“Yes . . . ,” Sammy gloried in a whisper.
“Our endured pain, our lack of-of—manliness—”
“Yes. Yes. Yes . . . ,”Shawn, Russell interrupted, and Sammy conceded.
“These things, no more. Are you in, Gus?”
“There are dangers you don’t know,” Gus said, shaking a worried face.
“Don’t be priggish,” Sammy said. “Why, if it were so against nature, could there be such a book?”
“It was penned by a renegade!”
“An early day Nathan?” Sammy turned, smiling at everyone.
“Or a visionary and dreamer,” Shawn said.
“Always the most dangerous sort of being—in men, or yulen,” Gus said.
“Bit sanctimonious, wouldn’t you say, Gus?” Sammy said.
“Stuffy, if you ask me,” said Russell.
“Fool! I was the one who first sought The Book. Hardly should I be called rigid or smug. I know what the owner of The Book of Yulen is, what he’s like, what he’ll demand!”
“We’ll pay!” Russell said.
“The price is only for the privilege to attempt the book’s claim! There is a test. I attempted it and failed. Do you think the owner will easily let you have the book, you fool! The endurance, despair, danger, the risk to your lives, I only warn you! Warn you, I want.”
Nathan turned to a wall unit, searched draws, then stepped back among the four, and with the scalpel he held, slit the fleshy mound of his palm. “I swear I will not yield. I will endure the trial for The Book, and I will keep on,” he said, holding out his bleeding hand.
Shawn quickly took the scalpel, flicked it fast over his own palm, and pressed his bleeding flesh to Nathan’s out held hand. Russell did not hesitate, took the silver scalpel, blood on its blade, quickly cut his trembling hand, put the bleeding palm on Shawn’s, and reached the instrument to Sammy. Sammy saw the blood dripping onto the floor, was about to say something, and maybe for his first time ever, unable to speak, he looked away to the windows, and in disbelief, his scalpel held hand made the solemn incision.
All looked at Gus, their hands forming one shaking fist.
“We’ll pay for this manipulation, Nathan, for your temptation to eat from the fruit of knowledge.”
Nathan, staring back encouragement to him, Gus took the blade, cut, and grabbed the one fist. Taking the scalpel from Gus’ hand, Nathan clenched his teeth around its metal handle, brought his other hand to the blade, snapped back his neck, and then joined that hand’s dripping blood over Gus’ to seal their oath. Then they began to laugh, and almost cry.
“Well, isn’t someone supposed to say something,” Sammy said. “I mean, something unifying and all that? Anything?”
Nathan thought briefly. “Brothers,” he simply said, and as each looked around at one another’s inspired faces, Nathan’s body began to sway, his eyes blink, he straining to stand.
“Nathan. Nathan,” they called, and as he began to fall, he saw a blurry Constance open the door, heard her voice scream his name, heard someone yell doctor, and his field went black.
IV
On the dry earth of Macon Early’s swamplands mission, the youngest Early son sat hunched on a log. He read from a book to T still chained and sprawled on the ground, the gator his steady sentinel. “Noel. Noah. Nicholas,” Joseph whispered to the sleeping captive, his words interspersed with the sounds of owls, wrens, and frogs. “Nolan. Niel. Nigel,” he continued, waiting several seconds between each name. “Newton. Nils. Niccolo. Nate.” He wiped the humid swamp from his brow. “Nario. Nardo. Nathan.”
“Na-than,” T uttered.
“Nathan . . . ,” Joseph repeated, bringing his head to T’s ear.
“Na-than . . . Na-than,” T said.
Excited, and about to run for the shack where a light shone through a window, Joseph stopped and sat back down. “T, it’s Nathan . . .”
“Nathan,” T said asleep.
“What’s my last name?”
“Nathan.”
“Nathan what?”
The gator’s open mouth dropped. T jumped awake. Terrorized he pushed away from the animal.
“Pa! Pa!” Joseph called, running to the building. “I got his name! I got his name! Nathan. Name’s Nathan. N’s for Nathan!”
The door of the ramshackle church and their dwelling swung open, and Joseph’s brothers appeared.
“Got his name. N’s for Nathan. Worked just like Pa said it would. Pa! Pa! Got his name!”
