Valley of the Scarecrow (3 page)

M
ILLER’S
G
ROVE

Killing was something new for Angus Tucker. He’d never even considered it before, never dreamed he was capable of such a heinous act, but if the truth be told a dark anger had crept into his heart lately and whether he liked to admit it or not, murder was on his mind. For the big Scottish man, the golden rule of “do unto others as you’d have them do unto you” was much more than just a friendly verse from the Good Book; they were words of wisdom to live by, solid advice from the highest authority. Up until tonight, Angus could confidently say he’d done just that, lived his entire forty-one years of life as a Godfearing Christian who tried his best to keep the peace and always help his fellow man.

That was going to change tonight.

Cold-blooded murder,
he thought, tasting the sound of it in his mind and finding it bitter.
You’ll be damned, Angus. Damned for what you’re about to do.

Probably true, but it was a chance he was prepared to take and at least he wouldn’t go to hell alone. Angus gazed around the clearing at the other fourteen men gathered in the woods bordering the cornfields, brooding silently while they waited for the others to arrive. They were all hardworking men, strong, hearty immigrants from Scotland and Ireland for the most part, with a few first-generation Americans tossed into the mix who were
already in the valley when they’d settled Miller’s Grove a decade ago. Angus had a long mane of ginger-colored hair and was bigger than most of the other village elders, tall and broad shouldered from years of hard physical labor in the fields so naturally they looked up to him for guidance. His physical stature as well as his calm, intelligent personality made him a perfect leader in times of turmoil and stress. Times like tonight, when the future of their community was at stake.

Not to mention their souls.

“Should we get goin’, Angus?” Charlie Magee asked, another Scot whose brogue was as thick as the day he’d arrived in America. “Looks like we’re a’ here.”

The small crowd of men moved closer, anxious to hear Angus speak, but he waited for the last few stragglers to circle around him so he wouldn’t have to shout. “Best wait another few minutes, lads, just to be sure. We dinnae want to move until he’s started his sermon. Are they in the church a’ready?”

“Aye,” Davey Leask answered from the back, short of breath from having just arrived in the clearing from where he’d been scouting the church. “Only Joshua and three others. If we’re gonna do this, tonight’s the perfect night.”

“If
we’re gonna do this?” Angus asked, curious. “Are you and the others having second thoughts? I cannae do this alone, ya ken?”

Most of the elders nodded their heads in agreement, but there were still murmurs in the back and too many people whispering among themselves for Angus’s liking. Singling out Jim Hancock, the oldest and most respected elder present, Angus asked, “What is it, Jimmy? Out with it. We need to stand together or not at all.”

“Agreed,” the diminutive Irishman said, his shoulders
slumping. “It’s just that he’s a reverend for heaven’s sake. A man of God. How can we even think about—?”

“He stopped being a man of God a long time ago,” Angus interrupted. “We a’ know that. You, Jimmy, more than most. With your own eyes you saw him meet with the Man in Black, right?”

At the mention of the Man in Black, the crowd went silent. It was a name no one in Miller’s Grove ever said out loud and all eyes turned toward the little man in the front row. “Aye, Angus. I did. He appeared out of the shadows…out of nowhere in the middle of the corn and I watched Joshua walk right up to him and kneel at his feet. I’d never been more scared in a’ my life.”

“And you’re no’ the only one. I’ve seen him too, and we a’ know how Joshua’s changed in the last year. Reverend Miller was a good man, no question. The best of us maybe, which is why we named the village after him. He was our guiding light here in America, but that was before the hard times. He’s been turned from God…corrupted by the Man in Black into a greedy, evil monster who’ll drag us a’ to hell with him if we don’t make a stand. You’ve a’ heard him speak…a’ heard his blasphemous sermons. He’s out of his mind and walks hand in hand with the demons now. For our sake, for our families’, we have to stop him. I dinnae want do this either, but there’s no other choice. God has put this task in front of us and we cannae look the other way any longer. Tonight we end this, once and for all. Are you a’ with me?”

