Southern Cross (4 page)

Mae
took a deep, steadying breath, and stood with a shaky smile. “Thank you. That’s
all I’m askin’. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna round up the kids and head
to bed myself.” She looked at me. “I made up the guest room for you and that
pup of yours, Erin. Diggs, you mind bunking with the boys? Wyatt never did like
folks sharing a room without a ring—you understand. I hope that’ll be all
right.”

We
both nodded quickly. “That’ll be fine,” Diggs said.

“Rick
snores,” Mae continued. “And Danny—well, I don’t think that boy goes to bed
before three most nights, and we’re lucky if we can haul him up by noon.”

“Takes
after his uncle,” George said, eyeing Diggs. “Wouldn’t know he had any Durham blood in him at all.”

Mae
laughed. “He’s right. Rick’s already got everything figured out—he did a
project last year over to Smithfield, ended up gettin’ in early. He starts this
summer. And he did a project over to city hall for their plannin’ office,
mapping out the Underground Railroad here in Kentucky. Folks said he found
stuff under Justice that nobody even knew was there.

“But
Danny,” she continued. “Wy says it all the time: ‘If I didn’t know any better,
Maisie, I’d think Diggs slipped it to you one day while I was out of town.’ ”
She stopped. Realization dawned in that cruel, cutting way it does in the days
after you lose someone. “He
said
, I mean,” she finished. “Wyatt said it
all the time.”

“I
know what you meant,” Diggs said. He kissed her forehead. “Go get some sleep.
And let Uncle Diggs here take care of Danny for you—I’ll get him straightened
out in no time.”

She
looked doubtful, but she didn’t argue.

After
she left, George poured drinks all around and raised a toast to Wyatt.

The
night’s kind of a blur after that.

“So,
next thing I hear on the police scanner,” George said, in fine form between
half a jug of his best moonshine and the captive audience of me, Buddy
Holloway, and especially Solomon, “Sheriff Jennings has Diggs’ motel room
surrounded, and the police are ordering him out of there with his hands up…”

“Which
he does.” Buddy picked up the story while Solomon followed along, rapt. I
grimaced, knowing all too well what came next. “But when he comes out, it’s
without so much as a stitch on—naked as the day he come into this world. And of
course we all know the sheriff’s wife’s in there, too, but there ain’t no way
old Harvey Jennings is gonna be humiliated by risking Mrs. Jennings comin’ out
in her altogethers, too.”

We’d
been through a few of these stories by now. Bringing Solomon along for this
trip down amnesia alley didn’t seem nearly as good an idea as it had when it
first occurred to me.

 She
shook her head at me. “I can’t believe you slept with the sheriff’s wife.
You’re such a tool.”

“In
my defense,” I said, “my marriage had just broken up, I’d finished off two
pints of Jameson’s on my own that morning, and—while I don’t have a clear
picture of exactly what happened in that motel room—I’m pretty sure it didn’t
involve much sleeping.”

“Besides
that,” George interrupted, “if anybody deserved it, it was the sheriff. Harvey
Jennings is a bully, and an ass to boot.”

Buddy
nodded. “You got a point there. If I remember right, Sarah Jennings paid
through the nose for that night.”

“The
sheriff went after her?” Solomon asked, no longer so amused.

“’Bout
near killed her,” George said. I remained quiet, my gaze on the floor, thinking
back to days I’d been trying to put behind me for awhile now.

“’Course,
that meant Diggs here went after Harvey the next day,” George continued. “Put
him in the hospital for a good spell. Likely would’a killed him, if Wyatt
hadn’t gotten there.”

“He
deserved it,” I said numbly. “Sarah was a good woman. He treated her like
shit.”

“Was?”
Solomon asked. “What happened to her?”

“She
left town after that,” Buddy said. “Not more’n a week after Diggs, if I recall
correctly. Took her little girl, and nobody never heard from either of ‘em
again. ‘Course, you walk out on a man like Harvey Jennings, you don’t exactly
leave a forwarding address.” He looked at me. “I’d bet tomorrow’s lunch ol’
Diggs knows where she is, though.”

Solomon
took another slug of whiskey and set it down, eyes on me. “I wouldn’t take that
bet,” she said.

Our
gazes locked. Her eyes had the kind of feverish intensity Solomon only gets
when she’s drinking—which is rare. The air between us caught fire. She cleared
her throat.

“Well,
I hope you at least showed her a good time,” she said to me.

