The Devil Walks in Mattingly (35 page)

“It’s all right, Reggie,” I said. I looked over the preacher’s shoulder and up the stairs. Bobby faced me now. Justus and Big Jim still did not. “What’s going on? Someone try to break in?”

The reverend said, “No.”

Justus and the mayor parted to either side of the entrance. When they turned, Kate uttered a moan. One word had been spray-painted across the door in bold, wide letters:

COWARD

“What’s that mean?” Zach stood on his toes, stretching his skinny neck as far as it was able. His mind gathered in the letters and his mouth tried to sound out the consonants and vowels. “What’s that mean, Daddy?”

Only Bobby spoke. He waved a folded newspaper at Zach
and said, “Means your daddy’s bore false witness, boy, which is bad enough. But he lied ’cause he was a’scared, and that’s worse. Maybe you should go back up Hollis’s way again, Jake. Get you sum’more of Jenny’s courage.”

The crowd gasped. Zach’s face fell into a deep shade of crimson. He stormed through the people before Kate or I could stop him.

“You take that back,” he screamed. “My daddy’s scared of
nothin’
.”

Kate ran after him. Zach charged up the steps. Justus stood unmoved, watching. Mayor Wallis moved forward to catch him, but the boy was too quick. Zach slipped beneath Big Jim’s arms and slammed into Bobby, and when he realized the town drunk was taller than Danny Blackwell and wouldn’t be moved, Zach clamped his mouth upon the first patch of soft skin he could find.

Bobby howled. A smile crossed Justus’s face. Kate reached the top step and grabbed hold of Zach, wrenching him away as he kicked at Bobby’s legs.

“My daddy’s
brave
,” he screamed. “My daddy’s the bravest man in the
world
.”

Kate opened the door and carried Zach inside. The mob’s eyes shifted back to me. Several people closest took a small step back, believing my calm countenance a precursor for fury, the way the air stills before a storm.

But there was no anger in me. There was no anything.

I had feared two things in life—that Kate would discover what I did to Phillip, and that the town would discover everything they believed of me was a lie. What rendered me numb at the sight of that door wasn’t that the second of those fears had now come to pass, but that I didn’t need to hide anymore. Everything in my world was either coming to rest or falling to
pieces, and in that I found a freedom that not even the judging eyes of my friends could steal away.

“Well now,” Justus said. “Reckon that Barnett spunk skipped a generation.”

A few chuckled. Bobby Barnes tried but could only manage a rough smile through his clenched teeth. He rubbed the inside of his elbow where Zach had bit him. I stepped past the reverend and walked up the stairs. Bobby and Mayor Wallis made room. Justus did not. He held his hands out, framing the door like a game show model displaying what I’d won for all my hard work.

I turned to face the people. “Who did this?”

Bobby spoke: “Maybe it was Taylor Hathcock.”

“If ’twas,” Justus said, “then it’s proof the devil ain’t ignorant.”

The crowd found no amusement in this.

Mayor Wallis stepped forward and snatched the newspaper from Bobby’s hand. He held it up to me and said, “Could’ve been anybody, Jake.”

The headline was just as large as the one Trevor had used Sunday, only now instead of TWO DEAD, ONE SOUGHT IN GAS STATION ROBBERY, there was a slightly smaller copy of the word on the door. Below that was
SHERIFF
’
S
KNOWLEDGE OF CRIMINAL
’
S WHEREABOUTS QUESTIONED AS LOCAL GIRL GOES MISSING
. Beside it was a picture of Lucy. She was smiling.

Big Jim said, “Jake, I need it straight. You know where Hathcock is?”

I looked at the paper

(COWARD)

and then to the mayor. Everyone’s eyes on me, waiting for my answer. When I said I didn’t know where Taylor was, I believed that true. And yet a part of me said it was simply another lie.

Big Jim studied me and offered a small nod. He shoved the newspaper back into Bobby’s chest without looking. “Wish I could believe you, Jake. We’ve had our differences, everybody knows that, but I always thought you a good man.” He turned to the crowd. “Town’s lost confidence in you, though. A girl’s gone missing, and I have it on Trevor’s word that her daddy and Kate both think Taylor Hathcock had something to do with it. I’m calling an emergency vote of the town council tonight on whether to keep you as sheriff or not. You’re expected to be there.”

Justus stared at the ground. I can remember many times when my father had looked disappointed in me, but that was the first time he’d ever looked ashamed.

