then looked at McKindrey. “Nice knowin’ you,” he said and left, the door clattering shut behind him.
Finch lingered at the door.
“Untie me, I done told you all I know,” McKindrey said.
Finch shook his head. “We’ll get you on the way back,” he said with a grin, and went outside.
In disbelief, McKindrey waited for the sound of their return, certain they were only making him sweat it for a few minutes more. But then came the unmistakable sound of their car starting up and then pulling away.
“You ain’t comin’ back, you hear me?” he screamed. “Mess with them and you ain’t never comin’ back!”
-31-
Papa-In-Gray looked up and smiled as Krall entered the cabin. “Join us in prayer, Jeremiah.”
They were gathered around the table, waiting for him.
Krall looked from face to face. Disgusted, he turned without a word and stalked back outside, slamming the door behind him.
“We have to be patient,” Papa explained, and reached out, palms turned upward, inviting them to join hands. All but Luke obeyed, preoccupied as he was by something over the door only he could see. His mouth was open, his face vacant. Aaron had washed him, but hadn’t expended too much effort on it, as he was not entirely convinced that Luke would not turn on them again. He had yet to see proof that there had been any change at all. As a result, there were still smudges of blood on the boy’s face and neck, and flecks of flesh tangled in his hair. Aaron roughly grabbed his hand and a moment later, Isaac, on the other side of Luke, did the same.
“Your uncle’s grievin’,” Papa continued, “And we know what that can do, no matter how strong your faith. Ain’t we grievin’ ourselves? But we know how to use that for the good, how to turn it into fuel in our fight against the coyotes. Poor Jeremiah has no faith, not yet, so he don’t even have God to hate.”
“So he hates us instead,” Aaron said sourly. Grieving or not, Aaron didn’t much like Uncle Krall. He’d never met the man before, and wasn’t too impressed now that he had. For one, he was not a man of faith, and Aaron had watched his expressions as Papa told them what had to be done, and why. Up until he’d seen Momma, he’d shown contempt, whether for Papa or his beliefs Aaron didn’t know, but in his mind they amounted to the same thing. Papa was a vessel for the Almighty, which made Krall’s disdain akin to blasphemy. His sudden interest in Luke was troubling, as if Luke’s poison might be spreading, infecting him too.
“He only has himself,” Papa said. “He’ll come around.”
“What if he don’t?”
“It’ll come,” said Papa. “Soon as the outsiders set foot on his land and try to claim him, he’ll find his faith.”
Aaron sighed and glanced at Luke, who was still staring vapidly at nothing. “I think Luke’s gone slow,” he said, “He ain’t talked since we took him outta Momma.”
“What you’re seein’ in your brother now,” Papa said, addressing them all, “is the effect of the poison when it’s been purged. It leaves you empty, hurts your mind. Like your uncle, Luke’s return will take time, but return he shall, and he’ll be stronger than us all.”
Aaron remained doubtful. Papa seemed certain that Luke’s rebirth would cure the poison. The twins wanted to believe it. But they hadn’t been the ones to find Momma-In-Bed that night after Luke tried to kill their father. Whatever a medical man would say was the cause of death would be wrong. Fear and heartbreak had taken her from them. Fear of the coyotes that were gathering in the woods, biding their time, drawn by the scent of panic. She would have sensed them out there, knowing long before they went to try and track down the girl that it was already too late, that the end was coming. And maybe, as Luke was turning on them all, angels had come to her and told her what had happened at the Wellman place, what her favorite son had tried to do.
She’d died alone, and screaming.
Aaron had found her with her face paralyzed by terror, her dead eyes bulging from their sockets, her long tongue blue and limp against her flaccid chin. The stink in the room had been terrible, worse than it had ever been while she’d lived, forcing him to try to open the window for the first time in years. But it was stuck firm; some kind of greasy brown sludge had hardened in the gaps, and in the end he was forced to take off his shirt, wrap it around his hand and shatter the glass.
As he’d set about cleaning the waste that had flooded from her as her bodily functions quit working, he thought of what his brother had done to Papa, to them all. He recalled Papa’s bravery. Or perhaps it had been the same misguided belief in his son’s faith that he was showing now that had made him stand his ground as Luke tried to run him down. Either way, he had shot Luke in the throat, causing him to jerk the wheel to the right and away from Papa, clipping him with the fender and cracking his knee. Once the full extent of his brother’s corruption had been made clear, Aaron had found himself disappointed to realize the bullet had only grazed Luke’s throat.
It would have been better if it had killed him.
Papa squeezed his and Joshua’s hands in his own. “Now,” he said. “A final prayer before the war.”
Aaron waited until their heads were bowed before he glanced again at Luke. He leaned over so that his lips were touching his brother’s ear. “If’n you ain’t better,” he whispered. “I’ll do to you what I done to that whore sister of ours.”
“Aaron,” Pa chastised and yanked on his hand.
“Yes, Pa.”
They began to pray, and when next Aaron looked, he saw that Luke was no longer staring at the wall, but at him, his eyes empty and soulless.
Almost four hours after leaving Louise to die on the park bench, Pete arrived on Redwood Lane, a long tree-lined street wet from the recent rain. He had missed the turnoff the elderly man he’d approached for directions had told him to look for, and had ended up going almost three miles too far before turning around and going back.
Now he was on the street, but wasn’t sure which of the many houses was Claire’s. He rolled down the window admitting the smell of smoke and damp earth, the breeze winding through the boughs of fire-colored leaves to bring him the scent of autumn. After almost an hour spent driving the half-mile length of Redwood Lane hoping to catch a glimpse of her in one of the yards, or on the street, or perhaps as a pale ghost through one of the large windows at the front of many of the expensive looking houses, he conceded and pulled the truck up a short gravel driveway. The house was painted sky blue with rusty red trim, the lawn neatly clipped. As he got out and walked up the drive, an old man wearing a brown wool sweater and dark brown slacks opened the front door and peered warily out at him.
“Hi,” Pete said, and stopped in his tracks.
The old man stepped out, continued to stare, but nodded. “Evening.”
“My name’s Pete Lowell.”
The man said nothing.
Pete continued. “I’m lookin’ for Claire Lambert.”
A look of distaste passed over the man’s face, but he shut the door behind him and walked slowly toward Pete. “The Lamberts? What do you want with them?”
“I’m a friend.”
“That’s what everyone says who wants to bother them.”
“I don’t want to bother ’em, honest. I’m a friend of Claire’s. I’m from Alabama. From Elkwood, where the bad stuff happened to her. I brought her to the hospital, helped her get home.”
The breeze swept around the old man as he stopped close to Pete and appraised him. He smelled to Pete like pipe smoke and sardines. “You did, huh?”
Pete nodded. “She told me come see her. So I’m here, but I don’t know which house is hers.”
The old man nodded thoughtfully, and nibbled on his lower lip as if weighing the wisdom of telling the boy anything. Then he released a breath that somehow diminished his size, and nodded pointedly to his right. “Missed
