The Hum and the Shiver

4

Craig Chess watched some of the TV vans pull into the Catamount Corner parking lot while the rest continued on out of town. All the motel’s rooms were booked, and Peggy Goins was making a small fortune with her special “media rates.” As Craig sipped his coffee, the reporters rushed up the stairs to their rooms as if their feet were on fire. Some held their stomachs as if they might not make it to the bathroom.

The Fast Grab convenience store was new in town, built on a lot catty-corner across from the motel. Two picnic tables were set into the concrete patio outside. At the moment only Craig sat there, although earlier he’d had the pleasure of hearing two different men on cell phones explain to their wives how nothing was going on with their pretty young interns. He could’ve gone home hours ago, but he just couldn’t tear himself away from the chance to encounter more examples of the worst humanity could offer. A minister, he reasoned, had to know the enemy in order to combat it.

That was the other reason he’d stayed in Needsville long after the parade. He needed to know these people by sight and name if they were ever to trust him. For the last two Saturdays, he’d hung out at the Fast Grab, speaking with the clerks and any willing customers. There had not been many.

He’d known coming into this assignment that he’d been given an almost impossible task: ministering to a people with no interest at all in his faith. It wasn’t missionary work, because missionaries brought other things, food or medicine or money, to use as tangible spiritual bait. Craig could offer the Tufa nothing but his own sincerity.

The last person out of the news vans, a young man with a ponytail and a small bar through his septum, walked over to the store. He was clearly not an on-camera personality, but one of the myriad support staff who made sure the reporters looked their best. He sat down across the table from Craig and said without preliminaries, “Can I ask you something?”

“You just did,” Craig said.

The man laughed and pointed at him. “Hey, good one. No, seriously, though. You live here, right?”

Craig nodded.

“What the fuck is up with this place? I mean, I spent some time in Europe when I was in college, and the people in this town are like freakin’ Gypsies or something. Gypsies with great teeth, that is. Is that why they call them the Tootha?”

“Tufa,” Craig corrected. “And it’s a real mystery, all right. Nobody knows how they got here, but they’ve been in this area, mainly in this very valley, as long as anyone can remember. In fact, when the first white settlers came over the mountains headed west, the Tufa were already here.”

“And they never left, is that it?”

Craig shrugged. Before accepting this position, he’d done lots of research, but the gaps and questions far outweighed the facts. The contemporary Tufa claimed no knowledge of their origins, and some of the stories other people told about them were too absurd to accept. Depending on whom you believed, they were a lost tribe of Israel, a relic population from Atlantis, or descendants of mutinous Portuguese sailors marooned off the Carolina coast by Columbus. These wilder theories kept away any serious researchers, and that seemed to suit the Tufa just fine. “Not too many leave, no. And from what I hear, most everyone who leaves eventually comes back.”

“Like Bronwyn Hyatt?”

“Don’t know her, so I can’t say.”

The man blatantly looked Craig over, noting his sandy brown hair. “Are you… one of them?”

“No, I’m from Arkansas. Just moved here about six weeks ago with my job.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a minister.”

The man immediately looked down and away like a guilty child. Craig knew this reaction, had seen it often among Yankees or other people who spent little time in church. He couldn’t imagine that a TV news technician knew much about religion except for what he saw on television, and that was enough to give anyone pause. The man said, “Really? Wow, that must be some job. I mean, with the souls and all….”

Craig smiled. “Relax. I left my brimstone in my working pants.”

“No, I mean, it’s… well. Thanks for the info, padre.” He offered his hand. “See ya around.”

“And the Lord will see you,” Craig said in a mock-ominous voice. The man hurried back to the motel without looking over his shoulder to see Craig’s grin.

Alone again, Craig drank the last of his coffee and considered heading home. The street was littered with debris from the parade; there were no real civic institutions, and each person was responsible for keeping up his or her own property. Since half the buildings along the highway were abandoned, the wrappers, plastic bottles, and cigarette butts might stay indefinitely. It made the place look especially pathetic, and even the mountains silhouetted against the fading sunset couldn’t erase the sense that all the life had been leeched from the town.

Craig crumpled his cup and tossed it into the garbage can, then went inside. The girl behind the counter, Lassa Gwinn, was heavyset, dark eyed, and very clearly smitten with the handsome young minister. Just out of high school, with both the distinctive Tufa look and the heritage of her particularly nasty clan (sympathetic locals had warned Craig to avoid the Gwinns whenever they came to town), she seemed to Craig like a buttercup blooming from a manure pile. Because her crush on him was so obvious, he tried to walk the line between being a supportive clergyman and leading the poor girl on.

She hummed a tune and plucked on a crude, homemade autoharp. Since selling him the coffee, she’d pulled back her hair and applied eyeliner. When she saw him she immediately turned red. “Hey, preacher,” she mumbled.

“I told you, Lassa, you can call me Craig.” The melody was a minor-key ditty with one of those inevitable progressions that, even though he’d never heard it before, made it sound instantly familiar. “What song is that?”

She almost answered. Her mouth opened, she took a breath to speak, but then her lips clamped shut and she looked up at him with a mixture of shame and aching regret. Her blush intensified. “No song,” she said. “Just me picking on strings.”

“It sure was pretty.”

“Well, I ain’t no musician,” Lassa said.

“You could’ve fooled me. Can you read music?”

Before she could reply, the front door slammed open, making Craig jump. A tall, lanky young man with a white cowboy hat strode through. He had the belligerent swagger of someone used to provoking fights, and the grin of someone who usually won them. He announced, “The night’s got my name on it, baby.”

“Hey, Dwayne,” Lassa muttered without looking at him.

