"A sense of humor. Good. 'Laughter is the best medicine' is not just a section in Reader's Digest. The claim also has some research backing it up."

"Then tell me a good one so I can laugh my way out of this hun- dred-dollar-an-hour prison cell. Let me out of here."

"It's not that simple, Miss Jeffers. It is 'miss,' isn't it?"

"I can't lay around here during store hours. I got customers to see to."

"We ran some tests while you were unconscious. You had symp toms of a stroke, but your EEG and CAT were fine and your blood pressure is that of somebody thirty years younger."

"Tests? Who signed for them? And why are these wires sticking in me?"

"The gentleman who called 9-1-1 said you had no next of kin. We followed the usual procedures for treating an apparent stroke victim."

"But I ain't been stroked, have I?"

"Not that we can tell. We thought you might have suffered a blow to the head maybe by a can falling from a top shelf. Or a robbery. But the register was untouched and the store appeared to be intact. Your friend called the sheriff's department and they checked it out. And you have no visible marks."

Sarah struggled to sit up, saw black spots before her eyes, and decided to try again a little later. "I hope somebody locked up. Half the merchandise will walk off otherwise."

"The deputies will take care of that. Your job is to get better."

The black spots coalesced behind her eyelids, turning into a shadow, a man in a black, wide-brimmed hat. She reached out for the doctor's arm and clutched it, afraid the image would still be there if she opened her eyes. The beeping accelerated.

"Are you okay, Miss Jeffers?"

"I seen him," she said.

"Your friend? He said you were unconscious, but you might have been partially aware of what was going on. It's not unusual during a fainting spell."

"No, before that. I seen him." Suddenly she wasn't in such a big hurry to leave Titusville and go back to Solom.

"Just breathe regularly," Dr. Hyatt said patting Sarah's hand until the beep marking her pulse became steady again. "Rest up. You're not going anywhere for a little while."

That sounded good to Sarah. She closed her eyes and tried to block the recurring image of the man tilting up his chin until the wide brim no longer hid his face.

Or what was left of his face.

Odus had stayed with Sarah for a couple of hours, but when the doctor reported that she was awake and alert, yet refusing visitors, he'd driven his Blazer back to Solom and the Smith farm. He had agreed to help Gordon put up some corn, though it hadn't quite gotten frozen enough to harden for feed. Now, ripping and twisting the brown ears from their stalks, he decided that Gordon's crops were Gordon's business, as long as the man paid cash. Odus was thirsty after the fright Sarah had thrown into him, and he'd picked up a quart of sipping whiskey from the Titusville liquor store. A few hours of September sweat and he'd have earned a sip or two.

Gordon usually left the grunt work to Odus, but today the pro fessor was pitching in, working the rows right alongside him. They filled bushel baskets and carried them to the end of the row where Gordon had parked his riding lawn mower. Gordon didn't own a tractor, though a metal relic from the horse-drawn days gathered rust between the barn and garden. Odus was thinking about what Sarah had said, about the man in the hat, when Gordon spoke.

"Guess it's time to take down the scarecrow," Gordon said.

Odus looked up at the form on the wooden crossbar whose head stood a good two feet above the dried blooms of the corn. It wore an old straw-reed hat that had been bleached by the sun and mottled gray by the rain, tied with twine to the feed-sack face. People in Solom were peculiar about their scarecrows, treating them like family members, using the same one from year to year. Odus had always thought it was some sort of good-luck ritual. The habit was to store the scarecrow in the barn, where it would hang on the wall and watch over the livestock during the long winter. Odus had been working for Gordon three years, and knew the usual time to tuck the straw man away was in late October, when the nights grew short and the wind rattled strange syllables in the leaves.

"A little early yet, ain't it?" Odus asked.

Gordon put a gloved hand over his eyes and scanned the clear sky. "There's a storm coming."

"Don't believe so. The birds aren't quiet and the mice are no busier than usual."

Gordon pulled off his glove, fished a handkerchief from his jeans pocket, and wiped his glasses. His eyes were glittery and un focused, and he looked lost. "I'm talking about a different kind of storm, Odus."

