Southern Cross by Jen Blood

mean.
And I knew you guys’d be cool with it.”
    I
wasn’t sure how accurate that was as far as Diggs was concerned anymore, but
who was I to burst the kid’s bubble?
    “So,”
he continued. “Is it true what happened last night? Somebody really locked
Diggs in with them rattlers?” He looked more curious than horrified. That could
have been the pot, though.
    “Yeah,”
I said with a nod. “It was nuts. You have any idea who would have done
something like that?”
    He
took a long hit from his joint, held the smoke in his lungs, and then put it
out and pocketed the roach before he responded. His eyes were glassy,
splintered with red veins.
    “Diggs
made some enemies when he was here before,” Danny said. “I was just a kid then,
so I didn’t pay too much attention. He was just ol’ Uncle Diggs, you know? But
the stories are still around—Mama doesn’t even know we’ve heard half of ‘em.
How he knocked boots with the sheriff’s wife and then was out on the front lawn
of the Motel Six butt naked. Plus everything that happened with Reverend
Barnel...”
    “What did happen with Reverend Barnel?” I asked.
    Danny
considered that for a minute, clearly torn between loyalty to Diggs and the
high of being the one in the know.
    “Forget
it,” I said. “I don’t want you to betray any confidences, kid.”
    “I
ain’t no kid,” he said lightly. “I got a truck. I got plenty of girls for any
night I choose. I got a band, even—and we’re good, too. Play out down to Nashville and Memphis, Louisville and Lexington.” He looked at me knowingly. “But good job
makin’ me feel like a loser just so I’d spill Diggs’ secrets to feel like a big
man.”
    “I thought
the weed might slow you down,” I said with a rueful smile. “Maybe you wouldn’t
figure my angle.”
    He
shook his head with exaggerated disappointment. When he looked at me, there was
a predatory gleam in his eye. He was a good looking kid, and he knew it: the
kind cougars the world over would stand in line for. I’ve never been much for
younger men, though.
    “Don’t
give me that look, Dimples,” I said. “I’ve got enough problems with your uncle.
Now, what do you know? Let’s have it.”
    He
saluted gravely. “Yes, ma’am. Well, when he lived here before, with Aunt
Ashley, I know him and the reverend got into it a couple times. Diggs was
always writin’ articles about Barnel’s church, you know? And he went to a
couple of his services, rip roarin’ drunk, and Sheriff Jennings had to haul him
off.”
    “Why
does he hate Barnel so much, though?”
    “Same
reason my mama loves the guy so much, I reckon,” Danny said. For the first
time, he looked uncomfortable. “Anyway, that seems more like a story Diggs
should tell you himself. What happens at Barnel’s camp… that changes a body.
It’s not so much a story you want other people tellin’.”
    “You
sound like you speak from experience.”
    I
might as well have suggested he was secretly into wearing his mom’s lingerie.
He looked at the ground, shaking his head.
    “Just
telling you what I’ve heard,” he said. “That’s all.”
    Diggs
came out a minute later, freshly scrubbed and sporting jacket and tie. Being a
manly man, he’d of course scorned the hospital’s recommendation of
crutches—though he’d bizarrely been fine with George Durham’s old man cane.
    “You
moving in on my girl?” Diggs asked when he came out, eyeing Danny. 
    “First
off, I’m not your girl,” I said. “And secondly… he was just giving me a little
dirt on you, as a matter of fact.”
    “Dirt?
On me?” Diggs asked, wide eyed. “Pfft. None to be found.”
    “Well,
except for that summer you and Daddy—” Danny began with a spark in his eye.
    “Hey—all
right, you proved your point. I think we best be on our way.” Diggs sniffed the
air knowingly. “But first, what’s that I smell? It’s vaguely familiar. Smells
like…”
    “Teen
spirit?” Danny said.