The Evening Hour (26 page)

There were two pickups parked out front, loaded up with Leona's belongings. Cole thought about turning back, but then cut the engine. Sunlight turned the tops of the trees gold, like they were blooming with hundreds of pears.

“What do you want?”

A man stood in the doorway, glaring at Cole. He looked to be in his late-forties, maybe older. His gut spilled over his waist, and his muscle T and jeans were dirty, like he'd been crawling around in the mud.

“We said we'd have everything out by tomorrow. Can't you wait a goddamn day?”

“I just came to see Leona.”

“You ain't with Heritage?”

“Nah, I'm a friend.”

The man walked into the yard, regarding him warily. “A friend of my mom's?”

“My grandma is friends with her. Dorothy Freeman. I just came to check on her.”

He squinted, then seemed to relax. He took off his cap, wiped the sweat from his brow. “We got her moved into a nice little trailer down in Stillwell. We took her this morning.”

“Is she okay?”

“She's fine. My sister's staying with her for a few days.” He spit a glob of tobacco. “It's hard for her to give up this place, but there ain't nothing we can do. They're gonna start blasting and everything else. She can't stay here.”

The money would probably go to the kids, Cole thought. Leona didn't want it.

“You want me to tell her you stopped by?”

“Nah, it's all right.” He wondered what had happened to the mail-order prescriptions, but there was nothing he could do about it now.

“Tell your grandma she can visit her anytime at her new home. She'd like that.”

He remembered Leona once saying that she wished she was strong enough to take a walk through the woods. Cole should have taken her. He could have helped her. Let her lean on him. Held on to her arm and led her to the trees. Instead he had just given her money and pocketed her medicine. That was what he did best.

There was just one last old person to see, and then he would be finished. For good. Glassy-eyed geese and plastic rabbits stared at him as he walked up the pathway. Harley McClain came to the door fanning a bundle of Popsicle sticks in his hand.

“Come on in, I got something to show you.”

Cole followed him into the living room and looked around at all the houses and churches. “You've been busy.”

“You know what they say, idle hands are the devil's tools.”

“When I saw you last month, you said you were stuck.”

“Well, I was. I was getting a little bit discouraged on it,” he admitted. “But then one morning I woke up and it was like I was filled with all this inspiration. I got to work right away, and I tell you, I haven't been able to stop.” He did seem more energetic. His eyes were dilated, cheeks ruddy.

“Your doctor got you on something new?”

“Oh yeah. I can't recall.” He sorted through a stack of papers, handed them to Cole. He read over them and learned that the old man was now on a high dosage of Zoloft.

Harley gave Cole a paper sack holding bottles of Ambien, Oxy, and Xanax.

“You'll be all right without the pain medicine?”

“Oh, I ain't in any pain.” He grinned. “You remember that cathedral I was building?”

“Yeah.”

“I finished it.”

“Well, let's see.”

He led Cole into a back room. It was bare except for a twin bed and the biggest, most elaborately designed Popsicle building that Harley had ever made. It was probably four feet around, with spires and windows and staircases, and stood as high as Cole's waist.

“Jesus, Harley. You ought to enter that in some kind of contest.”

He was beaming. He told Cole that he hadn't felt this happy in a long time. He had so many ideas, he told him. Castles, skyscrapers. He wanted to build cities. Maybe an entire world.

“Hell, I believe you can do it, Harley.”

“I feel like a new man,” he said.

On the way out, Cole drove past the stripped sites and the orange-tinted creek that was littered with an old washer and dryer, a rotting mattress. Devil's Pike had been spared from the spill, but it didn't much matter. The land around here had already been ruined years ago. Harley was living in the middle of this mess and he would always live here, among his little houses and churches and figurines; he would go on pretending everything was fine in his pretty little made-up world. Maybe that was the easiest way to live, but Cole did not think he could do that anymore.

The next day he went over to Reese's. He remembered the dread he used to feel every time he came over here, but it wasn't like that anymore. He knocked, and after a minute, Reese peeked through the living room window, then swung open the door.

“What's this?” Cole took in the emptiness of the room. “Where is everything?”

“Sold it, gave away what I couldn't sell. Even the crippled cat. Gave it to some neighbor kid.”

There were still a couple of folding chairs, a dented boombox, and a plastic milk crate that held an ashtray and the King James. Two duffel bags sat by the door. The floor was dusty; on the walls were bright squares where pictures had once hung.

