by David Towsey
‘Say you’re sorry, Simon.’
‘What for?’ the boy said.
‘For everything that you are.’
The boy did so. Luke could feel Simon’s thin shoulders shaking in his hands. He took the knife and cut the boy’s throat. Luke held him as he died.
*
Sarah stood with the rest of them. She had made sure Mary was still inside. Other families had brought their children; as though this were another day in church. A sermon with something extra.
Jared’s parents were in the crowd, but people kept their distance. Mrs Peekman was still crying. Mr Peekman told anyone who would listen that his son was dead, that this Walkin’ was someone else.
Jared was tied to the stake. He didn’t struggle.
‘I shouldn’t have come back,’ he said, looking at his parents. This set his ma crying again and his pa ranting. He didn’t even so much as glance their way again. But maybe this was why he came home? So he would be treated in the way that was proper to what he believed. What he was told to believe from the moment he could hear the words.
The Pastor began reading from the Good Book. The crowd was silent. Mrs Peekman quietened her sobs and sniffs. Her husband drew her close. Sarah hugged herself. Everyone listened to the Pastor. Most people knew the passage; some could even recite it themselves. Nathaniel Courie, the Gravekeeper, surely could. They were the words said when someone in Barkley died. Mr Peekman denied this was his son, but this Walkin’ was being treated as a son of Barkley.
‘“… Its pyre is fire with much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, kindles it. Amen.”’
The crowd said ‘Amen’. So did Jared. Then the fire was lit.
The flames started small. Sarah focused on them. The people around her, the shape of Jared Peekman, the Pastor, they all blurred at the edges. As the fire grew she could feel its warmth on her hands and face. She had been cold, without realising it. The fire felt good. She couldn’t help it. The wood creaked and crackled and Mrs Peekman started crying again. Jared didn’t look at the flames. He craned his neck skyward, to the stars. He didn’t scream or cry out in pain. Sarah didn’t know if Walkin’ could feel the same way a person did. Perhaps that was a small mercy for Jared.
Then Luke Morris appeared. He was carrying something wrapped in a white sheet; Sarah couldn’t see what. But others did.
‘No,’ someone called. A ripple went through the crowd – she could feel as well as see it. People shifted uneasily, many turned away or looked down.
‘That’s not right,’ someone else said.
Luke laid the bundle at the base of the pyre. The flames quickly took to the sheet. A small face. Sarah couldn’t breathe. The younger adults in the crowd seemed as confused as Sarah. Why was Simon Peekman dead? The older men and women shook their heads and muttered.
‘What have you done?’ Jared shouted. ‘What have you done?’
‘“And all the firstborn in the land shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh unto the firstborn of the maidservant; and all the firstborn of beasts,”’ the Pastor said for all to hear. ‘We save their souls today and rid our town of their tainted blood.’
Jared struggled to be free. He cursed and gnashed his teeth like an animal. Sarah felt her fingernails biting into her palms. She had to stand very still. If she moved she would hurt someone. Eventually, Jared sagged against the ropes that tied him to the stake.
‘Sorry,’ Jared said to Simon. Or maybe it was to everyone there. The Pastor nodded. Nathaniel kept staring at his feet. Sarah thought of the other men who had left Barkley for the army, of Thomas.
1 : 4
Luke knocked, waited a moment, and then entered the Pastor’s house. He was expected. The Pastor had summoned him after Main Street had cleared. The crowd was slow to disperse. Someone had thrown a rock at Luke; thankfully they missed, but he didn’t see who it was. He didn’t stay long in the street. Could people not see what he had done was for their own good, for the good of the town? He had brought salvation to two undeserving souls. Cleansed them. Allowed them to find eternal joy. He hoped someone would do the same for him – not that it would ever come to that.
The Pastor was sitting by the fire, the Good Book open in his lap. He motioned for Luke to join him. The room was small and sparsely furnished. Luxury went hand in hand with many of the deadly sins.
‘You did exactly what was required of you, Luke. Do not let any opinion convince you otherwise.’
‘Thank you, Pastor.’
‘What time of year is it?’
