by D. J. Butler
“He’s certainly been useless enough in the investigation.” Michael wrote the two names.
“Any others you can think of?” Hiram asked.
Michael shook his head.
“Okay, son, take the ritual knife and cut those names from the virgin sheet in long strips, from one side of the paper to the other.” Hiram indicated what he meant with a finger. “Make the strips equal in size.”
“Ritual knife?” Michael asked.
“It’s a knife I use for no other purposes,” Hiram said. “And it’s been blessed to the purpose.”
Michael looked as if he wanted to say something, but then shook off the thought to focus on the matter at hand. He cut the names off in careful strips.
“Now roll those strips up as tight as you can,” Hiram said. “Keep the prayer in your heart and be sure not to play favorites. Roll them equally tightly.”
Green chuckled. “This is rich, watching you magicians. Under other circumstances, we could charge a nickel for such a show.”
While his son worked, Hiram put away the paper and his knife.
“Now roll each piece of paper into a clay ball,” Hiram continued, when Michael was ready. “Make the balls equal in size. Keep praying.”
Michael wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. The night was cool—Michael was concentrating so hard, it was making him sweat.
He would make a good scientist. He was methodical and precise, and he was the smartest person Hiram had ever known. Hiram resolved to tell Michael all those things, at a moment when the information would be less distracting.
“Now what, Pap?” Michael asked.
The neat stack of brown clay balls sat beside the basin of still water.
“You think this is going to be admissible in court, do you?” Erasmus Green howled. “Hell, I might even wish we still lived in a world where you could tell a judge you wrote the names of suspects on sheets of paper and a bowl of water told you which one was guilty, but we don’t, and you know it!”
“In a moment,” Hiram told his son, “you’re going to place all the balls into the water. Once they’re all in, there’s a charm that you’re going to pronounce. I don’t have it written down, so I will whisper the words into your ear. At various points, while you are reciting, you must cross yourself. Do you know how to make the sign of the cross?”
Michael crossed himself, sloppily.
Hiram nodded to encourage him. “Forehead, chest, left shoulder, right shoulder. Make the movements slowly and deliberately, at a consistent speed. Touch your head or your chest with two fingers at each of the four spots.”
“Even if you do find out I’m guilty,” Erasmus Green shouted, “all you can do with that information is kill me! Are you prepared to do that, Woolley?”
Hiram stood beside Michael, placing his left hand on Michael’s left shoulder. “Place the clay into the water. One ball at a time, careful not to damage them. Set them in a ring around the bottom of the bucket, equidistant from each other.”
Michael followed his instructions.
“I will say the charm now,” Hiram said. “Repeat it after me, and every time I squeeze your shoulder, make a good, slow, deliberate cross. I’ll cross myself, too, if you want to follow my timing.” He smiled. “I’ve done this before. And keep a prayer in your heart.”
Michael smiled. It was the gentlest smile Hiram could ever remember seeing on his face.
“I conjure thou earth and clay,” Hiram began, with Michael following, and both of them making the multiple crosses required by the charm. “By the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, amen, and by all the holy names of God: Messias, Soter, Emanuel, Sabaoth, Adonay, Panthon, Kraton, Anefeto, Theos, Otheas, Eley, Eloy. And by all the names of God, by heaven and earth and by the sea and all that be in them and by our blessed virgin Mary, the mother of our savior Jesus Christ, and by his humility, and by the holy company of heaven, and by all that God created in heaven, in earth, and in the sea or other places, and by the virtues and merits of all the saints, that amongst those names hidden within the clay, his name or her name which hath murdered Lloyd Preece may be known by him who liveth and reigneth, world without end, amen.”
The words left Hiram deep in thought. Sabaoth, Grandma Hettie had once told him, was the host of heaven, which meant the stars. She had wanted Hiram to read the almanac as she did, and know the stars, but he had fallen far short. Perhaps Michael would now master that lore that Hiram hadn’t been able to. Was the holy company of heaven also the stars? The stars tonight were scuffed by a web of clouds, but still mostly visible. Standing beneath a moonless sky dominated by Hercules and the Summer Triangle, with the reigning star Jupiter in Scorpio low on the southern horizon, it felt to Hiram that it was. His craft seemed, for a moment, of a piece with Lloyd Preece’s and Grandma Hettie’s and Michael’s.
