Page 6 of Brimstone Hollow

“Yeah,” I say. “I’ll take care of her.”

“Good,” Tina says. Then she sniffs and says, “The new AC running okay?”

“Like a dream.”

She laughs. “Well, you’re gonna need it. Looks like this heat wave’s gonna stick around a few more days.”

I groan and crank Honey’s new air conditioner even colder.

“Be careful out there,” Tina says.

“I will.”

She hangs up and I merge into the faster lane. Honey’s engine growls with the acceleration and I can’t help but smile. Already past Lexington and climbing into the hills that surround Red River Gorge, I pass a sign for Mount Zion, and see that it’s only a few miles away.

Before I’d picked Honey up from Tina’s, I’d put together Katie’s contract and sent it over, packed my duffel with a couple days’ worth of clothes, and slid my laptop and leather notebook into the satchel I habitually carry, all while chowing down on a turkey club to go from Roxanne’s. I’d also brought my gun—a .357 Korth Mongoose, wood case and all—and slid it into Honey’s glove box.

Now, as I close in on Mount Zion, I consider again exactly why I’d taken this job. Yes, I was strapped for cash, boiling in my office, and bored with the paperwork. But, if I’m being honest, it was more than that.

My emotions about my father are conflicted, Katie had said.Do you understand?

More than she knew. More than I wanted to admit.

My emotions about my father are conflicted.

Is it Katie’s voice I’m hearing in my mind? Or my own?

After she left my office, I looked up Ezra King and found a simple website for Mount Zion Church of the Healing Redeemer. A photograph of Ezra, in the pulpit, was plastered on the main page. Very tall, lean, Ezra had raven hair and the same clear blue eyes as his daughter. Clean cut anddressed all in black, he looked straight into the camera with an undeniable assuredness, a confidence that lent charisma. His mouth curved up in a crooked smile that reminded me somewhat of a young Andy Griffith.

I’d combed through the website but the information was minimal, without even a mention of snakes. Instead, there was just a schedule of Ezra’s tent revival appearances and a number to call for inquiries.

He died of a snakebite, Katie had said. That’s what the police had told her.

I hadn’t even known snake-handling churches still existed. And, though I’d imagined they were some relic of antiquity, according to Wikipedia the whole idea of snake handling was barely a century old. It emerged in the 1910s as part of the Holiness movement and struck a chord with some of the economically depressed, insular, story-loving people tucked into the farther flung pockets of the Mountain South. The practice is illegal in most states but that doesn’t stop folks from practicing, apparently.

Closer to my destination, I start seeing signs for hiking trails, cave tours, and bird-watching excursions, all offered as a consequence of Mount Zion’s proximity to the famed Red River Gorge, a canyon system spanning nearly thirty thousand acres tucked into Eastern Kentucky’s beautiful blue-green mountains.

I take the exit, make my way downtown, and pull onto Main Street. Like much of the rest of rural America, this place has been hit hard by the loss of local production. The factories that once employed more than half the region have been closed and the struggling family farms have been bought out by corporate operations. Still, likely thanks to the ecotourism trade, Mount Zion seems to have escaped the worst of the desolation. As I drive down the main drag, there are only two buildings boarded up.

In the center of town is a small village green, well tended and lush. The businesses around the square are a hodgepodge of yesteryear Americana and recent additions. An old pharmacy and bank are nestled next to a new-looking bookstore and hippy-dippy crystal shop. There’s an attorney’s office, a bar, and a little sandwich place, all leading toward a courthouse that looks at least a hundred and fifty years old.

Farther down Main Street is the local police station. I pull Honey into one of the spaces out front, then head inside, where I find more bustle than I’d have expected. A woman at the front desk, with thick-framed red plastic glasses and intricate cornrows that flow down into long box braids, holds up a finger to me while she finishes her phone call.

“No, I got it,” she says. “That’s 1712 Conley Court.”

There’s a long pause. She keeps the finger up.

A nameplate in front of her saysMELISSA CHARLES, DISPATCH.

“Well, hon, how many do you see?” she says into the phone. “And you say you already called Animal Control? Yeah, well, I know it. Goodness, I’ll try, but you know they don’t really deal with bears so much. Listen, can you hold on a minute?”

She puts her palm over the receiver and asks me who I am and what I need. I tell her and watch her eyebrows raise at Ezra King’s name.

“Ezra King?” she says. “Lord have mercy. Well, you go on back. Chief Dishman’s working the holiday weekend—same as me—but, far as I know, he ain’t half as busy.”

“Thanks,” I say.

She points and says, “Straight back and to the left, just down the hall.”