Ancient Eyes (28 page)

Footsteps approached, and Harry stepped to the center of the trail. Whoever he heard was angry, and he didn't want to spark a wild shot from a rifle or cause a fright.

"Who's there?" he called out.
 
Best they know someone was on the trail before they saw him. Things had been strange on the mountain over the past few years, and it was always a good idea to be sure of the level of welcome before you walked onto a man's land.

The voices grew silent, then the footsteps continued, moving more quickly. A moment later, Jacob Carlson rounded the corner ahead, followed by his boy Amos.
 
Harry started to raise a hand in greeting, and then stopped. Jacob's face was contorted with a mixture of anger and worry that chilled the marrow in Harry's bones.

"Jacob?" Harry said. The single word was statement and question at the same time.

Jacob stopped and stared, but his expression didn't soften.
 
He strode down the trail, reached up and slapped Harry's hair aside from his forehead. Behind him, Amos had leveled a wicked-looking shotgun and was covering his father's actions.

"
Wha
…" Harry backed off a step, and then he understood.
 
He reached up and held the hair aside, baring his forehead. "It's not there, Jacob," he said. "It's just me."

Jacob Carlson stood in the center of the trail and stared hard at his old friend. Despite the many years they'd known one another, they seldom met. The families on the mountain were spread out and kept their distance. It had always been that way.
 
It had been almost five years since the two had spoken.

"She's gone," Jacob said simply.
 
He started to shake, and his hands came up to his face. The mask of fury he'd worn seconds before broke like soft earth and crumbled away.
 
Harry stepped forward and reached out, as if he'd put a hand on his friend's shoulder to comfort him, but he stopped short. Amos hadn't dropped the barrel of the shotgun yet.

"What is it, Jacob?" Harry asked, keeping his voice even. "Who's gone?"

"Elspeth is gone," Amos barked.
 
He lowered the barrel of his gun, but only a little, keeping it at an angle from which he could raise it quickly.
 
"Elspeth's gone.
 
They took her to that church. We aim to get her back."

The boy wasted no words. From the set of his jaw and the gleam in his eye, Harry didn't doubt he meant every word he spoke.

"That right, Jacob?" Harry asked. "You heading over to the old church alone?"

"He ain't alone," Amos grated.

Jacob held up a hand to quiet the boy.

"I have to get her back, Harry. Her ma is in a state you wouldn't believe, and half the rest of the family is already over there, that damnable blasphemous mark on their foreheads. It's happening again, all of it, and so fast…"

Jacob faltered, and Harry stepped forward this time, putting an arm around his old friend's back.
 
He stood there for a second in silence before speaking.

"He's back, Jacob, Jonathan's boy is back.
 
I was up at the stone church yesterday.
 
I spoke with him, and he means to make things right. There are ways to deal with this."

"We already know how to deal with it," Amos cut in.
 
The boy's face was red and it was clear that he resented anything that came between him and the chance to blow someone's head off with his shotgun. The last time
Harry'd
seen the boy, Amos had been waist-high and full of smiles. Now the cut of his features showed few of the lines Harry associated with smiling, and the way the boy's knuckles tightened on the trigger and stock of his gun, it was a damned good thing they were on the same side of the present situation.

"It won't work, son," Harry said gently.
 
"You can march in there with all the guns you want, you won't walk away with your sister.
 
You might get lucky and take one of them out, maybe a couple if you're quick, but in the end they'll either feed you to the snakes, or turn you into one of their own. If you and your sister ever left together it would be with his mark on you, and there's no soap on the mountain that can clean it off."

"That's crap," Amos spat the words, then, for emphasis he spat on the trail. "There's no man born that can stand down a shotgun. I'm tired of all your stories—and his. I'm getting my sister back."

Jacob turned then, and the fire was back in his eyes as suddenly as it had melted to tears.

"You ain't' going nowhere, boy.
 
You stand there and listen for a minute while I talk to Harry. When I'm done I'll decide what we're going to do. If you love your sister, you'll listen to me, and you won't spit at folks who're trying to help you."

Harry glanced at Amos, who took this like a slap to the face, but fell silent. "You say Abraham's back?" Jacob asked. Harry nodded. "He's already cleaned out the old church.
 
He's staying up at the cottage. I told him I'd find those who still believed, and those who might be taught." Jacob nodded slowly.
 
"What about his ma? Sometimes I wish…"

"She's dead," Harry replied.
 
"Abe buried her himself, up at the cottage."

Jacob stared at him. "Dead? But I saw her. . ."
 
He fell silent and thoughtful. "Damned if I know when the last time I saw her was. I used to stop by, now and again, but I never knew what to say."

Harry nodded. "I know, Jacob, I know. If we could turn back the years, there are a lot of things I'd change. Fact is, we can't, and what we have now is one chance. That chance is named Abraham, and he's waiting on us up at the chapel."

Jacob nodded again and turned back down the trail the way he'd come. "Come on up to the house, Harry.
 
I'll have to tell Barbara what's happened.
 
She'll want to come too."

Amos stood his ground stubbornly.
 
He held the shotgun at a forty-five degree angle, pointed into the trees beside the path.

"Where are you
goin
', pa?" he asked, his voice incredulous. "They still have Elspeth. How can going to a church change that?"

"Maybe your cousin can explain that better than I can," Jacob replied. "This isn't the first time this mountain was dark with the likes of Silas Greene. Maybe it won't be the last.
 
