The Curse of Crow Hollow

by Billy Coffey

  Maris asked Hays if he was okay. He answered, “I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

  Bucky sat up in his seat and leaned forward. “What’d you say, Hays?”

  Hays would’ve had to either lie or face the consequences if John David hadn’t walked through the doors just then. He come into that waiting room like a bull, eyes afire, thumping those heavy boots he always wore with every step. Bucky turned as the Reverend moved past him quick, heard him telling John David to get away, he wasn’t wanted. Briar stood at attention in case Chessie needed him. Her eyes alone were enough to stop the Reverend, along with that big body of hers that blocked the way. Which was a good thing, friend, because no way was John David Ramsay gonna turn around and leave.

  He moved past Chessie and his daddy both, aiming for the three chairs against the wall where the Fosters sat. Hays saw John David coming and pulled his skinny legs up to his chest, making himself into a ball. John David roared as he reached for the boy, pulling Hays off the chair with one hand and cocking a fist with the other. Kayann screamed out No as Landis, Medric, and the mayor tried to wrench her boy free of John David’s grasp. Bucky went to stand. Angela grabbed his arm and held him in place. Only when Chessie nodded her permission to let Briar help did the two finally separate.

  “Get out,” the Reverend said. He laid hold of John David’s arm and yanked his son backward, forcing their eyes to meet. “You hear me, boy?”

  Chessie pushed herself between them and said, “I told John David to come, Reverend. Was me. I know that’s you and Belle’s little girl in there, but Naomi is John David’s sister. He’s got just as much right to be here as anybody. Now we ain’t gonna have no trouble here, are we? Bucky?”

  Bucky blinked at the sound of his name. He stood, sliding Angela’s arm from his, and looked at the Reverend and John David both. “Chessie’s right. Reverend, I know you’re hurt because of your little girl. But John David’s hurt just the same. You need to let him be here.”

  “It’s the Christian thing,” Chessie said.

  I’d say Reverend David Ramsay’s head near exploded then, what with the son who wanted nothing to do with him showing up and somebody like Chessie Hodge telling him what’s Christian and what ain’t. John David walked past his daddy with nary a glance and wrapped his arms around Belle. She held the back of her son’s head and smiled through her tears. It was a tender moment in the midst of all that worry and fear, but one that ended when John David broke the embrace.

  He looked at Hays. “I warned you, boy.”

  The mayor still had one hand to Hays’s chest, like he was ready to push the boy away should John David charge again. He kept that hand there and asked, “You warned him of what, John David?”

  John David shook his head. “You didn’t tell them, did you?”

  “Tell us what?” Belle asked.

  “Where’d Naomi tell you she was going last night?”

  “Harper’s Field.”

  He looked at the others. “That what they told y’all too?”

  Angela stood and looked at Hays. She shook a finger in his direction. “Where’d you take our little girl, Hays Foster?”

  “It wasn’t me,” Hays said. “It was Scarlett’s idea.”

  The mayor’s hand went from open to closed on Hays’s chest, pulling at the few hairs that grew beneath the boy’s shirt until Hays winced. “Scarlett?” he asked.

  “She’s the one who said we had to go up to the mines.”

  Landis let out a little gasp from his spot on the other side of Kayann. He took two giant steps, then slapped his son across the mouth. The sound came like a firecracker. Hays buckled as the mayor let him go, and fell back into his seat. He looked up, eyes wide with rage. Landis pulled his arm back again.

  “You look at me like that,” he said. “Go on, boy. I dare you. What business you got, going up to a place like that? You don’t know nothing.”

  Kayann tried, “Landis, he didn’t know—”

  “Shut up,” Landis told her, for maybe the first time ever. “Don’t you understand what he’s done?”

  The mayor and the Reverend looked at each other, sharing the same horrible thought. Bucky missed it altogether. I don’t think Chessie did. Angela was asking Hays what in the world would convince him that taking Cordy up to the mountain was a good idea and Kayann was telling her it was just as much Cordelia’s fault as anyone’s, and the whole room got so loud the nurse said she was calling for security. The only thing that kept her from doing it was Doc Sullivan coming through the automatic door that led deeper into the hospital. His church pants looked rumpled and his plain white shirt lay open at the collar, where a stethoscope hung limp. Half-moons of sweat stained the spots under his arms. He looked at them all and shook his head.

