Read Online The Curse of Crow Hollow by Billy Coffey - Free Book Online Page A

what would they do?
    â€œMaybe tomorrow I’ll get down to Mattingly,” he said. “Get one of those fresheners that hang off the mirror? Smell like pine trees.”
    â€œThat’d be good.”
    Bucky moved his hand across the seat of the family’s little car, an ’88 Chevy Celebrity he’d bought off Raleigh Jennings two weeks after high school graduation and a week after Homer Pruitt had hired him on at the dump. He gave Angela’s leg a squeeze that didn’t look to improve her mood. She’d been sullen since Bucky got home from work the day before. The funeral, he’d thought at first, but then Angela had told him later that night about poor Nikki on her stories. From the car’s only working speaker, Johnny Cash sang of a burning ring of fire. Bucky hummed a little and then told Angela everything would be okay, death must come to us all and even people like this girl Nikki, and who knew, maybe she’d come back. Anything’s possible on the TV.
    The wind fluttered the stack of flyers in the backseat—Bucky looking stern in a constable’s jacket that had gone a few sizes too small over the years and a turtleneck that seemed to swell his face to the point of bursting, L ET ’ S KEEP THE LAW IN ORDER — E LECT B UCKY V EST C ONSTABLE printed across the top. The whole family had been hanging them up all over town in the last weeks, but I’ll be honest and say Bucky never really had to bother. He’d been elected constable near as many times as Wilson Bickford had been named mayor, and for good reason. Everybody liked Bucky, even if he came off a little simple on occasion. Even Chessie and Briar Hodge would always get out near election time and drum up support, so long as the mayor agreed to make sure Bucky never got the notion to go after their moonshining.
    The morning dawned a chilly one for April. Bucky flipped the heater switch to High and shivered at the cold air that rushed from the vents. Angela asked (not for the first time, but as nice as usual) if he’d take the Celebrity down to the Hodge farm one day the coming week, get Briar to look at it. Everybody took their stuff there, Angela said, and it was a whole lot cheaper than taking the car all the way to a real mechanic in Mattingly. Bucky drove with the wind in his face, reminding Angela (not for the first time, but as nice as usual) that he could not in good conscience ever set foot upon Hodge land unless it was in an official capacity, and it didn’t matter how often Briar and Chessie sat in church or how much they helped the wanting in town, that family was villainous.
    â€œCriminal or not,” Angela said, “at least Chessie’s got respect. That counts for something.”
    â€œShe ain’t got respect,” Bucky told her. “She’s feared.”
    â€œBut she’s known. Chessie’s somebody . I’d rather be feared than just be another face.”
    â€œWhole world’s full of other faces, Angela. Can’t everybody be somebody, or else there’d be no common folk like us. We’re the ones keep the world going.”
    â€œThat’s your laziness talking.”
    And so it happened that just as Cordelia was screaming her way back to the campsite, Bucky and Angela had their first fight of the morning. There were no voices raised or hard words exchanged, just the clipped sentences and sideways glances that had come to define their marriage these last hard years. Both of them shivering, his hand no longer on her leg. The two of them likely wishing it was all because their car didn’t blow heat on a cold morning and knowing it was not.
    -2-
    Bucky pulled into the parking lot that circles the Holy Fire right ahead of Kayann and Landis Foster. They were in that fancy Mercedes, of course. And of course Kayann was driving. Both of them waved, though you could say Landis and Bucky seemed to mean it a little more. Angela, you could say