Odus plucked another ear and twisted it free with a crackle of ripped vegetation. He tossed it in the basket, then moved the basket a few feet forward.

"I don't know anything about that," Odus said.

"Do you know the scarecrow is more than just a trick to keep birds away?"

Odus didn't like the way Gordon's soft eyes looked past him to the pastures beyond. "Well, I'm not so sure they even do that worth a darn," he said. "I had to replant three times this spring. The little thieves just swooped on in here like nobody's business."

Gordon kept on as if he'd not heard Odus, who imagined that this was how the professor got when he was lecturing in the class room to a bunch of stoned-out rich kids. "The scarecrow is as old as domesticated crops. Way back to Babylonia, which many schol ars believe is the Garden of Eden of the Bible."

"I'm not much on history books or the Bible." Odus tore a cou ple of ears of corn free, reveling in the sweet starchy smell. "The first tells you what went wrong and the second tells you why. I pre fer to stay uninformed, myself."

Gordon put his glasses back, which eased Odus's worry a little. Odus realized what Gordon's naked eyes had reminded him of: the goats. They had that same heavy-lidded unfocused stare.

"The scarecrow wasn't always an outfit of clothing stuffed with straw," Gordon said, returning to work. "In the old days, a live man was tied in the garden."

Odus glanced at the professor, figuring the man was putting him on. Gordon's face was as steady as always. Come to think of it, Gordon had never cracked a joke. He seemed unable to laugh and even a smile looked like it hurt him some. "To keep birds away?"

"Well, that it did. Except other animals came, especially at night. A helpless man in the wilderness drew a lot of predators."

"Why did they do that? Punishment?"

"More than punishment. Sacrifice. A gift to the harvest gods."

"Sounds like something a heathen would do."

"It was widely practiced in many cultures. Germanic tribes used to spike their victims to a tree. In the South Seas, witch priests claimed their island deities called for sacrifices to appease their wrath. African kings killed those magicians who failed to bring the rain. The ancient Greeks had all manner of sacrificial victims, both to Diana, goddess of the hunt, and Ceres, the harvest goddess."

"Did they really believe it?"

"Blood makes the best fertilizer," Gordon said.

They were closer to the scarecrow now, and the coarse fabric of its face suggested a scowl. Odus couldn't be sure, but it looked to have changed position on the crossbar, its arms hanging down a lit tle lower. Ragged gloves had been attached to the flannel shirt sleeves with baling wire, and Odus thought he saw one of the gloves lift in a beckoning motion.

"The scarecrow is dry," Gordon said. "And it thirsts."

Odus swallowed hard. He thirsted too, and hoped the quart of bourbon would be enough to wash down the vision of the scare crow's wave.

"Well, I think we got enough to tide the goats over for a few days," he said. "Maybe we should leave the rest of it to cure a little more."

"The goats shall multiply if the blood is pure," Gordon said as if reciting the words to some bizarre sermon. The man had a house ful of books, and being a descendant of Harmon Smith was plenty enough excuse for being a little off.

"Looks like they've done plenty enough multiplying already. You'll need to cull the herd before winter, or you'll be spending a hundred bucks a week on grain. The does have been pretty much in rut nonstop. And you know how the bucks are, they start trying to stick it in anything that moves from the time they're three weeks old."

"The herd is a blessing," Gordon said ripping down ears of corn with both hands and tossing them toward the basket. One ear missed and bounced against the hilled furrow. Odus bent to pick it up, and when he stood, he saw the scarecrow lift its head.

The afternoon sun glinted off the ivory eyes. Before, the head had sagged, as if its owner was weary from a season on the spike, and its eyes had been hidden in the shade of the straw hat's brim.

"Really, Mr. Smith, I think we got plenty."

"What do you think of my new family?" Gordon asked, contin uing to harvest ears as if hordes of locusts were swarming.

"Miss Katy seems right nice," Odus said. "And your daughtera" I mean, your stepdaughtera""

"She's my daughter now," Gordon said. "She's part of this place."

"Well, she seems nice, too. She stands out a little, but she don't seem a bit of trouble to me. You know how kids are, they just need to find their own way in the world."

