by Bob McGough
His eyes were wide like saucers as he said it, but I could detect there was a desire there. It was scary, but he wanted him a piece of that. Seeing how rough he was looking, I had my doubts anyone had laid hands on him, purgin' him clean.
“She just passed right out, and some of the men folk scooped her up and laid her out on a few seats to recover. She was still out when my ride showed up, so whatever happened, it did a number on her that's for sure.”
“You didn't check on her?” I asked, already knowing the answer. To be fair, I probably wouldn't have either, but then I wouldn't have been at the place at all, least not for such a dumb reason.
“Naw,” he said sheepishly. “But I mean she was at a church with a bunch of church folks, what could happen?”
This time I didn't bother trying to hide my eye-roll. “You seen her since?”
He frowned. “No. I saw her car here pretty late that night, when we was out riding roads that night, but not nothing since.”
“You ain't seen her up here enjoying her new salvation and such?” I asked. “Figure you get a miracle pulled on you, you would probably pop back in at some point. Just be polite I'd think.”
Omens
I ain’t much of one for omens. Well, maybe I am sometimes, it comes and goes we’ll say. But I had to say the entrance Silas Hatty made was nothing if not dramatic.
Jerm was filling my ear with a bunch of jargon I didn’t care about, but I did gather that attendance was down pretty dramatically that night. The way he was talking, it’d been standing room only pretty much every night he’d been, but I could see that close to half the seats were still empty. It warmed my heart to know that all those faith-loving people were scared off by a little rain.
The crowd though got real quiet of a sudden, and even Jerm shut up, when the door to the camper flung wide. Out stepped the Reverend in a stately calm, oversized bible in his hand. He began to stride purposefully across the pasture.
The storm was coming on now, all dark clouds and whipping wind. The air felt electric, and the wind was whipping the grass of the pasture like swirling waves. There was no rain, but you could tell it was coming at any moment. Hatty looked as though he didn’t even notice the weather.
He wasn’t real tall, but he was a solid looking guy, like a former body-builder. He was dressed in some grey dress pants under a plain white shirt with the sleeves rolled up above his elbows. His tie was solid black like his hair, but his face was clean shaven. All in all, he was an intense looking guy - no nonsense, no frills.
Striding into the tent like some sorta king of old, he made his way right up to the little podium that was erected there and slapped his bible onto it. Right then thunder rumbled ominously, rolling through the dark sky and, I am not gonna lie, giving me a little chill.
The man had dark eyes. In that moment they looked calm, almost warm, but they had the look of eyes that could go steel hard in a heartbeat. He made me think of every angry gym coach I’d ever had, all fun, games, and jokes until someone doesn’t want to dress out, then the screaming starts.
He started in on the usual, opening with a long prayer that I swear must have taken five minutes. I didn’t even pretend to bow my head, instead spending that time watching the crowd to see who cheated. Silas didn’t. He kept his eyes tight and arms raised the whole time, really getting into it.
When that finally ended he started in on little bits of news, and prayer requests type shit. All of it didn’t matter a fart in the wind to me, and I managed to tune most of it out. The only part that even kindly caught my attention, and only because of the gasps that accompanied it, was that he was gonna be closing up shop after Sunday.
“The work of the Lord calls me ever onwards brothers and sisters! There are many places yet filled with sin, so filled, that the churches there have forgotten how to act. Places that need that old-time religion!” he was saying. I was pretty sure that no place needed old-time religion, and just fought to stifle a yawn.
The rain started to fall, pattering heavily on the canvas of the tent. It came on in a sudden wave, not building from a slight sprinkle to the heavy pounding. With the wind blowing as it was, the rain was slanting under the tent, though no one was getting wet that I could see. If the tent hadn’t had a canvas wall across the back, where Hatty was striding back and forth starting to crank up his sermon, I knew he’d have been about half drenched, maybe even the first row or two of folks.
He was the sort of fire and brimstone preacher you heard about, but never really saw anymore, which I personally thought was a blessing. Jubal County had lost most of its fire and brimstone types to actual fire when the Church of Signs Revealed had burned down. But then, as Hatty had yet to start snake handling, I suspected that even he wasn’t that bad.
That storm brought a cool wind with it that felt absolutely amazing, considering it felt like I hadn’t been cool all day. This was even better than Jimmy’s old window unit, damn near cold and with a dampness to it that was refreshing. I was half tempted to step out from under the tent, but I figured it wouldn’t do to make too much of a scene. Least not yet.
He was really going now, whooping and hollering at the top of his lungs. He’d run across the tent, arms raised and bible flopping around. He rocked that podium back and forth so far you’d swear it was gonna tip over at any moment. He shouted, he cried, he roared. It was quite a sight, I had to admit.
About fifteen minutes into it though, a weirdness began to creep up my spine. I could feel more in the air than just that damp, crackling storm feeling. There was a sinuousness slipping around, oozing its way around the tent. There was magic in the air.
