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"Damn it, Eddie, letVic’s reach with his broad back He pushed the Bone Man up against the side of Vic’s pickup truck and leaned his face close

"Tell me and I’ll stop all of this, Mr Morse," whispered Eddie

The Bone Man thought he saw so ravel and then through a tight throat said, "It was Griswold"

The big e

"What’d he say?" shouted Bernhardt and Crow together

"It was Ubel Griswold!" the Bone Man said, his voice a faint babble of desperation and pain "It was him, man, swear to God That farmer ns the beef ranch down on the other side of the hollow" The Bone Man licked his pulped lips "He’s the one been killing all them kids"

His voice was only a whisper, and only Tow-​Truck Eddie heard it He stared into the Bone Man’s eyes for a long tihtful Hope soared in the Bone Man’s chest Then the big man shook his head

"No," he said

"Wh…what?"

"I said no That isn’t possible Mr Griswold goes to hteous man He believes in God" His eyes searched the broken landscape of the Bone Man’s face "I’ve never seen you at church, Mr Morse Tell me…what is it that you believe in?"

"Please…"

"Satan is the Father of Lies" Tow-​Truck Eddie’s eyes were as pale as ice, and looking into the that salvation lay in the bigEddie’s face alht, it s"

"But I--"

"You’re the devil, Mr Morse, you are the Beast," he whispered "God have o with his right hand, drew it back just eight inches, and punched the Bone Man in the face, turning into the punch with all the massive power of muscle and speed and torque

The blow exploded in the Bone Man’s brain and everything hite as a big bell broke in his mind His limbs turned to jelly and Eddie let hiravel by the side of the truck He flopped there, dazed, unable to speak His nose was broken, and so was his jaw The punch had herniated three disks in his neck and upper back, and his throat was filling with blood

Tow-​Truck Eddie turned to Vic and the others Vic was the closest one and their eyes met and held

Vic licked his lips in much the same way as the Bone Man had "Eddie…what did he say?"

Their eyes held for a long tiave Vic a sad smile "Only lies, Vic All he had to say were the devil’s own lies"

There was a strange flush of relief in Vic’s eyes and he took a second to set his features before he turned to the others He looked at Jirave, "I hate to tell you this, man, but…he’s the one killed your Billy He just told , but then closed his mouth and stepped away The eyes of every other man fell on the Bone Man Eyes that had been confused a o now hardened with purpose They stared at the bleeding man for nearly fifteen seconds in silence, and then there was the cold rasp as Gus Bernhardt slid the hickory baton fro

As Tow-​Truck Eddie stepped out of their way, they suddenly rushed past hi

5

No one ever took either blame or credit for the murder of Oren Morse His body was found tied to a scarecrow post at the crossroads of A-32 and Dark Hollow Road with a piece of paper stuffed in his shirt pocket that had the names of the sixteen people who had been killed that autumn It was the end of the Black Harvest of 1976, and nearly everyone accepted the fiction that the Bone Man had been the killer After all, as he? A rant farm worker who had toldthe law since he’d dodged the draft in 1970 That made him a criminal already, and few of the farh to flee fro a killer Logical progression of thought didn’t seem to enter into it

The body of Ubel Griswold, a farht years before, was never found and was generally believed to have been the last victiiven to the mass-​murderer by one of the local papers

Henry Guthrie--ned the farrisly scarecroas placed, and who had erant field worker--took the body down He was one of the feho did not believe that Oren Morse was the Reaper Guthrie kept it to hi the massacre, but he didn’t believe for a s

He and his brother, George, took the body to the old Presbyterian cee and buried it The church had burned down forty years ago and no new Presbyterians had raveyard No one would know or care if there was a new grave there The Guthrie brothers didn’t tell anyone about it, though; nor would the two children who stood by the brothers during the unbeneficed service Guthrie’s ten-​year-​old daughter, Val, and her best friend, Malcolm Crow Malcolm’s brother, Billy, had been one of the first townies killed, and though the boy would never know it, his father, Jimmy Crow, had helped stomp Morse to death Malcolm, of everyone in town, knew for sure that the Reaper hadn’t been the bluesman, but his voice had been silenced forever Weeks later, Morse--or "the Bone Man" as the kids had called him because he was so skinny--had saved Malcolm’s life in an incident that had revealed to just those tho the real killer had been<ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>