“See those pumpkins?” Crow asked, pointing with his chin.
“Uh huh.”
“Imported. Most of them are from Berks County.”
“Because of the blight?”
“Yep. We can’t let it show, so on days like today—and really for the rest of the month—there has to be the appearance of prosperity and business-as-usual. Pestilence and hardship aren’t big draws for tourists.”
They drove on, heading south.
The Bone Man sat on a hay bale by the side of the road and watched the big brown Impala cruise by. All Crow and Newton saw was a line of hay bales stretching across the field, and on the one nearest to the road there were a dozen crows loitering in the morning breeze. The Bone Man knew the men couldn’t see him. He had his guitar across his lap and he strummed a few notes as the car passed. One of the birds opened its scarred and splotched beak and cawed softly.
“Mm-hm,” murmured the Bone Man, squinting in the sun’s glare. His eyes were colorless in that light. “It’s a bad business.” The crow cawed again and the Bone Man played a few more notes, clear and sweet and sad. “A very bad business. Shouldn’t be going out there, little Scarecrow. Nossir, not out there.”
In the distance, the Impala was just a fading dot.
They rolled past several signs advertising the Haunted Hayride.
PINE DEEP HAUNTED HAYRIDE
Biggest in the East Coast!
We’ll Scare you Silly!
Newton nodded to it as they passed. “The hayride? You helped design it, right?”
“Not initially, but I’ve done all the upgrades. I redid all of the traps—the spots where monsters jump out at you.”
“Thinking of putting in a Karl Ruger trap?” When he saw that Crow’s mouth had become a tight line, Newton winced, and said, “God! That was in poor taste, wasn’t it? Sorry.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you shouldn’t be allowed out in public?”
Newton sighed. “My editor tells me that all the time.”
Crow sucked his teeth and after half a mile said, “Skip it.”
They passed a wrecker. Crow tooted his horn, and the driver of the wrecker raised a single hand in response.
“Friend of yours?”
“Not really. Guy named Eddie Oswald. Everyone calls him Tow-Truck Eddie. He’s okay,” Crow said.
A couple of cars passed going the other way, including a Pine Deep police cruiser, and then Crow slowed and drifted onto the shoulder at a crossroads where a dirt road lead away from the highway, forming the division between a vast pumpkin patch to the left and on the right a cornfield that sped away into the distance seemingly without a break. The road was small, but it looked well traveled, and there were deep wheel-ruts trailing away into the distance until the road jagged left and out of sight. Crow pointed. “That cornfield is the outer edge of Val’s farm. Ruger’s car was wrecked just a half-mile down the road. This pumpkin patch over here belongs to another family, the Conleys. They’ve been hit pretty hard by the blight. Worse than just about anyone.”
“And the road?” Newton nodded down the winding dirt lane.
“This here leads down to Dark Hollow, or rather to the entrance to it. One entrance. At the top is our local Lovers’ Lane—we call it the Passion Pit. I don’t know how much love goes on down there, but I hear it gets pretty intense.”
“Gee,” Newton said dryly, “our first date and you’re taking me to Lovers’ Lane.”
“No, dipshit, I’m taking you through Lovers’ Lane. We’ll park there and then go over the pitch and down the hill to the Hollow. I looked at the old maps and the old road that used to go to Griswold’s place isn’t even marked anymore. Don’t know if it ever was, being a private road, but there’s no way I know of to get a car in there. Going over the pitch and down the slope is no picnic, but at least it’s a way that’ll get us there.” He nodded down the dirt road. “This is gonna get bumpy, so buckle up for safety, kids.” Crow put the car back into drive and steered his way carefully down the dusty dirt road. It seemed to be comprised entirely of potholes.
“Nice road,” stuttered Newton as his body fought to jump free from the seat belt.
“Thank God for shocks, huh?”
“This car has shocks?” Newton asked doubtfully.
Crow steered around a couple of sharp turns and then into a clearing that seemed to appear magically out of the dense green forest. He braked to a stop and as the dust settled, he switched off the engine. “Weeee’re hee-eere,” he said, the same way the little blond girl had said “They’re here!” in Poltergeist. Newton gave him half a smile.
