The Farm

Chapter Fifteen

Betsy Ward didn't scream when she encountered the goat. She'd milked plenty of the critters, and the teats were tiny and tough, a workout for her hands. But they usually kept to the field even when they were riled. Occasionally one slipped through a gap in the fence or squeezed between two gateposts, but when they did that, they usually made a beeline for the garden or the flower beds. Goats had a nose for heading where they could do the most damage.

But she'd never had one come in the house before. The back door was ajar, as if the goat had nudged it open with its nose. The mesh on the screen door had been ripped. Maybe the goat had put one sharp hoof on the wire and sliced it down the middle. Goats weren't that smart, even if they smelled something good in the kitchen. In this case, the only thing going was the sweet potato pie. No doubt the goat had smelled that and come in for a closer look, though Betsy had no idea how in the world the creature had worked the doorknob. Why hadn't Digger run the goat off, or at least raised the alarm with his deep barks?

"Shoo," she said waving her apron at it. "Get on back the way you come."

The goat stared at her as if she were a carrot with a spinach top.

"Arvel," Betsy called trying not to raise her voice too much. Arvel didn't like her hollering from the kitchen. He thought that amounted to pestering and henpecking. Arvel always said a wife should come up to the man where he was sitting and talk to him like a human being instead of woofing at him like an old bitch hound.

Arvel must not have heard her over the television. The goat's nostrils wiggled as they sniffed the air. The oven was a Kenmore Hotpoint, the second of the marriage. In the red glow of the heating element, she could see the pie through the glass window in the oven door. It had bubbled a little and the tan filling was oozing over the crust in one spot

The goat lowered its head and took two steps toward the oven. It had small stumps of horns and was probably a yearling. Sometimes goats would get ornery and butt you, but in general they avoided interaction with humans, except when food was at stake. It seemed this goat had its heart set on that sweet potato pie.

Betsy shooed with her apron again, then moved so that she was standing between the oven and the goat. She didn't think the goat could figure out how to work the oven door, but some sense of propriety had overtaken her. After all, this was her kitchen. "Get along now."

The goat regarded her, eyes cold and strange. She didn't like the look of them. They had the usual hunger that was bred into the goat all the way back to Eden, but behind that was something sinister. Like the goat had a mean streak and was waiting for the right excuse.

"Arvel!" By now Betsy didn't care if her husband thought she was henpecking or not. You don't have a goat walk into your kitchen and expect to take it in stride. She'd gone through three miscarriages, the drought of 1989, the blizzard of 1960, and the floods of 2004. She knew hard times, and she knew how to keep a clear head. But those things were different. Those were natural disasters, and this one seemed a little un-natural. Like maybe the goat had something more in mind than just ruining a decent homemade pie.

Betsy put her hands out, hoping to calm the animal, but its cloven hooves thundered across the vinyl flooring as it closed the ten feet separating them. Betsy saw twin images of herself reflected in the goat's oddly shaped pupils. Her mouth was open, and she may have been screaming, and her hair hung in wild, slick ropes around her face. She didn't have time to step away even if she could have made her legs move.

The goat hit her low, its head just above her womanly region, driving into her abdomen. The nubs of the horns pierced her like fat, dull nails, not sharp enough to penetrate but packing plenty of hurt. The unexpected force of the assault threw her off-balance, and she felt herself falling backward. The kitchen ceiling spun crazily for half a heartbeat, and she saw the flickering fluorescent light, the copper bottoms of pans arranged on pegs over the sink, the swirling patterns in the gypsum finish above.

Then she was falling and the world exploded in sparks, and she thought maybe the pie filling had leaked onto the element. As she slid into the inky, charred darkness, the smell of warm sweet potatoes settled around her like the breath of a well-fed baby.

'Tie's done," she said. Her eyelids fluttered and then fell still.

"Honey, what are you doing?"

Katy turned away from the squash casserole she was making. Her hands stank of onions. Little jars and bags of spices were strewn across the counter: basil, pepper, dill weed, cumin. Eggshells lay in the bottom of the sink, slick and jagged. The clock on the wall read ten after six.

"I'm making dinner," she said.

"I hate casseroles." Gordon took off his tweed jacket and folded it over his arm.

"I found the recipe in the cabinet. I thought…" Katy brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. Her face was flushed.

"Where did you get that dress?"

She looked down and found herself in a dress she'd never seen before. It had an autumnal print and was a little more frilly and feminine than the austere styles Katy preferred. The dress was dusty but it fit her body as if it had been tailored. Why was she wearing it to cook?

"It was in the closet, I think. Must have been something I packed years ago and came across while I was cleaning."

"You look nice." Gordon went to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of Merlot. He didn't stop to kiss her as he passed. He poured himself a glass of wine and sat at the butcher block table that stood in one corner and served as a stand for several houseplants.

