The kids had loved the Bone Man. They’d worked alongside him in the fields, had learned about the blues from him, and had begged Guthrie to let them go with him to the lonely funeral, promising to keep the secret always.
There had been a lot of evenings during that long summer and longer autumn when the Bone Man had sat on the porch steps and played acoustic blues to keep back the night and the night terrors. The young man had told tall tales of the road, and of unlikely meetings with legendary bluesmen such as Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. Guthrie hadn’t known or cared if the stories were true, but the music he played was beautiful and sad and somehow it helped everyone get through the worst season they’d ever had. The Black Harvest, which had started out with a vicious crop blight that had turned half the crops into bug-infested garbage, and then with the series of brutal murders. Somehow the blues and the magic of that guitar were a charm against evil. Now the man was dead and God only knew where his guitar was.
Guthrie bought a stone in another town and set it on the grave, and he read a prayer over the young man’s grave, and then he left and never returned. Years later Malcolm Crow would try to find that grave, but he never could remember just where it was.
The blight ended but the sky turned dark and bruised and they had months of heavy rains.
The next year’s harvest was normal and the corn was tall and green and the blight was lifted. In time the Reaper faded from everyday conversation; though when the stories were told about it over the following years, the name of “Bone Man” came to replace that of “Reaper,” and all of the evil was ascribed to him.
Down in Dark Hollow, the devil’s bones lay in the earth like seeds of hate, waiting for another year’s harvest.
Part I
Down at the Crossroads
I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees Asked the Lord above, have mercy now, save poor Bob if you please.
Robert Johnson, “Crossroads Blues”
Out there at the crossroads, molding the Devil’s bullets.
Tom Waits and William Burroughs, “Crossroads”
Demons they are on my trail I’m standing at the crossroads of the hell I look to the left I look to the right There’re hands that grab me on every side.
Tracy Chapman, “Crossroads”
Chapter 1
Modern Day
1
Malcolm Crow pretended to be asleep because that was the only way he could get to see Val naked. He kept his breathing regular and his eyes shut until she got out of bed and headed into the bathroom. Then he opened his eyes just a fraction, until he could see her standing there at the sink, as naked and uninhibited as could be. If she knew he was watching she’d have put on a T-shirt or robe.
It drove him bonkers. She had no problem with nudity when they made love at night, where the shadows hid her—though she underestimated his night vision, which was excellent—but if they made love during the day, even here in her room, she always wore something, even if it was a camisole.
Crow couldn’t understand it. At forty Val was gorgeous, tall, tanned and toned from the daily rigors of farm life, even farm life from the point of view of the farm manager. She was strong and slim, with lovely breasts only lightly touched by the gravity of early middle age. Her belly was flat, her thighs, though not thin like a runway model’s, were slender and deceptively muscular. Her ass was, according to Crow’s intense lifelong study of these particular aesthetics, perfect. She had black hair that was just long enough for a bobbed ponytail, which she usually shoved through the back of a John Deere ball cap. Her pubic thatch was trimmed into a heart—a Valentine gift from earlier that year that Crow had begged her to maintain even though he only got glimpses of it in the dark. The only thing she was currently wearing was a small silver cross on a delicate chain.
There was nothing about Val Guthrie that wasn’t perfect, an assessment he reaffirmed as he watched her brushing her teeth, the motion of her arms making her breasts bounce a little and which in turn made Crow’s pulse quicken. He felt himself growing erect under the heaped quilts and hoped that he wouldn’t be pitching a visible tent, should she look.
Crow knew that Val was self-conscious about her scars, no matter how much Crow tried to convince her that, in the first place who cared? and in the second, he thought they were kind of sexy. Fifteen years ago Val had wrecked three motorcycles in as many years, each time taking some dents. She had a four-inch scar across her stomach, a few minor ones on knees and elbows, and a whole bunch of jagged little ones dotting the curved landscape of her left shoulder, left breast, and the upper ribs. Those scars were linked by a few patches of healed burns. The third and last crash had been bad and Val had given up on Harleys and moved on to the relative safety of four metal walls and a roof in the form of a Dodge Viper.
Val finished brushing, rinsed, spat, and then washed her face and hands in the basin. Crow was fully erect now and wished she would come back to bed so he could contrive to wake up out of an erotic dream of her, or something along those lines. He knew he had to wait until she was back in bed before he affected to awaken.
