Bloodstone Page 5

  The Preacher …

  Even she had come to regard Shannow as the man of God in Pilgrim’s Valley, almost forgetting the man’s lethal past. But then he had changed. By God he had changed! The lion to the lamb. And it shamed Beth that she had found the change not to her liking.

  Her back was aching, and she longed for a rest. “Never leave a job half done,” she chided herself aloud. Lifting the copper ladle from the bucket, she drank the cool water, then returned to the ax. The sound of a horse moving across the dry-baked ground made her curse. She had left the rifle by the well! Dropping the ax, she turned and walked swiftly back across the open ground, not even looking at the horseman. After reaching the rifle, she leaned down.

  “You won’t need that, Beth, darlin’,” said a familiar voice.

  Clem Steiner lifted his leg over the saddle pommel and jumped to the ground. A wide grin showed on Beth’s face, and she stepped forward with arms outstretched. “You’re looking good, Clem,” she said, drawing him into a hug. Taking hold of his broad shoulders, she gently pushed him back from her and stared into his craggy features.

  The eyes were a sparkling blue, and the grin made him look boyish despite the gray at his temples and the weather-beaten lines around his eyes and mouth. His coat of black cloth seemed to have picked up little dust from his ride, and he wore a brocaded waistcoat of shining red above a polished black gun belt.

  Beth hugged him again. “You’re a welcome sight for old eyes,” she said, feeling an unaccustomed swelling in her throat.

  “Old? By God, Beth, you’re still the best-looking woman I ever saw!”

  “Still the flatterer,” she grunted, trying to disguise the pleasure she felt.

  “Would anyone dare lie to you, Beth?” His smile faded. “I came as soon as I heard. Is there any news?”

  She shook her head. “See to your horse, Clem. I’ll prepare some food for you.” Gathering her rifle, Beth walked to the house, noticing for the first time in days how untidy it was, how the dust had been allowed to settle on the timbered floor. Suddenly angry, she forgot the food and fetched the mop and bucket from the kitchen. “It’s a mess,” she said as Clem entered.

  He grinned at her. “It looks lived in,” he agreed, removing his gun belt and pulling up a chair at the table.

  Beth chuckled and laid aside the mop. “A man shouldn’t surprise a woman this way, especially after all these years. Time has been good to you, Clem. You filled out some. Suits you.”

  “I’ve lived the good life,” he told her, but he looked away as he spoke, glancing at the window set in the gray stone of the wall. Clem smiled. “Strong-built place, Beth. I saw the rifle slits at the upper windows and the reinforced shutters on the ground floor. Like a goddamn fortress. Only the old houses now have rifle ports. Guess people think the world’s getting safer.”

  “Only the fools, Clem.” She told him about the raid on the church and the bloody aftermath when the Preacher had strapped on his guns. Clem listened in silence. When she had finished, he stood and walked to the kitchen, pouring himself a mug of water. Here there was a heavy door with a strong bar beside it. The window was narrow, the shutters reinforced by iron strips.

  “It’s been hard in Pernum,” he said. “Most of us thought that with the war over we’d get back to farming and ordinary life. Didn’t work out that way. I guess it was stupid to think it would after all the killing in the north. And the war that wiped out the Hellborn. You had the Oathmen here yet?” She shook her head. Crossing the room, he stood outlined in the open doorway. “It’s not good, Beth. You have to swear your faith in front of three witnesses. And if you don’t … well, at best you lose your land.”

  “I take it you swore the Oath?”

  Returning to the table, he sat opposite her. “Never been asked. But I guess I would. It’s only words. So tell me, any sign of him since the killings?”

  She shook her head. “He’s not dead, Clem. I know that.”

  “And he’s wearing guns again.”

  Beth nodded. “Killed six of the raiders, then vanished.”

  “It will be a hell of a shock to the righteous if they find out who he is. You know there’s a statue to him in Pernum? Not a good likeness, especially with the brass halo around his head.”

  “Don’t joke about it, Clem. He tried to ignore it, and I think he was wrong. He never said or did one-tenth of the things they claim. And as for being the new John the Baptist … well, it seems like blasphemy to me. You were there, Clem, when the Sword of God descended. You saw the machines from the sky. You know the truth.”

