by S. F. Wood
“We should wait inside,” said the Preacher. “Maybe there is some of that coffee still on the go. I regret not having had some when we pulled in earlier.”
“If you’re lucky there won’t be any left.”
The station master was coming on over.
“Tell me sir,” called out Jackson, “Are there any more trains today?”
“You’re in luck young man. One due in a couple of hours.”
“Fortune smiles on us, Mr. Beauregard.”
“Should get you to Ellsworth in no time.” He spat on the ground.
“Ellsworth? We don’t want to go to Ellsworth,” said Jackson. “We’ve just gotten off the train that came from there. We want to go to Hays.”
“Then why didn’t you darn well stay on it!” said the man, walking away.
Inside the hut the two discovered that a freight train for Hays was due through sometime later, and it would stop to take on water. Until then, they were free to sit and wait.
They decided to do their waiting outside. Jackson took the opportunity to fill his canteen from a nearby pump. He proffered it to the Preacher who drank and returned it saying, “So tell me, Mr. Beauregard, as we appear to have plenty time on our hands, I feel like asking you a question that some would consider impertinent.”
They walked towards a box elder. The tree was as suitable a place as any to sit out their long wait. “Feel free. As you say, we don’t have much else to do.”
They settled either side of the tree. The Preacher went right to the heart of it. “Am I right, Mr. Beauregard, in assuming you are what some fashionable commentators call, an atheist?”
The ground was hard, but the tree afforded them comfortable support. The weather was bearable - just. There was an occasional breeze. “You could say that.”
“Do you say that?”
“Maybe.”
“What makes a person become an atheist, Mr. Beauregard? I struggle to comprehend.”
“Thinking. Maybe that’s all it is, just thinking. Belief can be collective; thinking is something you have to do on your own. No one else can do it for you. Shouldn’t. Thinking raises questions, and sometimes questions are more important than answers. By that I mean, if you don’t ask the right question, you cannot get the right answer. But questions are seen as being dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“Yes.” Jackson took a mouthful of water while it was still cold. It gave him a moment to think. He forced the stopper hard into the neck. “People who think about what they are told, are hard to control. Better to have believers. Believers don’t question. Can’t. Because the very act of questioning undermines their own belief and therefore themselves.”
“Seems you’re not just an atheist, you are also a Radical. You see Faith as a way of... of controlling people? Do I understand you right?”
“Maybe you do. If a man thinks, then he can question. But a Believer must follow. That’s what I think anyways.”
“What do atheists believe in, Mr. Beauregard?”
“You want me to speak for other folk? People I ain’t met?”
“I can see the difficulty there. For yourself?”
“I don’t believe in anything.”
The Preacher hadn’t come across that notion before. “I struggle to comprehend. Surely you believe in something?”
The silence was as effective as any negative response.
“You believe it is going to be hot this afternoon?”
“I think it will be hot this afternoon. I know it is hot now. My experience tells me that afternoons tend to be hotter than mornings, gen’rally. What is there to believe?”
“You don’t believe the man who told us that the train will be along sometime soon?”
“I hope he is right. Else we have a long walk. And I have no reason to think he told us an untruth.” Jackson was idly scratching the hard ground with a twig, gouging out a miniature canyon. He poured some water into it to pose a challenge for a nearby ant. He watched the ant as it figured out how to cross the great divide. “My mother always told me that if I was good and believed in Jesus, then I would go to heaven. My father, though he allowed my mother her beliefs, never did share in them. Always said that a child should grow into an adult before they chose religion. Or reject it. Said it was much more important to teach a child to think, even to challenge teaching. That would go for challenging preachers, medicine men, congressmen too. That’s how he put it to me and Sam and that will be how I hold it, if and when I have me a family. Thinking is harder than believing - always has been.”
“Seems an abdication of parental responsibility to me. I hope you will allow me to say that.”
Jackson was not the sort of person not to allow. “But my father would say, has said, that indoctrinating a religious belief - or any belief, could be political - is an abuse of trust a child gives to his parents.”
“You said your brother, Sam?”
“Yes.”
“You said he was killed. Did he believe?”
“Always carried his Bible with him. He believed. I never did. Not even as a child. Now I’m alive. He is dead. And no, before you even start, do not tell me that he has gone to a better place.” Jackson lay the twig in front of the ant. It climbed aboard and Jackson lifted it over the trench. “You do not know there is a better place. Some believe there is a better place, truly, passionately believe it. But in truth, they are just hoping there is. For that is what Belief is: just another word for Hope. Whenever someone tells me they believe in something for which there ain’t no hard evidence, then it just means that they hope the thing is true. But hopes can be dashed, which is why folk call for something stronger: Belief. It’s a stronger form of Hope. People can believe long after all hope has gone.” Jackson lent forward away from the tree trunk and took off his coat before easing back. It was certainly heating up. “It is not enough for folks to tell me things. I need evidence. Facts, sir. I am a newspaper man, remember?”
“A novice newspaper man, if facts serve me correctly.”
“Be that as it may. There are no facts say, about a flood that covered the world. Just a story. A very good story, I admit. An excellent story. A marvelous story. A story well worth printing. So long as people know it’s a story.”
