Blood on the Leaves Part 2

Reynolds wanted to disappear but couldn't help being captivated by the younger Matheson's curious smile.

"Now we not only have pressure on the outside, but we also have pressure from the inside. Next election, I say we eliminate that word deputy from Brother Reynolds's t.i.tle and just go ahead and make him district attorney!"

The congregation roared approval. Reynolds reluctantly rose and accepted their adulation. He sat back down and graciously smiled throughout the next half hour of praise and commendation. He listened to every other word, then every other sentence. After fifteen minutes, he filtered only bits and pieces of the pastor's speech, just enough to nod at the appropriate places. He nodded agreement at "the importance of character," again at "courage," and twice more at "the power of faith." Mercifully, the sermon ended before he sustained permanent neck damage.

At the rear of the church Reynolds continued to accept expressions of heartfelt grat.i.tude from members of the congregation, all of whom promised to vote for him the next time. He thought he'd shaken his last hand and endured his final backslap when he felt the presence of his pastor.

The Reverend Matheson had taken off his robes but still walked with the air of royalty. "I meant what I said in there. You can count on me to support your candidacy next year. If we'd put together a better coalition the last election, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"I appreciate that, Reverend, but I didn't deserve any special recognition today. The police just wanted to talk with Martin. He'd already been released before I got involved."

The two men approached the entryway and stood near the huge mahogany doors lavishly decorated with religiously inspired hand-carvings.

"Forty years as an activist has taught me to take victories wherever you find them." The pastor touched Reynolds on the shoulder in a secret pact. "If none exists, you better make up one. Just be d.a.m.n sure it's useful and will attract a lot of attention."

Reynolds respected this man who'd never cashed in his moral authority by pimping for the camera. The Reverend Matheson fought for causes that stood no chance of being covered by the media or supported by the powers that be. He did so based solely on the principle that it was the right thing to do. His appreciation, even when it wasn't deserved, meant a great deal.

"James, I'm grateful to you. I know you and my son may not always see eye to eye on certain matters."

Before Reynolds could downplay any difficulties, real or perceived, the pastor motioned toward his son. "There he is now. I'm sure he'd like to thank you himself."

"That's not necessa-" Reynolds couldn't avoid this gracefully. Matheson joined them just as his father found a convenient reason to leave.

"I'll go tend to the new garden we're planting out back. I'd planned to have a little patch of cotton for old times' sake, but I'd forgotten how ugly a plant that was." He placed his arm around his son's shoulder. "Martin, I think you and James ought to share a moment of prayer-together." The Reverend Matheson descended the church steps, leaving the two men alone.

Reynolds twiddled his jacket and tried to do something useful with his hands.

"I hope you didn't ruin your standing in the DA's office on my account," said Matheson.

Reynolds squelched the urge to slap the smirk off the professor's face. "Your father asked me to help. It was the least I could do."

"My father does have a way of getting the most out of his congregation."

"I hope our fine police department treated you with the respect you deserved," replied Reynolds. "If you don't mind my asking, what did they want from you?"

"They wanted to know about my students. If I thought any might be capable of violence. I think what they really wanted was for me to cancel the course."

"Given the circ.u.mstances, that might not be a bad idea."

"Bad or good are ambiguous concepts in the secular world-not unlike villain or hero. It all depends on who pays the historians." The two men proceeded down the steps into the sunlight.

"This thing you're doing at the college . . ."

"By *thing' I take it you mean education?" Matheson walked directly alongside Reynolds. They reached the bottom of the stairs. Reynolds searched for solid ground.

"Two men on your list are dead and two others are missing. How long are you going to keep this up?"

"Until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream." Matheson dropped the sarcasm, but it didn't fall too far. "I don't normally quote Dr. King or the Scriptures, but I've always liked that pa.s.sage. It has a refres.h.i.+ng ring to it."

Reynolds felt a surge of animosity, but he kept it in check. "Your course may have contributed to murder. Doesn't that affect you?"

