When our story was done, Able finished the cup. “I have no idea what to say.” He rubbed his eyes.
It didn't appear to me that Able was lying. Few people in our little town get so emotional; no one I knew from Blue Mountain would have been able to pull off an act of that magnitude. He was telling the truth.
He lifted his head. “But you saw what Harding was doing, what he'd done.” His face contorted.
“We saw it,” Skid said quietly.
Andrews had opened and closed his mouth ten times, dying to put in his two cents. Each time he'd thought better of it, but the silence in the room proved too much for him in the end.
“Someone else saw it too,” he declared.
“Sh!” Skid spat sharply.
“But isn't it obviousâ” Andrews protested.
“This is a police matter,” I said calmly, touching Andrews lightly on the forearm.
He fell silent, nodding his apology.
“What seems clear,” Skid began patiently, “is that Harding Pinhurst is dead and, Able, you've been in hiding for days. You can see it don't look good for you.”
“Where's Tru?” he asked, ignoring what Skid had said.
“Dev believes she's hid out in the cemetery.” Skidmore shot me a quick glance. “That's how we found you.”
Skidmore's eyes spoke volumes. When we were kids, Skid and I spent endless hours in the woods not speaking, exchanging looks, just this side of telepathic. Both of us knew what those looks meant. We'd had decades of mutual experience since that day. I knew the meaning of the glance in his office as if it were a detailed paragraph.
I stood. “Well, this isn't as interesting as I thought it would be.” I stretched. “And I'm ready for a bite. Andrews?”
“I could eat,” he answered, not understanding.
I started out the door. “We'll be at Etta's,” I told Skid.
Andrews picked up the pace. “Etta's diner?” His voice filled with joy.
A memory of black-eyed peas panfried with bacon and fresh sage filled his mind, it was obvious from the transfigured look on his face.
Few things gave Andrews a sense of transcendence more than Etta's cooking.
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Out on the street, I headed for my truck.
“We're going to drive there?” Andrews asked, confused. “It's just down the block.”
“We're going back into the woods.” I pulled out my keys.
Andrews froze in his tracks.
“
You're
going,” he said firmly. “I'm eating.”
He turned in the direction of Etta's diner. I knew that walk. It would take a baseball bat and two other men to stop him from getting lunch. I pocketed my keys.
“I could eat,” I said, falling in beside him.
“What were you thinking?” he asked irritably.
“What do you mean?”
“You know you had a hundred questions to ask Able. He looks terrible, but he doesn't look like he hasn't eaten or drunk anything in nearly a week.”
I nodded agreement.
“Then you jump up,” he went on, “run out of the office. What is it?”
“Face code,” I said. “Skid wants us back up there looking for Truevine.”
“Face code?”
He shook his head.
The diner was crowded even though the lunch rush was over. We managed to find two stools at the counter.
Etta shuffled over, acknowledging us with drooping eyes. She set down a package of silverware wrapped in three paper napkins and indestructible plastic plates big enough for two men. Mine was pale green, Andrews had acquired one of vaguely beige hue. Etta was dressed in her usual dark print calf-length dress, ancient blue slippers, a man's brown cardigan, disheveled white bun for a crown.
We knew what to do. Strangers were sometimes served by Etta, but most everyone else was simply given the tools with which to feed themselves. We took our plates into the kitchen, surveyed the vegetables
simmering on the oversize stovetop. The smell of fried chicken came from a large warm oven to the left of the stove.
Black-eyed peas, crisp fried okra, cut-off corn cooked in butter and sugar filled my plate. A square of jalepeño cornbread rested precariously on top of the peas. A golden chicken breast crowned the center.
There was little talk for the next twelve minutes. I hadn't realized how famished I was. The food was gone in short order.
“Banana pudding, I think,” Andrews declared, pushing his empty plate away from him on the countertop.
I was still scraping my plate with the last square of cornbread in an attempt to get every last drop of nectar from the black-eyed peas.
Though it didn't appear Etta had heard us, she disappeared into the kitchen and returned seconds later with two bowls of pudding.
That particular dessert, ordinarily a somewhat plebeian affair, had been made glorious by several of Etta's modifications. First, the crust was made from Oreo chocolate cookies. The bananas had been sautéed in Etta's own berry brandy. The meringue contained flecks from at least three vanilla bean pods. A bowl of the pudding cost nearly twice as much as the rest of the meal, and she ran out of it every day.
“That's the last of it,” she croaked, sliding the dessert our way. “Had to give you smaller size to make two.”
That was all. She turned and went back to her chair at the table closest to the kitchen. There would be no discount, no economic adjustment of any sort. She was only explaining the scant portions. I smiled down at the brimming bowl, large as half a loaf of bread.
We dug in, still silent.
The place began to clear out, Andrews wiped his mouth with a third napkin, I leaned on the counter.
“This was a good idea,” I admitted. “My head is clearer. Calmer anyway.”
“It might hold me till nightfall,” he conceded. “Now what's all this about going back into the woods?”
“Skidmore wants us out there looking for her,” I said, “before it gets dark. He's worried.”
“You got that from a single look?”
“We've known each other forever,” I said. “There's more.”
