Some folks think he’s the devil.
I don’t, but I’m sure they’ve met.
“Evenin’, Reverend,” Cobb says, without looking at the man. Cobb’s afraid of Hill. We all are, but the nudist’s the only one who greets him.
“What do the young children of Milestone think when they see you walking the streets with your tool of sin flapping in front of their faces, Cobb?” the Reverend asks, louder than is necessary. “Immodesty is a flagstone on the path to Hell, or were you operating under the false assumption that nakedness is next to Godliness? Think your “gift” gives you the freedom to disregard common decency?”
Cobb turns pink all over, and doesn’t reply.
The Reverend grins. His large piano key teeth gleam. Gracie sets his drink down in front of him. She doesn’t wait for payment.
I’m alarmed to find myself choked up, gut jiggling, trying to contain a laugh. “Tool of sin” is bad, even for Hill. Sure, he makes my skin crawl every time I see him, but even though I know there’s nothing funny about this situation, nothing funny about what goes down here in Milestone’s only functioning bar at this same time every Saturday night. As it turns out, the humor must already have been on my face, because those coal-dark eyes of his move from Cobb’s pink mass to me, and his grin drops as if someone smacked him across the face.
“Something funny, Tom?”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yep.”
“Your smile says different.”
“Who can trust a smile these days, Reverend? I sure don’t trust yours.”
That’s enough to give him his grin back. He scoops his rum off the counter and saunters over to my table with all the confidence of a man who enjoys his work, who’s going to enjoy knocking the town sheriff down a few pegs. He drags back the empty chair opposite me, sits, and studies me for a second. I feel like carrion being appraised by a vulture.
His face is only a shade darker than the little rectangle of white at his collar.
“Tell me something, Tom.”
“Shoot.”
At this, Hill looks over his shoulder, to where the kid is still sweating, but I’m willing to bet that sweat’s turned cold now. The Reverend turns back and winks. “Better not say that too loud. Someone might take you up on it.”
“He’s confused,” I tell him, and take a sip of my whiskey. Beer’s a pleasant drink, and requires patience; whiskey’s a straight shot to the brain, and I need that now if I’m going to act tough in front of the only man in Milestone who scares me. “He should be gunning for you.”
Thunder rattles the rafters; the smoked glass flickers with light, illuminating the rain pebbled across its surface.
“Maybe so,” the Reverend says, “But he knows better than to shoot a man of the cloth. He’s a God-fearing soul. He wants vengeance without damnation.”
“Bit late for that isn’t it?”
His lips crease in amusement. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
I decide not to humor him. “Who is it tonight?”
Cadaver has stopped counting his pennies.
“Straight to it, eh? I like that.”
“Cut the bullshit.”
He clucks his tongue. “Profanity. The mark of an ignorant man.”
I wish that were true. I’d love to be ignorant, sitting here with my drink, trading barbs with a priest who may or may not be the devil himself. At least then I wouldn’t see what’s coming.
“So who’s driving?” I ask, and everyone but Wintry turns to look. He’s watching the mirror.
The Reverend reaches into his pocket and tosses a pair of car keys on the table between us. “You are,” he says, and every hard-earned ounce of my defiance is obliterated. He might as well have shoved a grenade down my throat and locked me in iron skin. I release a breath that shudders at the end. No one in the bar sighs their relief but I see shoulders relax, just a little, and hear the clink of Cadaver’s pennies as he goes back to counting.
On the table, there’s a ring of six keys. Three of them are for the prefabricated hut that passes as my office. Two are for the front and back doors of the prefabricated hut that passes as my house. The last one’s for my truck, and the keys have fallen so that one is sticking straight up, toward the Reverend. It’s not a coincidence.
“You know how it goes,” he says, and sits back in his chair. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t be all that surprised. You’ve dodged the bullet for quite a while, haven’t you?”
His face swells with glee. I imagine if I punch him right now, which is exactly what every cell in my body is telling me to do, his head would pop like a balloon. But no matter how satisfying that might be it won’t change the fact that tonight my number’s come up. I get to drive. Hill, son of a bitch that he is, is still only a messenger, a courier boy. Putting a hurting on him wouldn’t make a difference.
Cobb speaks up, “Hell, Tom, I’ll drive for you. It’d keep me out of the rain. Besides, I told ’ol Blue Moon I’d take him up a bottle of somethin’. Kill two birds with one stone, right?” His nervous grin is flashed for everyone’s approval, but he doesn’t get it. No one even looks at him, except me, and though I don’t say it, I’m grateful. I know Cobb walks around in the nip for one reason only—he wants to be noticed, remembered for something other than his gift, or maybe he does it to draw attention away from it. A hey look everybody! Underneath my clothes I’m just the same as you! kind of gesture. It doesn’t work, and I guess, like the rest of us, he’s tired of trying, tired of waiting here every Saturday night to find out if he’s going to have to murder someone else. Considering what he can do, and what he’s had to do in the past, it’s got to be tougher on him than most of us. Like being God and the Devil’s Ping-Pong ball. I also know, even if the Reverend allowed it, Cobb wouldn’t follow the rules tonight. Chances are, he’d drive my battered old truck right off the Willow Creek Bridge, be smiling while he drowned and poor old Blue Moon Running Bear would have to go without his whiskey for a little while longer.
“Very noble of you,” Hill says, sounding bored. “But this isn’t a shift at the sawmill. There’s no trading.” He looks Cobb up and down. “But don’t worry. You’ll get your turn. You get that car yet?”
“Wife doesn’t let me drive it. Not here. Not when I’ll be drinkin’.”
“Then either lie or quit drinking. But get it.”
“All right.”
Cobb offers me a sympathetic glance. I wave it away and look hard at the priest. “Who is it?”
From the breast pocket of his jacket, he produces a pack of Sonoma Lights. “Anyone got a light?”
When no one obliges, Gracie tosses him a box of matches, which he grabs from the air without looking—an impressive trick that leaves me wishing like hell he’d fumbled it. He lights his cigarette and squints at me through a plume of blue smoke. “You want the name?”
“No. I’d like to keep what little sleep I get at night. Unless you want to take that too.”
“Oh now, would you listen to this? You make it sound as if you’re the victim!” He barks a laugh and swivels in his chair to face the bar. “Is that what all of you think? That I’m the bad guy, come to destroy your lives?” He turns again, addressing Cadaver and the kid this time. “That you’re all just innocents, forced to do the bidding of some wicked higher power?” He shakes his head in amazement. “Don’t fool yourselves folks. Until I came along you were hanging in Purgatory, waiting for a decision to be made either way. You should be thanking me that you’re not all roasting in the fires of Hell.”