by Alex Bledsoe
“And they never left, is that it?”
Craig shrugged. Before accepting this position, he’d done lots of research, but the gaps and questions far outweighed the facts. The contemporary Tufa claimed no knowledge of their origins, and some of the stories other people told about them were too absurd to accept. Depending on whom you believed, they were a lost tribe of Israel, a relic population from Atlantis, or descendants of mutinous Portuguese sailors marooned off the Carolina coast by Columbus. These wilder theories kept away any serious researchers, and that seemed to suit the Tufa just fine. “Not too many leave, no. And from what I hear, most everyone who leaves eventually comes back.”
“Like Bronwyn Hyatt?”
“Don’t know her, so I can’t say.”
The man blatantly looked Craig over, noting his sandy brown hair. “Are you … one of them?”
“No, I’m from Arkansas. Just moved here about six weeks ago with my job.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a minister.”
The man immediately looked down and away like a guilty child. Craig knew this reaction, had seen it often among Yankees or other people who spent little time in church. He couldn’t imagine that a TV news technician knew much about religion except for what he saw on television, and that was enough to give anyone pause. The man said, “Really? Wow, that must be some job. I mean, with the souls and all.…”
Craig smiled. “Relax. I left my brimstone in my working pants.”
“No, I mean, it’s … well. Thanks for the info, padre.” He offered his hand. “See ya around.”
“And the Lord will see you,” Craig said in a mock-ominous voice. The man hurried back to the motel without looking over his shoulder to see Craig’s grin.
Alone again, Craig drank the last of his coffee and considered heading home. The street was littered with debris from the parade; there were no real civic institutions, and each person was responsible for keeping up his or her own property. Since half the buildings along the highway were abandoned, the wrappers, plastic bottles, and cigarette butts might stay indefinitely. It made the place look especially pathetic, and even the mountains silhouetted against the fading sunset couldn’t erase the sense that all the life had been leeched from the town.
Craig crumpled his cup and tossed it into the garbage can, then went inside. The girl behind the counter, Lassa Gwinn, was heavyset, dark eyed, and very clearly smitten with the handsome young minister. Just out of high school, with both the distinctive Tufa look and the heritage of her particularly nasty clan (sympathetic locals had warned Craig to avoid the Gwinns whenever they came to town), she seemed to Craig like a buttercup blooming from a manure pile. Because her crush on him was so obvious, he tried to walk the line between being a supportive clergyman and leading the poor girl on.
She hummed a tune and plucked on a crude, homemade autoharp. Since selling him the coffee, she’d pulled back her hair and applied eyeliner. When she saw him she immediately turned red. “Hey, preacher,” she mumbled.
“I told you, Lassa, you can call me Craig.” The melody was a minor-key ditty with one of those inevitable progressions that, even though he’d never heard it before, made it sound instantly familiar. “What song is that?”
She almost answered. Her mouth opened, she took a breath to speak, but then her lips clamped shut and she looked up at him with a mixture of shame and aching regret. Her blush intensified. “No song,” she said. “Just me picking on strings.”
“It sure was pretty.”
“Well, I ain’t no musician,” Lassa said.
“You could’ve fooled me. Can you read music?”
Before she could reply, the front door slammed open, making Craig jump. A tall, lanky young man with a white cowboy hat strode through. He had the belligerent swagger of someone used to provoking fights, and the grin of someone who usually won them. He announced, “The night’s got my name on it, baby.”
“Hey, Dwayne,” Lassa muttered without looking at him.
“How’s things in Needsville tonight, Miss Lassa?” he called as he went to the beer cooler.
“Same as always,” she replied.
The man pushed past Craig with neither apology nor acknowledgment. He was so broad-shouldered, Craig could’ve hidden behind him. He put a boxed twelve-pack on the counter. “And a pack of Marlboros, too,” he said.
Lassa put the autoharp down and nudged a stepstool with her foot so she could reach the cigarettes. “Were you at the parade for your old girlfriend today?”