“Pretty soon nobody's gonna be left in the whole goddamn state,” Cole said.

“You're staying, ain't you?”

“I don't know. I don't know anymore.”

They sat in the folding chairs, and Cole looked Reese over. He thought he looked better than he had ever seen him look. He was sober and his face was full, his skin had color. He wore jeans, a white T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and he was barefoot, as usual. He'd cut his hair and it stuck up in little spikes, made him look younger. The bruises on his face had faded, but he was still scarred, he'd always be scarred.

“You sold the house?”

“Yeah. Didn't get much for it, property value's gone down so much. But Ruthie has a lot of antiques, and I'm taking them with me. They'll sell for more somewhere else. Everett and those fuckers were so dumb, they stole the shit that wasn't worth anything, left the antiques behind.”

“Where you going?”

“Floridy. Hot weather, the beach. Gonna take Ruthie's ashes and let them loose in the ocean.” He sighed. “She never went there, but I know she'd like it. You ever been?”

Cole shook his head. “I used to think about it a lot.”

“It ain't for everybody. But I got a cousin down there. He's the religious type.”

“So it's true,” Cole said.

Reese's eyes were bright. “My life is changed, buddy. It's like now I can see. I've been woken up.”

“Was it Cutter?”

“Sure, he helped. He helped me quit drugs and get all the demons out.”

There was a long pause, then Cole said, “You ain't given up smoking though.”

“No, not yet.”

“And drink?”

Reese grinned. “I can't do it all at once. I ain't too good with the cussing neither.”

“Just don't start preaching at me. I can't stand it.”

“Well, I've done a lot of sinning.”

“No testimony either.”

Reese laughed. “I'm gonna miss you, son.”

Cole reached for another cigarette. He felt rattled. He didn't know what else to say to Reese. Charlotte's words,
He'll sell us all down the river
, came back to him and he asked Reese if he'd seen Terry, and Reese said, “I'm done with him.” Reese had also heard the talk.

“I gotta get out of town,” he said. “Before the pigs bust me.”

“You got anything on you?”

He hesitated. “I better not lie no more, now that I'm born again, right?” He admitted that he had a little bit of speed for the drive, the last thing he ever bought from Terry Rose. “But this is it.”

“I could have given you something,” Cole said. “You shouldn't buy from him, after what he did.”

“It wasn't Terry that beat me up, he didn't have the balls for that. Anyway, he sold it to me for real cheap.”

“He still cooking?”

“Nah, I don't think he did that for very long. Wasn't any good at it. Word is he's been skimming from Everett. He's desperate. Fucking desperate.” He raised his eyebrows. “He's looking for you.”

“For me?”

“Yeah, I told him I hadn't seen you in a long time. Told him I'd heard you was getting out of the business.”

“What's he want with me?”

“I don't know, but he wants something. Terry Rose always wants something.” Reese sighed, stretched out his long legs. “Bet you never thought this could happen to me, old Reese getting saved.”

“I never gave it too much thought.”

“I wish Ruthie was still alive. I wish she could see me now.”

But Cole recalled Ruthie with her wigs and nail polish; she never would have tolerated Reese getting religion.

“Brothers used to talk about Jesus when I was in the pen. Somebody or another was always preaching. But they never reached me. I was too hard, too lost.”

“What did it this time?”

“I don't know exactly, but I'll tell you, when I went to church and heard that Cutter boy speak, something changed.” He pointed to the Bible. “I don't understand most of it, but I'm trying. You get it though, don't you? I bet you could tell me a lot of what's in there.”

“That's not with me anymore.”

He wasn't exactly surprised about Reese finding God. Hadn't he witnessed his grandfather convert the most broken-down sinner? But when Reese started to tell him more, Cole stopped him. “I told you not to start preaching. Anyway, I got to be going.”

“I just feel like things are going to be good, like I got a new start.” He paused. “I've thought about all the bad things I've done, and I just don't want it anymore. Luke said it's about letting go. I might still feel the desire, but let it go.” His eyes were hopeful. “I ain't gonna burn. I ain't gonna be that way no more.”

Cole sighed with disgust. “You know, I don't think God much cares.”

“What's that?”

“You heard me.”

“You never heard of Sodom and Gomorrah?”

