The red church Read Online Free PDF Page A

David asked, releasing her.
    "Hear what?" She rubbed her arms, trying to wipe away the memory of his rough touch. David went to the door. Linda thought about the knife. No, if she used the knife, they'd take the kids away for sure. She heard something that sounded like a calf caught in a crabapple thicket and bawling its heart out.
    "It's Ronnie," David said, then leaped off the porch and ran toward the creek that divided a stretch of pasture from the front yard.
    Ronnie raced across the pasture, moaning and wailing, waving his arms. Tim was farther back, run-ning down the road, and even from that distance Linda saw that her youngest boy had lost his glasses. Ronnie reached the little wooden footbridge that spanned the creek, a bridge that was nothing more than some pallet planks laid across two locust poles. His foot caught in a gap in the planks and his scream went an octave higher as he plummeted into the rocky creek bed. Her own shout caught in her throat. David reached the creek and jumped down to where Ronnie lay. Linda scrambled down the bank after him. Ronnie was facedown, his legs in the shal-low water. His head rested on a large flat stone. A trail of blood ran down the surface of the rock and dribbled into the creek, where it was quickly swept away.
    "Don't move him," Linda shouted.
    David gave her a look, then knelt beside Ronnie. The boy moaned and lifted his head. Blood oozed from his nose. His lip was swollen.
    He moaned again.
    "What?" David said.
    This time Linda was close enough to hear what he was saying.
    Ronnie's lips parted again. "Uhr—red church."
    His eyes were looking past both of them, seeing nothing, seeing too much.
    THREE
    Sheriff Frank Littlefield looked up the hill at the church and the monstrous dogwood that hovered be-side it like a guardian. He'd always hated that tree, ever since he was a boy. It hadn't changed much since the last time he'd set foot in the graveyard. But he had, the world had, and Boonie most definitely had. The young get old and the dead get deader, he thought as he studied the shadowed belfry for movement.
    "What do you figure done it?" asked Dr. Perry Hoyle, the Pickett County medical examiner. Littlefield didn't turn to face the man immedi-ately. Instead, he squinted past the church steeple to the sun setting behind the crippled cross. The cross threw a long jagged shadow over the cemetery green. Somebody was cutting hay. Littlefield could smell the crush of grass in the wind. He scratched at his buzz cut. "You're the ME."
    "Wild animal, that's my guess. Mountain lion, maybe. Or a black bear."
    "Sure it wasn't somebody with a knife or an ax?"
    "Not real likely. Wounds are too jagged, for one thing."
    Littlefield exhaled in relief. "So I guess we can't call it a murder."
    "Probably not."
    One of the deputies was vomiting in the weeds at the edge of the cemetery.
    "Don't get that mixed in with the evidence," Lit-tlefield hollered at him. He turned back to Hoyle. "Black bear wouldn't attack a man unless her cubs were threatened. And it'd have to be a mighty big mountain lion."
    "They get up to two hundred pounds."
    "But they're extinct up here."
    "One of them college professors down at West-ridge believes mountain lions are making their way back to these parts."
    Littlefield resumed rubbing his scalp. He'd just had it trimmed at Ray's, a good clipper job that let the wind and sun get right to the scalp. The depart-ment thought he wore the short style to give himself a ramrod appearance, but the truth was, he kind of liked the shape of his skull. And his hat fit better when he went to the Borderline Tavern to kick up his heels to some Friday-night country music. Boonie used to dance at the Borderline, too. Back when he still had feet.
    The two men stood quietly and looked at the church for a moment. "Never been many happy times here," Hoyle said.
    Littlefield didn't rise to the bait. He was annoyed that Hoyle would fish those waters. Some things were for nothing but