Page 1 of Small Town Beast 2: Saverin’s Duet (Sins of the South)
ONE
ABSALOM
If the man stretched his neck another inch it might have popped right off his shoulders. He reminded Absalom of a red-bellied cooter he’d seen while fishing at New River. Although the creature standing at the door made a somewhat less impressive specimen.
“Can I help you?”
The man stared up, and up , at Absalom Greentree, his jaw getting slacker with every inch his eyes traversed. “Lord but you’re a big’un. You looked much smaller from a distance.”
“Most people do.”
“What did they feed you, boy?”
“Cornbread,” said Absalom. “And I ain’t no boy.”
“No sir. That you are not ,” the man agreed.
Absalom stood at six foot five inches tall, with shoulders spanning nearly the entire width of the narrow frame.
The man doing his best to stare around that wall of muscle might have taken a hint from two more noticeable features of Absalom Greentree: a hostile blue glare and the 92X Beretta at his hip.
But the fellow remained stubbornly in place, squinting through the narrow gap between Absalom and the frame.
He certainly hadn’t climbed all those steps just to get a look at muscles and a pair of pale blue eyes.
There was something far more interesting inside of that room to the man straining his neck for a peek.
It was a truth universally acknowledged that the persistence of mountain folk rivaled only their love of other people’s business.
“I didn’t come here to mind your business,” said the intruder, shuffling right, then left, as his eyes hunted for an opening.
“And yet,” said Absalom.
“The boys downstairs said you were up here plannin’ for the war tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
“Shouldn’t you have someone guardin’ this door? Roman might send his black-hats up thon stairs to give you a cold bullet.”
“I can handle myself,” came the reply.
“ Well, I came to tell you that you can count on us Mulgrews to join the fray tomorrow.” The man puffed out his chest. Now he wasn’t so much turtle as turkey.
“It’s time somebody put a stop to all this race-mixing and carryin’ on and just get down to growing marijuana nice and proper like we used to. ”
There was a pause; an opportunity for Absalom to give the man a proverbial (or literal) boot in the ass.
But the tall blond leader of the Green Tree clan was a politician first. “I’m very happy to hear that,” Absalom said to Mulgrew, or whatever his name was, offering his hand.
“Your support is appreciated. It will take a lot to bring the Harvest back to what it was but with everybody doing their part we can make it happen.” He patted the man on the shoulder, driving the fellow back a small step.
“If you’re riding with us tomorrow you can talk to Rory downstairs.
He’ll sort you out on the details. Good night, friend. ”
“We can fuck them, but we ain’t have to marry them,” the man burst out as Absalom began to shut the door.
Absalom said, “Pardon?”
Mulgrew threw up his hands. “It’s the marrying and cavortin’ around in public I have a problem with. I’m pleased as punch you said you were gonna put a stop to the race-mixing, honest to God.”
Absalom’s voice hardened. “When did I say that?”
Mulgrew shook his head. “My sister married one, believe it or not, and if I had my way I’d boil the fucker in grease.
I went to that party she was havin’ for the Fourth, and I start speakin’ my mind as is my inalienable constitutional right, and what should happen but this darkie bastard popped me right in the clackers.
Then come all his friends out of the woodwork and I saw what time it was; had to run for my life and Sis was no help at all.
But if I hadn’t forgot my gun at church it would have been a different story I’d be telling here today, yes sir. ”
Absalom stared down at him, eyes narrowed.
The turkey inflated some more. “Now, I don’t have a problem with it necessarily sir, ‘cause every man has his needs and we’ve all been curious to dip our rods in different rivers, but we all know the blood in Florin’s being thinned enough as it is.
If we let this mixing and mingling continue we won’t have a culture left. ”
“Abi?” called a fluted, female voice from inside the room. “Can you get this window? It’s letting in bugs and it won’t stay closed.”
Mulgrew’s eyes widened, and Absalom backed into the room and shut the door firmly in his face, but not before the nosy scrap saw everything. Ten minutes later, the taproom downstairs had the rumor confirmed that Absalom had an almost-naked girl up there— a girl who was most definitely not his wife.
And nor was she white , neither.
Scandal!
Absalom shut the door and crossed the room to help Lorrie with the window.
“Thank God,” she said. “I thought he would never leave.”
“This is exactly why I didn’t want you coming here. What did I tell you?”
