Heaven's Crooked Finger

by Hank Early

  I was seventeen again, lying in the floor of the Holy Flame sanctuary. I was a kid, being forced to pray for my mother’s forgiveness. I was a man standing outside of the church, commanding him to turn around.

  I’d stood up to him then.

  Somehow, I had to find the strength to do it again. I rolled over and reached for his legs. His next kick caught me near the sternum and knocked the breath out through my throat in a great whoof. But I held on.

  I continued to roll, knocking him off balance and into the fire. The animal on the spit tumbled over the ledge, leaving streaks of flame in the air.

  Daddy stood up, even as the flames rose up around him like wings, and he was finally the physical manifestation of the demon he’d been all along.

  The fire seemed to come from within him and all around him at once. His entire body was consumed until the top of his head became a torch. I swear as his skin burned, he grinned at me, and I realized he was already in hell, and somehow he liked it.

  I staggered to my feet and ran at him with every ounce of strength I had left in me.

  My shoulder caught fire on contact, and he tried to hold on to me, to take me over the side with him, but his hands—more fire than flesh now—couldn’t hold on. I fell onto my belly beside the fire, my chin hanging over the ledge, my face in the open air of morning, and watched him fall and burn until he hit a creek below and disappeared.

  He was gone. At last.

  * * *

  No, not quite gone. But he was faded. Sometimes—in the months and days that followed—he came back. I saw him in the shadows at dusk, heard his voice whispering on a breeze, felt his judgment when I did something I knew he wouldn’t approve of. But these were just agitations, visits from ghosts. The man was dead.

  And when the ghosts did bother me, when I found myself filled with doubt, I reminded myself to have a ghost, one must be dead, and this is where I found my comfort.

  64

  On the day Rufus and I had found the empty grave, he’d told me I’d broken the code. But that wasn’t true at all. Maybe I’d messed with it some, maybe I’d even gotten some of the numbers right, but the truth was the code was still largely unknown to me. I still didn’t understand my father or my brother. I barely understood myself.

  I only told one person. It wasn’t Lester or Mary or even Rufus. I figured one day I might tell Lester, but at the moment, he didn’t need any more mention of Daddy in his life. His trial date was a few months away, and his lawyers were optimistic he might get off. I wanted him to go back to a normal life. The shit that had happened inside the mountain between me and Daddy was anything but normal.

  As for Mary, I wanted to tell her, but the time never seemed right. It wasn’t hard to hide the burns I’d suffered when I knocked him off the mountain, but the bruises on my ribs from his kicks were more difficult. I had to lie to cover those. It was just for a little while, I told myself. Things were good between us, and each time I thought about telling her the truth, I decided to wait. There’s a certain point you reach with a thing like this where it becomes too late, where a deceit creates its own momentum, and the consequences of that momentum grow with each passing day. Bringing it up would just make her wonder why I waited so long. In the end, once I’d more or less healed, I decided there really wasn’t any worthwhile reason to tell her anymore. It was just something that had happened to me once. I’d deal with it alone and save her the pain. My father was a part of my past I was leaving behind. Mary was my future. What good could dredging all that back up possibly do?

  The person I did tell surprised even me.

  He came by the house a day or two after I watched Daddy fall to his death. Mary and I were cleaning out Granny’s room when she nodded toward the window. “Looks like trouble.”

  I crossed the room and peered through the window. A silver pickup was sitting near the old rocker. Ronnie Thrash got out and started toward the front door. He’d cut his hair and grown a beard, but it was definitely him. I would have recognized that cocky strut anywhere.

  “Wait here.”

  I met him at the door and led him back out to his pickup. “What do you want?”

  “Well, it’s good to see you too,” he said.

  “Cut that. I don’t want you coming around here.”

  “Well, that’s not very neighborly of you, Earl.”

  I glared at him.

  He grinned. “Fine. I’ll get to the point. I just come by because I wanted to tell you . . . good job. I’m glad to see my grandfather is going to get what’s coming to him.”

