“So what do we do?” Lita was whispering.
“Get out,” Ross said. “We’ll play it by ear.” He didn’t like the fact that none of the kneeling men had turned to look at them. They had to have heard the pickup driving up and stopping. At least one of them should have evinced some curiosity about who had arrived.
And where was Holt? The rancher should have come out to meet them, but so far there was no sign of him.
They got out of the cab and closed the doors, walking around the dead cattle and into the yard. Ross looked around, checking the corral and the open door of the barn for signs of other people. The lack of response by those bowing down before the smokehouse worried him, and he had the feeling that his “We’re-worshippers-too” speech wouldn’t go over too well. They might try just walking up to the building, but he was pretty sure they’d be attacked if they did.
“Over here.”
The three of them turned at the sound of the voice. It was Cameron Holt, and he was standing on the porch of the house. His clothes were wrinkled, as though he’d slept in them, and the salt-and-pepper stubble on his face indicated that he hadn’t shaved for several days. Ross caught Dave’s look and silently registered his own shock at the rancher’s appearance.
“Where’s m’ eggs?” Holt growled.
“In the truck,” Dave said. “Hold on.”
Turning to watch him head back to the pickup, Ross saw that the workers who’d been kneeling on the ground had stood and were now facing their direction. A chill touched his spine. This would be the part in a horror movie where they were either taken prisoner or killed.
One of the men separated himself from the pack and walked over. Ross recognized him as the man who’d accompanied Holt to the farmer’s market.
“Ola, Jorge,” Lita said.
He nodded at her, unsmiling, but did not respond as he stopped at the edge of the porch.
Dave returned with a flat of two dozen eggs, all they could scrounge from their dwindling stores. “Six dollars,” he said, walking up to the porch.
Jorge took the eggs while Holt took out his wallet. “Jesus H,” the rancher said. “That’s all you got?”
Dave nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
“And the three of you drove all the way out here for a lousy six bucks?”
Lita stepped up. “Actually,” she said, “We heard about the…angel, and we were wondering if we could see it.” She gestured toward the smokehouse.
“No,” Holt said, not meeting her eyes as he handed Dave six ones.
“I just thought—”
“You got your money. Now get off my property,” the rancher said angrily.
Jorge shook his head. “No. They may look.”
Holt seemed to flinch, and, for a brief second, actually looked frightened. Then he waved a disgusted hand toward the smokehouse. “Fine. Let ’em look.” It had not been his decision, but he pretended that it was, and Ross realized that the relationship between employer and employee was not what it initially appeared.
Jorge handed Holt the eggs, then gestured for the three of them to follow him. They walked across the hard dirt toward the smokehouse, the other ranch hands parting to make way. He expected the foreman to let them peek through a small window or a knothole in one of the boards, but instead he pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the door to the shed, pulling it open. Behind them, Ross could feel the other workers leaning forward for a better view.
The interior of the smokehouse was dark, and for the first few seconds, they could see nothing. Then the door was opened wider, letting in light, and the contours of the square room became visible. Aside from what looked like a series of clotheslines strung crossways four to five feet above the floor, everything had been shoved against the far wall: a table, a butcher block and what looked like an air-conditioning unit but was obviously the device used to create smoke for the drying of meat.
In the center of the room lay the creature.
The monster.
Ross sucked in his breath. As black as coal and curled into a fetal position, the corpse was rotting. There were holes in its body, not just bullet holes but larger cavities exposed by the pulling away of decaying flesh. Skin seemed to be dripping from the frame, as though made of rubber and melting, but, remarkably, the decomposing body gave off no smell. It was smaller than Ross had expected, only slightly larger than a man, but perhaps that was because, in death, it had shrunk in on itself. The wings, obviously the biggest part of the creature, were folded up and tucked underneath it. The shape of the face, almost triangular, resembled that of an ant, although the wild malevolence of its expression was not one that had ever been found on an insect. The eyes, round, wide open and completely white, were accentuated and made cruel by stark pointed clownlike eyebrows. The mouth, filled with sharp needleteeth, was frozen in a silent scream. Here, too, the skin appeared to be melting, but the effect was to pull the face tauter and exaggerate the characteristics already there.