Ceremonies

message.' He hung up, troubled, almost indignant, at this unexpected absence of someone he'd regarded as reliable. Where the hell was she, anyway? Who had she gone off with? Well, he would call her in a day or two, when he got back to New

York. He certainly wasn't going to wait around here any longer; he had already wasted enough time. Gilead's main street had been dull, with cars passing but rarely and those inside them regarding him with little warmth; and the library, where he'd thought he might spend the afternoon, had been unaccountably closed. He had drunk too many cans of soda, there on the porch, and eaten too many potato chips. Now, as he got to his feet and moved slowly down the front steps, the heat made him feel dizzy.

It was a long way back to the farm. He walked for more than twenty minutes down the road that curved past Verdock's dairy and the Sturtevant home, hoping for a ride, but the only car that passed him was an antiquated Ford, black as a hearse and traveling in the opposite direction. The elderly couple inside, also in black, regarded him with stony disapproval as they went by, giving him a taste of their exhaust.

He watched the car recede slowly up the narrow road until it rounded a bend and disappeared, the faint hum of its engine lingering a moment or two afterward. Once again the air was still, but for the sound of a distant tractor and the echoes of an axe; not a thing was moving save the cows eyeing him suspiciously in a field to the left, the butterflies hurrying from flower to flower, and an occasional green snake that wandered onto the pavement and slithered back into the grass at his approach. The oak trees' shadows lengthened perceptibly with the passing day, as if reaching back toward town.

Five minutes later, just as he was descending the hill that ran past Ham Stoudemire's farm and stepping past the dark, motionless form of a garden snake coiled in sleep at the edge of the pavement, a rusty blue pickup truck appeared on the road, two black-garbed figures inside, a sparsely bearded boy at the wheel and beside him a plump, snub-nosed girl. The truck bore swiftly down upon him. He stuck out his thumb and flashed a hopeful smile.

Far from slowing as it neared him, the truck increased its speed and made a sudden swerve to the right. The garden snake woke just ' in time and slipped into the grass. Freirs jumped back to avoid being run down.

'Assholes!'

He hoisted an angry finger at them as they went by, hoping, at first, that the two had seen the gesture and then, on reflection, that they hadn't. No sense getting into fights with the townspeople.

Teenagers, he supposed, were teenagers everywhere, even among the Brethren. Anyway, for all he knew they'd just been aiming at the snake.

It wasn't until he'd descended halfway to the brook, the road ahead now crisscrossed with shadows of trees, that he encountered a genuine Samaritan: a leathery old farmer with a truckful of garbage, on his way to the town dump half a mile past the Geisels' north field. 'I almost didn't stop for you,' he said, eyeing Freirs warily through eyes whose whites had turned as yellow as corn. 'Thought you might be one o' them gangsters.'

Freirs laughed and assured him that he was as honest as the next.

The other nodded gravely. 'You're the guy who's stayin' at the Poroths'.'

'How'd you know?'

'Figured that's who you'd be, soon as you opened your mouth.'

'It must be hard to keep a secret around here. Everybody seems to know everything that's going on.'

'Pretty much.'

It occurred to him, after they got. under way, that the man might be a resource. 'For a town this small,' he said, 'there seems to be a wealth of family history.'

The other was shaking his head. 'There ain't too much wealth in this town, son. We don't hold with gatherin' up the goods o' this world like some folks do.'

'No, no, I mean, a wealth of memories, a sense of identity based on family background.' God, he sounded like a textbook! 'Like Sarr Poroth moving back to his ancestral farm after more than a century. That's pretty amazing.'

The man shrugged. 'It was for sale at a good price, and someone was bound to settle there by and by. The Babers never did do much with it – not as much as some folks might.'

'I suppose the land's not all that fertile down there.'

'No, sir, there's nothin' the matter with that land. It's just a matter of clearin' back the trees from time to time. You've got to have the will to see it through.' He paused. 'Less'n you fancy livin' in the woods, like some around here.'

'You mean families like the Fenchels. I've heard Sarr speak of them.'

He nodded. 'Folks like that.'

'And the McKinneys,' said Freirs. 'They must live out there, too, even deeper in the woods.'

The other looked puzzled. 'Never heard of anyone by that name, leastwise not around here.'

'No? What about the place they call McKinney's Neck? I figured it was named for someone in the area.'

'I expect you're right. But I sure ain't never heard of no McKinneys. Not in these parts.'

Freirs tried to remember his stroll through the cemetery. Now that he thought of it, he couldn't recall seeing any gravestones with that name.

'At any rate,' he said, 'I mean to hike through that region someday. Maybe I'll even run into a few ghosts.'

The man didn't take the bait. 'Don't see why a ghost would pass his time out in the Neck. Ain't nothin' there but swamp water and mud. You just be careful you don't go sinkin' in.'

'Still, I hear some pretty strange things have happened out there.' He watched for the other's reaction. 'Even a couple of murders, I hear.'

The man's expression barely changed, save for a certain impatience. 'I remember somethin' like that, but it was years ago. 'Twould be well before you were born. And beggin' your pardon, it seems to me that when it comes to killin', the place you're from has the rest of us just about beat.'

'I won't deny it' said Freirs. He tried to look properly contrite. 'But the killings I'm thinking of were a bit unusual – both on the last day of July. I don't suppose anything special happened last year on that date, did it? Or maybe the year before? Some sort of violent crime, or someone missing? An unexplained death, maybe?'

The man drove a while in silence. 'Nope,' he said at last. 'Not so's I remember. Summer's pretty quiet around here. Why?'

'Oh, nothing,' said Freirs. 'Just a thought.'

July 31, 1890, and July 31,1939… Why those two dates nearly half a century apart? There had to be something special about them, something that separated them from all other July thirty-firsts…

'Fact is,' the farmer said, breaking into Freirs' reverie, 'that time o' year's amongst the holiest, August commencin' as it does with the Feast o' the Lamb and closin' on the harvest festivities.'

'Really?' He was slightly disappointed. 'I guess your year must be filled with all sorts of holy days.'

'Well, we try to live in the way o' the Lord. For instance, only last Sunday, at worship, Brother Amos turned to me and said… '

But Freirs' mind was already back at the farm, going over the preparations to be made before leaving: the explanations that, tomorrow morning, he would have to give the Poroths, the shelfloads of books to pack away… And through it all his thoughts kept returning to the faded old photograph that he'd taped to the wall above his writing table – a photo of that curious little white face, smiling at him from the past.

It was the leg of mutton that prompted his question – the mutton which, upon Freirs' return, lay roasting in the oven for the night's dinner, its smell filling the little kitchen.

'Deborah, what's the Feast of the Lamb?'

She shrugged. 'Just another one of our observances. Why?'

'The old man who gave me a lift here mentioned that it comes at the beginning of August. I'd never heard of it before.'

'Honestly, Jeremy,' she said, laughing, 'you haven't even tasted tonight's meal and you're already hungry for more!' She turned back to the cucumbers and tomatoes she was slicing for the salad. 'What else did he tell you?'

Freirs thought back. 'Nothing very interesting,' he said. 'I don't think he knew that much. I asked him about McKinney's Neck, but he'd never even heard of anyone around here named McKinney.'

'Come to think of it, neither have I,' said Deborah. 'Honey, was there ever a McKinney family in these