“You’re not thinking this through Padre,” Cort said quietly.
“If we drain you then this place disappears and then what are we left with nothing. No walls to hide behind, just us outnumbered and surrounded, sitting out in the middle of the wide open plain,” Cort said.
“If what we’ve gambled on is true, then it doesn’t seem to matter much what condition Danny is in when we get him to the lake and that damned book.”
“Cort…we don’t, you don’t know that…it could,” the priest began, but Danny reached up and put a hand on his arm cutting off the man’s rambling.
“It’s going to be okay,” Danny said. The boy was trying to sound reassuring, but his voice carried an undertone of fear.
“No, I won’t allow it!” the priest shouted and stepped forward to stand between Cort and Danny.
“Padre…,” Cort began, shaking his head slowly.
Then the Cavalryman hit the young priest in the jaw with a quick right.
Father Callahan staggered back and then fell to the floor with Dark blood now pouring from his nose. The priest was obviously shocked by the blow, he held his bleeding nose in his hand and then tried to find his feet again. This time it was Oliver that intervened. The big Dragoon put one of his boots on the priest’s shoulder and pushed him back down before he could fully rise.
“Stay down Padre, no one is happy about this. Let’s just try not to make this any harder than it has to be,” Oliver said with regret.
“Damn you, damn you both!” Father Callahan shouted.
Danny turned his eyes from the priest to look at Cort, “will it hurt?” he asked.
“No, not really. Just try not to fight it,” Cort replied extending a hand.
Danny hesitated for just a moment, took half a breath and then reached out to take Cort’s hand. The moment their skins touched was unlike anything Danny had ever experienced. While his body still remained standing in the dreary room, he found his soul was now caught in a violet and churning sea. A storm raged around him, but he wasn’t in the water, he was the water. He suddenly realized that he was, in fact, the storm as well.
Then somewhere far below him, deep beneath the waves the slightest of sensations tickled at the very edge of his consciousness. He paused for a moment as if pondering it and then suddenly realized that what he felt was Cort. He was confused, the man so large and foreboding in life now seemed so small here. Perhaps he was doing something wrong?
“I’m not fighting it!” he shouted.
No response, nothing. If anything, the faint wavering feeling that he thought was the Cavalryman seemed somehow even smaller now.
“No, damn it, I’m not doing this right,” he said.
For a moment Danny felt lost and completely unsure of himself. What now? He wondered. Wait, I’m still in the room. I’m still gripping Cort’s hand, aren’t I? I should be able to just open my eyes Danny thought and then after a moment of concentration Danny did just that.
As the teen’s eyes came open, he found a scene of utter chaos. Danny still gripped Cort by the hand, but the big man was now on his knees. Cort’s eyes were squeezed tightly shut but his mouth was open wide, and he was screaming in pain. Oliver and Shinji were on both sides of the man each trying desperately to pull Cort’s hand free of the boy’s grasp. Danny glanced down and found another pair of arms wrapped around his mid-section.
“Let go of him!” the priest yelled.
Danny let go of Cort’s hand, and the Cavalryman immediately fell backward taking Oliver and Shinji down with him. The warriors landed in a pile on the floor just as the priest pulled Danny backwards collapsing them into a heap as well. Oliver landed awkwardly on his freshly healed shoulder and rolled to his side groaning in pain. Then, to everyone’s surprise, Cort leaped to his feet. The Lieutenant’s eyes were wide, and he looked down at his hands as if seeing them for the first time. He turned them over and then reached up and touched his face. The Cavalryman’s eyes found Danny’s and the man grinned broadly.
“Cort, are you alright?” the priest asked.
Cort turned to look around at the rest of the riders still sprawled out across the floor.
“I am,” he said.
“What in the hell just happened?” Oliver asked.
“The boy, he damn near downed me,” Cort replied.
“What?” the priest asked.
“When I touched him, it wasn’t like touching any other man’s soul. It wasn’t a struggle; trying to steal away the last bits of a man’s life. It was like, I don’t know. Like standing on the bottom of a deep pool, opening your mouth wide and trying to drink the whole damn thing,” he said.
Cort just shook his head again and then raising his hand said, “Look at my hand.”
The riders exchanged odd glances but did as they had been told.
“It…hand,” Shinji said.
“No really look,” Cort replied.
“It’s perfect. Not a scar, not a cracked nail, there’s not even dirt under my nails. Do you know when the last time that I could say that?”
The men climbed to their feet, and for a moment they just stared at Cort’s hands.
“And look here,” he said.
Cort undid the yellow bandana from around his neck. The angry rope burns left from his hanging were gone.
“My body feels…perfect. I haven’t felt like this since, well since even before the war. This is why Paradox wants him, Danny is a damn near endless supply of energy in this place.”
“Paradox wants him to feed the little army he is planning on gathering I bet,” Oliver said.
“I’ll be damned if that’s going to happen and with Danny’s help I think we may just have bought ourselves a fighting chance now,” Cort said.
Then with a nod to Oliver, he said, “Alright Olly you're up, take Danny’s hand,”
Oliver took a hesitant step forward and then looked at Danny and then back to Cort.
