The Curse of Crow Hollow

by Billy Coffey

  They was all up front, see. Landis and Kayann, Bucky and Angela, Wilson and the Ramsays. They were all trying to get a handle on things from where they were. But not a one of them was toward the back, and that’s where the trouble started. The shelves were all but bare by then, everything gone or spilled or broken. But the last of the milk was still up for grabs—a single gallon of 2 percent and a few quarts of skim. Ruth Mitchell had returned with her husband, Joe, as soon as she’d gotten word the grocery might not be open for long (so said Helen Pruitt, who’d gotten it from Maris, who’d gotten it from someone she said “would intimately know if such a thing were true”), grabbing all she could get whether her family needed it or not. Same could be said for Lorraine Wiseman, who’d not only gotten news of Tully’s injury, but that Foster’s was running out of food. They both reached for that gallon of milk the same time, Lorraine gripping the handle and Ruth the base.

  Lorraine looked about ready to say that gallon was hers alone when somebody pushed past for one of the quarts of skim, running her straight into Ruth. Ruth pushed back (everybody always said Ruth Mitchell had a fire to her, Raleigh loved that in a woman), sending Lorraine into an empty stack of soda crates. Those crates tumbled right down onto Homer Pruitt, who’d come in looking for his Helen.

  And friend, that’s all it took.

  Bucky never saw all that happen, but he saw the wave it started. It rolled toward him from the back of the store slow and gathering, a wall of shouts and screams and fists meeting flesh, and by the time it reached the front, that wave crested and tumbled upon them all.

  Wilson tried to help but got caught in the throng. He didn’t see who hit him. David and Belle were brave enough to keep shouting for calm but not so courageous that they dove into the crowd. John David, though? Guess that boy’d been trained to run toward trouble rather than away, because he got Wilson off the floor before they both got trampled. Landis hollered for everybody to leave when a few hours ago he’d been praying for them all to come in, while Kayann stood pale and motionless. Angela ran from her register screaming Bucky’s name.

  You think about it, that could’ve been Bucky’s time to shine, the single moment when he rose above. But he eased away from all that pushing and punching instead, overcome by the sight of it all, and no one would’ve noticed had he not backed into the fire alarm stuck to the wall.

  The Klaxon went off like the angel of the Lord blowing his trumpet. Landis screamed Fire! and all that did was trade one panic for another. Everybody ran—the ones inside trying to get out, and the ones stuck outside trying to get in—and they all met in a wall at the front doors. Someone picked up a newspaper rack and threw it through the window. Another window broke and then another. Those able crawled for safety over shards that sliced their hands and legs. The siren’s wail shifted from loud to unbearable as Bucky clamored past bodies in search of Angela. He found her huddled and crying in the first aisle and grabbed her hand. They ran through Tully’s shop and out to the dock, and friend, I don’t think either of them started breathing again until they were halfway to the Foster home to get Cordelia.

  Everyone else in and around Foster’s gathered at the far end of the lot. No one went to their car or truck. Not a soul ran for home. I always thought that a queer thing. Even now, I don’t understand it. All them people just standing there, staring back at what remained of Landis Foster’s dream and legacy, their fight and anger gone. Those too stunned to cry laid their hands to the backs and heads of those who whimpered, holding them, trying to comfort, asking if any were hurt or still inside. Not a one of them paused to consider how it was that the kind and merciful people they were now could be so different from the violent and hateful people they’d been only minutes before. You ask me how that can be, I have no idea.

  You can’t figure folk.

  -7-

  It took awhile for everybody to scatter. When they did, it was with the slow, confused pace of a funeral procession, like they all could understand how such a thing had happened but not why. Most shuffled off with their heads hung in shame. Some managed to tell the ones nearest good-bye—ones they’d shoved and beaten and cursed over deodorant and cans of potted meat. A few even had the gall to tell Landis and Kayann they hoped things could be put back together before morning, they still had groceries to get.

