Bloodstone Page 7

  “Where are you going?” called Dr. Meredith.

  Shannow did not answer.

  Aaron Crane and the survivors of the raid galloped into Purity and drew up before the long stone meeting hall. Crane, dust-covered and disheveled, dismounted and ran inside. The hall was crowded, the prayer meeting under way. On the dais Padlock Wheeler was reaching the midpoint in his sermon concerning the path of the righteous. He stopped as he saw Crane and inwardly groaned, but it was not wise to incur the wrath of the Oath Taker. The black-bearded minister fell silent for a moment, then forced a smile.

  “You seem distraught, Brother,” he said. Heads turned then, among them those of Captain Seth Wheeler and the twelve men of Purity’s Crusaders. Crane drew himself up and ran a slender hand through his long white hair.

  “The forces of the Devil have been turned against us,” he said. “The Lord’s riders have been cut down.”

  There was a gasp from the congregation, and several of the women began to shout out questions concerning the fate of their husbands, brothers, or sons.

  “Silence!” thundered Padlock Wheeler. “Let the Oath Taker speak.”

  “As you all know,” said Crane, “we came upon a band of pagan Wanderers. With them was a demonic force: I recognized the power of Satan instantly. We tried in vain to overcome it. Many are dead. A few of us escaped through the intervention of the Lord. We must have more men! I demand that the Crusaders ride out after these devils!”

  Padlock Wheeler glanced down at his brother, Seth. The captain rose from his seat. He was a tall, slim man with a long face and a dour expression. “Let the women go to their homes,” he said. “We’ll discuss what’s to be done.”

  “Where’s my boy?” screamed a woman, rushing at Crane. “Where is Lemuel?”

  “I fear he perished,” Crane told her, “but he died in the Lord’s work.”

  The woman’s hand snaked out to slash across Crane’s cheek. Two other women grabbed her, hauling her back.

  “Stop this!” thundered Padlock Wheeler. “This is a house of God!” The commotion died instantly. Slowly the women filed from the hall, the men gathering around Crane.

  Seth Wheeler moved forward. “Tell us of this demon,” he ordered Crane.

  “It is in the guise of a man, but it is Satan-inspired. He is a killer. A terrible killer!” Crane shivered. “He cast a spell on me that took all the power I had to overcome.”

  “How many are dead?” asked the Crusader captain.

  “I don’t know. We advanced on two fronts. The killer was waiting in the east and shot down four men: Lassiter, Pope, Carter, and Lowris. Then he rode west and slew … everyone but me. I managed to escape.”

  “You ran?”

  “What else could I do?”

  Seth Wheeler glanced at the men gathered in the hall. There were some twenty in all, plus his twelve Crusaders. “How many Wanderers were there?”

  “Eleven wagons,” Crane told him. “Perhaps thirty people. They must be destroyed. Utterly destroyed!”

  Still on the dais, Padlock Wheeler saw the door at the back of the hall open and a tall man step inside. Dressed in a dust-stained black coat, patched on the left arm, he wore two long guns.

  “Where are the lawmakers of this community?” he said, his voice, though not loud, cutting through the conversation at the center of the hall.

  Crane saw him and screamed. “It’s him! It’s the Devil!” Backing away, the white-haired Oath Taker ducked down behind a line of benches.

  “This is a house of the Lord,” said Padlock Wheeler. “What do you want here?”

  “Justice,” answered the man. “You are sheltering a murderer, a killer of women and children.”

  “He tells it differently,” said Padlock. “He claims you are demon-possessed.”

  The newcomer shook his head. “Twenty miles from here they are burying a woman named Clara. She was pregnant; half her head was shot away. They will bury one of her daughters beside her. The man Crane rode up to the wagons yesterday and demanded to hear Psalm 22. I gave him to understand that I knew it, as indeed I do. But he is an evil man and was determined to murder. So tell me this: How will you judge him?”

  Padlock looked down at where Crane was cowering. The minister felt exultant. All along he had believed Crane to be a dangerous man, and this was an opportunity to bring him down. He would ask Seth for an inquiry, and he had no doubt that the Oath Taker would be shown to be a lawbreaker. But just as he was about to speak, he saw Crane draw a pistol from his belt and cock it.

