by Jaspre Bark
"Cut you down?" Ahiga said with a derisive laugh. "Cut you down? What sort of idiot would I be if I cut you down just when I'm about to win?"
"It would be the honourable thing to do."
"Let me tell you something about honour. The Navajo also tell the story of the hare and the snake. Only we have a different ending. The hare is not called before the Great Spirit. His soul is eaten by demons because his actions were neither brave nor wise. He died of stupidity and his offspring have no souls because of it. That is why my people hunt and eat the hare. It is a gift from the Great Spirit. It has no bravery and no soul, therefore killing it is not a sin. And leaving you to hang there is no dishonour."
Ahiga fired the last arrow out of the copse and back on to the plain where they had begun the challenge. Then he flung down the bow and raced after it.
Ahiga was standing with the inner council around the fourth arrow when Cheveyo limped out of the wood and across the plain. He had twisted his ankle when he had eventually freed himself from the noose.
"Join us Cheveyo," said Hiamovi with a conciliatory smile. "In welcoming the newest member of our council."
"I will not," said Cheveyo, desperate to save the UTN from the duplicitous Navajo. "His victory is dishonourable."
"Dishonourable?" said Hiamovi turning to Ahiga. "Is this so?"
Ahiga looked to Cheveyo. "In what way is my victory dishonourable?"
"You know."
"Did I break any rules?"
Cheveyo shook his head. "No but…"
"Then how have I won dishonourably?"
"Through your underhand tactics and your disgraceful conduct, you…"
"Enough," said Hiamovi. "It pains me to say it Cheveyo, but the dishonour seems to be yours. You lost the challenge on fair terms and yet you refuse to gracefully accept the outcome. I am disappointed in you."
"Old friend," said Cheveyo with a hint of pleading in his voice. "Please believe me when I say there is too much at stake to let the UTN fall into the hands of this scurrilous Navajo."
"Please Cheveyo," said the matriarch Onatah. "Accept your defeat with good grace. There is no need to fall back on old grievances between tribes."
"It's not about that," Cheveyo tried to explain.
Hiamovi raised his hand to silence him. "Your conduct is unbecoming to this council. You have forfeited your right to sit with us for four months. After that you will apologise and we will consider readmitting you."
With that the council all turned their backs on him and walked away. Cheveyo's shoulders slumped. His chin touched his chest and the fight drained out of him. Like rain water from a leaky barrel it seemed to run out of him into the dry plain at his feet.
A cold fear filled his stomach as he thought about the coming of the Fifth Age of Man, of all it meant to humanity. A week ago it had never felt closer. Now it couldn't have been further away.
CHAPTER SIX
Colt sat in the boxing ring of the Daniel Ritchie Centre for Sport and Wellness. Once the jewel in the crown of the Denver University campus, and now another part of the head quarters of the resurgent Neo-Clergy.
Colt had moved the Colorado branch of the Clergy into the university soon after the Apostolic Church of the Rediscovered Dawn first rose to power. The arboretum surrounding the campus and its location, seven miles south of downtown made it eminently defendable. The halls of residence made a great barracks and there was plenty of space to administrate a state wide organisation. This was one of the reasons why Colt's branch of the Neo-Clergy had maintained control of Colorado.
Colt didn't spend much time around the boxing ring. His men held regular bouts. It helped them blow off steam. Betting on the matches was a sin however and strictly forbidden. He had chosen it today as the site of an important meeting.
He was alone when Simon Peter walked in and announced that the Prophet had arrived. Colt told him to show the man in. He entered flanked by two of Colt's best men. "Mr Kinnison," said Colt, with a genial smile. "Or should I call you Prophet?"
"You can call me Robert if you like, Mr Colt."
"That's Samuel to you, seeing as we're on first name terms now. Come on in."
The Prophet climbed into the ring. "You didn't bring me all this way to spar did you Samuel?"
