Henri Ville

by M. Chris Benner

  Minutes passed, the cigarette burned to ash.

  The snapping-crack of a twig crushed underfoot startled Henri. Her crossed legs twisted and tightened beneath her, propelling her body as if a feline, graceful and quick, with both revolvers drawn - one forward and one back in case the sound was a decoy for a flank.

  If it was anyone but Anson, she intended to fire.

  "Hello?" called an unfamiliar male voice, the tone lost and seeking.

  In the distance moved a billowing black with a white stripe across the center. Henri holstered the left-hand gun and cocked the .38 in her right. As the floating black moved through the trees, closer and closer, Henri distinguished the unmistakable, smock-like black attire of a priest. The young priest - whose red hair and freckled face were becoming more defined with each approaching step - had the body of an unconscious young boy draped across his arms?

  "Are you missing a young boy?" he called out, advancing in bow-legged, clumsy steps.

  "Yes," she cautiously called back.

  "Thank you, ma'am," the priest simultaneously laughed and sighed as he entered the camp. He laid the unconscious body of Jonathon William Beckett the third on the scratchy blanket. It was still warm from Henri's body heat. As the priest gently released his hold, the young boy curled into the fetal position, tucking his hands between his knees.

  Standing, the young priest was equal in height to Henri at 5'8. His face had a layer of baby fat along the chin and his features carried the misleading look of youth, one that made it difficult to pinpoint his age - maybe early-twenties, maybe mid- to late-thirties. His Irish heritage was the only certainty, and his light voice carried a minor, enduring trace of the accent. (Maybe the accent dimmed after years in America; or, maybe he was born on the east coast of America and the tinge came from interacting with parents and neighbors from the homeland.) There weren't many details she could read off the man - nobility in his lifted chin, regiment in his prompt, square shoulders, and maybe a sense of leadership, control, manipulation?(Those are just your biases toward religion.) The inability to attribute positive or negative characteristics filled her stomach with dread. She had been good at summing people up almost instantly - poor posture, darting eyes, imperfect smiles?this man had little to show her, a tabula rasa, but that didn't stop her from trying.

  Henri's cocked gun was still in her right hand but lowered and the priest had yet to notice, confusing the serene surrounding as a sign that the camp was safe. She blatantly un-clicked the hammer to see his reaction but he had none, his eyes appreciatively roaming the forest as he caught his breath. She slipped the gun back into the holster - the rub of metal on leather as the revolver laid to rest had become one of Henri's favorite sounds. Years ago, if she had told a young Henrietta Sofia Villanova that the sound of a revolver slipping into a holster would become a favorite sound of hers - one that still gave her an occasional chill and goosebump (though not this time, unfortunately) - the young Ms. Villanova would have pushed up her spectacles, laughed in disrespect, and rudely turned away.

  Henri's hand stayed tense and ready to draw the revolver again, if need be.

  "I found him gasping somewhere that way and he just?" the priest pointed toward a large area of the forest in the same direction as the boy's escape from camp not long before; then, still winded from his journey shouldering the child, he pantomimed fainting. He gave a short chuckle. "Never thought I'd find someone out here except maybe Mr. Coulson and Mr. Nashua."

  The priest held his hand out.

  "Name's Rigby. People tend to call me Pastor Briarwood. Don't know your faith," he eyed her a moment, "but either name's fine." And he smiled, unwavering in his ability to maintain eye contact (his were a darker shade of blue than Henri's, nearly an opaque grey), his hand still extended in polite greeting.

  Hesitantly, she reached out and gently rest her fingers along the ridge between his thumb and forefinger. He bent his head down, graciously kissed the back of her hand, and politely lifted his chin to again gaze into her eyes, an innocent, steadfast smile upon his lips. Her hand slipped from his and swung lifeless by her side. It was an unconscious move, almost like submission; a moment of weakness brought on by the sheer magnetism of the priest and his piercing blue/grey eyes. Or maybe it was his ethereal presence and her failure to find judgment against him.

  "What are you doing out here?" she asked, probing.

  "I come here to write my sermons. I live in Warminster, just a short bit that way. Carriage trail's just over yonder. It's always quiet, peaceful. Where's your ah, your husband?" he asked, looking at the supplies scattered around the ground.

