Harvestman Lodge (49 page)

“Curtis? You okay?”

“You can’t marry that man, Kendra. You can’t … because there ain’t no way he loves you like I … like I … ” He couldn’t finish.

“Were you about to say what I think you were, Curtis?”

“Aw, shoot. I didn’t even really know it was true until today, riding in a car coming over here to see you. The lady driving the car asked me about you and if I loved you … and I told her … ” Curtis could barely whisper out the words: “I told her that I did, and knew I was telling the truth as soon as I said it.”

“Oh … Curtis! I didn’t know … I thought I was just a good friend to you.”

“You
are
my good friend. You’re my best friend, along with Mr. Coleman. But you’re more … you’re special. There’s nobody else like you. And today, hey, you know what? I found out that I could probably get a job besides selling my pencils, and somebody’s going to help me do that. The same woman who gave me a ride here to see you. Her name is Amber Goode. She said I could get a real job that you go to and get a paycheck for, like your job. I could be just like everybody else, then. I’d have a job folks don’t laugh at or feel sorry for me for, and have a home and a girlfriend I could go on dates with … a wife, even. I didn’t ever think such a thing could ever be for somebody as Curtis-crazy as me … but Amber says it can. I believe it. I know it. Down in here.” He thumped the underside of his fist on his chest three times.

“Curtis, are you asking me … to marry you?”

He shook his head. “I ain’t ready to ask you yet. I got things to take care of before I can do that. I got to get that job at Spears-Hinkle, and get over being … you know, like I am. The pole shadows and all.”

“You think you can do that? You told me you been dodging shadows most all your life.”

“Kendra, you believe somebody can change? Y’know, not be the same person they were, or not be like they’ve always been before? You believe that can happen?”

She took a moment to answer. “If only you could know, Curtis. Yes, I believe people can change. I know it for a fact. Trust me. I know.”

“Well, then, I can change, too. Even about the shadows. I reckon I’ll be Curtis all my life, but I don’t have to be Curtis-crazy. You know what I mean?”

“I believe you can do it, Curtis. I think you’ve known for years that what makes you jerk and shake when you cross a pole shadow is something that isn’t in the shadow at all, but up in your mind. Right?”

“Yeah … I’ve known that for nearly forever. It just hasn’t changed nothing.”

“But if you try and keep trying, Curtis, and remind yourself that you’re just like everybody else, and everybody else crosses those shadows without being grabbed by them, well, then you can cross them too. Just try and keep trying until it gets easy.”

“I can do it, Kendra. I can. And when I do, there’ll be nothing to keep me from just being a regular man, working and driving a car and just being like everybody else. You wait and see if I don’t do that! So please don’t tell that man yes just yet. Give me time to show you I can make something better of myself. Okay?”

“Curtis, he hasn’t really asked me yet. Just told me he plans to ask. Once he does, I don’t know how long he’ll let me go without giving him an answer. If I drag him on too long, he might find another lady to ask, and I’d be left all by myself, for good. Alone.”

“Not alone. Not never. Not as long as I’m in this world, Kendra. You can count on that.”

“Well … okay.”

He squinted at her. “Okay what?”

“Okay … I’ll not rush. I’ll give it all time.”

Never had a man’s face revealed so much relief. Curtis took some cleansing, tension-relieving deep breaths and smiled across the table at her.

“You watch me when I cross the parking lot today, Kendra. You watch.”

“I will.”

“My coffee’s getting cold. Can I get some more?”

“Go ahead. They give you a couple of free refills here.”

“I’ll get you some more, too.” He grabbed both cups and headed for the counter.

When the coffee drinking and doughnut eating was done, Curtis and Kendra returned to the library, where Curtis enthusiastically admired Kendra’s damaged, twenty-year-old Belvedere parked out back, then visited Kendra’s small and battered desk in a corner of the book-repair room and bragged very sincerely on her “nice office.”

AMBER GOODE RETURNED FOR Curtis as she had said she would, but she did not get out of her car and come in to meet his friend. Instead she idled the car in the middle of the library parking area, looking impatiently toward the tinted glass front window of the building to see if Curtis was aware she was there. She was about to rudely honk the horn when she saw movement on the other side of the window and made out two forms, a man and a woman.

The man was Curtis, and he came out two minutes later. The woman remained inside, only faintly visible behind the darkened glass. Curtis had a happy manner and springing step as he advanced toward Amber’s car. Then he stopped abruptly, noticing only then the pole shadow that lay between him and the car. Amber had not noticed it earlier or would have parked in way to let him avoid it.

Curtis frowned at the shadow, then muttered silently to himself. Pulling his shoulders up straight, he turned for a second and looked back through the library window at Kendra to make sure she could see him, then with no more hesitation than it took to whisper a fast prayer walked into and through the pole shadow with not even a wince. On the far side of it, he sighed in relief, turned and beamed a big smile back toward the library window and gave a thumbs-up. Amber saw the woman beyond the window give the same signal right back.

“How’d you do that, Curtis?” Amber asked as he settled into the car, so happy now that he was chuckling under his breath. She hoped he could not smell on her own breath the three beers that had washed down her lunchtime pizza, and hoped too that she was as good at handling her alcohol as she liked to believe she was. It was a middling good drive back to Tylerville, and she already had one DUI on her record.

“It was easy,” Curtis said. “Kendra told me I could do it, so I did. I did it good. Just walked through that shadow like it was nothing.”

“You sure did, my friend. You ready to get back home now?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” His grin became even broader. “I did it, Miss Amber! I really did it!”

“You surely did, and I’m proud of you.”

“Me too. I’m proud of me. Real proud!” But he mulled something over for a moment. “Miss Amber, I heard somebody say once on the radio that it’s a sin to be proud. Is that right?”

