High Lonesome Sound

by Jaye Wells

  “Had he been drinking?”

  “Deacon Fry don’t drink.” Bunk shook his head. “Maybe it’s just stress getting to him, what with his girl losing her beau and all.”

  “What do Junior and Earl intend to do about their theories?”

  “No telling with them two.”

  “Well, it won’t matter much either way because I’m leaving right after the Decoration.”

  Bunk nodded. “I’ll be sad to see you go, but it’s probably for the best.” He clapped Peter on the shoulder with his good hand. “Just be sure to send me a copy of your book when it comes out.”

  Peter chuckled because buying the book would never occur to Bunk. “It’s a deal.”

  They turned together to enter the cemetery, but the sound of a car’s horn honking over and over caught their attention. They looked down the hill in time to see Junior Jessup’s truck fishtail into the church lot.

  Junior got out and strode around the truck’s fender toward the passenger door. He wrenched it open, reached in, and pulled someone out.

  “What in tarnation?” Bunk said, taking a step forward.

  It took a moment for Junior and his companion to come around to the front of the truck. When Peter saw Ruby was with him, he cursed. “Damn it.”

  Bunk gave him the side-eye. “You know something about that?”

  “I have no clue.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but not exactly a lie, either. Bunk had just told him that Junior suspected Peter for the cemetery vandalism, so he had no reason to think the man had uncovered a clue that tied Ruby to the act instead.

  “Sure don’t like the way he’s handling her, though,” he added.

  “Junior ain’t exactly known for his gentle touch.”

  As they spoke, Junior continued to rant as he pulled Ruby by her arm. Every few feet, she’d dig her heels in, which would only earn her a hard jerk that made her cry out.

  Peter took off down the hill before he knew he’d made the decision to get involved. Behind him, Bunk cursed, but footsteps quickly followed.

  “Is Cotton in the cemetery yet?” Peter asked over his shoulder.

  Bunk snorted. “No one’s seen Cotton in days.”

  They all met up halfway down the hill.

  “Outta my way, Bunk.” Junior lowered his head as if he intended to bulldoze his way past the other two men.

  Peter grabbed the arm that had a handful of Ruby’s shirt at the other end. Closer now, he saw the scrapes down Ruby’s face and the angry road rash and bruises on her arms.

  Rage turned Peter’s vision red. He snatched Junior’s hand off her arm. “What did you do to her?”

  Junior dug his boots into the slope and knocked Peter’s hand away. “Get the hell outta my way.” The words were delivered in a tone that could have peeled paint off a barn.

  Bunk stepped in. “I can’t let you continue to manhandle the girl, Junior.”

  Ruby ripped her arm free. “I got a name, you know.”

  Peter rocked back on his heels in surprise at the strength in her voice. She looked like a victim of abuse, but she sure as hell sounded like a survivor. “And he didn’t ‘manhandle’ me—he tackled me.”

  The minute she’d opened her mouth, Junior’s complexion had taken on the hard, red hue of a man on the verge of committing a deadly sin.

  Peter stepped between them. “You got a lot of nerve—“

  A bark of laughter escaped along with a dribble of tobacco-tinged saliva. “Give me a fucking break. That bitch trespassed on my property. She’s lucky I ain’t shot her yet.”

  Fear popped like hot grease in his chest. How in the hell had Junior figured out they’d— But before he could finish that thought, Ruby caught his eye and shook her head. Treading more carefully now, he asked, “You found her on your property?”

  Junior wiped the tobacco juice from his chin and smeared it on his overalls. “Last week, I got home from a trip to town to find my dogs all het up. I noticed real quick some other things that didn’t look right—footsteps in the mud and such.” He jutted his chin in the air like a gorilla putting on a display. “Decided right then and there I wasn’t gonna risk someone stealing one of my prize hounds so I set up a security system.”

  Ruby’s head shot up but she didn’t say anything.

  “What kind of system?” Bunk asked so Peter didn’t have to.