"Quite deeply. A teacher never knows how much he's inspired his students, or the positive difference he might've made in their lives. Changing people for the better is truly one of the more profoundly rewarding aspects of the profession."

"Even if you've inspired one of your students to become a murderer?" Reynolds was looking to coax from Matheson some acknowledgment of regret, no matter how grudging.

"I don't believe any of them are involved, but if I'm wrong, it might qualify for extra credit."

Reynolds was contemplating Matheson's apparent moral indifference when the professor suddenly changed his manner and tone.

"I'm sorry; I didn't mean to sound so cavalier." Matheson lightly touched his lower lip. "It's been a rather disturbing week, and I guess my defense mechanisms have kicked in." He cleared his throat. "Look, I'm sure you want to get back to your family, so thanks again for coming to my defense with your boss. If I can ever vouch for you, please let me know."

Before any trained reflex could force Reynolds to extend his hand, Matheson walked away. He'd completed a few strides when he suddenly turned back, allowing the sun to s.h.i.+ne directly over his shoulders. It made him look taller than his impressive six-foot-two frame.

"Oh, James?" he said with remarkable warmth and sincerity. "Do give my love to Cheryl. I'm disappointed she wasn't here to share our celebration." He left with a smile too charming to be spontaneous.

CHAPTER 5.

A HALF-CRAZED BLACK man stumbled to the marsh, his face made numb from the slas.h.i.+ng attacks of wild brush and thick branches. He flayed his arms at the darkness and searched for the five-year-old boy, who could no longer distinguish the night sounds attacking his ears. The confusion caused the child to hear more than one voice. He thought about pleading with the man to let him live, but what if the thing chasing him was a ghost who wouldn't listen to reason? The boy saw a cross, bright, dangling from the heavens. Surely this was a sign of deliverance. If he could pray before it, his life would be spared. The man's breathing grew louder than usual. His fingers were longer and covered in more blood, appearing to have a life of their own. If only those fingers could speak, history might be revealed. Instead, they silently grabbed the child, who released a scream, ensuring innocence would be forevermore lost.

Reynolds awoke from the nightmare that had never before been so vivid. The room felt smaller and dangerous, every object a potential weapon. He sat up in the bed, wanting to know why the terrifying image invaded his thoughts again.

His mother used to blame it on the chocolate he ate. "Shouldn't eat candy before you go to bed," she'd warn. He'd stopped eating sweets for a whole year. He lost the desire for chocolate long before he relinquished the vision of b.l.o.o.d.y fingers and a sparkling cross.

The clock's red digital numbers flickered 3:15, casting a mellow glow on the small wedding picture. He needed a.s.surance of his safety and found it in the warmth of his wife's body. For seventeen years she'd provided him a permanent refuge, a place to escape the evil spirits that would have overtaken him by now if not for her protection.

He watched her breathe, touched her satin gown, and gently slid it down a few precious inches, exposing her shoulder then part of her breast. The sight of her bare skin used to drive him mad. Now it maintained his sanity. That was how he'd defined love: an anchor that kept you a proper distance from danger yet still provided the freedom to soar.

This anchor held him in place long enough to acquire a home, a son and daughter, a parakeet that chirped too much, a canary that sang too little, and a dog that barked at the wrong time-in other words, heaven. But the past threatened to ruin his happy world. He couldn't be completely certain if it was his past or someone else's. His grandfather used to say, "Once you sleep with ugly, there's no tellin' when or where it will show up in the genes. But you can bet your now-shared inheritance that sooner or later it will arrive and speak your name." Whatever the cause of the nightmare, it called out to him. It would continue until he gave the response that would send it away once and for all.

Somehow he managed to leave the security of his wife's bedside and found himself rummaging through the kitchen cabinet to locate the one bottle of bourbon he vowed never to throw away. It represented his private test, his poison elixir. He kept it out of sight but always within reach. It served to challenge his internal fort.i.tude as well as the promise he'd made to himself. He would never become his father and find courage at the bottom of a bottle.