There was a chorus of “Aye” from the Grove’s elders, and everyone joined hands in a display of solidarity. Angus was pleased and more than a little relieved. He had no idea what he’d have done if they’d given up and gone back to their homes. “Good. Then let’s get going and by the grace of God we’ll do what needs done, but
first we should pray.” The men huddled together, going down on their knees in a circle around Angus. He knew none of them were prepared for what lay ahead, but they were as ready as they’d ever be. “Forgive us, Lord, for what we are about to do…”

They broke the circle and immediately left the clearing, walking single file along a narrow dirt path through the woods that led toward the fields. Some of them carried sharpened sticks, some carried rope, and some carried small flaming torches just burning brightly enough to light their way. In another time, another place, a procession like this might have been heading out on a holy crusade or a late-night medieval witch hunt, and even though this was America in the mid-1930s neither of those were far off the truth. To a man, they firmly believed they were on a mission from God.

None of the elders talked, each man lost in his own private thoughts and prayers, the gravity of their decision weighing heavily on all of them, making each step a chore unto itself. Even the woods seemed to feel the tension in the air, the great oak trees towering above and around them usually creaking and swaying in the wind and harboring a multitude of chattering birds, scavenging animals, crawling insects, and all the other normal inhabitants of a forest teeming with life. Tonight they were silent though, the breeze dying off and the wildlife somehow sensing the danger in the air and silently slinking away in fear or staying hidden in their dens and nests.

Angus was at the front of the line, leading the men
and trying to appear strong and confident for their sakes even though he felt neither of those. Tonight, appearances were vitally important and he knew the elders needed him to be the rock they could shield themselves behind in the coming storm. He accepted his position without complaint, but inside he was no more prepared for tonight’s confrontation than anyone else. Less maybe, because there was a time not long ago when he’d been a huge supporter of Reverend Miller and had considered Joshua not only a friend and mentor, but the shining example of how God wanted all men to live their lives. Reverend Miller had been the sole reason Angus had moved his wife Anna and their newborn child Malcolm from Scotland, following the charismatic preacher across the Atlantic on nothing more than the man’s word they could make a better life for themselves.

For a time they’d done just that, settling in Oak Valley and planting corn, a crop none of them had ever farmed back in the old country but was perfectly suited for the rich, dry Iowa soil. Building a community from the ground up and coaxing a living from the previously barren fields was incredibly difficult for the first few years. Had it not been for Reverend Miller’s leadership and guidance their tiny village out in the woods never would have gotten off the ground, much less started to thrive. In Angus’s opinion, they owed everything to Joshua: their homes, their community, their livelihood, perhaps their very lives. Simply put, without him Miller’s Grove wouldn’t exist.

But then, just as things were finally coming together and all their hard work was beginning to pay off, the Great Depression hit like a fairy-tale giant, mashing their meager savings beneath its feet, trampling their hopes and dreams but never quite squashing their spirits. Faith
kept them alive, and when times were at their worst, Reverend Miller persuaded the village that instead of giving up they should turn to God for help. The entire community banded together to build the church in the center of their largest cornfield, and once it was done Joshua promised everyone God would provide for them.

Instead of prosperity, what came next were the droughts and heat waves that swept across the middle of the country, devastating crops, withering the corn away to nothing and taking the community’s willpower along with it. In Angus’s mind that was when Joshua had started to turn, when he’d first started to look for answers outside of the Holy Book. Some people said that was when the Man in Black first made an appearance, but Angus believed he’d always been here, always been waiting in the shadows for his chance to sink his claws into Reverend Miller when he was at his weakest. Their fields had made a sudden comeback, the corn crops flourishing when no others in the middle part of the country were. Joshua had reaped huge profits selling food at outrageous prices to all the hungry people in the nearby towns and cities, but something just wasn’t right about the way things had changed and the villagers weren’t as grateful or happy as Joshua thought they should be. Thirty-six months later, things had spiraled down to where they were now, out of control and the Grove’s future all but hopeless.