  "Actually, that's a good question. I'm hoping he got lost hunting but it's been maybe three hours since he left. I won't worry yet but-"

  "Not much stuff for three people here," he said.

  Her eyes narrowed with suspicion?

  A short pang of panic?

  And then-

  XI

  Henri woke up choking, gagging.

  It was the acrid stink of rot, and the second time that day a rough unpleasantness brought her out of a deep slumber. The stench came from the sack over her head, one which must have been hung over many heads, not all living. It consisted solely of a stiff, coarse thread and scratched against her face, hanging just long enough for the front end to dangle loosely at her neckline.

  Her head bobbed in rhythm with the motion of the horse-drawn carriage as it rocked back-and-forth and side-to-side, sometimes in one motion. As she came to and tried to comprehend what was happening, a blinding pain - one like a saw blade jammed and mashed deep into the sub-occipital ridge at the back of her skull - caused her to stop moving, close her eyes, and calm the waves of dizziness and nausea. The sensation was familiar: it was the aftermath of a blow to the back of her head strong enough to jar the brain. In the moment prior to the blow, she understood her mistake - that her instincts to shoot anyone and anything approaching camp besides Anson had been right on the nose. By now there were a dozen towns searching for her, especially those local to Saintstown or anyone that witnessed the gunfight and survived the tornado.

  I want to see a wanted poster of myself before I die.

  They exist, these posters. Somewhere right now, on some placard in small towns, there's a picture of my face and the litany of crimes of which I've been accused-well, justly accused. I want one of those posters, or at least I want to see it once before I die. If I make it out of this, I'm taking my wanted poster back home. Show everyone-well, kill the man responsible for all of this?then show everyone. Like a knickknack at a party. They'll think it's a novelty. Assholes. And then she reminded herself, Wait-wait-wait. You're not going home. You're never going home. No more home, remember? Anson's Lord knows where, Bialik is in his ghost town waiting for the hordes he knew would follow the trail. Wait-wait-wait, slow it down. Still too far ahead. Anson Sharpe, grumpy old Bialik, even Jonathon William Beckett the third?doesn't matter-none of it, none of them. Does not matter. Right now they're taking you to a holding cell or, if it's a local town, straight to the gallows. Hey, that can be our new home, our final residence. Hangman can lead us to the doorway.

  Still, I'd like to see a wanted poster with my face on it.

  Henri snapped out of it. The dizzy spell and initial shock of the brain trauma had passed, fading to a noticeable buzz flying around the inside of her cranium. Hands clasped together as if in prayer, she lifted her arms. Iron shackles were binding them at the wrist and a chain kept them secure at waist level. From the gap in the bottom of her large, rancid hood she could see the thick, black chain links coming from somewhere right, across her waist and through a hoop in her shackles, then off to the left. She could glimpse the bottom of the cage that served as a back door to the prisoner coach. The chains tethered her irons to something on either side but she was unsure where exactly. Moving her head, she tried to look around from beneath the hood but found that the harder she tried, the less she actually saw.

  "I'm gonna throw
up," she warned, a fact that was very near true from the combination skull ache and hood stink. Fake retching noises followed but only for a moment as they immediately became real and she had to stop. Last thing she wanted to do was puke in the already disgusting sack over her face.

  If someone else was there, they were absolutely silent.

  Mobility's limited but it seems there's enough freedom?She arched her back and stuffed the top-half of her hand down the crotch of her pants. Here's hoping the chains aren't tethered to gunmen silently watching my every move?Her shackles met the harsh end of their reach, yanking the chain for an extra inch or two of leeway. A groan came from her direct right - someone was sitting beside her.

  "Anson?" she whispered, simultaneously hopeful for his company and desperate not to find him there - no matter how unlikely it was, she found solace in the ability to bury a bit of hope in the slim chance that, if all else failed, Anson Sharpe might show up and save the day.

  Stumble up's more like it.

  Whole thing's doubtful.

  No one answered her call just as no one responded to her fake vomiting. She suspected the person to her right was unconscious.

  Fishing, digging, digging?

