by Billy Coffey
She wrote on her pad and held it up for him to see: You burned your shed down.
Hays dipped his chin. “Had to. Don’t tell Mom and Dad, though. Scarlett? Don’t. You neither, Naomi.” He turned his head quick. “Cordy? They’ll think I’m crazy. Do y’all think I’m crazy?”
Naomi whispered, “No,” even as her head spasmed yes.
“Good,” Hays said. “Because that’s why I asked y’all here tonight. That’s why you have to believe me. The monsters are back.”
-8-
Didn’t take long for the meeting to break up once Bucky announced he’d go to Campbell’s Mountain. If the only reason he’d promised it was to restore a smidge of peace, it worked. All them people who were shouting at him before were shouting still, but now it was things like I knew you were the man for the job, Buck and You’ll go first thing in the morning, right? and Alvaretta gives you any trouble, you tell her I’ll be up there next. The first was true enough, the second meant to ensure Bucky wouldn’t welch, and the last an utter and complete lie. Because if that week had taught any of us anything, it was you didn’t step foot on the witch’s land, no matter what.
David Ramsay even prayed for him. Laid his hands right on Bucky’s shoulders and pleaded for a hedge of protection around our brave sheriff as he walked straight into hell. And as every head bowed, Bucky felt Wilson’s hands upon him, too, and how shaky they were.
I’d say Angela was doing her share of praying just the same, along with a little How could You curse me with such a stupid man? thrown in. Most of that went away as soon as David said his amen, though. That’s when everybody descended. Upon Bucky, sure, but upon Angela as well. Telling her how proud she must be to have such a brave and righteous husband, how they’d be there for her just as much as him, asking of Cordelia. Even Kayann Foster visited long enough to ensure whatever ill will stood between them could be set aside. Last time people paid that much attention to Angela Vest she’d been Angela Shavers, head cheerleader for Crow Holler. And let me tell you, that woman ate it all up and asked for seconds. Voices were raised in the parking lot as everybody filed out. Old Medric probably thought that was everybody finally coming for him after all those years of secrets and lies, but instead it was jubilation at the idea of all our nightmare put to an end. Even the stricken town girls looked something close to happy as they shook and stumbled for their parents’ cars. Everyone looked happy, really, except for the man who was to restore what’d been taken from us all.
Soon as Bucky got Angela and himself in the Celebrity, he asked, “What’d I just do, Angie?”
“You said you’d take care of things,” Angela said. “That’s what you did. You said it was your job.”
But she couldn’t look at him. Angela waved once more before her own grin faded. In its place grew fear. For her husband, yes, but also for something greater.
Bucky went to start the car but found he couldn’t. The mere act of turning the key seemed too great a task for him to undertake. He let the keys dangle and said, “I can’t go up there. To see the witch? Angie, I can’t do it.”
“You got to now, Bucky. Look at all them people.”
“I know.”
“No, look at them.”
He did. Weren’t many left, but enough that Bucky could see their smiles. Wilson and David stood at the top step of the church, shaking hands. Chessie and Briar lingered a bit. They were over there talking to Tully Wiseman for some reason. Bucky watched as Chessie leaned in close and whispered something. She patted Tully a little too close to his bandaged hand, making him pull back. Across the way, one of Medric’s curtains fluttered.
“What’s been ailing all them people?” Angela whispered. “It’s Alvaretta, sure, but it’s something worse. It’s dread, Bucky. People done lost their hope. That’s why the grocery got tore up and why David called a service. But the Reverend didn’t do anything to restore people’s hope tonight, Bucky. You did. And that’s a grand thing. That’s maybe the grandest thing you can do.”
“But I can’t,” he said. “It’s a fool’s errand, going up there.”
“Cordelia went. All them kids. They faced down the witch. You’re saying you can’t summon more courage than what’s in them?”
That one hurt, friend. You’d’ve seen Bucky, you could tell.
“Don’t be like that, Angie. I’m coming to you for counsel.”