“Have you been to France, Mr. Beauregard?”
“France? Sadly no. But I hear it is a fine place, full of vineyards and castles. Why?”
“Then how do you know it exists? Answer me that Mr. Beauregard?” The Preacher picked up a small stone and threw it at a crow that had landed nearby. He missed. The crow skipped a few feet further away.
“I know people who have been to France. Indeed, I have met people who claim to have been born in France. And those people have proved their honesty to me in other ways. And I’ve read much about France’s history, its wine, its revolution, its language, its customs, that has been consistent throughout. In short, I have a body of evidence that stacks up.” Jackson paused, gathering his thoughts.
“Go on.”
“Well, take ghosts, ghouls and hobgoblins.”
“Mr. Beauregard? Ghosts, ghouls and hobgoblins? Surely you do not think they are real?”
“No no! That is my point!” Warming to his theme now, Jackson got to his feet and walked around to the Preacher’s side of the elder. He proffered the water bottle. The Preacher took it. While he drank, Jackson said, “Imagine if I led my life denying the existence of France? It would have made for a complicated relationship with my French teacher for one! But evidence of ghosts? Stories, legends, myths. I can lead my life quite satisfactorily not believing in ghosts.”
Jackson squatted now, the better to have eye contact with the Preacher. “I have to say, evidence of a god - yours or anyone else’s - is on a par with evidence of ghosts, holy or otherwise.”
“So you want evidence?”
“And you want for evidence. If I knew there were a god, that is, if you could prove it with evidence, then I would be a fool to gainsay i
t,” Jackson was enjoying this, “because it would be a fact!” He wasn’t so much making this up as he went along, but it was the first time he had felt confident enough to make his case without fear of ostracism. Declared atheists, if that were what he really was - for he had barely declared it to himself - often found it hard to gain employment for fear their radical views damage an employer’s reputation. But there was a freedom in the West he’d not experienced back home. And who better to argue against than a preacher?
“Meaning if I could prove to you the existence of God, that would be enough? Would you then sing His Praises?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Meaning that even if you were in possession of incontrovertible evidence, you would not proclaim His existence from the very hilltops?”
“No, I would not.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that if your god did exist, if it could be proved, beyond doubt, just what is it that makes you think I would worship him? Him? It, perhaps is a better pronoun.”
“Well why would you not? ‘The Creator Lives!’ You would be free to claim that. Pro-claim that.”
“You do not think that I could acknowledge your god’s existence, and at the same time, not like him? It? Religious people seem to have an ambiguous relationship with their deities.”
“Ambiguous?”
“Yes. Love their god and fear it at the same time.”
“Yes. Like a child loves his father, yet fears his wrath if he misbehaves. That is the key to the relationship between Man and his Maker: Love and observance of His Word. Just like a woman must love and obey her husband.” The Preacher gave back the water bottle. “And God loves Man and a man loves a child. He is not called the Father for nothing.”
“A strange father it is that kills his children. For that is what this god of yours did to the firstborn in Egypt. Killed each and every one of them, or so the story goes. As clear a case of mass murder as you will ever read in the most lurid of newspapers in New York. And flooding the Earth? Drowning every person in the world bar one family? Why anyone would want to kowtow to such a being is frankly beyond me. Could be seen as being the personification of evil.”
Jackson could see the Preacher took exception to that, so he stood, thinking maybe it was time to change the subject. “I am getting sore hungry. Doubt if we can get a meal here.”
“Best not to think on it. Occupy your mind with other thoughts. Better thoughts than those you are currently having.”
But Jackson couldn’t resist. “Such as what had Abraham done to incur his god’s anger?”
“Abraham? What makes you think the Lord was angry with Abraham?” The Preacher too, got to his feet. He looked straight at Jackson. “Maybe I’m more angry with you, than the Lord was with Abraham. He was the man Jehovah chose to be the begetter of nations!”
“Well I am angry with Abraham! If his existence is to be believed, then I think that that man is one of the most cowardly, despicable creatures...”
“Enough” The Preacher grabbed Jackson by his lapels and spun him around, forcing him back against the tree. “You say you know your Bible. Well know this!” The Preacher pushed his face right up to the startled face of Jackson, “The Lord said to Abraham, ‘I will bless them that bless thee, and CURSE him that curseth thee!’”
“What’s going on here?” demanded the station master, pushing himself between Jackson and the Preacher, forcing them apart. “The Sun got to ye? Shoulda stayed on the verandah!”
The Preacher walked a few steps clear, turned and looked at Jackson. “I apologize. That was uncalled for.”
Jackson took a few moments to regain his breath. He straightened his collar. “I thought Christians were meant to turn the other cheek. I shall have to take my chance on both the Lord’s curses and your anger.” He straightened his jacket. “Though I didn’t intend to offend. And if I accept, for argument’s sake, this Abraham was a real person, then the Lord - your Good Lord no less - did tell him to murder his own son.”
“Sacrifice, Mr. Beauregard,” said the Preacher. His voice was still shaking. “And it was a test. God had already told Abraham that ‘In Isaac shall thy seed be called’. So clearly the Lord would not allow Isaac to die. Abraham had to trust the Lord in that and he did. Abraham passed the test! Unlike, I am ashamed to say, me just now.”
