Lady Crawford dunked the cloth again, pressed it to my brow. “Yes, but not just the money. I’ve never been anywhere else.”
I knew what she meant. The mountains both isolated and secured us. Even if her reputation carried frightening infamy, it was still a reputation. Outside the valley, she’d be just another piece of country trash.
“It’s not fear of the Lord,” Lady Crawford said. She turned her gaze to the cross hanging over the altar. “I’m not sure I even believe anymore.”
Lady Crawford set the bowl of water at her feet. The dregs were dyed dark by blood, the rag equally stained.
“Do you love him?” I asked.
“I know he loves me.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m afraid of how he acts. Like I’m the last thing that matters.”
Lady Crawford carried the bowl and rag to the altar. “You’ll sleep here tonight,” she said. It wasn’t a request.
She prepared a pallet on the floor, sacrificing blankets from her own burrow in the corner so I wouldn’t have to lie on the dirt. The fibers of the bedding smelled full of sweat from the lovers’ labor. I ignored it and pulled the blanket over my chin. When I closed my eyes, the candlelight rendered the membrane of my eyelids red, veins mapped across my vision. Lady Crawford extinguished the flame and we lay down in darkness.
She began humming a soft church hymn. I recognized it from page fifty-two of our hymnal, “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” Her voice broke on higher notes, unevenly hit the chorus where she repeated “leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms . . .” but something about the cracked-china quality was soothing. I drifted to sleep on the lullaby.
THE THEFT
Day Three of the Contamination
When I wake, the house is quiet as a dead planet. No clacking of computer keys or the soft patter of Rosita’s feet in the hall. Sunlight pours through the windows, buttering the carpet at the foot of my bed until I stand and block the glow. I dress and wait for the chickens across the creek to bring some normalcy with their crowing. As the silence grows, I wonder if the poison ended their clucking in the night, dropping them one by one from the pole they roosted upon.
Suddenly, I know Rosita is gone. The house feels the same as when Caroline leaves. Colder somehow, the walls in the hallway tighter, like I’m exiting a womb. A look out the kitchen window confirms that the hearse is missing. The engine had been drowning and the tire flat when we coasted across the creek, but I’ve never known much about cars. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I sit in the kitchen and try to figure out why she wouldn’t just ride back with Sheriff Saunders. Did she really need the pictures of thirsty locals at my well, or did she think a few more hours would get me to bare myself for the camera? I’ll probably never know. Best to just collect my guitar and try to suss out the last of this week’s songs. Music will help with the disappointment.
On my way to the music room, I notice the door is cracked. I run, clumsy feet nearly tripping over the panic that tangles around my body. All the guitars still hang on the wall and the recording equipment looks untouched, but the safe yawns open. All the disks where I’ve chronicled the wasteland lullabies are gone. I put my fist through the drywall. A chalk cloud erupts as I try to pull my arm from the fresh crater. I punch it again with my left hand and my fingers ache in protest. I remind myself that I can’t afford to treat my hands this way and pull an acoustic into my lap to help me think. The strings are comfortably hard, biting deep into calluses that should be past pain. Every inch of me should be like those fingers, past the feelings of betrayal that are flooding inside, but I can’t keep them out.
I take a minute to see what else is gone, but the playbills and pictures, even the little bit of cash stowed away in the floor of the safe, remain where I left them. Money wasn’t the target. If it was, there’s plenty to pillage from my walls. Someone wanted the new tracks.
For years, I’ve kept Angela’s secrets and sent away my work. When all that remains of me are bones in the ground, people will still be listening to that music, still singing lyrics I’ve written, but no one will know they were mine. Nothing will rectify this. I’ll just be another forgotten freak buried on the hillside. My internal conductor lets the chorus from the first wasteland lullaby slip in like blight. I close my eyes but can’t shake the tune. It plays over and over till I put the guitar aside. I’m not just going to sit by while the best work of my life is stolen. No one else can have these tracks. They belong to me.
In one of the spare bedroom closets are my father’s river waders. The Reverend occasionally pulled them on over his suit to help an elderly member of the congregation cross the shallows. He didn’t mind getting wet but considered entering the sanctuary soggy an affront to God. I search for the better part of an hour but can’t locate them. Crossing without protection would be too dangerous. Maybe I should call the sheriff, ask her to drive me downtown to look for Rosita, but she’d have questions. I’m almost ready to give answers. After the theft, all obligations feel frayed. A few more hours to stew on it might finally sever things, open my mouth to let out confessions long sealed away. There’ll be lawsuits, all sorts of businesspeople squabbling, but I don’t care about that. If I can’t have this one thing, I’m ready to burn it all down.
A shrill crack sounds from the living room. I freeze, listen to the tinkling of glass against the hardwood and the crunch of shoes grinding it fine. I take my least favorite guitar, a weathered Ibanez too suited for metal, off the wall. Something heavy collapses onto my leather sofa. In the silence that follows, there is a quiet only possible when the exhausted are finally granted rest. I sneak into the room with the guitar held like a club.
Russell Watson sits on the couch, struggling to untie his dress shoes. He still wears the tuxedo from the concert. The jacket is soaked, the pants wet to the knees. Russell uses his teeth to remove the dress gloves. Without them, it seems he should have a better handle on the shoelaces, but it isn’t much use. The knot is too tight, his fingers red and swollen until all dexterity is a memory. He grits his teeth as he works. The false fangs chew his lower lip.
I’m slipping forward to bludgeon him when I bring a foot down too hard. Russell shoots erect, his coattails flapping as he searches his pockets. I raise the guitar overhead, but Russell produces a snub-nosed revolver. He grips it with both hands as if the gun may attempt to squirm free. Even with all the tattoos, I notice the upheaval of red sores, each one’s center surrounded by a school of pus-filled blisters. Blood leaks from their margins and drips down his wrist. These hands resemble the bumpy flesh of toads I used to catch down by the creek. There is barely any unblemished skin. Both of his index fingers have swelled to twice the normal size. One barely fits inside the trigger guard.
“Drop the guitar,” Russell says. “Then go sit in that recliner.” With the short barrel, he gestures toward my La-Z-Boy.