The coven of thirteen met at moonrise. Thunder grunted in the distance. In twos and threes they stood, chatting, gossiping, smoking tobacco or marijuana as the ceremonial candles were lit. Black wax softened and pooled. In the pit the fire caught and crackled and began to climb, digging greedy fingers into the dry wood. Hoods shadowed unmasked faces.
The bell was rung. Instantly voices were hushed, cigarettes extinguished. The circle was formed.
In the center the high priest stood, clad in his robe and his goat mask. Though they knew who he was, he never revealed his face during a rite. No one had the nerve to demand it.
He had brought them three whores, knowing they required the release of sex to remain faithful—and silent. But that feasting would wait.
It was a time of baptism and beginnings. Tonight, two members who had proven themselves worthy would be given the mark of Satan. To brand them and bind them.
He began, lifting his arms high for the first invocation. The wind carried his call, and the power rushed into him like hot breath. The bell, the fire, the chant. The altar was ripe and lush and naked.
“Our Lord, our Master is the One. He is the All. We bring our brothers to Him so that they might be joined. We have taken His name into ourselves and so live as the beasts, rejoicing in the flesh. Behold the gods of the pits.
“Abaddon, the destroyer.
“Fenriz, Son of Loki.
“Euronymous, Prince of Death.”
The flames rose higher. The gong echoed.
Behind the mask, the priest’s eyes glittered, reddened by the light of the flames. “I am the Sayer of the Law. Come forth, those who would learn the Law.”
Two figures stepped forward as lightning walked across the sky.
“We do not show our fangs to others. It is Law.” The coven repeated the words, and the bell was rung. “We do not destroy what is ours. It is Law.” The response was chanted.
“We kill with cunning and with purpose, not with anger. It is Law.”
“We worship the One.”
“Satan is the One.”
“His is the palace of Hell.”
“Ave, Satan.”
“What is His, is ours.”
“Hail to Him.”
“He is what we are.”
“Ave, Satan.”
“We shall know, and what we know is ours. There is no path back but death.”
“Blessed be.”
The Princes of Hell were called. And smoke billowed. There was incense to clog and mystify the air. Tainted holy water in a phallic-shaped shaker was dashed around the circle to purify. The hum of voices rose into one ecstatic song.
Again the leader raised his arms, and beneath his robe his heart gloated at the followers’ weakness for imagery. “Cast off your robes and kneel before me, for I am your priest and only through me you will reach Him.”
The initiates cast aside their robes and knelt, sex thrusting, eyes glazed. They had waited twelve months for this night, to belong, to take, and to feast. The altar rubbed her breasts and licked her slick red lips.
The priest, taking a candle from between the altar’s thighs, circled the two, passing the flame before their eyes, their manhood, and the soles of their feet.
“This is Satan’s flame. You have walked in Hell. The Gates have been flung wide for you, and His beasts rejoice. Hell’s fire will make you free. We toll the bell in His name.”
Again the bell rang out, its tone echoing, echoing until there was no sound. All the night creatures were hidden and silent.
“Now your path is set, and you must follow the flame or perish. The blood of those who fail is bright and will guide your steps to the power.”
Turning, the priest reached into a silver bowl and drew out a handful of the graveyard dirt where an infant had rested for a century. He pressed the soil into the soles of the initiates’ feet, sprinkled it over their heads, laid it gently on their tongues.
“Revel in this and stray not. You make your pact tonight with all who have gone before into His light. Seek and be glad as you obey the Law.”
He took up a clear flask filled with holy water and urine. “Drink of this and ease the thirst. Drink deep of life so that He will shine within you.”
Each man took the flask in turn and swallowed.
“Arise now, Brothers, to receive His mark.”
The men rose, and others came forward to lock the first initiate’s arms and legs in place. The ceremonial knife glinted under a full ghost moon.
“In the name of Satan, I mark you.”
The man screamed once as the knife sliced delicately over his left testicle. Blood dripped as he wept.
“You are His, from now and through eternity.”
The coven chanted. “Ave, Satan.”
The second was marked. Drugged wine was given to both.
Their blood stained the knife as the priest lifted the blade high, swaying as he gave thanks to the Dark Lord. As the thunder rumbled closer, his voice rose to a shout.
