Read The Dead Man: Hell in Heaven for Free Online

away a piece of fender. His axe lay underneath, astonishingly untouched by the crash. There was still some black ooze on the edge of the blade, but the rest of the head shone brightly in the new day’s sun.
    Matt picked up the axe and hefted it in his hand. Then he turned around. A hundred yards in front of him he could see the first houses that marked Heaven’s boundary. And the bright, cheery banner that hung over Main Street:
    Welcome home, Matt.

CHAPTER TEN
     
    The main street was as deserted as it had been when he’d ridden in yesterday. Matt stood in the middle of the road, the axe dangling from one hand, and wondered what he should do next.
    He didn’t have to wait long. The front door of the general store cracked open and a pair of dark eyes peered out. Then it was flung open. The same little girl who had led the procession the day before ran out into the street.
    “It’s Matt!” she shouted, twirling in a circle to make sure her voice penetrated the buildings on both sides of the street. “He’s back.”
    Matt stared at the little girl, as if hoping to see through her skin and learn if there were tumors there waiting to take her over. The axe was comfortable in his hand, but he would have used it on himself before he could raise it against a child.
    “You know me?” he said.
    “Know you?” she squealed. “I’ve been praying for you to come.” She turned back to the general store, to the door that had swung closed after her. “Everybody come out! It’s Matt! He’s come, just like I dreamed he would!”
    The general store’s door fluttered as if it was trying to make up its mind. Then it opened slowly. An old woman appeared in the doorway. She was dressed like one of the town’s men, dirty jeans and a flannel shirt, but she wore a faded calico bonnet over her gray hair. Her skin was sun-browned and leathered; Matt thought she looked like a walnut in a hat. But her eyes were coal-black and diamond hard, and as she stepped out into the center of the street she never took them off his face.
    “No one gave you permission to leave the store, girl,” the woman said in a voice as weathered as her skin. “Get back in. I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come out.”
    “But he’s here ,” the girl said. “He left with Joan and he came back whole. You know what that means.”
    “Could mean a lot of things,” the woman said, her eyes still fixed on Matt’s face. “Could mean he had a night of whoopee with that thing and came here to help out with the dirty work. Could be the bitch queen’s found herself a stud.”
    That settled one question in Matt’s mind. They knew about Joan. Knew what she’d planned for him. And they let him go with her anyway. Because they were scared? Or because they’d rather see her take a stranger than one of their own?
    “It could,” Matt said. “But it doesn’t.”
    The old woman’s eyes had never left his face, but somehow they seemed to intensify their glare. “And I’m supposed to believe your word, just like that?” she said. “Because someone—some thing —that’s going to join up and do what she does, he’s not going to scruple a lie or two on the way.”
    “I don’t care what you believe,” Matt said. “I just want to get back to the highway.”
    “Look at his axe, Orfamay,” the little girl squealed. “Look at his axe.”
    The old woman pulled her eyes away from his face and glanced down at the blade. Then took a step closer, bent forward and ran a finger through the black slime on its edge. Her eyes shot back to his face, then she allowed them a second to examine the ichor she now rubbed between her fingers.
    “That’s from her, Orfamay,” the girl said. “You know it is.”
    Still keeping her eyes locked on Matt, the old woman smeared the slime off onto her jeans. “That true what the little one says?” she said.
    “Go out and look for yourself,” Matt said.
    “Don’t be so tetchy, boy,” the woman said, the faintest hint of