The Devil Walks in Mattingly (24 page)

14

Mattingly’s chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars occupied a one-story brick building on the outskirts of town. Aside from the occasional gatherings to plan parades and funerals and talk of old war stories (many of which were inflated by jars of Hollis’s moonshine), the meeting hall sat empty and forgotten. But not that night. The smell of ancient cigars might linger like ghosts and the pine floors may have been bowed and dull, but the VFW was still the only place large enough to hold everyone who arrived with one singular purpose on their minds—to decide how best to drive the devil back to hell.

Kate didn’t mind that Jake wanted to arrive early. Being there to welcome people inside, pat their arms and give them hugs and say how well they all looked, would go a long way toward easing simmering fears.

The gathering hall consisted of little more than a wide rectangle with a raised stage at one end. Joey and Frankie Munroe (who were not only upstanding members of the rescue squad, but just after their graduation had helped chase Saddam out of Kuwait) arrived early to set up neatly spaced rows of folding chairs. They filled the room and left just enough space down the middle and sides for movement. A lectern stood in the center of the stage, flanked by an American flag on one side and the Commonwealth’s on the other. Three more metal chairs sat just behind and to the left. Big Jim Wallis occupied the first, as was his custom. Reverend Goggins sat in the middle (the preacher was not to speak that night; Big Jim asked him to just sit there and remind people God was on our side). The last belonged to Jake. Though the meeting was not scheduled to begin for another half hour, the hall already stood nearly filled. Farmers spoke with merchants as hill folk mixed with town folk, all producing a low hum that rang off the moldy white walls.

Kate took her place in the second seat of the second row and said hello to Hollis and Edith Devereaux, seated in front. She placed her notebook in the chair on the aisle—that would be Lucy’s place, should she come. Zach took the seat on Kate’s other side. More people filed in through the open double doors in front. They descended upon the room like ants, covering the chairs until the chairs were gone, then taking up the empty places in the back and on the sides. Kate said hello to as many as she could, one eye on them and the other on the entrance. Just as Joey and Frankie went to close the doors and
call the meeting to order, dirty-clothed and short-haired Lucy Seekins walked in.

“Save my seat, honey,” Kate told Zach. “I’ll be right back.”

Kate leaped—there could be no other word—and walked to the back as quickly as she could. She took hold of Lucy’s shoulders and told her how well she looked, even if the girl did not look well at all. Lucy’s eyes were swollen and red, as if she’d spent the better part of the day in mourning.

“Is everything okay?” Kate asked.

“Yes, ma’am.” Lucy looked down and brushed the front of her clothes. She chuckled. “I know I don’t look it, but I’ve never been better.”

Kate said that was good, but those words came out sounding hollow and tinny. Someone who’d never been better wouldn’t look like that.

“I saw Johnny Adkins and his folks a little bit ago. They’re in the middle to the left. If there’s not a spot, I saved you a seat up front with me and Zach.”

Lucy’s eyes scanned the crowd. “I think I’ll just sit with you,” she said. “If it’s no trouble.”

Kate smiled. “Not at all.”

She closed her fingers around Lucy’s hand and guided her down the aisle, aware that the people they passed were gaping at the strange haircut on the girl from Away. Kate found her seat taken by Bobby Barnes, who spoke to Hollis in frantic whispers as Zach pushed against his shoulders. Little could be heard above the crowd, but Kate could make out plenty of Bobby’s begging, an equal amount of Hollis telling him no, and Zach saying as politely as he could that Bobby was gonna get out of his momma’s chair one way or the other.

“C’mon, Hollis,” Bobby said. “You cain’t
do
this.”

“I tole you, boy, I’m done. Git what you need at the Texaco.”

“Timmy’s closed up ’til he heals, Hollis. ’Sides, what he’s got don’t do me good like Jenny does.”

“I’m
done
, Bobby,” Hollis said. “Now get on afore Edith’s ears decide to work.”

“Bobby?” Kate asked. “Mind if I sneak in here with my boy?”

Bobby looked up and excused himself with a look of anger and ache. Kate took her place beside Zach and picked her notebook up from the chair on the end.

Lucy sat there. She leaned over and asked, “What were they arguing about?”

Kate pointed her chin at the couple in front of her. “That’s Hollis Devereaux and his wife, Edith. They own a farm out on 664.”

“And the other man?”

“Bobby Barnes.”