  Suddenly, I remembered the other side of Ronnie Thrash. The side that actually did have a good bit in common with me.

  “I just hate your own daddy wasn’t alive to get his comeuppance.” He shrugged. “Anyways, I just wanted to thank you. I feel like I got a new lease on life without my granddad and Shaw around. I was so obliged, I even forbade Beard and the boys from messing with that old, blind fool. Much as it pains me to do so.” He patted my shoulder. “Much respect, Earl.”

  I rolled my tongue over my teeth and nodded at him.

  “What’s the plan? Gonna stay and make an honest woman of that cute little deputy or head on back to Carolina?”

  “You want to go for a ride?” I said.

  He nodding, thinking it over. “I’m always up for a ride with the great Earl Marcus.”

  * * *

  We stopped by Rufus’s and got a couple of shovels, the same ones we’d used to dig up Otis’s empty grave. Rufus didn’t ask me why I needed them, and I didn’t volunteer the information. I couldn’t say for sure why I’d decided on Ronnie’s help and not Rufus’s. Maybe because this was the kind of secret I didn’t want to put on a good man like Rufus. Maybe because Ronnie would appreciate what we were about to do more than anyone else I knew.

  I had him park on the side of the road nearest the creek where I believed we’d find Daddy’s body. We hiked around for half the afternoon looking. While we looked, I told him about what had happened. He didn’t seem to believe me until I spotted the body hung up on some rocks in the nearly dry creek bed.

  “Well, if that don’t beat all,” he said. “You killed Brother RJ. And it looks like he even burned in hell.”

  I had to smile at that one.

  * * *

  We buried what was left of the body not far from the place it had landed in the creek. The dirt was moist and easy to dig. When we finished, Ronnie leaned on his shovel and looked me over with admiration.

  “I envy you,” he said.

  “Don’t do that.”

  “No, seriously, I wish I could have done it.”

  “I didn’t want to. He didn’t leave me any choice.”

  Ronnie screwed up his face, as if he were thinking it over. “Maybe, but if you really hadn’t meant to do it, I don’t think you’d look so proud right now.”

  I hated him for saying that. The last thing I needed in my life was more regret. But like it or not, I’d found some.

  65

  The next afternoon, while continuing to clean out Granny’s room, Mary asked me two questions, both of which completely caught me off guard.

  “What are you going to do?” That was the first one.

  “I thought I’d finish Granny’s room and maybe take a nap on the couch. Then fix some dinner. What about you?”

  She smiled at me. I wanted to kiss her. She was so damned smart. I didn’t deserve her. She’d saved both of our necks with the call to the GBI.

  “That’s not what I mean. I want to know what you’re going to do next. I mean, you still have a business in North Carolina.”

  I put down the box of clothes I was carrying and sat on the couch. “I was thinking of moving the business,” I said.

  She nodded. “That’s surprising.”

  I shrugged. “Is it?” It felt anything but surprising to me. It felt right. “I think it’s time to come back.” I reached for her hand. “You’re here. I got Rufus.” I smiled at his name, and she
did too. “Not to mention, Goose said he loves these mountains.” Hearing his name, Goose perked up. He’d grown a lot since I’d found him nearly six weeks ago. He was going to grow some more, and I knew Charlotte wouldn’t be any place he’d be happy.

  And I wouldn’t either. These mountains were home. And now that I was sure Daddy was gone and I’d confronted my past, not only could I come home again, but I could stay here.

  “About that,” she said. “I need to up front with you.”

  “About what?”

  “I’m moving back to Atlanta.”

  I just looked at her. Was she breaking up with me already?

  “I’m sorry, Earl. I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while now, but every time I start to tell you, I just can’t. You’ve been through so much. Granny and everything with your father’s church. Lester. I just didn’t want to hurt you anymore.”

  “Well then be quiet,” I said. “Don’t say another word.”

  She smiled at me sadly.