"No," said Colt, with a smile. "Though I understand you used to box a little yourself when you were at college. Amateur State champion for a while weren't you, bantam weight division?"
"You've been doing your homework I see. And how about you Samuel, did you ever don the gloves?"
"I was a welterweight, back in reform school. Southpaw as it happens."
"Lost my only fight to a southpaw. Couldn't box clever enough to get around his left hook. Legs just went from under me and I hung up my gloves soon after."
"The Lord had something else in mind for you."
"That He did," said the Prophet. "That He did."
Robert Kinnison smiled a broad smile. He had charm and charisma aplenty, but he carried himself with enough gentle humility that it wasn't overpowering. It was hard not to like or trust him straight off. Colt guessed he was around five-nine in height, in good shape too, with a lean muscular figure that looked like he was in his late twenties and not his late forties. An African American whose grey beard and salt and pepper hair, made him look like a backwoodsman. His weather beaten skin and the calluses on his hands added to this impression.
Kinnison was right about Colt doing his homework too. Colt had done extensive research on the Prophet. His network of informants had been digging up everything they could.
Before The Cull Kinnison had been a ranger at Yellowstone National Park, one of the few African Americans to ever hold the job. He was also a conservationist who taught workshops in back-to-basics wilderness survival and ran a programme to get kids from inner city ghettos out into the forests to explore nature. It was on one such outing that he was caught in a landslide and fell into a coma, a matter of weeks before the Cull tore through the country.
According to rumours, while in the coma his soul left his body and was called before the Almighty. Upon meeting his creator, Kinnison was charged with bringing all of God's children back into the fold.
Kinnison woke three months later in a hospital in Buffalo, Wyoming. It was full of rotting corpses. He left the hospital and began to round up the survivors, preaching of the visions the Lord had sent him. He gathered together a band of followers and led them out of the city and on a long trek to his beloved Yellowstone, stopping along the way at places like Worland, Powell and Cody to pick up more followers.
Together with his people he formed a commune in the heart of Yellowstone. With his specialist knowledge of survival he was able to keep them alive through the hard winter and, with the visions he had received from the Lord, he was able to sustain their souls. Word spread of his commune and their numbers slowly grew. Kinnison came to be known as 'The Prophet.'
When the Neo-Clergy fell, Wyoming cried out for the word of the Lord, and the Prophet stepped in to fill that need. He travelled to the towns and communities of the survivors, and preached of the prophecies. His followers handed out fresh meat, herbal remedies and animal pelts to those who came to listen. The Prophet's grass-roots following became so large and he became so loved that gangs like the Good Shepherds couldn't suppress or profit from him. The people of Wyoming protected him from the gangs, no matter how great the cost to their own lives. This was why Colt was so anxious to meet him.
"They tell me you have the gift of prophecy Robert," Colt said. "Did you foresee this meeting?"
"Well now, it don't exactly work that way. I don't hold no truck with crystal balls or any of that gypsy nonsense. When the good Lord sees fit to contact me, He don't give me no specifics. He gives me what you might call a broader picture. But to be frank Samuel, I don't need to read no tea leaves to know what you called me here to talk about."
"Is that right? And just what might that be Robert?"
"Well. I hear tell that
you're re-building the Apostolic Church of the Rediscovered Dawn."
"You hear right."
"I also hear that you got run out of town when you went to take Wyoming back into the fold. Now the Good Shepherds have formed an alliance with the Crazy Eights and Los Rancheros to keep their former masters out of the State."
"So they can continue their Godless rule? I would have thought as a man of God you'd want to put a stop to that."
"As a man of God I want to save as many souls as I can."
"I'm all about saving souls. I want to drag this country up out of the sewer it's fallen into. I want to put the fear of God back into the hearts of every man woman and child."
"Well now," said the Prophet. "See I've had the great privilege of actually meeting God. And I can tell you from my own personal experience that He ain't nothing to fear. Less, of course, you got sin in your heart."
"Are you insinuating something Robert?"