  “You’re wrong, Beth. I don’t know anything. If the Deacon claims he comes direct from God, who am I to argue? Certainly seems that God’s been with him, though. Won the Unifier War, didn’t he? And when Batik died and the Hellborn invaded again, he saw them wiped out. Scores of thousands dead. And the Crusaders have mostly cleaned out the brigands and the Carns. Took me six days to ride here, Beth, and I didn’t need the gun. They got schools, hospitals, and no one starves. Ain’t all bad.”

  “There’s lots here that would agree with you, Clem.”

  “But you don’t?”

  “I’ve no argument with schools and the like,” she said, rising from the table and returning with bread, cheese, and a section of smoked ham. “But this talk of pagans and disbelievers needing killing and the butchery of the Wolvers—it’s wrong, Clem. Plain wrong.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Find him, Clem. Bring him home.”

  “You don’t want much, do you? That’s a big country, Beth. There’s deserts and mountains that go on forever.”

  “Will you do it?”

  “Can I eat first?”

  Jeremiah enjoyed the wounded man’s company, but there was much about Shannow that concerned him, and he confided his worries to Dr. Meredith. “He is a very self-contained man, but I think he remembers far less than he admits. There seems to be a great gulf in his memory.”

  “I have been trying to recall everything I read about protective amnesia,” Meredith told him. “The trauma he suffered was so great that his conscious mind reels from it, blanking out vast areas. Give him time.”

  Jeremiah smiled. “Time is what we have, my friend.”

  Meredith nodded and leaned back in his chair, staring up at the darkening sky. A gentle wind was drifting down across the mountains, and from there he could smell the cottonwood trees by the river and the grass from the hillsides.

  “What are you thinking?” asked Jeremiah.

  “It is beautiful here. It makes the evil of the cities seem far away and somehow inconsequential.”

  Jeremiah sighed. “Evil is never inconsequential, Doctor.”

  “You know what I mean,” chided Meredith. Jeremiah nodded, and the two men sat for a while in companionable silence. The day’s journey had been a good one, with the wagons moving over the plains and halting in the shadows of a jagged mountain range. A little to the north was a slender waterfall, and the Wanderers had camped beside the river that ran from it. The women and children were roaming a stand of trees on the mountainside, gathering dead wood for the evening fires, while most of the men had ridden off in search of meat. Shannow was resting in Jeremiah’s wagon.

  Isis came into sight, bearing a bundle of dry sticks, which she let fall at Jeremiah’s feet. “It wouldn’t do you any harm to work a little,” she said. Both men noticed her tired eyes and the faintest touch of purple on the cheeks below them.

  “Age has its privileges,” he told her, forcing a smile.

  “Laziness more like,” she told him. She swung to face the sandy-haired young doctor. “And what is your excuse?”

  Meredith reddened and rose swiftly. “I am sorry. I … wasn’t thinking. What do you want me to do?”

  “You could help Clara with the gathering. You could have cleaned and prepared the rabbits. You could be out hunting with the other men. Dear God, Meredith, you are a useless article.” Spinning on her heel, she stalked aw
ay, back toward the wood.

  “She is working too hard,” said Jeremiah.

  “She’s a fighter, Jeremiah,” Meredith answered sadly. “But she’s right. I spend too much time lost in thoughts, dreaming, if you like.”

  “Some men are dreamers,” said Jeremiah. “It’s no bad thing. Go and help Clara. She’s a little too heavily pregnant to be carrying firewood.”

  “Yes … yes, you’re right,” Meredith agreed.

  Alone now, Jeremiah made a circle of stones and carefully laid a fire. He did not hear Shannow approach and glanced up only when he heard the creak of wood as the man sat in Meredith’s chair. “You’re looking stronger,” said the old man. “How do you feel?”

  “I am healing,” said Shannow.

  “And your memory?”

  “Is there a town near here?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “As we were traveling today, I saw smoke in the distance.”

  “I saw it, too,” said Jeremiah, “but with luck we’ll be far away by tomorrow night.”

  “With luck?”

