In 1879, or close to it, Calliel had gone to Bodie, California, to kill a man named Calabis, whom I assumed to be a wealthy rancher, possibly his boss. He got caught before he could do it and was thrown in a paddywagon after being brutally pistol whipped. I had felt all of it, having been swallowed up by the vision of it as Calliel, in modern-day San Diego, slept peacefully.
I hadn’t seen how it turned out, what had happened to him.
Lo and behold, here, outside space and time, was the answer shimmering at my feet.
Now I felt fear. Not because I was scared of the vision, but because I knew that everything I was experiencing right now had been put here by an agency beyond anything I could conceive. It had been put here by God Himself—for my personal benefit. All I had to do was choose.
But what was the alternative? I looked up from the water into nothingness.
A voice swept through me. Step to the edge of the falls.
It wasn’t a voice, no. It was like an inhalation, as simple as that. It filled my lungs, and then it filled my spirit. I felt it even in my toes.
I was standing in God’s presence. There was no question of it. He was patiently watching me and waiting for me to make a decision. There wasn’t any hurry, for there literally was no time. I could stay here for all eternity if I so chose.
I stepped to the edge of the falls and looked down.
The water dropped like frosted liquid diamonds into bottomless blackness. In other words, it fell into Oblivion.
And I could too if I wanted. I need only jump.
I felt no fear at the prospect. I knew if I leapt what would become of me would be governed by laws as sure as gravity and no less profound. I would, like the water, disperse. The rotten majority of me would, that is. It would disperse and vanish from existence, or, perhaps, like manure, be used to grow good somewhere up in that great sparkling ball. That little bit of surviving love, the paltry two parts out of a hundred that somehow survived the last three decades of my life, the true and uncorrupted bit of Raymond Douglas Wilms, would, in effect, remain a conscious and integral part of the Creator, who was the ultimate singularity of love. What could possibly be scary about that? Like a snake, the love that knew itself as Ray Wilms would shed what it didn’t need. It would shed the unbearable burden of thousands of days of gnawing cynicism and doubt; it would shed all those suffocating layers of bitterness and pain and anger. They would go away, for good and forever.
Or …
I could jump in the pond.
I must admit that jumping into Oblivion sounded much, much, much better. Infinitely better. There was eternal rest over this edge, and eternal joy. Shimmering in the pool was an injured and beaten man—not an angel; not yet, at least—who languished in an old prison cell in the blistering, barren desert of eastern California, planet Earth. Great pain waited there, and anger, and hatred, and God knows what else.
I didn’t know how Calliel died. I was certain, however, that I’d find out if I jumped in, that I’d actually become him. Given the brutal beating he had endured, I had no doubt that his death was very unpleasant, and that I’d feel every horrific bit of it that he did.
Calliel told me that he wanted me to become an angel. Jumping over the falls wasn’t the way to become one. There was only one way.
Did I want that fate? Why would I? People were miserable, awful. Why would I bother to save even one of them, assuming I graduated from the training program? Why would I choose to return to Earth—to suffering, to war, to crime and violence, to greed and pollution and ignorance and disease? Why?
I didn’t get thirsty or hungry as I mulled my options. If I wanted, I could find a nice patch of grass on the other side of the hill, or in the field of poppies just a few steps away, and sleep again.
But I wasn’t tired. I eventually sat on the flat rock at the edge of Nothing and watched Creation spin majestically above my head. I didn’t sit at the edge, because I didn’t trust myself.
Time passed without leaving footprints. Days, probably, if there was such a thing as days here, or time.
It would have been so much easier if one of the choices was a bad one—a wrong one. But both choices were equally good, equally right. One of them I wanted with all my being to take. The other I wanted with all my being to avoid.
I stood and approached the edge of the falls and took a deep breath of air and readied myself. I filled my spirit with anticipation and joy. Raymond Douglas Wilms would join with All That Is, with that tremendous, beautiful ball of spinning light above me, and everything beyond it.
But not just yet.
At that moment I figured out what had been bothering me.
