When the Bones Sing

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Twenty-Nine

Nana told me once that if you try to follow it from start to finish, you’ll never reach the end of Lucifer’s Creek. You’ll just keep walking and walking forever, doubling back, and retracing your steps—somehow finding yourself at the beginning again and starting all over—until you’re lost in the Ozarks for all eternity.

“No,” Xan says. “No. That can’t be right.”

“It’s right,” I tell them. “We’re back where we started.”

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Xan runs a hand through his hair and tugs at the blond waves. “What the hell is this place? This can’t be happening. None of this can be happening.”

“All of it’s happening,” I tell him. “It’s all real.” My mother’s ghost. Ira hunting people for sport. The Ozark Howler. I look at Lo. “All of it.”

“What do we do?” Xan asks us. “How do we get out of here?”

“If we try to follow the creek back down again,” I warn them, “we’re just gonna end up right back here.”

“We gotta go up to the lodge,” Lo tells us. “Try to get some help up there.” He nods at us. “It’s the only thing we can do.”

“No way.” Xan’s eyes are brimming with pure terror. “Those guys are up there.”

“There are other people up there, too, though. Lots of ’em. They can’t all be killers,” I say. “Can they? Some of them have to be regular guests.”

“We stick together and we get help,” Lo says. “Then we get out. That’s the plan.”

“Okay,” Xan says. “We get help, and we get out.” He nods and mutters the words under his breath one more time. “Get help and get out.”

The three of us start to haul ourselves, and each other, back up the steep, rocky slope toward the top of the bluff. We fight our way back through the woods until we’re standing at the edge of Moonlight Crag. The pale outcropping glows in the tiny bit of moon glow that slips through the thick clouds. If we cross it, we’ll be lit up in a spotlight to anyone who’s watching, but there’s no way to get to the lodge and raise the alarm without making our way across that rock.

“We’ll head for the nearest one of the guest cabins.” I point. “That one there. We’ll bang on the door. See if we can wake someone up who’ll help us. Or at least let us in to use the phone and call my house.”

Xan swallows hard and follows my finger with his gaze. He’s eyeing the cozy-looking little cabin with suspicion. “How do we know whoever is in there isn’t in on it?”

“We don’t,” Lo says. “We’re gonna have to take a chance if we want to get out of this alive. Trust that most people have good in ’em.”

I point to the other cabins that sit up closer to the main lodge. “See those up there? They’re a lot bigger, right? Nicer? Those are the ones with top-of-the-line everything. I’ve been in them. These down here, close to the woods, they’re the basic ones. A lot cheaper.”

Xan nods. “You probably have to pay the big bucks to be here hunting people, huh?”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” I say.

That’s what I’m hoping.

I click off the flashlight and step out onto the rock of Moonlight Crag, and Lo and Xan follow me. We duck down low and move fast, but before we make it to the cabin, someone steps out of the trees.

Ira Langdon is leveling an automatic rifle at us. And for the first time in my memory, he isn’t smiling.

We skid to a stop at the edge of the glowing rock. Nobody says a word. The only sound is ragged breathing. Then Lo puts his body between me and the barrel of Ira’s gun.

“You don’t want to hurt us, Ira,” Lo tells him. “You’ve known Dovie’s daddy your whole life. And you’ve been like an uncle to her.”

“You’re right about that, son,” Ira tells him. “I don’t want to. But you ain’t leavin’ me much choice.”

“We just wanna get home,” I tell him. My voice is nice and easy. “We don’t wanna cause you any trouble, Ira. Please.”

“I’m a good guy, Dovie,” Ira says. “You know that. And I love you like my own. But I can’t let you walk away from here tonight. There ain’t no way.”

I laugh out loud. “You’re not a good guy, Ira.” If he’s going to kill us anyway, there’s no sense in groveling. “We know what you’ve been doing up here,” I tell him. “We know you’re the one who’s been killing the hikers.”

“No,” Ira says, and he takes a step closer to us. I hear Xan suck in his breath. “That’s not true. I haven’t killed a single hiker. Not one. Not ever. That’s God’s honest truth.”

“You’ve just taken money from the psychos of the world to let them come up here and hunt people, with you as their personal guide,” I say. “Is that it?”

“You snatch them off the trail,” Xan finishes for me. “Hold ’em till your clients are ready. Then you release the game and let it run.” Xan looks more defiant and angry than afraid now, and I know that righteous fury is for Riley. “That how it works?”

Ira shrugs, then he turns to look at Lo. “They left out part of it, didn’t they, Lowan?”

Lo looks sick. Hollowed out and empty and miserable and lost. I can see right through him. He’s worse than a ghost. My mama looked peaceful and beautiful. Most of the skeletons I’ve dug out of the ground have looked better than Lo does right now.

I’ve never wanted anyone dead before. Not ever. But I want Ira Langdon dead right now. I want to kill him with my bare hands, the way he killed the parts of Lo that were most Lo.

Ira takes a step toward us, and the business end of that rifle is way too close for comfort. The three of us hang on to each other and take a big step backward, trying to put some distance between our bodies and Ira’s bullets.