  “Wanderers are not viewed with great friendliness in these troubled times.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s a hard question, Mr. Shannow. Perhaps the man who is tied to a particular piece of land envies us our freedom. Perhaps we are viewed as a threat to the solidity of their existence. In short, I don’t know why. You might just as well ask why men like to kill one another or find hatred so easy and love so difficult.”

  “It is probably territorial,” said Shannow. “When men put down roots, they look around them and assume that everything they can see is now theirs: the deer, the trees, the mountains. You come along and kill the deer, and they see it as theft.”

  “That, too,” agreed Jeremiah. “But you do not share that view, Mr. Shannow?”

  “I never put down roots.”

  “You are a curious man, sir. You are knowledgeable, courteous, and yet you have the look of the warrior. I can see it in you. I think you are a … deadly man, Mr. Shannow.”

  Shannow nodded slowly, and his deep blue eyes held Jeremiah’s gaze. “You have nothing to fear from me, old man. I am not a warmaker. I do not steal, and I do not lie.”

  “Did you fight in the war, Mr. Shannow?”

  “I do not believe that I did.”

  “Most men of your age fought in the Unifying War.”

  “Tell me of it.”

  Before the old man could begin, Isis came running into view. “Riders!” she said. “And they’re armed.”

  Jeremiah rose and walked between the wagons. Isis moved alongside him, and several of the other women and children gathered around. Dr. Meredith, his arms full of firewood, stood nervously beside a pregnant woman and her two young daughters. Jeremiah shaded his eyes against the setting sun and counted the horsemen. There were fifteen, and all carried rifles. In the lead was a slender young man with shoulder-length white hair. The riders cantered up to the wagons and then drew rein. The white-haired man leaned forward onto the pommel of his saddle.

  “Who are you?” he asked, his voice edged with contempt.

  “I am Jeremiah, sir. These are my people.”

  The man looked at the painted wagons and said something in a low voice to the rider on his right. “Are you people of the Book?” asked White-hair, switching his gaze back to Jeremiah.

  “Of course,” the old man answered.

  “You have Oath papers?” The man’s voice was soft, almost sibilant.

  “We have never been asked to give oaths, sir. We are Wanderers and are rarely in towns long enough to be questioned about our faith.”

  “I am questioning it,” the man said. “And I do not like your tone, Mover. I am Aaron Crane, the Oath Taker for the settlement of Purity. Do you know why I was given this office?” Jeremiah shook his head. “Because I have the gift of discernment. I can smell a pagan at fifty paces. And there is no place in God’s land for such people. They are a stain upon the earth, a cancer upon the flesh of the planet, and an abomination in the eyes of God. Recite for me now Psalm 22.”

  Jeremiah took a deep breath. “I am not a scholar, sir. My Bible is in my wagon—I shall fetch it.”

  “You are a pagan,” screamed Crane, “and your wagon shall burn!” Swinging in his saddle, he gestured to the riders. “Make torches from their campfires. Burn the wagons.” The men dismounted and started forward, Crane leading them.

  Jeremiah stepped into their path. “Please, sir, do not do …” A rider grabbed the old man, hurling him aside. Jeremiah fell heavily but struggled to his feet as Isis ran at the man who had struck him, lashing out with her fist. The rider parried the blow easily and pushed her away.

  And Jeremiah watched in helpless despair as the men converged on the fire.

  Aaron Crane was exultant as he strode toward the fire. This was the work he had been born for, making the land holy and fit for the people of the Book. These Movers were trash of the worst kind, with no understanding of the demands of the Lord. The men were lazy and shiftless, the women no better than common whores. He glanced at the blond woman who had struck at Leach. Her clothes were threadbare, and her breasts jutted against the woolen shirt she wore. Worse than a whore, he decided, feeling his anger rise. He pictured the wagon aflame, the pagans pleading for mercy. But there should be no mercy for such as these, he resolved. Let them plead before the throne of the Almighty. Yes, they would die, he decided. Not the children, of course; he was not a savage.

  Leach made the first torch and handed it to Aaron Crane. “By this act,” shouted Crane, “may the name of the Lord be glorified!”