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

  -5-

  Bucky pushed past the Fosters and the mayor and asked, “What’s wrong with my girl, Danny?”

  “They’re all settling in,” Doc said. “Resting and comfortable. So far as we can tell, there’s no danger.”

  “What’s that mean?” Belle asked. “‘So far as we can tell’?”

  The doctor measured his words. “It means no one, myself included, quite knows what’s going on yet. The girls are being taken upstairs to be admitted so we can do more tests. You can all go on and see them.” He held up his hands when Angela and the mayor tried to push past. “Wait, now. I need to tell you all something first. The last thing they need is to see the ones they love most just as scared as they are. So I’ll ask you to swallow whatever it is you’re feeling and act like the good people you are.”

  The mayor asked, “What do you mean about bad news, Danny? What’s happened to them?”

  “I’ll have to address that to each set of parents, Wilson.”

  Briar Hodge eased Wilson aside and faced the doctor. I say faced, though Danny Sullivan had to crane his neck to even meet Briar’s chest.

  “Now listen here, Danny,” Briar said, and he was speaking slow to keep a lid on the fire growing up inside him. “All us here might not always get along as we should, but it comes down to it, we’re fambly. You can stand there thinking you’re gonna talk to one person or t’other, but I’m telling you all us is going up there right now. So you best just say what you got to and move out our way.”

  It was, so far as I know, the most words Briar Hodge had ever strung together at one time in his life. And whether it was all those words or the wisdom in them (or that Doc Sullivan had caught a glimpse of the pearl handle tucked into the front of Briar’s church jeans), the doctor decided Chessie Hodge’s husband had spoken truth.

  He looked at his brother-in-law first and said, “Mayor, we had to give Scarlett a sedative. She’s resting, but she seems to have suffered some sort of paralysis to her vocal cords.”

  “Lord help us,” the mayor whispered.

  Doc shook his head and tried to smile. It came out looking tired and worried. “I believe it’s temporary. We’ve given her a pad of paper and a pen, and she’s able to communicate fine. But I need to see you before you go in. No protest either, Wilson. This is important, and it has to be kept private. I will not budge on that,” he said, looking at Briar and Chessie, “no matter who tries to bully me.”

  He turned to the Ramsays next and said, “Reverend, Belle,” before his eyes flickered at the man standing next to them. “John David, good to see you here despite the circumstances. Naomi is conscious and alert, though I’m afraid she’s lost some muscle function. We’re not sure what caused her seizure. As it is, she’s developed a tic in her arms and mouth. She can’t control it, doesn’t even seem aware it’s there.”

  Belle began to cry. The Reverend asked, “What caused this, Danny?”

  “We’re just not sure.”

  “Danny,” Angela said, pushing her way toward the front. “What about Cordelia? What’s happened?”

  The doctor turned to the rest. “You all go on now, those girls are waiting. Wilson, you w
ait outside Scarlett’s door for me. Understand? Hays, you can take your parents up to see Cordelia while I talk to Bucky and Angela. You all go on now. Let us talk.”

  Bucky nodded and said, “We’ll be there directly,” sending Chessie and Medric and the rest toward the nearest set of elevators. Maris showed them the way. Doc Sullivan took Angela by the arm and led her and Bucky off to the side.

  “How long’s it been since I last saw Cordelia in the clinic?” he asked.

  “Been a year or so,” Angela said. “We brought her in with the flu. Why?”

  “Everything good at home?”

  “Sure, Doc,” Bucky said. Angela looked relieved he’d answered that. “What are you getting at?”

  “She’s awake,” the doctor said. “Whatever she’s fighting, it’s caused paralysis to the left side of her face. Now such things have been known to happen, and for a variety of reasons. But she has no feeling there at all, and because of that her face looks fallen a bit. You need to know that going in.”

