The Curse of Crow Hollow

by Billy Coffey

  “Look, Scarlett. You’re a sweet girl and I’ve always thought that, but I’m not the guy for you. Maybe before, back when I was younger. Things are just different now. With me, they’re different. That night we had at Hays’s party, that was great, you know? That was fun. But I didn’t ever mean it to be more than that—one night. I’m sorry you thought otherwise.”

  Scarlett turned away.

  “I just wanted to . . . feel . . . ,” he said, “something. Anything. I don’t . . . you wouldn’t understand, Scarlett. And even if you could, I couldn’t say it.” He looked off into the trees and then to the stars. “My dad used to tell me there’s hot people and cold people and people in the middle. The hot ones were the best. They knew what life was about, you know? They had answers and faith. Passion. The cold ones, they were bad. They were the ones who’d gotten so turned around and lost in life that they couldn’t love or feel anything at all anymore. Daddy said that was their choice, though, and they’d burn for it. ‘The punishment for the frozen of soul is eternal fire, because that’s the only way they’ll feel anything.’

  “But you know who Daddy says is the worst of all? The ones that ain’t either. Not hot, not cold. Not a thing. Those get judged the worst, because they don’t care either way. That was me before I left. I don’t know how I got that way. I just did. I was so scared that I ran away and went to war. You want to know what I found over there, Scarlett? At the end of the world?”

  Scarlett didn’t nod. She didn’t shake her head, neither.

  “I found there was lots of guys like me. Ain’t that something? I mean, I guess there’s plenty who sign up looking for glory. Wanting to serve their country. Whatever. But most of them are just looking for a place to belong. People trying to feel something. I saw some awful things I won’t ever forget. People who make Alvaretta Graves look like a child at play.

  “I killed people. Lot of us did. We were on patrol one evening and came up on an ambush. Just . . . stuff exploding everywhere, people screaming, shooting and getting shot. Just . . . I hear it, you know? Even now I do. I went through eight clips in my rifle, just bapbapbap, you know? Just shooting at everything. And I hit this guy. Tore his face clean off. And when it was over and we were going over the bodies for intel, I kicked him over—we all did that, you never knew when they’d booby-trap themselves—I saw it was just a kid. Couldn’a been more’n eleven, twelve. A kid, Scarlett. And I killed him.” John David shook his head. “I didn’t kill anybody over there for my country. I never thought I was protecting all of y’all back here. I did it to stay alive and keep the guys with me alive, and you know what? The people I killed, they were just trying to do the same. This world, it’s just so . . . messed up. Just an asylum full of crazy people who do crazy things for no reason at all. I went from lukewarm to solid cold over there in all that sand, and I realized Daddy was wrong. Cold’s worse, Scarlett. Cold is hell. Daddy preaches that it’s fire but it ain’t, it’s ice. It’s the coldest ice there is. That’s what I carry, and that’s why I took up with Chessie and Briar when I got back. Why I don’t talk to my folks anymore. Because there’s bad in me, and I can’t get it out. That’s what you can’t know and why you can’t be thinking of me the way you have.”

  The two of them sat in silence. John David said he was sorry one more time, then got up to leave. Scarlett reached out and grabbed the hem of his T-shirt. She stood and met his eyes with her own, and with one hand she eased up the long sleeve covering her arm, holding her scars close to John David’s face. Letting him see. She needed no paper, no pen.

  John David understood:

  I can’t get the bad out either.

  She came closer. John David did not back away. He did not move when he felt Scarlett’s breath and the closeness of her body. He did not even move when she raised up to her tiptoes and kissed him softly on the cheek.

  -4-

  Wasn’t long before the first vehicle turned up the drive, and all you had to do was listen to the sound of that big engine to know it was the Hodges. Bucky’d hoped Chessie and Briar wouldn’t get there first. Then again, I don’t think he would’ve been happy to see the Reverend and Belle either. Either way, he couldn’t help but flinch at the sound of the truck doors being shut. Slammed, I should say, and so hard it was a wonder the windows in those doors held. I expect that was when Bucky started to think his grand plan might not be so grand at all.

