Page 54

“Mariano Fausti.” We shook. “This is my brother.” I nodded to him. “Marciano.”

He nodded. “Knew you men would be around after our meeting in town.”

Marciano and Jack shook, followed by Angelo, after I introduced them.

After Jack acknowledged he’d heard about Angelo’s wedding to Atta, and congratulated him, he invited us to follow him inside.

Jack’s boots clacked on the old wood, and he opted not to use the wooden porch rail as he climbed the steps, even if he had a slight limp.

Angelo made a sound from behind Marciano, like he understood Jack’s struggle.

Marciano shrugged when my eyes cut back to him.

My hand reached out and touched the wood on the porch. It was probably made from trees that were around when America was founded. The roof was tin. The storm we had must have been a musical experience when the rain hit the metal. Storms soothed me.

They fucking frightened my wife.

My fists tightened, along with my entire chest. I was here to find out what my wife and her cousin refused to tell us. This man was the key to the locked box of secrets.

The inside of the cabin was cool and smelled like cedar. An old black oven, its pipe following the wall and reaching the ceiling, seemed to be the only source of warmth in the place.

Jack must have noticed I was checking the place out.

He nodded to the front door. He’d left it cracked.

“This time of the year, I let the old out and the fresh in. Winter, with the door closed, it gets mighty stuffy in here. Without closing it, though, we’d freeze.

” He nodded to a table with five wooden seats. “Have a seat, fellas. Coffee?”

All of us accepted, even if it wasn’t customary in Italy to take coffee after a certain time. Angelo, like us, had been raised in Louisiana for portions of his life. His mamma, Juliette, was born and raised there, as my parents were.

The chairs made no noise, not even a scrape, as we took our seats at his table. It was instilled in us not to make much noise.

Jack poured us each a cup and handed them out. An old dog with one eye came ambling out of one of the rooms in the back. “Dolly.” He nodded to the dog. “Rooster got her eye years ago.”

Dolly was a hound dog with big, floppy ears. She yawned and stretched, gave us all a once over, and went straight to Marciano, setting her head on his lap.

He smiled and lifted the hand that wasn’t petting Dolly. “What can I say, fellas? The ladies love me.”

Jack laughed and lifted his cup to Marciano in toast. “Dolly’s a good judge of character.

She might not look like much, but she would’ve been hollerin’ something fierce if she didn’t like you men from the go.

She’d have stopped you at the porch. When that rooster took her eye, her other senses seemed to develop stronger.

” He sighed, going for some papers on a table that was littered with them.

Stacks and stacks that had collected a thin layer of dust. It must have been organized chaos, though, because it didn't take him long to find what he was looking for.

He lifted a yellow envelope. “Found it. Thought you might like to see it after I tell the story I’d mentioned when we met in town.”

While Jack walked over with his cup and the envelope, Dolly started to holler at Marciano.

She was running from the chair to the sofa.

Marciano must have understood Dolly’s language, because he got up and went to the sofa.

She jumped up and put her head in his lap.

He stroked her ears, putting her back to sleep, and hummed to her. Angelo and I grinned at each other.

Marciano might not have been the rope and ride ’em kind of man, but all of Scarlett and Brando’s offsprings seemed to have a special spot for animals.

Jack cleared his throat. He made an ahh sound, tapping against the envelope.

“I can tell you fellas are ready to get down to this. The Green family, down to the matriarch, are pure evil. I don’t say that willy nilly either.

My mother was a God-fearing woman. She put that same fear inside of me. Taught me respect.”

I nodded.

“My son,” he said, then took a swig of his coffee, almost slurping it down, “he told me things about your family name. Your people are honest. Can’t tell a lie?”

I nodded.

I repeated our family motto in Italian— la mia parola è buona come il mio sangue —and then translated it into English. My word is as good as my blood.

“I like that,” he said. “Sounds romantic. Ruthless too. Knights and all that. The truth doesn’t always have a place in today’s world.

I’m a pretty honest guy, but I’ve told a few.

I’ve cheated. Stolen. I’m not above anyone else.

But the difference between me and the Green family is that I know I’m wrong when I’m doing it.

Or after. My head don’t land right on the pillow at night.

