he was even a member of the Klan. He
had problems with the group's philosophy. Not that he
didn't believe that African-Americans were an inferior
race. (He disdained the word 'nigger.' It was so
unscientific.) Where he differed with the Klan was in
policy. Their preferred methods were suppression and
violence. He was searching for another way, a solution that
could only be found in a rigorous, systematic analysis of
the problem.

Of course, he had participated in the attack on the blues
bar. He was, after all, a member of the KKK and obligated
to go along with its current policy. However, it had struck
him as a pointless endeavor. Any one of those people killed
in the bar could have given him necessary data for his
project.

Then, again, none of them were killed, weren't they?

Supposedly?

Nathaniel had a hard time with this concept. He refused to
believe Mr. Grant's story that they had risen from the
dead. After all, he hadn't seen this alleged miracle take
place. Nor had he seen any of these black Lazaruses walking
about. (Of course, he rarely got out and he never ventured
into the black side of Final.)

Nathaniel had been suspicious of Julius Grant from the
moment he had unofficially taken over Udell's chapter of
the Klan. Their 'official' leader had been swayed by
Grant's fantastic promises of power. Yet Grant's story
reeked of superstition and that was the last thing the Klan
needed. Still, Nathaniel was a patient man. If nothing
else, science was about patience. For now, he would be
content to perform his experiments in their current stage,
waiting for the day that he could bring a more suitable
subject down into the basement of his parents' house. He
waited, his table waited and his tools waited.

Today, he had to satisfy his curiosity with a rabbit. He
peeked under its skin as straps secured its trembling limbs
and a gag muffled the screeches from its mouth. He
remembered when he had first dissected a frog in science
class. The experience had been fascinating, but he could
never understand why they had to use a dead frog.

There was so much more to be learned when they were alive.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH(Part 4 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

There were three things that struck Mulder and Scully when
they first saw Nadine Burnside.

One, she was beautiful. Not just beautiful in that her
features were awe-inspiring, but also in that you
immediately knew that she was good. She would help you in
your time of need. She would invite you into her house
during bad weather. She would give her last dollar to feed
you. She would hold you all night if you were heartbroken
(which struck Mulder as being a wonderfully therapeutic
notion.)

Second, she was white.

Third, she had nine fingers. Her ring finger was missing
from her right hand. She made no attempt to hide her
deformity.

When they had came to her house, she had been...

Actually, it was not so much a house as it was a wooden
shack built on top of a tree. In other words, a tree house.
Mulder and Scully had checked the address twice before they
were sure that they had come to the right place. Yet their
eyes did not deceive them -- 40 Messenger Street was a big
oak supporting a small yet sturdy tree house.

Mulder rang a bell next to a water pump.

"Who is it?" a voice called out with pure, musical tones.

"It's Agent Mulder and Agent Scully from the FBI! We're
helping with Chief Spiegelman on a matter you discussed
with him!"

A trap door opened and a rope ladder spilled out,
unfurling itself to the ground. "Come on up!" Nadine
Burnside said. "You're most welcome here!"

"You go first," Scully said to Mulder. "I don't want you
enjoying the view."

"Oh, so it's okay for you to look at my butt?"

"I've seen your butt and I've seen better. Now, go."

As they climbed the ladder, they both expected to find a
dirty-haired woman dressed in rags. Nadine Burnside,
however, was very clean and her dress was made of a
smooth hand-woven fabric. The sunlight that came through
a carved-out window gave her a glow that accentuated her
perfection.

Her almost-perfection. There was that missing finger,
after all.

"Please sit here," she said, indicated two pillows on the
smooth wooden floor. She sat cross-legged in front of them,
her expression serene and kind and helpful.

"Chief Spiegelman told me that you were coming to Final,"
she told them. "I wasn't aware that the FBI had a section
that handled these matters."

Mulder felt like every word had been ripped out of him. He
could only stare at Nadine. For once, Scully did not feel
embarrassed for him. His reaction wasn't too afar from
hers. She found herself remembering what Bette Davis said
when she saw Greta Garbo, "My God, if there was ever a time
to become a lesbian, this is it."

Scully decided to pass on it. "We're not exactly a high-
profile department of the FBI," she explained. "But, yes,
we do handle cases that involve unexplained phenomena.
However, I confess that this case is a bit hard to sort out
from our viewpoint."

"How so?"

"First of all, we're not sure if any unexplained phenomena
took place. Right, Mulder?"

"What?" he said.

Scully said slowly, "We're not sure if any unexplained
phenomena occurred. Right?"

"Uh, yes. Well, no. I mean..."

"You only have the story of Johnny McDonald," Nadine said
helpfully.

"Uh...yeah. That's right. Correct. Now, I'm inclined to
believe his story, but...um..."

"My partner is inclined to believe a lot," Scully
commented. Mulder made a face at her.

"You're a man of faith," Nadine observed.

Mulder shrugged. "In my own way."

Nadine indicated a legless desk in the corner. A pen and a
notebook were on it.

"I was preparing the sermon for Sunday when you came. I'm
incorporating the part from 'Anna Karenin' where Levin
comes to a realization about his own faith. Have you read
'Anna Karenin?'"

"You mean...'Anna Karenina?'"

"My son tells me that according to Vladimir Nabokov, the
proper translation leaves out the 'a' at the end. 'She was
not a ballerina,' Nabokov says." Nadine made the kind of
smile people would pay good money to see. "I bow to my
son's judgment in these matters. He's much better read than
I am. Anyway, Levin realizes that he didn't need to
struggle to believe in God. The belief was in him and it
would always be in him. He could look out at the world and
know God made it."

Nadine leaned forward. Mulder and Scully found themselves
doing the same.

"That's how I know that Johnny McDonald speaks the truth.
I know that a miracle happened in that bar. I know that
because my son was there."

"Malcolm?"

Nadine nodded, then pointed. Mulder and Scully turned to
see a photo held up on a homemade shelf. The photo was of a
handsome black man whose face had a clear similarity to
Malcolm Burnside, Jr. The expression of Malcolm, Sr. was
startling. He looked like a man who should be leading
armies or sitting on a throne. His eyes seemed to look
directly at you and know you instantly. He wasn't
unfriendly, but he had come to an early understanding of
the world, a world that he had accepted and planned to
change.

"Malcolm never knew his father. He wasn't even conceived
yet. It seems that all he got from his father was a name.
But my husband gave more to my son than you can imagine."

There was a brief, silent pause.

"You mean 'born,' right?" Scully said.

"Hm?"

"You said Malcolm, Jr. was even conceived yet. But you
meant 'born.'"

Nadine smiled again. "No. I meant conceived."

Okay, Scully thought. It is now officially weird.

"Perhaps I should explain," Nadine said.

"Please do."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

On one hand, the marriage between Malcolm Burnside, Sr.
and Nadine French could only be viewed as an inevitability.
Here he was, a towering figure in the community. Unlike his
salty brother, he was good-tempered and kind. Yet he was
nobody's fool. He was a man who avoided using his fists,
but he knew how to drop any man to the ground. He was the
organizer of several charities which he ran with as much
practicality as compassion. When faced with bigotry, he
gave back not hatred but his hard dignity.

Fred Udell once told him,  "You're a pretty high-and-
mighty nigger, aren't you?"

"No, sir," Malcolm, Sr. replied. "I'm not much. It's just
that I smell so sweet when I'm next to your foul stench."

Udell turned another shade of red, but only watched
helplessly as Malcolm, Sr. walked away from him. There was
too much strength and respect around the man for him to be
touched.

And then there was Nadine. There was a strength in her as
big as her future husband's. Yet she seemed soft as the
clouds and kind as a rainstorm in the desert. Malcolm, Sr.
got your respect. She got your love. Their union was the
perfect melding of the better parts in the human soul.

Then, again, he was black and she was white.

Initially, there was concern. Could the town accept a
marriage between the daughter of the town minister and the
brother of the Shithole's owner? However, as the day
approached, the separate racial populations of Final,
Mississippi gradually relaxed. It seemed apparent that
racism would not besmirch this wedding. The perfection of
it was too overwhelming for the Klan or any bigot to
resist. As it turned out, however, bigotry did extend its
shadow over that day. Bigotry and another dark emotion of
the heart.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I was under no illusions when Malcolm put the ring on my
finger. We had our disagreements before and we would have
them in the future. We were only human. I also knew that,
despite the smiles on both black and white faces in the
church, hatred would continue to threaten us.

