'Revenge,' David said. 'He might hold the people of Solom re sponsible for his death, and his spirit can't rest in peace.'
'Maybe he's looking for his horse,' Lillian offered.
'What I think,' Odus said, 'and I can't blame him because I kind of feel the same way, and I've only been here thirty-eight years instead of two hundred, is he's come to clean house. If he's really been around all this time, he's probably sick of flatlanders coming up here and building on our ridgetops, crowding the valley with their SUVs and bluegrass festivals, flushing their shit in the river. I'd bet he's just homesick, and since it looks like God won't let him into heaven and the devil doesn't have the room to spare, old Harmon's stuck here and decided to take on Solom as a fixer- upper.'
'And he's doing it by killing tourists?' Sue said.
'Well, he's been killing us for years and years,' Odus said. 'Maybe he's decided he needs to hurry things along now, because of all the growth. So he goes after the rest of us, probably trimming back to the handful of families that were around when he first came to Solom.'
'The only problem with that theory is he's a tourist just like the rest of us,' David said. 'You can't turn back the clock.'
'You can't come back from the dead, either.'
Sarah suddenly felt all alone, even in the presence of company. She imagined the general store under the great, crushing weight of night. Despite the ticking woodstove, a chill settled into her brittle bones. Darkness pressed against the window, and the porch light did little to scare it off. Black was every color rolled into one, they said and when everything bled together it made just the one color, the absence of light. And it looked like there was going to be plenty of bleeding going on.
A clatter arose from the front of the store, near the register. She'd turned off the lights as she usually did at closing time, and the corners of the store were cloaked in shadows.
'Who's there?' she said. Nobody could have broken in without her hearing. But somehow the goat had passed through these walls, and a man who could command goats and defy the grave probably wouldn't be considerate enough to knock. Besides, he'd already paid her a visit once.
The Circuit Rider stepped into the light. He held a pack of Beechnut chewing tobacco in his hand, and as they watched, he slowly peeled the foil pack open and shoved a moist wad into his mouth, shreds of the dark tobacco dribbling down his chin to the floor. The brim of his hat was turned low, but the bottom half of his face was waxen and milk-colored, not as ghostly as when Sarah had first seen him. His mouth was filled with broad, blunt teeth, like those of a grazing animal.
'Put it on my tab, Sarah,' he said grinding the tobacco with his jaws, his voice cob-rough and deep.
'What business you got here in Solom?' said Odus, the first of them to recover.
'No business, just pleasure,' he said.
A whinny came from outside, near the front of the store. The Circuit Rider plucked a Macintosh apple out of a bushel basket. He polished it against the sleeve of his black wool jacket. 'There's pleasure in the fruits of your labors.'
Lillian spilled her coffee and Odus backed up until he bumped into the woodstove. David had risen half out of his chair and stood there, bent over as if he'd been flash-frozen. Sarah thought about the shotgun under the cash register, but it was still covered by newspapers.
'Nice of you folks to hold this little get-together for my sake,' he said.
'We don't want nothing from you,' Odus said. 'We just want to be left alone. We're willing to let you rest in peace.'
'Love your enemies, right, Elder David? Bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you.' The Circuit Rider gave a laugh that held no humor, with just the hint of a hell wind behind it. He shot a thick stream of tobacco onto the pine floorboards, causing Sarah to wince. Touching the brim of his hat, he dipped his head slightly, as if nodding to the ladies.
'Sorry to rush off, but I have work waiting in the orchards of life,' he said. He went to the door, his boots loud on the wood, then opened it and went outside, merging into the darkness from which he'd come. From which they all had come, and to which they were inevitably bound.
Hooves thundered down the asphalt road, and the six people sat in silence, afraid to give words to their fear. Eventually, Sarah went to get a rag and mop up the tobacco juice. By the time she reached the spot by the register, the dark stain had vanished, as elusive as the creature that had left its mark.
Chapter Twenty-three
Katy was elbow-deep in dirty dishes when the back door swung open. Gordon must have forgotten to lock it, and the wind was picking up, skating leaves against the side of the house, sending cold air against her bare legs. She realized with a start that she wasn't wearing panties, and she must have changed into the autum nal-print dress sometime after dinner. She put a soapy hand to her forehead. What was happening to her memory?
The wind skirled the pantry curtains. The pantry. What about it? Something had happened in there. Not just broken pickle jars and hidden recipes, but a secret as old as the Smiths.
But she was attuned to melodrama. After all, she'd married a man on what amounted to a whim, she'd tossed away her past and her career and settled for a housewife role in a mountain commu nity where the women were valued as good cooks and compliant bed partners. Not that the bed part had been much of a challenge, with Gordon content to fall asleep reading research books while she waited for him to doze so she could masturbate. Something was wrong, a deep part of herself knew, but she was caught up in the small rhythms of daily life and had surrendered herself to them. Surrender was good, surrender was easy. A man to provide, leaving her free to focus on raising a family...
She flung the suds from her fingers and went to the back door. Jett should be upstairs studying. Had Gordon sent her out to do chores? Surely not on a night like this, not when Jett was acting so strangely.
She stepped out on the back porch and looked around the farm. The barn made black angles against the purple sunset. A white shape moved beyond the fence, then another. Goats. Gordon's damned goats. She shuddered and stepped inside, drawing me door tight and fastening the dead bolt.
She spun, looking toward the foyer, which was the only other entrance to the kitchen. 'Gordon?'
But it couldn't have been Gordon. This was a female. And the voice was near.
Coming from the pantry.
Katy yanked the curtains, nearly pulling down me bar that held the checkered fabric. The smell of crushed lilacs overwhelmed her, intoxicating enough to make her head spin. 'Who's mere?'
The pantry was empty. Katy wasn't sure whether she was imagining voices or whether a ghost lived in her kitchen. The imaginary voice sounded like a more practical, though possibly more unnerv ing, option. Because how would a ghost know her name?
A pint jar of stewed tomatoes fell on its side on one of the waist-high shelves, rolling with gritty purpose. Katy reached to catch it, but it slipped between her fingers, shattering on the floor, throwing me seasoned smell of basil and oregano in the air to join the lilac. The sprayed viscera of tomato pulp glistened against the broken glass. Among the wreckage was a metal object, smeared red by the juice.
Katy knelt, careful not to cut herself on the glass, and fished out me object. It was a bronze key, pocked by the acid from the tomato juice. She could imagine a ring, or perhaps a measuring spoon, being accidentally dropped into a jar during high-pressure canning, but a key?
'Katy?' This time the voice was Gordon's, booming from the living room. For some reason, Katy felt the key held a secret meant only for her. It was such an obvious metaphor, and she had come to think of the pantry as her domain, part of the kitchen she'd come to love.