“There ain’t no cause to shout, boy,” Macon Early said, walking out, tucking in a dirty tee shirt. “And what’s his last name?”
“I don’t have that, Pa. Just his Christian name’s all. But got it just like you said with the book from the library.”
“And that book don’t have last names, boy?”
“Well, no Pa.”
“Give your brother back the book, and Josiah you see it gets back to that library.”
“Sure, Pa.”
“I don’t want any fines appearin’ on the county rolls with the Early name.”
“No, Pa.”
“Give me the postcard.”
The Early brood’s patriarch led the strapping older boys and the smaller nervous younger one to the man on the floor of the small island comprising the grounds of his church. What had once been a meth lab his older boys ran, and he did commerce in, he’d baptized for good after being reborn before The Sacred Light of The Redeemer. He first anointed himself Reverend, then Pastor, then Deacon, although he proclaimed and answered to all three titles. As he was self-ordained, his church changed names without apparent reason, save the deacon’s divine guidance. Started as the De-Demonization Baptismal Church of The Blood of Our Lord Savior of The Later Day Trinity Church, it changed so often, only he knew its name at any time. It was his church and the foundation upon and from which the word inspired unto him would spread—as soon as he received higher instruction to take it beyond the cypress woods.
“How ya feelin’, T? Macon said bending down. “Get the boy some water. He looks dry.”
“No. No,” T’s head shook and begged.
“He never drinks, Pa.”
“Or eats,” Joseph Henry said.
“Now, T, you don’t want to eat or drink, I can’t force ya. My mission cares only about feedin’ men’s souls. And I can accomplish that God directed mission on this sinner’s earth, this pulchritudinous evil world that Satin commands, only as money opens up paths to salvation. Ya see?”
“I don’t have any more gold or money or anything.”
“And I believe you now, T. I do believe you now you don’t, and I’m goin’ to release ya.”
“Now? Please. Yes. Please.”
“Soon as you tell me Nathan’s last name. Your friend Nathan in, in-ah—”
“Miss Linda at the library called it Saint Tro-pay,” Josiah responded.
“Says Saint Tro-pez on the postal seal,” Joseph said.
“And you know more than the librarian lady, who’s maybe read a book or two,” his father snarled. “You’ll excuse my ill-mannered children, T. They’re no good, lessin’ they got a whip to their hides.”
“Sorry, Pa. Sorry.”
“Your friend. In Saint Tro-pay.”
“France,” Joseph said.
“Saint Tro-pay France. What’s his last name? And where’s he live?”
“I don’t know.”
Joseph Henry kicked T’s thigh. “Tell ‘em.”
“Does he got gold like you?” Josiah said.
“He’s gotta, Pa says,” said Joseph.
“He got gold?” Joseph Henry demanded.
“I don’t know,” T strained, exhausted, dust covered, beaten up.
“Tell ‘em so we can get the hell out of this miserable swamp!” Joseph Henry shouted, kicking his side.
“I, I don’t—” T wreathed, and Joseph Henry’s boot about to kick him again, he answered, “Yes. Yes,” his teary cheek pushing into the ground.
“And what’s his last name?” Macon calmly asked.
“I, I don’t know.”
Joseph Henry about to kick again, his father raised his hand, and his son halted.
“I have redeemed my children from sin, them havin’ been overtaken by the temptation of the flesh. I have redeemed my own sinnin’ ways, havin’ fallen into weakness too. Separated from The Word, we soaked on sin of The Devil’s makin’, we ourselves makin’, brewin’ an’ sellin’ ways to sully and turn men’s minds from the Holy Way. And the benefactor before you of receivin’ the Way of The Word that he will bring to the rest of this oh so lost world, seeks your assistance. I request your assistance—to fulfill my mission. What’s his name?”
“I don’t know . . . I don’t know. Please . . .”
“You stand in the way of The Lord.”
“Please . . .”
“In the way of The Lord’s Promise.”
“I don’t know.”
“But he’s got gold?” Josiah said.
T did not answer.
“Does he!” Joseph Henry kicked him.
“Yes . . . I think so . . .”
“His name, and you go,” the Reverend Macon said.
T’s head shook bitterly.
