The years had forced their raw corruption on her, the trials of such extreme motherhood written in her face. What did you call it when a woman had so many children in so few years? Her body wracked by such burden, day in and out, month after month. She had stretch marks on her neck, along her jawline, and on just about every bald inch of her he could see. What man makes his own sister live this way?
Lottie got to her feet, peered at him, finally tilted her head in recognition. “You,” she said. “I know you a bit, don’t I? From a few years back.”
“That’s right. My name is Shad Jenkins.”
The infant who’d been flopped like a flapjack sprang over again on his belly. It started creeping and mewling like an animal that had never been given a name. It looked at Shad and started toward him, like it wanted to take a bite out of him.
“Your pa’s the carpenter,” Lottie said.
“Yes.”
“Jenkins. Ah yuh, so you are. What you doing this way? You come to visit on Red? He ain’t here right now, and I don’t know when he’ll be back. Had a red deer out behind the house and Red took a shot but missed the heart. He’s out there someplace tracking it so we can have somethin’ ’sides hare stew. Or are you meanin’ to join them church folk over yonder, eh?”
“I thought I might stop in and talk with them some,” Shad admitted.
“You shouldn’t.”
“No?”
“They got strange ways.” She said it with a hint of concern, as if it mattered but not a hell of a lot.
It took Shad back a step. How odd could these people be that a woman with nine inbred kids would call them strange?
“I don’t know much about them,” Shad said.
“They’re snake handlers. They thrill on the venom. Moon ain’t strong enough, I suppose. Got a small settlement a few miles off. We don’t cotton with them much, but we trade supplies if’n we need to. They ain’t bad folks but they got a worshipful way with the snakes. It ain’t right, cavorting like that. It ain’t a blessed church.”
“Did you ever see my sister out on this side of the gorge?”
“Who she?”
“Her name was Megan. She was seventeen, long blond hair.”
“Was?”
“She’s dead now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Comfort and condolences to you.”
“Thank you.”
“I never run into her.”
“She might’ve come up with a boy. Possibly a man.”
“Only girls that age I seen up this way are them Gabriel girls. Daughters of the man who runs the church. Lucas Gabriel.”
The eldest of her children hobbled over and murmured in her ear, staring at Shad in alarm. She hugged the kid and hummed in his ear for a second, telling him, “No no no. No, Osgood, no.”
But the boy had his mind set on something and kept arguing, his gaze shifting back and forth along the tree line.
Shad said, “I’m alone.”
“You ain’t lyin’ now, are you, mister?” Osgood asked.
“No,” Shad told him.
So he’d been right. Red had a little still somewhere, the guts of a radiator and copper piping making contaminated liquor. The kid’s mind had probably been filled with stories of how the Feds would come around and steal their civil liberties.
You couldn’t expect the best social graces from a teenager who probably didn’t run into more than ten people a year. Osgood couldn’t meet Shad’s eyes. His face puckered and went skittering with emotion.
Lottie finally grabbed the boy by the shoulders and shoved him toward the shack, and said, “Go on and start supper.”
“He stayin’?”
“Git in there.”
“I wanna know if he’s stayin’ ’round here!”
“Your daddy be back soon and you know he’ll be hungry.”
“I seen he got a gun tucked in his belt!”
“No, he don’t. Yer eyes is bad.”
“I see clear ’nough!”
“Hush all this foolishness and git in there and cook supper!”
As the kid trudged off Lottie grinned in embarrassment, showing nothing but gums. “He don’t know no better. It ain’t his fault. Me and Red really ought to make more of an effort to bring the children into town when we get our supplies. But Red’s a’scairt that the city ways might confuse and beguile the family.”
Shad had never heard the hollow called a city before. Under different circumstances he might’ve laughed at that, but the way she said it made him nod in agreement. Her concerns were serious ones.
He wondered how that lesson on the birds and the bees would go in this house.
“Can you give me directions to that village?” Shad asked.
“Ain’t rightly a village, I reckon. Just a whole mess of families gathered together within pissin’ distance. Their houses is real close together, so they’s like one big family. If you visit on them, make sure you’re careful on where you step. Those boots go beyond your heel?”
“A little.”
“Walk light. They might be doin’ a rattler roundup. They beat the fields and collect the vipers.” She pointed south, her arm firm and straight and without an ounce of flab. He could almost see the history of her life scrawled in her bones. “Like I says, you be cautious when you get farther on in the forest. You ain’t proper dressed for this area. There’s lots of thorny woods that way. You get lost in the dark and those thistles will surely trim your hair back for you.”
“How far?”
“About five miles or so, but the countryside gets pretty rugged. Don’t you have a knapsack or a heavier coat? It gets cold these nights. You didn’t bring no water along?”
“I’ll be all right.”
The children began to mewl, almost in tune with one another, all of them prowling across the yard.
“You already look like you a bit chilled,” Lottie said. “You want a tap of the jug?”
“No thanks.” He was thirsty but could feel the tension building as she started to stare at him. The tip of her tongue wet those thin lips that buckled in around empty gums.
“Red won’t be back for a while.”
“You can just tell him I said Hi. Maybe I’ll stop back in on my way home again.”
“I mean, we got us some time.” Her left hand came down over the center of her heavy breasts. Her right came up to fluff at her hair. It gave him a kick in the guts to realize she was trying to be demure. “I hardly get a chance to talk to nobody no more. You can come on inside. We got cards.”
“I can’t right now, Lottie.”
“If’n you wanna, you can come on back anytime. Come visit with us. Come see me.”
“Sure,” Shad said, taking a step back.
It saved his life. A clutch of rosebay and dogwood exploded about a foot from his head.
“Goddamn!” he screamed.
Osgood stomped off the decrepit porch step holding a double-barrel shotgun. He aimed it at Shad again. He reached for the second trigger and Shad leaped backwards into the brush.
The shit you could get yourself into.
The kid was too eager and reared at the last moment. The shot sheared loose the bark from a nearby oak.
“No!” Lottie cried. “I told you no, child! No no!”
