"All the people who hurt you are long gone," David said between tight lips. "Didn't the Methodists teach you to forgive?"
"Oh, I gave up the Methodist ways. That's why people got so riled. I went back to the older religions. If you want God to grant increase and to bless the orchards of your life, then you offer Him blood. Fair enough trade. Life for life."
The dark morass sucked at David's lower body, a moist, hungry thing. He wondered if this was really the way God wanted his life to end. What if he let go of the shovel and slid on down into the suffocating mud?
"Did you find what you were looking for?" Harmon asked adjusting the brim of his hat. Old Saint kicked at the loose dirt, triggering another small avalanche onto David's shoulders.
"I wanted to see if your grave was a doorway to hell. Or if the Primitive Baptists had earned their piece of your corpse."
The Circuit Rider tipped his hat. "Well, I'll leave you to your business, then. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
He whipped the reins against Old Saint's neck, and the horse reared and whinnied, the front legs coming down with so much force that David feared the bank would give way and the horse and rider would fall on top of him. The horse wheeled and the hoofbeats thundered off across the graveyard. David slipped another couple of inches into the mud and was losing his battle to brace himself with the shovel handle. How could God allow a true believer to die in someone else's grave?
Something slithered into his remaining boot, then up his pants leg, scraping rough scales against his bare skin. David tried to kick, but the mud held his leg firm. In his struggles, he lost his balance on the shovel handle and slid into the mud until it was past his waist. The pressure on his abdomen made breathing difficult. He thought of offering a final prayer, but if God had already decided, as the Primitive Baptists believed then it would be a waste of air.
He was just about to let himself slip down into Harmon Smith's tainted coffin when a snake fell across the back of his neck. He slapped at it, frantic, and found it was coarse and fibrous. It wasn't a snake.
It was a rope.
"He would let you die that way, but I won't," the Circuit Rider said. "After all, the Good Book says to bless those who curse you and do good to those who hate you."
David grabbed the rope. The Circuit Rider had tied his end to the saddle horn and nudged Old Saint so the horse backed away, chest and flanks flexing as it fought for purchase in the graveyard grass. The walls of the hole gave way in large chunks, but David wrapped the rope around his wrists and shielded his face from the barrage of dirt. He thought his arms would be ripped off at the shoulder blades, but his body slowly pulled free of the mud and the two feet of loose dirt that had piled around him. He slid on his belly up the slope of clay and then lay gasping and shivering on the grass.
The rope fell beside his face in a rattlesnake's coil.
"A good tree cannot grow bad fruit," Harmon Smith said. "And a man cannot serve two masters."
Once more, the horse's drumming hooves faded into the distance, leaving David weak and cold and beyond the numbness, maybe a little angry. Whether at himself, or Harmon Smith, or God he couldn't be certain.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Katy waited until Gordon excused himself from dinner. He'd eaten only half of his sauteed chicken breast and had barely touched his wax beans and sweet potato pie. Katy finished her own plate and began collecting dishes. Jett, who had remained sullen and silent throughout the meal, shoved her glass of milk away and crossed her arms.
"What did you tell your dad?" Katy asked.
"That's between him and me."
"Honey, remember the deal. We'll get through this together, okay?"
"Okay, I'll share if you share. What's the deal with this ghost you keep talking about?"
Katy dropped a piece of silverware as she stacked dirty dishes with shaking hands. "Nothing. I think I was just suffering delusions."
"And a 'delusion' just happened to give you a black eye while we were gone?"
"I was up in the attic looking for something-"
"Something in a long wooden box, right?"
"No. I found a key. And I thought it might fit one of the bureaus up there."
"Well, I'll tell you what I found in the box. A scarecrow. Just like the one that used to hang in the barn. Not the one that's hanging out there now. Somebody switched them."
"Why would they do that?"
"Maybe they needed to borrow the clothes."
"You didn't tell your dad any of this, did you?"
"I told him everything. The parts I know, at least."
"You didn't tell him I thought I was being haunted-"
"He loved that part. I thought he was going to laugh light into his coffee. Good old Dad. He can't handle any alternate reality unless it's caused by drugs."
"You shouldn't talk that way. Mark loves you."
"Yeah, but he loves drugs more. I could see it in his eyes. He's still just a sniff monkey, despite all the big talk about being strong for the good of the family. But you've heard that line plenty of times, huh?"
Katy left the room, dishes piled against her waist and smearing butter on her blouse. She didn't want Jett to see her tears.
They should get out of the house. Jump in the Subaru and drive down to Florida, stay with Katy's mom for a while, dig in the flower garden, and get sane. She needed time to sort things out. Rushing into a bad marriage was one thing, but dragging Jett along made it worse. And now she was hallucinating, or maybe cracking up.
Yet the smell of lilacs was real. It was strong in the kitchen, heady and thick, as if Rebecca had walked through the room only moments earlier. But Rebecca was dead. She'd had her head sheared off in a car crash. Rebecca wasn't keeping house any longer, nor was she brushing her invisible hair. No scarecrow lived in the attic. The man in the black hat was probably Odus, dropping in at odd hours to catch up on chores. Jett had merely seen a shadow, a trick of the moonlight, and her youthful imagination did the rest.
They couldn't both be going crazy.
But the goats were real. They were cunning and sinister and dangerous. Gordon talked of them as if they were family, and he showed them more affection than he showed his own wife and stepdaughter. He tended and nurtured his flock, but offered no warmth to the humans living in his house.
"Mom," Jett said from the doorway.
Katy was at the sink, elbow-deep in suds. The clock on the wall read a quarter till six. She'd been standing there fifteen minutes. Only two plates stood in the dish rack, and she could see her blurred reflection in the nearest one. For a flicker of an instant, she appeared dark-haired, smiling, eyes as mysterious as those in the locket she'd found in the attic. Rebecca's face had superimposed itself over hers, and a ragged rim of flesh encircled her neck.
She reached up to touch the wound, but found only the lump in her throat.
"You're blanking out again."
"No, I'm not. Everything's fine. We'll get through this-" Katy couldn't bring herself to finish. It was all hollow, the whole new life she'd tried to build was just a stack of cards waiting for a breeze. She despised cooking, and God had invented the dishwasher for a reason. These clothes were too cheerful and bold, too goddamned chirpy.
She was trying to be someone else. Someone whose head had never been found.
"Jett, I think we need to leave."
"You mean go back to Dad's?"
"No. That wouldn't be right. But I can't stay in this house another minute."
"What about Gordon?"
"I'll call him later."
Jett grinned, the first real joy she'd shown since moving to Solom. "Wow, Mom. I'm impressed. You've really got some fucking balls."
"So to speak."
"Oh, sorry. I wasn't supposed to cuss."