Lucy turned, watching Bobby go. “What was he wanting?”

Kate didn’t want to say, what with Lucy being so young and impressionable. Then again, what harm would there be in telling the girl what everyone in town already knew? Besides, Lucy was actually
talking
. And her shoes, Kate saw, weren’t angled to the door.

“Bobby has his struggles,” Kate said. “Always has. Hollis runs a still in the backwoods of his farm.”

Lucy’s posture stiffened. Her fingers drew in on the sides of her tan shorts, stretching them against her plump legs.

“You mean moonshine?”

Kate nodded and whispered, “Don’t say anything, though. Edith doesn’t know.”

Mayor Wallis stood and walked to the microphone. Kate’s eyes wandered to a family at the opposite end of the first row, close to the wall. Mother, father, son. Each wore the faded overalls common to hill folk, each either a size too big or small.
The boy—he couldn’t be much more than Zach’s age, Kate thought—turned his dirty face to her and smiled through a set of blackened teeth.

“Let’s all rise,” Big Jim said.

The room filled with the sounds of sliding seats and standing bodies. Hats were removed, hands placed over hearts. Faces turned to the flag. Kate looked down to see Lucy hadn’t moved. Her eyes were still on Hollis, boring into him. Kate tapped the girl on the shoulder and motioned for her to stand.

Big Jim began the anthem. The crowd joined in. Kate’s gaze cut from the stars and stripes to the small farm boy to her right, who was too thin for his clothes and too worn to offer much more than simple muttering. She heard the faint echo of “. . . and justice for all” and was struck by the irony of those words and the sight of that wanting child, whose life no doubt contained so many things but lacked so many more. There was justice for some, Kate thought, but there was little for hungry, dirty boys.

The crowd sat as Mayor Jim Wallis began his speech. Kate leaned over to Zach and asked, “You know that boy down there?”

Zach looked and nodded. “He’s Harley Ruskin. He goes to school sometimes.”

“Know where he lives?”

“No. Want me to find out?”

“Yes.”

Kate tousled his hair and smiled. Church, Jake, and Timmy had always been her means to add names to the notebook, but Zach had often been her secret weapon when it came to the town’s younger children. He knew just how to approach them and how to glean the necessary information about what they liked and where they lived. He enjoyed helping his momma with her names. In ways that both encouraged and
saddened Kate Barnett, it was the strongest link she shared with her son.

She opened her notebook and leafed through the pages as Big Jim told the town how things were bad but they’d been worse before. Under Lucy’s name, Kate wrote the date and
Harley Ruskin
.

“What are you doing? Why’s my name there?”

Kate covered the page even as she knew whatever goodwill she and Lucy had built in the last minutes had left quicker than it’d come. She looked up. Lucy stared at her, wanting an answer. Kate could only tell her the truth.

“These are people I’ve helped,” Kate said. “Your name’s in there because I want to help you.”

“Let me see,” Lucy said.

“No. It’s private, Lucy.”

“My name’s in there, let me see.”

Kate drew her hand away. Lucy studied her own name and rifled the pages with her fingers.

“You’ve helped all these people?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Big Jim ended by saying the sheriff was there to both talk and listen. Kate looked up at her husband. Jake’s face bore the stubble of weeks without a razor, and his hat looked too big for his body. She’d never seen him like that, and she thought lack of sleep had little to do with it. Jake’s eyes darted from one side of the room to the other, as though not curious to see who had come, but anxious to see who had not.

Jake rose when Big Jim motioned him to the lectern.

“Thank y’all for coming,” he said. “Just wanted to give a rundown of what’s happened and what’s still going on, as everyone seems to have their own view of both. I hear Andy’ll be okay. Timmy too. Eric Thayer’s funeral was today. I did not kill
Charlie Givens. I need to make that plain.” Jake swallowed and leaned back. The deep sigh he meant to keep to himself went through the microphone instead, filling the hall like a loud wind. “I sent the county police away this morning.”

A sharp murmur rose from the crowd. Kate felt Lucy’s eyes leave the notebook and settle on Jake. Kate stared at him as well. She wondered why her husband had kept that from her.

Jake held up a hand and said, “I sent them away because all they were doing was making everybody scared and nervous. Fact is, Taylor Hathcock’s nowhere around here. He’s gone. I think so, county police think so. He’s not a town problem anymore. We need to get things back to how they were, and having them around here won’t get that done.”

