I shouldn’t have asked. A second later, a gun blast split the air.
“Dagnabit, Dewey, keep that thing outta my face!” That had to be George.
“Whatdya mean? Why’d you think it was me?”
“’Cause I’m standing right next to ya, that’s why, and thanks to you I won’t be hearin’ nothin’ for the next year.”
“Anybody hurt?” Bristol sounded like he was up by the front door already. Nimble-footed guy, that Bristol. “Must have lost power.”
Frankly, the way things had been going, I was surprised we hadn’t lost it before this—or been swallowed up in an earthquake or washed away in scalding lava. I scrambled to my knees before Dewey managed to shoot off another round. The old saying tells us that the Lord works in mysterious ways; I guess He thought putting the fear of Dewey with a pistol into me would show me the error of my ways. “Lord,” I murmured, “I’m truly sorry about that drinking comment.” I started to pull myself upward and felt a strong arm reaching down to help me. I latched on. “Hey, thanks.”
No answer.
Someone produced a flashlight and moved it around the room. I turned to whoever it was who helped me up, and no one was within thirty feet of me. “Okay, Lord, now it’s just plain getting weird.”
Apparently, nobody was hurt by the gunshot, at least not enough to complain about it, unless Dewey managed to shoot him dead. That was unlikely unless the hapless victim had been hanging from the ceiling above the spot where Dewey and George were stationed beneath one of the windows, since that’s the direction the bullet went. Our 250-year-old beamed ceiling, a venerable piece of historical architecture that had, thus far, escaped destruction by fire, tornadoes, fallen trees, the War of Independence, the Civil War, and now this blizzard, finally succumbed to a blast from Dewey Wyandotte’s rusty pistol.
Chapter Nineteen
Emma was eating beef stew—was that a feather?—with the other women around a plank table in the kitchen when the lights went out.
“Well, I wondered when that was going to happen,” Melanie said. “Hold on, ladies. I’ve got about four hundred candles around here someplace.”
A chair grated across the floor and a warm hand touched her shoulder as Melanie walked by. Cabinet doors opened and thirty seconds later, Melanie lit a candle and placed it in the center of the table. The flame cast long shadows that sprang to the ceiling and back again as it glimmered brightly, dimmed, and flickered to life once more. “More coming in just a second,” Mel said.
Emma smelled the sulphur odor wafting through the air as Melanie lit one candle after another and placed them along the table and countertop. Puddles of amber lit the room. Sadie offered to help her set some of them in the dining room and beyond. They were back in less than ten minutes. Emma envisioned the comforting candlelight that surely filled the rooms by now.
“Well, at least it’s cozy now, isn’t it?” Melanie said as she came back into the kitchen and brought the coffeepot to the table. “We’d better get our refills now. That burner won’t stay hot for long with the power out.” She refilled everyone’s cup. “I wonder how they’re doing over at the church.”
“Oh, they’ll be fine,” Hazel said. “After all, what harm could come to them in a church?”
Delbert Jackson lurched around the corner and stumbled into the kitchen. “Hey! What’s going on here?” He was rubbing his right knee and swearing. “Just what kind of a place is this, anyway? No lights, no food, no alcohol …”
“No swearing,” Mel finished for him. “I wondered where you were, Mr. Jackson. We could have used your help getting the candles set out. It appears that the storm has finally taken out our power. As far as food goes, well, there’s plenty here, and you’re welcome to it. I knocked on your door an hour ago, but you didn’t answer. I heard snoring, so I assumed you were taking a nap.”
“Again,” Sadie said.
Del glared at both of them. The glow of candlelight did little to enhance his appearance. In fact, he looked even more menacing than usual.
“And as for alcohol, well, you’ll just have to do without until you can get yourself out of here, I guess. Fair enough?”
Del sneered. “It’ll have to be, won’t it?”
To her credit, Melanie didn’t reply to his sarcasm. “After you eat, Mr. Jackson, I’m going to need you to go outside and shovel out that path again—the one between here and the church.”