“Raise your right hand in the Sign and take the oath.”
Shuddering, faces glinting with tears, the men obeyed.
“You accept His pleasures, and His pains. You are returned from death into life by His mark. You have declared yourself a servant of Lucifer, the Bringer of Light. This act is of your own desire and by your own will.”
“By our desire,” the men repeated, in thick, dazed voices. “By our will.”
Taking up the sword, the priest traced an inverted pentagram in the air over each new member’s heart.
“Hail, Satan.”
The sacrifice was brought out. A young black goat, not yet weaned. The priest looked at the altar, her legs spread wide, her breasts white and gleaming. She held a black candle in each hand, with another nestled at the juncture of her thighs.
Well paid and comfortably drugged, she smiled at him.
He thought of her as he raked the knife across the kid’s neck.
The blood was mixed with the wine, then drunk. When he cast aside his robe, the silver medallion glinted against his sweaty chest. He mounted the altar himself, raking his stained hands down her breasts and torso while he imagined his fingers were talons.
As his seed spilled into her, he dreamed of killing again.
Clare woke in a cold sweat, her breath heaving, her face drenched with tears. Reaching out for the light, she found only empty space. There was one frozen instant of panic before she remembered where she was. Steadying herself, she climbed out of her sleeping bag. She counted her steps to the wall, then flicked on the overhead light and stood shivering.
She should have expected the dream to come again. After all, the first time she’d had it had been in this very room. But it was worse this time. Worse, because it had melded into the dream memory of the night she found her father sprawled on the flagstone patio.
She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes and leaned back against the wall until both images faded. In the distance she heard a rooster heralding the new morning. Like dreams, fears faded with sunlight. Calmer, she stripped off the basketball jersey she had slept in and went to shower.
Over the next hour, she worked with more passion, more energy than she had felt in weeks. With steel and brass and flame, she began to create her own nightmare image in three dimensions. To create and to exorcise.
She puddled the metal, laying an even bead to fuse mass to mass. Controlling the motion with her shoulder muscles, she gave in to the rhythm. As moment by painstaking moment the form took shape, she felt the emotion of it, the power of it. But her hands did not shake. In her work there was rarely any need to remind herself of patience or caution. It was second nature to her to raise the torch from the work for a few moments when the metal became too hot. Always she watched the color and consistency of the metal, even as that freer part of her, her imagination, swam faster.
Behind her dark-lensed goggles, her eyes were intense, as if she were hypnotized. Sparks showered as she cut and layered and built.
By noon, she had worked for six hours without a rest, and her mind and arms were exhausted. After turning off her tanks, she set her torch aside. There was sweat skating down her back, but she ignored it, staring at the figure she’d created while she stripped off gloves, goggles, skullcap.
Cautiously she circled it, studying it from all sides, all angles. It was three feet in height, coldly black, apparently seamless. It had come from her deepest and most confused fears—an unmistakably human form with a head that was anything but human. The hint of horns, a snarl for a mouth. While the human part seemed to be bent over in supplication, the head was thrown back in triumph.
It gave her a chill to study it. A chill of both fear and pride.
It was good, she thought as she pressed a hand to her mouth. It was really good. For reasons she didn’t understand, she sat on the concrete floor and wept.
Alice Crampton had lived in Emmitsboro all her life. She’d been out of state twice, once for a reckless weekend in Virginia Beach with Marshall Wickers right after he’d joined the navy and once for a week in New Jersey when she’d visited her cousin, Sheila, who had married an optometrist. Other than that, she’d spent nearly every day of her life in the town where she’d been born.
Sometimes she resented it. But mostly, she didn’t think about it. Her dream was to save enough money to move to some big, anonymous city where the customers were strangers who tipped big. For now, she served coffee and country ham sandwiches to people she’d known all her life and who rarely gave her a tip at all.
She was a wide-hipped, full-breasted woman who filled out her pink and white uniform in a way the male clientele appreciated. Some, like Less Gladhill, might leer and gawk, but no one would have tried for a pinch. She went to church every Sunday and guarded the virtue she felt Marshall Wickers had trampled on.
