Finch lowered his head, icy sweat dripping down his face. He had almost forgotten that the gun was still in his hand. Now he looked at it, moved it so the moonlight glanced off the barrel, and slowly brought it up.
“I’m warnin’ you.”
“Shut up,” Finch hissed, and raised the gun.
We’re not doing this your way, he vowed, as he swiveled the barrel toward the boy even as the third arrow was released and cleaved the air between them.
He pulled the trigger. Light flared. The boy staggered back, darkness blossoming in his shoulder.
A split-second before the arrow found him, Finch saw another shadow detach itself from the trees behind the boy. He might have cheered, might have cried to realize that it was his friend come to save him. But the chance for salvation for men of their kind was long gone, and would never be found here, or anywhere else.
Stunned, Aaron fell backward, his momentum halted by what he assumed was a tree until it moved, large hands grabbing fistfuls of his hair and jerking him off his feet. He fell, the gunshot wound burning in his shoulder.
“You son of a bitch,” his assailant cursed, and then was upon him like a ravenous animal, punching him in the face, ramming his meaty knuckles into the flesh, cracking bone. Aaron did not struggle. He simply lay there, enduring the battering, one hand silently and slowly straying to his belt and the knife nestled there, the handle hard against his exposed belly.
“Where are the rest of them?” the man asked and abruptly rose, dragging Aaron to his feet. The boy let the strength leave him so that the man was burdened with his weight and would have to struggle to keep his own balance. “I said where the fuck are they?” Spittle flew from his lips and Aaron had to restrain a cry as it found his eyes. He’s poisoned me, he thought desperately. His venom’s in me. Oh Jesus…
Driven by fear of a kind previously unknown to him, he grabbed the knife and swung it up and out in a short arc. His attacker moved away, but not quickly enough. The blade slashed his chest, and he grunted in pain. Aaron did not wait for him to recover. He moved in low and fast, dodging the man’s fists, and jammed the blade up to the hilt in his belly and kept it there even as those large hands found the sides of his face like a lover about to impart a secret, and squeezed.
Aaron moaned.
“Fucker,” the man said, and began to turn Aaron’s face away from him. The boy tried to jerk the knife upward but his hand no longer felt under his command, refusing to obey his instructions to keep traveling up until the coyote was split wide open. Agony seared his throat as his neck muscles began to protest the angle at which his head was being forced to turn. His vision wobbled, dimmed.
“Stop,” he whimpered, his voice sounding muffled and very far away.
The man merely grunted, his trembling hands clamped like a vice against the sides of the boy’s head.
“Stop,” Aaron said once more as his muscles became ropes of fire, bones cracked and split, and he was suddenly facing in the opposite direction, all feeling gone but for a momentary incredible starburst of pain that buzzed through his brain before the lights went out.
On the bank of a sluggishly moving river almost a half-mile to the north of Krall’s cabin, Papa-In-Gray knelt down in the reeds, joined his hands and prayed. Beside him, thrumming with anxiety, stood Isaac, who had come to deliver the word that Aaron and Joshua had fallen to the Men of the World, but not, he’d said with obvious pride, without taking their attackers with them.
When Papa was done with his requests that his boys be sainted, and fairly recognized in the Kingdom of Heaven, he rose with a grimace of pain and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “We move on,” he said. “No place they’ve touched can be used again. They’ll have turned this place to poison, and it will spread.” He shook his head in sadness. “Your brothers were brave,” he said, gazing down into Isaac’s eyes, in which he saw no grief, only anger and impatience. “As were you. But we must take our mission elsewhere.” He sighed, and crossed his arms. “Where is Luke?”
Isaac shrugged.
“Did they take him?”
The boy shook his head.
“If he’s alive, he’ll find us. Your Uncle Krall knows where we’ll be, assuming that fool has come to his senses and ain’t so much raw meat scattered by the coyotes.”
Together they walked the bank, following the moon, until they found a spot where the river was shallow and hardly moving at all, a tangle of broken branches and other detritus forming a natural dam, so that the water was only a few feet deep. As quietly as they could, they waded across the freezing water, both of them keeping a vigilant watch on the trees ahead, as well as those behind. Isaac had said two men had fallen, but there might yet be more of them, and if they let themselves relax without being sure, it could be the end of them. Every shadow was a coyote in hiding, every snap of a twig a footfall, every rustle one of them shifting their weight in preparation for ambush.
They reached the riverbank on the opposite side, and gingerly ascended through the reeds and cattails. Isaac’s breath was a low steady hiss, and Papa knew he was eager to have his taste of war with the Men of the World, that he envied the glorious deaths of his brothers. They had fought the fight of angels, felling the demons that had come to corrupt their hearts and souls, and it must have been a magnificent sight to behold. But he would get his chance sooner or later, because on the heels of the coyotes would come others seeking vengeance, seeking an end to Papa and his kind.
Papa was tired. As he paused a moment to catch his breath, his knee aching, he looked up at the stars above, their glow lessened by the great light of the moon, and felt a pang of sadness at all he had lost. Matthew, Joshua and Aaron were gone, murdered by the Men of the World, and Mama-In-Bed too, killed by her fear of them, and from the heartbreak at seeing Luke contaminated. Luke’s own allegiances remained to be seen, though Papa had faith. He had no choice. Alone he was defenseless against the awesome forces which existed to oppose him, and Isaac was young, an efficient killer but naïve, and not strong enough to be of much use if their nemeses came again. He needed Luke now to stand with him.
Isaac radiated impatience, his dark eyes twinkling in the gloom, and Papa nodded, waved a hand for him to proceed into the dark woods ahead. He watched as the young boy, limbs rigid with tension, hurried into the trees. After a moment, he followed, stowing that sadness, for it was not an emotion that could be used. It was a weakness, and for as long as he’d walked the earth, it had been a flaw easily exploited. He had encouraged his boys to shun it and they had learned to do so. That it should come back now, after all this time, unsettled him, tempted him to question the wisdom of proceeding any further.
No, he decided, angry at himself. We must.
He had doubted before and God had punished him.
He would not doubt again.
Teeth clenched, he ignored the nagging pain in his leg and willed himself forward into the woods.
-37-
The cruiser crept so close that Pete thought for a moment it was going to run him down. With great effort he stood his ground and the vehicle halted, the headlights on either side of him, the grille almost touching his knees. Dust swept out from under the tires, momentarily blinding him. He swallowed, and wiped a hand over his face. He was hungry, tired and dirty, in need of a bath, and he was afraid, though it felt odd to be afraid of Sheriff McKindrey, who had always been decent to him and had treated him with sympathy and kindness once it had been revealed what had happened to his Pa. But back then, Pete hadn’t been on the run, had done nothing to give the police reason to track him down. They sure had a reason now, and more than one.