“In this stuff? Not on your life, lady. I’m staying right here where it’s warm and dry.”
“Well, it’s comfortable for now,” Mel said, “but without the furnace we’re going to have to depend on the fireplaces for warmth. So I guess that means that after you’re finished with the shoveling, I’ll need you to bring in several armloads of firewood.”
Emma detected satisfaction in Melanie’s voice; she knew for certain she liked having Mr. Jackson put in his place. She hadn’t had any personal contact with him, but his grumbling could be heard from everywhere in the inn. Melanie didn’t deserve his brusqueness. Emma was reminded of her own ill humor just a little while before at Melanie’s expense and felt ashamed. How could this woman be so cheerful, so forgiving under circumstances so bizarre? Emma didn’t know, but she couldn’t help admiring the younger woman.
Hazel Parry prepared a plate for Del and offered him the last of the warm coffee in the carafe. He grudgingly accepted the food and coffee, but said nothing. He ate in silence, the ladies standing around him in a semi-circle, and when he was finished, they leaped to take his plate and cup from him. “Big on makin’ a man hurry, aren’tcha now?” he said.
“Mr. Jackson, the sooner you get out there and get those jobs finished, the sooner you’ll be back in here where it’s warm and dry. Besides, the ladies have been baking all afternoon and I’m sure you’ll want to sample everything they’ve made,” Mel said. “Here’s your coat. Don’t forget your hat and gloves—and here, take this scarf. If I were you, I’d wrap it around your mouth and nose. Now be careful out there, all right?”
Emma couldn’t help but wonder if Melanie’s apparent compassion for the man’s comfort and safety was real, but given her temperament, it probably was. She’s a better woman that I am. Emma would have shoved him out the door and locked it behind him. But she wasn’t the woman Melanie was, and she never would be. She turned to see Sadie Simms staring at her. “Something I can help you with, Sadie?” she said.
Sadie continued to stare then shook her head and walked away. Emma couldn’t stand the woman, but she felt sad nevertheless. Why did she affect people like that? Why couldn’t they just like her for who she was? But who was she? The rich old woman who doesn’t need anybody—or the little girl who needs anybody who’ll have her?
She walked to the dining room. The room glowed with the shimmer of a dozen candles. The flickering light reflected the rich red cherry finish of the eighteenth century dining furniture, the pewter and polished silver, the antique mirrors hanging on the walls. The glimmers of amber light danced with the brass chandelier and flirted with the window panes, vibrant and alive inside the walls despite the brutal wind and relentless deluge of snow that tortured the land just beyond.
Emma remembered she left her mug of coffee on the kitchen table. She walked back to get it and then with her cup in hand, she wandered to the kitchen window to take a peek at the storm. She moved a candle aside a few inches to avoid being scorched and peered out. Cold air hovered around the glass as if it, too, was losing the battle between the safety of the house and the peril of the ferocious storm outside.
The snow was heaped, like acrobats in a delicate balancing act, atop every bump in the terrain—from fence posts to bird houses to the shrubs and herbs in the yard she remembered so well from her younger years. She and her sister, on a surreptitious foray from the grounds of Rivermanse, used to sneak into the herb garden and rub the soft, velvety leaves of the lamb’s ear that the lady of this house—What was her name?—once told them could be used as bandages. Or they’d pi
nch off a delicate stalk of chives and smell the oniony scent that lingered on their fingers for hours. In the springtime, the chive blossoms, purple globes that sat upon sturdy stalks, waved and danced in the freshening breeze. But now it was all buried beneath hillocks of snow, fluid mounds constantly being sculpted and molded as if an unseen artist scraped this, dabbed that, added a little more over here, thinned it out a bit over there.
If she squinted past the snow that frantically battered the window, she could just see Mr. Jackson out in that frozen tempest. He stood huddled deep in his coat, shovel in hand, but he didn’t seem to be doing any shoveling. He simply stood there, gesturing occasionally as if talking to himself. The snow twirled around him, drifting this way and that, first enveloping him completely, then clearing away long enough for her to see him clearly for an instant. The wind shifted, and she watched as he turned away from the gust, shoulders hunched, and twisted his head to escape the icy blast.