  “I came for Granny. You know that. She’s gone now. It was a wonderful surprise . . . and quite the adventure meeting you, but I promised my chief in Atlanta I’d be back.” She looked like she was close to tears. “I’ve got to honor that promise.”

  She straddled me then, wrapping her legs around me and leaning in to kiss me on the mouth.

  “I want to try to make this work,” she said. “Just because I’m going to be in Atlanta doesn’t mean it can’t still work.”

  I nodded. That was better. Still not great, but I understood. And I was overjoyed she wasn’t dumping me.

  “And,” she said, “I want you to stay here.”

  “Here?”

  “Sure. It’s perfect. It’s paid for. You won’t have to pay me rent, so that will allow you to get on your feet. Plus, I love making love to you on this couch.” She smiled, and I reached for her again as she moved her hips on my lap seductively.

  It was a slow, sweet session. Afterward, we lay there and laughed when we realized Goose had been watching the entire time.

  I was just about to drift off to sleep when she asked me the second question. It was one I didn’t have a good answer for, one I still consider nearly every day.

  “After all of it,” she said, “what do you believe?”

  I might have told her that somehow, despite it all, I still believed in God. Not my father’s god, nor the god most people thought of when they heard the word. But instead, I believed in Granny’s God. The God of hospitality and acceptance. The God who saved a little kid from his father’s hateful and vengeful religion and put him right here on this couch, with something resembling a future, even if he was fifty years old and still not completely over his daddy issues.

  I might have told her all that, but if I had, I still would have had to explain what Granny taught me about prayers that day in her room, how they were kisses, but I just didn’t have the energy right at the moment.

  But it was something to think about. If there were kisses, there might be prayers, and if there were prayers, there had to be a God.

  But I would never claim to know for sure.

  Acknowledgments

  Writing a novel is a lot like being stranded in an ocean of ever-intensifying waves. You can try to make it to land all by yourself, or you can send out an SOS and hope someone else might be willing to lend a hand. During the writing of Heaven’s Crooked Finger, I would have certainly drowned miles from the shore if not for a few kind souls who gave willingly of their time to keep me afloat.

  I owe a huge debt of gratitude to friend and writer Kurt Dinan, who has been a first reader for me for more than ten years now and knows better than anyone else when I’m doing it right and when I’m just mailing it in. Thanks for your friendship and the way you continue to bring out the best in me.

  Another early reader who deserves special mention is Jamie Nelson. Jamie read a couple of early drafts and asked me the question that led to my most important narrative breakthrough. Thanks, Jamie, for your sharp eye and willingness to help.

  There were so many others who read drafts or offered advice during the process, but I’ll try to limit myself to the most noteworthy. These include Barry Dejasu (always willing to read or just chat); Sam W. Anderson (an old friend and probably the most loyal individual I know); the Boston brothers (who may or may not live in Boston anymore, but that’s how I’ll always think of them)—Bracken MacLeod, Chris Irvin, and Errick “Danger” Nunnelly—and Paul Tremblay (who has always been far too kind to me and, come to think of it, may actually live in Boston but definitely hates pickles).

  On the business side of things, I’m extraordinarily lucky to have Alec Shane as an agent. Each time I sent him a draft, he pushed me to take it to the next level. When the manuscript was (finally) finished, he sold it and book two, which I hadn’t even properly started yet. I don’t think a writer can ask for much more from an agent.

  Two ladies have been instrumental in helping me establish an online and promotional presence. Thank you, Jana White and Julie Trelstad. You are both saints for putting up with my ineptness and (at times) reluctance to embrace promotion, digital and otherwise.

  Finally, I want to thank the fine folks at Crooked Lane Books. Faith Ross Black is an ideal editor—easy to get along with, efficient, and deeply respectful of the process as well as the product. Thanks to her and all the others at Crooked Lane who helped make this book a reality. A special shout-out to Jenny Chen and Danny Constantino, whose precision copyedits made a world of difference in the final product.

  And, of course, none of this would be possible without my wife, Becky. She’s my best reader, critic, emergency responder, cheerleader, and friend.