  “Sounds like they’re pretty mad,” he told Angela.

  “You guess?” She eased the curtain aside, peeking out. “You fool enough to arrest John David, Chessie ain’t gonna throw a party for you. And you do it on a night like this one we had? I swear, Bucky, sometimes you’re just so stupid.”

  Bucky ignored that. Stupid or not, he was doing what he could the best way he knew. “They got guns?”

  “No.”

  Briar’s fist hit the door. Angela fluttered the curtain, removing all notion of stealth. The back door squeaked open and shut. Scarlett came in with her head low and her cheeks flushed. John David looked much the same. The mayor ignored it.

  “This ain’t gonna work, Buck,” he said.

  “It will, Wilson,” Bucky told him. “John David, you stand right there. This all goes south, you remember the kindness we’ve showed you.”

  Bucky took hold of the knob and inhaled deep, then opened the door to Chessie’s face.

  “We had an agreement,” she said. No Hello, no May I come in? Straight to business, that was Chessie Hodge. She and Briar pushed Bucky aside and walked into the Vests’ living room like it was their own. “Only reason I supported Wilson’s fool idea of appointing a sheriff was he promised the family business would be left alone. Now here I stand, wasting my time because our new lawman’s as drunk on power as our mayor, when we should all be in town trying to figure out what hell’s coming next. What were you thinking, Bucky?”

  “I had to, Chessie.”

  “Had to, you say? No. No, Bucky. What you had to be doing was trying to get a town that’s done lost its mind to quit shootin’ at each other long enough to shoot at whatever demon Alvaretta’s sent us. Come on, John David.”

  “Stand right there, John David,” Bucky said. “Ain’t everybody here yet.”

  Chessie gritted her teeth. “Don’t you test me, Sheriff.”

  Bucky put his hands out. “I’m not trying to, Chessie. But he’s got to wait. Reverend and Belle are coming. Raleigh’s nowhere to be found, but Angela got hold of Landis.”

  “What you got the council coming for?” Briar asked.

  “Because it’s time we get a handle on things. I think I got an idea, and after I talked to Wilson, he agreed.”

  Agree or not, the mayor only sat there silent. His eyes had gone red, his cheeks puffy and wet. Scarlett had moved beside him, and yet he didn’t seem to know she was there at all. Now sure, there was a rage to that man by then at the thought of losing his grip on the town he loved. You can bet there was a hurt inside him as well. But you ask me, what Wilson most looked was scared, and not of Chessie Hodge.

  The Ramsays were next to arrive, Naomi in tow. She and Belle went to John David as soon as they saw him there. Belle stood a good three inches shorter than her son and a good fifty pounds lighter, yet her embrace looked to cover every inch of his body. He held her and held Naomi as the muscles in his right arm bulged from trying to calm the tremors in his sister’s body. I think it was that sight alone that kept the Reverend from strangling near everybody there—Chessie and Briar for ruining his boy, Bucky for daring to arrest him, and the mayor for starting this whole mess all those years ago. Not to mention John David himself, for being such an all-around disappointment to the good Ramsay name.

  He glared at Bucky. “This why you ran off and left us all there? To go arrest my son?”

  Chessie’s ears perked up at that, as did everyone else’s.

  “Wasn’t nothing more I could do in town, Reverend,” Bucky said. “Ruth was dead, all the shooting had stopped. Stu’d gone.”
>
  “So you decide to harass John David?” Belle asked.

  Briar spoke up: “Who told you where he’d be, Bucky?” to which Bucky responded by waving his hand and saying he’d been in the Holler long enough to know where every road went and what every road was used for. He looked around for the Fosters.

  “Where’s Landis?”

  “Not coming,” Belle said. “He won’t leave the grocery. Said he saw Stu there himself. Landis is scared he’ll come back.”

  “Well, we can go ahead and do this anyway. You got a vote, and Raleigh will go along with whatever Chessie says. Reverend, you can speak for Landis.”

  “What are we speaking on?” Belle asked.

  “Charges, first,” Bucky said. “I got John David for improper use of a vehicle and trafficking illegal goods, namely oxy and shine.”

