The Devil Walks in Mattingly (36 page)

Zach trailed close behind. His cowboy hat bobbed on his head, and there was a smile where tears had been.

“Daddy’s gonna get a new door,” he said. “You comin’, Momma?”

“What?” she asked.

Jake paused at the entryway and turned. The space between them covered nearly fifty feet, yet Kate saw a fire in his eyes she hadn’t seen since their schooling days.

“You should stay here, Zach,” he said. “I don’t know how this’ll go.”

“
No
sir,” he said. “I’m comin’ too.”

Jake nodded. He looked at Kate. “Might need you, Kate. You always had a way of calming folk down.”

She rose from her desk, leaving her open notebook behind. Jake took the steps down and turned a sharp right for the courthouse. Dozens of men had gathered there each morning that
week to look for Taylor Hathcock. On that day it looked like hundreds. Kate knew why. Most of those men were fathers, and many had young daughters at home.

Justus stood at the top step. He pointed to the big relief map of the town and surrounding wilderness. Bobby Barnes stood beside him, nodding like a proper underling. His strides were long and purposeful. Kate broke into a jog. Zach ran with her. He laughed.

“Jake,” Kate said, “slow down. What are you doing?”

“My job.”

He didn’t break his stride. Justus looked up and saw their approach. The pause he gave was too brief for the crowd to notice, though the catch in his next words was enough to turn Bobby’s head. A county police car worked its way up Main Street and parked in front of the sheriff’s office. Alan Martin got out and walked inside.

Kate said, “Jake, Alan’s here.”

“He can wait.”

“Jake.
Jake
.” She reached out to grab him and missed, then took hold of him on her second try. Jake turned but didn’t stop. “I don’t know what you have in mind, but I don’t think this is the right time for it. Let’s wait until Justus sends them out to wherever they’re going, okay? Let’s just go back.”

“There’s no back, Kate,” he said. “Only way out’s through.”

They pushed through the crowd. Kate lifted Zach into her arms, fearful that he’d be trampled or lost. Justus stopped barking his orders. Jake took the stairs one by one as Bessie’s handle tapped the back of his leg. Kate remained below, conscious that both she and her son now stood between a crowd of angry men and the man the crowd blamed for why they were there.

Mayor Wallis and Trevor stepped out of the courthouse. Big Jim asked, “What’s this, Jake?”

Bobby smirked. “Well, cain’t you see, Mayor? Must be Halloweentime.” He looked at Jake and said, “That there’s a nice-lookin’ costume, little boy. Ain’t got no treat for you, though, seein’ as how I’m involved in man work. Don’t you go play no trick on me, now.”

Justus studied Jake’s uniform and pressed his lips into a fine line. When he spoke, his voice was soft. It may even have held a bit of wonder. “State your aim, Jacob. Say it well, for all to hear.”

“Justus Barnett, I’m placing you under arrest for the shooting of Bernard Wilcox, Harvey Lewis, and Clancy Townsend.”

Kate’s jaw went slack, as did Big Jim’s. Trevor took a step away.

Bobby said, “Now what’s this, Jake? You ain’t got no right doin’ this. You ain’t even gonna be sheriff no more.”

“I’m sheriff for now,” Jake told him. Then, to Justus: “Ain’t gonna read you your rights, because I don’t know them all. Don’t have my cuffs either. But I expect you to come along with no trouble. Don’t make me raise my hand, because I don’t know if I can.”

A low grumble rose from the men, coming onto Kate like a wave. Zach clutched her neck. What she did next was not out of her own fear, but the fear she felt in her son. She whipped around before the crowd could come forward and planted her feet firm.

“Dare anyone take a step,” she said. “Dare you all, and I will remind you there is another Barnett here, and she can rage as fierce as any man.”

The rumble ceased. Jake took hold of Justus’s wrist. Bobby reached to break the hold. Jake brought his free hand behind his back and pulled Bessie, flipping the handle in the air. Cold steel settled against Bobby’s neck. He drew his arm away.

“Mind your manners, Bobby Barnes,” Jake said. “And know your place.”

A grin lay on Justus’s mouth. Upon Kate’s as well. Bobby had been bested by two Barnetts that morning.

Justus said, “Best you best step away, son. Ol’ Bessie’s been a bit bucksome of late, an’ Jake looks a might shaky this morn’. He’s apt to slip and give you a shave that’s more than whisker.”