  “Amen!” said the men grouped about him. Crane moved toward the first red wagon … and stopped. A tall man had stepped into view; he said nothing but merely stood watching Crane. The white-haired Oath Taker studied the man, noting two things instantly. The first was that the newcomer’s eyes were looking directly into his own, and the second was that he was armed. Crane glanced at the two pistols in their scabbards at the man’s hips. Acutely aware that his men were waiting, he was suddenly at a loss. The newcomer had made no hostile move, but he was standing directly before the wagon. To burn it, Crane would have to push past him.

  “Who are you?” asked Crane, buying time to think.

  “They have gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion,” quoted the man, his voice deep and low.

  Crane was shocked. The quote was from the psalm he had asked the old Mover to recite, but the words seemed charged with hidden meaning.

  “Stand aside,” said Crane, “and do not seek to interfere with the Lord’s work.”

  “You have two choices: live or die,” said the tall man, his voice still low, no trace of anger in his words.

  Crane felt a sick sense of dread in his belly. The man would kill him; Crane knew that with an ice-cold certainty. If he tried to fire the wagon, the man would draw one of those pistols and shoot him. His throat was dry. A burning cinder fell from the torch, scorching the back of his hand, but Crane did not move … could not move. Behind him were fifteen armed men, but they might as well have been a hundred miles away, he knew, for all the good they could do him. Sweat dripped into his eyes.

  “What’s happening, Aaron?” called Leach.

  Crane dropped the torch and backed away, his hands trembling. The tall man was walking toward him, and the Oath Taker felt panic surging within him.

  Turning, he ran to his horse, scrambling into the saddle. Hauling on the reins, he kicked the beast into a gallop for almost half a mile. Then he drew up and dismounted.

  Kneeling on the hard-packed earth, he tasted bile in his mouth and began to vomit.

  * * *

  Shannow’s head was pounding as he walked toward the group of men. The Oath Taker was riding away, but his soldiers remained, confused and uncertain.

  “Your leader is gone,” said Shannow. “Do you have other business here?” The thickset man who had passed the burning torch to Cra
ne was tense, and Shannow could see his anger growing. But Jeremiah stepped forward.

  “You must all be thirsty after your long ride,” he said. “Isis, fetch these men some water. Clara, bring the mugs from my wagon. Ah, my friends,” he said, “in these troubled times such misunderstandings are so common. We are all people of the Book, and does it not tell us to love our neighbors and to do good to those who hate us?”

  Isis, her face flushed and angry, brought forward a copper jug, while the pregnant Clara moved to the group, passing tin mugs to the riders.

  The thickset man waved Isis away and stared hard at Shannow.

  “What did you say to the Oath Taker?” he snarled.

  “Ask him,” said Shannow.

  “Damn right I will,” said the man. He swung on his comrades, who were all drinking. “Let’s go!” he shouted.

  As they rode away, Shannow returned to the fire and slumped down into Dr. Meredith’s chair. Jeremiah and the doctor approached him.

  “I thank you, my friend,” said Jeremiah. “I fear they would have killed us all.”

  “It is not wise to stay here the night,” Shannow told him. “They will return.”

  “There are those among us,” said the Apostle Saul, the sunlight glinting on his long, golden hair, “who shed tears for the thousands who fell fighting against us in the Great War. And I tell you, Brothers, I am one of those. For those misguided souls gave their very lives in the cause of darkness while believing they were fighting for the light.

  “But as the good Lord told us, narrow is the path and few who will find it. But that Great War is over, my Brothers. It was won for the glory of God and his son, Jesus Christ. And it was won by you, and by me, and by the multitudes of believers who stood firm against the satanic deeds of our enemies, both pagan and Hellborn.”

  A great cheer went up, and Nestor Garrity found himself wishing he could have been one of those soldiers of Christ in the Great War. But he had been only a child then, attending the lower school and living in fear of the formidable Beth McAdam. All around him the men and women of Pilgrim’s Valley had flocked to the Long Meadow to hear the words of the Apostle. Some of the other people present could still remember the sleek white and silver flying machine that had passed over Pilgrim’s Valley twenty years before, bringing the Deacon and his Apostles to the people. Nestor wished he could have seen it in the air. His father had taken him to Unity eight years earlier, to the great cathedral at the city center. There, raised on a plinth of shining steel, was the flying machine. Nestor would never forget that moment.