No one had to tell her to keep the counters clean or to laugh at a customer’s jokes. She was a good, conscientious waitress with tireless feet and an unshakable memory. If you ordered your burger rare once, you wouldn’t have to remind her of it on your next visit to Martha’s.
Alice Crampton didn’t think about waitressing as a bridge to another, more sophisticated career. She liked what she did, if she didn’t always like where she did it.
In the reflection of the big coffeepot, she tidied her frizzed blond hair and wondered if she could manage a trip to Betty’s Shop of Beauty the following week.
The order for table four came up, and she hefted her tray, carting it across the diner to the voice of Tammy Wynette.
When Clare walked into Martha’s, the place was hopping, just as she remembered it from hundreds of Saturday afternoons. She could smell the fried onions, the hamburger grease, someone’s florid perfume, and good, hot coffee.
The jukebox was the same one that had been in place more than ten years before. As Wynette entreated womenkind to stand by their men, Clare figured its selections hadn’t changed, either. There was the clatter of flatware and the din of voices no one bothered to lower. Feeling just fine, she took a seat at the counter and opened the plastic menu.
“Yes, ma’am, what can I get you?”
She lowered the menu, then dropped it. “Alice? Alice, it’s Clare.”
Alice’s polite smile opened to a wide O of astonishment. “Clare Kimball! I heard you were back. You look great. Oh, gosh, just great.”
“It’s so good to see you.” Clare was already gripping Alice’s hard, capable hands in hers. “God, we have to talk. I want to know how you are, what you’ve been doing. Everything.”
“I’m fine. And this is it.” She laughed and gave Claire’s hands a squeeze before releasing them. “What can I get you? You want coffee? We don’t have any of that ex-presso stuff they drink in New York.”
“I want a burger with everything, the greasiest fries you can come up with, and a chocolate shake.”
“Your stomach hasn’t changed. Hold on, let me put the order in.” She called it back, picked up another order. “By the time Frank’s finished burning the meat, I can take a break,” she said, then scurried off.
Clare watched her serve, pour coffee, scribble down orders, and ring up bills. Fifteen minutes later, Clare had a plate of food and a well of admiration.
“Christ, you’re really good at this.” She doused her fries with catsup as Alice sat on the stool beside her.
“Well, everybody’s got to be good at something.” Alice smiled, wishing she’d had time to freshen her lipstick and brush her hair. “I saw you on Entertainment Tonight, at that show you had in New York with all those statues. You looked so glamorous.”
Clare gave a snort and licked catsup from her finger. “Yep, that’s me.”
“They said you were the artist of the nineties. That your work was bold and … innovative.”
“They say innovative when they don’t understand it.” She bit into the burger and closed her eyes. “Oh. Yes. Oh, yes. This is truly innovative. God, I bet it’s just loaded with steroids. Martha’s burgers.” She took a second sloppy bite. “I dreamed about Martha’s burgers. And they haven’t changed.”
“Nothing much does around here.”
“I walked up from the house, just to look at everything.” Clare pushed back her choppy bangs. “It probably sounds silly, but I didn’t know how much I’d missed it until I saw it all again. I saw Mr. Roody’s truck outside Clyde’s Tavern, and the azaleas in front of the library. But, Jesus, Alice, you’ve got a video store now, and the pizza parlor delivers. And Bud Hewitt. I swear I saw Bud Hewitt drive by in the sheriff’s car.”
Tickled, Alice laughed. “Maybe a couple things have changed. Bud’s a deputy now. Mitzi Hines—you remember, she was a year ahead of us in school? She married one of the Hawbaker boys, and they opened that video place. Doing real well, too. Got them a brick house off of Sider’s Alley, a new car, and two babies.”
“How about you? How’s your family?”
“Okay. Drive me crazy half the time. Lynette got married and moved up to Williamsport. Pop talks about retiring, but he won’t.”
“How could he? It wouldn’t be Emmitsboro without Doc Crampton.”
“Every winter Mom nags him to move south. But he won’t budge.”
She picked up one of Clare’s fries and slopped it around in the catsup. They had sat like this, they both remembered, countless times in their girlhood, sharing secrets and sorrows and joys. And, of course, doing what girls do best. Talking about boys.
