High Lonesome Sound

by Jaye Wells

  “Don’t mind her,” Bunk said, “she’s a bit touched.” He tapped his forehead with his hook.

  “Really?” The day before she hadn’t looked touched so much as pissed. And that morning, there’d been no mistaking the intelligence in her gaze—nor the fear. Ruby Barrett wasn’t crazy—she was scared.

  “Runs in the family, I’m afraid,” Bunk said.

  For some reason, he didn’t want to gossip about the girl with the bird’s features and the fear in her eyes. It felt wrong somehow—too cruel. Instead, he looked down the street toward the church and changed the subject. “What happened to the steeple?"

  The old man spat a stream of brown juice into the dirt. "That legend wasn’t in your book?"

  Peter frowned and shook his head. "Will you tell it to me?"

  15

  Job 28:28

  Ruby

  She rushed inside and threw her purse on the old church pew that sat inside the library’s front door. Luckily, that snotty Sarah Jane wasn’t in sight, but it was only a matter of time until she came out and stuck her nose in Ruby’s business.

  She hadn’t been ready to see Peter West again. The minute he looked at her on the street, she became convinced he could see all the thoughts she’d had about him the night before in her bed. A man like that knew things about girls. Way more than girls like her knew about men, anyway.

  She blew out a long breath and tried to get her heartbeat under control. The only thing she was thankful for was that no one had seen her act like such a baby. If Sarah Jane had been around she never would have shut up about the way Ruby’s cheeks went up in flames.

  Speaking of Sarah Jane, Ruby needed to get busy before she returned and started asking questions. But now that she thought about it, it sure was strange that she saw Peter when she was on her way to the library to look for his books. Would he be pleased to find out that was her mission or would he think she was awkward and weird like all the boys in Moon Hollow?

  What if he came into the library and found that they didn’t have any of his books? Would he leave town? For some reason that scared her more than the idea he might think she was weird.

  She pushed off the door and went to the fiction shelves on the far wall. It was the smallest section of the library, and its contents were carefully selected to exclude any contents that might compromise the good people of Moon Hollow. But sometimes, books were donated that Sarah Jane was too lazy to vet properly or else they came in when old Widow Farnsworth was volunteering and she “accidentally” forgot to throw out the shameful books.

  She was on her third fruitless pass of the W shelf when a throat cleared nearby. She looked up to see Sarah Jane smirking at her. They were the same age, but Ruby always felt like a little girl next to the deacon’s daughter. She stood and smoothed a hand over her jeans, which had smears of mud from her trip into the forest. But she pushed the brief spurt of self-consciousness away. Sarah Jane Fry might be the princess of Moon Hollow, but she had never heard the river water sing or known the blessing of the spring breeze whispering secrets in her perfect shell ears. That thought made Ruby unbearably sad for her.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for something to read.”

  A nasty smile spread across Sarah Jane’s pink lips. “If you’re looking for one of Widow Farnsworth’s sex stories, you’re wasting your time. I cleaned all those out three days ago and burned them in the barrel out back.”

  The mental image of flaming books inside a metal coffin made Ruby’s stomach cramp. Her mama taught her never to waste nothing, and it seemed even sex books deserved better treatment. “Wasn’t looking for no sex books,” she said. “For your information, I was looking to see if we had any of Peter West’s novels.”

  The metallic edge of Sarah Jane’s laughter cut deep. “You’ve got to be kidding. The stories he writes are worse than the sex books.”

  How did Sarah Jane know what was in the sex books? Did she and Jack do those things? The thought made Ruby sick to her stomach. Sarah Jane had already blabbed to the whole town that once Jack saved enough money from his new mining job, he was going to buy her a big diamond. The way Ruby figured it, a boy wouldn’t condemn himself to working in the mines for girls who didn’t do the sorts of things found in sex books.

  She immediately felt ashamed of her unchristian thoughts. “What do you know about Mr. West’s books?”

  Sarah Jane leaned in and whispered, “They’re about demons and killers. Daddy says that man’s a devil worshipper.”

