by Billy Coffey
David Ramsay believed yes. He always had, deep down. Not simply because Alvaretta Graves had power, but because the Holler had none. Ours was a cursed place. Maybe always had been. Not because of the mines or the mountain, not even because of the witch, but because the people themselves had lived unclean. Reverend had told Bucky as much, days ago. It held truer now. Crow Holler needed the Lord, friend, and yet the Lord would never come to a place such as this. Not as long as those who called upon Him did so through lying lips and blackened hearts.
Outside, he heard the wooden doors of the church open and shut.
Sitting there behind a desk that had spawned sermons aplenty, our Reverend believed. Oh friend, he truly did. Not only because of his own sin, but because he had seen Stu Graves’s empty plot with his own eyes and now saw the bottoms of two dirt-crusted boots in the crack at the bottom of his office door. They did not move from their place, those boots, only sank into the dark blue carpet as bits of dirt and mud fell from the sides. The Reverend found he could not swallow.
A soft rap on the wood.
He called in a weak voice from behind his desk, “Who’s there?” And when no voice returned, “Leave this place in the name of the Lord.”
I know the preacher wondered if it was Stu Graves or Alvaretta’s helper that knocked at his door—the hand of death or that of darkness. He couldn’t know for sure without turning that knob, and that knob would never be turned. The town had let evil in, but David Ramsay would not. No, he would not ever. And so he remained there shaking behind that worn leather Bible, knowing not what sought him that lonely afternoon. Neither did the Reverend know what bade those two muddy boots to finally turn and leave, his prayers or his tears.
-2-
The only thing the mayor wanted to get clear with Scarlett was she couldn’t be out of his sight now, not until everything was done. No more going alone, no more spending time with her friends. Scarlett didn’t look to care much for that idea, as I’m sure you’d guess. She even went so far as to take out her little pen and scribble Prisoner on her pad. Wilson didn’t care a whit what she wrote, that was the way things had to be.
“You were at the cemetery. That grave is empty. Don’t you understand?”
She didn’t. Any of it.
They were at the house by then. Wilson had locked all the doors and drawn the blinds. He peered out at the empty road from their living room window, watching the day begin to wane.
“This is what it comes to,” he muttered. “Spending the rest of my days hiding. She said she wouldn’t rest. Nobody believed her. Wally died. Crops failed. Business left town. Nobody believed her. I didn’t. Not even when your momma’s cancer came.”
He snapped the blinds shut and looked at his daughter. Her brow had wrinkled.
“Never mind. You should go get dressed for church. I’ll have to be there tonight. That means you’re going too. We still don’t know who it was that hurt you the other day, and I’m thinking it’s whoever’s thrown in with Alvaretta. They’ll come for us first, Scarlett. Stu or the other. Alvaretta’s gonna send them here.”
He was ready for Scarlett’s protest, but not her tears. They came slow like a spring shower, drop by drop, curling around her plump cheeks. Then came a torrent that seemed to pour from the girl’s very soul. She buckled and collapsed onto the wood floor, her mouth crying out I don’t understand though she produced no sound.
Wilson told her it would all be okay even if he knew by then it wouldn’t, because that’s what good daddies tell their kids. They would figure a way through this. Faith and honesty, Wilson said, that’s what they needed. Scarlett nodded against his chest.
They sat holding each other and rocking away their fears on that cold living room floor, seeking and (I believe) finding faith enough to believe they’d be together always. But I guess the honesty part came harder for them both. Scarlett never wrote it was Tully Wiseman who’d attacked her, not in the name of the witch but for his ailing little girl. And Wilson never once said the reason Stu Graves would come for them first was because Wilson had been the one who killed him.
-3-
I’d say word of Stu Graves’s return from the hell to which he’d surely gone would’ve gotten out without Angela Vest’s help, but it would’ve been a whole lot slower. She hit the phone as soon as she got over the shock of seeing that empty casket and called everybody she knew on the drive home. When the battery on her cellular finally winked away and died, she set that right down and picked the phone in her trailer right up. There was much to discuss all that afternoon and early evening.
