by D. J. Butler
The clay balls had identified Diana Artemis as Lloyd Preece’s killer. What would they have said if Michael had rolled the name Gudmund Gudmundson into a ball?
“You don’t need to die, Brother Woolley,” the bishop said.
Hiram swallowed, finding his throat very dry. “Are you offering me a chance to join you? Become a were-deer?” He couldn’t imagine how else these men could possibly let him live.
Gudmundson laughed. “The sheriff and I do not transform into deer. But you are not totally wrong; I will let you run with the Tithe. If you run, you may escape and survive. On the other hand, I think it’s likely the pack will be trying to kill you in particular. I know I will be.”
“You’re a wolf,” Hiram said.
Gudmundson nodded. “All men, in their hearts, are either predator or prey.”
“Not all,” Hiram countered. “Some men are servants.”
That made the Bishop laugh. “Servant? Prey? That’s the same thing.”
Hiram felt ill at the bishop’s words. “Why kill me in the Tithe? Is it more fun?”
“A hunter may kill at any time,” Gudmundson said. “But a kill on the Tithe gives power. And the more powerful the prey, the more power the predator gains.”
“Eat the heart of your enemy to become brave like him?” Hiram shook his head. “I think you’ve read too many cheap novels.”
The bishop smiled. “I would very much like to eat your heart, Hiram Woolley.”
Hiram looked away south, at Scorpio, with its second blue heart of Jupiter. Michael’s explanation of the astrology came back to him. “The Tithe occurs on a night when Jupiter crosses into a new decan. About three times a year, you run out onto the Monument and chase someone down?”
“About,” the bishop said. “Jupiter is sometimes in retrograde, and the timing isn’t strictly regular.”
“And how do you reconcile that with holding the pulpit in your ward?” Hiram asked. “How do you reconcile this astrology and paganism with going to church on Sunday and telling people not to cuss, drink, or cheat on their taxes?” He realized that, on some level, he was asking himself the question, so he tried to focus. “How do you hunt for power, and then tell people to turn the other cheek?”
Gudmundson chuckled. “You have been listening to the antlered prey, I see. I do not hunt for power, Brother Woolley. I kill in the Tithe, and that act of killing brings me power. I bear the Jupiter Knife because I am First of Fang, as Lloyd Preece was First of Hoof, and the power of Jupiter flows through me on the Tithe, empowering all those who hunt. I am very good at killing, Brother Woolley. I killed many men, in deer-form and out of it, before I became First and it fell to me to have a Jupiter Knife forged. Jupiter is my god, and he makes me strong. He gives me command, over the hunters, and over others.”
Hiram shook his head. “You think Jupiter made you bishop?”
Gudmundson stepped closer, his smile widening and a queer light coming to his eye. “The kill made me bishop. There is no power in the act of running. There is power in life, for those who retain it, and wealth. There is power in death, for those who master it, and command. And besides…Jacob says that it’s okay to seek riches, if you seek with the intent to do good. As long as I intend to do good, shouldn’t I be able to seek power? Power to organize a new well for Rex Whittle, or help those hobos in their truck, or plan a move for Bobette Smothers?”
Still no sign of Michael. Hiram hoped his son had escaped. Michael was resourceful and smart, and as long as the sheriff’s men didn’t capture him right away, the young man would easily make it home.
And would they follow him there?
“I’ve heard some sick perversions of what priesthood office is supposed to be.” Hiram felt the weight of his clasp knife in his pocket. “That’s about the sickest. You’re going to spend eternity in a deep, dark hell, Gudmundson, and I think you know it.”
“I know that’s what your god would say,” Gudmundson answered, his voice light. “My god says something different.”
Hiram struck quickly. Snatching his knife out of his pocket, he leaped at the bishop. He was no wrestler, and would much rather punch a man in the jaw than come to any closer quarters than that, but if he was going to get out of this bind, he was going to need a shield. First of Fang sounded like a good shield to have, so Hiram grabbed the bishop’s wrist and yanked the man close toward him, spinning him around and slapping his blade to the bishop’s neck.
