I stepped from the trees, entering the long grass, and the first rattle took my breath away. I stumbled back, saw the snake under a bush, and blew its head off. The reflex and the accuracy with which I shot surprised me. Hours and hours of practice no doubt explained my reaction. But for over a year, hate and anger had been swelling in me. More than anything, I wanted to kill something. No sooner had I shot the first snake than a second one buzzed. I blew
its
head apart. A third coiled. A fourth. A fifth. I shot each of them, furious that the snakes seemed to be trying to stop me. My shots rang in my ears. The sharp stench of cordite floated around me. Relentlessly, I shifted through the grass. A sixth. A seventh. An eighth. Pieces of snakes flew. Blood sprayed through the grass. Yet more kept rattling, and it seemed that it wasn’t my pistol but my raging thoughts that shot them, so directly and instantly did their heads explode the moment I fixed my gaze on them.
The last empty cartridge flipped to the ground. The slide on the pistol stayed back. As I’d done hundreds of times in class, I pushed the button that dropped the empty magazine. I drew a full one from my fanny pack, slammed it into the pistol’s grip, pushed the lever that freed the slide, and aimed this way and that, eager for more targets.
None presented itself. Either I’d frightened the rest away or they were hiding, waiting.
Let them try,
I thought in a fury as I picked up the empty magazine and proceeded more relentlessly through the grass. Reaching the graveyard’s low stone wall, I climbed over. Brambles and poison ivy awaited me. The place was too foul even for snakes.
The piles of stones in front of each grave made my nerves tighten as I stepped forward. Glancing behind me, I thought I detected a slight furrow in the ground, where earth seemed to have settled. It was so minor that I never would have paid attention to it if I hadn’t been looking for it. Faint, it ran from where I’d fallen into the chamber. It went under the graveyard’s wall. Even less noticeable, it led to the grave nearest the underground chamber.
A short grave. A child’s grave. Angry, I knelt. I pulled away the pile of stones at the head of the grave. For a moment, I couldn’t move. The stones had concealed an eight—inch—wide duct sticking up. The duct had a baffle on it so that rain would pour off and not get into the ventilation system.
I was right: The chamber had been a cell. I remembered the long, flat object that the snakes had piled onto to avoid the rising water. Over the years, the object had so deteriorated that, in the shadows, I hadn’t been able to identify it. But now I knew what it was. The remains of a mattress. It had been the only object in the room. There hadn’t even been a toilet. Had Lester been forced to relieve himself in a pot, contending with the stench until his captors took it away? Their
son
? The horror of it mounted as I stared at the child’s grave that they’d desecrated to hide their sin.
Reverend Benedict was where I had met him the previous day, kneeling, trimming roses in the church’s garden. His white hair glinted in the sunlight.
“Mr. Denning.” He stood with effort, shook my hand, and frowned at the scratches on it. “You’ve injured yourself.”
“I took a fall.”
He pointed toward my chin, where my beard stubble couldn’t hide a bruise. “Evidently a bad one.”
“Not as bad as it could have been.”
“At the Dant place?”
I nodded.
“Did you find anything to help you locate your family?”
“I’m still trying to make sense of it.” I told him what I’d discovered.
The wrinkles in his forehead deepened. “Orval and Eunice held their only son prisoner?
Why?
”
“Maybe they thought the Devil was in him. I have a feeling a lot of things happened out there that we’ll never understand, Reverend.” My head pounded. “How did Lester escape from the underground room? When the fire broke out, did Orval and Eunice risk their lives to go down to the basement and free him? Did the parents somehow get trapped? In spite of how they’d treated him, did Lester try but fail to save them, as he claimed?”
“It fits what we know.”
“But it doesn’t explain why he didn’t tell everybody what he’d suffered. When something outrageous happens to us, don’t we want to tell others? Don’t we want sympathy?”
“Unless the memory’s so dark that we can’t handle it.”
“Especially if a different kind of outrage happened out there.”
Reverend Benedict kept frowning. “What are you getting at?”
“Suppose Lester somehow got out of that room on his own. Or suppose the parents released him every so often as a reward for good behavior. Did
Lester
start the fire?”
“Start the … Lord have mercy.”
