The Farm

right off. The Circuit Rider walked these hills looking for his horse, and had been looking ever since those other preachers had pitched in and murdered him. Arvel couldn't rightly blame Harmon Smith for doing all the terrible things people said he did. After all, he was buried in three dif ferent graves and that wasn't any way for a soul to find peace, especially for a man of the cloth.

Legend had it Harmon pitched Johnny Hampton under the water wheel at the old Rominger gristmill, and Johnny's foot got caught in one of the paddles. Over and over went little Johnny, shouting and blubbering each time his head broke free of the water, grabbing a lungful of air just before he went under again. Took about twenty rounds of the wheel before he tuckered out and drowned while the mill hands desperately tried to stop the wheel. His death went down in the church records and the county deed office as an accident, but folks in Solom kept their own secret ledger.

Arvel's great-uncle Kenny was galloping down a moonlit road when he came to the covered bridge that used to cross the river near the general store. Everybody liked the nice echo of horse shoes clanging off those wooden runners, so Kenny had picked up speed and burst through. Trouble was, a carpenter had been doing repairs on the bridge's roof that day and left a level line in the rafters. The line had slipped during the night until it was about neck-high to a man on a horse. Kenny's head hadn't been cut clean through, but there was barely enough connecting meat left to stuff a sausage casing.

Others had fallen into hay rakes, caught blood poisoning from saw blades, and old Willet Miller had been gored by a goat, his in testines yanked out and hanging like noodles on a fork. So Arvel had had no expectations of ever getting up and walking away from the encounter mat long-ago day. He was just glad for two tilings: he'd go with a belly full of gooseberries and he wouldn't have to clean the fish before supper.

'Boy,' Harmon Smith had said in greeting, touching the brim of his hat. The voice held no fire and brimstone, not even the thunder of a preacher. It was just plain talk.

'You're the Circuit Rider.' Arvel figured it was no time for fool ing around; plus he ought to be on his best behavior. Free Will Baptists earned their way to heaven, and Arvel figured he had to do some making up for the horehound candy he'd pilfered from the jar down at the general store. Even stealing from a Jew probably counted as a sin in God's all-seeing eyes.

Harmon's head swiveled back and forth, offering just a hint of the man's angular nose and sharp chin. 'Doesn't seem like I'm doing much riding, does it?'

Arvel squinted, trying to make out the man's eyes in that des perate black shadow beneath the hat. It almost seemed like the man had no face at all, only a solid glob of dark. His suit was black and pocked with holes, and he wore a tow-linen shirt, material only poor kids wore in those days. 'You looking for your horse?'

'Why, have you seen one?'

Arvel made a big show of looking up and down the pig path. 'I think I saw one down that way,' he said, and nodded in the direc tion of the Ward farm.

Arvel couldn't have said the man exactly grinned, but the dark ness broke in the lower part of the face, revealing a gleam of ochre enamel. 'And I suppose you'd be leading me to it, right?'

'Why, yes, sir.'

'Respect for elders. That speaks well for you, boy.'

'I try to do right by people,' Arvel said, as much for God's ears as for Harmon's.

'All right, show me that horse.'

Arvel struggled to his feet, hitched up the suspenders he'd un hooked while digesting, and headed down the pig path, careful not to walk too fast. The Circuit Rider followed, scuffed boots knock ing dust in the air. Arvel tried to sneak a look back to catch the man's face now that they were heading into the sun, but somehow the preacher stayed just out of plain view. Arvel had his cane pole over his shoulder, and wondered idly what would happen if his hook accidentally sank in the Circuit Rider's flesh. That would make some fish story.

They went through the apple orchard that divided the Smith and Ward properties. The apples were small and tart, still weeks away from ripening, and Arvel's belly was already gurgling from all the gooseberries. He wondered if he'd have to make a dash behind a tree before they reached the outhouse. Would the Circuit Rider give him privacy, or stand over him with the wooden door open while he did his business?

They came out of the trees and the Ward farm was spread out before them. Arvel's pappy was splitting wood by the house, and his brother Zeke was scattering seed corn for the chickens. Acres of hayfields surrounded them, and the crop garden was rich and green behind the house. There under the bright summer sun, Arvel felt protected.

