Devil Woman by Samuel Brower

Author:Samuel Brower [Brower, Samuel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9798752536687
Amazon: B09SZPLN3P
Goodreads: 60478824
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: 2022-02-13T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Claire sat in the passenger seat of Adkins’s cruiser. It was hard to stay awake. The cruiser moved along, swaying on the winding roads, and it was like the rocking of a baby carriage. On top of that, the haziness of the fog resting on the mountains softened the sun, making it cooler and darker than it should be. And Claire was so tired…

“Miss Conrad,” Adkins said, almost startling Claire as she was near asleep, “I know one thing, I sure as hell hope you’re wrong about all this.”

“I’m not,” Claire said. “I saw what I saw.”

Adkins glanced at her a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, I’m starting to believe you. I’m just saying, I hope you’re wrong. This is the last damned thing the people down here need.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’ve had it rough for a good many years, is all. The town was never anything more than farmers and miners. And then the soil went sallow, and the coal companies started blasting the tops off mountains instead of sending miners down under them. The crops dried up, the jobs dried up, and the Crains just told everyone to pray on it and god would sort it all out for them…Well, it’s like my daddy used to always say, God helps those who help themselves.

“The Crains have money, and it’s them that own all that farmland, they could’ve got some folks in to analyze the soil and figure out a way to make it better. With all the science that’s available now, I bet they could’ve found some sort of solution, but no, the Crains just tell everybody to pray on it. It’s closer to witchery or a damned Indian rain dance, carrying on like that. I’ll never understand it.

“And now we got all these folk getting sick and…well, if you’re right, and I’m inclined to believe you are, we might have a murder on our hands.” Adkins blew out a breath. “I don’t think Palestine will recover from something like this.”

“Good,” Claire said. “These people need to get out of here. Move on. Stop paying what little money they have to that evil woman.”

“Aw, what the hell is this now?” Adkins said.

The cruiser slowed.

Claire sat upright in her seat. Just ahead of them, an old, beat-up pickup truck was parked crossways, blocking both lanes on the road. Its caution lights flashed through the fog, creating a creepy red-orange glow, like lit Jack-o’-lanterns.

“What’s going on?” Claire asked, still trying to clear the cobwebs in her head.

“Just a broken down, looks like,” Adkins said. “I’ll straighten it out.”

The cruiser came to a stop. Adkins rolled down his window. A man in overalls came out of the haze and approached the driver’s side of the cruiser. Claire peered through the window at the man. He seemed familiar to Claire in a way, but she could not place it.

“Everything okay?” Sheriff Adkins asked.

“Oh, just fine,” the man said. “Blew a gasket, maybe. You might want to turn around and go back to town though.

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