The Narrow Gate: A Supernatural Thriller (Solom Book 2) Read online

  “Come on, Mom. You were rocking it that night.”

  “I’m just glad we got through it together. Come on, we’ve got to feed the goats.”

  Jett wished Mom sold all the goats, but because Gordon hadn’t left a will, her attorney advised her to keep all the property together until a civil court adjudicated the case. One of Gordon’s cousins, Charlie Smith, had filed a claim on the property and threatened a civil suit for wrongful death. Katy’s strategy was to just wait him out and allow the passage of time to weaken his position. That meant she couldn’t sell the property, and since she only earned part-time income as an accountant, they couldn’t afford to move or rent another place.

  Like she will ever let me forget that it’s my fault we’re stuck here. Talk about your guilt trips.

  “Can’t we just let the furry little buttheads eat each other?” Jett asked.

  “They’ve mellowed out a lot since then. I’m starting to like them.”

  “Mom!”

  Katy turned around and grinned. Jett suspected her mom was just trying to change the subject, but she was right: the goats were actually kind of neat now that they weren’t trying to drag them down and devour the flesh from their bones. In a way, Jett could even relate to them. Like her, they were quirky, stubborn, and hard to keep penned in.

  “I’m changing out of my good boots first,” Jett said, heading for the stairs. “Don’t want to get any goat poop on them.”

  Mom redecorated after Gordon’s death, and there was little sign of the university professor who obsessed over obscure Appalachian religions. The leather-bound books were packed away in the attic, along with his collection of sacred relics, folk art, and tobacco pipes. Mom had yet to add her own touch, so the interior still screamed “ancient, dusty farmhouse that might be haunted.” Jett was sure that oeuvre had its own category in Better Homes & Gardens.

  Jett didn’t want to think about ghosts, especially the headless ghost of Gordon’s first wife. Jett suspected the spirit may have possessed Mom for a while there, which seemed to have turned her into Stepford Mom, happy being a brainless housewife with a fondness for recipes. As with the sinister, cheese-faced preacher, the ghost seemed to have vanished the night Gordon died.

  Maybe that’s why Mom wants to forget. If you don’t think about it, it’s easy to believe it never happened. Except for Gordon’s grave at Free Will Baptist.

  As she clumped up the stairs, she fished her cell phone out of her jacket pocket. It didn’t get any decent signals on the farm unless she was in the barn loft, but sometimes texts managed to leak through. Bethany Miller, the closest thing to a best friend, invited her to go see a James Bond movie, ending with “DD with Tommy?” That was a joke. Tommy Wilson had once been Jett’s drug dealer, but she’d been off the stuff—and away from Tommy—for more than year. No way were they going on a double date with Bethany and her stud boyfriend Chuck.

  After deleting that one, a message from Dad popped up: “Still on for Monday?”

  Sure, Dad. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.

  Dad had been clean and sober for a year, too, although they didn’t talk much about it. While Jett’s problem was mostly marijuana, Dad sampled the buffet of everything from cocaine to liquor, and his prior drug arrest had drawn the attention of local law enforcement—if not for the vicious gashes Gordon inflicted with his scythe, Dad would likely have been charged with manslaughter if not murder.

  As it was, nobody quite considered him a hero, but he’d started up a construction business and settled in Solom. Jett was kind of glad to have him around, even though Mom insisted there wasn’t a chance in hell the two of them would ever reconcile their divorce.

  Jett entered a message “YOLO. C U THERE.”

  She wasn’t prone to childish Internet shorthand but its use never failed to irk Dad a little, and she always got a giggle when he asked for a translation. Just before entering her room, she glanced at the closet that contained the access door to the attic.

  If you’re around, Rebecca, please stay up there.

  She quickly changed into her skuzzy sneakers and a ratty flannel shirt, making the transition from Goth princess to Ruby Jean Redneck in less than a minute. After Gordon’s death, she’d not felt the need to be so visibly defiant at home, so she’d replaced the band posters on her wall with photo-shopped fantasy landscapes featuring mist-wreathed cliffs, lush vegetation, and spectacular creatures like soaring dragons and winged unicorns. It clashed a little with her adopted fashion style, and she would be horrified if any of her classmates visited, but the contradictions were part of some inner transformation that she only vaguely sensed was taking place.

