Solom

by Scott Nicholson

  “Just a sec. Let me get dressed.” She got up, threw a book and some paper on her desk, and slouched into her chair. She hooked headphones around her neck and punched up some Nine Inch Nails, just to piss off Gordon, though she preferred Robyn Hitchcock when she was stoned. No time for the Visine in her desk drawer. She’d just have to bluff it out.

  “Come on in, it’s unlocked,” she said, deciding not to call him on his turning of the knob before she’d invited him in.

  Gordon walked in like he was a professor and Jett’s bedroom was the classroom. Lecture time. “Why aren’t you helping your mom with supper?”

  “I have homework.” She nodded at the book on her desk.

  “Oh.” He looked around, as if he’d never seen the room before. His eyes stopped on the movie poster of a gaunt and pale Brandon Lee from “The Crow.” “We haven’t had time to get to know each other, Jett. It’s important for me that we get along. Important for both of us, I think. It will make things easier on your mother.”

  “Mom’s been kind of weird lately.”

  “She’s trying hard to make this work.” Gordon acted like he wanted to sit down, but her bed was the only suitable surface in the room besides the floor, and Jett couldn’t picture him sitting on either of those. He fingered the knot of his tie. “I think we ought to have a father-to-daughter talk.”

  She opened her mouth but he held up his hand to cut her off. “I meant that as a figure of speech. I don’t want to replace your real father. But we do live under the same roof and we need to lay out some ground rules.”

  “Besides the ‘no drugs’ thing.”

  “That’s for everybody’s peace of mind, especially yours. We have high aspirations for you, Jett. I never thought I’d have somebody to carry on the Smith tradition.”

  “But I’m not a Smith.” She wondered if Gordon was stoned on something himself, because he was making less sense than Jett was. From the way he hovered over her, she could see straight up his nose to the black, wiry hairs inside.

  “We’re still a family. I know things have been a little rough on you, having to make new friends and acclimate yourself to this old farmhouse. It’s a major transition from Charlotte to Solom.”

  “Yeah, they don’t have no goats grazing along Independence Boulevard.”

  Gordon’s lips quavered as if he were trying to smile and failing. “That’s ‘any’ goats.”

  “Any goats. Like, what’s their deal?”

  “Deal?”

  “Your goats act like they own the place. I know they’re supposed to be stubborn, but they’re kind of creepy.”

  “They’re more pets than anything. They won’t hurt you.”

  Maybe they won’t hurt YOU. But you’re part of this place. Maybe they think I’m some kind of alien freak, come in from the outside world to threaten their way of life.

  As soon as the thought arose, Jett dismissed it as silly. The goats were weird, that was for sure, but they were just shaggy, cloven-hoofed, goofy-eyed animals when you got right down to it. Nothing to be afraid of. Even if they ate your dope and looked at you like you were a germ under a microscope.

  “Your eyes are bloodshot,” Gordon said, sniffing the air and causing his nostril hairs to quiver.

  “Yeah. I’m not sleeping very well.”

  “I thought you’d be settled in by now.”

  “Bad dreams. There’s this man in a black hat who—”

  Gordon took an abrupt step backward and accidentally kicked her backpack with his heel. The zippered section was open, revealing the dull glint of her pot baggie. She expected Gordon to give it a once-over, but he regained his balance and said in a near whisper, “A man in a black hat?”

  “Yeah, and an old-timey suit that’s all black and worn out, like it had been picked over. I can’t really see his face, it’s like the brim of the hat throws a shadow over it.” Jett didn’t mention that she’d seen him three times: in the barn loft, in English class, and in the boiler room at school. If the man was real, then Gordon might know something about him. But if Jett’s acid trip had eaten a permanent hole in her brain, she didn’t want to arouse any suspicions or she might end up in lockdown at a psychiatric ward. Not that a vacation would be all bad, but Mom was already a basket case and that might send her over the edge. And good old Dad would probably drop his job and his new girlfriend and make a beeline to Solom to straighten things out, fucking everything up in his usual bumbling way.