As they neared the end of the dirt path, word was passed to the torchbearers to extinguish their flames, none of them wanting to give away their position when they exited the woods. They walked the last hundred feet in darkness, using only the light of the moon filtering through the tree branches to guide their steps.

Angus emerged out of the forest followed closely by
the other elders and they paused for a moment at the edge of the field. A murder of crows grabbed their attention, soaring above their heads, filling the night sky with the sound of powerful wings. The large scavenger birds were the first animals the elders had seen tonight and their sudden appearance could have been interpreted as a bad omen, but no one seemed too concerned with the local wildlife. Instead, their gaze was drawn out over the high rows of corn to where the white church stood alone in the center of the unnaturally bountiful crops, the only building within sight.

There were flickering candles in the windows but somehow it still felt empty from here, desolate and abandoned although they all knew that wasn’t true. Reverend Miller was inside, along with the few members of his flock still loyal to him even after all his screaming fits and outrageous behavior. Angus wasn’t sure if any of them, the reverend included, had any clue what was about to happen but the thought was too depressing to contemplate so he pushed those negative thoughts aside. Now wasn’t the time for doubts and fears that might cloud his judgment. He needed to stay positive, not to just believe they were doing the right thing but to
know
it with absolute certainty.

Angus reached into his pants pocket and took solace when his hand wrapped around the solid piece of metal inside. Needing to reassure himself further, he withdrew the sacred object and stared at it in the moonlight. It was a simple good-luck charm on a chain to the untrained eye, just a pentacle-shaped piece of metal with a second triangular shape fixed to the face of the five-pointed star. Inside the triangle was a carving of an eyeball surrounded by strange-looking geometric symbols. Angus also wore a ring on his left hand that was an exact copy, replicated
on a smaller scale, which had been the last thing his father had given him on his deathbed. Both ring and talisman were much more than the gaudy dime-store trinkets they appeared to be though, and just holding the amulet in his hands made Angus relax and feel considerably better. The pentacle was made of solid silver, a millennium-old symbol of White Magic and spiritual influence. The triangle was of purest gold, its engraved image of the all-seeing mind’s eye once part of a jeweled cross that hung on the hallowed altar in Rosslyn Chapel, the secret sanctuary of the Knights Templar and Scottish Freemasons. It had been in Angus’s family for 400 years, passed from father to son, stonemason to stonemason, believer to believer, Angus never fully knowing where it came from or why his family had been charged by the church with its safekeeping. All he and the Grove elders knew was that it was a powerful talisman whose origins were shrouded in folklore and mystery, a divine weapon against the darkness that could bless the righteous of heart, ward off disease, and bind evil in all its incarnations.

At least that was what his forefathers had taught him.

Angus returned the amulet to his pocket, saying a silent prayer they wouldn’t need its protection tonight.
Guide us, Lord. Shelter and keep us from harm so that everyone here tonight can testify to your glory.
With a weary sigh, Angus took one last look up at the circling crows, then moved off into the field, disappearing within the massive cornstalks without saying a word to the men with him. There was nothing else left to say. The village elders followed behind and soon the corn had swallowed them all. Off in the distance the dimly lit church, and a lunatic who had once been a holy man, waited.

The Miller’s Grove Brethren in Christ Church had been built with patient hands, a truly Herculean effort in the face of the country’s economic collapse when no one in the newly founded community had anything other than their blood, sweat, and tears to donate to the cause. Somehow, it had been enough. Only twelve weeks after Reverend Miller had said a blessing and dug the ceremonial first shovelful of dark soil, the final coat of glossy white paint had been applied to the thick oak slabs cut from the nearby forest and the steeple bell rang out across the fields, summoning the villagers to their first proper church service since moving to Iowa. It was a day of great celebration and fellowship, of immense pride and accomplishment for everyone in the Grove, and none of them could ever have imagined how quickly the tides would turn against them.

