Cold Black Earth (25 page)

Damn you, move, thought Rachel. Either drive down the road to Clyde and Karen’s again, or rein in your imagination and go into your house and go to bed.

Rachel remembered hearing a sergeant in a convoy on the way in from Baghdad airport say that everybody was afraid and that the trick was to learn to function with fear.

All right, then, function. Rachel took a deep breath and opened the car door. She got out of the car, locked it and then swept the farmstead with a look, seeing nothing but familiar things, made sinister in the light from the halogen lamp high on its pole. She hurried to the back door, unlocked it and slipped inside, locking it behind her.

The overhead light in the kitchen was on, casting its light down the steps to the back door. From the yard, Rachel had seen that a lamp was on in the living room. The rest of the house was dark. It’s empty, she thought. There’s nobody here. He doesn’t break into houses; he waylays people on the road. Anyway, how could he know where you live?

She stood listening for a long time, her back to the wall beside the back door. She heard nothing but the hum of the refrigerator, the ticking of the kitchen clock, the miscellaneous creaks of an old wooden house.

Rachel slid her hand back into her purse and gently released her keys. She shifted her fingers a little and found the grip of the revolver. She pulled it out.

Start at the top of the house and work down, she thought. You will have to check the attic. You will have to check every closet; you will have to look under all the beds. You will have to go down into the dark basement and check every nook and cranny. Keep your back to the wall.

She went up the steps into the kitchen, scanning, holding the gun out before her. She set her purse on the table and stood listening.

And if he’s in the basement and comes softly up the stairs behind you while you’re in the attic? What if he is waiting by the circuit breakers, ready to plunge the house into darkness and come swiftly after me with the knife before I can find a flashlight?

Rachel’s heart was pounding. The rational part of her mind knew that the house was empty, but the part that had seen Ed Thomas’s arm in the mouth of a coyote was stronger.

I can’t do this, she thought.

Rachel took a deep breath. Plan B, then. When your lines are too extended, you pull back on a secure position. Gun at the ready, she went briskly down the hall toward the lighted living room. Halfway along the hall was the door to the den, closed.

I can’t search the whole house, but I can barricade myself in the den.

Provided he is not waiting for me in there.

At the door to the den, Rachel put her left hand on the doorknob, raising the revolver with her right. She turned the knob and shoved the door open, violently. She jumped into the middle of the room and spun, ready to fire at point-blank range into Otis Ryle’s face.

25    

The room was empty. There was only the neatly made cot, the computer, and the mess of papers on the desk, the bookshelves, the armchair, the dresser Matt had moved down from upstairs.

Panting, nearly sobbing, Rachel shoved the door shut and tossed the gun onto the seat of the armchair, quickly wrestling the chair over to block the door. When the door was secure she picked up the gun and flopped on the cot with her back to the wall, holding the gun with both hands, assuring herself there was no room for anyone to hide behind the curtains, no closet, nobody crouched under the desk, no threat, no sign of danger, no justification for her panic. She was a hysterical woman sitting on a bed in an empty house with a gun in her lap, trying to breathe deeply.

“Get a
grip
,” she said out loud. In a minute she had steadied her breathing.

Rachel leaned over to lay the revolver carefully on the desk. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the wall. Slowly her breathing steadied. The old house creaked as the wind probed the eaves, and slowly Rachel became sure that she was alone.

Eventually she opened her eyes and swung her feet to the floor. Her gaze wandered about the room. The quarters were cramped, with the dresser and the cot out of place in what had been their father’s study, but it was tidy and she could see how Matt would be comfortable here, cocooned in his monastic cell.

Rachel rose and stepped over to the desk. The screen saver on Matt’s computer had been drawing her eye inexorably with its geometric shapes in hypnotic motion. She knew better than to go poking around too deeply on other people’s computers, but if she could call up a game of solitaire it would be a welcome sedative. She sat and nudged the mouse next to the keyboard. The screen saver vanished to reveal a headline:
Mexican Gangs Penetrating Heartland.

The article was on a news aggregator site Rachel had looked at a few times. She reached for the mouse to minimize it.
Mexican methamphetamine producers have extended their reach into the Midwestern states,
she read.

Like we don’t have enough to worry about, Rachel thought. She positioned the cursor over the minimize button.

The gang, known in Mexico for decapitating rivals and leaving the heads as messages, has chased out local producers in many areas.