“Naw, I ain’t into that shit. Bunch of fuckin’ rubberneckers thinkin’ they’re seeing a goddamned hero.” He tore open the cigarette pack, pulled one out, and lit it at once. “She ain’t no hero. ’Scept when she’s on her back,” he added with an abrasive laugh.
Lassa blushed anew at his crudeness. She took his money, gave him his change, and watched him leave. He never even glanced at Craig. He climbed into a jacked-up ten-year-old Ford pickup and roared off, deliberately spinning tires so that loose gravel sprayed onto the store’s concrete patio.
Craig breathed through his nose long enough to get his temper under control, then said casually, “And just who was that?”
“That was Dwayne Gitterman,” Lassa said. “Bronwyn Hyatt’s old boyfriend.”
“No kidding. Didn’t sound like they parted on good terms.”
“She went off to the army without telling him.” Then Lassa seemed to self-censor and added, “Or so I heard. Probably wrong, though.”
“Why wouldn’t she tell him? Was she afraid of him?”
Lassa laughed. “Not hardly. I guess she just didn’t want the damn drama.”
“Seems like an unpleasant young man.”
“He’s an asshole. And he knows it. But he’s too tough for most anyone to do anything about it.”
“Except Bronwyn Hyatt?”
“Yeah, ’scept her, that’s for certain.”
Craig smiled. “That’s the thing about guys who think they’re tough: Eventually they always meet someone tougher. If he didn’t learn his lesson from Bronwyn, there’ll be another on down the line.”
As Dwayne’s taillights dwindled in the night, a Tennessee State Police cruiser pulled up to the store. The trooper got out and gazed after Dwayne as if contemplating pursuit. Then he sauntered, in that distinctive lawman way, into the store.
He was a big square-headed man with short hair and a mustache shot through with gray. His eyes were cold, like an attack dog waiting for someone to cross some unseen line. He gave Craig an appraising look. “Evening.”
Craig nodded. The trooper’s little metal name tag said PAFFORD. “Evening.”
“Don’t believe I’ve seen you in town before. You with them reporters?”
“No, sir,” Craig said, deliberately deferential. He’d met plenty of state troopers, and knew better than to get on their bad side. One minister in Cookeville got a ticket every Sunday for six weeks because he asked a trooper to stop cursing at his children in Walmart. “I’m Reverend Chess, of the Triple Springs Methodist Church.”
Pafford’s expression changed from intimidation to respect. He offered one huge hand. “Pleased to meet you, Reverend. My family and I attend the Methodist Church in Unicorn under Reverend Landers.”
“I know him well,” Craig said. “He’s been a big help to me in getting started.”
“Excuse me,” Pafford said, and turned to Lassa. “Did Dwayne Gitterman seem drunk to you?”
She shook her head. “No, sir, he bought some beer, but I didn’t smell any on him.”
He nodded, although his frustration was evident. “That’s still violating his parole, but I’d never catch him now. Dwayne never should’ve got out of the pen. He’s just marking time until he goes back. Same thing for his girlfriend, that damn Hyatt girl.”
“The war hero?” Craig asked, feigning ignorance.
“War hero.” Pafford snorted. “Wouldn’t surprise me if it turns out that her giving somebody a hand
job was the real reason for that crash in Iraq in the first place. She’s from a good family, but not all black sheep are boys. Do you know what they used to call her around here?”
Again Craig innocently shook his head.
“The Bronwynator. Because she tore up everything good and decent anywhere around her. I used to think ol’ Dwayne led her into it, but he’s been pretty good since she’s been gone. Now I reckon it was her prodding him.”
“Well, she doesn’t seem in any condition to be causing any trouble now, judging from what I saw on TV.”
“Ah, them Tufas heal up faster than mud gets on new dress pants. No offense, Lassa, you know what I mean.”
Lassa shrugged. “That’s not really an insult.”
“But mark my words, with Dwayne out of jail and Bronwyn home, it’s just a matter of time before they get together again and start making trouble.”
“What sort of trouble?” Craig asked.
