Page 8 of The Forest of Lost Souls

Deacon gets to his feet, opens his fists, and blots one hand against his shirt before realizing a perspiration stain will reveal his anxiety. He isn’t as sure of himself as he pretends to be.

“Belden Bead was my cousin,” he says, his voice flat, emotion pressed from it perhaps to compensate for the sweaty palm and to convince her that he’s all business, that he’ll succeed at what he intends. “Belden and I were born the same month, same year. We grew up together, each other’s best friend. I became an officer of the law, and he became what he became, but we never drifted apart. We remained close in our way. I protected Belden, and he made my life easier whenever he could.” Deacon crosses the porch to the steps, descends to the yard, turns, and looks up at her where she stands at the railing. “I want what I want, and I want this to be as smooth as glass between us. I came today to let you know the consequences. You think about your situation until you fully understand there’s just one path forward for you. I’ll give you some time. I came off mean today. I won’t be that way once we’vesettled on the terms of our arrangement. You’ll find me agreeable enough. You’ll be happy with me—and if you aren’t, it’ll be only because you don’t want to be.”

He proceeds to the Trans Am and opens the door and takes off his cowboy hat and spins it onto the passenger seat.

Before Deacon gets into the car, Vida says, “What do you want from me?”

“Look in a mirror. You’ve got what I need, and you need what I can give you, now that you’ve been alone the better part of a year.”

“Say it plain—what you want.”

“Submission,” he says.

She watches him drive away, until the Trans Am is out of sight, until the plume of dust settles in his wake and the air is clear.

12

DISTANT CRIES

She spends the rest of Tuesday afternoon in her workshop, where the tumbler-polisher continues to prepare the sapphires, which she checks on from time to time.

The large chrysoberyl is rough and requires cobbing, a light hammering to knock away brittle material. This done, she moves to the trim saw. The six-inch circular blade, cooled by running water, rotates at four thousand surface feet per minute. The risk to her fingers—the stone is handheld—is the greater hazard, though she wears a welder’s shield to protect her eyes. She needs to begin by giving the chrysoberyl a flat bottom, for the cat’s-eye effect is best achieved by shaping the stoneen cabochon. Close attention as well as much patience are required, and she is at the job for some time. In her current circumstances, the work is a blessing, because such concentration is required that her encounter with Deputy Deacon recedes so far to the back of her mind that it might have been an unpleasantness experienced years earlier.

When the bottom of the chrysoberyl is rough-sawn flat, it needs to be subjected to grinding, first with coarse silicon carbide and then with finer abrasives. Grinding will be followed by sanding. When the sanding is done, the bottom of the cabochon will receive a preliminary polish before she shapes the remainder of the stone. She might finish the process by late Friday afternoon.

With the stone sawn flat, she has accomplished enough for the day. She turns off the light and goes to the kitchen to prepare dinner—buttered fettuccini with peas, dusted with Parmesan. She prefers the deliciousMorchella conicacut and raw atop the pasta.

Before attending to dinner, she raises the pleated shade, removes the screen, and cranks open the window beside the back door. The sky is so red that the pale grass of the meadow appears to be afire, and the forest is as black as char.

Perhaps she hears them calling in the far distance, though she might be imagining the sound. They howl to warn others from poaching game on their territory, to call the pack together after a hunt, to mourn the loss of one of their own, as well as for other reasons, and every cry that issues from them is of a different character. At times they howl for the sheer pleasure of being together, and though this is a sweet sound, people who are not trained to distinguish one cry from another are nonetheless chilled by it. Wolves were once eradicated from this region; now they have a home here again, though their lives are hard and their numbers small. Their voices are a kind of music to Vida, and she doesn’t fear them. They don’t attack people. They kill only to eat. They don’t kill for pleasure and then leave the prey to rot. They never kill their own kind. Vida listens, and the tepid breeze, infused with the scents of field and forest, carries the sounds of birds going to their roosts and toads waking to the promise of an approaching moon. If the wolf cries were not imaginary, they have quieted.

13

LIFE PASSES LIKE A SHADOW

Eleven months earlier, on the Saturday afternoon in late June when José Nochelobo dies, the sky is the gray of saturation and so low that the peaks of the western mountains seem to ascend forever into the clouds, as if they provide a path between this world and the mystery that is the next.

