"Jessica," the redhead said, avoiding the question that Betsy had really asked: Who was the evil child's father? Because we all know it ain't Gordon. With all that makeup, it's obvious the little tart came straight from fornicating with Satan. Or maybe a Solom billy goat, which amounts to the same thing.
"How's she like school?"
"Okay so far. You know how kids are."
Betsy knew, despite never having raised one. "Well, I'd best get back to my canning."
"Could you show me how to do it someday?"
"Sure thing." Though Betsy had no intention of giving away any information that was useful.
"By the way, do you know anything about the scarecrow? Gordon said it's a local legend."
"Scarecrow? Not heard tell of anything like that."
Unless you have it confused with the Circuit Rider. But Gordon knows better than that.
"Well, no big deal." Katy waved and added a "Good doggie" for Digger's sake, though Digger was having none of it.
Betsy left the dog on the porch to encourage Katy on her way. She watched between the kitchen curtains as the bony woman made her way up the gravel road, grabbing at the goldenrod that bloomed along the ditch.
"Trouble," Betsy muttered to herself. "A skinny woman ain't never been nothing but trouble."
Odus Hampton pulled his battered Chevy Blazer into the general store's rutted parking lot. It was a quarter till nine, which almost guaranteed he'd be Sarah's first customer of the day. He figured on buying a cup of coffee and a honey bun, something to kick the hangover out of his head before he went up to Bethel Springs. In addition to odd jobs, he worked part-time for Crystal Mountain Bottlers, a Greensboro company that siphoned off fresh mountain spring water, shipped it to a factory for treatment, then charged idiots over a buck a bottle. Even with all those tricks the Arabs were pulling, gas was still cheaper per gallon than the stuff Odus pumped through a hose into Crystal Mountain's tankers.
He stepped from the Blazer with a silent groan, his ligaments tight. Maybe if he stuck to spring water instead of Old Crow bourbon, he wouldn't feel like a sixty-year-old twenty years too soon. He stabbed a Marlboro into his mouth and fired it up, counting the number of steps to the front door to see if he could get half the smoke finished. Even good old Sarah had given in to the "no smoking" bullshit, and though she sold two dozen brands of cigarettes, pipe tobacco, and snuff, she wouldn't let her customers use the products in her store. That whole tobacco thing was as bad as the Arabs and their gas, only this time it was the federal government turning the screw. Did away with price support so cigarette companies had farmers by the balls, then taxed the devil out of the stuff on the back end.
Odus coughed and spat as he climbed the porch steps. The general store wasn't as grand as it had been in his childhood when he'd bounced up those steps with a quarter in his pocket and all manner of choices. A quarter could buy you a Batman comic book and a candy bar, or a Pepsi-Cola and a Moon Pie, or a pack of baseball cards and a bubblegum cigar. Now all a quarter did was weigh down your pants. And Odus's pants needed all the help they could get, what with his belly pushing down on his belt like a watermelon balanced on a clothesline.
The front door was open. That was funny. Sarah always kept it closed until nine on the dot, even though if you were a regular, you could knock and go on in if you showed up a little early. Odus took a final tug of his cigarette and threw it into the sand-filled bucket with all the other unfinished butts. He peered through the screen door, looking for signs of movement.
"Sarah?"
Maybe she was in back, checking on inventory or stacking up some canned preserves that bore the Solom General Store label but were actually contracted to a police auxiliary group over in Westmoreland County. Odus called again. Maybe Sarah had gone over to her house, which sat just beside the store. Decided she'd need a helping of prunes to move things along, maybe. At her age, nature needed a little push now and then.
Odus went to the deli counter at the rear of the store. The coffeepot sat on top in a little blue tray so customers could help themselves. Nondairy creamer (which was about like non-cow hamburger if you stopped to mink about it), straws, white packets of sugar, and pink packets of artificial sweetener were scattered across the tray. The coffeemaker was turned off, and the pot was empty and as cold as a witch's heart in December. Sarah always made coffee first thing.
A twinge rippled through Odus's colon, as if a tiny salamander were turning flips down there. It might have been a cheap whiskey fart gathering steam, or it might have been the first stirring of unease. Either way, Odus felt it was time for some fresh morning air. As he passed the register on the way out, he saw Sarah's frail body curled across a couple of sacks of feed corn. Her eyes were partially open, her mouth slack, a thick strand of drool hanging from one corner of her gray lips.
Odus went around the counter and knelt on the buckled hard-wood floor, feeling for her pulse. All he felt was his own, the hangover beating through his thumb. He turned her face up and put his cheek near her mouth. A stagnant breeze stirred, with that peculiar old-person's smell of pine and decay. She was alive.
"Sarah," Odus said, patting her cheek, trying to remember what those emergency techs did in the television shows. All he ever watched was the crime scene shows, and those dealt with people who were already dead. He turned back to the counter and was searching among the candy wrappers, invoices, and business cards for the phone when he heard a soft moan.
Sarah blinked once, a film over her eyes like spiderwebs. She tried to sit up, but Odus eased her back down.
"Sarah, what happened?"
Her mouth opened, and with her wrinkled neck and glazed eyes, she looked like a fledging robin trying to suck a digested worm from its mother's beak.
"Easy, now," Odus said, his mouth parched, wishing Solom wasn't in the dry part of the county and a cold beer was in the cooler alongside the seventeen kinds of cola.
"Hat," Sarah said.
"Yes, ma'am, it's sure hot for September," Odus said. "You must have worked up an early sweat. Overdid it a little. But you just sit and rest now."
Sarah slapped at his chest with a bony hand. "Haaaat."
"I know. I'll get you some water."
Sarah grabbed his forearm, her fingers like the talons of a red hawk. She sat up, her face rigid. "You damned drunken fool," she said, spittle flying from her mouth. "The man in the hat. He's back."
Sarah's eyes closed and she collapsed onto the gray, coarse sacks, her breathing shallow but steady.
Odus renewed his search for the phone. Going on about a hat, of all things. She must have had a stroke and blown her senses. Most males in these parts wore a hat, and it wasn't unknown for them to come back now and again.
Chapter Seven
Mrs. McNeeley was outlining on the chalkboard, lecturing like she usually did with her back to the class. To the sixth grade English teacher, instruction meant breathing chalk dust and turning her pupils' brains to sawdust. Who the hell cared what a direct object was, or a plural nominative? Like anybody was ever going to need to know that stuff in real life.
But teachers like Mrs. McNeeley were great for those kids who were logging their time and sopping up free lunches while waiting until they could legally drop out. Like Grady Eggers and Tommy Williamson on the back row. If McNeeley had the sense to seat the kids in alphabetical order, the problem would cut itself in half. As it was, the two goons kept up a spitball barrage and a constant taunting of everyone around them. Like all successful goons, and most of that species had been gifted by God Grady and Tommy knew when it was time to play the angel, to let their faces go soft and wounded whenever another student made an accusation or complaint.