The Blackstone Commentaries by Rob Riggan Page B

upset. ‘You can back away, take some heat,’ he said, ‘and you know as well as I do, it won’t be much. Mostly from the family.’ ”
    â€œDid you back off?”
    She saw he didn’t hear her, or that he was ignoring her or the question, and she felt a little panic and didn’t know why. It was the last thing she expected to feel with Charlie after all these years. He was looking out the window now, where he could see the outlines of trees emerging from the edge of the field and even a couple of black lumps in the mist low to the grass that had to be his Angus cattle. His secret, those Angus. He raised them for an investment, he said, but mostly for sheer joy, and not many people knew he did it.
    â€œI wonder where that old man’s rotting,” he said.
    â€œWho?” she asked, startled by the sudden loudness of his voice.
    â€œThe preacher.”
    He talks about that preacher like he’s a haunt, she thought. He tried to take Charlie back out of here, said it was Babylon, offered to bring him up to the pulpit and into Tennessee. But that preacher brought him to me, too.
    â€œYou should have seen Danny Carver, coiled like a blind, angry snake ready to strike at anything. Wants his justice. I don’t know whether I can give it to him.”
    â€œCharlie? What is it?” She was really alarmed now.
    â€œEddie knows me, Dru, knows how much I hate losing.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œIt’s a lot more than what happened,” he replied real softly, like he always did when he was trying to make up his mind about something.

VI
    Elmore
    Elmore Willis, lying on his back, gazed at the three huge, arched windows that filled most of the front wall of his law office on the top floor of the Trotter Building. The windows overlooked South Charlotte Street, four stories below, and the courthouse square. He had just awakened and was confused by the soft golden glow of the early-morning sun easing its way along the high ceiling and down the wall behind him. The window was open. Birds were singing. Trees were in leaf. It was warm, and he knew it was only April. This sure as hell wasn’t New Haven.
    Then he remembered where he was and knew at once he shouldn’t look at the other end of the huge, old leather sofa on which he lay; he knew what he would find. He could smell her, and he could smell the night before. Without looking, he could see the almost-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s, the glass smeared with lipstick, his clothes scattered across the huge room and its scanty furniture, the old mission-wood oak desk.
    A church bell began to ring, the sound clear and salutary. It was Sunday, a beautiful day, the sky, cleansed by the night’s storm, a rich blue.He shook his head, trying to reconcile the madness he’d witnessed on the square hours earlier—Dugan playing justice with bootleg whiskey, and the violence of the storm itself—to this Southern morning.
    He had hours of work to do—three cases to plead on Monday alone, one nonsupport and a driving under the influence. The third involved speeding and reckless driving, and the man would lose his license, and so probably his job, if convicted this time. Two kids and a mortgage. No one would notice. The man was guilty. Small, ordinary cases, small fees, people without much money or influence who had come to him right from the start, not in droves, not even in quantities sufficient to pay the rent and board, but they’d appeared, and because of a name—his father’s name, Doc Willis. They actually seemed to think that because they’d known his father, they knew who the son was, and what to expect from him.
    He opened his eyes—he’d been snoozing. The bright, sun-flooded room floated into focus again. Then he knew he had to get up and out into that blue sky, free and clean. Forever, if possible. That’s what had brought him to Damascus in the first place. Now he