Yet even with all the excitement down to the cemetery, all everybody wanted to gab about was the one among us (or the two, if you hold to what Hays Foster said) who had taken up with the witch. I know that might seem strange, but it ain’t really. Not to say there weren’t nobody scared to death of what the witch had conjured from the grave or what her plans for Stu were. They was terrified, and you’re about to find out just how much when I tell you what went on at revival that night. But see, we all had the benefit of knowing what the demon was now. Didn’t make a difference if it was Alvaretta’s husband back from the dead or some fire-breathing hound from hell, once a thing’s got a name, it ain’t so horrible anymore. If a thing’s got a name, you can kill it.
But the one helping Alvaretta? That was still a mystery to be solved. And since nobody knew for sure who it was, it could be anybody. And friend, there is where Angela and her friends sank their teeth.
So far that afternoon, Angela had spoken with Belle Ramsay and Maris Sullivan, as well as Lorraine Wiseman, Tully’s wife. Lorraine had brought up the fact that Medric had been acting awful strange of late, even before the kids had their party up on the mountain. She had it on good authority (that authority being Tully, which made Angela question just how good it was) that Medric had taken to sneaking away from town over the years, heading to parts unknown before slinking back to the funeral parlor. He was always a funny sort of man, dealing in death like he did. And who do you think was the one who put Stu in the ground to begin with? Yessir, Lorraine said, that would be Medric Johnston. She remembered when Stu died, said her momma and daddy both had seen him inside that casket. Said they’d both spoke for years how mad Alvaretta’d been over having to put her husband in the ground with all the townfolk, too, and how Alvaretta and Medric sure did talk a lot in the days after.
Belle didn’t think it was Medric and said she found it hard to believe anyone in Crow Holler would dare even step foot on Alvaretta’s front porch, much less agree to her bidding. She did, however, confess to Angela that Naomi had grown worried of the way Hays had been acting. Angela perked her ears but said nothing directly to that, as Bucky and Cordy both were sitting just across the kitchen table and staring at her. Belle said she was sure it was nothing, teenage years were hard on every boy, but maybe Cordy should make a little gap between her and her boyfriend for a while. Some space, Belle said, “for the Holy Spirit to dwell in.” Angela asked if the Reverend might have any ideas as to who it could be. No, David didn’t know either. He’d been shut up in his office all day readying his spirit for revival, so Belle promised she’d ask her husband later. Yes, she’d make sure to call and let Angela know what he said. How’s Cordelia? Naomi’s the same. Doc Sullivan said he’d call to check on her but hasn’t yet. Isn’t it strange how no one’s seen him about? He hasn’t even been to revival. Maris came alone last night.
According to Maris, that was because her husband was tired. She tried her best to get out of Angela the name of the person who’d dare accuse our doctor of such a thing, but Angela had never been one to reveal her sources. Maris said if anybody would take up with the witch, it’d be those Klansmen that was around. Hate-filled people, she said. Angela said there hadn’t been Klan in Crow Holler for years. Maris said she knew better. She had it on good authority Chessie Hodge was the leader of them all.
By evening time Angela’d tangled and untangled the phone cord around her finger so
much all the spring had gone out of it. She’d write down a name someone gave her on a scrap of paper and slide it over to Bucky. He’d hold it up and look at Cordelia, who looked sadder and sadder every time. He asked Cordy if she wanted to go out on the porch with him. She was at the door before Bucky could even get the words out.
They sat overlooking the big hole in the ground where Angela’s roses used to grow. Tire marks still dotted the yard; one look was all Bucky needed to know they were different from the ones he’d seen at Alvaretta’s. Had he taken a closer look at the rubber on Joe Mitchell’s Toyota when he’d been in the Exxon a couple days before, Bucky would’ve known who to charge for wrecking his yard. As it was, he could only stare and think.
“Vy is Momma thpreading rumerth?” Cordy asked.