He unscrewed the top and poured some liquor into a paper cup. He swirled it around and searched for any residue that might cling to the side of the container, providing him with an alcohol-etched road map or sorcerer's vision of the future. Unlike the tossing of chicken bones or the reading of palms, this ancestral potion left behind no clues. He ceased the experiment and creased the cup, returning the useless liquid to its genie's prison. It would have to wait for the time when its power could be called upon by more accommodating, if not desperate, hands.

He walked quietly down the hallway, past two walls filled with family pictures arranged and maintained by his wife. He'd never believed in such sentimental displays, choosing instead to keep his treasures and important memories in his heart, where he'd visit without notice or fear of interruption. He cracked open the door of his daughter's bedroom and peeked inside, finding Angela sound asleep, protected by her favorite dolls. They were relaxing on a quilt blanket, which always managed to stay in place no matter how restless her sleep. At eleven going on thirty-four, she'd break some man's heart one day, he knew, because, as her mother constantly reminded her, she'd broken everything else.

He closed the door and took a few steps to Christopher's room. He walked immediately to the bed and picked up the blanket that had fallen to the floor. He untwisted his son's legs, which, as usual, had managed to become entwined in the sheets. He carefully straightened his child's left arm, half of which appeared mangled behind the headboard, then freed the other half, buried underneath the pillow. This was accomplished without either waking up the nine-year-old or dislocating the boy's shoulder.

He neatly placed the top sheet over his son, then followed with the blanket, which he folded back halfway. He crossed to the window and adjusted the drapes, allowing air and moonlight into the room. By the time he turned around, his son had once again knocked the blanket onto the floor. Reynolds left it there, believing some idiosyncrasies should be respected.

He'd tried to convince his wife of that notion to no avail. She also obstinately disagreed with him regarding theories of discipline; she believed in it, while he didn't. She subscribed to the primitive adage that saying no once in a while produced healthier children. Reynolds believed in giving them everything they wanted, whenever they wanted it. He saw no reason to deny their requests. They'd have plenty of occasions to be disappointed when they were adults.

It remained one of the few things they fought about. She called him a "pushover." He claimed she exercised control for the sake of exercising control. She felt moderation was good. He argued excess was better. She wanted to hold back. He sought to give his children what he never had: a father unafraid to say yes.

He kissed Christopher on the cheek and left wis.h.i.+ng his son better dreams than the one that forced him to walk the corridors of his home at four A.M., chasing away ghosts. His mission took him to the back porch, where he walked past the chairs with the soft round cus.h.i.+ons and sat on the wooden steps. There was something rea.s.suring about resting on a surface that offered the option of moving up or down.

This was his absolutely favorite s.p.a.ce in the house, maybe in the world. A porch epitomized the midpoint between home and everything else-the place where one step in either direction took you closer or farther away from the people you most loved. He'd made a pledge with each member of his family that no one ever violated: Never, under any circ.u.mstances, were arguments permissible on this patch of neutral territory. Conflicts could be resolved or continued inside the house or outside, near some mutually agreed-upon area of the yard. The porch, though, stayed off limits to any hostility. This part of their home they designated "the womb." You could enter or exit with impunity. And Reynolds made an interesting discovery: Once you created a free zone devoid of disagreement, differences didn't last very long anywhere else.

He listened to the sounds just beyond the darkness and inhaled the night air. The mingled scents of freshly mowed gra.s.s, bittersweet lilac, and vine-ripened tomatoes soothed him. He had once thought of himself as a city boy who would buy his vegetables wrapped in cellophane, from an all-night supermarket that served cappuccino and fresh croissants. Then he put his hands into the earth and gave birth to a garden. Shortly thereafter, he quit purchasing his drinks from an imported machine in exchange for watching his children compete for the right to make him hot cocoa. Well, usually hot, sometimes boiling, occasionally thick-but it always, always caused him to smile. Six heaping tablespoons of anything would do that, especially when the main ingredient was love.

