Dead Man's Song

Crow hung a Maglite and a small compass to the web belt.



“What, no antitank gun?” asked Newton. “No lightsaber?”



Crow gave him a raspberry. He removed two long coils of rope from the car and laid them on the hood. He fished under his backseat and came up with a pair of work gloves and a pair of fingerless weightlifting gloves.



“What about your toothbrush, a Scotch-tape dispenser, and a Mr. Coffee? You forgot those.”



“Keep it up, Jimmy Olsen.” Crow took his cell phone out and tossed it onto the front seat and locked the car.



“You take everything except a fax machine and you leave your cell phone behind?”



“No reception around here,” Crow said. “Check it out.”



Newton looked at his own phone and saw that there were no bars.



Crow nodded. “This whole area’s like that, and it’ll probably be even worse down at the bottom of the Hollow. The cellular relay tower is on the other side of these mountains. Plus, it’s rough terrain down there, so I’d rather leave my phone here than risk losing it.”



“Swell.” Newton patted himself down and tugged a small digital camera out of his jacket pocket. “For the article,” he said and took a shot of Crow in all his gear, then walked to the rim of the pitch and took four shots of the long fall into the shadows at the foot of the mountains. He lowered the camera. “Charming.”



“Cheer up, it gets worse. Come on.” The first thing Crow did was to tie one end of each of the two lengths of rope to sturdy trees. He tied a complex series of knots and then jerked on them with great force to make sure they weren’t going to slip



“Don’t tell me we’re rappelling? I failed the rope climb in gym class every year.”



“Not really, but that pitch is too steep for you, and I’m not as spry as I used to be, so I’d rather we had a line to steady us down and then help us get back up again. Use these,” he said, indicating the heavy canvas gloves that were old and stained with grease. He slipped his own hands into the weightlifting gloves and flexed them, adjusting the Velcro straps. He picked up the two coils of rope and hurled them out over the pitch, then took one rope, tested the tension again, and stepped to the edge of the pitch. Until now everything Crow did had cool efficiency about it, but now, poised—literally—on the brink of commission he finally paused and Newton could see strain showing in his face. His eyes were slightly squinted and he would look up at the blue sky and then down into the shadows of the Hollow and back up again, repeating the cycle every few seconds while balancing his weight against the pull of the rope. His mouth was tight, lips pinched, and he was breathing through flared nostrils.



Newton picked up the end of the second rope and came to stand by Crow, and for a moment they both looked down into the Hollow, then Newton glanced at Crow. “You okay?”



“Nope,” Crow said with a tight smile. “I’m scared out of my mind.”



“We can still bag it and go catch lunch at the Harvestman.”



“Can’t,” Crow said.



“Can’t—why? No one’s making us do this, man.”



Instead of answering, Crow started singing under his breath. Words that didn’t mean anything to Newton. “I got an ax-handled pistol on a graveyard frame that shoots tombstone bullets, wearin’ balls and chain. I’m drinking TNT, I’m smoking dynamite…I hope some screwball start a fight.”



“What’s that?”



Crow turned to him. “Old Muddy Waters song, ‘I’m Ready.’ Great song.”



“Okay. And—tell me again, why are we singing blues songs?” He grinned. “Hoping to channel the spirit of the Bone Man?”



“Keep it up, Newt, and I’ll use you like a snowboard and surf down the mountain.”



Newton was fishing for a snappy comeback when he paused, head cocked in an attitude of listening. For just a moment he thought he actually heard the chords of an actual blues guitar, impossible as that was, and he jerked his head around and looked over to the Passion Pit. The sound—just a couple of notes—was so clear, so strong, that he half-expected to see someone standing there with a guitar; but the clearing was empty except for Missy and the only sound was the murmur as the trees whispered secrets to one another and the crows chattered in the forests. When Newton turned back he saw that Crow was looking at him with dark eyes that glittered with amusement. A jumpy, corner-of-the-lip twitching amusement.



“You heard it,” Crow said, “didn’t you?”



“I heard…something.”



Crow tugged on the rope that held him, but his eyes were steady and intent. “Tell me what you heard.”



Newton just shook his head. “It was stupid. It was nothing.”



“Come on, Newt—tell me.”



Taking a breath and then huffing it out through his nose, Newton said all in a rush, “I thought I heard a guitar but it was nothing. Wind in the trees. Silly.”



The wind had time to rustle ten thousand leaves before Crow said, “I heard it, too.”



When Newton opened his mouth to say something else, Crow just shook his head and started down the hill. After a long stunned moment, Newton followed.



