“There’s always another way, Tom, but you’ve never been interested or tuned in enough to seek it out. Your way suits you fine, and that’s why you’re here now, waitin’, maybe secretly hopin’ it is too late when you reach Kyle so you won’t have to shoulder the burden of what follows. You’re your own puppet, Tom, even if today, someone else is pullin’ your strings.”
“The hells’ that supposed to mean? No one’s pullin’ my strings but me.”
“There are two pennies in your pocket that say different. Sometimes, givin’ selfish people what they want is enough to bring a town to its knees, as it will bring you to your knees.”
“Wintry, come on,” I yell out at him, disgusted by the quaver in my voice. I lunge forward, through the smoke, through her, and gasp. She feels like winter mist on my skin. I kill the stereo.
“You should have told him you didn’t kill me,” she says sadly.
“I know. There’s a lot I should have done.”
“That you didn’t know how isn’t good enough. Apathy is sometimes worse than murder.” She starts to fade, dissipating like the Cheshire cat, only it isn’t her smile that remains clear while she dissolves, but her eyes. “You should have told him the truth.”
“Wintry…”
He half-raises a hand in acknowledgment, and opens the door, then slowly, painfully, eases himself into the seat. “We goan leave the kid?”
“Yeah.”
Wisps of smoke curl from the broken stereo. I sense him looking at it, then at me, and I put the car into gear to get us moving. I roll down my window. The fresh air cures the nausea.
“They ain’t always right, you know,” Wintry says.
“I know. But she was.”
We head for Hill’s house, Brody a dark dwindling shape in the rearview.
Part Three: The Illusion of Free Will
Chapter Fifteen
Reverend Hill’s house sits by itself on a grassy slope, segregated from the rest of the community by a short stretch of woodland on one side, and the river on the other. Hill’s predecessor, the benevolent and much lamented Reverend Lewis, was never comfortable being so far from his flock, and was busy finalizing plans for the purchase of a smaller, more modest place in the town center when for reasons known only to him, he decided to string himself up. When Hill came to Milestone, he sneered at the idea of what he called an “odious hovel”, and quickly made his home out here, in the tall narrow house he deemed just big enough to contain a man of his importance. “You’ll know where I am if you need me,” he advised his parishioners, “But know too that I have little time to waste on trivial matters that you yourselves have the power to cure.”
The only time he would take an interest in the people was when one of them came to him with a blemished soul, but even those misguided few quickly realized that whatever god it was that Hill claimed to worship, it wasn’t one they recognized, or wanted to have their lives governed by. But fear kept them—kept us—within his power.
From the get-go he was an asshole, and everyone knew it. A fire-and-brimstone man they didn’t need, or want, but they were stuck with him, and as Cobb once said, “In troubled times, you can’t be choosy about which preacher’s voice you end up listenin’ to.”
Gracie’s right. We should have killed him three years ago, as soon as it became clear what we’d been saddled with, but despite everything we’d seen and heard, and despite instinct telling us what the wise thing to do was, we did nothing. For three years we kept going back to that tavern, kept drinking ourselves numb and waiting for the keys to be jingled, waiting for Hill to tell us which sinners we were going to erase from the world as repentance for our own transgressions.
And every Saturday night, one of us would. Take the keys, get in the car, drive, and kill. Pretend the screams and the horrible thud against our hoods were deer, then come back, drink some more and wonder when that spiritual cleansing would kick in.
Never did of course, and never will.
He never wanted to save us from Hell. He brought Hell to us. But even he can’t be blamed, not entirely, for what’s happening in Milestone, tempting as it is to pin this nightmare on him.
No.
This town is dying because we’re killing it.
“You want to wait here?” I ask Wintry, and watch his eyes slide slowly past me, to the house with its stained and buckled siding, leaf-choked gutters, unpainted frames.
He licks his lips, grunts with pain, and closes his eyes. “You might need my help.”
“What is it you think you’re going to be able to help me with in your condition?”
His shrug is slight. “Never know.”
“Wintry, look. I appreciate the backup, but I’m not sure I have the time to wait for you. My boy’s in trouble. I got to get to him, so do me a favor, all right? Wait here. If the ground cracks open and imps come flying out, or if the house takes off and starts spinning, then you come help me. I’m sure I’ll be glad of it. All right?”
He smiles weakly, but I know he’s not happy.
“See you soon,” I tell him, and shut the door.
A long gravel path twists its way around a large granite boulder that bears the names of all the clergymen who have presided over matters of the spirit in Milestone, going back as far as 1820, when the town’s soul was the charge of a Protestant minister by the name of Edgar Saxton. Seventeen men succeeded him. Sixteen of their names are etched there forever in the face of that boulder. Only Hill’s name is missing, and I reckon it’ll stay missing, unless his replacement decides he deserves the acknowledgment, if a replacement ever comes.
Though I’m running on fumes now and my head is threatening to split in the middle, I jog my way up the path, my pulse racing the closer I get to the house, and the red Chevy parked outside the main door. In a way I’m relieved to see it. It means Kyle’s still here. But another part of me seems to have been betting on the fact that he wouldn’t be, that either I’d make it here too late, or find that Kyle went home. Or back to Iris.
On the dashboard, there’s a worn deck of playing cards wrapped in a rubber band. Next to them is a pack of Camel Lights, one cigarette poking from the foil. Maybe they belong to Iris, or someone Kyle gave a ride to. Maybe they’re Kyle’s. That I don’t know is just another one of those things I’ll have to sit down and chastise myself about later. No time for it now, even though I’ve just wasted five minutes staring at the damn Chevy.
As I skirt around the car and make my way to the door, the gravel crunches under my boots loud enough to give me away. No harm in that. I’m not here to surprise anyone.
As it turns out, the front door’s shut, but not locked. It’s got one of those fancy brass handles with the little button on the top you have to press down to open the latch. With a cursory check of the curtained windows for faces that aren’t there, I depress the button and the door swings open without a sound.
I’m greeted by the smell of furniture polish, which isn’t what I expected. Not even sure why. Maybe it’s because the exterior has fallen into disrepair, or because the man who lived here up until some hours ago made everyone he encountered feel dirty so I naturally assumed his home would smell like filth. It doesn’t though, nor does it look filthy. Just the opposite. I step into a hallway with dark varnished floorboards and a wide colorful rug which depicts the Virgin Mary in a typically beatific pose, her hands clasped in prayer, doves circling her head, her eyes rolled up so far to look at the Heavens she looks like she might be having a seizure. There’s a bare coat rack to my left, the wood the same dark shade as the floor, and a few feet further in, a little ways past the rug, there’s a small table with two drawers, the surface of which is completely free of dust and reflects the light from the quaint chandelier suspended from a small brass dome in the high ceiling.