  “Whenever the gate into my backyard opens when I’m not there, security cameras switch on.” He pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and showed a fob that looked like a car lock remote. “Went off this morning while I was out—uh, running some errands.”

  Bunk shot Junior a dubious expression. “Go on.”

  “So I run home, but by the time I got there she was already gone.” He didn’t clarify whether the “she” in question was Ruby or the bear. “But I got her on tape, stealing my bear.”

  “It wasn’t your bear,” Ruby said. “It didn’t belong to you.”

  Junior lunged at her.

  45

  Lost Lamb

  Deacon Fry

  First time in his whole life Deacon Fry was running late. Worse, he was late for Decoration Day.

  Where was Reverend Peale?

  He passed the church and took the trail out back leading up Cemetery Hill.

  Maybe the reverend had gone up the hill early with the help of someone else. He sped up, taking the slope in lunges that ate up the ground and made his thighs burn. He’d been silly to worry. It was all the stress lately—the worry that the Decoration wouldn’t go as planned and . . . all the other things he’d best not think about too hard.

  The chair was empty.

  The Decoration had to go right. It was unthinkable that it wouldn’t work.

  Halfway up the hill, he came upon Junior shaking Ruby Barrett while Bunk and that damned author hollered at him.

  “Junior Jessup, let that girl go this minute.” He didn’t like to raise his voice, but Junior was hollerin’ so loud, it left the deacon with little choice. “I said, let her go!”

  Junior fell back, but he his sides heaved and his eyes had a dangerous glow.

  “Does someone want to explain why this disgraceful display is happening on one of our town’s most sacred days?”

  Everyone started yelling at once. He held up his hands. “Enough. Bunk, you tell me.”

  Bunk nodded, as if it was his due since he was considered the town’s unofficial storyteller. “Well, it’s like this—Junior here thinks Miss Ruby trespassed on his land—“

  “She did!”

  “Junior.”

  Junior’s hands curled in to fists. Once Deacon Fry felt confident the man didn’t plan on using them to hit anyone, he nodded at Bunk. “Go ahead.”

  “Seems there’s a small matter of a bear cub who’s been set loose from Junior’s land.”

  He looked at Junior, who suddenly wasn’t looking so eager to fight. “That true? You took a cub?”

  “Ah hell, Deacon, I wasn’t treatin’ it bad or nothing.”

  “Regardless, it’s illegal to separate a cub from its mother.”

  “The mother was already dead when I found it.” The words came out indignant, but his lack of eye contact told the truth of it. “But that don’t matter. She trespassed on my land!”

  “Ruby, what have you got to say for yourself?”

  The girl looked like she’d wrastled with a polecat, but she raised her chin. “Oh, I did it,” she said. “I marched right on to his property, opened the cage, and carried that cub out.”

  All four men stared at her like they were worried her head might start spinning.

  The only word the deacon could manage in his shock was, “Why?”

  “Because it was the right thing to do.”

  How could he argue with that logic? Still, she’d put him in quite a pickle by admitting to her crime. Junior would never let the matter drop unless she was punished. But he had a Decoration to oversee, which would at least buy him some time to figure out how to handle th
e situation. “There ain’t nothing we can do about this right now. The Decoration’s about to begin.”

  “Like hell,” Junior said. “I’m gonna call Sheriff Abernathy.”

  “No, you won’t,” he snapped. “You gonna tell him about how you had an illegal cub on your property? Might as well call the department of game, too.” He stepped closer to the man and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I ain’t saying you don’t have a right to be angry. But we got to handle this the right way, you understand?”

  Junior frowned as if Deacon Fry had used too many syllables, but nodded. “You ask me, she deserves a few good licks from her daddy’s belt—and if he won’t do it, I’ll will!”

  “Is Cotton here?” Deacon Fry asked. Part of him was afraid the answer would be yes after his strange experience at the cabin.

  “Ain’t seen him,” Bunk said, “not that I expected to.”

  Deacon Fry sighed and blew out a long breath. “All right. Junior, you go see if you can rustle Cotton up at his house—“

  “He ain’t there,” Ruby said. “Least he wasn’t when I left this morning. Probably up the Devil’s Spine.”