  Her fingers reached deeper and deeper down, past her underwear and against the curve at the top of her thigh, and down?down?just a bit farther, stretching and arching and reaching to touch the tippy-top of the thin piece of metal stuck against the inside of her thigh. Fingertips touched it, she arched further, her fingertips brushed against the top of it?finally, her index and thumb got a light pinch of it. There was nothing holding the twig-like bar against her skin aside from the jeans themselves, which did the job just fine. At 2 inches long, the cylindrical metal tube had a half inch diameter and hid easily behind a natural crease on the inside seam of the jeans. Little by little, she pulled, reached, arched, pinched, brought it up a tiny bit more, and a tiny bit more, up and up until, with a sense of great accomplishment and hope, she got a firm grasp on the-

  The carriage stopped dead.

  The person at her side lurched toward the front, dragging her only slightly. As she braced for a further pull toward the front, she found it easy not only to prevent being dragged but to drag the person back her way. They were limp, unconscious, but also frail. Skinny. Weakened.

  An old man, probably. Should prolly help sit him back up.

  She blindly reached out her shackled hands, searching for the passenger. There was an audible gasp from inside the carriage. It wasn't until she tasted the putrid air from inside the hood that Henri realized she had been the one to gasp. Her hands were frozen. A substantial panic washed over her in much the same way as dizziness and nausea had when she first woke in the back of that prison coach; however, the terror induced by her companion was short-lived, merely serving as an introduction to the horrors that awaited her now that they had reached their destination.

  BATTLE OF WARMINSTER

  I

  Children as a choir of angels sang:

  Simply, simply, as a little child;

  Simply, simply, spirit meek and mild.

  In our weakness He is strong;

  In despair He is our song;

  It is with thankful hearts our praise to Him belongs,

  As He wraps His arms around us in love.

  Jesus loves me; this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

  Little ones to Him belong; they are weak but He is strong.

  Yes, Jesus loves me; yes, (In my heart I know) Jesus loves me;

  Yes, (I know) Jesus loves me; the Bible tells me so.

  And then he began?

  "Hello, friends! Welcome-gather, gather, please. Seats, there are seats still open in the back. Sit, please. My loves and my hearts. Please, let us gather and sit together and enjoy this-this day of beauty and calm. The donation basket, let us give back as much as we receive, too, please.

  "I have asked you to gather-to join me, oh to join! and to come listen and convalesce while I speak of the things that I've learned since last I called upon you, my birds. And there have been a great many things-but before you cast a stone, let us remember that we are not here to speak of the devils and demons in our midst! No, I know you see these-these SINNERS!-but look past, avert your eyes, and welcome my voice and our collective heart to bask over you.

  "We are not here to speak of the demons today but to remind ourselves of the angels that please us with their kindness and gentleness of attitude. God, He spoke to me recently and He said-nay, He doesn't say anything more than might a hummingbird whisper, so pardon me?God, He bellows like an echo through canyon miles-like-like the caress of a brook as it so strikingly babbles to us?not to say that God babbles?"

  A few snickered at the good humor.

  "God, He bawled his words into a fit of lightening and He shot it right inside my brain and He reminded me, 'I do not send you as a SHEEP amongst wolves, my son; I send you as a LIGHT against the DARKNESS!' Now God didn't ask-not that he needed to. No, God didn't ask any more than I asked to be born a prophet of the Almighty-but, it is as a prophet that I stand before you during these, our little chits and chats on the Sabbath. These, our conversations on life-on joy. And it is as a light against the darkness that I stand before you today, reminding us all that these-these SINNERS!-they're not our focus. They're not our world. Shem, you sell your hammers by the quality of their wood and the sturdiness of their steel-not by their influence on the evil, not by-not by their possible ineptitudes, their possible fortitudes against the right, against the good?"

  "No, sir!"

  "Amen!"

  In chorus, "Amen."

  "And Peggy Ann, you don't hem and sew those wonderful patterns - those, such wondrous, amazing designs - you don't-don't work on them under the guise-under the prejudice of malice, under the oft chance that a Satan-worshiper might fancy the red, 'Oh-la-la'?"

  More snickered.

  "No, sir, Pastor Briarwood!"

  "Sisters and brothers-AMEN!"

  An enthusiastic chorus, "Amen!"