“Whatever, Abi.”
Lorrie began tracking down an elusive water beetle that had invaded through the window.
Absalom returned to his desk. The desk was cherry, something he’d made a long time ago in the hopes of becoming a carpenter by trade.
If he’d done that, he might have just married Lorrie and lived a normal life down in Rowanville.
Not Florin. Their hometown had no place for them.
Bigoted jackass, there’s too many of ‘em, no priorities, near-sighted, hateful…
SMACK!
“Shoot, I missed it,” Lorrie exclaimed. “It went through the floorboards.”
“Let it be, Lorrie,” Absalom told her wearily.
“Well I don’t have a choice now, do I? I can’t take a bug in the room, I just can’t, you know that.”
“Well it’s gone now.”
“You’re always saving them and putting them outside. I bet that one is related to the one you rescued last time.”
“You think of the darndest things, Lorraine.”
Satisfied, Lorrie flopped back on the bed and said it was getting mighty cold tonight.
Grunting an agreement, Absalom tipped back the dregs of apple hooch in his flask and stood at the window to consider the sunset.
It did have the markings of Fall, though they were deep into summer now.
What a vision it was. It never missed him, how beautiful this place could be.
The sun dipped blood-red down between the purple mountains of Southwest Virginia, the golden wheat field below belonging to the cousin he would kill tomorrow, and the herd of deer that pranced across it in a nimble sprint towards the pine forest of the mighty Bailey clan.
From that window Absalom saw the past, the future, and a world made new.
“Who was that anyhow?” Lorrie asked.
“Nobody,” said Absalom.
“What did he say about ‘race-mixing’?”
“Nothing.”
Lorrie sighed. “Come rest your eyes. You’ve been at those papers for hours now.”
He smiled for her and turned back to the window. “It’s alright.”
Absalom wouldn’t be caught sleeping tonight. Best not to risk it. Once his head hit the pillow it was really lights out, see you later . Sleep was a black hole. If he dreamed, he never remembered it. As a child his Ma could count on him never to wake up while she entertained her customers.
Sure, who wanted to hear their Ma riding half the town through an inch of plywood sheeting?
But once Absalom had woken up to a man’s hands down his pants.
His Ma was passed out drunk or high or whatever.
He stuck the bastard in the ear with the skewer he kept under his pillow and all hell broke loose.
The next day she kicked him out. Thirteen, he’d been.
Or was it eleven? As a man, Absalom preferred to sleep in short bursts, with an alarm next to his ear. About three to four hours a day.
Without turning around he felt Lorrie’s stare on his back.
“You still haven’t told me what’s happening tomorrow,” she said. “Or why we need to be hiding up here when we could be downstairs dancing or having a drink.”
“You don’t drink,” he pointed out.
“But I do dance.”
“Well, I don’t.”
Lorrie laughed shortly. “We used to dance all the time.”
“Yeah. Privately.”
“I guess I know the reason why.”
“Don’t start on that, Lorrie.” Absalom rubbed his jaw. He could imagine the talk that was running downstairs in the taproom; he should have sent Lorrie back down the mountain as soon as she turned up here looking for trouble.
Hating to be ignored, Lorrie scooted out of the cot, then strolled the long way around the table. Downstairs the carousing of fifty men mingled with the dulcet tones of Dolly Parton. Lorrie took his arm.
“You sure we can’t go down just for a minute?” she asked softly, her eyes shining with a silent plea.
Don’t look in her eyes, you know where that road leads. “I don’t want the headache,” he said harshly.
She pulled away. “Fine.”
“It’s just a bad time.”
“We could go somewhere else,” Lorrie suggested, forgiving his utterly lame excuse.
Like she had done so many times. She always forgave him.
She was too good for him and he knew it down to his bones.
“Let’s just get out of here and go somewhere private.
Like the lake. I miss that place,” she begged.
“You know we need to talk, Absalom. I’d prefer not to do it in here. ”
“Not tonight, Lorrie. I mean it, it’s the wrong fucking time.”
She turned away from him, making a study of the paper-laden table.
He watched her. He liked to watch Lorrie.
She was rare as emeralds. Pretty Lorrie, with her skin the exact color of the apple hooch he’d been drinking, and her midnight curls, the longest stretching past her slim waist to a thick country-girl ass.