“Or laziness,” Marshall said with a laugh.
Craig looked around. “So this is the seat of power for Needsville.”
“I don’t know about ‘power.’ You got the two Tufa tribes each with their own place, and—” Suddenly he scowled and shook his head. “Listen to me, sounding like I know something. You know, Reverend, you got a way of making a fella so relaxed, he forgets his good sense.”
Craig knew he’d just lucked up on something and had to proceed carefully. “I think it’s just because everyone here is so friendly. Sure can’t be because you’re used to preachers.”
“That’s true,” Marshall said. “Hope you can make it work, though. You’re a lot more easygoing than some have been.”
“Marshall, why don’t you go to church? Why don’t any of the Tufa go to church? We are in the Bible Belt, after all.” He deliberately kept the same jovial, carefree tone, but inside he was alive with anticipation.
“The Tufa.” Marshall snorted. “Do you know what the Tufa are, Reverend? We’re people they ain’t got any other name for. We ain’t white, we ain’t black, we ain’t red, we sure ain’t Mexican or Chinese. I don’t even know what the word means. And maybe it means nothing at all. If I was to leave Needsville, nobody’d look at me twice. They sure wouldn’t need a special name for me.”
Craig smiled. “Is that the truth, Mr. Goins?”
Marshall laughed. “I reckon so. Who’d lie to a preacher?”
“Somebody with a guilty conscience.”
“My conscience is as white as the first winter snow,” he said, looking heavenward and batting his eyes.
They both laughed. Craig decided to take a risk, based on his sense of Marshall’s innate decency. “Hey, can I ask you something and have you promise to keep it between us?”
“Of course, Reverend.”
“I’ve been hearing some gossip about Bronwyn Hyatt. I know she was pretty wild before she joined the army, but what I’ve been told goes way beyond that. Wondered how much of it was true.”
Marshall paused and thought. “Well, Bronwyn was a hellion. They called her the Bronwynator, you know. She’d take a drink, a draw, or a dare from anybody. And she ran with a rough crowd. But I tell you, I’ve known Deacon and Chloe all my life, and they wouldn’t raise a child with a bad song in her soul. Besides, she’s too important to us.”
“Because she’s a hero?”
He looked startled, shook his head, and laughed again. “Boy, you can sure put a fellow off his line, Reverend. You don’t be worrying about Miss Brownyn Hyatt. That leg of hers may be a little stiff, but a year from now, I bet you won’t even know she was hurt unless you’re close enough she shows you the scars. All that other talk—” He held up a bottle of Wite-Out. “Time has a way of covering up mistakes, just like this stuff does. She mighta sowed some wild oats, maybe even done some things that crossed the line of the law. But a fella’s got to have faith in his fellow man, or woman, doesn’t he?”
“I’ve always thought so.”
“Of course you have, that’s your job.”
“Yes, but it’s also what I believe. It’s what made me want to take the job.”
Marshall gestured at the stacks of bills and envelopes. “Well, my wife made me take this job, so I best get to it. The wrath of God ain’t a patch on the wrath of an angry woman.”
Craig left more perplexed than ever, but convinced he’d been on the verge of learning something significant about the Tufa. And he had learned quite a bit about Bronwyn Hyatt. Now he had to decide how he felt about it.
16
Susie Swayback opened her front door and muttered, with more than her usual annoyance, “Baptists.”
Don looked up from tuning his guitar. “And tigers and bears, oh my?”
“No, that stupid Ethelene Hightower.” She kicked off her shoes beside the door. Ethelene was a member of a tiny Baptist congregation that refused to let its members work on Sundays. Therefore, whenever Ethelene rotated to weekend duty, she would pass on any Sunday calls to one of the other X-ray techs. Susie had been paged on their way home from church to do a chest series on a drunken young man who’d driven his ATV into a tree as he chased a coyote. “I have to go all the way in to work just so her husband won’t beat her up.”
“He beats her up?”
“He does if she tries to work on a Sunday. She had a black eye for a week the last time she tried to. That’s why we all pitch in for this.” She sighed with disgust as she plopped beside him on the couch. “Baptists.”
He leaned over and kissed her. “Good thing we’re Methodists, then.” He resumed noodling a blues lick as he adjusted the tuning pegs, but took the time to write down a lyric that came to him. He hummed as he wrote:
Satisfied, he began strumming chord progressions, seeking a melody.
“Honey, please,” Suzie said, annoyed. “It’s been a bad day already, and finding Blind Lemon Jefferson on my couch just makes it worse.”
Without changing expression, he strummed the opening bars of “Rocky Top.”
“Oh, stop it.” She leaned her head back on the cushion and closed her eyes. “I don’t feel like cooking tonight, do you want to go out somewhere? Maybe the buffet over in Sturgeonville?”
He put the guitar aside and said casually, “I was thinking we might drive out to the barn dance in Cloud County.”
She opened one skeptical eye. “What barn dance?”
“The one they have every Sunday night. Thought it might be fun, maybe dance a little, sit in with the players and such.”
She opened both eyes. “You mean you want to play in public? You haven’t done that since college, have you?”
He shrugged. “No. But it might be fun to get back into it.”
“Are you still good enough?”
“If I’m not, I’ll just keep rhythm.”
“Do you know any of those people?”
“Won’t know until I get there.”
“Who told you about it?”
He started to answer, but then realized he had no idea. Someone must’ve mentioned it, because it was firmly fixed in his head, so much so that he could even see the route clearly even though he’d never been there. He shook his head. “I don’t know. Must’ve been a notice in the paper or something. Anyway, what do you think?”
She closed her eyes again. “I think I’ve been vomited on by a drunk redneck once already today and do not feel like dancing with a bunch of Cloud County hillbillies who would probably say ‘konitchy-wa’ and shout at me because they think I don’t speak Engrish. You go if you want to.”
He knew better than to take that last statement at face value. And truthfully, even though she was exhausted, Susie inspired a sudden amorous urge in him that momentarily overrode all thoughts of music. He leaned close, brushed her hair aside, and kissed the curve of her ear. “On second thought, I think I’d like to stay in. We can order pizza or something.”
She opened one eye and looked at him. “Don, I’m really tired.”
He ran his fingers lightly along her jawline. “Give me five minutes, and if I haven’t gotten your attention, I’ll quit.”
“I’ll give you two minutes.”
“Three.”
“Two and a half.”
“Done.” And with that he crawled off the couch, knelt on the floor at her feet, and slid her scrub pants slowly off, all the while humming low and deep.