The sheer size of the old boneyard astounded him. Hundreds of grave markers spread across a vast land of hills and gorges, most of which lay covered in broomsedge. Everywhere Keech looked, his eyes fell upon a gray stone slab, or a wooden tablet, or a cross formed with dry sticks and old twine—markers interrupted only by the occasional statue of a cloaked woman or an angel with stony wings unfurled.
Beware the high ridge made of bone, he thought glumly. All those who enter turn to stone.
A smell of ancient rot simmered across the graves, as if the stink of the Withers was too heavy for the wind to sweep off. Perhaps the plague had lingered. All over the boneyard, shovels and pickaxes littered the ground, giving Keech the impression that family members and loved ones had fled quickly from the place.
Mindful of his flanks, Keech stepped away from the gate and deep into the chaotic rows of graves. He read the names and dates written across a few of the headstones. The death year was the same for all of them—1832, the year of the outbreak. His stomach churned at the thought of so many people perishing at the same time.
Still reading headstones, Keech stumbled over a patch of weedy, sunken graves. He staggered back when he realized where he was standing. It was terrible luck to walk on someone’s resting place.
He held his breath, as the superstition called for, but then he noticed a name on one of the tombstones he had trampled and loosed a gasp. Keech eased closer to inspect the stone and realized his stroke of bad luck couldn’t be worse.
The etching on the granite read:
ABRAHAM NELL
Loving Provider
1794–1832
The grave he’d just walked across belonged to Granny Nell’s husband.
On top of deeply offending Mr. Abraham, Keech couldn’t begin to think about the punishment Granny would have inflicted, had she been alive to find out. There would be dishes to clean, shutters to whitewash, floors to mop. A host of horrible chores for days on end, all for upsetting poor Mr. Abraham’s eternal rest.
Then Keech’s eyes dropped to the inscription below Mr. Abraham’s name and death date—a message engraved downward and sideways to bear the shape of a cross. The tombstone instructed:
WATCH
THERE
FORE
FOR YE KNOW NOT WHAT HOUR
YOUR
LORD
DOTH
COME
A tremor of recognition rocked Keech in his boots.
He was looking at Matthew 24:42, the fourth set of numbers in Pa Abner’s telegram.
Closing his eyes, Keech let his memory drift back to his first reading of the letter. He visualized the ride with Sam to Big Timber, the conversation at Copperhead Rock. Although he had never been great with memorization—that had been Sam’s talent—he found that he was able to recall each letter, each number, the way Pa Abner had written it:
N E
39 3:1.
52 5:2.
26 7:25.
40 24:42.
A C
He and Sam had figured the code was a warning, a signal to Nat and Duck’s father. A warning that never would have reached Noah Embry anyway, considering he’d been killed back in September by Big Ben, another member of the Gita-Skog.
But if the code was supposed to be a warning, why engrave the Scripture from Matthew 24:42 on Abraham Nell’s tombstone?
“I’ve missed something,” Keech whispered. “Help me find the answer, Pa.”
His eyes still closed, he moved his mind back to the hour before the ride to Big Timber, when he and Pa had talked in the study. He saw the silver charm in Pa’s hand, the narrow lock on the oak chest. He saw the charm slide into the keyhole, and heard the click of the ancient lock. He saw the letter in Pa’s hands, sealed shut with scarlet wax.
Realization struck Keech like a fist to the gut.
The letter was never intended to be a warning. It had been sealed and locked away long before Bad Whiskey had shown up. Years before.
“Which means we never broke the code, not the way it was intended,” Keech said, his pulse rushing again.
What was Pa’s old proverb? If you look hard enough, you might find two ways to look at a thing.
A door opened in Keech’s mind and a new answer stepped over the threshold. Perhaps the letter was not a warning, but a set of coordinates, a direct path to the Char Stone. Perhaps each of the other Scriptures belonged to engravings on three other graves.
No sooner did the revelation come than a whisper floated to Keech’s ears, softer than a touch of silk.
“Hello, son.”
Keech spun on one boot heel, his hands clenching into fists. What he saw made him lose his balance. He tumbled backward onto his rump, right on top of Abraham Nell’s grave. His palms sank into loose dirt, but he barely noticed.
Pa Abner stood before him, back from the dead.
Keech choked back a cry as the figure lurched forward and the details of his face emerged in the moonlight. Pa Abner looked like a monster, his thick gray beard marbled with dried blood, his eyes clouded white. His face held the same color of death Keech had seen on Bad Whiskey’s ghouls back at the Home.
