Tom Piccirilli - November Mourns

“I told you,” she said, joking, trying to play around some, “that you were a stupid man.”

“As I recall, I didn’t argue with you.”

“I’m glad you’re talking to me again. I hate when you’re silent. You’re such a difficult person to love.”

And here he was thinking he was so easy to get along with.

“I don’t mean to be,” he said.

“I know that.” She took his face in her hands and drew him to her and she held him like that for a time. “Did you find out what happened up on Gospel Trail? Do you know how Megan died?”

“No.”

“So you’re going to keep looking.”

“No, I think I’ve done about all I can do.”

“Are you leaving?”

“No, I’m going to stay.”

“For a while?”

She tried to keep some hope lit inside, believing that he would achieve something in this world, manage to take her with him despite their past, the baby, everything else.

“Yes, only for a while.”

And there it was, the smile that opened him wide.

She entwined herself around him as tightly as she could and forced him inside her, pulling him deeper, holding him there and clinging even tighter, until some of his wounds began to open. This wasn’t for pleasure or even love. She wanted a child to make up for the one they’d lost. The same way Tandy Mae had wanted a girl to make up for losing Megan. His blood spattered between them.

Afterwards, when she finally released him, Shad fell back on the mattress and wondered if he could’ve gotten away from the hollow if only his father hadn’t called him in prison.

Elfie rubbed her thumb over his knuckles-the nail a heavy cream color in the darkness, and filed very smooth-back and forth just like all the times before, patting him like, Baby, baby, all will be fine, go sleep now.

She leaned in to kiss him and her lips were cold, but no colder than his own.

AT DAWN, SHAD HEARD DRUNKEN LAUGHTER OUT IN the brush behind the house and followed the sound. Jake Hapgood squatted beside Becka Dudlow on a tree stump with his hand inside her blouse, stoned out of his mind on meth and moon.

Becka turned her angry teeth on him and started nibbling at his chin, raising tiny welts on his skin. Jake didn’t notice. His hair hung down in his eyes and he tilted his head at Shad without focusing on him. A loose, malicious titter eased from Jake’s throat and kept going on and on, as if he couldn’t stop laughing at himself, couldn’t fully believe he was here. All the slickness was gone.

Shad grabbed Jake by the chin and squeezed hard enough to feel the loose teeth inside his friend’s jaw about to give way in their sick gums. It didn’t surprise him much. The moon gets us all in the end.

He moved a step off and felt a gun barrel pressing into his back.

Preacher Dudlow stood behind him, one hand over his mammoth belly and the other holding the.38 very firmly. No gloves this time, but the man was still sucking at the edges of his mustache.

Well now, Shad thought.

He figured the reverend wasn’t there for him, so he just slid out of the way to the left a little until the barrel was pointing at Becka on the stump. Jake’s hand continued to work vigorously at one breast.

Dudlow didn’t have a coat on but still wore his bright red hunter’s cap with the flaps down over his ears. The knitted scarf his mother had made remained wrapped twice around his throat and trailing over his shoulders, down to his ankles. The aroma of Mrs. Swoozie’s boysenberry pie wafted off Dudlow’s chin.

“We all have our temptations,” Shad said, referencing their last conversation at Megan’s and Mama’s graves. When you threw somebody’s own words back at them they hit much harder than anything you could come up with on your own.

“So true,” Dudlow answered.

Shad tried to remember how it went. “So human of us. It’s a divine test. We’re fated to quarrel with our flaws.”

“I’ve quit fighting,” Dudlow said. “Are you going to try to stop me from what I’m about to do?”

“No,” Shad said, a little surprised at himself. But it was the truth.

“You know where she goes? What she’s been doing?”

“Yes.”

Dudlow pulled a face, showing his purple tongue. “It’s disgraceful. Disgusting. All my fault. I didn’t keep to my own house!”

“Then you can’t blame her completely.”

“No, no, you’re right. You’re quite right about that, yes indeed.”

He handled the gun too easily, without any respect. He turned it one way and the other, as if he was going to hold it up to his eye, peer into it, start thumbing the hammer back-click, click, click… bang! Turn this all into a stupid gag from a French farce. Like he’d wind up with ash on his face, a little cut on his nose, everybody giggling.

Dudlow shifted from foot to foot, sometimes catching the ends of the scarf under his heels.

Shad said, “You told me you weren’t a fool. You said you took your responsibilities in safeguarding your congregation very seriously.”

“I do. I thought-” His mouth worked impotently, and he started bending his knees like a child about to break into a wail.

When it got bad, you always wanted to drop and call for Mama.

“What did you think, Reverend?”

“I thought it would be you.”

“Me?”

“That you were the one primed and set to go off, Shad Jenkins. That you were going to kill and take some of us to hell with you.”

“The only one I want is whoever killed my sister.”

“So you say.”

“We all have our frustrations. Maybe you just need to be a touch more forgiving.”

“Actually, I believe I may prefer being a martyr too much. I’ve known about this for a time, but-I was trapped by my own pride. By the burden of my cross. Of her, my wife.”

“That’s why it’s called a burden, because you have to carry it.”

Jake must’ve pinched a serious amount of Becka’s flesh because she let out a bizarre little yeep noise at that moment and her eyes cleared for an instant. She saw her husband standing there, the pistol trained on her, and an expression of solace filled her face. Dudlow saw it and let loose with a whimper and held the.38 out straight at her face.

“Stop me,” he begged.

“No.”

“I beseech you.”

“No.”

If Shad made a snatch for the gun Dudlow would have the excuse he needed to give himself up to his pain and squeeze the trigger. He wouldn’t feel the pressure of guilt because he’d always be able to throw the blame on Shad’s involvement.

So they had to wait. It didn’t take long. Jake and Becka passed out after a couple of minutes, their heads clunking forward together into something like a maimed kiss. They fell off the tree stump.

Morning mist rose from the ground and plied between their bodies, pressed into a swirl by their ragged breathing and snorting. Dudlow threw down the pistol, let out a manic cry, whirled around, and ran from the thicket.

Shad picked up the.38 and started back to the house, then thought better of it. He should get rid of the pistol, maybe hide it somewhere, but couldn’t think of a proper spot. Peel up floorboards in Mrs. Rhyerson’s attic? Under the porch?

He considered burying it or carrying it down to the river and hurling it in. He’d never even held a handgun before and the compact nature of its power kept drawing his attention.

He turned it one way and the other, as if he was going to hold it up to his eye, peer into it, start thumbing the hammer back-click, click, click…

Finally, he walked back to Jake and Becka and tossed the gun in the same place Dudlow had.

You didn’t always have to have the answers. It was hard enough just keeping the bullet out of your brain.