The Cove by Ron Rash Page A

swatter.”
    â€œYou two ought to haul that down to Asheville,” Ansel added. “They’s folks will pay cash money for music handsome as that.”
    â€œThere’s a blessingness in the having heard it,” Laurel said, touching Walter’s forearm and leaving it there for a few moments.
    â€œMore Walter than me,” Slidell said. “I was the caboose dragged along by the engine.”
    They played on, Slidell drinking alone now.
    â€œBe careful, Slidell,” Hank warned. “That stuff’s going to light up your head like a stick of dynamite.”
    â€œIt’s same as snake poison,” Slidell replied. “Keep getting bit and it don’t hurt you near as bad.”
    Darkness filled the cove now but for the lantern’s yellow smudge. Boyce looked toward the notch and laid the dulcimer back in its case.
    â€œTime to go,” he said to his brother, who nodded and stood.
    â€œJust a couple more songs,” Slidell said, but the brothers stepped off the porch.
    Slidell put up his guitar and rose as well, wavering as he stood. He lifted the jug, tilted it but nothing sloshed.
    â€œAh, me,” Slidell sighed. “Nary a thing left but a skullbuster come morning.”
    The three men mounted their horses and went up the trail, the lantern’s glow quickly vanishing.
    â€œTime for bed,” Hank said, “at least for me.”
    Walter was about to rise and go inside as well, but Laurel let her hand settle on his forearm.
    â€œThank you for playing your flute.”
    She searched for something more to say, but the words had been held inside too long. They would be heard by a man she didn’t know, a man who even if he understood what she was trying to say, could not tell her so.
    â€œI guess we’d best go on in,” Laurel said. “I know you’re tired.”
    It was Walter who rose first, but not before he’d settled his hand over hers a few moments, as though he had some inkling, Laurel thought, of what had been left unspoken.

Chapter Nine
    W here we going now, sir?” Wilber, the younger brother, asked.
    Chauncey pointed to a building with wide steps and marble pillars.
    â€œIs there another professor there we need to question, sir?” Jack asked.
    â€œNo, we just need to find which German books the library has.”
    â€œDo we have to write down all their names too?” Wilber whined.
    â€œIf you boys want to be dismissed, just say so and I’ll take you home,” Chauncey answered. “It’s not something Paul Clayton would do but maybe you boys haven’t got the soldier spirit like Paul.”
    â€œWe got it, sir,” Jack said, glaring at Wilber.
    â€œAll right then,” Chauncey said, “but we need to go by the automobile first.”
    â€œThat professor was shaking like a wet hound,” Jack said as they walked across the campus. “He ought to be too, especially after he admitted his ownself he talked to them Germans with no one else around who understood them.”
    â€œI bet they got him to sneak secret messages back to Kaiser Wilhelm,” Wilber said. “He could of hid them in that metal thing on his head.”
    â€œHe’ll not do it no more though,” Jack said. “We sure set that professor straight. He won’t be going back for no more visits. I bet he won’t stir farther than he can throw his own shadow.”
    Chauncey couldn’t help but let a smile lift the corners of his mouth. Professor Mayer had been scared. There was no doubt about that. Sweat had popped out on the old fool’s brow even before claiming he’d gone to Hot Springs in the first place only because he’d been asked to read some of the Germans’ letters. But Chauncey had outslicked him there, asking why he’d kept going back to socialize with a bunch of Huns. The professor’s eyes had teared up and he’d started blubbering that it was a chance