the clouds that had covered it had rolled away like wind blown pollen. The air smelled fresh, but as they moved forward, that changed. There was a stench in the air, a putrid smell both sweet and sour, and it floated up and spoiled the freshness.
'Something dead,' the deputy said.
'Something long dead,' Jebidiah said.
Finally the brush grew so thick they had to tie the horses, leave them. They pushed their way through briars and limbs.
'There ain't no path,' the deputy said. 'You don't know he come through this way.'
Jebidiah reached out and plucked a piece of cloth from a limb, held it up so that the moon dropped rays on it. 'This is part of Bill's shirt. Am I right?'
The deputy nodded. 'But how could Gimet get through here? How could he get Bill through here?'
'What we pursue has little interest in the things that bother man. Limbs, briars. It's nothing to the living dead.'
They went on for a while. Vines got in their way. The vines were wet. They were long thick vines, and sticky, and finally they realized they were not vines at all, but guts, strewn about and draped like decorations.
'Fresh,' the deputy said. 'Bill, I reckon.'
'You reckon right,' Jebidiah said.
They pushed on a little farther, and the trail widened, making the going easier. They found more pieces of Bill as they went along. The stomach. Fingers. Pants with one leg in them. A heart, which looked as if it has been bitten into and sucked on. Jebidiah was curious enough to pick it up and examine it. Finished, he tossed it in the dirt, wiped his hands on Bill's pants, the one with the leg still in it, said, 'Gimet just saved you a lot of bother and the State of Texas the trouble of a hanging.'
'Heavens,' the deputy said, watching Jebidiah wipe blood on the leg-filled pants.
Jebidiah looked up at the deputy. 'He won't mind I get blood on his pants,' Jebidiah said. 'He's got more important things to worry about, like dancing in the fires of hell. And by the way, yonder sports his head.'
Jebidiah pointed. The deputy looked. Bill's head had been pushed onto a broken limb of a tree, the sharp end of the limb being forced through the rear of the skull and out the left eye. The spinal cord dangled from the back of the head like a bell rope.
The deputy puked in the bushes. 'Oh, God. I don't want no more of this.'
'Go back. I won't think the less of you, cause I don't think that much of you to begin with. Take his head for evidence and ride on, just leave me my horse.'
The deputy adjusted his hat. 'Don't need the head…. And if it comes to it, you'll be glad I'm here. I ain't no weak sister.'
'Don't talk me to death on the matter. Show me what you got, boy.'
The trail was slick with Bill's blood. They went along it and up a rise, guns drawn. At the top of the hill they saw a field, grown up, and not far away, a sagging shack with a fallen down chimney.
They went that direction, came to the shack's door. Jebidiah kicked it with the toe of his boot and it sagged open. Once inside, Jebidiah struck a match and waved it about. Nothing but cobwebs and dust.
'Must have been Gimet's place,' Jebidiah said. Jebidiah moved the match before him until he found a lantern full of coal oil. He lit it and placed the lantern on the table.
'Should we do that?' the deputy asked. 'Have a light. Won't he find us?'
'In case you have forgotten, that's the idea.'
Out the back window, which had long lost its grease paper covering, they could see tombstones and wooden crosses in the distance. 'Another view of the graveyard,' Jebidiah said. 'That would be where the girl's mother killed herself.'
No sooner had Jebidiah said that, then he saw a shadowy shape move on the hill, flitting between stones and crosses. The shape moved quickly and awkwardly.
'Move to the center of the room,' Jebidiah said.
The deputy did as he was told, and Jebidiah moved the lamp there as well. He sat it in the center of the floor, found a bench and dragged it next to the lantern. Then he reached in his coat pocket and took out the bible. He dropped to one knee and held the bible close to the lantern light and tore out certain pages. He wadded them up, and began placing them all around the bench on the floor, placing the crumpled pages about six feet out from the bench and in a circle with each wad two feet apart.
The deputy said nothing. He sat on the bench and watched Jebidiah's curious work. Jebidiah sat on the bench beside the deputy, rested one of his pistols on his knee. 'You got a .44, don't you?'
'Yeah. I got a converted cartridge pistol, just like you.'
'Give me your revolver.'
The deputy complied.
Jebidiah opened the cylinders and let the bullets fall out on the floor.
'What in hell are you doing?'
Jebidiah didn't answer. He dug into his gun belt and came up with six silver-tipped bullets, loaded the weapon and gave it back to the deputy.
'Silver,' Jebidiah said. 'Sometimes it wards off evil.'
'Sometimes?'
'Be quiet now. And wait.'
'I feel like a staked goat,' the deputy said.
After a while, Jebidiah rose from the bench and looked out the window. Then he sat down promptly and blew out the lantern.
Somewhere in the distance a night bird called. Crickets sawed and a large frog bleated. They sat there on the bench, near each other, facing in opposite directions, their silver-loaded pistols on their knees. Neither spoke.
Suddenly the bird ceased to call and the crickets went silent, and no more was heard from the frog. Jebidiah whispered to the deputy.
'He comes.'
The deputy shivered slightly, took a deep breath. Jebidiah realized he too was breathing deeply.
'Be silent, and be alert,' Jebidiah said.
'All right,' said the deputy, and he locked his eyes on the open window at the back of the shack. Jebidiah faced the door, which stood halfway open and sagging on its rusty hinges.
For a long time there was nothing. Not a sound. Then Jebidiah saw a shadow move at the doorway and heard the door creak slightly as it moved. He could see a hand on what appeared to be an impossibly long arm, reaching out to grab at the edge of the door. The hand clutched there for a long time, not moving. Then, it was gone, taking its shadow with it.
Time crawled by.
'It's at the window,' the deputy said, and his voice was so soft it took Jebidiah a moment to decipher the words. Jebidiah turned carefully for a look.
It sat on the window sill, crouched there like a bird of prey, a halo of bees circling around its head. The hive pulsed and glowed in its chest, and in that glow they could see more bees, so thick they appeared to be a sort of humming smoke. Gimet's head sprouted a few springs of hair, like withering grass fighting its way through stone. A slight turn of its head allowed the moon to flow through the back of its cracked skull and out of its empty eyes. Then the head turned and the face was full of shadows again. The room was silent except for the sound of buzzing bees.
'Courage,' Jebidiah said, his mouth close to the deputy's ear. 'Keep your place.'
The thing climbed into the room quickly, like a spider dropping from a limb, and when it hit the floor, it stayed low, allowing the darkness to lay over it like a cloak.
Jebidiah had turned completely on the bench now, facing the window. He heard a scratching sound against the floor. He narrowed his eyes, saw what looked like a shadow, but was in fact the thing coming out from under the table.
Jebidiah felt the deputy move, perhaps to bolt. He grabbed his arm and held him.
'Courage,' he said.
