The red church (28 page)

McFall cocked his head, as if he were consulting God, listening to a divine command that would de-termine her fate. He knelt quickly and lifted her by the shoulders of her jacket, then wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes.

"Don't cry, my child," he said.

She smiled at him. How could she bury the hap-piness that filled her and brimmed over, the joy and rapture that he had delivered unto her?

He pulled her away from the door. "Say nothing of this. Tonight you will serve, and thus gain a place in the bosom of God."

O
h, glory! Oh, how merciful is God in his wisdom!
She would make the sacrifice to earn her place, to please Archer, to pay for the sin of pride that had shadowed her life.

"Come to the church tonight," he said, then turned and crossed the room, again sitting on the bed. He adjusted his tie, then clasped his hands lightly in his lap just as someone knocked on the door. "Would you get that, please?" Archer said.

Storie spun, fumbling with the doorknob in her haste to serve. She opened the door and Frank Lit-tlefield stood before her, his fist held sideways, pre-paring to knock again.

"Hi, Sergeant," Frank said, no surprise in his voice.

She blinked against the sudden rush of sun, annoyed by this trespass into her spiritual communion with Archer. "What are you doing here?" she said.

He looked past her to the reverend. "I came to get some answers, same as you."

"Come in, Sheriff. We've been expecting you," McFall said.

David lowered the rifle and smiled.

The front door burst open, and David thought the sheriff might have returned to sneak up on him and jump him. He swiveled the rifle toward the door, his finger tight on the trigger. Ronnie stood in the door-way, Tim small behind him.

David sniffed the comforting aroma of gunsmoke. Linda was facedown on the living room floor. Tim ran to her and got on his knees, touching her hair, murmuring "Mommy" over and over again. Ronnie stared at David, his eyes wide with shock, his face pale.

"Did you . . . did you shoot her?" Ronnie asked.

David leaned the rifle against the coffee table. "I ain't that crazy yet." Linda groaned and Tim helped her sit up.

Ronnie clenched his hands, a tear running down his cheek. "What in the hell's going on, Dad?" he said, shuddering with sobs. "Why are you trying to kill her?"

"I'm not the one trying to kill her," he said, look-ing down at his wife. "It's that damned Archer McFall."

"Archer McFall's the
preacher.
The preacher's sup-posed to be the good guy."

"Don't believe everything you hear in Sunday school, son."

"You're scaring me, Dad. You told us a family's supposed to stick together when times get bad." Ron-nie helped Tim lean Linda against the easy chair. She had a welt above her eye. Ronnie looked at it and then glared at David.

He looks so damned much like his mother.

"I didn't touch her," he said. "She fell when I shot that damned thing." He pointed to the little symbol that hung on the wall, the lopsided cross that Linda had kept from her days in California. She'd told David she'd thrown it away, that all the old nonsense was over. Well, the devil's hooks sank deep. All it took was a little whiff of sulfur and brimstone to fan the embers in a sin-ner's heart. The bullet had penetrated the center of the mock cross. The metal arms had twisted outward, curled by the impact. Gypsum powder trickled from a hole in the sheet rock. David nodded in satisfaction at a good shot.

"Hell followed her from California," he said.

"California?" Ronnie said. "She's never been to California." David wiped sweat from his forehead. Maybe some secrets were best left buried.

"Are you okay, Mommy?" Tim sounded like a four-year-old.

"Yeah, honey," she said, pushing her hair away from her face and looking at David with mean eyes.

"There will come great trials, but we keep on walking."

David was filled with renewed rage. So this was what Archer had driven his family to. Linda, ready to give up everything she owned, including her own flesh and blood. Tim, not knowing which of his par-ents to trust. Ronnie, learning too young that the world was a screwed-up and hard-assed place. And he himself wondering if faith was enough, if he could single-handedly take on the devil that wore lamb's clothing.
No, I won't be single-handed. I've got God and Jesus and a rifle and everything that's right on my
side. Surely that will be enough. I pray to the Lord that will be enough.

