That’s when Tim started to change. Beatrice shrank back as some kind of monster, some kind of beast, took Tim’s place and charged into battle.
When the bullets started to fly, Burt put himself between the danger and his family. There are many aspects of her husband that had made Beatrice Bear fall in love with him. His generosity, his loyalty, his sense of humor, and – of course – his dashing good looks. But his instinctual desire to protect his family made her wish at that moment that the two of them were alone so that she could – well, now was not the time to think of such things.
In the meantime, Beatrice could see the conflict arising within Burt. On the one hand he wanted to be there for his family – to keep them safe. On the other hand, Burt could see that his new friends needed help, and he wanted to be out there in the fight. Beatrice was conflicted as well. She wanted Burt to stay. She wanted Burt to sacrifice anything and everyone to ensure that his family was safe. Yet, she knew that Burt could help. She wanted their new friends to survive. She wanted Tim and Lucy to be together. And she knew that Burt had the skills necessary to get the job done.
Beatrice put her hand on Burt’s arm. She was about to tell him to go. To help. And to come back in one piece. But she never got the chance. Something – well, Beatrice wasn’t quite sure exactly what it was, but a presence was on the lawn. Something dark and twisted. Something evil.
Her hand no longer rested on Burt’s arm. Instead, she clutched at it.
That’s when the little girl arrived.
Time stood still.
There was no wind. No sound. No smells. No movement. Nothing. Just the complete absence of everything but what Beatrice could see. And what she could see wasn’t much.
The little girl just stood there, serene, facing the presence of Evil. This may have gone on for a few seconds. It may have gone on for a few years. Beatrice couldn’t be sure. It felt like both, but the passage of time was nonexistent.
And with the same suddenness as they appeared, the little girl and the evil presence were gone and the world exploded back into place around them.
“What happened, Mommy?” Danny began to cry.
She could see the panic in the cub’s eyes. This was all too much for her son. Too much stimulation, not enough routine. Her little guy had been holding himself together through it all, but now she could see that he had had enough. He was about to break, to crack, and she knew a meltdown was imminent.
Beatrice tried to comfort her cub, but Danny proved to be difficult.
“I want to go home,” he was saying. His voice rising in both volume and pitch.
Then Burt was there, and soon all three were wrapped up in each other as Burt enveloped them for one massive hug.
“I don’t like this, Mommy,” Danny sobbed into her. “I don’t like this at all. I want to go home. I want all these people to go away!”
Burt went down on one knee, looked Danny in the eyes, and held him gently by the shoulders. “It’s going to be okay, pal.”
“No it won’t!” Danny screamed. “You don’t get it!” Danny ripped himself free from Burt’s hold. “It’s never going to be okay again!”
And before Burt or Beatrice could react, Danny started to run. But not away from everything. In his panic, Danny didn’t realize that he was running toward the scene on the lawn.
Tim and Carl were struggling with the man in black, who seemed to be going crazy following the disappearance of the little girl and the evil presence.
A shot rang out.
Danny fell.
One moment he was running, then he was down, as if all the life had gone out of him in an instant.
Beatrice screamed, “NO!” and everything stopped.
The world was swept into a silent stillness. Yet Danny still lay there, unmoving, his body in an unnatural position.
Beatrice and Burt ran to their son. Beatrice got there first, fell to her knees, and scooped the cub up into her arms, cradling him, holding him close, rocking gently back and forth, and crying.
“My boy,” Burt cried, kneeling down beside Beatrice. “Not my boy!”
Beatrice looked up at her husband. “Why, Burt? Why did this happen?” It didn’t make any sense. No sense at all. It couldn’t be true. That wasn’t blood she felt running down her arms, coming from her son. She wouldn’t believe it.
“My son! God no! Not my son!” Burt sobbed, overcome with grief.
“I-I didn’t,” a voice sounded beside them. “I didn’t mean it.”
Beatrice looked up. It was the man in black, and he held a pistol. Smoke rolled gently from the barrel.
“I’m sorry,” the man in black said as their eyes met. Beatrice could see his confusion, his sorrow, and his guilt in those eyes. “I, didn’t … I don’t understand what’s going on. I don-”
The rest of what he was about to say was drowned out by a roar of pure animal rage.
Burt reached out and took Doc by the throat. He lifted the man from the ground like he was made from straw, holding him high before driving him back to the dirt with the force of a jack hammer.
“Burt, no!” Beatrice screamed.
Burt straddled Doc and made a fist. He drove the fist into Doc’s face as the man lay lifelessly on the ground. He rained down blows on Doc Holliday with a rage that Beatrice had never before seen.
Suddenly Officer Friendly was there. He tried to grapple Burt from behind, to pull her husband from the man he was trying to kill, but Burt wouldn’t have it. He simply flexed and Carl was thrown from him.