He watched the moon disappear behind a cloud just as the porch light came on. "You usually do this when the jury's out." Cheryl had a comforting voice, but it didn't eliminate his need to be held. She took a seat next to him and stroked his arm.

He smiled. "Maybe I'm waiting for you to reach a verdict on Matheson."

"I don't see anything wrong in what's he doing," she said. "I think he should teach the course. It's the only way this place will ever heal."

"Murder's a strange method of curing a disease," he said.

"It's not his fault if some nutcase took the information and went off the deep end. It's like blaming violence on television."

"You blame violence on television all the time."

"We aren't having that discussion now, so I'm not obligated to be consistent." She avoided his look of disbelief.

"How much do you know about him?"

"What everybody else knows. He's handsome. Intelligent. Pa.s.sionate. Successful. Did I say handsome?" she teased.

"He sent his regards."

"Really?" she said with interest.

"Actually, it was his love."

"How considerate." Her voice sounded overly pleased.

"Now I know why I've never liked him." He looked away from her and sulked.

She put her arm around his waist. "You don't get along because he's too much like you."

"I prosecute people who break the law. He encourages folks to commit murder."

"He couldn't possibly want that. His father's preached against violence his entire life."

"His father's not teaching the course." He studied her for a moment, then searched for the moon.

"Can he get into trouble for what he's doing?" she asked.

"Not as much as the people on his list." He hoped the moon wouldn't fade quite yet.

She lightly placed her hand on his knee. "What are you going to do?"

"He agreed to supply us with a complete list of the names he's going to reveal in the remainder of the course. We'll notify the people on it along with the local authorities."

"You don't think he's personally involved, do you? With the murders, I mean."

"Not even Vanzant thinks that. But Matheson's motivated somebody to take justice into their own hands." He watched the moon peek through one cloud, then hide behind another.

"You called it *justice.'" She leaned against him and closed her eyes. "You may not be as different from Martin as you think."

CHAPTER 6.

SHERMAN BANKS HAD sat in the same spot, under the same tree, in between the same bushes, every Tuesday and Friday since hunting season began. But after experiencing a series of intuitions that made the toes on both feet tingle then curl, he'd become absolutely convinced that this night his patience would be rewarded. When he returned home this evening, he'd celebrate his sixty-third year by eating a devil's-food birthday cake frosted with mocha icing, smoking a hand-rolled cigar with tobacco meticulously soaked in brandy and black licorice, and cooking fresh venison acquired through his unyielding belief in the power of duplicity.

He lifted his rifle with the same respect he'd give the Holy Grail filled with the blood of his Lord and Savior. He'd never been a deeply religious man, but he prayed on a few special occasions: when he gambled, or hunted, or needed money to buy a young girl's affection during those fortunate times when his wife trusted him enough to visit overnight at her sister's.

He peered down the long barrel of his weapon and felt his manhood stiffen. He gently maneuvered the scope against his eye socket with the precision of a surgeon. He carefully focused on the six-point buck in his crosshairs. d.a.m.n, what a beautiful animal, he thought, then decided out of respect to wait until it finished drinking from the stream.

Sherman had been baptized in that water. He caught his first trout there before he could spell fish, not that he'd necessarily won any spelling contests in the years to follow. He dropped out of school halfway through the sixth grade. That made him two years more educated than his daddy, the wisest man he'd ever known. He believed in education, just didn't see the need for it to take place in a single cla.s.sroom over such an extended period of time.

His trigger finger shook mildly, a sign that age had affected his nerves. The sweat from his forehead dripped onto the stock of the rifle, near the spot where he'd carved his son's initials. He'd placed them there on the day the child was born, just below the date of the first deer he'd ever killed. His wife objected to the ritual, but he dismissed her with the question: "What does a woman know about the things that make a man proud?"