“If you'd seen what I did when I was digging the dead people out of that mess,” Cole stopped. Then he said, “God don't care about fucking or jerking off or none of it. I just don't believe it. There's bad things, and God don't care if you're fucking your own kind or not.”

For a moment, Reese was quiet, then he laughed. “Ain't you a changed man.”

“I don't know. That's just what I think.”

“All right, buddy.”

“All right.”

They walked to the door. “I'm glad you stopped by. I'm gonna be gone by daylight.”

“How you getting there?”

“Ruthie's Cadillac. Gonna haul a little trailer that Cutter loaned me.”

“You won't make it to the county line in that thing.”

“Hell I won't. It's only got twenty-five thousand miles on it.” He grinned. “But if I get stuck somewhere, I'll call you.”

“You do that.”

He clapped Cole on the back and told him to take care of himself. There were no teary good-byes, none of that. Cole backed out of the driveway, knew he'd never see Reese Campbell again. He drove through town, past the Wigwam, the nursing home. Everyone was always talking about starting over. He tried to picture Reese walking into Luke Cutter's church, broken, strung out, and mourning the woman he'd loved maybe more than his own mother. Luke had promised him eternal life, forgiveness. Wasn't that what they all wanted? He had no trouble seeing it. He understood. It was the kind of thing that had made his granddaddy's eyes shine, snatching souls up from the flames.

Chapter 20

In the morning Cole, groggy and half awake, brewed coffee and lit a cigarette and opened the newspaper and read that the police had arrested Reese Campbell on his way out of Dove Creek. They were charging him with possession of narcotics and a firearm. Cole folded up the paper. He stared at the cracked coffee mug, the stack of paper napkins. Then he went outside and stood on the porch and felt the warmth of the day rising. Shit, he whispered. A car went by, followed by a speeding coal truck, dust flying.

He went back in, threw the newspaper away. Then he called Lacy. Sara Jean picked up. “She's still sleeping. Want me to wake her up?”

He glanced at the clock. It was only seven. “No, just tell her to call me.”

“Did you hear about Blue?” she asked, excited. “She escaped.”

“That's what I heard.”

After he hung up, he fished the paper out of the trash and read the article again. His mother walked in, yawning. He'd never seen her up before his grandmother.

“Couldn't sleep.” She took one of his cigarettes. “Getting to be like you.”

The newspaper was spread out flat on the table, Cole holding it down with his palms as if guarding it from a breeze. The article was short, a single paragraph. He stared at it again. His mother asked him what was so interesting, and he told her in a few words. She poured herself a cup of coffee, then came and stood behind him and leaned over his shoulder.

“The guy we stayed with that night?”

“Yeah.”

As she read the article, her hair tickled the back of his neck. Then she pulled out a chair, sat next to him. She had been all over this country. She had seen and left behind more than he could ever grasp.

“You think you're gonna stay here for a while?” he asked. “You think you could?”

“Hell, Esther's practically made me a slave at the Pizza Shack.” She smiled, but it disappeared. “What about you? You going somewhere?”

“I might.”

He met her eyes. They showed no surprise, no worry. The morning light shone through the kitchen windows and over her face and her eyes looked more green than brown and he wondered if his looked the same.

“You running from something?”

“It's not running. It's something I've been thinking about.” He hesitated. “Could you say something to Grandma for me? Just to prepare her.… I don't know what to tell her.”

“You gonna tell me anything about what's going on?”

“Not yet,” he said. “I can't. I don't know myself.”

For a while, they said nothing else. They finished off the pot of coffee, and Cole got up to brew more. Then his mother asked if he was hungry. He wasn't, but he said yes because she'd never cooked for him before. She moved clumsily around the kitchen. She made toast, eggs, and bacon, and though the meal was slightly burned, he ate every bite.

Hours later, he stood in the afternoon sun, smoking a cigarette, waiting on Lacy. She and Sara Jean were living with Lacy's sister and her husband in a double-wide in Green Hills, one of the government trailer parks. There was nothing to look at except other thin-walled trailers, pushed up close together. No hills, nothing green. None of the trailers had any decorations or flower beds or anything like that because people did not think of them as home. A couple of mongrel dogs chained up outside the trailer next to Lacy's began to bark. From someplace unseen, another dog joined in.