  Angela’s hands went to her eyes.

  “There’s something else. We had to do a very preliminary exam to try and pinpoint whatever may be causing it. We found something else.”

  “Found what?” Bucky asked.

  Doc Sullivan took a deep breath. This time he didn’t bother trying to smile. “Cordelia’s pregnant.”

  -6-

  The elevator opened empty, and that was a good thing because Angela was crying. Bucky had never seen his wife do that. Not when Angela found she was pregnant herself. Not even back in ’95 when Angela’s momma caught cancer and her daddy had his stroke. She was saying, “How did this happen, Bucky?” and “Why didn’t she come to me?” and “I can’t let anything happen, I love her, I know I don’t always show it but I do,” and Bucky could only stand there watching the floors light on the display and think all those same things.

  They reached the fourth floor and never turned their heads as they traveled the hallway. Never peeked in to see Naomi enveloped by her parents and brother, her arm fluttering like a bird’s broken wing. Her left eye blinked like something had gotten in it, or she knew a secret she couldn’t tell. Belle kept laying a hand to her daughter’s elbow, trying to still it, but that arm just kept flopping on.

  Nor did Bucky and Angela see the Hodges standing outside Scarlett’s door just a few feet from where Doc Sullivan had appeared to tell Wilson how they’d found all the cuts on his daughter’s arms. The mayor only stared at the floor as he was told Scarlett had been maiming herself for a long while.

  Bucky and Angela didn’t even see the Fosters and Medric, waiting out of respect for them to visit Cordelia first. No, friend, all the Vests could do was keep their eyes to the last door at the end of the hall, number 412. As they neared it, Angela took her husband’s hand in her own.

  Bucky knocked and eased the door open to find Cordelia sitting up in bed. An empty box of tissues sat on a small table hovering over her lap. Its contents lay balled and spilled into three piles that made it look like Cordy floated on a cloud. An IV had been stuck into the back of her hand. Machines beeped and flashed. Bucky saw none of that, nor did he see the way one side of his daughter’s face looked like a blown tire sagging on a rim of bone. What he saw was only his sweet baby girl. His joy. Their blessing.

  Cordy broke into a silent cry at the sight of them. There were so many things that must have gone through that poor girl’s mind just then, all the secrets she’d hidden that now would come to light, but despite all that she could only bunch her lips as a single tear fell from the corner of her one good eye and ask, “Am I thtill pwetty?”

  They rushed in, friend, Bucky and Angela both, neither caring how maimed their daughter looked nor what grew inside her young womb, wanting only to hold their child and wet her head and face with their kisses. At that bedside, Bucky discovered that a man could mourn how small he felt against all the world’s dangers and still call himself a man. He wailed as he held Cordelia and did not care who heard or if he acted like the good person Danny Sullivan had asked him to be. And when all the crying was done, Bucky laid his daughter back against her pillow and wiped his eyes.

  He said, “You need to tell me what happened, Cordelia, and you can’t hold back. Not a thing.”

  Angela scurried around to the other side of the bed, where she sat and took Cordy’s hand. She looked into her daughter’s eyes with a pain and fear that Cordelia could take only as love, and what could Cordy do then, friend? What could any of us do?

  She started with stealing the bracelet.

  -7-

  It was Chessie who gathered them later that afternoon.

  She and Briar went to check on Naomi first, knowing the Reverend and Belle’s help would be needed to convince the others. It wouldn’t be easy. Chessie and David Ramsay had never agreed on most things. He didn’t approve of what Chessie did to make her money, she didn’t like the way the Reverend could use God as a wedge to divide the town, but they’d managed to live somewhat peaceably over the years. Chessie counted on their shaky truce to last just a while longer. She didn’t know how much if anything Naomi and Cordelia had told their parents of the past night and morning, but she guessed it was some. No child could keep such secrets for long, as evidenced by what Scarlett had written down for her daddy. And Scarlett had written it all. Much had come out in a mad rush of words strung together in sentences that never ended, scrawls on sheet after sheet of paper. But Chessie had understood enough. The horror on the mayor’s face said he’d understood things too.