  It was getting harder to maintain his patience. He glanced up the hill, where the gates of the cemetery loomed, waiting for him to get the festivities underway. “We don’t have time to go looking for him now. Once the Decoration is done, we’ll go out there and we can resolve this matter.”

  He marched up the hill before any of them could argue.

  Something was brewing with that girl. Normally, she had her nose buried in a book. Far as he knew, the girl hadn’t caused a lick of trouble for her parents, and he’d seen for himself how she stepped up to raise the two younger girls after their mama died. But today she’d shown a whole new side of herself—one that worried him. She’d had that same shine in her eyes that Rose had before she ran away. Luckily, that prideful light had dimmed by the time Rose crawled back to Moon Hollow. Wasn’t proper for a woman to get rebellious ideas in her head.

  “Deacon Fry?”

  The voice brought him back to the present, where he realized he’d already reached the cemetery gate. Nell, Jack’s mother. He hadn't seen her since the funeral. Now, she stood in a simple blue dress by the gate and she was wringing her hands in a way that signified trouble.

  “Mornin, Nell.” He went up to her and took those old hands in his own to stop the manic movements. “How are you?” He used his most soothing voice in the hope he could forestall any drama. He knew the poor thing had just lost her son, but she acted like she’d invented grief.

  “Not so good, Deacon. Every time I close my eyes, I see my poor Jack’s face.”

  You and me both. He wondered if the one she saw was covered in blood, too.

  “I’m just not sure how I’m supposed to go on without him.”

  She looked up at him with her eyes wide and wet with tears, and he had a sudden impulse to blacken them. I’ll give you something to cry about. He cleared his throat and pushed down the voice. It was stress. Just stress.

  He patted her hands. “Time heals all wounds, and remember, you’re never alone as long as you keep the good Lord close to your heart.”

  He tried to withdraw his hands, but her nails dug into his skin like talons. She moved close enough that her alcohol-scent breath assaulted him. “Some wounds just fester.”

  Her tears had dried, and her expression had a feral edge. He tried to pull his hands away once more, but she wouldn’t release him. “I need to get the prayers underway, Nell.”

  Closer, she pulled him even closer, until her small breasts rubbed against his chest. There was nothing sexual about it. Instead it felt oddly menacing. “When the chickens come home to roost, the fox is waiting for them.”

  He pushed her with all his strength. She stumbled back and fell to the ground with a cry. By the time he realized he was free, he also became painfully aware of the unnatural silence that had fallen over the cemetery.

  On the ground at his feet, Nell was screaming blue murder. A few of the townsfolk came to help her up. As they worked, they shot him cautious glances that bordered on condemnation. He opened his mouth to explain but closed it again. What could he say? That the crazy woman had threatened him? He wasn’t even sure she had been. It was just as likely that losing Jack had pushed her over the razor’s edge of sanity.

  Long red gashes covered the backs of his hands and across a few fingers. But he couldn’t hold those up in his defense, either. A few scratches wouldn’t justify him pushing a grieving woman to the ground.

  The silence stretched out, and each second raised the tension and lowered the chances he’d be able to explain away his terrible behavior.

  Peter West spoke from behind him. “Deacon Fry?”

  He quickly surveyed his flock. Just over there, three people held up a sobbing Nell. She was cradling her wrist, as if it had taken on too much weight in her fall. The rest of the town stood in a semi-circle behind those three. There were the other deacons, Smythe in the lead, looking like he’d just watched his mama French kissing Santa Claus.

  “What happened?” Peter asked finally.

  When Deacon Fry tried to speak, his voice got all tangled up with the guilt in his throat. He cleared it twice just to be sure before speaking again. “Nell tripped over my foot.”

  A low rumble spread through those assembled.

  “He pushed me!”

  The familiar red haze rose behind his eyes. This time it was anger mixed with his old friend, the black shadow of shame.

