David quit smiling. 'No thanks.'
'Then for the sake of heaven, get on with it. What do you want, before I die of boredom?'
'That gun you carry. You any good with it?'
'I generally hit what I aim at, even if I throw the gun at it.'
'Yeah, you look like a man that could do that—I want a shooting lesson.'
The Reverend took hold of the door as if to shut it. 'I don't give lessons, boy. Get your pa.'
'He don't teach me nothing but hard work.'
'Builds character, good day.'
'I'd pay you.'
'You'd pay me to teach you how to shoot?'
David nodded.
'Why do you want to learn so bad?'
'Something a man ought to know, I reckon. Papa says I ain't much at doing things a man ought to do. Says I'm short of hard work and the ways of a man.'
'You're just short, that's all. You're a boy.'
'Says I'm like my mama—a dreamer.'
'My father said the same thing of me.'
'Did he?'
'Among other things.'
'Can I quit standing out here in the hallway?'
'I guess.'
David came in, and the Reverend closed the door, sat back on the bed. David stood.
The Reverend picked up his whisky and took a swig.
'I wouldn't have figured you for a drunk,' David said.
'Appearances are deceiving,' the Reverend said, and drank again.
''You look—I don't know—special. Like you really are the right hand of the Lord—you know?'
'No.'
There was an awkward silence.
'Look, I'll give you a shooting lesson,' the Reverend said. 'Tomorrow morning. But I don't want your money. I want a favor.'
'Name it. Anything.'
'Slow down. Don't agree to anything until it's been explained to you. You might be sending your head to Old Glory on a one-way ticket without meaning to. Hear me out.'
The Reverend nodded at the tent on the floor.
'Got a sermon to do Saturday night. I'll need some boys to put that tent up for me. I hired me some to bring it upstairs, but I didn't like their work. I did most of it, and I sure don't want a bunch of loafers when it's time to put it up.'
'I can do that. I know some good workers, I...'
Holding up a hand. 'Wait a minute. I also need some boys to pass out a few bills I'm going to have the paper office print up. They'll announce the sermon's time and place.
Can I depend on you to get those passed around and tacked up around town?'
'You can.'
'Good. Now run along. I've got a headache.'
David nodded. 'Reverend—you've probably had enough whisky, don't you think?'
'I'll be the judge of that. Now get out before I bounce you out.'
'Yes sir.'
'Oh, one other thing. While I'm giving you this shooting lesson, while we're out in the country, I'd like to get you to help me to cut a few poles for the tent.' The Reverend stood. 'And here, take some money and rent us a wagon from your pa. Tell him I'm hiring you for some work. He'll like that. Make him feel good to know you're out there sweating.'
'Let's see,' David said. 'Cut some poles, put up a tent, pass some bills out, and rent a wagon—want me to just go on and preach your sermon for you, Reverend?'
'Very funny. A regular Eddie Foy. Now go.'
David went.
The Reverend closed the door, sat down on the bed again, and picked up the whisky bottle. It was halfway to his lips when he thought of something David had said. 'You look—I don't know—special. Like you really are the right hand of the Lord...'
'Damn me,' the Reverend said, and stood up.
Carrying the bottle with him, he walked over to the window and looked out. He saw David crossing the street, a few pedestrians.
He turned and looked in the mirror. He did not like what he saw. He turned back to the window and poured the whisky out of it, then using his gun butt, he broke the bottle and tossed it in the trash box.
Returning to the mirror he examined himself again. He didn't like what he saw any better, but he had made a decision. No more whisky to bind him like chains. He would do God's bidding. He would be what David had called him: 'the right hand of the Lord.'
Suddenly, the Reverend slammed a fist into the mirror and shattered it, cutting his hand in the process. He had said and done all this before.
He held the injured hand over the washbasin and looked at his shattered reflection.
Somehow, that looked better to him. 'Tm trying, Lord, I'm trying.'
He washed his hands clean in his slow, ritualistic manner, as if ridding himself of some foul slime he could feel and smell but could not see.
And then it came to him. If the dark-haired woman was a test, David had been an aid from the Lord. A dose of strength. He was not lost after all.
He looked in the mirror again, and this time he laughed, and thought: 'Staying in this damned hotel is going to be expensive.'
V
In a crate, in the loft of Rhine's livery—another lay in slumber—away from the light, wrapped in euphoria, an inner-clock beating away the minutes of daylight, ticking them off until nightfall.
That was when it would all begin.
Long about sundown, Joe Bob Rhine called it a day.
He sent David home ahead of him. He wanted to walk home by himself and not have to hear any foolish kid chatter. It had been a rough day.
As Rhine closed the doors of the livery, slipped the big, gray padlock into place, the last of the sun played out and gave it up to the dark. And when the lock clicked into place, Joe Bob thought he heard something move in symphony to the sound—something like a creaking noise.
Horses, most likely.
Rhine trudged toward home, a house at the end of the street just behind the barber shop.
He was hungry as a fresh-woke bear. He hoped that woman had something on the table.
He was too tired to slap her around tonight.
Shortly after Rhine made his way into his house full of the smell of beans and cornbread, the livery doors trembled ever so slightly. The padlock fell off the door without unlocking, thumped in the dust. The doors blew open with a gust of ice-cold wind, and the wind tumbled down the street.
The livery doors closed. The padlock jumped into place, and all was as it had been.
Almost.
II
The dog was a night hunter. Belonged to no one. Padded its way through the darkness, down the streets of the town, ever watching, ever alert.
Sometimes people shot at it, because the dog was known to be vicious, its one purpose in life was to
