The radio said they found that boat preacher down 'ere in that lake,
and I told my wife right then if that boat preacher was in 'at water,
them girls was in there, too. She said, "I better get to making some
pies then. Betty'll have a house full of grievin' relatives and people
who always gotta see what's goin' on."
"I hope you're
wrong, though," she said. I told her them pies wouldn't go to waste.
Not with them boys of ours coming around.
"Before you take
off, Olen, would you go out there in the garden and get me them three
biggest tomatoes? I'll take them along with the pies. You can have a
few slices if you want to make yourself a mayonnaise sandwich to take
with you."
I done what she
said and then I went on down to the lake but you couldn't get within
a quarter mile of the boat launch. I was dragging my Johnson boat behind
the pickup. The Sheriff said to me to stay back behind the yellow tape
when I said I thought maybe I could help, but he said we got enough
help unless you want to tell us what happened. I said, "No sir, I ain't
been around here," and I thought about it some and said, "But I got
some ideas." He said don't we all, now you stay back like I told you.
Son of a bitch. I voted for him but I been sorry for it ever since.
I eased the truck
off the muddy road onto a pile of tar paper from where they'd tore down
the old Pentecostal church. I remembered when I was a kid and me and
Henry and Don snuck off down there in the woods one Sunday morning and
tossed frogs in through the open windows while the folks in there were
shouting and dancing. We caught a whole Piggly Wiggly grocery sack full
of frogs, and we started running around that little one room shack throwing
frogs like Jesus done come back with a vengeance.
Preacher Hardy
wadn't but maybe forty years old back then when us kids were up to no
good. He was an old man now. Near seventy or eighty, I reckon. Word
is he still liked them little girls, though. These two that come up
missing yesterday-they warn't even school age yet. Miz Betty's twin
grandbabies. She'd been raising them ever since their mama got in trouble
with the law for leaving them home alone at night while she went out
partying.
I ate the tomato
sandwich in the cab of the truck and thought about how good life could
be. Then I got out and walked through the trees down to the water's
edge and watched the law out there dragging the lake for more bodies.
I figured then that they knew what I knew. They'as gonna find them girls
down in that muddy bottom. I got out a Marlboro and lit it and my hands
was shaking pretty hard by then. The radio had said how the preacher
was strangled with something. The radio man-he didn't know what it was
the preacher was strangled with.
The old paint
faded houseboat was sitting out there in the middle of the lake just
like it was ready for him to start preaching from the deck. That's what
he done. Every Sunday morning he preached to the fishermen. I heard
many a man threaten to kill 'at bastard for ruining a perfectly good
Sunday morning fishing trip.
Somebody yelled
and I put my hand over my eyes to shield the late afternoon sunlight
filtering through the trees from the other side of the lake. I saw'em
pull that first little girl up and my knees went weak. She didn't have
no clothes on. I knelt down in the moss on the ground there and waited.
The wetness from the ground under the moss seeped into the knees of
my old khaki work pants. Then in a short time they pulled the other
one up. She still had the striped necktie around her neck. I could almost
see it from where I knelt.
I thought about
the preacher struggling against the necktie but he was too old to win
a fight against a younger man. Once he was thrown over the side, all
'at was left was to finish what the preacher had started with them little
girls. A man could be watching him from out on the deck, doing stuff
to them girls-enough to set a man's blood to boiling-a man who'd had
too much to drink and too little of anything else for the past forty
years.
I tried to get
up on my feet but I couldn't so I crawled back up the bank toward the
pickup. Had to stop and throw up once. Chunks of tomatoes and bread
spilled out on the ground. I figured I'd just get in the truck and start
driving. Somebody was gonna recollect that striped tie. It was the only
one I had. I'd wore it to my daddy's funeral just the week before. My
wife'd know it. She's the one that bought it for me. My boys would know
it, too.
I didn't know
where I'd head for but I didn't want to be where my grown boys could
see me. Thought I'd go down to Wal-Mart and get me a huntin' gun and
some ammunition. I had a old Remington deer rifle at home but I didn't
figure I'd go back there. When they come after me, it'd be them or me.
I knew which one it'd be and I had to stop and throw up again 'fore
I got that pickup door open.
© 2005
Patsy Covington
Patsy
Covington was born near Natchez, Mississippi and grew up in New Orleans.
Some of her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Gator Springs Gazette,
The Story Garden, Wild Violet, Right Hand Pointing, VerbSap, Riverbabble,
Prairie Dog 13, Poor Mojo's Almanac(k), The Hiss Quarterly and The Dead
Mule. Contact her at patsy.covington@gmail.com