But turn they most definitely would.

Inside the church, two haggard-looking men and one rake-thin woman sat stone-faced and vacant-eyed on the polished wooden pews that would normally hold another hundred of their former friends and neighbors. They didn’t seem to care—or for that matter, even recognize—they were the only members of the once-faithful congregation
present, and hardly noticed how sweltering hot it was inside the sanctuary tonight. Sweat flowed freely down their gaunt cheeks, their greasy hair hanging limp over their weary eyes. Uncomfortable as they surely must have been, none of the three gave their disheveled appearance a thought, their undivided attention solely focused on the candlelit altar and the man standing upon it.

Joshua Miller was an impressive sight to behold, larger than most of the villagers by nearly a foot and even Angus Tucker by several inches. He’d never lifted weights a day in his life but was big boned and blessed with heavy natural muscle. With his long dark hair and blue eyes some of the women in the Grove had teased that his parents should have named him Samson, and more than a few of the bolder ones secretly dreamed of one day becoming his Delilah and being taken into the reverend’s powerful arms. Even now, dressed in a filthy brown robe over well-worn beige pants and sweating as much if not more than his followers, Joshua was still a handsome man. His rapid descent into madness had taken his soul but never stolen his good looks. Only his eyes had changed, blazing with a wild religious fervor that might have been admirable if it wasn’t so obvious to anyone who looked that he’d completely lost his mind.

“Desecration,” Joshua shouted, shaking his fists in anger, spittle flying from his mouth. “After a’ our hard work, people from the Grove have defiled our church…crept in the middle of the night and painted blasphemous words on our house of worship.”

It was true. A group of rash teenagers had filled plastic bags with red paint and hurled them at the side of the church like water balloons, splattering the pristine white walls with what looked eerily like bucket loads of blood.
They’d also moved in closer and written the words
JOSHUA IS OUR JUDAS
and
GOD NO LONGER LIVES HERE
in big bold letters above the entranceway.

“We cannae let them get away with it. Those responsible…and also those who hide and protect them. We’ll root the heathens out. Drag the cowardly bastards out of their beds and make them pay for what they’ve done. The Bible talks about an eye for an eye as punishment, but to hell with that! That’s not enough. I say we take their whole bodies and tear them limb from bloody—”

A fist-size stone crashed through a window on Joshua’s left and smashed into the far wall, having just barely missed striking the enraged reverend in the shoulder. Before he or any of his startled followers comprehended what was happening, several more windows were breaking and they were forced to dive for cover to avoid the shattered glass and flying rocks. Joshua was no fool and quickly realized what was happening. He leaped back to his feet, and stood up just in time to see the sanctuary doors burst open and in walk Angus Tucker surrounded by several of the village elders. Fearless and more than ready to defend himself, Reverend Miller started walking toward his adversary, his huge hands clenched into fists, but before he’d taken two strides a two-foot-long length of heavy steel pipe flew in through a previously broken window, spinning on a deadly path toward the side of his head. Joshua saw it coming at the last minute and tried to duck out of the way, but he was too late. The pipe connected solidly on his right temple, the
thud
of the impact sickeningly loud inside the room, dropping the outnumbered reverend in his tracks, knocking him unconscious with a blow that would have surely killed a lesser man.

Angus Tucker watched the spinning pipe strike Reverend Miller, relieved to see his eyes roll back and their onetime leader crumple to the ground and lie still. It was a lucky shot at best, and Angus muttered a quick thanks to the Lord for guiding whoever’s hand had thrown it. Joshua was a huge, powerful man, even before his recent descent into evil darkness, and would have been incredibly difficult to subdue regardless of how many men he’d brought. With him unconscious on the floor, their mission had just become easier, but by no means finished. They still had Joshua’s loyal followers to deal with.

