in Arizona, and Herman didn't like all the talk he'd been hearing in the bunkhouse. Talk he was not supposed to hear. Talk of black masses and devil worship and orgies of the most disgusting kind. Men with men, women with women, and something about kissing the red ass of the devil.
Sickening!
'Where's Alario?' he heard the foreman, Lou Parker ask.
'Don't know,' a cowboy said. 'He was around here a half hour ago.'
'Is he still wearing that damned cross around his neck?'
'Yeah.'
'Then we can't waste any more time on him. If he doesn't come around to us tonight, we'll have to dispose of him. He should have come around by now.'
DISPOSE OF HIM! Herman almost panicked. Him is me! Jesus God—they're talking about
He remained rock-still by the side of the barn, only his eyes moving in the darkness, shifting from side to side, searching the night for any person who might be coming to harm him. And he knew, now, that every man and woman on this ranch was against him. What he couldn't figure out was: Why?
The high, shrill laughter of a woman reached him in the night. Pat Zagone. 'More, more!' she screamed. 'Right there!' she grunted.
A guttural moaning drifted to Herman. The gruntings of men and women together.
Dear God, the cowboy thought. What is happening around here?
He remembered what Slim had told him. That something was out of kilter on the L-R, and they both had talked of pulling out. Slim had said, 'There's a . . . force . . . or something that ain't right around here. You been seein' all them medallions on folks? And everybody cuts out on Friday nights. All the whisperin,' too. I don't like it, Herman. It's—I don't know—evil, I think. I don't know.'
And then Slim disappeared.
Herman watched two cowboys, Pip and Mack, meet on the lighted front porch of the ranch house, talk for a moment, then split up.
Here they come, Herman thought. He waited. There was no place to run.
Five minutes passed in silence. Hermen longed for a chew of tobacco, but was afraid to move, afraid to reach for the pouch in his back pocket. He heard movement to his right. 'Pip?'
'Yeah?'
'He's gotta be around here—close to the barn. Maybe in it.'
'Right. Don't let him git to his truck.'
'Won't do him no good. I jerked all the wires.'
Damn!
'You be careful. He's cat-quick in a fight.'
Herman heard the sound of a round being chambered into a rifle. A lever action. Probably a .30-30, he thought. His own rifle was on a rack in his pickup; his pistol in a trunk in the bunkhouse. But he had a sheath knife on his belt.
Don't pull it yet, he cautioned. Light could reflect off the blade and give me away.
Why are they hunting me? his mind worked feverishly. Why do I sense something evil all around me?
Pat's high shrilling reached Herman. Pat's daughter, Jean, joined in the laughter. Obscenity spewed from her young mouth, the oaths floating through the soft air of early night on the prairie. She called out the foreman's name, over and over.
Herman slowly shook his head in disgust. Ray and Pat were watching the foreman screw their daughter. Sick, sick!
Herman crossed himself without thinking.
'Something moved on the north side!' Pip called.
Herman reached for his knife. Too late. The men were on him, pinning him to the ground. A boot caught him on the side of the head, stunning him. He drifted into unconsciousness.
When he came out of his daze, Herman was on the now darkened porch of the ranch house, his hands tied behind his back. He was naked from the waist down.
Pat crouched between his legs. She was naked, her woman's breasts swinging free, the nipples enlarged. She smiled at him, the smile seeming cruel and evil—yet enticing to the cowboy. A medallion hung between her breasts, the gold gleaming at him. The woman touched his bare belly, the hand slipping down to grasp his manhood.
'Nice,' she muttered, stroking him. 'Very nice.' She bent her head to kiss his cheek, her tongue licking him like a cat. 'Don't be afraid, Herman,' her words were soothing. 'There is nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all. Just let us pleasure you. We've waited so long.'
Herman nodded, thinking, I'll play their game until I get a chance to run, then I'll cut out.
With that, he doomed himself forever.
Pat's daughter, Jean, joined the group on the porch. The fifteen-year-old was naked. Herman, despite his earlier feelings of disgust, felt himself thicken at the sight of the teenager. Pat's hand increased her stroking of his maleness.
The mother licked Herman's ear, whispering, 'Look at her, Herman. Isn't she lovely, beautiful?' The mother reached out and up to fondle her daughter's pudendum. The girl moaned, kneeling beside her mother and the prostrate cowboy. The girl kissed him on the mouth, wetting his lips with her tongue.
'Isn't that nice, Herman?' Pat asked him, her breath hot on his face. 'Aren't her lips soft?'
The woman and the girl touched the cowboy, stroking him, caressing him. Herman groaned, his penis hot and hard in the woman's soft hand.
'I'm going to have Pip untie you, Herman,' Pat said, as Jean swung one leg over his waist, her slim hand guiding him into her wet softness. Herman's hands, free, drifted about the girl's waist, gripping young bare flesh as she settled into a moaning, sweaty rhythm, moving on his hardness, working him deeper.
As Pat's lips touched his mouth, Herman felt something leave him. The mother's mouth on his, the daughter's silkiness trapping him, Herman listened as the departing thing left his body and mind, winging away. As lips worked on his, a darkness overtook him, and the evil that is in all humankind rose to the surface, driving out the goodness that is in all humankind, but not buried so deeply as the evil.
Herman screamed in the darkness as an almost unbearable wave of pleasure/pain gripped him. Soon, the pain was gone, leaving only pleasure.
'One more,' he heard the woman say. 'We have one more for you, Master.'
And Herman began laughing, his voice sounding savage pushing past his lips.
The girl jammed him full inside her, yelling her pleasure to the ever-moving winds of Fork County, the cry blending with the night.
Sam parked several blocks from Glower's Funeral Home and walked the remaining distance to the buildings, on the outskirts of town. His followers of that afternoon were gone, as if they had been deliberately pulled away from watching him. He walked toward the building, the weight of the .45 a comfort against his belly.
The business was dark as he slipped around the building, all his senses working, alert for any human sound. Cautiously, his hand found the door knob in the rear of the establishment. Unlocked. He slipped into the dimly lit funeral home, quietly shutting the door behind him. The sweet odor of death hit him as he walked the dark length of the hall, checking each small room. There was no one in the building; at least, no one alive, that is.
Sam found the room containing the body of John Benton, the chief of police resting in a satin-lined coffin. Sam took a small pocket knife, opened the blade, and, lifting Benton's right hand, made a small cut on the wrist. Blood leaked from the wrist.
Intent upon his work, Sam did not see Benton's eyelids flutter.
'Not embalmed,' Sam muttered, placing the hand inside the casket.
Sam slipped from room to room in the funeral home, until he was satisfied that no one had been embalmed in this place of business for a long time. There was not one drop of zinc chloride, arsenic, or mercuric chloride to be found. The workroom equipment was stiff from disuse.
