The World Made Straight Page #4

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'Cause a nit makes a louse.

At least that's what

one of the soldiers said.

Your daddy never talked to you

about any of this?

No.

Sh*t!

Be right back.

Rednecks and drugs.

One of the worst

hookups of the '60s.

Didn't seem to bother you none

when he took your money.

I suppose not.

I'd like to go there.

- Go where?

- To Shelton Laurel.

I wanna see it for myself.

You can tell

we're getting close.

Look at the mailboxes.

Shelton.

Shelton, Shelton, Shelton.

It's a one-horse town.

Why'd you quit school, anyway?

Because what they taught me

there didn't interest me much.

You like to read.

About things I'm

interested in, sure.

How about taking your GED,

ever think of that?

Give you some qualification.

Help you get a better job.

You don't want to be stockin' shelves

for the rest of your life, do you?

I guess not.

It'll be a lot

of work, though.

Think you're up to it?

Why, do you?

So...

You think I could

stay until I get it done?

All right.

You know a place is haunted when

it feels more real than you are.

It's like time doesn't pass,

it just layers over things.

It's all still happening underneath

the surface of what we see.

You feel that?

Well, you should.

It's your family's

blood that got spilled here.

It's what I told you,

South was never one thing,

history is never

that clear-cut.

Even your kin,

the ones that got killed here,

they weren't

exactly blameless.

Still, it's no reason to

kill a 12-year-old boy.

so, you'd have wanted revenge

if you'd been there?

For killing one of my kin,

sh*t, what do you think?

I think violence

begets violence.

It doesn't stop.

It's like a sickness.

Just gets passed on from

one generation to the next.

Hey, can I try?

Yeah.

All right.

Hey, I got something.

Let me listen.

You hear that?

Move it over a little.

That's a rock.

How do you know?

Experience.

What you got?

I don't know.

Gently now.

Holy sh*t.

It got to belong to

one of the victims.

Else one of Keith's men

would've picked them up.

You think they're his?

The boy's.

The boy's... What's his name?

David Shelton.

You can't grow up here

and not feel something.

Whether it's

Christian or not, though...

I remember when my

granddaddy passed,

my grandma went around and

covered every mirror in the house.

She kept them that

way all winter, too.

She figured

they is portals

and the dead might find their

way back into this world.

See, that's old faith.

That's the mountain gospel.

But, hey.

You don't

believe that, do you?

I don't know.

God took to me early.

At least that's what

somebody told me once.

Tomorrow we'll take

those over to Hensley's.

I'll swing by

the vocational school.

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