No one in the crowd moved. The day would start soon. More people would come from the neighborhoods and hills to buy their groceries or shop at the Dollar or gather for breakfast at the diner. All of them would have Lucy on their mind. Lucy and me.

I opened the door and reached inside for the brush and can of paint I’d left on the floor. I pried the top away and stirred the brush inside as Bessie pressed against my back. She’d never felt so heavy there, like a millstone. I began covering the COWARD in thick, broad strokes.

No one offered to help.

11

It took two coats of paint.

The merchants left to open their businesses and the others to tend to their errands. Many of the shop owners decided that was a fine time to sweep their sidewalks. They worked
their eyes as much as their brooms. Bobby Barnes drifted to the courthouse to rally the day’s posse. Only Justus remained. He stood in the center of the steps with his hands shoved into the pockets of his overalls. A part of me wanted to ask him to take those hands out. I thought there might be spray paint on them.

“You stay behind to make sure I painted this right?” I asked.

Justus shook his head. “What’d you know about Hathcock, Jacob?”

“I don’t know where he is.”

“Ain’t what I asked.”

I tossed the brush into the empty can. “Doesn’t matter. Big Jim’s calling his meeting. I’ll be done. Job never suited me anyway. This town only wanted me for my last name, not my first.”

“What you mean it don’t matter?” Justus asked. He took a step up and breathed in deep, held it like it was about to explode. “What happened to you? You shame me, boy. I brought you up best I could. Weren’t a perfect daddy, maybe not even a good one, but I raised you t’be a man. A man woulda chased Hathcock to the moon if that’s what it took. He’d be out there right now lookin’ for that little girl, not colorin’ over his sins with a brush. A man’d be doin’ what’s
right
.”

“You’ve no place to tell me what’s right,” I said.

Justus took his hands from his pockets (they were clean; I didn’t know whether that made me feel better or worse) and placed them side by side in front of himself.

“You’re true on that,” he said. “We’s standin’ right here, Jacob. Don’t you see I’m tryin’ t’help you? Take me on inside, I’ve no fear. I’m ready to stand in judgment for the wrong I did. It’s you who ain’t.”

The shopkeepers gave up their ruse of sweeping. Their brooms now hung limply from their hands. Down the sidewalk, Bobby Barnes and the rest of the men stared. Justus clenched his fists when I moved my hand, but I only adjusted my hat. I turned to the door and walked inside, leaving him on the steps.

Kate stood by the window rubbing the smooth skin on her throat. She held a tissue in her hand. “Alan Martin called. He got a copy of the paper somehow. Said he’s coming down to talk to you. I sent Zach out back to calm down. He was on the sofa when you came in for the paint. I didn’t . . .” She rubbed her throat again—her way of trying to keep in what meant to get out. “I didn’t want him to see you have to do that.”

I nodded. “Thanks.”

“What did Justus say?”

“Wanted to know what happened to turn me yellow.”

“You’re not a coward, Jake. No one believes that.”

“Fifty people on the sidewalk and somebody with a half-empty can of spray paint would say different.”

Kate’s chin trembled. She took a step toward me and stopped. It was as if she wanted to move closer but had to stay away. “I’m so sorry, Jake. It’s all my fault. I know Lucy ran away. She was having problems with her daddy, and Johnny Adkins broke up with her. I think Clay found out what they were doing and Lucy said she was getting even and it was my
book
, Jake, it was my stupid
book
. I wrote her name down and now I’ve lost her like Phillip’s lost.”

“No,” I said. “That’s not true, Katie.”

“It is, Jake. All I’ve ever wanted to do is leave him behind, Jake, but he won’t let me. And now you’re dreaming of him. He’s haunting me, and he’s hurting you because of it. Please forgive me.”

And though there was nothing to pardon, I said I would.
I would pardon Kate anything. Forgiveness is an easy thing to offer when it’s all you’ve ever wanted to receive.

“I’m gonna go in my office,” I said. “Pack some things up.”

“What do you mean?”

“Big Jim’s having a meeting tonight. Town’s lost faith in me. They’re going to call a vote, Kate. I won’t give that man a chance to fire me. I’m quitting.”

Kate’s voice cracked, “Jake, no. You can’t let that happen because of me.”

I shook my head. “It’s not you. I’m tired, and I just want to put an end to it all. We’ll stay until we can sell the house, then go someplace else. Stanley maybe, or Camden. Make a fresh start.”