“I guess you know Cam Rafferty’s sheriff now.”
Clare shook her head. “I can’t figure out how he pulled it off.”
“My mom liked to had a fit—so did some of the others who remembered him as hell on wheels. But he had all these commendations, and we were in a fix when Sheriff Parker took off like he did. ’Course now that it’s worked out so well, everybody’s patting themselves on the back.” She gave Clare a knowing grin. “He’s even better-looking than he used to be.”
“I noticed.” Clare frowned a bit as she sucked on her straw. “What about his stepfather?”
“Still gives me the creeps.” Alice gave a little shiver and helped herself to more fries. “Doesn’t come into town much, and when he does, everybody pretty much leaves him alone. Rumor is he drinks up whatever profit the farm makes and whores around down in Frederick.”
“Cam’s mother still lives with him?”
“She either loves him or is scared shitless.” Alice shrugged. “Cam doesn’t talk about it. He had himself a house built up on Quarry Road, back in the woods. I heard it’s got skylights and a sunken tub.”
“Well, well. What’d he do, rob a bank?”
Alice leaned closer. “Inheritance,” she whispered. “His real daddy’s mother left the works to him. Pissed off his stepfather real good.”
“I’ll bet it did.” Though Clare understood that gossip was served up in Martha’s as regularly as the burgers, she preferred to have hers in a more private setting. “Listen, Alice, what time do you get off?”
“I have the eight to four-thirty shift today.”
“Got a hot date?”
“I haven’t had a hot date since 1989.”
With a chuckle, Clare dug some bills out of her pocket and laid them on the counter. “Why don’t you come by the house later, for pizza and catch-up?”
Alice grinned, noting without embarrassment that Clare had left her a generous tip. “That’s the best offer I’ve had in six months.”
In a corner booth two men sat, drinking coffee, smoking, and watching. One of them cut his eyes over toward Clare and nodded.
“People are talking a lot about Jack Kimball now that his girl’s back in town.”
“People’re always talking about the dead.” But he looked as well, shifting so he could stare without being noticed. “Don’t figure there’s anything to worry about. She was just a kid. She doesn’t remember anything.”
“Then why’s she back?” Gesturing with his smoldering Marlboro, the man leaned forward. He kept his voice low so that k.d. lang crooned over his words. “How come some rich, fancy artist type comes back to a place like this? She’s already talked to Rafferty. Twice, I hear.”
He didn’t want to think about problems. Didn’t want to believe there could be any. Maybe some members of the coven were pulling away from the purity of the rites, getting a little careless, more than a little bloodthirsty. But it was just a phase. A new high priest was what was needed, and though he wasn’t a brave man, he had attended two secret meetings on that particular problem. What was not needed was a flare of panic because Jack Kimball’s daughter was back in town.
“She can’t tell the sheriff what she doesn’t know,” he insisted. He wished to hell he’d never mentioned the fact that Jack had gotten stewed one night and babbled about Clare watching a ritual. In the back of his mind, he was afraid Jack had died as much for that as for the shopping center deal.
“We might just have to find out what she does know.” As he crushed out his cigarette, he studied her. Not a bad looker, he decided. Even if her ass was on the bony side. “We’ll keep an eye on little Clare,” he said and grinned. “We’ll keep an eye right on her.”
Ernie Butts spent most of his time thinking about death. He read about it, dreamed about it, and fantasized about it. He’d come to the conclusion that when a person was finished with life, they were just plain finished. There was no heaven or hell in Ernie Butts’s scheme of things. That made death the ultimate rip-off, and life, with its average seventy-odd years, the only game in town.
He didn’t believe in rules or in doing good deeds. He’d come to admire men like Charles Manson and David Berkowitz. Men who took what they wanted, lived as they chose, and flipped society the finger. Sure, that same society locked them up, but before the bars shut, these men had wielded incredible power. And, as Ernie Butts believed, they continued to wield it.
He was as fascinated by power as he was by death.
He’d read every word written by Anton LaVey, by Lovecraft, and Crowley. He’d pored over books of folklore and witchcraft and Satan worship, taking out of them all that he understood or agreed with and mixing them together into his own messy stew.
