“Jeff is the one who did that.” He points to the burned out building. “Heather told me he’s been getting supplies from them for months now. She saw him go in just before they closed for the night, Friday. She said she saw clearly, that he was one of the ones running from the burning building later that night.”
“How does she know it was him?” John quietly demands.
“Jeff did some things to her that ought never be done to a woman, even a lady of the night. Trust me. She would be able to recognize him a mile away.”
John mounts his horse with a grunt of acceptance. He’s sure he doesn’t want to know any more than he already does. “So, why didn’t she tell Jack?”
“She doesn’t want Jack going after him. She’s afraid Jack wouldn’t come back. He’s the only one that’s still here to look after his girls, after all.”
John nods. “Jeff isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but neither is Jack. I’ll get word to Lyttle and we’ll make sure there’s law here as quickly as possible.”
David helps Rebekah in the saddle, mounts his own horse and says, “Now that Richard isn’t in town, the job of Marshal should get a whole lot easier.”
Chapter 66
Over the last two weeks, John has been in contact with Lyttle about getting a town marshal in White, numerous times. It was finally decided on appointing Jason Dawkins, the trooper that was shot by Sgt. Maj. Wilkinson.
This previous Friday, John took the votes of much of the town of Denver to Norman. The civilian territorial government is now in place, effectively pulling the teeth of the Army’s play for power.
John cast his vote, voting Woody Lyttle in as Sheriff of the county. No one specifically has figured out what to name the county, but they all agree there should be a county and that it needs to have established law enforcement.
Now that the territorial legislature is in place, the Marshals office has jurisdiction over all of the territory. John plans to get in touch with Joey at his next trip in Norman and ask her about trying to find someone to bring Richard, Jeff and any number of outlaws that have been getting away with literally murder, to justice.
Earlier today, a post rider came through, with the election results. John spent most of the afternoon in celebration of having Woody Lyttle as his official boss, in the North Star. Having reached quite the convivial feeling, he heads back to the Marshal’s Office, to try and relax the rest of the day away.
As he enters the Marshal’s Office, John sees Red-Feather sitting at the desk, whittling away at a piece of wood with his knife.
“Whatcha makin’?” he asks the Apache curiously.
Red-Feather looks up as he lifts the wood up to blow some of the chips off, then brings the flute to his lips and expertly blows a haunting melody.
John listens for a moment to the tune. It tugs at his memory like the whisper of a dream half-forgotten in the mists of time. With a jolt, John remembers hearing the tune the first time.
IT IS THE TEN YEAR anniversary of the ambush that killed Josh. Red-Feather’s children are sitting around the campfire, listening to him tell a story in Apache.
John never thought his friend had enough time to learn that much Apache, but sees now he was wrong.
At the end of the story, the children look to John questioningly. He looks at Red-Feather with a question of his own.
Red-Feather nods and says, “Have been telling them of your brother, Josh. Tell them the memories you want.”
John gives a stunned look to his long-time friend. “Why?”
“Ten years, he’s gone. This makes sure we never forget.” He picks up a small wooden flute and plays the haunting melody.
John doesn’t know how long he sits there telling the children the story of his brother. Recalling the memories, telling the stories is, liberating. The whole process lifts the weight of grief John has been carrying around all this time. When he completes his remembrance, John feels like he is waking from a long nap.
John snaps back from his memory, with tears streaming down his face. He looks at Red-Feather, who, while continuing to play the melody, is now looking at John.
John asks, “Why? Why do you play this song now?”
Red-Feather stops playing and points to the calendar.
John looks at it. November Fifth 1889. November Fifth . . . November Fifth . . . What is . . . OH. “How . . . how did you know? I never told you the date.”
Red-Feather looks at his oldest friend, sympathy clearly written on his face. Simply, he says, “Josh.”
Twenty-nine years ago today, he was going back towards the orphanage with a brace of rabbits and Josh was carrying a line of the fish. The feelings from twenty nine years past come crashing back in on him. His hands start shaking, knees turn to water. He stumbles over to a chair and falls heavily into it.
John puts his face in his hands. He can’t control the tears. All those kids he called brother and sister, gone all this time. He looks up and sees numerous fiddle-back spiders coming from the corner of the wall. He screams out, “No! Not again!” Then covers his face.
He’s been seeing the one spider, everyday. The one that just watches him. He’s used to it. Almost comfortable with seeing the one. All these other though, he just can’t handle it anymore.
He can’t control the trembling. Somewhere in the periphery, he hears David say, “John! John? Try and drink this!”
He tries to grab for the cup, but his violently shaking hands are pushed away and the cup is pushed to his lips. Involuntarily, he swallows the horrible-tasting concoction that is burning the inside of his mouth.
His muscles unclench of their own accord. The world starts to darken. The last thing he hears is David saying to someone, “Let’s get him to the cot.”
JOHN IS SIXTEEN AGAIN. Then again, he’s forty six, too. The world is made of shifting darkness. He smells the burning orphanage, the charred flesh of the sisters and the orphans. He smells the rotting flesh of the soldiers, killed that day at the monastery of Crecilla. He sees in the darkness what appears to be people rising out from under his line of sight. John screams unintelligibly in the impenetrable blackness.