With a joyful shout I turned and ran and jumped into the pond.
Chapter Fifteen
The Hanging of Calliel Hiccum
~~*~~
HE CAME to slowly. The left side of his skull throbbed and his jaw felt broken. He tried turning over, but his neck twinged painfully and woke him fully. His left eye was swollen closed. He reached and gingerly felt it. His nose felt broken too. It probably explained why his mouth was bone dry; he had to breathe through it to get a proper lungful of air.
“You’re lookin’ pretty rough there, friend,” said a deep voice nearby. “Looks like the sheriff and his boys had a little fun with ya.”
He turned his head to see who was talking, but that hurt too much. With heavy grunts and groans he forced himself to a sitting position.
The man was in the cell next to his. His white hair was roughly groomed and bordered on overlong, just brushing his shoulders. It framed a chiseled countenance, kinked nose, and strong cleft chin. His eyes were brown and wide. “Whatcha in for?” he asked from his bunk.
Calliel looked around. His cell was maybe twelve by fifteen feet. A bucket lay on its side under a cracked mirror on a floor covered in a thin layer of straw. The air was cool, almost cold, and smelled of must and outhouse. Weak yellow light shone from oil lamps on both sides of a stairwell forty feet away; barred windows at the top of the back wall in both cells provided a glimpse of bright blue sky.
“You’re in the county lockup, if ya didn’t know,” said the inmate next to him. “It don’t look it, but it’s a damn sight better than the territorial jail where they haul in the drunks. So … whatcha in for?”
Calliel gazed absently at the straw at his feet. He had to swallow several times to alleviate the cottonmouth before he could answer, and when he did, his voice was gritty and only half as loud as he intended it to be. “I tried to murder a man.”
“That’ll do it. I take it you didn’t get the job done.”
“You take it right.”
“I heard the deputies talkin’ ‘boutcha earlier. They say you killed someone back Nevada way. But you’re sayin’ you didn’t …”
“That was a different man,” said Calliel, dropping his head in his hands.
“I see. I guess they’re waitin’ on some white paper of some sort so’s they can write you up but good.”
“I reckon so,” murmured Calliel. He looked up. “What do you care? You some sorta stoolie? Gonna rat me out to the white hats when they come down and check on us?”
The man shook his head. “What would be the profit in doin’ somethin’ like that?”
“Well?” demanded Calliel when no explanation came.
“I’m here for you, Calliel. My name is Jegudiel. I’m an angel of death, and I’m here for you.”
~~*~~
Calliel stared. “What is this? This some sort of joke? You think you’re funny?” He got to his feet, stumbled to the bars between them. “Best be thankin’ the dear Lord you ain’t in this cell, old man, ‘cause I’d tear ya limb from limb!”
“This ain’t no joke, Calliel,” said the man, who showed no sign of being cowed. He stood, approached the bars. “They’re gonna hang ya, son, and there ain’t a damn thing this side o’ Heaven you can do about it. I’m here to save you before that happens. I was sent by God Almighty Himself. You don
’t have to believe that; I don’t really give a damn if you do. My job is to save you before they drop that rope ‘bout your neck.”
Calliel’s hand shot through the bars and wrapped around Jegudiel’s windpipe. Jegudiel didn’t flinch, didn’t look pained, didn’t look scared. “If I’m a dead man walkin’, then it don’t matter if I kill one more, just for the shit of it!” Calliel rasped through clenched teeth. He tried to squeeze his fingers closed.
But he couldn’t. The old man’s neck felt like iron. With almost casual patience, Jegudiel reached up and removed his hand as easily, it seemed, as he would remove a loose bow tie. He pulled Calliel’s hand down, despite Calliel’s best efforts to bring it back up. He held his wrist in a vice-like grip, steadily and calmly. “You don’t need all this rage, son,” he said. “It’s over. It’s time for you to accept that.”
Too quick to follow, he released Calliel’s wrist and pushed him away. The force sent him off his feet onto his cot. His head slammed against the stone wall and he blacked out.