“She ain’t the only one, case you weren’t listening. Just her way. Your momma can’t help it. People always compare themselves to others. I guess it helps us know where we stand with everybody else. Problem is, every time we compare who we are to how we think someone else is, we always come up short. Somebody’s always better looking or richer or liked better. But when we gossip?” He shook his head. “That’s different. That’s the only way we can compare ourselves to somebody else and come out looking better than they are.”
“Who do you compare yourthelf to?”
“Nobody. Least, nobody better than me. One man, maybe. He was the worst man I ever knew.”
That was the most Bucky had ever said about the bad man from his childhood, and I could almost swear he hadn’t meant to say any of it. But I guess he thought he’d turned down that road now and so might as well drive it.
Bucky wasn’t the only person in Crow Holler burdened by the past that day. Wilson and David suffered from it too. What set Bucky apart from them, though, was he decided to do something about it.
-4-
“I was just a kid when your Granddaddy Vest died,” Bucky said. “He went in the army cause there weren’t no work here. Wasn’t so bad. It was a steady check, and that meant just as much back then as it does now. Anyway, the plan was me and your grandma was gonna move up to Fort Eustis because that’s where he got stationed, but then he got killed in that training thing.
“It was a bad time for your granny. She had me to care for and no money coming in but what the government gave her, which weren’t enough to last. What helped was she started taking in boarders for the upstairs bedroom. You know that house, Cordy, up a ways from Harper’s Field.
“Anyway, most the people we rented to was passersby from one place to another. I won’t call them vagrants, but I don’t have another name for them. They’d come off the train in Mattingly and find their way up here, looking for what odd jobs they could get. I’d say they were all okay men except for one. Called hisself Tom. I don’t know if that was his name or not.”
Bucky looked out across the waning evening. It had been evening when the bad man came too.
“He stayed near a week. Worked a couple days up at the grocery for Landis’s daddy, sweeping the lot and taking the trash and whatnot. What money he got for pay went to the bottle. Folk could drink in Crow Holler back then. Time come for Momma to collect the rent, Tom couldn’t pay. He wouldn’t leave when Momma said he had to and said maybe they could work something out. I was too young to know what that meant. Guess you’re old enough, though.”
He couldn’t look at her—a good thing, because Cordelia couldn’t look at him either.
“She finally chased him off, but Momma knew Tom’d be back. I hoped he wouldn’t because she said he was a bad man. Next night, we was eating supper when he busted in the door. You could smell the liquor on his breath the minute he come in. I hollered out, ‘Momma, the bad man’s here,’ and she screams to me to run and get help. I got pushed down before I could get past him. Sent me sprawling. All I could do was crawl under the couch.
“Momma was screaming. Tom started shouting, ‘I’m gonna start tearing stuff up woman if you don’t give me what I want.’ I looked out and saw him bend her over the table and start tearing at her dress, and then I just shut my eyes. But I heard it all. Heard Momma crying and heard plates falling off the table, food and drink and the apple pie she’d made for dessert. I laid there under that couch and bit my lip until it bled because I was so scared, but I heard it all. Sometimes I still do.”
Inside, the phone rang again. Bucky wiped at his face.
“Momma did her best to set it all aside. She told me after that the only thing she cared about was I was safe. Tom, he did what he did and then went on. Nobody ever saw him again. Sometimes I wonder what came of him. I hope he died hard. I hope he screamed as he went to the grave. Lord help me, I do.
“She was a strong woman, your granny. You remember when she passed. Whole town turned out. Pastor Ramsay said she lived a good long life, but that ain’t how I saw it. To me, my momma died the day she got bent over that table and raped with me listening underneath that sofa. That’s the day I said I was gonna be a policeman. It’s all I ever wanted to do, Cordy. Always thought constable was the closest I’d get. I know that ain’t much, constabling. But it’s all the town ever had to give me and so I took it, and I think they’re all thankful I did. Because I kept them safe, you see? I made sure of it. Now, here I am. Sheriff Bucky Vest.”
“I dun’t want you to be theriff.”
