"God, if you're up there, now would be a great time to lend a little hand here," Odus said the prayer sounding stupid even as it left his lips. Why should God listen to a man who hadn't stepped foot in a church in two decades, who hadn't cracked a Bible since Sunday school in Free Will Baptist Church, who hadn't felt a single spiritual twitch since the day Preacher Blackburn had dipped his head into the chilling waters of Rush Branch and pronounced him washed free of sin?
However, his prayer may have been answered, or at least coincided with an earthly event, which amounted to the same thing when you dropped the fancy cloth and got down to brass tacks.
Needles of light broke through the branches ahead. This light was filtered by the leaves but was a solid force, pushing at the suffocating darkness and promising hope. Odus worked toward it, his footing more sure now as he could make out the black lines of trees and didn't have to feel his way through the vegetative maze. He heard voices as the light grew stronger and recognized one of them: Sarah from the general store. What business did a seventy-year-old woman have on top of Lost Ridge at this time of night? Of course, Odus could ask himself the same question, and maybe the same answer would serve for both of them.
"Hello," he shouted through the trees.
"Who's there?" Sarah said, her voice snapping like a soggy twig.
"Odus."
"Well, come on out of there and count your blessings that I didn't let loose with some buckshot first. It ain't wise to go sneaking up on a lady in the dark."
"I wasn't sneaking, I was walking," he said.
"Is this your horse, then?" came another voice, and Odus placed it as belonging to Sue Norwood, the young woman who'd been at the meeting at the general store last night.
Guided by their voices and the intensifying glare of car headlights, Odus threaded through the edge of the laurel thicket and stood in a little clearing at the end of a logging road. He stepped into the comforting cone of light and shielded his eyes. Sister Mary stood by the Jeep, snorting, head twitching up and down, and Odus couldn't shake the feeling that Sister Mary was laughing at him.
"Well, she's not rightly mine," Odus said. "I kind of appropriated her for a holy mission."
"See?" Sarah said to Sue, who was holding Sister Mary's reins. "I'm not the only one who's been touched in the head. The whole blamed place goes crazy whenever Harmon Smith rides into town."
"It seemed like the thing to do at the time," Odus said. "I mean, when you hear a calling, do you stop and ask questions, or do you just follow that voice?"
"You follow it," Sue said, and Odus could see the pickax in her hand, brandished like a Crusader's sword.
"That little pig-sticker won't do a thing against the Circuit Rider," Odus said, then noted the shotgun cradled across Sarah's arm. "I reckon a twenty-gauge won't, either."
"Oh yeah?" Sarah asked. "And what exactly do you have in your bag of tricks there that's supposed to kill a dead preacher? A Mason jar of holy water? A slingshot and a silver dime? An empty liquor bottle?"
Odus's face flushed. He'd tossed the Old Crow bottle into the hollow of a rotted-out stump, but first he'd briefly considered its potential as a spiritual battle-ax. Now the idea seemed as silly as Sue's and Sarah's weapons of choice.
"Okay, own up to it, we're poking in the dark with a limp stick," he said. "What now?"
"Wait, I reckon," Sarah said. "Harmon crashed our party last night, but I think tonight he's playing host."
"The air feels strange," Sue said. "Like it's carrying a mild electrical charge."
Odus had been so wired with tension his senses had been honed and focused down to the tight ache in his gut. Having found company, and his horse, he was able to relax enough to draw in the moist night air. The inhalation carried the fragrance of balsam and wet leaves, rich loam and moss, the safe, healing aromas of the high forest. But beneath mat, like a corpse's smell oozing from beneath the undertaker's applied mask of perfume, was a corruption of sulfur and ozone, of decay and a pervasive stink of something that didn't belong in this world. The smell almost had a physical presence, as if it was lightly stroking his skin, coaxing him into vile acts and thoughts.
"I expect the others will be joining us," Sarah said.
"He's leading us here?" Sue said.
"Jesus had his Sermon on the Mount," Odus said. "Maybe Harmon's ready for his turn."
"You don't think… he's the devil, do you?" Sue said this with the tone of one who'd relegated such ideas to the realm of B-grade horror movies and backwoods tent revivals.
"Or a dybbuk in Jewish lore," Sarah said. "Not that I'd know anything about that."
"Maybe that's a question for Gordon Smith," Odus said. "He's the one with all the smarts on that stuff. Come to think of it, I wonder why he's never talked about it much."
"Ashamed, maybe," Sarah said. "It's the same bloodline. And we all got some kin that we don't talk about much."
Sister Mary stepped forward, onto the stage defined by the headlights, and Sue dropped the reins so the horse could reach Odus. Sister Mary brushed Odus's satchel with her nose, and he unzipped it and brought out an apple. As she munched it with a curious, sideways twist of her jaws, Odus was reminded of the goats and their increasing numbers, how they were being born outside their natural gestation period.
"Flock," he said, dimly recalling material from Sunday school, when the class leader sold the kids on religion with coloring books and posters. Jesus was often pictured with a flock of some kind, whether it was sheep, children in robes, or grown-ups whose skin colors were varied enough and in the right proportions to make you think that, sure, black folks could get to heaven, too, only there probably wouldn't be too many of them, and God would surely give them a place off to themselves. The common theme was that gathering of creatures around Jesus, as if the Son of God would get lonely if he didn't have living things milling around him, waiting for a wise word or a bit of free food.
"Flock what?" Sarah said.
"The goats made me think of it," Odus said. "They've been breeding like rabbits in the past year, especially on Gordon's farm. I could hardly walk through the field without hearing them rutting in the weeds. Made me think that Gordon was on some kind of power kick, like he needed to be the king of the heap. Like he needed a flock so he could feel good about himself. I figured that was why he married a woman who had a kid, too."
"What's that got to do with the Circuit Rider?" Sue said.
"He wants a flock, too. And we're it."
Sarah looked around, as if afraid of what might lurk beyond the false security of the headlights, the shotgun tilted to the ground. "What in the world does he need with us? He should have killed somebody and been gone already."
"Maybe he needs something different this time," Odus said. "Notice we both said need. Like we have to serve some purpose."
"And maybe that's why we feel like we're on some sort of mission," Sue cut in, her voice excited, reminding Odus of just how young she was, and how new to Solom and its strange ways. But she seemed to be a fast learner, or else was as loopy as the rest of them. Odus had sometimes wondered if there was some mineral missing from the local water sources, or if some element was too rich in the underground springs, and that it had slowly poisoned the minds of everyone who stayed here too long. After generations, no doubt the madness was inherited. But if cheap bourbon had never clouded his mind for less than a day at a time, then why should plain water have that power?
"Others will be coming along shortly," Odus said realizing how pitiful and small his lone effort had seemed, riding into the mountains like the long arm of justice.
"Well, we ain't serving nothing by just standing here," Sarah said. "I guess we ought to go hear our sermon."