~~*~~
He woke slumped against the wall with a headache that throbbed down to his ankles. Drool ran from his chin to his jeans. He wiped it away, gazed up. Jegudiel, propped up on an elbow on his cot, stared.
“Rage,” said the old-timer. “What good is it in here? How’re ya feelin’ there, cowboy?”
“Go to hell,” said Calliel. He leaned over the edge of the bunk and threw up.
“You got your brains sloshed around a bit,” said Jegudiel. “You’ll probably have a few more heaves before ya started feelin’ better. Might be a good thing if you lie down there and try to get a little rest.”
Calliel wiped puke from his lips. He noticed the tray of food at the foot of the cell door and felt like puking again. He took his eyes from it and decided to follow the old man’s advice. Gazing up at the ceiling, watching it spin, he gnarled, “You’re full of shit.”
“Oh?”
“You don’t dress up a steer you’re sendin’ off to slaughter.”
“Come again?”
“You said you were sent to save me. If they’re gonna throw a rope round my neck, and you seem damn certain that’s gonna happen, then you can’t save me. Ever think of that?”
“I’m not here to save your body, cowboy. I’m here to save your soul.”
Calliel rolled to the edge of the bed and threw up again. When he looked up he saw that Jegudiel had sat up and was watching him carefully.
He coughed and spat stomach acid, and said, “Go to hell.”
Jegudiel shook his head. “Ain’t no such place.”
Calliel wiped his mouth and collapsed back onto his back, breathing heavily. “Where I’m from, folks would string you up for talkin’ like that.”
“Well, then, let me correct myself. The only hell that exists is the one men make for each other, and for themselves. There ain’t no Devil, neither. So folks you know would string up someone like me for speakin’ the truth? Well, then, I ask you: What need for Beelzebub or his fiery little torture chamber? You folks do just fine for yourselves.”
When Calliel didn’t respond, Jegudiel asked, “Are you a believer?”
To keep his mind off puking again, Calliel answered. “I was raised as one. Presbyterian. Church on Sundays, Bible study Wednesdays, grace at mealtimes, sayin’ my prayers before bed. A woman I was courtin’ before the range war … she was very religious. But for me it never really took.” He spat to his side. “You bein’ an angel o’ death, I’d think you’d’a known that.”
“I did.”
“What—God told ya?” Calliel chuckled bitterly. “Bullshit.”
“As a matter of fact, He did. And as far as bullshit goes, it’s you, friend, who’s full of it. You’re so full of it you can’t fully understand your predicament. You’re blind under all of it.”
“I think I ‘fully understand’ it just fine,” growled Calliel. “As I ‘fully understand’ it, I’m gonna hang. Now mind your own business. I’ve had enough of you.”
“I can cure that concussion ya got, and that nausea.”
Calliel held silent.
“You’re gonna keep upchuckin’, cowboy, and it’s gonna get worse and worse. In fact, you might not even make it to the noose. You’re gonna puke yourself to death. I can keep that from happenin’.”
Two hours later Calliel looked up from the floor where he had fainted. He was dry heaving almost constantly now. His stomach was one massive ache, and his vision constantly grayed in and out. Cold sweat poured out of every pore. A guard had come down to check on him, and had laughed with disgust and turned and marched back upstairs.
“All right, all right,” Calliel gasped between bouts of spitting. He barely had the strength to look up. He wiped his pouring brow. “I’ll take your medicine. Give it to me.”
“I don’t have medicine,” said Jegudiel, who had kept a steady eye on him the whole time. “But if you can get to the bars, I can cure ya.”
They looked miles away. Calliel fought to his elbows and knees and started for them. He had wretched so often that there was no way to keep from crawling through vomit, but he was so ill he didn’t care. The musty outhouse smell of his cell had been overpowered by it. He put one elbow in front of the other, one knee in front of the other. He shook so hard that he could barely move. Each effort to lift himself after collapsing was that much harder than the one previous. On the fourth deflation he felt something vital in himself give up. He didn’t care anymore. He was a dead man anyway.
An oddly disconnected voice from deep within his being pierced the darkening haze.