"However, as my father declared that we were one, I came
to believe that I was understanding what heaven truly was.
I felt that God had personally blessed me and that Malcolm
was an angel. I walked out of the church with him into a
shower of rice, certain that my life would be forever happy.

"But Bob Hoag was waiting for us."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Nadine Burnside was kind to everyone, but Bob Hoag had
seen something deeper in the kindness she had given him.
How else could he explain why a vision like her would show
charity on some lonely piece of white trash? Back when they
were in high school, she would occasionally watch the
football team practice. That was when she still was dating
the captain of the football team, Meyer Spiegelman. Yet Bob
suspected...he believed...he knew that her heart really
belonged to him.

If it wasn't true, why did she wave her hand at him
sometimes and smile so warmly? Why did she bother even to
talk to him -- a young man who was only good at tackling
people and lugging iron down at the scrap yard? People
regarded him as a half-wit and maybe he was, but he still
had his intuition. It was telling him that some
unexplainable motivation had made Nadine fall in love with
him.

One day, he finally confronted her with his knowledge of
her love and assured her that he reciprocated it.

As gently as she could, she explained that he was
mistaken. At first, he refused to accept it. His refusals
become so adamant that Spiegelman took him aside and
explained Nadine's position in terms more forceful than hers.

Bob Hoag began to carry something thick and hard inside.
It grew harder as he imagined the laughter just out of his
hearing's range and the jokes behind his back. It grew
stronger every time he looked at his dull face in the
mirror. It grew hotter after every dream where he was
kissing Nadine or killing Spiegelman or killing both.

Maybe he could have learned to live with it. After all,
there had been so much anger in him beforehand. What was a
little more?

One day, he was working in the scrap yard, two years after
his less-than-stellar high school career had concluded,
when he got the word that Nadine Burnside was marrying a
nigger.

It was bad enough when she had been dating a Jew. Sure,
Spiegelman was the strong, handsome captain of the football
team, but surely she could have chosen someone who didn't
have the blood of Christ on his hands. Still, he had come
to accept it just as he come to accept that Spiegelman was
team captain.

But this...

One of them...

Touching her...

Smothering her mouth with his big lips...

Ramming his animal penis into her sacred womb...

The thing inside Bob burst loose.

He was waiting for them as they left the church. Rice fell
onto their heads, bouncing off her white gown and his black
tuxedo. And, oh, were they smiling. The nigger was not
known to be much of a smiler, but he was doing it now and
those white teeth were shining and mocking him and saying
"I got your woman now, boy, I'm gonna use her as I please,
shore enuff" and she was smiling as well and she was
laughing at him, "You silly little cracker boy, get out of
my way so I can know a real man" but now they weren't
smiling and he was standing in their way and nobody else
was looking yet as he raised his hand.

There was a flash of red.

As the nigger fell to the ground, Nadine turned to the
side and reached out to him with her right hand stretched
forward as if she might pull him back up into the living.
Bob pointed towards her and pulled the trigger just as a
man collided with him. He recognized the man's touch. He
had been tackled by the man a long time ago during practice
sessions for high-school football. His aim got just a
little off.

And then there was a flash of gold.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Nadine looked at her missing ring finger. "In a way, I was
lucky. The bullet could have done much worse. Instead, it
just went through here." She poked her left forefinger
through that space.

"You know...they never found the ring. Bits of the finger,
but not the ring. Odd."

She looked up. "But something odder happened that night.
Something odd and beautiful."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

She hadn't said a word ever since the shooting. She hadn't
even screamed or cried out in pain. As others pummeled and
kicked Bob, she had sunk down to her knees, clutching her
wounded hand to her gown, a red spot spreading out from
under her hand and her face that of a sleepwalker. Despite
the nausea and shock, she had managed to stay conscious.
She still remained awake even after they had bandaged her
hand and injected a sedative into her veins. Of course, you
wouldn't exactly call the empty look in her eyes 'awake.'

Trapped in a comatose of her own design, the only thing
she could see was the white ceiling of her hospital room.
Sounds dimly registered in her ears---the quiet
conversation of doctors and nurses, a bed being wheeled by,
the hollow call of an intercom.

She became aware of two other voices. Even though they
were coming from inside the room, they were fainter than
the noises in the hallway. She couldn't make out their
words, though both voices had a sad tone.

Then there was a sudden crack, followed by something
falling to the floor.

And she saw him.

And she heard him.

"You are my wife bound to me by a vow taken before God. No
one will come between me and you. No one will keep us from
knowing each other."

And she felt him.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"He only came to me once. There is a limit to even what
love can do. But once was enough to consummate our love.
And to bring our son into the world."

She smiled. "I let others think that Malcolm and I had
gave into lust before our vows. I didn't mind. What
mattered is that I knew.

"I knew that my son had been born of two worlds as well as
two races. I knew that he had been unlike anything the
world had seen before, not since another birth nearly two
thousand years ago.

"I'm not saying my son is a savior. I don't know what he
is exactly. But soon we all shall know.

"I'm telling this to you because I believe that you're
ready for it. I sense that you will accept the
responsibilities with this knowledge.

"We must all look after him. We must help him and guide
him and teach him. Because the time is coming when he must
choose his destiny. He must understand his duties and face
the world accordingly. He must do what is right under God.

"I know you'll do well.

"Thank you for coming and God bless."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Scully took the final step off the ladder and felt the
earth beneath her feet. Mulder then dropped down next to
her and stood by her side. They were both quiet and looking
away from each other.

Finally, Scully said, "Have you heard anything like this
before, Mulder?"

He slowly turned his head to her.

"Well, have you?"

"No, Scully," he said. "I haven't heard too many stories
about ghosts who come back to pork the living."

"Mul-der!"

Mulder was jarred by the sight of his partner's hot eyes
and red cheeks. "What?" he said.

"That definitely ranks among the top five stupidest things
you've ever said."

"Wait a second. Wait one goddamned second. Are you telling
me that you believe this story?"

"No. I'm not. I don't."

"Then what are you so pissed off about?"

"Because you don't have any romance in you."

Now, Mulder had to grin. "I think you've dissected one
corpse too many, Scully. It's given you a positive outlook
on necrophilia."

"You better stand back, Mulder."

"Oh, come on," he said, though he did take a step back.

"Don't you find anything romantic about a man who loved a
woman so much that he transcended death itself?" she asked.

Before he could answer, she added, "No! Of course not!
You're too busy playing Mr. Cool. Well, take your glib
male, frat-boy, beer-swilling, porno-magazine, Comedy-
Centralized sarcasm and shove it up your ass, okay?"

It was quiet again.

Then Mulder said, "Are you a big fan of 'Ghost,' Scully?"

"Yes, Mulder. I'm a big fan of Demi Moore's inanimate face."

"I'm glad you're the one being sarcastic now because you
were scaring me there for a moment. A necrophiliac Scully
is one thing..."

"But a Swayzephiliac is another?"

"Exactly."

Now, it was Scully's turn to smile. "This is one of our
sillier arguments."

"I agree. Let's move on to our standard argument."

"I'm not sure we can have it. You don't seem to believe
Nadine Burnside's story."

"I have no idea what to believe, now. And I won't get an
idea until I get an inside look at the...at the, you know..."

"The Shithole?"

"Yes and I resolve to say that without hesitancy."

"Well, I agree with you on that. But A.C. Burnside doesn't
seem too eager to let us take a look."

"Then we'll just mingle with the crowd." He put an arm
around Scully's shoulders. "Feel like the blues tonight,
Scully?"

"Around you, Mulder, that's a gratuitous question."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (Part 5 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Fred Udell could feel the shit building up inside him. The
pressure was crushing his kidneys. He needed to wind up
this meeting soon or his underwear was going to feel the
wrath of his colon.

Unfortunately, he had to deal with another pain-in-the-ass
-- that mother-fucking high-school science geek Nathaniel
Leed.

"I have yet to see any proof that this incident really
took place," Nathaniel primly declared, his bony arms
crossed over his plaid shirt and his eyes looking at Udell
stubbornly behind his wire-rimmed glasses.

"What the hell do you mean, proof?" Udell shouted. "What
do you need to believe this happened?"

"Some sort of quantifiable evidence."

"Oh, would you quit talking like a pussy?!"

"Hey!"

That was Maggie Morrison. She was normally the biggest
aggravation in Final's chapter of the KKK. With her shaved
head and unshaved armpits, she was an one-woman crusader
against "the sexist patriarchal belief systems of the
Klan." She was determined to prove that "women were as
important to the preservation of the white race as men."
Udell was seriously inclined to kick her out with one of
her own combat boots and toss Nathaniel out with her.
However, that would leave him alone with Ed.