"They shall be shown the way," Gordon said, lapsing into that sermon-voice of his, but Odus wasn't paying attention. He was watching the scarecrow, expecting it to loosen the ropes that held it to the crossbar, wriggle to the ground, and drag itself off to quench its thirst.

The bushel basket was full again, and Gordon stooped and picked it up by its wire handles. "Know them by their works, not by their words," he said.

"Sure, Mr. Smith. Whatever you say."

"I think we've picked enough for today."

Odus hoped his sigh of relief passed for a tired gasp. Gordon would slip him a tax-free twenty and Odus would be doing some slipping of his own, first down the snake-belly road to his caretaker apartment, then down the soft and hazy river of eighty-proof Old Mill Stream.

"But we still need to take down the scarecrow," Gordon said.

The scarecrow's form had slackened again, as if it were made of cloth and silage after all. Odus wasn't in the mood to touch it. This had been Harmon Smith's land, after all, and though the Circuit Rider hadn't been seen in a decade or so, sometimes bad air lin gered long after a dark cloud had drifted away.

"I've got to be off to Titusville," he lied. "Sarah Jeffers took a spell and she's up in the hospital. I ought to check in on her, seeing as how she got no kin."

"Sorry to hear she's not well." Gordon dumped the bushel bas ket into the wheelbarrow, which was overflowing with green- wrapped ears of corn, the tassels and tips of the shucks burned brown with frost. "Come back tomorrow and we'll take care of the scarecrow."

"Sure thing, Mr. Smith. Can you pay cash today instead of sav ing up my time until Friday?"

"Of course." Gordon removed his gloves and laid them across the staves of the wheelbarrow. He thumbed a twenty from his wal let and handed it to Odus. As Odus's fingers closed on the money, Gordon grabbed his wrist and pulled him off-balance. Though Odus weighed two hundred pounds, Gordon had leverage and an advantage in both height and weight. Odus found himself looking through the distorted left lens of Gordon's eyeglasses. Again Odus was reminded of the goats, and the professor's pupils seemed to take on that same narrowed and flattened aspect.

"Know them toy their fruits," he said, his breath rank with pipe tobacco and garlic.

Odus nodded as Gordon released him, then tucked the money in his pocket and headed toward the gate. He took one last look to make sure the scarecrow still hung on its stake. It did though the ragged brim of its hat was angled even lower, as if the stuffed head had dipped in a prayer of resignation.

He climbed in his Blazer and drove away as the goats came down from the pasture to see what Gordon was serving for lunch.

Chapter Nine.

Eggs over easy.

That was what Katy was thinking as she went down to the barn, just as the dust from Odus's Blazer settled over the driveway. Gordon had a half dozen guinea hens and they laid little brown eggs almost every day. The nesting boxes were arrayed across the front of the barn, screened with chicken wire tied in a series of hexagons. The nests had little holes carved in the front and were covered with rubber flaps so the gatherer, in this case Katy, could reach an arm into the dark box and feel around in the straw for eggs. Gordon had explained the design discouraged possums, foxes, and other lazy ovum-stealing predators.

But that didn't make Katy feel any better about reaching through those black little curtains that looked all the world like sharp, rotted teeth. At least she didn't have to go inside the barn, where the goats had spooked her and Jett had suffered some sort of delusion.

The farm was too quiet. She'd expected a big change from the city, but she had imagined barking dogs, crowing roosters, badly tuned tractors, and the rattle and clank of distant, rusty machinery. This was autumn. Where were all the chain saws turning hardwood forests into firewood?

The guineas were strangely hushed in their boxes and the goats watched her as they usually did, standing stiff-legged in the field, their beards drifting slightly in the breeze, ears flapping at the flies. In her mind, she imagined them skinned for meat, their oblong pupils regarding her from the slope of their skinned skulls.

She shook the woven basket farther up her left elbow and reached into the first nest. Gordon didn't have names for the hens, so Katy thought of them collectively as "Martha." The first one was M, the second one A, and so on. If they were fryers instead of lay ing hens, she couldn't bear to name them. It was bad enough just eating their eggs. Even though they were unfertilized, it was hard not to think of the yolks as little abortion victims. She had never considered such a thing before, despite being a lifelong omelet lover. Funny how being on a farm made you more aware of and connected to the food, whether it was the seeds that grew into turnips or the steers that turned into ground round.

