The Preacher: A Supernatural Thriller (Solom Book 3) Read online

  This was the work of somebody with no respect for the mountains, for the ways of the farm, for life. A person who pulled something like this didn’t belong in the valley. Solom had always taken care of itself, even if outsiders had started sneaking in buying up the land. And Ray was sure that, one way or another, Solom would take care of whatever disrespectful trash had committed this messy deed.

  “Did ‘nakes do that, Daddy?” Bennie called with a lisp.

  “Don’t reckon so,” he said.

  “Maybe it was the ‘carecrow Man.”

  “There ain’t no Scarecrow Man,” Ray said, although he knew better. Gordon Smith had dressed up in rags and tried to kill his new family, but he’d gotten himself killed instead. Then he’d shown up again after his death, stirring up the kind folks of Solom before they’d put paid to his supernatural shenanigans. Some said the Horseback Preacher did the dirty work, but Ray had been there during the showdown. His own cousin Claude had died on that mountain battleground, which was still blackened in spots from the fire they’d set to conceal the mess to outsiders.

  The Scarecrow Man was dead and gone for good.

  The preacher, on the other hand…

  That might be a different story.

  Well, that’s a story that can wait, because this hay don’t cut itself.

  Ray climbed back aboard his tractor, and Bennie’s grappling, fidgety hug was more of a comfort than an irritation.

  CHAPTER THREE

  When the gray Honda sedan pulled into the driveway that evening, Jett pounded down the stairs. In heels.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Katy asked, looking up from the ebook on her iPhone.

  “Out with Hayley.”

  “And boys?”

  Jett stopped on the landing and put her fists on her hips and tilted her head to the side. “Mom.”

  Jett had transitioned from a Goth style to a dark preppie look in the last year, favoring short black skirts and knee stockings, collared button-ups, and just a hint of black eyeliner. She’d quit dying her hair and let it go back to its natural chestnut, a daily reminder that her genetics owed more to Mark than Katy’s redheaded, green-eyed, and freckled bloodline.

  “Somebody’s in the passenger seat.”

  “That’s just Kelvin.”

  “‘Just Kelvin,’ huh? Who’s Kelvin?”

  “He’s in Biology II with us. And don’t make any jokes about that.”

  Jett headed for the door, obviously with no intentions of asking permission to leave. Katy wasn’t a stickler for such control, but she did have one standing rule: “Where will you be and when are you coming home?”

  “We’re just going to hang out.”

  Solom didn’t offer many places to hang out. There was Sarah Jeffers’ general store, which operated much as it did when her grandparents ran it a century before aside from freezer cases and five-dollar packs of cigarettes, and Sue Norwood’s River Ventures outdoors shop, but beyond there, nothing but churches and trails. If they were heading over to the county seat in Titusville, it would be easier to find thrills. Or trouble.

  “No football game tonight?” Katy asked.

  “It’s an open week.”

  Katy pursed her lips in exaggerated consternation. “So does ‘hanging out’ mean you’re a moving target?”

  “What’s with the Guantanamo treatment?” Jett clicked her way to the front door, wobbling slightly, trying to balance.

  “Don’t turn your back on me when I’m speaking to you.” Katy managed to keep her voice steady despite the small flare of irritation. They were both on edge because of the missing goat, but those strange hoof prints had Katy more unsettled than she’d been in months.

  Jett turned, wounded instead of defiant, and Katy’s rage melted away. The little girl was still in there, trying on the trappings of adulthood. And make no mistake, they were definitely a trap.

  How can you make them stop growing up? If science could solve that problem, we’d all be a lot happier.

  Well, overpopulation might become an issue. Except in Solom, where the mortality rate was maintained by unnatural causes.

  Jett came and bent over Katy’s chair, dispensing a soft hug. Katy clung more fiercely than she intended.

  Jett whispered, “Don’t worry, Mom. I’m cool. I’ll watch my back.”

