Chapel of Ease (33 page)

So that wasn't Doyle's truck. C.C. said, “Billy, if that shed blew up, it's because all you dumb-asses know about cooking meth is what you saw on
Breaking Bad.
”

“Well, either way, me and him got stuff to settle.”

“He'll kick your ass in a fair fight, Billy,” Thorn said. “Go home and sober up.”

“Oh, I ain't drunk, C.C. And I ain't interested in a fair fight.”

“There's a shock,” Thorn muttered.

Suddenly a new shot rang out, from behind us instead of in front. We all jumped, and one of the headlights exploded in a shower of glass and momentary flame. I turned, and a rifle barrel poked out through the open living room window.

Gerald had the weapon's barrel resting on the windowsill. He said, “I owe you sons-a-bitches. The first Duroc I get a clear shot at takes one for the team.”

“We got your whole family in our sights, Gerald,” Billy said.

“Then stick out that cabbage blossom you call a head, and we'll see which one of us is bluffing,” Gerald snapped back.

“Everyone,” a new voice said, “put down your guns. Now.”

The girl Mandalay walked out of the night. She had on cut-offs and a
My Little Pony
T-shirt, and her black hair was braided down her back. She stopped between C.C. and the Durants, facing the lights.

“You heard me,” she said when no one moved. “I don't want to hear another shot fired. Turn off those engines and headlights.” When they didn't, she barked,
“Now!”

The engines stopped, and the lights went out. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust.

“Billy, get down here,” Mandalay said. “The rest of you Durants, stay there. And put those guns away!”

“Whoa, whoa,” another new voice said, and this time the self-important man who'd called himself Junior came out of the darkness on the other side of the yard. He wore plaid pajama pants and a ratty old Bob Dylan T-shirt, and his hair was mussed from sleep. “The Durants answer to me, Mandalay. You got a problem with them, talk to me.”

The girl looked at him. “Junior, know your place,” she said, and made a decisive hand gesture. Junior started to speak, then apparently thought better of it, and said, “Yes, ma'am.”

“Now—Billy, get down here. And you.” She turned and pointed at me. “You, too.”

I looked at Thorn, then at C.C. Both looked afraid, and neither spoke up to defend me. So I came down from the porch and crossed the yard to join the girl and Billy Durant, who'd emerged from the darkness, still carrying a gun.

“Put that down,” Mandalay ordered through clenched teeth, and he handed it back to one of his brothers. I could now make out three old pickups, each one with at least four people standing in the bed, plus the drivers. Good God, how many Durants were there?

Then Mandalay turned to me, and the anger in her face had absolutely nothing to do with a child. “You lied to Bronwyn. You promised her you'd stay put.”

“I had my fingers crossed,” I said, and it sounded as weak to my own ears as it must have to hers.

“Yeah, well, you're a jackass
and
a liar.” Then she turned to Billy. “And you—you're a coward. Shooting people from the woods.”

“Hey, nobody died,” Billy said, and started to grin, then thought better of it.

“You got no proof he did it,” Junior said.

Mandalay silenced him with a gesture. “I will not have a blood feud break out because of a liar and a coward. So you two, settle this. Now.”

Billy put up his hands. “Hey, he knows all kinds of karate-mahty. I ain't fighting him.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Mandalay said. “Then how
can
we settle this?”

“How 'bout a dance-off, Billy?” one of the other Durants said.

“Yeah!” Billy said, snapping his fingers. “That's it. Let's have a dance-off. One board right here in the yard, him and me taking turns.” He grinned at me. “What do you say to that, you big-city faggot?”

Mandalay tapped his chest with her forefinger. “Say that again, Billy, and everyone here will know your dying dirge.”

I had no idea why this particular threat worked, but Billy turned white and said, “Beg your pardon, Mandalay,” with genuine deference.

She turned to me. “Now … what do you say to that, Matt? Do you accept?”

“A dance-off?”

“Flatfoot dancing,” Billy said smugly. “They don't teach you that in your fancy New York dance school, do they?”

He had no idea what Ray's show was about, I realized. “No,” I agreed. “I never learned that in dance school. But I've seen it a little.”

