moved after them as if he was up to his knees in cow shit, wading instead of walking. And Boomer, who knew Don Oscar's sour-mash scent, brayed to beat the band, sounding so deeply that Chester's papery eardrums rattled.
Chester stepped forward, knocking over the jar of moonshine that rested between his boots. He hoped Don Oscar had brought some more along, as payback for coming over and scaring the death out of a fellow. Chester stopped at the edge of the porch, leaning on the locust railing as he called out. 'Don Oscar, what are you stirring up the livestock for?'
Don Oscar turned at the sound of the voice, awkwardly but fluidly, and Chester got his first good look at his old friend. His friend was in there somewhere, because the wide bald head was still shining and the round cheeks were swollen with a shit-eating grin. But the eyes were all wrong.
The eyes were too deep and bright and green and empty. Boomer bounded off the porch, limping a little, and closed on Don Oscar. Boomer's hackles were up and his tail was low to the ground as he crouched to attack. Chester knew that Boomer was getting the same uneasy signal that Chester was getting, only the hound's instinct was truer. And the signal was that Don Oscar had turned, changed from a goofy bootlegger into something contrary.
'Chesh-sher, it's shu-shaaa,' the turned bootlegger said, but the words were all slobbery, as if Don Oscar's mouth was a mush of rotten persimmons.
Whatever the change was, it didn't look so wonderful to Chester. 'What in hell happened to you?'
'Shu-shaaa,' Don Oscar said, spreading his soggy arms wide.
Don Oscar was always going on about science, especially when it came to brewing shine. But it looked to Chester like science had fucked up good this time.
Boomer growled again and leaped at Don Oscar's trousers. The hound’s teeth locked and he worried at the corduroy fabric, twisting his dense furrowed head back and forth. Don Oscar lowered his arms and knelt, embracing the old hound. Boomer jerked his head back, a patch of cloth and dripping, pulpy meat clenched between his jaws. The stuff that dribbled like blood from Don Oscar's wound was the color of antifreeze.
Don Oscar lifted Boomer's face to his and throated the dog's snout. Don Oscar's eyes brightened, as if he was stealing Boomer's breath to recharge his own batteries. Then Don Oscar let the dog loll heavily to the ground. The hound lay still in the dirt, bits of straw and leaves stuck to his fur.
Chester was about to go for his gun. The thirty-caliber was hanging on two wooden pegs in the living room, and a loaded shotgun leaned in the corner. But Don Oscar moved closer to the door, and even as slowly as the monstrous form was moving, Chester didn't want to risk touching those starchy, rubbery arms or getting anywhere near the bad wind of Don Oscar's rotten breath.
Chester ducked under the railing and ran helter-skelter to the fallen feed shed, then doubled back to the barn, his heart aching like a fist clenched around a razor blade. He opened the door to the corncrib, wishing he'd taken the trouble to oil the hinges sometime during the last twenty years. But he never figured a squeak would be a matter of life or death.
He wrestled his way underneath some dangling scraps of rotten harness. Bars of light spilled between gaps in the plank siding. The dust of dead corn husks spiraled in the sharp sunbeams, and Chester was afraid he was going to sneeze.
He held his breath, wiggled his nose, and strained his ears. He heard leather rustling against chestnut, bridle straps still swinging from his passage. Rats scurried in the bowels of the corncrib, their dinner disturbed. The tin roof rattled and popped as the metal contracted against the cooler evening air. Chester heard none of the watery sounds like the ones Don Oscar had made as he walked.
Chester climbed the rickety stairs to the hayloft and closed the trap door. The door had no latch, so Chester nudged an old gray hay bale over it. He fell into a pile of loose hay, his bones aching from the effort. Then he tried to gather his breath, though his lungs felt as ragged as his long-john shirt.
That was when Boomer barked.
Good boy. Now you can show that deformed bastard who's boss in this neck of the woods.
Boomer barked again, only this time it was more of a marshy, slushy yelp. The bark bore too much resemblance to the way Don Oscar had talked. Chester crawled across the floor, his bony knees catching on nail heads and splinters. He looked through the siding at the farmyard below.
Boomer still looked like Boomer, only his eyes were green now. The damp dot of a nose lifted into the air and quivered, and Chester hoped Boomer's sense of smell had gone to hell along with his vision, or else the hound might seek out his loving master.
Don Oscar must have gone around the house, because Chester could hear chickens squawking in the backyard. Then Boomer dropped his tail and headed into the dusky forest, the way he did when he was going out to roust night owls and raccoons.
Chester waited as the sun slid down like dying hope. He felt naked and vulnerable and his throat was clogged with straw chaff. He would have traded his soul for his rifle and a quart of corn liquor. He was debating making a run for the farmhouse when Boomer padded back across the yard and climbed onto the porch, his ears drooping toward the ground. The dog's toenails clicked on the pine planks as he disappeared through the open farmhouse door. Another hour passed before Chester saw the headlights.
DeWalt stepped into the dark living room of the Mull farmhouse, blinking as his pupils expanded. The room smelled of animal hair and gunpowder, wood smoke and corn husks. DeWalt slid the soles of his boots across the uneven plank floor, probing for obstructions. He knew from previous visits that an old horsehair settee lurked somewhere underfoot, and in the middle of the room stood a walnut highboy that would fetch ten grand in a New York antique shop.
'Chester,' he called. Dust stirred from the air draft of his voice.
A door creaked upstairs. He ran his hand along the walls. Chester had nailed linoleum sheets over the siding in an attempt to cover the cracks in the walls. The house had been built before insulation had become common. DeWalt was surprised that a fire wasn't burning in the potbellied stove.
DeWalt walked to the end of the room, using the wall to guide him to the stairs. His fingertips glided over the smooth surface of a mirror, then over the splintery, rough-cut window frame. The window had been boarded over, so the light of the moon didn't penetrate. He passed the window and bumped his head on an outcrop of wooden coat pegs.
Then his boot thumped into the hollow riser of the stairs. He'd never been up to the second floor. A piece of fabric hung in front of him and he brushed it aside like a cobweb. Running his hand along the wall, he found a light switch. He flipped it once, then again.
Nothing.
It was even darker in the narrow stairwell. He strained his eyes at the murk above him. Something shuffled in the shadows.
'Chester?' He wished he had brought a flashlight. He should have figured the power might be out when Chester’s phone call had gone dead. Chester had been nitching about all those falling trees and the crazy green glow, and that was plenty enough to get DeWalt out of his easy chair.
Some pioneer you are, Oh Lodge Brother.
I'm concerned, Mr. Chairman.
To what do you attribute your accelerated pulse and the faint quiver of your limbs?
The unknown.
Brother, all is unknown. Except for your overly familiar testicular organs.
Sir, I object. No need to get personal.
The first tenet of the Royal Order of the Bleeding Hearts charter is 'Know thyself.' Perhaps that scares you more than anything else.
Mr. Chairman, pardon me, but I've had enough of your Flower Power sloganeering and half-baked solipsism.
Brother, do I detect mutiny in the ranks?
Walk with me, Mr. Chairman. I dare you.
DeWalt headed up the stairs, staggering on the narrow runners, his arms pressing against the walls for balance. The air was cooler up here, and he felt a draft as he stepped into the room. A shard of light cut between the curtains like a silver sword blade. The room, apparently Chester's bedroom, took up the entire floor. The moon