Ed was not an aggravation. He never protested anything. He
hardly even spoke except for the occasional grunt which the
others had learned to translate. His eyes gave away none of
his emotions, whether they were good-willed or malicious.
The only time that you knew Ed was displeased was when he
stood his six-foot-four inch body up, stomped his way
towards you on his size twelve shoes, grabbed you with an
arm of thirty inches width and rammed your face repeatedly
into the ground.

Udell had once seen Ed single-handedly beat three huge
niggers almost to death. When he approached Ed for Klan
membership, Ed just nodded. Truthfully, Udell wasn't sure
that Ed believed in the Klan philosophy. More likely, he
joined up so he could indulge in his favorite hobby --
grievous bodily damage. Udell liked having Ed around, but
he didn't want to be alone in a room with him.

That's why Udell had to take a breath and say, "Sorry,
Maggie. I'm just a little frustrated with Nathan, here..."

"Nathaniel," the teenage boy corrected.

"I'm a little frustrated with this BOY who can't see the
actual shit that's going down." Speaking of shit that was
going down...oh, man...Udell looked at the bathroom that
was so far away from his living room.

"Look," Udell growled, trying to hold it in just awhile
longer. "We killed a lot of people in that bar, right?"

"Yes," Nathaniel said.

"Now, have you heard anything about this? Anything about
it in the local news? Anywhere? Hell, some nigger in Texas
gets dragged behind a car or some nigger in New York City
gets a plunger shoved up his ass, everybody hears about it
and they all start crying about what a fuckin' injustice it
is. We killed twenty niggers at least in that bar. That
should have brought Jesse fuckin' Jackson down on our
heads." Udell spread out his arms. "You see Jesse Jackson
anywhere near?"

"I could point that logic in the other direction,"
Nathaniel calmly replied. "Several African-Americans come
back from the dead and no one talks about it?"

"He's got a point there, Fred," Maggie interjected.

Udell said, "Look, there's...Mr. Grant told me...they
weren't...ah, hell!"

"I really fail to see what we're trying to accomplish
here," Nathaniel stated.

"All right, all right. You talk to Mr. Grant. How about
giving him some of your shit?"

"That's an excellent idea."

Udell blinked. "Huh?"

"I'll call him up right now."

Udell could feel his insides bubble and churn. "Now, wait.
You shouldn't go bothering..."

Nathaniel left his chair and sauntered to the kitchen.
Udell heard him pick up the phone.

"I said, wait!" he shouted, his kidneys in a stranglehold.
"You don't go calling up a man like Mr. ..."

Ed grunted. This particular grunt meant "Let him make the
call."

Udell doubled over as the pain become intolerable. He ran
to the bathroom.

Nathaniel heard the bathroom door slam as the phone on the
other end rang. He waited until he heard that cracked,
scratched, torn-up voice say, "Yeah?"

"Mr. Grant, this is Nathaniel Leed."

"Nathaniel Leed, Nathaniel Leed," Julius mused. "You're
one of Udell's men, ain't you?"

*Aren't,* Nathaniel thought, but only said, "Yes, sir. I
am."

"How did you get my number?"

"It's written right above Fred's phone."

Nathaniel heard a brief sigh. It sounded like sawdust
being poured out of a bag.

"That's a private number. I would appreciate it if your
grand poobah didn't leave it around for every Johnny
Cracker to find."

"Perhaps, sir."

"So what do you want anyway, boy?"

Nathaniel told Julius Grant what was on his mind.

Then he waited several seconds before Julius gave his
response.

"That's interesting. Real interesting. Sounds like you
have a few doubts, boy."

"Yes, sir. I do."

"Tell you what, then...did you know that the Shithole is
open tonight?"

"No, sir. I didn't."

"Why don't you and Fred take a drive on by there? I think
you'll be pleasantly surprised."

Nathaniel considered the proposal, then said, "All right,
sir. I'll do that."

"Now, you've gone and put a smile on my face. Thanks for
calling up, son."

"Yes, sir."

Nathaniel hung up and then went to the bathroom door.

"Fred, Mr. Grant said that you should take me down to the
Shithole."

"Oooooohhh..."

"Whenever you're done, of course."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Why did they come?

One obvious reason was that something miraculous had
happened there. Scary yet miraculous. Nothing like a
miracle to give a place a certain aura that could draw you
in.

Another possible reason is that they wanted to be there
for the second act. There just had to be a follow-up to
what happened. Not that they wanted a replay of that event,
but...

It could have also been that it was their bar, goddammit.
This was the place where they had fun. Why should they let
anything keep them away from it?

Or maybe they just didn't have a choice. They had to come.

In any case, the bar was full. Some of the people there
had been present on that strange night. Some of them had
only heard about it. A few didn't know what the fuck was
going on, but they could feel something bizarre was afoot.
It was the quietest that the Shithole had ever been or ever
will be. People only talked in whispers. There were glasses
of liquor in many hands, but they were only being sipped
from cautiously as if it was some kind of tea party.

Zola Burnside watched them all with her hands under her
armpits. She had never felt nervous like this before. The
bar was scarier when it was quiet. The Shithole's normal
kind of chaos was easier to understand. She knew what could
be expected from open craziness.

She had no idea what would come out of this silence.

The bar opened at eight. Music was usually scheduled for
nine. Tonight didn't call for punctuality. The band could
have waited till dawn to come out and their audience would
have still been standing there quietly.

However, 9:00 still meant 9:00.

Malcolm Burnside, Jr. came out on the stage. He was
wearing his usual jeans and casual shirt. He still had the
same calm expression.

Every sound in the bar disappeared except for the ones he
made. People looked at him as if the slightest twitch from
Malcolm would reveal a mystery.

He was alone. He carried an acoustic guitar.

He looked at everyone. Every last person.

Then he did a little tuning of his guitar.

And he played.

He started out with a sixteen-bar instrumental that flowed
from one note to the other like a river over rocks. Its
sound slid past the patrons and echoed off the back wall.

Then he just strummed a rhythm and he sang...

"Oh, by and by, by and by
"I'm going to lay down my heavy load.

"Oh, by and by, by and by
"I'm going to lay down my heavy load."

The voice touched everyone like a strong hand stroking up
and down their backs. Zola closed her eyes. There was too
much of her dead brother up there right now, too much of
him in his son's voice. She wouldn't have been able to
watch without crying.

"I know my robe's going to fit me well.
"I'm going to lay down my heavy load.
"I've tried it on at the gates of Hell..."

As Malcolm sang "I'm going to lay down my heavy load," his
eyebrows lifted when he heard everybody sing with him.

"Oh, Hell is deep and a dark despair," he told them and
waited for a response.

"I'm going to lay down my heavy load," the crowd answered.

"Oh, stop, poor sinner, and don't go there."

"I'm going to lay down my heavy load."

Then they were all singing.

"Oh, by and by, by and by
"I'm going to lay down my heavy load."

Malcolm strummed one last chord, then stopped. He looked
over the crowd again. Their eyes showed awe and even trust.
They waited quietly for his next move.

He carefully placed his acoustic guitar in the corner.
Then he motioned to someone offstage. A.C. came out with
the drummer. A.C. was carrying two electric guitars. He
handed one to his nephew and they both plugged in.

Malcolm turned to the audience and said, "Well, as Buddy
Bolden used to say, 'Let's call the children home.'"

And the guitars and drums went right into a rhythm that
seemed to circle around you, then slap you on your head.
A.C. and Malcolm went up to the microphone, the former's
rough throat giving a nice underlying grit to the younger
man's pure voice.

"Well, I was gone.
"Gone to the Army.
"I was gone
"For a long, long time."

Shoulders started to sway. Heads began to bob. The floor
was being tapped by dozens of feet.

"When I come back home,
"My baby...
"Still says she's mine.
"Still says she's mine."

The music abruptly stopped and the band looked at the
audience. Without missing a beat, the listeners called out...

"SHE'S ALRIGHT, SHE'S ALRIGHT..."

The music crashed and boomed out another few quick notes.

"SHE'S ALRIGHT, SHE'S ALRIGHT..."

Crash, boom.

"SHE'S ALRIGHT, SHE'S ALRIGHT..."

The music picked up again and this time, nothing would
stop it. The audience whooped it up and Zola smiled as she
got three orders for A.C.'s Home Brew.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Two slumming middle-class honky motherfuckers off the port
bow, Ben Hedge thought as the two white people headed for
the front door of the Shithole. He was going to take
pleasure in telling them to get lost.

