Lightwood

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  About Lightwood

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright Notice

  Judah Cannon is the middle son of the notorious Cannon clan led by Sherwood, its unflinching and uncompromising patriarch. When Judah returns to his rural hometown of Silas, Florida after a stint in prison, he is determined to move forward and live it clean with his childhood best friend and newly discovered love, Ramey Barrow. Everything soon spirals out of control, though, when a phone call from Sherwood ensnares Judah and Ramey in a complicated web of thievery, brutality and betrayal.

  Pressured by the unrelenting bonds of blood ties, Judah takes part in robbing the Scorpions, a group of small-time, meth-cooking bikers who are flying down the highway with the score of their lives. Unbeknownst to the Cannons, however, half of the stolen cash in the Harley saddlebags belongs to Sister Tulah, a megalomaniacal Pentecostal preacher who encourages her followers to drink poison and relinquish their bank accounts. When Sister Tulah learns of the robbery, she swears to make both the Cannons and the Scorpions pay, thus bringing all parties into mortal conflict rife with deception and unpredictable power shifts. When Judah’s younger brother Benji becomes the unwitting victim in the melee, Judah takes it upon himself to exact revenge, no matter the damage inflicted upon himself and those around him. Judah becomes a driven man, blinded by his need for vengeance and questioning everything he thought he believed in. With Ramey at his side, Judah is forced to take on both the Scorpions and Sister Tulah as he struggles to do the right thing in a world full of wrongs.

  For Lucy,

  In the Stars

  There was no one to greet Judah Cannon when he got out of Starke, so he just started walking. The sky was gray, the air stagnant, the thick Florida heat already oppressive though it was only early May. Another recently released inmate called out to Judah as he passed through the parking lot.

  “Hey, man, you walking or something? You know they got a bus can pick you up, right?”

  Judah ignored him.

  “You want a ride or something, buddy? My old lady’s got the car packed full of brats, but we might be able to squeeze you in the back somewheres.”

  Judah raised his hand in acknowledgement, but shook his head. He kept his eyes toward the road and breathed a sigh of relief when his boots hit the asphalt shoulder of State Road 16. After three years, he was a free man again and if he wanted to walk all the way to the edge of Bradford County, he was going to do so. He didn’t look back and he didn’t look both ways for oncoming traffic. He crossed to the right side of the road and headed south.

  Judah waited until there was about a mile between himself and the state prison before lighting a cigarette. This had been Judah’s first stint at Starke and there was a romantic notion needling him that his first cigarette as a newly released man would somehow be remarkable. He wasn’t sure why. During one of the few phone conservations with his older brother Judah had been reassured that getting out of prison was about as sacred as going in. But Judah wasn’t so sure. He hadn’t acclimated to prison life the way Levi had. He hadn’t rolled over, but he hadn’t fallen into the rhythm either. He had kept his head down, but his fists raised, and bided his time.

  A semi roared past Judah as he was trying to spark his lighter and it took a few flicks for the cigarette to catch. Judah inhaled deeply and tilted his head back to look at the sky. It was the color of burnished steel. The atmosphere was holding its breath, just as Judah was. A hawk circled overhead and a low flying plane hummed in the distance. Judah held the smoke in his lungs and waited.

  Nothing. It didn’t burn. The world didn’t appear clearer, didn’t make any more sense. A pickup truck with a bed full of teenagers screamed past him. An empty Coors tallboy landed on the pavement five feet ahead of him accompanied by an insult to his mother. Judah exhaled. The cigarette tasted the same as the last one he had just smoked standing out in the prison yard. As the last one he had smoked before walking into the courthouse for sentencing. The last one he had smoked after his daughter was born. After he had won his first midnight drag race. Lost his virginity. Kissed a girl. Stolen his first pack of cigarettes. It was the same. His brother had been right. Getting out of prison was just another day of getting on with life.

  Judah stuffed the lighter back into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of notebook paper. It had been folded and refolded so many times that it was worn soft at the creases. He had taken it with him, telling himself that he didn’t care, but knowing that he did. He clenched the cigarette between his lips and opened the letter. It was dated almost a year ago to the day. He squinted at the loopy, girlish handwriting, but didn’t let his eyes latch onto the words. He knew them all by heart. Dear Judah. And then some bitching about the K-Mart closing up in Colston. Then some more bitching about how her mother had gotten back into bingo at the Elks Lodge, so she couldn’t babysit no more. There was no inquiry about Judah’s well-being. And then the kicker. She was finished. For real, this time. She meant it. There was some guy, a manager at Denny’s, who treated her the way she deserved. Gave her everything she wanted. Had even bought Stella some new clothes to wear to preschool. Was thinking about paying for Stella to take gymnastic lessons one day. And, oh yeah, by the way, Stella wasn’t his kid after all. She meant that this time, too. So it’d be better for everyone if he just forgot about them. Better for Stella if she didn’t have to see him again. She didn’t end with an apology or even tell him to have a nice life. The junker he had left her to drive needed a new transmission, so she had decided to sell it to the scrap yard. Love, Cassie.