“Jake, this is
home
.”

“Not anymore. I’m tired, Kate. I’m tired of trying to be someone I’m not, and I’m tired of trying to fit in with a town that’ll always compare me to my father. I’m tired of coming up short, and I just want to start over again.”

I went to my office and pulled Bessie from my belt. She went atop a desk that held nothing more than a lamp, a telephone, and two scuff marks in the left corner where I’d rested the heels of my boots every afternoon. I placed my boots there now. I figured that was all I could do.

A fresh start. That’s what I’d said. I’d never dreamed of leaving Mattingly, but now it made perfect sense. Maybe everything from the nightmares to Taylor to Justus to Trevor’s articles to the COWARD on the door wasn’t so much God punishing me for my sins as it was God trying to get my attention. Trying to help me.

Telling me to move on.

Maybe that’s what Phillip meant when he’d said I was hanging on too tight. That I had to let go.

I heard the sounds of boots on the foyer’s floor and looked up to see the top half of Zach’s cowboy hat coming toward the office. He sat in the vinyl chair across from me and leaned back, shooting his heels to the corner of the desk.

“Hey, bud,” I said.

“Hey, Daddy.”

His face was vacant, though his black eye leaked tears. A thin runner of drying snot ran from his left nostril to his ear.

“You okay?” I asked.

“That Bobby Barnes is a mean snake of a liar.”

“Bobby’s just doing what Bobby does. It’ll be okay.” I took my heels down and placed my hat next to Bessie. My hand went to my chin. “Gonna have to get you to school, I guess.”

“I don’t wanna go today,” he said. “I just wanna go home.”

“Can’t yet. Got some stuff to do, and somebody’s coming to see me.”

Zach lowered his feet and studied his hands. “You paint that lie off the door, Daddy?”

“Didn’t get it off, but I covered it.”

“But you’ll fix it, right?”

“What do you mean?”

Zach leaned forward, knocking his hat askance as he did. He took it off and placed it next to mine. “Don’t matter if you painted over it,” he said. “It’s still there. An’ what if it rains and washes that new paint off?”

“What you think I should do, then?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Reckon you gotta get a new door, Daddy.”

I looked at him and smiled in that way parents often do—that slight upturn of the mouth that’s part amusement at the simple way their children see the world and part longing to see that same way. Those grins don’t often last long before
they’re swallowed by a sigh. Mine lingered, though. And then it hardened.

Zach leaned forward and cupped his hand to his chin, mirroring me. His hat lay atop the desk next to mine, and his eyes matched the tired, puffy look of my own. It was as if he had become a key that unlocked a room of mirrors inside me, and everywhere I turned I saw myself truly. There were no sunken cheeks in that reflection, no silvering stubble or waning waistline. What I saw instead was the boy I once was and still remained—a youngling caught in the widening shadow of a Barnett name that for generations had been carried by men whose word was a bond and whose honor was unquestioned. Until the day I killed Phillip, I had carried that name well. Afterward I saw it as no less a mark than the one God put upon Cain.

Justus said he’d raised me a man, but that wasn’t true. He’d raised me to believe a man never stumbled. He never failed, never hurt, and if he did it meant he was something less. And now, looking at Zach, I realized I was teaching my own son something far worse—that it was better to run from the past than to face it.

I rose from my chair and reached for the plastic bag hanging from the bookcase. Zach moved back as I laid it across the desk. I undressed in front of my son, let him see every bone and crevice in my wasting body, and took the uniform from the wire hanger. I dressed slow, putting the shirt on first and the pants last. The silver BARNETT name tag glittered. I put my boots on and stood, holding my pants up with a hand. Zach watched as I tightened the belt as much as I could. Still, the clothes swallowed me.

“What’cha doing, Daddy?”

I reached for Bessie and tucked her into the small of my
back. The extra bulge did what the belt could not. I thought my pants would hold.

“Gonna go get a new door,” I told him.

Zach followed me out. Kate looked up from her desk and said something I didn’t hear. I was too busy thinking about the door and Phillip.

How he’d said the door comes first, and the father comes next.

12

What Kate asked was, “Jake, what are you doing?”

She wanted to ask more (
Why are you wearing that uniform?
came to mind first,
Exactly how much weight have you lost?
a close second), but he had already crossed the foyer to the door.