7

I ended up taking the car down to the cornfield known as the Devil’s Valley. It was the perfect place to hide something you didn’t want found because of the high stalks of corn that grew as far as the eye could see. I drove around the outskirts of the huge cornfield before finding a small opening in the corn large enough to drive the car between. When the gap narrowed, I kept on driving, plowing over corn, digging deeper and deeper, until I decided it was far enough. I parked the car and got out. The dark morning was already too hot, the air charged somehow with something more than just the threat of the impending sunrise. There was a heaviness in it that made me feel the weight of the past on the present as a tangible thing. I wiped sweat from my brow and looked around. Just eight months ago, I’d been chased by an entity known as Old Nathaniel through these same rows. I’d been sure at the time that he was just a regular man wearing an old burlap sack, but had discovered the truth wasn’t so simple.

He’d actually killed me with his own bare hands a few miles from here on the banks of the Blackclaw River. I’d been dead somewhere between seven and ten minutes, depending on who you talked to. According to Mary, who had waited by my side, trying to revive me, it was ten, maybe more, but if you asked medical experts, they’d tell you it couldn’t have been more than seven. More than seven wasn’t possible. Fifty-three years on this earth had taught me that a lot of things that “weren’t possible” seemed to happen anyway. I’d seen men manipulate whole communities with nothing but raw conviction and a pretty voice. I’d seen lightning pulled from the sky because of the depravity of belief, and I’d watched my father defy death—at least for a little while.

This cornfield had a way of hiding the truth, like it had hidden Old Nathaniel, and the place out in the center where the skulls of his victims were. Maybe it would do the same for this car. At least until I figured out more about the dead man named Joe, and why he’d been in my front yard.

It took me a full twenty minutes to get back out to the road. Once there, I turned south and started home toward the Fingers, looming in the distance. About an hour later, I thumbed a ride from two nearly mute middle-aged men who made me think of the Hill Brothers, except these men seemed more benign, less desperate.

The men said they were cousins from South Carolina, but other than that offered little explanation for why they were in the middle of rural North Georgia. I didn’t blame them. There were some things that just didn’t bear explaining.

*   *   *

Finally free of the man and his car, I decided to call Mary.

“Better, actually,” she said when I asked about her nephew, Andrew.

“That’s great!” I had to resist the urge to ask her if that meant she would be coming home soon.

“Yeah, he’s far from out of the woods, but the last round of tests showed the disease isn’t as far along as the doctors had thought.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

She was silent.

“Mary?”

“Sorry. It’s just … well, it’s good news, but it’s the kind of good news that only puts the bad news off. Forget it. Can we talk about something else?”

“Sure. I’m sorry.”

“Something else, okay?”

“Okay. I miss you.”

“I miss you too. Oh! I just remembered. My brother is supposed to be getting a week off from work soon. When he does, I’m coming back to stay with you. For the whole week.”

“What about your work?”

“They won’t know unless I tell them, and I’m not going to tell them.”

“When?”

“That’s the thing. I don’t know. It could be next week or a month from now.”

“Let me know as soon as you find out.”

“Nah.”

“What?”

“I thought I might just show up. Surprise you.”

“Oh, please don’t do that.”

“It will be great. Can you imagine how you’ll feel when you see me standing at your door?”

“I guess,” I said. This was one of the few things I didn’t like about Mary. She loved to build a moment up, to make it better than it would be otherwise. One of the ways she did this was with the element of surprise, something that didn’t bother me except when it came to my relationships. I hated not knowing what to expect.

“How are you?” she said.

Her voice was filled with something unmistakable. Not pity. Mary was far too empathic for that. But maybe concern. I understood she was worried about my generally fragile mental state without her. And probably curious as to how I was taking losing the sheriff’s election.

“All good here,” I lied.

“Yeah, right.”

“Why do you doubt me? I’m fine. Got a new case,” I said, and immediately wished I could take it back.

“Oh, tell me about it. I’d love to help, if I can.”

I winced, trying to decide what to say. “It’s pretty boring.”

“Well, I’m pretty bored. Tell me.”

“I’m looking for a guy. A man. He came up to the Fingers and vanished.”

“What? That doesn’t sound boring at all! What’s his name?”

Shit. “Hey, I got to go. Let me call you back later, okay? There’s someone at the door. I think it’s about the case.”

“Oh, go. Take care of that. I’m glad you have something to keep you busy. Be safe, and remember I love you.”

“I love you too.”

I ended the call and pushed myself back in the recliner and closed my eyes.

When I woke, it was afternoon and Goose was barking at something in the yard.

I went to the kitchen window and saw the Hill Brothers, shimmering ghosts in the midday heat. They were on their way down the mountain and had taken a shortcut through my yard, as they often did. I found myself wondering if they were twins. They both had dark complexions and long, fragile faces. Their eyes didn’t move; they flitted, never lingering on anything long. They ignored Goose as he barked at them and trudged on through the shade of the oaks, out into the open sun. They were dressed in dark T-shirts and ripped blue jeans split open at the ankles to fit around their oversized boots. One brother’s hair was longer than the other’s, and he was thinner too, lending him the appearance of a strung-out rock star. The other one looked more like a character from a Flannery O’Connor short story. He had short hair, cut as if he’d worn a bowl for a crown and gone to work with the scissors himself. He was the taller of the two and walked with an easy athleticism, chewing a blade of grass as he moved past the house and toward the dirt road connecting me with the rest of the world.

Before thinking it through, I went to the front door. I opened it up, whistled at Goose to stop barking, and then called out to them.

“Could I ask you boys something?”

The long-haired one turned to look at me, his eyes sliding over my face as if he already knew what I was going to say and had no patience for it. The other brother didn’t even acknowledge me.

I jogged over to them, trying to catch up with their long, relentless strides.

“Did you boys hear any shooting up this way last night?”

This time the short-haired one with the piece of grass looked at me. His expression was wilder, more feral, like a dog kept in a cage for too long that can’t wait to get out to bite someone, anyone.

“No,” he said, his voice soft but ragged with something that might have been scorn.

I stopped, a little stunned by the animosity I felt from him. I’d heard stories that they’d both been born addicted to drugs, that they’d never known either of their parents and had grown up more like animals than people. I should have known better than to try to engage them.

They disappeared onto the dirt road and over the rise. I watched the dust gather in the wake of their passage, and I wondered at how many mysteries these mountains could hold.

And if any of them could ever truly be unlocked.