Not that it’s gonna matter. If he fires that thing, he’ll blow us all clean off the mountain.

We’re standing in the center of Moonlight Crag now. The clouds have blown off, and the valley is laid out below us. When I look over my shoulder, I can see the lights in the houses. One of them is ours. I wonder if Nana is awake.

If Daddy is home again from the woods yet.

“Why?” Lo asks. His voice sounds like it’s coming from inside that cave where we found Xan hog-tied and gagged. He sounds far away. Like he’s already gone. “Why did you leave them for me to bury?”

Xan turns to stare at Lo, and he looks like he might throw up. “You buried them?” His voice is raw, torn open and bleeding from heartbreak. “Did you bury Riley?” Lo doesn’t look at him. His deep, brown eyes are trained on Ira. “Jesus Christ, Lowan. You buried all of them and left them for Dovie to dig up? How could you do that to her?”

“Why bring me into this?” Lo asks again. “What did I do to you, Ira?”

“You weren’t mine,” Ira tells him. “You weren’t my blood, Lowan. And you shoulda been.”

“What are you talking about?” Lo’s voice sounds a little stronger now. A little more familiar. “What the hell does that mean?”

“There were four of us,” Ira says, and he looks at me. “Like I told you, Dovie. Your mama and daddy.” His eyes move back toward Lo. “And your mama and me.”

“You were in love with Claire,” I say, and Ira nods.

“She was in love with me, too. But I was poor as dirt. Poorer than the Wilders even, and they never had so much as a pot to piss in.” Something hard settles behind Ira’s eyes. “Claire wanted more. She wanted a life where she didn’t have to scratch and claw for every scrap of food that went in her mouth.” Ira shakes his head. “Jesus. She wanted a life with indoor plumbing and electricity.” He almost laughs. “Little luxuries like that.”

“So she picked the preacher instead,” I say.

“She saw what your mama had, Dovie. She looked at Lucy living down there in town with Del. In that sweet little house on Mud Street, and she picked Turley. She picked the possibility of that over love.” Ira stops. “Over me.”

“Only Turley didn’t want her,” Lo says. “When he found out she was pregnant, he didn’t want her. Didn’t want us. Is that right?”

That fits with what Turley told us before he drowned in Lucifer’s Creek.

She begged me to marry her. To give you a life as my son. But I couldn’t.

Ira smirks then. “She came to see me that night when you were a baby, Lowan. Not even a year old. Told me she was sorry. That she loved me. She was wrong, she said. Turley had cut her loose. Didn’t want anything to do with her. Now she had a little one. On her own. Wanted me to take her back.” He glares at Lo. “Wanted me to take you both. Claire cried buckets. But I couldn’t. Not after what she did. I wasn’t gonna raise no other man’s son as my own.”

“She came to tell you what night?” I ask him.

“The night he killed her.” Lo’s voice is so steady now. “My mama was the first one of your victims, wasn’t she? Those hikers, they were all your victims too, whether you killed ’em or not. You know that just as well as we do.”

Ira flinches, and the raw pain that flickers across his eyes is enough to tell me that, even if Lo was just guessing, he got it right. Claire Wilder didn’t drown in Lucifer’s Creek by accident. Ira Langdon drowned her there because she had the nerve to break his heart.

I think of my mama ghostly and glowing in our front yard, and a terrible realization comes to me.

“You killed my mama, too. Didn’t you?”

“Holy shit,” Xan whispers. “What the fuck is happening?” I don’t blame him for not being able to keep up. For me and Lo, these are the stories that have been stitched into the quilt of our lives, patched together in pieces, and told and retold over the years. But for Xan, it’s all brand new.

I know as soon as I say it that I have to be right. Everything has to be connected.

“Do you know Daddy’s been out lookin’ for her?” I say. “He’s been walkin’ the hills lookin’ for her bones. He’s out there somewhere tonight.”

“He ain’t gonna find ’er,” Ira says, and his voice is thick with sorrow. And regret, maybe.

Grief.

“Why’d you kill Lucy?” Lo asks.

“She came to see me. Said she knew a secret. Somethin’ she was gonna tell me. Somethin’ big. And I guessed I knew what that was gonna be.”

“She knew you killed my mama,” Lo says.

“There weren’t any other secrets. Not between Del and Lucy and Claire and me.”

“So you killed her,” Xan whispers. Even he’s catching on now. “You told us you never killed anyone.”

“I said I never killed any of the hikers,” Ira corrects him. “Don’t make me out to be a liar, boy. I’m a lot of things, but I don’t tell lies.”

He says it so seriously that I have the urge to laugh.

The sky is starting to turn gold. Morning is coming. It won’t be long before the sun creeps up over the mountains. People will wake up. People who might be able to help us, if we can just keep Ira talking a little longer.

“Where is she? Let me tell Daddy where she is. Let him rest finally. Let them both rest.”