“I'm listening,” Andrews said with irritated patience.
“She's in the cemetery.”
“We think.”
“No,” I said, reaching for my wallet, “she's there. Skidmore's face: he saw her this morning.”
The last afternoon sun had reached the peculiar moment when amber and golden hues seem to come from everything everywhere, the sky least of all. In that unreal light, Andrews and I sat down close to the Angel of Death.
“I'm in,” he said, leaning his back against a tombstone. “She's not here. You misunderstood Skidmore's face code. I can't do any more of this.”
“Been a long day,” I agreed. I tried to remember the last time I'd spent all day tromping through the woods. “Let's check her parents' grave once more before we head home.”
“Christ,” he complained. “We've been there five times.”
“Three, and it's on the way to the truck.”
We managed our way to a standing position; I took off in the direction of
Eloise and Davy, together once more.
Andrews trudged behind.
The light was dimming quickly. There was no path to follow, just weeds and the last brown leaves drifting down around us from an oak twenty yards away. No order organized these markers. Some were grand, some anonymous. None had been attended to in years. Is there a sadder place than an untended grave?
I was the first to see it, and froze.
Andrews, in his usual daze, ran into me.
“What?” he said, irritated.
I nodded my head in the direction of the nearest stone.
A black dog, like the shadow of a tomb, sat on the grassy grave we were looking for, its coal eyes locked on us.
“Don't move,” I whispered to Andrews.
The dog's hair bristled.
“Stop talking,” Andrews shot back urgently. “It doesn't like talking.” The dog came to all fours, standing ready.
We played our tableau for perhaps thirty long seconds before sweet whistling turned all our heads.
Two notes. A human sound.
The dog gave us a final glance, leapt like a demon over a high stone wall, and was gone in the direction of the musical noise.
“Did you see that thing jump?” Andrews said, releasing his breath. “Did you see the
look
it gave us?”
“I think it speaks English.” It was the most intelligent look I'd ever seen in a dog's eyes.
“At least,” Andrews topped.
The whistle came once more on the wind.
“So, there's someone over there.” I tried to see where it had gone.
“I stand by my earlier complaint,” Andrews said softly. “Why don't you take me home so I won't be in your way?”
I was tempted to go home myself. It's one thing to hike around a quaint old graveyard in late October looking for a strange young girl. It's quite another experience if you've spent the day counting decayed bodies stacked everywhere in the surrounding woods. And you come across a black dog. And you're not alone in the cemetery. And it's nearly dark.
“We have to see who that was,” I heard myself say. “They know we're here.”
“What do you mean: âwho that was'?” He followed my gaze. “You don't think it's Truevine?”
“I don't know.” I turned to her parents' tombstone. “Is there anything over on the grave?”
We both examined it as best we couldânothing new.
“The dog was waiting for us,” Andrews said. A sudden shiver took his shoulders. “Damn. Did the temperature just drop ten degrees?”
“It gets cold fast once the sun's gone,” I affirmed. “Let's go.”
I started off after the dog. Andrews, at a loss for what else to do, followed. The downward slope revealed an area that seemed familiar to me. I assumed it was one of the sections we'd explored earlier, but when we rounded a granite boulder I realized I had visited the site many years before.
I came to a sudden halt; Andrews nearly ran into me again.
“When I was seven or so,” I began.
“Memory Digression Alert,” he interrupted wearily.
“My great-grandfather died and left some money for me to attend college,” I continued. “It was the only way I could have gone; he knew it. It made me the first in my family to get a higher education.”
“Thanks.” His voice burned red with irony. “I'd always wondered how you managed it.”
“That's his grave.” I pointed.
Andrews saw it, fell silent, held his breath.
The black dog sat perfectly still, tongue out to one side, on the bare dirt of my grandfather's grave.
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“All right. That's enough.” A strange voice, low and rough, addressed the dog. It came from behind a sarcophagus ten or twelve feet to our right.
The dog yawned.
A figure appeared where we'd heard the voice. Its features were impossible to make out in the near-darkness. It was a tattered coat, a walking stick, banshee hair blown backward by the wind.
“You are Dr. Devilin?” it continued.
“I am.” My voice was an imitation of calm confidence.
“Okay,” it sighed.
It headed our way.
The dog stood.
I could feel Andrews behind me readying for a fight. His breathing intensified, weight shifted. I'd seen him play rugby. His fear-pumped aggression coupled with my size were more than a match for the scarecrow.
The dog worried me.
I thought about the thermos in my pocket, wondered if it would be strong enough to bash the animal in the head, do any damage.
“We've been waiting,” the strange voice croaked.
My shoulders dropped slightly. “For me?”
He nodded once, a staccato jab.
“Do you know him?” Andrews whispered.
“Are you with Truevine?” I asked our host.
He gave another low whistle and the dog vanished, moving faster than I would have imagined possible, behind the sarcophagus.
“Come on,” the tattered man said, turning away from us.
I looked back at Andrews. His eyes widened.
