by Billy Coffey
Bucky could only move his head yes. To speak would invite more tears. Crying in front of your family is bad enough for a man. Crying in front of your best friend is to be no man at all.
Wilson squeezed his eyes shut. “He say why?”
“Maddie’s sick. Homer blames it on Cordy. I need help, Wilson. I need you to help me find work. Give me a lead, point me somewhere. Anything.”
“Sure, I’ll ask around, Buck. You know I will. But things are tight. Lots of people looking. And now there’s this mess with Alvaretta.”
“I know that.”
“I could call Homer, try to lean on him.”
“Homer’ll tell you the same thing he told me. Only difference is he’ll use Scarlett’s name instead of Cordy’s. Maybe when this is all done . . .”
“I been thinking on that,” Wilson said. “We gotta find a way to get a handle on this before it all goes to pot. People are scared and their kids are sick, and that’s what we gotta deal with. Doc thinks ain’t nothing we can do about the sick part. I agree. None of this goes away until Alvaretta wills it. But the fear? I think that’s something we can work on, Constable. I believe deep down these people will still bend to reason. I just don’t know how we make that happen.”
“What ‘we’?” Bucky asked. He threw his hands up, waved them around the room like he was counting all the invisible people Wilson must’ve been seeing. “I can’t do nothing, Wilson. I got no authority in town, you know that. I gotta take care of my own now.”
“You got savings?”
Bucky snorted.
“Ain’t the time for any of us to be going it alone, Buck. Now I know your pain, I do. And I know you’re a proud man.” He slid open the right-hand drawer of his desk and leafed through the files and papers on top, then pulled out a wad of cash. It had been folded once and tied with a thick red rubber band. The mayor slid it across the desk. “This should last you a week.”
“I ain’t gonna take a handout, Wilson. That’s not why I come.”
“I know it. Take it anyway. Consider it a bonus for your constabling, because that’s what I need you to attend to right now.”
Bucky reached out and picked through the stack. No hundreds or fifties, but enough twenties to see them through a while.
“Pay your bills and gas your car,” Wilson said. “I’ll make sure Landis gives Angela enough credit at the grocery to keep y’all fed. Take it, Bucky. Take it so you won’t have to worry about that for a few days. We got a whole other mess to worry about.” He turned his chair back around slow, pointing it at the window. “We friends, ain’t we, Buck?”
Bucky was still looking at that money in his hands. Wondering, maybe, what it’d be like to have cash enough to shove inside a drawer.
“Sure, Wilson. We come up together.”
“You stick with me through this? No matter what?”
“You know I will.”
“Even if I told you all that’s happened ain’t Cordelia’s fault? Or Scarlett’s? Or none a them kids’?” He paused there and added, “Even if I told you it wasn’t Alvaretta herself did this?”
“What you talking about?”
For a long while the mayor didn’t say. Then came a soft, “Reverend, he started this. Told the town it was Alvaretta when the town didn’t need to know. Them other kids only started getting sick after, you notice that? Everybody just kept their traps shut, none of this would be happening.”
“Wilson, I—”
“But I don’t blame him, and you know why I can’t, Bucky? Because Reverend’s scared. He’s about as scared right now as a man can be, and I know that because I’m scared too. I pray to the dear Lord in heaven this is all it comes to, just a bunch a sick kids. Even my own. I can live with that. Shoot, Holler’s lived with worse over the years. But fear can make people do some awful things, and that’s what I’m scared of right now. Not Alvaretta. Us.”
“This is all gonna be fine,” Bucky said, though in a way that left him shaky in his belief.
“Not till the witch gets what she wants.”
“What’s she want, Wilson?”
“You should get on, Buck. Go back up to the mines and get that blasted key to the gate. Probably still in the lock where Hays left it. You lock things up tight, and then you bring that key to me. Should’ve been one of us holding those keys all along. Medric was right, we was too plain scared to keep them. So the decision was made to give them to Medric for safekeeping, and he didn’t say no.” He shook his head. “And you take that money, hear me? Least I can do for all you done for me over the years. You’re a good man. Holler’s blessed to have you.” And when Bucky didn’t move, he added, “Go on now. Leave me be. I gotta think.”
