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  Flesh. Strong, bronzed, fleshy hands, curving gently with a gold ring flashing in the sun. Cecil jerked his eyes back to the stranger’s face and felt an ice-cold bucket of relief cascade over his head.

  The face staring at him smiled gently with a full set of lips, parted slightly to reveal white teeth. A tanned nose, small and sharp but no doubt stiff with cartilage like any other nose. A thick set of eyebrows curved above the man’s glinting eyes—jet-black like the color of his shoulder-length hair.

  The stranger was twenty feet from them now. Cecil clamped his mouth shut and swallowed the pooled saliva. Did I see what I just thought I saw? He glanced down at young Johnny. The boy still gaped. Yep, he’d seen it too.

  Cecil remembered the book. He bent over and scanned the dusty boards at his feet and spotted it under the bench. He reached way down so his rump raised off the bench, steadied his tipping torso with his left hand on the boardwalk, and swung his right arm under the seat. His fingers touched the book. He clasped it with bony fingers, jerked it to safety, and shoved himself up.

  When his head cleared the bench, the stranger stopped in front of them. Cecil mostly saw the black pants. A zipper and two pockets. A crotch. A polyester crotch. He hesitated a brief moment and lifted his head.

  For a moment the man just stood there, arms hanging loosely, long hair lifting from his shoulders in the breeze, black eyes staring directly into Cecil’s, lips drawn tight as if to say, Get a grip, old fool. Don’t you know who I am?

  He towered, over six foot, dressed in the spotless getup with silver flashing on his boots and around his belt like one of those country-western singers on cable. Cecil tried to imagine the square chin and high cheekbones bared of flesh, stripped dry like a skull in the desert.

  He couldn’t.

  The stranger’s eyes shifted to the boy.“Hello,my friend. Mighty fine town you have here. Can you tell me where I would find the man in charge?”

  Johnny’s Adam’s apple bobbed. But he didn’t answer. The man waited, eyebrows raised like he expected a quick answer. But Johnny wasn’t answering.

  The man turned back to Cecil. “How about you, old man? Can you tell me who’s in charge here? The mayor? Chief of police?”

  “He . . . he can’t speak,” Johnny said.

  “That right? Well, you obviously can. You may not be much to look at, but your mouth works. So speak up.”

  Johnny hesitated. “A . . . about what?”

  The man casually slipped his right hand into the pocket of his slacks and moved his fingers as if he were playing with coins. “About fixin’ things around here.”

  Move on, stranger. You’re no good. Just move on and find some other town.

  He should tell the stranger that. He should stand right up and point to the edge of town and tell the man where he should take his bones.

  But Cecil didn’t stand up and say anything. Couldn’t. Besides, his throat was still in knots, which made it difficult to breathe much less stand up and play marshal.

  “Yordon?” Johnny said.

  The man in black pulled his hand from his pocket and stared at it. A translucent gel of some kind smothered his fingers, a fact that seemed to distract him for a moment. His eyes shifted to Johnny.

  “Yordon?” The man began to lick the gel from his hand. “And who’s Yordon?” He sucked at his fingers, cleaning them. “Now you’re mute, boy? Speak up.”

  “The father?”

  The man ran his wet fingers under his nose and drew a long breath through his nostrils. “You have to love the sweet smell of truth. Care for a sniff?”

  He lowered his hand and ran it under Johnny’s nose. The boy jerked away, and the man swept his hand in front of Cecil’s face. Smelled musty, like dirty socks. Cecil pulled back.

  “What did I tell you?” the man said, grinning. “This stuff will make you see the world in a whole new way, guaranteed.”

  Eyes back on Johnny. “Who else?”

  Johnny stared at him.

  “I said who else? Besides the father.”

  Johnny glanced at the bar, thirty yards to their right.“Maybe Steve?”

  “Steve. That’s the owner of the bar?” The man studied Smither’s Saloon.

  Cecil looked at the establishment’s flaking white frontage. It needed a few coats of paint, but then so did half the buildings in Paradise. A plaque hung at an odd angle behind the swinging screen door. Faded red letters spelled Open. A dead neon Budweiser sign hung in one of the saloon’s three windows.

  He looked back at the stranger, who still faced the bar.