  "Then let us look upon the face of this, our demise?"

  II

  "A dagger straight to the heart of darkness!"

  And with that final cry, Pastor Briarwood removed the sack from over Henri Ville's face. Her eyes were open and they weren't worried for the crowd-though gallows were present in the far background outside (already strung up with two long, dangling strips of rope). She tilted to the unconscious boy crumpled beside her on the floor, her wrists still shackled but with a bit more freedom now that they were out of the coach. Jonathon William Beckett the third was still alive but barely. Constriction of his airways was causing his chest to clench, and his breathing had decreased as if a slowly tightening vice grip were on his throat. If he were to wake and see this, the fright may send him into shock and even death; even then, surviving the sight of their surroundings just meant he'd live long enough to see himself hang from the gallows.

  A sharp knock hit the back of her head.

  The man standing behind her had punched his fist into the back of her skull and, though it didn't hurt as badly as it could have due to the poor quality of the blow, it happened to land on a previous injury and stung enough to keep her momentarily quiet and still.

  Then, it was time to check the surroundings?

  This would have to be fast.

  III

  Pastor Briarwood was standing barefoot at the confluence of his church.

  They were in a rounded, high-reaching silo made of wood and nail. Erected nearly to the ceiling, a life-sized altar of Christ on the Cross loomed behind the Pastor that appeared to have a fresh coat of dripping blood around the crown of thorns, the hands, the feet, and the ribs. Henri and Jonathon were to one side, in a boxed area. Another area of boxed seats was opposite them, probably for a small gospel; now the seats were occupied by parishioners. Behind Henri stood a tall, heavy-set man wearing a brown leather, chinless executioner's mask, one that was more appropriate at a beheading than anywhere nea
r a church sermon, even if a hanging was to take place soon afterward. His appearance was unnerving, as was the gun muzzle he kept pressed against the back of Henri's head.

  There was a thin strip of decadent, blood-red-and-shadowed-black carpet leading up the pulpit's two steps and along the short stretch of platform where Pastor Briarwood stood. Beyond, the benches were filled the congregation, great big smiles across their faces as they stared at Pastor Rigby Briarwood with adulation. Behind the benches, curved and barn-like doors opened the far wall up to the afternoon sunlight. More parishioners were gathering outside. The wooden planks of the gallows were in the distance passed, to the right.

  Pastor Briarwood took a glance at the boy curled on the ground and, with a blink of inconvenience, returned center stage, calling to the executioner, "Get the boy up. Bring him here." The executioner didn't hear as he was too busy gazing over Henri's shoulder and down her shirt. The Pastor cleared his throat. The executioner's gaze lifted, realizing he had been addressed (there was a moment where Henri could feel the large thug's body tighten, tense, then freeze) and finally another sharp pain in the back of her head as, once more, the man in the chinless executioner's mask behind her gave a weak, left-handed punch.

  "She was tryin' to move or some'in, sir Briarwo-Pas-Pastor, sir," the man spoke, his voice much like a child caught stealing for the first time. He was obviously a simpleton.

  The Pastor's saccharine expression hid an obvious annoyance.

  "It's alright, Reginald. We shall talk later." (Henri felt the executioner's body tense again.) "Please stand the boy up and bring him to me. Bring him to the center of our temple so that we may look upon him."

  Reginald lifted the weak body of the child as if it were a ragdoll. Jonathon shivered at the gruff manhandling, convulsing a little as he lay across the large man's arms. Reginald circled around the box, to the head of the pulpit, but as his foot lifted to step on the thin strip of red carpet on which the Pastor was standing, Briarwood's eyes flashed an anger Henri had yet to see - it was the fury she knew must lie beneath the surface, the turbulent storm under the pleasant veneer of the man Rigby Briarwood. And though he didn't speak, Briarwood's eyes scared Reginald enough for him to back up twice and stumble down the steps in front of the pulpit, nearly onto the front bench of the congregation. Reginald caught himself at the last moment, returned to the foot of the pulpit's steps hurriedly to compensate delaying such an easy task, and laid the child down against the two steps of the pulpit. There was an awkward moment when the boy refused to let go, where the executioner had to pull back again and again to get away from the clutching hands and arms outstretched in desperation?