over the course of many pints.
'Okay, then,' Mose said. 'Just supposing—and I'm doing this like maybe I was writing a spooky movie or something—supposing Harmon Smith did come back to life after two hundred years? What would he want? What would be the point? Because he'd have been swept right up to Glory when he died, and wouldn't have any reason to come back.'
'Except for the oldest reason ever.'
'What's that?'
'Revenge.'
'The church records say he died in an accident. He had no rea son not to rest in peace.'
'What else would you expect them to say, Preacher? That he got conked on the head and thrown in the river because he was doing missionary work?'
'A folktale, I told you.'
'The Primitive Baptists didn't cotton to Harmon Smith's ideas. Neither did the Free Willers.'
'We believe in salvation. Why would our people want to kill him?'
'Ask Gordon Smith. He'll tell you all about it.'
Mose ran his thumb over the head of the hammer and stared at the wooden cross that hung on the wall behind the pulpit. 'If I told you something, would you think I was crazy?'
'No crazier than you think I am.'
'I saw the Circuit Rider when I was a kid. He snuck up behind me like a shadow one afternoon while I was skipping stones down at the trout pond. I thought he was going to grab me, but he just shook those long fingers at me. I ran all the way home and didn't go outside for a week. That was about the time that Janie Bessemer took infection from a cut foot and died from blood poisoning. I al ways thought it was the Circuit Rider's doing.'
Odus took a deep gulp of the Old Crow and coughed. 'I was wrong. You
Mose stood up. 'I'd better get this molding nailed down before dark so it will be ready for services tomorrow.'
Odus grabbed Mose's arm. 'Didn't one of the disciples deny Jesus Christ after the Last Supper?'
'Peter. Jesus predicted Peter would deny him three times before the cock crowed.'
'Maybe you're like Peter. You believe in Harmon Smith, but you're not going to admit it to anybody.'
Before Odus could answer, the air of the church sanctuary stirred. A crow swooped down the aisle and landed on the pulpit, where the black bird shook its wings and regarded them both with eyes like dirty motor oil.
'Know them by their fruits, Preacher Mose,' Odus said tilting the bottle once more. 'You never know which one of them's going to turn rotten.'
Chapter Seventeen
Sue Norwood turned around the sign in her window to inform any late-night cyclists mat she was closed— gone fishing. Not that she'd ever cared for sportfishing, even though she sold Orvis rods and reels, hip waders, hand-tied flies, coolers, Henry Fonda hats, and everything the genteel fisherman needed except for alco hol. Solom was unincorporated which precluded a vote on local alcohol sales, and Sue figured in maybe five years the seasonal home owners from Florida would own enough property to push for a referendum. For now, she was content to bide her time on that front. The pickings were easy enough as it was.
In 1995, Sue had purchased a small outbuilding that had belonged to me Little Tennessee Railroad one of the few structures in Solom to survive the 1940 flood. It sat within spitting distance of the Blackburn River, but was on ground just high enough to survive the calamities that Solom seemed to call down upon itself. Ice storms and blizzards were biannual events, high water hit every spring and fall, hellacious thunderstorms rumbled in from March through July, and the winter wind rattled the siding boards as if they were the bones of a scarecrow. But all the outbuilding needed was a green coat of paint, a twenty-thousand-dollar commercial loan at Clinton-era rates, and sixty hours of Sue's time each week to hang in there despite Solom's lack of a true business climate.
Sue had converted an upstairs storage room into an apartment, and it was to this space she retired after closing. She passed the racks of kayaks that stood like whales' ribs on each side of the aisle, making sure the back door was locked. As an all-season outfitter, she'd packed the place with every profitable item she could order, from North Face sleeping bags to compasses to Coleman gas stoves. Ten-speed bicycles were lined against the front wall, with rentals bringing in more than enough to keep her wheels greased. Ever since Lance Armstrong had trained along the old river road before his third run at the Tour de France (a little factoid that Sue always managed to slip into her advertising copy, when she could n't get the local media to mention it for free), out-of- shape amateurs had been flocking to the area to rest their sweaty cracks on her bicycle seats. At twenty dollars a day, they could hump it all they wanted. She was even willing to sponsor a community fundraising ride for the Red Cross each summer, a nice little tax write off that paid back in spades.
Sue counted the bikes before she went upstairs, her last official chore for the day. Two were still out. She checked her registration records at the desk and found the bikes were rented by a Mr. and Mrs. Elliott Everhart of White Plains, New York. Fellow Yankees. Sue was from Connecticut herself, but she'd graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in exercise science, spent three extra years in Athens as an assistant coach for the women's field hockey team, pretty much flattening her vowels and slowing down her speech enough to pass for southern if she was drunk. At the age of twenty-five, she had written down the names of all her favorite rock- climbing spots, clipped them apart with scissors, and randomly pulled one out of a hat. Solom wasn't on the list, but it had been the closest to the Pisgah National Forest, which featured Table Rock and Wiseman's View. Since Solom was near a river, and rock climbing wasn't exactly a major source of commercial recreation income, as it required little more than a rock and an attitude, she'd launched Back2Nature Outfitters and had been expand ing ever since. Funny thing was, she'd been so busy these past few years with her business that she rarely was outdoors herself.
The Everharts. Sue could remember them because the husband, Elliott, had detected her up-coast accent and made conversation about it. Sue couldn't remember the wife's name, but she was a quiet, willowy blonde who spoke little and didn't seem all that thrilled with the idea of human-powered transportation. They had rented the bikes at 2:00 p.m. and had estimated their return at 6:00 p.m. Elliott told her they had rented a cabin on the hill above Solom General Store and had walked down so as not to take up a parking space in the small gravel lot. Sue had said, 'Thank you kindly,' an artificial southern response that had come more and more easily over the years, then sent the couple on their way with bottled min eral water (two dollars a pint) and a map free with any purchase. Sue now checked the clock above the front door, the one that elicited native birdcalls with each stroke of the hour. It was ten minutes away from Verio, nearly two hours later than the Everharts' anticipated return.
People who rented bicycles sometimes got flats. That was rare, because she kept the equipment in good condition. All those who Tented equipment, whether it was a propane lantern or a kayak or a ten-speed, were required to sign release forms absolving Back2Nature Outfitters of any responsibility. That didn't mean that people didn't screw up, especially the types of deep-pocketed but shallow-skulled clients to which Sue usually catered. Even if the Everharts had gotten lost or had a breakdown, they most likely could have walked back to Solom, flagged a ride, or called for assistance on their cell phones.
Except Sue could see three problems with that scenario, be cause she'd experienced each of them. Sometimes bikers got lost when they tried to walk back, because the going was so much slower that the maps became deceptive. Flagging a ride was no guarantee because there simply wasn't that much traffic after sun down in Solom, and outsiders were loathe to pick up anyone wear ing fluorescent spandex and alien-looking crash helmets. And cell phones were almost universally useless in Solom because the val leys were deep and the old families owning the high mountains had yet to lease space for transmitting towers.
Sue considered a fourth alternative. The Everharts appeared to be in their thirties and were presumably childless, at least for the length of their vacation. Maybe good old Elliott had gotten a boner for nature and coaxed his wife into the weeds for a little of the world's oldest and greatest recreational sport. Or maybe the wil lowy blonde had been the one to turn into a ravening maw of wild lust. Either way, Sue couldn't blame them. Some of the locals had whispered that she was a lesbian, and, sure, like many girls she'd sampled that particular ware in