“One way or another, whether they tried to rescue him or whether he got out on his own, did he trap his parents? Did he stand outside the burning house and listen with delight to their screams? Is that something he’d have wanted to describe to anyone? But that’s not all that bothers me.”
“Good God, you don’t mean there’s more.”
“I’m from Colorado,” I said.
The apparent non sequitur made Reverend Benedict shake his wizened head in confusion.
“Every once in a while, there’s a story about somebody who went into the mountains and came across a rattlesnake,” I said. “Not often. Maybe it’s because the snakes have plenty of hiding places in the mountains, and they’re not aggressive by nature—they prefer to stay away from us. But Indiana’s a different matter. Lots of people. Dwindling farmland. Have you ever seen a rattlesnake around here?”
“No.”
“Have you ever heard of anybody who
has
come across one?” I asked.
“Not that I can think of,” the reverend said. “A farmer perhaps. Rarely.”
“Because the spreading population has driven them out.”
“Presumably.”
“Then how come there are
dozens
of rattlesnakes on the Dant property? In southern states, in Mississippi or Louisiana, for example, so many snakes might not seem unusual, but not around here. What are they doing on Orval’s farm? How did they get there?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“Well,
I
can. Do you suppose that the Dants could have been practicing snake handling out there?”
The reverend paled. “As a religious exercise? Holding them in each hand? Letting them coil around their neck to prove their faith in God?”
“Exactly. If the snakes didn’t bite, it meant that God intervened. It meant that God favored the Dants more than He did the people in town. If you’ve got a bunker mentality, if you’ve got a desperate ‘us against them’ attitude, maybe you want undeniable proof that you’re right.”
“It’s the worst kind of presumption.”
“And I suspect it destroyed them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You said that there were three Dant families when Lester was born. By the time of the fire, only
one
fam—ily—Orval, Eunice, and Lester—remained. You wondered if the other families might have moved away or had gotten deathly ill. But
I’m
wondering if the snakes didn’t send the Dants a different message than they expected.”
“You mean the snakes killed them?” the reverend murmured.
“The Dants would never have gone to a doctor for help.”
“Dear Jesus.”
“Snake handling would explain how so many got to be out there. The Dants brought them,” I said. “What it
doesn’t
explain is why the snakes remained. Why didn’t they spread?”
“Perhaps they stayed where they belonged.”
At first, I didn’t understand. Then I nodded. “Maybe. That’s a foul, rotten place out there, Reverend. I think you’re right. If I were in your line of work, I’d say that the snakes are exactly where they feel at home.”
Several bees buzzed my face. I motioned them away.
“Just one more question, and then I’ll leave you alone,” I said.
“Anything I can do to help.”
“You mentioned that after Lester ran from your home, he showed up in a town a hundred miles east of here, across the border in Ohio.”
“That’s right.”
“What did you say it was called?”
Loganville was better than I expected: a picture—postcard town with a prosperous—looking main street and a welcoming park in front of its courthouse. I asked directions to the Unitarian church, whose minister I’d phoned to make an appointment. The portly, gray—haired man was stacking hymnals in the vestibule.
“Reverend Hanley?” I’d explained on the phone why I needed to talk with him. I showed him Lester Dant’s photograph and asked about the teenager’s arrival at the church nineteen years earlier. “I realize that’s a long time ago, but Reverend Benedict seemed to think that you’d remember what happened back then.”
“I certainly do. It’s difficult to forget what happened that summer. That boy meant a great deal to Harold and Gladys. They wanted so much to become his guardians.”
“Harold?”
“Reverend Benedict. Their greatest regret was not having children. How
is
Harold, by the way? I haven’t seen him in at least a year.”
“He’s well enough to get down on his knees and trim roses.”
Reverend Hanley chuckled. “No doubt saying a few prayers while he’s at it.” He studied Lester Dant’s photograph and sobered. “It’s hard to … Add time and a scar—he could be the same person. The intensity of his eyes is certainly the same. He might be able to help you find your wife and son, you said?”
“He’s the one who kidnapped them.”
The minister took a moment to recover from what I’d said. “I wish I could help you. But I didn’t get to know him well. The person you need to talk to is Agnes Garner. She’s the member of the congregation who took the most interest in him. And she’s the one he most betrayed.”