Rachel clicked and the article disappeared. Enough, she thought. Leave me alone.

She was scanning the desktop for the game when she was startled by a faint tweeting noise somewhere in the house; it took her a moment to recognize it.

Her cell phone was ringing.

Rachel wrestled the chair away from the door and picked up the gun. She took a deep breath, flung open the door and hurried down the hall to the kitchen. She laid down the revolver and managed to get her phone out of her purse and focus on Matt’s number on the display. She stabbed at the phone with her thumb. “Matt?”

“The one and only. You at home?”

“Yeah. Where are you?”

“I’m standing by the side of the road, all messed up.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I put the truck in the ditch.”

Rachel sagged back against the refrigerator, closing her eyes. “Where?”

“About a mile south of Alwood, on West 300. I was coming home from the bar.”

The sound of Matt’s voice had broken the spell of her fear, but now she could hear the careful diction, the hint of slurring. “Matt, are you drunk?”

A soft chuckle came through the phone. “I might have had one or two too many. Actually what happened was, I dozed off for a second. I’m awake now for sure, but the truck’s staying where it is till I can get a tractor over here.”

“Oh, Matt. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I just need you to come get me. I’d hitch a ride, but there’s not too many people out tonight.”

And suddenly Rachel saw him, standing alone in the dark by the side of the road. “Matt, call the police. He’s still around here somewhere. Otis Ryle.”

“Call the cops so they can come and charge me with drunk driving? No, thanks.”

“Matt, you’re in danger. I’m going to call 911.”

“Dammit, Rachel. You’re four miles away. You’ll be here faster than any sheriff’s deputy can get here. Just come get me for God’s sake.”

Rachel gave it two seconds’ thought. “OK, I’ll be right there.”

“I’m on West 300 about a half mile north of Jack Swanson’s place. Look for a truck in the ditch and a shit-faced farmer.”

“Get in the truck and lock the doors. I’m coming.” Rachel killed the phone. She threw it into her purse and dug out her keys. She stuffed the gun in after the phone, put on her coat, and made for the back door.

Outside, the night was just as empty as before. Function, she told herself. She got the car door open, tossed in her purse, got in and started the car. She spun her tires on the gravel pulling away from the house.

She knew exactly where Matt was, and she knew it shouldn’t take her more than a few minutes to get there. She knew that he was less than a mile from where Carl Holmes had had his throat cut by the side of the road.

I didn’t check the backseat when I got in, Rachel thought, and almost panicked. Her eyes went to the mirror in spite of herself. The car was locked the whole time you were in the house, she told herself. Function.

The asphalt spun by under her headlights. Rachel realized she was going almost sixty, too fast for these roads at night. “Function,” she said out loud, slowing for a turn. Her lights swept over a ditch, the border of an empty field. Beyond the arc of her headlights was black night.

Uphill and down, the country dipping and rising, pockets of woodland lurking in the hollows just beyond the range of her lights. One more rise, and then her lights caught the big Ford pickup, slewed off the road into a deep ditch, lying nearly on its side. Rachel braked.

There was no sign of Matt. As she approached she veered toward the truck and her high beams shone into the cab. It was empty. Rachel came to a stop. Frantically she scanned the eerily lit cone of road, ditch, brush and field her lights showed her. “Matt, where are you?” she said aloud, in a quavering voice.

He climbed up out of the ditch from behind the truck, zipping up his pants, squinting in the lights. Rachel sagged on the seat, exhaling. She rolled down the window. “Nice parking job.”

Matt stepped onto the road, walking carefully. “Thanks. Kind of a tight fit, but I got it on the first try. Hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Matt halted, a hand raised. In a lousy Bela Lugosi voice he said, “Listen to the voolves, de children of de night.”

Now she heard it, coming clearly through the chilled air, audible above the muttering of the Chevy’s engine: a distant cacophony of barking. “Dogs?”

“Coyotes. Probably fighting over a kill.”

Rachel shivered. “Get in, will you?” She rolled up the window.

Matt walked across the front of the Chevy and got in, collapsing onto the seat. He patted Rachel on the thigh. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

“You sure you’re OK?”

“I’m fine. Just . . .”

“What?”

Quietly, he said, “Disgusted, that’s all. Disgusted with myself.”

Rachel was checking her mirrors, conscious of the vast night behind her. “Is there a place to turn around up here?”

