Tom Piccirilli - November Mourns

There was an element about Lucas Gabriel that reminded Shad of Pa. Maybe the tightly compressed potential of force waiting for the chance to escape.

The patriarch. Shad knew the man had a hell of a story, and he wished he’d asked Dave Fox or somebody else what it was.

Gabriel watched Shad with washed-out eyes the color of gravel. There was no suspicion in them. Only an impish sparkle of authority that let you know he was in charge and never to cross him. It was the same gleam the warden’s gaze had held until Jeffie O’Rourke rammed a paintbrush through his eye.

“He came here on his own, Daddy,” Jerilyn said. “This is Mr. Shad Jenkins.”

“There’s always room at our table for one more,” Gabriel told her. “If someone wants to share our bread with us.” His voice had a laugh to it, but the laugh didn’t come out.

No direct acknowledgment or real welcome from the man, which put another spin on the situation.

“He ain’t never handled snakes before,” Rebi put in. Almost mocking but having fun with it, pushing a little. Shad figured these people did a lot of that, honing their social skills against one another like sharpening knives.

“Folks from the hollow, or most towns anywhere, don’t truck much with snakes except to kill ’em.” Gabriel’s smile showed off his small, even, white teeth. “Must’ve been quite a sight for him to come upon, seeing as how we were rounding up so many for services.”

“Yes, it was.”

Shad figured the hard sell was about to start, and they were going to talk about the burgeoning ranks of God’s saved people now. He began to draw his thoughts together and gather his words, but then Gabriel asked somebody to pass him the potatoes. The whole group fell to talking among themselves again even louder than before. Most of them were garrulous, chuckling noisily, leaning toward him to welcome him into their long-winded jokes and conversations. No one addressed him specifically.

He checked around to see who might be keeping to themselves.

Those were the ones you had to watch for. The hitters. The muscle.

They weren’t hard to spot. Two toughs, brothers by the look of it, with feral eyes and fixed dull faces covered with patchy beards. Shirts buttoned up to the collars, thick hair parted at the side and combed over into ridiculous juvenile waves and curls. Perhaps they were Gabriel blood, but Shad didn’t see any of the same poise in them. They sat obediently like dogs.

It took a while but eventually he heard their names. Hart and Howell Wegg.

They ate silently and with good manners, wiping their mouths a lot. They kept their elbows off the table, cut the ribs off the bone, and sliced their meat into small pieces. Whenever someone spoke to them they smiled dutifully but hardly said a word. They appeared so docile that Shad could feel himself gearing up for impending grief. He hoped he was being paranoid but really didn’t think it would be that easy.

The meal seemed to be a carefully rehearsed performance put on for his benefit, and he paid no serious attention to it. He tuned out most of it and found that even Jerilyn wasn’t saying anything of importance though she kept whispering to him. He could feel how keyed up they all were, holding back but edgy and raring. Was it due to his entrance or because this was one of their holy days? He sat and waited and knew it wouldn’t be too much longer.

It took another twenty minutes. As the ladies began to clear the table, he started to stand and Rebi shoved him back down. She told him, “It’s not anything sexist, it’s just our turn to clean up. You sit and relax, talk to Daddy for a bit.”

Gabriel held his chin up in Shad’s direction. That proved to be the only gesture he needed to make for everyone to quiet down. Some folks had already left, others didn’t seem certain of where they should go or what they should be doing.

“Not many men from town would share a plate of food from our table.”

“Why’s that?” Shad asked.

“There was talk a hundred years ago that my forefathers were cannibals.”

So now things were going to be silly.

Shad got the feeling that Gabriel was testing him, but he’d expected as much. Cannibals though? He guessed everybody had to play out their dark secret, no matter how goofy it sounded.

Rebi brought him a slice of cranberry pie for dessert. He couldn’t put it past these folks to have tossed in a fingernail or a couple strands of hair to get a reaction.

“Anybody remember that talk besides you?” Shad asked.

“Some, I suspect.”

“I never heard it.” He spooned in a mouthful of pie and swallowed without tasting. Sometimes you pushed back, and sometimes you just played along and considered the angles. Shad stared at the man.

Hart and Howell Wegg ate their dessert too, without any hint that they understood what was going on. Rebi and Jerilyn returned and took up their seats beside him again, but didn’t eat.

“You want to know about us, don’t you?” Lucas Gabriel said. His voice had a sigh to it, but the sigh didn’t come out either.

“Yes.”

“Why’s that? Not because you’re lookin’ for the Lord.”

The man was right, but you couldn’t give anything away this early in the game. “It’s presumptuous for you to say that, Mr. Gabriel.”

“I reckon that’s true. I got no defense for such boldness.”

“We all have our reasons.”

“So then, name some of yours, Mr. Jenkins. Why have you come to us?”

“I’m not certain,” Shad said. If you straddled the line, no one could trouble you for being on one side or the other.

“Good, I can appreciate a man in agitation who’s not afraid to admit it.”

Shad didn’t think he’d admitted to any such thing, but the man’s assuming nature was something to keep notice of. “My sister recently died.”

Murmurs went around the table, the usual kind words and sympathies. The Wegg brothers kept staring, vacuous but amenable. Rebi licked her lips, a gesture of sex and girlish fidgeting.

Gabriel began to paw at his chin, the scars on his arms twisting in the light like snakes themselves. “So then, perhaps you do seek to ease your burden.”

“Everyone seeks that, don’t they?”

“I do believe you’re right.”

“She was part of the Youth Ministry in Preacher Dudlow’s church down in the hollow.”

“A fine man. I’ve met the reverend in town on occasion, and at some of the Christian tent gatherings when traveling ministers come to visit.”

“I was wondering if you’d ever seen her up this way. She was seventeen, long blond hair?” He couldn’t believe that this was the only way he could describe his sister, and he wasn’t even sure if she’d still had long hair. “Her name was Megan.”

“No,” Gabriel said. “We have few visitors, and I recall each of them well.” He glanced around the table and others shook their heads and agreed they’d never met her. “Was there something we could have done for her?”

“I don’t know. I was away for a time. I’m sad to say I didn’t know her well anymore.”

Lucas Gabriel grunted loudly. “Loss of a family member is one of our most painful trials. It’s made so much worse if there are regrets or unresolved circumstances.”

Time to divert the course of the conversation, allow the man to have his say. Shad could see that Gabriel was beginning to get a touch antsy, waiting to cut loose. “Does your sect have a name?”

The man caught on to the word-sect, sounding so much like cult-and the glimmer in his eyes seemed to flare. “No, we believe that the denomination of churches and religions has more to do with man’s hubris than his following the Lord. Shall I tell you about us? Our history?”