Tucker’s Grove (11 page)

She waited for him to come to the porch before s
he answered. “
Tucker
’
s Grove? Well, how close you be depends on how far you
’
ve come, now doesn
’
t it? It
’
s about an hour
’
s ride from here, a day or thereabouts if you
’
re walking.”

He held out his hand, flashing a broad smile. “
Andrew Danforth Johnson, Ma
’
am
.”
He bowed. “
Dentist.”

“
Elspeth Sandsbury…
farmer
’
s wife.”
She took his hand. “
Pleased to meet you, Mr. Johnson. Would you care for a cold glass of water?”

Elspeth started for the well pump before he could answer. She drove the pump-handle until a stream
of cold water poured from the spout. She lifted the ladle toward the thin stranger, and he drank, thanking her more enthusiastically than was necessary.

He sat on the step of the porch after she had resumed her seat in the old rocking chair. “
Tell me, Mr.
Johnson, what brings you on the road to Bartonville, and
walking
, yet! Where do you hail from?”

“
All the way from Boston, Ma
’
am. I heard that these parts of Wisconsin are quite pleasant, especially the small towns. Just having finished my schooling as a de
ntist, I thought it
’
d be a good idea to come out here to set up my practice.”

“
You came from Boston to get to Tucker
’
s Grove? Well, mister, if you
’
ll pardon me for saying so, that
’
s about the most pure idiot thing I ever heard of!”
She smiled at him disarm
ingly, she hoped.

He laughed. Elspeth clapped her hands together suddenly, as if she knew exactly the thing the dentist was waiting for. “
Say, have you ever tried gooseberry wine, Mr. Johnson?”

“
Can
’
t say that I have, Ma
’
am.”

“
It
’
s just what you need to im
prove your stamina, heighten your spirits, and get you primed for the last leg of your journey. Besides, it
’
s the hottest part of the day out there. You just set here in the shade while I go pour a glass.”

“
Aren
’
t you having one yourself, Ma
’
am?”

“
I don
’
t
drink spirits, Mr. Johnson. Not since my husband died, anyways.”

She disappeared into the house, then returned with a crystal goblet of a murky, purplish wine. “
Here you be, Mr. Johnson. Just the thing.”
She handed it down to him. “
Drink up.”

Then she rock
ed back in the creaking old chair, glancing down the road to make sure no one else might be coming in the hot, lonely afternoon. With a smile, Elspeth saw the comical shock on the dentist
’
s face as the potent sleeping powders hit him.

Andrew Danforth John
son pitched forward into unconsciou
s
ness. Elspeth grabbed his collar and deftly caught him just before his face grazed the dusty porch. It would have been cruel to let the man break his spectacles that way.

She took a long drink from the well herself, quenching her thirst, then turned to her new victim. Time to get to work.

After she had mounted the dentist up on the scarecrow bar, Elspeth spent the night in the intimate company of nigh
t
mares
—
visions of dark
wings and expressionless ebony eyes, ominous shadows. She was convinced she
’
d received an ho
n
est-to-goodness sending from the Dark Ones, but was at a loss to understand its meaning. She found it confusing.

Why didn
’
t the Old Ones just speak in plain, simple English that a body could understand? They always sent murky images, dreams, flashes of inspiration…
if she hadn
’
t known better, she might have thought they were just products of her own imagin
a
tion.

Elspeth woke a
t dawn, her ample body tangled in damp sheets that weren
’
t half as twisted as her stomach felt. She wondered if she had eaten something bad the night before. Or maybe the D.O.s were upset about something. Elspeth swallowed hard, tr
y
ing to figure out how sh
e could appease them. She
’
d better make the new sacrifice quick.

The man would be awake by now, stiff from hanging on the crossbar all through the night. When she had hoisted him up the day before, she noticed with some curiosity that all the crows but the
big one, the leader, were watching from the oak boughs.

The dentist
’
s gangly arms had flopped and flapped in all the wrong directions as she wrestled with his limp body. The strong sleeping powders had turned his bones to rubber. Nailing his wrists with
more vehemence than was warranted, Elspeth had spat out some curses that would have offended her husband, if his ears hadn
’
t been well insulated by layers of earth….

Now, as she dressed herself, her head pounded an independent rhythm to the queasiness of h
er stomach. With this headache, and the confusing flock of nightmares
 
…
 
yes, something was def
i
nitely peculiar. The Dark Ones were not happy with her.

Maybe They were just hungry again. She usually let each scarecrow hang for a few days so that the old go
ds could have a good look at the offering before she spilt its blood (and also so the sacrifice wouldn
’
t struggle and make too much of a mess).

But she had timed that last victim too close. Maybe the blood of a man so close to death contained no tonic for
thirsty Gods. Maybe They needed healthy, fresh blood. That would neatly e
x
plain her throbbing headache, her black nightmares and twisted stomach. She had to fix it.

“
Well, Mr. Johnson, there
’
s one quick way to satisfy a herd of hungry Gods. At least it
’
ll
be quick for you.”