And what were the “other places” in which God might have created things, that were not in earth, heaven, or the sea? In outer space? Even Michael’s hero Buck Rogers seemed to be part of the field of energy in which Hiram felt himself floating.
Erasmus Green snorted. “Horseshit.”
Michael hissed out a breath. “Kind of a silly answer, from a man who takes his clothes off and turns into a deer for fun.”
“Not for fun, son. Never for mere fun.”
“Now what?” Michael asked.
“We stay here and watch.” Hiram clapped him on the shoulder. “You did well. If the divination works, the name of the guilty party will unfold first.”
“If?”
“You have a chaste and sober mind. It’ll work.”
“Pap, you’re the best man I know.”
Michael’s words took Hiram by surprise, and he found he had to clear his throat. “You’re a better man than I am, son. Smarter and braver, and you have a lion’s heart.”
“Dad, you help the poor. You’re like the Shadow, only not creepy, and you hate to hurt people, even bad guys.”
“Son…”
“No, listen. I have a hard time believing the charms wouldn’t work for you just because you have completely ordinary feelings of attraction for a woman. I mean, if you were a liar, or a violent man, or greedy, and you said those reasons stopped the craft from working, I’d understand, but…finding a girl attractive? Man, we all fail that test.”
Green was silent, sitting tied in the bed of the truck. He’d stopped his jeers, and Hiram felt relief.
Hiram’s eyes stung slightly. He pointed at the water, where the first of the clay balls was just beginning to open.
“Are you rooting for anyone?” Michael asked.
“I’m rooting for God to do justice,” Hiram said, “and for us to receive mercy.”
Michael threw an arm around Hiram’s shoulders and squeezed him in a sideways hug. “That’s my Pap.”
The first of the names was free of the clay and unrolling. It was considerably in advance of the other names.
“As soon as you can read it, do so,” Hiram said.
Michael leaned in. “Diana Artemis.”
Hiram felt as if he had been clubbed in the head.
Erasmus Green exhaled loudly. “Well, hell, I told you so.” His whole demeanor had changed.
“It was the money,” Michael said. “All this weirdness going on, and in the end, he was just killed for the money.”
Hiram closed his eyes, a bit of his heart broken. “Love of money is the root of all evil, Paul says.”
Bang! A loud shot echoed through the wide river canyon. Boots crunched in the dirt. Sheriff Jack Del Rose’s voice called out, “Nobody move! You’re under arrest!”
Hiram charged forward and kicked the lantern across the dirt, snuffing out the light. “Michael, run!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Men surged forward, flashlights licking light across Hiram, the truck, Green, and the wash basin. Hiram heard his son break through the brush; he was following orders. Thank the Lord Divine for that.
Jack Del Rose sau
ntered into the streams of light, a pump-action shotgun in hand. “Where’d your boy go?”
Hiram shrugged.
Del Rose raised one hand and made a circular gesture. Men broke free to search the weeds, willows, and junipers of the riverbank.
“You have to let me go, Del Rose,” Erasmus Green said.
“Oh? I have to?”
“It’s the Tithe.” Green looked southward, toward Scorpio. “You know it is.”
Hiram’s blood ran cold. The clay balls had seemed to vindicate Del Rose, but now the sheriff and the banker were talking as if they were in cahoots. Had Hiram’s lustful thoughts corrupted Michael’s attempt at divination?
“I know what day it is,” Del Rose said. “On the other hand, there’s some criminal activity going on here.”
“I’ve been kidnapped.” Green’s face twisted into a skeptical curl. “Are you suggesting I’m a party to my own kidnapping?”
“I’ve been sitting out there listening for a spell,” Del Rose said. “I heard more than just about kidnapping.”