“How’s things in Needsville tonight, Miss Lassa?” he called as he went to the beer cooler.

“Same as always,” she replied.

The man pushed past Craig with neither apology nor acknowledgment. He was so broad-shouldered, Craig could’ve hidden behind him. He put a boxed twelve-pack on the counter. “And a pack of Marlboros, too,” he said.

Lassa put the autoharp down and nudged a stepstool with her foot so she could reach the cigarettes. “Were you at the parade for your old girlfriend today?”

“Naw, I ain’t into that shit. Bunch of fuckin’ rubberneckers thinkin’ they’re seeing a goddamned hero.” He tore open the cigarette pack, pulled one out, and lit it at once. “She ain’t no hero. ’Scept when she’s on her back,” he added with an abrasive laugh.

Lassa blushed anew at his crudeness. She took his money, gave him his change, and watched him leave. He never even glanced at Craig. He climbed into a jacked-up ten-year-old Ford pickup and roared off, deliberately spinning tires so that loose gravel sprayed onto the store’s concrete patio.

Craig breathed through his nose long enough to get his temper under control, then said casually, “And just who was that?”

“That was Dwayne Gitterman,” Lassa said. “Bronwyn Hyatt’s old boyfriend.”

“No kidding. Didn’t sound like they parted on good terms.”

“She went off to the army without telling him.” Then Lassa seemed to self-censor and added, “Or so I heard. Probably wrong, though.”

“Why wouldn’t she tell him? Was she afraid of him?”

Lassa laughed. “Not hardly. I guess she just didn’t want the damn drama.”

“Seems like an unpleasant young man.”

“He’s an asshole. And he knows it. But he’s too tough for most anyone to do anything about it.”

“Except Bronwyn Hyatt?”

“Yeah, ’scept her, that’s for certain.”

Craig smiled. “That’s the thing about guys who think they’re tough: Eventually they always meet someone tougher. If he didn’t learn his lesson from Bronwyn, there’ll be another on down the line.”

As Dwayne’s taillights dwindled in the night, a Tennessee State Police cruiser pulled up to the store. The trooper got out and gazed after Dwayne as if contemplating pursuit. Then he sauntered, in that distinctive lawman way, into the store.

He was a big square-headed man with short hair and a mustache shot through with gray. His eyes were cold, like an attack dog waiting for someone to cross some unseen line. He gave Craig an appraising look. “Evening.”

Craig nodded. The trooper’s little metal name tag said PAFFORD. “Evening.”

“Don’t believe I’ve seen you in town before. You with them reporters?”

“No, sir,” Craig said, deliberately deferential. He’d met plenty of state troopers, and knew better than to get on their bad side. One minister in Cookeville got a ticket every Sunday for six weeks because he asked a trooper to stop cursing at his children in Walmart. “I’m Reverend Chess, of the Triple Springs Methodist Church.”

Pafford’s expression changed from intimidation to respect. He offered one huge hand. “Pleased to meet you, Reverend. My family and I attend the Methodist Church in Unicorn under Reverend Landers.”

“I know him well,” Craig said. “He’s been a big help to me in getting started.”

“Excuse me,” Pafford said, and turned to Lassa. “Did Dwayne Gitterman seem drunk to you?”

She shook her head. “No, sir, he bought some beer, but I didn’t smell any on him.”

He nodded, although his frustration was evident. “That’s still violating his parole, but I’d never catch him now. Dwayne never should’ve got out of the pen. He’s just marking time until he goes back. Same thing for his girlfriend, that damn Hyatt girl.”

“The war hero?” Craig asked, feigning ignorance.

“War hero.” Pafford snorted. “Wouldn’t surprise me if it turns out that her giving somebody a hand job was the real reason for that crash in Iraq in the first place. She’s from a good family, but not all black sheep are boys. Do you know what they used to call her around here?”

Again Craig innocently shook his head.

“The Bronwynator. Because she tore up everything good and decent anywhere around her. I used to think ol’ Dwayne led her into it, but he’s been pretty good since she’s been gone. Now I reckon it was her prodding him.”

“Well, she doesn’t seem in any condition to be causing any trouble now, judging from what I saw on TV.”

“Ah, them Tufas heal up faster than mud gets on new dress pants. No offense, Lassa, you know what I mean.”

Lassa shrugged. “That’s not really an insult.”

“But mark my words, with Dwayne out of jail and Bronwyn home, it’s just a matter of time before they get together again and start making trouble.”

“What sort of trouble?” Craig asked.

“Dwayne deals pot and drives that damn truck like a maniac. He got sent up for robbing a convenience store a lot like this one. And before she went in the army, that Bronwyn spent more time on her knees than a preacher.” He suddenly turned red along his neck and ears. “I mean, er… no offense, Reverend.”

“None taken,” Craig said, keeping his casual smile.

Pafford leaned close. “These Tufas, though… they’re like some goddamn cult or something, if you ask me. Always shutting up just when they’re about to let something slip. If they start coming to your church, you better watch that your collection plate doesn’t come back lighter than it left.”

“I’ll do that.” His smile was harder than ever to hold.

Pafford excused himself, went back to his car, and drove away. Lassa said, “There are days I wish somebody would just shoot him.”

“Why is that?”

“He pulled over my cousin’s family two years ago. They had a little pointer puppy with them that got out. He shot it. Claimed it was attacking him. With its milk teeth, I guess. Came in here laughing about how my cousins were all crying.”

“Man like that must have a lot of pain inside.”

“No, a man like that puts all his pain on the outside where people can see it. Like he’s singing a song for everyone to hear, even though he knows he can’t carry the tune, and dares someone to tell him to shut up.” Then she began changing the paper in the credit card machine.