The Devil All the Time Read Online Free Page A

could remember, spotty with age in a cheap wooden frame. It seemed almost alive in the flickering light from the lantern. He could almost hear the cracks of the whips, the taunts of Pilate’s soldiers. He glanced down at the German Luger lying on the table by Earskell’s plate.
    “What? You don’t even know her name?”
    “Didn’t ask,” Willard said. “I left her a dollar tip, though.”
    “She won’t forget that,” Earskell said.
    “Well, maybe you ought to pray about it before you go traipsing back up to Ohio,” Emma said. “That’s a long ways off.” All her life, she had believed that people should follow the Lord’s will and not their own. A person had to trust that everything turns out just as it’s supposed to in this world. But then Emma had lost that faith, ended up trying to barter with God like He was nothing more than a horse trader with a plug of chew in his jaw or a ragged tinker out peddling dented wares along the road. Now, no matter how it turned out, she had to at least make an effort to uphold her part of the bargain. After that, she would leave it up to Him. “I don’t think that would hurt none, do you? If you prayed on it?” She turned and started covering what was left of the meat loaf with a clean towel.
    Willard blew on his coffee, then took a sip and grimaced. He thought about the waitress, the tiny, barely visible scar above her left eyebrow. Two weeks, he figured, and then he’d drive up and talk to her. He glanced over at his uncle trying to roll a cigarette. Earskell’s hands were gnarled and twisted with arthritis, the knuckles big around as quarters. “No,” Willard said, pouring a little whiskey into his cup, “that never hurt none at all.”

2
    WILLARD WAS HUNGOVER and shaky and sitting by himself on one of the back benches in the Coal Creek Church of the Holy Ghost Sanctified. It was nearly seven thirty on a Thursday evening, but the service hadn’t started yet. It was the fourth night of the church’s annual weeklong revival, aimed mostly at backsliders and those who hadn’t been saved yet. Willard had been home over a week, and this was the first day he’d drawn a sober breath. Last night he and Earskell had gone to the Lewis Theater to see John Wayne in Back to Bataan . He walked out halfway through the movie, disgusted with the phoniness of it all, ended up in a fight at the pool hall down the street. He roused himself and looked around, flexed his sore hand. Emma was still up front visiting. Smoky lanterns hung along the walls; a dented wood stove sat halfway down the aisle off to the right. The pine benches were worn smooth by over twenty years of worship. Though the church was the same humble place it had always been, Willard was afraid that he had changed quite a bit since he had been overseas.
    Reverend Albert Sykes had started the church in 1924, shortly after a coal mine collapsed and trapped him in the dark with two other men who’d been killed instantly. Both of his legs had been broken in several places. He managed to reach a pack of Five Brothers chewing tobacco in Phil Drury’s pocket, but he couldn’t stretch far enough to grab hold of the butter and jam sandwich he knew Burl Meadows was carrying in his coat. He said he was touched by the Spirit on the third night. He realized he was going to soon join the men beside him, already putrid with the smell of death, but it didn’t matter anymore. A few hours later, the rescuers broke through the rubble while he was asleep. For a moment, he was convinced that the light they shined in his eyes was the face of the Lord. It was a good story to tell in church, and there were always a lot of Hallelujahs whenhe came to that part. Willard figured he’d heard the old preacher tell it a hundred times over the years, limping back and forth in front of the varnished pulpit. At the end of the story, he always pulled the empty Five Brothers pack out of his threadbare suit coat, held it up toward the ceiling