  Within a heartbeat all was chaos and confusion. “You lie!” screamed Crane, rearing up and pointing his pistol. The shot splintered the wood of the door by the stranger’s head. The gathered men dived for cover, but the stranger calmly drew one of his pistols and fired once. Crane’s head exploded.

  The Oath Taker’s body stood for a moment, his black coat drenched in blood and brain. Then it crumpled to the floor.

  “I am the Jerusalem Man,” said the stranger, “and I do not lie.”

  Sheathing his pistol, he left the hall.

  One by one the watching men rose and moved back to view the body. Padlock Wheeler, his legs unsteady, climbed down from the dais. His brother, Seth, stood by the corpse and shook his head.

  “What happens now?” asked Padlock.

  “We’ll send a message to Unity,” said Seth. “They’ll have to send another Oath Taker.”

  Padlock took his brother’s arm and led him away from the other men. “He claimed to be Jon Shannow.”

  “I heard him. That was blasphemy! I’ll take some men to the Wanderers tomorrow. We’ll speak to them, find out what really happened.”

  “Crane was a wretch! I’ll shed no tears for him. Why not let them go their way?”

  Seth shook his head. “He claimed to be the Jerusalem Man. He took the saint’s name in vain. Everyone heard it; he’s got to answer for that.”

  “I don’t want to see anyone else die for the sake of Crane’s evil. Not even a blasphemer.”

  Seth smiled thinly. “I am a Crusader, Pad. What do you expect me to do?”

  “Walk warily, Brother. You saw him shoot. He was under fire, but he calmly aimed and blew Crane’s soul to hell. And if what the wretch said was true—and I don’t doubt it was—he shot down a number of other armed men.”

  “I’ve no choice, Pad. I’ll try to take him alive.”

  3

  In a small section of the garden a tiny weed spoke to the blooms that grew there. “Why,” he asked, “does the gardener seek to kill me? Do I not have a right to life? Are my leaves not green, as yours are? Is it too much to ask that I be allowed to grow and see the sun?” The blooms pondered on this and decided to ask the gardener to spare the weed. He did so. Day by day the weed grew, stronger and stronger, taller and taller, its leaves covering the other plants, its roots spreading. One by one the flowers died until only a rose was left. It gazed up at the enormous weed and asked: “Why do you seek to kill me? Do I not have a right to life? Are my leaves not green, as yours are? Is it too much to ask that I be allowed to grow and see the sun?”

  “Yes, it is too much to ask,” said the weed.

  The Wisdom of the Deacon

  Chapter VII

  THEY HAD BURIED Clara and her daughter by the time Shannow returned to the wagons. Jeremiah was in bed in his wagon, his chest bandaged, his face gray with sorrow and pain. Shannow climbed in to sit beside the old man.

  “You killed him?” asked Jeremiah.

  “I did. I would have had it otherwise, but he fired upon me.”

  “That will not end it, Mr. Shannow, though I do not blame you. You did not inspire the evil. But you must go.”

  “They will come again, and you will need me.”

  “No. I spoke to the men you captured before I let them go. Crane was the instigator.” Jeremiah sighed. “There will always be men like Crane. Thankfully there will also always be men like Meredith and men like you. It is a balance, Mr. Shannow. G
od’s balance, if you will.”

  Shannow nodded. “Evil will always thrive if men do not oppose it.”

  “Evil thrives anyway. Greed, desire, jealousy. We all carry the seeds of evil. Some are stronger than others and can resist it, but men like Crane will feed the seed.” Jeremiah leaned back against his pillow, his eyes resting on Shannow’s lean face. “You are not evil, my boy. Go with God!”

  “I am sorry, old man,” said Shannow, rising.

  Back in the open he saw Isis coming toward him, carrying a bundle. “I gathered some ammunition from the dead, and there is a little food here,” she said. He thanked her and turned away. “Wait!” She handed him a small pouch. “There are twelve Bartas here. You will need money.”

  Jeremiah heard the creak of saddle leather as Shannow mounted, then the steady clopping of hooves as he headed away from the wagons. The pain from his wound was strong, but the old man flowed with it. He felt sick and weaker than sin.

  Isis brought him an herbal tisane, which settled his stomach. “I am happier with him gone,” she said, “though I liked him.”

