Creed scouted the camp. He checked the trails in and out, and no matter how carefully he looked, he found no sign of anyone passing. Not in, and not out. The camp was there – there was no way around that. There were footprints near the stone-circled fire and the tents, and not all of the belonged to the girl. Only hers led out from the camp.
So he waited, and he watched. If he made a mistake, he somehow thought the next person to wander in and study the place might find another set of prints near the fire – and nothing else but wind and dust. He wasn't an ambitious man, but he had plans that included other times and places than this one. He intended to reach those times and places intact.
The tent flaps fluttered in the breeze. Creed thought of ghost towns he'd seen. There was a feel to a dead place, the sense of total abandonment, coupled with the uneasy sensation that no matter how long the former residents had been gone, if you touched or took something you'd feel the weight of their gaze at the nape of your neck. You'd hear their voices whispering to you softly, just out of range of your hearing. In the periphery of your vision, shadows would move, but when you turned, no one was there – but you'd still want to run.
So he waited until he figured it had reached the point of balance between time to do something and time to leave, stood slowly, and walked up to the fire. A tin coffee pot sat on a flat piece of stone. It was blackened and ruined. Forgotten. Creed poked at it with the toe of his boot and it crumbled.
He turned and surveyed the tents. There were three of them – one smaller than the other two. He figured that for the woman's tent. He started there. Somehow it was easier to go through her things. At least he'd seen her when she was alive.
The tent flap was open. He ducked inside and scanned the interior. A bedroll was spread on the ground. It was rumpled. Like the coffee pot, it had been abandoned, and forgotten. There was a black leather pack against one wall of the tent. Creed bent down and picked it up. It was heavy. He started to unfasten the clasps, then glanced around, and stopped. Whatever was inside, it could wait until he was safely out of this place and far away. He slung it over one shoulder. The rest of the tent was bare, so he stepped back into the clearing.
The other two tents were closed, their flaps carefully tied shut with rawhide straps. Dust blew against their canvas sides. Creed stepped up to the first tent. He pulled his knife and slashed the rawhide strap. He tore the flap aside and stepped inside, holding the blade out like a shield.
There was nothing inside. It wasn't like the smaller tent, which looked lived in, but abandoned in a hurry. It was absolutely empty. There were no boot prints in the dusty floor of the interior, though there were odd scratches, like hieroglyphics carved with something sharp.
Creed glanced up. The tent's roof was slashed. He should have seen it from outside, but he'd concentrated on the ground, and the fire. He saw the trees clearly through the ruined canvas, and he stared up through the leafy branches at the blue sky beyond. A sliver of icy fear drove into his spine, and he spun. He pushed his way back out so roughly he nearly dragged the tent's stakes from the hard ground. The clearing was as empty as before.
Steeling his nerves he stepped up to the second of the larger tents, slashed the rawhide straps as he had on the first, and pulled back the flap. This time he didn't step in. There was no need. It was as bare as the first. The canvas roof was shredded, flapping outward like the tendrils of some freakish vine. Creed let the flap drop back into place and turned away.
A wind had kicked up, and he lifted his gaze to the sky. Rain was an oddity in Rookwood, but not impossibility, and when it came, it was swift and dangerous. Flood waters were common. The town rested on a low rise, and the camp where The Deacon and his tents rested should be protected, at least for a while, by the gulch, but if it stormed, this campsite wasn't the place to ride it out.
The sky, which had been clear and blue, darkened to a dusty, slate gray. Clouds scudded across that surface, and the dry, twisted trees shifted and creaked. Something fluttered in the breeze, spinning and shifting through the air to land in the dust at his feet. Creed bent and snatched it before the wind could carry it out of reach.
It was a large, black feather. He started to release it in the breeze, and then stopped. For no earthly reason he could fathom, he tucked it into the pocket of his jacket. Then, without another glance at the camp, he took off at a run. He unbound his horse's reins from the tree where he'd left it, swung up into the saddle, and took off at a fast trot, ducking in and out of the trees and headed for Rookwood.
Just before he reached the tree line, a flash of lightning lit the sky. His horse shied, and as he fought it for control, something big and dark launched from the trees to his right. Huge wings beat the air and he heard an unearthly cry that nearly unseated him. His horse fought his control, wheeled in a circle and turned his back to the sound.
He spun the animal back with a grunt and stared upward as the largest owl he'd ever seen took flight. It glittered silver in a second flash of lightning, and was gone, soaring into the clouds before the thunder followed the flash.
'Jesus wept,' Creed said. He turned away from the trees and spurred his horse forward. It was an hour to Rookwood, and the first heavy, wet splashes of rain dropped around him and slapped him in the face. The sky was as black as death, and his mind was filled with the sound of beating wings.
Chapter Seventeen
The Deacon sat in a leather chair built into the framework of his wagon. On the table at his side was a cut glass tumbler half full of golden brown whiskey. On his lap he held a book. It was a very old book, bound in leather with age-yellowed pages. A dark ribbon bookmark dangled off the end of the spine, where it had been bound in when the pages were sewn.
On the floor, Colleen slept, the child nestled against her tightly, wrapped in rough blankets with a rolled jacket for a pillow. From time to time The Deacon glanced down at them. His smile was grim – the upward turn of his lip unfamiliar and alien after so long.
He had carefully wrapped the leather pouch in dark silk. The silk had been embroidered with symbols and words in a pattern he'd purchased from a toothless old witch several months back. When he wrapped it, it slept, but not for long. Every time he did it, he wondered if it would be his last. If he waited too long, or it sensed his intent, he doubted the pain would stop at burning his flesh.
He hadn't touched the book on his lap since the last time he'd wrapped the talisman, but he knew it was time. He read quickly. The book had come from the pastor of a church back east. The man had been old, and his mind wandered. The book had been his responsibility for half a century, and none had stepped forward to take his place. He had come to The Deacon in the hope he might be healed – that the ravages of age could be wiped from his emaciated frame to leave him healthy enough to carry on.
The book held power, and the power was dangerous. The man had feared for his soul – feared deeply enough he was willing to remain behind when his own call to glory was at hand if it meant fulfilling his duty. The Deacon had lent a conciliatory shoulder. He'd gone through the motions of the healing, but kept the old man as far from the talisman as possible. After the ceremony failed, it was only a matter of days.
On his deathbed, the priest confessed his mission to The Deacon. He passed on a wooden box, carefully locked. Inside, the book was bound in similar silk to the strip that now bound the talisman. That first night, when the old man had died and The Deacon made off with his prize, was almost the last night.
The book was alive to the touch. The Talisman had sensed its presence and searched his flesh. It leapt against the material of his jacket, stretching out toward the musty tome as though they were opposite poles of a magnet. It had taken all his strength to fold the cloth back over the book and slam the box shut.
Study, bribes, payments he could ill afford, and great risk had brought him to the old woman and the dark silk. He remembered her eyes – the coarse, leathery feel of her skin as she stroked his cheek – and the deep, hollow tones of her laughter. Even now the thought of her price ran through his blood like ice water.
But the book – that book – was worth the pain. It was worth the corruption. It was worth any price. What he'd waited for was the proper time to use it – the right reason to risk … everything. The page he'd opened it to held a ritual, penned in even, symmetrical letters. He read it, and then read it again, though the words burned into