Ben Hedge had been in a tense, brittle mood. Getting
killed can do that to you. He had spent the last few days
in bed with Zola. They had less actual sex and more of just
feeling and touching. They had come to know the fragility
of their bodies in a way like never before. They needed to
know that they were still warm and that their hearts were
still beating.

Then A.C. called up and told Zola that he was opening the
bar.

"He can't be serious," Ben said.

"It's true. The Shithole will be open tonight." She
slipped out of bed and started to put on her clothes.

"You're going to be there?" he asked in disbelief.

"Someone needs to serve the drinks." She turned to him.
"And someone needs to guard the door."

Like everyone else in the bar, Ben couldn't really explain
why he came. One thing for sure, though...tonight, he'll be
standing guard on the outside rather than the inside. He
did not want a repeat of the other night's nasty surprise.
Also, he didn't want to be in that bar, didn't want to get
too close to its strangeness, didn't want to look Malcolm,
Jr. in the eye.

He could hear him, though, singing and playing his guitar.
Its sweet sounds didn't relax him. When the full blues band
started up and the audience started cheering, he could only
roll his eyes. This doesn't change a damn thing about the
situation, he thought. Man, I could sure use Zola's pussy
right now.

So, when the two well-dressed, white people got out of
their car and headed for him, he was going to take pleasure
in telling them to fuck off. He had seen their likes before
-- college kids, music critics, tourists looking for a kick
of the "authentic." "Say, honey, why don't we go on down to
that big bad blues joint everybody's talking about?" Ben
sometimes gently warned them that this wasn't the place for
them. Sometimes, he would let them in and then laugh when
they came staggering out a half-hour later. Of course,
there were a few who actually enjoyed the place and came
back again like that guy from Texas. What was his name?
Stevie something?

No way was he going let these two in, though. Before he
could open his mouth, however, the tall dark-haired man
pulled out a badge and said, "Agent Mulder. FBI."

Well, ain't that just a shit-and-a-half?

The male agent put away his badge and said, "My partner
and I would like to come inside."

Ben closed his eyes and sighed.

"Sir?"

"Look, I have no idea why you've come but this really
isn't a good time."

The male agent smiled at the music and cheers from the
bar. "Sounds like a good time to me," he said.

Ben opened his eyes and said, "Why don't you come back
later? Once the bar is clear..."

"Quit the bullshit, Ben."

Everybody jumped.

"Sally?" Ben said, looking left and right.

A woman stepped from around a corner of the bar, leaving
the shadows that she had expertly used to hide herself. She
didn't look like the kind of woman who could sneak up on
you. She was a hefty woman with stomach and breasts forming
a cylinder shape that stretched out her police uniform.
Yet, when she moved, there was a balance and sureness to
her step. It was reflected in the low-key confidence of the
face under her short black hair.

"Evening," she said to the FBI agents. "I'm Sgt. Sally
Ash. Meyer assigned me to watch over the place."

"We don't need..." Ben started.

"Don't need what?"

Ben bit his lip and looked away.

"All kinds of stories been floating around, Ben," Sally
said nonchalantly. "Don't know which ones are true and
which ones are just crap, but I'm gonna be on the lookout,
nevertheless."

Ben said nothing.

"In the meantime, why don't you go ahead and let these two
people in?"

Ben tapped his foot on the ground, then opened the door
for the FBI agents. The speakers were allowed to display
their full volume to the outside. The agents winced at the
sound but they went in.

After he closed the door, Ben turned to the female cop.
"There's nothing here that concerns the police, Sally."

"Maybe. But the chief told me to stay here and I will."

"Just because the chief is a good-looking man doesn't mean
that everything he says is..."

Sally took a step towards Ben. Her pug nose flared a
little. "What do you mean, exactly?" she asked.

There were a few people that Ben actively avoided a fight
with. Sgt. Ash was one of them. He held up his hands and
said, "Forget I said it."

Sally's brown eyes looked Ben over. She said, "I'll do my
damnedest." Then she went back into the shadows.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Mulder, did you ever get the feeling that you were a
little inconspicuous?"

"Whatever makes you say that?"

The two FBI agents tried to push their way through the
crowd as politely as possible. Unfortunately, this one of
the nights where the air conditioning decided to take a
vacation. The sweat getting rubbed off other people was
enough to dampen their clothes.

And, of course, they were getting the look. The look that
says you're a long way from Simi Valley, boys and girls.

They finally made it to the bar where the female bartender
looked at them with no less suspicion. "May I help you?"
she asked.

Mulder flashed the badge again, Those who saw it moved as
far off as they could. Zola stood her ground defiantly
behind the bar.

"So?" she responded.

"We're investigating the possibility of a Klan attack on
this place." Mulder looked down at the bar. He rubbed his
hands over spots where a hole had been filled up and
painted over.

"Looks like you've done some repairs here."

"So?"

"And those bottles behind the counter...most of them are
full as if you just put up new ones."

"So?"

Before Mulder could say something like, "Only with thread
and needle," he heard something. Or, rather, nothing. The
music had gone away, leaving only ringing ears and an
uncomfortable silence.

Mulder and Scully looked to the stage.

They saw A.C. looking straight back at them.

"It appears," he said. "that we have a couple of first-
timers here."

It's ass-kicking time, everybody thought. It's the wrath
of A.C.

"Thanks for coming on down," the bar-owner said.

"Huh?" was the next thought on the collective mind. A.C.
looked at their confused faces.

"What? Just because they're white, they can't be here? You
think that black people are the only people who understand
the blues? That you have to be poor and dirty to listen to
it?"

A.C. shook his finger. "The blues is about heartbreak.
It's about love. It's about the hardness of life." He
pointed his finger at Mulder. "Tell us something bad that's
happened to you."

"Me?"

"Yes, you, you mammy-fucker! Any heartbreak in your life?"

"Well...my sister disappeared when I was twelve..."

"You see! Right there! That boy is not only entitled to
listen to the blues, he could probably play them, too!"

A snicker involuntarily left Scully's mouth.

"Oh, you can laugh, girl, but what about you? What sad,
hard things have happened to you?"

Scully said, "I, uh...I once almost died of cancer and..."

"Damn! You could get a ten-record box set out of that shit
alone! You see what I'm trying to say?"

The audience nodded.

"As far as I'm concerned, if you pay at the door, then I'm
here to play for you and it don't matter if you're black or
white or any color of the rainbow!"

The audience applauded. Mulder and Scully got patted on
the back. They never felt so welcome in their whole lives.

Then A.C. narrowed his eyes.

"You DID pay at the door, didn't you?"

Mulder and Scully looked at each other, then scrambled for
their wallets.

"That's right. Pay up, mammy-fuckers."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (6 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Ben Hedge saw a pickup trick park a hundred feet away from
the Shithole. At first, it looked like your standard
redneckmobile -- rusty bumpers, gun rack, long antenna, a
"GOD BLESS JESSE HELMS" bumper sticker.

Then he recognized it as belonging to Fred Udell and his
blood began to heat up. He found himself reaching for the
gun under his coat.

"Feeling tense, Ben?"

Damn, she was back again. "Maybe," he responded.

"I see Fred Udell is around," Sally said. "Looks like that
little creep Nathaniel Leed is with him."

"Yep."

"Want me to talk with them?"

Ben hesitated, then said, "I won't stop you."

He heard no response. He looked around the corner and saw
no one. He shook his head. How the fuck does she do that?

Then he turned back to the pickup truck. He found himself
smiling.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Now, you see that?"

"Yes."

"You hear all that music coming from inside?"

"I do."

"And isn't that Ben Hedge standing by the front door? The
very first man we killed?"

"It certainly looks like him."

"So, what do you think?"

Nathaniel kept quiet for a long time, his face emotionless.

"I may have to reassess the data," he finally said.

Udell let loose a hard laugh. "Yeah, you..."

The truck door flung open and a meaty hand yanked Udell
out. He landed onto a sidewalk that dug long, bloody
scrapes up his hands. Before he could get up, Nathaniel
was tossed on top of him, banging his nose into the
ground. The bones in his nose gave off a distinct crunch.

"OWWW! Geb ob me! Geb ob me, you fugut!"

Nathaniel rolled off Udell. Udell turned around and looked
up to see Sgt. Ash standing above him.

"Give me your knife," she told him.

Above the hand covering the lower half of Udell's face,
his eyes were raging.

"Give me your knife now, Fred."