  Landis went inside long enough to turn off that infernal alarm. He came back in a dead run, looking over his shoulder like he expected another crowd to be chasing him. His chest heaved and his face was drowned in sweat, or tears; now that I think on it, it was probably some of both. What few muscles grew on his body were locked and flexing.

  John David bent over Landis and told him to breathe deep, let his blood settle. Landis kept saying, “It’s gone, isn’t it, my whole life?” and nobody said a word because they knew it was. Kayann still had her hands over her ears. She didn’t pull them away, even when the horn stopped and Belle put her arms around her. Maybe Kayann didn’t feel that. I don’t think any of them could feel much at all.

  The Reverend was still there, too, along with Raleigh and Wilson. Belle turned to David and said, “Naomi’s at the house alone.”

  “No she isn’t,” John David said. He glanced up from Landis. “Briar picked her up a little bit ago.”

  The Reverend’s eyes flared. “You sent your sister to Chessie?”

  “I called Briar little bit ago. Said he’d take her out to the farm and get her settled. Chessie needed to know what happened.”

  “Chessie doesn’t need to know anything, boy.”

  John David straightened his back and took three long steps, putting his chin inches from his daddy’s nose. “You don’t get to tell me what’s wrong and right anymore,” he said. “And don’t you call me boy again.”

  You ask me, them two would’ve come to blows right then and there. It’d been building to that point for months. David thinking his boy had strayed from the Lord’s path, John David thinking his daddy’d lived too long in the Holler to understand the world beyond lay colored in something other than black and white. But Briar’s truck pulled into the lot right then, and that gave them both something other than each other to fret over.

  Chessie didn’t wait for her husband to walk around and open her door. She got out on her own this time, and in her expression lay both Kayann’s shock and Landis’s sorrow.

  “Where’s Naomi?” Belle asked.

  “Set up at the cabin with good food and safety,” Briar said. “She’s a strong girl and she’s fine, Belle Ramsay.”

  “What happened?” was all Chessie could say, and in a voice so soft and womanlike that John David had to look to see who’d spoke. “We’s up here only this afternoon, and all was well enough.”

  Mayor said, “I got a call from Raleigh saying there’s a run on the grocery. It was too late when I got here.”

  Chessie looked at the school’s principal.

  “Heard it from Ruth,” Raleigh said. “Angela told her Landis was gonna shut the doors.”

  “Angela said no such thing,” Landis snapped. “And shame on Ruth and you for thinking otherwise, Raleigh Jennings.”

  Briar studied the wrecked building. He rubbed his beard and reached into his back pocket for his pipe and tobacco. “Take forever to get this place back in order.”

  “What good is that?” Kayann asked. Her hands were gone from her ears, but her lips twitched like she could still hear that blaring horn. “They’ll just come back and destroy it again. They’re animals.”

  “They’re our neighbors,” the Reverend tried, though even he didn’t sound much convinced that was the case anymore.

  Wilson humphed. “In body, maybe. Not in deed.” He looked to the building as well, now shadowed in evening. “It’s like they were . . .”

  “Cursed?” the Reverend asked.

  Maybe Wilson had that word in mind. If he didn’t, he looked too run-down to argue about it.

  “This how it is, then?” Briar asked. “Witch lays a mark on us, so we
eat our own? That what Alvaretta had in mind all along?”

  No one had an answer for that, at least one that wouldn’t come out sounding like a yes. Yes, that’s how things were now. Yes, that’s what it’d all come to. Crow Holler was unraveling, and whether what happened inside Foster’s had been a part of Alvaretta’s design or not, there was no denying things felt that way.

  “Everybody’s here,” the mayor said. “Both council members; me; David, you and Belle know how important you are to this town; Chessie and Briar, y’all too.”

  Chessie offered a solemn nod. That’d been the closest Wilson had ever gotten to showing her a measure of respect.