Climbing the porch steps at the address I’d been given, I found a woman in a wheelchair. From her pain—tightened face, I might have guessed that she was almost seventy, if Reverend Hanley hadn’t already told me that she’d been thirty—eight when Lester Dant had come into her life nineteen years earlier. “Ms. Garner?”
“
Mrs.
”
“Sorry. Reverend Hanley didn’t tell me you were married.”
“Widowed.”
“He didn’t tell me that, either.”
“No reason he should have.”
Her abrupt manner made me uncomfortable. “Thanks for agreeing to see me.”
Her hair was gray. Her dress had a blue flower pattern. She had a cordless telephone on her lap. “You want to know about Lester Dant?”
“I’d appreciate any information you can give me.”
“Reverend Hanley called and explained about your wife and son. Do you have a photograph of them?”
“Always.” With longing, I pulled out my wallet.
She stared at the picture. Kate’s father had taken it when we were visiting Kate’s parents in Durango. The magnificent cliff ruins of Mesa Verde aren’t far from there. We’d made a day trip of it. The photo showed Kate, Jason, and me standing in front of one of the half—collapsed dwellings. We wore jeans and T—shirts and were smiling toward the camera. In the photo’s background, next to an old stone wall, a stooped shadow looked like a human being, but there wasn’t anything to account for the shadow. Jason had insisted it was the ghost of a Native American who’d lived there hundreds of years earlier.
Ghosts. I didn’t want to think I was looking at ghosts.
“A wonderful family.”
“Thank you” was all I could say.
“There’s so much sorrow in the world.”
“Yes.” Emotion tightened my throat. “Mrs. Garner, do you recognize this man?” I showed her the photo.
It pained her to look at him. She nodded and turned away. “It’s Lester. I haven’t thought about him in years. I try my hardest not to.”
She’s going to send me away, I thought.
“Do you honestly believe that what I tell you can help?” she asked.
“I don’t know any other way.”
“Hurt him.”
“Excuse me?”
“We’re supposed to forgive those who trespass against us, but I want you to hurt him.”
“If I get the chance, Mrs. Garner, believe me, I will.”
She gripped the sides of her wheelchair. “There was a time when I could walk. I was always the earliest to arrive for Sunday services.”
The change in topic confused me.
“I made a point of getting to the church before everyone. Now I wonder if I wasn’t too proud and that’s why God punished me.”
“Whatever happened, Mrs. Garner, it wasn’t God’s fault. It was Lester Dant’s.”
He’d sat at the top of the church steps with his back against the door.
“A teenager,” Mrs. Garner said. “His head was drooped, but even without seeing his face, I could tell that I didn’t know him. His clothes were torn, so the first thing I thought was that he’d been in some kind of accident. The next thing I thought was, the way his head hung down, he might be on drugs. But before I could make a decision whether to hurry to help him or run away, he raised his head and looked at me. His eyes were so direct, there was no way he could have been on drugs. They were filled with torment. I asked him if he was hurt. ‘No, ma’am,’ he said, ‘but I’m awful tired and hungry.’
“By then, other members of the congregation had arrived. The reverend came. But neither he nor anybody else recognized the boy. We asked him his name, but he said that he couldn’t remember. We asked where he came from, but he couldn’t remember that, either. From the rips in his clothes and the freshly healed burn marks on his arms, we figured that he must have had something terrible happen to him, that he was in shock.
“The reverend offered to take him home and get him something to eat, but the boy said, ‘No. These people are waiting for the service to begin.’ That sounds too good to be true, I know. But you weren’t there. Everybody who came to church that morning felt so concerned about the boy and so touched by his unselfish attitude that we had a sense of God’s hand among us. We took him inside. I sat next to him and handed him a Bible, but he didn’t open it. I wondered if he was too dazed to be able to read. Imagine my surprise when the congregation read out loud from the Scriptures and the boy recited every passage from memory. I remember that the reverend said something in his sermon about keeping compassion in our hearts and helping the unfortunate. He paused to look directly at the boy. Afterward, everybody said that it was one of the most moving services that we’d had in a long time. The reverend took the boy home. He asked me and a couple of other church members to help. We made a big meal. We got the boy fresh clothes. He did everything slowly, as if in a daze.