The man’s eyes were missing. As if they’d been sucked out like a grape from its skin, leaving clean bloody sockets behind.
He was also missing his thumbs.
“Was it man or animal?” Rose asked, bringing the light with her. She caught sight of the man’s face and made a small sound in the back of her throat.
“It was the Strange. Or at least they smell of it.” Cedar rested the man back the way he’d been and moved the woman enough to see that she was missing both her ears and her nose. As for the young’uns, both of them had holes where their hearts should be.
“Indian don’t mutilate like this. Could be a white man who likes to collect souvenirs.” He frowned. “Not an animal, at any rate. I’ve never seen anything like this from Strange either. The injuries don’t add up to the thing that killed them. Well, except for the boys.”
The other injuries weren’t enough to kill a person right out, and certainly not enough to drop the entire family in a heap, as if they fell dead at the exact same moment.
Was that something the Holder could do? Fall down over a town and kill everyone dead? If that was the case, who, or what, had strolled through town gathering up body parts like they were out picking berries?
The bodies were cold, but no longer stiff. Fresh enough it hadn’t been long, but not so long the bodies had bloated. Whatever had dropped them dead had done it within the week.
“They look picked over,” Rose said. “Just bits taken.”
“Harvested.” Cedar stood and looked around the room. Stock and supplies filled the floor-to-ceiling shelves. There was enough food and blankets here to outfit them for the road. They’d just need to find grain and hay for the horses to finish stocking up.
“Looks like plenty here we can take with us,” he said. “We can load up and move on.”
“We’re going to bury them first.” Rose’s voice was tight, her face set in something more than determination. It was set in sorrow.
“Dig graves?” he asked. “Night’s upon us, Miss Small. Whatever or whoever did this to these people could be nearby. I don’t think slinging a shovel is going to do us, or in the long run them, any good.”
“I won’t leave them like this. And you shouldn’t want to either, Mr. Hunt. They deserve a decent burial. They deserve to have their souls put to a proper rest.”
“I agree they deserve a decent burial,” he said. “But it is too dangerous for us to administer it.”
“I’ve heard you,” she said. “But there isn’t anything about this new land that isn’t dangerous. That doesn’t mean we have to be the kind of people who turn away from the mercy at hand.”
Rose walked to the back of the room, the lantern light swinging shadows and bright at each other like trapeze artists reaching for the catch. She picked up a shovel and then, without a word, walked across the room and out the door, leaving the dark to swallow Cedar whole.
He took in a lungful of it and sighed. The girl meant well, but the last thing he wanted to do right now was dig a grave, much less dig one big enough for four, or who knew how many more. He walked over to the counter and rested his hand there.
A song, like sour trumpets trembling in the distance rose up through his fingertips. He knew that fleeting tune, knew its haunting rhythms and trills. It was the song of the Strange, of one Strange in particular.
Mr. Shunt.
Suddenly, the chill of the night and the dark and death squeezed down around him. They’d killed Mr. Shunt. He’d seen him killed, seen his innards stretched out and pounded to a mash even the crows wouldn’t pick over. He’d seen the bits of Mr. Shunt smashed apart by Jeb Lindson, Mae’s dead husband.
There was no possibility a man, nor any other creature, could come back together after the taking apart Mr. Shunt had received.
The wind huffed against the rafters, silencing the song as a fresh scatter of rain broke from the sky.
But then, there was no man nor creature like Mr. Shunt. If there was anything in this world unkillable, it would be him.
Suddenly, the harvest made sense. Mae had said Mr. Shunt fell into pieces and sewed himself back together again. Maybe he needed more parts.
But if Shunt were still in the town, hell, if he’d been within thirty miles of the place, Cedar would know. He wasn’t here. But he had been.
“Mr. Hunt?” Rose said from the door, her lantern clutched tight in one hand, the shovel in the other. “I think you’d better see this.”
“We’re leaving,” Cedar said, making to walk around behind the counter for the supplies. “Now. Come take an armful.”