“There sure are a lot of weird signs in this burgh.”

My attempt at conversation did not go over well. The locals did not exactly jeer, but their eyes boiled over with profound hatred. A couple of lumbermen two seats away made a show of turning their backs, while the waitress neglected to refill my coffee until I tapped the porcelain cup on the counter a couple of times. Ever since arriving in Rollinsboro, I had received nothing but the cold shoulder. Usually friendly merchants stayed laconic; pump jockeys and the occasional pedestrian just glanced at me whenever I tried to pry a little. It got to the point where I considered ringing up the Taskmaster and telling him that the job was nix.

But I knew I couldn’t do that. Joe Reagan never quit on a story, or at least that’s the cold comfort I told myself at that moment. I had been given pretty gruff instructions from the old boy. He made it clear that exposing the hidden graft of Rollinsboro was part of a greater effort to clean up our end of the Keystone State.

“The Fighting Quaker is making a helluva show right now,” my editor, Clint DeWest, aka the Taskmaster, had said during my briefing three days before. “Pretty soon our city will be as clean as a whistle and quiet as a church mouse.”

“Trite, boss, trite.”

“Clam it up, hack! Is that ‘trite’ enough for you? Look here: your job is to let our readers know that the country bumpkins are not immune to bribes and illegal hooch. Everyone in the know has told me time and time again that Rollinsboro is a dirty little secret—a one-stop town where a fellow can get a bucket of beer, a card game, and some legs in under an hour. They tell me that it can all be traced back to the two-bit mayor, Ayinger, who has run the town for the better part of two decades. A short, plump duck with eyebrows hairier than your head. Ugly as sin, but handsomely rich.”

“They have any kind of police force in Rollinsboro?”

“Just a sheriff who has friends for deputies. They shouldn’t give you any trouble, but still play it safe. I have heard even crazier rumors about some of the Amish getting up to no-good. That would be a juicy find for sure. But remember, those Amish have queer customs, and if you don’t act smart, they could dispose of you in ways that would leave things an eternal mystery. Do you copy?”

“I think I got it. The whole point is to get the governor up-in-arms about rural corruption, and if I can dredge up anything that makes the Amish look bad, I should go for it. That’s the gist?”

“Reagan, if it were up to me, your story would be so sordid that Harrisburg would be forced to send in the National Guard. That’s what I’m aiming for. I want our paper to be firmly on the side of the Keystone crusaders. I want the history bozos to remember us.”

“Shoot for the stars,” I said in a sing-song voice. DeWest warned me about keeping expenses to a minimum as he handed me an envelope loaded with sawbucks. I told him not to worry. How much money could a guy spend in a place like Rollinsboro after all?

After three days of beating the pavement, the answer was very little. I could not bribe anyone to tell me anything, and though I tried all the Philadelphia methods, I could not stumble my way towards a bottle of homebrew or even a blind pig. The only thing worth mentioning were all the strange signs I had seen painted on barns. Some showed colorful animal designs or star-shaped wheels ringed with chestnuts or oak leaves. A few were more morbid—black and purple affairs with grinning demon faces, or fully blue depictions of ghosts of mathematically-impossible shapes rising above a few headstones. These signs made me uncomfortable. I got a twitch in my eyes and a shiver down my spine whenever I saw one of them. It got to the point where I felt I needed to make a comment, but the other patrons at that diner made it clear that nobody, especially not outsiders, ever mentioned the signs.

While I looked longingly into my cup of black coffee, a shapely blonde took the seat next to mine. I did not notice her at first. I was too busy grousing about my bad luck. So, when she leaned over and whispered in my ear, it made me jump a little.

“Nobody will tell you anything about those signs, mister. They’re afraid. But I’ll tell you so long as we leave here and go somewhere else.”

“Go where?”

“Just follow me, handsome.” She did not have to tell me twice. I finished my coffee in one big swallow, put the cup down next to a dime, and told the waitress to be more friendly next time. After that, I paid attention to my new friend’s hips. They swayed like a pendulum as she led me out into the night. She stopped and parked herself next to my car.

“I’ll tell you where to drive. Deal?”

“I’m not in the habit of taking strange women all over the country. A bull could pull me over and charge me with the Mann Act. I know that; you know that.”

“So, I’ll introduce myself. I’m Martha Reinkopf. I was born in Rollinsboro, and everyone in that shoddy diner knows me as the ticket girl at the one and only theater downtown. That should be introduction enough.”

I held out my right hand. “Joe Reagan. I’m with the Inquirer.” She shook my hand and laughed loudly. I asked her what was so funny.