“What’s he look like?” Macon said, and before T could respond, he added, “If you say you don’t know, I’m gonna feed your right hand to that gator who we’ve oppressed indecently long enough.”
“I don’t know,” he had to answer, for several reasons. He could not be sure his friend looked as he did the last time he saw him. His yulenness would not allow him to surely put Nathan—or any yulen or human in peril—and because he did not know Nathan’s new last name, Nathan having surely changed it since he knew him in New York as Owen Odem.
“Take his hand.”
The boys pushed for the honor, all three taking and pulling T’s arm and drawing it to the gator’s nose.
“You remember his surname now?” Macon asked.
T’s hanging head shook.
“Go-head,” Mason motioned, and laughing, his boys pushed T’s arm to the gator’s open mouth, and just as the jaws snapped, pulled the arm back laughing.
“You remember now?” Joseph laughed. “Do it again, Joseph Henry,” Joseph giggled, and they again pulled their victim’s hand into the gator’s glistening pink cavity, and again fast withdrew it as the trap shut, laughing all the while. “’Again,” Joseph laughed. “Again!” he said, his free hand slapping his side while sounds of crocking frogs sent jumping into the surrounding water and egrets skimming off across the bayous doused the heavy air. “Do it more!”
“That’s enough,” Macon’s sullen face said.
“Aaahh, Pa . . .”
“Let ‘em sleep on it.”
Reverend Early rose and looked at the pointy roof of his church formed to look like a New England ministry. “Look at the crucifix above my church, mister,” he said to T.
Joseph Henry forced T’s chin to face two planks nailed in a cross at the structure’s apex, barely visible in the dark. “When its mornin’ shadow is throwed down this path of inequity that you created by your refusal to minister to my urgency, we will be out to meet its shadow upon you. And at that time you will receive a last chance to save your mortal coil, or march to Calvary you will.”
“March to Calvary,” Joseph Henry said.
“March to Calvary, Pa,” Joseph said.
“March to Calvary,” Josiah said, his father tugging on his dirty tee shirt by its collar.
“March to Calvary,” Joseph grinned.
“March to Calvary!” they cried, their father’s tattered tee, ripping from the collar he pulled, his face aimed at the church cross.
“Marchin’ to Calvary!” they called to the Deacon. “Marchin’ to Calvary!” their voices rose. “Marchin’ to Calvary Cross!” they sang, their father pulling his tattered covering, ripping it to his waist, revealing the Mount of Calvary tattooed on his graying chest, three crosses grouped, a crucified man nailed to one.
V
A smiling young woman walked sprightly across a sun washed showroom. Myriad buffed, expensive automobiles, Bentleys, Maybachs and others, luxuriated around her. She headed toward Nathan’s friends standing or seated near the showroom’s front expanse of three story high angled glass. Gus, catching her pleasing figure, smiled to her.
“Hi, Gus,” she said, returning his smile and stopping between him and Russell who sat on a leather couch facing out front.
“Hello, my dear girl, Gus said.”
“Gus,” Russell said advisedly.
“There are many pretty things in here my dear, but none to match your—”
“Paint job?” Sammy said, not looking up from a magazine he read.
Gus chuckled, and the young woman smiled.
“Not with anyone at the dealership, Gus,” Russell reminded him.
“Ohhh . . . ,” Gus frowned.
“Oh it’s alright, Russell,” she said.
“Not according to Nathan.”
“Sorry Gus,” her shoulders squeezed.
“My loss,” he said, his eyes long-trained to identify and develop relationships that he might summon at a moment of urgency to fulfill his life’s fundamental necessity.
“Russell,” she said, reaching a printout to him. “You’re leaving with Nathan. Will you tell him it’s confirmed Prince Ogden’s check for the Bugatti bounced.”
“It’s the same all over,” Sammy said, referring to an article in the magazine he read. “In Belgium, three hedge fund presidents built palaces with money stolen from their investors. Men simply can’t be trusted.”
“Well, not all men,” the woman said.
“Of course not,” Gus said, taking her hand to kiss. “You can certainly trust me.”
“Gus . . . ,” Russell said, handing the secretary back the sheet. “Okay thanks, Charisse. I’ll tell him.”
