So Cold the River

“Go ahead.”

“Why are you hanging in the game?”

“What do you mean?”

“If I were you, I’d probably have driven back to Bloomington by now and stopped taking calls from the crazy white guy. Why haven’t you?”

There was a brief silence, and then Kellen said, “All those stories my great-grandfather told me about this place? All those crazy-sounding stories? Well, Everett Cage was a talker, I’ll admit that. He liked to captivate his audience. But, Eric? He also wasn’t a liar. He was an honest man, and I’m sure of one thing—whatever he said, well, he believed it. I guess I’ve always wondered how he could believe things like that.”

It was quiet again, and then he said, “I’m starting to understand.”

Josiah found himself watching the clouds. At first he’d taken to gazing out the window just because he wanted to be sure the old woman wasn’t up to something, that there was no way she could signal for help once those drapes were pulled back. But the window showed only a field and a view of the western sky. The clouds were massing, unsettled and swirling, layers seeming to shift from bottom to top and then back. The sky over the yard was pale gray, but out in the west it looked like a bruise, and the wind pushed hard at the house and whistled with occasional gusts. Something about the turbulent sky pleased him, made him smile, and he pulled his lips back and spat tobacco juice onto the window, watched it slide down the glass in a brown smear. Funny he couldn’t even remember putting a chaw in. Hadn’t ever taken to the habit, threw up when he sampled his first dip at fourteen and never went back to the stuff, but there it was.

He waited until nearly nine before kneeling beside Anne McKinney and passing her his cell phone. Late enough that Shaw and the woman would be awake; early enough that they probably weren’t ready to check out. He had Danny watching in case they did, and the phone had been silent.

“Time for your part in this,” he said. “It’s a most minor role, Mrs. McKinney, but critical nonetheless. In other words, it is a role that I cannot allow you to… what’s the phrase I’m looking for? Fuck up. That’s it. I cannot allow you to fuck this up.”

She held his eyes and didn’t so much as blink. She was scared of him—she had to be—but she wasn’t allowing herself to show it, and there was a part of Josiah that admired that. Not a large enough part to tolerate it, though.

“If you’re fixing to hurt people,” she said, “I won’t have a part in it.”

“You don’t have the faintest idea what I’m fixing to do. Remember that. But here’s what I can tell you—this call doesn’t go through, people will begin to get hurt. And there’s only one person nearby for me to start with, too.”

“You’d threaten a woman of my years. That’s the kind of man you—”

“You ain’t got the first idea the kind of man I am. But I’ll give you a start: you picture the darkest soul you ever seen, and then, old woman, you add a little more black.”

He hovered over her, the phone extended, his eyes locked on hers. “Now, all you got to do is make a phone call and say a handful of words, and say them right. That happens, I got a feeling I’ll find my way out of that front door of yours, and you’ll be sitting here watching your damn sky as you like. But if it doesn’t happen?”

He pursed his lips and shook his head. “I’m a man of ambition. Not of patience.”

She tried to keep her gaze steady but her mouth was trembling a bit, and when he pressed the phone into her wrinkled palm, he felt a fearful jolt travel through her.

“You call that hotel,” he said. “You said he wanted that water? Well, tell him now’s the time to come get it. You’ll give it all to him, but he’s got to hurry up and get out here, because you’re going to be leaving town for a few days.”

“He won’t believe that.”

“Well, you best make him believe it. Because if he doesn’t? We’re going to have to find ourselves a whole new tactic. And with the mood I’ve found myself in, I don’t believe anyone would like to see what happens should I be required to get creative.”

He slid the shotgun over and leaned it against the edge of the couch so the muzzle was looking her in the face.

“Anne, you old bitch,” he said, “it’s got nothing to do with you. Don’t change the way I feel on that front.”

“All right,” she said. “I’ll call. But whatever you think is going to happen, I can assure you it won’t work out as you’ve planned. Things never do.”

“Don’t you worry about me. I’m a man who’s capable of adjusting.”

She dialed, but he took the phone from her hand and put it to his ear to be certain she wasn’t calling anybody else. The voice that answered said, “West Baden Springs,” and Josiah, in a voice thick with easy charm, said, “I’m calling for a guest. Mr. Eric Shaw, please.”

“One moment,” the woman answered, and Josiah passed the phone back to Anne McKinney. Then he dropped to one knee on the floor in front of the couch and rested his hand around the stock of the shotgun, curled one finger around the trigger guard.

“Hello,” Anne said, and there was too much fluster in her voice. He shifted the gun as inspiration as she said, “I was, well, I was trying to reach Mr. Shaw.”

“Oh,” she said. A pause during which Josiah could hear a female voice, and then Anne said, “Oh, yes. Well… a message? I, um—”

Josiah gave an emphatic nod.

“Yes, I’d like to leave a message. My name is Anne McKinney. I’ve only just met… oh, he mentioned me? Well, you see, he wanted something from me. Some old bottles of Pluto Water. And I want him to have them but I need him to come get them soon because I have to go out of town.”

She was talking too fast, and Josiah moved the gun so the barrel was just inches from her chin.

“That’s all. Just tell him to come see Anne McKinney if he can. He knows where I live. Please tell him. Thank you.”

She shoved the phone away and Josiah took it and disconnected, regarding her with a sour expression. It hadn’t been the performance he’d needed. She was too shaky, too strange. He wanted to release some of the anger, but fear was already clear in her wrinkled old face and he didn’t have the energy for shouting, so he turned away instead and went to the window with gun in hand and looked out at those oncoming dark clouds.

“She said he was gone?” He spoke with his back to her.

“Yes. She told me she’d see that he got the message.”

“Ain’t that just dandy news,” Josiah said, thinking that Danny was even more worthless than assumed, had let Shaw walk right out of that hotel. Son of a bitch. Wasn’t nobody could be counted on in this world except himself…

He called Danny. Exploded on him before a word had been said, asking what in the hell he was doing up there, because Shaw was gone, damn it, and Danny hadn’t seen a thing because he was a useless piece of shit and—

“I’m following him, Josiah! Give me a break, I’m following him.”

“Why the hell didn’t you call and tell me that?”

“He didn’t leave but five minutes ago! I’m just trying to keep up, see where’s he going.”

Josiah reached up and squeezed the bridge of his nose, took a breath. “Well, damn it, next time tell me when they start moving, then call back. Where are they going?”

“Headed toward Paoli. The black kid picked him up in the Porsche. It was good work that I saw him go, since he didn’t take his own car.”

“Just follow them,” Josiah said, in no mood to offer Danny praise. “Hang back far enough that they don’t notice you, but don’t you lose them neither.”

“I’m doing best as I can but that black kid, he drives like—”

“Just stay behind them and let me know where they end up.”

They hadn’t made it more than a few miles out of town before Eric’s cell phone rang—Claire.