It made a lot more sense to him than sitting through life being pious, self-sacrificing, and humble. Or, like his parents, working eighteen frigging hours a day, sweating and scraping to make loan payments.
If all you were going to end up with was six feet of dirt, then it was logical to take whatever you could get, however you could get it, while you were still breathing.
He listened to the music of Motley Crüe, Slayer, and Metallica, twisting the lyrics to suit his needs. The walls of his once airy attic room were lined with posters of his heroes, frozen into tortured screams or smiling evil.
He knew it drove his parents crazy, but at seventeen, Ernie didn’t concern himself overmuch with the people who had created him. He felt little more than contempt for the man and woman who owned and operated Rocco’s Pizza and were forever smelling of garlic and sweat. The fact that he refused to work with them had fostered many family arguments. But he had taken a job at the Amoco, pumping gas. Reaching for independence was what his mother had called it, soothing his baffled and disappointed father. So they let him be.
Sometimes he fantasized about killing them, feeling their blood on his hands, experiencing the punch of their life force shooting from them at the moment of death and into him. And when he dreamed of murder, it frightened and fascinated him.
He was a stringy boy with dark hair and a surly face that excited a number of the high school girls. He dabbled in sex in the cab of his secondhand Toyota pickup but found most of his female contemporaries too stupid, too timid, or too boring. In the five years he’d lived in Emmitsboro, he’d made no close friends, male or female. There wasn’t one with whom he could discuss the psychology of the sociopath, the meaning of the Necronomicon, or the symbolism of ancient rites.
Ernie thought of himself as an outsider, not a bad thing in his estimation. He kept his grades up because it was easy for him, and he took a great deal of pride in his mind. But he rejected outside activities like sports and dances that might have forged some bonds between him and the other kids in town.
He contented himself toying with the black candles and pentagrams and goat’s blood he kept locked in his desk drawer. While his parents slept in their cozy bed, he worshipped deities they would never understand.
And he watched the town from his aerielike perch atop the house, focusing his high-powered telescope. He saw a great deal.
His house stood diagonally across from the Kimball place. He’d seen Clare arrive and watched her regularly ever since. He knew the stories. Since she had come back to town they had all been dug up and opened—like an old casket, they breathed out sorrow and death. He’d waited to see when she would go up, when the light in the Kimball attic would go on. But she had yet to explore that room.
He wasn’t very disappointed. For now, he could home his lens in on her bedroom window. He’d already watched her dress, pulling a shirt down her long, lean torso, hitching jeans over her narrow hips. Her body was very slender and very white, the triangle between her legs as red and glossy as the hair on her head. He imagined himself creeping through her back door, quietly climbing her steps. He would clamp a hand over her mouth before she screamed. Then he would tie her down, and while she writhed and bucked helplessly, he would do things to her—things that would make her sweat and strain and groan.
When he was done, she would beg him to come back.
It would be great, he thought, really great, to rape a woman in a house where someone had died violently.
Ernie heard the truck clatter down the street. He recognized Bob Meese’s Ford from Yesterday’s Treasures in town. The truck lumbered up the Kimball drive, belching carbon monoxide. He saw Clare jump out, and though he couldn’t hear, he could see she was laughing and talking excitedly as the portly Meese heaved himself down from the cab.
“I appreciate this, Bob, really.”
“No problemo.” He figured it was the least he could do for old times’ sake—even though he’d only dated Clare once. On the night her father died. In any case, when a customer plunked down fifteen hundred without haggling, he was more than willing to deliver the merchandise. “I’ll give you a hand with the stuff.” He hitched up his sagging belt, then hauled a drop leaf table out of the truck bed. “This is a nice piece. With some refinishing, you’ll have a gem.”
“I like it the way it is.” It was scarred and stained and had plenty of character. Clare muscled out a ladder-back chair with a frayed rush seat. There was a matching one still on the truck, along with an iron standing lamp with a fringed shade, a rug in a faded floral pattern, and a sofa.
They carried the light loads inside, then wrestled the rug between them, chatting as they worked about old friends, new events. Bob was already panting when they walked back to the truck to study the curvy red brocade sofa.
“This is great. I’m crazy about the swans carved in the armrests.”