We followed the man into an area of larger stone crypts, hard to tell how many; they were jumbled and hidden by brush and brambles. The ground was clawed with black moss, the air thick with the smell of decayed leaves. Tumble of stones, knot of vine here and there made all the crypts seem one. Old oak branches overhead looked like exposed veins, bloodless, lifeless but for the artificial animation of the chilled wind. Odd rock angles reflected the gloom, seemed to work at blocking out what little light wandered there. The sun was nearly set, the horizon a red wound.
As we rounded the edge of one wall our guide stopped and a heavy wooden door opened wide, a sick shifting.
“Not really,” Andrews pronounced carefully, so there would be no mistake. “I'm not going in there.”
I tried to see past the doorway into the tombâwithout luck.
“It's warmer,” the stranger said, and disappeared inside.
“It is a little cool out here,” I admitted to Andrews halfheartedly.
“It is
not
warmer in there.” He stood his ground.
I called into the stone building: “Who's in there?”
No answer came.
This structure was solid, gray granite, nearly the size of my cabin, highlighted with hunter green and chartreuse lichens. The wooden door was as big as a drawbridge, riddled with wormholes, crowned with the stern visage of an unforgiving God. I could just make out
the quote under it:
Come hither ye blest but depart all ye curst.
The roof was made of rust-colored clay tiles. Ancient twigs and new pine straw littered its crevasses. After a second of examination I thought I saw fog or steam crouching over it. An instant later the sweet smell of burning hickory made clear the possibility of a fire inside.
“Are they burning something in there?” Andrews said at the same time.
“I think so,” I answered, taking a step closer to the door.
“Are they cooking?” His voice lifted. “Smells like barbecue.”
Only partially amused that no fear was greater than my friend's appetite, I shook my head.
“There's no telling what's in there.”
“That dog's in there,” he suggested.
“Probably.”
A face appeared in the doorway, someone new.
“Are you coming in or am I closing the door?” said the woman. Not Truevineâolder.
“How about if we come in,” I suggested, taking a slow step her way, “and
then
you close the door.”
“Fair enough,” she agreed humorlessly.
“Are you out of your mind?” Andrews didn't move.
“Aren't you the least bit curious?” I said, my eye glued to the woman in the doorway.
“This is what's wrong with you,” he said angrily.
But he followedâafter a moment.
Before my eyes could adjust to the odd glowing light in the place, I heard the door creak, slam tightly behind us.
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By the time white light at the center of the vault receded to amber, I had made out several forms huddled around the fire. A new blaze, it had burned down quickly. It was made only from thick twigs and stems; no large wood fueled it. A column of thin gray smoke shot upward to an open skylight in the ceiling; the draft was perfect.
Silence framed the rest of the air, filled it with unspoken longing. Several of the figures were partly hidden by scarves or hoods, but I
was certain Truevine was not with us. These people had helped Able Carter. An intuition.
The desire to pour out story after story was etched deeply on the faces I could see. My chest ached breathing in their desperation. They were frozen, mute, their eyes wild as the ocean and as dark. Waiting.
A younger man, bent and limping, took a step toward me. He was wrapped in a coat that had once been fine, camel hair, double-breastedânow baring and worn at the elbows. I tensed without thinking, and he stopped.
“Dr. Devilin,” he rasped, “we need your help.”
Shaken by the understatement, and the obvious pain that contorted his face, I couldn't speak for a moment.
The older woman who'd let us in laid another bundle of kindling on the coals, and the room brightened once more.
The scarecrow who had invited us in wiped his nose with the palm of his hand. “We don't like to mix with town folk,” he announced, then fell silent, his eyes turned to the fire.
I found my voice. “Who are you? What is this?”
They looked at one another slowly.
The young man in the camel hair coat sucked in a difficult breath and held it for a moment. Then: “We thought you might know us. Know our little community.”
“Know you?” A tingling, like a hand that had fallen asleep, touched the pit of my stomach, the back of my neck. I turned to Andrews.
He stood straight, feet apart, balanced, hands shaking a little. He was still in fighting readiness. My old overcoat made him look stockier than he was; he made an imposing figure: face hard, eyes steel.
Reading the questions on my face, the young man motioned for me, then turned toward a darker part of the crypt. “I'll show you.”
I hesitated, but the others were watching me with such anticipationâthere was no menace in their posture, no threat in their aspect.
I followed.
Every eye was on me. It only took a few steps for me to catch up with the young man. We moved into the shadows.
At the back corner of the place he pointed mutely to an arrangement of debris: broken bits of tombstone, strangely shaped patterns of moss, sticks, other bits of debris all held together by old shoelaces, tied at the back with a knot the size of a tarantula. At the center of this folk sculpture was a geode as big as a human head, cracked open, filled with amethyst colors.
The man stared at me, willing me to understand what the conglomeration meant. I studied it, ideas darting into my consciousness like dark birds, then flying away. It bore some relation to Howard Finster's older sculptural attempts, but without the poetry and Bible verses. As I was about to confess to the man that I had no idea what I was looking at, I caught the glint of something silver in the geode.
He watched my face, nodded slowly.
I moved so that a little more light from the fire could spill into the dark corner, and was finally able to make out what they all wanted me to see.
I took in a gulp of air so suddenly I began to cough violently.