Part 33 (1/2)

Enoch stopped, lowering his pipe.

”That's enough,” he said.

”But . . . ,” Lester said, looking around. ”Where are the others? I count nine.”

Enoch slipped his pipe inside his brown wool coat. ”The others are buried in metal coffins. They're going to need your help. Mr.Vickers has shovels in the back of his truck.”

Arturo Sanchez made the sign of the cross.

”Dig them up,” Enoch said, his stormy eyes alight with golden sparks as whatever magic he'd wielded began to burn off.

As he turned, Zeke strode up and grabbed his arm. ”The cost, d.a.m.n it. What's the price?”

Enoch glanced at the lumbering, shuffling dead who were even now being embraced by the living who had summoned them.

”Tomorrow night I'm going across the border,” Enoch said. ”There's a compound, a house where the cartel lieutenant who oversees all their local business lives and works. The drugs. The murder. His name is Carlos Aguilar, and I intend to kill him and everyone who tries to stop me.Your people-he gave the orders to the men who killed them-your people, they'll come with me and help me do this, and so will you.”

Mrs. Hawkins began to shake her head, covering her mouth as she cried.

Zeke thought of Savannah facing down cartel enforcers with guns, hardened killers. He steeled himself, knowing the bargain had been struck, the gift Enoch offered and the consequences of refusing.

”You need us to control them,” Zeke said. ”Pull their strings.”

”That's right, Mr. Prater. And you'll be happy to know that no more harm will come to them. Right now they're dead, more or less. They're . . . recovering. Another bullet hole or a knife wound will add to their recovery time, but it won't hurt them.”

”What about us?” Linda Trevino asked, horrified.

Enoch's gaze was hard as flint. ”I suppose you'll just have to be careful.”

Zeke went to get a shovel.

5 Late the next morning, Zeke stood on the scattering of hay and dusty horse s.h.i.+t that carpeted the floor of his stable, wondering if he had run out of tears. His eyes burned and he knew it was partly from the lack of sleep-he'd surprised himself by dropping off for a couple of hours just as the sun came up-but he thought the sandpaper feeling came from the unfulfilled need to cry. He felt empty in so many ways; the inability to summon tears was just one more.

”Come on, bud,” he rasped. ”Say h.e.l.lo to Jester. He missed you.”