“Nathan won’t be long,” the woman said. “He wanted a new car for your trip, and they’re finishing up getting it ready. Bye everybody. Have a nice trip,” she said, and left.
“Hell of situation,” Sammy said. “Placing ourselves and everything we have at the mercy of one of them.”
“You can pull out up until we leave today Nathan said.”
“Oh no, wouldn’t think of it. I signed a solemn oath, in blood, remember?” Sammy held up his bandaged hand.
“You still wearing that?” Shawn smiled.
“Infectious bacteria. Every hear of it?” Sammy said to him. “I’m just saying it’s a fine kettle of fish we’ve put ourselves in when we trust everything to one of them.”
“It’s the risk we took,” Gus said.
“And that you swore to,” Russell added.
“And that I threw into with everything I have in the world. I know, I know. You don’t need to remind me, Russell.”
Gus well understood his companion’s reservations. In the week since their sworn allegiance, exciting and powerful as it was, and each having contributed all their available treasure to pursue The Book of Yulen, it was normal to get cold feet. The thought of trusting a man with everything they had, a man they’d never met nor knew where he was, weighed on him too. Russell and Shawn, loyal as they’d become to Nathan, were totally convinced and devoted to the task. Sammy, for whatever his reason, had agreed to come, but he faltered. His own mind had resisted, yet old longings and the flush of fervor that Nathan aroused in him, and he thought long dead, erased his resistance, and he signed on with hope his only assurance.
The owner of The Book of Yulen demanded thirty-five million dollars for it, paid in advance. Yulen always managed financially to make their way in whatever society they landed. By luck, skunk, enterprise, or simple hard work, they amassed money. Russell and Sammy engaged in selling over the phone ten hours daily, and by virtue of their yulen gift for telephony persuasion, racked sales commissions. And like the economical animals they all were, they squirreled most of it away.
; Russell had two million and contributed every cent. Shawn was able on such short notice to provide a million. Sammy, who just a month earlier fled Florida with only the shirt on his back, gave the million-five in emergency bullion he kept in a Swiss vault. Nathan brought up the rear with fifteen million, everything he had that wasn’t nailed down against his dealership’s payables. Himself? He allowed he might have been crazy. It certainly seemed crazy that he went in after putting up such resistance. It surprised even Nathan, who looked defeated when the count came in so distant from what the book’s owner demanded.
However, Nathan did not know the depth of his desire for The Book. It had been he, after all, who had originally sought it. When his turn came to announce his contribution to the bounty, it wasn’t necessary for Sammy to advise him to, “be big about it, we all know you’re loaded, so don’t remain the epicurean toff.” “Yeah Gus,” Russell had added. “The time to be a land-strolling squire, you gotta put that aside now.” Nathan, who had roused them, inflamed them to risk all, had said nothing, but looked at him restlessly as if to say the peaceful time is over, a new time, the time to take arms has arrived.
Oh, if Nathan only knew how he’d been in the spring of his yulenhood, rash and wild, and ready to consume the world. He’d mostly forgotten his feeling of daring as he had dared in his youth. He’d been a baron and protected his barony, but when vile men, consumptive and filled with covetousness and greed, came and simply took what belonged to him; because he was yulen, he could mount no defense. He could only walk away.
It was the way of all yulen. They could not fight or do harm, and with years, they grew even more careful. They lived and lived but only to live on, survive. They could not do battle or defend. They could not challenge. They accepted their nature, and they did not protest. At peace they lived with the world as it was and as they were. Their need was only one, and they structured their daily lives and surroundings to fulfill that supreme demand for survival. It was the dictate of the nature that created them and all things of Earth. Survive, She said, and survive and safety was what he heard when Nathan said, defense.
When his turn to announce came, he said, “I’ll make up the difference, twenty million.” And once their shock receded, and their euphoria turned to fear, Nathan embraced him, and he again advised that the challenge would be great. The money, theirs and his, all they had honestly worked and carefully saved, was only the price of admission to the trial for The Book. He once had set out for The Book of Yulen, failed, lost all his wealth, and nearly lost his life.
Yulen: Return of the Beast – Mystery Suspense Thriller (Yulen - Book 2) Page 5