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 sauntered 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.” He 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?
The clay balls had identified Diana Artemis as Lloyd Preece’s killer. What would they have said if Michael had rolled the name Gudmund Gudmundson into a ball?
“You don’t need to die, Brother Woolley,” the bishop said.
Hiram swallowed, finding his throat very dry. “Are you offering me a chance to join you? Become a were-deer?” He couldn’t imagine how else these men could possibly let him live.
Gudmundson laughed. “The sheriff and I do not transform into deer. But you are not totally wrong; I will let you run with the Tithe. If you run, you may escape and survive. On the other hand, I think it’s likely the pack will be trying to kill you in particular. I know I will be.”
“You’re a wolf,” Hiram said.
Gudmundson nodded. “All men, in their hearts, are either predator or prey.”
“Not all,” Hiram countered. “Some men are servants.”
That made the Bishop laugh. “Servant? Prey? That’s the same thing.”
Hiram felt ill at the bishop’s words. “Why kill me in the Tithe? Is it more fun?”
“A hunter may kill at any time,” Gudmundson said. “But a kill on the Tithe gives power. And the more powerful the prey, the more power the predator gains.”
“Eat the heart of your enemy to become brave like him?” Hiram shook his head. “I think you’ve read too many cheap novels.”
The bishop smiled. “I would very much like to eat your heart, Hiram Woolley.”
Hiram looked away south, at Scorpio, with its second blue heart of Jupiter. Michael’s explanation of the astrology came back to him. “The Tithe occurs on a night when Jupiter crosses into a new decan. About three times a year, you run out onto the Monument and chase someone down?”
“About,” the bishop said. “Jupiter is sometimes in retrograde, and the timing isn’t strictly regular.”
“And how do you reconcile that with holding the pulpit in your ward?” Hiram asked. “How do you reconcile this astrology and paganism with going to church on Sunday and telling people not to cuss, drink, or cheat on their taxes?” He realized that, on some level, he was asking himself the question, so he tried to focus. “How do you hunt for power, and then tell people to turn the other cheek?”
Gudmundson chuckled. “You have been listening to the antlered prey, I see. I do not hunt for power, Brother Woolley. I kill in the Tithe, and that act of killing brings me power. I bear the Jupiter Knife because I am First of Fang, as Lloyd Preece was First of Hoof, and the power of Jupiter flows through me on the Tithe, empowering all those who hunt. I am very good at killing, Brother Woolley. I killed many men, in deer-form and out of it, before I became First and it fell to me to have a Jupiter Knife forged. Jupiter is my god, and he makes me strong. He gives me command, over the hunters, and over others.”
Hiram shook his head. “You think Jupiter made you bishop?”
Gudmundson stepped closer, his smile widening and a queer light coming to his eye. “The kill made me bishop. There is no power in the act of running. There is power in life, for those who retain it, and wealth. There is power in death, for those who master it, and command. And besides…Jacob says that it’s okay to seek riches, if you seek with the intent to do good. As long as I intend to do good, shouldn’t I be able to seek power? Power to organize a new well for Rex Whittle, or help those hobos in their truck, or plan a move for Bobette Smothers?”
Still no sign of Michael. Hiram hoped his son had escaped. Michael was resourceful and smart, and as long as the sheriff’s men didn’t capture him right away, the young man would easily make it home.
And would they follow him there?
“I’ve heard some sick perversions of what priesthood office is supposed to be.” Hiram felt the weight of his clasp knife in his pocket. “That’s about the sickest. You’re going to spend eternity in a deep, dark hell, Gudmundson, and I think you know it.”
“I know that’s what your god would say,” Gudmundson answered, his voice light. “My god says something different.”
Hiram struck quickly. Snatching his knife out of his pocket, he leaped at the bishop. He was no wrestler, and would much rather punch a man in the jaw than come to any closer quarters than that, but if he was going to get out of this bind, he was going to need a shield. First of Fang sounded like a good shield to have, so Hiram grabbed the bishop’s wrist and yanked the man close toward him, spinning him around and slapping his blade to the bishop’s neck.
The sheriff’s men stopped, shotguns raised. Looking at their faces, Hiram saw the two deputies, Russ Pickens and other one, as well as the ranch hand Clem. All poor men, but all strong. Through the bishop’s shirt, too, Hiram felt the muscles of a hard worker, or a warrior.
“You ever seen a man chewed to bits by shotguns before, Woolley?” Del Rose asked.
“Yes.” Hiram backed slowly away, pulling the bishop with him. He had been unable to wound the deer-men while in deer-form or even when they appeared as naked humans—would these men be invulnerable as well? He had a brief vision of Gudmundson shrugging off Hiram’s blade, and then laughing while the sheriff and his men blasted Hiram into oblivion with their pump-actions. Please, Lord Divine, however this plays out, let Michael be far away from this camp. “I’ve seen such things and worse.”
“Mr. Woolley,” the bishop said, “I look forward to this Tithe very much. Please promise me you’ll fight this hard on the hunt, to protect your life and the life of your son.”
“You don’t have my son,” Hiram said.
“We will, though,” the bishop told him.
Hiram pressed the knife harder into Gudmundson’s throat. “Unlikely. You and I are going to get into that car and drive away.” He called his words in a loud voice, so that Michael might be able to hear him, and join him in a getaway car. “But first, you tell me why you killed Lloyd Preece. It wasn’t the Tithe yet, so you didn’t kill him for the hunt. You murdered him for something else.”
It was a guess, based mostly on how much pride Gudmundson exhibited in being a killer, and the fact that they had failed to include his name in the clay balls, but all Hiram’s investigation had consisted of nothing but guesses.
Gudmundson laughed softly. “Yes, I killed him. While he was strong as a deer, he was weak as a man. He thought we were going too far with the Blót, though we weren’t doing anything that hadn’t been done before. Preece lost his nerve, that’s all, and he wanted to leave. The man was never sentimental about his daughter, but something about having three grandchildren made him decide it was time to take his money and get out.”
“And you didn’t like that?” Hiram stepped slowly to the driver’s side of the truck. How was he going to keep Gudmundson prisoner and drive at the same time? He had a hard time imagining keeping a driver in line with his clasp knife.
“Erasmus Green and his friends should have consulted with us first, but you’re right, I didn’t like it. No one…ever…leaves.”
“Pretty brazen of you to run your hunt out of Wolfe Ranch,” Hiram said. It was a guess. “Was it just too irresistible? Did you just want to put your presence right onto the map, announce what you were doing to everyone in the world with eyes to see?”
Gudmundson laughed. “The Wolfe who owned Wolfe Ranch had nothing to do us. Pure coincidence. The Turnbows are even more ignorant of what we do—they only know that every few months, wild beasts eat some of their cattle.”
Abruptly, the bishop grabbed Hiram’s hands and pulled, forcing Hiram’s knife, hard, into the flesh of the bishop’s own neck. In the same motion, far too fast for Hiram to react, he spun and hurled Hiram against the side of the Double-A. Hiram hit the truck with his forehead and fell to the ground.
In the dancing flashlights and through spinning vision, Hiram saw the bishop toss the clasp knife away. His flesh was unmarked, and the bishop walked away.
Hiram tried to rise, but men crowded around him, boots kicked him in the chest and gut, and shotgun butts slammed over and over into his face.