He hears his name whispered around him hundreds of times. He still can’t see anything, but he turns around, looking for the mouth whispering his name nonetheless.
All of a sudden, he can see the shadows gathering around him. He screams, “Who are you?”
A sibilant whisper of “you” crawls up his neck.
More join the first, almost chanting, “You. You are ours now. We own you.”
He screams in desperation, he knows he’s in a dream. He keeps trying to wake up, but can’t. He pinches himself, hits himself. Nothing works. He’s getting more frantic as the shadows gather closer and closer to him.
The whispers, now coming from all around him, continue. “John. We want you. We want your soul. Come to us. Give us what is our due. You are ours now. You cannot escape.”
John begins scratching at his arms hard enough to make them start bleeding. He continues causing himself pain, trying to wake up from this hellish nightmare. He can’t.
The shadow figures are now close enough to him, they start lapping up the blood from his wounds. After a few seconds, the lapping turns into biting and suckling the wounds. Each of the bites sends an acidic agony through each nerve of his body. He collapses from the pain, but still the shadow people continue biting and suckling the blood from his body.
His voice cracks and begins going out as he continues screaming in desperation and pain.
The shadow figures start taking on familiar faces. This one, Liz. That one, Josh; another, Leslie Buchannan. The one that looks like Josh shoves its hand and entire forearm into his mouth, keeping him from being able to scream any more. His voice no longer drowning out the sounds the figures are making, he can hear several still whispering his name. He can hear the moans and groans of pleasure as the creatures feast upon his body.
His vision begins to darken around the edges. John
can no longer even move, or breathe. The only part of his body he can move are his eyes, and other than the massed shadow creatures around him and the darkness that is the world, he can’t see anything. All John is aware of now, is the agony each of his bites causes and the hammering of his heart.
He hears a voice call out his name. It sounds faint, as if from farther away than any might possibly imagine. He hears more words, unintelligible at first. The voice continues to get louder and louder. Finally, as if the voice is right next to his ear, John hears, “Heavenly Father, I pray that You lay Your hand of healing on this man.”
The shadows stop their biting and suckling.
“Let him feel Your hand protecting him.”
Several of them seem to look up and hiss in agitation.
“Let him feel the peace You have so graciously given me.”
The rest look at each other in confusion.
“Thank You for giving me the opportunity to show Your love to those I can.”
John feels a presence approach.
“Thank You for all You have done. These things in Your Son’s name I pray. Amen.”
With an unearthly howl, all the shadow creatures release John and escape from the approaching figure.
John realizes he is still laying down. He tries to stand, only to be able to just turn his head at whomever it is that is approaching.
As he looks up, he sees Josh approaching. But this isn’t the Josh of the shadow figures, but Josh as he last saw his brother, healthy, hale, full of life. The young man stops right next to John’s supine body and reaches out a hand to help John to his feet.
“You know, you are a hard man to help.” Josh’s voice is familiar, but not as John remembers it. It seems kinder, deeper, yet stronger. “I’ve been knocking, asking you to let Me in.” He shakes his head. “You need to wake up. My servant is here with you. Those creatures will not come back any time soon, but you still need to wake up. Now. ”
Chapter 67
John wakes with a gasp. He doesn’t know where he is. He looks around wildly. The world seems surreal. Colors are more vivid, more vibrant.
He looks at the chair by his cot and sees an older Indian-looking man. The man shifts a bit and John sees the U.S. Marshal’s badge pinned to the man’s chest. The look the man gives John is filled with concern.
John tries to sit up, but the man places his hand on John’s shoulder, keeping him down on the cot.
“Don’t. Not yet. Give it a minute or two.” The man sits back in the chair. “Sounds like you had a rough night. Also looks like I got here just in time.”
John looks at the man and croaks out, “Water.”
The Marshal turns and grabs a cup of water that was sitting beside him. He helps John sit up and take a sip of the soothing liquid. “Not too fast. That’s right, drink it slowly.”
After several moments of sipping the water, John is finally able to ask, “Who are you?”
“Marshal Alex Brouwer. Most call me Cherokee, though.”
“What . . . what are you doing here?”
“I heard you makin’ a ruckus. I came in to give a helping hand if you were being attacked. Saw you were having a nightmare, and I decided to pray over ya to see if that helped.”
“I couldn’t wake up from it. Your praying helped. Why are you in Denver?” He swings his feet off the cot and looks at the older man.
“You the town marshal? Or are you his deputy?”
“I’m town marshal, why?”
“Well, then, John. I came to talk to you about something, but it looks like we need to talk about this first.” He shakes his head. “He truly DOES work in mysterious ways.” His grin is wide as he marvels at the turn of events.
“How do you know my name?”
“I was sent here to talk to you about something. Before we get to that though, do you have nightmares like that often?”
John feels nauseous as head is spins wildly now. He desperately wishes for the world to stop whirling, and let him off at the next stop. He feels unsteady enough, he’s about to fall over. He drops the empty cup and grabs the edge of the cot. His voice showing his confusion, he asks the Indian, “What?”