  Ruby’d never met a devil worshipper, but the man she saw rocking with Bunk didn’t look like he believed in much at all—good or evil. “Don’t be stupid, Sarah Jane. He’s a guest in our town. Least we can do is have one of his books in our library.”

  At the word “stupid” Sarah Jane’s face went from smug to downright mean. “You’re the stupid one, Ruby Barrett. If Daddy has his way that man won’t be here long enough to even find this library.”

  The phone at the front desk began to ring. Sarah Jane shot Ruby one last pitying look before pushing away from the wall to go answer it. When she spoke into the receiver, her greeting was so syrupy sweet it gave Ruby a toothache.

  Dismissing her tormentor, she turned back to the shelves and stared at the spot where Peter West’s books should go. It wasn’t right, that absence. She looked toward the doorway that led to the library office, where the computer Sarah Jane used to order new books was located. One week a few months back, when Sarah Jane had the flu and the Widow Farnsworth was off visiting her sister in Lynchburg, Mrs. Fry had asked Ruby to pitch in at the library. Part of her duties that week had been to order a new set of children’s Bibles for the Sunday school class. The password for the system was “Job2828.”

  She looked toward the desk where Sarah Jane was deep in conversation. “Going to use the restroom,” she called. Sarah Jane rolled her eyes and turned her back, which gave Ruby all the permission she needed to see through her plan.

  16

  The Steeple Story

  Peter

  Bunk adjusted his arthritic bones into the rocker’s cane seat, as if settling in for a while.

  "This is the story my daddy told me, and he said his daddy told him. It's been about seventy years since he told me, mind, but I still recall the basics, I reckon," he began. "Musta been fifty years after the War of Northern Aggression—"

  Bunk was too busy looking into the past to notice Peter’s amusement at his word choice.

  "—back then, the church was the only building in town. Lots of people had homesteads in the holler or farther into the hills, but there were no businesses to speak of. You can imagine what it looked like coming round that bend." He pointed his cane toward the place where the road into town curved out of the hills.

  Peter looked around, trying to imagine the valley back then. The descriptions he’d read said the church's steeple had been huge, and judging from the twisted hunk of metal that stood there now, it was easy to imagine the size. He tried to picture what it might look like to a farmer from the highlands to come around that curve and see the church shrouded in mountain mist and towering over the emerald grasses that carpeted the valley. "Must have been quite a sight."

  Bunk made a noise with his lips that Peter took for agreement.

  "Anyway, the story goes that one hot July night an awful storm broke over the valley. Real gully washer, as my pappy used to say.”

  Bunk must have been eighty if he was a day, and hearing him refer to his father that way delighted Peter. An image of his own father flashed in his mind. Charles West had been all hard angles and cold distance, and, while Peter had several choice names for the man, calling him “Pappy” would have earned him the patented West glare and a shoulder colder than the tundra.

  Bunk was looking to the sky, as if seeing it as it had been that stormy day more than a hundred years ago. “The rivers breached the banks in no time. Lots of folks left their houses for higher ground. But one man refused to leav
e.” He lifted his rheumy gaze and there was a spark of mischief in the in his eyes. “Guess who.”

  “Jeremiah Moon?”

  A rusty laugh escaped Bunk’s mouth. “Nah, boy. Old Jeremiah Moon had passed on to his final reward by then. Nah, this was Alodius Fry.”

  “Fry? Related to the good deacon, I presume.”

  Bunk grunted in the affirmative. “His great-granddaddy. But you weren’t totally wrong to bring up old Jeremiah. Alodius was his grandson, born of his only daughter, Rebecca who married into the Fry family. In fact, as long as the church has stood, there’s been a Fry man acting as pastor.”

  “Pastor? Why is the current Mr. Fry only a deacon, then?”

  Bunk’s shrug was effortless but meaningful, Peter thought. There was definitely a story there, but he had to tackle one mystery at a time or risk alienating himself from his first friend in town.

