“Roosevelt was up,” said Connelly. “Saw him not more than a minute ago.”
“Roosevelt doesn’t sleep anymore, I think,” Pike said. “What’s this you want to show me?”
“Some markings. Thought you may know them. Over there, in the trees.”
He led them to the glen. Roosevelt was nowhere to be found. Connelly searched for the markings again and showed them to Pike. He grunted and went down on one knee before them.
“This is hobo code,” Pike said, tracing them with a finger.
“Markings?” said Hammond.
“Yes. Markings in chalk or scrawled in wood, left behind for other hobos. They can mean all sorts of things. Cross means this house serves food to hobos after a party. Triangles on a line like teeth means a dog. Cat means a nice old lady lives there. You see?”
“And these?” said Connelly.
He rubbed them with a thumb. “These mean get out fast. Danger.”
“Danger from what?” said Hammond.
“I cannot say.” Pike got to his feet and looked around. “It’d be something close. Something for us to notice. Here.” He stood in front of where the man who drew the markings would have been and looked around. He leaned to the right and to the left and waved. “I don’t know. Something over there?”
They looked with him. There was nothing there but the stones and the small mounds of earth.
“Come here,” said Connelly to Hammond. “Get your knife out.”
“Why?” said Hammond.
“Just do it and give it here.”
He handed Connelly his buck knife and Connelly knelt beside one of the small mounds. He ran his fingers over the grass and began digging with the knife, pulling up stones and rich black earth.
“What are you doing? You’re going to ruin the blade,” said Hammond, but Pike shushed him.
The knife struck something small and hard. Connelly dug it out and brushed it off and held it up to the light.
“What is that?” said Hammond.
Connelly examined it. It was gray, its ends hard knobs, its center rough like sandpaper.
“A finger,” he said. “Or at least it used to be. Long ago.”
They leaned in to see and then turned to the other mounds. Hammond reached down and touched one and withdrew his hand as though burned. Connelly walked over to another and plunged the knife in and wrenched it around in a circle. He reached in and pulled the mound apart, the grass thick and the soil dark and fragrant. He thrust his hand in and clutched at what he felt there and tugged it out. He cupped his hands to his chest and blew the dirt away from his find.
Rib bones. Curled and smooth. They looked strange jumbled together, no longer adhering to the structured, concentric arcs of human anatomy.
“What is going on here?” said Pike softly.
Connelly threw the bones away. “Peachy.”
“What?”
“We got to get Peachy out. We got to get out of here. Now. Right now.”
They got low and crept back to the barn but found that there were men there already, at least a dozen figures lurking in the shadow of the building. A few took a long board and blocked the door with it and jogged away. Connelly could see something shining in the moonlight, something metal. Rifle of some sort. Maybe a shotgun.
“What are they doing?” whispered Hammond.
“Get down,” said Pike.
“Peachy,” Connelly murmured. “What are they doing to Peachy?”
One figure’s hands lit up bright, then another’s. They stepped back and before Connelly could move or cry he saw bottles with flaming rags in their hands. They lobbed the twirling bombs through the open windows up above in the barn.
There was a tremendous thud as air was split and pulled back together, then a wash of fire dancing bright and begging to lick the roof. A hoarse cry escaped from Connelly’s throat but no one heard. Two more men lit ragged fuses and hurled the bottles in. The faces of the men were strangely lit by the fire but even from there Connelly could see they were the very churchmen who had been friends earlier.
Connelly got to his feet but Pike jumped forward and wrapped up around his legs. They grappled but the old man was stronger than Connelly would have ever believed and he pinned him to the ground.
“Listen to me!” Pike whispered into his ear. “Listen! You run out there now and you’re dead. You try and do anything and you’re dead. They’ll shoot you down like a mad dog and not think again on it. Do you hear me?”
Connelly gasped and choked as he struggled to stand. Behind him the barn began to collapse. They heard no screams. It seemed a terribly unfair thing that Peachy should be killed in such a cowardly fashion and his killers would not even hear his cries. They would not know the pain they had inflicted, have no notion of what they had done.
“What the hell is this?” Hammond said. “What the hell are they doing?”
“Mr. Hammond, have you ever wondered how a town on the dry side of a mountain could stay more lush and more safe than any other place in the country?” asked Pike as he released Connelly.
“N-No…”
“Because they made a trade,” growled Connelly from where he lay. He lifted his head to see the remains of the barn. “Because they did what they had to to keep to their own.”
“Yes,” said Pike.
They sat hidden in the glen, watching the fire burn low. The men began to depart, leaving only a few to make sure the fire did not spread. Hammond said he had wondered why the barn was so far out from the rest of the town. Pike and Connelly sat so still they might not have heard.
“You still got that knife?” asked Connelly.
“Yeah,” said Hammond.
“And the guns?”
“Yeah. Why? What do you have planned?”
“Trouble,” said Connelly, and wiped his hands on his pants. “Lot of it.”
They went around the outskirts of the town like wolves on the prowl and crept up through the lanes in shadow. They draped rags over their guns and the knife so they would not glint in the light, spoke with hand gestures and glances. Hammond picked the lock of the church with ease and they moved through the halls silent as ghosts, eyes dead, shoulders hunched.
They found the pastor’s bedroom and moved in quietly and gathered around his bed. He sensed them and awoke but before he could speak Connelly said, “Shut your fucking mouth.”
“What’s goi—”
Pike struck him on the temple with the base of the knife and his eyes went dull. They picked him up and bound him and carried him to the glen. There they tossed him down roughly and undid his gag and Connelly cut off his right sleeve. On the inside of his forearm was the mark they had seen on the sheriff’s arm weeks before, the crude symbol of the serpent madly devouring itself.
“My friend was in that barn,” Connelly told him softly.
“Wh-what are you going to do to me?” Leo asked.
“Don’t know. What’d you do to all those folk back there who’re being eaten up by the trees?”
Leo looked behind them. His face went ashen and he said, “You don’t understand.”
“I understand plenty. This is his town, isn’t it? It explains the sleeves. There’s a deal with him. Scarred man in black and gray. He said he can keep things green and growing. Keep everyone in this town healthy. Longer lives, even. Is that it?”
“How… how do you know?”
“I met a sheriff who was almost a hundred but didn’t look older than fifty. He had the same setup. And you don’t want to know what he lived on top of but I’m willing to bet you got a guess. Because see, I’ve figured it out,” he said, and hefted the knife in his hands. “Something’s always got to die. Always. If something’s going to live there’s something else out there that’s got to die. If it’s something small that’s got to live then a little thing’s got to