Kate looked and saw Justus was right. The fire in Jake’s eyes burned hot enough to reach his fingers. Bessie shook in his hand. Yet she knew her husband well despite what secrets he carried, and she knew what Jake felt was neither anger nor fear. It was hurt. Whatever of Justus’s strength and rightness never made it into Jake’s genes, they were still of the same blood. And yet Jake’s father had just called Bobby Barnes “son.”

Bobby nodded. Whatever words he had a mind to say stopped where Bessie’s blade met him. He backed away slowly.

Jake led Justus from the steps. The men parted before them. Only Mayor Wallis and Trevor followed. The rest were held at bay by their own shock and Kate’s backward glances. She and Zach went ahead and opened the front door of the sheriff’s office, mindful of the still-wet paint.

Alan Martin was on the sofa when they walked in. He stood when he saw Justus.

“Jake?” he asked.

“Be right with you, Alan.”

He led Justus past his office and down the hallway.

Kate put Zach down and said, “You keep the mayor and Trevor company, Zach. We’ll be right back.”

“I wanna come,” he said. “I wanna talk to’m. What’d he do, Mommy?”

Kate said, “He just got tired, honey. Like we all do. Now go.”

Zach shuffled away and asked Big Jim, Trevor, and Alan if they’d like a cup of water. Kate followed Justus and Jake to the cell. Jake pulled the door free and moved aside. Justus hesitated. To Kate, that pause was neither a denial of what was happening nor a refusal to accept it. It was more the kind of stop that comes when you find a place of rest at the end of a long walk.

He stepped inside. Jake closed the door so slowly that the locks barely clacked. Justus stepped forward and grasped the bars with his hands.

“I’m sorry,” Jake said.

Justus nodded.

“I’ll be back. Have to talk to the police about what Trevor wrote.”

“Talk to him like you talked to me,” Justus said. “Straight and true.”

Kate watched as Jake moved down the hall and called for Alan, who followed him into the office. She wanted to check on Zach but didn’t want to leave Justus. Seeing him in that cell made him look worn. Worn and small.

“I’m sorry too,” she said. “You should have just stayed away, Justus.”

“No,” he said. “It’s like you told the boy. I’m tired, Katelyn. Town needed me. My town. Reckon it’ll be yours and Jake’s to keep now, and the boy’s once he’s grown.”

Kate thought of what Jake had said about leaving.

“Never got to know the boy,” Justus said. “Zach. I know it’s my own fault, Katelyn, and keepin’ me from him was just as much my doin’ as yours. But I want you to know that that misery’s laid heavier on me than the men I shot. That boy’s my blood. You raise him up to be a good man.”

Kate gritted her teeth and swallowed. She would not let
Justus see her cry. She would stand tall and face him with her chin up. She would be a Barnett.

The office door opened. Alan and Jake walked down the hallway to the cell.

“This is Alan Martin of the county police,” Jake said. “He’s gonna take you in.”

Jake took the key from his pocket and turned the lock. Big Jim and Trevor said nothing as Jake led Justus through the foyer. Moving shadows fell through the windows and onto the floor, evidence of the crowd that had gathered outside.

“You sure about this Seekins girl, Jake?” Alan asked.

“I am. Kate knew the girl. She’ll vouch that she was having problems at home.”

“He’s right,” Kate said. She looked at Trevor. It was plain that he didn’t believe her. It was plainer that Kate didn’t care. “I was trying to help her, but it wasn’t enough.”

“And you have no information on Taylor’s whereabouts?” Alan asked Jake. “Because if you do and you’re not telling me, Jake, it’s aiding and abetting.”

“I don’t know where he is, Alan.” And before Trevor could speak up, he added, “I’m gonna chase down a lead, though. It’s a small one. I’ll let you know.”

“Okay. I’ll take Justus in and start a missing person’s report on the Seekins girl.”

They left then, Alan and Justus first, Jake trailing them. Justus passed his eyes over Kate. He smiled and settled on Zach. “Good-bye, boy. You have lion’s blood in you. Don’t forget that.”

They put him in the backseat of Alan’s car with much of the downtown in attendance. The only one smiling was Justus. Alan pulled away, leaving Kate at the window. She watched her husband tug at a uniform he thought had always been too big for him.

