She went still. Preacher did too, and Addie could tell they were processing the shock of her news.
“But why?” Sophia said finally. “Why bring him here, only to kill him?”
“I’m going to find out,” Preacher said, rising. “Addie? Stay with Sophia and watch out for her. I’ll return as soon as I have answers.”
Preacher
WhenPreacher said he was going to get answers, he didn’t mean to find out why Rene had been murdered and what was “inside” Charlie Browning. The first step was confirming that what Addie said of Rene was true. Not that he suspected her of lying. She’d never do so on such a grand scale.
No, Addie believed what she said to be true. While he could not take her claims as truth, he had been a teacher long enough to know that you did not doubt a child to her face. Few things eroded her confidence more. You accepted the truth of what she said and quietly investigated on your own. As he was doing now.
When he arrived at the community hall, Doc Adams was coming out. Preacher stopped on the road, behind a cluster of people. Through the open door, he could catch a glimpse of Eleazar with the mayor and Dobbs.
Another meeting. He wouldn’t be welcome there. He watched Doc Adams hurry away, fending off questions from those gathered outside. Of the other council members, the doctor would be most likely to speak to Preacher, but he was clearly on a mission. Preacher was too—a mission that involved finding answers, not asking for them.
Once the doctor had left, Preacher retreated two houses over and cut through to the forest. He came out behind thecommunity hall and entered through the back door. As he walked through the kitchen, he could hear Dobbs shouting about something, but the walls were too thick to allow him to hear more than angry, unintelligible words. By the time he opened the door into the back room, the dispute was already over, the voices low again.
He slipped through the doorway and?—
There was Rene. Preacher had been so caught up in the voices that he’d forgotten why he was really here. One glance in Rene’s direction and he knew Addie was right. The man was dead. Still, despite what his eyes told him, he had to check.
He pulled off his boots and crossed the floor silently. When he reached the old man, he put his fingers to his neck and then checked for breathing, and the whole time, a voice in his head was saying,The man’s eyes are open. He has bruises around his neck. His skin is cold. Do you have to question everything?Yes, apparently, he did. So he checked, and he confirmed that Rene was indeed deceased.
As Sophia had said, why bring the old man here on foot, a difficult journey, only to kill him? There was something missing.
Preacher stood there, puzzling it out, until he remembered that the men were still talking in the next room. He ought to have been listening in. When he got to the door, though, he could hear the mayor and Dobbs leaving. Preacher left quickly and ducked through the kitchen doorway as Eleazar walked into the back room.
“Now, what am I going to do with this?” Eleazar mused aloud. “I ought to have had the blacksmith carry it out back to the woods.” He sighed and crossed the room, and Preacher could hear him lifting the old man, testing the weight.
“Let’s get this over with,” Eleazar muttered.
Preacher hurried out the back door.
WhenPreacher got to the road, there was no sign of Dobbs and Browning. He asked those gathered which way they went. They pointed, but the two men were already out of sight. Had they gone into a house? Headed home? No one seemed to know. They were all waiting for Eleazar.
Preacher caught sight of Doc Adams at the far end of the road. He started that way but didn’t get far before someone hurried out to stop him. Maybelle Greene, a widow whose two children had both survived the outbreak. He’d have liked to see that as the grace of God, but it probably had more to do with the family having been ten miles away visiting her sister at the time.
“Preacher,” Maybelle said as she hurried up to him. “I heard what they’re saying. Is it true? That man brought Charlie Browning back?”
“Seems so.”
She stopped, her face clouding as she looked both ways. No one was nearby, but she still leaned in as she said, “I ought to be happy. Thanking God for his mercy. But…” She looked up at him. “They say it’s God’s work, but I can’t quite reckon that. Why would God take our children, then send this man to bring some back? Why not just take fewer? Or none at all?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? Along with “Why would God take them at all?” but few dared ask that one. In his heart, Preacher believed that God simply didn’t concern Himself in the daily affairs of man. He’d given them the tools they needed to survive—the intelligence to discover things like the causes and cures of disease. It was up to them to use those tools against forces of nature that sought to keep the population in check. Itwas not a popular answer. So instead, he’d babble about God’s plan and God’s wisdom and the book of Job and such.
To Maybelle, he only said, “This man—Eleazar—claims to do God’s work.”
“Does he truly do it?” Maybelle asked, her dark eyes searching his.
“I hope so,” he murmured. “But that’s what I’m trying to find out.”
She nodded, seeming satisfied. As he took his leave, he saw Doc Adams coming out of the house down the road.
Preacher broke into a run, garnering a few askance looks from passersby. He reached the doctor as he still stood on the porch, talking to the Osbournes, who’d lost a child three days past. When the Osbournes saw Preacher, he expected them to want to talk, seek spiritual guidance. Surely Doc Adams had been there about their child. But they caught one glimpse of him and immediately withdrew, cutting the conversation short and closing the door.
The doctor saw Preacher then and went still.
“I’d like to talk to you,” Preacher said.