  “I won’t lecture you on the chemical changes caused by substance abuse,” Gordon said. “Drugs can do permanent damage. Hallucinations, confusion, memory loss.”

  Jett nodded absently, focusing on the brittle grind of Trent Reznor’s voice leaking from the headphones. And don’t forget that good old side effect of FUN. So quit fucking lecturing already.

  “Okay, Gordon. I promised you and Mom I’d stay clean. No sweat.”

  Gordon reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, as if he’d been studying parental techniques in a textbook. “Hang in there, Jett. We’ll make this family work.”

  “I know. But I’d better get back to this homework.”

  “The satisfaction of academic achievement is the best drug of all.”

  Whatever.

  He paused at the door. “Dinner in fifteen minutes.”

  After he left the room, Jett locked the door and popped the Nine Inch Nails out of the Walkman. Hitchcock’s “Element of Light” was the ticket now. She retrieved the baggie from her backpack, sprinkled a pinch of grass in her aluminum-foil pipe, and carried it with the lighter to her window. She eased the window up and the evening chill sliced its way into the room. If she took small puffs and exhaled through the gap, then even Gordon’s big hairy nose couldn’t detect the scent.

  Beyond the glass, the world was dark and still. Even the insects were tucked away, as if hungry predators roamed the night. The stars were scattered like grains of salt on a blue blanket, the quarter moon sharp as a scythe. The mountains made sweeping black waves along the horizon. She had to give it to Solom on that count: it had Charlotte beat all to hell on scenery.

  She was about to thumb her lighter when she saw movement out in the corn field. The tops of the dead stalks stirred. She expected a wayward goat to walk out from the rows. The animals were renowned for breaking through their fences. The Fred-faced fuckers never seemed to get enough to eat. They probably chewed in their sleep.

  But it wasn’t a goat. It was a man. In the scant moonlight, she could just make out the brim of his hat. The brim lifted in her direction, as if the man were staring at the window.

  She looked down at the dried leaves in the curled bowl of the pipe. “Hallucination, my ass,” she said.

  Jett sparked the lighter and touched the flame to the weed, inhaling deeply. She planned on losing her mind, at least for a little while. Because if her mind was gone, then she wouldn’t have to remember. And if she didn’t remember, then the man in the black hat didn’t exist.

  Drug problem.

  Oxymoron.

  Drug problem equals no problem.

  She closed her eyes and let the smoke seep out her mouth into the Solom sky.

  ***

  Odus took a drink of Old Crow, the best four-dollar bourbon around. Preacher Mose didn’t bat an eye as the man pulled the bottle from the hip pocket of his overalls, though it was the first time anyone had ever brought liquor into the church during his tenure. Mose almost reached for the bottle himself, but figured now wasn’t a good time to let his principles slide. They sat side by side in a front pew of the church, staring straight ahead as if expecting a sermon from the silent pulpit.

  “Now do you believe me?” Odus asked.

  “I believe in the Lord, and just at the moment, that’s the only thing I believe in.”

  “That was him. Harmon Smith.”

  “People don’t come back from the dead.”

  “I thought that was what the Bible was all about. Hell, if you don’t get resurrected, then why miss ou
t on all the fun of sinning?”

  “That happened in the Bible,” Mose said. “This is real life.”

  “Fine words, coming from a preacher.”

  Mose still had the hammer in his hand. He hadn’t relaxed his grip since the mysterious figure had appeared at the church door. The man in the black hat stood there for the space of three heartbeats, his head tilted down, face hidden. There were holes in his dark wool suit, and the cuffs were frayed. The flesh of his hands was the color of a peeled cucumber. He turned up one palm, like a beggar seeking alms. Neither Mose nor Odus had spoken, and the man finally lowered his hand and stepped out of the church without turning.

  Or moving his feet, Odus thought. Except now he couldn’t be sure what he’d seen or if he had merely imagined the whole scene. By the time he’d finally unlocked his muscles and ran to the door, the strange man was nowhere to be seen. Despite his poor church attendance and his fondness for illicit activities, Odus was true to his word, which was why his reputation was good among the people who hired him for odd jobs.