She switched off the bathroom light and paused there in the doorway, checking to see if Crow was still asleep before coming back into the room. Crow did some of his best acting during the next few moments as she assessed, decided the coast was clear, and quickly crossed the broad stretch of hardwood floor to the giant king-sized bed. With smooth and practiced efficiency she slipped under the covers, turned her back, and nestled back against him until her rump encountered his thighs.
And then stopped as she felt something other than the flaccid thigh muscles of a sleeping person.
Crow held his breath, waiting for her to tell him to go take a cold shower or, worse, to just ignore it and go back to sleep herself.
Without turning toward him Val said in a low voice, “Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” It was supposed to be à la Mae West but it sounded more like Minnie Pearl.
Crow pretended to wake up, but Val elbowed him lightly in the ribs.
“You’re a lousy actor, Crow.”
“Damn it, Jim, I’m a lover, not an actor.” He was convinced he sounded exactly like Dr. McCoy. He was equally mistaken.
Smiling, Val rolled over toward him and kissed him. Chastely. On the forehead. “You were spying, weren’t you?”
“Who?” he said. “Me?”
She reached down under the blankets and closed her hand around him. “This is an official lie detector.”
“Yikes…what’d you do, wash in cold water?”
“Aha! You were watching, you complete sneak!” She was smiling. Her eyes were a brilliant dark blue, darker now under the overhang of the covers. Behind the curtain windows dawn was brightening to a golden intensity and there were late-season birds singing. Crow could hear the rustle of the cornstalks in the fields beyond the window, and it sounded like waves rolling up onto the beach.
Val’s hand was still there.
“You caught me, Sheriff!” he confessed. “I throw myself on the mercy of the court.”
Val’s smile changed from sleepy to devilish. “Sorry, pal, but no mercy for the condemned in this court.” And she hooked a warm leg over him and climbed on top. Even then she had the presence of mind to pull a sheet up around her left shoulder.
“If you don’t come down for breakfast in the next minute I’m feeding this to the cows!” The voice boomed up from two flights below just as Crow was lacing up his sneakers. Val was still in the shower.
“Your dad’s calling,” he yelled in through the now closed bathroom door. “Again.”
“You go. I’ve got to dry my hair.”
“Love you, baby!”
“Love you, too!”
Grinning, Crow headed out of the bedroom and jogged down the stairs, humming Lightin’ Hopkins’s “Black Ghost Blues.” The song had been in his head for days now and he meant to see if he could download it off the Net later on.
Malcolm Crow was a compact man, only an inch taller than Val’s five-seven and built slim without being skinny. He had the springy step of a kid half his age, and when he played basketball he was up and down the court so fast he just wore out the bigger and better players. His black hair was as smooth and black as his namesake’s, and it gave him a Native American look that was at odds with his Scottish ancestry. Crow had a lot of white teeth and he smiled easily and often, as he was now as he bounded into the vast kitchen of the Guthrie house.
Henry Guthrie was at the stove using a spatula to stack slices of French toast onto a metal serving tray. Plates of bacon and sausage and a dish of scrambled eggs were already on the table.
“If you’re quite through being a bother and a burden to my daughter,” Guthrie said sternly, “then see if you have enough strength left to take this over to the table.”
“My strength comes from purity,” Crow said, hefting the plate. “As well you know.”
“Then you must be as weak as a kitten.”
“Ouch.” Crow thumped down the plate and slid onto one end of a hardwood bench at the far end of the massive oak table. There were enough plates and cups scattered around to show that several people had already eaten and left. Crow knew from long experience that the Guthrie kitchen was in nearly constant use by field foremen and supervisors, the Guthries themselves, and various other people who happened to be passing, from the seed merchant to the milkman. Despite Guthrie’s threat of giving the breakfast to the cows, they didn’t actually own any.
Guthrie poured coffee for Crow and then for himself and sat down in the big captain’s chair at the other end of the table.
“So, what’s on your agenda?” Guthrie asked. He checked the hall to make sure Val wasn’t looking before adding real sugar and half-and-half to his coffee instead of Splenda and skim milk.
With a mouthful of French toast, Crow said, “Got to go over to the hayride and do some work. Couple of the traps need some repairs.” Pine Deep boasted the largest Haunted Hayride in the country. It was owned by Crow’s friend, Terry Wolfe, but Crow was the one who designed it and kept it in top shape. He personally devised each of the “traps”—the spots where the monsters jumped out at the customers and scared the living hell out of them. Each of Crow’s traps was very elaborate. “After that,” he said, swallowing and reaching for the bacon, “I guess I’ll head into town to open up the shop.”