CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
They headed for the farm and on the way there they came upon Pike and Hammond struggling through the brush. Hammond grinned at him wickedly, his face sooty and mad.
“Show those bastards,” he panted. “Show those bastards how to do a burning.”
“Roosevelt?” said Pike. “Where have you been?”
“Walking,” Rosie said. “Walking and seeing.”
Pike looked at him mistrustfully and Connelly knew they shared the same thought.
“If we’re going we need to go,” said Hammond. He looked behind at the column of smoke. “The whole place can’t burn. Whoever’s left is going to lay hands on guns quick.”
“How long do we have until dawn?” Connelly asked as they started their way up.
“Three hours,” said Pike. “More.”
“Let’s make use of it, then.”
The slope became nearly vertical. They wrapped their hands in rags from their shirts and gripped roots and stones to hoist themselves up the damp hills. The stink of the fire was still in their nostrils but as they mounted the air became thin and clean. They found a ravine and crawled when they had to and leapt to solid ground when they could.
Roosevelt no longer needed to be led. He seemed to have an easier time of it than the others. He jumped to one stone and smiled down at it, pleased. “La,” he said, and laughed.
Connelly and Pike glanced at each other and continued climbing.
They came to a small landing in the hills. Cedars and furs dotted it in rings and they crept their way through the little maze, guns drawn. Then Hammond held up a hand and whispered, “Look.”
They saw the roof of the farmhouse a few hundred yards away. Weeds rose up higher than the waist and shielded part of it from view. They worked their way around and farther up the slope so as to get a better angle.
It was an old place, all the color and darkness of the wood long since washed away from years of rain. It seemed to be made of nothing but splinters, everything cracked and white and leaning, all the angles askew. The windows were dark and Connelly imagined black eyes watching them from behind each misplaced board. The house was paired with another barn, queerly placed in the small stretch of barely usable pasture. Decaying fenceposts ran along the slope. To their eyes each segment resembled the shattered spine of some long-decayed creature lying askew in the field.
They watched for any motion. They saw none. They checked the rounds in their guns and moved down through the weeds and over the fence and up to the porch, leaving Roosevelt sitting behind in the trees.
Everything creaked, leaving no chance of stealth if the fire had left any. There was no inch of the farmhouse that was solid. Each time the wind blew the house filled with a chorus of groans. Pike and Hammond checked the windows and shook their heads and Connelly looked in the door. The front hall stretched away, roof bulging down and the walls awry. He squinted into the dark and waved in and they entered.
It was as though they were in the belly of some monster. The house muttered and squalled and some parts of it dripped. They could hear the scutter of insects and rodents from somewhere in its walls. A strange scent was in the air.
“Something’s dead here,” whispered Hammond.
“Yeah,” Connelly said.
They found nothing in the house. The kitchen and living room were filled with the scattered remains of old furniture. A child’s chair. A soiled rag that had once been a linen tablecloth. They paced through it and exited on the other side. There the previous owners had once kept a playground of sorts. A ragged swing hung from an ancient tree and shattered glass and old toys glittered in the weeds. Some sort of foundation was on the ground, cracked and broken, shards rising from the turf like a rocky shore among the sea.
Pike pointed. There was a stone shed on the side of the house. Bricks and stones were missing from its entry and its front passageway was far longer than they had expected. They walked to it and looked in and though it was dark they knew they faced a tomb.
The reek was worse here, pungent and sour. Connelly remembered the house from long, long ago, the winding stairs that had led down to the basement, the wave of flies and the stench of decay. He knew the sensation of walking where the dead had once lain, but something far worse waited inside. He did not know and did not want to know what the gray man had kept in that place, but there in his hallowed ground he surely kept something special, something that went beyond any sickness mere men could ever know.
What was in there? What did the passageway hold? Connelly had turned away before and refused that grim knowledge, but he was not sure if he could do so again.
The wind blew across the mouth of the shed and it moaned. Hammond took a step forward, almost hypnotized. Connelly awoke and threw his arm out to stop him and whispered, “No. No.”
Hammond glanced at him, perplexed, and they struggled. Hammond tried to push past to enter but Connelly refused to let him go.
Then Pike held up a hand and motioned toward the barn. “There,” he hissed. “There, you damn fools. There.”
There was movement in the barn. They turned away from the shed and crouched down around the corner of the house and waited. Pike cocked his gun, then Hammond did the same. As the creature in the barn came out into the weeds a ray of moonlight broke through the clouds and fell upon the small field, illuminating it until it was a translucent silver.
It was a bull, enormous and white. How it had gotten up so far in the mountains they could not say, but there it was. It would have been a stately animal had it been cared for, but one horn was cracked and its coat was ragged and its backside spattered with dried shit. Flies buzzed around it in a thick cloud and it lowed as it made its way toward the center of the field.
Movement came from the opposite end. The leafless trees twitched and rustled and then the gray man emerged, shuffling out, his eyes fixed on the bull. He stood at the edge of the grass and he looked more tired and worn than they had ever seen him before, like he barely had the energy to lift his head. Yet when he stepped into the light he straightened, almost growing taller, and he breathed deep and opened his eyes. He flexed his limbs, testing them. Stretched his back and took a firm step forward. Then he looked down on the bull across from him like a king examining his subjects. The bull lifted its head at his arrival and stepped forward.
Connelly and the others did not fire. They did not shout or attack. Instead they sat frozen, aware that they were witnessing some ancient rite, a thing so old it had no name. It preceded language. Preceded any knowledge of the world at all save that those who watched it turn around them were fading from it even as they looked on.
The gray man and the bull circled each other. The animal dipped its head and swung its broken horns but the gray man did not flinch. It dug one hoof into the mottled earth and lifted its head and lowed again, warning him, yet the gray man still took no notice. Instead he reached inside his coat and took out a small silver knife. It glittered greedily in the moonlight. He breathed out, a cloud of frost forming and evaporating. Then the bull charged.
It was a short space but the animal’s speed was still immense. The gray man flickered away, dodging like he could walk on air, and the bull flew by him harmlessly. He scored a mark in the bull’s side as it passed, tongues of blood running down its white coat, and it lowed again and whipped its head but the gray man was already moving away, dancing over the ragged grass. They both turned at the perimeter of the small field, facing one another again, judging their weaknesses and strengths and waiting for the next strike.
The bull charged again. This time the gray man stood perfectly still, hands at his side as he looked down on the animal barreling toward him. When the bull neared he leaned to one side and his hand flicked out and grabbed hold of the horn. He spun himself around onto the bull’s side and put his knee into the back of its neck. It collapsed and slid to a halt, its massive legs lashing out and gouging lines in the grass. The gray man held his knife high and plunged it into the side of the animal’s neck. It bellowed in anger and blood sprayed from its throat, dotting the