  Judah hadn’t been surprised about the Denny’s man. At least she had waited until he was locked up this time. He wasn’t surprised at the part about not being Stella’s daddy, though he wasn’t exactly sure he believed it, either. Every time Cassie had threatened to leave, she had pulled that card and every time she needed money or wanted to get back with him, she had sworn up and down that Stella was his. He supposed it didn’t matter anymore. He loved the towheaded little girl, but she probably didn’t even remember him. And didn’t need to.

  He had made himself a deal. If Cassie had been waiting there in that parking lot for him, leaning up against that busted up Oldsmobile, maybe wearing that short blue dress he liked and those white, high heeled sandals, he would have forgiven it all, and he would have gone back to Colston with her. He had played the scene over and over in his head as he lay on his lumpy mattress night after night and stared at the concrete ceiling above him. But if she wasn’t waiting for him, well then.

  Judah raised the letter until the corner of it brushed the end of his lit cigarette. He inhaled, the cherry flared and the paper began to smoke. He let the letter smo
lder in his hand and when it began to blacken his fingers he dropped it onto the pavement beside him. Judah kept walking. He didn’t look back.

  “NAH, MAN. There ain’t no such thing as whales on a moon. Ain’t you never been to school or nothing?”

  “It ain’t like our moon, dumbshit. Were you even watching the show? The guy said Europa. That’s near Jupiter. It’s one of Jupiter’s moons.”

  “And that’s supposed to make a difference? They got whales on Jupiter or something?”

  Judah pulled his wallet, Bic lighter and a squashed pack of Marlboro’s out of his pockets and tossed them on the bar before sitting down. The legs of the metal bar stool scraped against the cement floor as he settled himself and the two men arguing at the other end of the bar looked up.

  “Hey, you. What’d you think?”

  Judah rubbed his face and looked around for the bartender.

  “About what?”

  The man behind the bar, heavy with deep acne scars pitting his pink, waxy skin, nodded to Judah, but didn’t make a move to step away from the ratty blonde he was talking to three stools down.

  “You think they got whales on Europa?”

  Judah wasn’t paying attention. Finally, the bartender pulled himself away from the woman and her sob story and asked Judah what he wanted.

  “Just a beer. Something on draft.”

  The bartender grunted and rapped his hairy knuckles on the metal top of the ice bin.

  “We got regular beer, light beer, pansy-go-out-and-exercise-light-beer and pansy-stick-a-slice-of-fruit-on-your-glass-beer.”

  “How about a beer?”

  The man grunted again and filled a cloudy pint glass with Budweiser. He set it on the scratched wood in front of Judah and went back to the blonde. Judah eyed the pale amber liquid. Though he’d sampled his share of prison rotgut at Starke, this was going to be his first real beer in three years. After alternately walking and hitching rides for the past six hours, Judah had lost his inclination that things would somehow be memorable now that he was out, but he was still content to be sitting in a dark bar with a cold beer. He took a sip. It tasted as flat and bland as he remembered Budweiser tasting. Judah could live with that.

  He gulped half the beer and tried to relax. He put his hands out on the bar in front of him and leaned back in the cracked leather bar stool. It had been at least five years since Judah had sat bathed in the gaudy neon light of The Ace in the Hole, but the interior of the bar hadn’t changed much. The Hooters girl was from 2011, but the calendar still hung in the same place next to the “Tipping is NOT a city in China” paper sign. The brass tip bucket still hung in the clutches of a stuffed beaver, shot by the owner himself, though one of its glass eyes had fallen out and now lay propped up against the animal’s stiff tail. The smeared and oxidized bar mirror, the half empty cooler of bottle beer, the sour bar mat smell, the pink glow from the oversized Michelob sign: all of it was the same. Even the bartender. The man was new, but the attitude hadn’t changed. Judah had been uncertain about coming back to Silas, but now he felt reassured. He took another swallow of beer and lit a cigarette.

  “So, hey, you never answered us.”

  Judah reached for a plastic ashtray and laid his cigarette among the cold ashes. He swiveled around on his stool and looked at the two men to his right. He vaguely recognized both of them. They appeared to be in their early thirties and so Judah reckoned he had probably gone to high school with them. The man sitting closest to Judah had a wandering eye and Judah thought they might have played baseball together. Judah tilted his head slightly.

  “Sorry?”

  The man with the loose eye pointed up at the dusty television screen hanging in the corner above the bar. Multicolored planets whirled behind close captioning. Judah glanced at the TV and then back to the men at the bar. He raised his eyebrows and tapped the ash off his cigarette. The second man, with dark hair curling out from underneath his camo netter, smacked the bar in disgust and leaned forward.

  “My idiot cousin Pellman here thinks there could be whales on a moon. Mind doing me a favor and telling him that’s bullshit so he’ll finally shut up? This is why I don’t got no cable TV at my house. It’s all a bunch of weirdoes flapping their jaws bout time travel and how aliens really built the pyramids and shit. What a load.”