Two deputies, including Russ Pickens, emerged from the brush, holding shotguns and flashlights. One shook his head at the sheriff. Jack Del Rose tucked his shotgun into the crook of his elbow and slowly lit a cigarette.
“Whatever you heard, Del Rose,” Green said, “you know I’m the victim here.”
Del Rose squinted, if it was possible, even tighter. “What I know is that you and your prongheads took it upon yourself to try to run down Lloyd Preece’s daughter. What was it, Erasmus? Your own wealth not enough for you, so you had to try to get Preece’s? Or was it that you weren’t satisfied taking his leadership position in the herd, you had to take his daughter, too?”
Green hesitated. “We shouldn’t talk about this in front of Woolley.”
Sheriff Del Rose raised his shotgun to point it at Hiram’s chest, and laughed. “Him? He don’t matter. Couple hours, he won’t know anything ever again.”
Hiram’s breath caught in his chest.
Should he flee? But he didn’t know where Michael had run off to. If the sheriff found Michael, he and his men might take their anger out on his son. He wished his charms were working—on a better day, he’d trust his chi-rho medallion to protect him from the shotgun.
“All I ever did was to try to help people who needed it,” Hiram said softly. “Adelaide Tunstall asked for a ride out of town, and Erasmus Green and his…creatures…attacked us.”
“Creatures, huh?” Del Rose took a draw on his cigarette. “You see, the problem with helping the victims of the world is that there’s always someone who made ’em the victims. And you go around doing good works, you’re going to step on that fellow’s toes.”
“We didn’t want her to leave!” Green kicked uselessly with his heel at the bed of the truck. “Once we knew Lloyd was dead, we didn’t know how much she knew, and we didn’t want her running off to San Francisco or El Paso and writing a book or something.”
Del Rose grunted laughter. “My Life Among the Shapechangers of Grand County, huh? I guess I can understand not wanting that kind of thing getting out.”
Green was staring at the southern sky. “So let me go!”
“The problem, though, is that I don’t think you really see how this works.” The sheriff took a drag on his cigarette. “You see, Green, you’re the prey. Always have been. Always will be.”
“No.” Green stared. “It’s not like that.”
“Yeah, it is.” Del Rose shrugged. “You get something out of being the prey, I know. You’re rich and fat, and you get the joy of the Tithe and all, and most of you survive the experience. And you know, I think that must be the most exciting thing, isn’t it?”
“Surviving?” Green asked.
“Surviving while the man next to you dies. You run in a herd, knowing that someone’s going down, someone’s going to get eaten, and then when it isn’t you, that’s a thrill. Isn’t it? Come on, you can admit it.”
Green said nothing. His lip trembled.
“I was in the war,” Del Rose said. “Best day in the damn affair was the day I was going over the trench between two of my buddies. Andy on the left and Lemuel on the right, I’d known ’em both for months, and we charged at the same time as some Jerry on the other side let loose with his machinegun. Andy’s head exploded. Lemuel took so many rounds through his gut, it sawed him right in half. Me, I was untouched.”
Hiram felt sick.
“When I sat down to mess that night,” Del Rose continued, “you might guess the loss of my buddies had put me off my feed, but it hadn’t. I had appetite. I was the one who had lived. I ate for all three of us, and I was so excited, I couldn’t sleep a wink.” He dropped his cigarette butt to the sand and ground it underneath his heel. “So I think I know how you feel.”
“I was in the war,” Hiram said, “and I fought alongside a buddy named Yas. The day Yas died was one of the worst days of my life.”
Del Rose shrugged. “Sounds like you might be prey, too.”
“I need to run tonight,” Green begged. “Please.”
Del Rose nodded. “The prey runs. But the prey doesn’t decide.” He nodded to one of the deputies, who stepped forward and cut Green free. The banker, shirt undone, pants dust-stained, wobbled to the edge of the Double-A’s bed and dropped to his feet on the ground. Del Rose handed his shotgun off to one of his men. He also gave the man his hat. “The mistake you made, you moron, was to take matters into your own hands by going after Preece’s daughter. You understand who decides now, don’t you?”
Green chafed at his wrists, restoring circulation. “The pack.”