  She glanced out the window, where sunset limned the mountain ridges with golden lava that was as surreal as anything in her posters. The barn stood in dark silhouette, and beyond it was the little patch of garden she and Mom tended through the summer. No scarecrow, thank God. If the birds wanted to eat, let them.

  She hurried downstairs and Mom was waiting by the door with a flashlight and hardwood walking stick.

  “Let’s do this,” Jett said, taking the walking stick from her. The weapon was a nod to past horrors, but the ritual of “feeding the goats” was fueled by their determination not to let fear run their lives. Mom was convinced that Gordon’s death satisfied whatever evil force the man had summoned. Jett wasn’t so sure, since the legends of the Horseback Preacher and the Scarecrow Man had apparently been floating around Solom long before Jett and Katy had arrived.

  Probably even before the dinosaurs. Solom was just that weird.

  “Maybe we should hire Odus Hampton to do this,” Jett said as they descended the porch steps. “He knows his way around the farm.”

  “You know I can’t afford that. Besides, we’re like one big, happy family now.”

  “It would be a bigger family with Dad around.”

  “That’s not cool, Jett. You can’t live in the past.”

  “There’s no way he was a worse husband than Gordon. Dad risked his life to save us, remember?”

  “It’s complicated. Someday, when you’re grown up, you’ll understand.”

  “Sure,” Jett said, waving the stick to indicate the Smith homestead that Katy inherited. “It all makes perfect sense. Gordon was into some kind of freaky harvest-religion trip and he wanted to chop us up to appease some ancient backwoods god or another. But the Horseback Preacher didn’t want any competition, so he showed up and kicked ass.”

  “You can’t live in the past.”

  “But you can almost die there.”

  Mom opened the gate to the pasture. The barn was a hundred feet away from the barbed-wire fence. Dusk deepened, and the barn stood like a warped, wooden cathedral that demanded rites best performed away from human eyes.

  “Maybe we should feed them before it gets dark, huh?” Jett whispered.

  “Got to keep the family happy, right?”

  “Or else,” Jett said, sliding the barn door open. The tribe of goats bleated in hunger as they stepped inside.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Arvel Ward drew the curtains and turned away from the window.

  “Anything out there, honey?” his wife Betsy asked.

  “Nothing worth talking about.”

  They’d reached that point of marriage where there wasn’t a whole lot of anything worth talking about. That was just fine with Arvel. Talking sometimes stirred up feelings. Betsy might get in the mood for a romantic walk in the moonlight, and that wouldn’t do.

  Nights like this were best spent indoors. Goats would be walking tonight, and him that held sway over them. Other things would be afoot, too. Autumn was a time of bad magic. Solom didn’t need a Halloween midnight to open the door between the living and the dead; the door was already as thin as the gilt-edged pages of a dry Bible, and about as easy to punch through.

  Arvel had first seen Harmon Smith, better known as the Horseback Preacher, on a pig path on the back side of Lost Ridge. Arvel was nine years old and on h
is way back from a Rush Branch fishing hole when he stopped at a gooseberry thicket. It was August, and the berries were fat and pink, with green tiger stripes. Gooseberries gave him the runs, so he knew better than to keep eating them, but they were so tangy sweet he couldn’t stop shoveling them in his mouth, despite the three rainbow trout in the little reed basket he used for a creel.

  Harmon came upon him while Arvel was lying in the shade, his belly swole up like a tick’s. Arvel squinted as the man stood with his back to the sun, the face lost in the wide, worn brim of the rounded hat. Arvel knew who it was right off. The Horseback Preacher walked the hills looking for his horse, and had been looking ever since those other preachers pitched in and murdered him. Arvel couldn’t rightly blame Harmon Smith for doing all the terrible things people said he did. After all, he was buried in three different graves and that wasn’t any way for a soul to find peace, especially for a man of the cloth.

