Текст книги "Poisoned Soil"
Автор книги: Tim Young
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 22 страниц)
Chapter 21
Rose walked out of the master bathroom and down the hall, stopping just for a moment to linger in the doorway to the girls’ bedroom. It was the first night in six years, since their first child had been born, that she had been separated from either of the girls. John bounded through the kitchen and began climbing the hardwood staircase to the master bedroom.
“You ready?” he asked as he glanced at his watch. “Dinner starts in half an hour.” Before Rose could answer, John looked up at her to see that she was ready. “Wow,” John said, stopping on the third step from the top. “You look– breathtaking.”
Rose tilted her head to her left shoulder slightly, just enough that her ebony hair flipped off her ear in a flirtatious way. She swept it back behind her ear with her right hand. “Thanks Johnny. It’s so quiet without the girls here.”
“Now, now,” John said. “You don’t want to change your mind, do you? Just a little R & R, me and you on the beach of a secluded Bahamas island.”
“Of course not,” she said, and smiled at John as he passed and walked to the bedroom to finish dressing.
The truth was that Rose would have been happy to stay home. The trip was John’s idea, one to which she eagerly agreed, but not because she wanted to be away from the girls. She knew the stresses that John had in his job, the relentless pressure he was under to keep customers, to win customers, to find and keep employees. Even with all the success of WallCloud, John often spoke of the pressure in managing cash flow. Rose didn’t understand the details the way John did, but she wasn’t ignorant of business finance. She knew that the business could be profitable on paper and still have trouble paying its bills at the same time, the result of having to pay money out before receiving payments from customers. When the business was stable and not growing, managing cash flow was pretty easy, John had always said. But the past few months had seen rapid growth.
“We’ll increase revenue by forty percent this year,” John boasted the month before, after winning a number of new accounts. And the company was well on its way, but the new business meant that John had to incur expenses up front, in the form of hiring more employees, additional computing capacity, increased health care costs—the list went on and on. Costs that had to be paid now, even though customers wouldn’t be on board until November. After waiting the customary thirty days to invoice them the cash wouldn’t start rolling in from them until they paid thirty days later, in January. Rose had always thought it was peculiar that the faster John grew the business, the more strapped the business was for cash. But WallCloud was John’s thing now. Rearing the girls and community volunteer work was largely hers. She knew that John needed a break from business even if she didn’t need a break herself.
Rose sat at the hallway computer for a second while waiting for John. She moved the mouse to deactivate the screen saver and stared at the email John had opened. It was the invitation he had received earlier in the day to the dinner. Rose perused the email and noted the address and directions. Then her eyes drifted to the bottom of the email, which read to her like a legal agreement. “Hey, John, did you read this legalese at the bottom of this email?”
John poked his head out of the master bathroom, his fingers running styling gel through his wavy brown hair. “Which one? The dinner invite?” John asked.
“Yes,” Rose said. “Get a load of this.” Rose mimicked a fast-paced voice the way a lawyer closes a commercial on a radio advertisement.
When you attend a 50-Forks dinner you’re attending a “dinner party” hosted by Nick Vegas at a private home. The home is not a restaurant, and has not participated in any health inspections. It is not subject to the standards required by law of a legally licensed restaurant. By attending the 50-Forks dinner you agree that you are attending a dinner party and not a restaurant, that you will not hold Nick Vegas or any member of 50-Forks liable, and that you willingly forfeit any right to sue any member of 50-Forks for any circumstances, including, but not limited to, food poisoning or any accident that may occur at, or as a result of, the event.
Rose paused and read the last sentence slowly in her own voice.
You’re eating at your own risk.
“He’s just covering his assets,” John said with a wink, as he elongated the first syllable of “assets.”
“Kinda takes the fun out of it,” Rose quipped. “Sounds pretty scary, actually.”
“Relax, honey. I don’t think Nick Vegas would do anything to risk his reputation,” John said. He pulled the chair out for Rose and took her hand as they walked down the stairs toward the garage.
***
John pulled the Lexus IS 350C around the gravel circular driveway that fronted the antebellum home, and parked after passing two dozen cars and two television vans that had already arrived. He walked around to open the door for Rose, a chivalrous act that Rose had resisted for years before finally relenting to John’s loving gesture. She smiled and took John’s hand as he helped her from the car. They walked, hand-in-hand, up the graded gravel drive and glanced into one of the vans as they passed. Three technicians were busy on high-end computers rendering real-time video of the visitors’ arrival and the chefs’ preparations. A cameraman stood at the base of the steps at the entrance and trained his camera on the two of them as they approached.