A few in the crowd believed that right enough. Most felt otherwise. They left their chairs to voice their concerns in angry shouts. Big Jim and the reverend tried to settle things. They could not. Jake banged his fist on the lectern, told everyone to quiet down and give him his say, but they were frothing now, venting their fear. And just as Kate thought they were all barreling down a hill in a car without brakes, the VFW’s doors exploded open and proved just that.

Kate’s head turned. The room was silent but for the heavy footfalls of boots on the old pine floor. The man walking toward the front stood tall, chin up and chest out. He focused not on the eyes of those around him (many of which were either batting in disbelief or looking for the fastest way to the doors), but upon Jake. Jake shifted his weight and tugged at his shirt collar, trying to breathe. Kate reached for Zach’s hand and shushed Lucy when she bent her head to say something. Mayor Wallis’s face melted into deep reds and blues. Trevor Morgan sat frozen, too stunned to even write in his notebook. He could only watch as Justus stopped at the first row and
eased the battered fedora he wore away from his eyes. He looked at Jake and smiled. It was all sharp teeth.

“Hello, son,” he said.

15

I heard Big Jim yell, “Arrest that man!” and turned just as he bolted from his chair with such force that it toppled backward and crashed, sending Preacher Goggins into a short but violent spasm. The mayor looked at Justus and then at me. “It’s your sworn duty, Jake. You take him in.”

My mind registered the fact that Kate had drawn Zach close. The rest of my thoughts were a jumbled mess of shock and dread. My head swooned in a way that was part tired, part hungry, and part scared. Mostly scared. Not because I thought Taylor was there (he wasn’t, I’d made myself sure of that), but because of the man who had come in his stead.

My father stood there, facing me in front of the town. He crossed his thick arms in front of his chest, sinking the straps of his overalls into his shoulders. It had been seven years and hard living, but he looked every bit the man who’d left Mattingly and vowed to never return.

“Jake?” Big Jim asked. “You hear me?”

“Heard you, Jim,” I managed.

It was all going too fast for me to process, like watching a movie stuck in fast forward. I forced my right arm behind my back. What I felt was not Bessie, but the top of my belt. Justus smiled again, baring a set of tiny, tobacco-stained teeth.

“Heard you too, Mayor,” Justus said. His eyes cut to the mayor long enough to send Big Jim looking for his chair. “What say, Jake? You gonna come down here an’ cuff me?”

He held his arms out, shook them, and raised two busy eyebrows. I held my ground.

“Dint think so,” Justus said. He lowered his arms and shook his head, then gave me a weak wave as he turned to the gathered crowd. I saw a folded copy of the
Gazette
in his back pocket and cursed Trevor again. “Somethin’ stinks in here,” he boomed. “Smelt it all the way to the hills, I did. Worried me so much I come on down, make sure there’s still a town.”

The tendons in my neck stood out in long, sharp lines. I looked at Kate for help, but none was there. She was as scared and frozen in place as everyone else. So too was Zach, who stared at Justus with eyes so wide they almost seemed to be devouring him. In that moment there was nothing I wanted more than to know my son had not understood what Justus had called me. The fear on Zach’s face said maybe that was true, and the relief I felt shamed me.

“Found buildin’s,” Justus continued. “Saw churches an’ stores an’ a piddly-lookin’ no excuse for a newspaper.” He sneered at Trevor, who sank even farther in his chair. Justus turned to me just long enough to say, “Saw a
sheriff’s
office,” then turned back around. “But I dint see no town. Thought for a second the Lord done scooped y’all up. Then I thought nosir, most y’all’re more suited for Judgment than Rapture.”

He looked at the mayor as he said that. Big Jim’s face went from rosy to crimson.

“But then I saw ever’body cowerin’ here like a rafter full of turkeys in a rainstorm, too senseless to keep from smotherin’ yourselfs in your own fright. What could be, I thought to myself, that’d turn men to cowards? What’d be that you women would feel no indignity aside your despair? Have your mommas suckled you against trembling breasts that turned you
yella
?”

Chins fell to chests one by one. Hats and caps lowered. Palms pressed over lips. I tell you this, and I say it true: had I honor enough, I would have done the same. Justus’s presence frightened me, yes. But it also shamed me. Because as broken and jagged as that old man’s heart was, there was no doubt it still beat, and from the right places.