"Well, I found you, so that means there's a reason, doesn't it?" Odus ached for a shot of whiskey, but then wondered if the ache was due to his own need or was caused by the whim of some bearded guy behind the clouds. He had little use for religion, but, like most hopeless sinners, he wrapped his hands around it when it was the only rope available for climbing out of a dark pit.
"You're not special, you're just early," the Circuit Rider said.
Confused, Odus figured he'd best keep the creature talking while he came up with a plan. "Did you kill them two tourists on the Switchback Trail? You're only supposed to kill one and then be on your way. That's how it's always been, as far back as they remember to tell it."
"It's not about what you want or what I want. If it was up to me, Old Saint would just haul me off into the mist of a mountain morning and that would be that."
"You're evil, though. How can a man of the cloth go around killing like that?" Odus was casting about for a fallen tree branch or a loose jag of granite. He felt foolish now for not bringing a gun. He still wasn't sure what sort of weapon would work, if any. His was a mission of faith, despite the Circuit Rider's mocking.
The Circuit Rider ran a gaunt, crooked finger through a hole in his jacket. "Cloth is like flesh, it goes to worms. The spirit is the thing that doesn't die."
The Circuit Rider lifted his head and glanced above them through a gap in the canopy, his mouth curling up at one corner. A beech leaf spiraled down from the twisted branches and fluttered across his face. The woods were hushed in that moment as the birds and wildlife changed shifts, the daytime animals settling into holes, nests, and protective crooks of tree limbs while the nocturnal creatures roused from their slumber.
The silence was disturbed by a faint buzzing from below, as if a giant nest of hornets had been stirred with a stick. Harmon Smith's cracked lips bent like a snake with a broken spine in something that might have been a smile if seen on a human face.
"I suppose the others got the same idea you did," he said. "Funny how you give them a choice and they make the wrong one every single time. Few find the true way."
The buzz grew louder, changed into a roar. It was a vehicle engine. Somebody was climbing the rough logging roads that crisscrossed the mountain. And those roads led to the top, where Odus stared down his adversary. His brow furrowed in doubt. He was supposed to do this alone, wasn't he?
At that moment, Sister Mary reared, flailing her forelegs in front of her, stripping the leather reins through Odus's palm, cutting into his flesh. She broke and galloped into the trees, neck stooped low and ears pinned close to her head.
The Circuit Rider stroked Old Saint's mane, and the revenant horse chuckled softly in response. "I guess your friend there just exercised her free will, huh?"
Odus took two steps backward, toward the rocky ledge that led to one of the logging roads. It was a thirty-foot drop. He could try to climb down, but he pictured his fingers gripping the granite ledge and Old Saint bringing a heavy, scarred hoof down on them. He could follow Sister Mary and blaze a trail through the tangles, or he could stand his ground and see what God had in store for him.
None of the options settled the squirming in his chest and gut. The courage that had surged through him since this morning now seemed foolish and silly. He had no special gifts or weapons to bring to bear against a supernatural creature. He'd fallen back onto a sort of crippled faith, believing God would provide in Odus's hour of need. But Odus didn't consider that he'd never been a deeply religious man, and that faith couldn't be turned off and on like tap water.
"You fear me, but only because you don't understand me," the Circuit Rider said, over the increasing roar of the engine. "If the shepherd has one hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the other ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?"
The Circuit Rider wheeled his mount and trotted back through the laurel thicket. The branches shook from his passage as if horse and rider were as solid and real as any living creature. But the smell of decay lingered, a smell that hinted of grave dirt and spent fires and blood dried black.
Chapter Thirty-one
Jett opened the door to her room to find Gordon standing there.
"Where do you think you're going, Jessica?" he said, hands on his hips, blocking the hallway.
"Um, out for a drive with Mom."
Gordon grinned, and it looked like the expression of a cartoon possum, eyes narrow behind his thick lenses. "Mrs. Smith isn't driving anywhere. She told me so."
"Where is she?"
"In the attic."
Jett leaned to the side and looked past Gordon. The linen closet door was shut tight. The closet was too small for the attic ladder to unfold without the door open. Either Gordon was lying or else he'd shut the access door with Mom up there. But why would Mom go up there, especially after the ghost had scared her silly?
Jett decided Gordon was lying, and figured that deserved a lie in return. "I was smoking pot that time in the barn," she said. "When I saw-I mean, thought I saw-the scarecrow the first time. I guess I just freaked out."
Gordon's eyes narrowed. "You know the rules. No drugs in this house."
"Well, technically the drags weren't in the house."
"I'll have no sass from you, young lady. You're a member of this family now and I'm your stepfather."
Jett's cheeks flared red in defiance. "You'll never be my dad, no matter how hard you try."
Gordon reached out as if to grab her arm, but she ducked past, slinging the backpack around. She tried to crawl between his legs but he brought his knees together, clamping her like an oversize vise grip. Her sides ached from the pressure, but she wiggled while he reached down to her. Gordon was shouting, his voice scarcely recognizable. Some of his words sounded like Latin, intoned like the traditional liturgy of a Catholic priest. Like something out of The Exorcist or some Goth band's hokey attempt at demonic incantations.
Gordon had one of her boots, but they were recently polished and he lost his grip. She kicked free and crawled on her hands and knees down the hall, her mind blank except for the unbidden thought, How could Mom have been dumb enough to fall for this idiot?
Then she regained her footing and sprang forward launching herself down the stairs three steps at a time, clutching Captain Boo. She toyed with the idea of sliding down the railing, but there was a large wooden sculpture on the bottom newel post, and Jett pictured herself breaking a leg, lying there flopping and moaning on the landing while Gordon loomed over her.
What would he do to her? Even if he knew they were running out on him, which wasn't likely, considering what a wet mop Mom had been lately, surely he wouldn't do anything worse than scream and yell. Yet he had tried to physically restrain her upstairs, and she'd heard some guys went into possessive rages when a woman ditched them. His heavy shoes punished the stairs behind her.
When she reached the first floor, she dared a backward glance and suffered an acid flashback.
At least, she hoped that's what it was, because a woman was floating-floating! — behind Gordon.
She was thin as threads, almost invisible, and she was pulled forward as if riding in Gordon's back draft. Her lack of flesh was almost as startling as the fact that she had no head.