‘Spring,’ Luke said. The Pastor narrowed his eyes. ‘I mean, almost Easter.’
‘That’s right. I think at this stage in your training a period of reflection would be most beneficial.’ The Pastor itched his fiery beard. He never did that in public; Luke considered it an honour he did so in Luke’s presence. ‘A Lent hermitage. Some days in the wilderness. Peace and solitude. Clear mind, body and soul.’
‘If you think it would aid my journey, Pastor.’
‘Yes. I almost wish I could join you. Time to think and pray with no distractions.’ He waved at the door as if to suggest the whole of Barkley. ‘But, too busy. Always too busy doing the Good Lord’s work.’
Luke was dismissed. He was to leave immediately, taking only the Good Book, a crucifix and a bag of oats. He picked these up from Mr and Mrs Gregory’s boarding house. Neither of the elderly couple looked at him as he came in. They were silent for the few minutes he was in the house. They didn’t ask him where he was going. Or when he’d be back.
*
Thomas sat down on a large boulder. Mud criss-crossed his feet like the straps of a sandal. The feet looked almost normal, if a little pale. Squint and they might have passed as human. Would anyone in Barkley squint? The families in the pews? The Pastor as he spoke? His mother, his brothers? His wife?
A black stag-bug emerged from the gap between the rock and the ground. It stopped short of Thomas’ foot, its stunted antennae twitching. For a moment the stag-bug stood there and then it scuttled away. Another insect wriggled out from the same gap. It was a flurry of tiny legs with a long scaly body. He recognised it as an ear-y-peg, but it was the biggest one he’d ever seen. The ear-y-peg didn’t even stop, but hurtled away from Thomas.
He’d started a migration. Creatures of all shapes imaginable came out from nooks and crannies. Those with wings took to the air, their buzz mixing with the tickle of tiny legs on stone. He watched a colony of crumbers abandon their underground home, washing over the earth like a midnight tide; speckles of white surf dotting the black as larvae were carried out. Thomas had always found crumbers fascinating, with their complex underground towns. Now they fled from him. He was a source of panic.
If the lowest of all the Good Lord’s creations scattered at the sight of him, then he was truly a force of evil. A devil. A demon.
Ten paces from where he sat the stony ground fell away to an abyss. Fifty, one hundred, one thousand feet. It didn’t matter. He would dive head first. He wouldn’t scream. He would wait for the ground to crush his head.
He’d heard that destroying the head was the only way to kill a Walkin’. That and burning them.
It had been a conversation he wasn’t meant to hear. A man’s conversation; words blown in between smoke on the front porch. Pa, in the rocking chair, a presence beneath a straw hat. Two other men sat on chairs brought from the kitchen. Thomas didn’t understand names or places, but he listened well enough in school and church to realise what they were talking about. He was always good at listening.
‘Shotgun, straight between the eyes!’
A hand slapped against wood.
He remembered the sound, and the white exploded behind his eyes.
*
He could see nothing but the red jacket of the man ahead and the canyon walls. But he could hear, he could taste, he could smell; and that all pointed to rifles and dying men. Somewhere ahead were blue uniforms. Same men, different colour. It was funny h
ow right and wrong was watered down into two colours. Was there a time when North and South met and drew straws for them? Or was it pebbles in a bag?
Men parted.
Blue seeped into the cracks.
Thomas fired his rifle. A man fell: dark bushy beard, high cheekbones and brown eyes. Thomas saw the man’s skin writhe; purple discoloration swept across his face.
A shot and the red uniform beside Thomas dropped.
A rusty bayonet ran through a haze of gunpowder, before it ran through Thomas McDermott.
*
There was no pain as his mind came back to the rock and the Redlands. He hadn’t moved, but the sun had. It was high in the clear sky, pressing down. Thomas was aware of the heat, but his skin didn’t burn. He didn’t feel thirsty. He didn’t sweat. There was no moisture in him.