  “We ain’t all gotten along in the past,” he said, “but we all come up together. We’re all family whether we like it or not, and Lord knows we love this town despite its hardships. This will grow beyond our strength to manage.” Wilson pointed to the broken hulk of the grocery for anyone needing proof. “Our children are sick. People are scared. Scared for their own, scared of the witch. And since they can’t go after Alvaretta, they’ll come after us, as sure as the sun rises and the rain falls. They already went after our kids. Hays. They went after Cordelia. They attacked my Scarlett.”

  Raleigh said nothing.

  “They’ve come after our children no less than the witch did, and with just as much evil in their hearts. And now they’re coming for our livelihoods. It was Landis first. Who’s to say it won’t be Medric’s next? Or the church, David.”

  “Never there,” the Reverend said. “Holy Fire’s God’s house.”

  “But the man who speaks for God has a little girl who crossed Alvaretta Graves. How long you think it’ll take for people to decide Naomi’s as much to blame as Scarlett or Hays or Cordelia? How much time passes before all their praying comes to silence, and they figure maybe it’s not Alvaretta who’s got too much power but you who holds too little? How long before they come after you, Chessie? Briar? Everybody already knows John David was on the mountain too. He left Hays and three girls alone at the mines. How much a stretch is it to think those were your orders?”

  Briar was already swelling up. “You’ll watch yourself, Wilson.”

  “I speak true,” the mayor said. “Chessie, you tell me I’m not.”

  The softness that had been in Chessie’s face hardened to its usual stone. “What’s in your mind, Wilson?” she asked.

  “People need authority now. They need to know there’s still rules and expectations. They need somebody to answer to. We all got our own lives and children to look after. I know I ain’t been with Scarlett near as much in the last days as I should. We’re running around and trying to get a handle on things, and all the while Alvaretta sits up on Campbell’s Mountain, cackling at us.”

  “Ain’t nothing to be done about that,” Raleigh said.

  “Yes, there is. We can appoint a sheriff.”

  “Town don’t need a sheriff,” Briar said. “Never has. We take care our own.”

  Kayann asked, “That what we’re doing, Briar?” She waved into the lot. “Is this taking care of our own?”

  “Who?” Chessie asked. She stared at Wilson. “You thought of that, Mayor? Tell me anybody dumb enough to put on a badge right now.”

  “Could call Mattingly,” Belle said. “Get Sheriff Barnett up here.”

  Wilson shrugged. “Won’t nobody heed Jake. He ain’t of the Holler. They may listen to Bucky, though.”

  “Bucky?” Raleigh laughed. He looked at Wilson and saw the mayor’s even stare, then laughed again anyway. “Now look here, Mayor. Bucky’s fine for making sure nobody poaches deer outta season and no kids graffiti up the schools, but what good’s he gonna do against the witch?”

  “What good’s anybody gonna do?” Chessie asked.

  Wilson pointed at her and said, “Exactly. Bucky’s wanted this a long while. He’s been constable since most of us graduated, and he loves doing it. Don’t know how many of y’all heard, but Homer let him go this morning. Bucky’ll jump at the chance, if only so it’ll provide for Angela and Cordy.”

  “Bucky ain’t man enough,” Raleigh said.

  “He was man enough to take care of things in there,” Wilson said, pointing at the store. “Seen him myself. Everything went to pot inside the grocery, Bucky pulled that fire alarm. He got everybody outta there before people could start killing each other.”

  “There’ll be an election,” David said. “That’ll take weeks.”

  “Not if I call this an emergency situation,” Wilson told him. “If this ain’t one, I don’t know what is. It’ll be a council vote. Right here, right now.”

  And there they stood, friend. Each one looking at the other, no doubt shocked all over again that things had come to this.

  “I vote yes,” Wilson said.

  Raleigh looked at Briar, who stuck his bottom lip out as if to say Beats me. Chessie looked over her shoulder to where her newest employee stood.

  “You been awful quiet back there, John David. I’d hear your counsel.”

  “He doesn’t have a say in this,” the Reverend said. Belle’s look shut him up quicker than Chessie’s could.

  “Don’t think you want what wisdom I got, Chessie,” John David said.

  “I’d have it anyways.”

