Still Life With Crows

volunteer corn. He was safe, thank the risen Lord, he was safe! With a sob and a gasp he seized the door handle, pulled open the door.

From the dark semicircle of surrounding corn, the thing launched itself out at him with a rising bellow.

MuuuuuuuUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Ludwig’s gargling scream was swallowed by the shrieking of the wind.

Forty

 

From his suite of rooms on the second floor of the old Kraus place, Pendergast watched a dirty red dawn break along the eastern horizon. Distant lightning had flickered and rumbled all night. And the wind was still rising, rippling the fields of corn, causing the “Kraus’s Kaverns” sign to swivel and shiver on its weatherbeaten post. The trees along the creek, half a mile away, were tossing in the gusts, and dusty sheets rose from the dry fields, carried aloft in rolling folds before disappearing into the dirty sky.

He lowered his eyes from the window. For the hundredth time he went over the memory crossing in his mind, re-creating the preparation, the setting of the scene, the mental deconstruction and reconstruction of the Mounds region, the past events that had followed. It was the first time a memory crossing had failed him. Having had no luck in his investigation into present-day Medicine Creek, he had made the crossing in an attempt to understand the events of the past: to solve the riddle of the curse of the Forty-Fives, to understand what really happened on that day in 1865. But it was as the legends held: the Indians really had appeared out of nowhere, and then vanished back into nowhere.

Yet that was impossible. Unless it was at last time to contemplate a possibility he had always resisted: that there were, in fact, extra-natural forces at work here, forces that he neither apprehended nor comprehended.

It was a most frustrating turn of events indeed.

There was a faint droning sound to the southeast. Raising his head, Pendergast saw the dot of a plane coming in high over the corn. It grew in size, flying across his field of vision, resolving into a Cessna crop duster. As it receded again toward the opposite horizon, it banked and came back—the spotter plane, still looking for Chauncy’s body.

A second drone came from out of the lightening horizon, and Pendergast saw a second plane arrive to work the cornfields, flying back and forth at the other end of the landscape.

From downstairs came the rattle of a kettle being placed on the stove. Moments later, the aroma of percolating coffee reached him. Winifred Kraus would also be making his tea, in the exacting manner he had taught her. It wasn’t easy to make a satisfactory cup of King’s Mountain Oolong, getting the temperature of both the water and the pot precisely right, knowing the correct quantity of leaves to add, the right amount of time to let them steep. Most important was the quality of the water. He had quoted to her at length from the fifth chapter of Lu Yu’sCh’a Ching, the holy scripture of tea, in which the poet debated the relative merits of mountain water, river water, and spring water, as well as the various stages of boiling, and Winifred had seemed to listen with interest. And, to his surprise, the tapwater of Medicine Creek had proven fresh, cool, pure, and quite delicious, with a perfect balance of minerals and ions. It made an almost perfect cup of tea.

Pendergast thought about this while watching the two planes move back and forth, back and forth. And then, rather suddenly, one began to circle.

Just like the vultures had done, not so many days before.

Still thoughtful, Pendergast slipped his cell phone out of his coat pocket and dialed. A voice answered, thick with sleep.

“Miss Swanson? I will expect you here in ten minutes, if you please. It would appear we’ve found the body of Dr. Chauncy.” He snapped the phone shut and turned from the window.

There would be just enough time for tea.

Forty-One

 

Corrie tried not to look, but somehow not looking seemed even more terrible than the real thing. And yet, every time she looked, it was worse.

The site was simple: a clearing carved in the corn, with the body and paraphernalia carefully arranged. The earth around the body had been painstakingly smoothed and patted down, and a many-spoked wheel had been drawn in the dirt around the corpse. Gusts of wind rattled the corn and raised a mantle of dust that stung her eyes. Angry-looking dark clouds gathered overhead.

Chauncy lay on his back at the center of the wheel, naked, arms carefully folded across his chest, legs arranged. His eyes were wide open, filmed over, pointed at unnervingly different angles toward the sky. His skin was the color of a rotten banana. A ragged incision ran from his chest to the base of his gut, and his stomach bulged obscenely where it had been crudely sewn up again with heavy twine. Something, it seemed, had been stuffed inside.

Why the huge wheel? Corrie stared at the body, unable to take her eyes off it. And was it her imagination, or was something actuallymoving inside the sewn-up belly, causing the skin to bulge and subside slightly? There was something alive inside him.

Sheriff Hazen had gotten there first, and was bending over Chauncy’s body with the medical examiner, who’d arrived by helicopter. It was odd: Hazen had actually smiled at Corrie when they arrived and had greeted Pendergast with a hearty hello. He seemed a lot surer of himself all of a sudden. She glanced at him sidelong, chatting confidentially with the M.E. and the SOC crew, who were combing the dirt for clues. There were the usual bare footprints, but when they were pointed out to the sheriff he’d only chuckled knowingly. An SOC guy was bent over one of them now, making a plastic mold from an imprint.

Pendergast, on the other hand, hardly seemed to be there at all. He had barely spoken a word since she’d picked him up, and now he was gazing off into the distance, toward the Mounds, as if his thoughts were far away. As she stared, he seemed at last to rouse himself. He stepped closer.

“Come, come,” said the sheriff in a hearty voice. “Have a look, Special Agent Pendergast, if you’re interested.