  But the man’s eyes weren’t looking at the saloon; they were twisted down, fixed on Cecil. Crooked smile.

  He cocked his arm up to his shoulder as if it were spring-loaded and formed a prong with two fingers, like a cobra poised to strike. Slowly, he brought the hand toward Cecil and then stopped, a foot from his face.

  What on earth was the man doing? What did he think—

  The stranger moved his hand closer, closer. Cecil’s vision blurred and he instinctively clamped his eyes shut. Hot and cold flashes ripped up and down his spine like passing freight trains. He wanted to scream. He wanted to yell for help.Help me, boy! Can’t you see what he’s doing? Help me, for heaven’s sake!

  But he could do nothing more than open his mouth wide and suck in air, making little gasping sounds—hach, hach—like a plunger working in a toilet.

  A long second crawled by. Then two. Cecil stopped sucking air and jerked his eyes open.

  Pink filled his vision—the fuzzy pink of two fingers hovering like a wishbone an inch from his eyes. The fingers rushed at him. Cecil didn’t have the time to close his lids this time. The man’s pink pointers jabbed straight into his eye sockets.

  Red-hot fire exploded in his skull. He saw an image of a cowboy branding a calf ’s hide with a burning iron. Only this was no calf ’s hide. This was eyeballs. His eyeballs.

  Cecil’s mouth strained wide in a muted scream.

  The fingers dug right to the back of his sockets, wiggled deep.Waves of nausea washed through Cecil’s gut. He thought he was going to throw up.

  Then he could see he wasn’t throwing up, because he could see everything. From a vantage point ten feet above the bench he saw it all. He saw Johnny cowering in horror at the far end of the short bench. He saw the black cowboy hat almost hiding the stranger’s excited black eyes.

  The man planted his feet wide, grinning with glee, right arm extended toward Cecil’s face, fingers plugged into his eye sockets like an electric cord as if to say, Here, you old bat, let me juice you up a little.

  Cecil’s head tilted back with those two bloody prongs quivering above his nose. His whole body shook on the bench.

  Pain swept to the ends of his bones and then was gone, as if it had leaked right out his heels. Maybe that’s what happens when you die. Maybe that’s why I’m floating up here.

  The stranger’s arm jerked back, and Cecil saw his eyeballs tear free from their sockets, cupped in the stranger’s fingers. A loud, wet sucking sound filled the afternoon air. Little Johnny threw his arms over his head.

  With his left hand, the stranger reached for his own face. Jabbed at his eyes. Plucked out his own black eyeballs.

  Now he held a set of round, marblelike organs in each hand, a blue pair and a black pair. From above, Cecil caught a quick glimpse of the stranger’s empty sockets, black holes drilled into his skull.

  They weren’t bleeding.

  His own, on the other hand, began to ooze thick red streams down his cheeks. The stranger chuckled once and slapped the two black-marble eyes into Cecil’s sockets in one smooth motion, as if plucking and replacing eyeballs was an art long ago perfected by his kind. He flung Cecil’s blue eyes into his own skull and then wiped the blood running down the old man’s cheeks with his palms. The bleeding stopped, but his eyelids had flapped closed, so Cecil couldn’t see what his new eyes looked like.

  The man wiped his own eyes as if brushing away tears
and adjusted his collar. “Now I have their eyes,” he mumbled. He turned to his left and strode toward Steve Smither’s saloon.

  The black-clad stranger had taken three steps when he stopped and turned back to Johnny, who was still fixed in shock. For one horrifying moment Cecil believed the stranger was considering another victim.

  “You ever see a trick like that, boy?”

  Johnny couldn’t have answered if he’d wanted to.

  The stranger winked, spun on his heels, and walked toward the saloon.

  The pain was back. It washed over Cecil’s cranium and spread like a fire, first through his eyes and then directly down his back.

  Oh, God Almighty, help me!

  Cecil’s world began to spin in crazy circles. From somewhere in the dark he heard a thump echo through his mind. My book, he thought. I’ve dropped my book again.

  JOHNNY CRINGED in horror. He gaped at the stranger, who appeared frozen on the steps to Smither’s Saloon. Everything had stopped. Everything except for his heart, which was crashing in his ears.

