Pastor Cletus Garvin
Pastor Cletus Garvin had ministered to the needs of Barlo for the past seven years. An
uncertain shepherd, he had preached the gospel, officiated the weddings and said the
last words over the men and boys the mine claimed, often burying a mostly empty box
with a pair of workboots and a headlamp in place of a body lost far below. Cletus had
listened to the town’s secrets and seen the darkness that gathered in the hearts of even
its most seemingly upright citizens. Life on the seam was hard, and it could make hearts
hard. He knew only too well the dangers a body and soul faced deep underground, as
he’d been a miner himself for many years before the mountain let him go. Well, it let
him go as much as it ever does. But no one ever really gets away do they?
Crick Devil
They say this crick’s got a devil in it who comes out when the weather gets cold enough. The bridge tamed him, but he still lives somewhere upstream in the woods. That’s what they say, anyway.