Those Across the River by Christopher Buehlman Page B

of conversation, except for short, bland responses to Harvey’s questions. He spoke to them about different things, like how hard it was to run a drugstore with the economy so bad, or how smart he had been to put in a soda machine, how that was all that saved him from getting boarded up like the jeweler, or he told them about his plans to buy a car when business picked up so he could get to the mill town without having to bum a ride off somebody, but after a while he saw that they were just looking at him so he gave up on talking altogether. It got quiet. Flies buzzed against the screen windows. The fan up in the corner made the only real noise, and the three of them knew that the quiet was going to get them kicked out soon. Harvey had removed the empty ice cream dish so they could not even look at that or hold it near them like a badge of their right to sit at the counter. None of them spoke until the white man said, “Mister, we just want to sit in your fan for a little while. It sure is plum hot out there.”
    “That’s fine,” Harvey said, and it was fine for a while until Harvey got thinking how no customers had come in the store and none were likely to with three rough-looking hobos taking up space, and one of them a darkie. Nobody passing on the street and looking in could think that they were going to smell very good up close, and the truth was they did not smell good. Harvey probably didn’t want to be a bad Christian, but I imagine he got thinking how even in the desert Jesus and the others managed to wash their feet and anoint their heads with oil, having no money and no real work besides preaching. Harvey stood there at about three o’clock with a look on his face like he was practicing in his head how he was going to say something like, “Sitting in the fan is fine, to a point,” or “Alright, I think if you ain’t ordering it’s time to move along,” when the black man noticed him thinking. He nudged the white man and the white man said, “Thank you,” in his bland way and the three of them went out. The screen door banged behind them and Harvey was left with only myself and his fan for company.
    My own soda glass had been empty the whole time.
    Lester Gordeau later told me the vagrants went from business to business in Whitbrow asking if anyone needed help sweeping up that night, or if anyone had a leaky roof that needed fixing, but they found no succor. Lester was working at the feed shop that day, and he told them how to get to Pastor Lyndon’s house, but then wondered if he had done the right thing. No telling with people like that. But then, what was a pastor for if you couldn’t send poor and downtrodden folks to him for at least a few kind words?
    The dinner had not gone well, according to Sheriff Estel Blake (he of the potbelly and the good baseball arm) when he later regaled us with the story at the general store.
    Sheriff Blake had buckled on his belt and .32, pinned on his badge and closed up the hardware store to track the hoboes down. It wasn’t hard. Estel found them sitting at dinner with the pastor, his daughter and his wife. It was a nice dinner, too, but it looked like the pastor had done without fried chicken so the strangers could have some.
    The sheriff searched the woman’s rope and canvas bag and found the stolen dress.
    “What are we gonna do about this?” he said.
    “Might these brethren not at least finish their plates?” the pastor said.
    “If they do it quickly, I suppose.”
    So they gobbled down their food while the sheriff stood a little off from the table with his hat and the dress in one hand and the other hand not too far from his holster, which, he told Old Man Gordeau, he “discreetly unsnapped.” They ate like dogs, Estel said, the woman breaking a thigh bone with her back teeth and using a splinter to scrape the marrow out. When they finished, he took them outside where the butcher was waiting on the porch. The sheriff handed the dress to the butcher