Chapter Four --

For three nights now, ever he’d arrived in this town, two days after Crow had shown up here, Terence Glass had been tracking Jordan Crow as if he’d been prey, which, when you got right down to it, he was. 

It wasn’t really a thing he wanted to do, but the man who’d hired him wanted it done, so Glass figured it was easiest to just pull this action off and get the hell back to civilization.  It was like being back in the service: nothing to do but follow orders and look forward to your discharge  The whole thing was as simple as that.  Nothing personal; it was just how the deal went down.  When you got right down to it, he was trading Jordan Crow’s life for a whole bunch of money and money made a hell of a lot more difference to him than Crow ever would.

He had been hired to come down here to keep an eye on Crow while waiting for the signal to waste him, so the minute he’d had set foot in town, he started following the man around.  He’d even followed Crow to a revival service out at the Church of the Rock, though he’d hung back there, uncomfortable among the true believers.  It didn’t matter if he didn’t go into the tent.  The flaps were open; with his binoculars, he could see from his car, a Kia he’d stolen down in Daytona Beach.  He’d parked on the hill opposite the church grounds, where he had a good view.  

When the choir sang, Jordan Crow rocked back and forth to the rhythm, like a man determined to call attention to himself.  When the traveling evangelist that Jonathan Guthrie had brought in for the Revival, a black man, a fact that, considering how deep into the Bible Belt they were, surprised the hell out of him, started banging on a tambourine and calling on people to get right with God, Crow had hollered right back at him.  

A black man preaching to whites.  Sure, there was a scattering of dark faces in the crowd, but it was mostly white as the sheets they probably wore at other gatherings.  He hadn’t expected to see this sight down here in Channing.  This was the part of the country where the hate groups dragged black people behind pickup trucks, like they had that guy over in Mississippi, and here was a bunch of white folks listening to a black preacher.  

Nothing in Georgia made sense.

And Crow?  The way he carried on made even less sense.  He shouted and hollered, jumping up and down and shouting in agreement with the preacher.  Glass watched him, nodded his head and thought, not a bad idea, Crow; you better be getting right with God this very minute, because my bet is you don’t have many opportunities left.

The next morning, the man had called: “No reason to put it off any longer.”

“You want him dead?”

“As much as I wanted to get laid when I was sixteen.”

Those orders had been clear enough, so here he was in the Kia, with the shotgun by his side.  Sweat rolled down his cheek and he bumped his elbow against the Kia’s steering wheel as he reached to wipe it away.  He glanced once more at the shotgun.  It wasn’t a weapon he used often but, for some reason, he’d dug it out and cleaned it as soon as he’d gotten word that the man wanted Crow taken out.

It had been a gift from his stepfather.  

On his eleventh birthday, when the man had been married to his mother for three months, he'd come out of the bedroom with the thing all wrapped in newspaper.  Even though it had been wrapped, the package had so obviously been a weapon that the boy had been terrified.  When he opened it, Glass wondered what the hell was wrong with that freaking madman his mother had insisted on marrying.

Didn't matter.  The stepfather had only lasted another couple of months, just long enough to teach the boy to hunt.  He’d taken the boy out and taught him to shoot, saying, “I might not be around here forever and you got to be able to take care of yourself, boy.”  He stuck around long enough to make sure the boy became proficient with a shotgun, a rifle and a pistol and then he disappeared.  After the man his momma claimed she was going to spend the rest of her life with left town,  Glass thought about tracking him down and shooting him with the weapon he’d given him.    Whenever he thought about going after his stepfather and getting a little revenge for his mom, the sadness he remembered in the man’s eyes kept him from doing it.  Still, he sometimes thought he still might do it.

Last night Crow had slept over at Doreen Melson’s place, so as soon as he started driving out this way, the man in the Kia figured he was headed for Doreen’s again and he pulled up at her house just in time to see her closing the door behind herself and Crow.   Down at the diner, Doreen had served Glass coffee.  She was a pleasant looking woman, with a body that had held up pretty good but her crooked teeth bothered him.  She was about Crow's age so he wondered if the man had known her back in the old days when he’d lived here or if this was something new.  

Not that it made any difference.   

So he waited in front of Doreen Melson's house, the shotgun next to him.  As soon as Crow came out, he’d get his ticket punched.

#

Doreen Melson stood in the doorway in her bathrobe and said, "You don't have to go, you know."

"Doreen," Jordan Crow said, "it's four in the morning and you really wore me out.  I got to get myself a little sleep."

“Sleep here.”

“And let people see me slip out in the morning?  Doreen, these are your neighbors.  You got to keep on their good side.”

“They’ve seen men leave here before.”

“They haven’t seen me leave, though.  You know what these people think of me and you know what they’ll be saying about you if they find out we’ve been together.”

“It’s not right.”

“No, but it’s the way it is.  I’d better be going.” 

"I'll see you tonight?"

Crow checked himself in the full-length mirror that hung on the back of her door.  "I got to pull out tonight,  Babe.  I'll be busy getting packed up and then I got to drive back up to the airport.  Reckon this is it till I come this way again."  He planted a quick, dispassionate kiss on her cheek.  "See you next time, okay?"

“You’ll be coming back?”

“Told you, I got some things going on here.  Don’t take it like that; I mean business things.  I’ll be in and out of town a lot.”  

He laid his hand on her arm as he spoke and she didn’t feel any warmth in his touch.  Sure, he might be coming back to town, but it wouldn’t be to see her.  That she knew from his touch.  She’d been down this road too many times and knew better than to expect anything out of him.  If she was to tell herself the entire truth, Doreen had to admit she’d known what she was getting into when she invited him home.         

Pulling her robe closer, she walked with Crow out onto the porch and, with a hand lightly resting on the sleeve of his jacket, kissed him goodbye, a light careless peck on the cheek.  As he strolled to the garage, Doreen gave him a wave of the hand that had been holding him.  Then she turned and walked slowly back to the front door.  

#

"Go down to the Wal-Mart and buy yourself some pride," Veronica Wyeth said aloud, as she watched that poor little Doreen Melson walk back toward her door. The whole thing was so pathetic, the way the waitress stood there clutching her robe with one hand and looking real sad while she waved at Jordan Crow with the other.

When the man in the car shifted behind the wheel, his movement caught Veronica Wyeth’s eyes and even though she could clearly see what he was up to, his actions confused her because it was impossible, totally and completely inconceivable that he was doing exactly what she knew he was doing.  

"I am not seeing this," she said, even though she knew she was.  “If I wasn’t dying, I do believe this would kill me.”

When the driver raised the shotgun, eased the barrel out the window and leveled it on Jordan Crow, she quickly lowered her blinds and walking quickly, which gave her back pains.  She hurried as fast as she could back to the TV set, thinking about calling 911 but with a man with a gun right outside her house?, no, sir, you just forget it.

But try as she might, she couldn’t resist watching.  She had to see what was going on over there, so she hurried back to the window and peeked through the blinds.

#

Doreen Melson could not have said why she stopped, turned around and took one more long glance toward the garage.  The sound of a car engine starting up caused her to look up toward the road and from the corner of her eyes, she saw Jordan Crow turn also, and she saw his eyes widen just as she heard a loud quick blast.

Crow's face turned bright red as he screamed and jerked backwards, crashing against the garage door.  The blast was followed by another one and Crow's body cavorted as though he were a marionette being operated by a drunk.  As he slid slowly to the ground, leaving a bright slash of blood on the garage door, she couldn't be sure whether the scream she heard was his or hers.