South of Shiloh by Chuck Logan Read Free Book Online Page A

minutes flat.
    Jenny took a deep breath. Sometimes she felt like that ruined science project, like she was one seismic shift away from a catastrophic wave.
    She added detergent, hit the start button, and looked up to find that Molly had approached silently and was standing next to her. She held up a book from the school library. Every night after supper they read for an hour. The script on the front of the book proclaimed: MYTHS AND LEGENDS .
    “What are we reading?” Jenny asked.
    Molly flipped open the book and pointed to an illustrated page showing Athena erupting full-grown from Zeus’s forehead. “Creation stories,” she said, oblivious to the psychic bullet she’d drilled dead-center into her mother’s heart.

4
    MITCH DISCOVERED HIS SMOOTH BARITONE WAS made for radio not long after he launched the monument project in the Timber Hills Treatment Center. Ostensibly, the project was inspired by the Alcoholics Anonymous requirement to make amends to those he’d harmed, which he interpreted to mean his mentor and father-in-law, Hiram Kirby. And, with his lawyer’s help, the project satisfied the judge’s community-service recommendation.
    Ellie, relieved to see Mitch actually get excited about something, encouraged him to pursue the project full-time. Glad to have him out of the office, the board of directors at the bank accepted his resignation. And, like Mitch figured, Old Man Kirby approved. His son, Robert, had never taken such an interest in the family battlefield. When Robert deployed to Iraq as a second lieutenant with the guard, Mitch, a sergeant in the unit, had to forgo the challenge of sand fleas, 120-degree heat, and improvised explosive devices. He was stuck in court-ordered group therapy.
    He’d started with small promotional radio spots. In a few months, with the backing of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ camps across Mississippi and Tennessee, he’d expanded the format into a weekly evening radio show he called Southern Almanac . The show’s original emphasis on preserving Southern battlefields from development attracted regional attention. A reporter at the Memphis paper had mixed his states up and termed Mitchell Lee Nickels the “Bluegrass Garrison Keillor,” and then ended his piece with speculation that Nickels was good enough to move up to a bigger market.
    Mitch turned off Highway 72 on Corinth’s east side and parked on the trap rock apron of the small station behind the White Trolley restaurant. Powered by twenty-five thousand watts, WXRZ broadcast over a fifty-mile radius. Five hundred dollars in advertising bought Mitch half an hour a week. Tapes of the show went out to other stations in the region.
    He sat for several moments, calming down after his encounter with Beeman. Carefully, he checked the surrounding street to see if the cop was still dogging him. Then he picked a portfolio up off the passenger seat, leafed through his program notes, and selected one slim sheet. Tonight he didn’t really need the notes, because he’d be talking primarily about the Kirby Creek event and the monument dedication. He set the portfolio aside, swung out of his truck, went into the station, and waved at the engineer sitting behind the console in the one-room studio.
    As the minute hand moved toward the bottom of the hour, Mitch sat down, arranged his mike, and took a sip of water from the bottle that had been set out. Then the engineer cued him and cracked his mike.
    “Good evening Alcorn. This is Mitchell Lee bringing you another Southern Almanac from the studios of WXRZ right here behind the White Trolley in Corinth where we can actually smell the slug burgers sizzlin’ on the griddle.
    “Our show tonight is going to be less me and more you doing the talking because I know you have questions about the event at Kirby Creek this Saturday. But first I have the announcement you’ve been waiting for. Because of your support and contributions the