“So, I couldn’t help but notice. It seemed like that experienced may have, well, irked you a bit?” Oliver asked.
“It was the single most painful thing I have ever felt. I’m fairly certain I was forced to feel every injury I’ve ever taken in this place. Every gunshot, every stab wound and cut. Right up and including the moment of my death. All in the span of a few heartbeats. Now hurry up, we ain’t got much time.”
Oliver turned to look back at Danny, but the big man’s smile was now gone.
A fresh round of screams came from the ruined estate, and Cesar smiled again.
“What did I tell you? They are turning on one another up there. They’re killing each other,” he said proudly.
Jamie stood by silently, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. Things were not going at all the way he had planned. The gunfighter glanced around at the remaining bikers and for a moment contemplated killing them all. Ultimately though he was forced to dismiss the idea. Cesar had started the chase with 24 men but between their disastrous assault and those Cesar had sacrificed to heal his wounded, now only 17 remained. He would wait and see how this all played out. Perhaps he would get to kill Cort a few more times yet.
A biker ran up to Cesar then and said, “We’re good to go, boss.”
“It’s about fucking time! When I give the signal, you take those fucking doors.”
The biker nodded and grinned before turning and running back down the slope.
“I thought you were going to give him a chance to surrender the boy?” Jamie asked.
“I’m like you. I like to keep my options open,” Cesar replied.
A fresh round of screams came from the estate and Cesar grinned. It looked like things were finally starting to go as planned.
Old Haunts
“I don’t like this idea, not one bit,” said the priest.
“Of course you don’t, that’s kinda the point of this place, remember?” Cort replied.
The cavalryman let out a long breath, “Look it’s really simple. In a fight, you always want to contro
l the high ground. Here and now that means we need to get on the roof.”
“But Danny said the only door he found was locked,” the priest said.
“It was locked for Danny, but I think we both know it will open for you.”
Father Callahan looked down at his feet and shook his head slowly.
“I wouldn’t ask if we didn’t need this Padre, but we need this, and we need it fast. Cesar’s already given us longer than I thought he would.”
“Alright, alright, I’ll go,” the priest finally said.
“I’m going to be right behind you,” Cort said.
Reluctantly the priest led the way, climbing the pile of debris just as Danny had. Through the roof of the estate had collapsed and destroyed most of the second floor the priest found his way up through the wreckage easily enough. As he climbed everywhere he looked he found reminders of his childhood and the life he had chosen to leave behind. The edge of a finely carved desk, his father’s he was sure, now nothing more than moldering pieces of splintered wood. A scrap of rotted fabric, green edged with gold, had once been a magnificent tapestry that had hung in the home’s entryway and dozens more, each ruined piece bringing back a flood of memories.
“You alright padre?” Cort asked.
After a brief pause, the priest replied, “I am.”
“This place wants you to see all of this. Nothing here is by chance, try and remember that,” Cort said.
Father Callahan just nodded and pushing on soon found himself standing in what was left of the second floor. Just as Danny had described it the hallway was unnaturally intact and undamaged compared to the rest of the great house. The Priest paused for a moment feeling awkward and wondered if the hallway was somehow smaller than it had been in his youth. He shook his head dismissing the notion and continued down to the end of the hall. Cort followed after him but remained silent trying to give the priest a respectful distance.
Father Callahan reached the only remaining door and paused briefly before it. For many years this room had been his mother’s sewing room, a place set aside for her to escape the rigors of the busy house. It was the setting for many of his happiest childhood moments when he was still young enough to be regarded as but a nuisance by his father. Here he had played freely while his mother worked her needles and thread. After she was gone, his father locked the room and sealed it away just as if it were her mausoleum. He reached out and was not surprised when the tarnished doorknob turned easily in his hand.
The door swung inward and revealed a room that was nothing like what the priest could recall from his youth. His mother’s precious spinning wheel and bright bolts of cloth were gone, all that remained in the space now was disarray. The room boasted but a single dirty window, in front of which a fine oil lamp burned low. Leather bound books, old furniture, and piles of moth-eaten clothing were all piled high. Broken chandeliers, oil paintings, and crockery were scattered about at random. The mounds of collected things rose nearly to the priest’s waist, the only thing that any of it seemed to hold in common was the thick layer of dust that it all lay under. Cort stepped up behind Father Callahan and peered inside the room.
“Not exactly what I had expected,” he said.
The priest didn’t reply. Instead, he took a few cautious steps forward and began to make his way through the mounds of rubbish. At the center of the room, behind several stacks of books, he found what deep in his heart he knew that he would. Covered with a thick layer of dust and cobwebs rested his mother’s old rocking chair and upon it sat the withered corpse of his father.
Lord Callahan still gripped the double-barreled hunting rifle in his desiccated hands, his broken teeth still holding the muzzle firmly between his jaws. It was clear to both of them that the man had taken his own life and died surrounded by the lost treasures of his once great house. The priest felt his knees weaken and he lowered himself down to kneel amongst the filth. His eyes never leaving what remained of his father’s dead face. After a time, he spoke.
“Paradox was right, I am a murderer,” he said.
