The last bit of sun chokes out beyond the ridge, and now it’s just the Scribner and his charge there on that desolate hill. A sliver of moon keeps them company, and all the color bleeds out of the night.
Church comes to a stop, now just a stone’s throw from the fenced enclosure, and Ruby stops on cue beside him. This point, the hush is so deep you would swear you could hear stone groaning. Maybe it does. Well, Church knocks back the fringes of his coat and hooks his thumbs in his pockets as he surveys the tiny yard. He chews on nothin’, slow and purposeful while Ruby is beset by a few unwelcome shivers, and not a small amount of unease.
You can see the headstones from here, like broken teeth all crooked and gray. If the teeth have lips, it’s the blackened loop of a wrenched iron fence. Above it’s that little chapel, phosphorescent-like now. It’s got no place here, like God dropped it and forgot where he’d left it, here in the waste.
“So are we goin’?” Ruby ventures a whisper that gets no reply. “We’re goin’ then?” A tentative step, and Church has yet to budge.
“We’re not goin’?” My poor Ruby catches herself, a little too eager to second guess. She holds frozen for a panicked, wavering moment before Church proffers a flicker of a glance before stridin' on forward through the girl's relief.
"Ah- okay," the straggler chirps, already fallin’ behind. Man, oh man he’s quick. Lord almighty, I’m the narrator and I’m strugglin’ to keep pace with the long-limbed sum’bitch.
As he goes, auburn dust kicks up underfoot all the way to the fence, though it’s gray now in the light. When the Acquisitor lays his heavy hand on the gate, the rusted banshee screeches open. It doesn’t echo like it should, the yawn of the tar sky swallows the sound as the pair step in onto baked moss. Ruby steps light on ground that ought to be sacred, six feet down to bone.
Row one. Dead man ain’t no one ________ oh they'll pay, they'll pay
know no more. _______Row _________ two.________cut them, cut them__ Momma O'Connor loves her babies so much,
she hopes they'll grow up strong and happy when she's _________the cold, it grips you________________ three. Baby O'Connor two and four, not a year out from their momma.
Row five.
Gregory Church's unruly curls threaten to fall onto his weathered face, the great long rig of his skeleton pulls to its full height as his boots come to a rest in front of one lonely stone. His frightened apprentice hunches with bloodless terror at his heel.
"Bobby Lou Baker! I've come callin' to set you to rest. You been clingin' too long, baby girl! Come talk to me!"
Oh God, my God, the dead, they wake.
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