Part 16 (2/2)

They decided to move south, treating the Reaper as a tornado that you can best dodge by moving at right angles to its path. As Harper readied the horses and Gonzalez hid evidence of their camp, Valentine cautiously walked up Tower Hill, rifle at the ready. He read the trail left by heavy bootprints. The Reaper had paused for an hour on the overlook.

Valentine wondered why. After a word to Harper, he found an un.o.bstructed knoll above the stage and scanned what parts of the horizon he could.

Two or three miles to the southeast, flame lit the clouded night. A pair of buildings seemed to be ablaze behind a screen of trees; he could make out a small grain silo lit by the red- yellow glow. Perhaps the Hood had a better view from the western crown of Tower Hill, but it was unlike a Reaper to just stand and watch a fire for the drama of it. And the blaze seemed unnaturally bright. Valentine wished the winds were favorable enough for him to smell the smoke.

He rejoined Gonzalez and Harper.

”There's a good-size fire,” Valentine explained. ”I think a barn or a house is going up. You want to check it out? It's on this side of the river, so we can get to it easy.”

”Do we want to be there?” Harper asked. ”If it's someone's house, neighbors will be coming from all over. It would be just like a Hood to pick someone off in the confusion.”

”I thought we were headed south,” Gonzalez said.

”Yes, eventually. But I think this Reaper watched what was going on there for a while, for whatever reason. It's not like them to just look at something for the sake of the view. I think it's worth checking out.”

Harper shrugged. ”It's your party. I don't mind watching a building burn. But I don't like the idea of making a decision 'cause of a prediction about a Reaper's behavior. Sounds like a good way to end up drained.”

”It'll be okay, as long as the lieutenant's radar is working,” Gonzalez suggested.

”Hope so,” Harper said. ”Let's get there before the patrols wake up.”

They moved through the night, leading their horses. Gonzalez walked out ahead, picking the path, followed by Valentine and Harper, each taking two horses.

As they drew close to the fire, Valentine decided the burning buildings were just another abandoned farm in a region where two out of three homesteads were empty. New forests stood in fields that had once belonged to cows.

The Wolves tied up the horses near a shallow seasonal streambed, and the horses drank from runoff puddles scattered among the rocks. They could see the flames flickering through the thin-skinned trunks of scrub beech and young oaks. They crept up to within fifty feet of the dying fire. What was left of four buildings, one obviously a barn, had already collapsed into burning debris. Without the daily rains of the past week, the conflagration would have turned into a forest fire.Harper spat cotton. ”Okay, Lieutenant, here's your fire. What now?”

”No family, no neighbors,” Valentine observed. ”Must have been empty. These fields sure don't look used. I haven't seen anything but a few old fence posts around with the wire stripped off. So why's it burning?”

”Maybe a patrol came through, livened up a quiet night with a little arson,” Harper mused.

”That east-west road we crossed yesterday by the river's got to be up there somewhere.”

”Could be,” Valentine agreed. ”If so, they used a lot of starter. You can smell it from here, kind of like gasoline.”

Gonzalez and Harper sniffed. ”Reminds me a little of napalm,” Harper said. ”The Grogs used it at Cedar Creek. They had an old fire truck filled with it. Doused some of the buildings our guys were holed up in and then lit it.”

”I'd like to take another look around in daylight,” Valentine said. ”We can wait a few more hours before moving on. Let's get the horses and find a safe spot to sleep.”

Valentine could tell from Harper's expression that he thought getting some rest was the first sensible plan out of his superior's mouth all evening.

Daylight inspection of the ruins told the end of the story but not the beginning. While Gonzalez squatted in cover along the road, ready to run like a jackrabbit back to the fire scene at the first sign of a patrol, only a livestock-laden tractor-trailer pa.s.sed along the old highway, crawling east at a safe fifteen miles an hour along the potholed road.

”This makes no sense,” Valentine said to a disinterested Harper. ”We've got four burning buildings, or three buildings and a shed, I guess. But what are those other three burned spots?”

