The Witch of Hebron (30 page)

“This here’s a hurtin’ burg,” Seth muttered, looking up and down Glen Street, as they entered the building. A single candle burned in a glass chimney at the registration counter. It failed to make the lobby, with its cast-off sofas and threadbare easy chairs, more cheerful. Behind the counter stood a half wall of wooden checkerboard fretwork with an opening to what looked like an empty dining room. No cooking aromas were perceptible at this hour. On the counter stood a miniature reproduction of the Liberty Bell, complete with crack, and a toy brass hammer for striking it. Elam hit it three times.

“To think that I spent my honeymoon in the Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas,” Seth remarked. “Lord have mercy. Must have been ten pretty gals at the front desk. Bellmen everywhere.”

“I guess the excitement is over there now,” Brother Jobe said.

“Except for the tarantulas and the Gila monsters,” Elam added.

“It was doggone nice,” Seth said.

Distant footsteps caught their attention. They seemed to go on forever. Eventually, a potato-faced man about forty emerged from the gloom of the dining room and bustled behind the counter. His white shirt had been washed so many times the collar was almost frayed off.

“If you got yourself a halfway pretty gal to sit this here desk, I bet your business would pick up smartly,” Seth said.

“Nothing we do here will pick up business,” the desk clerk said matter-of-factly.

“That’s not exactly forward-looking,” Seth said.

“No, but it’s the nature of these times. Nice to have you with us all the same. How can I help you?”

Brother Jobe engaged two rooms, one for himself, and one for Seth and Elam.

“You serving meals these days?” Brother Jobe inquired.

“We could fix your party some supper. Eggs and potatoes okay?”

“Got any meat?”

“Not that I know of. Got a nice cabbage soup.”

“Is there any other place to eat in this town?”

“Nothing like a proper restaurant of the old-time sort.”

“You got any cheese to go in them eggs?”

“We’re a little shy of cheese just now. Business has been slow.”

“We got some of our own you could put in,” Elam said.

“We can do that,” the clerk said.

“Let’s do that, then,” Brother Jobe said. “Just don’t go charging us extra for it.”

“This is an upright establishment,” the clerk said. “I detect that you’re not from around here.”

“We’re from Virginia.”

“Really? How’s things down there?”

“I couldn’t tell you. We ain’t been there for several years.”

“Oh? What brings you up our way, then?”

“Couple of matters. Can you tell me who the law is hereabouts?”

“The law here got killed last night.”

“How’s that?”

“Murdered in a card game by a young bandit, name of Billy Bones.”

“You don’t say? The one who styles himself the ‘singing bandit’?”

“That’d be Billy. You know of him?”

“I heard about him.”

“Well, he’s an infamous character, I’ll tell you, and hardly twenty years old. When he isn’t out robbing people on the roads, he hangs his hat at a certain house in town where ladies ply an ancient trade, if you know what I mean.”

“That’s a pretty way to put it,” Seth said.

“Billy, he had quite a time last night,” the clerk continued. “Killed our town manager, name of Luke Bliss, and two of his men. Then he went back to the house and killed one of the ladies—only it wasn’t a lady.”

“Is that some kind of riddle?”

“It was one of those men that like to dress up like a lady. This fellow was Billy’s, uh, consort, I’m told. Billy was drunk, of course, and hot-blooded from having just killed three men—by hand with a long knife, I’m told. There was another quarrel and another left dead, I’m told.”

“You’re an oft-told fellow,” Brother Jobe observed.

“And correctly informed, I think you’ll find,” the clerk said, bristling visibly. “News does come our way, being at the center of things. Anyway, I don’t think Billy will be hanging his hat around here anymore.”

“That’s an awful lot of excitement for such a quiet town,” Seth said.

“It’s just extra heartache and hardship for us,” the clerk said. “We can’t stand much more.”

“Do you know if this bandit had a boy with him?”

“Why, yes. I heard he had a little traveling companion, a protégé, he called him.”

The three New Faith men swapped glances all around.

“Do you know what happened to this child?” Brother Jobe asked. “Is he still over at that house?”

“No, Billy snatched him out of there and they left town together, I’m told.”

“Do you know when they skipped town?”

