The stench wafting off the bandit made Keech’s eyes water. He wrinkled his nose.
“Ugh, what a stink,” Cutter said, lifting his bandana over his mouth.
“It’s worse today. It’s like he’s falling apart.”
Cutter noticed the holes in Claymore’s chest. “Blackwood, he’s been shot! How can a man still breathe with holes in his heart?”
“Because this is no man.”
“What is he, then?”
Back at the Home, Bad Whiskey had used a name that sounded like See-New, but Keech only knew them as one thing. “He’s a thrall.”
“What’s that?”
“An abomination. A dead man Bad Whiskey raised from the grave, and commands. And unless we stop him, Whiskey will use more like him to kill every last person in his path.”
Cutter crossed himself.
“Let’s get this over with,” Keech said, and kicked the dazed bandit’s wooden stub. The creature’s eyelids fluttered. He lifted his hand as if to block the sunlight, saw he was missing his digit, and gave a confused bluster.
“Where in tarnation’s my thumb?”
“You bit it off,” Keech said.
“I don’t recollect doin’ that.”
Keech dared one step closer. Again, he became aware of the pulsating chill inside his shirt.
The thrall’s dark eyes started wide as Keech moved in. Claymore scurried backward on his rump, his flimsy arms flailing. “Don’t come any closer!” he screeched. He scooted till his back ran against a redbud. Having nowhere else to go, he thrashed his head and kicked his left leg.
“I’m not going anywhere. You’re gonna tell me about Bad Whiskey.”
Claymore paused his flailing to give Keech a curious look. “The Master?”
“Yes, your rotten master. What’s he planning?”
Claymore looked off into the woods.
“Speak, Claymore. I’m warning you.”
“Warn all ya want! I shall not bend. The Master won’t allow it.”
Keech wondered if the creature had any measure of his own free will. During the raid on the Home, Whiskey’s demons had appeared to be acting of their own accord, without the outlaw having to compel them.
If thralls could indeed make their own choices, perhaps friendly reason could work.
“Bad Whiskey left you back in Big Timber to rot in jail,” Keech said. “All he wants is to command you, turn you about like a branded steer. He couldn’t care less if we killed you for good and left your body for the buzzards. Defy him, Claymore. Tell me what he’s planning. If you do that, maybe Sheriff Turner can even take you back to Gentry County, where you can start a new life, find some purpose.”
Claymore lowered his filthy brow, as if considering the offer. But just as quickly, the frown turned to a hateful smile.
“Foolish boy. The Master is my purpose.”
Keech reckoned thralls made their decisions only to serve the one who had called them forth. He would have to try a different tactic. “You’re falling apart, Claymore. Your master must not be feeding you any more life. How do you feel about that?”
“The Master raised me from the pit. He won’t let me rot and die.”
Cutter’s hand dropped on Keech’s shoulder. “My turn,” he said, and drew his long blade. A devilish grin flashed behind his bandana. It took no imagination to know exactly what Cutter wanted to do.
The bandit hawked a ball of black spit between Cutter’s boots. “You won’t bend me neither, kid! Yer all gurgle and no guts!”
“Let’s find out,” Cutter said.
But as he moved in, Keech held up his arm. “No. Put the knife away.”
“Step aside, Lost Cause. I can get us every answer we need.”
“Poking him with that blade will do no good. A thump on his head can clean his plow, I reckon, but back at the Home I wounded two of these monsters and they just kept coming. They don’t care much about pain.”
“He’ll feel this, all right. My blade is special. It’ll make this snake talk.”
Keech considered his next action carefully. There was something in Cutter’s eyes, a kind of fretting darkness that looked ravenous for blood. And if what he’d said about his friend Bishop was true, that Bad Whiskey had murdered him in cold blood, Cutter had as much right to seek revenge as the next person. My amigo, my one true friend, Cutter had said. If Keech appreciated one thing, it was the power of brotherhood and friendship. He would not leave Cutter in the dark for the sake of lone retribution.
“There’s another reason we don’t need the knife,” Keech said.
Cutter smirked. “What’s that?”
Keech rummaged down the neck of his coat and fished out Pa’s pendant. The freezing silver captured the wan sunlight and glowed a fiery golden-orange.
“If anything can get him to talk, this will.”
A peculiar look crossed Cutter’s face. The hand holding the knife dropped to his side.
He’s seen this before, Keech thought, but before he could ask about his expression, Tommy Claymore jumped to his one good foot, shoved Keech off balance, and hobbled off through the forest.
The boys didn’t have to run far. They pushed the thrall back on his rump, against another redbud. For the moment, Keech forgot all about the look on Cutter’s face when he saw Pa’s charm.
“It’s time you talk, you filth.” He nodded at Cutter. “Grab him.”
Cutter seized the bandit’s arms.