The town of Kettleton rolls across and down the foothills, providing an illusion of slow but perpetual movement, although in fact it is a community of inertia, little changed over the decades. Its buildings are refreshed and repurposed on occasion, but they are rarely torn down and replaced.

At twelve thousand, the population is static. Most promising young people leave after high school and return only to visit their families. An almost equal number of newcomers trickle in, escaping the crime in the mismanaged cities or fleeing high-tax states, at least for a while charmed by the prospect of quiet small-town life and the majesty of the mountains.

North of Kettleton, below the soaring peaks and above the foothills, lies what county maps call the Grand Plateau. There, on more than three thousand acres of level and almost treeless land, a company named New World Technology seeks final approval to build a project that promises to bring desirable jobs to Kettleton.

Throughout the county, the project inspires more detractors than supporters. Mayor Harlan Cotter—in conjunction with county officials, leaders of community organizations, and three pastors—has arranged a public forum for the afternoon to provide a civil atmosphere in which all viewpoints can be aired and misinformation can be dispelled in a respectful yet authoritative manner.

Because the number of residents expected to attend exceeds the capacity of any indoor venue in town, the block in front of the courthouse is closed to traffic for the event. A collapsible platform—erected every Halloween, Independence Day, and Christmas Week to elevate prize judges and local dignitaries above the parades they review—has been removed from storage and assembled.

The crowd is even greater than what was anticipated, filling the street, encircling the elevated dais, and lining up in tiers on the courthouse steps behind the speakers. The day is warm but not sweltering. A storm might break before all interested parties have had their say. Although more than half those present believe their community and their lives will be negatively impacted if the project on the Grand Plateau is approved, and although somewhat fewer than half disagree with that position, their anxiety has not progressed to anger. Kettleton is no Eden; evil has its outposts in this county, but thus far the people haven’t deeply divided themselves into angry factions based on such shallow differences as class and race and sex and politics. No one expects—and few would openly condone—an act of violence on this occasion.

The four speakers are scheduled to alternate, pro and con the project, although the event is not structured as a formal debate. When each has had his or her fifteen minutes, the audience willbe invited to present questions until all have been satisfied or a sudden rainstorm forecloses further discussion.

José Nochelobo, thirty-four at the time, is the third speaker. He’s a former history teacher and now, for two years, the youngest principal in the history of Kettleton High School. Both as a teacher and an administrator, he’s also served as the coach of the school’s winning football team. Three months previously, although unarmed, he overpowered a school shooter, a drug-addled boy named Tom Kyte; two students were wounded, but because of José’s quick, selfless action, none died. He’s well liked, almost universally admired, the closest thing Kettleton has—or has ever had—to a local celebrity, though with grace and self-deprecating humor, he turns aside all praise.

He has good looks without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and Vida is in love with him. He wants to marry her, and she wants to be married. However, she has hesitated. After more than two decades during which she has lived largely as a recluse, she doubts that she has the refinement and poise to be the wife of a man who, as principal and coach and mensch to all, is at the center of the town’s social life. José assures her that she has the wisdom, grace, and personality to win over everyone, as she has so totally enchanted him. On this day, when she sees him with the others on the stage, waiting his turn at the microphone, he seems like the suitor from a fairy tale, not a prince but princely, and she decides that she’s been a fool for not at once accepting his proposal. She wants to marry him as soon as possible.

To avoid being a distraction when José steps forward to accept the mic and make his presentation, Vida hasn’t taken a position close to the stage, but stands toward the back of the crowd. José isno rabble-rouser, is not given to the deceptions and distortions of politicians. He walks the edge of the stage, relaxed, never raising his voice. He’s been speaking only three minutes when it’s evident that the audience finds his case surprising but compelling.

The five teenage boys, students at one of the county’s two other high schools, carry two bottles of water each, not to slake their thirst but to incite a moment of turmoil. From one end of the closed block or the other, the loud air horn of a truck blares with such volume that José stops speaking. In the crowd, heads turn in search of the disturbance. Just then, as one, the teenagers pelt José Nochelobo with ten bottles, then bolt through the thousand or more people who are gathered in the street, disappearing before anyone quite realizes what has occurred.

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