That’s when she saw the figure standing just beyond him—dressed from head to toe in white.
And it was looking directly at her.
Chapter Twenty
Once we figured out no one was hurt by the shot Dewey skewered the ceiling with, Bristol commandeered his pistol then asked each man in turn for his respective weapon. “Just until we know where we stand, fellas,” he said, as he laid them on a pew along the back wall. “No sense someone getting hurt now that we don’t have any light in here.” They all grumbled, but it was hard to ignore the hole in the ceiling that George, Dewey’s crime-busting buddy, took great pleasure in illuminating with his flashlight.
“Any more flashlights?” I said.
Together we managed to scrape up six and Pastor Parry took one to search his office for candles. He came back ten minutes later with several. Before long, shadows of weaponless men danced the walls of the sanctuary. Even with no power, a newly-delivered camel, men after Bristol, and a raging blizzard outside the church doors, I felt safer than I had a few minutes before.
Dewey was still proclaiming his innocence in the “hole in the ceiling affair” and George was just as adamantly pronouncing him guilty when Sherman DeSoto sidled up next to me. “Hey, Pastor … uh ...”
“Foster. Pastor Foster. But call me Hugh.” I steered him toward a pew, and we both sat. “Hope you got warmed up, son. Something on your mind?”
“Well, yeah.” He looked over his shoulder and jerked his thumb at the writing on the back wall. With the doors open, it read “ki eR.” “What’s up with that?”
“Not sure. Sometime last night somebody broke the lock on the back door and painted that. Don’t know why they’d do it or what they meant, but that’s what we’re doing here.”
Understanding dawned. “I wondered why you guys were all here waiting for me and Sophie—with guns, no less.”
I laughed “I never thought of that, Sherman. You probably did wonder what on earth we were doing here in the middle of a blizzard—armed, at that.” I pointed to the men, some at their stations, other milling around the sanctuary. “We didn’t want to take any chances, so here we are. I can’t imagine anyone dumb enough to be out in this storm—no offense, Sherman—but it was just as bad out there last night as it is tonight, and they still broke in. If they’ve got more than just defacing walls on their mind, who knows what they’ll try next?”
He nodded that orange head of his and craned his neck to look around the room behind him. “Do you think these guys are gonna be able to fight off anyone?”
Good point. “Well, they might be older than … say, you or me, but they’ve got a lot invested in this church. It’s very old, as you’ve probably guessed, but it’s a lot more than that. This is where these men and their families have worshipped for generations. They’re not about to let anyone do anything more to it—not on their watch.”
Sherman took that in then looked confused again. Poor kid. He probably spent more time wondering than he did breathing. “Where are the guys in white?”
“Guys in white? I don’t follow you.”
“The guys in white I saw back down the road a piece. They were riding in that Hummer I saw parked over in that little road you pointed to. Musta been five of ’em—well, four in white and one other guy was drivin’. Kind spooky-looking, if you ask me.”
Now I was as confused as he was. “I guess I don’t know what you’re talking about. What Hummer?”
“The one between this here church and that place over there.” He pointed again, this time making sure my eyes followed his finger as if he were teaching a first grader about the laws of aerodynamics. “That place. That inn, you called it. The Hummer’s parked right beside it. You just don’t forget something that big, ‘specially with four big guys all dressed up like they’re going to a Halloween party.”
A little niggle of fear crept up my neck; like a spider crawling into my hair. It was all I could do to keep from swatting at the back of my head. “Let me get this straight. The Hummer you saw parked between here and the inn—when you moved Sophie—that’s the same one you saw along the road somewhere with guys dressed all in white riding in it? Is that right?”
He bobbed.
“You’re sure? Absolutely sure?”
Bob, bob, bob. “Yep. I remember because it’s white, and I thought it was strange that a white Hummer would have all those …”
“… guys dressed in white.”
“Bingo.”