“Weighs a ton,” Bob said. He started to hoist himself up on the bed when he spotted Ernie loitering on the curb across the street. “Hey, Ernie Butts, what you doing?”
Ernie’s sulky mouth turned down. His hands dove into his pockets. “Nothing.”
“Well, get your ass over here and do something. Kid’s creepy,” Bob muttered to Clare, “but he’s got a young back.”
“Hi.” Clare offered Ernie a sympathetic smile when he sauntered over. “I’m Clare.”
“Yeah.” He could smell her hair, fresh, clean with sexy undertones.
“Get on up there and help me haul this thing.” Bob jerked his head toward the sofa.
“I’ll help.” Agile, Clare jumped up in the back beside Ernie.
“Don’t need to.” Before she could get a grip, Ernie had lifted the end of the sofa. She saw the muscles in his thin arms bunch. She immediately pictured them sculpted in dark oak. As they swung the sofa down, Bob grunting and swearing, she scrambled out of the way. Ernie walked backward, up the drive, over the walkway, through the door, his eyes on his own feet.
“Just plunk it down in the middle of the floor.” She smiled as it thunked into place. It was a good sound—settling in. “That’s great, thanks. Can I get you guys a cold drink?”
“I’ll take one to go,” Bob said. “I gotta get back.” He offered Clare a friendly wink. “Wouldn’t want Bonny Sue to get jealous.”
Clare grinned back. Bobby Meese and Bonny Sue Wilson, she thought. It was still hard to imagine them seven years married and the parents of three.
“Ernie?”
He shrugged his thin shoulders. “Guess so.”
She hustled to the kitchen and brought back three cold bottles of Pepsi. “I’ll let you know about that chifforobe, Bob.”
“You do that.” He took a swig before he started toward the door. “We’re open tomorrow twelve to five.”
She let him out, then turned back to Ernie. “Sorry you got roped into that.”
“ ’S okay.” He took a drink, then glanced around the room. “Is this all you’ve got?”
“For now. I’m having fun picking up a little here, a little there. Why don’t we try it out?” She sat on one end of the sofa. “The cushions are sunk,” she said with a sigh. “Just the way I like them. So, have you lived in town long?”
He didn’t sit, but edged around the room—like a cat, she thought, taking stock of his territory. “Since I was a kid.”
“You go to Emmitsboro High?”
“I’m a senior.”
Her fingers itched for her sketch pad. There was tension in every inch of him—young, defiant, and restless tension. “Going to college?”
He only shrugged his shoulders. It was another bone of contention between him and his parents. Education is your best chance. Screw that. He was his best chance. “I’m going to California—Los Angeles—as soon as I save up enough.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Make lots of money.”
She laughed, but it was a friendly sound, not derisive. He nearly smiled back. “An honest ambition. Are you interested in modeling?”
Suspicion flickered in his eyes. They were very dark eyes, Clare noted. Like his hair. And not as young as they should have been.
“What for?”
“For me. I’d like to do your arms. They’re thin and sinewy. You could come by after school sometime. I’d pay you scale.”
He drank more Pepsi, wondering what she wore under her snug-fitting jeans. “Maybe.”
When he left, he fingered the inverted pentagram he wore under his Black Sabbath T-shirt. Tonight, he would perform a private ritual. For sex.
Cam dropped by Clyde’s after supper. He often did on Saturday nights. He could enjoy the single beer he allowed himself, some company, a game of pool. And he could keep an eye on anyone tossing back too many before pulling out car keys to head home.
He was greeted by shouts and waves as he walked out of the twilight and into the dim, smoky bar. Clyde, who grew wider and more grizzled year after year, poured him a Beck’s draft. Cam nursed it at the ancient mahogany bar, one foot resting comfortably on the brass rail.
From the back room came music and the clatter of pool balls, an occasional ripe oath, and a snarl of laughter. Men and a scattering of women sat at the square uncovered tables with beer glasses, overflowing ashtrays, and mounds of peanut shells. Sarah Hewitt, Bud’s sister, did what waitressing was required in a tight T-shirt and tighter jeans. She scooped up tips and propositions with equal relish.