"There's a lot of blood on your hands Samuel. But is there Jesus in your heart?"
Colt's hands clenched into fists. If any other man had asked him that he would have knocked him to the ground and made sure he never got up again. But there was something about the Prophet's gentle, penetrating stare that seemed to look right into him, leaving him searching for his certainty all of a sudden. Searching to see if Jesus really was there in his heart.
"I don't mean no disrespect by my question Samuel. As I said before it don't take no crystal ball to guess why you've brought me out here. You want me to help you take Wyoming without taking too many lives, 'cos I've got the ear of the people."
"And will you?"
"Well that all depends on what I'd be party to. Now don't get me wrong, I've read my Bible. I know the Lord can be vengeful and, at times, calls upon his followers to exact vengeance. He brought down the walls of Jericho and drowned Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea. Those Good Shepherds and their like, well it wouldn't be the worst thing to happen to Wyoming if they were brought into line. But would the Neo-Clergy be the best people to do that?"
"I can't think of anyone better. We picked this country up off its knees when The Cull hit it. We spread the word of God to every State and beyond."
"There was a lot of fear back in those days. A lot of it was of the Neo-Clergy. You spread the word of God but did you put the love of Jesus in their hearts?"
"Well now maybe I need someone like you for that."
"How do you mean?"
"You can't stop the rebirth of the Apostolic Church of the Rediscovered Dawn Robert."
"Don't reckon I can."
"But maybe you can influence its course. Maybe you can put that love of Jesus in people's hearts. In our organisation's heart."
"I'm listening."
"You ever heard of the Tomorrow Show?"
"I've heard tell of it," said the Prophet. "I never saw one, but wasn't it the television show the Neo-Clergy used to broadcast?"
"Yes. The only television show to be broadcast anywhere in the Western hemisphere since The Cull happened. Five years we were on the air until Satan cut us off. Turns out my boys came across the group of technicians responsible for running the show. Living as a gang of scavs they were. They reckon that all the hardware and the networks are still in place to get the show up and running again. All it needs is some repairs and a little reconstruction. We're even gonna build a signal booster out by Montana. Thing is though, we don't have no one to present our broadcasts."
"I see," said the Prophet.
"Think of it. If you were the face of the Tomorrow Show, how many people could you reach with word of your prophecies? How many hearts could you fill with the love of Jesus?"
"You make a mighty persuasive case."
Colt grinned, a big knowing grin. Turns out the Prophet had a price after all. He'd worried Colt for a while there, with his probing stare and his heartfelt questions. But now it seemed he could be bought. And that made him a man Colt could do business with.
Colt offered the Prophet his hand. "Do we have a deal Robert?"
"You know Samuel," the Prophet said, pausing before he took Colt's hand. "You asked me if I'd foreseen this meeting. Well the Lord is kind of particular about what he shows me. I wasn't too certain until now that this was what I'd foreseen. But I did see this handshake and it's significance. You're aiming to redeem the souls of an entire broken nation. One soul sits at the centre of all those souls and influences their fate. That's your soul Samuel. That's the one soul the Lord has sent me here to redeem. If I accept your hand, you have to accept Jesus as your personal saviour."
With that they shook hands and said their goodbyes, leaving Colt to wonder what he'd really bought with his promise to promote the Prophet's preaching.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"We'll be reaching the Big Sioux soon," said Greaves. "Iowa's bordered on two sides by rivers; the Mississippi on the east and the Missouri and the Big Sioux on the west. Just over a hundred years ago this all used to be prairie, probably won't be long before it goes back that way. The grass used to be higher than -"
"Oh for fuck's sake," Linda said slammed her hands against the wheel. "Don't you ever give it a fucking rest? It's like you've got Tourette's or something."
"Tourette's syndrome is a brain disorder characterised by involuntary swearing," said Greaves. "If anyone's exhibiting signs of that it's you."
