Jill called him less than a half-hour later, to ask a computer question, and he described to her their visit to Cameron Holt’s, the weird dynamic between the rancher and his workers, and the rotting thing in the smokehouse.
“So it’s not an angel,” Jill said.
“No, but…something about it makes you think it is when you’re near it. I don’t know how, don’t know why, but it happens. We all felt it, and obviously we’re not the only ones.”
“Is it scary?” Jill asked.
“Not exactly. It’s…weird.”
“But it’s scary when you think about it, isn’t it? That all of these things are going on around it?”
“Yeah,” Ross admitted. “It’s scary. And I haven’t been able to think about anything else since. Someone has to do something. We can’t just let things go on the way they are. We have to get rid of it somehow.”
“If that’s even possible.”
“Do you have any ideas?” he asked.
“Do you?”
“Fresh out.”
She was silent for a moment, thinking. “You know, maybe Native Americans have encountered this before. Maybe they know what this is and how to deal with it. Odds are, this thing’s been flying around this part of the country for some time. You saw it, right? And Dave and Lita? Well, I’m sure they have, too, over the years. And maybe they know something we don’t. I’ll go see Michael Song. He and his family sell leather goods and turquoise jewelry at the market—next to Dave and Lita, actually—and even if they don’t know anything about this themselves, they might know someone who does.”
“Like a…?”
“Shaman,” she said. “Let’s face it, religion’s a lot better equipped to deal with something like this than science is. For the simple reason that it acknowledges the existence of the mystical.
“In fact, I’m going to talk to Father Ramos, too,” she said. “The Catholic religion has cleansing rituals, rites meant to drive out evil spirits and repel demons.”
“Father Ramos thinks it’s an angel,” Ross pointed out.
“I’m going to talk to him. You should come with me and tell him what you’ve seen.”
“Okay,” Ross said. He was a rationalist. He didn’t believe in ghosties and ghoulies and gods and monsters. At the same time, he followed facts and evidence, and if the facts led him to some sort of paranormal explanation for everything that was going on, he wasn’t so closed-minded that he would automatically reject that conclusion.
And right now the evidence pointed toward that body in the shed being one powerful supernatural entity.
He certainly didn’t think Jill’s shaman was going to solve all of their problems.
But it couldn’t hurt.
TWENTY THREE
Vern Hastings glanced around at the six women and four men gathered in his living room. He was the lay preacher of this congregation, and though several others had tried to join his church in the past two weeks, he knew that they did so purely out of fear. The true believers were the ones who had been with him from the beginning, and it was only these worshippers he allowed into his house to celebrate the seventh day.
Rose had placed a pitcher of water on the table, along with a stack of Dixie cups. As always, they had each been fasting for the past twenty-four hours, and the fast would continue until suppertime this evening, though in the interim they were allowed to partake of the cleansing purity of water. None of them did, each wanting to show their strength of will to the others, and Vern was glad. He was proud of his congregation. He had taught them well.
The grandfather clock in the hall chimed ten, and Vern began his sermon, which today was about children and the Lord’s admonitions to them. He quoted Deuteronomy: “And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones.” He said this specifically for the sake of Tessa Collins. She was a glutton, and so was her son Wade, and if Vern had his druthers, they would both be taken to the edge of the city and stoned to death.
He liked Tessa’s husband Andy, however, and he figured Andy might pick up on the hint and get his woman and his boy in shape before it was too late.
Vern continued talking about children, going over God’s laws against disobedience, harlotry and girls’ wearing of clothing associated with men. Though he and Rose had no children of their own—the Lord had not seen fit to bless them with offspring—there was no doubt in his mind that the two of them would have been far better parents than everyone else in this congregation. Not to mention the idolaters and heathens who populated the town and lands around them.