The Revelations of Preston Black (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 3) (19 page)

“Doesn’t matter anymore. All that
matters is Elijah did for me what I couldn’t quite do for myself.” She stood,
and pushed herself away from the table. “I wanted more than anything to belong
to something, and that’s why I whored, you know? Because they liked me when I
was face down on a bed. But I belong here.
This
is my family.
Elijah saved me, in the truest sense of the word.”

“If I’m not mistaken, Jesus saves. Not
Elijah.” I tapped my nails on the table and shook my head, scolding myself for
my arrogance. “Hicks has a thing for collecting dirty tricks. Sounds to me like
he releases his frustration by dominating women he desires but can’t be with.”

Somebody came up the wooden steps onto
the porch.

Truly distanced herself from the table
as Hicks bounded into the room. “My God has created another amazing day, hasn’t
he, Miss Katy?”

The fact that he’d called me that made
me burn with anger. Jamie called me that at bluegrass festivals, but it was a
family nickname. Even Preston never called me that.

Truly rested her hand on his knee as
he took a seat across from me. Annoyed, he waved her away, and waited until she
retreated.

Truly flatly said, “Amen,” and turned
a cold shoulder as she stepped toward a window.

“Any day a soul finds its way to the
Lord is a beautiful day, ain’t it?” He smiled a made-for-TV smile. “Did y’all
get something good to eat? Want something else?”

“No, thank you,” I said. “I wasn’t
very hungry.”

“Sorry about all that,” Hicks said it
like he was a manager at a Hampton Inn listening to a noise complaint. “You
know, Sister Odelia told me all about you and your kin before she defiled my
daddy’s church up in Alpena. I suppose what you and your folks did up there in
them hills can be taken as a sacrifice or retribution, if y’all believe in that
sort of thing. I suppose I owe you a small debt of gratitude, and that’s why
I’m going to help you find the Lord. It ain’t going to be so hard as you might
think to turn your back on your evil, witching, ways.”

My blood boiled at the reminder of
what happened with the Lewises up in West Virginia last summer. Add in the
indignity of Hicks’s assumption that we somehow instigated and it took
everything I had in me to stay seated on that long wooden bench. “I took a
bullet last summer, just so you know.”

Hicks smirked, and I pulled my shirt
down over my left clavicle to show him.

“Whoa, girl. Keep your clothes on. We
ain’t there yet.” Hicks smiled and waved his hands like he was refusing old
sushi. “They tell me I have a way with the ladies, but I ain’t never had somebody
move this fast.”

Don’t provoke.

Don’t provoke.

Don’t provoke.

I took a deep breath. “I would like to
use a bathroom and get cleaned up,” and even though it almost killed me to say
it, I added, “…please.”

“Sure thing. Truly, would you like to
show Miss Katy the facilities.”

Truly turned and looked at me for a
long second. “She won’t run.”

Hicks’s smile grew. I could even see
it in his wide pupils, which explored me for a sign it was true. Truly must’ve
seen it in his eyes too.

Hicks said, “You do not know how happy
that makes me. We’ll wait right here for you then. I see you got your shoe
back?”

I stood. “Thank you.”

“You are most welcome.” He watched me
stand and turn. Being able to turn away from his gaze made me happy.

I noticed the deadbolt as soon as I
shut the bathroom door. The temptation to twist the knob washed over me like
the eighth deadly sin, but I knew better. They’d hear the click. I remembered
my rules, and turned to the mirror and scolded myself for my seemingly endless
inability to humble myself. “Stupid,” I whispered. “Stupid. Stupid.”

I pounded my thigh with my fist at
each syllable. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw the fear in my eyes.
Until now, I’d only suspected it. Seeing was believing.

“Keep him on your side,” I whispered.

They’re coming.
I pushed my
hair out of my face and leaned toward the mirror, almost nodding at my decision
to redouble my focus. “Preston will find you.”