“Dwayne deals pot and drives that damn truck like a maniac. He got sent up for robbing a convenience store a lot like this one. And before she went in the army, that Bronwyn spent more time on her knees than a preacher.” He suddenly turned red along his neck and ears. “I mean, er … no offense, Reverend.”
“None taken,” Craig said, keeping his casual smile.
Pafford leaned close. “These Tufas, though … they’re like some goddamn cult or something, if you ask me. Always shutting up just when they’re about to let something slip. If they start coming to your church, you better watch that your collection plate doesn’t come back lighter than it left.”
“I’ll do that.” His smile was harder than ever to hold.
Pafford excused himself, went back to his car, and drove away. Lassa said, “There are days I wish somebody would just shoot him.”
“Why is that?”
“He pulled over my cousin’s family two years ago. They had a little pointer puppy with them that got out. He shot it. Claimed it was attacking him. With its milk teeth, I guess. Came in here laughing about how my cousins were all crying.”
“Man like that must have a lot of pain inside.”
“No, a man like that puts all his pain on the outside where people can see it. Like he’s singing a song for everyone to hear, even though he knows he can’t carry the tune, and dares someone to tell him to shut up.” Then she began changing the paper in the credit card machine.
5
“Hey, Don, you’re part Tufa, ain’t you?”
Don Swayback looked up from his computer, quickly minimizing the Internet browser window he had open. He started each day with the blogs of a group of UT coeds; it was his own private sorority, and if he ever paused to think about it, he’d realize how pathetic it was for a man his age. But these days he wasn’t much into thinking. “Beg your pardon?”
Sam Howell, owner and editor of the Unicorn, Tennessee, newspaper The Weekly Horn, stood up rather than repeat the question. The office, such as it was, was located in a small Main Street storefront between the antique mall and State Farm Insurance. It was cramped, hot, and surprisingly noisy, with the smell of thousands of cigarettes soaked into the ancient wood and carpet. A job at a paper like this meant you were just starting out in journalism, or your career was essentially over. Since Don was thirty-four, a little overweight, and a lot apathetic, his trajectory was obvious. Especially to Don.
“You’re kin to those Cloud County Tufas in some way, aren’t you?” Sam said as he walked around his desk. “Fifth cousin twice removed by marriage or something?”
Sam was a big man, a native of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with a slate gray crew cut and faded navy tattoos on his arms. He’d served in Viet Nam, and while there had freelanced for Stars and Stripes. This led him to journalism after his tour, and now he owned the paper he’d first started with back in the seventies. Not that there was much left to own, since circulation dropped regularly. Still, every week, Sam managed to squeeze out a new edition, often with all the copy written by him and Don.
“There’s a Tufa in the woodpile of just about everyone between the Tennessee River and the Carolina border, Sam,” Don said. “What about it?”
“Yeah, but you look like ’em. You got the hair and the teeth.”
“Sam, it’s seven o’clock in the morning and I haven’t finished my first cup of coffee yet. Say what you mean.”
Sam rolled one of the office chairs over to Don’s desk and sat down. He leaned close in that paternal way that always set Don’s teeth on edge. “I was just looking at your photographs from the parade over in Needsville yesterday. They weren’t very good.”
Don sighed and shrugged. “The national media had all the good spots, Sam. There were a lot of people there.”
“I know, Don, that’s why it was news. It looks to me like you were there for ten minutes, shot so many pictures you hoped one would turn out, then left.”
Don said nothing; that was exactly what he had done.
“That’s not really acceptable professional behavior, Don. This was a big deal, and now I have to pay to use a newswire photo. That doesn’t make me happy.”
“I’m really sorry,” Don said, hoping it sounded genuine.
“I know you are, and that’s why I’m giving you a chance to make up for it. I want an exclusive interview with Bronwyn Hyatt, and I want you to get it.”
Don frowned. “Because I have black hair and good teeth.”
“That’s oversimplifying it, Don. You’re a good reporter when you’re interested in what you’re covering, which ain’t very often these days, let’s face it. I’d like to think that a cute little war hero might be enough to get your attention.”