"About this morning," Katy said. She focused on slicing a red onion. Any excuse for tears was welcome.

"Let's not talk about it."

"We have to, honey. We're married."

"I lost control. It won't happen again."

Katy slammed down the knife. "I want it to happen again. But I don't want it to be cold and strange."

If only Gordon would stand up and come to her, take her in his arms, nuzzle her neck, and make stupid promises, she would have accepted his earlier behavior. She even would have defended it. After all, Katy had her own problems. She wasn't exactly coming into the marriage as a virgin.

"Where's Jett?" Gordon asked.

"Jett?" Katy looked down at the raw food and spices. Jett was probably in her room studying. She had walked through the front door hours ago. Katy should have checked on her, or at least called up the stairs to make sure her daughter knew she was around. That was Katy's part of the deal. She would be an involved parent while trusting Jett to stay away from drugs and giving her daughter some breathing room.

"She's in her room," Katy said.

"I have a job for her."

"About the eggs," Katy said.

"Forget it I'll have Odus do the farm chores from now on. It wasn't fair for me to expect you to take on extra work. You have enough to do here in the house."

In this house that seemed more like a prison. Katy had to think back to remember the last time she'd left the house. Grocery shopping, three days ago. Most of her time in the house was spent in the kitchen, and she'd never liked cooking before. Now she was making casseroles.

"How was your day at the college?" It was the kind of thing a normal wife would ask, and she wanted very much to be a normal wife.

"Long," he said, then finished his glass of wine. "Try telling that idiot Graybeal that Methodists weren't the only denomination to use circuit-riding preachers."

"Graybeal? He's the dean, isn't he?"

"Yes, but you would think he's lord of the fiefdom to see him swagger around, whipping out his shriveled intellectual dingus."

"He's probably just jealous because of your book."

"No, he thinks foot washing belongs to the realm of human sacrifice and snake handling. Anything that's not Hindu, Buddhist, or Taoist is all lumped together under 'God worship.' "

Katy stared down at the yellow grue of the casserole. Should she add an extra quarter of a stick of butter? "I thought 'God worship' was the point."

"Graybeal thinks Christianity is a cult. A popular one, to be sure, but a cult nonetheless." He was falling into lecture mode. His voice rose slightly in pitch, the words carefully enunciated.

Katy was pleased that he was spending time with her instead of hiding away in the study, but she wanted to move the subject over to something a little closer to home. "What job did you have for Jett?"

"I want her to feed the goats."

"I thought Odus was going to do the farm chores."

"I mean tonight. Odus doesn't have a phone. I'll probably have to drive over to bis place tomorrow, or catch up with him at the general store."

Katy wiped her hands on the dish towel that hung from the oven handle. "I'll go get her."

"No, you're busy." His upper lip curled a little, as if he had smelled an unpleasant odor.

"I thought you'd like this," Katy said. "It's your family recipe."

"I hate onions," he said. "They give me indigestion."

Such was marriage. You didn't learn the important things until after the knot was already tied. If you tried to be respectful and cautious, you didn't jump into the sack with the guy you were going to marry until the vows were made. At least not the second time around. You figured there would be kinks and quirks to sort out, but older people were wiser and more experienced. Or maybe just slower to admit mistakes. Gordon rinsed his wineglass and left the room. "I'll talk to her." "Be polite," Katy said. "She's trying, you know." Gordon didn't answer. Katy opened the refrigerator and took out a pint of heavy cream. She had never bought cream in her life, though she had picked some up at the grocery store Tuesday. It was almost as if she knew she would need it for the recipe she'd found this afternoon.

Odus eased his truck into the gravel lot of Solom Free Will Baptist Church, parking beside the Ford F-150 driven by Mose Eldreth. Most likely the preacher was taking on an inside chore, mending a loose rail or patching the metal flue that carried away smoke from the woodstove. A dim glow leaked from the open door, framing the church's windows against the night sky. Odus cast an uneasy glance in the direction of Harmon Smith's grave, but the white marker looked no different from the others that gleamed under the starlight.

Odus didn't hold much stock with Free Will preachers, but at least Preacher Mose was local. Preacher Mose knew the area history and, like most of the people who grew up in Solom, he'd heard about Harmon Smith. After all, Harmon had a headstone in the Free Will cemetery. That didn't mean the preacher would talk to Odus about it. Like Sarah Jeffers, most people in those parts didn't want to know too much about the past.

Odus went up the steps and knocked on the door. "You in, Preacher?"

A scraping sound died away and there was the metallic echo of a tool being placed on the floor. "Come in," Preacher Mose said.