"What are we going to do, Dad?" Ronnie looked pathetic, his eyes red and moist, his swollen nose a bruised shade of purple.

"It's high time for a cleansing," Linda said, her voice distant. She rocked back and forth as if tuned into an invisible gospel radio station.

David looked out the open door. Dark mountains huddled on the horizon, cowering before the sinking sun. Even the trees seemed to dread the coming night. The shadows held their breath, waiting to send out an army of monsters under cover of darkness.

Linda's eyes focused on a high spot behind the wall. Tim and Ronnie looked at David, expectant and fearful.

Maybe it
was
high time for a cleansing.

"We're going to beat that thing," he said, more to himself than to the boys.

"How do you kill a ghost?" Tim asked.

David rubbed the stubble on his chin. "Hell if I know, Tim."

"Ronnie says the trick is to make it stay dead. By giving it what it wants."

"Maybe so. We're just going to have to trust in the Lord."

"The
Lord,"
Linda said with a sneer. She stiffened and contorted her features. She resembled the wrin-kle-faced bat that David had found dead in the barn one morning. The old Linda, the pretty wife and lov-ing mother and good, sin-despising Christian, was as dead as Donna Gregg. David knew Linda had been saved. He had knelt with her at the foot of the pulpit and held her hand while she tearfully asked Jesus into her heart. Once Jesus was in there, He belonged forever. Or was being saved a privilege that He could take away, like the court took away your driver's license if you drove drunk?

David was getting a headache thinking about it. That was God's business, and not for him to worry about. His mission was to protect the innocent, and let the guilty be damned.

"Get out," he said to Linda, trying not to raise his voice.

She lifted her face to him, her eyes wild. The boys wore twin masks of terror.

"Get out," David said more firmly. He gripped the rifle. "Go to the red church or Archer McFall's bed or straight to hell if you want. Just as long as you stay away from the boys." Linda trembled as she stood.

"Don't hurt her, Daddy," Tim yelled.

David felt a smile crawl across his face, and a chill wended up his spine. He was sickened by the reali-zation that he was enjoying this. A Christian was sup-posed to hate the sin but love the sinner. A man was supposed to honor his wife. The Lord's number one lesson was that people ought to forgive trespasses. But the Lord also knew that the human heart was weak.

David pointed the rifle at her.

Tim jumped at Linda and hugged her, his face tight against her chest. "Don't go, Mommy," he pleaded. David motioned with the rifle barrel toward the door. Linda glared at him, then leaned down and kissed Tim on top of the head. "Shh, baby. It will be okay."

She gently pushed Tim's arms from her waist. Her blue blouse was dark with Tim's tears. She rubbed Ronnie's hair and smiled at him. "Take care of your brother, okay?" Ronnie nodded. Linda pulled the mangled cross from the wall and clenched her hand around it. She paused at the door. "It's tonight, you know," she said to David.

He swallowed hard. He started to tell her that he still loved her, despite it all. But he could only stare numbly, his fingers like wood on the rifle.

"Lord help us all," he whispered as she headed into the shroud of twilight. His prayer tasted of dried blood and ash.

EIGHTEEN

The sunset threw an orange wash over the ribbed clouds in the west. The strong green smell of the day's growing died away on the evening breeze. The river's muddy aroma rose like a fog, seeping across the churchyard so thick that Mama Bet could almost taste it. She eyed the shadows in the belfry, clutching her shawl tightly across her chest.

This was bad ground, here at the church. She didn't know why Archer insisted on holding services in this marred house of worship. Wendell McFall had died right there at the end of a rope, one end of it tied high in that bedeviled dogwood. The tree's branches stretched both high and low, toward the sky and the ground, like fingers reaching to grab ev-erything and everybody.

"What's wrong, Mama Bet?"