  “What are you going to do about it?” Odus asked.

  “Do? Why does anything have to be done?”

  “You know the stories.”

  “That’s just a folk tale, Brother. I can’t give it any credence. I’m an educated man.”

  “Well, a preacher has to believe in miracles, so what’s to say a bad miracle can’t happen now and again?” Odus sipped the bourbon again as if he’d been giving the matter a great deal of thought over the course of many pints.

  “Okay, then,” Mose said. “Just supposing—and I’m doing this like maybe I was writing a spooky movie or something—supposing Harmon Smith did come back to life after 200 years? What would he want? What would be the point? Because he’d have been swept right up to Glory when he died, and wouldn’t have any reason to come back.”

  “Except for the oldest reason ever.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Revenge.”

  “The church records say he died in an accident. He had no reason not to rest in peace.”

  “What else would you expect them to say, Preacher? That he got conked on the head and thrown in the river because he was doing missionary work?”

  “A folk tale, I told you.”

  “The Primitive Baptists didn’t cotton to Harmon Smith’s ideas. Neither did the Free Willers.”

  “We believe in salvation. Why would our people want to kill him?”

  “Ask Gordon Smith. He’ll tell you all about it.”

  Mose ran his thumb over the head of the hammer and stared at the wooden cross that hung on the wall behind the pulpit. “If I told you something, would you think I was crazy?”

  “No crazier than you think I am.”

  “I saw the Circuit Rider when I was a kid. He snuck up behind me like a shadow on afternoon while I was skipping stones down at the trout pond. I thought he was going to grab me, but he just shook those long fingers at me. I ran all the way home and didn’t go outside for a week. That was about the time that Janie Bessemer took infection from a cut foot and died from blood poisoning. I always thought it was the Circuit Rider’s doing.”

  Odus took a deep gulp of the Old Crow and coughed. “I was wrong. You are crazier than me.”

  Mose stood up. “I’d better get this molding nailed down before dark so it will be ready for services tomorrow.”

  Odus grabbed Mose’s arm. “Didn’t one of the disciples deny Jesus Christ after The Last Supper?”

  “Peter. Jesus predicted Peter would deny him three times before the cock crowed.”

  “Maybe you’re like Peter. You believe in Harmon Smith, but you’re not going to admit it to anybody.”

  Before Odus could answer, the air of the church sanctuary stirred. A crow swooped down the aisle and landed on the pulpit, where the black bird shook its wings and regarded them both with eyes like dirty motor oil.

  “Know them by their fruits, Preacher Mose,” Odus said, tilting the bottle once more. “You never know which one of them’s going to turn rotten.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Sue Norwood turned around the sign in her window to inform any late-night cyclists that she was “Closed—Gone Fishing.” Not that she’d ever cared for sport fishing, even though she sold Orvis rods and reels, hip waders, hand-tied flies, coolers, Henry Fonda hats, and everything the genteel fisherman needed except for alcohol. Solom was unincorporated, which precluded a vote on local alcohol sales, and Sue figured in maybe five years the seasonal homeowners from Florida would own enough property to push for a referendum. For now, she was content to bide her time on that front. The pickings were easy enough as it was.

  In 1995, Sue had purchased a little outbuilding that had belonged to the Little Tennessee Railroad, one of the few structures in Solom to survive the 1940 flood. It sat within spitting distance of the Blackburn River, but was on ground just high enough to survive the calamities that Solom seemed to call down upon itself. Ice storms and blizzards were biannual events, high water hit every spring and fall, hellacious thunderstorms rumbled in from March through July, and the winter wind rattled the siding boards like they were the bones of a scarecrow. But all the outbuilding needed was a green coat of paint, a $20,000 commercial loan at Clinton-era rates, and 60 hours of Sue’s time each week to hang in there despite Solom’s lack of a true business climate.

