happened to be swapping grass for it. As for arrows, he went with Easton, mostly because he'd known a kid named Easton growing up in Chapel Hill. An array of knives completed the collection, though they were mostly for show. Alex wouldn't have invested in all that hardware if he was interested in hand-to-hand combat.
The other walls of the room held posters, antiestablishment stuff, an Abbie Hoffman portrait, psychedelic posters of nothing in particular, an art print of Che Guevara, the Cuban revolutionary who was as famous for his beret as for his celebrity death photos. Richard Nixon, the patron saint of all latter-day paranoiacs, glowered down with his sharp nose and sinister eyebrows.
As he had done in the well-lighted shed where his marijuana grew, Alex sat cross-legged before the wall that held his weapons. He sucked the joint down until it burned his lower lip; then he pinched it out and swallowed the roach. You couldn't leave evi dence lying around not when
Chapter Twenty-four
Mose Eldreth turned on the lights in the church, wanting to fin ish his carpentry work before tomorrow's service. He planned to stain the woodwork he'd installed, then coat it with polyurethane, but didn't want the congregation swooning from the fumes. If there was any swooning going on, he wanted it to be because of the ser mon. He had a good one mapped out, based on the book of Revelation. Harmon Smith's return had served as inspiration.
Mose wasn't afraid to be in the church alone at night. The House of the Lord was the best sanctuary a man could hope for, even in uncertain times.
Odus had tried to lure Mose into meeting with a handful of other people at the general store. Mose didn't see any sense in it. Especially when he found out the Tester brothers would be there. David Tester's Primitive Baptist beliefs were sending a good two dozen people to hell, because they refused to get on their knees and do what it took to earn salvation. Sure, they'd get down there and wash each other's feet, then think themselves all humble and pure, but they believed it was up to the Lord to determine who was saved from eternal hellfire. By their reckoning, all folks were hopeless of their own accord. Damnedest thing. At least the congregation of the True Light Tabernacle, as slick as they were with their modern Good News Bible and electric organ, knew there was only one path to Glory, and that way was strait and the gate was narrow.
Mose flexed his back. After Odus had left, Mose had run another thirty feet of baseboard. He had a touch of rheumatism, but he wouldn't complain, not in the house of he who had suffered the agonies of the cross. Later, in his own bed, he could dwell on mortal discomforts. For now, he was in sacred service, and his hammer was a tool of the Lord.
As he set the last two nails on a corner piece, the hammer blows reverberated in the rafters. Mose went into the vestry to get the broom and dustpan. He couldn't have the congregation tracking sawdust everywhere, nor sneezing through the sermon. Mose was leaving the vestry when the church's front door banged open. A breeze skirled the sawdust, filling the air with the scent of pine and the night forest outside.
'Odus?' Maybe the man had forgotten a tool or had stopped by to see if Mose needed any more help. Or, more likely, to report on the meeting. Mose didn't want to know what those people thought. The Circuit Rider was beyond any of them. The Circuit Rider had a purpose, just like all of God's creations.
Something stirred outside, low sounds arising from the small cemetery. Mose leaned the broom against the lectern and picked up the hammer, comforted by its weight in his hand. He wasn't exactly afraid of Harmon Smith, but the Lord helped those who helped themselves.
The preacher walked down the aisle, as slow as a reluctant groom. He could use this fear in his sermon tomorrow, drum up some dread and paint an image of the everlasting lake of fire, where those who didn't accept the Lord as savior were doomed to be cast forever. Yes, fear was important, but bravery was a key part of the whole deal, too. The 'valley of the shadow' and all that.
'Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil,' he said. Beyond the open door, the night was clear, stars winking on the horizon, those higher up fixed like holes in a black curtain. The trees that crowded the cemetery stood against the wind, leaves scratching at bark. In the gaps of the forest, lesser patches of shadow moved among the trunks. A low fog had arisen, laying a moist gray wreath along the tops of the gravestones.
The mist had a peculiar quality and was different from the usual autumn fogs. Each fall, mountain folks counted the number of late fogs and used them to predict the number of snows due in the com ing winter. But fog was supposed to be gray white, and this one had coils of black smut in it. The air stank of rotten eggs.
The fog appeared to be confined to the cemetery, as if laying down a cover so bad business could take place. It was thickest over the spot where pieces of Harmon Smith were buried, the Free Will congregation's share of its long-ago shame and triumph. Except Harmon's murder had been a triumph for the Lord, and worthy of rejoicing over. Why, then, was foul smoke seeping up from the crazy old preacher's grave?
Mose wasn't afraid. Harmon was back in Solom, as regular as a cicada, and he was making the rounds. Only God could say whether Harmon was looking for his horse or going around visiting his final resting places. And God wasn't telling, at least not yet. In Mose's sixty-five years on this good green earth, God hadn't shared a whole lot of the whys and wherefores. All God wanted was belief and faith, and sometimes it didn't seem to matter to him how he kept his people in line. Natural disasters, famine, the painful deaths of innocents, all could be argued as miracles instead of tragedies. The wayward ambling of Harmon Smith's soul was no less a mystery, but just as befitting. The devil walked the pages of the Bible through all the human generations, after all.
Mose felt a calling to visit Harmon's grave. Maybe this was one of God's tests of faith. Same as when he'd bypassed the chance to adulterate with Ginny Lynn Rominger a couple of decades back, or pushed away the bottle when it was offered in his teens. Same as when he took no more than twenty dollars from the collection come Sunday, though he was the one who tallied the bank account. Same as when he'd knocked over a road sign while speeding and had returned the next day and put it back good as new. He hoped he'd passed all his tests of faith, because he wanted to reach the Pearly Gates with a perfect score.
He waded into the fog, and though he told himself he wasn't afraid, his fist clenched around the hammer handle. The grass was spongy under his feet, the sweet green aroma battling with the cloying stench of the fog. He was midway through the cemetery, somewhere among the Harper and Blevins families, when the ani mals came out of the woods.
Goats.
White with black and tan spots, the goats marched like they had a destination. Their strange eyes sparkled in the celestial light, horns curved. Mose almost laughed.
He watched as the goats circled the cemetery, spreading out in formation. Mose was within ten steps of Harmon Smith's grave, but he'd momentarily forgotten the Circuit Rider in the wake of this new oddity. The goats were quiet, heads up, ears pricked and stiff as if hearing a command from an unseen source. When the cir cle was complete, cutting Mose off from the sanctuary of the church, a dark figure stepped out of the woods.
'Harmon,' Mose said, loud enough so that God could hear, so He would know old Mose stood firm. 'You got business, have you?'
The figure approached, tall and lanky, the silhouette of a hat revealed against the black background. He was as silent as the goats, and his footsteps made no sound. The air was still, and the fog grew thicker around Mose's waist. The preacher looked back at the rectangular light spilling from the church door. Would God forgive him if he showed just a touch of weakness, if he bolted for the safety of the church? That wouldn't be as bad as Judas's betrayal, or Peter's denying Jesus, or Pilate's washing his hands. There were a hundred worse failures in the Bible.