He winked at her, spilling a tear. “I know. I got to be, though. There’s bad men in the world like that Tom, and there’s bad women like Alvaretta Graves, and there’s got to be people who stand between them and good people like you. But all this?” He held up the papers in his hand. “I can’t do all this, Cordy. Keep watch on Medric, who’s my own friend? Hays, whose baby is inside you? And the doc? Lord help us, Danny Sullivan don’t even know who Alvaretta is. But now I got a town full of people scared to death. I don’t know what happened to get Stu out of the ground. I don’t even know what it is Alvaretta wants. But I know something’s coming. I can feel it, and I just don’t know what I’m gonna do when it gets here. I ain’t even got a gun no more. Alvaretta scared me so bad I dropped it and ran. My daddy’s gun, Cordelia. What’s people gonna say?”
“I wun’t tell anyone.”
“That ain’t gonna make things better.”
“Vu need thumone to help.”
“Ain’t gonna be nobody to help me, Cordelia.”
And there wasn’t. Bucky was all alone in this, and he knew that. Wasn’t nobody to tell him what he should do, just a crowd who wanted him to keep them all safe. Wasn’t nobody who could give things to him straight—
He sat up. “Come on. I gotta get you and your momma down to revival, then I got to go somewhere.”
“Vere you going?”
“Someplace I ain’t supposed to know about. Because you’re right. I need help.”
-5-
Wasn’t no revival up on Campbell’s Mountain that evening, but I guess you could say there was a service. Alvaretta Graves had never been one to love the Lord. Living was wood and stone and cold wind, it was work and sweat and suffering. Wasn’t no place for God in such a world as that, though maybe there was room enough for faith. Everybody’s got to believe in something, friend. Alvaretta? She believed in hate, and she believed in stoking the fire of that rage nightly.
Out back of her tiny little cabin lay a worn path that led to the edge of the woods. Alvaretta walked that path now. Her ears were tuned to what news the wind brought and the howls and yelps of her gathering children. The footsteps behind her grew closer. She looked to the ground, where a shadow like the mountain itself grew beside her own.
“You’ll stay here with the children,” she said. “Me first, then you after. Watch the trees.”
The shadow stopped as Alvaretta’s own continued on. Playful barks called out from behind her, tiny bays like near words mixing with the grunts and not-words of what played with them. And though the years had not given themselves over to happiness, Alvaretta’s mouth broke into a small grin. That smile was
short-lived, though. The cut on her lip left by the Bickford whore made her wince, turning the grin to a scowl. No matter. This was no place for tittering.
She reached the edge of the woods and cleared away the roots that had taken hold there, brushing aside the fallen leaves and scurrying a spider. Only then did Alvaretta stand and bow. What she fell into was not prayer—never let what she did be called a prayer, friend—but more a silent conversation that took place in a troubled spirit. Twice now, town people had come. First children and then the sheriff, though if that man Bucky Vest was truly the law now, Alvaretta believed she had nothing to worry herself over. He’d been as scared as the Bickford whore when he scampered off, and for good reason. Had he remained, he would have died. There’d have been no choice, because he would have seen what she had hidden inside. Her secret.
Her love.
“Keep them away,” she whispered. “Do my bidding now, as I did yours.”
She was still then, listening to that cold mountain breeze with that same troubled look, and when she had heard enough, there was only one thing to say.
“Then get me ready.”
-6-
It didn’t make much sense to Angela why Bucky wasn’t planning to stay long at revival that night. Law business was what he told her, nothing more. He’d drop her and Cordy off and be back in time for the benediction. None of it would work out that way, though. That was plain enough as soon as Bucky got to town and saw all the guns.
Everybody had them. Rifles and shotguns, pistols, even some black powders. Briar alone had brought with him enough barrel iron to invade a small country. Reverend Ramsay and Belle stood on the church steps between the people and the front doors, telling everybody they’d have to leave all that outside. Well, nobody wanted a part in that. Preacher had already gotten into a shouting match with Raleigh Jennings, David saying the house of the Lord was no place for weapons of mass destruction, Raleigh answering he wasn’t going nowhere unarmed so long as a dead man and an agent of the devil was on the loose.