  “All right, then. I think you’re all cowards.”

  Chessie grinned. She always did like that boy. Not a streak of fear left in him. That’s what made John David a dangerous man, and what makes him one still.

  “That ain’t true,” Wilson said. “This is what’s best for all. Raleigh, I’ll have your vote.”

  “Raleigh’s vote is no,” Chessie said. “You put Bucky in charge, somebody’s gonna die. Bucky, most likely.”

  “I need it from him, Chessie. Raleigh’s his own man.”

  But Raleigh wasn’t his own man. Not anymore. His vote was Chessie’s and had been ever since she’d gotten him back on the council, and though Raleigh hated her nearly as much as he hated Medric Johnston, he still said, “I vote no, Wilson.”

  “It’s no for us,” the Reverend said. “Me and Belle. Bucky’s a good man, and I’ll not let anyone accuse me of thinking different. But this is a fight that can’t be won with badges and guns.”

  “Vote ain’t yours, Reverend,” Wilson told him. “It’s on Landis now.”

  Landis looked up at the mention of his name. They were all staring at him, all except Kayann, who couldn’t seem to see any farther than the tip of her nose. Some in Crow Holler thought Hays had inherited his momma’s mind right along with her looks, and sooner or later one a them was gonna take a leap off the edge of reality. Kayann looked near that edge now.

  “Landis,” Wilson said. “I need your vote.”

  Landis looked at his wife. At the rest. At the store. You’d have to wonder if that man even knew what was going on.

  “I don’t care,” he said.

  For Wilson, that was good enough.

  -8-

  Angela looked at her family and asked the only question that had come to matter: “What do we do now?”

  She’d posed the very same a million times before for a million different reasons (after the chores were done; once the shelves at the grocery had been stocked; in the minutes following her and Bucky’s twice monthly attempts at lovemaking). But this time was different, as was the weight of feeling behind the words. This time Angela wasn’t looking for their next item to check off the day’s to-do list. She was trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives.

  The faith she’d meant to display over Bucky’s sudden unemployment had barely lasted twelve hours, left somewhere on the littered floors of Foster’s Grocery alongside toppled racks and smashed boxes of dishwasher detergent and powdered doughnuts. The Vests wouldn’t’ve made it long without a steady paycheck from the dump, however puny that check had been. But now all indications were Angela wouldn’t be getting paid anymore either. Foster’s was gone, bills were due, and the cupboards all but bare, so Wh
at do we do now?

  She paced in front of the window, cracking one knuckle and the next. Cordelia sat on the floor with her back propped against her daddy’s knee. Her blank expression hadn’t changed since they’d picked her up from the Fosters’ house—Bucky and Angela rushing in, silent against Hays’s questions, only to spout to Cordy everything that had happened on the way home. Poor Hays hadn’t had a clue what had gone on up to his daddy’s place of business.

  Now Bucky leaned back in the recliner and tried to find something on the TV. He dipped his chin toward Cordelia and said, “Maybe we should just talk about this later, Angie. It’s been a rough day. Lot’s happened.”

  Family finances were never discussed in their daughter’s presence, if for no other reason than Cordelia didn’t need to know how far the money had to be stretched to cover things like a big-screen television. Besides, the odds of a calm discussion of the money becoming a loud argument about everything else seemed too great. But now Cordelia looked up and shook her head. She turned her hands up as if to wave, then opened and closed them, telling her parents to talk. They all had to talk. No use hiding the truth anymore.

  Bucky was working on something inspiring to say when the doorbell rang. Angela gave a yelp that Bucky shook off. He threw down the recliner’s footrest and said, “Somebody gonna come up here and kill us, Angie, I doubt they’ll ring the bell first.” Even so, he made it a point to peek through the curtains before heading to the door. “Well,” he said, “this is either something promising or something awful.”

  He opened the door to Briar Hodge’s giant face. Behind him, the others crammed onto the trailer’s small front porch—Chessie and Wilson, Raleigh, the Fosters and the Ramsays—minus their kids.