I
held her eye. “I’ve never gotten any complaints,
darlin’
.”

I
never tire of making Solomon blush. She looked away first, cheeks burning, and
rolled her eyes. She was notably lacking a comeback.

Another
few seconds of charged silence ensued before Buddy spoke up. “Well, believe it
or not, the sheriff’s a changed man these days. He just might surprise you, if
you two do cross paths.”

“Yeah,”
I said. “I’ll believe that when I see it. Nothing short of a lobotomy changes a
man like Harvey Jennings.”

“Buddy’s
right,” George said, though his tone belied his skepticism. “He’s gotten pretty
deep into the word, goin’ on about a year now. Follows Jesup Barnel’s church.”

“There’s
a terrifying combination if I ever heard one,” I said.

“Nothing
worse I can think of,” George agreed.

“Okay,
that’s the third time that name’s come up today,” Solomon interrupted. “This is
the preacher with the big billboard in town, right? What’s his story?”

“Diggs
and Wyatt never would’ve met if it weren’t for Reverend Barnel,” George said
before I could field the question myself. Or deflect it. “You was, what…?
Twelve years old at the time?” he asked me.

“Yeah,”
I agreed.

“Here
we go—this is the story you and Wyatt would never tell me,” Solomon said.
“Let’s hear it.”

“Diggs
and Wyatt met at Jesup Barnel’s church camp,” George began. He’d never been a
fan of Barnel’s. It was clear from his tone that that hadn’t changed in my
absence. “ ’Course, Wyatt never would’a been there in the first place, but
Retta—my late wife—took it into her head that the boy needed straightenin’ out.
The reverend runs this camp for boys havin’ more than your usual problems in
the world—you know what I mean?”

“I
think I get the idea,” she said.

“Reverend
Barnel has some… odd ideas about the ways of the Lord,” Buddy said. “He does a
big ol’ ceremony, legendary ‘round these parts, to cast out demons makin’
youngsters act out.”

“And
that’s how you and Wyatt met?” Solomon asked me.

I
nodded.

“After
that, they was thick as thieves,” George said. “Diggs would come for summers,
vacations—anytime he could convince his daddy to send him down, this is where
he’d be. I got pictures of the two of them out here on the farm, back when
Diggs had his hair like that fella—” He looked at me. “Who was it, now?”

There
was no way this could end well. “Yeah… Sorry, I don’t remember,” I said.

“Vanilla
Ice,” Buddy said, nodding. “Thought he was God’s gift, this one.”

“Listen,
we really should be going,” I said to Solomon. “It’s been a long day.”

“Are
you nuts?” she asked. “I’ve never seen a single picture of you besides class
photos at Littlehope Middle School. If there are candids of you as the Ice Man,
you can bet your sweet ass I’m gonna see them.”

“They’re
in the shed out back,” George said. “Hang on, let me get ‘em.” He started to
haul himself out of his chair, but I shook my head.

“Stay
where you are, George. I’ll get them. Just tell me where.”

Two
minutes later, I was outside in the fresh air again, grateful for the reprieve.
It was almost midnight, the woods an eerie cobalt blue under a clouded sky.
When I was with Ashley, I used to sit on the front porch out here with George,
drinking until we were blurry with the booze, talking life, philosophy, music,
women… Anything I could come up with to avoid going home. Whatever George might
have to say about his daughter, she sure as hell had deserved better than I’d
ever given her.

I hoped
she had that now.

I
could hear them laughing inside the cabin. Solomon wasn’t much of a drinker
usually, and George’s homemade whiskey wasn’t the best time to make an
exception to that rule. She’d stood by and watched me get blackout drunk enough
times that I wasn’t about to tell her when to quit, though. She—

I
stopped, caught by a sound I couldn’t identify behind me. The ground was too
soft for footsteps, but there was… something. Movement. Or I thought there was.
I flashed back to the summer before with Solomon and fought the urge to run
back inside. There were a whole host of night creatures that could be moving
out here about now. I wasn’t being hunted anymore.

Probably.

George’s
shed was behind the cabin, sheltered by a grove of trees and all but invisible
to the outside world. I slipped the latch and opened the door, shining a
flashlight George had given me. The shed was maybe 12x18, barely big enough to
walk around in, with tools hung neatly on pegboard on one wall and shelving
built along the others. A single, rectangular window was positioned on the
opposite wall, about six feet up—too high to see anything, but adequate if you
needed a little light. When there was light to be had, of course.