With his fingers shaking, he pulled out the knife that he
kept in a sheath tied to his lower back. Sally watched him
calmly as he weighed his chances of sticking that knife in
her throat.

Then he extended it, handle forward. She took it away and
tossed it into the back of his truck. Nathaniel had a
distant expression as if he was watching this conflict
through a telescope.

"What are you two doing here?"

"You bwoke my nobe, you bizz."

"You can consider that the start of a long night for your
sorry self if you don't tell me why you're here."

"We were curious about the bar," Nathaniel said. "There
have all been kinds of strange stories."

Sally's eyes shifted towards Nathaniel, but Udell could do
nothing that could escape her notice. "You must have been
real curious. A couple of Klanboys really shouldn't be in
this part of Final."

"We were just passing through," Nathaniel asked. "Might I
ask what you're doing here, Sgt. Ash?"

Sally watched Nathaniel carefully. She could handle Udell,
but Nathaniel was dangerous in a way Udell would never be.
There were rumors about ugly things that Nathaniel did in
his parents' basement.

"I've been assigned to watch the place tonight," she said.

"Why?"

"That is between me and Chief Spiegelman."

Udell snorted, then winced as the blood sprayed out across
his mouth.

Sally turned her eyes back to him.

Slowly.

"What does that mean?" she asked.

Udell's temper often got the better of him. This was one
of those moments. "Meabing, bat's the onlee think betweeb
you and Spiegebmab."

"Excuse me?"

"Cob on, Sally! You think bat noboby sees it? Do you think
bat the cheef is ever gobba fuct a horf like you? The onlee
womab he wants to fuct is Nadib..."

In the next moment, Udell was standing up. Two arms were
clamped around his back. His chest was lodged against the
thick body of Sgt. Ash.

Then he felt his spine being squeezed.

Nathaniel wondered if he should try to help his leader.
However, he doubted that there was much he could have done.
Furthermore, he found himself fascinated by Udell's
screams, the veins widening in his temples, the blood
shooting out of his nose.

The most interesting development occurred when there was a
honk from the seat of Udell's pants. A dark stain spread
out and slid down his legs. A rancid smell was held tight
in the hot Mississippi air.

Sally Ash was literally squeezing the shit out of Udell.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Ben watched all of this and his smile got bigger.
Sometimes, it was more fun to watch somebody get beat up
than actually doing the beating.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

There's this logical fallacy called Plato's Beard. A young
hotshot came up to Plato during one of his public bull
sessions and asked, "How many hairs does it take to make a
beard?"

"Oh, I don't know. Five hundred?"

"Five hundred? But, surely one less than that wouldn't
matter?"

"No. It wouldn't. So, four-hundred-and-ninety-nine hairs
make a beard."

"Yeah, but one less than that wouldn't matter, either,
would it?"

"No. I guess. Four-hundred-and-ninety-eight, then."

"How about one less than that?"

Well, this went on and on all day until Plato found
himself saying "No hairs make a beard." He then went out
and got drunk or buggered a young boy or whatever Greeks
did when they got one-upped. The moral of this story is
that some kind of limit has to be established in certain
cases, however arbitrary. (Or you could be like A.C. and
simply kick the mammy-fucker in the ass for asking such
stupid questions.)

Fox Mulder and Dana Scully found themselves falling into
Plato's Beard that night. Their reasoning went like this --
they were trying to blend in with the environment,
attempting to get the trust of the people there. A lot of
alcohol was being handed around and it would have been
almost rude not to have a glass. And if one glass didn't
hurt, then why not another? The next wouldn't be so
harmful, either. And the one after that...

By the time the Shithole was officially closed (somewhere
around 2 a.m.), Mulder and Scully were both leaning on the
bar, holding on as if they were on a sinking ship. Ben and
A.C. were prodding the other customers out of the bar while
Zola counted up the receipts and Malcolm sat on the stage,
quietly playing an acoustic guitar. "Any trouble out
there?" A.C. asked Ben.

"Fred Udell and Nathaniel Leed showed up."

A.C. raised his eyebrows.

"Don't worry about it," Ben giggled. "Sally Ash kicked
their asses true and blue."

"Are they still alive?"

"Well, yeah."

"Not good enough," A.C. growled. "Those mammy-fuckers
ought to get themselves skinned alive."

"As I recall, that was my original idea, but you talked me
out of it. Remember?"

A.C. looked over at Malcolm and sighed.

"You know, A.C., it's not like I'm ungrateful..."

"I know what you're thinking, Ben. What the fuck is going
on here? Well, I just don't know. I'm not sure if even
Malcolm knows."

Ben nodded, then noticed Mulder and Scully. "What the hell
happened to them?"

"What do you think happened?"

Ben shook his head and called out "Hey, you two, the bar's
closing!"

"Not until we get some answers!" Mulder declared, shaking
his fist at no one in particular.

"It's time you got your asses out of here," Ben informed
Mulder as he walked towards him.

The little red-haired woman stepped in his way. Ben's eyes
widened as she poked his big chest with her finger.

"You don't understand," she said slowly, wobbling slightly
on her feet. "This is a scientific investigation. We are
here to gather and collect data. All I've gotten are a..."
She pulled out a wadded ball of paper napkins. "A lot of
phone numbers from a lot of guys."

"So did I," Mulder said. "From women, I mean."

"Well, that's because you two are a pair of fine-looking
white people," A.C. explained. "Zola, wouldn't you want
Mulder's nose digging into your pussy?"

Ben stiffened and was about to proclaim that a man
shouldn't talk to his sister like that. Zola cut him off by
saying, "Ben's is bigger."

Ben reached up to touch his nose, then frowned at Zola.
She smiled back at him.

"These sexual hijinks aside," Mulder said, "we have yet to
find a satisfactory...a satisfactory..."

"Explanation," Scully suggested.

"Thanks. We have yet to find a satisfactory answer to the
mysteries surrounding this bar." He twisted his body so
that his pointed finger was directed at Malcolm. "You are
the key to all of it. I'm sure of it."

"Why is that?" Malcolm replied with a lazy air.

"Because whenever I'm onto something..." Mulder stood up
straight, a solemn look on his face. "...I get the same
feeling. My balls start to itch."

Then he began to laugh hysterically. Scully watched him
for a moment, then she started laughing as well. Everybody
else was wondering what to do with them when someone
cleared his throat.

The sound came from the open door. They all turned to look.

The most evil man in the world walked in.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (7 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Well, maybe Julius Grant wasn't the most evil man in the
world. There are people who have probably caused more
damage than he has. It's just that he *looked* like the
most evil man in the world.

The suit that he wore was expensive and sleek, but it only
accentuated the sense of decay he gave off. It was hard to
tell his age -- maybe somewhere between 200 and 300. He had
the appearance of a skeleton that had leather stretched
over the bones and two yellow eyes stuffed into the eye
sockets.

And like a skeleton, he was always smiling.

"Evening."

A.C. slowly nodded. "Evening, Mr. Grant. We didn't hear
your car pull up."

"Oh, it's a real nice machine. Got an engine softer than a
cheerleader's cunt."

A.C. glanced outside to see Julius's lovely car. The
driver behind the wheel did not look so lovely. He was a
huge man with a thick brow and scars over his face. He
watched the bar with cold eyes.

"So, you must be wondering why I'm here," Julius
cheerfully observed.

"Yes," Zola said. "We are."

"I'm here because I've got a proposition for you. You know
about The House of Solomon?"

"You'll have to be dead not to have heard about it," A.C.
quietly replied.

"Well, I was wonderin' if you would come on down tomorrow
night and be the house band."

Everybody was silent for many seconds. Then Malcolm
Burnside, Jr. spoke.

"Why should we want to do that?"

Julius Grant turned to the young man sitting on the stage.
He walked towards him with a slow yet steady pace.

"I can pay you well," he told Malcolm. "Whatever money you
lose from closing the bar for one night, I can double it."

"I don't doubt that you could. But is there some other
reason why we ought to play there?"

Julius stopped, his grin a few feet away from Malcolm's
blank face.

"You might learn some things that you didn't know before,"
the old, evil man said.

Malcolm looked back at Julius, one hand around his
guitar's neck and the other tapping a finger on its body.

"We'll be there," he said.

A.C. opened his mouth to say something, but Malcolm
silenced him with a look.

"That's just dandy!" Julius declared. "I'll see y'all
tomorrow night!"

He hobbled his way to the door, then stopped to look at
Mulder and Scully. They watched him with uncertainty and
more than a little fear.

"You two are those FBI agents that the Chief called for,
right?"