The sheriff’s men stopped, shotguns raised. Looking at their faces, Hiram saw the two deputies, Russ Pickens and other one, as well as the ranch hand Clem. All poor men, but all strong. Through the bishop’s shirt, too, Hiram felt the muscles of a hard worker, or a warrior.
“You ever seen a man chewed to bits by shotguns before, Woolley?” Del Rose asked.
“Yes.” Hiram backed slowly away, pulling the bishop with him. He had been unable to wound the deer-men while in deer-form or even when they appeared as naked humans—would these men be invulnerable as well? He had a brief vision of Gudmundson shrugging off Hiram’s blade, and then laughing while the sheriff and his men blasted Hiram into oblivion with their pump-actions. Please, Lord Divine, however this plays out, let Michael be far away from this camp. “I’ve seen such things and worse.”
“Mr. Woolley,” the bishop said, “I look forward to this Tithe very much. Please promise me you’ll fight this hard on the hunt, to protect your life and the life of your son.”
“You don’t have my son,” Hiram said.
“We will, though,” the bishop told him.
Hiram pressed the knife harder into Gudmundson’s throat. “Unlikely. You and I are going to get into that car and drive away.” He called his words in a loud voice, so that Michael might be able to hear him, and join him in a getaway car. “But first, you tell me why you killed Lloyd Preece. It wasn’t the Tithe yet, so you didn’t kill him for the hunt. You murdered him for something else.”
It was a guess, based mostly on how much pride Gudmundson exhibited in being a killer, and the fact that they had failed to include his name in the clay balls, but all Hiram’s investigation had consisted of nothing but guesses.
Gudmundson laughed softly. “Yes, I killed him. While he was strong as a deer, he was weak as a man. He thought we were going too far with the Blót, though we weren’t doing anything that hadn’t been done before. Preece lost his nerve, that’s all, and he wanted to leave. The man was never sentimental about his daughter, but something about having three grandchildren made him decide it was time to take his money and get out.”
“And you didn’t like that?” Hiram stepped slowly to the driver’s side of the truck. How was he going to keep Gudmundson prisoner and drive at the same time? He had a hard time imagining keeping a driver in line with his clasp knife.
“Erasmus Green and his friends should have consulted with us first, but you’re right, I didn’t like it. No one…ever…leaves.”
“Pretty brazen of you to run your hunt out of Wolfe Ranch,” Hiram said. It was a guess. “Was it just too irresistible? Did you just want to put your presence right onto the map, announce what you were doing to everyone in the world with eyes to see?”
Gudmundson laughed. “The Wolfe who owned Wolfe Ranch had nothing to do us. Pure coincidence. The Turnbows are even more ignorant of what we do—they only know that every few months, wild beasts eat some of their cattle.”
Abruptly, the bishop grabbed Hiram’s hands and pulled, forcing Hiram’s knife, hard, into the flesh of the bishop’s own neck. In the same motion, far too fast for Hiram to react, he spun and hurled Hiram against the side of the Double-A. Hiram hit the truck with his forehead and fell to the ground.
In the dancing flashlights and through spinning vision, Hiram saw the bishop toss the clasp knife away. His flesh was unmarked, and the bishop walked away.
Hiram tried to rise, but men crowded around him, boots kicked him in the chest and gut, and shotgun butts slammed over and over into his face.
&n
bsp; Chapter Twenty-Three
Michael hated leaving his pap in the hands of their enemies, but better one person get away than both get caught. Slipping between two men who were looking the wrong way at the wrong time, he dove into the Colorado, letting the dark water whisk him away.
The water was cold and fast, but Michael was a good swimmer. After a couple of minutes of riding the brisk current, he crawled out into a stand of willows, squeezed the worst of the water out of his clothing, and then crept back up to where the sheriff and his men held his pap.
Squatting in thick bushes that smelled like evergreen, Michael heard Gudmund Gudmundson confess to the murder. That seemed like good news for Diana, though she was apparently involved in the crime somehow. Or had the clay balls been simply hocus pocus?
Michael ground his teeth and bit back angry cries as the men attacked his father and beat him until he lay still.
