Callie Anson looked away for a time, working up to it, as the mood around them grew heavier. With confusion, unspoken tragedies, and general senselessness, like a guy who can die by checking out his hair, a seventeen- year-old girl from a heart attack.
She checked him over to see if he could handle her words, unsure and thinking twice about it, but she decided to press on.
“She thought somebody… loved her.”
“Who?”
“I was talking about marriage. I told her it was hard sometimes, to curb Luppy and his drinking. I mentioned some of the rough patches we’ve had. I told her she was lucky not to have to worry on the troubles a wife had all the time. She said, ‘I may not be married, but I am loved.’”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m probably wrong about this. I might be making more of it than there is.”
He shrugged. “It’s okay, speak your mind.”
The black gems lost some of their shine for a moment, then turned on him, blazing. “Over the last couple of days, when I heard you were back home in the hollow kicking up a fuss, I started to think on it some more. It seemed she might be talking about a man. Like a man wanted her, you understand? And she liked it.”
Chapter Ten
VENN LUVELL, GLASSY-EYED, STOOD ON MAIN Street in front of Bardley Serret’s Rock Museum, his bottom lip dangling low and to the left like it had been tugged permanently out of shape by a jerking fishhook. There were bits of straw in his hair.
A few years back, he’d been one of the strongest men in Moon Run. He used to tussle with anybody at any time, and his reputation as a grappler grew until guys from all over the county would make official challenges against him.
So they built a ring over in the town square and the gamblers rampaged through the crowd fanning fifties and giving points. The ex-high school football stars and gator wrasslers would try him on for size every Saturday. Venn would end each match by holding his opponent overhead and flinging him over the ropes.
Shad remembered being a kid and looking up to him, hoping one day to be like that.
After a few months of battling and making some money, Venn considered moving to California and becoming a professional wrestler. Sheriff Increase Wintel promised to invest in Venn’s career and get him a promotional manager. But before they could gather the gumption to make a real effort, the moonshine got Venn the way it got nearly everybody and it brought him down hard.
The memory gave Shad some pause now as Venn clomped into the street directly in front of the ’Stang and Shad nearly ran him over.
It was close.
The pup yawped. Shad let out a cry and stood on the brake with his full weight, spinning the wheel hard to the left. Lament let out another throaty, terrorized bark and slammed up against the back of the passenger seat. The screech of tires sounded like a girlish scream of frustration, and the blue smoke of burning rubber rose up in a swirling gust. Shad cracked his temple against the window. His head filled with a billowing pain and the ghosts of the two previous owners. You couldn’t feel sorry for them, but man, you could feel them.
And unlike the first guy, you didn’t even get a chance to die with your hand between a woman’s legs, or even the love of one in your heart.
The car lurched to stop sideways in the street, cutting off both lanes like a roadblock.
Venn stepped up like it was nothing, knocked at the window as if he wanted to be let in. Shad glanced over, still stunned, a trickle of blood dribbling through his hairline.
The dead crowded him, and he didn’t know if they were trying to get in or out. Venn blinked and knocked again with that giant fist. The blood-smeared window shattered.
Grunting, Shad threw up an arm to protect his face. The shards rained down into his hair, slithered into his collar. He grappled for the door, swung it wide, and fell into the street. Venn Luvell’s arms encircled and lifted him up like a sleepy child.
It took a minute to clear his head, the fog parting and the dead guys withdrawing.
“Would you please let me go?” he asked.
“Y’kay?”
“Yes.”
Venn eased him back down until his feet touched ground. Lament snuffed and sneezed, shook up but apparently safe. His tail gingerly flicked twice.
Behind them on the sidewalk, M’am Luvell sat in the wheelchair Shad’s father had made her, so covered in blankets that you could only see her small face and the tips of her fingers. Her pipe was packed and the stink of marijuana drifted over and mixed pleasantly with the biting odor of fried rubber.
So, Bardley Serret was the weed supplier that M’am visited upon. Shad had never found it odd before that a Rock Museum could stay open for so long.
M’am said, “Come here.”
“No.”
“Shad Jenkins, do as I say.”
He already felt like a fool, but arguing with an old woman on Main Street was worse than simply obeying. Venn trudged up the sidewalk, and Shad swallowed a curse, tasting copper. The ’Stang had stalled. The pickups and cars still moving on Main Street gave him a wide berth but didn’t stop.
He got the Mustang started again and slowly pulled over to the curb. Lament shivered in nervousness and crawled into Shad’s lap. He carried the dog as he got out. A few folks on the street stared but no one came close or said anything. They’d be buzzing tonight all over town, and by the morning everybody would know how close Shad Jenkins had come to being another victim of the car.
M’am’s voice still had that tinge of mischief to it, as if she was this close to laughing in Shad’s face. “You’re bleeding.” She rummaged under the blankets and held out a rag to him.
“You want to tell me what the hell that was all about?” he asked.
“Walk along with us for a bit.”
“Jesus Christ, you people.”
“If you’re fretting about a little knock on the noggin then you’re not ready for what’s ahead of you.”
“And what’s that?”
“Walk along and we’ll talk. Give me a few minutes of your time and some words. Won’t hurt you and it might help.”
It took a great assertion of will not to mention that Venn stepping in front of the car had nearly killed them both, but Shad managed to hold his tongue. He could do it when he had to, he’d done it for two years behind bars. Why was it becoming so difficult to keep his own counsel at home?
She gave a sidelong glance, casual but aware. “You sometimes think you were stronger in prison than you are back in your own birthplace, ain’t that so?”
He was giving too much of himself away, but it didn’t matter anymore. She was merely showing off now and that said more about her flaws than his own. She nodded at him, eyes closed, her ageless virtue making him feel as if he was the elder. Like this might be no more than an afternoon spent with a child, heading for a picnic.
The oaks grew thick and wide on either side of Main Street. The breeze proved just strong enough to rattle the branches against one another. Crows sat up high without a sound, occasionally dive-bombing for scraps of food in the gutters and behind the diners. The sidewalks, though cracked, were cared for and well swept by the shop owners.
He stepped up beside Venn and saw almost nothing beneath the goliath’s perplexed grimace. Maybe a ripple of anxiety. There seemed to be barely enough mental current to keep his limbs moving.
Venn cocked his head at Lament, and went, “Dawg.”
M’am’s polished, store-bought pipe caught the sun and lit her chin. The craggy features hardly moved even as