They could only nod.

"You two are drunker than a bunch of Shriners on Mardi
Gras, you know that?"

Then he went out the door to his car, grinning all the way.

"Who in God's name was that?" Mulder asked as the car
drove off.

"That was Julius Grant," Ben said. "That was also trouble.
Malcolm, what the fuck are you up to?"

"Worried about something, Ben?" the man on the stage
replied.

"Look, I know what you can..." Ben stopped himself.

"You can what?" Mulder squawked.

"Nothing."

"No, what? What can Malcolm do?"

"Would you forget it? It's time to close up."

Mulder slapped his hand down at the bar. "I am not leaving
and neither is my partner..." He thumped her on the
shoulder in a gesture of solidarity that almost knocked her
over. "...until we get some answers."

Ben was about to move on to "the next level" when Malcolm
said, "All right. We'll give you answers."

Ben, A.C. and Zola looked at Malcolm, startled.

"Terrific," Mulder shouted out.

"Mind if we do it over a drink?"

"Sure. Why not? You down with that, Scully?"

"Only one more," she muttered. "I'm driving."

"All right," Malcolm said. Then a smile crossed his face.
"Have you two tried my uncle's own brew?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When Julius got back home, he found a message on his
answering machine from Nathaniel Leed. He called the
youngster up.

"How's it hanging there, boy?"

"I stopped by the Shithole tonight. Apparently, your story
had been confirmed."

"Ah, you gone and made me smile again. So you back on the
team?"

"I never left it, sir."

Julius found himself laughing. He liked this boy.

"You should also know that we had a little trouble with
Sgt. Ash."

"Oh, my. What kind of trouble?"

Nathaniel explained.

"Damn. That Udell can get himself into more hot water than
crabs in Massachusetts."

"He did...exacerbate the situation more than he should
have."

Julius thought briefly, then said, "Would you do me a
favor, Nathan?"

"Yes, sir. And it's Nathaniel."

"Oh, sure, sure. Nathaniel, would you tell me if anything
is going sour? You know, warn me of any trouble?"

"Certainly, sir."

"That's good."

"By the way, sir, I have to say...this promises to be a
most interesting enterprise."

"Oh, son, the possibilities just make my cock get hard."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (8 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Agent Fox Mulder was being torn apart. The separate parts
were being washed by overweight Russian women who were
dunking them into the river and then beating them with
tennis rackets. Mulder did not find this a painful
experience. In fact, he rather enjoyed it.

What he did not enjoy was being slapped in the face.

The slapping continued until he woke up. "Hey, hey!" he
yelled as he batted away the hand of Police Chief Meyer
Spiegelman.

Spiegelman straightened up and looked down at Mulder. He
shook his head. "My federal tax dollars at work."

Mulder was about to reply with a witty bon mot but a pain
closed up his throat. It felt like Plato's beard was
growing inside his neck.

"If you're wondering where your partner is, she's over
there." Spiegelman jerked his thumb towards a couch. Dana
Scully was laid out on it, looking like a discarded pile of
laundry.

Spiegelman went up to the couch and whistled in her ear.
She awoke with a great shudder.

"Dear God..." she muttered.

"You two had yourself a taste of A.C.'s Home Brew, didn't
you?"

Mulder pulled up a weak memory of something charging down
his throat and laying waste to his stomach. He also had a
weak memory of him calling someone up on the phone.

"Oh, well," Spiegelman said. "Few ever go to the Shithole
for the first time and not wind up drunk. What would I like
to know is why you were there?"

Scully raised up herself to a sitting position, an
impressive achievement. "We were continuing our
investigation."

"Without me. Just like the way you talked to Reverend
Burnside without me present. Oh, yeah, word of that got
around to me. So, what the hell are you two up to?"

Mulder coughed. To his disgust, something dislodged in his
throat and slid down. "Has Mrs. Burnside ever told you
about the particulars of her son's birth?" he managed to ask.

Spiegelman turned his head straight towards Mulder. "I
don't think I need to be told the particulars."

"Well, she told us her own version about Malcolm's
conception..."

"You mean that story about the ghost of Malcolm, Sr.
coming to her bed?"

Mulder's head was starting to pulse. "I guess we're not
the only ones who has secrets."

"There wasn't any need to tell it to you."

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Chief..." Mulder tried to get up,
but he fell back into the chair as if a string yanked him
back. "We investigate the paranormal. You knew that when
you brought us here. It's our job to look into stories just
like..."

Spiegelman leaned down, placing one hand on an armrest of
the chair. His face was close to the agent's bloodshot eyes
and his voice was vibrating unpleasantly in Mulder's ears.

"Very few of us in town know about this little...belief of
Nadine's. We would like to keep it that way. She's as good
and pure a human being that ever walked this fucked-up
world. That asshole Bob Hoag almost destroyed that
goodness. If Nadine needs this story to keep her going,
then I've got nothing against it. But I don't want people
to be getting the wrong impression about her."

"I take it you don't believe it."

"What I believe, Agent Mulder, is Nadine and Malcolm, Sr.
had a little fun before their wedding vows. That's it."

Spiegelman stood up. "I don't think that I need you two
feds on this anymore. You just go on back to Washington and
chase after Yetis and E.T.'s or whatever shit gets you
turned on. But stay away from Nadine and her son."

With that, Spiegelman left them. "There goes a very
conflicted man," Scully observed.

"I was tempted to ask him if he thought Nadine was the
kind of person to be sexually active before marriage. Then
I thought, 'Hey, he just might beat the shit out of me for
asking that.'"

"Are you saying, Mulder, that you believe her story now?"

"What do you believe?"

"I think that the chief's explanation is more probable.
What I can't understand is why he even asked us down here
in the first place."

"Guilt," a voice said.

Mulder and Scully turned to see Malcolm, Jr. They both
realized that they were in the living room of A.C.'s house.
They also saw that his nephew was carrying two cups with
steam rising out of them.

Mulder said, "If that's coffee, I will be your slave
forever."

"Hmm. A white slave." Malcolm thought about it, then shook
his head. "Nah, I would hate wearing those white suits and
drinking mint juleps."

He gave the coffee to Mulder and Scully. Scully was about
to take a sip when she said, "This isn't your uncle's own
blend, isn't it?"

"Nope. It's as safe as Starbucks."

Scully nodded and both agents took a moment to let warm
caffeine soothe their smashed bodies.

"What was that you said about guilt?" Mulder asked.

"Meyer blames himself for not seeing Hoag in time to stop
him. That's why he'll go out of his way sometimes to
satisfy my mother's whims."

"They used to date, didn't they?"

Malcolm nodded.

"How many people know about this story of your mother's?"

"Just me, the chief, Zola and A.C."

"What is your opinion of it?"

Malcolm smiled and raised an eyebrow. "You mean, do I
believe that I'm the result of a sexual union between the
living and the dead?"

"Well, do you?"

Malcolm sat down on the floor. He looked at his pants and
picked at the lint.

"The chief was right about my mother. She's as good as a
person gets. And I do want to protect her reputation. But I
also want to protect my own ass as well."

"What do you mean?"

"Meaning, I don't want a bunch of people at my door asking
for a fucking miracle," Malcolm said in a carefully
controlled voice.

Mulder looked at the young man and said, "And it would be
even worse if your mother's story was true, wouldn't it?"

Malcolm raised his eyes, the FBI agent reflected in their
cool depths.

"There was once a man...a good man. He preached about
loving your neighbors and helping the weak. He could also
heal the sick and raise the dead. That didn't keep him from
a public execution, though."

"And the name of this man," Mulder said in a quavering
Paul Harvey imitation, "this man who helped so many but got
whacked anyway...his name was..."

Malcolm picked up a cushion and threw it at Mulder. Both
of them laughed. Scully let out a sigh.

"Just drink your damn coffee," Malcolm said.

"Might I ask a few questions?" Scully asked.

"Agent Scully, any woman who can wake up in your condition
and still look pretty can ask me all the questions she
wants."

Scully rolled her eyes and said, "All right. Who is Julius
Grant?"

Malcolm stopped smiling. "Oh, yeah. Him. Julius Grant is
a very wealthy man, but he didn't get that way selling
computer software."

"How then?"

"Let's just say that it would be easier to list the number
of illegal activities Grant *hasn't* been involved in."

"I take it that he's a powerful man here in Final."

"No, he just lives nearby. He's never exercised his muscle
in town. Nothing worth his interest here."

"Except maybe you."

Malcolm shrugged. "He's a fan, I guess."