I ran the hot water to wash, but
couldn’t take my mind off the window. Beneath it sat a patch of grass and a
clear shot to the wide open wilderness of wherever we were. Women in long
skirts with hair piled atop their heads shuffled past. I wasn’t worried about
them at all and wondered if I should’ve been. I stayed close to the stainless
countertop, as if physicality alone would keep temptation out of my head.
Rule
number one…

“Rule number one.” I let the hot water
wash temptation away.

When I opened the door Hicks and Truly
waited outside. Hicks gave Truly a look, and even though I couldn’t be certain,
I could’ve sworn he shrugged, as if he’d just lost a bet. With an insincere
laugh, he said, “You remember to wash your hands?”

“Shy bladder,” I said.

He gestured for me to head to the
door. As I walked on, he said, “The best explanation for God’s gift of tongues
to the early Church lies in the necessity of teaching newly converted
Christians to pray with their heart rather than their mouths. That’s all
Truly’s trying to impress upon you, she meant no malice by it.”

“Aside from the maliciousness of kidnapping
me?”

Hicks ignored me.

In keeping with my rules, I almost
apologized, but Hicks went on.

“The Church knows a deeper way to
educate the heart—you cultivate the inner man.” He smiled, as if anticipating
seeing me express a change of heart. “Or woman. Dead churches have forgotten
how to pray in the spirit without losing control of the spirit. I want to teach
you how.”

Hicks led me back outside, his hand
lingering right above my hip, brushing my back every now and then. I didn’t
turn my head or react to his touch. Truly, who had been walking right alongside
us, fell a few steps behind. We moved between the rows of white cabins toward
the field where they’d brought me in last night. Some of the shacks had drapes,
tulips and daffodils sprouting from the grey earth, or other, tiny touches of
domesticity. Potted flowers. Wreathes on the door. But what didn’t differ from
cabin to cabin was the scrawl of black letters, Bible verses and other
warnings. Old Testament, fire and brimstone-type stuff.

Below the one cabin’s window I read
A tithe
of everything, whether grain from the earth or fruit from the orchard, belongs
to the LORD; it is holy to the LORD!
The same phrase had been written
several times on other parts of the house.

Above the door of another was
The
life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given the blood to you to make
atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for
one’s life.
I
tried not to get caught looking.

People moved toward the clearing from
all over. Some emerged from the various buildings, some from the trees
themselves. The mass of bodies pushed toward a giant tent in the center of the
field, like an Army field hospital from
M.A.S.H
., except the
sides were tied open to the late afternoon. I didn’t remember seeing it last
night. At the near end of the tent, surrounded by rows and rows of hay bales
sat a crude brush arbor like the lay pastors of old built in fields before a
proper church could be constructed. Pine boughs formed a rudimentary roof over
four pairs of vertical ten-foot posts.

The remainder of the meadow served as
a parking lot for RVs and pop-up campers, vans and trucks and station wagons
and SUVs. A hundred vehicles, at least, surrounded the glowing tent like drones
around a queen bee. Hound dogs had been tied to pickup truck tailgates with
sagging ropes. I heard motorcycles, but did not see them. From beneath the tent
people already squealed and applauded to the sounds of a fuzzy, high voice
coming through a cheap PA. Sounded like an auctioneer at the county fair.
Except that it was a child speaking.

The air smelled like spring. Wet, with
the slightest whiff of organic matter, like chlorophyll rushing into young
leaves and flowers. But when we got closer to the men and women with kids, drug
store perfume and body odor washed away the only good thing I’d found refuge
in. Hicks pushed through the throng, past an old natural gas well, around
people who wanted to shake his hand or get something, even if just a nod, of
acknowledgement from him. Old men carrying instrument cases or fine wooden
boxes with brass corners and hinges smiled as we passed. Most of the older
women wore their hair in high, tight buns. They covered their arms and wore
skirts or dresses down to their ankles. The young girls dressed more or less
the same, except their skirts were denim as often as not. Sometimes the only
way to tell the young ones from the old ones was by the shoes they wore. Some
of the younger girls wore tennis shoes.