“I figured you for a peeper. You know, like a private detective. Turns out you’re still a peeper, only worse.”

I let the crack go without a response. I smiled and got behind the wheel. She slid in next to me. She smelled like a wonderful mixture of lilac and lavender.

“Ok, Joe. You’re going to take this road until you hit Graham’s Crossing, and from there we’ll be on the turnpike for a mile or two. Once that’s done, it’s all backcountry dirt until we get to our destination.”

“You forget that I’m not from here, so ‘Graham’s Crossing’ and ‘turnpike’ is nothing but Greek to me.”

“Just drive, handsome.”

I let the Series M purr for a while. Martha chewed gum and kept mum, while I focused on the road in front of me. The silence was unnerving given our hot start. I stuck with it. My attention went elsewhere. Rollinsboro did have one thing going for it: its roads were pristine. They were much better than the rough cobblestone and pothole-infested streets of Philadelphia. I pushed the Chevy past fifty and enjoyed how smooth life could be. Driving became my one and only concern.

A new sign interrupted my momentary bliss. Even in the darkness I could see its ghostly glow on the south side of a red barn. It was a gloomy one with interwoven triangles of dark green and gray. In the center stood an animal that I could not quite pin down. In the seconds I had to study it from my driver’s seat, it looked like some kind of absurd cross between a black bear and a wolf. I must have worn a puzzled grimace, for Martha finally spoke up.

“Those signs really scare you, don’t they?” She had a childlike touch to her patter. I hated it.

“You don’t have to talk like a kid when you’re kidding,” I said. She punched my shoulder. It was a soft punch, but I still did not like it. There was something off about Martha Reinkopf of Rollinsboro. Any floozy who hitches a wagon so easily is naturally suspicious, and one who does it while doing babytalk and wearing blonde curls is even more untrustworthy. I made a mental note to keep my guard up and my chin tucked tight.

“I ain’t kidding. Besides, most people don’t like them and have never liked them. And there’s a reason for it, too.”

“What’s the reason?”

Rather than answer my question directly, Martha hit me with a left field query. “What do you know about powwow, Joe?”

I lifted my shoulders. “Isn’t that what the Injuns used to do? Sit around and talk while smoking peace pipes?” Martha brayed like a donkey. My answer tickled her because it was so wrong, so she became a toothy idiot as a result.

“Here I thought you newspapermen were smart. That was a bad one, Joe. No, powwow is what the Dutch call their folk magic. I mean, between themselves they call it something different. Brauche or something like that. It’s Dutch hoodoo. If you’re sick, you see a powwow doctor instead of the town sawbones. My old grandma swears by it. Has jars of honey, ginger, and peppermint in her root cellar. Sometimes she greases herself up with olive oil just to keep any wandering evil eyes at bay. Last time we spoke she was gushing about buying a strangler fig from Florida.”

“Natural remedies,” I added.

“Not everything about powwow is natural. Some of it can be pretty nasty. Curses and spells. Most people around here call them hexes. Those signs you keep seeing are called hex signs. The Dutch put them on their barns for protection.”

“Protection from what?”

“Bad luck and witchery. You have to protect your cows and crops from covetous powwow doctors. It’s much easier stealing someone else’s hard work, especially if they get sick all of a sudden. Why bother lifting a finger if an incantation can do the trick instead?”

“So, the Amish really believe in this stuff? Seems dizzy to me,” I said. Martha turned her big blue eyes towards me. She made to say something, but I cut her off. I asked her if she believed in powwow.

“Depends on the day, I guess. I have Dutch in me, but my people are not of the brethren.”

“Irreligious? Me too.”

“No,” Martha cooed, “just not like everyone else around here.”

The road forked in front of me. Martha told me to take the left hand. Not the left turn, but the left hand. The words meant nothing to me, but they should have.

“Must be hard being different in a burgh like this. In Philly, people can stomach an oddball or two.” I showed her my white teeth with a big smile. I was showing off. I was telling the pretty farmer’s daughter that I was a slick and cultured cosmopolitan. I wanted her to salivate. Instead, she giggled and sucked on her thumb a little.

“Don’t do that,” I said as a I grabbed the thumb from her mouth. “It’s a nasty habit.”

“Being different in Rollinsboro can be bad, sure. Go ask Norman Lienhardt about it.”

“Okay. Where can I find him?”

“The cemetery. They killed him for being different.”

The words hit like a thunderbolt. Suddenly, I did not care so much about the ride or her unhygienic habits. I cared about murder. I started sniffing like any trained newshound.

“Who killed Norman Lienhardt? When and why?”

