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become a leaden gray.
"More of this warm weather, and it'll be thawed through," said Mac.
"Reckon it'll change, Dad?"
"Could be, John. See if the wind starts veering back northerly. It carries
snow from Canada in its teeth when it does."
"Look."
Paul stopped dead, pointing at the side wall of their small, shingled barn. It
was normally painted dark brown, but the snow was still piled three or four
feet high against it.
Someone had come in while they were away on the hunt and daubed a message on
the wall in what looked like yellow highway paint.
Think you got the guns so you think you got power well you got a leson to lern
abouot real fucking power your all dead.
Chapter Thirteen
Somebody was calling his name, but his attention was on the road that wound
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out ahead of him, lined with abandoned churches.
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"Jeff, come on now, Jeff."
Each of them had a magnificent stained-glass window overlooking the highway,
but in every case the color had leached out, leaving behind weird images of
crucified saints that looked like a series of photographic negatives.
"Jefferson!"
It was odd that all of the tortured figures looked like Jed Herne. Jed was
dead.
"Dead," whispered Jeff Thomas.
Of course he was dead. He wasn't going to rise on the third day and come to
judge& judge anyone. Not on the third day. Nor the fourth. Not on any fucking
day. Nobody knew that better than Jeff did. Warm blood on his hand as the
knife slid into the flesh. Red blood. The blood in the church windows was like
the finest rubies.
"Jeff! For God's sake, Jeff!"
He could smell incense and hear the distant tinkling of a tiny silver bell.
"Hail
Mary, full of grace, blessed art thou and blessed& Forgive me, for I've
sinned.
I've taken life and lied and fornicated& the fruit of thy womb."
Something hit him on the side of his leg, stinging like a thrown pebble.
But he still wouldn't open his eyes. That would be bad news, bringing the pain
flooding in like searchlights.
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Jeff Thomas didn't want that, so he snuggled down again into the darkness like
a child seeking a few more moments before getting up to trudge to a hated
school.
Another jab of discomfort, this time on his shoulder. "Come on, Jeff. Snap on
out of it, will you? Please, Jefferson."
The voice was familiar, though it somehow didn't seem to sound quite right.
The incense was stronger, streaming from the open doors of the ruined churches
like thick smoke. It was blinding him and circling around him as though he
were at the heart of a Kansas whirlwind. There was a small dog at his feet,
cowering, and a crazed, cackling old woman, pedaling an antique bicycle
through the stormy sky.
"Dorothy?" Why should Dorothy be throwing stones at him?
Finally, very slowly Jeff Thomas opened his eyes. Nothing was in focus, and
his whole head and body rocked with spasms of agony. He'd known it was going
to be a mistake, so he closed his eyes again. But the pain didn't go away.
"Hell& oh, goddamn hell."
The other voice was drifting toward him from the semidarkness. "That's better,
Jeff. More like what I want to hear. Stick with that. Screw your courage to
the sticking place, Jefferson."
"Screw your courage, Nanci!" That was who it was. Nanci Simms. The
Mercedes. Calico ghost town. Earthblood.
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Now the memory was inching back reluctantly.
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There was a vague impression of being torn from sleep by something heavy
crashing into the side of his head. He'd tried to shout, but his mouth had
filled with the iron taste of his own blood, and another savage blow knocked
him back into swirling blackness.
He'd heard the sound of gunfire, as if from a great distance, but it merged
with the noises inside his own skull, to be swallowed by nothingness.
"You all right, Nanci? What the hell happened? Feel dead."
"I'll take those in reverse order. You aren't dead, though I imagine your head
must feel as if it was under a buffalo stampede. What happened was that four
of the country's great unwashed and thoroughly unlovable came up on us in the
dark and did us some grievous harm. And am I all right? I fear the answer is
that
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