When he was a child, the Redlands had been a terrifying landscape of imagination, full of monsters and demons – his childish understanding of hell. He’d bragged that one day he would cross the stony desert, fighting creatures, to rescue a beautiful princess. Mrs Jackson, the teacher, had scolded him for playing rough as he showed off these adventures. As he got older, he realised the danger of the Redlands was not monsters, but heat and lack of water. He’d never fulfilled his boyhood desire to travel the wastes.
Now they lay in front of him like a smouldering crossroads. A crossroads where the signs pointed ‘Man’, ‘Walkin’’, and ‘Oblivion’. To the west, he would find the Col River and Barkley on its banks. East, the Black Hills and eventually Black Mountain – whatever that place might hold for him. The third option was straight forward, over the edge.
Squawk.
A blightbird landed on the boulder next to him, its head cocked, its big watery eye angled at him. The bird looked healthy, with a full and shiny plumage.
‘You’re late,’ Thomas said. Unfurling a wing, the bird groomed its feathers. ‘Or maybe you’re early.’
The bird stared at him with a bottomless black eye.
‘Rich pickings around here?’
How many carcasses had that eye looked upon? Or, how many living animals had it visited just before they became one more meal?
Countless thousands throughout the ages, the bird seemed to say. Things die, always have and always will. Even you, Walkin’.
Hundreds of years ago there would’ve been a first meeting of blightbird and Walkin’. The bird might have been feeding on a body and then the body woke up. Maybe the bird had smelt food from the air and flown down to find its meal was still moving. Either way, the world changed in that instant. The following generations of blightbirds must have learnt patience.
Thomas was tired of thinking. Tired of having to rethink every part of what he was. He didn’t want to be here. He made his choice.
He stood up.
The bird lifted one claw then the other and turned its head. The other eye was white with blindness. Milky swirls like rainless clouds.
‘You’ve been patient enough,’ Thomas said.
With every step he took closer to the cliff edge a face from his life appeared. Family, friends, and people he recognised from church and the town. They said nothing, looking at him; some judging, some sad, others hopeful.
Three steps from the edge was Pa, his worn face marked by years in the sun. He stared with tearless eyes. His mouth was set with a too familiar frown. Thomas was grateful for the silence. There would be no kind words.
The blightbird cawed like the tolling of a bell.
Two steps from the edge his wife came to him. He faltered. Such a beautiful face. A nose just slightly too small, red cheeks and a narrow mouth. Her long hair. On their wedding night he’d pulled loose the braids before they shared a bed. His finger tips could still feel the strands set free from their tight weaving. But those fingers were changed, burnt.
The blightbird cawed again. It wasn’t an eager sound, but confident.
One step from the edge was his daughter. Thomas fell to his knees. Her hazel eyes. She would be older now, her face different. Would he recognise his own daughter? He felt the chill of shame. He had abandoned her. She might need him, despite his skeletal hands and charred skin.
‘I’m here, Dad.’
1 : 5
No farmers or craftsmen came to the shop to sell goods on a Monday, so Mary had nothing to put away. The minutes dragged by as she wandered past shelves full of potatoes; carrots; wool; dye; knives – kitchen and hunting; plates; honey; bread; shoes, sandals and socks; mallets; pegs; needles and thread; candles; matches; pipes and pipe grass; riding tack; bird fat; and sharpening stones. It was like a grown-up version of the far corner of the playing patch. But instead of sugary sweets and pennies the adults swapped vegetables and fat coins.
Turning a corner, she caught her doll on the edge of a shelf. She watched as its head rolled across the dusty wooden floor; the sack weave was coming loose everywhere. She’d forgotten the doll was in her hand. Picking up the head, her fingers found the thread that ran the length of the doll. A quick knot and the head was back on.
The doll was a gift from her father. Mary called it Stripe, after the pet stripe-dog he’d had at her age. She was getting too old for dolls, but she wasn’t allowed a stripe-dog and sometimes she felt lonely. The other girls teased her for playing with ‘dollies’, so in school she kept it hidden at the bottom of her bag. They didn’t understand. Every now and again she would reach into the bag and touch Stripe’s rough skin.
It was getting late and her mother would soon send her upstairs. Mary would hear the muffled sounds of Sarah closing the shop as she closed her eyes.