The human mind is built up in such a way that when confronted with magic, it will just ignore it. You have to be woken up to magic, have the right genes or something, before you can see it. But once you see it, it can much more easily see you, which is never a good thing as I have learned. But just because you are awake to it, doesn’t mean you can just willy nilly identify every little thing about it.
There was magic in the air, but I hadn’t a clue what it was doing, or who was behind it.
I See You Baby
I got an itch to go back to the car, to get away from whatever magical bullshit was swirling in the air. This whole situation had stunk from the word go, and the moment I found her car I shoulda just called the cops and called it a day. But for some dumb reason I decided to play hero, going against my gut, and here I was.
This whole situation was foul, and getting fouler. If there was magic involved, I wanted an extra level of nothing to do with this. The fact that she got ‘saved’ then disappeared said absolutely nothing good to me. My guess was she left here, went to find some old boyfriend and express how she’d changed her ways, and when she wouldn’t give it up he’d done her in.
Only that didn’t explain the magic, but maybe I would be lucky and those two things would have nothing to do with each other. Not sure why I thought that in this instance I would be lucky, but a boy can dream I reckon. All in all, I wanted back in the car, and away from all this.
Sadly, it was raining. And while I wasn’t opposed to getting wet, unless something else began to happen I was fine where I was. At least until the storm broke. My hair was a bad enough mess without it sticking out every which way from a lightning strike. Though, maybe a good quick death would be my reward, which would be nice at that moment. Though knowing me, it would probably just leave me paralyzed, or blind, or something. I had enough going on without all that added on top.
On the other hand, if I got to the car, I could go into my box of oblivion and dig out a little something that would help me see things more clearly, both literally and figuratively. A little nibble on some ‘shrooms, and maybe I would be able to actually see this magical bullshit without having to cast or do anything. Whatever it was, I wanted to stay off its radar as much as possible.
I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it, lurking around the confines of the tent. It felt bulky and broad, like
some sort of shuffling mass of blunt force. The way it was nudging around, it was almost like the...spell? creature? was nudging around looking for something. Like an old shaggy coon hound, too old to go chasing after anything, but still smelling around regardless.
It was pretty clear that if anyone else felt anything of the sort, they were playing it close to the vest. All eyes were locked on the Reverend, who was busy decrying the sins of the world in a booming voice, casting judgement on the County. Though in my mind he was wasting his breath. If passing judgement on a thing actually made any difference, then I’d have judged this damned place out of existence years ago.
The creeping nothing found its way to where Jerm and I were sitting. The storm was really whipping now, and a few scattered drops were beginning to strike the back of my head and shoulders. Jerm swore a little under his breath and climbed between two of the chairs in front of him, moving to a dryer row.
I just froze in place, waiting for it to pass. It was a cold, burning thing, like holding onto a piece of ice for too long, consequently turning the skin a singed red. I swear I could hear the faint crackle of flame, like a distant fire, popping and roaring within this invisible nothing.
It washed over me, and I readied my hands to pop off a spell. I didn’t call up the power, though I was on the very cusp. I wanted it to ignore me like it had every other person under that tent, to move on and finish what it was doing.
I felt like it was hovering all around me, taking in deep breaths of what and who I was. Feeling me out, gnawing at me just a bit to get a little taste of what I had going on. There was no actual feeling, not physically, but the mental impressions felt real in a way much of my life hadn’t.
And then it passed. Was it all in my mind that it had lingered longer on me than anyone else? Or was just that drug fueled paranoia? Or my regular level of paranoia? I swear it seemed as though it was all over me for several minutes, five or six maybe. Before that it had just been threading up and down the rows, hadn’t it?
It had moved on, and, which I guess was a good thing. I couldn’t feel it anymore, though how an invisible thing can disappear, well that’s sorta a mindbender in and of itself. Had it gone away because it had found what it was looking for? Or because I was just the last place it had set out to look, seeing as I was in the back of the tent?
Either way, I didn’t like it. I’m not the lead expert of magical expertise in the County. Far, far, far from it in fact. But while I don’t know much about what it is I do, I do tend to know everyone who can do what I do. And no one I knew was there in that tent that night.
There was someone doing magic, some kind I didn’t rightly know, that was all cold and fire. Someone that I didn’t know. And they were close by, and maybe looking for me, or folks like me. My eyes fell on Hatty, who at that moment just happened to glance my way, and our eyes locked.
Opportunity
Those eyes, they were like that spell, or whatever it is I had felt. An icy blue, much like mine, but there was a heat to them, that coupled with his ranting and raving came across as a mad intensity. They were only on me for a second, but they left me feeling some sorta way, that was for sure.
The rain was coming down a bit harder, enough to encourage me to get further under the tent. While part of me, the contrary part, made me want to stay, to not acknowledge my choice of seat might not have been the best, and I was tired of getting wet. I was also not real fond of the idea of getting closer to the Reverend after that rather hard glance of his.
In the end I relented, mostly because Hatty seemed to instantly lose all interest in me the moment he looked away. With a grunt I slouched down next to Jerm one row up, easing down so low in the chair that my head could rest on the back. It was metal, and a bit too hard for napping though, so that avenue was clearly out. I’d have to find some other way to pass the time.