“And I love you enough to give it, hard as that counsel may be.” She laid a hand over his and squeezed. “You’ll go, Bucky. First thing in the morning. Ain’t no choice in the matter now, because you done told everybody you will. In church, no less. You make a promise like that in church, the Lord’ll go with you. He’ll have an army of angels standing on that mountain, wait and see.”
“I don’t know if I got that kind of faith.”
“You do. It’s buried, but you do. You got to, Bucky. Don’t you understand that? You see the way all them people treated you in there? Like we was somebody. And what happens if you don’t go now, Bucky? You go talk to Wilson in the morning and tell him you changed your mind, or you go to David, what happens then? Maybe Wilson takes away that shiny new badge you’re wearing, that’s what. We’ll both be out of jobs, and all the good standing we just made inside that church’ll be gone. They’re looking to you now. Not the Reverend, not even the mayor. It’s you.”
“Guess that don’t leave me much choice, does it?” he finally said. She squeezed his hand harder and smiled.
Chessie had finished telling Tully Wiseman that if he ever got fancy with his words about her in church again, he’d have to pick his nose with his elbows. Wilson left David at the top step with an agreement that everything concerning their past with Stu Graves would be set aside until Bucky returned from Campbell’s Mountain. Medric settled back in his chair inside the funeral home, wondering what had gone on to make everybody leave so happy. He made sure both doors were locked and went upstairs. That night, he would sleep with his shotgun.
Angela leaned across the seat. “Let’s go home.” She kissed her husband deep and hard. Bucky felt her tongue meet his own as she guided his hand to her chest and her hot, quick breaths on his neck.
He’d be rewarded that night for honoring his word and his wife. But it was not love they made while Cordelia lay awake in the next room, thinking of Medric Johnston and Hays’s monsters. It may have been love to Angela, or at least what passed for it. But for Bucky, that act was something far other. It was near a punishment, the way he treated her. It was heartache disguised in groping hands and the meeting of their flesh, and the rage on his face was only made worse by the look of ecstasy on her own.
IX
Bucky on the mountain. Alvaretta. The demon. To the cemetery.
-1-
He left early that next morning, not wanting to risk poor feelings with Angela and wanting to avoid Cordelia, who would’ve begged her daddy to stay. Bucky left his phone behind as well. They’d be calling soon. Wilson for sure, but also plenty others, wanting to know if he was really going to Alvaretta’s or if the night had brought on a measure of good sense. Bucky didn’t want to talk to any of them. He’d made his bed. Weren’t nothing left now but to lay down in it.
But there was one person he wanted to see before leaving the Holler, and Bucky was right in thinking Reverend Ramsay would be down to church. Him and Belle both with Naomi still twitching up at the altar, the three of them waiting for a miracle that wouldn’t come. Reverend looked surprised to see Bucky there with his daddy’s big pistol strapped to his side. I don’t think that was because he thought Bucky would back out of what he’d promised. I’d say it was more simple shame. No way the Reverend would ever step foot on Graves land, friend. Not after what he did, and not for anything.
The four of them sat, Bucky in one pew, the Reverend, Belle, and Naomi in the next. They talked for a good while. Little things at first, like how Cordelia was and if Naomi was getting any better, and how everybody was going back down to the grocery that morning to h
elp Landis and Kayann clean things up.
“You should come up there too, Bucky,” Belle said. “When you’re done and all. The Fosters would be happy to see you.”
Bucky smiled at that. Not because the Fosters would be happy to see him, but because that was Belle’s way of saying everything would turn out all right that morning. Bucky would head down to Alvaretta’s, have a good word with her, and then come on back to town. Like he was to call on one of the church’s homebounds rather than a woman with black in her soul and power in her words, and who may have called forth the devil himself from under the mountain.
“I’ll see if I can do that, Belle,” Bucky said. “That might be fine. You know, after.”
David reached over the pew and gripped Bucky’s shoulder. “You don’t have to be afraid, Buck.”