  Sue had converted an upstairs storage room into an apartment, and it was to this space she retired after closing. She passed the racks of kayaks that stood like whales’ ribs on each side of the aisle, making sure the back door was locked. As an all-season outfitter, she’d packed the place with every profitable item she could order, from North Face sleeping bags to compasses to Coleman gas stoves. Ten-speed bicycles were lined against the front wall, with rentals bringing in more than enough to keep her wheels greased.

  Ever since Lance Armstrong had trained along the old river road before his third run at the Tour de France (a little factoid that Sue always managed to slip into her advertising copy, when she couldn’t get the local media to mention it for free), out-of-shape amateurs had been flocking to the area to rest their sweaty cracks on her bicycle seats. At $20 a day, they could hump it all they wanted. She was even willing to sponsor a community fund-raising ride for the Red Cross each summer, a nice little tax write-off that paid back in spades.

  Sue counted the bikes before she went upstairs, her last official chore for the day. Two were still out. She checked her registration records at the desk and found the bikes were rented by a Mr. and Mrs. Elliott Everhart of White Plains, New York. Fellow Yankees. Sue was from Connecticut herself, but she’d graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in exercise science, spent three extra years in Athens as an assistant coach for the women’s field hockey team, pretty much flattening her vowels and slowing down her speech enough to pass for Southern if she were drunk.

  At the age of 25, she had written down the names of all her favorite rock-climbing spots, clipped them apart with scissors, and randomly pulled one out of a hat. Solom wasn’t on the list, but it had been the closest to the Pisgah National Forest, which featured Table Rock and Wiseman’s View. Since Solom was near a river, and rock-climbing wasn’t exactly a major source of commercial recreation income, since it required little more than a rock and an attitude, she’d launched Mother Nature Outfitters and had been expanding ever since. Funny thing was, she’d been so busy these past few years with her business that she rarely was outdoors herself.

  The Everharts. Sue could remember them because the husband, Elliott, had detected her up-coast accent and made conversation about it. Sue couldn’t remember the wife’s name, but she was a quiet, willowy blonde who spoke little and didn’t seem all that thrilled with the idea of human-powered transportation. They had rented the bikes at 2 p.m. and had estimated their return at 6 p.m.

  Elliott told her they had rented a cabin on the hill above Solom General Store and had walked down so as not to take up a pa
rking space in the small gravel lot. Sue had said, “Thank you kindly,” an artificial Southern response that had come more and more easily over the years, then sent the couple on their way with bottled mineral water ($2 a pint) and a map. Sue now checked the clock above the front door, the one that elicited native bird calls with each stroke of the hour. It was ten minutes away from Verio, nearly two hours later than the Everharts’ anticipated return.

  People who rented bicycles sometimes got flats. It was rare, because she kept the equipment in good condition. All those who rented equipment, whether it was a propane lantern or a kayak or a ten-speed, were required to sign release forms absolving Mother Nature Outfitters of any responsibility. That didn’t mean that people didn’t screw up, especially the types of deep-pocketed but shallow-skulled clients to which Sue usually catered. Even if the Everharts had gotten lost or had a breakdown, they most likely could have walked back to Solom, flagged a ride, or called for assistance on their cell phones.

  Except Sue could see three problems with that scenario, because she’d experienced each of them. Sometimes bikers got lost when they tried to walk back, because the going was so much slower that the maps became deceptive. Flagging a ride was no guarantee because there simply wasn’t that much traffic after sundown in Solom, and outsiders were loathe to pick up anyone wearing fluorescent Spandex and alien-looking crash helmets. And cell phones were almost universally useless in Solom because the valleys were deep and the old families owning the high mountains had yet to lease space for transmitting towers.

  Sue considered a fourth alternative. The Everharts appeared to be in their thirties and were presumably childless, at least for the length of their vacation. Maybe good old Elliott had gotten a boner for nature and coaxed his wife into the weeds for a little of world’s oldest and greatest recreational sport. Or maybe the willowy blonde had been the one to turn into a ravening maw of wild lust. Either way, she couldn’t blame them. Some of the locals had whispered that Sue was a lesbian, and, sure, like many girls she’d sampled that particular ware in college, but she was pretty much married to her business these days.