Beatrice fell to her knees and watched helplessly as Burt mercilessly beat the man that had shot her son. It suddenly dawned on her that if she truly wanted to stop her husband from killing the man she could do so. But a hard part deep within her decided that she was fine right where she was.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
LUCY SHRANK BACK IN terror at the sight of Burt as he pummeled the life from her husband. Burt Griswold had truly lost control following the loss of his son, but then … wouldn’t anyone? He had let the animal inside of him out. Lucy truly feared for her life as she bore witness to this most grizzly murder.
Burt raged and roared. He clawed and he bit. Doc Holliday, Lucy’s estranged husband, just simply didn’t have a chance.
When it was all over, Lucy watched as Burt pulled himself back, his mouth and hands dripping with Doc’s life-blood. Burt stumbled over to his wife as she cradled their son. Wiping at his mouth with sleeve, he dropped to his knees, took the two in his arms, and mourned along with his wife.
Then Tim was at her side, no longer the Beast, his clothes torn and ragged. He pulled her into his arms and the two gave Burt and Beatrice the space they needed to comfort each other.
Just then she heard a noise coming from Doc. She pulled away from Tim and moved closer. She was surprised to find that Doc was still alive. He was an awful bloody mess, but he still hung in there. He was muttering something, but she couldn’t quite make it out. So she bent closer.
“I’m sorry,” Doc said. And for a moment she thought that he had spoken to her, until she saw the look in his eyes. He wasn’t looking at her. He looked through her, as if to something behind her. She had begun to turn, to see what it was that Doc was seeing, but something about his eyes made Lucy pause. They weren’t the cruel, heartless eyes of her husband. They were soft. They were true, as if the eyes Lucy had always known had never belonged to the man she called her husband. Yet these eyes, these were the man’s true eyes.
“I’m s-sorry,” Doc repeated, the words sounding like a sheet of paper being drawn across rough concrete. “I can’t escape the ... the things I’ve done. The people I’ve k-killed.”
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Doc Holliday went into a coughing fit, blood foaming on his lips.
“Doc,” she said. “Don’t, don’t talk.”
But he ignored her like she wasn’t even there.
“I did a lot of people a lot of wrong,” Doc said. “And all I’m asking for … all I’m asking for is that you can forgive me.” Doc fell into another coughing fit before continuing. “Please forgive me.”
That was when his eyes changed. Suddenly they were the eyes she had known for all those years. The hatred, the callous disregard for human life, they showed now once again in Doc’s eyes.
He pushed Lucy back from him and began to rise, clutching at his gun. She couldn’t move.
“Lucy!” Tim called out from behind.
Doc Holliday stood straight and tall, his face a mask of indifference as he pointed the revolver at her, the barrel finding a point just between her eyes. The man never spoke. He only sneered as he used his thumb to pull the hammer back, readying the gun to end her life.
“I forgive you, Doc,” she said, and for a moment, as he put pressure on the trigger, his eyes changed once more. The true eyes.
A shot rang out and Lucy flinched. Doc fell. The shot had not come from his gun. She turned and there stood the ragged and bloody police officer that had tried to save her before, a gun held in his shaky hand. Carl, Doc had called him Carl.
“I’m sorry,” the officer said quietly and fell to his knees.
Lucy looked to the limp form of her husband and watched in quiet dispassion as, for the second time in his life, John Henry “Doc” Holliday died.
“I never killed a man before,” the officer spoke. She turned and looked at the man as he knelt, cradling his pistol. He didn’t appear to notice the bullet wound in his leg. “I’ve never even fired my gun in the line of duty before today. Not once.”
“Carl,” she started to say, but suddenly Burt and Beatrice were there, kneeling with Carl, holding him. It was a testament to the bears, how they could turn their own grief into understanding. How they could share that understanding with Carl.
“I wanted him to die,” Burt said, choking back a sob. “I needed him to die, for what he did to my boy … but,” Burt stopped, looked around and took a breath, trying not to cry. “But not this way.”
“It’s okay, Burt,” his wife held him tighter.
“But that’s not it, Bea,” Burt rose in anger. “I wanted the man dead, but I wanted to be the one to kill him. Dangit, Bea. I needed to kill that man.” Lucy could see the big bear struggling to keep the tears back.
“What’s wrong with me, Bea? I’m not a cold blooded killer.”
Beatrice held him.
“I’m sorry, Bea,” Burt said. “I’m sorry about Danny. I’m sorry for what I wanted to do.”
The two bears held tightly to each other, rocking back and forth, weeping softly. And suddenly, Tim was there, pulling Lucy close to him.
“I’m the one who killed him,” the officer broke the silence, speaking in almost a whisper. She looked over at the man. He stared off into the distance. “I took a man’s life today. Regardless of what he had done, regardless of the man he was, I still took his life.”
Beatrice reached out and touched him lightly on the shoulder.
“Don’t, Carl,” she said. “It’s not your fault.”
“She’s right,” someone said from behind them. “This is not your fault, Carl Friendly. You didn’t kill John Holliday”
They all turned to look and saw a little girl standing there. She was about six with a white star on her shirt and six pigtails sticking up all over her head.
“You!” Carl shouted.
“Yes, Carl. It is me.” The girl smiled.
“But-” Carl began.