  Legend had it Harmon pitched Johnny Hampton under the water wheel at the old Rominger grist mill, and Johnny’s foot got caught in one of the paddles. Over and over went little Johnny, shouting and blubbering each time his head broke free of the water, grabbing a lungful of air just before he went under again. Took about twenty rounds before he tuckered out and drowned, while the mill hands desperately tried to stop the wheel. His death went down in the church records and the county deed office as an accident, but folks in Solom kept their own secret ledger.

  Arvel’s great-uncle Kenny was galloping down a moonlit road when he came to the covered bridge that used to cross the river near the general store. Everybody liked the nice echo of horseshoes clanging off those wooden runners, so Kenny picked up speed and burst through. Trouble was, a carpenter had been doing repairs on the bridge’s roof that day and left a level line in the rafters. The line slipped during the night until it was about neck-high to a man on a horse. Kenny’s head hadn’t been cut clean through, but there was barely enough connecting meat left to stuff a sausage casing.

  Others had fallen into hay rakes, caught blood poisoning from saw blades, or got bitten by rattlesnakes. Old Willet Miller had been gored by a goat, his intestines yanked out and hanging like noodles on a fork. So Arvel held no expectations of ever getting up and walking away from the encounter that long-ago day. He was just glad for two things: he’d go with a belly full of gooseberries and that he wouldn’t have to clean the stinky, slimy fish before supper.

  “Boy,” Harmon Smith said in greeting, touching the brim of his hat. The voice held no fire and brimstone, not even the thunder of a preacher. It was just plain talk.

  “You’re the Horseback Preacher.” Arvel figured it was no time for fooling around, plus he ought to be on his best behavior. Free Will Baptists earned their way to heaven, and Arvel figured he needed to do some making up for the horehound candy he’d pilfered from the jar down at the general store. Even stealing from a Jew probably counted as a sin in God’s all-seeing eyes.

  Harmon’s head swiveled back and forth, offering just a hint of the man’s angular nose and sharp chin. “Doesn’t seem like I’m doing much riding, does it?”

  Arvel squinted, trying to make out the man’s eyes in that desperate black shadow beneath the hat. It almost seemed like the man had no face at all, only a solid glob of dark. His suit was black and pocked with holes, and he wore a tow-linen shirt, material only poor kids wore in those days. “You looking for your horse?”

  “Why, have you seen one?”

  Arvel made a big show of looking up and down the pig path. “I think I saw one down that way,” he said, and nodded in the direction of the Ward farm.

  Arvel couldn’t have said the man exactly grinned, but the darkness broke in the lower part of the face, revealing a gleam of ochre enamel. “And I suppose you’d be leading me to it, right?”

  “Why, yes, sir.”

  “Respect for elders. That speaks well for you, boy.”

  “I try to do right by people,” Arvel said, as much for God’s ears as for Harmon’s.

  “All right, show me that horse.”

  Arvel struggled to his feet, hitched up the suspenders he’d unhooked while digesting, and headed down the pig path, careful not to walk too fast. The Horseback Preacher followed, scuffed boots knocking dust in the air. Arvel tried to sneak a look back to catch the man’s face now that they were heading into the sun, but somehow the preacher stayed just out of plain view. Arvel carried his cane pole over his shoulder, and wondered idly what would happen if his hook accidentally sunk in the Horseback Preacher’s flesh. Could a dead man feel pain?

  They went through the apple orchard that divided the Smith and Ward properties. The apples were small and tart, still weeks away from ripening, and Arvel’s belly was already gurgling from all the gooseberries. He wondered if he’d have to make a dash behind a tree before they reached the outhouse. Would the Horseback Preacher give him privacy, or stand over him with the wooden door open while he did his business?

  They came out of the trees and the Ward farm was spread out before them. Arvel’s pappy was splitting wood by the house, and his brother Zeke was scattering seed corn for the chickens. Acres of hayfields surrounded them, and the crop garden was rich and green behind the house. There under the bright summer sun, Arvel felt safe.

  “I don’t see a horse,” the Horseback Preacher said.

  “Sure, it’s there in the barn.”