Bucky nodded and went on his way. Walked back down that lonely hallway that once upon a time held all sorts of folk, secretaries and businesspeople and this and that, but now held only the mayor. He left the mayor’s money at the end of the desk.
Wilson watched Bucky through the window, saw him get in that old creaky Celebrity. Then he leaned back in his office chair and picked up his dearly departed’s picture.
“I’m glad you ain’t here, Tonya,” he whispered. “Never thought I’d say that. But I’m glad.”
-6-
Now I guess what Bucky felt he should do next was either go up to the dump and beg Homer for his job back, or do what the mayor said and fetch the key from the gate around the mines. But some other part of him said he had to do something else, and that’s the part he listened to. What Wilson said about the Reverend being scared stuck in his head and wouldn’t jar loose. That’s why Bucky got back in the car and drove over to the church instead. I don’t guess he was any different than anybody else in the Holler then. What he needed was answers.
The Reverend and Belle Ramsay were already there, having parked their Jeep by the steps that led to two church doors ready to welcome any and all. None but the Ramsays had stepped foot inside the Holy Fire since the quick end of Sunday service, but they would soon. That’s what people did when the world went from the gray it usually was to the black it could always become. Bucky’s grandma once told him the locks on the church were taken off for good after Pearl Harbor. Everybody in the Holler had gathered there that December day to call upon the Lord. They gathered there again when Kennedy was shot, and then the other Kennedy, and then Reagan. Don’t matter if you’re a Democrat or Republican, Crow Holler’s gonna pray for you whether you like it or not. On 9/11, those pews were full to bursting. David Ramsay was preacher by then. All the days since, those doors have been kept open. You can go over there now if you like, turn that knob yourself. David says the Lord’s still in there waiting and maybe He is, I don’t bother going in to see.
Bucky went on inside and wiped his feet beside the chair where Raleigh Jennings always sat, then stepped to the sanctuary. Belle was bent over in one of the pews in the middle, straightening up hymnals and capturing wayward bulletins from the Sunday before. Down at the altar, David and Naomi had fallen to prayer. The Reverend had his arms wrapped tight around his daughter so he could share every jerk and pull of her shoulders and head. Holding his eyes shut tight as his face lifted to the ceiling. His words came low and soft, mixing with Naomi’s whispers into a mournful song.
Belle paused to watch and let a curl of her long brown hair dangle over her eyes. Reverend had prayed over his children before. Bucky had been there along with everybody else the night before John David had gone off to war against the heathens. Ain’t it funny how we’re always the righteous when it comes to killing, and it’s everybody else who’s the devil? I don’t think the Reverend or Belle ever stopped to ponder such things. But there at the edge of the sanctuary, I believe Bucky did. Just as I think he pondered what depth of evil one had to plumb to curse innocent children.
He didn’t see Belle come up next to him, and jumped when she touched his arm. “Morning, Bucky,” she said.
“Belle. Sorry. I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
“No
, of course not. Church is always open. David’s just going to the Lord for Naomi.”
She turned back. Naomi still shook (and shook and shook), but David’s countenance had changed from struggle to peace. His cheeks were flushed. The cords of his neck were taut, as if the battle he fought against the witch’s hold was both pitched and ceaseless, and yet his mouth held a smile as his lips mouthed yes at the victory promised. To Bucky it was a beautiful thing, and also horrible.
“I need a word with David, Belle.”
“About what? Is Cordelia okay? I’m sorry, I didn’t even ask.”
“She’s the same. I’m just trying to figure why David told the town about Alvaretta. We agreed it’d be best to keep things quiet.”
“David did what he thought was right, Constable.”
“That’s what I hear. Didn’t really turn out to be right though, did it?”
In a statement that would’ve made Chessie Hodge spit her coffee, Belle said, “I have to support my husband, Bucky. Doesn’t matter what I think.”