  Turned out, the others had confessed much the same. What parts Naomi and Cordelia had left out got filled in by Hays, who’d confessed everything to Landis, Kayann, and both of the Hodges. David and Belle went along well enough with what Chessie wanted, but only after she promised it wouldn’t take long. John David would stay with Naomi, who was jerking her head like it’d gotten tangled in an electric wire.

  Chessie took them both along with Medric to check on Cordelia. They found an empty bowl by the bed. Half of the chicken noodle soup had spilled down the dead side of Cordelia’s face, leaving Angela in tears and Bucky nearly so.

  The mayor came along last. He agreed a meeting was needed, but I think Wilson Bickford did that only because he knew that would be the only way for Scarlett to feel better. Her arms were under the covers now, hidden once more, and she had made the mayor swear never to tell a soul what he’d seen of them.

  Maris remained behind to watch over Scarlett. Hays sat with Cordelia. The Reverend said the hospital’s chapel would be best. And so that’s where they gathered, inside that little room one floor down and beneath a shiny gold cross that hung from the front wall. They all held hands as the Reverend opened with a prayer no one felt much comforted by. After his amen was said and echoed, Chessie lifted her chin to speak.

  “Kids shoulda never been to the mines. They know better. Mountain’s fenced for a reason.”

  “No use dwelling on that now,” Belle said. “Damage is done. What we need to focus on is getting our girls better.”

  Her voice cracked. No doubt Belle Ramsay was thinking about her daughter just then, twitching like a nervous Nellie for the rest of her days. Her faith said that wouldn’t be so. But then again, Belle Ramsay’s faith also said John David would one day turn from his wicked ways and run back to his momma’s bosom. That hadn’t worked out so well either.

  Medric must’ve sensed the same, because he asked, “What if they don’t? What if they all stay as they are?” And when they all glared, he whispered, “Just sayin’. Sure it won’t come to that.”

  “If they don’t,” Angela said, “if my daughter looks like that for the rest of her life, it’ll be square on your shoulders, Kayann Foster.”

  Landis took a step toward Angela. Kayann beat him there. “What did you just say to me?”

  Bucky rubbed the front of his head, like he felt a headache coming on.

  “Your son was supposed to be there watching Cordelia, watching them all. He
talked Cordy and Naomi and Scarlett into following those tracks, and then he stood there and did nothing.” She hit that last word hard, near shouted it, and then fell silent.

  Landis shot back, “Our boy did the best he could. Hays would’ve never been out there if you woulda had the sense to keep Cordelia at home instead of letting her run around Campbell’s Mountain.”

  “I didn’t know she was going to Campbell’s Mountain, Landis,” Angela said. “None of us did.”

  “That’s right,” Kayann said. She turned to the mayor. “If it’s anybody’s fault, it’s Scarlett’s. She was the one who came up with the idea of going up there in the first place.”

  Wilson Bickford only stood there. He kept his voice low and even and said, “Landis, you better shut your wife up. Scarlett may’ve wanted to go up to the mines, that don’t make no difference. She didn’t have the key. Hays did.” And now he turned to Medric. “My question is, how in the world did Hays get that key?”

  “Must’ve snuck it,” Medric said. “I didn’t give it to him, Wilson. I’d never do such a thing.”

  “You wouldn’t?” Kayann asked. “What exactly is it you and my son do shut up in that funeral parlor of yours, Medric?”

  “Now what’s that mean?” He looked at them all, saw their hard faces. “You blaming me for this? I never wanted them keys. It’s the mayor’s job to hold the keys to the gate and everybody knows it, but Wilson didn’t want’m. Bucky didn’t want’m. Said they’re cursed like the mountain itself, and y’all think whoever holds the keys carries a stain on themselves. So you give’m to me. Say since the mountain means death, then the man who holds the keys should be the man who deals in it. Y’all think anyone should be stained round here, might as well be me. Well I have you know them keys stay locked tight. And Kayann Foster, I’ll have you know your boy spoke of them something awful. He was drawn to the mountain long before he met me.”