Tying up at the church, he tilted his watch into the moonlight to check the time. He had thirty minutes to spend with Hannah before the minister arrived. Lighting the candle he’d tucked into his saddlebag, he walked around to the back of the church and found the stone he had carved weeks ago with the girls’ wilted wildflowers lying atop it. It was the first time he had been alone with Hannah since she had gone.
He stood for a moment, then knelt down; not, he assured God, to display any piety, but in order to be closer to Hannah. He had intended to send his thoughts to wherever she was, to commune with her even if the communication was only one way. But after a few minutes the ache to touch her was so great he grew weary of fighting it. Touching his fingers to his lips and then to the earth above her, he left the burying ground and walked back around to the front of the church.
If God was inside, William had no desire to be, so he put the candle out and settled on the front stoop to wait for the preacher.
When the man finally arrived, William stood up and led the way into the tiny sanctuary. Using the church’s tinderbox, he relit the candle, set it on top of the stove, and settled on the first bench. Impatiently he listened through the Reverend Brown’s small talk, waited while the man settled down beside him and placed a tattered Bible on the pew between them. The sight of it loosened William’s tongue.
“You can put that book away, Reverend, because we won’t be needing it. Although you might take issue with that after hearing me out.”
“If you don’t mind,” the minister said, “I’ll leave it between us. Even if you’ve got no use for it, I might. And it’s not impossible it could help you, William.”
Damn Josh Miller and his flapping tongue, William thought, but he didn’t plan to argue, at least not that particular point. He bore on to the business he’d come for.
“Reverend, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but a boy was murdered here a couple of weeks ago, an idiot boy named Johnny Grant.”
The Reverend Brown nodded. “I heard about the fact of it happening. I didn’t hear much more than that.”
“Well, I heard the whole thing happen,” William said, and again in his mind he heard the dogs barking and barking and then silent. “The ones that did it slashed his throat, stole his money pouch and his mama’s locket and his pocket watch, and cut his dogs. They did that last just for meanness. Then left the boy there in the road to die alone, bleed to death while his dogs bled with him, one beside him and one off somewhere else. He lived alone and he died alone with not even a dog to comfort him. And the ones who did that to him walked away and are going about their business while that boy lies back of the church in swampy ground that butts up against the woods. Dead for all time and nobody thinking much of it but what an awful shame it was and what a meanness. But what can anybody do about it without some kind of proof saying who did it?”
“Does anyone know anything at all?”
“It was done by Eddie Bishop,” William said, “with some help, I believe, from Wendell Pike. Eddie was showing off a new watch soon after it happened and cutting up with Wendell like they were big bugs, and you know Wendell thinks he is one, what with his daddy owning the sawmill. I think they just got tired of Johnny hanging around and the two of them cooked up a scheme to get rid of him and line their pockets at the same time. I want them to pay for that. The Grant boy had nothing in life. The least he deserves is justice in death and I aim to get it for him. Don’t tell me about the great reward he’s receiving in heaven or the better place he’s in right now, about how we should envy him. Right now he’s under six feet of swamp ground.”
William waited for recriminations, lectures, even a sermonette on his impiety, but the Reverend Brown simply looked at him for a moment. In the candlelight, William could read nothing in the man’s face except fatigue. Suddenly the preacher seemed more human than divine and William felt some of his own hostility drain away.
“I need your help, Reverend,” he said, and when the Reverend Brown nodded and said, “Go on,” William took a deep breath and explained his scheme in full.
Again the preacher was silent for several moments. When he reached down for the Bible, William stiffened in his seat.
“If you’ve got a bone to pick with me, Reverend, I’d rather hear it from you than from that book there. With all due respect, I’ve not had much use for it since Hannah died, and I don’t see how it could help with what’s facing us here. If you can’t see your way clear to help me, I’ll do it alone. But I intend on doing it, one way or the other.”
“On the contrary, William,” the Reverend Brown said, and tilting his Bible toward the candlelight, he flipped its pages quickly at first and then slowly and then one at a time until he’d found the thing he was looking for. Running one finger down the page, he stopped near the middle and looked up at William. “Of course I’m going to help you. Do you think I don’t want murderers brought to justice? I’ll help you, but it’ll have to be soon. I can’t stay past Thursday night or I won’t make it to Calvary Springs by Saturday afternoon. You’ll have to get things in motion quickly and pray they go as you need them to. It’s so outlandish it just might work.”
“It’ll work, Reverend. I intend to be sure of that.” William stood, impatient to get back to the girls. “You got all the details straight for your part, times and everything?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Good. Then I’ll do what I have to do tomorrow night, and come Tuesday night we’ll see if we can’t get that confession that Burwell needs.” William took up his candle and was ready to leave the church when politeness forced him to acknowledge that the Reverend Brown was still sitting with his fingers on a passage of scripture. “You got something under your finger there, Reverend, before we set off for home?”
“I do,” the minister said, “and I want you to remember this on Monday night, when you’re standing behind the church, ready to start on the boy’s grave. Remember that you won’t be alone.”
The sanctuary was quiet for a moment as the Reverend Brown found his place, and then the words came softly into the silence, filling the room as if God himself were speaking.
“The Lord killeth, and maketh alive; he bringeth down to the grave” — here the preacher looked him straight in the eye — “and he bringeth up.”
William nodded, acknowledging the man’s point so he’d close his Bible and go home.
The plan would be carried out in three parts. The first part, and undeniably the hardest, would have to be completed on Monday night. That would be the setting of the trap. On Tuesday morning there would be the bait to cast about, and on Tuesday night the prey would be ensnared by their own greed, if everything went according to plan. Or if anything went according to plan, William had to admit to himself.
He spent Monday going over the details of the evening that lay before him. In addition to spinach seeds to sow, there was a considerable amount of wash to be done. Jabbing down on the garments in the washtub with a hoe handle, William considered what tools he’d need for his evening’s work. A shovel, certainly. A lantern to see what he was doing. An ax and a clawhammer because he didn’t know if the boy had been buried in a coffin or a winding sheet. A pint of rum to keep his nerves steady and keep his hands moving. Rope to pull the body up and a feed sack to move it in.
What to do with the boy’s body in the interim had been a thorny problem, but the Reverend Brown had finally suggested that he himself could find a few hours on Monday afternoon to leave his parishioners on the pretext of needing a time of private prayer.