  He pulled out his notebook and pen from his pocket and jotted notes. “Okay, so the Moons and the Frys merged and that started a family line that leads all the way to Deacon Fry,” he said partially to himself. Keeping up with the long and tangled roots of Moon Hollow genealogy wouldn’t be easy. Peter knew he didn’t necessarily need to be accurate about the family trees of the residents to tell his ghost stories, but he found himself fascinated for reasons beyond those of a writer on the hunt for inspiration.

  Bunk watched his note-taking without comment. When Peter was done, he continued. “Yes, sir, it was old Alodius Fry who refused to abandon his church. But he sent his woman and youngins away with another family. Two other men stayed behind to help Alodius sandbag the church. I reckon if they hadn’t nobody would have any idea what happened that night. Hell, as it is, there’re two different stories of what happened.”

  “Two?”

  “I suppose there was really three stories, but Alodius Fry refused to tell his side of what happened that night.” He let that comment hang there for a moment before continuing.

  “The first story goes like this: Round about midnight, the storm reached its strength. The wind was a-howlin’ and lightning streaked across the sky constantly. For some reason, Alodius ran out the church doors right as the clock struck midnight. The other men ran after him to pull him back into the church. Before they could, a monster branch of lightning cracked out of the sky and attacked the steeple.”

  “That’s all?” Peter asked, disappointed. “Lightning struck it?”

  “Like I said, that’s one story.”

  As impatient as Peter was to find out the rest of the story, he couldn’t help but be amused and impressed by the man’s skills at building suspense. He wondered if Southern men were genetically predisposed to being storytellers or if it had something to do with the languorous heat that primed them for spinning yarns.

  After a moment, Bunk leaned forward. “The second story, well now, that’s a different thing altogether. I can’t say for sure it’s the true story, but it’s the one we don’t often tell strangers on account of we don’t want to scare ’em too bad.”

  Peter chuckled. “Then why are you tellin’ me?”

  Bunk’s mouth pursed as he feigned deep thought. “I reckon it’s because you write them books and such. Figure a fella like you can appreciate a good demon story.”

  Now they were getting somewhere interesting. “A demon?”

  Bunk shot him a sly look—the hook had been baited by an expert. “Yessir.”

  Peter leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Do tell.”

  “The second story starts out the same as the first. Lots of rain, river overflowing. Three men stay behind.” Bunk pulled a cigarette pack out of his pocket. He offered it to Peter, who refused despite wanting one more than he wanted air. “Only this time, something different happened around about midnight.

  “According to the fella who told this story, Alodius spent a lot of time on his knees in the church that night. While the other two scrambled to place sand bags and reinforce the windows, the pastor prayed hard. And not just normal prayer, neither. He was a-swayin’ and a-hollerin’ like a man in the throes of some internal war. Then, right around midnight, he fell real silent and lifted his head. One of them men said he was covered in sweat and looked real pale. Anyway, he walked straight to the church’s doors and threw them open. Rain splashed into the church and all over Pastor Fry, but he stood in the doorway with his legs braced and his face turned up to the sky. Just as the clock struck midnight, he screamed, ‘Come and git me, demon!’ Then he ran out into the night.

  “Them other two, well, they thought old Alodius done lost his damned mind. So they ran out to grab him before he could drown in all that rain. But when they went outside, they found Alodius facing down something, well, I suppose they’d describe it as something pure evil.”

  Bunk paused to check Peter’s reaction.

  “Go on,” he urged.

  “According to the men who were there, the beast was more’n seven feet tall. Had black skin and red eyes and horns out to here.” He extended his gnarled hands and arms like branches of a tree. “Alodius told his friends to go back inside the church but they didn’t listen. They just stood on the steps gawpin’ at the demon. They swore after that the spot where the demon stood wasn’t raining at all, but all around him the rain and the wind whipped up something fierce.

  “The demon pointed a finger at old Alodius. He said, ‘Leave this mountain, human, or be damned for all eternity!’” When Bunk spoke in the voice of the devil, he affected a deep tone and his eyes widened like a spooked horse’s.