Cole had shown up a half hour ago, driving around the maze to the homes of his customers. He sold the pills for almost double what he usually did; they were pissed, but there was nothing they could do. The places he'd stepped into were cramped and dark, and the noise of TVs traveled from one trailer to the next. He was glad Lacy had not invited him in. He did not want to see any more.

The door slammed and she walked out, wearing tight jeans and a thin black shirt, a red purse slung over her shoulder. “I need to get out of here.”

“We could go catch a movie in Zion or something,” he said, but she shook her head. “What do you want to do?” he asked.

“I could eat something.”

So they went to an all-you-can eat Chinese buffet in Zion. They loaded up their plates and took a booth in the smoking section. It was before five, and the only other customers were a handful of senior citizens.

“You heard about Blue?”

“I saw her before she left,” he admitted. “I saw her with him. Denny's dad.”

“Gundy.” Lacy shook her head. “I just thought he was some crazy recluse.”

“Ain't he?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Is Blue gonna live with him?”

“As far as I know. But I don't know even where that is. Somewhere up on a mountain. Gundy's been fighting the coal company. Blue said that it was him that shot up the mining offices, busted their power source. Personally, I don't think it's a technique that will get you very far.”

“I remember someone shooting up a Christmas tree.”

“Well, anyway. You can't talk to him. Or Blue either. They've got their minds set.”

“What do you think they'll do?”

“Hold them off as long as they can, until they get caught. Honestly, I don't think Blue will live much longer.”

“No, probably not.”

“And Gundy'll go down shooting.”

Lacy talked about Dove Creek Defense, their plans to meet with congressmen and senators, about the lawsuit. The flood had changed her. She was sharp-tongued and her hands shook slightly, maybe from fear or nervousness. And yet she was also filled with some kind of light, it shone off of her, the way religion had shone off of his granddaddy. She knew more than Cole could ever hope to know about politics and the environment.

She smiled. “I'll shut up for a minute. What about you?”

There was nothing to say. He did not tell her about losing his job, did not tell her about Reese. Instead he pushed aside his plate. He looked at her, how pretty she was. Remembered their early mornings together.

“So Michael left town?”

“You know he did.” She set down her fork. “What else do you want to know?”

He ran his finger around the edges of the ashtray. “You and Michael … were?”

“You know we were.”

“You thought he was gonna stay here and marry you or something?”

“I never thought that. He swept me off my feet for a little while. That doesn't happen much around here.”

“No,” he said. “I guess it don't.”

They did not stay much longer. Neither of them wanted seconds. Cole paid for the meal, Lacy thanked him. “It's nothing,” he said.

He started the truck. She was looking out the window, thinking about something. He was about to ask her what she wanted to do when she turned to him, put her hand on his knee.

“I don't want to go home yet.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Let's go there.” She pointed across the road.

“There?”

“Why not?”

“Why not,” he agreed, and pulled into the parking lot of the dilapidated motel. Lacy waited in the truck while he went in and registered and paid the bill; then he drove around to the back and they walked up the concrete steps to room 11.

“This is pretty bad,” he said.

Stained burgundy carpet, fake-wood paneled walls, a rabbit-eared TV. The drapes were pulled shut and the room was like a cave, smelled like cigarette smoke and take-out. A picture of the Last Supper hung over the bed. Cole parted the drapes slightly, and a thin line of light shone through.

“It's worse than I was expecting, but I don't care.” Lacy put her arms around his neck, and his blood quickened.

“I get the feeling I'm not gonna see you around anymore,” she said.

“I'm here now.”

They undressed quickly, both laughing as Cole fell, his jeans caught around his ankles. Lacy pulled them off him, and he yanked off her socks, the last thing to go. When he grabbed on to her, he felt as if everything else in the room had disappeared into these points of light, her fingers and thighs and back, the curve of her stomach and breasts, the angles of her bones.

After, lying face-to-face, he looked at her and wanted to be able to love her. To sweep her off her feet. But he didn't know what to say. Lacy asked for a cigarette, breaking the silence. He reached for the lighter.

“I'll go crazy if I stay in that trailer park another day. Sara Jean will too. I need to figure something out.”

“You'll get out of there. You're a fighter.”

“I never thought things would get this bad,” she said.

He told her things would not always be this hard. She leaned up on her elbow and looked at him. “When I heard about you digging out those people, what you did …”

“It wasn't just me. We all did. Anyone would have.”