Keech leaned in close, resisting the impulse to turn away from the smell. “You should have minded,” he told the thrall, and dangled Pa’s pendant in front of Claymore’s face.
Numbing cold traveled up the cord and infiltrated Keech’s palm. Claymore let loose the most despicable scream Keech had ever heard, a cry that would surely bring Turner running. Though it could have been a trick of the light through the branches, Keech thought he could see spiderwebs of broken black veins appear along Claymore’s face and neck.
“Get it away!” the thrall shrieked.
“Give me answers, I remove the charm.”
“If I talk, the Master will know!”
Cutter made a huffing sound. “Your master ain’t here.”
The black veins along the thrall’s face and neck were now pulsing, as though on the verge of bursting. “The Master knows all!”
Keech drew back the charm. He needed the thrall to give answers, not spit curses and warnings. The black veins stopped pulsing and Claymore slumped, exhausted.
“Has Bad Whiskey found the Char Stone, Claymore?”
In the distance there came a loud call, booming across the forest. Sheriff Turner was shouting Keech’s name.
Cutter gave him a confused look. “What’s a Char Stone?”
Keech ignored the boy’s question. “Has he gone to Whistler? Has he found the Stone there?”
“I shan’t speak another word,” Claymore said.
Keech shoved the pendant forward again, to where the silver almost touched the bandit’s cheek. The creature screeched in pain.
“Talk,” Keech growled.
“The Master is done at Whistler!” Claymore hollered.
Keech’s heart gave a stutter. The posse was too late. Bad Whiskey had already found Whistler, and had finished his work there.
“He’s movin’ on to the Sullied Place!” the bandit sputtered. “Where all men wither!”
Keech knew what Claymore was suggesting, and his blood ran cold at the thought of it. But there was one last question to ask.
“The Char Stone, Claymore. What is it? Is it a weapon of some sort?”
There was a silence. Then the thrall answered, “Life. The Stone is life.”
Life? Perhaps the Stone was some kind of healing charm?
Keech opened his mouth to pose his next question, but then something strange fell over the thrall’s expression. A delighted sort of smile, as if he was seeing someone he hadn’t seen in a long time. He twisted his face toward the sky and beamed. His eyes rolled like marbles in their sockets. The pendant began to pulse again, pushing cold deeper into Keech’s hand.
Cutter took a step back. “We should get out of here.”
Claymore arched his back and wailed.
The pendant was so cold it was now burning Keech’s flesh.
“Let’s go,” Cutter said.
Claymore spoke then—but with a meaner, lower voice. When Keech heard it, he stiffened down to his boots. For the voice was all too familiar.
“Hello, pilgrim.”
Tommy Claymore leaned back against the tree. The bandit’s wrinkled mouth stretched into a vicious grin. Keech was horrified to see the left eye on the creature had glazed over a dull yellow.
“Bad Whiskey?” said Keech.
“You’ve been talkin’ to my thrall,” the bandit said, in Bad Whiskey’s voice.
“What do you mean ‘Bad Whiskey’?” Cutter hissed. “Are you telling me this is El Ojo?”
Bad Whiskey turned Claymore’s right eye toward Cutter. “Herrera! Good to see ya again! How’s life as a free man?”
Cutter’s mouth dropped into a bewildered O. He raised his knife, but for once he looked confused regarding what to do with it.
“You should be more careful about yer trailmates,” Bad Whiskey said to Keech. “Herrera will sink that knife in yer back soon as spit in yer face.”
Keech was still so bewildered that Bad Whiskey was using the bandit’s body to see and talk that few of the outlaw’s words even registered. But fury soon overpowered his shock and confusion. “This is how your thrall knew about my family’s murder!”
Bad Whiskey grinned. “We share a bond, my thralls and me. They slaughter the pig, I cook the bacon. This one here has proved useful, so ever’ now and then, I sneak a few peeks to see what he knows. Except he’s been tellin’ you pilgrims too much. Ol’ Tommy’s use, I’m afraid, has run out.”
Keech felt his face turn flame red. “It’s a fine trick, Bad Whiskey. But I heard what my pa said. You have no power of your own. You borrowed power from the Reverend Rose.”
Bad Whiskey shook Claymore’s head. “Arrogant boy. I was like you once. An orphan. Cast off, sunk in the mud. Believin’ I knew it all. Then the world showed me true wisdom. Showed me the magics that hide in the dark, the hollow places where men refuse to go, but where the best treasures lay hid, waitin’ for the right hand to seize ’em.”
Keech bared his teeth. “I’m gonna find you, Bad. I swear upon my family’s honor I’ll make you pay.”
Whiskey offered another black grin. “Fool toddler, I’ll have the Stone in hand before yer posse can find the first horse track.”
Keech recoiled at the monster’s words. “You know about the posse?”
“Like I told Raines, little pilgrim, I got me a thousand eyes.”
