The Curse of Crow Hollow (31 page)

He squeezed the pistol as hard as he could. Still the bullets would not fly. Bucky tilted the gun to the side and saw the safety was switched on. He thumbed it to fire and aimed at Alvaretta's chest. She did not waver and strode for him, looking taller now, stronger, looking like something Other with a wide grin of one who smelled his fear, and then Bucky let his pistol fall when the door in front of him began to open.

“Get out,” she yelled again.

Bucky ran. He took the lane as fast as the car would let him, caring neither for the four bald tires nor the one wheezing engine, wanting only to get away. Alvaretta kept shouting, cursing him and cursing them all, calling down heaven and summoning up hell. Bucky looked into the mirror and screamed as the cabin's door swung open and what was inside began to step out.

He was to the main road before he discovered he'd left his gun behind, and halfway to Crow Holler when he realized he was sitting in his own urine.

-5-

Say what you will of Bucky's success in stating the town's demands to the Crow Holler witch, at least he'd gone prepared. He'd been smart enough to bring along an extra change of clothes just in case he'd have to go crawling and sneaking about in Alvaretta's woods. The pair of old jeans he'd snuck out that morning were wrinkled plenty, but wrinkled beat pee-stained any old day. He pulled off the road at a spot about five miles from town and slipped into the woods to change. You'd pity that man if you'd seen him, trying to unbuckle his belt and pry off his boots, unrolling those clean pants as the breeze fell against his naked legs like a cold finger. His head turned at every rustle of the leaves, thinking Alvaretta was there.

He didn't know where to go or who to tell first about the terrible things he'd learned at the Graves homeplace, so he ended up calling everybody to come down to the church and bring the kids with them. That's all Bucky said, and not a word more. He left his pair of soiled pants underneath a dead tree in the woods. Far as I know, they lie there still.

It took all of five seconds for everybody to get down to the Holy Fire. David and Belle were there already, along with Naomi. Wilson left the council building to fetch Scarlett. On the way, he picked up Angela, Cordy, and Hays. The Fosters were up to the grocery, trying to salvage what life they could. Wilson called to Chessie's. Raleigh, he showed up at the church too. I've no idea how he found out about Bucky's call. Bout the only one wasn't there was John David, though I'll tell you he was close.

Poor Cordelia had no clue what was going on and pitched a fit when Naomi told her where Bucky had gone. For all her faults, Angela looked the most worried of all. She put an arm around Cordy and said not to worry. Bucky'd called, that meant
he'd gotten away. I don't know if that made anybody feel better about things.

So they all sat in the sanctuary, worrying and praying for the next twenty minutes when only fifteen were needed, because by then Bucky was standing outside the door trying to figure out how to tell them what he must. Every head spun when those front doors opened. Cordelia jumped from her seat beside Angela and wrapped her daddy in a hug. Fear and rage and worry swirled in the part of her face that still carried feeling.

“What happened, Buck?” Wilson asked. “You see her?”

Bucky kept walking. He led Cordy back to her seat and took the stage, though not behind the pulpit.

“You see her, Bucky?” Landis asked. “Alvaretta gonna make things right again?”

Looking out at them, the kids especially. Seeing Cordelia's ashen face and Scarlett's silent one. Seeing Naomi twitch. Seeing Hays, who hadn't been able to stand against Alvaretta either. Bucky didn't blame that boy anymore. He no longer condemned Hays Foster at all.

“I saw her,” he said, and they all leaned forward.

“You spoke with her?” Belle asked.

“I did. She won't break the curse.”

Chessie, who was always one to read her Bible but never one to read it well, let loose a single word from her foul mouth, making the Reverend cringe.

“What'd she say?” Wilson asked. “You tell us everything, Bucky.”

Bucky looked at his feet and nodded, then took a slow breath.

“It's awful up there. Like . . . I don't know. Like everything got trapped in time. I saw Stu's truck. Can you believe that, Wilson? Wally Cork dropped that truck off twenty years
ago and it ain't moved since, and then Wally died. Everybody says Alvaretta willed him dead. I'll say I never really believed that, not deep down. But I do now. I could feel Wally there, Reverend. Like he'd been trapped too.”