“Norman Lienhardt was killed right after the Great War ended. It was so early that the boys hadn’t even come home yet. The county was desolate back then. I can remember playing outside in the summer and not hearing anything for hours. Such sweet silence.” She put her thumb back in her mouth. I let her suck.

“Was Lienhardt a doughboy?”

“No,” she said in a soft voice. “He was an older man. A farmer like everyone else. A tall, skinny man who lived in a lonely way. Never had a wife or kids. Rumors had it that he never went to church on Sundays either. Just kept himself locked up in that farmhouse around the clock.”

“Seems like an odd choice for a murder victim. Was he rich?”

“Don’t know. He wasn’t killed for money, anyway. They killed him because of those signs and because he practiced powwow. All those horrible signs with the skulls and monsters? Norman Lienhardt painted them.”

I snickered and joked about the idea that staid Pennsylvania Dutch farmers would pay for such artwork. Martha shot me down.

“Oh, nobody paid for them. People let him do those awful paintings out of charity. Norman Lienhardt was touched by the angels, you understand. Slow. Not all there.”

“I see. So, they humored the poor sap.”

“Yes, but there was more to it than that. Norman Lienhardt was dumb, but he had powers. His art was just a part of it. He was a powwow doctor, and according to my grandma, he was the most powerful one in Rollinsboro. People swore by him, and so he was protected. They let him paint his abnormal hex signs so long as he kept everyone healthy and well-fed.”

“I’m guessing something went seriously sideways for poor Norman to wind up murdered.”

“Jacob Blymire is what happened. He accused Norman Lienhardt of putting a hex on him.”

“What kind of hex?”

“The worse kind: a death hex. Blymire said that Norman Lienhardt was the reason why his second wife dead of pneumonia. He said that it was powwow magic that caused her to die choking on her own phlegm. Blymire was righteously angry. Grandma said that his anger had a lot to do with his wasted life. You see, Blymire moved to this county to start over after failing to make his fortune selling dry goods in Lancaster. When he moved here and still failed, he figured that dark forces were at work.”

“Dark forces conjured up by the all-powerful Norman Lienhardt,” I added.

“Yep. But there was more to it. You see, Blymire was not just an outsider. He was a Baptist. A real holy roller. You are an outsider too, Joe, so you don’t know about the war between the Baptists and the Dutch.”

I laughed as I made a right turn. We had left the turnpike and were now on a rough road. The ride stopped being so smooth.

“Nothing to laugh about,” Martha said. “More than one person has died because of it. The Dutch see the Baptists as greedy interlopers always hungry for more land. The Baptists see the Dutch as godless heathens who pervert the Good Word. They always point at the powwow doctors as evidence of Dutch devil worship.”

I whistled. The information seemed juicy enough for a story. Maybe it would be good enough for the Taskmaster. I pressed on by asking Martha for more.

“For years, the Baptists have taken suspected powwow doctors to court on charges of witchcraft. Those laws are still on the books here because of their crusade. A few unfortunate souls have danced at the end of a noose because of it, but Norman Lienhardt was different. Blymire did not taken him to court. He and a few compatriots snuck into the powwow doctor’s house and kidnapped him.”

Martha took the gum from her mouth. She rolled down the window and flung the chewed up remnants out the window. She then turned her eyes back to me. They looked duller and less alive.

“Blymire took Norman Lienhardt up into the mountains. He took him to the Witch’s Castle, beat him unconscious, and then set him on fire while he was still alive. The fire burned so hot and for so long that the sheriff only found ashes. What was left of Norman Lienhardt fit into a paper bag.”

“What’s the Witch’s Castle, and how did the sheriff discover that it was Blymire who did it?”

“The Witch’s Castle is an abandoned stone cabin up in the mountains. Someone built it and left it behind over a hundred years ago. Nobody remembers who it belonged to, and whenever that happens in the country, folktales fill in the details. The story now is that the cabin belonged to a weird sister—a witch—and everyone now believes it. Everyone avoids the place as a haunt for spooks. Blymire picked it because he knew nobody would see him drag Norman Lienhardt up there. The funny thing is that Blymire ultimately did not care about being caught. He turned himself in.”

I whistled again. “I’m assuming the killer is either dead or sitting in prison right now.” She laughed again at my words. I was starting to hate being in the car with such a constant hyena.

“No. Blymire walked. No trial. He still lives in the same farmhouse.”

My eyes brightened. I put my foot on the gas, and even despite the tough dirt road, I let the Series M hit sixty. I was happy because I had finally found my story. Religious fanaticism, witchcraft, and a murderer at liberty. I knew DeWitt would love it.