I
spotted a dozen photo albums lined up on one of the shelves, and stepped
inside. It smelled of sawdust and cigar smoke, two of George’s favorite things.
I grabbed a couple of the photo albums without checking the dates on the spines
and strode back across the shed toward freedom. Since the caves and tunnels of
the previous summer, enclosed spaces weren’t a favorite of mine. Something
clattered against the outside wall. I whirled toward the sound, heart racing.

“Solomon?
Is that you?”

I
turned back around just in time to watch the door swing shut.

“Buddy?
All right… Good one, guys. You’re friggin’ hilarious.” I reached for the door
and tried to push it open. It didn’t budge.

Something
scratched against the outside of the shed, just below the window—like someone
was scaling the wall. The clattering could have been a ladder, I realized. And
this was George’s idea of a practical joke: his way of welcoming me back to the
fold. I wet my lips and reminded myself that panicking at this point was
exactly the kind of story that would follow me to my grave, once the lights
came on and the idiots pulling the prank were revealed.

Better
to play it cool. Ride it out.

“All
right, you got me,” I said. “I’m trapped in the shed. In the dark. You guys are
comic geniuses.”

Something
scratched against the windowpane. I trained my flashlight beam in that
direction, but all that did was reflect the light back at me.

I
realized then that there was no way Solomon was behind this—she knew too well
what we’d gone through six months ago. And she wouldn’t let the others do
anything like it, either. Sweat beaded on my forehead and the back of my neck.
Just outside the window, I heard a faint rattling sound.

“Harvey?” I said quietly. If Sheriff Jennings had found out I was back in town, this might
be the kind of thing he’d pull to welcome me back. “Is that you?”

The
rattling got louder.

I
pulled my cell phone from my jacket pocket and hit number one on speed dial. It
went straight to Solomon’s voicemail. Perfect.

My
pulse was racing.

The
window opened, the sound of metal against wood like a scream in the stillness.
I grabbed the closest thing I could find—a hammer hanging on the pegboard—and
held it aloft, my back pressed to the far wall, waiting to see what would
happen next.

Whoever
was out there dropped something through the window, followed in quick
succession by two more somethings. They fell too quickly for me to see what
they were, but it was painfully obvious when I heard the wet thud and ensuing
hiss as they hit the floor.

The
rattling was deafening now.

The
window slammed shut.

I
stood very, very still.

<><><> 

There
are non-poisonous gopher snakes that mimic the movement and sound of the common
rattler. A once-over with the flashlight was all it took to tell me these were
not gopher snakes. These were rattlers—three large ones, maybe six feet long,
and they were pissed. The best move when encountering a pissed-off snake is a
backward one: stay calm, back the hell up, and keep walking the other way.

Trapped
in a locked shed, however, that wasn’t an option. I dialed 911. The dispatcher
picked up after three rings and asked me my emergency. I told her I was trapped
in a shed with three rattlesnakes.

There
was a very long pause.

“Three
live
rattlesnakes, sir?” she asked.

“Yeah.
Pretty live.”

“Maybe
you should get on outta there,” she said. “Have you been bit?”

“Not
yet, but I’m not loving my chances here. Listen, all I need you to do is call
Buddy Holloway—he’s a deputy at the Justice Police Department. Tell him Diggs
called.”

From
the shed.

Because
rattlesnakes were after him.

Yeah,
this was gonna go well.

There
was another long pause. The snakes slithered closer, the rattling like the
sound of fat frying in a pan. The largest of the three hissed, head up.
Preparing to strike.

“Sir,
it’s a crime to prank an emergency line.”

“Please…
I’m telling you, this isn’t a prank. Just call the deputy, all right?”

She
assured me that she would, and I hung up. The rattlers weren’t looking any
happier about our situation.

“Easy,
guys,” I said quietly. “We can talk this over, right? You go your way, I’ll go
mine.”

The
other two advanced, all three hissing now. Shit.

I
stepped backward and tried the door again: still jammed. I still held George’s
hammer in one hand, but going on the defensive was out of the question unless I
was feeling especially suicidal.

I
wasn’t.

Tired
of waiting me out, the largest rattler advanced again, focused on my pant leg.
I had jeans and thin hiking boots on—not enough to keep me protected should he
strike. The same noise I’d heard before clattered against the side of the shed
again, making me jump. Unfortunately, it had the same effect on the snakes;
already on edge, the sudden noise was all it took to push them over. A breadth
of a second later, the first rattler struck.