The reporter looked around the clearing and frowned. “This is Dark Hollow? It doesn’t look like much.”
Jerking open the door, Crow stepped out, saying, “This is the Passion Pit I was telling you about. Yonder,” he said, pointing to the western edge of the clearing, where the pinelands were showing signs of recovering from an old forest fire, “is the pitch, and way down below is Dark Hollow. From here we walk.”
Newton had brought a small backpack filled with sandwiches, juice boxes, PowerBars, and gum; it had a water bottle strapped across the top. He also had a walking stick he’d bought at a Natural Wonders store ten years ago and had never used. Crow popped his trunk and reached inside for his gear, strapping on an army-surplus web belt—vintage Desert Storm—then hung an authentic Boy Scout canteen over his rump, clipped a long, broad-bladed machete in a flat canvas sheath on his left hip, and from his right hip he slung a holstered automatic pistol. Newton stared at it for a moment, then looked at Crow and arched an eyebrow.
“Are we invading Cuba today?”
Crow gave him a big grin.
“Are you licensed to carry that?” Newton asked, nodding at the pistol.
“Sure. Businessman’s privilege in this town.”
“Does it matter at all to you that you look completely ridiculous?”
“Who gives a shit?”
“I hadn’t looked at it from that perspective.”
Crow hung a Maglite and a small compass to the web belt.
“What, no antitank gun?” asked Newton. “No lightsaber?”
Crow gave him a raspberry. He removed two long coils of rope from the car and laid them on the hood. He fished under his backseat and came up with a pair of work gloves and a pair of fingerless weightlifting gloves.
“What about your toothbrush, a Scotch-tape dispenser, and a Mr. Coffee? You forgot those.”
“Keep it up, Jimmy Olsen.” Crow took his cell phone out and tossed it onto the front seat and locked the car.
“You take everything except a fax machine and you leave your cell phone behind?”
“No reception around here,” Crow said. “Check it out.”
Newton looked at his own phone and saw that there were no bars.
Crow nodded. “This whole area’s like that, and it’ll probably be even worse down at the bottom of the Hollow. The cellular relay tower is on the other side of these mountains. Plus, it’s rough terrain down there, so I’d rather leave my phone here than risk losing it.”
“Swell.” Newton patted himself down and tugged a small digital camera out of his jacket pocket. “For the article,” he said and took a shot of Crow in all his gear, then walked to the rim of the pitch and took four shots of the long fall into the shadows at the foot of the mountains. He lowered the camera. “Charming.”
“Cheer up, it gets worse. Come on.” The first thing Crow did was to tie one end of each of the two lengths of rope to sturdy trees. He tied a complex series of knots and then jerked on them with great force to make sure they weren’t going to slip
“Don’t tell me we’re rappelling? I failed the rope climb in gym class every year.”
“Not really, but that pitch is too steep for you, and I’m not as spry as I used to be, so I’d rather we had a line to steady us down and then help us get back up again. Use these,” he said, indicating the heavy canvas gloves that were old and stain
ed with grease. He slipped his own hands into the weightlifting gloves and flexed them, adjusting the Velcro straps. He picked up the two coils of rope and hurled them out over the pitch, then took one rope, tested the tension again, and stepped to the edge of the pitch. Until now everything Crow did had cool efficiency about it, but now, poised—literally—on the brink of commission he finally paused and Newton could see strain showing in his face. His eyes were slightly squinted and he would look up at the blue sky and then down into the shadows of the Hollow and back up again, repeating the cycle every few seconds while balancing his weight against the pull of the rope. His mouth was tight, lips pinched, and he was breathing through flared nostrils.
Newton picked up the end of the second rope and came to stand by Crow, and for a moment they both looked down into the Hollow, then Newton glanced at Crow. “You okay?”
“Nope,” Crow said with a tight smile. “I’m scared out of my mind.”
“We can still bag it and go catch lunch at the Harvestman.”