We beat it once, though, or thought we did. We should have finished it, but we let it go. Live and let live, Jonathan told us. Enough is enough. It wasn't enough, and now your sister is gone.

"Harry's right about one thing.
 
If you go waltzing into that churchyard with your shotgun, you won't come back.
 
Not like you are now.
 
Not caring a thing about your sister, or your ma—not caring what I say.
 
Is that how it is now, boy?
 
You going to go marching off against my orders, or are you going to trust me and stand with your kin? We don't have any time to wait for you to decide. Every minute we're here, they could be doing things to her. Every word we waste she could be screaming our names and if we want to help her—really help her—we need to get up that mountain."

Amos wavered. He glanced down the trail. His knuckles were still white on the gun's stock, and the tendons in his neck stood out like ropes. He wanted to go. He wanted to prove he was a match for whatever lay down that road, but he was used to doing what Jacob told him. He was used to respecting his Pa, and that respect won out in the end.

"The Murphy's is gone over," he said at last.
 
"Tommy and Angel, for sure. I saw Ed down at Irma Creed's place.
 
The two of them are marked. A lot of folks are marked."

Harry nodded. "They got Henry too," he said. "He's gone and I don't expect he'll be back.
 
Not unless he comes for me. We all stand to lose if we don't do something to stop it."

Jacob nodded. He started off down the trail, and Harry fell in at his side. Amos stood in the path a moment longer.
 
His gaze flickered one way, then the other.
 
In the end, he shook his head angrily and followed his father back down the trail toward their farm, their mother, and whatever solution they sought.
 
He had no idea what they were talking about, but he knew about his cousin Abraham, and he'd heard plenty of stories about the stone church. He also knew stories about that other church, and if they were true, maybe having a few more folks—and guns—along for the ride wouldn't be a bad idea after all.

They reached an old wooden gate a few moments later.
 
It was open, and after they had all slipped inside, Amos pulled it closed behind them and latched it. It was another quarter of a mile to the house, and the three of them walked it in silence.

Barbara Carlson stood on the porch, watching them return. She glared hard at Jacob. When she saw Harry, her features slipped to a mask of confusion.
 
By the time they reached the porch, she was heading back inside, and Harry knew from long years of experience that when she returned she'd have a coffee pot in one hand and cups dangling from the fingers of the other.
 
Jacob followed her inside; Harry took a seat in one of the old wooden chairs on the porch. Amos chose to stand at the foot of the stairs. He didn't lean his gun against the rail, or set it down. He held it at the same forty-five degree angle and glared alternately at the house, Harry, and the road leading off into the distance.

By the time Jacob and Barbara returned, Jacob had filled his wife in on all that Harry had told him. Her eyes were alight with fear, but there was something else there as well.
 
Hope? Determination?

"Abraham Carlson," she said, pouring thick black coffee into thick ceramic cups. "I never expected to hear that name again. And Sarah dead…"

"We should have seen this coming," Jacob cut in.
 
"I told you I saw those Murphy boys in their truck, loaded with enough wood and paint to build a new barn. And the marks. There's no way to mistake those marks."

Barbara nodded, but turned away.

Harry glanced up and saw with satisfaction that their door bore the same symbol that Sarah Carlson had etched into hers. He was surprised to see it, as well. His own door had fallen off one hinge several years back. Henry, who knew little and cared less about the past, had built a new one. It had been a surprise, and Harry had foolishly allowed the boy to place it in the frame. The old door was burned as firewood, and somehow Harry hadn't gotten around to replacing the symbol. It was good to see the old ways followed. He only wished he'd had as much sense—his boy might be sitting on the porch with him if he had.

"We need to get up the mountain," he said after a moment. "Abraham is hoping to call what remain of the elders to council, and to hold services. It has to be this morning. If they've taken Elspeth, then they have begun."

"Begun what?" Amos cut in. His voice was too loud, and the glitter in his eye spoke of patience near the point of snapping.

"Best hope you never really know the answer to that, son," Jacob replied, draining his coffee and standing.
 
"Best hope none of us ever knows. What went on in that place when you were a baby was unspeakable. We never saw, not really.
 
We saw what was left, at the end. We should have burned it to the ground and buried the ashes, but we didn't."

"And now it's happening again," Barbara murmured.
 
"Sweet God in heaven, it's happening again."

Harry nodded wearily. "If you folks know any others not marked, then we need to get word to them somehow.
 
I've walked nearly all these old legs will walk. I've got about enough to get back up that mountain."

Jacob nodded. "Barbara and I will come with you," he said. "We were both elders, and we're going to need those who know what we face."

"What about me?" Amos asked.
 
His bravado had dropped a notch at not hearing his name attached to the journey up the mountain.

"I need you to spread the word," his father replied. "You can move a lot faster without us. Take the truck, if you need it.
 
Get around to every family you can find. If you see that mark, you get out. If you don't, tell them to come to the church.
 
No set time, get there when you can. We won't do anything until there's been a service."

"I have to get some things," Barbara said. She turned and disappeared back into the house. The two older men stared at Amos, who watched them uncertainly.
 
He clearly didn't know what to think of their words, or their actions. He still held the gun as if he might wait for them to leave, then make a run on the church himself and drag Elspeth free without their help.

"Don't do anything foolish, son," Harry said, breaking the silence. "We've all wanted to take a gun into that place at one time or another.
 
I wanted to burn it—and it may yet come to that—but there are other ways. There are older ways. We don't want to pull people out who will still be bound to that place by strings we can't even see. We need to put an end to it and free them all.
 
We need to reclaim our mountain."