  “You’re lying to me, boy.”

  Arvel’s heart was pumping like water from a spring hose. He threw aside his pole and the basket of fish and broke into a run, hollering and waving his arms. Despite the noise in his own head, the Horseback Preacher’s voice came through clear from the shade of the orchard rows: “Liars go to the devil, boy. Know them by their fruits.”

  Pappy whipped him for raising a ruckus and startling the livestock, and Zeke snickered and teased for days afterward, but Arvel was fine with all that, because he was alive. Still, he knew Harmon Smith never forgot, and the ride never ended. Sooner or later, Arvel would have to own up to his lie.

  He just hoped it wasn’t tonight. Zeke was gone, but that was an accident, could have happened to anyone. Harmon Smith wasn’t the type to wait for old age to claim Arvel. No, violence was his way. Harmon had been taken by violence and violence was what he delivered back to Solom.

  “Talked to Gordon Smith’s widow today,” Betsy said, busy with her knitting.

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I kept my mouth shut. She’s kind of standoffish.”

  “City folks. You know how they are.”

  “She probably thinks Gordon’s death was the end of it,” Betsy said. “Maybe I should have told them. That little girl of hers…”

  “She ain’t so little anymore. Flaunting around like some kind of floozy in all that make-up and them black clothes. Harmon Smith would strike her down in a heartbeat.”

  “Now, Arvel. It ain’t our place to be casting no stones,” Betsy said, coming dangerously close to challenging him. “We got along with the Smith family for years, even when everybody else steered clear of them.”

  “It’s called being neighbors. You don’t have to like it, but you got to live and let live.”

  “Until somebody dies, that is.”

  “Solom’s restless,” Arvel said, checking out the window again. “He might be riding tonight.”

  “Should have warned her,” Betsy said. “That would have been the Christian thing to do.”

  “Well, never hurts to mind your own business for a change.”

  “I did, honey. I minded it real hard.”

  Arvel locked the doors. Katy Logan and her tarted-up daughter would just have to take care of themselves. Neighbors were neighbors, but Solom was Solom.

  And every fresh victim that stood between Arvel and the Horseback Preacher meant a longer wait until his own day of reckoning.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Katy swept the flashlight beam around the barn.

  Even though the sunset still cast
its hellish glow, the interior of the old wooden structure offered little access to its rays. The barn had probably changed little in the decades since the Smiths built it, aside from a little leaning and warping of its planks and beams. The goats freely milled the pastures during the day, browsing on the scrub vegetation along the fence lines, but at night they sought shelter in their pens, waiting for their nightly feed.

  Katy wasn’t quite sure what would happen if the goats weren’t sated, but an uneasy truce seemed preferable to the alternative. So she gave them extra grain and sweetened beet peels at bedtime, scooping the food from large metal trash cans secured in a corn crib. The goats knew the routine, so they crowded around Katy as she crossed the barn to the bin. She swallowed hard and tried to control her breathing. She was pretty sure they could sense fear, much the way a wild predator did.

  Jett pulled an apple core from her pocket and waved it in the air to distract them. “Yo, Alfalfa Breath, over here.”

  Smelling the fruit, the goats immediately left Katy and closed around Jett, who then flung the bait onto the packed mud and loose straw of the barn floor. The goats butted heads and shoved one another in their frantic hunger. The chickens, drowsing in their nesting boxes, stirred and cooed.

  “Go for it, Mom,” Jett said, sitting on the loft steps so she didn’t accidently get bumped by thrashing horns. The herd was down to eleven goats, and they’d ditched the creepy Old Testament names Gordon had given them in favor of movie-star names like Taylor, Channing, and Franco. They used the names interchangeably, though, with the exception of Dirty Harry, the big, bearded buck that was patriarch of the tribe.

  Katy flipped the hasp on the corn crib, tucking the flashlight under her arm as she removed the lid from a trash can and scooped up some grain. Without looking, Katy flung the grain across the barn. The tribe scattered as each goat followed its keen nose to whatever delicate morsel lay nearby. Katy slung two heaping scoops in the long wooden trough and closed the crib.