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there were less than a dozen women left—he had purposely kept her name out of the lottery—and Marilyn came to him one day and agreed to his hand in marriage.  
    Their wedding was quite small. In fact, nobody was in attendance except for Willard, Marilyn, and the Lord. And then afterward? He had not had his way with her. She was his wife, yes, but he was not going to give in to his carnal needs. At least not by force. He was a sinner, but he was not a deviant.  
    And yet ...
    The desire was there, that awful desire of the flesh, and this was what he was praying about today, for the Lord’s forgiveness for this prurient inclination.  
    He was in the chapel, on his knees before the large wooden cross hanging on the wall, his head bowed, saying his prayers.  
    He had just finished when he heard the thundering of horses outside. Their hooves striking the earth shattered the midday silence. Normally when Roy and Joe and the others returned, they did so quietly.  
    Which meant something had happened.  
    Which meant something was wrong.  
    Willard was up on his feet and outside in the matter of seconds. He hurried down the street just as the men rode into town, a cloud of dust growing in their wake.  
    This morning, a group of four men—Joe, Roy, Jacob, and Samuel—had left just as they did every morning, to keep an eye out for the demons and intercept anyone passing through. But now there were three men on horses, leading four horses without riders, and one of those men Reverend Titus Willard had never seen before.  
    “What happened?” he shouted as they stopped the horses in front of the jailhouse.  
    Roy dismounted his horse. “We were ambushed.” He wiped at his face, spat phlegm at the ground. “There was more of ’em than we thought.”  
    “How many?”  
    “Four, but we managed to take down three.”  
    “Where are Joe and Samuel?”  
    Roy just shook his head.  
    Willard felt himself shaking. Before his body had been tense from the sudden confusion of the moment, but now it was tense out of anger. He wanted to mourn the loss of his two men—he considered Joe his right-hand man, matter of fact—but right now he didn’t have time to mourn. That would come later, during his prayers. Now what he needed to do was to clear his head. He needed to think. But his mind was so overfilled with rage that, before he knew it, he jabbed a finger at the scared man on the horse.  
    “Get him down from there and inside!”  
    Roy and Jacob grabbed the man and pulled him off the horse, the man hitting the ground on his side and crying out. They yanked him to his feet and dragged him into the jailhouse, the entire time the man begging and pleading for them to let him go.  
    Willard was aware that others had drifted out into the street, that some of the men were now watching him from windows. He had acted impulsively and rashly. It was not how a man of God was supposed to act. A man of God was supposed to be in control of his emotions at all times.  
    He stared out at the men staring at him, took a breath, then turned and strode through the jailhouse door.  
    Roy and Jacob had just dragged the new man inside, and his begging and pleading had stopped.  
    There was a silence, and Willard wasn’t sure why until he noticed that the two men from last night were standing at the bars and the new man, the one being held by Roy and Jacob, was glaring back at them.  
    “What’s wrong?” Willard asked.  
    The new man didn’t answer right away. He just stood there, glaring back at the two behind the bars. Then something seemed to occur to him, and he blinked and looked at Willard for the first time.  
    “That man there,” he said, his voice cracking. “He—he—he killed my son.”

 
     
     
     
    10.

    The words hung heavy in the air, palpable, a scattering of dark clouds on a sunny day.  
    For a tense moment there was complete silence.  
    George and Clay stood behind the bars in their separate cells.