  He wanted to scream at her, at all of them. Didn’t they know how much pressure he was under?

  But he knew how things worked. He was the power in Moon Hollow. No one would believe that he felt threatened by a slip of a woman who wore her mourning like a funeral shroud. “I—I apologize if I accidentally caused you to fall. The ground here is uneven and I’m a bit unsteady after the climb.”

  A few more mumbles rose, but already he could see the expressions of those gathered begin to transform from suspicious to relieved. How nice for them to be so easily reassured. None of them understood the pressures of a man in his position. None spent sleepless nights worried about five hundred and sixty souls.

  “And see there,” he continued, pasting on his most benevolent smile, “you’re going to be just fine.”

  He took a few steps toward Nell. She whimpered and shied toward Sharon, who had joined the group. His wife put an arm around Nell, and whispered something reassuring.

  Mercifully, Sharon didn’t look at him with suspicion. If she’d doubted him, too, it would have been his undoing.

  Following his nod, his wife led Nell away toward a bench just inside the cemetery. The mourning woman cast a couple of cold looks his way, but said no more.

  The entire time, Peter West hovered nearby. The writer had this way of making you think you were being judged every time he looked at you.

  “Now, I know we’re running a bit late this morning,” he continued, “but that won’t stop us from having the best Decoration this town has ever seen.”

  He paused to give the others time to applaud. When only a few half-hearted claps skipped through the crowd, he knew he had to act fast. “Let’s thank the good Lord for this beautiful day on which to celebrate life and the legacy of those dearly departed we love so much.”

  A chorus of amens rose from all assembled. He smiled. “Now, let’s get this show on the road. Reverend Peale?”

  That damned silence again. This time it didn’t have blame behind it, but it still felt menacing.

  “Where’s Reverend Peale?” As he spoke, the earlier worry reappeared as a burning sensation under his ribs. Hadn’t he been asking himself that same question not fifteen minutes earlier when the reverend hadn’t answered his knock on the front door of the rectory?

  Deacon Smythe stepped forward. “Ain’t no one seen him yet his morning, sir. We thought you was bringing him.”

  This was not the first time Deacon Fry had faced a crisis.
He knew not to panic. He knew that clear heads found solutions faster than ones drunk on adrenaline. However, no crisis he’d ever faced—except one—had ever felt so personally threatening to his own well-being.

  “I see,” he said slowly. “No one has seen the reverend this morning?” He scanned the crowd, praying to Jesus that he’d see a head nodding instead of shaking. Alas, the good Lord didn’t see fit to grant his request.

  “Did anyone speak to him last night?”

  Glances were exchanged, shoulders shrugged, and more head shaking ensued. He was finding it harder and harder not to start yelling. “Can anyone recall seeing him in the last twenty-four hours?”

  “I saw him day before yesterday around five o’clock,” said Deacon Smythe. “He was out in his garden.”

  The deacon nodded. “Did you speak with him?”

  Smythe shook his head. “Just waved.” He dipped his chin and shoved his hands deep in his pockets.

  Deacon Fry fought his frustration. He’d seen the reverend after Smythe had when he’d gone to discuss some of his worries, but he couldn’t bring that up now.

  “Did anyone see him yesterday?” He tried to keep his tone even.

  “I saw him.”

  Every eye turned toward Peter West.

  “Oh?” Deacon Fry said. “Do tell.”

  “He asked me to come by for tea yesterday around ten. Sarah Jane was there.” He nodded toward the deacon’s daughter, as if they were on familiar terms.

  Sarah Jane wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes but she managed to nod to confirm what the writer had said.

  “What time did you leave?”

  “About eleven.”

  “It’s true,” said Sarah Jane. “I made the reverend’s lunch and left around one o’clock.”

  He said you did a bad thing, Daddy.

  He cleared his throat. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

  “Why didn’t anyone check in on him before now?” Peter spoke as if he had the right to question the people of his town.

  “I knocked on his door this morning,” Deacon Fry said, “but when he didn’t answer I assumed he’d come up the hill already.”