The deer quenched its thirst. Its head rose slowly until its face perfectly positioned itself within the center of the gla.s.s ring that would first magnify then obliterate its life. If the lens had belonged to a camera rather than a rifle scope, the shot about to be taken would preserve genuine beauty rather than destroy it. But Sherman wasn't a photographer in search of a memory to frame. He took pride in being a hunter and needed an event to brag about.

He'd exaggerate the deer's size and its weight and the angle of the shot. Most important, in the version he'd retell over drinks and a friendly card game, he'd swear the animal had galloped at full speed just before he cut it down, his expert marksmans.h.i.+p surmounting near-impossible odds. Only he and the deer would know the truth: that in an otherwise tranquil night, it had posed innocently for its own destruction.

The gunshot was louder than Sherman's rapidly beating heart. Louder than the deer's sickening thump or the noise of its hind legs kicking and thras.h.i.+ng in the dirt to no avail. Louder than the escaping flight of terrified birds. And louder than the footsteps that followed closely behind.

Sherman heard nothing as he arose from his hiding place and licked his lower lip. There'd never be a feeling greater than this: He'd killed again, taken yet another life. On a battlefield this made him a hero; out here in the wilderness, it made him a G.o.d. He stepped forward and allowed himself the satisfaction of a smile-but it quickly turned to a grimace when a strand of barbed wire sliced into his neck. Unable to breathe, he dropped his rifle and grasped furiously at the gloved hands that worked to tighten the metal noose. As his throat leaked thick blood, he struggled to catch a glimpse of the stranger but saw only the fallen deer, twitching horribly near the water's edge.

He thought of his baptism and how he'd been afraid he might drown. He thought of his youth and how it had deserted him without warning. He thought of the birthday cake and how he'd miss the celebration; the cigar and how it would remain unlit; the deer and how he'd never taste the fruit of his labor. He thought of the Scriptures and how you must reap what you sow. And then, as he'd done on other hunts, he thought of the black boy he'd choked to death on a night not unlike this one. How, he marveled, after all these years, had that boy managed to return from the grave to avenge his murder?

Sherman fought in vain to see the face he believed he'd buried in the abyss. He'd confront his attacker if it was the last thing he did. He fell to his knees and violently threw back his head, knowing full well the action would further expose his neck. This was his only hope of discovering the truth.

He looked at the sky overhead, dark and uninviting. He observed the trees standing in line, their branches reaching out anxiously, seemingly awaiting the chance to strangle him, too. He thrust his arms upward and searched for the face that would have ended the torment and solved the mystery. He managed to clutch it between his hands and, with his final bit of strength, forced the face inches from his own, as it had been on so many drunken, haunted nights before. He recognized the black skin and thought the eyes appeared familiar: unrepentant, unforgiving, but this time, unharmed. Without the blood and terror he'd vividly remembered, it was impossible to identify this face as that of the boy he'd condemned to death.

In the distance he saw the deer, now motionless, no longer suffering. The animal's death made him think once again about the black boy's quiet plea to live. He tried to envision what the boy might have become if fate hadn't intervened. Foolishly he searched his memory in an effort to recall the boy's name, then remembered he never knew it. He slumped to the ground. As death overtook Sherman's body, he realized too late that in his quest to discover who-or what-was exacting vengeance, he'd forgotten to pray.

The gloved hands relaxed their grip, and the coiled wire unraveled, leaving behind a ghastly red necklace deeply engraved around Sherman's swollen pink neck. His lifeless eyes remained open but would never see this or any future sunrise. Nor would he hear the twigs that crackled underneath the feet of the retreating stranger, who may not have been a ghost but had left one behind.

Thirsty, the stranger walked toward the stream and watched the moonlight distort his image s.h.i.+mmering across the water's surface. He took a drink and created a series of ever-expanding ripples, which allowed him to reevaluate his reflection. No. It wasn't the light that had distorted him but the journey he'd chosen-a journey where he hoped both saints and sinners would pa.s.s each other, judging not lest they be judged.

CHAPTER 7.