“This is what becomes of us if we lie still for too long,” she told him. “I guess God’s tryin’ to make us see that we better not get too content with things. We gotta keep pushin’ ’till we’re as close to His grace as we can get short of bein’ by his side.”
He’d considered that for a moment, then leaned forward until his lips were pressed against her ear, and “What if I can’t?” he’d whispered, as softly as he could, even though he knew there could be no secrets from the Almighty.
Momma closed her eyes and shook her head. “Givin’ up’s a sin in itself when you’ve been blessed with His light,” she said. “Now pray with me and forget your weaknesses before you’re made to pay for ’em.”
But pay for them he had. His daughter was dead, a sinner had escaped them, and Luke had been poisoned. The rest of them had been forced to move, to seek out a man Papa despised in the hope that he would offer them sanctuary.
An hour passed before the front door swung wide and Jeremiah Krall stomped into the cabin. His enormous gut strained against his tattered plaid logging shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing meaty forearms dark with coarse hair. Dirt and blood stained his faded jeans. His large boots were untied and left muddy prints on the floor.
Papa rose from his seat and nodded in greeting.
In the dim light from the room’s bare bulb, Krall appraised him as he might a snake, and spat tobacco juice on the floor. His eyes were the color of old bark, and glared from a small clearing in the frenzy of wild dark brown hair that smothered his skull and face.
When they’d pulled up earlier, Krall had been leaving. He’d scarcely acknowledged them, but nodded at the cabin, which Papa took as an indication that he should wait. Now he hoped he hadn’t misinterpreted the signal.
“What’s in your truck?” Krall asked, and unslung a burlap sack from his shoulder. The sack was cinched at the neck with dirty cord. It made a dull thump, suggesting weight, as it hit the floor. Blood pooled around the bottom.
Papa started to speak, but Krall interrupted him.
“Got your goddamn kids sittin’ out there lookin’ like sledge-hammered sows. Big tarp in the back looks like you got somethin’ wrapped up. You bring me a present?”
Again, Papa started to speak, but this time he forced himself to wait. Blurting out that Krall’s only remaining connection to the world was dead might not be the best introduction. Not when he considered where he was. The cabin stood in the shadow of Hood Mountain, at least a half a day’s ride to the nearest town. It was remote, and that suited Krall, especially after killing with his bare hands three men who had jokingly called him a fibber when he claimed to have killed a buck that was roughly the same size as himself. As bold as Krall was known to be, the murders alone might not have inspired him to self-imposed exile, but finding out one of the men he’d killed was the brother of a Sheriff did.
“We need a place to hole up for a while,” Papa said, and regained his seat, figuring that if he appeared relaxed, Krall might do the same.
He didn’t.
“This is my place,” he said coldly. “You got your own damn house. Go stay there.”
Papa knew Krall was not a stupid man, and that he was only being obtuse simply to make what Papa had to say all the more difficult.
“We can’t,” Papa told him. “There’s been some trouble.”
“Kinda trouble?”
“We caught some kids in our woods. Wanted to teach ’em a lesson. They kilt my boy Matt.”
It was hard to see if the news affected Krall any, given that only his eyes and the bridge of his nose were visible beneath his unkempt hair and above the undergrowth of his beard, but Papa doubted it.
“Which one’s he?” Krall asked, sounding disinterested.
It was not a question that required an answer, rather Krall’s way of ensuring Papa knew he was not welcome, no matter who he had lost.
“You still goin’ on with all that God work?” he asked then. “Preachin’ and huntin’ up people you think’s sinners?”
“I still believe, yes,” Papa answered, but felt the color rise slightly as he recalled what he had been thinking only a few moments before. “Our work is needed now more than ev—”
Krall raised a massive hand. “Don’t you go preachin’ to me now. God ain’t here or anywheres around me, and I ain’t one for any of that bible-thumpin’ bullshit.”
“It’s not—”
“Why’d you come here?”
Papa felt flustered. He had rehearsed what he was going to say and how he intended to deliver it, but realized he should have known from the few conversations he’d had with Krall in the past, that the exchange would go entirely Krall’s way. He would hear what he wanted to hear, and that was all there was to it, and if he decided Papa and the boys needed to go, then they’d go. No one ever argued with Krall and came out the better of it.
“I told you,” he said. “We had some trouble.”
“I got plenty trouble of my own without you bringin’ more.”
“They won’t come lookin’ for us here.”
“Who’s they?”
“Coyotes. They killed my boy, and turned another one against me.”
Teeth appeared in the dark tangle of beard as Krall smiled. “Weren’t them turned your boy against you, I reckon.”
“What does that mean?”
“Means you a goddamn hypocrite, and a loon. And that ain’t the first time I’ve told you that neither, so quit lookin’ surprised. You was standin’ in my woodshed the day I told my sister the same thing. Told her she were makin’ a mistake runnin’ off with the likes of you. Saw it on your face every time you turned up, knew you’d be nothin’ but trouble, and here you are tellin’ me you lost your boys on account’ve someone else.” He shook his head. “You ain’t no man,” he said. “You ain’t nothin’. Way I see it, no God in his right mind’d have anythin’ to do with you.”
The frustration was gone in an instant. Papa grit his teeth. In a fight, he’d die at this man’s hands, but at that moment he felt his temper flaring, heating his skin from the inside out until he was sure it made the air shimmer between them. He wasn’t accustomed to being insulted, but then, there were a lot of things happening lately he wasn’t accustomed to, none of them good. Mama-In-Bed had whispered that it meant the end was coming, the end of times, if only theirs, but to Papa that meant the same thing. He lived for his kin, except when they got themselves poisoned and turned against him. Then the coyotes could tear them asunder for all he cared. Otherwise, he was prepared to kill, and die for them until God reached down and plucked them up to face His judgment, and when that happened, Papa knew they’d be celebrated as angels for the work they’d done on a world gone to hell.
In years past he might have attempted to convert Krall to his way of thinking, to guide him in painstakingly slow steps into the light. But there was no salvation for a man so full of hate and loathing. Krall was ignorant, stuck in exile but closer than most to the eyes of God and yet he forever stood with his back to Him. Such disdain spoke volumes, and Papa decided the only thing left to do was tell the man the other reason he’d come, and see what happened next.
He watched as Krall scooped up the burlap sack and jerked open the tie.
“The tarp you seen before you came in,” Papa said.
Krall did not look up as he spoke. Instead he frowned and yanked a skinned fox out of the bag by its hind legs. Drops of blood speckled the floor. “What is it if ain’t a present?”
Papa exhaled slowly, his body tense. “Your sister,” he said.
-22-