I figure the Reverend had to know all this was going on, praying or not, because he said his amen and brought Naomi up the aisle. Poor thing could barely walk. She had to hold on to her daddy with one hand and the ends of the pews with the other just to keep herself steady. All the beauty had gone from her eyes, replaced by weariness that struck the very depths of what she could endure. Bucky could barely bring himself to look at her.
“Morning, Constable,” the Reverend said. “Come to pray?”
“Afraid I’m all prayed out for now, Reverend. I would like a word, though. In private, if Belle and Naomi don’t mind.”
The Reverend’s smile drifted for a moment and then regained its past glow. “Belle, why don’t you take Naomi in back. Fix her some lunch? I’ll be in directly.”
Belle smiled and then so did Bucky—smiles all around, friend, and my, that was a happy-looking bunch—and then she took Naomi to the little door by the pulpit. Whole way down the aisle, Belle kept whispering it would be okay, all of it would, as if wishing would make it so.
Only when they were gone did David ask, “This is about yesterday, ain’t it?”
“You talking about letting out word of the witch?” Bucky asked. “Or you talking about Angela’s roses getting tore up? Hays getting a cinderblock through his bedroom window, maybe? Scarlett getting beat? Or maybe Medric coming home to find a dead animal nailed on his door? Which one do you think this is about, David? Because I’m thinking it’s about all of them.”
“I didn’t have any of that in mind, Constable. I promise that.”
Bucky moved past the preacher and sat at the end of the back pew and closed his eyes. The wood squeaked as his weight settled.
“Don’t matter what you had in mind, Reverend. It’s what is. That’s what we all got to worry about now. My girl’s sick. Cordelia’s hurting, just like Naomi. Lots of kids hurting now. Shoot, just about everybody’s daughter old enough to know what’s happening has something wrong with them. Homer called me this morning. Cut me from my job.”
“Homer let you go?”
“Thought I might go out today, try to scare up some work. Let people know I’m available, you know? If anything comes up.” He looked at the preacher. “Maybe you can put it on a prayer chain. Everybody’d know then.”
David flashed a bit of anger that turned to embarrassment when he saw the look in Bucky’s eyes. It was a pleading there, nothing more. I don’t think Bucky even realized what he’d said, much less how it could have been taken in an unkind way.
“I told Raleigh it was all Alvaretta’s doing,” he said. “And I made sure he knew that. People had to know. You understand that, don’t you? We couldn’t keep something like that a secret, Bucky. Town had a right. I had no idea it’d get turned around on the kids.”
“I don’t know about the town having a right. All I know’s Wilson was trying to protect them.”
“And so am I,” the preacher said. “This is more than the witch we’re dealing with here. There’s what we’ve done to let the witch continue on free and unfettered, too.”
“I wouldn’t call being holed up on Campbell’s Mountain being free, David.”
“She’s free enough to lay a curse on the town.”
“Maybe,” Bucky told him. “Maybe, Reverend. But I was up to the doc’s yesterday, and he says Alvaretta’s done nothing to the kids at all. Calls it some kinda insanity. But I don’t even think that matters, because you got this whole town ready to string up our daughters. You got everybody thinking Alvaretta Graves is gonna ride through here any minute and lay waste, and that’s the thing we was all trying to avoid.”
“Doc Sullivan ain’t even from around here. He don’t know. Things is different in the Holler. You think it’s insanity? You really think that, Bucky? You tell me: Cordy crazy? Huh? Naomi? Scarlett? Hays? Or was it Alvaretta drew them there instead, meaning to hurt us all?”
Bucky wouldn’t answer. I’d say that was answer enough, at least for the preacher.
“I know what I promised up at the hospital, Bucky. But I answer to a higher authority, and God told me otherwise. Alvaretta’s marked us. We thought it’d be okay if she kept to her holler and we kept to town, but it wasn’t enough. Light and dark can’t mix, Constable. Sooner or later, one of them must yield to the other. We let it go when Wally Cork turned up dead. Didn’t do anything when the crops failed. We did the same when all the work dried up and left. But this is our children, and the only reason it’s gotten this far is because we’ve lapsed. In our faith, and in our deeds. I know you want to keep the town safe. I want the same. Only difference is you and Wilson think keeping everybody safe means shadowing them with ignorance, and I know it’s the truth that’ll set us free. Only that.”