The preacher's face went a sickly green.

“There's crows strung up in her trees. Dead ones. And all kinds of wild dogs Alvaretta calls her children.”

Naomi nodded slow, either remembering or suffering under her curse. Cordy hugged herself like she'd gone cold. Hays put an arm around her, though I don't think he much cared to.

“It's all true, what the kids told us,” Bucky said. “Every word of it and more, and I'm so sorry y'all got stuck there over some stupid piece of jewelry.”

Cordelia sniffed back a tear.

“Alvaretta come out on the steps. I told her who I was and stated my business. She's still got the bracelet. I didn't see it, but she said it was hers. Payment for what was done.”

“What was done?” Raleigh asked.

Bucky took another breath. “Seems Scarlett struck her.”

Wilson's jaw fell open. He turned to Scarlett, pleading: “You struck Alvaretta?”

“She was defending her friends,” Chessie said. “Nothing more, Wilson.”

“You knew?” he asked Chessie, and then, to his daughter, “You told Chessie of this but not your own
daddy
?”

Scarlett started shaking. It was a strange sight, looking like she was about to split herself in half. Chessie got to shouting at Wilson and Wilson got to shouting back, and all that did was draw in the rest to one side or the other until Bucky raised his hands and screamed at them all to shut up and remember they was in a church.

“We ain't got time to sit here arguing,” he said. “There's other stuff I got to say. Kids was right about more than birds
and dogs. I saw those tracks they followed, and I'll say they're from no beast. I saw other tracks, too, and that's one thing we got to be concerned about. They was from tires.”

“Tires?” Briar asked.

Bucky nodded. “Stu's truck ain't been run in years, from the look of it. That leaves only one thing it can be. Somebody's been out there. I think someone from town's been aiding the witch.”

Hays looked at Cordelia, who looked at Scarlett and Naomi. You can bet only one name filled their minds.

“That's not possible,” Belle said. “Nobody would do that, Bucky.”

“I can only tell you what I saw, Belle. Tracks went clear up close to the porch, like whoever it was dropped off something. Makes sense. We always thought Alvaretta just got by on her own grit and meanness, and maybe she did for years. Some do, least that's the stories we've heard. Backwoods folk who leave off everything and aren't seen again. But an old woman like that couldn't get by for long without help.”

“Alvaretta's got a spy,” Raleigh said. The words came out slow, like even he couldn't believe one of his neighbors could do such a thing.

Nor could the Reverend. “We have to find out who it is,” he said. “Maybe then we can put a stop to this.”

“That ain't all,” Bucky said. “That ain't even the worst. What I got to say next, I don't even know
how
to put to words.”

Chessie spoke in a soft and kindly way that looked to chill Bucky to the bone. “You go on, Sheriff. Was a good thing you did, going out there. You just take your time and say it plain.”

“Alvaretta said it'd only be when bodies are buried that we'd suffer as she. We're cursed by the hands of darkness and death. There's no stopping it.”

Angela started to cry then. Belle too.

“She called forth the thing she's keeping. It was inside her cabin. I didn't see all of it and I thank the Lord for that, else I'd of given up my ghost right there. But I seen enough. I seen a hand and a boot. They was filthy and covered with earth.”

“Did it speak?” Naomi asked.

“No, and it didn't have to, child. I know what the witch has conjured. Not demon and not man, but some of both.” Bucky shook his head again, too afraid to speak it but more afraid to not. “It's Stu Graves. Alvaretta's done raised her husband.”

-6-

You take a man telling something like that, saying a witch had used her dark magic to breathe life into dusty old bones and saying it all in church? Well, I expect that man would be met with howls and whoops and then escorted to the nearest padded room. But that didn't happen with Bucky, friend. Only silence greeted him.

Some like Naomi and her momma, Belle, looked ready to jump up and run as far from the Holler as they could get. But all of them looked to be thinking the same—that such a thing was possible. Even Bucky, who believed the spirits had been gone from Crow Holler ever since his kin chased off the Indians. Even Hays, who'd never believed in anything beyond his monsters.