'I don't see a horse,' the Circuit Rider said.

'Sure, it's there in the barn.'

'You're lying to me, boy.'

Arvel's heart was pumping like water from a spring hose. He threw aside his pole and the basket of fish and broke into a run, screaming like a fresh gelding. Despite the noise in his own head, the C ircui t Rider's voice came through clear from the shade of the orchard rows: 'Liars go to the devil, boy. Know them by their fruits.'

Pappy whipped him for raising a ruckus and startling the live stock, and Zeke had snickered and teased for days afterward, but Arvel was fine with all that, because he was alive. Still, he knew Harmon Smith never forgot, and the ride never ended. Sooner or later, Arvel would have to own up to his lie.

He just hoped it wasn't tonight. Zeke had been taken, but that was an accident, could have happened to anyone. Harmon Smith wasn't the type to rely on old age for stealing souls. No, violence was his way. He'd been taken by violence, and violence was what he had to deliver.

Arvel locked the doors. He should have warned Gordon's new wife and that little girl, no matter how peculiar they were. But they were outsiders. Plus, every fresh victim that stood between Arvel and the Circuit Rider meant a longer wait until his own day of reckoning.

After Mark, Katy had promised herself not to fall for a man, any man. She was on the type of post-divorce arc she'd read about in Cosmopolitan: no dating until a year after the breakup, then dat ing only nonthreatening men who didn't appeal to her all that much. The Cosmo rule declared no serious relationship could even be contemplated until two years after a divorce, especially if a child was involved. Katy ignored those kinds of rules, though she'd made a promise to herself to be cautious for Jett's sake. Jett, born Jessica, had gotten her nickname because of her inability to make sibilants as a toddler. When Jett had learned of eighties black-clad bad-girl rocker Joan Jett, the name was sealed.

Katy had kept Jett away from the potential replacements for Mark, not wanting to parade men through her life. She'd dated a Roger something-or-other, an insurance adjuster with overpowering cologne and happy hands; a broody food columnist for a Charlotte paper who'd nearly had her in tears after just one lunch; and Rudolph Heinz, a tall blond Aryan she'd met in a coffee shop who'd given her a thrilling three weeks but in the end offered about as much mental stimulation as her favorite vibrator. After those experiences, part of her was ready to settle down again, but the rest was determined to hold out for the perfect situation.

Gordon changed all that. He was presenting at a conference in the same hotel where Katy's company had scheduled a seminar. Her bank had eschewed frugality and scheduled the event at a resort in Asheville, a vibrant community billed as a 'gateway to the North Carolina mountains.' In the tradition of such seminars, it combined networking with leisure, the kind of professional vaca tion that most employees endured for the good of their careers while cramming in as much recreation as possible. She'd skipped out of the session entitled 'Tax Considerations of Mortgage Points in Refinancing' and was browsing the vending machines by the check-in desk when she saw the schedule for the hotel's other con ference. Written in red marker on the dry-erase board were the words European Mythology in Appalachian Religion, with a room number and time listed. To Katy, bored nearly to tears and nursing a run high on one thigh of her stockings, the topic evoked images of snake-handling hillbilly preachers crossed with sacrificial burn ings like the one in the old Christopher Lee film The Wicker Man. She knocked down a quick martini at the hotel's bar and slipped into the small room where she first saw Gordon Smith, who was keynote speaker.

Gordon resembled a slimmer Orson Welles, tall and broad-chested, projecting a vulnerable arrogance. He told the crowd of about twenty, mostly professors who were nursing tenure-track hangovers, about the Scots-Irish influence on Southern Appalachian culture, as well as contributions by the Germans and Dutch. Katy wasn't that inter ested in the Druids, and religious politics always seemed like an oxymoron to her, so she tuned out most of the speech and planned the evening ahead. The bank had paid for her room, the seminar officially ended before dinner, and she had hours looming with no re sponsibilities. Jett was staying with her dad, and she'd left her cell