Valentine indicated the blackened brush, circles of fire twelve to thirty feet in diameter, scattered around the buildings on what had once been lawn and garden.

”Weird thing number two. Look how the house is wrecked. The frame's been scattered all to h.e.l.l, but only westward. Like a bunch of dynamite was set off on the east side of it.”

Harper shrugged. ”Maybe the Quislings were training with demolitions or something.”

”Then where's the crater? And the foundation is in good shape; those cinder blocks would be gone if someone put a charge there. And look at those two saplings. They're both broken off three feet up, but the tops are lying toward the house. An explosion wouldn't do that.

Weird thing number three. That hole dug in the ground by the barn.”

The men walked over to the ruins of the old barn, next to the blackened column of the still- standing silo. A triangular furrow, three feet long and almost two feet deep, was gouged into the ground; a dug-up divot of earth and gra.s.s lay nine feet away, in the direction of the barn. ”What did this?” asked Valentine. ”The patrols brought out a backhoe? This was dug out in one clean scoop.”

”You got me, Sherlock,” Harper said with a shrug.

”And finally, there's no tracks. Unless that's why they burned out those patches of the scrub-to cover their tracks, or the marks of the weapons that did this.”

Valentine kneeled and sniffed at the charred wood. It still retained a faint petroleum or medicinal smell, like camphor.”Somebody's coming,” Harper called, moving swiftly behind the silo, rifle already at his shoulder. Valentine threw himself to the ground, hearing footsteps from the forest. The person was not making any effort to keep quiet, whoever it was.

A middle-aged man in faded blue pants and a striped mattress-ticking s.h.i.+rt emerged from the forest. He surveyed the wreckage, not looking particularly surprised. He removed his baseball cap and wiped his face and neck with a yellow handkerchief. What was left of his hair, balding front and back, was a uniform gray.

”Whoever you are,” the man called, ”you're sure up early. Come out and show yourselves. I ain't armed.”

Valentine hand-signaled Harper to stay concealed. Gonzalez had vanished, perhaps into the overgrown drainage ditch next to the road. He stood up, half fearing a sniper's bullet.

”Good morning to you, too,” Valentine responded. ”I'm just pa.s.sing through.”

”You mean 'we're pa.s.sing through,” stranger,” the unknown rustic chided. ”I saw your buddy behind the silo. Since you're not from around here, I'll ask your name, son.”

”David, sir. I'm down from Minnesota. Visiting friends, you might say.”

The man smiled. ”If that's the case, I'd keep that repeating rifle hid. I don't know how it is in Minnesota, but around here the vampires'll kill you for carrying a gun. Among other things.”

”Thanks for the tip. We're trying to pa.s.s through without attracting attention. Do you live around here, sir?”

”All my life. My name's Gustafsen. I'm a widower now, and my kids are gone. I farm a little place up the road. Saw the sky lit up and figured it was the old Bauer farm. Don't have much business of my own to mind, so you might say I mind other people's, just to have something to do.”

That could be good or bad for us, Valentine thought. ”Did anyone live here?”

”No, not since they took over. The Bauers all died of the Raving Madness. No one's wanted to live here since: it's five miles from nowhere.”

”I wonder what started the fire? There's been a lot of rain, but no lightning.”

Gustafsen chuckled. ”I wonder myself. I hear from some of the teamsters, there's been a few mysterious fires this summer. Started right around the time the new Big Boss showed up in Glarus. And things have gone from bad to worse for a lot of folks around here since then. There's been disappearances in almost every town, and I'm sure you know what that means.”

”I'm surprised you ask questions, Mr. Gustafsen. Most places that's frowned upon.”

”My curiosity is all I've got left, David.” Gustafsen thrust his hands in his pockets, speaking to Valentine while standing side by side with him as was the custom in that part of the country. They looked over the wrecked barn and house. ”I've lived a full life, considering the circ.u.mstances. After my Annie got took, I quit looking for anything else from this life, and I'm settin' my heart on the next.”

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