13

Had Taylor been looking
through his binoculars just then, he would have wondered who the old man in the back of that county police car was and why that man was grinning so hard. He would have also seen another man wearing what looked like someone else’s clothes watch that police car go. He would have seen that man step inside the sheriff’s office on Main Street just long enough to say good-bye before climbing into a rusting Chevy Blazer and driving out of town toward the western mountains. But those magic spyglasses weren’t to Taylor’s eyes. They were beside him on the log instead. And though he was indeed gazing down over the town, all he saw was his own lonely self.

He thought of the footprints and how he’d found them Friday night on one of his rare trips to the grove. How he’d followed them all the way to the rusty gate. It was Taylor’s obsession with Kate that had made him believe those prints would lead to town and to her. That was why he’d convinced Charlie to take him to Mattingly in the first place.

But then everything changed. Charlie was gone, for one. Where exactly Charlie had gone was a question Taylor had tried to ignore until Lucy had spoken of it earlier.

Dying or waking, people do it every day. People like my mom and Charlie. So how can you be doing it?

Taylor had no answer for that because Lucy had been right. He’d been in the Hollow so long that the workings of the world below had slipped him by. Of course people left. He’d known that himself once upon a time, had he not? What did that mean, then?

He sat with his book in his lap and the tip of his pencil hovering, wanting answers but finding none. Taylor never
wrote down how it was that people could Wake without him in their presence. He only scrawled at the bottom of a page that was written on and erased and written on again hundreds of times over the course of twenty years:

All’s still a dreem.

Yes. Because Taylor’s book said so and that was his Bible, and when the Word clashes with the world, the Word must always win out.

Yet not even this contradiction was enough to sway Taylor’s mind from the higher things he pondered.

Lucy had saved him from a fate that would have mirrored Charlie’s own, and in the course of their days since, Taylor had come to think he’d saved her as well. He’d shown her as much of the truth as he dared. He had told her of the dream and taken her to the Hole. Taylor thought that well enough. Maybe even too much, given the depths of Lucy’s pining to redden her hand upon the grove’s wall. There were wonders in the Hollow more powerful—more holy—but Taylor had believed exposing Lucy to those would imperil her. If the lady had been consumed by the sight of a mere puddle, what would the sight of an ocean bring?

So he was content to keep the farther reaches of his kingdom a secret, knowing it was for Lucy’s own good. To show her more would mean Taylor opening his heart, and the gate at that entrance was just as rusted and unused as the one that guarded the Hollow.

And yet that had now changed as well, and for one simple reason.

Lucy loved him.

Taylor Hathcock did not know how old he was. Time, like death, was a notion that slipped away in the Hollow. He only knew that in the long days stretching behind him,
no one had ever voiced those words. Not his pa or his ma, not his grandpappy. Nor even his aunt, who had taken him in not out of tenderness but duty and, as far as Taylor knew, had never bothered to raise a call when he disappeared. But now he was loved, and Taylor had never known how much he’d craved those words until he heard them. The prospect of sharing his life with someone—of sharing everything—struck him silent.

Taylor stopped at that thought—sharing everything. That was it, wasn’t it? That was why those prints had led to Lucy Seekins instead of Kate Griffith. That was why Lucy had said maybe Taylor wasn’t supposed to find the one who’d risen from the grove, but the one who’d risen was supposed to find him. Taylor had thought that notion wrong at first. Now he felt it right. That’s why the Hollow had drawn the lady to him. Because Lucy would love Taylor and Taylor would love her back, but he would have to share everything with her first. He would have to take her to the riverbank. That was where his aid would come, to make an end at the beginning.

He turned, meaning to perhaps say those words back for the first time, but found himself alone. Taylor turned and found the camp empty but for a few piles of junk and the shrill sound of the breeze through the aluminum chimes hanging from the cabin. Lucy was gone, cast out by a silence she’d taken as judgment. Taylor called her name in a loud, anguished cry that was as close to prayer as he’d ever managed. And when Lucy appeared from the door of the cabin, he felt the rusted gate upon his heart swing open.

He went to her, mindful that his steps had quickened to a run. Lucy’s look was one of shock and confusion that melted away when he held her tight to his chest. Taylor put a hand to the back of Lucy’s head and stroked hair that looked like the
dark fronds of a flowerless plant. He put his lips there. She smelled of pine and earth and wind.

“You’re the only one that’s ever known me as a good man, Lucy Seekins,” he said. “If at the end of our path you’d still have my heart, it’ll be yours.”