'You are right there, Mr. Weldon.'
Jim looked at his watch. 'Look, I'm supposed to be over at the church in a few minutes. Do you think you could give me a call if Father Selway gets in touch with you in any way? Or if you hear anything at all?'
'Of course.' There was a half-moment of frozen silence. 'And Sheriff?'
'Yes?'
'I will be sending a temporary parish priest to assume Father Selway's duties until such time as this affair is cleared up. I will also be sending someone out to look at the damage. Could you please let the parishioners know that services will be continued?'
'Will do. And I'll call you if anything--'
There was a click as the receiver went dead.
'--comes up.' He slammed down the phone, cursing the bishop. 'Asshole,' he said aloud. Just who did that old bastard think he was? God? He grabbed a pencil from the desktop and walked out of the office, snapping the pencil in two and dropping the pieces into the sand-filled ashtray in the hall. He nodded to Rita as he passed again through the front office. 'Anyone calls, you tell them I'll call them back.'
'Okay.'
Why did this have to happen in his town? he wondered as he walked out to the parking lot. Why couldn't it have happened in Pay son or Prescott or Camp Verde? He strode toward the new car at the far end of the lot. This wasn't a small town sort of occurrence. This was something that should have happened in New York or Los Angeles, in one of those big cities with weird cults and gangs.
He unlocked the car, got in and fastened his seatbelt. Turning on the ignition, he jammed the transmission into gear and took off, back tires squealing as he peeled out of the parking lot toward the church.
Clay Henry had been a rancher all his life, like his father and grandfather before him. But he had never seen anything like this.
Clay grimaced and spat. He could taste the blood. It hung thick and heavy in the air, dank and fetid in the mid-morning heat, penetrating his nostrils, engulfing his senses. He felt as though he were drowning in it. Before him, in the brown and trampled grass of the field, all six of his goats lay slaughtered, their throats ripped open by some crude instrument. Blood was everywhere: on the ground, on the matted hair of the carcasses, on the feathers of the two clucking chickens that had come out to investigate. He could see individual, congealed drops of blood on the long stalks of meadow grass at his feet. From the yawning hole in the throat of the nearest goat there protruded a twisting ropelike en trail that wound along the red-spattered dirt like a deformed and bloated snake. It looked as though whoever had ripped open the goat's throat had afterward stuck his arm into the bleeding opening and reached all the way down into the dying body to pull out its guts. Lengths of intestine hung out of the other five bodies as well.
A chicken pecked idly at a blood-soaked piece of intestine and Clay kicked it, sending it flying. The chicken screamed wildly, uselessly napping its feathered wings, and ran squawking back to the barn.
Clay ran his tongue over his teeth and gums, tasting again the blood, and spat to clear out his mouth. Already the flies had come. There were hundreds of them, seemingly every fly in the county, and they were swarming over every available spot of blood, flying spastically up at each movement that he made and then settling once more onto the carcasses. The field was quiet save for the flies--even the chickens were silent--and Clay felt .. . not exactly fear, but a strange sort of dread. The same feeling he'd had right before his accident, when he knew in those final seconds that the two cars were going to hit and there was nothing he could do about it. The buzzing grew louder in his ears and he looked down at the mutilated animals. He spat again. He knew he'd have to get this mess cleaned up as quickly as possible, before the carcasses started breeding disease and affecting the rest of the animals, but he thought he should call Jim Weldon first. The sheriff would want to know about this.
A strange mechanical coughing sound suddenly grew out of the buzzing, becoming louder, and Clay looked up. Across the field he could see a cloud of dust rising from the dirt road that led to the house. Someone was coming to see him. He squinted, trying to make out who it was, but he couldn't see from this far away. He listened, and he recognized the loud sputtering engine of LorenWilbanks ' truck. What could Loren want? he wondered. He stood for a moment, watching the dust cloud move toward his house, then, holding onto his bad leg with his right hand, started limping back across the field to where the truck had pulled to a stop.
Loren was waiting on the porch steps when Clay rounded the corner of the old barn. The tall gaunt farmer had been absently and nervously juggling two small pebbles in his hands, staring out across the north field at the broken skeleton of a windmill, but he jumped to his feet as he saw Clay approach, throwing the pebbles into the dirt. He picked up his hat as he rose. 'Where'n Christ have you been? I been tryin ' to call you all morning.'
Clay limped over to the steps and grabbed the wrought iron rail for support. He pulled a red bandana handkerchief from the right front pocket of his overalls and used the handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his forehead. 'Someone slaughtered all my goats,' he said. 'Ripped out their throats.'
'That's why I beentryin ' to call you. Same thing happened to everybody.'
Clay stared at him. 'What?'
'All my goats were killed. Ace's, Johnny's, Henry's, everybody's.'
'Same way?'
Loren nodded. 'Ripped open their throats and pulled out their innards.
Looks like it was done with a can opener or something. Goddamn flies everywhere.'
'Yeah, same here.' Clay sat down on the top step. He looked toward the spot where the six goats lay slaughtered. He couldn't see them from here, their bodies were hidden by the tall grasses and weeds, but he thought he could hear the constant buzzing of the flies. The sound seemed to echo in his head. 'I was just going to come in and call Weldon,' he said. 'See what he could do about it.'
Loren looked at him. He waved a fly away from his face with his hat.
'No one's called here yet?'
Clay shook his head, puzzled. 'They might've. I've been out in the field all morning. Why?'
'Jesus,' Loren said. He kicked at the bottom step with his scuffed work boot, staring down. A piece of hardened sod broke off from the side of the step and fell to the ground. 'You didn't hear what happened?'
Clay shook his head.
Loren was silent for a moment. 'You know the Episcopal church?' he said finally. 'That one out there past the hospital?'
Clay shook his head. 'You know I never been no churchgoer.'
'Well it don't matter. That's the church Verna goes to. All new and modern looking and real nice. What happened is that someone wrote all over the front of the church. 'Damn you all to hell' and shit like that. Wrote it in goat's blood.'
'Goat's blood?'
Loren was nodding before Clay had even got the words out. 'Yeah. Carl Chmura'sbeen calling all morning. Calling every rancher around.
Prob'ly called you too but you weren't in.'
'I was out in the field,' Clay repeated. He stood up, holding onto his leg, a sharp flash of pain registering on his face as he lurched to his feet. 'I better call them then.' Holding the rail, he half-walked, half-pulled himself up the last step. He yanked open the ripped and rusted screen door, holding it open for Loren. He looked at the other rancher. 'You coming in or you just going to stand there?'
Loren walked up the steps and caught the screen door just before it slammed. Clay was already walking down the long hall to the back of the house.
'You got coffee or anything?' Loren asked.
Clay waved an arm in the general direction of the kitchen. 'Didn't have time to make none this morning,' he called out. 'You go on ahead and make us some. You know where everything is.'
Loren walked into the old kitchen. It was spic and span as always, exactly the way Glenda used to keep it. The same anemic, half-dead creeping charlie was struggling for its life on top of the Sears Coldspot refrigerator, the same faded plastic flowers lay arranged in the same brown wicker basket on the red-and-white checked tablecloth that covered the breakfast table. The ancient gas stove remained brightly polished as always, its few black nicks standing out dully against the gleaming porcelain. Through the greenhouse window above the sink, the mid-morning sun streamed in slatted rays, lighting up the entire room.
