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The Bone Man had no response to that, but his face looked so much sadder. He pulled his guitar around and laid it across his thighs.
Guthrie tried to raise a hand, tried to touch this man. Seeing the feeble attempt, the gray man took his hand and held it. His long fingers were even colder than Guthrie’s numb and bloodless skin.
“Who…are…you…?” Guthrie asked. “Do I…do I know…you?”
A small sad smile drifted across the Bone Man’s lips. “You did. A long, long time ago,” he said in a distant voice. “You were kind to me once. You were kind to me when no one else was. ”
“I…don’t remember…”
“Maybe you will. Soon. But right now, just rest, Henry. ” The gray man’s face looked so sad, and a single silver tear gathered in the corner of his eyes. “It’s time to sleep now. Just let it all be. You’re done with it now. Just go to sleep, Henry. Just go to sleep. ”
Guthrie’s eyes had been drifting shut and his hand sagged loosely in the Bone Man’s grip. Guthrie seemed to sigh and then he settled back against the ground, the tension of fighting for
words and breath easing.
The Bone Man sat with him for a while, still holding the slack hand. Then he bent forward and kissed Henry Guthrie on the forehead. The tear that had gathered in his eye spilled and a single silvery drop splashed down on Guthrie’s face. The Bone Man touched the spot where the tear had landed and then he picked up his guitar and began to play softly.
“Good night, Henry,” he whispered as the long, cold wind of the void blew past them both and lifted the sound of the blues up to heaven.
3
Karl Ruger felt the darkness closing in, and he cursed it.
But this darkness wasn’t to be cursed; it was the answer to the curses his soul and his hate and his rage had invoked.
The darkness was not formless. It shambled out of the shadows and stood over him, looking down on him, immensely powerful against the distant moon.
Ruger gasped as he looked up at the thing, trying to calculate its outline, silhouetted against moon and stars. Arms, legs, the body of a man—but the head was all wrong. The head had nightmare proportions, and as the thing bent toward him, Ruger could see it had a long and crooked mouth, a mouth that smiled and smiled. It was the misshapen head of a jack-?o’-lantern, carved with a wicked grin and burning eyes.
Ruger looked into the eyes that he could finally see: eyes that burned like coals, eyes that knew things. The creature reached for him, clamping iron fingers around Ruger’s arms and lifting him bodily off the ground. Pain shot through him, but Ruger didn’t care, didn’t even notice. His whole mind was fixed on the face of horror that leered at him out of the darkness, the face of horror that bent close to his own until he could feel the hot breath of hell blown sourly into his own mouth, up his nose. The thing’s body seemed to writhe and ripple, the clothes bulging and stirring. As Ruger watched, a few insects crept out from between folds of the old suit, and then scuttled back inside. The hands that held him did not feel like human fingers: they were strong, but something was wrong with them. They also rippled in a way Ruger could not understand, as if what was inside was not skin and bone but was instead composed of thousands of separate parts that writhed and scuttled under the cloth. Even he—dissipated, dying, and evil as he was—shuddered at the creature’s touch.
Yet Ruger did not fight against the thing that held him; wouldn’t, even if he had the power. This was not something he could fight, his rage told him that, but more importantly, this was not something he should fight. Not this thing.
Ruger, you are my left hand. Again he heard those words echo in his brain.
Perhaps it was in that moment that Ruger began to understand why he had delayed leaving the Guthrie farm, and why he had let Tony drive the car. Those choices had worked to bring him to Pine Deep, and to keep him here. As the tide of events had swept along tonight he had sensed that some stronger purpose was having its way with him, that some will—stronger even than his—was putting things in motion.
Ruger, you are my left hand.
Now Ruger thought he understood, and he accepted what was happening. Welcomed it. The thing that held him in the darkness bent to his accepting ear and whispered terrible secrets in his dying ear.
After a long time, the night birds were driven to startled flight by the sound of Karl Ruger’s wild laughter.
Part III
Dry Bone Shuffle
Black ghost is a picture, black ghost is a shadow, too. Black ghost is a picture, black ghost is a shadow, too. You just see him, but you can’t hear him talkin’, Ain’t nothing’ else a black ghost can do.
Lightning Hopkins, “Black Ghost Blues”
Tombstone is my pillow, cold ground is my bed.
Blind Willie McTell
I got an axe-?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.
Muddy Waters (after Willie Dixon), “I’m Ready”