  Katy nodded, not wanting the tears to squeeze through. “I know you will, honey. It’s just…well, you’re my baby girl and I love you so much.”

  “Love you, too.”

  A car horn honked. Jett stepped away and brushed her hair from her face. “I’ll text you.”

  “I need to know where you are at all times. And back by eleven.”

  Jett flashed a grin, revealing the pristine results of expensive orthodontics. “If I don’t turn into a pumpkin,” she called behind her as she went out.

  Once the house was empty, Katy sat for a moment, listening to the settling of the old farmhouse. The creaking wood was like dry bones rubbing against a tombstone. Three generations of Smiths had walked these halls, and sometimes it seems their ghosts had never left. Katy’s occupation of the property almost seemed like an invasion, but she was defiant that she’d earned the deed through the shock and suffering her and Jett had endured at the psychotic hands of Gordon.

  Both before and after he died.

  But there were no ghosts here now, only dust and forgotten memories.

  But that didn’t make solitude any easier to bear inside the old house. Her phone beeped, indicating a text. She thumbed to the message from Jett. “Leaving driveway.”

  Katy smiled and put the phone in her pocket. She went out on the porch to the sinking afternoon sun heading for the western ridges. The slopes were a patchwork of gold, scarlet, and tan, stippled with the shadows of passing clouds. Only a few houses were visible among the trees, custom log homes built by seasonal residents who didn’t know enough to not build on the mountaintops because of the wind. Not that they’d ever spend a winter in Solom.

  She searched the shadows for any sign of Snowball. The other goats milled about the barnyard, grazing the nubs of grass. In a couple of weeks, after the pumpkin harvest, she’d turn them out in the garden so they could munch down any remaining plants and add their copious fertilizer to the soil. The early frosts had already taken the tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers, but the cabbage and other greens were still going strong.

  Katy looked at her fingers. The skin was rough and chapped, her knuckles thick from work. She was far removed from her days in the financial world, where the biggest on-the-job strain was hoisting a coffee cup. While she still had her 401(k) and IRA, she’d nearly burned through her savings. Despite selling most of Gordon’s cattle and a few crops, the farm was nowhere near sustaining itself, even though she had no mortgage. She was lucky to make enough to cover the property taxes.

  Her phone beeped again. She expected a witty comment from Jett, saying they’d just turned onto the highway, but instead it was from Mark. They’d remained civil, which was a miracle after his detour into drug addiction, but she preferred their interaction remain confined to Jett. But given the spookiness of the hoof prints and the house’s foreboding emptiness, she actually was glad to hear from him. The text said: “Got a sec?”

  She dialed his number and he answered instantly. “Hi, Katy, how are you?”

  “Hard day, but no scarecrows have tried to kill us lately.” She was determined to remain cool despite her fragile mood.

  “Heh. Is Jett there?”

  Odd. If he wanted to talk to Jett, he could text or call her. “She’s out with friends. What’s up?”

  “Good. I mean, got a second to talk?”

  Katy sat on the porch and leaned against a support post. “Of course. How are things?”

  “Not bad. Carpentry’s probably going to slow down for the winter, but I’ve lost ten pounds and I’ve only busted my thumb with a hammer three times.”

  “Glad to hear it, Mark. Maybe country life really suits
you.”

  “Like it does you? I’m not farming yet, and I don’t own a single animal, not even a goldfish. But, yeah, I needed a change, and Solom sure is a change.”

  Mark had been visiting Jett in Solom when Gordon attacked them and had been badly injured during the rampage. He’d risked his life to protect them during that horrible night in the cornfield. His recovery at the regional hospital in Titusville had drawn the family closer, even though Katy never considered rekindling their relationship. True, he was a different man while sober, but he’d inflicted too much emotional and psychological damage for her to overcome. Plus addiction was a ticking time bomb, and Jett had already come close to falling into that particular pit.

  “We’ve all changed,” Katy said. “Jett’s practically a woman now.”

  “And she’s ready to start making some of her own big decisions.”