Don’t trip! Rose said to herself as a cameraman filmed her climbing the stairs of the front porch.
“You okay there, hon?” John asked.
Rose smiled nervously, but continued looking at the stairs. “Just don’t like these cameras,” she whispered.
John patted her hand to ease her as they arrived on the front porch.
“What kind of house is this?” Rose asked as they stood in the breezeway. John began to answer, but a kindly face at the top of the steps asserted itself.
“Why, this here’s a dogtrot, ma’am,” Wade Ferry said. “Or a possumtrot, if you prefer.” He smiled at John and extended his hand. “Howdy, John.”
“Hi, Wade,” John said, shaking Wade’s hand enthusiastically. “Thanks so much for the invite, really.” John looked to Rose. “Wade, you remember my wife, Rose, don’t you?”
Rose extended her hand and smiled at Wade, knowing him as both a kind man and an investor in John’s company.
“Well, sure I do!” Wade said. “I never forget the face of an angel.” Wade was grinning ear to ear as he took Rose’s hand and kissed it.
An image of Rhett Butler flashed in Rose’s mind. She smiled, but didn’t blush. It was a cliché response, but an appropriate one just the same, she figured. And it was a nice thing to say.
“Why do they call it a dogtrot?” Rose asked.
Wade turned and pointed his arm through the breezeway that ran from the front porch to the back porch. “Dogs were free to just trot down this here breezeway,” Wade said. “Unless you lived out in the sticks. In that case possums might run through here so some folks call these homes possumtrots.”
Rose smiled in amusement.
“Of course this is a modernized dogtrot,” Wade continued as he pointed out the accordion glass doors framed in rich mahogany that could be closed to secure the breezeway and protect the six-inch heartwood pine floors that ran throughout the house. The enclosed rear porch had both skylights and ceiling fans that made sitting comfortable in the cushioned wicker furniture. The rear porch was crowded with the members of 50-Forks who had been invited to gather two hours earlier for their business discussion and introductions.
“Well,” Wade said, “Mighty happy you both could make it. Y’all go now and enjoy yourselves.”
John and Rose smiled and walked into the breezeway, taking in the lingering aromas of roasted meat and, Rose thought, candied yams. To the right and left were the main rooms of the 1830’s home. The entrance to each had been enlarged to impart both the feel of separation and of being in one large room that swept the house.
In the breezeway all eyes were directed to a centerpiece table. High above the table hung four beautifully cured whole hams, each hanging by its black hoof. The star attraction on the table below was a whole roasted pig’s head on a platter, eyes and teeth intact. The platter was stylishly decorated with forest flora and acorns from the north Georgia mountains. On an adjoining table behind the head was a fifth ham resting on a Salamanca, hand carved and made by Nick’s own father. In true Spanish artistic design, the two-inch hardwood base of the Salamanca itself had been carved in the shape of a ham leg. A heavy, stainless steel open ring, secured to an arm that rose and curved a foot higher than the base, formed a cradle for the ham hoof. The butt portion of the ham rested on its own hardwood cradle on the opposite end.
About thirty guests stood around the table and in the breezeway, watching a very serious man expertly shave razor thin pieces of the ham with a long knife. Nick Vegas walked up beside him as he did so and held court as cameras zoomed in.
“This is an art form!” Nick began. “The man who wields the knife has to know precisely how to do this, how to shave thinly along the grain to extract maximum flavor. In Spain this man is known as a Maestro Secadero and he oversees the entire process of curing, grading, and slicing the ham,” Nick added as he flashed his smile for the cameras.
By now, both the front and rear porches had emptied and Nick was surrounded in the packed breezeway by almost fifty guests, each of whom, other than John and Rose, had written a check for $75,000 to join Nick’s exclusive 50-Forks Sales & Marketing group. “Look how thinly he slices it,” Nick said, as he rolled his arm toward the ham in the manner of a maître d’.
Nick held up a translucent slice of ham and looked through it. Then, he rolled it in the shape of a cigar and savored it, kissing his fingers to his lips as he rolled his eyes. “Mmmmm!” he said, as he waved for his servants to plate small samples for each guest. “Sliced in this manner, at room temperature, the marbled ham will literally start to melt. Go on, taste it for yourself.”