“Can’t,” Crow said.
“Can’t—why? No one’s making us do this, man.”
Instead of answering, Crow started singing under his breath. Words that didn’t mean anything to Newton. “I got an ax-handled pistol on a graveyard frame that shoots tombstone bullets, wearin’ balls and chain. I’m drinking TNT, I’m smoking dynamite…I hope some screwball start a fight.”
“What’s that?”
Crow turned to him. “Old Muddy Waters song, ‘I’m Ready.’ Great song.”
“Okay. And—tell me again, why are we singing blues songs?” He grinned. “Hoping to channel the spirit of the Bone Man?”
“Keep it up, Newt, and I’ll use you like a snowboard and surf down the mountain.”
Newton was fishing for a snappy comeback when he paused, head cocked in an attitude of listening. For just a moment he thought he actually heard the chords of an actual blues guitar, impossible as that was, and he jerked his head around and looked over to the Passion Pit. The sound—just a couple of notes—was so clear, so strong, that he half-expected to see someone standing there with a guitar; but the clearing was empty except for Missy and the only sound was the murmur as the trees whispered secrets to one another and the crows chattered in the forests. When Newton turned back he saw that Crow was looking at him with dark eyes that glittered with amusement. A jumpy, corner-of-the-lip twitching amusement.
“You heard it,” Crow said, “didn’t you?”
“I heard…something.”
Crow tugged on the rope that held him, but his eyes were steady and intent. “Tell me what you heard.”
Newton just shook his head. “It was stupid. It was nothing.”
“Come on, Newt—tell me.”
Taking a breath and then huffing it out through his nose, Newton said all in a rush, “I thought I heard a guitar but it was nothing. Wind in the trees. Silly.”
The wind had time to rustle ten thousand leaves before Crow said, “I heard it, too.”
When Newton opened his mouth to say something else, Crow just shook his head and started down the hill. After a long stunned moment, Newton followed.
(4)
Jim Polk slowed his unit and pulled onto the verge, waiting until a few cars and a farm truck passed, and then put it in reverse and crunched along the gravel back to the crossroads. He stopped with his rear bumper just this side of the dirt side road, put it in park, and got out, walking quickly to the edge of a screen of bushes and then peering cautiously around. He could just make out the dust plume left behind by Crow’s car.
While the dust drifted on the breeze, Polk pulled his cell out of his uniform pants pocket, flipped it open, and speed dialed Vic Wingate.
“What?” Vic answered.
“It’s me. I’m out on A-32 where it crosses Dark Hollow Road. Guess who I just saw driving down there toward the Passion Pit?”
Vic Wingate put his cell phone back in his pocket and leaned against the wall of the grease pit. The wheel of the big Ford Explorer was inches away from his head and he caught the tread and idly turned the tire, his eyes distant and thoughtful. At least three full minutes passed while he thought about what Polk had just told him, and about what it might mean. Pursing his lips, Vic pulled the cell phone back out of his pocket and called his own private office number. He let it ring once, disconnected, and then dialed again. It was picked up on the third ring.
“Yeah?”
“I just had an interesting phone call about your dancing partner.”
“Crow…” it came out as a hiss.
“He’s heading out to Dark Hollow like you thought, but if he’s going all Sherlock Holmes on us then maybe it’s time to put your plan for the Guthrie bitch into action. Be a nice way of distracting Crow from anything he might discover down in the Hollow.”
There was a profound silence on the line. “It’s daytime,” Ruger said at last.
“No biggie—cloud cover’s moving in. I’ll pick you up in five minutes. Be ready.”
Ruger’s own laugh was low and jagged. “I’m ready now,” he said, and hung up.
(5)
The Bone Man was sitting on the hood of the Impala, his heels resting on the bumper, the guitar snugged against his belly. He had been playing some old songs, hoping Little Scarecrow would hear him, and not at all expecting him to. He’d heard Crow singing “I’m Ready,” that great old Willie Dixon song that Muddy Waters had cut way back in 1956, and hearing those lyrics had made him want to play the tune. He’d picked out just a few notes when that reporter fellow pricked up his ears and rubbernecked so fast it looked like his head was going to unscrew itself.