"There you go again. That's exactly what I'm talking about. It's like it's involuntary with you. Every five minutes, no matter where we are you come out with this constant stream of facts straight out of Ripley's Believe-it-or-Die-of-Boredom. Why don't you tell us something we actually want to know? Like how you know where all this secret government stuff is stashed. Or what you're taking us to Montana for."
Greaves went quiet and stared out of a side window. He was trying to do wounded silence but it came across as more of a sulk. Maybe she'd gone too far. If it was involuntary like she'd said then he probably couldn't help himself, or perhaps it was his twisted idea of small talk. He probably thought they were bonding over a fascinating fact or two about the local geography.
"I'm sorry," Linda said. "I'm just wound a little tight. You've got to admit you're not the safest guys to be around. I've been saving your lives and getting shot at since I met you, and I think the least you could do is give me an explanation of what you're up to."
"You're paid well enough," said Greaves. "I don't see why I need to explain anything."
"You've given me a load of gas for Bertha and a bunch of coins that I can't spend 'cos no-one uses them as currency anymore. Don't think I'm not grateful for the things you've dug up for me, but honestly, your people skills are lousy. If you want me to continue putting my neck on the line you've got to talk to me. And not just about the mating habits of the local wildlife."
"How do I know I can trust you?"
"Because I've saved your scrawny ass enough times and I haven't pulled over and dumped you in the middle of nowhere, in spite of you being the passenger from hell."
Greaves shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Linda changed her tactics. "And what about Anna? Don't you think you owe her an explanation? You drag her out of that cathouse and haul her across half a continent, as if she hasn't been through enough, because you claim she's going to save the world. Yet you haven't got the decency to tell her how she's supposed to do that. Or the rest of us who are supposed to be helping her."
"You're right," said Greaves. "She has been through a lot. She doesn't need to be burdened with anymore unnecessary information."
"Please," said a voice from the back. "Mistress Linda is right. I would be very beholden to you sir, if you would be so kind as to tell me why you think I can save the world."
Linda and Greaves both turned around in surprise. Linda nearly took Bertha off the road. Greaves had no idea how close she'd been to pulling over and throttling him for being so pigheaded. He suddenly got all flustered and bashful as Anna put him on the spot. To be fair to him, it was the most any of them had ever
heard her say.
"Well you see, erm Anna, it's that you're…" Greaves swallowed and tried again. "Look, perhaps I better tell you a few facts about my past. As long as that's okay with certain PMT sufferers?"
Linda let that last quip go. She was too interested in what he had to say.
"Before The Cull I was a scientist. I specialised in genetically engineered bio-weaponry and worked for a secret laboratory run by a branch of the shadow government. My employers were above top-secret and answerable to no-one. The work we did was right on the cutting edge of science. Our branch was so far ahead of our contemporaries that few people outside of the lab could comprehend what we were doing."
"What were you doing?" said Linda, hoping he'd get over himself and get on with it.
"We were constructing super-viruses, far deadlier than anything mankind had ever seen. The AB virus that wiped out nine tenths of the population was strictly amateur hour in comparison to what we were working on."
"So what did you do?" said Linda. "Go on, impress us."
"We created many viruses. Some of them so infectious you just had to catch someone's eye to come down with it."
"No way."
"Way," said Greaves, looking very pleased with himself. "We could vary the exact symptoms from person to person and time to the minute the moment they would expire. The holy grail of the whole project was to create a virus that was self-aware. In the decade before The Cull we succeeded.
"The virus was not only a living entity, capable of almost infinite self replication, given enough organisms to infect, it was also unstoppably virulent. What's more, it could mutate to attack the actual DNA of any organism it infected. Nothing could ever develop an immunity to it."
"Let me get this right," said Linda. "You created an intelligent virus?"
"Not intelligent. A virus by its nature can never develop a central nervous system. Therefore it's never going evolve a brain to deal with all that sensory information. Without a brain it can't have proper intelligence. We were able to make it self aware though, thanks to the creation of a biogenic field."