A slap on my chest jarred me awake. I sat bolt upright, eyes wide, mouth open to go to cussing. I stopped when I saw Jerm with a finger across his lips, leaning real close.
“Jesus Marsh, you was starting to snore. Folks is staring,” he whispered.
I looked around, and there were a few glares pointed in my direction. I didn’t have enough shame to be embarrassed thankfully, so I settled back into my chair, though not quite as low this time. I could see Jerm eyeing me, making sure I didn’t drift off back to sleep. That was fair, but I knew Jerm didn’t have the best attention span.
The rain seemed to have mostly stopped, but it was full dark out now. The few lights that had been strung up in the tent cast everything in faint orange. What thunder I could hear sounded real distant, and no lightning struck as long as I watched .
I was mulling over ducking out the back, now that the storm had passed, making a tactical retreat before the sermon could end. I mean, I’d gone above and beyond, spending all damn day hunting after Inez. No one could blame me for calling it a day. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Forrest had called the cops and reported the car stolen at this point.
I had every right to leave...but I would be lying if I wasn’t fucking curious. Where had she gone off to? Was she dead? Or just shacked up somewhere, maybe getting clean. Or cleaner, according to Jerm. There was one last person I could talk to, even though my gut was telling me to keep a wide berth.
Hatty. He’d have to know when she left if nothing else. And if I didn’t follow up, it would nag at me. All I had to do was wait til the end, ask him real quick, then I’d be done and free to go home and drug it right up for the rest of the week, til the money and fun ran out. I’d more than earned it.
Besides, things looked to be wrapping up. Some old guy was walking from row to row with what I guessed was the collection plate. It was a dull grey platter, and I could hear the clink of change hit it. Those were outliers though, most folks were dropping bills inside. I’m not gonna lie, my eyes got sorta hungry watching that.
If the old man had an opinion on us poor sinners in the back row, he had the good grace to not show it on his face. Jerm had a wadded up dollar that he dropped in amongst the rest, then glanced my way. I smiled, in what I hoped was a serene, beneficent smile. Something befitting of Jesus.
I pulled my biggest bill out. “Can I get some change?” I whispered.
The old man nodded, a smile crinkling the wrinkles around his eyes. I made myself some change out of the plate, carefully scooping up a handful of bills. I quickly folded the twenty six dollars in half and tucked them into my pocket, before the man could realize what had happened. This stop was turning out to be more profitable than I had imagined. I might have to start going to church on occasion.
There was some more singing, and a good bit more praying after that, but the sermon drew to a close maybe ten minutes later. I let out a loose rattling sigh. I was oddly exhausted. Watching that man rant and rave could take it right out of ya.
Jerm stood first. “Marsh, you reckon you can run me home? I have to catch a ride tonight, Dempsey has work. I got,” he fumbled in his pocket coming up with a small handful of change, “three bucks for gas if you can.”
I thought about the six bucks I had just stolen. “Sure, for three bucks I can do that. Your place ain’t too far from where I need to be.” It was actually sort of on the way, but no way I was gonna tell him that. Then he’d want the ride for free, and the Howard Marsh Charity for Wayward Drug Addicts was closing up shop for the night, and probably the rest of my given life.
“Great,” he said, though smartly he didn’t go ahead and hand me the money. Old habits die hard. “Lemme just say my goodbyes real quick, and I’ll be good to go.”
“No rush. I got some talking I need to do as well I reckon,” I replied, eyeing Hatty from across the tent. He was shaking hands with a small cluster of people, all of whom seemed to be gushing about the sermon he’d just passed. Why was beyond me, but that wasn’t for me to judge. Instead I hitched up my pants, metaphorically speaking, and strode over to make my acquaintance.
Face To Face
I ended up being at the back of the short line of people wanting to jawjack, which befuddled me. I mean, hadn’t we all just heard this guy talk for the past hour and a half? What more needed to be said really? But I guess it was human nature; folks had to go suck up to the teacher after class, to show they understood the lesson. Even if the teacher was skipping town in a few days.
A few folks were asking him to stay longer, that much I did hear. One old woman who I didn’t recognize, but from her looks reeked of old money, was trying to convince him to open a church, and she sounded like she was willing to help put up the money to at least rent a place. It was hard for her to get the point across, with that usual reticence of talking about money that those deep south old money people had, but I was pretty good at reading between the lines.
Hatty was an expert at deflection though, turning down all offers and requests without making it sound like he was. I bet half those people didn’t even realize they were walking away with nothing. He was so smooth. He might be fire at the pulpit, but he was smooth butter away from it.
When it finally came my turn he reached out a massive ham of a hand. I didn’t really want to shake it, knowing he was gonna be the type to try and pure crush me with a shake. I was surprised though, he shook firm, but not outrageously so. Not much I hate more than someone who thinks there is a straight line correlation between how hard you shake and how much of a man you are.