  They sat in companionable silence for a while, then Meredith joined them. “Riders coming,” he said. “Look like Crusaders.”

  “Make them welcome and bring the leader here,” said Jeremiah. Within minutes a tall, round-shouldered man with a long, dour face climbed into the wagon. “Welcome to my home,” said Jeremiah.

  The man nodded, removed his wide-brimmed gray hat, and sat alongside the bed. “I’m Captain Seth Wheeler,” said the newcomer. “I understand you have a man with you who calls himself Jon Shannow.”

  “Will you not ask, sir, why there are fresh-dug graves outside and why I am lying here with a bullet in my chest?”

  “I know why,” muttered Wheeler, looking away. “But that was not my doing, Meneer, nor do I condone it. But there have been deaths on both sides, and the man who instigated them is among the dead.”

  “Then why hunt Jon Shannow?”

  “He is a blasphemer and a heretic. The Jerusalem Man—of blessed memory—left this earth twenty years ago, taken up by God like Elijah before him in a chariot of fire.”

  “If God can lift him, which of course he can,” said Jeremiah carefully, “then he can also bring him back.”

  “I’ll not argue that point with you, Meneer. What I will say is this: If the good Lord did choose to bring back the Jerusalem Man, I don’t think he’d arrive with singed hair and a patched coat. However, enough of this. Which direction did he take?”

  “I cannot help you sir. I was in my wagon when he rode away. You will have to ask one of my people.”

  Wheeler rose and moved to the door, then he turned. “I have already said that I do not condone what happened here,” he said softly. “But know this, Mover, I share Crane’s view about the likes of you. You are a stain upon God’s land. As the Deacon says, ‘There is no place for the scavenger among us. Only those who build the cities of the Lord are welcome.’ Be gone from the lands of Purity by tomorrow night.”

  Shannow rode toward the high country, angling north. The horse was a bay gelding and strong, but it was tired after the exertions of the night and was breathing heavily. Shannow dismounted and led the horse into the trees, seeking a cave or a sheltered spot in the lee of the wind. He was cold, and his spirits were low.

  The loss of memory was an irritation, but that he could bear. Something else was nagging at him from deep within the now-shuttered recesses of his mind. He had killed men this night, but that was nothing new for the Jerusalem Man. I did not seek the battle, he told himself. They rode out in search of blood, and they found it. And it was their own. Such is the price of violence. Yet the killings hung heavily upon him.

  Shannow stumbled, his strength deserting him. His wounds were too recent for this kind of climb, he knew, but he pushed on. The trees were thicker now, and he saw a cleft in the rock face to his left. It will have to do, he thought. Taking a deep breath, he walked on. As he neared the cleft, he saw the flickering reflection of a fire on the rock face, just inside the cleft.

  “Hello, the camp!” he called. It was not wise in the wilderness to walk uninvited into a campsite. With the fear of brigands everywhere, a sudden appearance could lead to a volley of shots from frightened travelers.

  “Come on in,” came a voice that echoed eerily up through the cleft. Shannow pushed his coat back over the butt of his right-hand pistol and, leading the horse with his left hand, approached the cleft. It was narrow only at the entrance and widened into a pear-shaped cave within. An old man with a waist-length white beard was sitting before the fire, above which a hunk of meat had been spitted. At the back of the cave a mule had been hobbled. Shannow led his horse to the rear and looped the reins over the beast’s head, trailing them to the ground. Then he joined the white-bearded man.

  “Welcome to my fire,” said the man, his voice deep. He extended his hand. “You can call me Jake.”

  “Jon Shannow.”

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Shannow. I kept looking at this meat and thinking, There’s too much here for you, Jake. Now the Lord has supplied me with a dinner guest. Come far?”

  Shannow shook his head. A great weariness settled on him, and he leaned back against a rock and stretched out his legs.

  Jake filled a mug with a steaming brew and passed it to him. “Here, drink this, boy. It’s a great reviver, and there’s a ton of sugar in it.”

  Shannow sipped the brew. It was rich and bittersweet. “My thanks, Jake. This is good. Tell me, do I know you?”

  “Could be, son; the world’s a mighty small place. I’ve been here and there: Allion, Rivervale, Pilgrim’s Valley, the Plague Lands. You name it, I’ve seen it.”