“I don’t know what’s most insulting in that statement, Sam.”
“Truth is truth, Donny-Boy. You’re slacking, and you know it. We both know you didn’t go to that softball game last week, you wrote the story from the postgame stats the coach gave you. Now this is something to get your teeth into. You want it or not?”
“If you’re trying to charm my pants off, Sam, you better buy me dinner first. You’re the veteran here; it makes more sense for you to go talk to her.”
Sam shook his head. “Different world, different war. I was drafted and did my time; this girl signed up on her own. Now, I know you don’t approve of the war, but I hope you can put that aside enough to see that there’s a good story here.”
“It’s a story everyone in creation already knows. For a week she was on every channel at least once an hour. What could I possibly ask her that no one else has thought of?”
Sam spread his hands. “See? That’s the challenge. Are you up to it?”
Don sighed. Once he’d been eager, and hungry, for a story like this. Then, over time, he’d understood that every story, even the good ones, was as transitory as a breath. But he was in debt up to his eyeballs, and needed insurance to cover his cholesterol medicine. “Sure, I’ll give it a shot. You got any contact information?”
“None at all.”
“So you haven’t talked to her or her family, or anything?”
“Nothing.” Sam put one big hand on Don’s shoulder and shook him in what was meant to be brotherly camaraderie. “Show me what you got, Don. Seriously. Knoxville’s got a big ol’ school of journalism, and everyone that comes through it ends up looking for a job.”
He gave him one last shake for emphasis, then went back to his desk.
Don sighed and opened a new browser window. He entered Bronwyn Hyatt into the search engine and began accumulating background information.
* * *
“Who wants to see me?” Bronwyn said, her mouth still full of half-chewed biscuit.
“The Right Reverend Craig Chess,” Deacon repeated. He’d finished his own breakfast and was enjoying both his coffee, and his daughter’s dismay. He wore overalls and a UT Volunteers baseball cap. “He’s waiting on the porch.”
“And who the hell is the Right Reverend Craig Chess?”
“He’s the preacher at
the new Methodist church.”
Bronwyn’s eyes opened wide. “There’s a Methodist church in Cloud County?”
“Near as. Right over the county line on Highway 70 going toward Morristown.”
She knew the location. It was the closest spot to Needsville where a church might be built, since no Christian churches would ever succeed in Cloud County. Still, who did this lunatic think would attend his church? Even across the border in Mackenzie County there were few people who weren’t Baptist, certainly not enough to maintain a whole church.
And why on earth was he coming to see her? Did he want her autograph? Did he want her to speak to his congregation? “It’s seven o’clock in the morning, Dad.”
“Reckon he knows farmers get up early,” Deacon said.
“That reminds me,” Chloe said, then called out, “Aiden! School bus stop, now!”
“This is crazy,” Bronwyn said to no one in particular.
“I can invite him in,” Chloe said. She wore her hair loose, and it made her look particularly vital. She was clad in old jeans with the knees worn through and a gray army tank top Bronwyn had given her the previous Christmas. “Or I can send him on home. But you should make up your mind before the dirt daubers start building nests on him.”
“Fucking hell,” Bronwyn muttered. She laboriously hauled herself upright on her crutches, then hobbled to the front door. She emerged onto the porch and squinted into the morning sunlight. She saw no one to the left beneath the awning, then turned to the right.
She would’ve gasped out loud had her teeth not been clenched against the pain of movement.
The man standing there was just shy of six feet, with short brown hair and scholarly glasses. He had broad shoulders and a narrow waist that his jeans and polo shirt showed off to great effect. When he saw her he smiled, and she flashed back to Lyle Waggoner’s teeth twinkling in the credits of the old Wonder Woman TV show. The morning sun outlined him like a saint in an icon painting.
“Ms. Hyatt,” he said, and even his voice was a turn-on, smooth and just deep enough. “I’m Craig Chess.” He offered his hand. “It’s an honor to meet you. Hope it’s not too early to come visiting.”