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Mill Scott took the shotgun down from its place above the fireplace mantle. He’d made up his mind. Doctors had failed and so had the clergy. Still his son flung shit and pissed on the walls and called his mother a whore, among other choice epithets. Every new day of wrestling with the devil in the boy broke his mother’s heart a little more, and made Mill feel less and less like the husband and father he’d hoped to be. Ellie, God bless her, was hanging on by her fingernails. Faith unshaken, she kept praying for God to deliver their son from bondage.
But prayers, to Mill’s mind, were supposed to keep such things from happening in the first place. Once they’d happened, the truth was out: prayers were for shit, and God wasn’t listening. Mill couldn’t watch his boy devolve any longer, nor could he stand to see one more of the incremental heartbreaks he knew his Ellie suffered hour after hour, day after day.
So he decided: he would load the shotgun; he would put down Daniel and Ellie with one shell apiece; then he would reload and take both barrels between his teeth. That ought to settle things.
He had just cracked the breach and rammed the first two shells home when Ellie found him. “What are you doin’, Mill? Why’d you take the gun down?”
Mill didn’t have an answer that he cared to offer. All his fierce resolve melted at the sound of his wife’s voice, and he was left with nothing but shame. He was a sorry son of a bitch, and if he was smarter, or stronger, or braver, maybe he could’ve come up with a better solution.
But the shotgun was all he could muster.
Luckily, before Ellie could ask another question, someone knocked at the door. Mill turned, shocked as hell that his immortal longings were being put on hold by his wife’s inquisitiveness and an unexpected visitor.
And at such an hour! The sun was well down. Who the hell came calling, way out here by the river, this late at night?
“Don’t answer that,” Mill said, knowing no good would come of it. Ellie didn’t listen. She hurried to the door and Mill followed, loaded shotgun swinging at his side. Whoever it was, he’d see them on their way promptly.
Ellie opened the door a crack—just about a handsbreadth—and peered through at their visitor. Mill couldn’t see who it was. He slowed his approach, content to listen before looking for himself.
“Evenin’,” a voice said: male, husky, rough with weariness and thirst. “I’m travellin’ through and I could use food and somewhere to sleep. I’d never dream of begging leave to enter your home but if I could camp in your orchard—”
Mill took hold of the door and threw it open. He’d take care of this. The stranger would see the gun in his hand and know this wasn’t the place to stop and beg—
Then Mill saw the stranger and nearly dropped the shotgun swinging at his side. The fella was dressed all in dusky shades from head to toe—hat, coat, shirt, trousers and boots—and wore a preacher’s collar round his thin, corded throat. Mill tried to get a look in his eyes, but the lamp they kept burning on the porch couldn’t chase the shadows out from under the preacher’s hat-brim. Mill only saw a youngish-but-haggard face—no older than he, maybe even younger—a stubbled chin, and a close-cropped shock of dark hair on the fella’s nape.
From under the shadow of his hat, the preacher stared back at Mill. Finally, after a moment’s awkward silence, the preacher shuffled his boots a little and moved to retreat. “Sorry to trouble you,” he offered. “It’s late. I’ll just be going—”
“You won’t!” Ellie spat.
“Ellie,” Mill hissed.
“He’s a preacher, Mill,” she said, as though the preacher himself couldn’t hear her. She stepped onto the porch. “We got some peas and ham . . . a little cornbread—”
The preacher wasn’t going anywhere now. Ellie had decided, and Mill couldn’t dissuade her. “Sure, you can sleep in the orchard,” Mill interjected with all the force he could muster, as though he’d prefer it if the preacher just kept on.
The preacher, for his part, seemed to agree. He tried to retreat from Ellie. “Y’know, perhaps some water from your well and some of that cornbread in a hank’ll do. I’ll just carry on—”
“No,” Ellie said with finality, stepping onto the porch and locking both hands round the preacher’s nearest arm. “You’re tired and you’re hungry. I see it—” she might as well have been talking about herself, Mill thought—“so camp and take your supper and your rest. It’s no trouble.”
The preacher nodded thanks. Mill stepped forward, took Ellie by her shoulders, and drew her back into the house. The screen door closed between the husband and wife and their clerical guest. “There’s a pump ‘round the side of the house,” Mill said as the preacher descended the porch steps toward his tethered horse, “right by the trough. I’ll have Ellie bring your supper out.”
“If you don’t mind waiting,” Ellie offered, “I’ll even heat it on the stove. Won’t take long.”
“Hot or cold, I’d just be thankful for a mouthful,” the preacher said, and took his leave, leading his horse around the house and out of sight.
Mill shut the door and looked into his wife’s eyes. There was hope in them, and that hope broke his heart all over again. “See?” Ellie said.
“See what?”
She suggested the preacher with a flick of her eyes. “He can help.”
“The hell he can,” Mill muttered. “Just keep your mouth shut and let him be on his way.”
“God brung him,” Ellie said.
“That flea-bitten gray horse brung him,” Mill countered. “Go heat his supper. I don’t want you up all night.”
“With you?”
Mill lowered his eyes. A moment later, he realized he was still holding the shotgun.
“You never answered my question,” Ellie said, and he knew that it was the gun she was talking about.
“I heard him comin’ up the path, is all,” Mill lied. “Kinda late for company.”
That seemed to satisfy her. Without another word, Ellie turned and hurried to the kitchen to do her duty and feed their guest. Mill, sighing and feeling sick inside—sicker than he’d ever felt—sloughed back to the fireplace and put the shotgun back on its nails above the mantle.