“Robert Earl,” Shirley said, “get your scary ass out of there before you get stuck!”
“Ruth Ann!” Eric shouted. “Help me, Ruth Ann!”
Shirley moaned. “Lord, what if he’s really hurt. I’ve gotta go out there!”
“Wait a minute, Shirley,” Leonard said. “Please! I said please. Ruth Ann, tell him you have a gun.”
“I have a gun!” Ruth Ann shouted. “I know how to use it, too!”
Three gunshots answered back and they all hit the floor. “Bad idea,” Ruth Ann said.
“I didn’t tell you to say all that!”
“Everybody all right?” Shirley asked.
“I’m fine,” Leonard said.
“Me, too,” Ruth Ann said.
“Robert Earl?” Shirley said. No answer. Louder: “Robert Earl!”
“What is it now?”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, yes, yes! I’m all right. Will y’all please stop calling my name! I’ll let you know when I’m not all right.”
“What are we going to do?” Leonard asked.
Shirley said, “Only one door in and one door out. We could rush them. They can’t see any better than we can.”
“Them? They?” Leonard said. “The only person I’ve heard out there is Eric. Shirley, don’t get upset. Eric intends to kill Ruth Ann, and he might kill us too if we get in his way.”
“You’re wrong, Leonard. Eric doesn’t own a gun. Someone has him at gunpoint. He’s almost as scary as Robert Earl. You couldn’t pay him to come into the woods at night.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Leonard said. “We should put something against the door. The couch will do. Robert Earl, get out of there and help me push the couch against the door.”
“Get Shirley or Ruth Ann to help you. Hey, wouldn’t it be awfully hard to haul liquid fire up a roof and pour it down a chimney?”
“With a cauldron it would be relatively easy.”
“A cauldron? What’s a cauldron?”
“It’s made to haul liquid fire.”
“Really? I’ve never seen one at Wal-Mart.”
“You can’t buy it at Wal-Mart. Ace Hardware the only place has it.”
“You’re not juking me, are you, Leonard?”
“You’ll know when your scalp melts off your head.”
“It’ll be too late then. Wouldn’t you smell it, the liquid fire? You’d smell it at a distance, wouldn’t you?”
“ISN is odorless.”
“ISN?”
“Industrial strength napalm. And it sticks to your skin.”
“Where you get that at?”
Leonard hesitated. “AutoZone.”
Shirley said, “Leonard, stop teasing the idiot and push the couch against the door.”
Just then they heard footsteps on the porch… a soft tap on the door.
“Oh shit!” Ruth Ann whispered.
The door creaked opened.
Chapter 39
“I’m not drunk!” Reverend Walker said, pushing Sheriff Bledsoe’s hand away. He was wearing a ruffled double-breasted charcoal-colored suit, matching pants and a pair of black Stacy Adams. A red tie, absent shirt, was knotted tightly against his wrinkled neck. He reeked of cheap wine and week-old BO.
“Reverend, please, get in the car. Look, everybody’s staring at you. Don’t make me use the cuffs, Reverend.”
Misery lights illuminating his face, Reverend Walker stared at the small crowd staring at him. Humiliation worked on his face, rheumy brown eyes going to the ground and back up to the crowd.
Mustering dignity, he stood erect, pulled on the hem of his coat and said, “All right, Sheriff.” Unassisted, he staggered to the back of the cruiser and got in. The crowd cheered.
Sheriff Bledsoe got behind the wheel wondering what the crowd was expecting.
“Take me to jail!”
“To jail?” and looked in the rearview mirror at the bottom of a pint of Wild Irish Rose. “Hey, you can’t drink liquor in here!” He switched off the misery lights and drove away, hoping no one saw the reverend upturn the bottle.
“I can’t? I didn’t see a sign.”
He drove past the jail. “Reverend Walker, I’m taking you home. I
Reverend Walker laughed. “You don’t go to church, do you? Maybe your mother hasn’t heard the news. Reverend Walker tried to bury a dog.”
Fifteen or twenty minutes to Reverend Walker’s house, Sheriff Bledsoe thought. Another ten minutes to get the reverend inside and give his condolences to Mrs. Walker. Plus fifteen or twenty minutes back to Dawson. Almost an hour lost, shot to crap, time when he should’ve been looking for Ida.
“Reverend Jones and three of the deacons,” Reverend Walker continued, “suggested I take a few Sundays off. As if I work for them. Ha! I was preaching when Reverend Jones was loading his Huggies. Built that church with my own hands. My own hands, hear me!”
To emphasize the point, he clawed the metal divider and shook it. Sheriff Bledsoe looked into the rearview mirror and gave him a frown.
“My church, dammit! Mine! They can’t take it away from me!” After a fit of hiccups: “Can they, Sheriff? Can they kick me out my own church?”
Sheriff Bledsoe, wondering if he should visit Ida’s house again after dropping off the reverend, shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He looked into the rearview mirror and again saw the bottom of the bottle. “You’ll be home soon, why don’t you wait to finish that?”
“Take me to jail, Sheriff. My wife’s mad at me. ‘Better to live in the wilderness, than with a contentious and angry woman.’ Proverbs, chapter twenty-one… I forgot which verse.” He made a gargling noise, which Sheriff Bledsoe feared was the precursor to an expensive interior detail.
“The elder Sisters called her the other day and said they were going to join another church if I preached again. Guess what she told them? ‘I don’t blame you. I wasn’t married to him I would, too.’ I just had to get a drink. Haven’t had a drink in forty-five years. Glad I did, too. Wonder where I parked my car?”
Sunlight flickered through the trees as Sheriff Bledsoe sped down the highway at seventy-miles-per. A large purple splatter suddenly appeared on the windshield. He turned the wipers on and pushed the fluid button. Purple goo smeared across the windshield. It would be dark soon. Reverend Walker’s house was less than five minutes away.
“Lord almighty, how was I to know!” Reverend Walker said. “The average person digs a hole in the backyard, drops the mutt into it, says a few words and fills the hole. I’d known she was serious, I’d never gone along with it. God knows I wouldn’t have.
“They dressed it up, rolled it in and by God I intended to bury it. I don’t go back on my word, Sheriff. Nobody’ll tell you Reverend Stanley Lucious Walker ain’t a man of his word. It would’ve worked if not for the boy… Somebody should lay hands on that boy… just beat the living shit out of him!
