“And he wasn’t such a hard-ass on religious beliefs, since his own were pretty radical for the time.”
“Rather pagan-esque, I take it,” said Violina, “given the Saint Saturn appellation.”
“W.B. did some studying. He believed Christianity was actually Saturn worship. A few folks shared this belief, once he explained the backstory.”
Chapter 3
Valley of The Scarecrow
Settlement era
Friedrich Schroeder rubbed the back of his neck, his hand coming away damp. But there was no sting of sunburn, and for that he prayed his gratitude, if absently, as he did for every little thing, including the mild euphoria he got from his dandelion wine and, of course, the paying patronage of his fellow settlers.
Soon after arriving, the settlers encountered the natives and found them kind and welcoming, a contrast to the terrifying rumors they had all heard in the port taverns back in England. That is, until Conal O’Herlihy introduced the tribe to his vaunted mushroom, and promptly scared them away.
All except a few young males who were captured and imprisoned.
Schroeder was ashamed to have played a role in their oppression and enslavement. But Conal, in his uncompromising wisdom, had declared that it was God’s will that man hold dominion over beasts, which these natives were to him, no different from horses or cattle.
Still, keeping the small troop of young Tsalagi men and boys secretly encamped in the woods a few miles from the settlement was a logistical challenge. Schroeder’s special wine was a persuader for the settlement men in Conal’s confidence, for the young Indians themselves and for his own pesky conscience.
His wine had secured his position among O’Herlihy’s most trusted lieutenants. But his absence the previous night might strain their friendship. Expressing his growing qualms would not salve it.
At the moment, plans for the harvest of his corn and pumpkin crops were at the fore, and that labor would fall to his friends, neighbors and fellow disciples of Conal.
There was a good bit of preparation to be done before he would call on them. First, he would need to make more wine, of course, and have Olga bake her special bread.
For now, his task was to move the bootzaman to the eastern edge of his cornfield, beside the pumpkin patch. The crows, though mostly uninterested in the strange orange squash, often gathered there and perched atop the spheres, as if awaiting marching orders. They had heeded well his towering strawman here in mid-field. The move would keep them confused.
At Schroeder’s invitation, a handful of settlers had come to behold the unveiling of his uncanny false man. They had all been left uneasy by it.
Schroeder understood the fear of a thing that could not be real. His grandmother had ruined a good many of his dreams with her stories of the Sensenmann, or Death Angel, forever lurking out of sight, waiting to separate souls from bodies with his curved blade.
By comparison, Schroeder’s straw-stuffed guardian was laughable. These Anglos could count themselves fortunate to have evaded his grandmother’s stories.
Schroeder counted the rows and lanes he walked, his only way of knowing one identical section of field from another, and reminded himself to make a few more of the effigies. Stopping to part two familiar stalks, he found the scarecrow just where he had last placed it.
But this was not his scarecrow.
Just as Hezekiah Hardison, before dying, had believed for a split second that Schroeder was giving him a fright, Schroeder thought the opposite.
It was Hezekiah himself who hung from the sturdy cross frame Schroeder had made. Hardison’s head lay at a hideous angle. His clothes were soaked through with something meant to recall blood.
“Oh, stop this…game…” Schroeder chided, his voice trailing as early decay met his nostrils. This man, his neighbor, was dead—his neck torn open like a grain sack.
Schroeder spun to look behind him, then up and down both lanes, then back to the ersatz scarecrow. He leaned as far forward as he could without taking a step, to touch Hezekiah’s hand—and recoiled, despairing that the hand felt so cold, here under the warm sun.
He pivoted and ran to get his horse, blasting past cornstalk leaves so fast they cut his face. He needed to be near as many living folks as he could find, to hide from Death until it was wiped away in the Second Coming—oh, holy God, please let that be a true thing!
* * * *
Modern day
Yoshida watched until Hudson’s taillights disappeared into the trees beyond the drive, then went back into the strange scents and sights of the barn.
He switched on the portable stereo he had brought and tuned to local station WICH. Their two-month-long Halloween celebration for the region’s dwindling population, which had deejays assuming cornball Cryptkeeper-type personae, was always good for a few laughs, even if it seemed half-hearted at best these days. The deputy kept the volume low for the sleeping guest.
The barn’s towering steel shelving units, filled with what the deputies had taken to calling “hoodoo potions,” had been pushed back to make room for the cage weeks earlier. As Yoshida and Hudson wrestled with one of the cabinets, a squat asymmetrical ceramic jar fell onto the plywood floor, and the lid fell off.
The jar appeared empty, but when Yoshida went to pick it up, he was stunned to find it far heavier than it looked—it weighed at least sixty pounds.
Hudson thought Yoshida was pulling his leg, until he too went to lift the jar. “Maybe we better not touch any more of this stuff.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
Now, after three miserable days, and with Hudson heading back to Ember Hollow to greet incoming guests—consultants in this very case—Yoshida felt more alone than he ever had. The massive, chain-wrapped wolf in the cage had remained subdued from the tranquilizer dart throughout the drive. But when they slid her cage down from the rear of the truck, it slipped from the hands of the exhausted deputies and dropped the last few inches to the floor.
Aura’s eye
