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“Your dead are here,” the King of Crows said. “Look. There they are. All nicely arrayed. They watch you. They know what secrets beat inside your hearts. It pulls them from their graves. They, too, see a new frontier.”
The ghost boy, Harry, snapped at his mother like a rabid dog. She cried out and fell back. The ghosts of Gideon showed their sharp teeth. Fear shot through the townspeople. They’d heard old-timers talk of having to massacre the Kiowa, Cheyenne, and Comanches who stood in the way of settling this land. But they, themselves, had never faced such a threat.
“What’s going on here, mister?” the mayor asked. With a shaking hand, he pulled the napkin free from his collar at last, as if that might make a difference. “What is this?”
“An accounting,” the King of Crows said. “Do they frighten you, your dead?”
“Sheriff, get them out of here!” someone shouted.
“I will take these dead from your town,” the King of Crows promised. “Think of me as a vigilante spirit from a nation that loves its law and order conducted by outlaws. But first, ask yourselves, good citizens: Would this be happening if there was not rot within Gideon? Would your dead rise from their graves and come for a reckoning if all were well?”
“What’s he doing?” Sam whispered to the others.
“What do we need to do?” a man in suspenders asked.
“You can’t trust his promises,” Ling warned. “They’re riddles. They’ll tie you up.”
“Hush up! You’re wanted by the law,” the sheriff said.
“I require payment for my services. Who among your neighbors will it be? Will it be the widow Merriwether, so young and fair? And rich now, too. Her husband is among your dead. Did he really die of a bad heart?”
“He was awfully young,” another woman in a pale blue dress said, holding tightly to her little girl, who clung to her mother’s skirts, too frightened for tears.
“Why, Sue Ellen,” the young widow Merriwether said. “I mourned my George! I could scarcely stop crying. You remember—all of you remember!”
“He wasn’t in the ground three months before you took up with Ernie Porter!” a large man in a sweat-stained white shirt called out.
“You’re only sore she didn’t take up with you, Virgil!” an old woman with a lined face shot back. “Stop this nonsense at once. This is not who we are in Gideon.”
“If you’re looking to take somebody, why not make it Esther there!” the big man said, pointing to the old woman who’d called him out. “The old busybody. Thinks herself better’n the rest of us.”
“Stop it!” Evie shouted. “Can’t you see he wants you to turn against one another?”
The dead moved closer. Black drool dripped from cracked lips as they sniffed the air, hungry. The people stepped back, terrified. New accusations flew:
“The druggist makes moonshine in his basement! I’ve heard about the still!”
“Now, see here, Parker…” a man, presumably the druggist, said.
“What about the janitor, Quinn? You know how the Irish are.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” a grizzled man with a brogue answered.
“I knew there’d be trouble when we let the Polish in to work the mills. What with their foreign ways, and Catholics to boot!”
“Here! Take the parson’s wife! She’s so high and mighty!”
They pushed the parson’s wife forward as she wailed, “I’ve been to your homes! I’ve sat with you in your weakest hours.”
“And judged us for it.”
Isaiah had been stepping closer to the King of Crows, trying to get close enough to grab his mother in her crow form from the King’s shoulder. With a grunt, he reached for his mother and missed, coming up with only a feather yanked from the King’s voluminous coat. The King of Crows whirled around. His eyes were a soulless deep, and Isaiah found he could not look away. “Did you steal from me, boy?”
“Get away from my brother!” Memphis spat through tight teeth, fists at the ready. He wrapped his arms protectively around Isaiah.
The King of Crows looked from brother to brother, some terrible thought twisting his lips into a cruel half smile. “You’ll beg for a bargain one day, Healer. I will deal with you both in time,” the King said. “But now, to the business at hand. Why should I be satisfied with a paltry offering when I could have everything?
There was a high, piercing shriek, followed by the skin-crawling insect drone the Diviners knew all too well. The wind blew harder, sending hats pinwheeling down Main Street. Bright blue lightning showed in the billowing dust wall, blocking any escape from Gideon. The cloud mass groaned as if it needed to unleash something from within its gut.