“I don’t pretend to know what you folks are fighting about,” said the railroad man. “But you should know I came to tell you that there’s smoke on the horizon. That means the train to Hays is early.”
And so it was. When it stopped Jackson and the Preacher saw that around a dozen other folk were already aboard, having hitched a ride, paying 10 cents apiece to travel in an empty box car. The Preacher and Jackson courteously acknowledged their traveling companions, and settled themselves in a corner of the car. It was only a brief stop, just enough time to get on board and for the locomotive to take on water. “Not as comfortable as the passenger train, Mr. Beauregard.”
“But more comfortable than the tree back there.” After that they travelled in silence, tempers cooling as the afternoon heat subsided.
Sometime later the locomotive came to a noisy halt at Hays, belching steam and smoke over the station. The whistle spooked a couple of horses attached to a wagon, waiting to pick up some supplies. A young couple were trying to manhandle too many cases into the waiting room. The next passenger train would be a good while yet.
“No sign of Pickens.”
“Let us not worry about Pickens, Mr. Beauregard. But neither should you make too great a show of being here. If he is in Hays, you will know soon enough and then we’ll have to deal with him.” Jackson was pleased to hear the Preacher use the plural pronoun. The Preacher then said, “But I reckon we’ve seen the last of Pickens. And he won’t know where to look once you leave Hays.”
“He won’t?”
“So where will you be headed after you’ve had your interview with Hickok? Assuming he even grants you one?”
“Can’t say I rightly know the answer to that one. Might be up to my editor once I have mailed the story through. So, no, I don’t know.”
“Well then, if even you don’t know, then I sure don’t think Mr. Pickens does, do you?”
Jackson couldn’t argue with the logic.
The station was noisy, what with the sound of escaping steam amidst a fanfare of bells, whistles and screeching metal, accompanied by billows of black smoke. “I need some food,” said the Preacher.
“A steak would take priority over Hickok right now, that I admit.”
The Preacher was standing beside his Jenny Lind. He signaled to a boy, a young Black wearing a battered straw hat, hanging around the ticket office, guarding his homemade baggage trolley. The Preacher proffered a five-cent coin and told the boy, maybe no more than ten years of age, barefoot and dressed in dungarees and precious else, to lead the way to a hotel. This he did, pushing both the Preacher’s and Jackson’s luggage on his trolley.
As they walked down Main Street, they passed a large cattle pen. And then a meat store. And another. “Cattle. Is that all there is in Kansas? I think I’ve had my fill of Kansas cow towns.”
“There are also forts, Mr. Beauregard, soldiers. There’s an army fort here in Hays as there was back in Ellsworth. The further west you go, the more forts are needed due to the Indian. Though now it’s mainly the troopers’ wages the town needs from their fort.”
Jackson looked around him as they continued their march down the main street. The boy seemed to know where to take them. And would no doubt be rewarded by the hotel for his work. “Well what Hays needs most are hotels.” A rare complaint from Jackson. “We’ve passed a few already. I guess the boy must know they’re full without looking inside.”
“What towns really need now is the railroad. Towns that are not connected by the railroad are not going be towns for long. After all, the good town of Rome was just a mile or so west of here, on the other side of the Big Creek. But Hays got the rail
road and Rome got the cholera. And that was that.”
“So Rome was not the eternal city?”
“Very droll, Mr. Beauregard,” said the Preacher. “I do think that if your career as a newspaper correspondent fails, one as a writer of the comic monologue beckons.”
“Right now it is a hotel that beckons,” said Jackson, looking ahead at his case being carried through a doorway, “I think the boy has finally found us lodgings.”
The Preacher and Jackson rewarded the boy and left their belongings in their room at the Gibbs’ House. Then they made their way to an eating house in Main Street. It was a short walk across the way from their lodgings and as they crossed the dusty street, avoiding the horse shit and kicking out at a troublesome hound that was following them, the Preacher pointed out the Marshal’s Office, further down the street.
“Guess I’ll head there as soon as we’ve had some coffee and a bite to eat,” said Jackson. “If that freight train hadn’t been early, I would have taken to eating sagebrush by now.”
The smell of fried onions greeted them as they walked into the meal house and immediately put them both in a better mood. With a nod to the owner, chef and head waiter - all bundled together into the body of a short, fat and rather jolly middle-aged veteran of any number of wagon trains - the two men took themselves seats at the trestle table. Jackson removed his hat. The Preacher’s remained firmly on his head.
The Preacher placed his order - a sandwich that was pure beef steak, along with fried onions and three fried eggs. Jackson followed suit and they filled their mugs from the coffee pot that the host had placed in front of them as soon as they’d sat down. The timber building had whitewashed walls inside and out. Being a hot day, the windows were open and the place was bright, relatively clean, and the cooking smelled good. The Preacher looked around and noted that the place probably could hold thirty people at a squeeze, but right then there were only maybe half a dozen cowboys partaking of their vittles.
“You ain’t always been a preacher, have you?”