“Crack of dawn, I heard. They’re long gone.”

“Lord,” Elam said.

“Good riddance, I say. You men have horses, I presume.”

“Yes.”

“You can put them away up the block at Efraim’s. What was it you wanted the law for, anyway?”

“You see that wagon yonder?” Brother Jobe said, pointing.

“Yessir.”

“There’s a body under that blanket. We found it along the road up in the highlands. I have a suspicion that it was killed by this selfsame Billy Bones.”

“Goodness gracious. How do you figure that?”

“We’ve been tracking him for some days now.”

“Are you fellows some kind of policemen yourselves?”

“No, we’re Jesus men.”

The desk clerk cocked his head.

“Do you know the Lord?” Brother Jobe asked.

“I tried it,” the clerk said. “Didn’t work for me.”

“Do you want to try again?”

“Not really. What do you plan to do with that body in the wagon?”

“I don’t rightly know,” Brother Jobe said. “I did want to inquire if anyone hereabouts had made a complaint about a missing person, but I see now there’s no real law here.”

“Was there anything on this poor soul with a name on it?”

“His pockets were turned out. Alls we know, he was just the humble driver of that there rig, toting a load of onions.”

“You going to just leave him out there overnight?”

“Why? You think somebody might steal him?”

“No. It’s just nasty, is all.”

“There ain’t much we can do about him now,” Elam said, “unless you want us to bring him inside with us.”

“Don’t do that,” the clerk said. “It’s almost Halloween.”

“What’s that have to do with anything?” Brother Jobe asked.

“It’s when the dead walk, they say.”

FIFTY-SEVEN

The Reverend Loren Holder made a series of pastoral calls on his way back to Union Grove—the Galloway farm in South Hebron, the Callie Farm in Adamsville, and Temple Merton’s orchard on Coot Hill—some of the more far-flung members of his congregation, who showed up in church on Christmas, and rarely otherwise. Among other things, none of them had seen any sign of Dr. Copeland’s son, Jasper, over the week past.

“Why did he run away?” Temple Merton asked.

“He was despondent because his dog got killed by a horse.”

“Children take that hard.”

Temple Merton gave Loren a pint of a fine apple brandy he called Goose Island Lightning, and Loren enjoyed some of it on the next leg of his afternoon ride. It amplified his revived sense of well-being in a world of wonder. The beauty of the twilight sky almost brought tears of gratitude to his eyes, and he began to reflect on his recent relations with the Deity. A few red streaks remained in the sky when Loren came upon the hamlet of Argyle and saw a light burning in the old brick store that constituted all that remained of the little settlement’s business district. At least two hours of his journey home remained and he was hungry. He tied Lucky to a post, hung a feedbag with a handful of oats off his mount’s ears, and went inside.

The long room was dim in front. Articles of crude tinware hung from the ceiling. Shelves containing jars of sauerkraut, preserved fruit, and other common comestibles lined one side of the store, wooden bins of grain and dried beans the other. Baskets displaying fresh fruits and vegetables were deployed in a row on the floor. In the center was a display of small sheet-metal woodstoves assembled from scrap and also various articles of salvaged furniture from every period up to the last gasp of chain-store bargain shopping. Behind all the clutter, Loren saw Miles English seated behind a rear counter with his feet up and his chair balanced on two legs. He was cleaning his fingernails with a drop-point blade knife that seemed rather awkwardly oversize for the task.

“Help you?” he asked in a way that suggested he was more interested in keeping Loren at bay than actually helping him.

“Evening.”

“I’m about to close. What do you want?”

“I won’t bother you long.”

“I won’t be bothered period.”

By this time Loren had completed the journey down the deep room from the front door to the counter. It did not escape him that the man behind the counter had a head that looked conspicuously small for his body, like a chicken’s. He was sure the man had never set foot in his church.

“Are you upset about something?” Loren asked.

“If I am, it’s none of your goddamn business.”

Loren shifted his weight, attempting to measure exactly how hungry he was in relation to his distaste for the storekeeper’s effrontery. He decided to proceed in the interest of his hunger rather than his pride.

“Have you got any baked goods?” he asked.

“There ain’t a whole lot to bake with these days. Unless you like cornmeal.”