She turned and looked into the dirty face of Whiz-zer Buchanan. Fourteen and already in need of a shave. He was all Buchanan, wall-eyed and his hands as plump and clumsy as rubber gloves filled with water. And to think his family used to be fine whittlers, back in the days when people made what they needed instead of buying it down at the Wal-Mart.

"Why, nothing's wrong, child." She smiled at him.

Whizzer smelled of sweet smoke, probably that wacky weed she heard some of the hippies were grow-ing up in the mountains. Archer would cleanse them, sure as day. Archer held no truck with such trash. Hippies were as bad as the hard-drinking Mathesons and Abshers. Sins of the flesh, sins of the heart. All sins led down one road, down one tunnel, into the dark heart of hell.

"How come we ain't seen the Bell Monster yet?" Whizzer asked. Like the Bell Monster was some kind of video game that you could switch on and off at your convenience. The boy had a lot to learn about the workings of God.

"We got to be patient," she said.

Whizzer nodded and ran into the church, his boots thumping across the wooden floor. She looked across the cemetery. Stepford was relieving himself against a tall granite statue. The faded angel ac-cepted the insult with nary a peep.

In the woods, shadows moved and separated. Becca Faye and Sonny came out from the trees, hold-ing hands and giggling like kids at an Easter egg hunt. Crumpled leaves stuck to Becca Faye's blouse, and the top button was undone. Mama Bet hoped the hussy enjoyed her sweaty little frolic. Because soon she would be sweating the long sweat, the devil riding her back, until forever ate its own sorry tail. Mama Bet walked across the gravel to the church steps. Diabetes was making her feet hurt something awful. She slowly went up the steps, keeping a grip on the worn handrail. She figured she might as well get used to taking them one step at a time, because she just knew that God had a mighty high set of golden stairs for her to climb to get to heaven.

She rested in the windowless foyer, in the cool darkness. Voices came from the main sanctuary, scattered and echoing in the hushed hollow of the church. She overheard Haywood telling Nell about the benefits of a high deductible with a low copay.

"You see, honey," he said, as Mama Bet entered the main body of the church, "odds are that if you do get sick enough to meet your deductible, it's go-ing to run into the tens of thousands of dollars any-way. And the way hospitals charge these days, a body pretty much meets their deductible just walking in the door. So you might as well save that money up front with the cheaper plan." Nell nodded and put the back of her hand to her mouth to hide her yawn. A couple of pews in front of them, Jim and Alma whispered about Zeb's funeral arrangements. Rudy Buchanan knelt near the lec-tern, on both knees, practicing his Archer worship. Almost as phony as a boot-licking Christian. Mama Bet chewed her lower lip between the nubs of her gums. She didn't want to have one of her spells, not on Archer's night. She took slow, deep breaths until her rage subsided. Some congregation this was. As addle-brained as fish-head stew. But it wasn't Archer's fault. Her boy worked with what material God gave him. If anybody was to blame for this shoddy bunch of backwoods nonbelievers, then you had to turn your eyes up-ward—to Him that would plant the seed and then laugh until the skies busted open. And all you could do was let your belly swell until you busted open your-self, until the child crawled out from between your legs and took its rightful throne.

"It's going to be tonight, ain't it?" said Jim, pulling her from her reverie.

"That's for God and Archer to know," she an-swered. "It ain't for the likes of us to worry about."

"Can't help but worry," he said, sweat under his eyes. "It might be any of us up on the chopping block."

"Pray that you're worthy." She couldn't abide such selfishness in the face of a great moment, the moment the whole world was born to see, the reason God clab-bered the mud together and shaped the mountains and spit the seas and breathed life into dust. This one shining moment of glory. This end to everything, and the start of the business beyond everything.

She gazed upon the dark stain on the dais. The thing was taking shape, drawing on the sacrificial blood spilled onto its wooden skin. It had slept for 140 years, fighting free once in a while to drift across the night hills or to spook up some teenagers. But now it was awakening for real, busting loose of what-ever kind of invisible chains bound the past.