  Briar puffed up. “Weren’t no oxy in that load, Buck, and he done dropped the shine off fore you pulled him over.”

  “So you’re saying there was shine, Briar? Okay, then.”

  Chessie turned and slapped her husband across the face. Bucky couldn’t help but grin. It was the first time he’d ever outsmarted a proper criminal.

  “Charges stand, then,” he said. “Bail’s next. I don’t know who’s supposed to set that.”

  The Reverend didn’t either. Nor did Wilson. Far as they knew, nothing like that had ever come up in Crow Holler.

  “Figured as much,” Bucky said. “Guess that responsibility falls to me then, since there ain’t no judge and I’m sheriff. I’d say a million ought to ensure John David stays in town long enough to face trial.”

  Chessie snorted. “A million dollars? You lost your mind, Bucky.”

  “Probably so. Better make it two million then, just to be safe. You got that much stuffed in your mattress to get John David out of custody, Chessie? Preacher, you think you can take up that much in a special collection during tomorrow’s revival?” Bucky didn’t wait for an answer. “No? Well then, that’s a shame. Guess that means John David’s remanded to my custody. That sound good with you, John David?”

  Wasn’t nobody who could say anything; it had all happened too fast. A tired grin crept over John David’s face. Didn’t nobody else understand what was happening, but I think he did. You gotta watch that boy. He ain’t stupid, I’ll give him that.

  “You can’t do this, Bucky,” he said.

  “Can and will. But I’ll tell you what. You can go on back with Chessie and Briar if you want, though I’d rather you try and make peace with your proper family. It’d look good at trial. Come the morning, though, John David’ll have to be in my care. He’ll be my responsibility until it’s time for his trial. That means I’ll have to keep him close, even if it pains me. You’ll have to be with me wherever I go and no matter what I do, even if it’s on official business. Can’t have you running off.”

  Chessie started to grin.

  “Thing is,” Bucky said, “the days might get some dangerous now, especially with what all happened tonight. I guess you might as well bring a gun along, John David, when I’m out conducting business. And just in case people want to go and try to take a pop at you for being among the town’s felonious element, I reckon it’d be best if you carried a badge too. For your own protection, of course. Still got my constable one. Guess you can borrow that.”

  “What are you saying?” the Reverend asked. “You want John David to be constable?”

  “Didn’t say that,” Bucky said. “You hear me say that, John David?”

  “Nosir,” John David managed. “But I won’t do it. Told you already, I’m done fighting.”

  “Fighting’s never done. Told you already too.” He turned to them all. “Look, y’all want me to be sheriff, okay. That’s all I ever wanted, and I don’t care why it was you finally let me now. Fact is, I said yes, and it was my word I gave. I mean to do the best I’m able, but I can’t do it alone. This has gotten too big. Someone died tonight. Somebody we all knew. It’ll get worse if we don’t do something to get our town back, and John David’s the man I need. Man I want. But since it’ll mean a badge and gun, I guess I’d like the town’s approval so there’s no questioning after. Wilson, he’s already agreed.”

  The Reverend shot forward, putting a finger into the mayor’s face. “You mean to sacrifice my son? Haven’t I done enough for you, Wilson?”

  “Wasn’t just me, Reverend,” Wilson said, and though everybody there thought that meant our mayor hadn’t decided to draft John David alone, I can tell you it didn’t. “We all gotta stand now.”

  Bucky nodded and turned to the Hodges. “Chessie, I know your vote’s Raleigh’s. You understand now why I had to do this?”

  “Don’t mean I got to like it.”

  “No, it don’t. You and Briar’ll have to tend the family business alone for now, but that’s a small price to pay in the long run. Whatever it was come through town tonight and however many, it’ll be back for us all. Don’t think you’re immune, and don’t think the witch fears you.”

  Scarlett had kept quiet this whole while, letting the adults have their say and tasting the salt off John David’s face on her lips. But now she moved away from Wilson to Chessie’s side and took her hand. Chessie bent down. No words passed between the two of them. Plenty was said nonetheless.

  Chessie lifted her head and said, “John David, you’ll stay at Bucky’s side. He’ll keep you safe, and you’ll do the same for him.”

