Jacob said something about how Alfred always was a bit stubborn, maybe he was too much like his Daddy that way. Or maybe what Roby heard was just the whisper of a car passing on the distant street outside.
'And Sarah. Fine girl, that one. She and Buck will give you some great grandkids once they get around to it. I know, I know, a little too late, but at least you can be content that your blood line will be carried on.'
Jacob said he figured there were plenty of Ridgehorns in the world already.
'Anna Beth is my favorite. No, don’t get mad, I don’t mean that way, I just think she’s got spunk and will do all right for herself.'
Jacob said that a father wasn’t supposed to say such things, but now that it didn’t matter what opinions he held, he could admit that Anna Beth had been his favorite, too.
'Marlene,' Roby said. 'Now, Marlene is a horse of a different color.'
Jacob waited silently, hands folded across his waist, as patient as a saint.
'But she… she didn’t have none of the pie.'
Another thirty seconds of silence passed, the tick of the clock filling the gap of missing heartbeats. Jacob looked sad, even with eyes glued shut.
'I’m sorry. But I ain’t give up yet. I just have to talk to Johnny, is all. And Barnaby. We’ll sort it all out.'
And this after I told you all the family secrets, Jacob said.
'I know, I know. Don’t make me feel worse than I already do. And it ain’t just because I let you down. It’s because I’m-'
Roby looked at the clock on the wall, mad at himself for expecting sympathy from a corpse. The deceased deserved all the sympathy. That’s what this was about. Honoring the dear departed.
Jacob said it was hard to feel honored when a man’s own flesh and blood turned against him.
'I don’t think she did it out of spite,' Roby said. 'And maybe it ain’t my place to say, but your family got the worst grieving manners I ever did see.'
Jacob said that every family was different, that you couldn’t understand unless you were on the inside. Roby didn’t know whether he meant the inside of the family or the inside of the coffin.
The family, Jacob said. Though laying stiff in a coffin was no way to spend an eternity, either. That was for them who were too unlucky or too despised to get their pies eaten. Nothing sadder than to cross over with a sack of soured deviled eggs and moldy cake and a whole pie. That was no way to meet Judgment.
'You don’t have to paint me a picture,' Roby said.
You’ll have to go see him for yourself, Jacob said.
Roby pressed his tongue against his teeth. He didn’t want to go out there, not tonight. He wasn’t sure he could find the place again. Or maybe he was scared that he would.
Because he’d found it every time he looked. Or else it had found him.
And every time, whether it was midnight or sunrise, the old man was sitting there, waiting, as if the last Greyhound had rolled through forty years ago but he was still determined to catch the next.
Except Johnny Divine’s type of waiting had no end.
I know you’re scared, Jacob said, but I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat. Ha ha, that’s supposed to be funny.
Roby nodded.
See you at the viewing, Jacob said.
Roby nodded.
And bring the family, Jacob added.
'I won’t let you down,' Roby said.
No, Jacob said. That’s what old Barnaby’s for.
Roby said nothing, looked at the clock and its slow countdown toward tomorrow.
A joke, Jacob said. He’s the undertaker, get it?
Roby’s sense of humor was not in the best of shape. 'Sleep tight.'
Jacob said he’d try his best.
Roby headed for the door, feet as heavy as gravestones.
And, Roby…
Roby turned, looked at the sallow corpse, the rigid mouth, the sunken cheeks.
Don’t forget to lock up behind you, Jacob said. Wouldn’t want nothing getting stolen.
IX
It had been dark the first time, three in the morning maybe, the hour when even the night creatures were bone lazy and dawn seemed like it was as far away as forever. Roby had taken a wrong turn down the back country, through the little community known as Mule Camp that had once been a whistle stop on the old Virginia Creeper railway. The town had died with the passing of the locomotive era, but a few people still kept up shops in the area. Roby hadn’t been through those parts in years, not since he gave up bow hunting for deer, but that night he’d been drinking and hell bent on speed.
He passed an old gas station he never remembered seeing before. Something about it, the suddenness of it, made him fumble for the brakes, the way it gleamed skull-white in the moonlight, its windows nothing but blank holes and the cinder block walls weeping rust and cracks. He lost control and skidded off the road, smacked a tree and bumped his head. It was a miracle he wasn’t killed outright.
He got out of the truck and that’s when he first saw the old man sitting in shadows.
That was the night his life changed.
Tonight, as he pulled beside the gas pump that was so old it had a hand-operated suction pump, the same figure sat in its usual place in a warped rocking chair. Roby had the feeling that, if he dropped by during the daytime, unexpectedly, the side of the road would be barren, or he’d find only a stand of stunted jack pines. He had an equal belief that the garage could be found in other places, on other dark stretches of roads that led to nowhere. The same garage, the same old man.
'Been expecting you,' Johnny Divine said. His eyes shone, the only features visible amid the dark face.
'I got what you wanted,' Roby said. He pulled the suitcase off the passenger seat, slid out of the truck, and walked across the crumbling old concrete tarmac.
'It’s not what I want, Mr. Snow,' the old man said. 'It’s what you need.'
'I don’t need this. I never asked for this.'
Johnny Divine’s laughter crept from the shadows, around the chipped corners of the low structure, down from the moon and up from the cold ground. 'You most certainly did, sir. The first night we met. Said you’d do anything.'
'I didn’t mean it like that.'
The scratchy voice was almost sad. 'They never do. I guess they never really do, when you get right down to it.'
Roby held out the suitcase. 'Here.'
Johnny Divine didn’t take it. After a moment, Roby set the suitcase down near Johnny’s moccasined feet and moved a couple of steps backward. He heard a tapping sound, then saw the head of Johnny’s cane poking at the suitcase.
'Are you sure that’s the right one?' Johnny asked.
'Barnaby sent it special,' Roby said. 'Fresh.'
'Unh-huh.' Johnny leaned forward and Roby got a brief glimpse of his face, the blank eyes, the dark caverns of cheeks and eye sockets. A face that looked to have drawn its substance from the surrounding blackness, cobbled and knitted itself from the dirt, shaped itself in the cold forge of the night.
Johnny pulled the suitcase into the shadows and flipped the brass latches. Roby didn’t want to see what was inside.
On that first night, Johnny had sent him to Clawson’s Funeral Home with the empty suitcase. Barnaby hadn’t said a word, just looked him over as if they shared an unspoken secret, then took the suitcase. Roby had waited while Barnaby attended to some work in the back room. Barnaby then gave the suitcase back to Roby, several