  Pellman shook his head and waved at his cousin like he was fly. He looked at Judah sideways.

  “You ain’t look like you from round these parts. What’d you think?”

  Judah glanced back up at the television. A commercial for diabetes testing supplies had come on. An old black woman was holding up her fingers to show that she was tired of pricking them.

  “Actually, I am from around here.”

  Judah ran his hand up and down his glass of beer, cutting through the condensation.

  “Oh? I ain’t never seen you in here before.”

  Pellman narrowed his good eye at Judah.

  “Well, maybe. I don’t know. Anyhow, listen. There’s this guy on this science show and he says that there’s water up on this moon going round Jupiter.”

  Judah interrupted him.

  “Why are you watching science shows in a bar?”

  Pellman’s cousin slapped his palm down again.

  “Exactly! That’s exactly what I want to know. See, that’s why I don’t got no cable at my place.”

  Pellman turned to his cousin.

  “Maybe if you did, Erwin, your wife’d finally get some sense and leave your dumb ass.”

  Pellman and Erwin. Now Judah was certain he had gone to high school with them. Erwin had been an outfielder for the Tigers and Pellman, on account of his eye and complete inability to catch a moving object, had been the team’s Gatorade boy. After getting shoved in the shoulder and spilling his beer, Pellman turned back to Judah.

  “Now, just listen. There’s this scientist guy and he’s saying that there might be water up on this moon going round Jupiter.”

  Judah nodded.

  “Uh, huh.”

  “And then the guy said that what with the heat and all, and the way the sun reflected onto the moon, or something, and the nutrients in the rocks they thought were up there, and some other stuff, well, he said that if we took a spaceship up to that moon and went under the ice or something like that, and, well, now hold on a minute.”

  Pellman stopped for a moment, trying to work out the argument in his head. Erwin snickered, but Judah just took a drag of his cigarette and waited.

  “Now I remember. He said that if we went under that ice and found some water, there could be life in that water.”

  Judah finished his beer and looked around for the bartender again.

  “Okay.”

  “So, I was saying that if there’s life in that water, there could be more than just little bugs or crawly things. There could be big stuff, too. Cause, you know, Jupiter’s a big planet. I don’t know how big that moon is or nothing, but if Jupiter’s big, the moon’s gotta be big too, which means big critters in the water.”

  Erwin shook his head, laughing to himself. The bartender wrenched himself away from the blonde and poured Judah another beer. It slopped onto the bar when he set it down and Judah reached for a handful of cocktail napkins. Pellman was still talking.

  “So, the biggest thing I can think of that lives in the water is whales.”

  Erwin interrupted him.

  “What about sharks?”

  “Will you just shut up for five minutes? We already been over the shark thing. How many times I gotta tell you? Whales is bigger than sharks.”

  Erwin snorted.

  “Yeah, but not meaner.”

  Judah pitched the beer soaked napkins into the trashcan behind the bar. He had to ask.

  “How long you guys been sitting here fighting about this?”

  Pellman looked up at the television.

  “Well, now this show ain’t bout moons. I think it’s bout galaxies or something. The show bout the moons was the one before th
at, I think. Or was that the one bout asteroids? I can’t remember.”

  Judah looked back and forth between the two cousins. They had obviously been drinking for a while. Pellman drained his bottle of PBR and slammed it down onto the bar.

  “You’re right. We been talking bout this for too long. So, let’s settle this once and for all. What’d you think, newcomer? You think there’s whales on Europa?”

  Judah stubbed his cigarette out and rested his forearms on the edge of the bar.

  “I’m not a newcomer. My name is Judah Cannon and I just got out of prison this morning. To hell with whales on the moon. Let’s do some shots.”

  SISTER TULAH Atwell looked up into the sky over Kentsville and could feel its terrible weight crushing down upon her. It was as if someone had thrown a black, velvet cloak scattered with diamonds up into the atmosphere, and it was now beginning to fall back down to Earth with the intention of smothering her. She turned away from the heavy darkness and studied the parking lot before her, overflowing with dusty pickup trucks, minivans and cars with a hundred too many miles. Many of the vehicles had parked precariously close to the sodden drainage ditch and were going to have a hard time spinning their wheels to pull out when the service ended sometime in the damp, early morning. Sister Tulah rested her hands on her wide, bulky hips and surveyed the scene without expression. Behind her, through the thin walls of the Last Steps of Deliverance Church of God, the singing was unceasing.

  “This little light of mine… I’m gonna let it shine, this little light of mine… I’m gonna let it shine…”

  The singers were caught up in the moment, repeating the same verse over and over, accompanied by a piano, tambourine and endless clapping. The revival hadn’t officially begun yet, and already the congregation was getting worked up. They had been singing hymns for the past forty-five minutes and Sister Tulah was gauging their voices. It was going to be a long night, a long weekend, and she wanted to have some idea of how it was going to go. She snorted and spit in the dirt at her feet.