Free Forever Never Ends by Scott Nicholson Page B

buzzard-eyed mountain man like himself would ever notice. The few airplanes that flew over wouldn't have seen anything out of the ordinary.
    He heard a cracking sound, then a rumble of falling timber. Trees only fell like that when struck by lightning or else coated by an ice storm. They didn't snap like that in March, when the roots were busy soaking up the melted snows from the soil.
    "Well, I don't expect it's that acid rain that DeWalt's always going on about," Chester said to Boomer after climbing back up on the porch and settling into his rocker. "I mean, even if the trees is—now what's that twenty-dollar Yankee word that DeWalt used?"
    Boomer looked up expectantly.
    "Oh, yeah. ‘Distressed.’ So even if the trees is ‘distressed,’ as they say, they ought not be falling over for no earthly reason.”
    Another tree dropped near the ridge line, a few hundred yards up the slope, the brittle sound echoing off the damp mountains. Chester saw the top of a white pine swaying where it had been hit by the falling tree. Something funny was going on. And he had half a mind to go out and investigate. But later was as good a time as now, maybe even better. That was the kind of philosophy that Chester credited with helping a body live to a ripe old age.
    "I might have to give DeWalt a call," Chester said, twisting the lid off his moonshine jar. "See if he's got any book-learning on dropping-down-dead trees."
    Boomer slowly wagged his tail. Chester looked out at the strange woods. He had a feeling that the trees were waiting, holding their breath in that moment of stillness that always comes before a storm.
    "Yep. DeWalt will know what to do."
    Boomer curled up at his master's feet to wait.

***
    Nice little piece of tail there.
    Forgive me, Lord, for I have committed the sin of lust. I have committed adultery in my mind. But, Sweet Jesus Christ, did you SEE that stuff bounce around inside that cotton dress? No church secretary should dress like that and expect a God-fearing man not to weaken a little. And her without a bra. Mercy, mercy.
    Armfield Blevins pulled a handkerchief from the front pocket of his JC Penney jacket. He wiped at his forehead, the high glaring brow that his daughter said looked like Edgar Allan Poe's. Whoever the hell that was.
    Probably one of them damned washed-up rock stars they couldn't seem to drive off the stage. Them ancient rock stars that would keep on rocking even if they had to do it from a rocking chair, and keep on rolling until their wheelchairs needed an overhaul. Getting up and spreading the devil's message just like Armfield spread the Word of God, only they delivered to packed stadiums and their message was blasted from a million stereo speakers. Armfield was lucky to draw two hundred for Sunday services, less during football season.
    But the devil worked through everybody. The devil didn't need two-hundred-watt amplifiers. He whispered right in your ear. Look what he had done to Armfield. Steered his eyeballs right onto Nettie Hartbarger's body. He could feel the devil’s tool pressing like a hot and vile snake against the inseam of his slacks.
    And, forgive me, Lord, but it feels good. And Nettie is just a door away, at her desk in the vestry, doing the books, doing Your work, back there all alone and warm-blooded and curvy.
    But Armfield knew it was the devil working on him, softening him up, to coin a phrase. Just as the devil had laid out the shining cities before Jesus, sweeping his cloven hoof out like a real estate salesman, offering them to the Son of God free and clear and with a righteous right of way if Jesus would only forsake His Father. But Jesus had resisted, and so would Armfield.
    But, damn it, we all fall short of the perfection and glory of God. And what would Jesus have done if the old devil had offered him a piece of Nettie's tail instead of some old Jew cities built of mud and stone?
    Armfield gazed up at the mahogany crucifix hanging on the wall behind the pulpit.