It was the first time Odus had been in a church in a couple of years. He'd attended the Free Will church in his youth, but the congregation didn't think much of his drinking so he'd been shunned out. He didn't carry a grudge. He figured they had their principles and he had his, and on Judgement Day maybe him and the Lord would sit down and crack the seal on some of the finest single-malt Scotch that heaven had to offer. Then Odus could lay out his pitch, and the Lord could take it or leave it. Though hopefully not until the bottle was dry.

The Primitives were different, though. A little drink here and there didn't matter to them, because the saved were born that way and the blessed would stay blessed no matter how awful they acted. Odus could almost see attending that type of church, but he liked to sleep late on Sundays. As for the True Lighters, they took religion like a whore took sex: five times a day whether you needed it or not.

Preacher Mose was kneeling before the crude pulpit up front. He wasn't praying, though; he was laying baseboard molding along the little riser that housed the pulpit and the piano. A hand drill, miter saw, hammer, and finish nails were scattered around the preacher like sacraments about to be piled on an altar. Preacher Mose was wearing green overalls, and sweat caused his unseemly long hair to cling to his forehead. "Well, if it isn't Brother Hampton."

"Sorry to barge in," Odus said. "I wouldn't bother you if it wasn't important."

"You're welcome here any time. Even on a Sunday, if you ever want to sit through one of my sermons."

"Need a hand? I got some tools in the truck."

"We can't afford to pay. Why do you think they let me carpenter? I'm better at running my mouth than driving nails."

The church had no electricity, and even with scant light leaking through the windows Odus could tell the preacher's molding joints were almost wide enough to tuck a thumb between. "This one's on the house. A little love offering."

"Know him by his fruits and not by his words," Preacher Mose said.

"Good, because my words wouldn't fill the back page of a dictionary and half of those ain't fit for a house of worship."

Odus got his tool kit from the bed of the pickup and showed the preacher how to use a coping saw to cut a dovetail joint. After the preacher had knicked his knuckles a couple of times, he got the hang of it, and left Odus to run the miter saw and tape measure.

The preacher bored holes with the hand drill so the wood wouldn't split, then blew the fine sawdust away. "So what's troubling you?"

"Harmon Smith."

The preacher sat back on his haunches. "You don't need to worry about Harmon Smith. His soul's gone on to the reward and what's left of his bones are out there in the yard."

"That's not the way the stories have it."

"I'm a man of faith, Odus. You might say I believe in the supernatural, because God certainly is above all we see and feel and touch. But I don't believe in any sort of ghost but the Holy Ghost."

"Do you believe what you see?"

"I'm a man of faith."

"Guess that settles that." Odus laid an eight-foot strip of molding, saw that it was a smidge too long. "Always cut long because you can always take off more, but you sure can't grow it back once it's gone."

"I'll remember that. Maybe I can work it into a sermon." Preacher Mose drove a nail with steady strokes, then took the nail set and sank the head into the wood so the hole could be puttied.

"What I'm trying to get around to is, I seen him."

"Seen who?"

"Harmon Smith."

The preacher paused halfway through the second nail. Then he spoke, each word falling between a hammer stroke. "Sure"- bang-"don't"-bang-"know"-bang-"what… "-bang. He paused, then wound up with a flourish. "In heaven's name you're talking about"-bang, bang, bang, BANG.

"He come down by the river while I was fishing. Face like goat's cheese and eyes as dark as the back end of a rat hole. He had on mat same preachin' hat you see in the pictures."

Preacher Mose drilled another hole and positioned the nail. Odus noticed his hands were shaking.

"Sarah Jeffers saw him, too, only she won't admit to it."

The preacher swallowed hard and swung at the nail. The hammer glanced off the nail head and punched a half-moon scar in the wood.

"A little putty will hide it," Odus said. "That's the mark of a good carpenter. It's all in the final job."

Preacher Mose swung the hammer again, this time the head glancing off his thumb. "God d-" He stuffed his thumb in his mouth and sucked it before he could finish the cussword.

"Don't be so nervous. It's just a finish nail."

"Harmon Smith died of illness. He caught a fever running a mission trip to Parson's Ford. He had a flock to tend, and his sheep were scattered over two hundred square miles of rocky slopes."

"That's the way the history books tell it. But some people say different, especially in Solom."

"And they probably say there's a grudge between us and the Primitives."

"No, they don't say that."

"We all serve the same Lord, and on the Lord's Earth, the dead don't walk. Not till the Rapture, anyway."

"Maybe you ought to tell that to him." Odus lifted his hammer and pointed the handle to the church door. Framed in silhouette was the tall, gangly preacher, the one who was nearly two hundred years dead.

Preacher Mose knelt at the foot of the pulpit and stared at the black-suited reverend. He put his bruised thumb back in his mouth and tightened his grip on the hammer until his knuckles were white. Harmon Smith's shadow started to move into the church, but dissolved as it entered the vestibule. The last thing to flicker and fade was the wide brim of the hat.