Page 56 of The Devil's Advocate

The Pastor nodded, kept his eyes on the road ahead. There were no streetlights, just the blacktop cutting through old steamy forest. He could only see as far as the headlights could throw and so he deliberately kept the speed down. This wasn’t his car, and that made him careful, but he was mindful of what he had in the car with him. The Pastor could not afford to have this car searched if there was an accident.

While he was a patient man, the Pastor was just about done with Francis avoiding his questions, no matter how difficult they were, or how they tugged at his grief.

‘Pain is a real thing, Francis. I think of it like a gas. If you let it fill up your gut, and you don’t let it out, eventually you’re gonna blow and it’s not going to be pretty.’

Nodding, smiling, Francis said, ‘I get it. Skylar … she was my whole world. Everything I did in my life, from the day she was born, was for her and Esther. I knew I was never going to be a good enough player to turn pro. I guessed that early. But I wasn’t exactly good at schooling either. It was going to be the chemical plant or driving a tractor like my daddy. And let me tell you, when you grow up on a farm, the very last thing you want to do for a living is be a farmer.’

The Pastor nodded. The farm he’d grown up on grew cotton and pain. He had the scars on his back to prove it.

‘No, sir, no way I was cut out for farming. I liked driving, so I got a job hauling. It’s not a bad life. The open road. Radio, CDs. All the bad food you could ever want. I enjoyed driving my truck, but looking back these past few months, I regret it now.’

‘You regret being a truck driver?’

‘More than anything,’ said Francis. ‘It took me away from my family. For two weeks sometimes, at a stretch. I’d give anything to change that. To go back, and get that time again. One minute Skylar was chewing on my finger, cutting her teeth, the next she was graduating first in her class. The prom queen, can you believe it?’

‘You must have been very proud?’ said the Pastor.

Francis started to speak, then slapped his fingers over his mouth. Swallowed something down. Something big and hard, and then he blinked rapidly. He didn’t want to cry in front of the Pastor. Men like Francis do cry, of course. But the very last thing they ever want to do is cry in front of another man. That would be wrong. Shameful.

‘I was so proud of Skylar, but tell you the truth, I … I didn’t know her. There’s an age where they just stop talking to you. And I wasn’t there long enough to notice. She was a good kid, smart and kind. She was good to that boy, Andy. God help me I wish he was dead right now, and he’d never met my little girl.’

The Pastor watched closely, taking his eyes from the road, and didn’t avert his gaze from Francis’s face until he saw the first tear fall. Then he looked back at the road. That straight dark road that only led them deeper into the forest and swamps of Alabama as the lanes narrowed and the trees grew taller and deeper all around.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Francis, wiping his nose on his wrist, and taking a big sniff.

‘Don’t you worry about a thing. It takes a real man to cry. Never forget that. You know why?’

‘No, I surely don’t.’

‘Because it takes a real man to love that deeply. Because that’s what makes us cry, Francis. Love. Don’t ever be ashamed of it.’

‘I never thought of it that way.’

The Pastor nodded, said, ‘I’m going to turn off just up here. Head into the scrub, if you don’t mind. It’ll be a little bumpy, but don’t worry about it. It’ll just make sure we’re awake,’ said the Pastor.

‘I know you said you wanted to take a drive and maybe talk, but are we going somewhere in particular?’

‘You’ll see in a minute or two.’

Neither of them spoke for a time. The pick-up sported an elevated chassis and off-road tires so the ride along the grassland wasn’t as bumpy as the Pastor had anticipated. He’d bought the pick-up online, and the pink slip was made out to a fake ID, making the plates and the vehicle virtually untraceable.

As they neared a thick tree line, the Pastor killed the lights. For a few moments, they were blinded as they rolled slowly along, and then the Pastor’s eyes adjusted to the moonlight. He slowed, and stopped the vehicle. Turned off the engine.

‘Nice driving gloves,’ said Francis, nodding to the Pastor’s hands as they sat atop the steering wheel.

‘They’re not driving gloves. I want you to get out, close the door quietly and come with me.’

They got out, and both took care to close the doors with the least noise possible. The Pastor headed off to the trees, which were only twenty feet away, and beckoned for Francis to follow.

‘Where are we—’ began Francis, but the Pastor cut him off by holding his finger to his lips. They moved slowly through the trees. The ground was soft and wet with summer moss. Each footfall sent an odor of sweet decay to the Pastor, who breathed deeply. That smell was part of his childhood. Maybe once a month he would take off from the farm, during the night, into the nearby forest. His plan had been to build a tree house and live there. He always got caught the following evening, as his father was, among other things, a skilled tracker. No matter how hard the Pastor had tried to cover his trail, no matter where in the forest he tried to hide, he would always hear his father’s voice as he crunched through the leaves and twigs on the forest bed. And then he would hear him quoting scripture. That was the worst part. Lying in a hollow log with centipedes, spiders and bugs, listening to his father talking about damnation, or fathers from the Old Testament who were willing to sacrifice their sons to appease God’s will. And waiting. Just waiting for the inevitable moment when he would feel his father’s huge hand take hold of his ankle and haul him out of his hiding place, his safe space. The wet, dark hole was always safer than home.

The Pastor stopped, turned and held out a hand to Francis, telling him to come forward and take a look. The ground fell away in front of them, to rocks and dead trees and track below. A steep drop, maybe thirty feet.

‘See that house in the distance?’ said the Pastor.

Francis nodded.

‘That’s Andy Dubois’ house. He’s in there now, sound asleep. You know he got bail today, right?’