That one-eyed murderer had turned Pa into a thrall.
Pa took another shambling step. His cloudy eyes rolled in their sockets, as if blind. Keech scrambled back till he bumped against Abraham Nell’s tombstone. “Don’t come any closer!”
The thrall’s face took on a pained grimace. “Keech, listen to me.” The voice was gravelly, like a man who’s hollered himself out. “I don’t have much time. Whiskey is near. He thinks he has control of me, but he doesn’t. I’ve learned to block my mind, even in death. But I won’t be able to hold out much longer.”
His heart was pounding so hard, Keech thought he could feel it through his shirt. He stood. “Pa? Is it really you?”
“Bad Whiskey has the telegram, Keech. If he breaks the cipher, all is lost.”
A horrifying notion occurred to Keech. This might be some unspeakable trick. Bad Whiskey had the power to invade his thralls’ minds and steer them like dumb horses to his will. If Whiskey was controlling Pa, then the mangy dog could rascal his way into Keech’s trust and earn himself a straight shot to the Stone.
Keech needed a surefire test to tell if Whiskey was pulling Pa’s strings.
He recalled the glade at Swift Hollow, the way Tommy Claymore had gone blind in one eye when Bad Whiskey stepped into his body, and he realized he knew just the thing.
“If it’s really you, Pa, then show me your left eye.”
Grimacing, Pa lurched forward, leaning his pale face toward Keech. Both eyes wore the glaze of death, but the left eye could see. Bad Whiskey didn’t look to be riding inside Pa’s animated body.
Relief flooded over Keech, though he remained cautious. “Pa?”
“Yes, it’s me. Now tell me quickly, son, did the others make it out of the fire? Granny Nell? The kids?”
Keech looked down, forlorn. “No one made it out, Pa. Everyone is gone.”
The big man gritted his teeth as if in anguish.
Keech said, “Pa, let’s escape this. Let’s go now, together.”
But Pa was already glancing back toward the stone wall. He whispered, “Too late, son. He’s here.”
The gate of Bone Ridge swung open and in rode Bad Whiskey.
He was missing his right arm, and his left hand gripped a broken broom handle with burlap burning at the top. Keech recognized the torch as the one Duck had been holding when she came to fetch him. Keech’s breath stopped when he saw a small body draped over the cantle behind Bad Whiskey.
“Duck!” Keech bellowed.
Bad Whiskey chuckled as he steered his gangly horse into the graveyard. “Relax, pilgrim, she’s alive. See?” He bumped Duck with his elbow. A moan escaped the girl’s lips and she began to squirm. Keech noticed that her hands and feet had been bound by thick ropes.
Keech hollered, “I’ll get you out of this. I’m sorry!”
From the back of the outlaw’s saddle, Duck mumbled in a weak voice, “Ain’t your fault. I never shoulda got caught.”
Keech wondered why Duck hadn’t used her silver shard to still the outlaw. He must have bushwhacked her before she could wield it.
Bad Whiskey pushed his steed a few feet closer. Duck cursed him at the back of the saddle, but he paid the girl no attention. A wisp of low wind kicked across the graveyard, making the flame flutter atop the torch.
“Listen up, pilgrim. Yer so-called pa won’t show me what I need to know.”
Pa Abner stood silent at the foot of Abraham Nell’s grave. Pa’s face suggested he was concentrating, working hard to keep the wall inside his mind from tumbling.
Keech glared at Bad Whiskey. “I guess my pa is smarter than you, Bad.”
“If he’s so smart, pilgrim, then why’s he a walkin’ dead man?”
“He’s not the only walking dead man I see.”
Bad Whiskey offered a cruel smile. “Scoff all ya want. Yer still gonna tell me how to find the Stone.”
Duck shouted, “We’ll never help you!”
“You shut yer mouth,” Bad Whiskey said, “or I’ll shut it for ya.”
“You’ll pay for it if you try,” Duck warned.
Grunting, the outlaw dismounted, a tricky business with only one arm. He plunged the broom handle into the ground. Cinders from the fiery burlap rained on his shabby boots, but he ignored them. As the torchlight burned, he reached into his overcoat and pulled a yellowed piece of paper from his pocket. “Remember this?” he asked. He pondered Pa’s telegram with a scowl, then tossed the paper in Keech’s direction. It landed near Pa Abner’s boot. “Pick it up. Give it to yer pup,” he commanded the thrall.
