I huddled on the porch in the darkness, my ear flattened against the door, trying to sip the words from inside. Behind me, Doc’s horse nickered in the yard where he’d tied it to the post. Junia answered back in a worn, sleepy bray.
I pressed in closer. The conversation fell and rose, a clattering of broken sentences skating through the old cabin’s chinks.
“Frazier did… He would’ve killed her,” Pa said.
The doc muttered something I couldn’t understand. Then Pa’s angry voice stepped onto Doc’s. “Dammit, man,” Pa said. “When Frazier spent his last breath telling me God sent him a vision to plant his white seed inside her to rid the land of the Blue Devil, I prayed he would die—”
I covered my mouth to push back a gasp.
Pa mumbled something else. Then came Doc’s softer tone.
More words crawled over and under, jumbling.
“Frazier was the devil hisself,” Pa insisted.
“A man of the cloth,” Doc said.
“A charlatan.” Pa coughed.
“He was an important man to some,” Doc insisted.
“He had hisself the importance of a fool drunk,” Pa bit back.
A hush grabbed the early-morning darkness. Then Doc’s words sounded clear. “It’s a lot to ask of a man.”
Silence. I heard my name once, then again. They’d lowered their voices before the mountain doc added, “Hell, it’s a mighty lot, Elijah, to ask a respectable fellar to look the other way and without…compensation—”
“Pastor. Hide. They’ll never know,” one or both of them said, muffled.
More pinched talk uttered in fast, penniless words laddered atop confusion. Blue, medical, Bluet, doctors, cure, tests were mingled.
Then I heard Doc urge, “I’m a forthright man. Do me this small favor, and I’ll ensure you and the girl’s safety.”
More puzzling talk.
Then from Doc, “I promise you’ll live in peace for as long as I live.”
I wrinkled my brow, tried to get the gist of it all, picked apart the word favor, sifting it over and over in my head.
“Give Bluet to me, Elijah, and I swear she’ll see no harm,” the doc pressed.
It felt as if I’d stepped right off the mountain and was clawing air to climb back atop. My heart knocked so hard, I feared it might be sounding against the door, and I slid a hand across my chest to quiet the noise.
I caught more rattled talk and further strings of hushed discussion that gave me no understanding, abruptly followed by a hard thump. Then chairs scraped against the floor.
Slinking back, I snuck off the porch and raced to Junia, a tangle of words muddling my head, my knees near buckling.
Inside the stall, I collapsed against the mule, buried my face and fright into her soft coat. She didn’t move, didn’t stir the slightest. And I know’d she must’ve felt something. Something coming at us fast.