“Did Blymire’s Baptist friends save him? Is Mayor Ayinger a Baptist?”

“Not that I know of,” she said. “And the Baptists played only a small role in Blymire’s freedom. The sheriff did the most to keep him on the right said of the bars. He told everyone who would listen that Blymire found damning evidence at Norman Lienhardt’s farm.”

“What kind of evidence?”

“It would not make sense to you, Joe.”

“So, confuse me, Martha. Make me feel dumb.”

“Like Norman Lienhardt?”

“Sure, like that old, dead fool.” I felt regret for the first time in my life. My words felt mean and vicious. It hurt my tired heart to run down a murder victim like that, but my wickedness worked. It appealed to Martha. The Rollinsboro lamia liked my words a lot.

“Blymire convinced the sheriff that his murder was done in the name of God. He showed the sheriff all kinds of books and papers and charms. Some of it was pretty normal for a powwow doctor, but some it was darker. He also showed him the pantry. Some of the jars, and whatnot. Only one type of person would have those things, and a Sin-Eater is not fit to live. The Baptists and the Dutch hate them and believe killing one on sight is the Christian thing to do. Blymire did enough to show the sheriff that Norman Lienhardt was a Sin-Eater, and that’s why he walked.”

“What’s a Sin-Eater.”

Rather than answer, Martha pointed to the darkness in front of my headlights. I squinted hard but did not see him until I almost ran him over. I slammed on the brakes. The vehicle came to stop right before hitting the man’s knees.

“Hey, Alfie! Get in.” Martha shouted at the man standing on the edge of the road. I got a good look at him when he stepped closer to the headlights. He was not short, but not quite tall either. His brown jacket matched his brown pants, which complemented his brown felt hat. His white shirt was open at the neck. His moon-shaped face gave him a bulldog’s jowls, and yet he was not fat. He was notably nondescript. Even his big, bulbous brown eyes were forgettable. He got in the backseat before I could tell him off.

“Joe doesn’t mind giving you a ride, Alfie. Isn’t that right, Joe?” Martha squeezed my arm. It was not a playful squeeze despite her big grin.

“Sure thing, Alfie. Where are you headed?”

Alfie glared at me and refused to answer. Martha spoke for him. “He’s going to the revival. Alfie is a fiend for the revivals.”

“A revival? At this time of night?”

Martha squeezed hard again. “Don’t disrespect Alfie, Joe. He and his people have their own ways, and those ways ought to be tolerated. I’m sure you as a city boy can understand that.” She was done hiding her malice. Martha’s words had dropped the cutesy act in favor of cruelty. I started to sweat.

“Yeah, that’s fine. Just tell me where this revival is.”

“Just keep on the straight path,” Martha said. I did as I was told. I slowed the Chevy down to thirty-five and paid extra attention to the road. Not the road itself, but rather the houses. I looked for cabins and farms—anything that might offer me a chance to escape. My night of high strangeness needed to come to an end, I thought, and maybe jumping out and waking up a sleeping Dutchman was my last resort.

All my plotting proved pointless. There was nothing but empty fields and rolling hills until we came to the revival. Martha pointed out the ghostly white tent and told me to stop. I did as I was told. Alfie stood up and got out of the backseat. I watched him walk towards the tent with his head down. He had been silent for the whole ride.

“What a weird duck,” I said. Martha shook her head. “Ok, he’s not a weird duck, then.”

“He is who he is. I am who I am, and you are you.” With the deftness of a cat, Martha inched closer to me on the seat. Her lilac smell went from being soft and distant to strong and up-close.

“What kind of riddle was that?” I asked. A small tremor made my voice shake. I was scared for no real reason, and I was having a hard time keeping myself composed. Martha saw this and decided to do something about it. She planted a kiss on my lips. She tasted like cinnamon. Her sugary sweet tongue went in and out of my mouth and did unfamiliar dances. I tried to keep up, but it felt like trying to break a mustang.

“Let me do it,” she whispered. I relaxed a little. I let Martha play the maestro. I liked the way she conducted the symphony, after all. I had no reason to complain. There were flourishes and arpeggios. My bouncing heart played the bass and percussion at the same time. When she started in on the oboe, I got lost in an ecstasy of sound.

“Okay, time to find religion, Joe.” Martha sat up, put her dress back into place, and left the car. She did it all in such a hurry that it left me dazed and confused. Rather than run after her, I took my time in pulling up my trousers and readjusting my tie. I took a look in the mirror. I somehow looked like a penniless drifter while feeling like a million bucks.

