Page 2 of Brimstone Hollow

“No, I haven’t…” I feel my eyebrows draw up with sudden interest.

I can’t help myself. Despite their being a somewhat infamous icon of the Appalachian South, I’ve never been to a snake-handling church nor even known anyone who has. Buteveryonehas heard of them. Heard stories about them and the intense, fervent fire-and-brimstone sermons delivered by sweatily devoted—and possibly deranged—preachers who shake snakes around during services as a sort of proof of faith.

“My father, my biological father, I mean. He is—was—a snake-handling preacher,” Katie says. “He… he died. I just… This morning—”

Her voice cracks with emotion and she stops. She opens her mouth again but then shakes her head. I stand and go to the mini fridge behind me, pull out two bottles of water. I crack them both open and put one in front of her. She says, “Thank you,” and takes the bottle and has a long drink. When she’s finished, she twists the cap back into place. I can’t help but notice that her hands are shaking.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“Take your time.”

And I really don’t mind waiting. After all, I’m sure she wouldn’t be sitting here, in my office, on a Sunday, on Memorial Day weekend, if she didn’t feel like it was absolutely necessary. And, to be perfectly honest, I am much more interested in hearing whatever snake-handling story has brought her in here than in combing through my bank statements.

I watch her as she pulls a soft cloth from the bag she brought with her. She opens the bottle again, pours a little water onto the cloth, and dabs at the baby’s head. The infant wriggles and coos and she breathes out a low breath through pursed lips and then, suddenly, says, “I was terrified of him.”

“Your father?” I ask.

She nods, takes another drink.

“I mean… not always. I remember being enamored of him when I was little. But then, when I was six, my parents split up. Well, I guess it’s more accurate to say that my mom left my father and she took me with her. I was six years old so what I remember about that time is very vague. But she left because my father had become dangerous.”

Another drink. Another breath. And then she continues.

“He wasn’t always a snake-handling preacher. In the beginning, he was just a regular guy. He moved to my mom’s town to work in a furniture plant, but then the plant shut down right after they got together. My mom was already married and pregnant with me before she realized what she’d gotten herself into. My father had a gambling addiction. He lost all of her savings, her college fund, everything. She pushed him to go to a gambling recovery program, which he did. And that’s when… when he found God.”

She pours a little more water onto the cloth and dabs the baby’s head first and then her own. Then she says, “The way my mom used to tell it, the church thing was casual in the beginning. But it became very intense, very quickly. She was young when she had me—only nineteen and younger than him by more than a decade—so it was only later that she realized she’d made a big mistake and… the point is, the day my father brought home a copperhead was the day my mother left him. She left him, the house, the town… She always said that place was a nest of vipers.”

She pauses to take a deep breath before continuing, “We went to Florida at first, stayed with a friend of my mom’s. But then she applied to UofL and got in on a scholarship. So, we moved back up here. She went to college, became an accountant, and raised me by herself until she remarried when I was ten. My stepdad was great and I had a wonderful childhood.”

Katie smiles to herself, but the expression quickly sours into an anxious grimace. I lean back in my chair, away from the old desk.

“Did you ever see your biological father again?” I ask. “Did you reunite?”

“Not until I was seventeen,” she says. “I was curious and I wanted to… I don’t know. I’d been in a fight with my mom. She said sometimes I was just like him. And I told her I didn’t see why that was such a bad thing. I slammed the door and got in my car and drove back to our old town—Mount Zion—and there he was, right where we’d left him. That same little church in that same little town. Big as life. No…biggerthan life.”

Katie closes her eyes and presses her lips together. When she finallyspeaks again, she keeps her eyes closed, seeing the memory in her own private world.

“I think on the way there, I’d pumped myself up for some sappy, emotional reunion. I got to town on a Wednesday evening, during church service. I walked right in and sat in the back row. He didn’t even know I was there. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. He held them all in the palm of his hand. He never shouted or screamed or anything but… something about it. I don’t know. It unnerved me. Then, I watched as two men carried out a big box. They stood back while my father opened the lid and brought out a snake. The whole church went quiet. You could hear the rattle. You know the sound?”

I nod.

“He held the snake up above his head. And that was it. Just like my mother, I stood and walked out. I never even spoke to him. That was ten years ago.”

“Okay.”

Suddenly, Katie stands and walks away from the desk. Mirroring her, I stand too. I open my mouth to ask if she’s leaving when she turns to the side and approaches the wall of photographs and art. She takes a long, shaking breath, her back still turned to me as she observes the pictures. There are photos going back through my time in Louisville, my years in college, my Muay Thai fights, my Air Force days. Besides that, there are a couple of fine art photographs, a watercolor from a friend, and a large wood-block print. In the print, a storm of crows swirls—black and blurred—over a cornfield.

Still turned toward the wall, swaying slowly side to side, Katie says, “I read about what you did in Quartz Creek.”

The name of that little Western North Carolina town tugs at my heart. A shiver runs over my skin, raising goose bumps.

Katie turns toward me finally and says, “I’d never even heard of that case until I looked you up downstairs in the diner. And that’s… What you did there is the reason I knew I couldn’t go to anyone else. I knew I had to see you as soon as possible.”

“What’s happened?” I ask.

When she speaks again, her voice is small and haunted.

“Do you ever have nightmares?” she asks. “Bad ones?”