“Given the right circumstances, I believe any man can be forced to kill. But I got a feeling that’s not exactly what you’re getting at, is it Padre?” Cort replied.
“I didn’t pull the trigger, but I’m still to blame. I killed my own father Cort.”
“And just how do you reckon that?” Cort asked.
“I left him. I just walked away from it all. I abandoned my name, my title, my birthright. I left him here alone, without an heir, without a future, and without hope,” he said.
“Every man has got to grow up, move on, find his own way in life. That’s just natural,” Cort said.
The cavalryman looked down but found that the priest wasn’t looking at him but instead had his eyes affixed to the floor. For the first time, Cort realized a thick layer of papers covered the floor around the rocker. Father Callahan raised a handful up brittle pages up to catch the window’s yellowed light and tried to read the wavering script.
“You know what these are?” he asked.
“Letters?”
“That’s right, these are letters. These are the letters that he wrote to me over nearly 17 years.”
“What do they say?” Cort asked.
“I never read any of them. I just tossed them away unopened or burned them, when I was feeling dramatic,” the priest said.
Cort looked around the room suddenly uncomfortable. Though covered in dust and years of neglect the scene read plainly enough. Rusting tin cans, dirty dishes heaped around the chair. A mound of old blankets and torn curtains were piled in one corner. It was clear that the last Lord Callahan had lived the last years of his life in this single room, a hermit in his own great house.
“He wanted me to forgive him, he begged me too. That’s all he wanted,” the priest said.
“How do you know that? If you never read any of his letters?”
“A cousin wrote me several times when I was still in seminary. Which was odd because we were never very close. The letters were casual enough, but she asked me repeatedly to write to my Father, and I realized that he had put her up to it. Years later he even offered to donate the whole of the family estate to the church. He went directly to the Bishop, and his only requirement was that I be the one to oversee the estate, in the church’s name of course. The Bishop was so furious with me when I refused, I thought he was going to hit me. Insolent he called me and spiteful. It’s funny how upset clergy can get when money is involved, or perhaps it’s not.”
As the priest spoke, Cort found himself looking awkwardly down at his feet. While he knew he should probably say something to his troubled friend, he simply could find no words. Surprisingly, at that moment he found himself wishing Jerry was there. The funny little man had seemed to have had a way with people. Then Cort noticed a glint of brass beneath one of the letters and he nudged the paper over with the toe of his boot. Beneath it, he found a half dozen loose rifle rounds and the remains of an old paper cartridge box. The big man bent down and began to gather up the rounds.
“The way I see it, Padre is that you didn’t blow the back of his head off. He seemed to do that all on his own. So how does that make you a murderer?” Cort asked.
“It wasn’t my action, it was my inaction. I wouldn’t even give the man, my father the opportunity to apologize.”
“That may make you an asshole maybe, perhaps even a bad son, but that doesn't make you a killer,” Cort replied.
“You don’t see it, do you? I swore a vow to god. To serve my fellow man, to walk in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ and to save those that…that wanted to be saved. He was my own Father, and I couldn’t even forgive him,” the priest said.
“It’s guilt then?” Cort asked.
“Yes, yes its guilt. I broke my vows, and he took his own life, an unforgivable sin in our faith and I had a hand in that. Just look, the proof is piled all around you,” the priest said.
Cort paused for a moment then, and he
did look. The letters were piled nearly ankle deep in a thick circle all around the dead man’s chair, hundreds of them. As the Cavalryman watched the young priest began scooping up letters and trying to read each in turn, and for each he lifted two more seemed to appear in its place, a seemingly limitless pile of remorse. The irony of the scene struck Cort then, the proof of his Father’s remorse, a record in his own hand begging forgiveness surrounded the priest. The very thing he had refused to read and acknowledge when he was alive was scattered all around him and unavoidable. But the man himself was dead and with him the opportunity to forgive him lost.
“Ok, I think we’re done here,” Cort said.
Then the Lieutenant stepped forward and without the slightest bit of hesitation tore the old rifle out of the dead man’s brittle grasp. The desiccated corpse rocked forward and then collapsed face first onto the floor in a cloud of dust. The priest let out a gasp and reached out as if to try and catch the body, a look of horror plastered across his face.
“It’s alright Padre, we can come back sometime, and you can read until your heart's content. Hell, have a chat with dear old dad here if you like, but this here isn’t the time,” Cort said.
As the priest looked on in stunned silence, Cort broke open the rifle’s action, ejecting the single spent cartridge. He then took a pair of bullets he had found on the floor and loaded them in its place.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” the priest demanded.
“We are going to need every gun we can get if we are going to make it out of this thing and every man we can get to pull a trigger,” Cort replied.
With that, the cavalryman tossed the loaded rifle to the priest who caught it awkwardly.
“No, no, no, I’ve taken a vow!” he objected.
“And I was happy to let you keep it when we didn’t have any extra guns to go around, but now things have changed. Besides you just got done telling me you already broke most of your vows anyway, what’s one more?” Cort replied.
The cavalryman shoved the remaining cartridges into Father Callahan’s trembling hands and then moved back to the doorway and shouted.
Hell's Highwaymen Page 30