Mulder and Scully looked at each other. They knew that
something deeper was going on here.

"So, what is this House of Solomon?" Mulder asked.

Malcolm's smile returned. "Thereby hangs a tale."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Meyer Spiegelman sat at his desk. He had the look of a man
too tired to move. Outside, his two fat patrolmen were
laughing over their latest spic joke.

He unlocked one of his desk drawers and opened it. He
stared at its insides for a long time. Then he slowly
reached inside it.

Knock, knock. "Chief?"

Spiegelman swiftly closed up the drawer and locked it.
"Come on in!" he called out.

Sally Ash came in and closed the door behind her. She sat
herself casually in a chair. "You wanted to see me?"

"Just got a call from Fred Udell. Or Elmer Fudd from the
sound of it. Says you roughed him up a bit."

"Sorry, Meyer. I saw him pointing that rifle at Bugs and
it got me all riled up."

Spiegelman laughed briefly. "He was near the Shithole last
night, I take it."

"Yep. Wasn't clear about why he was there, though."

Spiegelman nodded. "Well, don't worry about it. In fact,
this whole thing is closed."

"I don't know. Seems like there's still..."

"It's done, Sally. It's done."

Sally looked at him for a moment, then said, "What about
those two feds?"

"They're out of it. Forget about them."

"Nice-looking couple. Wonder if they have a thing between
them."

Spiegelman laughed. "Not a chance. You can bet that at
least one of them is as queer as a Broadway chorus star."

"Huh?"

"Bet you it's that Mulder guy. He looks just like that
lawyer faggot on that t.v. show. You know, the one
that's living with some tall redhead? I forget the name
of that show. Seems like there are a lot of lawyer
faggots on t.v. nowadays. Of course, Scully...I mean,
she's got that feminist 'don't-bring-your-dirty-dick-
here' attitude..."

Then Spiegelman saw the disgusted expression on the patrol
woman's face. "What is it?" he asked.

She stood up and said, "They're not gay."

"All right. They're not gay. What's got you pissed off?"

"Because, at the very least, they respect each other. That
you can look at that respect and think it's there because..."

She threw up her hands in the air and stormed out of the
office.

Spiegelman smiled and shook his head. He had gone through
this sort of thing before with Sally Ash. She was his
oldest friend. Their relationship had started in grade
school. They had always backed each other up in the
schoolyard fights and, Lord, they sure needed back-up. A
Jew in Mississippi and a homely girl (which Sally was,
let's face it) in any state were bound to get their share
of taunts, not to mention physical threats. There had
been long, hard battles, but, eventually, the team of
Meyer Spiegelman and Sally Ash become something no one
wanted to mess with.

Still, every now and then, Spiegelman would say something
that would set her off. The first time had been back in
high school. He had suggested in all seriousness that she
should join the football team. She was tougher and faster
than a lot of the pussies he captained and wasn't it
enlightened of him to make the offer?

Man, did that get him in trouble.

She evidently apologized for her outburst, though she
never explained why got her panties all twisted up. There
had been other incidents like this. Once, they had been on
stakeout in a car and he noticed that she was wearing some
kind of extremely sweet perfume. "Don't roll down the
window," he jokingly told her. "The flies will flock on you
like you're a dead raccoon." Another time, she had blown
her stack when she had invited him to see some crappy
romantic movie with Meryl Streep or Sally Field or some
other bitch who gets paid a million dollars for crying. He
had diplomatically suggested that they try Eastwood or
Schwarzennegger instead. Both his joke and his suggestion
had gotten him chewed out.

Always, she would apologize later, but never explain. This
latest fight would undoubtedly resolve the same way.

He hoped.

If there was one solid constant in his life, it was Sally.
And if there was anybody's respect that he had gotten
without being a hard-ass, it was her. She was his partner.
She was his best friend.

Dammit, where did that bitch go off to?

He sighed and unlocked the drawer again.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Oh, my God!"

"What? What is it?"

"We got really drunk last night."

Mulder looked at Scully as she drove the car. "You finally
realized this?"

"I finally realized the implications of it."

"Well, I won't say anything about it if you won't."

Scully shook her head, which was still feeling a bit
heavy. She and Mulder had redressed and showered and waited
a long time before their hangover had subsided. Now, she
was driving them carefully over a dirt road. An occasional
dip or pot hole would jar them unpleasantly. The afternoon
sun flashed repeatedly through the trees around them,
creating an annoying strobe effect. The mansion of Julius
Grant was, hopefully, only a few miles away.

"I never got that drunk before," she said.

"Uh-huh."

"No, really, Mulder."

"Sure."

"I mean, I've gotten drunk, but not bad like that."

"Whatever you say, my little Irish Catholic sidekick."

Scully opened her mouth to retort, but decided to drop it.
Instead, she said, "So, what do you want to ask Julius
Grant?" She turned the car around a bend.

"I would like to...LOOK OUT!!"

Mulder could have also said, "Look out for that elephant,"
because there was, in fact, an elephant heading their way.
A big, grey, stomping elephant, his black eyes staring
blankly at the little rental car in its path.

Scully swerved the car to the side, the brake shrieking. A
ditch pulled the car down and a shudder was felt all
through the agents' spines. Then another shudder hit them
from the front as they plowed into the ditch's bottom,
yanking their bodies back and forth before the car was
trapped with the engine uselessly running.

The crash was too much for Mulder. A stomach that had
already taken the abuse of his alcoholic binge declared a
holy war against its own occupants. A yellow-green matter
was expelled and Mulder bent over to let it drop out of his
mouth and onto his shoes.

He regarded the lumpy pile on his shoes for a moment, then
he looked up.

The elephant was right beside them. Mulder and Scully
noticed that it had a rider.

Julius Grant looked down at them with eyes as blank as the
elephant's. He wasn't smiling. There was no doubt that the
elephant would walk all over their car if he prodded it in
their direction.

He said nothing for a few long moments.

Then he grinned.

"Sorry about that. Give you folks a lift?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (Part 9 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When the most evil man in the world offers you a ride on
his elephant, what do you say?

Mulder and Scully reasoned it like this:

1) They were here to question Julius Grant.

2) They wanted to do it at his house and not in the middle
of the damn forest.

3) While they weren't particularly keen on being up there
with Julius, they didn't want to walk alongside that
pachyderm either, just in case it made any sudden moves.

So, they there were, bouncing twenty feet off the ground.
Stonewall the Elephant came equipped with only two
harnesses to hold onto. While Julius rode up near the head,
Mulder and Scully were in the uncomfortably intimate
position of having her bottom nestling in his groin while
he reached around her for the reins that they were both
clutching onto. While this could have been the opportunity
for a million erotic quips, the only thing that went
through both of their minds was, "Please, God, don't let me
fall off this fucking elephant."

"I'll send my boys around to get your car out," Julius
called back to them. "Real sorry about running you off the
road like that. Guess I should be more careful about where
I take Stonewall out for a ride."

They didn't need to see his face to know he was still
grinning. They also knew that Julius could take out his
elephant anywhere he pleased around here.

"You're probably wondering why I've got something like
Stonewall for a pet."

They said nothing. They just held on.

"Sometimes, I wonder that myself. He's a son-of-a-bitch to
kept washed and fed and he drops turds the size of
basketballs. And when he gets horny...whoo-eee, look out!
But every day I wake up, I look out my window and think,
'Goddamn! I've got an elephant!'"

Julius laughed. He sounded like a crow who just saw every
animal in a zoo instantly die.

After a couple of unsteady, shaky miles on the Stonewall
Express, they arrived at the mansion of Julius Grant. A
couple of cold-eyed men helped them off Stonewall after he
knelt on the ground. Their hands were calloused and brusque
in their touch.

Mulder and Scully looked at the mansion.

It seemed that not only did crime pay, but it offered a
comprehensive health plan. The mansion stood in the middle
of a forest clearing, accompanied by a lake, an two-story
garage, a farm, a helicopter pad, Stonewall's private zoo
and a fountain with a statue of a naked lady in its center.
With its stained glass windows, balconies and oak doors,
the mansion itself was an irrefutable testament to Julius
Grant's wealth.

"Nice place, huh?" Julius said. "I call it the Conspicuous
Consumer."

"Thorstein Veblen," Scully said.

"'A Theory of the Leisure Class,'" Julius added and his
eyes gleamed when he saw Scully look surprised.

"Bet you thought that I didn't know who Veblen was, didn't
you?"

"Um, well..."