“Yes, he does,” Naomi said.
Her brown hair had gone stringy and greased with oil. Dark half-moons that had rose beneath her eyes made her look far older than her years. Her shoulders jerked, pulling her head down. Alvaretta had done that with a single word.
“Naomi,” David whispered, “don’t you say such a thing.”
“It’s true. Don’t go up there, Mr. Vest. The witch has something protecting her. Something even worse than she is.”
“Gave my word, Naomi,” Bucky said. “Stood right up there where your daddy stands every Sunday and said I’d go, so I got to. Some people go through their whole lives without a chance to do real good to the world. Maybe I can talk Alvaretta into releasing you girls and come to a peace.”
“There’s no peace with her, Constable. I mean, Sheriff. Does Cordelia know you’re going?”
“She doesn’t, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t let her know. Keep that phone in your pocket until I get back, okay? There’s no need to scare Cordy more’n she is already.”
The Reverend promised for her.
“Maybe if you took along someone else,” Belle said. She looked at her husband, who refused to look back.
“No,” Bucky said. “I wouldn’t want anybody doing that.”
“I understand you going up there, Bucky,” David said. “I respect you for it. But you be careful out there, and don’t you tarry. Say your words and get out. And whatever you do, don’t you mention Stu Graves.”
“Why not?”
“Just don’t. The answer to this ain’t out in Alvaretta’s holler, Bucky. Ain’t in the mountain. Answer’s here in town, with us. You heard my words last night.”
“I did. They were some powerful. Was a good sermon, Reverend. Wish you hadn’t spoken of Angela like that, though. She tries. You just don’t know her like I do.”
“We right this town and keep it from foundering, Bucky, we’ll rid ourselves of this curse. I’ll ask your help to do that.”
“You’ll have it,” Bucky promised.
“Good. Now let’s go to the Lord.”
The four of them joined together and bowed heads. Bucky felt David’s strong hand and Naomi’s trembling one. The Reverend’s deep voice filled the sanctuary as he spoke of dwelling in the shelter of the Most High and deliverance from the fowler’s snare and the deadly pestilence. He spoke of angels guarding all of Bucky’s ways, and an army to bear him up against the witch lest his foot strike a stone. There was faith in the Reverend’s words that morning, friend. It was a belief so strong and of such great might that it seemed to brighten the pale sun, and yet Bucky looked to feel none the better when they all said amen. Maybe it was the way Naomi’s fingers felt so small and scared in his hand. Like that was enough to remind Bucky that deep down, he was still nothing more than a scared little kid himself.
-2-
Bucky left the Ramsays to prepare for the night’s revival in earnest. It was a good thing he did. As things turned out, David and Belle would need all the time they could to get things ready. The coming service would be the most attended hour of preaching Crow Holler ever had, and it was all thanks to what Bucky was about to find on Campbell’s Mountain.
He made a slow walk to where he’d parked the Celebrity—or the Sheriff’s Car, as Angela had come to call it—on the right-hand side of the church, just across from the funeral home. What stopped him from climbing inside and getting the whole thing over with wasn’t anything having to do with Medric. (Though if Bucky had decided to knock at the back door and have a few words with our soon-to-be-departed caretaker of the dead, he maybe would’ve saved us all a mess of trouble.) No, what gave Bucky pause was the gray Dodge truck parked down the way and the man sitting inside it, waving him over.
Bucky looked back to the church to make sure no one saw. He certainly didn’t need Belle and the Reverend’s permission to talk to their boy, especially since John David had gone and gotten himself fallen away. But he kept close to the church just the same, even ducking under the windows as he passed, then sidled up to the passenger window.
“Morning to you, John David,” he said. “What you doing out here so early?”
“Chessie asked me to come out, take a look at things.”
“Anything in particular?”
John David pointed at the big house ahead.
“Why’s Chessie got you out here looking at Medric?”
“Been some whisperings,” John David said.