Angus recognized the two men immediately, brothers David and Simon Driskle, two disillusioned young slackers who had never really fit in here in the Grove. They were Americans by birth, and had lived in the nearby town of Sanford before they’d met Joshua Miller and fallen hook, line, and sinker for the enigmatic preacher. They’d moved here three years ago and lived together, just as things were starting to turn sour, and both brothers had fanatically supported Reverend Miller since day one. Angus wasn’t surprised to see them still here, loyal to the end.

The Driskle brothers were huddled together in fear under an overturned pew but went crazy when they saw their leader drop to the ground and stop moving. They sprang to his defense, wild-eyed and screaming, grabbing any weapon within reach. David found a long, sharp piece of thick stained glass, and Simon retrieved the length of steel pipe that had toppled their master. Both men charged into the crowd of elders, stabbing and swinging with reckless abandon, uncaring that the men they attacked would have gladly let them walk away unharmed if only they’d come to their senses and lay down their weapons. The elders were here to take out Reverend
Miller, not a few disheveled men whose loyalty was blindly misplaced.

Their attack was short-lived, but savage. The eldest Driskle ran his thick glass shard up through the open mouth of Davey Leask, blood and brains spraying halfway to the ceiling in a warm crimson shower, and Simon managed to cave in three skulls with his pipe before the village elders swarmed over them and pinned them to the ground. Even disarmed, the brothers fought like feral animals, punching, kicking, and scratching from the bottom of the pile until they were beaten into silence by the group of men above.

The lone woman in the sanctuary, Harriet Jones, was a thin woman in her late thirties. She’d been widowed four years earlier when her husband had drowned in a freak fishing accident. Reverend Miller had been there to comfort her in her time of grief and there were whispers around the Grove that since then they’d secretly become lovers. Unlike the Driskle brothers, Harriet didn’t appear to have any fight in her, taking advantage of the time they’d afforded her to go to Reverend Miller’s side to check if he was okay. When Angus finally looked her way, Harriet was in tears, kneeling beside Joshua, gently dabbing a white cloth against the side of his bleeding head.

“Damn you all,” she kept quietly repeating. “Damn you all…”

Two village elders went to her side, intent on gently removing her from the unconscious reverend’s body, but the moment they reached for her arms, Harriet sprang at them like a lioness guarding her newborn cub. She went straight for the throat of Donald Blackstone, sinking her teeth into his Adam’s apple and windpipe, biting down with everything she had until her teeth cracked audibly
together. Blood gushed into her mouth and poured down both their chests, Don trying to scream but once she removed her mouth and spit a big chunk of his flesh onto the floor, air rushed in and out of the massive hole she’d made and nothing but frothy red bubbles gurgled out. Don reached toward Harriet with both hands—whether his intentions were to seek revenge or help—but in the end he got neither. He dropped at his killer’s feet, his life leaking away before he’d hit the ground.

Thomas Grant, the other elder near Harriet, quickly wrestled the crazy woman to the ground but not before she’d managed to rake her long nails across his face and leave a trail of four deep grooves that would scar him for life. Harriet might have done more damage than that, trying to get her fingers into Thomas’s eyes, but luckily Angus and the remaining elders charged to his aid and pinned her arms behind her back. In completely justified yet not very Christian behavior, Thomas lost his temper and drove his clenched fist into Harriet’s chin. Everyone in the room heard her jaw break, the bone snapping like a stick on a cold winter day, punishing the final member of Reverend Miller’s loyal congregation into unconsciousness.

With the chaotic battle over, the room became silent in a hurry, the elders standing around in shock, unsure what to do next. None of them had been expecting so much violence, blood, and death. They’d known there would be a skirmish, of course, and the potential for injury was obvious but five good men had just died, and the reality of their loss was starting to sink in. All eyes eventually turned to Angus Tucker, waiting for him to give them further instruction.

