Alex Bledsoe - The Hum and the Shiver

Terry-Joe tried to change the subject. “How’s Kell?”

Bronwyn stepped close and her voice was tight, soft, and vicious. “Don’t fuck with me, Terry-Joe. I know him better than you do. He’s wherever he’s got his pot patch now, isn’t he?”

Terry-Joe started to dissemble, then gave up with a sigh. “Probably.”

“Do you know where that is?”

He nodded.

“Then let’s go.” She grabbed his arm and dragged him toward the door.

“Wait, wait,” he said, wrenching free. “I talked to that deputy. They’ll find him.”

“Did you tell them where he was?”

Terry-Joe shook his head; no matter what, Dwayne was his brother, and he wouldn’t rat him out to that degree. “But he has to come out eventually, and they’ll get him then.”

She spoke with a cold certainty he’d never heard her use before. “I’m not in the mood to wait.”

“He didn’t do this just to get back at you, you know,” Terry-Joe said defensively. “I was there, it just happened. ”

“The hell it did. Picking a fight with my brother, with you right there? He knows damn well I’ll come after him, and he’ll be waiting for me.”

“Then why are you going to do it?”

“Because…” She suddenly found it hard to breathe, and realized she was sweating. The dream came back to her, the certainty that some things only she could do. Was this one of them? “Because…”

Suddenly the doors opened and Craig Chess walked in out of the night. He was unshaven, his hair matted from sleep, and he wore shoes with no socks. He stopped dead when he saw Bronwyn. He ran a quick, useless hand through his hair. “Well. Hello, Ms. Hyatt.”

She stared in surprise. “Hi.”

He took in her lack of cast, bandage, or crutches. “Wow. You’ve really mended.”

“Yeah, it’s…” She went blank. Her anger seemed somehow childish in Craig’s presence, which made her ashamed. And she hated that. “Clean mountain air,” she finished with a nervous little laugh.

He looked at Terry-Joe. “Hi, Craig Chess, pastor of the Triple Springs Methodist Church.” He offered his hand.

“Terry-Joe Gitterman,” he said as they shook. He jealously noted the way Bronwyn stared at this man. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.” Craig turned back to Bronwyn. “So are you all right?”

She frowned. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’re in the hospital emergency room in the middle of the night.”

“Oh. No, it’s… my brother had an accident.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Was it Aiden?”

“No, Kell. I don’t think you’ve met him. He’s my older brother.”

“How is he?”

“He should be fine. Nothing too serious.”

Their eyes met. Neither knew what held them there, but for a long moment they could not look away. Something passed between them, and a link that had been a mere thread grew more substantial and important.

Bronwyn blinked back to the present and said, “And what brings you here?”

“One of my elderly parishioners had a heart attack. Her family can’t be here until tomorrow, so I said I’d sit with her while they do their tests.”

“Is that part of your job?”

He smiled. “I always figured that is my job. The sermons are what I do to keep busy when no one has any immediate need.”

“Never thought of it that way.”

“Lots of people don’t. Lots of preachers don’t.”

She impulsively reached out and ran her fingers down his arm, brushing the fabric of his sleeve; she wanted more than anything to wrap her arms around him, but that would surely freak him out. Hell, it freaked her out, because she had no idea why she felt it so strongly. “I have to go,” she blurted.

“Okay. I’m glad you’re feeling better, and I hope your brother recovers.”

“He will. Hyatts are tough.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

She firmly took Terry-Joe’s arm. “Good seeing you again, Reverend Chess.”

“Likewise. And nice to meet you, Terry-Joe.”

Terry-Joe said nothing, but looked down sullenly as she pulled him toward the exit. He risked a she’s mine glare back at Craig, but the preacher’s confused expression made it pointless. It seemed none of them knew exactly what had just happened.

Hidden in the shadows at the far end of the empty hospital parking lot, Bob Pafford watched Bronwyn and Terry-Joe climb into Kell Hyatt’s car. The dispatcher had confirmed both the car’s ownership and that the elder Hyatt had, in fact, been stabbed by Dwayne Gitterman at the Pair-A-Dice outside Needsville.

Pafford’s fingers tapped nervously on his polyester-uniformed knee. When the night’s dashboard video was finally seen, he would have a hard time getting around what it showed. The truth was so outlandish that no one would believe it, and he had far too many enemies just waiting for a misstep like this one. He could come up with no other explanation, unless he could claim it was all part of his plan to get the younger Gitterman boy and Hyatt girl to lead him to Dwayne. It was a long shot, but it was all he had, and it hinged on him apprehending the fugitive. So he watched the car drive off, started his engine, and followed them out of Unicorn and into the Cloud County night.

The car rumbled through the night, traveling up and down the uneven gravel roads far into the hills above Needsville. Terry-Joe—so tense, his chest hurt—skidded and nearly missed curves he normally handled easily. Bronwyn braced herself against the dash and passenger door, ignoring the seat belt.

Occasionally he thought he saw headlights far behind him, and wondered who else would be out at this time of night, on these isolated roads. But the lights always failed to appear when he slowed a bit to let them catch up, so he wrote them off as just other folks going about their own nocturnal business.

Bronwyn said nothing, simply staring ahead into the dark. Once Terry-Joe turned on the radio to break the silence, and she immediately turned it off. He took the hint.

Finally, forty-five minutes after leaving the hospital, he slowed and stopped at the side of a gravel road. The dust from their passage drifted past them and gave the headlight beams sharp outlines in the darkness. Insects almost immediately appeared, drawn from the surrounding forest.

He killed the engine, then the light. The thick old-growth forest blocked out most of the moon’s illumination. The noise of the summer woods quickly filled the silence. He glanced in the mirror, but saw no sign of their intermittent pursuer; perhaps he’d been imagining things.

He nodded at Dwayne’s pickup, its shape barely visible behind some thick bushes. Only reflection from the obsessively polished chrome gave it away. “His truck’s blocking the road. We’ll have to walk.”

“He’ll be drunk off his ass by now,” Bronwyn said with certainty. “Might even be passed out.”

“He’s scared, Bronwyn. He told me about jail once, about some of the things that happened. Stuff he did, stuff that got done to him. He doesn’t want to go back.”

“Should’ve thought of that before he stabbed Kell,” she said coldly.

Terry-Joe turned in the seat to face her in the darkness. “Maybe we should talk to Bliss Overbay or Mandalay Harris or somebody. One Tufa stabbing another might be something they should know about.”

“They know,” she snapped. “They always know. I’m surprised Bliss wasn’t at the hospital before we were. But this has nothing to do with them, this is between Dwayne and me.”

He put his hands on her shoulders. It was the first time he had touched her with any real assertiveness. “ Why, Bronwyn?”