3

The clock draws out the seconds, the slow sweep of the narrow black minute hand unable to clear the face of a decade’s worth of dust. When at last it reaches eleven, with no sign among us patrons that any time has passed at all, there comes the sound of shoes crunching gravel.

Everyone tries real hard not to watch the door, but there’s tension in the air so tight you could hang your washing off it.

Reverend Hill enters, and with him comes the rain, and not the spatters Cadaver announced, but a full-on tacks-poured-on-a-metal-roof downpour. Bastard couldn’t have timed it better, though if it inspires an impromptu sermon from him, he’ll have trouble getting anyone to believe God is responsible, no more than we’d buy that the silvery threads of rain over his shoulder are strings leading to the hand of a divine puppeteer.

For him, the door groans as he shuts out the storm.

He doesn’t pause to regard each of us in turn like any other man would, gauging the company he has to keep, or counting the sinners. Instead, that confident stride carries his lean black-clad self right on up to the bar, where Gracie’s stopped cleaning and watches him much the same way the kid at the next table is watching me. Except, of course, Kyle’s not looking at me right now. All eyes are on the holy man.

The town of Milestone has rotten luck, much like the people who call it home, though to be fair, over time we may have grown too fond of blaming the things we bring upon ourselves on chance, or fate. It’s more likely that bad people, or folks with more to hide than their own towns can tolerate gravitate here, where no one asks questions and they carry their opinion of you in their eyes, never on their tongues.

When Reverend Hill came to town, filling a vacancy that had been there for three years, he brought with him the hope that spiritual guidance might chase away the dark clouds that have hung over the people of Milestone since Reverend Lewis used his belt, a rickety old chair, and a low beam in his bedroom to hasten his rendezvous with his maker.

But in keeping with the town’s history of misfortune–or whatever you want to call it–what Hill brought to Milestone wasn’t hope, but fear.

“Rum, child,” he tells Gracie, and leans against the counter right next to Cobb. He makes no attempt to conceal his disgust for the naked man. Hill has beady eyes, too focused, self-righteous, and intense, to bother with color of any determinate hue. I’m convinced those eyes can see through walls, which may explain why no one in Milestone goes to confession anymore. He has eyebrows a woman would kill for, plucked and arched like chapel naves, a long thin nose that spreads out at the end to allow him the required amount of air with which to fuel his bluster, and a thin pale-lipped mouth that sits like a scar above a pointed chin. At a guess I’d say he’s about sixty, but his age seems to change with his mood. The dim light shuns his greased back hair, which is artificially black. Everything about the guy is artificial, as we discovered not long after he came to town.

Some folks think he’s the devil.

I don’t, but I’m sure they’ve met.

“Evenin’, Reverend,” Cobb says, without looking at the man. Cobb’s afraid of Hill. We all are, but the nudist’s the only one who greets him.

“What do the young children of Milestone think when they see you walking the streets with your tool of sin flapping in front of their faces, Cobb?” the Reverend asks, louder than is necessary. “Immodesty is a flagstone on the path to Hell, or were you operating under the false assumption that nakedness is next to Godliness? Think your “gift” gives you the freedom to disregard common decency?”

Cobb turns pink all over, and doesn’t reply.

The Reverend grins. His large piano key teeth gleam. Gracie sets his drink down in front of him. She doesn’t wait for payment.

I’m alarmed to find myself choked up, gut jiggling, trying to contain a laugh. “Tool of sin” is bad, even for Hill. Sure, he makes my skin crawl every time I see him, but even though I know there’s nothing funny about this situation, nothing funny about what goes down here in Milestone’s only functioning bar at this same time every Saturday night. As it turns out, the humor must already have been on my face, because those coal-dark eyes of his move from Cobb’s pink mass to me, and his grin drops as if someone smacked him across the face.

“Something funny, Tom?”

“Nope.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yep.”

“Your smile says different.”

“Who can trust a smile these days, Reverend? I sure don’t trust yours.”

That’s enough to give him his grin back. He scoops his rum off the counter and saunters over to my table with all the confidence of a man who enjoys his work, who’s going to enjoy knocking the town sheriff down a few pegs. He drags back the empty chair opposite me, sits, and studies me for a second. I feel like carrion being appraised by a vulture.

His face is only a shade darker than the little rectangle of white at his collar.

“Tell me something, Tom.”

“Shoot.”

At this, Hill looks over his shoulder, to where the kid is still sweating, but I’m willing to bet that sweat’s turned cold now. The Reverend turns back and winks. “Better not say that too loud. Someone might take you up on it.”

“He’s confused,” I tell him, and take a sip of my whiskey. Beer’s a pleasant drink, and requires patience; whiskey’s a straight shot to the brain, and I need that now if I’m going to act tough in front of the only man in Milestone who scares me. “He should be gunning for you.”

Thunder rattles the rafters; the smoked glass flickers with light, illuminating the rain pebbled across its surface.

“Maybe so,” the Reverend says, “But he knows better than to shoot a man of the cloth. He’s a God-fearing soul. He wants vengeance without damnation.”

“Bit late for that isn’t it?”

His lips crease in amusement. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

I decide not to humor him. “Who is it tonight?”

Cadaver has stopped counting his pennies.

“Straight to it, eh? I like that.”

“Cut the bullshit.”

He clucks his tongue. “Profanity. The mark of an ignorant man.”

I wish that were true. I’d love to be ignorant, sitting here with my drink, trading barbs with a priest who may or may not be the devil himself. At least then I wouldn’t see what’s coming.

“So who’s driving?” I ask, and everyone but Wintry turns to look. He’s watching the mirror.

The Reverend reaches into his pocket and tosses a pair of car keys on the table between us. “You are,” he says, and every hard-earned ounce of my defiance is obliterated. He might as well have shoved a grenade down my throat and locked me in iron skin. I release a breath that shudders at the end. No one in the bar sighs their relief but I see shoulders relax, just a little, and hear the clink of Cadaver’s pennies as he goes back to counting.

On the table, there’s a ring of six keys. Three of them are for the prefabricated hut that passes as my office. Two are for the front and back doors of the prefabricated hut that passes as my house. The last one’s for my truck, and the keys have fallen so that one is sticking straight up, toward the Reverend. It’s not a coincidence.

***

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