“Curtis, honey, when you got a list of sins the like of mine, the glare the big ones throw off blinds you to the little ones. You don’t even notice them. And anyway, no, I don’t think it’s a sin for you to be proud of yourself for what you just did. I think it’s a good thing. Not even a twitch! Not even a blink! You treated that shadow like it was nothing, and then it
was
nothing! You did that, all on your own!”

“Who’s Curtis-crazy now, Miss Amber, huh?”

“Nobody in this car, Curtis. Nobody at all.”

“JUST WHAT BROUGHT YOU up to this part of the county today to begin with, Reverend?” Melinda asked as the exploration of Harvestman Lodge came to an end and the three headed for the door.

“Just putting flowers on a grave not far from here,” Feely replied. “I saw your car parked outside the lodge and decided I should investigate to make sure nobody was committing any vandalism inside.”

“Fortunately we left our cans of spray paint in the Bronco,” Melinda said. “But you know, more seriously, it is amazing that this big old empty building hasn’t been vandalized. I saw very little graffiti or physical damage. You’d think your spooky goth kids would be drawn to a place with a dark and mysterious reputation.”

“I’ve wondered about the lack of vandalism myself,” Feely said. “I suspect that Benton might have a periodic watchman about the place, maybe only at certain times but frequently enough to keep would-be intruders cautious. The times I’ve come up here I’ve not encountered any watchman, but maybe that’s just happenstance.”

“If somebody’s watching, they might have seen us come in here … or see us now, coming out,” Eli said as Feely pushed open the front door and waved Melinda outside. Hearing what Eli was saying, she became instantly edgy and quickly hustled to her car, getting inside fast, fumbling the key into the ignition. Eli followed almost as hastily into the passenger seat.

Eli lowered the passenger window slightly. “Where did you park, Kyle?”

“Over near the grave,” he said.

“So there’s a cemetery near here? Any connection to Harvestman Lodge?”

“No real cemetery, just a private burial spot.”

“Oh. Okay. Listen, thanks for the information today. It was interesting, and educational to boot.”

“Enjoyed it myself, grim though some of the subject matter might be.”

“I can’t believe such a thing was going on here, in my own home county,” Melinda said. “It just doesn’t feel like it could be possible.”

“Yes,” said Feely. “It’s the kind of thing you might expect in some big urban center famous for vice and wickedness. But evil has tendrils, friends, and sometimes their reach is long.”

“Can we drive you to your car?” Melinda asked.

“I’ll just walk … it isn’t far away.”

Feely watched Melinda and Eli drive away. The Bronco turned left rather than right, going further up the inclining road rather than back down toward Flea Plank. He wondered where they were going, decided it didn’t matter, and circled the building to look at the gaping hole in the rear wall. He’d encourage Benton Sadler to get the damage repaired soon. The open wall was as strong an invitation to badly-intentioned intruders as could be given.

Melinda was right: it was amazing and inexplicably fortunate that the building hadn’t been thoroughly vandalized, having sat empty for the better part of a decade.

Feely walked back to the path that led through the trees toward the the cave where an unknown dead girl was secretly interred. He was no longer sure if she had been Junie in life, or the barfly Shelia who had made the bad choice of going home with Roy Tate on what proved to be a fateful night twenty-three years before.

Either way, the flowers were there in remembrance, for whatever good that would do.

THERE WAS NO PARTICULAR significance to the fact Melinda had opted not to immediately head back down toward Flea Plank when she drove away from Harvestman Lodge. She simply couldn’t remember what was farther up the road and so seized the opportunity to do some rediscovery.

There wasn’t much to be reminded of … a few houses and mobile homes, lots of barns, an old school building from the 1930s that had been abandoned, converted into a community center, then abandoned again. No less than three churches within a two-mile stretch, all three of them some variety of Baptist. A few picturesque old farmhouses, and a couple of rectangular red-brick ranch houses from the 1960s, utterly ill-suited to the classic small-farm landscape.

At a crossroads, Melinda turned around, heading back. As they passed Harvestman Lodge again, a short distance beyond it they saw Feely pulling out onto the road and fell in behind him. Feely gave no indication he noticed them.

“He’s a good man, seems to me,” Melinda said.

“I agree,” Eli replied. “Big heart and big mind, and just odd enough to be interesting.”

“Will you go to his church with me tomorrow?”

“I will. I have a feeling he preaches sermons worth hearing.”

“Remarkable, I think, that he and you both independently developed an interest in the history of Harvestman Lodge, even if out of different motives.”

“So far, he’s carried his interest further than I have. Talking to so many people, actually getting a few answers. I can’t find anybody willing to spill whatever beans they’ve got.”

“He’s a minister, with a calm and comforting demeanor, and that probably makes people less afraid to open up with him. With a minister, you have the presumption of confidentiality. With a newspaper guy, or a TV reporter like me, you have the exact opposite.”

“That probably does figure into it. And maybe I just haven’t asked the right people yet.”

Ahead, Feely’s car was pulling to a halt at the stop sign where Harvestman Lodge Road butted the two-lane. Melinda stopped behind him, and apparently for the first time, Feely realized who was at his rear. He waved, eyes on his rearview mirror. The pair in the Bronco waved back.

“You hungry?” Melinda asked. “We could stop at Flea Plank Grocery again and have a sandwich.”

“I’m good, actually. That breakfast was big enough to hold me a few hours.”

“Same here. We’ll go on to your grandparents’ house, then, if you still want to do that.”

“I do.” Eli craned his neck and looked out at the sky. “Building up for rain, it appears.” A roll of thunder, far in the distance, came back as if in answer.

“Harmony Road, right?”

“That’s right.”

They were just then coming around a slight bend, Feely still ahead of them. The Flea Plank Grocery came into view and Feely made an abrupt turn into the parking lot.