Cam knew it was a ritual, coming here, nursing one dark beer and smoking too much. Listening to the same songs, hearing the same voices, smelling the same smells. And there was a comfort in it, knowing Clyde would always stand behind the bar, snarling at his customers. The Budweiser clock on the wall would always be ten minutes slow, and the potato chips would always be stale.
Sarah jiggled over, her eyes sooty, her skin drenched in come-hither perfume. She set her tray on the bar and rubbed her thigh lightly against his. Cam noticed, without much interest, that she’d done something different with her hair. It was a Jean Harlow blond since her latest trip to Betty’s, and it drooped seductively over one eye.
“I wondered if you were coming in tonight.”
He glanced over, remembering there had been a time he’d have chewed glass to get his hands on her. “How’s it going, Sarah?”
“It’s been worse.” She shifted so that her breast brushed his arm. “Bud says you’ve been busy.”
“Busy enough.” Cam picked up his beer again and broke the inviting contact.
“Maybe you’d like to relax later. Like old times.”
“We never relaxed.”
She gave a low, throaty laugh. “Well, I’m glad to see you remember.” Annoyed, she glanced over her shoulder when someone hailed her. She’d been aiming to get her hands into Cam’s pants—and his wallet—since he’d come back to town. “I get off at two. Why don’t I come by your place?”
“I appreciate the offer, Sarah, but I’d rather remember than repeat.”
“Suit yourself.” She shrugged as she picked up her tray again, but her voice had toughened with the rejection. “But I’m better than I used to be.”
So everyone said, Cam thought and lighted a cigarette. She’d been a stunner once, stacked and sexy and seventeen. They’d fucked each other blind. And then, Cam remembered, she had slinked off to dispense the favor on as many other males as she could find.
“Sarah Hewitt’ll do it” had become the battle cry of Emmitsboro High.
The pity of it was, he’d loved her—with all of his loins and at least half his heart. Now he only felt sorry for her. Which, he knew, was worse than hate.
The voices from the back grew in volume, and the curses became more colorful. Cam cocked a brow at
Clyde.
“Leave ’em be.” Clyde’s voice was a froggy rasp, as if he’d had his vocal cords wrapped in tinfoil. As he popped open two bottles of Bud, his face moved into a scowl that had his five chins swaying like Jell-O. “This ain’t no nursery school.”
“It’s your place,” Cam said casually, but he’d noticed that Clyde had glanced toward the back room a half-dozen times since Cam had ordered the beer.
“That’s right, and having a badge in here makes my customers nervous. You going to drink that or play with it?”
Cam lifted his glass and drank. He picked up his cigarette, took a drag, then crushed it out. “Who’s in the back, Clyde?”
Clyde’s fleshy face pokered up. “Usual bums.” When Cam continued to stare at him, Clyde picked up a sour-smelling rag and began to polish the dull surface of the bar. “Biff’s back there, and I don’t want no trouble.”
Cam went very still at his stepfather’s name, and the amusement faded from his eyes. Biff Stokey rarely did his drinking in town, and when he did, it wasn’t friendly.
“How long’s he been here?”
Clyde moved his shoulders and set off an avalanche ripple of flab beneath his stained apron. “I ain’t got no stopwatch.”
There was a quick, shrill feminine scream and the sound of crashing wood.
“Sounds like he’s been here too long,” Cam said and started back, shoving onlookers aside. “Back off.” He elbowed his way through, toward the shouting. “I said back off, goddamn it.”
In the rear room where customers gathered to play pool or dump quarters into the ancient pinball machine, he saw a woman cowering in the corner and Less Gladhill swaying beside the pool table with a cue held in both fists. There was already blood on his face. Biff stood a few feet away, holding the remains of a chair. He was a big, bulky man with arms like cinder blocks, liberally tattooed from his stint in the marines. His face, ruddy from sun and drinking, was set in a snarl. The eyes were as Cam always remembered them, dark and full of hate.
Oscar Roody was hopping from one leg to the other, standing out of harm’s way while he played peacemaker.
“Come on, Biff, it was a friendly game.”
“Fuck off,” Biff muttered.
Cam set a hand on Oscar’s shoulder and with a jerk of his head gestured him aside. “Take a walk, Less. Sober up.” Cam spoke softly, his eyes on his stepfather.