“Is this mold on the side?” one woman asked, pointing to a white powder that lined the edge of some of the slices. “Is it safe to eat?”
Nick smiled reassuringly.
“Yes and it’s fine to eat,” he said. “You’ll be getting a lot of mold tonight. We have local, raw milk Camembert cheese featured in the first course and a local, organic blue cheese we’ll use for the dessert course.” The woman and a few other guests took the slice close to their nose first and inhaled the meat and mold as if their nostrils could instantly confirm Nick’s stamp of approval. The cameras panned and zoomed, capturing the expressions of the guests, who both wanted to act as if they were the recipients of culinary bliss for the camera and, literally, were overcome with the explosion of delicate and complex flavors on their palates. The phrases uttered through the mouthfuls of one of the world’s most prized meats varied, but conveyed the same satisfaction.
“Oh, wow!” one woman exclaimed as her husband simply mumbled, “Jesus!”
Another lanky man held his mouth open with apparent disbelief at the explosion of flavor. “Holy cow!” He said.
“No, this is no cow,” Nick said with a smile. “It’s a pig!”
The cameras caught the laughing faces as the group discussed the intense flavors and marveled at how very little salt they could taste compared to any ham cured in America. They walked closer to the centerpiece and pointed to the ham leg, asking questions of Nick as if he were a curator at a culinary museum. With everyone intoxicated by the taste of the delicacy on the table, Nick shared his vision for introducing a food culture to Georgia and the southeast.
“These hams, along with Kobe beef and Beluga caviar, are among the most prized foods in the world. The problem is that the real Jamón Ibérico de Bellota hams are only available in Spain and not available in the U.S. due to your U.S.D.A.” Nick made sure he pronounced the U.S.D.A. as U.S. “duh” for the camera, eliciting a roaring response from the group.
“The U.S. duh does allow one company to export a cheap knock off from Spain, and they charge a hundred dollars a pound for that!” Nick said. “But it’s garbage compared to the real thing. You see this black foot? You won’t see that on their ham, as the U.S. duh forbids it to be imported anywhere in America.” Nick pointed to the black hoof that pointed up to the ceiling from the Salamanca. “That black hoof is the only proof that you’re eating the real thing,” Nick added. “That you’re getting the real pata negro or black-footed Iberian pig that grazed freely on acorns, or bellotas as we say in Spain.”
The guests hung on each of Nick’s words and marveled at the dark, ruby red slices of ham, seeing it not merely for what it was (the leg of a pig) but rather an exquisite human accomplishment of mankind, in a class with the Egyptian pyramids, Picasso, or even the space shuttle.
“We have taken a beautiful animal, a pig, and made it into so much more. Something far more elevated than what nature created.” Nick said. “We have taken it and created art!”
“I’m not so sure the pig, or P.E.T.A. for that matter, would agree with that assessment, Nick,” one of the unsmiling faces said. Nervous chuckles surrounded the centerpiece as eyes fell to the floor.
Nick turned his gaze to the man and then cast a mischievous smile. “I’m all for P.E.T.A.” Nick said to the shock of his guests. “People Eating Tasty Animals, right?”
The group roared as the camera panned back from the lone vegan in the group to the carnivorous frenzy surrounding the pig’s head.
“If the U.S.D.A. doesn’t allow the black hoof to be imported, then where did these come from?” a woman asked. She was a senior vice president of marketing at IBM, and the $75,000 membership fee to network with so many other high ranking marketing gurus in this intimate setting hadn’t been an afterthought in her multi-billion dollar budget. Nick had known that would be the case for each of the contacts that Wade had cultivated from his executive recruiting days, and that once a tipping point of membership was achieved, everyone would want in. That’s exactly how it had played out, with all ten 50-Forks Clubs selling out within six months, each with its fifty paying members. Using the existing restaurant staff he had in each city, and with virtually no investment in the private meeting homes, Nick would rake in over $37 million dollars in membership fees the first year alone. He could afford to splurge on celebrity keynote speakers and extravagant dinners to create an over-the-top experience.
“Great question,” Nick began. “These hams didn’t come from Spain. They came from Spanish-breed pigs that were acorn-fed and cured right here in the Appalachian Mountains!”
Nick took in the wide eyes of his audience and continued.