“Do you accept?” Mandalay said again, more urgently.

I sighed, and let my shoulders slump like I had no choice. “Yes.”

“What are the terms, then?” Billy said. “I mean, he blew up our shed.”

“I had nothing to do with your shed blowing up,” I said.

“Shame we can't trust your word on that,” Mandalay said dryly. “So what do you want, Billy?”

He grinned at me. Dear God, did I hate that grin. “We get to hunt this boy.”

“Hunt?” I repeated. “Like with guns?”

“Oh, we'll use paintball guns,” he said, but I doubted anyone present believed him; I sure didn't. “We'll give him a ten-minute head start. And he has to be buck naked, too.” The Durants in the trucks laughed at this.

I cocked my head at him and said, “Are you
sure
you're not gay?”

His smile vanished, and he started toward me, but Mandalay stopped him with another of those gestures. Every muscle taut, fists clenched, he glared at me.

To me, Mandalay said, “If you win, what do you want?”

“Their word that they'll never bother the Parrishes again.”

She nodded. “You heard that, Billy. If he wins, you are not to ever,
ever
bother the Parrishes again. Not you, not your family, not your friends. Are we clear?”

Billy, his smile tight like a dead body's rictus, said, “Sure thing, Miss Mandalay. Whatever you say.”

“Seal it, then.”

He stepped back, made an elaborate hand gesture, then bowed. “Sealed.”

She turned to me. “I'd ask for your word, but I know what that's worth. Are you still leaving tomorrow?”

“I am.”

“Then you just make sure you get on that plane and don't come back, whoever wins. Is that clear?”

“If they win, I don't think you'll have to worry about that.”

“If you do come back, I can't protect you. No—if you come back, I
won't
protect you. I can't abide liars.”

I admit it, I was a little scared. Angry, too, both with myself and this self-important tween. But I was angrier with the smug hillbilly now laughing with his brothers across the yard.

“Where will we get music?” I asked.

“Right here,” Thorn said. I turned and saw her with her guitar. Bliss Overbay, also with a guitar, stood beside her. An old man with a fiddle, a younger man with a banjo, and an old woman with an autoharp were in the process of arranging themselves. I wanted to ask where they'd come from, but by now, I knew better.

Billy carried a flatfooting board from one of the trucks and threw it on the ground between us. “Who goes first?” he asked Mandalay.

“We flip for it.”

We did, and Billy won. His insufferable grin grew, if possible, even larger. I understood now why the Joker aggravated Batman so much. “Y'all just stay back,” he said smugly, “and I'll show you how a real man spanks the plank.”

I bit the inside of my cheek so hard to keep from laughing, I tasted blood.

To the musicians, he called out, “Give me a little ‘Flop-Eared Mule,' why don't you?”

The musicians looked at each other, nodded and whispered for a moment, and then the old fiddler sawed out a sprightly melody that the others picked up and filled out. Billy nodded along, getting the time, then stepped onto the board.

I admit, I was feeling cocky about this contest, and that lasted for another five seconds. Then I saw just how good Billy Durant was at this. Apparently, even professional Broadway experience didn't automatically mean you'd be the best dancer in the room. Or the yard.

Not to sound like one of my hosts, but Billy fucking tore that wood
up.
His feet were a blur, the sound they made a steady tattoo that kept thoroughly on beat. In the light from the porch he made faces, he struck poses, and totally made the moment his own. When he finished with a flourish, I had the same thought I'd had earlier in the night, in the woods near the chapel.

I was screwed.

Face gleaming with sweat, he hopped off the board—a real stage hop, with his knees drawn up and his feet behind him—and landed right in front of me. Grinning, always grinning, he said, “Follow that, killer.”

Oh boy.

I looked back at C.C., who had that same frozen expression he'd had at the Pair-A-Dice. He saw me and gave a helpless little shrug. I was on my own.

I continued to scan the yard, hoping against hope I'd see Ray there, or that he'd whisper in my ear and give me some sort of hint. But evidently he was gone, his task as a haint completed once I decided not to look in the box.