“Corn bread would be fine.”

“Don’t have any.”

“What have you got?”

“What you see down there,” English said, pointing his knife at the baskets on the floor. “There’s turnips, potatoes, butternut squash, onions, apples, pears, and black walnuts.”

“Those black walnuts are in the shell,” Loren said.

“So they are.”

“Got any unshelled?”

“I guess I don’t.”

“It’s a messy job shelling them.”

“That’s why I don’t do it.”

“Got any sausage or jerked meat?”

English shook his head, looking at Loren as if he were a mental defective.

“Okay,” Loren said, “you can just give me two pounds each of apples and pears and I’ll be on my way.”

English grudgingly set down his chair, grabbed a tin pail, and sauntered around the counter past Loren. He brought the pailful of apples and pears back to the counter, weighed out both, and dumped them back onto the counter.

“I don’t have any sacks,” he told Loren.

“That’s okay. I’ll put them in my pockets.”

Loren put the apples in one pocket of his coat and the pears in the other.

“You got real coin?” Miles English asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“Two silver dimes will do it then.”

“You don’t seem to like the storekeeping business very much,” Loren ventured as he fished the money from his leather pouch.

“I don’t.”

“Maybe you should find another line of work.”

“Like what?”

“What are you good at?”

“Driving truck.”

“I guess that’s out now.”

“Sad to say it is. Anyway, I hope the next thing out is you. I’d like to close.”

“Maybe things’ll pick up around here.”

“Why do you give a damn?”

“Just being polite.”

“Good night, mister.”

Loren walked most of the way down the long aisle toward the front before he remembered something and turned around.

“Hey,” he called to English.

“What now?”

“I’m looking for a boy.”

English hesitated a moment before he replied: “Labor or sport?”

The words electrified Loren as he recalled what the doctor had said that rainy night about a shopkeeper in Argyle whom he suspected was trafficking in boys.

“Labor,” Loren said.

English hesitated again before speaking. “I hope you got five dollars, silver.”

“I do.”

“Let me see it.”

Loren walked all the way back up to the counter. He counted out five dollars in pre-1965 silver U.S. quarters and dimes.

“Wait here,” English said.

As he waited, Loren struggled to imagine what he was getting into. In a few minutes, English returned with a boy in tow, holding him by his shirt collar. Loren was alarmed at the boy’s appearance: obviously underfed, unwashed, and suffering with lice. His legs were closely hobbled with hemp rope.

“You go with this man now,” English said to the boy, loudly, as if he were deaf or extremely stupid. “Go ahead, take him.”

“That all there is to it?” Loren said.

“I don’t have formal adoption papers, if that’s what you mean.”

“What’s his name?”

“Ask him,” English said.

“Come on, son,” Loren said. The boy shuffled toward the front of the store, glancing back repeatedly over his shoulder. By the time they got out the door, the boy was heaped in sobs and shuddering. Loren himself trembled as he took the feedbag off Lucky and unhitched him. He cut the hobbles off the child’s legs with his pocketknife, hoisted him onto Lucky, and led the horse south down old Route 40 in the light of a persimmon moon that hung a few degrees above Indian Hill. The boy’s sobs only grew more energetic as they proceeded past the last few houses in the hamlet. There the countryside began in earnest. By the time Loren halted Lucky under the shelter of a white oak tree down the road, the boy was hysterical. Loren repeatedly asked him his name, but the boy just sobbed and wailed. He decided that the only practical thing to do was wait until the boy exhausted himself, which took a quarter of an hour.

Meanwhile, Loren stood beside Lucky and pared an apple into sections and ate them. When he was finished with the apple, he started in on a pear. Eventually the boy came out of himself. For a few minutes, he merely sat in the saddle with snot dripping down his face, staring into the horse’s neck. Loren held a section of pear up for the boy. He snatched it out of Loren’s hand and ate it ravenously. Loren proffered one piece of pear after another, then fed him another apple, then cut up another pear for the boy.

“What’s your name?” Loren asked.

“Jack,” the boy finally said.

“How old are you?”

“Eight.”

“Listen to me, Jack. I’m the minister down in Union Grove and the appointed constable, too. I’m going to help you find your folks and get you home.”