  “Thank you, Chessie,” Bucky said.

  He turned to the Reverend next. David’s blessing would be the hardest, and that’s why Bucky had saved him for last. Belle never gave her husband the opportunity to say no.

  “You do with him what you think’s best, Sheriff,” she said. She kissed her son on the very cheek Cordelia had earlier. “But you keep him safe.”

  John David said, “Don’t guess I got a say in this?”

  “Nope,” Bucky told him. “Why you think I arrested you?”

  -5-

  Strange to say, the only peaceful spot in all of Crow Holler that night was the little cabin on Campbell’s Mountain. Alvaretta had kept the lanterns lit inside and put still more out, where they glowed soft against all that hard darkness. She preferred the black but her companion did not, though there was light enough through the windows that he had come out onto the porch to join her.

  He handed her the prize he’d found. She took the bit of bone and closed her fingers around it without looking, mumbled a thank you neither one of them quite heard. Alvaretta had no time for such things. Her eyes were to the sky.

  “On the morrow,” she said. “That’s when they’ll come. And come they will. For me, and for you.”

  She looked beside her, listening to what may have been growling. Or laughter. Alvaretta didn’t know, though she’d long thought the two sounded near enough the same. Somewhere out in the trees, her children barked.

  “Let’m starve tonight,” she said. “Get the children nice and hungry. They’ll feast come the blood moon.” She looked at the one beside her. “I smell it on the air. There’s a cold wind blowing, and it’ll sink to bone. The mountain speaks. We got work. I know what to do.”

  This time there was no confusion on her face about what she heard.

  Laughter.

  XII

  Alvaretta’s spy. Scarlett warns. No escape. The arrests. Chessie surrenders.

  -1-

  My, would you look at that sun. Near gone already and not yet suppertime. That’s the thing about the Holler, friend. Easiest place in the world to let a day slip right by, and here I’ve sat jabbering all this while. Well, I’m almost done. One more day’s all I got to tell you about, that night of the blood moon, and it won’t take long. I’ll make sure to have you down the road and gone by dark. That’s when they come, you know. Whole mess of them, and if they ever took a shine to finally come for me, all I got to defend myself with is this old cane. It’s a sad thing, friend. This was once a safe place for an old man like me, but it ain’t n
o more. Holler’s full of them now. But say here, don’t you worry. You’ll be back in civilization before you know it. And my, won’t you have a tale to tell. Ha!

  I expect everyone shut themselves up in their houses the night before with Ruth Mitchell on their minds, and how it wasn’t the demon who’d gotten her but one of our own. Reverend tossed and turned that whole night, thinking on devil’s footprints right outside his church doors. He near woke Belle more than once with a mind to finally confess everything about Stu Graves. Near, I said. David never did. It’s pride that leads people to their sinning, that’s what I always thought, and it’s pride still that makes them hang on to the memory of what they done.

  Pastor Ramsay preached that confession was balm for the soul. No doubt he’d flirted with that idea early on, when Naomi had first been struck by the witch. But now it was like he’d grown accustomed to even the twitches and sufferings his daughter endured, so much that he could no longer remember a time without them. David had grown numb, you see. I think we all had. Cordelia could walk down the street in the days leading up to the demon’s coming to town and not even turn a head, because we’d got used to her face looking so sickly. Nobody paid much attention to the grocery looking the way it did, all busted up and emptied, because most still had their cupboards full. The schools were closed, but it felt like they’d always been.

  What I’m trying to tell you is life found its own rhythm again. Even in Alvaretta’s shadow, we could see things as normal. We got used to sick children and looking over our shoulders. Go ahead and call that a good thing. Say it’s the triumph of the human will or a model of adaptation, I’ll call you crazy. Anybody who can get used to something like that ain’t fit to call themselves human. They’re animals, nothing more, and that’s what Reverend Ramsay decided. Bucky sat up all night trying to figure out what he was gonna do, Wilson and Hays and John David the same, but our Reverend had already made up his mind. It wasn’t no longer his job to rid the town of sin. His was to rid it of sinners.