"My, M, you must be feeling your oats today," Katy said, finding two eggs in the first nest. She laid them gently in the basket as M clucked in either motherly anguish or pea-brained hunger. Katy peered through the chicken-wired slot at A in the next box. All she could see was the serrated, black-and-gray pattern of the hen's feathers. A's head was tucked under one wing, making her look like a soft wad of thrift-shop rags.

"Okay, girl, here I come." Katy reached her arm into the cur tained slot. She felt around in the straw, finding nothing. Maybe A was sitting on her egg. The hens sometimes did that, driven by an instinct stronger than the memory of all the previous unhatched eggs that had gone before. Katy felt the soft downy feathers of A's chest, then slid her hand underneath.

She nearly broke her wrist snatching her hand free. Something cool and scaly had writhed away from her touch.

It wasn't a chicken leg. This thing had rippled.

Did snakes eat eggs? Could one have crawled through the cur tain, or dropped onto the wire from above and slithered into A's nest?

Katy didn't know, but she wasn't about to stick her hand in to find out.

But what would Gordon say when he saw only two eggs in the refrigerator? He would ask why, and Katy would have to say "Chickenshit." Because she was too chickenshit to stick her hand into the nests. And Gordon's forehead would furrow slightly, ac companied by a gratuitous, understanding, demeaning smile, all the while his eyes saying, "I thought I'd found a replacement for Rebecca, but all I got was this skinny Irish redhead who can't even pluck an egg, much less a whole chicken."

"Chickenshit, chickenshit, chickenshit," she said to herself. She had placed a moratorium on cussing because she didn't want Jessie picking up the habit, but she was alone and who gave a good god damn what the goats thought?

She looked around for something to poke into the nest. Maybe if she could get A to move, she would be able to see the snake. Or whatever it was.

God, please let it be a snake, because, sure, they are scary as seven hells, but at least snakes live and breathe and are listed in zoology catalogs.

Katy was about to give up, to go out into the cornfield to find Gordon, when she remembered the pitchfork inside the barn. She hadn't mentioned the scarecrow to Gordon, because he would have laughed. And she had been scared out of her wits by Jett's strange bout of amnesia. And then there was the goat that had somehow locked itself in the loft. The barn was a place to avoid. Nothing good seemed to happen there. Just ask all the livestock that had been slaughtered over that straw-scattered floor, that had been de capitated and strung up on chains and turned from livestock into deadstock.

But the pitchfork was a weapon. If she could hoist a skewered snake before Gordon, show off her grit and determination, then perhaps Gordon would at last accept her as a suitable replacement and draw her into his arms at midnight, accept her and take her and finally make her his wife.

Besides, next to a confrontation with a snake, a little trip inside the barn was nothing. The pitchfork was hanging twenty feet from me front sliding doors. She could be in and out with barely enough time to smell the trampled manure. And once she had the pitch fork, even a goat wouldn't scare her.

She set the basket on top of R's nesting box and went to the slid ing doors. The oaken, crudely planked doors were suspended on rusty wheels that rolled across a steel track overhead. The left one was partially pulled back, and cool air wafted from the opening. The midmorning sun cut an orange sliver into the darkness, but the great, hulking black beyond gave off an almost palpable weight, like oily water held back by a dam.

Twenty feet. Ten steps max, each way.

She leaned against the edge of the left door and shoved. It slid across its track with a metal scream. The sun poured in at her back like a sacred ally. She was sweating, though the temperature was in the fifties. She looked into the pasture. The goats seemed curious and faintly amused.

"Chickenshit, chickenshit, chickenshit."

Katy squinted into the barn, trying to locate the pitchfork on its wooden-pegged resting place.

Twenty feet. She could be there and back before you could say "Children of the Corn, Part Thirteen."

Now she saw it, hanging among some coils of rope, a thick length of rusted chain, a strange set of clamps that looked like a medieval torture device, and a crooked-handled scythe whose blade was brown with age. She didn't remember the scythe from before, but it didn't look like an effective weapon against a snake.