  “Now, old Alodius was married to a woman known all over the mountain to be as mean as a polecat. Facing down a demon didn’t faze him one bit. He pulled his Bible from his coat pocket and held it toward the dark figure. ‘Be gone from this sacred ground, demon!’ Right then, a large bolt of lightning shot out of the demon’s extended finger. It hit the steeple with a deafening crash.”

  Bunk looked in the direction of the steeple in question. Peter’s gaze followed obediently and he took in the twisted hunk of black metal as the old man continued his story.

  “This is where the story branches off into two directions,” Bunk said. “According to one man, after Alodius watched the house of the Lord attacked by evil, there awoke in him a faithful rage that flared hotter than the fires of Hades. His whole body shook with anger and his eyes blazed like a man possessed. He ran at the demon with his Bible in front of him like a weapon. Alodius shouted at the devil in a language neither of them could place. I guess it was like them preachers who can speak tongues, you ken?”

  Peter confirmed he was familiar with the practice.

  “Anyway, whatever Alodius said made the demon take a few steps back. He cowered under the waving Bible, which glowed like red fire in the stormy night. He beat that demon with his Bible until Old Scratch ran off with his pointed tail tucked between his legs.” Bunk chuckled and shook his head.

  The mental image amused Peter, but Bunk had mentioned two sides to this particular story. “What’s the other version?”

  Bunk’s expression sobered. He spat into the dirt and took a swig of his beer. “The other fella said Alodius didn’t fight the demon. According to him, Alodius made a deal with the devil to save Moon Hollow.”

  A car’s horn blasted nearby. Bunk and Peter jumped out of their seats. Chest thumping, Peter turned to see an old blue pickup idling in front of the store. He’d been so caught up in Bunk’s tale that he hadn’t noticed the new arrival.

  “God damn it, Earl, you like to give me a heart attack!” Bunk called to the man behind the wheel.

  A mesh John Deere cap emerged from the driver’s window followed by a weathered face cracked with a crooked-tooth smile. A creaky laugh escaped the man’s mouth before he answered. “Serves ya right for gossipin’ like an old hen!”

  Bunk grumbled under his breath and leaned back in the metal chair. Peter kept his gaze on the man limping their way. He had the look of most of the men of a certain age in Moon Hollow. A few stra
nds of white hair clung to his sweaty forehead over a face as rutted as freshly tilled earth. Peter thought that if he counted those troughs like the rings of a tree he’d have a pretty good estimate of the man’s age.

  The new arrival tipped his hat at Peter. “Afternoon, Mr. West.”

  He didn’t recognize the man from church, but since the whole town had been there, chances were good he simply overlooked him among the crowd. Still, he wasn’t surprised the man knew his name. Everyone in Moon Hollow had apparently gotten his life history within fifteen minutes of him pulling into town. “I’m afraid we haven’t had the pleasure, Mr.— ”

  Bunk spoke up. “This here’s Earl Sharps. Owns the Christmas tree farm on Evergreen Road.”

  Peter rose to shake Mr. Sharps’s hand. “Christmas tree farm, huh?”

  “Yessir.” Sharps propped a boot on the edge of the porch as if laying claim to it. “’Course business is a little slow this time of year so I also run a small store selling jams and local craft goods to the tourists off the highway.”

  Peter hadn’t seen the store or the farm on his way into town, so he assumed they could be found on the other side of Moon Hollow.

  Sharps continued before Peter could come up with a suitable response to his previous comment. “What you talking about? You two had your heads together good and tight when I pulled up.”

  “I was telling Mr. West here about how our steeple got its makeover,” Bunk said.

  “Why you telling this man old wives’ tales?” He turned to Peter. “Don’t let Bunk here fill yer head up with wild stories and nonsense. He’d convince you the sky was purple if you listened. I’m sure an important writer like yourself got better things to do with yer time.”

  “It’s precisely because I’m a writer that I was enjoying our talk,” Peter said. “Wild stories are my business, Mr. Sharps.”