One Summer Read Free Page B

himself, gamblin’ and drinkin’ and livin’ high? He went to jail for near a year for that, and that isn’t the worst thing he’s done. Not by a long shot, probably, if the truth were known.” Mrs. Ashton was tight-lipped at the memory.
    Rachel wondered if perhaps she were one of those who had contributed to Buck Harris’s “church.” It was well known around town that only the more gullible residents had fallen for that one. After all, who in his or her right mind would trust Buck Harris? She said mildly, “You can’t blame Johnny for something his brother did.”
    “Hmmph!” said Mrs. Ashton, clearly unconvinced.
    Rachel saw with relief that Betty Nichols, the checkout clerk, was busy stuffing her groceries into two brown paper bags even as the girl listened to the gossip wide-eyed. Blood pounding in Rachel’s temples signaled the impending onset of a headache. She’d been prone to them for years now, ever since she had figured out that she was never going to get away from Tylerville. Not ever. Bonds of love and duty had closed around her, and now held her fast as securely as iron chains. She had accepted that, was resigned to it, and even felt a certain grim humor at her fate. She, who had always dreamed of flying high and far into a very different sort of life, had had her wings summarilyclipped. That fateful summer eleven years ago could count her, too, as one of its victims.
    Her life was now solidly set on the track it would doubtless travel for the next fifty years: that of a small-town schoolteacher. It was her calling to undertake the often-Herculean task of prying open the minds of Tylerville’s youth, to acquaint them with the power and beauty of words. At first the prospect had excited her. But over the years she had come to realize that delving for the requisite spark of imagination and creativity in the brains of those she taught was as unrewarding a task as searching through an ocean bed full of oysters for the occasional pearl. Only the infrequent successes made it a job worth doing.
    Johnny Harris had been one such success. Perhaps, even, her least likely one.
    At the thought of him, her headache came on in earnest. Wincing, she fumbled in her purse for her checkbook, the faster to make her escape from the grocery store. What she did not need, at the moment, was the stress of having to defend Johnny Harris (who, however innocent of murder he might be, was not the boy she remembered) to anyone before she was comfortable with what he had become herself. Just at that moment, what she most craved was ten minutes alone. Mrs. Ashton’s groceries were already being loaded into a cart, and Pam Collier’s last few items were being passed over the computerized price reader. The catechism would not last much longer, thank heaven. In just minutes she should be able to escape.
    “Sue Ann Harris was nothing but a little slut, if you’ll excuse my French. Now she’s living up in Detroit, and I hear she’s one of those welfare mothers with three kids by three different men. And she never married any of ’em, either.”
    “You don’t say!” Mrs. Ashton shook her head.
    Pam nodded. “That’s what I hear. And everybody knows that Grady Harris was the biggest drug dealer in the state when he drowned three years ago. And he wouldn’thave drowned if he hadn’t been high on some kind of dope.”
    Rachel took a deep, calming breath. Her head throbbed, but she ignored the pain. “What I heard was that he and some friends had been partying on a boat, and he fell overboard and hit his head. If he’d been doing anything but drinking bourbon, then it’s more than anybody ever proved. And if drinking bourbon’s a crime, there sure are a lot of criminals around these parts.” Despite her own very recently renewed misgivings about at least one of the Harris siblings, Rachel felt obliged to point out the facts, much good might it do. Like everyone else in town, she was aware of the gossip. What neither she