The people were working folks, and if
they’d have been wearing WVU ball caps instead of Crimson Tide hats, I could’ve
easily been back home. None of them looked like the kind of people who’d
endorse an abduction. Hicks didn’t stop for any of them. With his hand on my
back, he continued to push, holding me close, like he meant to protect me. Off
to the far right I saw the bikers from the show in Nashville pushing toward us,
and I wondered if Hicks meant to avoid them. He jerked me into forceful changes
of direction, like he was suddenly angry. My heart raced with his new mood. A
moment ago I felt confident I’d see tomorrow. But the way he shoved me into
folks, through couples and children, made me believe different. The way he
clenched his jaw told me he’d grown angry.

“Hicks!”

I turned to see who shouted. The biker
from Nashville pushed through parishioners.

Hicks made for the tent, and sat me on
a metal folding chair next to a drum riser. Two other men helped him wrap my
hands and ankles with duct tape. The biker with the tattoos on his face pushed
into the tent. “Hicks, I told you I wanted her.”

“Boggs,” Hicks said, retreating a bit.
“How about we sort this out tomorrow, okay? Maybe this is something we don’t
want to discuss here.”

“Discuss what?” I said.

But they ignored me. I looked for
acknowledgement from the people seated in the first row of chairs. They looked
confused, nervous. I shouted, “Hicks abducted me from a truck stop in Alabama
last night! Call the police, please—"

A few turned when I called out. The
rest remained fixated on the blue-eyed child preacher shouting nonsense from
the brush arbor pulpit. The few rows of bare bulbs strung from the tent made it
difficult to see faces beyond the first rows.

Hicks and Boggs moved in at the same
time. Hicks clapped his hand over my mouth as one of his guys peeled off
another strip of duct tape. “You asked for this,” he said, taping my mouth
shut.

I kicked my feet, which had already
been bound to the chair. The chair rocked forward a bit. Hicks jumped back in
surprise, but steadied himself with a hand on my knee.

“Boggs.” Hicks stood, and ran a finger
down my cheek. “Let’s try to do the Lord’s work tonight. How about it? If it
don’t work out like we’d hoped, you can have her tomorrow.”

Boggs turned and left without
answering.

“You see? God has blessed you with a
choice.” Hicks lowered himself and whispered into my ear, “God reserves the
right to withhold judgment. I’m here to lead you to the font, to let you be
born again in his holy waters. Some of the girls survived it. Like Truly over
there. God decided she was fit to live and be born again. So we pulled her out
of the water and for a long time she didn’t even move. But then that Holy
Spirit came down into her and she coughed that water out and now she’s here to
tell her story. Maybe you’ll float and tell your story, Miss Katy. You want me
to take this off your mouth?”

I nodded.

He pulled it slowly away from my lips,
and said, “Maybe you’ll sink. You’re going to have to decide first though.
Whether you even want to be saved or not.”

He gestured to the group that gathered
within earshot. “Ain’t that right?”

They provided him with an immediate
“Amen.”

“So what, Hicks. You save me. Then
what? I’m another trophy? Like Truly? You pull her off the street and pump her
up with ‘Jesus loves you’ and now she’s saved?”

“You want the tape again?” He stood
and smiled. “I’m trying to be reasonable, here.”

“The dirtier the better. Right, Hicks?
Truly’s a junkie. You think I’m a witch. You probably got an adulterer and a
prostitute hanging around too.”

Hicks clenched his teeth and smiled.
“Look at this kid, will you?”

“You are a monster—”

“Shut your mouth.” Hicks grabbed my
jaw, forcing me to watch the child preacher. “Or I’ll let Boggs shut it. Your
choice.”

The little boy stomped across the
pulpit, wiping his face with a towel like hemust’ve seen Hicks do a thousand
times. The boy stopped, loosened his tie and slapped his hand on the big black
Bible that sat on the miniature podium somebody must’ve made special for him.
“Hallelujah.”