  What was this? Did Mark want to change the custody agreement? Few judges, especially in conservative North Carolina, would take a child from a mother and give it to a criminal drug addict, even after a year of recovery. Despite having full custody, she allowed Mark to pick up Jett every Sunday morning and return her at dinnertime. Maybe that had been a mistake, but she wanted Jett to know her father—especially this new and apparently improved version.

  Katy proceeded with caution. “Yes. What’s this about?”

  “Jett wants to join my church.”

  Katy’s mind reeled. She’d heard Mark mention a Baptist church, and she figured he was attending a few services to help ease his way into the community, since the area was old-school conservative. She still drew narrow-eyed, suspicious looks when she turned down invitations from neighbors to attend church. Of course, she’d attended church with Gordon, but that was more like denominational tourism since Appalachian religion was his area of academic focus. Jett had attended a couple of times.

  “Which one?” she asked. There was such a bewildering assortment of churches in the mountains, and she could almost hear Dead Husband Number Two running down the list: Primitive Baptist, Free Will Baptist, Church of Christ, Missionary Baptist, Pentecostal, a Methodist, and a few churches with vague denominational names like True Light Tabernacle and Holiness Church. A huge, ostentatious Catholic church dominated some prime real estate in Titusville, occupying four well-groomed acres across from the county courthouse, but most of the local churches were humble, weathered structures.

  “Primitive,” Mark answered. “We’ve been going for a couple of months and Jett likes it. It’s family-oriented.”

  Then how come she’s never mentioned it? What kind of family is that? She sorted through her recollection of Gordon’s droning lectures and soliloquies on mountain religion, but they all blurred into one big babble of white noise. “So what do they believe in particular? I mean, besides the usual Southern Baptist beliefs of everybody else going to hell if they don’t see the world their way.”

  “We believe in lay preachers, not those trained in seminaries, and we sing a cappella because the New Testament doesn’t call for musical instruments. The term ‘primitive’ is more in the sense of ‘original’ than in the usual, negative sense, so we stick pretty close to what’s already there in the Bible. We’re pretty conservative, but not judgmental. We don’t have to judge because God’s already done the judging. We believe that God has elected those who will receive grace, but those elected must overcome their resistance.”

  “We? You’re really into this, aren’t you?”

  “I thought you’d be supportive, Katy. This is a gift of my recovery. God was waiting for me all along, but I was blocking Him off with drugs, alcohol, and selfishness.”

  Wow, where was this Mark during their marriage? However, his new enthusiasm almost sounded like he was simply trading addictions—a healthier one, to be sure, but perhaps just as all-consuming. She was a little alarmed that she hadn’t detected the change, but it was subtle even now. “And Jett is buying into this?”

  “She wants to be baptized and become a member,” Mark said.

  “Whoa, that’s moving kind of fast, isn’t it?”

  “It’s her choice. I never forced her, although I did encourage her. She saw how much difference it’s made in my life and decided it was a good thing for her, too.”

  “Is it a boy?”

  Mark hesitated. “What’s that?”

  “Some cute guy there she has a crush on?” Which is another thing she wouldn’t mention.

  “There are a couple of young men who attend, but I don’t think they’re Jett’s type. Not that I really know what type that is, but these are country boys.”

  Katy looked out at the goats, animals that had been turned wild and carnivorous by Harmon Smith, the legendary Horseback Preacher. Did they seem more agitated than usual? Was Snowball’s disappearance connected to those mysterious hoof prints? Maybe Solom’s supernatural past existed in the past, present, and future, since Solom itself seemed to operate beyond the boundaries of time.

  Given all they’d been through, was it really so strange Jett sought a spiritual path?

  “When is this happening?” she asked.

  “Sunday.”

  Two days from now. Katy swallowed, her heart accelerating with a nameless fear. She thought her relationship with Jett was solid and open, but apparently her daughter was carrying around a new secret. Katy didn’t want to be left out, or to exhibit to Mark a possible lapse in parenting. “If she’s set on it, I’d like to be there to support her. If I’m welcome.”