I followed the dirt road until it ended at the tent’s opening. From the outside, I could hear raucous music and singing in a foreign language. I walked into a strange scene: Dutchmen and their wives dressed in old fashioned clothes rubbing shoulders with clean-cut shopkeepers and scruffy loggers. Everyone was dancing and holding their arms up to the heavens. One man had a black snake in his hands. Off in a corner, a ring of children, some naked as the day they were born, were having what looked like epileptic fits. Everything was being done to a frenetic tune played by a small band. Several fiddles were joined by a guitar, two banjos, a piano, and one clarinet. I could not place the music. It sounded like a mix-up of ragtime and something out the Arabian desert. It was dissonant and clashed in my ears.

In the center of the band stood a tall man with stooped shoulders. He was so tall that he had to sink into myself in order to use the microphone. Rather than sing, he droned on in a foreign tongue. I gave up trying to decipher the man’s words after hearing first a smattering of Pennsylvania Dutch followed by rudimentary Hebrew. The sermon, if one could call it that, was as much mumbo-jumbo as the man’s face. His pronounced aquiline nose stayed the same, but the face around it seemed to change. At one point I saw the man as an old carnival barker with pits in his face and yellow teeth. Another turn and he looked ageless and handsome. By the time the music ended, I saw the man as a grinning devil with a series of uptilting Vs corrupting his face into a complex puzzle of wrinkles and scars.

The strange man made a series of gestures. The congregation obliged and took their seats on the cold grass. I watched from the entrance without trying to hide myself. I was, in a word, hypnotized by the sheer weirdness of the scene.

The leader intoned several more words in his unknown language. These words were chanted back to him. Even Martha did her part in the performance. Eventually, after several calls and responses, the man stepped down from the raised platform and pulled from underneath it a large cast iron cauldron. He wielded the large black pot with ease, and when he stood at his full height, I realized that he was a giant well above seven feet. He placed the cauldron in the middle of the sea of congregants. He uttered more nonsensical words before stepping back and glowering at his worshippers. All remained seated except for one fellow in the front row to the left. He stood up and made his way to the cauldron. He produced a penknife from his dark jacket and hacked off a finger. After several gory strokes, the finger was detached. He held the digit aloft and presented it to the leader. The finger was then thrown into the cauldron.

I watched in horror as person after person, male and female, mutilated themselves. One threw their left ear into the cauldron, while another cut off the tip of his nose. Silent Alfie made himself permanently quiet by donating his entire tongue. When it was Martha’s turn, she made a short speech in clear English.

“For all, I give the source of my infection and the origin of my sin.” Someone in the back handed her a pair of pliers. I could only stomach watching her remove two teeth before I stumbled out into the darkness. I did not need to see Martha become a grinning ghoul with bleeding gums; I already knew what it meant to be a Sin-Eater. I also knew which body part had seen my most recent sin.

I jumped into the car. It came to life with ease. I thanked the wholesome Christian God above for my good luck. I put the car into reverse and immediately felt a jarring concussion. I knew instantly what had happened. I had hit something or someone. One part of my frightened brain told me not to look. The other part worried about a possible murder charge. Both sides knew that I had already seen enough horrors for a lifetime. Why get bothered by more pulp and gristle?

I left the car and inspected the rear. Less than a foot from the bumper was the crumpled remains of a body. The body moved slightly to show that it was still alive, but just barely. My wheels had done a number. In the red taillights I could see the long white hair of an ancient female. I also saw that one arm had been amputated and both legs were missing. These were old wounds, however. The ones I inflicted were to the head and shoulders. These fresh wounds bled profusely. A big and expanding puddle of blood stained the bottom of my leather shoes.

“Sorry, I did not see you. You’re going to be okay.” I put my shaking hand on the bleeding shoulder and turned the woman over. In the crimson ambiance I looked down at the face. The deep gashes to the cheeks showed teeth marks. One eyebrow had been burned and cauterized. Worst of all were the two empty eye sockets. The black holes did not show and could not show emotion. A smile was impossible too, as her lips were long gone. Yet, I knew that the woman was overjoyed. She was in the midst of religious mania, and I had contributed to her euphoria.

I got back into the car and drove over her a second time. I killed her for sure. I then made a wide turn in a field and headed north at a high speed. One look in my mirror was enough. I saw the congregation, and I saw how close they came to grabbing one of my back tires. I spent the remainder of my drive out of town trying to forget about that last look back. To hell with the story, I told myself. To hell with Rollinsboro. To hell with eating meat for a while, too.

I smoked cigarette after cigarette as I drove in a black daze back to Philadelphia. I made sure to ignore all the signs along the way.