He had heard the music! Had actually heard it. The Bone Man sat there on the Impala’s hood and stared in total shocked amazement at the empty edge of the pitch.
(6)
Climbing down from the pitch was no picnic and within a dozen yards Newton was sweating badly and his breath was coming in gasps. The slope started at a forty-five-degree angle but went sheer to the point of a straight drop several times, and Newton was glad for the rope. His walking stick hung slantwise across his back, lashed in place, and was totally useless for the downhill journey. For the first fifty yards the incline was littered with discarded beer bottles and manfully crushed beer cans, dozens of old shriveled condoms and wrinkled condom wrappers, and scattered debris that was now so ancient and sun-faded that it was impossible to tell what it had originally been. Birds sang noisily in the trees and the last lumbering flies of the season floated heavily by seeking quiet places to die.
The side of the Hollow was composed of slate, sandstone, schist, chunks of granite, and lots of loose dirt and stone. A glacial mishmash of rock of every kind, most of it hardwired into the landscape by roots or packed in with hardened clay. No part of it was safe, even the stones that jutted out like sturdy steps, as Newton found out the first time he tried to stand on one to catch his breath. The stone was undercut and the loose soil gave way and Newton plunged down fifteen feet, the rope hissing and smoking through his hand and his limbs pinwheeling until Crow snaked out a strong hand and caught him under the armpit and then slammed him belly-flat against the pitch. Crow swung over and straddled Newton, the balls of his booted feet steadying him and his other hand wrapped turn-and-around with his own line.
“You okay there, Newt?” Crow asked, and Newton just flapped a hand. His heart was beating so loud he wondered it didn’t echo off the walls. “Catch your breath. We’ll go again when you’re ready.”
In a minute they started down again, going more slowly now with caution learned from the fall. Newton was not nearly as fit as Crow, not even as fit as a wounded and recovering Crow, and he had to stop several times. Once, he looked over his shoulder and down just as his rope swayed and he got a sickening rush of vertigo and had to close his eyes and clench his jaws to keep from gagging. When he had his gag reflex under control and the world had stopped spinning with such abandon, Newton braced his feet against a big rock and
used his free hand to dust himself off. As he did he saw something in the dirt by his knee glint dully, and he bent picked it up, thumbing away the clots of dirt.
“What’s that?” Crow called from ten feet lower on the slope.
“Nothing. Just an old dime.” The dime was dated 1966 and had a crude hole punched through it.
“Let’s keep moving,” Crow said. “It’s not a treasure hunt.”
Newton nodded and made as if to throw the dime away but without realizing that he was doing it put it in his pocket instead. Later on he would remember that dime and for the rest of his life he would wear it on a string around his ankle as a reminder of why he survived the autumn of the Black Harvest. Why he had survived while so many others died.
Dark Hollow was a deep depression formed at the base of one medium-size mountain and two huge sidehills and their steep sides kept most of the hollow in shadows except at noon. Farther southwest the land flattened out and even opened up in spots so that a rare beam of sunlight could reach down to the floor of the hollow, but there were also spots that never saw the light and it was toward one of these spots that Crow and Newton descended yard by yard. There was a clear division line where the mountain crest blocked the sun from reaching any farther down into the valley. It took the climbers twenty careful minutes to reach that point, and as they crossed that division line from sunshine into shadow, Newton felt a chill pass through him. Certainly the air was colder without the touch of the sun, but to him it felt as if he had stepped into a freezer unit. He blew out his breath and was surprised to find that it did not steam the air; it felt cold enough by far. He glanced at Crow, to see if he felt it, too, but Crow was reacting in a starkly different way to the shadows of Dark Hollow. Despite his jaunty baseball cap and grunge-crowd sunglasses, despite the affected spring in his muscular step, he was sweating bullets. Perspiration beaded his face and trickled in icy threads down his face. Unnerved by the sight, Newton said nothing and they kept moving, heading deeper into the valley.
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