“This nightmare you just had. Had many like them?”
“Like this? Uh, no. I have been having nightly nightmares, though. For months.”
“Okay. In this one, can you tell me what it is about?”
In a shuddering voice, John describes most of the details of the dream. Cherokee listens on, his face growing more compassionate as he hears the horrors. Finally, after about twenty minutes, John finishes recalling the details by describing Josh’s visit after Cherokee’s prayer.
The older Indian man smiles wide and looks away. He mutters to himself, “I’m glad He came. Not that I am very surprised, but I’m glad He came nonetheless.” His smile gets even broader. “Well, we do have quite a lot to talk about, after all. You said you have been having nightmares for months. I think I can explain it all, but I need to know all of it. Would you tell me as much about your nightmares as you can remember?”
Still feeling as if the world is spinning under him, John is unsure how to tell the older man about what has been going on. He thinks back to when the nightmares started. It had to be with the night after the landrun. He sighs. In truth, he doesn’t know how to begin. He feels like he can trust the man, but John is unsure as to why. He looks around and sees the fiddle-back spider again. As always, it is on the wall, just staring at them with its impassive eyes.
This is the first time it has been visible while anyone else is in the room. John’s eyes move from the spider to Cherokee. He points to it and says, “I guess it all began with that.”
Apparently, hearing John mention it, the spider scurries off into the wall again.
Cherokee turns quickly, looking where John was pointing. Rather than mentioning it to John, he just nods and turns to look back at him and says, “Okay, that’s a good place to start then.”
John is relieved to finally be able to fully tell someone about his dreams. He starts out telling the Indian about his dreams, recalling the past, how he grew up. Then, he recalls seeing the spider after each of the dreams and how it was always only looking, watching, observing.
John is speaking for the better part of two hours, with short breaks while he gets a drink, when his throat is dry. Finally, at the end, John sits there, just staring into his, once again, empty cup.
Cherokee, once more shifting his position to become more comfortable, clears his throat meaningfully. “Well, I can understand questioning your sanity. You probably don’t want to hear this, but I have to say it anyway.”
John looks sharply at the man, unsure how to interpret what the man is trying to say. He continues to stare for a moment, then asks, “Hear what?”
“The people who keep asking you why, are their voices similar to how you remember them? Or did it sound like they were coming from the same person?”
John thinks back. “Similar, but not same, why?”
“I think all those people are the Lord trying to get your attention. He keeps knocking at the door of your heart, waiting for you to answer.”
“You mean God? I don’t believe in God.”
“I mean specifically, Jesus. It doesn’t matter if you believe in Him or not. He believes in you. Even though I don’t know his plans, I expect He has plans for you in the future.” He drapes an arm over the back of the chair. “Plans, I expect you never even dreamed of.”
John’s head is swimming again. He can’t breathe. It fits, but there is no reason for him to have this much attention paid to him. He’s not worthy of it at all. He still doesn’t believe in the fairy-tale, but there’s the chance it could be the truth. He shakes his head. “What about my last nightmare?”
“The nightmare itself, I believe, was an attack. The part afterword, I believe, was Jesus talking directly to you, like He has been this entire time.”
“How do you know so much about this? I bet you’re
some kind of former preacher turned lawman, huh?” John feels the nausea come back as he shakes his head in disbelief.
Cherokee smiles wide. “Nope. I used to ride with a gang. I was plagued by nightmares like you are, for the longest time. It was only after I started praying and accepted Jesus’ gift of forgiveness that I started getting any relief from them at all. Even then, I still had to deal with the consequences of my bad choices.”
Cherokee Brouwer. John sits there, stunned. This is the man he was sent out to hunt several times within the last twenty years. Brouwer. Where has he recently heard that name?
Brouwer. In his mind, he sees Joey’s mass of hair falling down in front of her. My name’s Josephine Brouwer. He groans. THIS is her father? No wonder she’s so familiar with a gun. John looks at Cherokee, studying the man for a moment. They look nothing alike whatsoever. He wonders why the correlation.
He looks back at his hands. So much to do. So much these hands have done. John’s heard the Voice. He knows it’s not the same voice as those people had. No. He knows it’s someone trying to talk to him through his dreams. What does it matter WHO it is? If doing this helps him get whoever it is off his back, what harm can come from it?
John looks at Cherokee a moment and finally says, “Okay. What do I have to do to be free of the dreams?”
“Talk to Him. Prayer is just giving yourself over to His will. It’s a conversation, an invitation to be in a relationship. Tell Him what’s on your heart and ask Him to forgive you your mistakes. You might find it easier to close your eyes and kneel. Might help shut out all outside influence. But, you have to MEAN it. If you do that, then the rest will come in time. He’s patient like that.”
John sighs. I give up. What’s the worst that can happen? I find out I’ve been wrong for years? He closes his eyes. Since his head is still spinning, as a natural reaction, he bows his head. I don’t know what all I need to be sorry for, but I’m sorry, nonetheless. He can feel his fear starting to slip away. It’s just him and Cherokee here. If he looks stupid to the old Indian, well, that’s just fine. He’s doing what he was told to do anyway.
The Marshal of Denver Page 38