Keech and Pa locked gazes. Then Pa bent, picked up the telegram, and handed it over.
“Break the code,” Bad Whiskey ordered. “Now.”
“Don’t do it!” shouted Duck.
“For the last time, hush yer maw.” The outlaw’s eye returned to Keech. “Hurry along now. I ain’t got all night.”
“You’re nervous, Bad.”
“I said hurry along. I didn’t stutter.”
“I see fear on your mangy face.”
Bad Whiskey’s entire body shook. “Yer provokin’ me, boy. Break the code or you’ll see my true face.”
Keech crumpled the telegram into a ball and threw it on the ground. “You’ll have to kill me.”
Bad Whiskey reached for his belt. Again, Keech expected him to pull the Dragoon, but when his hand returned, it held a brown cloth. When he loosed his grip, a leather cord appeared out of the cloth and Pa Abner’s silver charm dropped into view. Black veins rippled along Whiskey’s neck—a symptom of the amulet shard’s magic—but he continued with a grimace.
“I don’t have to kill you,” he said. “I can do the next best thing.”
He shoved the pendant toward Pa’s face. The magic was prompt. Murky veins bubbled to the surface of Pa’s cheeks and neck. Pa recoiled, but Whiskey’s hand followed. The smallest touch of the silver and Pa would drop like a stone, forever still.
The sight of his pa quivering before the glowing shard sickened Keech. He couldn’t stand to watch another second of the man’s whimpering. “Stop!” Keech screamed. “The numbers are verses! From the Bible.”
“Verses?” Bad Whiskey squawked.
“The verses are written on tombstones.”
“Where?”
“How should I know?”
Whiskey dangled the shard mere inches from Pa’s agonized face. “Find ’em.”
“That would take days.”
Pa lurched back a step. “Don’t help him, Keech! I’d rather be dead again!”
Bad Whiskey laughed. “I see Raines found hisself a hidden reserve of courage. So noble! Well, no matter.” He tucked away the silver in a coat pocket. Then he pulled his Dragoon and shifted the barrel toward Duck. “Do as I say, pilgrim. Now.”
Keech froze. “You won’t hurt her.” As he spoke, low, hurried movement caught the corner of his vision. His heart leaped and he focused on the outlaw, knowing better than to betray the coming ambush with a flick of his eye.
“Try me—” Bad Whiskey began, but suddenly the iron of a pickax slammed down across his arm. He released a bark of surprise as the Dragoon dropped out of his hand. Nat stepped into the light, holding one of the pickaxes that had been littering the ground.
“Step away from my sister, you filth. We’ve gotcha surrounded.”
Growling at his wounded arm, Bad Whiskey looked north and south. “Sorry, pilgrim. I do not accept yer offer. I know there’s only three of ya. You can’t stop me.”
“You’re outnumbered, Bad,” Duck said, delighted. “You’ve got nothing left.”
Bad Whiskey squatted to the ground. “Oh, I’m far from finished.” The rags of his overcoat ruffled behind him like the wings of a giant bat. “I reckon I got just enough power left to take care of business.”
Sneering, the one-eyed thrall whispered something under his breath.
Pa convulsed, bending over and gripping his head, crying in pain. The world was still for a moment, and then Pa Abner charged at Nat.
The rancher tried to swing his pickax in self-defense, but he was too late. Pa Abner barreled into the boy, burying his shoulder into Nat’s gut. He lifted him off the ground and carried him back into the night shadows.
“Nat!” Duck screamed.
Keech could see what was happening, but before he could do anything, Bad Whiskey bellowed two words—“Tsi’noo! COME!”—and struck the earth with his fist.
A low grumbling filled the air, a muffled wailing that sounded to Keech like hundreds of cicadas trapped and murmuring underground. The earth shuddered under Keech’s boots.
“Keech, what’s happening?” Duck yelled.
Grinning, Bad Whiskey muttered a string of the darkest, strangest words Keech had ever heard. A chant.
As he spoke it, dozens of graves shattered open. Ancient dirt flew high into the misty air. The ground split beneath Keech and the skeletal arm of Abraham Nell reached from the depths. A rotted hand grabbed Keech’s boot and squeezed. Horrified, he kicked the hand away.
“Tsi’noo, rise, and git to work!” Bad Whiskey roared.