“I don’t think he does.”
“That saddens me.”
“Me too.”
The preacher shrugged at that, and the ends of his lengthy scarf flapped against his boot laces. The chill breeze thickened around them. Shad let it at his hackles because he was still cooling down, while Dudlow clapped his hands trying to get some blood circulating. The solid whump of his gloves echoed across the embankment.
“I didn’t merely come up here to pay my respects to your sister. I wanted to talk to you.”
“Sure. About what?”
“To offer counsel, if you need it. I’ve dealt with ex-convicts in my parish before. The stigma they face, the prejudice and bias. Often there are great difficulties in readjusting to normal life again.”
Only someone who’d never been inside would put it like that. Shad tried not to smile but wasn’t sure if he managed to keep from showing teeth. Prison had its own methodical regularity, an even keel and conformity that made a lot more sense when you got right down to it. You didn’t trust anyone. You kept out of the action as much as possible. It simplified life, made some things easier.
But the minute your time was up and you grabbed the next bus south, the sudden illusion of normality grew so oppressive that it could drive you crazy trying to wrap your mind around it.
“Thanks,” Shad said.
“In the event you ever wish to talk to someone. If you ever need to unburden yourself over what you may have had to do to survive… and, ah, what might have been done to you, please let me know. I’m always willing to listen.”
Here was another one who thought you did nothing behind bars except pull a train or get locked in the hot box for mouthing off. The preacher was eager for someone else’s perversions. Like his own wife’s wouldn’t be enough.
“I appreciate it,” Shad said.
That did the trick and Dudlow started to relax some, having offered his hand in friendship and spiritual consultation. He could get back to his boysenberry and jackoff thoughts now with a clear conscience. Good, whatever it took.
They stood like that for a while, listening to oak boles moaning, watching the skinks racing through a nearby clump of birch.
“She came to see me. Your sister. Just before-”
Shad tensed so abruptly that his elbows cracked. He really had to do something about this loss of cool. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I was out and Becka said that Megan stopped by. I called around at your father’s house but no one answered.”
“When was this?”
“Three days before she… well…” Dudlow’s voice cracked and a plaintive note chimed weakly. “… before God summoned her back to heaven.”
Even he couldn’t say that kind of shit with a completely straight face.
Toeing the dirt of Megan’s grave as if making airholes for her, Shad asked, “Had she ever visited you at home before?”
“Only if it involved the Youth Ministry, and then she was usually with the rest of the group.”
“She ever appear troubled to you?”
“How so?”
Sometimes you had to draw a picture. “That’s what I’m asking.”
Thinking about it for a second, Dudlow brought the big hard glove up to his face but couldn’t work the fingers well enough to pinch his chin. “No, not after that difficulty between you and that Hester boy.”
“Was there anyone she would have talked with? Somebody she was close to in the group?”
“She was friendly with Glide Luvell, but that girl had nothing to do with the ministry.”
“How about besides her?”
“I believe Callie Anson.”
“She kin to Luppy?”
“His wife.”
See that, the things you miss when you’re away from home.
Edging about on the heel of his boot, Dudlow looked over his shoulder in the direction of Luppy Joe Anson’s place, maybe four miles east into the back roads where the moonrunners raced. A variety of expressions crossed his face. “She’s seventeen, and they’ve been married for six months or so. Their love appears genuine enough, though I admit that if I had my druthers I’d request the juveniles of our community wait a bit longer before they made such important vows.”
“I wasn’t judging,” Shad said.
“No, but perhaps I do in a fashion. It’s so difficult for the children to stay young in a place like Moon Run Hollow.”
“Or anywhere.”
“So I hear tell. You’ve learned that firsthand, haven’t you?”
Normal life on the outside.
Lament started scratching at the damp earth, sniffing as if he was tracking quail in the weeds. A whine escaped his throat and he flicked his heavy tail once. The hound dog stared at Shad with a solemn intensity, took a few loping steps around Mama’s headstone, then sat in the dirt. Smoke wreathed Shad’s face and it took him a second to realize the preacher was leaning in closer, his breath frozen on the air.
“Well, I’d best be off. Welcome home, Shad Jenkins.”
“One more minute. What’s a member of the Youth Ministry do?”
“Oh,” Dudlow said, beaming, glad to talk about good and godly works. “Visits with our neighbors.”
Shad knew that was usually a euphemism for knocking on doors and handing out pamphlets. “Anything else?”
“Helps with the elderly. Cooks food for those families who’ve fallen on hard times.”
It sounded cliched and a little forced, but Shad let it roll for now. “You let them go out in the hollow alone? Teenage girls? Into those hills?”
“The volunteers always go in groups of two or three.”
“That’s all?”
“Sometimes more,” Dudlow said, on the defensive and gesturing vaguely with his hands. “We want to make our brethren feel embraced, but I’m not a naive man. I take my responsibilities in safeguarding my congregation very seriously.”
With blackness creeping up to ply the back of his skull, Shad forced himself to see it.
Mags.
There she was. Seventeen years old, lovely and grinning, holding a Bible and some photocopied literature, maybe with donation envelopes or a mason jar for collections. Stepping up onto a shaky porch and knocking as the paint chips flaked around her shoulders, waiting patiently while some bitter, lonely wife-beating prick roused himself from a drunken stupor in front of the TV set. The game was over and he’d lost another twenty bucks on a bad defensive line. A bellyful of bile and three aching teeth. Got up with his belt unbuckled, only one sock on, kicked empty beer cans aside, and came to the door with the sunlight slashing his brain into juicy, throbbing slices. Just as Mags’s shadow lengthened to cover his stubbled face, the beautiful smile something he’d rarely seen before-hadn’t seen in years-while her gentle, buoyant voice asked for charity and offered an inviting hand. Talking about kindness, crafts shows, and church bake sales while his T-shirt, gummy with liquor and drool, slowly dried and stuck to his graying chest. His tattoos stretched and dull, the flesh pink as a sow’s ass. Suddenly feeling fat and old and weak, unbearably needy, glaring at her legs in the golden afternoon. Watching the swell of her young breasts, the blond down and freckles at the base of her throat. Asking her inside with the promise of a few dollar bills on his dresser. Want some lemonade?
Shad looked into Dudlow’s face and the preacher said, “Merciful Jesus.” He took a step back, tottered in a chuckhole and nearly fell over. “Lord a’mighty.”