  The saloon door slammed.

  He tore himself from the bench, tripped on a rock, and sprawled to the dirt. Pain knifed into his palm. He scrambled to his feet and spun. The old man was slumped on the bench, eyes closed, mouth open.

  “Cecil?” Johnny whispered. Nothing. A little louder. “Cecil!”

  He stepped forward cautiously, put a hand on Cecil’s knee, and shook it. Still nothing.

  Johnny lifted a trembling thumb to the old man’s left eye and pulled up the eyelid. Cecil’s blue eyes, not the stranger’s black eyes. And there was no blood.

  He released the eyelid and stood back. It occurred to him that Cecil’s chest wasn’t moving. He leaned forward and put his ear against his shirt. No heartbeat.

  He bolted, nearly toppling again, and ran for home, ignoring the pain in his leg.

  CHAPTER TWO

  PARADISE

  Wednesday

  STEVE SMITHER stood behind his cherry bar and polished a tall Budweiser glass. Paula Smither, his wife, sat at the end of the bar, next to Katie Bowers and the minister’s secretary, Nancy. Behind the women, Chris Ingles and his friend Mark had herded six others into a poker game. Waylon Jennings’s mournful baritone leaked out from the old jukebox. But it wasn’t the poker or the beer or the music that had brought the crowd today.

  It was the fact that the town’s one and only mayor/marshal, Frank Marsh, had run off with his “secretary” three days ago.

  Katie Bowers pulled a string of gum from her mouth, balled it into a wad, and dropped it into the ashtray. She lifted her beer and glared at Steve. Strange how a pretty valley girl like Katie, who wore her makeup loud and talked even louder, could be so unattractive.

  Katie set her bottle down. “Lighten up, Paula. It’s not like we haven’t been here before.”

  “That was different,” Paula shot back.

  “Was it?” Katie glanced at Steve. “Be a doll and give us some peanuts.”

  “She’s right, that was different,” he said, reaching under the counter for the Planters tin. The air had thickened with the last exchange.

  Katie’s husband, Claude Bowers, spoke without looking at his wife. “Go easy, Katie. It’s not like nothing happened here.” The huge Swede sat at the bar, running his forefinger around the rim of his mug.

  “Oh, lighten up. I’m not actually endorsing what he did. I’m just saying that it’s not that big a deal, and I think most of us agree. Last I heard, 50 percent of marriages in this country end in divorce. So that’s the world we live in. We might as well get used to it.” She took another sip of her beer and dipped her hand into the peanut bowl.

  Steve caught his wife’s eyes and winked. She might not be as slender as Katie, or have her magazine looks, but to him Paula was the prettier woman by far. They met in high school, two immigrants trying to make their way in a country insensitive to both of them. The Colorado mountains proved to be the perfect refuge for their wild romance.

  “Frank didn’t do anything right by Cynthia,” Steve said.

  That silenced them for a moment.

  “Well, as far as I’m concerned, it takes two,”Katie said. “I doubt Cynthia’s totally innocent in all this. What goes around, comes around.”

  Paula stared Katie down. “How can you say that? Cynthia’s only crime is that she’s twenty years older than that bimbo Frank ran off with. And what about little Bobby? He’s seven, for heaven’s sake! What did he do to deserve this?”

  “What did Johnny Drake do to deserve the scandal his mother caused?”

  Steve glanced at Nancy and rolled his eyes. “What’s Stanley saying about this?”

  “Yeah,”Katie said with a twinkle in her eye. “What’s good old Stanley say about all this?”

  Nancy shrugged, making her heavyset body jiggle. “Not much. Life can be rough.”

  Steve could have told them that much. It was a stupid question, all things considered.

  “All I’m saying is we shouldn’t get our panties in a wad as if this thing’s the black plague sent by God to punish our little village,” Katie said.

  Chris and Mark both broke into a chuckle.

  Steve walked over to Paula and kissed her on the forehead. “It’ll be okay,” he said softly. Their eyes met and Paula softened. She always defended victims and underdogs, regardless of the cause.

  The screen door creaked open and then slammed shut.

  Steve turned, grateful for the interruption. A stranger stood at the door, eyeing the room.

  “Afternoon,” Steve said.