“Correct.” The sheriff leapt on Green, throwing the smaller man to the ground.
Hiram bit his lip. The sheriff’s hands and face changed, becoming hairier, longer, more powerful.
Del Rose shoved Green’s head into the dirt with his left paw while he ripped through the man’s pants with the claws of his right. The banker struggled. Del Rose growled.
The beast-sheriff then sank his fangs into Green’s leg. The banker shrieked in pain.
Hiram blinked, and a second later, Del Rose was drawing back, standing up, wiping blood from his sneering, human face. His hands had fingers again, and ordinary nails, with no sign that they had ever been different.
Green staggered back to his feet, pants torn to shreds. His face radiated pain and fear, but mostly surprise.
Del Rose retrieved his hat and shotgun. “You know which deer the pack hunters usually cull out, don’t you, Green?”
Bent over, clutching his leg, Green hyperventilated too hard to answer.
Hiram answered for him. “The old. The sick. The wounded.”
Jack Del Rose laughed, showing bloody teeth. “The beet farmer from Lehi finally puts a point on the board. Good luck with the Tithe tonight, Green.”
Erasmus Green stumbled into the darkness. It was too dark to see, but Hiram heard the clack of hooves on rock, and a long shape brushed through the greenery. Green might have staggered away as a man, but was he fleeing now in a more monstrous shape?
“Now you,” the sheriff said, turning to Hiram. “You heard how sensitive we are to information about our…local culture…getting out.”
“You’re not arresting me.”
“An arrested man gets free, eventually. Maybe wins at trial, maybe does his time and then gets released. So you can understand that it’s nothing personal when I tell you that I have to kill you now.”
Hiram took a step backward reflexively, and felt the hard barrel of a firearm in his lower back. A shotgun, probably. A hand reached into his pocket and took his revolver.
“Just toss that,” Del Rose said.
Hiram heard a grunt and then the soft, distant thump of his weapon falling to the sand.
He might have to rely on the chi-rho medallion, whether he liked it or not.
“Aw, look.” Del Rose leaned over the bucket and began to pull out strips of paper. “Davison Rock. Earl Bill Clay.” H
e looked up to meet Hiram’s gaze. “Two of my favorite people. I like ’em both so much, we rounded them up this evening. Worried about what they might know too, you understand. Adelaide, I know her. And look, here I am in your little mud puddle!”
Hiram said nothing.
“I couldn’t make out everything you said to your boy,” Del Rose continued. “I guess that was by design. But do you seriously think this tub of water was going to tell you who killed Lloyd Preece?”
Del Rose’s tone was one of challenge. Did Del Rose know who the killer was? Was it him, and the divination had failed? Was that why he had failed to investigate the crime? Another mystery: the sheriff hadn’t read Diana Artemis’s name—did that mean he hadn’t seen the slip? Did Michael have it?
“It did tell me,” Hiram said.
“Uh huh. And what did you plan to do about it?”
“I had planned to turn the killer in to you,” Hiram said. “I see now that that wouldn’t have worked out so well.”
“Not for you.”
Hiram was about to leap into action—
“Wait!” The voice belonged to the bishop, Gudmund Gudmundson. He walked into the light, hands up to show that they were empty. Light from flashlights glinted on the silver knife at his belt.
“Why, Bishop,” Sheriff Del Rose said slowly, “I don’t think you want to interfere in a sheriff department investigation, do you?”
For a brief moment, Hiram imagined that the bishop had come to rescue him. But then the sheriff laughed, the bishop laughed, and the deputies laughed hardest of all.
Bishop Gudmundson was with the sheriff.
Hiram tried to think. Had the clay balls failed? Could the sheriff have killed Lloyd Preece? He certainly could have been at the cabin that night. Would the bishop want Preece’s money—Gudmundson was a handyman, and the thought of thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in a neat stack of bearer bonds might be irresistible to him. But Gudmundson and Preece had been friends.
How did the knives connect the two men? They were Jupiter knives. What did that mean about the Tithe, and the chase that seemed poised to happen tonight?