If only Angus knew what to say. He was just as much at a loss as the next man, stunned by the death of so many of
his fellow elders. Their families would be devastated, the damage to the community immense. “Mother of God,” Angus said. “What a nightmare.”

“Aye,” Jimmy Hancock said. “And it’s no’ over yet, lads. We cannae just leave them laying here. They could wake up at any minute.”

“Kill them,” Charlie Magee said, bloodlust in his voice. “Wasn’t that why we came here in the first place? After what they’ve done, none of them deserve to live.”

A smattering of agreement echoed around the sanctuary, but Angus had made his decision. “No, Charlie. There’ll be no more killing. There’s been more than enough bloodshed for one night. I’ve had a heavy heart about this a’ night, and now I know we need to put this in God’s hands, not ours. We’re no’ killers, and never will be.”

“But we cannae just let them go,” old Jimmy said, bewildered.

“Of course no’. They’ll pay for their sins, but their deaths will no’ be on our hands. I’ve got a plan. Come on…grab Harriet and the Driskles and get them out of here. Take them into the basement and tie them up so they cannae get loose. I want them out of Joshua’s sight.”

Several of the elders moved to do Angus’s bidding, eager to get away from the bloody sanctuary, gathering Joshua’s followers and dragging them by their arms out of the room and heading for the basement stairs. It was good to have them gone, the remaining elders noticeably calmer with the three killers removed, but now their attention turned toward the slumped body of Joshua Miller.

“What do we do with him?” Charlie asked tersely, not sounding at all convinced they shouldn’t just kill the madman and be done with it.

“We put him out of commission,” Angus said. “Permanently.
Help me get him onto the altar back by the cross…and bring some of those ropes.”

“The cross? You serious? What are we gonna do…crucify him?”

“You have a better idea?”

That shut Charlie up. He shook his head and went to grab some rope.

“We’ll string him up, then leave him in God’s hands. I won’t risk tainting any of our souls. The Good Lord can decide whether he lives or dies.”

Was it better to leave a man to dehydrate and starve to death, or to simply kill him quickly and end his suffering? The answer was neither: both actions were damnable. The difference was merely semantics and Angus was smart enough to know it, but the elders needed some moral comfort in their deeds tonight, some way of justifying their actions in the years to come to make them feel better than the evil fanatics they’d come here to stop. Only time would tell if their consciences would let them sleep at night and live with their decision.

Together the men dragged Reverend Miller’s body up onto the raised altar at the far end of the church where a massive wooden cross was nailed to the back wall. Its crossbeams were made of solid oak ten inches in diameter, and it towered over the pulpit Joshua had spoken so many passionate sermons from. The cross was meant to be an impressive, humbling symbol of Christian faith and it was. It would make an appropriate final resting place for the man who had lost that precious faith and destroyed the settlement they’d all worked so hard to build.

They needed to carry a couple church pews onto the altar as well, for two elders to stand on to reach the horizontal crossbeam and start lashing their onetime friend’s arms in place. Angus and Charlie Magee stood between
them, holding Joshua’s limp body upright and preventing him from slumping back down to the altar. The men nearly had the first set of ropes in place and tied off when the reverend’s body suddenly tensed up, his hands curled into fists, and his bloodshot eyes snapped open to see what was being done to him. Joshua screamed and went berserk, thrashing at his bonds and trying to kick the men on the altar below.

“Let me loose, damn you!” the reverend screamed. “I’ll kill you for this. You’re a’ dead men, you hear me? Dead!”

“Hold him!” Angus shouted back, trying his best to control Joshua’s flailing feet. The men were trying to, of course, but the huge preacher was far too strong for them, bucking and writhing in a rage, screaming obscenities and curses loud enough they might be hearing him back in the village. They couldn’t hold him much longer and the thought of the insane reverend getting loose to pick up a piece of wood or a length of pipe was enough to make Angus shiver. He had to do something fast or they were going to be in big trouble.