She retrieved the sickle from the kitchen wash-bucket, put on an apron to cover her clean dress, and strolled out into the early morning sunlight.

As she walked the lane back into the cornfield, Elspeth stopped in shock as she neared he
r garden. My, the D.O.s had been busy during the night!

The two crosses that marked the graves of her son and hu
s
band had been torn from the earth and impaled upside down in the center of the graves. The unruly grass covering the mounds was now black and l
eprous. “
Oh, dear.”

All the plants in her garden were hunched over, withered and coated with dripping icicles, as if blasted by the arctic breath of the Dark Ones. Her neat rows of beans, peas, and carrots all lay destroyed. The rotting leaves of potatoes
and turnips sent a foul stench into the chill air.

Elspeth swallowed hard, and she felt a cold fist wrench her stomach, as if the ancient gods were prodding her. Then the pain subsided, and she hurried to finish up the sacrifice before the D.O.s got any a
ngrier.

But she got no farther than the melon patch, where the once-healthy vines lay dry and wasted over the unmarked graves of her previous sacrifices. The broad fan-shaped leaves stirred as round shapes moved beneath them. Elspeth put a hand to her mout
h.

The firm, green melons she had nurtured all summer had now transformed into the severed heads of her victims. The round, grimacing heads sat propped on the ends of dead stems from the vines, mottled with decay. Each one of the heads turned to face her,
watching her with ebony eyes that had somehow escaped putrefaction. They didn
’
t blink
—
just stared with venomous a
c
cusations.

Elspeth gulped and waddled down the pathway. The dead eyes followed her as she ran….

Andrew Danforth Johnson was awake and wide-eye
d as she approached him with the curved, razor-sharp harvesting blade. The lanky dentist looked none the worse for his night on the crossbar or the nails through his wrists, but he seemed to have lost his voice, for he said nothing as she approached. Mayb
e
he was too frightened to whimper.

Elspeth looked up at the big oak on the fenceline, where the crows still huddled. She was a bit disappointed that the big crow wasn
’
t there to watch, but she had a feeling it was close by, waiting.

“
All right, no time to
waste, Mr. Johnson.”
With her bulky form, she began to dance around the crossbar. She chanted a di
s
sonant song, imploring the Dark Ones to accept this new sacr
i
fice and to make her headache and stomach distress go away…
and, if it wasn
’
t too much trouble,
to return the graves and her garden to their former conditions.

She halted in front of the crossbar and placed her plump hands on her more than generous hips. The gangly dentist just looked at her, his expression sour, more disgusted than afraid.

“
Your bl
ood is going to be swilled by the meanest, darkest Gods on the face of this Earth, Mr. Johnson. Aren
’
t you afraid?”

She brandished the sickle in his face, but instead of the spasms of terror she expected, he just looked at her sadly. Di
s
turbed, she drew ba
ck the blade to strike. When he simply flashed his foolish smile at her, she sliced hard, laying his throat open to the vertebrae.

But rather than bright arterial blood, molten yellow fire spat out from the wound. The cut healed itself before her eyes with
a line of sparks like flames dancing along a firecracker fuse. E
l
speth cried out and dropped the sickle, then sucked her burnt, smoking fingers.

“
You
’
ve damned yourself to the last, Elspeth Sandsbury,”
the man said. His voice was husky and wolf-like now.
Not even a scar remained from the wound in his throat.

She gawked at him as the ropes binding him to the crossbar suddenly caught fire and burned to ash without marking his skin or scorching his clothes. The nails in his wrists shot away like lead pellets
into the cornfield.

Andrew Danforth Johnson dropped lightly to the ground, straightening and dusting his black clothes before taking a step toward her. “
Poor Elspeth
—
if the Dark Ones were as powerful as you imagine, do you really believe that They would h
ave
allowed
Themselves to be forgotten?”

He didn
’
t look at all frail anymore. The stranger seemed to possess a power that could have felled an oak tree. His black hair had become iridescent in the sunlight.

“
Did you never think that there might still exist high priests in the world? Priests who carry out the proper rituals in the proper ways
—
and with the proper sacrifices?”
He loomed closer, and Elspeth shrank back. “
Did you think the Dark Ones would take kin
d
ly to an ignorant usurper like yourself, who knows nothing of Them, nothing of the old ways, yet does not hesitate to shed blood in Their names? If there
’
s one thing the Dark Ones hate, it
’
s amateurs!”

The stranger started toward her. She couldn
’
t run. She
tried to speak to him to offer up an explanation, but her tongue could only manage gibberish.

He caught her by the front of her dress and lifted her bulk off the ground with one hand. She squirmed, but a cold hand in her gut crushed her resistance, twist
ing her innards.

The dark man slammed Elspeth against the crossbar. He seemed much taller now, for he held her against the wood with his shoulder as he lifted one of her thick arms against the bar. He cupped one hand, and with the other drew a long strand
of shiny barbed wire from the recesses of his fist, like a magician
’
s en
d
less handkerchiefs from his sleeves. He bound her arms to the crossbar with the barbed wire.