The Curse of Crow Hollow (18 page)

“But listen to me—that's all a lie. Men can prance and preen, but there ain't a beauty to this world a woman ain't had a hand in. It's we who got the power, you an me, but we got to take it. We got to make it ours. My momma did. Her daddy laid a hand to her until she couldn't take no more, and then she near beat him to death in his sleep. I took hold of Briar's business and supported not only us but this town, and one day this business will be gone because that's my aim. No more moonshine, no more weed. I'm gonna be bona fide, and
do you know why, girl? Because I choose my future. And you can choose yours too.”

Chessie sat back. She drained the last of her cup as a robin called out and watched Scarlett write.

What can I do?

“You can start by giving me a name. Show this town you cross Scarlett Bickford, hell's gonna follow. You claim your life or someone else will, and on that I give my guarantee. That'll make folk respect you.” And then Chessie stroked the short hairs sprouting from her chin and added, “You ain't even gotta be pretty to do it.”

-5-

I expect it was the hardest thing Bucky Vest ever had to do in his life, having to get out his car and walk into the mayor's office that morning. I wouldn't put it down to either courage or strength, though. Bucky just didn't have no choice.

He walked into that council building and took a right down that long hallway until he reached Wilson's office at the end. Bucky didn't knock, just walked in and sat in one of the two chairs in front of the mayor's desk. Wilson had his back to the door, looking out the window toward the church and the funeral home. Had a picture of his dead wife in his hand.

“Thought you'd be up at the dump by now, Buck,” he said.

“Thought you'd be out trying to calm everybody down.”

“I did. Went up to the doc's this morning, talked to the parents who's bringing in all their sick kids. Had a dozen of them, I'd say. Some can't talk, some can't walk. Some jerking around like the Spirit's got'm. You find out yet who hurt my little girl?”

“Thought I'd look around some today,” Bucky said. “I got the time.”

Wilson turned his chair around. His hair hadn't been combed and his tie hung limp off his neck—a red one that matched the color of his eyes. “You wanna tell me what's going on?”

Bucky rubbed the back of his head and let out a heavy sigh that put a ripple through his double chin. It was bad enough he had to keep things together in front of Angela all the way to town. Worse on the drive to the Foster home, listening to Cordelia ask if they were going to be okay and saying it was all her fault, Bucky answering yes to the one and no to the other, over and over.

“Took Angela to work,” he said. “Cordy's staying with Hays today. I told him to watch her and call me if anything happened.”

“More like Cordelia's got to watch Hays,” Wilson said. “Scarlett don't like that boy at all. I won't lie, Buck. I don't like him either. He's a strange one. You should consider getting your daughter away from him.”

“Little late for that, I guess,” Bucky said. He didn't explain more.

“Wish I'd thought of that, letting Scarlett stay with Cordy. As it was, I sent her to Chessie's for the day. I couldn't stay home, and she wouldn't come here—”

“Homer let me go, Wilson.”

Wilson leaned back in his chair, making the springs squeak. “What you mean Homer let you go? He fired you?”

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.”