Wilson said outright, “That ain't possible,” though I believe that was because he was too afraid to consider otherwise. “Stu's been in the ground since we was kids. Once you're gone, you're gone. This ain't Bible times.”

He looked at the others, people who were not just friends now but friends on the night Stu Graves ran his truck off the road. The Reverend couldn't meet his eyes.

“You sure on this, Bucky?” Briar asked.

Bucky didn't say right off. Not because he wasn't sure, but because Briar's voice sounded so strange and scared.

“I'm sure, Briar.”

Raleigh shook his head slow. My, but that man'd have a story to tell all his secret friends that night. “She always said Stu wouldn't rest until he got justice.”

“Shut up, Raleigh,” Wilson said. “You're scaring the kids.”

Briar stood up. “We can put this to rest right now. Ain't but a minute over to the cemetery. We get Medric's key to the storage garage, run the tractor up there.”

“You want to dig Stu up?” Angela asked. She wasn't as shocked by the idea as she was excited. Don't get me wrong, friend, that woman was scared. But this promised to be something straight out of her stories on the TV.

“Don't know how else to settle things,” Briar said. “We gotta know either way. Right?”

They all looked at the mayor, who fiddled with his hands.

“We'll do it,” Bucky finally said. “I'll knock on Medric's door, tell him what we need.”

The meeting broke. Briar and the mayor left for the big garage out back of the council building. Hays slipped out, following Bucky across the street. The rest tried their best to saunter the half mile to the town cemetery without drawing too much attention. That's the cemetery down there, past the Exxon. Can't see it too good because it's on the other side of them trees, but it's there. Full too. Wasn't on the day Wilson and David led all a them down there to make sure Stu was still in the ground, but it is now.

Bucky slowed down so Hays could catch up. “What you doing out here, Hays?”

“It'll be easier if I come too,” he said. “I know him. Medric's my friend. Or was.”

They stepped onto the curb. “Gonna need to sit down and have a good long talk with you once this is all over,” Bucky said. “Gonna have to do the same with your parents.”

“About what?”

“Your future with my daughter.” He held up a finger when Hays opened his mouth. “Let's just leave it there. I'm a little worked up as it is right now. Don't got the time to have you spoutin' off at the mouth.”

It took Bucky five minutes' worth of knocking to get Medric to finally answer the door, then another three to convince him there was no trouble. Medric listened and pronounced Bucky a liar, because it sure sounded like trouble to him.

“You think I'd ever desecrate the resting so you can satisfy your fears?” he asked. “No way, Buck. Keys are inside. Inside's where they stay.”

Hays kept a fair distance back, remembering Medric's shotgun. I don't think he cared much to listen in on Bucky's conversation as much as he wanted to study Medric, the way he acted and talked. What Hays came away with was that man was guilty. For what, he didn't know, but it was surely something.

Only thing that changed Medric's mind was Bucky saying there really wasn't a choice in the matter. It had been a town decision, what they were going to do, and not going along with it would only make everybody more suspicious of our undertaker than they already were. That's what Bucky said—“People been telling me something's going on with you, Medric”—and even if it all had to do with that raccoon nailed on his door, it was high time our undertaker started acting like he was part of the town.

“We're all scared,” Bucky told him. “Not just you, Medric. Fear ain't got a color, and sometimes it makes people do awful things.”

No way Medric thought Bucky right about fear and color—deep down, he'd always thought Bucky as simple as
they come—but the sheriff been right about something. There wasn't a choice. He shut the door to get the keys, refusing to let them inside.

Hays took that opportunity to tell Bucky everything about his visit to the funeral home. The part about Medric being gone most of a day and coming home with crow feathers stuck to his boots was what got Bucky nervous. He went over to Medric's car and checked the tires. The tread was nothing close to what he'd seen at Alvaretta's.

“That doesn't mean anything, Sheriff,” Hays said. “He's still acting weird.”

“Witch has got us all, Hays. Everybody's acting weird.”