Billy was out of breath, and between gasps taunted, “Well, Mr. Homo-sex-you-all, what you got for us?”

“Billy!” Mandalay snapped.

“I didn't say ‘faggot,'” he said, mock offended, continuing to sweat and breathe hard.

To me, Mandalay said, “It's your turn now. What music do you want?”

I thought about the dances we'd learned for the show. I'd practiced only one, from the wedding scene, because that's the only time my character danced. I'd seen the others, but never really committed them to memory. And they were all done to original music by Ray, which these musicians wouldn't know. Well, given everything I'd learned, that might not be true. But the dance from the show was nothing compared to what I'd just seen.

And then I remembered Ray's performance at Stella's studio the first day of dance rehearsal. The day he'd shown us, not only how to dance, but that you could dance that style to anything. A light went on in my head.

I motioned C.C. over. Softly I asked him if the band knew the song I had in mind.

“I'm sure they do,” he said.

“Then tell them that's the music I want. Tell them to watch for my cue.” And I winked at him.

I turned back to the Durants and Mandalay. I should have been exhausted after all the climbing, running, and terror I'd experienced, but I felt great: loose, cocky, and ready. It was the same way I felt doing shows after we had the first weekend behind us. I was trusting the musicians to be ready, and to jump in at the right moment, but given what I knew about them, I really had no doubts. Magic could do anything, right? “My turn, huh? Stand back.”

I stepped up to the board and gingerly touched it with my foot, as if I expected it to bite. I played the uncertain city slicker to the hilt, stepping onto the board, testing it experimentally to see if it wobbled, then took a deep breath and let it out in a long, mock-defeated sigh.

I looked up at Billy. “Well, Billy, I guess there's only one thing to say.”

And then I bellowed, letting my voice go raw and ragged,
“A-wop-bom-a-loo-mop-a-lomp-bam-boom!”

The band slammed into the song with a ferocity I wouldn't have expected from a roots-music quartet. But they gave me exactly what I needed.

I don't know that I outdanced Billy Durant, but I know I fucking out
performed
him. I was used to both singing and dancing every night of the week and twice on Sunday. He'd done a great job, but it had exhausted him.

I sang the nonsense verses about different girls and danced my fucking ass off. I used the moves I'd learned for
Chapel of Ease
as well as anything else I could think of, staying on that little yard-square piece of wood the whole time. On the final
“A-wop-bom-a-loo-mop-a-lomp-bam-boom!”
I leaped—yep, a goddam
leap
—from the board to the grass, and into a pseudo-hip-hop crossed-arm pose. The music snapped to an end right as I landed.

There was a moment of total silence. Nothing, not even the bugs, made a sound. And then someone let out a huge, long, “Yee-
haw
!”

I turned toward it. The yard was now ringed by dozens of people, most in their pajamas, all of them Tufa, and they applauded. I gestured at the band and joined in the applause. Then I turned back to face the Durants.

Two of the biggest Durants I'd seen so far stood right in front of me, and before I could react, each grabbed one of my arms in hands as big as Wreck-It Ralph's. They twisted my arms behind me, which pushed me forward, just as Billy Durant strode out of the darkness, carrying a baseball bat.

“Billy!” Mandalay shouted.

My adrenaline really kicked in then, shifting everything into slow motion. As I watched, Billy Durant
changed.
In the same way I'd seen C.C. and Thorn bearing those lovely butterfly wings, Billy suddenly sported immense, leathery appendages, with tattered edges and ragged tips. More, his face transformed into something with enormous insectlike eyes and an open mouth that foamed at the corners and revealed long, pointed teeth.

I had no time to plot a strategy, so I used the strength of the men holding me as a pivot and did a backflip. I turned at the waist so that my shins took the blow from the bat early in its swing; if nothing else, years of muay Thai gave me shinbones of fucking iron. It stung, but not so much as a fractured skull would have, and the impact knocked the weapon from Billy's hands. The flip caught the men holding me off guard as well, and I slipped my arms free. When I landed, I immediately grabbed the bat and raised it, ready to fight.

The two big men scurried back to the safety of the trucks. But Billy reached back and yanked a gun from his belt. He leveled it right at me.