“Hell, just go up to the next road and head west to 500.”

“All right.” She had already put the car in gear. “Weren’t you terrified? He’s out here somewhere.”

“Who’s that?”

“Don’t kid me. Otis Ryle.”

“Ah, fuck him.”

“Matt, Roger says he could be targeting us. You and me. He says Daddy got in a fight with Ryle’s father, years ago.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You know?”

“Roger called me to tell me about it. I think it’s a load of crap.”

They reached the top of a hill and Rachel could see the lights of Alwood far ahead, the gas station by the interstate exit brightly lit. “I don’t know how you can be sure.”

“None of this has anything to do with Otis Ryle’s childhood or his father or any of that. He’s just a sick bastard who got away from the loony bin. They’ll catch him inside a week. You watch.”

“God, I hope you’re right.”

Matt was silent as they approached a crossroads, letting her slow and make her turn. As they headed west he said, “Finding Carl was bad enough. Ed, I can’t imagine. I’m sorry it had to be you.”

“Actually, can we not talk about it? I’m close to freaking out here.”

“Sorry.”

She drove, leaning forward over the wheel. The road revealed itself under her lights, coming at her out of the darkness. Rachel drew a deep breath, glanced sideways at Matt. “Growing up, I never, not once, felt isolated or scared living out here. There was always a friend a few minutes away by car, and if there was no car there was always the telephone. I loved living in the country. Even at night, it never scared me. Now? All that out there terrifies me.” She flapped a hand at the darkness speeding by.

Matt let a few seconds pass. “They’ll catch him and then it will be all right.”

“Maybe. But right now it scares me to death.” Rachel was concentrating on her driving, leaning forward, tensed.

“He’s not a frickin’ werewolf. He’s human. Anyway, whatever he is, he can’t catch a moving car.”

Rachel came over a rise. The road dipped into a hollow, and at the bottom of the hollow was a swirl of motion, things flashing in the sudden glare, resolving as she hit the brakes into a frenzy of animal movement, three or four coyotes nipping and slashing at each other, in front of a car parked across the road, blocking it.

Rachel braked hard and came to a stop fifty feet from the car. “Christ,” said Matt.

Caught in her headlights, the coyotes barked and scattered, leaving the car shining in the lights and the man leaning on it. “Oh, my God,” said Rachel, her heart thumping as she stared, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. “Is he all right?”

“He doesn’t look good, does he?” said Matt.

The man was leaning against the driver’s-side door of the silver Lexus, facing them, head tilted a little, right hand draped casually over the side mirror, the left dangling at his side. One of his trouser legs was torn, revealing the shaft of a cowboy boot. “Holy shit,” said Matt, opening his door. “He must have got bit.” He was out of the car and trotting toward the man.

“Matt, be careful!” Rachel could still see coyotes, milling at the edge of the light. She eased forward, her brights lighting up the car and the man sagging back against it. She saw a long coat with a fleece collar, blond hair shining in the headlights. When she was twenty feet away she put the car in Park and got out. Matt had reached the car but had stopped, staring. “Who is that?” Rachel said. “I’ve seen him somewhere.”

The man hadn’t moved. His eyes were closed; he looked as if he had dozed off on his feet. “It’s Mark McDonald,” said Matt. “What the hell’s wrong with him?” McDonald’s legs didn’t seem to be supporting any of his weight. He was resting on his heels, the soles of his cowboy boots showing; he ought to have slid down the car and come to rest on his rump.

“What’s holding him up?” Rachel said, barely able to force the words out of her constricted throat.

“I don’t know,” Matt said. Rachel watched as her brother stepped slowly toward the motionless figure, heard him call McDonald’s name. She saw Matt reach toward the lapel of the long coat and she saw how the coat was parted unnaturally, somehow held away from McDonald’s chest. She watched as Matt pulled one of the lapels aside to expose the three sharp points of the pitchfork just protruding from McDonald’s chest and then she was screaming for him to get in the car and Matt was stumbling away from the corpse.

“He didn’t bleed much,” Roger said. “That’s good. It means he died fast. Probably one of the tines went right through the heart.”

Matt and Rachel had wound up in the backseat of his cruiser, watching while state cops in their Smokey hats and Dearborn County sheriff’s deputies milled in the glare from their congregated vehicles. She was grateful that a State Police car had parked so as to block her view of the car where Mark McDonald still hung skewered.