“What’s that mean?” Bucky asked. “The truth?”
On that, the preacher fell quiet.
“I was over at Wilson’s a bit ago,” Bucky said. “He’s all fired up over what you did, but he said he can’t blame you. Said something about fear making people do things they wouldn’t normally.” He paused, considering his next words. “Almost like he was saying you knew a little more about all this than you’re letting on, Reverend.”
“Know?” the Reverend asked. “I helped, Bucky. God help me I did, then and now. I keep my mouth shut on the vile things Chessie does because of the agreement the mayor talked me into making. For every warning I utter from the pulpit over Wilson’s handling of this town, I hold my peace for two. But I ache in my memories for what we did.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” Bucky asked. “You and Wilson?”
“I tell myself the man I was is dead. Dead and raised again. We built this town, Wilson and me. Poured our sweat and tears into it. And then I see my Naomi and the way she is now, and I think it’s all gonna get taken away.” He was blubbering now, and not ashamed of it. “Alvaretta took my boy, Bucky. Something happened to John David. Everybody thinks it was the war, but sometimes I wonder. You ever think Wally Cork wasn’t the only person Alvaretta got? Not just the crops and the jobs and him, but others? Like my boy? Ask the mayor if he ever thinks on that.” And what the Reverend said last was the thing that chilled Bucky like a wind:
“You ask if he ever wonders where Tonya’s cancer came from.”
-7-
It’s hard to say what all was on Bucky’s mind when he finally left the church. The Reverend walked him out, saying how sorry he was for showing such emotion. The pressure, he kept telling Bucky. Just so much going on and so many people hurting, and sometimes even men and women of the Lord had to break down and have themselves a good cry. Bucky said that was okay, he’d shed more than a few tears these last days himself.
What was plain as he watched those church doors close (after promising the Reverend what all had been said would remain between the two of them) was job hunting would have to wait. Mayor had been right—there was a lot for Bucky to do now. Constabling was never hard work in a place like this, friend. You get your occ
asional vandals and every once in a while a farmer’d call saying somebody’d stolen some cows, but that’s about it. People here relied on their own selves to settle any differences. Sometimes that meant words and other times that meant fists, but that’s how it’d always been. Wasn’t no need for any serious lawman, which was why the closest thing we allowed was a part-time constable. But Bucky? Part-time or not, he was on to something.
He stood there a minute, pondering things. Bucky could see all of Crow Holler from that spot atop the church steps, or at least what parts mattered. Mitchell’s Exxon was nothing more than a pile of rust and rot jutting up from the dusty ground. No CLOSED sign had been hooked on the door, but neither had Joe propped open the entrance. Wilson’s T-bird and Bucky’s Celebrity were the only cars other than the Ramsays’ anywhere near the church or council building. Wasn’t nobody down to the grocery, either. The only movement he saw at all came from just across the way, so that’s where he headed. He’d woke up intending to see Medric, and now seemed a good enough time.
He took the steps down and covered the lot, paused to look both ways before crossing the deserted road. Medric was in back. Bucky could hear him but saw only glimpses through the bushes that grew along the property’s edge—a flash of Medric’s thick black arms and a bit of his shirt, the brim of the straw hat he wore when he meant to be out in the sun for long. Something metallic shuffled. Bucky cleared his throat and went on around.
It was paint cans he’d heard. Dozen of them, in various states—white for the fence, brown for the doors, a light gray for the parlor’s wood siding. Medric looked up and flinched.
Bucky lifted his hands and blushed. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you, Medric.”
“What you doing sneaking around here, Buck?”
“Wasn’t sneaking. I was over to the church, heard you out here. Fixing to do a little sprucing up?”
“Getting ready,” Medric said, though not for what.
“Uh-huh. Well, I wanted to come by. Ask you about what happened yesterday? I’d like to investigate things. Might be able to turn something up.”