Jesus, Calliel, you ass, get up. Get up!
With supreme effort he got to his knees, then pushed himself up on his elbows. His chin, which felt heavy as a soggy bale of hay, and was covered in puke-soaked straw, took all his strength to lift off the floor. He was a good yard yet from the bars and shaking so hard that he was certain he couldn’t go on. Jegudiel patiently waited.
“Couple more feet, cowboy, and you’ll be right as rain. C’mon now …”
One elbow in front of the other …
That’s it, cowboy, that’s it. Get over to those bars. You’re going to make it; move it!
He could feel another fainting spell coming on. With a cry he lurched forward—
~~*~~
He woke flat on his back.
His chin throbbed. He reached to massage it, felt it twinge. There was a large, long scab there, and things poking out of it that objected to his probing fingers. He dropped his hand and opened his eyes.
He was back on his bunk.
He felt much better. That was actually what he had perceived first; the relative comfort of the cot felt more like an affirmation to the fact that the nausea was gone, or that his head felt split wide open, or to seeing double and struggling to draw breath. He took in a large, wheezing lungful of air and noticed the odor of vomit was much less, though not gone.
He glanced left.
The old-timer was reading. He looked up from his book and acknowledged his stare.
“You just made it,” he said. “I could just reach you where you passed out. The deputies came down and put you back on your bunk and cleaned you and your cell up on the orders of the sheriff, who was a might cantankerous ‘cause they wasn’t lookin’ after ya better.”
Calliel felt so much better that gratitude grunted out him unbidden. “Thank you.”
His throat was parched to the point of agony. He needed water, which, somewhat astonishingly, was waiting for him at the foot of the cell door in a silver pitcher.
Jegudiel followed his gaze. “Go on, get some. You need it.”
Calliel tried sitting up, fell back with a groan.
“All that heavin’, you’ve pulled some belly muscles, I reckon. You also split your chin open when you blacked out. They stitched you up, but you’re still leakin’ some. I’d use some o’ that water to clean that up ‘fore it gets infected.”
“You forget—” Calliel grunted an
d groaned to a sitting position; he caught his breath—“I’m a dead man.”
“Might as well be comfortable when they drop the bags on ya, doncha think? I don’t see the point in givin’ yourself even more misery before it happens, but if it don’t matter to you, it don’t matter to me.”
He’s trying to help you, you dumb hick motherfucker! Listen to him and get something to drink already. Hurry it up!
He got to his feet. Bending to retrieve the pitcher was torture, but he managed to lift it. He carried it back to his bunk and sat heavily. Water sloshed out of it onto his wrists and lap. He lifted it and sipped directly from the lip. The water was delicious and cooled him going down. He realized he needed to both piss and shit, and stared at the bucket lying on its side under the cracked mirror.
It could wait a few minutes.
He poured water into his palm and cautiously brought his hand up to his chin. The water stung when it touched the stitches, but after a dozen or so applications the crusted blood was for the most part washed off. A rivulet of diluted blood ran down his neck under his shirt, which was stained red and puke-yellow in so many parts it didn’t look blue anymore. It appeared the deputies wiped him down just enough to get the worst of the upchuck off. He took another deep drink and lowered the pitcher to his wet lap. As Jegudiel watched, he chuckled.
“What’s so funny?” the old man asked.
Calliel looked up. “I never thought of puttin’ those two words together …”
“Which two words?”
“ ‘Mother’ with ‘fucker.’ ”
“You’ve lost me, cowboy.”
“It rolls off the tongue.”
“Rolls?”
“Motherfucker. It rolls off the tongue. It makes ‘fucker’ even more insulting.” He chuckled again. “Motherfucker. Motherfucker. Motherfucker.”
“You feelin’ all right there, Calliel? Did all that heavin’ jar loose your good sense?”
“I’m fine,” grumbled Calliel. “You just mind your own over there. I’m fine.”
“Obviously you ain’t looked into the mirror yet. ‘Fine’ is the very last thing you are.”
Angel Page 15