"I didn't always. I may be a rich hillbilly, but I'm still
a hillbilly. I never heard of Veblen and his whole
'conspicuous consumption' shit until Malcolm, Jr. told me
about it. You see, my car blew out a tire on a street in
Final. A $75,000 car and it blows out a goddamned tire.
Well, my driver was replacing the wheel and we've got the
local hayseeds on the street staring at me and I was
feeling mighty cocky. Then Malcolm came on walking down the
street. That caught my eye 'cause a black boy just doesn't
go walking in certain parts of Final, even if he's the
preacher's son. But he didn't look worried. He was 10 years
old then, but even then he had a...a certain look. Anyway,
he stopped by my car and he was giving it the eye. Not like
'oh, my dear Lord, I would give my left ball to have a
machine like that.' He was just looking at it. I said...

"'See anything you like, boy?' "Then he turned to me and
said, 'That's an act of conspicuous consumption.'

"I say, 'What?' That's a lot of syllables to hear coming
from a 10-year-old boy's mouth. He goes on to explain to me
Thorstein Veblen's theory of conspicuous consumption which
is a fancy way of saying, 'The rich got it so they flaunt
it.'

"'Well, what's wrong with that?' I asked.

"'Camels through the eyes of needles, Mr. Grant,' he
replied and then went on his way, a guitar at his side.'"

Julius laughed. "That Malcolm. He always was a smart one."

"Is that why you've taken an interest in him?" Mulder asked.

Julius kept smiling, but there was an extra meaning to his
smile now. Here there be tigers, boy.

"Come on inside," he said.

They entered the Conspicuous Consumer. Mulder and Scully
weren't too surprised to feel thick carpets under their
feet, to see a couple of Van Goghs and to smell from the
kitchen something unrecognizable but undeniably rich and
covered in butter.

"So," Julius said after he sat himself down in a chair,
"what the fuck is your business with Malcolm anyway?" His
tone was as cheerful and cozy as ever.

Scully said, "We're investigating the reports of a
shooting down at the..." She closed her eyes briefly.
"...the Shithole."

"Oh, yeah. I've heard of that. Sounds like nonsense, don't
you think?"

"You don't think people can come back from the dead, Mr.
Grant?" Mulder asked.

Again, that crow-laugh. "I hope not. There are a lot of
people who died cursing my name."

"Then I guess those are merely collectibles?"

"Hm?"

Mulder pointed at a glass case. Inside was a old leather
book centered on a black cloth. It was surrounded by
medallions, crystals and painted sticks with feathers
tied to them.

"I'm recognizing artifacts from several various cultures
in that case -- Muslim, Native American, African, Asian,
Haitian."

"I've been around."

"However, there is one thing that they have in common.
They're all supposed to be healing charms, capable of even
raising the dead itself."

Julius slowly nodded. "You sure know your shit, Agent
Mulder."

Mulder smiled. "I know it when I smell it."

The smile on Julius's face was rigid as Mulder went up to
the glass case. Scully watched them both.

"I don't recognize this book, though. 'The Swamp Bible.'"

"Just a collection of folklore," Julius said evenly.
"Quaint backwoods legends."

"Uh-huh."

Scully decided to change the subject. "We understand that
you're hiring the Shithole's house band to play at an
establishment of your own."

The threatening look disappeared from Julius's face.
"That's right," he told her with a grin.

"We would like to be present there tonight."

Julius raised an eyebrow. "Why's that? Don't tell me that
two fine-looking people like yourself are in need of the
House of Solomon and its services."

"If anything violent did happen at the Shithole, my
partner and I would like to make sure that it does not
repeat itself."

The grin deepened. "I assure you, Agent Scully...the Klan
know better than to try to attack one of my businesses."

"That depends on what their intent is," Mulder said.

"Intent? Agent Mulder, the only intent that the Klan has is
to wipe out as many black people it can from the Earth."

"I don't know." Mulder walked casually towards Julius. "I
think that if an attack did take place at the Shithole, I
don't believe it was for their usual reasons."

Julius watched the agent as he got closer to him. "And why
do you think that they did it?"

Mulder stopped right in front of the old man. He looked
down at him. "I think that it was a test."

"A test of what?"

Mulder watched the old man in silence. Julius returned the
look.

Then Julius laughed. "You like coming across as all
mysterious, don't you, boy?"

Mulder shrugged. "Only when someone is jerking my chain.
Thank you for your help, Mr. Grant."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Well, don't jerk my chain, Mulder. What was that all
about?"

Scully addressed this question to Mulder after they had
gotten back to their car. Julius's cold-eyed henchmen had
towed it out of the ditch and brought it back to the
Conspicuous Consumer. They didn't say a word as Mulder
scraped out the vomit and then drove off with Scully.

"Everybody in this damn town knows what happened in that
bar," Mulder said. "In fact, I believe that I know, but
nobody will confirm it."

Scully hesitated before saying, "You think that Malcolm
Burnside, Jr. healed everyone who was shot in that bar."

"You see!" Mulder threw his hands into the air. "You know
it, too!"

"No, I don't know that, Mulder."

"Well, I can't figure out what the hell else it could be.
I mean, we do agree that something is being hidden."

Scully nodded.

"And that it is connected to Malcolm somehow."

"Well, maybe. But that's..." She shook her head. "Maybe
our chain really is being jerked, Mulder. Maybe we're being
set up for something."

Mulder thought about that, then sighed.

Scully said, "I know you want to look to the fantastic,
but..."

"No, no. It's possible that you're right. Still, if
someone is fooling around with us, I want to know why. I
think we should keep an eye on Malcolm and see...what's the
matter?"

"No, I agree with you."

"But you made a face there."

"I'm...I'm not too crazy about going to this place."

"The House of Solomon? Why? Doesn't sound anything we
can't handle."

"I don't know. Malcolm gave me the impression that it's
out there even for...its kind of business."

"Don't worry. We'll be okay."

Scully glanced at Mulder, then smiled.

"That's easy for you to say, Mulder. Your video collection
has been readying you for this."

"Right, Scully. I've brought enough Kleenex for everybody."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Julius paced in his living room. That son-of-a-bitch
Mulder had rattled him a little. Clearly, he wasn't just
some dumb government employee. And he had that scrappy
little redhead to back him up.

A slight alteration was needed for tonight's plans. What
to do, what to do?

Then he snapped his fingers and picked up the phone, a
white ivory creation with a receiver shaped like a swan's
neck. He wrapped a handkerchief around the mouthpiece and
dialed a number.

"Hello, is this Johnny McDonald?" he said in a high-
pitched voice. "The Johnny McDonald of Young Christians for
Change?...I'm calling to warn you as a fellow man of God.
Reverend Burnside's son is going to be playing tonight at
the House of Solomon...oh, yes, it's true....Ooooh, I know.
It's horrible. You must do something about it....Thank you
very much, my good man. No, I'm just a fellow Christian who
wants to do right before the Lord. Good-bye."

There. That little pissant could be useful after all. Now
he could...

The phone rang. Julius had a lousy feeling about who was
calling him.

He picked up the phone. "Yeah?"

"Mistuh Gwant, izz me."

"Uh...Fred?"

"Yeb. I'm tawking fubby becuz..."

"Sgt. Ash broke your nose." Julius had to grin. "I heard
about it."

"I wat dat bizz ded."

"One thing at a time, Fred."

"No, I wat dat bizz ded NOW!"

"LOOK, YOU LITTLE COCK-SUCKING HAYSEED,
I'M THE ONLY ONE WHO DOES THE YELLING!
GOT THAT?!"

A very, very long moment of silence.

Then Udell said in a meek voice, "I'b sorry, Mistuh Gwant."

Julius took a breath, then said, "It's okay, Fred. I just
want to make sure that this plan goes smoothly."

"Um, Mistuh Gwant..."

"Yes?"

"Wat iz the pwan ezatly?"

Udell could almost hear Julius's grin over the phone. "I'll
give you a hint, Fred. You're going to have a lot of
back-up soon."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

TITLE: GOIN' DOWN SOUTH (Part 10 of 26)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Nadine Burnside walked by the side of the road. Passing
motorists would slow down and turn their heads to stare at
this goddess passing down the dusty streets. Some would
call out, "Good afternoon, Reverend Burnside," and she
would nod graciously to them. Normally, Nadine would stop
to talk with them, but today she continued on her way. No
one tried to engage her in conversation. Everyone could
sense that she had something on her mind, despite her usual
serene appearance.

Eventually, she reached the house of A.C. Burnside. Her
brother-in-law and her son were loadi