We crawled warily over the barbed-wire fencing running from the gate in both directions and followed the lane for several hundred feet before encountering a second and taller perimeter of barbed-wire strung with rusted cans, a cheap alarm system. We found a tumbled section and pushed through, following the lanes to a two-story house of logs tucked in a tight hollow surrounded by hundred-foot cliffs, too sheer to climb without bolts planted for climbers.

There were a half-dozen windowless outbuildings on the hillside sloping to the cliffs, little larger than outhouses. Rhododendron had grown up over the years, the shacks almost hidden in the green. Behind the row of houses was a half-acre motley of hurricane-fence enclosures and tumbledown doghouses. The topography put the canine area a few feet above the outbuildings. Hawkes had been right about dog excrement, it would have washed down the hill directly beneath the little boxes.

“Dog turds, dogs everywhere … Everything stunk of dog turd.”

Neither Cherry nor I uttered a word as we angled toward the house. The place was empty, save for the bats. No furniture, no fixtures, not so much as a scrap of newspaper on the floor. Chinking had fallen from between the logs and birds had nested in the empty spaces.

We went to inspect the row of outbuildings: sheds, reeking of animal urine from years of possums, rats, birds and raccoons. Each shed had the remains of a mattress on the floor, now no more than rotted fabric filled with insects. Cherry swung a creaky door on heavy iron hinges, studied a latch.

“The doors lock from the outside, Ryder,” she said. “And this was supposed to be a school?”

“The one-room schoolhouse from hell,” I said.

At the furthest end of the hollow was an old barn, large, the wood weathered almost black. We circled it, spying a huge cage on its side in the bushes.

“That cage is big enough to hold a doggone horse,” Cherry noted.

“Or a couple of humans,” I added.

We came around to the front again, no other openings in the building. The sliding door was frozen with rust so we pulled it back enough to slip inside, turned on our flashlights. On both sides of the structure were four-tier bleachers, twenty feet long. I estimated the place might hold a hundred-fifty screaming onlookers.

In the corner was a tabletop set-up, behind were shelves screwed into the beams. The bar area, I figured. The only liquor allowed at events had to be purchased there at ten bucks a pop. Another profit center. Plus oiled-up gamblers wagered more money. The bar also explained the shards of busted glass glittering from the floor: bottles dropped, or banged on the bleachers in bloodlust frenzy. I kicked loose glass that had been stuck in the dirt for years.

The floor between the bleachers resembled a perverse three-ring circus. On one end was a square pit about twelve by twelve, a yard or so deep. On the other end was a slightly smaller and less-deep pit, circular. Dogs and chickens, respectively.

In the center of the floor was a rectangular hole about twelve feet by five, four feet deep. Cherry’s beam touched the pit, pulled away as if repulsed, returned to light the damp and scuffed bottom.

“Remember what came out of Crayline’s memory?” she said. “The kids fought in a long pit nicknamed the grave. You think that happened here, too?”

“The other kids Crayline fought had to come from somewhere.”

“But Crayline was kept in the Alabama mountains. He was never in Kentucky that we know of.”

“Because he got trucked in and out in the dead of night,” I said, my beam climbing the rafters, finding a row of broken light bulbs cupped by gray, sheet-metal shades. They looked like lamps from Auschwitz.

We retreated down the lane, escapees from Sodom. Cherry turned for a final look. I saw her shudder. “It’s like a Ray Bradbury nightmare, Ryder. A carnival of horror.”

“A horror that was filled by Powers,” I said, the blanks in the puzzle beginning to take shape. “She found isolated, troubled kids from hideously dysfunctional homes. Told parents about her special school where kids would get fed, receive a righteous education, whatever. She just needed permission, a few papers filled out. She’d been a … what did you call her?”

“A classified teacher. It’s an assistant’s position that doesn’t need a teaching certificate. But anyone needing to check Powers out would see teaching in her background. Plus she knew the jargon when submitting the home-school forms, not to set off any alarms.”

“And, of course, she had the church-lady talk.”

“Miz Powers had everything covered,” Cherry said. “The parents simply gave the kids away.”

“Happy to get them gone, I expect. Putting Billy or Bobby’s leash in the hands of folks spouting chapter and verse made it easy.”

“Tanner was the head spouter, I imagine,” Cherry said. “The Pious Teacher and the Man of Faith. Maybe Tanner believed it at first. Then the money started and he got hooked. I’ll bet he still deluded himself, telling himself he’d use the gambling proceeds to build the grand religious edifice in his mind.”

We climbed the barbed-wire again. Cherry said, “Eighteen years back would have been about the time Zeke got sick with all the old-timey religion, the save-yourself-from-Satan spiels.”

“A pure man of God couldn’t be throwing himself into rampant sex and gambling and cruelty to children. It must have been Satan acting through him. By attacking Satan, he could still claim the high ground of an alliance with God. It’s aligning symbol and metaphor to absolve yourself of baser instinct. When you’re not at fault, every low and self-serving wish can be freely granted.”

Cherry shook her head, holding down a strand of wire to help me over. “I swear religion like that is a form of madness. How about Burton?”

“Burton didn’t need to re-arrange private symbolism to suit his needs. He was simply amoral, taking what he needed with no bothersome conscience.”

“He was also a boxer, Ryder,” Cherry reminded me.

I nodded, recalling the air punches and kicks Hawkes had demonstrated. The moves had been drilled into him so deeply they were fluid and powerful years later.

“The boys needed a coach, right?” I said. “Can’t make money unless you win, can’t win unless you know what you’re doing.”

“There’s one more person in this hell broth, Ryder. The Colonel. I got the impression from Hawkes that the Colonel was the top dog, so to speak.”

We reached the gate and turned for a final look, seeing only the rustic tranquility of trees and meadow and birds flitting tree to tree. Butterflies tumbled round red spikes of sumac. Insects rasped in the warm air.

“This whole dirty scheme needed a leader,” I said, chipping rust from a barbed-wire point with my thumbnail. “And someone to bankroll the start-up. Buying this place and building the houses. Double-stringing the area with barbed-wire. Building bleachers and fight pits.”

Cherry wrinkled up her nose. “Let’s get gone from here. The reek of dogshit is making me sick.”

We were a half-mile from buildings where dogs hadn’t been kept for years. There was no smell left; Cherry’s mind was supplying the odor.

I began to smell it, too.

Followed by the feeling of eyes on the back of my neck. A tingling, like an ice target painted across my spine. I picked up my pace, shooting glances at the ridge-line above. Though I saw nothing, I continued to feel the cold eyes even as we drove away.

49

“I’m gonna get the state property evaluator’s office on finding out the owner of that property,” Cherry said, driving with one hand, dialing with the other. “It’s part of tax records. The last thing the state’s gonna misplace are tax records. It may be a day or two, but we’ll get something.”