“You ain’t gonna tell nobody anything, Dovie girl.” His voice is thick with anguish, but his jaw is set tight. “I’m real sorry about that, breaks my goddamn heart, but that’s the way it is. None of you are gettin’ off this rock. I worked too hard and built too much. I swore to God I wasn’t ever gonna be poor like that again.”

“God doesn’t have a thing to do with this, Ira,” Lo tells him. “Let’s leave him out of this business.”

“That’s why you worked so hard to build the lodge and bring in big hunting clients. Because you couldn’t stand the thought of being so miserably poor anymore. Not after you lost Claire because of it. Not after she humiliated you like that.”

“How’d you make the leap to hunting people?” Xan asks him. “How does that happen?”

“The first one came to me,” Ira protests. “I didn’t go lookin’. And I said no. Didn’t want nothin’ to do with it. I was disgusted.” He hesitates. “But people with money like that, they aren’t used to hearin’ the word no.” That makes me wonder how often anybody’s said no to Ira Langdon in the last few years. Not many, I figure. Now that he’s the one holding the purse strings. “And the money he was offerin’ up…Just to go huntin’, you know…” He shakes his head. “It was a lot. More than I’d ever even thought about. So I took it.” He shrugs. “Then, word gets around. In those circles. People who are interested in certain things, they know who to talk to, the right questions to ask.”

“You’re a monster,” I tell him, and I think about that encounter with that snarling creature on the banks of Lucifer’s Creek. When it comes down to it, I’m way more terrified of Ira. “You are the Ozark Howler.”

“I done a lot of good around here, Dovie.” His voice cracks, and my heart splinters into shards of jagged rock. “Helped a lot of people. Made this town into somethin’.”

“You think that makes it okay?” Lowan asks him. “That doesn’t absolve you of anything, Ira. You can’t kill a bunch of people and erase that wrong from the world by buyin’ a couple of library books and fixin’ some sidewalks. That’s not how it works.”

“I done the best I could to balance things out. To take care of people.” Ira looks up toward the light that’s creeping across the sky, then back at the cabins behind us, and I know we’re out of time. This is where he ends it.

Suddenly, Xan rushes at him. He puts his head down and runs straight at him like a football player making a tackle. I brace myself for the blast of that rifle, but Ira’s too surprised to shoot. Instead, he swings the gun hard and brings it across the side of Xan’s head with a sickening crack. Xan crumples like a rag doll and I scream.

“Shit.” Ira glances behind him at the cabins again. “Goddammit,” he mutters. “Goddammit, Dovie.” He’s marching toward me and Lo now. His jaw is set, and that rifle is aimed straight at my heart.

We’re so close to the edge of the crag. Just a few feet behind where Lo and I are standing, the ground drops away to nothing. It’s at least one hundred and fifty feet straight down to the rocks on the valley floor. That’s when I know what Ira has planned for us. He isn’t going to shoot us. He can’t afford to wake up the whole damn lodge. He’s going to make us jump to our deaths. Then he’ll drag unconscious Xan to the edge and throw him over, too.

Sure enough, he says, “You first, Dovie. You can jump, or I can shoot you and you’ll still go over.”

“No, Dovie.” Lowan grabs my hand. “If he wants us dead, make him kill us.”

Light is coming fast now, but shadows still cling to the tree line. The night is refusing to let go of Moonlight Crag. Suddenly the dark places are full of movement. Something is creeping out of the forest. I feel Lo stop breathing next to me as they step into view. “Dovie,” he whispers. “Do you see them?”

“Yeah,” I whisper. “I see them, Lo. I see all of them.”

Lo’s ghosts—all those murdered hikers—they’re marching toward us like a phantom army. There are so many of them. Their bodies are just shadows, wisps of black smoke already fading in the coming dawn, but for a second, I see their faces clear before they disappear completely.

Emberlynn Kemper.

Riley Alden.

Hannah Nelby.

All of them.

Ira can’t stand it. He looks back over his shoulder to see what we’re staring at. I hear him suck in a breath, and that’s when Lo lunges for the barrel of the gun. He grabs at it, quick as lightning, but Ira spins back around and shoves him hard.

For just the shortest part of a second, I see Lo’s eyes. They’re wide. But they’re peaceful. He isn’t afraid.

And then he’s gone.

He disappears over the edge of Moonlight Crag, and he takes my whole heart with him.

“Lo!” His name comes out all strangled—part scream, part sob—twisted like the howl that echoes over the valley just as he vanishes.

He told us that someone would die tonight.

A rifle blast explodes in the early morning fog that’s rising up fast from below us to take the place of the dark. I hear it bounce off the trees and rattle off the rock. My body goes rigid, but I don’t feel the bullet.

I look at Ira, and his eyes are huge. His mouth opens and closes. A red stain spreads across his chest. He lunges toward me, but he misses and stumbles, and then he’s gone too. Just like Lo. Over the edge of Moonlight Crag.

Daddy is standing at the edge of the swirling fog. He’s holding his old rifle at his shoulder, like he’s afraid Ira might come crawling back up over the rock. He holds out his other hand to me, but I can’t move.

“It’s over, Dovie,” he tells me. “You’re safe. It’s all over.”