“Do we just tie the farmer up at the Bloomers?” Sheriff Del Rose asked.
“The farmer runs the Tithe tonight,” Gudmund Gudmundson said. “Don’t worry, we’ll kill him at the arch, but there’s no power in it if he doesn’t run.”
When the men drove off, taking his pap with them, Michael crept out of the brush. He was cold and wet and shaken.
Michael picked up the fallen lantern. He didn’t have much time. The Blót was happening that night. And his pap was going to be an unwilling participant.
“We figured you’d come back,” a voice whispered from the darkness. That voice, Michael knew it. It was the crossword deputy, Pickens.
Another man chuckled. “You was right. Looks like it’s gonna be a full hunt tonight. Lots of prey. Lots of meat.”
Michael didn’t pause. Turning and seeing the two men, he hurled the lantern into the deputy’s face. Pickens cursed.
Michael charged to the truck, started it—fortunately, the engine was still reasonably warm—and then ground gears to get her moving. He tried to get the truck into second, but the clutch was sticking. He glanced into the rearview mirror and saw, lit by the red of his taillights, two faces from a nightmare.
The shaggy hair of the hunched creatures looked like blood in the lights. The long faces of wolves hung over the huge, muscular bodies, and they reached out with human hands tipped with vicious nails.
A third figure leapt out of the darkness and onto the side of the truck. Michael had the window rolled down, and the stink of the thing washed over him. It was the musk and bestial stench of something not animal and not human, but a mixture of both.
A werewolf. Michael was looking into the face of something that should only exist in movies. There was no fossil record. There was no science to this thing. It shouldn’t exist.
But it did.
The wolf man snapped its head into the truck. Michael threw himself forward, accidentally jerking the wheel to the right. The truck plunged into the reeds and water plants growing on the embankment.
Michael was forced to slam on the brakes. That whipped the wolf man off the car, and it rolled across the ground, in a swirl of dust motes and shredded grasses that floated in the Double-A’s headlights. From behind, howls and growls from the two werewolves running toward him.
Michael slammed the gas pedal to the floor. He shot forward, and the werewolf dodged aside. Its nails screeched down the side of the truck before it leapt back up on the running boards, on the right side of the car.
“The lamen!” Michael called out. He wasn’t shouting to the wolf-monster, but to himself. “I have a lamen, in the side door, and it’s going to protect me. I know it!”
The wolf man grabbed hold of the door with a furry hand tipped with yellow claws.
Michael swiveled in his seat and slammed his right foot into the door. Just as the wolf-man pulled the door open, Michael kicked it wide, and the monster swung out away from the car, yelping, and struck a tree, bouncing to the ground.
“Take that for empirical evidence!” Michael bellowed.
Michael stomped on the pedal again, and the engine screamed. He shifted into second, then third, bouncing over the rough dirt, and jarring himself and the truck, as it rumbled over washboard in the road.
His wheels spun in the gravel, he felt the backside fishtail, and again, he found himself riding the edge of the road, reeds thwacking the grill, and the murky smell of the water crowding in. He tried to steer back on the road, but something was wrong, one of his wheels felt flat, or something was weighting down the back.
Instead of driving faster on the bad tire, Michael applied the brakes until he stopped. A cloud of road dust rolled into his headlights.
Michael turned, grabbed the shotgun, and exited the cab. He left the engine going, and it ticked, running hot, in the hot night.
Lightning flashed above, and the air was electrified, all that energy in the clouds, but not a single drop of rain falling. The wind gusted.
There was a flashlight in the toolbox. He could get it and check the tires, but what would he do if he had a flat? He couldn’t very well try and fix it with werewolves prowling in the night. Hunting him. Was this the hunt? He didn’t know for sure, but they didn’t talk about the Tithe, or the Blót, happening alongside the Colorado River. It was definitely up in the Monument, near the arch, near where Jimmy Udall had been killed.
The river gurgled below, a rush of water, he could hear over the sound of the Double-A’s engine.
A growl from the back. A lupine face rose above the truck bed, over massive, bunched shoulders. One half of the monster was lit indirectly by the headlights, glowing yellow, and half was lit by the taillights, glowing red.
