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He was just getting ready to start the car when he heard a voice say, “You ain’t much of a preacher, are you?”
Teagardin looked up and saw the Russell boy standing right outside the door of the car pointing a pistol of some kind at him. He’d never owned a gun, and the only thing he knew about them was that they usually caused trouble.
He wondered what Cynthia would think of him. Though he knew it was ridiculous, with all the young pussy he was getting, he felt a pang of jealousy just then. It was sad to real...
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Maybe the boy was one of those voyeurs, he thought, recalling the term from his collection of nudist magazines.
In his head, he counted the number of times he’d been here with Pamela over the last couple of weeks. At least six. That was bad enough, but at the same time he felt a little relieved. At least the boy hadn’t seen him banging his sister.
Teagardin started to explain that the little slut wouldn’t leave him alone, but then he reminded himself to be careful with his words.
He tried to recall what Shakespeare had written about it, but the words wouldn’t come to him.
“That was a shame, what that poor girl did,” the preacher said. “I pray for her soul every night.” “You pray for the baby’s, too?” “Now you got it all wrong there, my friend. I didn’t have nothing to do with that.” “Do with what?” The man squirmed around in the car’s tight seat, glanced at the German Luger. “She came to me, said she wanted to make a confession, told me she was with child. I promised her I wouldn’t tell anybody.” Arvin took a step back and said, “I’ll bet you did, you fat sonofabitch.” Then he fired three shots, blew out the tires on the driver’s side and put the last one
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As he stuck the German Luger up under the dash, he suddenly thought of Teagardin’s young wife. She was probably sitting over in their little house right now, waiting for him to get home, the same as Emma would be doing for him tonight.
He had a sudden feeling that he was going to lose a lot more before this was over.
It was nice getting paid every day. He felt like a rich man walking back to the spot where he and Theodore were camping.
Their plan was to buy some decent clothes and start preaching again. Roy thought they could find a couple of suits at the Goodwill for maybe ten or twelve bucks. Theodore couldn’t play the guitar like he used to, but they could get along all right.
They had done a lot of bad things over the years, and he spent the next several hours praying for the cripple’s soul. He hoped someone would do the same for him when it came his time.
Halfway through another cigarette, it dawned on him that he didn’t have to run anymore. He could go back home now, turn himself in. They could do whatever they wanted to, as long as he got to see Lenora one more time. Theodore had never been able to understand that, how Roy could miss somebody he didn’t really know. It was true that he could barely recall what his little girl’s face had looked like, but even so, he had wondered a thousand times how her life had turned out. By the time he finished the smoke, he was already rehearsing some words he would say to her.
He built a fire and talked to Theodore like he was still alive, told the same stories over again, the ones about Flapjack, and the Flamingo Lady, and the Zit-Eater, and all those other lost souls they had run into on the road. Several times he caught himself waiting on Theodore to laugh or add something that he’d forgotten. After a few hours, there were no more tales to tell, and Roy felt lonelier than he had ever felt in his life. “Hell of a long way from Coal Creek, ain’t it, boy?” was the last thing he said before he lay down on his blanket.
He realized that he would never preach again, but that was all right. He’d never been much good at it anyway. Most people just wanted to hear the cripple play. “I wish you was going with me, Theodore,” Roy said. By the time he managed to catch a ride, he was already two miles down the road.