  “Door’s always open at our church.”

  “Okay, great. What time?”

  “The creek’s right by the church on Rush Branch Road. Be there at dawn Sunday for a new beginning.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Rush Branch Primitive Baptist Church was a one-room wooden building that sat on a crooked row of concrete blocks. The white paint had curled away in places, and the thickness of the chips showed the age of the church. The grounds were well-tended, and the waterway that gave the church its name was barely twenty feet from the front door. A deep pool at the base of a short waterfall made for convenient dipping when baptisms were performed.

  David Tester ran a weed-eater around the wooden steps. Like most rural mountain preachers, he had a real job during the week. David owned a landscaping business, which never would’ve made it if not for the seasonal homeowners who had neither the time nor inclination to do their own yard work. David saw it as a sign from the Lord that outsiders belonged in Solom. Since the Primitives believed in predestination, David didn’t have to worry about converting anyone. Their names were either listed in the Big Book or they weren’t, simple as that.

  Gordon Smith, the crazy college professor who’d tried to kill his family, once asked him why his denomination still held services when there seemed to be no ultimate goal. To David, the goal was to live right and to get along, and regular church services couldn’t hurt. Besides, this was a community church, and although families could now pile up in a car and drive to one of the fancy churches in Windshake or Titusville, most of the locals preferred to go to the church where they had been raised. The congregation was aging, but that was true of all the old Baptist sub-denominations. Seemed the kids didn’t take to the Bible the way they used to, and David could hardly blame them.

  The weed-eater’s thick fishing line plowed through the ragweed and saw briars that sprouted along the building’s foundation. The buzz of the gas-powered engine echoed over the hillside and a veil of blue smoke lifted into the cloudless sky. The rotating line hit gravel and a rock spun free, bouncing off the plank siding of the church. Shredded vegetation stuck to the shins of David’s jeans.

  David was about to trim around the old cemetery stones when he noticed a small dark hole in the ground by the first grave. He killed the engine and his ears rang in the sudden silence. He knelt by the hole. The grave was that of Harmon Smith, a horseback preacher from the 1800s. Horseback preachers traveled from community to community in all kinds of weather, s
taying with a host family for a week or two at a time. David admired the sacrifice of such men of God, though Smith had been a little scattershot in his beliefs. He preached to all denominations and, according to legend, had managed to fit his message to each without ever slipping up by trying to save a Primitive or letting a woman wash a man’s feet during the annual Old Regular Baptist foot-washing ceremonies. Then he’d gotten what the old folks called “a mite touched” and had become devoted to the idea of sacrifice, even breeding his own livestock to serve as Old Testament-style offerings.

  The grave hole was probably made by a mouse. David looked around for a rock so he could plug it. A mouse’s den probably had a back door, but David didn’t think it was proper for a creature to be crawling all around in the preacher’s bones. Harmon Smith had earned his rest, despite what some said.

  David went to the parking lot and found a fist-sized chunk of granite. He tossed it up, enjoying its weight. David had been a pitcher at Titusville High School and still played church league softball. He was approaching the grave again when he saw the twitch of a dark tail as it disappeared down the hole. Too big to be a mouse. And it was scaly.

  Sort of like a...

  David told himself that no snake would burrow into the ground on such a sunny day. It would be on a rock somewhere, absorbing the heat. David ran across snakes all the time in his landscaping work. They were mostly harmless, though copperheads and rattlers lived in these mountains and water moccasins could be found along the rivers and streams. David held the rock by his ear as he approached, ready to hurl it if a serpent’s head poked out of the hole.

  A truck passed on the highway, slowed, and honked. David lifted his left hand in greeting without taking his gaze from the hole. The truck pulled into the parking lot. David knew how silly he looked, standing in the little cemetery with its worn gray stones, holding a rock like some kid who was afraid of ghosts.