  The stranger was dressed in a crisp black getup that looked like it had come off a Macy’s rack only this morning. Clean-cut. A bit like Johnny Cash. Waylon Jennings ended his song on a sad note, and the jukebox hissed silently.

  The man removed his hat and shed his coat. What was he doing wearing a coat in the middle of summer anyway? And a black coat at that.

  The man threw his coat over a chair and stepped up to the bar. Strong, sharp, tanned face. “You wouldn’t happen to have a drink in this place, would you?”

  “Last time I checked,” Steve said with a grin.

  The stranger slid onto a stool two down from Claude and smiled warmly. “Good. Soda water will be fine.”

  Steve dug a bottle from the ice chest, popped its cap under the bar, and slid it to the man. “One dollar,” he said.

  The others stared at the stranger, and although the poker game continued, Steve doubted the players were as fixed on their cards as a moment ago. It wasn’t every day that a character like this walked into town.

  A pool ball clicked across the room. The stranger tossed a silver dollar onto the counter. “So. This is Paradise.” He shoved a hand toward Steve. “Name’s Black,” he said.“Marsuvees Black. You can call me Preacher if you want.”

  Steve took the hand. A preacher, huh? Figured. A preacher named Black dressed like an urban cowboy. A cowboy with blue eyes rimmed in red as if they hadn’t slept in a while.

  “Smither. Steve Smither. So where you headed, Preacher?”

  The preacher took a sip of the water and followed it with a satisfied aaahh.

  “Well, I’m headed here, Steve. Right here to Paradise, Colorado.” He set the bottle on the bar. “Funny thing happened to me this afternoon.”

  Black looked at Paula and Katie for a moment and then shifted his gaze to the poker players, who ignored the cards for the moment and returned his stare.

  “I was coasting down the highway with my window rolled down, enjoying the mountain air, thinking how blessed I was to have a life filled with hope and grace when, pow, the engine bangs in front of me and the front wheels lock up solid. By the time I get Mr. Buick over to the shoulder, she’s smokin’ like hell’s gateway. Motor was gone.”

  The preacher took another swig from the bottle of soda and swallowed hard. The room listened. No one bothered to restart the jukebox.

  “Soon as I climbed out, I knew it was God,” Black said
.

  Steve felt a burning in his ear at the word. Not that there was anything unusual about the word God in Paradise. Practically the whole town packed the Episcopal church every Sunday. But the way the theatrical man said the word sent waves of heat through Steve’s ears. Formal and hollow, like it came from a deep drum. Gauuwwdd.

  “God?” Steve said.

  The preacher nodded. “God. God was saying something. And the second I saw the sign that my ’78 Buick had nearly run over, I knew what he was saying.”

  Black lifted the bottle to his lips again. Steve glanced at Claude and smiled one of those can-you-believe-this-guy smiles. “And what was that?”

  “The sign said, Paradise 2 Miles. And then the voice popped in my head. Go 2 Paradise, it said.” Black drew a two in the air as he spoke. “Bring grace and hope to the lost town of Paradise.”

  Steve picked up another glass and rubbed it with the towel at his waist. Grace and hope. Paradise had enough religion for a town twenty times its size. The church already dominated the community’s social life.

  The man named Marsuvees Black drilled Steve with a blue stare. “But there was more,” he said.

  Steve felt his gut tighten at the look and stopped rubbing the glass.

  “God said he’d give us a sign.” Black reached over to the peanut bowl without removing his eyes from Steve and brought a nut to his lips.

  “A sign?”

  “A sign. A wart. A man with a wart. Said there’s something ugly hidden under this town’s skin. Said I was to bring grace and hope with a capital G and a capital H.”

  Steve looked at the others. They were no longer smiling, which was odd, because he figured Chris at least would be snickering. But there was something in Black’s voice. Something like Freon, chilling to the bone. Paula and Katie sat wide-eyed now. Claude fidgeted. By the pool table, Case Donner leaned on his stick and stared at Chris.

  Black looked at the poker table. “Any of you have a wart?”

  Mark smiled and uttered a nervous chuckle. He shifted his gaze to Chris, wooden next to him.

  “No?” The preacher popped another peanut into his mouth and crunched down. “None of you has a wart over there?”