(4)



Jim Polk slowed his unit and pulled onto the verge, waiting until a few cars and a farm truck passed, and then put it in reverse and crunched along the gravel back to the crossroads. He stopped with his rear bumper just this side of the dirt side road, put it in park, and got out, walking quickly to the edge of a screen of bushes and then peering cautiously around. He could just make out the dust plume left behind by Crow’s car.



While the dust drifted on the breeze, Polk pulled his cell out of his uniform pants pocket, flipped it open, and speed dialed Vic Wingate.



“What?” Vic answered.



“It’s me. I’m out on A-32 where it crosses Dark Hollow Road. Guess who I just saw driving down there toward the Passion Pit?”



Vic Wingate put his cell phone back in his pocket and leaned against the wall of the grease pit. The wheel of the big Ford Explorer was inches away from his head and he caught the tread and idly turned the tire, his eyes distant and thoughtful. At least three full minutes passed while he thought about what Polk had just told him, and about what it might mean. Pursing his lips, Vic pulled the cell phone back out of his pocket and called his own private office number. He let it ring once, disconnected, and then dialed again. It was picked up on the third ring.



“Yeah?”



“I just had an interesting phone call about your dancing partner.”



“Crow…” it came out as a hiss.



“He’s heading out to Dark Hollow like you thought, but if he’s going all Sherlock Holmes on us then maybe it’s time to put your plan for the Guthrie bitch into action. Be a nice way of distracting Crow from anything he might discover down in the Hollow.”



There was a profound silence on the line. “It’s daytime,” Ruger said at last.



“No biggie—cloud cover’s moving in. I’ll pick you up in five minutes. Be ready.”



Ruger’s own laugh was low and jagged. “I’m ready now,” he said, and hung up.



(5)



The Bone Man was sitting on the hood of the Impala, his heels resting on the bumper, the guitar snugged against his belly. He had been playing some old songs, hoping Little Scarecrow would hear him, and not at all expecting him to. He’d heard Crow singing “I’m Ready,” that great old Willie Dixon song that Muddy Waters had cut way back in 1956, and hearing those lyrics had made him want to play the tune. He’d picked out just a few notes when that reporter fellow pricked up his ears and rubbernecked so fast it looked like his head was going to unscrew itself.



He had heard the music! Had actually heard it. The Bone Man sat there on the Impala’s hood and stared in total shocked amazement at the empty edge of the pitch.



(6)



Climbing down from the pitch was no picnic and within a dozen yards Newton was sweating badly and his breath was coming in gasps. The slope started at a forty-five-degree angle but went sheer to the point of a straight drop several times, and Newton was glad for the rope. His walking stick hung slantwise across his back, lashed in place, and was totally useless for the downhill journey. For the first fifty yards the incline was littered with discarded beer bottles and manfully crushed beer cans, dozens of old shriveled condoms and wrinkled condom wrappers, and scattered debris that was now so ancient and sun-faded that it was impossible to tell what it had originally been. Birds sang noisily in the trees and the last lumbering flies of the season floated heavily by seeking quiet places to die.



The side of the Hollow was composed of slate, sandstone, schist, chunks of granite, and lots of loose dirt and stone. A glacial mishmash of rock of every kind, most of it hardwired into the landscape by roots or packed in with hardened clay. No part of it was safe, even the stones that jutted out like sturdy steps, as Newton found out the first time he tried to stand on one to catch his breath. The stone was undercut and the loose soil gave way and Newton plunged down fifteen feet, the rope hissing and smoking through his hand and his limbs pinwheeling until Crow snaked out a strong hand and caught him under the armpit and then slammed him belly-flat against the pitch. Crow swung over and straddled Newton, the balls of his booted feet steadying him and his other hand wrapped turn-and-around with his own line.



“You okay there, Newt?” Crow asked, and Newton just flapped a hand. His heart was beating so loud he wondered it didn’t echo off the walls. “Catch your breath. We’ll go again when you’re ready.”



In a minute they started down again, going more slowly now with caution learned from the fall. Newton was not nearly as fit as Crow, not even as fit as a wounded and recovering Crow, and he had to stop several times. Once, he looked over his shoulder and down just as his rope swayed and he got a sickening rush of vertigo and had to close his eyes and clench his jaws to keep from gagging. When he had his gag reflex under control and the world had stopped spinning with such abandon, Newton braced his feet against a big rock and used his free hand to dust himself off. As he did he saw something in the dirt by his knee glint dully, and he bent picked it up, thumbing away the clots of dirt.