“That sonofabitch hit me with the fucking chair.” Less swiped at the blood pooling over his eye. “He owes me twenty bucks.”
“Take a walk,” Cam repeated. He curled his fingers around the pool cue. He only had to tug once before Less released it.
“He’s fucking crazy. It was assault. I got witnesses.” There was a general murmur of agreement, but no one stepped forward. “Fine. Go on over to the office. Give Doc Crampton a call. He’ll take a look at you.” He sent one sweeping glance around the room. “Clear out.”
People moved back, muttering, but most crowded in the doorway to watch Cam face down his stepfather.
“Big man now, ain’t you?” Biff’s gravelly voice was slurred with drink. And he grinned, the way he had always grinned before he plowed into Cam. “Got yourself a badge and a shitload of money, but you’re still a punk.”
Cam’s fingers tensed on the cue. He was ready. More than ready. “It’s time you went home.”
“I’m drinking. Clyde, you motherfucker, where’s my whiskey?”
“You’re finished drinking here,” Cam said steadily. “You can go out walking through the front, or I can carry you out the back.”
Biff’s grin widened. He tossed the broken chair aside and lifted his ham-sized fists. He’d been set to kick Less’s ass, but this was better yet. It had been years since he’d been able to beat some respect into the boy. And Cam was overdue.
“Why don’t you just come and get me, then?”
When Biff lunged forward, Cam hesitated only an instant. He imagined himself slamming the cue hard against the side of Biff’s head. He could even hear the satisfying smack of wood against bone. At the last minute, he tossed the cue aside and took the first blow in the gut.
The air wheezed out between his teeth, but he dodged the fist before it smashed into his jaw. The glancing shot to his temple had stars exploding in front of his eyes. He heard the roar of the crowd behind him, like pagans surrounding gladiators.
The first time his naked fist connected with Biff’s flesh, the shock sang up his arm and ended with a riff of satisfaction. The punches that rained on him were all but unfelt, like memory blows of the dozens of beatings.
He’d been smaller once. Small and thin and helpless. Then he’d had only two choices—to run and hide, or to stand and take it. But that had changed. This night had been a long time coming. There was a wild kind of glory in it, the kind soldiers feel as they suit up and storm into battle. He watched his own fist slam into Biff’s sneering mouth, knuckles and lips ripping.
He smelled blood—his own and Biff’s. Glass crashed and shattered on the floor. His own control shattered with it. Like a madman, he threw himself into the fight, hammering his fists into the face he had learned to fear and despise since childhood.
He wanted to erase it. Destroy it. With hands that were bruised and bloodied, he grabbed Biff by the shirt and slammed that hated face, again and again, into the wall.
“Jesus, Cam. Come on, let up. Jesus.”
The breath was racing out of his lungs, hot as fire. He struggled away when hands reached for his shoulders, and turning, he nearly rammed his fist into Bud’s face.
The mist cleared from his eyes then, and he saw the white, strained face of his deputy, the huge, curious eyes of the crowd that had gathered. With the back of his hand, he wiped the blood from his mouth. Crumpled on the floor, beaten, broken, and unconscious in his own vomit, was Biff.
“Clyde called.” Bud’s voice was shaking. “He said things were out of hand.” Wetting his lips, he looked at the destruction of the poolroom. “What do you want me to do?”
The breath wheezed out of Cam’s lungs like an old man’s. “Lock him up.” Cam put a hand on the pool table to steady himself. He was beginning to feel the pain now from each individual blow, and a churning, aching nausea. “Resisting arrest, assaulting an officer, disturbing the peace, drunk and disorderly.”
Bud cleared his throat. “I could drive him on home if you want. You know—”
“Lock him up.” He glanced up to see Sarah watching him with both approval and derision in her sooty eyes. “Get a statement from Less Gladhill and any witnesses.”
“Let me get someone to drive you home, Sheriff.”
“No.” He kicked a broken glass aside, then stared down the people hovering in the doorway. His eyes were cold now, hard and cold, so that even the men who had been cheering him on averted theirs. “Fun’s over.”
He waited until the room had cleared before he left to drive to the farm and tell his mother her husband wouldn’t be home that night.