“Okay, think for a minute here. Just where did you see these guys, and what time was it?”
“Well, first time was at that gas station about a hundred miles back down the big highway. You know the one, about sixty, seventy miles before you turn off on your road here. Has a sign out front says Cokes on sale for ninety-nine cents.”
Right. The station with Coke on sale. That narrowed it down a bit; probably only about six hundred of them in Virginia alone. I envisioned my spider being joined by about a hundred of his friends. “I think it’s a BP, right?”
“Sounds about right. Anyway, that’s why I stopped, ’cause Coke was on sale.” He scratched his head. “Okay, that was before I stopped to eat—went to that McDonald’s a ways down from there. Wanted to get something to eat before they shut down on account of the snow and all.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “Go on.”
“That must’ve been about four o’clock yesterday afternoon. Yeah, because it was just before I had to stop for the night. I wouldn’t have—stopped, that is—but the state police made me pull over ’cause of the snow. Said it wasn’t safe to drive in the dark anymore. On account of me hauling a trailer, I guess. So I pulled into a Days Inn and sure enough, there it was.”
“White Hummer?”
“Right. And those guys again. Only this time only one or two of them got out and then they got right back in again. Musta gone to the bathroom. Anyway, I lost ’em after that. They left the parking lot while I was at the desk asking where I could put Sophie for the night. Put her in a barn across the road. Nice guy, that farmer.”
“Good. But how do you know they came this direction?”
“What other direction is there to come? This is the only road going in or coming out of your town, in case you haven’t noticed, Pastor. Besides, I saw ’em heading straight on down the road, right on past the police cruiser just as slick as slime. He started to go after them, but he turned around right away. That Hummer could go places that cruiser wasn’t going to get to, no two ways about it.”
“So if you pulled into the Days Inn around, say … 5:00 p.m. and they took off from there around that time too, they could’ve reached Road’s End in a couple of hours, right? Three tops?”
“Yeah, once they got a head of steam up, they could probably make pretty good time. And there wouldn’t be any other cars on the road either. So yeah, I’d say they’d make it here around eight o’clock.”
I stood up. “Anybody seen Bristol?”
“Over here, Hugh.” Bristol was leaning against the back wall, arms crossed ov
er his chest, watching Dewey and George not watching the window. He headed our way.
“Sherman, I think you’d better tell Bristol what you just told me.”
“Sure enough.”
Five minutes later, Bristol was up to speed. The spiders had all laid eggs, and they all hatched and then called in reinforcements.
I looked at Bristol; he appeared grim.
“So you’re sure it was the same Hummer, Sherman?” Bristol said. “I mean it could have been another one, don’t you think?”
“Could’ve, I suppose, but with the guys in white suits in both of ’em?” Sherman said. He thought about it for a second then shook his head and said, “Nope. Has to be the same one.”
“Yeah, guess so. Not that many white Hummers.”
“No, that’s not it. It’s the license plate. I noticed it when I came back out to the truck after buying my Coke. I was talking to Sophie, and it caught my eye. I like figuring out those vanity plates you got here in Virginia, but I couldn’t make sense of this one. Wasn’t a Virginia plate, anyways.”
I dreaded hearing the answer, but I asked anyway. “What’d it say?” Please, dear God, don’t have it be what I think it’s going to be.
But it was.
Chapter Twenty-One
Emma nearly knocked the candle out of the window in her haste to leave. She couldn’t have seen that. She threw her mug on the counter and scurried away. She’d go lie down. All this commotion had tired her.
She passed Winnie Wyandotte coming into the room as she left. “Emma, I didn’t know you were in here.”
Emma didn’t even look up as she brushed past her. “Just leaving.”
“Well, I never,” Winnie said.
Now you have, Mrs. Wyandotte. Emma was in no mood to chat. Let Winnie say whatever she wanted to the rest of the women. It wouldn’t be anything new anyway. She climbed the stairs as quickly as the gloom and her arthritic knees would allow. She shut the door behind her and took a long overdue breath of air.
Misstep (The Road's End Series Book 1) Page 11