“There’s a little island off the coast of Savannah called Ossabaw Island. A few centuries ago, my people, the Spaniards, decided to do a little exploring and came over this way,” Nick said smiling. “They brought pigs with them, the descendants of today’s true Iberian pigs, and left them on the island for the next wave of Spaniards to hunt and eat. At some point we stopped coming, and the pigs learned to thrive on the island on their own. The locals call those pigs Ozzies, short for Ossabaw.”
Nick stood in the center of the room with cameras both focused on him and on the faces of his guests. It was exactly where he liked to be, the center of attention, the focal point of culinary delights and connecting people to what he called real food. Not the tasteless garbage that he looked down on in America as people slurped and shoved paper bagfuls of trash into their mouths while driving, thinking they were eating.
“A farmer raised and cured these in the southern Appalachian Mountains,” Nick added, “just like my father did in Spain, and his father before him.” A producer for The Food Channel stood in the back of the room and signaled Nick, indicating they should sit. “Now please, let’s take our seats and enjoy a marvelous dinner.” Nick concluded. “We can talk more during dinner.”
As the members moved to one of the two very long rectangular tables on each side of the house, Rose walked to the centerpiece with John and several others who wanted a final glimpse of the star attraction. Rose zeroed her eyes on the head of the pig, taking in its expression and trying to decide if it had been happy or sad when it lived. She was far from a vegan, but she knew that P.E.T.A. stood for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Certainly any vegan would have sprinted far away from the centerpiece by now, she thought, as she eyed the lonely gentleman who had questioned Nick on the treatment of animals. As she thought of her conversation the day before with Angelica about factory farming, she leaned closer to examine the pig’s head with John and others watching. A cameraman followed her right index finger as it touched right between the pig’s eyes.
“What is this?” Rose asked herself and those around her. They all looked closely at the shape of the letter X that intersected right between the pig’s eyes.
“I dunno,” John said. “Maybe it split there during roasting or something.” He had long been a vegetarian for health rather than for animal cruelty reasons, but John couldn’t hide his grimace at the gruesome incision.
“Looks like someone marked it with a knife,” another man said as he hoisted a glass of champagne to his lips.
“Well,” John said, “I wouldn’t want that job! Marking a pig while he was still alive. I mean, look at the tusks coming out of that thing’s mouth. That thing could kill a man, easy.”
John took Rose by the hand and led her toward one of the tables where the wine flowed freely and the servers stood ready to plate the first course. Naturally, much of the table’s conversation touched on sales and marketing throughout the dinner, but John skillfully brought the discussion to family and personal issues as often as he could. Rose was grateful to John for yet another loving act that so many husbands wouldn’t think to do or be able to do. Underneath the table she took his right hand with her left as she gushed about her girls to a new mother seated across from her.
Talking about the girls made her realize how much she cherished them and her life with them and John. She was eager to leave on vacation the next morning because the sooner she left, the sooner she would return to that life. It was that thought, and not the taste of the food, that put the Mona Lisa smile on her face as she deeply inhaled the moldy aroma and savored another slice of ham.
Chapter 22
Blake held Angelica’s hand and walked across the blacktop parking lot of the Sandy Creek Baptist Church for the first time in a very long time. Since before the miscarriage, he concluded, as he tried to recall his last visit to church that wasn’t on Easter or Christmas. It was a typical small country church, but plenty big enough for the Warwoman community. A white clapboard house of worship with a steeple reaching for the heavens from above the front entrance. Five, wide steps led up to the church entrance for those who could walk. For those who couldn’t, a new wheelchair ramp sloped from the right side to the landing platform at the top of the stairs.
Two men of Native American descent stood at the base of the ramp and talked with an elderly woman who resembled Barbara Bush. One of the men dropped his head as Angelica cast a gaze upon him in passing. Charles Weaver, the eldest man, held Angelica’s stare and nodded imperceptibly.
The elderly woman, Sylvia Jackson, spoke up. “Why the hush?”
Tom, a pudgy man with stringy gray hair and inflated cheeks, turned to Sylvia. “She’s a witch,” he whispered.
“Why, that’s nonsense,” Sylvia said looking as if she was in shock. “Well, that girl has been going to this church right on her whole life. She’s an absolute angel, she is.”
Tom kicked some gravel around and grunted. “Hmm. A witch I’m telling you,” he repeated. “I could tell you some stories about her.” Charles stared down at him.