“Something changed in you,” she said. “That meeting, where you talked.”

“Oh, Lord.”

“You were great.”

“Hell I was.”

“You sure know your scripture, don't you?”

“That's one thing I'm certain of.”

She drew loops over his chest, like she was spelling something, but it was no word that he knew. “Tell me what made you want to be a nurse.”

“I'm just an aide.”

“You know what I mean.”

He thought for a second. “It wasn't like I set out to do it, it just happened. I needed a job. Once I got used to it, I guess I kind of liked being around them. Felt like I was doing something.” He waited for her to bring up the drugs, but she didn't say anything.

“You shouldn't give it up.”

“Well,” he said.

Then she rolled over on her back, looking up at the dirty, water-stained ceiling. “You really believe in heaven and hell?”

“I used to,” he said. “Sometimes I wonder if we ain't already living in both.” He paused, put out his cigarette. “You want me to take you back home?”

“I want to stay. Can you stay?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I can stay.”

She called her sister to tell her that she wasn't coming home tonight, and Cole looked up at the picture of the Last Supper. He used to stare at this picture during his granddaddy's sermons. He wondered if he would have denied Jesus, like Peter, or if he would have turned him in, like old Judas, who'd betrayed him with a kiss. He didn't think so. He believed he would have stuck by him.

She hung up. “It's all settled.”

The night was good. They had more sex, they talked. They tried to watch TV but there was too much static. She fell asleep in his arms. He could hear her breathing. After a while, his arm, nestled under her head, began to ache and he slipped it out from under her. He switched on the lamp by the bed and picked up the Gideon Bible from the nightstand and started to read the book of Job, and when he came to the third chapter, twenty-fifth verse,
For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me
, he stopped and put the book down and turned off the lamp. He felt awake, in a good way. The room was dark, except for the occasional glare of headlights. There was someone coughing in another room. The hum of traffic outside.
You better believe it
, his granddaddy had said,
we are nearing the end.
He moved closer to Lacy and she reached for him.

The afternoon was warm; he drove with the windows down, smelled wild honeysuckle growing along the road. He fiddled with the radio and came upon a religious station and listened to an old-timey preacher, “And Je-sus-ah!—is gonna let you burn, unless you repent-uh, unless you're saved,” singing the words the way his granddaddy used to. He'd been out selling pills and he pulled into the Stop-and-Go in Jefferson. He usually did not deal around here, but he knew a few pillheads, friends of Reese's, who were willing to pay more than his regulars. He filled his tank, went in the store and paid for the gas and a package of powdered doughnuts and cigarettes. He ate a doughnut quickly. He felt wired and anxious.

He'd been expecting to hear from him, like Charlotte had warned, but still it had surprised him this morning when his cell had started vibrating on the stand next to the bed. He was still at the motel with Lacy, who was next to him, asleep. He'd checked the number, and though he did not recognize it, he knew exactly who it was. He'd gone across the street to McDonald's and bought egg sandwiches, pancakes, orange juice, and coffee, and called him back.

“Hey.”

“Hey man.”

He'd not heard Terry's voice for months, but it sounded as familiar to him as his own. He wanted to meet early tonight, around eight. Cole said the Eagle or Wigwam, but Terry wanted to go where there was no one else around. “How about the swimming hole?”

“You been up there?” Cole said. “It's a mess.”

“Well, we ain't going swimming. We're just talking.”

“I don't even know if we can get to it.”

“It's probably our last chance to see it,” Terry said.

Cole said okay, but now he felt nervous. His stomach flip-flopping. Everything was turned upside-down. Reese was saved and sitting in a jail cell. Charlotte had disappeared. And where was Terry Rose? He was hunkered down. Was he naming names? Cutting deals? Turning his back on everything?

And here was Cole, still driving around these mountains. He finished three of the doughnuts, tossed the rest. He thought of Lacy last night and this morning, her hands and her mouth and her hair and her hips. Something good to think about. Not all of this worry. A kid on a four-wheeler pulled out in front of him, a “Jesus Saves” bumper sticker slapped on the back.

Up ahead on the left, a car was parked off the road, in a little turn-around spot. A woman sat on the hood. She had clothes and all kinds of junk spread around her and on the ground. He slowed down and when he saw who it was, told himself to keep going. He went about a hundred feet. Then he made a U-turn and pulled in behind her.