“How about we take care of that leg?” the girl said.
She laid a hand on Carl’s wound and a blinding light shown from between her fingers. When she took her hand away, his wound had been heeled.
Lucy felt a wave of peace slide over her. The sadness, the grief, the fear … it was all gone. Something about this little girl just washed it all away.
“But, how can you say that it’s not my fault?” Carl asked, oblivious of the miracle that had been performed on his leg. “How can you say I didn’t kill him? I killed that man. Me. I shot him. I pointed my gun at him and squeezed the trigger. I knew I what I was doing.”
“Well, Carl. You couldn’t have killed John Holliday. He wasn’t really alive,” the girl’s manner was more teacher than six year old. “And if he wasn’t really alive, then you didn’t really kill him.” She smiled again.
This was greeted with an unbelieving silence from Lucy and her companions.
“I’m sorry,” Carl said, wiping the tears from his eyes, “but I don’t understand that one bit.”
“John Holliday died in Glenwood Springs, over a hundred and twenty years ago. This,” she pointed at Doc’s body, “was nothing more than a shell. A host for the evil that was placed inside him.”
“Evil?” Beatrice asked as they all started to gather around the small girl. “Who would put evil inside of him?”
“Why, the Devil, dear. Who else?” the girl responded.
“The Devil?” Tim laughed. “Now you’re talking about Heaven and Hell and God and the Devil. I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe in all that.”
“That’s really too bad, son. Because we all believe in you,” the girl said.
“Who are you?” Burt asked.
“I am who I am.” The girl replied.
“Are you – ” Beatrice paused and cleared her throat. “Are you God?”
“I’m not a big fan of labels,” the girl said. “I am who I am. That is all.”
“Can you forgive me for killing that man?” Carl asked, pointing at Doc.
“Like I said, Carl. John Holliday wasn’t really alive, not in the spiritual sense. So technically, you didn’t kill him. Well, you killed his body, yes, but what you really did was set him free.”
“Set him free?” Carl asked.
“You see, when John Holliday died way back when, the Devil took his soul to Hell. The Devil then broke John’s soul into pieces, leaving just a small fraction of it left within him. Think of a soul like a bag of hammers.”
“A bag of hammers?” Tim asked incredulously.
“Okay,” the girl continued. “Not a bag of hammers. Think of it like a soft feather pillow. All of the feathers inside that pillow make up your soul. Each time you do something wrong, one of those feathers goes away. Each time you do something to make up for that wrong, another feather comes and takes its place. You follow me so far?”
They all nodded in unison.
“It’s actually much more complicated than that, I mean we are talking about a soul after all, but this analogy should help you understand. Okay?”
They all nodded again.
“The Devil, he emptied that pillow of all those feathers. All those feathers but one. See, a person still needs that one small piece of himself to work. The Devil could have emptied the pillow completely, but then John would have just become nothing more than an unthinking automaton. No, the Devil needed John to keep that one last feather. That way the Devil could fill the pillow with pieces of himself. Then the evil would corrupt the last part of John that remained, make John into something he wasn’t, and yet the Devil would still have something that could make its own decisions.”
The girl stopped for a moment. Looked at each one in turn. Making sure that they were all taking everything in. Making sure they understood.
“That evi
l, think of them as black feathers, those black feathers were what gave John his power. Each time John used his – well, let’s just go ahead and call it ‘magic’. Each time John used his magic, he’d burn through some of those black feathers. Then he’d have to travel the road to Hell so that the Devil could top off his tank and send him back out into the world again.”
“But today, well today John used too much of his dark power. Today John burned through all of those black feathers, and all that remained was that solitary white one. The one the Devil corrupted, but was still a part of who John was. John knew he was out of power, but he couldn’t travel the road to Hell. He had to expend power to do that, and he didn’t have any left. The only way he could get his boss to fill the tank was to call him up here, to Earth. And the Devil, being rather foolish I must say, came on up. I took that opportunity to fill up John’s tank myself.”
“Okay, I’m lost again,” said Carl. “What does, well, what does Doc’s boss being here on Earth have to do with you filling up Doc’s tank.”
“Well,” the girl explained. “Once the Devil had corrupted John’s soul, John became a creature of the Devil. I can’t just go in and replace all that evil while it’s there. I mean, I could, sure … but we are talking some monumental power here. Continents would have shifted and all that. So I needed John empty. I needed him down to that last feather, the feather that was his own. I also needed the wrestle John’s soul from the Devil before I could fill John’s pillowcase back up again.
“But with white feathers, this time, right?” Carl asked.
“You get the gold star, Carl. See, in most ways, the Earth is my domain. The Devil has power here, sure. But I did create the place, after all. So yes, I could stride down into the Pits of Hell to grapple with the Devil, but again, a wrestling match of such power, well. what would have been the purpose to save one man’s soul if I destroyed the Earth in the process? So up here, the Devil has less power. Up here I can do what needs to be done without setting the world on fire. So … I took the opportunity to help set John Holliday free. I sent the Devil packing, topped John off, and left him here with you.”
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