“Why on God’s green earth would you say that?” Sylvia pressed. Tom leaned over the railing to see if Angelica was within earshot. She and Blake had already walked toward the front.
“First off, her grandmother was a witch too!” Tom said.
“Hmm,” Charles grunted as he cast an incredulous gaze at Tom.
Sylvia rolled her eyes and asked, “Oh, so now everyone’s a witch?”
Tom raised a finger and pointed it directly at Sylvia. “Well answer me this. What kind of woman buries her granddaughter ALIVE?” Sylvia’s mouth hung open as Tom continued. “Yep. Stuck her in a hole and covered her with dirt, gave her only a hollow cane to breath through. When she was only six or seven years old!”
Charles stared down at Tom and snorted with disapproval, “Hmm.”
“Then,” Tom continued, “old granny puts leaves on top of where she buried her own granddaughter, alive mind you, and sets the leaves afire. After the fire dies off, she yanks her granddaughter out of the ground and says now she’s a Cherokee priest with supernatural ability!”
“That’s—that can’t be true,” Sylvia said.
The elder man, tall and very weathered, spoke up. “That part is true,” Charles said. “That girl is my great niece. The grandmother Tom speaks of was my sister. But the girl is no witch.”
“Is too,” Tom said. “I seen her one time use her magic to save a boy from drowning, right here on Warwoman Creek.” Tom pointed up the road toward a widening in the creek.
“That doesn’t make her a witch,” Charles said, folding his arms across his chest.
“Does so,” Tom continued. “We’s having a potluck dinner up the road. We’d had a ton of rain and this boy slipped off the bank. Them rapids took him under and swept him clean over them boulders. Everyone was in a panic but I watched that witch. She walked right over to the edge of the river and stared straight at that boy. She took her fingers and started twirling some magic beads on her neck and kept on chanting a spell.”
Sylvia was now trying her best to record every word in her memory so she could command attention at the following week’s gossip circle. Tom continued the story. “I watched her and that girl didn’t blink once. Nary a time. And you know what happened? Just then a tree leaned over and hung some branches right down in front of that boy so he could grab a hold of!”
Sylvia’s mouth fell open again.
“Well,” Sylvia said. “My word. I guess that could be just a coincidence that you’re misreading. That don’t rightly make her no witch. Sounds more like an angel to me if she saved that boy.”
“She was casting a spell, I tell ya. She’s a witch,” Tom said.
“She isn’t a witch,” Charles repeated and grimaced at how loud his voice had become. He stared at Tom in a manner that suggested it would be wise to no longer suggest otherwise. “Witches do evil,” Charles continued. “What you’re describing is conjuring spells that the Cherokee people used for good, not evil. They used lots of verbal formulas, or chants as you say, even some to conjure up weather. And they used herbs for medicine. Witches used herbs for poison, and evil witches like the Raven Mocker took lives instead of saving them.”
Sylvia very nearly fainted.
“My sister was only doing what was done to her as a child,” Charles said. “She wanted to help Angelica become a Cherokee priest. To do that, she had to bury her first so she could say her old self was dead and buried. After the leaves were burned she rose as a priest. That’s the way it’s always been done.”
“Why—why on earth would your sister want to do that to a child?” Sylvia asked.
Charles dropped his voice. “Because that girl, Angelica, is an identical twin, and the Cherokees believed twins had supernatural powers. They often became priests, especially the younger twin, which Angelica was.”
“Is she a witch...I mean, a priest?” Sylvia asked.
“Hmm,” Charles snorted. “That’s old superstition. The kind of thinking my sister held with. Not me, which is why I don’t see my great niece often. She doesn’t approve of my lack of faith.”
“What about them beads she carries?” Tom asked.
Charles had grown tired of the conversation. He exhaled and looked down at Tom.
“Beads and crystals were used for divination,” Charles said. “A priest would hold a black bead in the left hand to signify death or disaster and a white bead in the right hand to signify health and happiness. The beads were moved slowly between the tips of the index fingers and thumbs. The strength of the motion told the priest if the outcome in question would be favorable or unfavorable.”
The church bell rang and visibly jolted Sylvia. “Well, my word! That story and them church bells plum near stopped my heart!” She said. “We best get inside.” Sylvia and the men walked in.
