To the southwest the ashes of the burning barn were cooling, and the grim business of recovering the bodies was begun. The chief deputy had been called in when it had been discovered that the sheriff's car had been parked with several others from the community behind the farmhouse. As the firechief showed him the pile of bodies by the door, and the bones in the still smouldering manure behind the barn, the deputy did not know what to think. But when he remembered the steel rod that had been put in his uncle's leg after a car accident and saw one sticking from the charred bones of one of the victims, he had little doubt that those bones belonged to his uncle, the county sheriff. Just taking a guess from the size of some of the other bodies, he made a rough estimate as to their identity; Miss Cooper, the librarian, the head of the city council, Parks, the city treasurer, Mrs. Forecastle, many of the leaders of their community.
"For God's sake," said the fire chief, "what were they doing here? And what are those thirteen bodies out back?"
"I'm not sure if I want to know," said the chief deputy, "I'm not sure at all!"
The son of the owners of the farm appeared, having had to drive some distance from the other end of the county.
"I know it's pretty hard for you," said the chief deputy, but could you take a look at those bodies by the door of the barn? See if you can tell if any of them are your mother and father?"
The man nodded, and a few minutes later walked back to the deputy. "Mother broke her hand," he said, "some years back in an accident: the same time father broke his collarbone. One of the women up there's hand looks the same and you can see where the break has healed in one of the man's collarbones. I'm almost positive they're my parents, but who are the others?"
"I think when we find out who didn't come home last night," the deputy said, "or who hasn't reported for work today, we'll know. Would you mind if I searched the house?"
"What for?" the grieving son asked.
"Perhaps for signs of foul play," the deputy said, "or, some explanations as to what happened here."
The young man nodded. "I'll give you a hand," he said. "I know where mother kept the family papers and valuables that aren't in the bank."
The deputy searched the downstairs part of the house, while the son went upstairs. The deputy found nothing, and was about to ascend the stairs when the young man came down. He carried an old, battered diary. "I think you'd better read this," he said, "especially the entries made in the last few months."
The deputy took the book and sat down at the kitchen table. After a few minutes he laid the book down. "Oh, my God!" he said. "Oh, my God!" He got up and began to pace the room. "She went mad, of course; insane! But how? How could the others have been drawn in? How could they believe such nonsense?"
"My mother was always reading crazy books like that," the young man said, "apparently this man she met in that store in the city encouraged her to take it seriously. My father wasn't all that bright. She ran the family for years, and you know what a charismtic personality my mother was. She took care of the farm very well...everyone knows that. Apparently she led the others into it, then, when they got in it must have been like a narcotic; once you started, you couldn't stop. Bloodlust has that effect on some people. Fortunately the sacrificial stone has been buried in the rubble. Nobody's seen it. Of course it doesn't make much difference, we'll have to let everybody know, anyway. I'm a doctor of psychiatry, you're a police officer. We both have our oaths."
"To hell with our oaths!" said the deputy. "You know what my uncle was, as well as I do! He ran every illegal enterprise in this county. My aunt's known that for years. Lord knows, I've covered enough for him. but only for her sake. When my parent's died, my uncle would've dumped me in the county orphanage, but she insisted they take me in. The moonshine, the women, the drugs...she could live with that....but this...this will kill her, and I won't have that. We wait until the firemen have gone, until the coroner has taken the bodies, then we take that accursed stone out in the woods and we bust it! We scatter the pieces among the stone piles in the woods, then we take the bones that were on it, and put them in the hole where the other ones were, then tell the coroner that the ground gave way, and they fell out after he left.
Remember the farm hand your parents had, who was caught up north a couple of years ago, molesting that little girl? He ran out in front of a car and was killed when the police were chasing him? Apparently, in those six years he worked here, he molested some other children. I'll make the suggestion to the coroner. He'll go along with whatever I say. I have too much on him for him not to."
"It's not right," the other man said, "it's not right!"
"I know you've been away for a couple of years," said the deputy, "but this was your town. You grew up with the sons and daughters of those poor bastards laying in those ashes out there. They've paid for their cimes. Do you want their children to pay for it too? Do you want to pay for it? Do you want people looking at you saying, 'Ah, you know what his mother and father did out there on that farm to those children.' What do you think it will do to your practice?"
The young man picked up the book. "What about HIM?" he said, "What about the man in the store...the one that supplied the children? And she mentioned there's other groups, more of them."
"We take care of them," the deputy said, " you and me. We go into the city...ask him a few questions, find out where these other groups are. Then, we take him for a little ride out in the woods. Then, after that we just visit each meeting; one group at a time we take care of it nice and quiet. Just you and me. No trials, no pain and suffering for a lot of innocent people, just a lot of quiet disappearances. You were on special forces. I was in the marines. We can handle it, and maybe we can get some help."
"Taking the law into your own hands," said the doctor, "is never a solution, never right. But there's a lot of truth in what you say, a lot of good. Innocent people are going to be hurt, months of trials, publicity, the enormous cost to the taxpayer. Maybe you're right! I'll make a deal with you. You'll control the county now, you'll become sheriff, there's not much doubt at that. I'll go along with you, if you bring in some decent men I know, get rid of the corrupt deputies and clean up the county, then I'll join your little hunting party. I'll even get help from some friends I know to track down those involved in this. But I want good to come of it...REAL good. I want this county to be something people can be proud of again."
The deputy looked at his friend and smiled.
"Deal!" he said. "But what are we going to call this little group of ours?"
The young man picked up the diary. "Something my mother wrote here," he said, "'The only thing that sometimes bothered me were their little tears. I wanted some way to stop their little tears.' We're The Tear Stoppers," he said. "From now on any time you want to leave me a message to meet you somewhere, just tell my secretary that the message is from The Tear Stoppers. She won't think anything of it. Many of my clients always use little nicknames like that. If I leave a message for you, I'm Tear Stoppers 2. Your deputies will just think it's one of your informants, sheriff."
"Sounds kind of corny," the deputy said, "but o.k., Doc. I'll go along." He held out his hand and the doctor took it. "Sometimes," the deputy said, "to fulfill justice you HAVE TO go outside the law. It's not right, it's not good, but it's true."
The next few months things in the county changed drastically. The sheriff and his legal deputies seemed to be everywhere at once, while some of Doc's friends from Special Services went places they couldn't. It wasn't long before the county was a pleasant place to live in. There was a little crime, but not much, and even life in the nearby city seemed to improve. Criminals disappeared from the streets, drugs became very hard to obtain, there were whispers about strange fires and disappearances, but few knew the full extent of what was happening except for The Ancient One, who had the ability to keep track of all that that he had set into motion, and he was not all that displeased with the results of a night's flying!