Through the forest canopy Keech spotted at least four of the dreadful crows under the dark thundercloud, circling, watching. They take what they see to dangerous places, he thought.
Cutter’s tongue at last thawed. “You killed my friend Bishop!”
Bad Whiskey paused to think. “Don’t recollect the name. Then again, I kill lots of folks.”
“You’ll recollect it when I find you,” Cutter said. “I know where you’re headed next.”
Bad Whiskey chortled. “You don’t know nothin’.” The thrall rose to his lone foot, his wooden leg stabbing the earth. Both boys took a fighting stance, but the outlaw didn’t attack. Instead he crooned, “You boys think this world is good. You think folks are worth protectin’. But even the good turn bad in the end.”
“What are you talking about?” Keech asked.
“Had me a little peek through Tommy’s eye, and I saw who yer ridin’ with. The children of a backstabbin’ double-crosser.”
Keech guessed he was talking about Nat and Duck. But what did he mean by double-crosser? “You don’t make any sense,” Keech said.
“Oh? Ever wonder how I found yer Home for Lost Causes?”
Keech narrowed his eyes.
Bad Whiskey sneered. “Bennett Coal gave up your so-called pa, pilgrim. Poor Raines put his trust in the wrong Enforcer.”
Keech was dumbstruck. “You’re lying!”
“When the Gita-Skog came callin’, Bennett Coal—or Noah Embry, or whatever name he was usin’—told us right where to look.”
Keech staggered back at Whiskey’s words. To think the very man Pa Abner had tried to warn had betrayed his location to the Gita-Skog.
He turned to Cutter. “Is that true? Did Nat and Duck’s father squeal on my pa?”
“No clue, Blackwood.”
Keech seized the boy’s coat by one sleeve. “Tell me!”
Cutter struggled in his grip. “I don’t know! Even if he did, I’m sure they don’t know. Now turn me loose!”
Keech released Cutter’s coat and spun back to the outlaw. “I don’t believe a word you’re saying.”
Bad Whiskey chuckled again. “You may think me a rattlesnake, little pilgrim, but I don’t spit corral dust.”
Shaking with uncontainable anger, Keech leaned in closer. He wanted so badly for the creature before him to be Bad Whiskey, but the one-eyed outlaw was across the countryside, stealing closer toward the Char Stone.
“You’ll regret the day you met me, Whiskey Nelson. I swear you will.”
“Strong lip for a pup! I am the Gita-Skog, boy, the Big Snake that consumes all. I regret nothin’.”
“You’re not the Gita-Skog. You’re nothing but a low worm.”
The outlaw considered the insult, then gazed deep into Keech’s eyes. He muttered five final words: “Yer all going to die.”
There was a brief silence, then Claymore’s left eye returned, only to roll back again to its cloudy white, along with his right one. Death spilled into his gaze, and the creature toppled to the ground in a heap. Two small tendrils of dark smoke rolled out of the thrall’s nostrils, reminding Keech of the black dust that had billowed from Cooper’s mouth after Pa vanquished him on the Home’s porch.
The boys waited, eyes focused on the lifeless form. But the creature lay still.
“What happened?” Cutter said.
“I think Bad Whiskey killed Claymore. For good.”
Somewhere to the north, the whimper of a loon filled the deep ravines and bottoms of Swift Hollow.
Then a deep commanding voice invaded the glade.
“Keech Blackwood!”
The boys spun to see Sheriff Turner, marching toward them through the clearing. His revolver was drawn but not aimed, and Deputy Ballard’s gun jutted from his belt. Nat and Duck and John Wesley stood in the distance, watching at the forest’s edge.
As Turner crossed the clearing, Keech whispered urgently to Cutter. “If he blames us for killing Claymore, no need for both of us to go to jail. I’ll take responsibility.”
“I don’t like you, Lost Cause,” Cutter said. “But I don’t reckon it’d be right to let you take a fall.”
The sheriff approached with a jangle of spurs. Keech braced himself for judgment, but none came. Instead the man put away his revolver and set a hand on Keech’s shoulder. “Thank goodness you kids are all right,” he said. His face was gray, his gun hand slightly trembling. “We heard the commotion across the hills and started running. We got here just in time to see what happened to this wretch.” He stretched one tall leg over, nudged the corpse’s wooden peg with a boot. “Looks to be all the way dead now.”
“Sheriff, I’ll explain everything soon,” Keech said. “But first you have to listen. I know where Bad Whiskey’s headed. Before he died, Claymore mentioned a ‘sullied place’ where Whiskey’s riding, a place where ‘all men wither.’”
Even as he spoke the words, the old childhood rhyme fluttered into Keech’s mind:
Should you be there in deepest night … in moon as dim as candlelight …
“Sullied place?” Turner said.
“We have to ride on west,” Keech said. “And we have to ride fast. Bad Whiskey is headed for the Withers graveyard, Sheriff. He’s headed for Bone Ridge.”