LITMIR.BIZ

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by the intensity of his insistence that she go home, but too stubborn to just run away without knowing what was going on, she decided to pretend to obey his directive. She walked away and stepped up on the sidewalk, then paused and looked around.

      No one was left on the street. It was as if the town were deserted. When she saw Fox and Vincent follow Green into his place of business, she stepped back off the sidewalk and walked swiftly and as silently as she could in their wake.

      The door to Jim Green’s photography studio and mortuary was closed by the time she got there, but the curtains were still open at the windows, and kerosene lamps were lit within.

      The front room held the photography studio; the mortuary was in the rear. Someone had neglected to shut the door between the two, so she stood to one side of the big front window and peered in.

      The men had carried the body through to the back and placed it on a long oak slab—a rudimentary embalming table. Green’s instruments were laid out on a small cart nearby. Since the war, she knew, the art of embalming was in demand.

      There were a lot of dead boys making the long journey home.

      She continued to stare through the window, carefully trying to shield herself from the men within.

      They were examining the body and talking, but she could only catch snatches of the conversation.

      “I don’t think so. I really don’t think so,” she heard Cody say.

      “We have to think about safety,” Jim said.

      “He’s right, Cody—better safe than sorry,” Vincent added.

      Cody studied the corpse, turning it, touching the throat and studying it, as if he might find a pulse.

      Doctor? Educated at Harvard? A farm boy could see there was a massive shotgun hole in the man’s chest.

      “Better safe than sorry,” Cody agreed.

      Jim Green handed him a long knife with an edge so sharp it glittered like diamonds in the lamplight.

      Cody took the knife.

      She nearly gasped aloud as she saw him position himself—then sever the corpse’s jugular.

      She clamped a hand over her mouth and leaned against the wall, stunned. Then she turned back to the window again, thinking that her eyes must have deceived her.

      Now only Jim Green was standing over the corpse. Or rather, the pieces of the corpse.

      There wasn’t all that much blood, but then, the man had already bled out all over the street; a shotgun blast could do that to a fellow.

      But now … Now the dead man’s head had been severed cleanly from his body. The face was turned toward her, the eyes staring out at her.

      Caught in the glow of the lamplight, they seemed to be alive.

      They seemed to be staring straight into her soul.

      CHAPTER THREE

      ALEX HURRIED BACK to the boardinghouse, deep in thought, the image of the dead man’s eyes burned into her brain. She opened the front door and stepped inside, thinking that the world had gone mad.

      Of course, in a way the world had gone mad the day the first shot of the war had been fired. But this was something worse. Worse? What could be worse than a war that was exterminating half the young men of a divided country?

      Losing all sanity and all souls.

      The thought came to her unbidden, and she shook it off. But what was happening here was strange. People were behaving differently.

      Cody and Jim had literally severed the dead man’s head.

      “There you are, Alex!” Beulah chastised her as she came through from the kitchen, clasping a hand to her heart. “Don’t you go round worrying me so now, young lady, do you hear?”

      Alex stared at her. “Beulah, I was right down the street.”

      “Maybe so, but you need to be inside now. It’s dark, and the moon … well, the moon is out.”

      Alex smiled, giving her a hug and wondering what the moon had to do with anything. “I’m fine. The bad guys got sent away with their tails between their legs. Tonight we’re all safe.”

      Beulah drew back, shaking her head sadly. “Honey child, no time is safe anymore. But darkness? It’s not safe at all.”

      Alex stared at the older woman.

      “Beulah, what’s going on here?” she asked.

      “Evil,” Beulah said sagely.

      “Evil?”

      “Bad things, very bad things. It’s like the devil himself is trying to take hold here. Oh, honey, I don’t know everything. But it’s like an evil disease. So we just stay inside. Oh, Lordy! Brigsby gone. And Hollow Tree, too, I hear tell … and now Victory. Maybe we thought we’d be spared. Maybe we felt we couldn’t do a thing about it ‘cept run, and for too many folks, this is all we have and there ain’t nowhere to run to.”

      “Beulah, I don’t understand you,” Alex said impatiently.

      “I don’t rightly understand it myself,” Beulah said, then smiled suddenly, her eyes lighting up. “But tonight … well, that was a miracle, it was, those two fellows turning up when they did. And now they’ll be staying here. What a fine thing that is.”

      Beulah made the sign of the cross over her ample chest as she spoke.

      Alex nodded. That much was true. She would definitely feel safer with the men who had successfully defied the outlaws staying in her boardinghouse.

      Suddenly her smile of agreement froze on her face.

      She had just watched Cody Fox decapitate a dead man.

      With the blessing—no, at the insistence of—of Jim Green.

      She realized she was exhausted. No doubt the world would look normal again after a good night’s rest.

      “I think I have to go to sleep,” she told Beulah.

      “You need to have something to eat, child,” Beulah said.

      Alex laughed. “Beulah, you’re a sweetheart, but I’m too tired to eat. I’m going to go up to bed now, and I’ll worry about what’s going on in the morning.”

      “It’s the devil,” Beulah said, nodding sagely.

      Alex took Beulah’s hands. “I saw the devil’s work when anger and hostility entered the hearts of men and sent them to war.” Her eyes grew sad. “I guarantee you, God has no part in the carnage of war. Whatever this is, we can fight it, and we will.”

      “Maybe. Now that they’ve come,” Beulah agreed, then added, “But maybe not. This evening they came in a roar of gunfire. But sometimes they come in stealth and quiet, slipping into our lives and our souls—like the devil. Please, Alex, you heard what Cody Fox said to them fancy girls. It’s time to be smart and careful.”

      Alex gave Beulah a hug. “I’ll be careful, I swear,” she promised, and headed for the stairs. Just dragging herself up the steps suddenly seemed like a tremendous effort.

      She made it to her room. Her father’s room. No, her room now, as he would have wanted it to be.

      One of the girls had laid out her nightdress, and left her a basin of water on the washstand. By rote, she carefully removed and hung her clothing, washed up and slipped on the nightgown. She dipped her hands into the water again to refresh her face, and caught her reflection in the mirror. In the white gown and the lamplight, she appeared gaunt and pale. As if she were some kind of wraith. Despite herself, she found herself thinking of the women in the saloon. Dolly, who was so … assured. That new girl, oddly pretty and fresh. She paled in

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