I toss and turn. I have a conscience. No matter what they do, they believe they’re in the right. That makes for dangerous people.”

“The world according to them,” Marciano said. Dolly groaned and hit his hand when he stopped petting her.

Jack nodded. “That’s right. They believe it’s their world, and if they don’t get their way—end of whoever’s world who told ’em no.

” He sighed. He turned around and pulled a picture from the metal shelf where a few knickknacks were placed.

He set the photo in the center of the table. “My Old Pappy. John.”

I looked between Jack and John. Almost identical.

“Pappy was alone that night. The night I’m about to tell you about.

He told me this story. At the time, keep in mind Pappy was in his nineties.

My sons and I were out of town. It was the dead of winter.

No help around to be had. No help hardly when it comes to the Green family.

During this time of Pappy’s life, he was arched over, arthritis in his hands and back that almost crippled him.

He’d always say he couldn’t wait to get to heaven so he could run again.

” Jack smiled lightly at this. “That night, he was in too much pain to sleep.” He pointed over his head.

“From the window, you can see the old snake barn.”

“Snake barn,” Angelo repeated. His forehead was so tight, his eyebrows were almost touching.

Jack nodded and I stood, going over to the window. I imagined a scene much different from this one. The dead of winter. The entire state white from snow, black from night, a grey world.

“Next to the sink,” Jack continued, “we keep binoculars. Open the drawer to your right and you’ll find ’em. Pappy might’ve had the arthritis, but his eyes were fine. No cataracts or anything like that. Still. In the dead of night, it’s good to have help.”

I didn’t need the binoculars, but I could see how they could help an old man at night.

“As I say, he was up, couldn’t sleep. Went to fix him a pot of coffee.

The Green family, mostly the men, have always used that barn for nefarious reasons.

Bringing boys in there that would come out with something broken, anywhere from head to toes.

Sometimes a few things broken between head and toes. Girls would come out crying.

“We always talked to the sheriff about it, but nothing could be done.

No one wanted to talk. One woman did, her name Ada, and Virgina Green made her life a living hell.

Ada finally took her boy and left town. Ada had inherited the place from her uncle.

The Green family bought the land after they ran her out of town.

Tore down the place and put up another barn.

Back to that night. Pappy. The window. Coffee.

“Pappy called me, you know, recollected the incident before details got fuzzy. It wasn’t a blizzard but damn near close.

Said in front of the binoculars, he saw mostly snowflakes.

Through it, he could see one of the Green boys standing guard outside of the barn.

That was never a good sign. They never stopped using that rickety old barn for nefarious reasons.

Probably went back to their old man. Used to take them to the barn to beat them senseless when they did something that made him mad—being nice being one of ’em.

Pappy used to say their old man beat the compassion out of every one of ’em. ”

“Out of the snow, a truck came creeping down the drive, and Pappy looked harder through the binoculars. The truck stopped, one of the Green boys approached, and then a young girl stepped out. He believed the young girl to be Sistine. We’d met her through the Watt family.

Been coming around since she was young. Bianca’s niece from Italy, which made her stand out.

Always been as beautiful as a picture, but it’s the accent. Just different from folks ’round here.”

Jack sighed and took another drink of his coffee.

“Pappy was disturbed by Sistine being there. Didn’t know what to do, though.

He called the sheriff, but the sheriff was out on another call.

Linda, the dispatcher, said the sheriff would check it out once she could reach him.

” He shrugged, but not in a careless way.

In a way that said a man’s hands were tied.

“Pappy could barely make it from the bedroom to the kitchen. He knew he wasn’t making it to the snake barn.

All he could do was watch as Sistine was led into the barn. ” He cleared his throat. “By her hair.”

“Her hair,” I repeated. It sounded like my voice was coming at me from far away. Like it had been trapped inside of a frozen cave.

“Can’t say for certain.” He sighed, this time longer and heavier.

“Can’t say what went on in that snake barn, either, but after some time, Pappy thought he heard cattle driving toward it.

One thing Ash Green couldn’t deal with, on his long list, was when his cattle got loose.

It was a herd of ’em, charging. Chaos, Pappy described it as.

Like someone was leading them to freedom.