One of the wolves had gotten in the back. That must have been the weight Michael had felt.
He raised the muzzle of the shotgun. “I know you’re human. I know you can understand me. And I know I can fill you full of buckshot before you can spring. There’s only one reason you’re still alive right now.”
The wolf growled harder, a line of saliva dropping from its exposed fangs.
“Your people have my pap,” Michael said. “And I have you. If you move, I’ll blow your damn head off.”
Michael winced. He couldn’t keep cussing. He didn’t want the magic to stop working for him.
The werewolf leaped toward him.
Michael squeezed both triggers. Fire erupted from the weapon in long lines of light that instantly disappeared but left impressions on Michael’s eyes. The gunpowder stink followed.
The wolf-man went rolling backward, whining like a beaten dog. He’d hurt the thing. Or had he? Did he need silver? Pap said he’d shot the deer-men and the bullets hadn’t done much. But even if the shot didn’t pierce the wolf-man’s skin, that was a lot of kinetic energy for a creature to absorb.
Michael wheeled. Opening the door, he grabbed two new shells, expecting to be torn to pieces from moment to moment.
He spun, broke open the action, and burned his fingers on the used shells. He shoved fresh ammunition in and snapped the shotgun closed.
The werewolf was up, near the darkness of the river, snarling and slavering.
Michael wasn’t going to outrun this thing. And he wasn’t going to be able to kill him with the shotgun. But he could still take care of the beast. He hurried forward, getting as close as he could to the beast, ready to spring.
The beast-man rose.
Michael, still advancing, took aim and squeezed both triggers. The shot sent the wolf-man into the river, and the current snatched him away.
Michael hurried back to the truck to reload it. The night had become suddenly still, the only sounds the tick of the engine and the burble of the river. He loaded the shotgun and then circled the truck to check the tires, and they were all full. He must have simply lost his nerve driving across the reeds at the very edge of the road.
Back in the cab, he drove off, got into second gear, and stayed there, avoiding potholes and ruts as best he could.
He felt shaky and overexcited—that was the adrenaline in his system. His mind raci
ng, he blinked the sweat from his eyes. “Okay, let’s go through where we’re at.” He tittered, sounding hysterical.
“This is what crazy people do…they talk to themselves. But talking is better than stewing in silence. Pap is in trouble, all right, but they want him for the hunt. Then again, Gudmundson cut Lloyd Preece’s throat. No, that was a murder, not a hunt. Not the Tithe. Aren’t the werewolves supposed to be in London? Why must you lie to me, Hollywood?”
He laughed again. Crazy or not, his soliloquy was helping him.
“So, they’re going to take Pap up to the Monument for the hunt, which is probably going to happen any time now. The arch. They were going to kill him at the Bloomers, the bishop said. Only, he won’t be running alone. Davison Rock and Preacher Bill will be with him. The wolves hunt the prey, and that’s the Blót. And why?”
This was an old ritual hunt, from Iceland. Hunting was a powerful and terrifying thing, it brought food to families, but a lot of a hunter’s success depended on luck. How did people try and control their lives, when luck could save them or kill them? They added ritual to give that luck meaning. In a ritual hunt, they acted out the best possible circumstances, and so, they used the fantasy to help with their uncertain reality. They pretended to catch the deer, so they could catch real deer. Or they re-enacted the stories of their greatest hunters, so they could have the luck of those great hunters.
Didn’t they?
“But why do the deer run?” In an ordinary hunt, the deer ran because they were chased. They had no choice. But these deer-men, Erasmus Green’s herd, seemed to be choosing to participate.
Green, at the hotel, had said that the Tithe brought him money.
That didn’t feel right.
How does one win the hunt? By surviving, if you were a deer-man, and by slaughtering, if you were one of the wolves. The deer-men he could name—Erasmus Green, Leon Björnsson, Banjo Johansson—all were wealthy business owners. Banjo’s mercantile was doing well, unlike the Moab Co-op. The ones who knew ran the race and prospered. Like Lloyd Preece, who was the wealthiest man in the area.