  “Rivervale … yes, I seem to remember …” He saw a beautiful woman and a young boy. The memory faded like a dream when one wakened, but a name slipped through the shutters. “Donna!” he said.

  “You all right, boy?”

  “Do you know me, Jake?”

  “I’ve seen you. It’s a fearsome name you carry. You sure it’s yours?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “You seem a mite young, if you don’t mind me saying so. What are you … thirty-five … six?”

  “I think I’ll sleep now,” said Shannow, stretching himself out beside the fire.

  His dreams were fractured and anxious. He was wounded, and the lion-man Shir-ran was tending to him. A creature with scaled skin ran into the cave, a jagged knife held in its hand. Shannow’s guns thundered, and the creature fell back, becoming a child with open, horrified eyes. “Oh, God, no! Not again!” cried Shannow.

  His eyes opened, and he saw that Jake was kneeling beside him.

  “Wake up, boy. It’s just a dream.” Shannow groaned and pushed himself to a sitting position. The fire had died down, and the old man handed him a plate on which strips of cold roast meat had been carved. “Eat a little. You’ll feel better.”

  Shannow took the plate and began to eat. Jake took a pot from the dying fire and filled a tin mug. Then he added sticks to the coals. New flames flickered as Shannow shivered.

  “It will soon warm up.” Jake rose and walked to the rear of the cave, returning with a blanket, which he wrapped around Shannow’s shoulders.

  “You were in that gun battle last night,” he said. “I can smell the powder on your coat. Was it a good fight?”

  “Are there any good fights?” responded Shannow.

  “It’s a good fight when evil perishes,” said Jake.

  “Evil does not usually die alone,” said Shannow. “They killed a young woman and her daughter.”

  “Sad times,” agreed Jake.

  The meat was good, and Shannow felt his strength returning. Unbuckling his gun belt, he laid it alongside him, then stretched his tired muscles. Jake was right. The heat from the fire was beginning to reflect back from the walls.

  “What are you doing in the wilderness, Jake?”

  “I like the solitude—generally speaking. And
it is a good place to talk to God, don’t you think? It’s clean and open, and the wind carries your words to the heavens. I take it you were with the Movers.”

  “Yes. Good people.”

  “That’s as may be, son, but they don’t plant and they don’t build,” said Jake.

  “Neither does the sparrow,” responded Shannow.

  “A nice biblical reference, Mr. Shannow, and I do enjoy a debate. But you are wrong. The sparrow eats many seeds, then he flies away. Not all the seeds are digested, and he drops them in other places. All the great forests of the world were probably started by birds’ droppings.”

  Shannow smiled. “Perhaps the Wanderers are like the birds. Perhaps they spread the seeds of knowledge.”

  “That would make them really dangerous,” said Jake, his eyes glinting in the firelight. “There’s all kinds of knowledge, Mr. Shannow. Knew a man once who could identify every poisonous plant there was. Wanted to write a book on it. That’s dangerous knowledge—you agree?”

  “People reading the book would be able to tell what plants not to eat,” said Shannow.

  “Aye, and people wishing to learn of poisons would know what plants to feed their enemies.”

  “Did he write the book?”

  “No. He died in the Unity War. Left a widow and five children. Did you fight in the war?”

  “No. At least I don’t think so.”

  Jake looked at him closely.

  “You having trouble remembering things?”

  “Some things,” said Shannow.

  “Like what?”

  “Like the last twenty years.”

  “I saw the head wound. Happens sometimes. So what will you do?”

  “I’ll wait. The Lord will show me my past when he’s good and ready.”

  “Anything I can do?”

  “Tell me about the Deacon and his war.”

  The old man chuckled. “That’s a tall order, boy, for one night around the fire.” Leaning back, he stretched out his legs. “Getting too old to enjoy sleeping on rock,” he said. “Well, then, where do we start? The Deacon.” He sniffed loudly and thought for a moment. “If you are who you claim to be, Mr. Shannow, then it was you who brought the Deacon into this world. He and his brethren were in a plane that took to the skies on the day of Armageddon. It was then trapped, held by the power that also snared the Sword of God. You released them when you sent the sword into the past to destroy Atlantis.”