Inside, eight rows of simple wooden benches divided the aisle that led the eyes to the pastor’s pulpit. Between the front pew and the pastor on the right side of the church were three more benches, each turned perpendicular to the nave of the congregation’s benches. These were for the small choir, comprised of enthusiastic, if not harmonious, mountain voices, young and old. A door on the far end behind the benches led to a small room where Angelica had dropped the girls off for Sunday School an hour before.
On the left side of the church, just below the pastor’s chancel, was a beautiful piano, a gift from the estate of the recently deceased Gladys Wilcox, who had been a member of the church for all of her ninety-four years. In that time she had reared three children, spoiled nine grandchildren, traveled once out of Rabun County and saved enough money in her snuff jars to buy the piano for the church as stipulated in her will.
Blake remembered thinking years before of how he would have made the church bigger, more fancy, if he had been consulted on the design. Even then he wasn’t really religious. He never really “got it” and felt that people went to church because they were supposed to. Because they lived in a small community and, if they didn’t, others would look down on them. So they went for the ham and egg suppers, for the potluck dinners, tried to stay awake for the sermons and wasted a good day each week, Blake thought. Some had even more time to waste as they went both Sunday morning and evening, and then again Wednesday night!
But they had something that money couldn’t buy, Blake had begun to realize. They had each other and were there to comfort one another in times of need. Blake knew that this was his time of need. He also knew he had no right to ask for help, for forgiveness. He had given nothing to the community. Had shunned it, in fact, as he pursued his own dreams selfishly. He was always too busy, he had told Angelica with a straight face, because it was largely true. But the larger truth was that he wanted nothing to do with this or any church. Sitting there made him feel uncomfortable. Angelica led him to the second row on the right side and saved a spot for the girls for when they were dismissed. Blake sat next to the aisle.
He turned to his right and looked behind, recognizing most of the faces he had grown up among. Faces both familiar and strange to him at the same time. They nodded at him in a welcoming manner, inviting him to stay and visit often with their peaceful smiles. Blake returned the nods, returned the smiles as he took in the faces, in search of comfort and reassurance. Making eye contact with friendly faces allowed Blake to feel more at ease. He stood a little taller and turned left to look for faces on the other side. Memories flooded back to him from faces that had known him all along. Faces that he had abandoned, had forgotten. A calm swept over him as he welcomed them all, feeling like a security blanket that comforted him. His eyes finished their sweep when they met the preacher, seated with his Bible in his lap with an empty chair on one side of him and the pulpit on the other.
The music began playing asking for all to rise and sing to begin the worship. Blake stood and took Angelica’s hand. As he did, the door opened from the Sunday School. The children walked out and found their parents or guardians. Walking behind the children, dressed in his clean and pressed sheriff’s uniform, was Lonnie Jacobs. Blake inhaled and held his breath as his body tensed. Shit! he said silently, his mind forgetting where his vulgar mouth was.
The sheriff walked to the front and took the empty chair next to the pastor.
What in God’s name is he doing here? Blake thought to himself, realizing the irony of his question given the setting. And then Blake remembered. Sheriff Lonnie Jacobs was also Pastor Lonnie Jacobs of the Bull Creek Baptist Church. Blake had completely forgotten, only vaguely recalling the fact that Lonnie had become a pastor before being elected sheriff.
Lonnie had made the highly publicized decision to run for sheriff when Blake was in junior high, saying that ministers were in the world to make a positive difference, and what better way than to use his understanding of God’s word to take on societal problems and enforce the law. “The Lord has me here in this moment and this is how he wants to use me,” Lonnie had said in his campaign interview for the Clayton Tribune. The Atlanta Journal Constitution also covered those words and the campaign, much to the amusement of the educated masses to the south. The message would have fallen on deaf ears in most parts of the country, and certainly in Atlanta for that matter. But in the rural belly of the Bible Belt the chords of Lonnie’s calling rang true. He was elected by forty-seven votes, a landslide.
Lonnie’s eyes surveyed the room with both compassion and righteousness. His eyes met Blake’s, held them for a moment, and continued around the room. The pastor invited the congregation to be seated and began by saying what the others had already known. That they were honored to have a guest pastor that day from the other side of Rainey Mountain, who was here to spread the word of God and to deliver a special sermon. Lonnie thanked the pastor and stood before the pulpit. Blake didn’t take his eyes off him, outwardly appearing to be supremely interested in what he was saying. Inside Blake’s mind was another story as his worst fears zoomed and crashed into one another, occasionally interrupted by a poignant word or phrase from the sheriff.
