There was Rene. Preacher had been so caught up in the voices that he'd forgotten why he was really here. One glance in Rene's direction and he knew Addie was right.The man was dead. Still, despite what his eyes told him, he had to check.

He pulled off his boots and crossed the floor silently. When he reached the old man, he put his fingers to his neck and then checked for breathing, and the whole time, a voice in his head was saying, The man's eyes are open. He has bruises around his neck. His skin is cold. Do you have to question everything? Yes, apparently, he did. So he checked, and he confirmed that Rene was indeed deceased.

As Sophia had said, why bring the old man here on foot, a difficult journey, only to kill him? There was something missing here.

Preacher stood there, puzzling it out, until he remembered that the men were still talking in the next room. He ought to have been listening in. When he got to the door, though, he could hear the mayor and Dobbs leaving. Preacher left quickly and ducked through the kitchen doorway as Eleazar walked into the back room.

"Now, what am I going to do with this?" Eleazar mused aloud. "I ought to have had the blacksmith carry it out back to the woods." He sighed and crossed the room, and Preacher could hear him lifting the old man, testing the weight.

"Let's get this over with," Eleazar muttered.

Preacher hurried out the back door.

When Preacher got to the road, there was no sign of Dobbs and Browning. He asked those gathered which way they'd gone.They pointed, but the two men were already out of sight. Had they gone into a house? Gone home? No one seemed to know.They were all waiting for Eleazar.

Preacher caught sight of Doc Adams at the far end of the road. He started that way but didn't get far before someone hurried out to stop him. Maybelle Greene, a widow whose two children had both survived the outbreak. He'd have liked to see that as the grace of G.o.d, but it probably had more to do with her having been ten miles away visiting her sister at the time.

"Preacher," Maybelle said as she hurried up to him. "I heard what they're saying. Is it true? That man brought Charlie Browning back?"

"Seems so." She stopped, her face clouding as she looked both ways. No one was nearby, but she still leaned in as she said, "I ought to be happy. Thanking G.o.d for his mercy. But . . ." She looked up at him. "They say it's G.o.d's work, but I can't quite reckon that. Why would G.o.d take our children, then send this man to bring some back? Why not just take fewer? Or none at all?"

That was the question, wasn't it? Along with "Why would G.o.d take them at all?" but few dared ask that one. In his heart, Preacher believed that G.o.d simply didn't concern Himself in the daily affairs of man. He'd given them the tools they needed to survive-the intelligence to discover things like the causes and cures of disease. It was up to them to use those tools against forces of nature that sought to keep the population in check. It was not a popular answer. So instead, he'd babble about G.o.d's plan and G.o.d's wisdom and the book of Job and such.

To Maybelle, he only said, "This man-Eleazar-claims to do G.o.d's work."

"Does he truly do it?" Maybelle asked, her dark eyes searching his.

"I hope so," he murmured. "But that's what I'm trying to find out."

She nodded, seeming satisfied. As he took his leave, he saw Doc Adams coming out of the house down the road.

Preacher broke into a run, garnering a few askance looks from pa.s.sersby. He reached the doctor as he still stood on the porch, talking to the Osbournes, who'd lost a child three days past.When the Osbournes saw Preacher, he expected them to want to talk, seek spiritual guidance. Surely Doc Adams had been there about their child. But they caught one glimpse of him and immediately withdrew, cutting the conversation short and closing the door.

The doctor saw Preacher then and went still.

"I'd like to talk to you," Preacher said.

"I'm very busy." Doc Adams started to scurry off. "I can speak to you later-"

Preacher swung into his path. "I'll only take a few moments of your time. Were you telling the Osbournes that their daughter can't be returned?"

"No, I was telling them that she can."

"For three hundred dollars."

Doc Adams tried to pa.s.s. "You ought to speak to the mayor-"

"He's gone."

The doctor paused. "Gone?"

"He left with Mr. Dobbs. On some task, it seems. So . . . three hundred dollars is the price of a child's life?"

"Yes, and the Osbournes will pay.We will make sure everyone can pay. Now, if you'll excuse me-"

"Three hundred and what else?"

Preacher hadn't honestly expected any "else"-it was an arrow fired wild-but when he saw the other man's expression, he knew that arrow had struck home.

"I heard there was something more," Preacher said. "Something you aren't telling the families."

Doc Adams's face went bright red. He bl.u.s.tered, asking who'd told Preacher and insisting it was merely rumor, people talking, that there was no other price. Finally, when he seemed to see that Preacher wasn't going to back down, he started down the street.

"I have work to do," he said. "Other families to inform of the wondrous news."

"And families to tell that they will not have their children returned.You yourself admitted they cannot all be returned. Has Mayor Browning set you on that task as well? Deliver the good news and the bad?"

"It was not the mayor-"

Doc Adams clipped his words short and kept moving, shoulders hunched, as if against the cold, but there was no more than a light breeze.

Preacher strode up beside him. "So it was Eleazar who sent you on this mission.Then he sent the mayor and Dobbs on another, one that ill suited you."