Bucky moved his head back and looked up the dirt street, where the funeral home stood. “Talked to Medric couple days ago,” he said. “He was a mite jumpy. Can’t blame him for that, though.”
“No,” John David said. “And I can’t either. I don’t expect anything to come of it, but you know Chessie. She likes to wet her finger and keep it in the air to know where the wind’s blowing. She wanted somebody here, I said I’d do it.”
“To keep an eye on Medric.”
John David shrugged. Bucky nodded and stuck his head partway inside, keeping his voice low.
“They’re doing okay, John David.”
“Who is?”
“Your momma and daddy. Naomi. Chessie might think you’re out here doing something else, but I know only reason you come is to check on your family. So I’ll lay you at ease and say they’re good, and you should just go on in there and see them. They miss you fierce, son. Your daddy especially. I mean, Naomi’s . . . you know. But she’s none worse. Wilson talked to Doc Sullivan yesterday afternoon. Doc says it’ll all pass. I believe him.”
John David smirked. “You believe him, then why you headed out to the mountain?”
“Because that’s what people want me to do.”
“People like who?” John David asked. “Wilson? My daddy?”
“You know well as I do, John David. Once you put on a uniform, you go by the will of something greater than you. Got to be willing to step where no one else will. That’s your duty.”
“Don’t give me talk of duty.” John David stared through the windshield. “Don’t you go up there, Bucky. You stay away from Alvaretta Graves.”
“I can’t do that, John David. You know I can’t.”
“I don’t know nothing, and neither do you. These people you say you’re serving? They’re using you, Bucky. Can’t you see that?”
“Nope,” Bucky said. “They’re depending on me.”
“You think Wilson wanted a sheriff? Daddy, Chessie, Raleigh, they don’t either. They really wanted law, they’d get Sheriff Barnett up here. All Wilson wants is a face he can put to the curse. Can’t be Alvaretta, everybody’s too scared of her. Can’t be the kids, because Wilson knows that’ll mean Scarlett. But he’ll give you a badge and let everybody see it. That way what goes wrong from here on out will be square off the mayor’s shoulders and straight on yours. That’s all he cares about.”
“That ain’t true,” Bucky said. “Wilson loves me like a brother.”
“Then go over to his office, tell him you’re staying in town today. Go up to the grocery and help Landis get things up and running again. Let people see you helping, Buck. Go out to where all those sick kids are and ask their mommas if there’s anything you ca
n get them or if they need a ride to the doc’s. Something. Anything, so long as you leave that old woman alone.”
“Why don’t you want me going up to Alvaretta’s, John David?”
“Because that’s not your job,” he said. “Your job’s to protect the peace, Bucky. Going up there and confronting that woman sound like protecting the peace to you?”
“There’s a kind of peace that only comes on the other side of a fight,” Bucky said.
“You sound like my daddy.”
“Your daddy’s a good man.”
John David chuckled. “My daddy’s like everybody else. They don’t mind using strong words because they ain’t the ones who have to back those words up. They get people like you to do that, or me. You got a choice here.” He pointed at the church. “Forget about what you promised everybody in there last night and do what’s right. You stay in town and make sure nothing gets any worse. Get people back to living the way they’re used to. That’s when those kids will get better. You cast your eyes out to Campbell’s Mountain like Wilson and Daddy, you’re gonna miss the danger in front of you.”
“You talk like you know a lot for a boy who’s been gone from here,” Bucky said.
“I know enough to say you don’t got to be a great man to make things better, you just got to be a good one.”
“That a fact?” Bucky asked. He leaned in closer. “You making a difference, John David? Huh? You a good man? That why you took up with Chessie and Briar and left your parents like that? What’s the matter with you?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” John David said.
“No, I guess I wouldn’t. Just like I guess you wouldn’t understand that I got a job to do and a family to feed”—and a wife to pacify, Bucky didn’t say—“so I guess I should get on it.”
He tapped the truck’s window and backed off. John David tried one more time.
