Then, a few hundred feet into the forest surrounding the cemetery, he would dig the boy a temporary resting place. The prayer story, he assured William, would be no lie. He would surely be praying with every shovelful of earth that justice would be visited on the living and the dead. The new grave would be flagged with a strip of white cloth and William prayed the preacher would remember this detail. He had no desire to stumble around in the dark dragging a dead man in need of a grave.
He made the girls a special supper of buckwheat cakes dredged in molasses, and as darkness fell, he told them a story about how lonely Aunt Lottie would be tonight if they didn’t come again, and how she said she would make gingerbread and keep it warm near the fire just for them. He had told Lottie only that he was feeling the need to make frequent trips to the church. Assuming his need was of a spiritual nature, she was happy to tend to the girls. Let her think what she will, William thought. When Callie asked him about the tools he was assembling in the wagon before they left, he told her he would be digging potatoes and hoped she would forget his answer before she had a chance to tell Lottie that he was digging potatoes in April in a churchyard.
He left them on the warmth of Lottie’s hearth, without tears this time, a fact he was grateful for. As soon as he was a good half mile from Lottie’s place, he stopped the wagon and reached under the seat for the jug of rum he’d stowed there. His nerves, which had been none too steady all day, were beginning to work on his hands, making them tremble a bit as he thought of the job he’d cut out for himself. He had shoveled tons of soil without a thought, but now it would be a delicate operation, else he could harm the boy further, a thought that sickened him. He held the jug in his hands, waited for the first swallow to settle, then took another drink. That would be all for a while. He could not afford to get drunk, at least not until his evening’s work was done.
Pulling up in front of the church, he was relieved to find it dark and silent — no late-night parishioners seeking guidance such as Lottie imagined him to be. He waited in front of the building for a moment to be sure no one was coming down the road from either direction, then got down from the wagon and took hold of the reins. With the lantern held high in one hand, he led Gus around to the rear of the church and pulled the wagon up as close behind the back wall as he could get it. Any late-night traveler riding by must see nothing but a dark church and an empty graveyard.
Tying Gus to a pine at the corner of the building, he took the tools and feed sack and carried them down to the boy’s grave. Coming back to the wagon, he picked up the jug and finally the lantern, which he turned down to a flame the size of a feather tip.
He stopped at Hannah’s grave for a moment and wondered if she knew what he was about to do and if she knew, did she approve. But he could feel nothing of her tonight, only the darkness and isolation of the place, and he wondered if his nerve would hold out for the duration of the task.
Bidding her farewell for now, he lifted the lantern and the rum and walked downhill to the soggy ground where Johnny Grant lay buried and where Johnny Grant would soon not lie buried, courtesy of William and his shovel.
Taking another drink before he began, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve and put the jug down close by. Then he picked up the shovel and set to work.
He rose late the next morning and, after a breakfast of bread, butter, and coffee, went to work on the second part of his plan. Today he would cast the bait. This could involve one stop or many, depending on how long it took him to find his prey. He hoped it would only involve one stop — the sawmill where Eddie Bishop was known to show up on occasion and work. No matter what, William intended to keep hunting the boy until he found him.
He had left the girls at Lottie’s overnight and stopped by to see them and to spin another lie to Lottie. His conscience, which had lain dormant for weeks, had begun to prick him, but the lying would soon be done. The plan would come to its conclusion tonight, either to success or failure. Either the prey would take the bait or not, either the boys would both come or not, either the words of confession would be spoken or not. He challenged God to make it happen while dismissing the hope that he would. He had once beseeched God to stop Hannah’s bleeding and beseeching had proved useless. He doubted a challenge would go much further, but it was the closest he could get to prayer.
His first stop, at the sawmill, came to nothing. Wendell Pike’s father was just finishing up a small order and had not needed extra manpower. Eddie Bishop, if he had come, had not been needed and had not stayed. William thanked the man, said he’d consider the price for boards they’d discussed, and left, marveling at the ease with which he was concocting and delivering lies.
He tried the gristmill next, with no luck, and then the tannery, in case Eddie or Wendell was passing time there and jawing with some of the other boys, and then the store, where he was told Eddie had come and gone after doing some business. Everywhere someone would listen, William spun his tale, the one he wanted spread around until it would be impossible for Eddie Bishop and Wendell Pike not to hear it, even if they didn’t hear it from him. Figuring he could never be so lucky as to find Eddie or Wendell at the tavern, William went in anyway to get himself a drink and spread his bait around a bit more. When he found Eddie Bishop inside, kneeling over a game of marbles, William made a tentative pact with God to reconsider his new faithlessness.
Having found his prey, he looked about for a suitable ear to hear his tale. The tavern was not thickly crowded, with it being the middle of a working day, but there were a few men like himself, slaking their thirst before or after attending to business, and a group of ne’er-do-wells over in the corner with Eddie, some engaged in and some watching the game in progress. William ran himself a mug of rum, took a chair at a table as close to the marble group as possible, and began speaking with great drama to a man he had never seen before in his life.
“Traveler?” he asked, turning his chair so his voice would be projected into the marble corner.
The stranger nodded. “Passing through on my way to Charleston.”
“You wouldn’t be Johnny Grant’s uncle, then.”
“Never heard of him,” the stranger said. “My name’s Davis.”
“Oh,” William said, and held out his hand to the man. “Will Gibson’s the name. Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Davis. Not that I’m trying to meddle in your business, but we’re expecting a visitor to the neighborhood and I thought you might be him, seeing as how I didn’t know you. Pretty important man coming here, as I understand it. Coming here to do a sorrowful thing, though.”
“Is that right?” Davis said, and William could see he had aroused the man’s interest, as he had hoped to. “And what would that be, if you don’t mind telling it.”
“Don’t mind a bit, seeing as how everybody will know it sooner or later. This gentleman who’s coming here, Beau Grant’s his name, he had a nephew here name of Johnny Grant, who was robbed and killed a couple of weeks ago. Cut down in the road just like a dog and left to bleed to death. The poor boy didn’t have his right mind and didn’t have any relations here, so he was buried in a soggy old grave behind the New Hope Methodist Church and we all thought that was the end of it. But that was before his Uncle Beau got wind of what happened.”
Davis sat up lazily in his chair and scowled at William. “If the boy didn’t have any relations, then who told his uncle?”
“Well,” William said, thinking fast and cursing the stranger Davis for being so quick-witted, “one of the women of the church, who knew about this uncle, she sent him a letter about it. And just the other day she got one back.”