‘Still playin’ with dolls, eh?’ Mr Adams said, rubbing at his nose. Mary hadn’t noticed him standing there. He looked thin and hungry.
‘Pardon?’ she said. She’d been thinking about sneaking out tonight. She’d go to the river again, as long as the moon was out.
‘I said, playin’ with dollies are ya?’
‘No, Mr Adams. I don’t play with dolls.’ She glanced up at his black teeth and bald head. When she was little she thought Mr Adams told a lot of lies: lies made your teeth and hair fall out, so her mother said. Now, she knew that happened to all old men. She stared at the nearest shelf.
‘That so?’ Mr Adams said, leaning forward and snatching Stripe. ‘Easy now, Mary, just wantin’ a look at ’im.’
Stripe seemed to wriggle in Mr Adams’ dirty fingers. They held the doll tight, like a blightbird’s claw. Mary could feel the heavy, smelly breath pouring over Stripe as if it were her own skin.
‘Yessir, he’s taken a tumblin’ all right. Would give ’im a new eye if I were you, girlie, yes I would. People might think he was lookin’ nasty like.’ He sniffed. ‘Might get into trouble.’ He broke into a wheezing laugh.
‘Bed time, Mary; come leave Mr Adams alone,’ her mother called from behind the counter.
‘’Tis no bother, Sarah, just seeing ole Stripe was a’ right,’ Mr Adams said, stiffly straightening his legs. He gave back the doll.
The ugly man started talking about the army; Sarah was nodding along. She gave Mary a wink and cut across him to say: ‘Off now, up to bed, Mary.’
‘Rules is rules, eh, kiddo?’ Mr Adams said.
*
Mary climbed the wooden stairs to her room. She shut the door behind her, careful of the rusty hinges. She had wanted the day to be over quickly.
Her room was simple. In the corner there was a wash basin and shard of broken mirror. Against the wall was a rail where she hung her plain black dresses and white aprons. A little wooden bed was next to the window.
She jumped onto her bed and looked out. The sky was a punctured blanket, little pinpricks of Pastor Gray’s heaven peeking through. She saw Uncle Peter driving his wagon back from working the fields over at Caleb’s farm. He raised his hat to Mr and Mrs North; they nodded back, and carried on down the board-walk. Barber Barringsley stood at the door of his shop, smoking a pipe. She waved to him, but he didn’t see. He tapped out his pip
e and went back inside. He drew the curtains across the big window.
The street became quiet. No wagons rolled past. The shops were closed. With a sigh, Mary lay down. She pushed at the back of Stripe, feeling for the hard roll of paper hidden there. It was a note from her father and a small picture of him.
‘Keep it a secret,’ he’d told her. ‘You know the rules.’ By the teachings of Barkley she shouldn’t have anything on paper, other than the Good Book. Her memories of her father were allowed, but not this token to remember him by. For that, she would risk a few strokes of the cane.
The window was open; it was a warm night. The breeze stirred just enough to move the hot air around the small room. There was little need for the rough cotton sheet, but it was odd being in bed without it. She heard footsteps on the stairs and closed her eyes, if only to pretend.
*
Sarah opened the door and tiptoed into the room. She wondered if she should close the window, but the night was so hot and stuffy. There was a time she’d wished Mary could grow up somewhere else, on a farm. They could tend the woollies together and never have to talk to foul-smelling men. Thomas always wanted his own farm; said it was in his family’s blood. Judging by how awkward he had been behind the counter, Sarah didn’t deny it.
The man in uniform had come to the shop. She’d understood the moment she saw him. He put the letter on the counter, tipped his hat, and left without a word. She’d managed to stay on her feet and half-read the lines through the tears: Thomas McDermott … dead … battle. She’d thought, stupidly, how strange it was to read a letter in Barkley – that she was breaking the rules.
Thomas used to read the Good Book to Mary at bed time, bringing the words to life. He found the heart and soul of each verse; found the story and the humanity in the teachings. The Pastor made the Good Book burn with conviction; Thomas made it sing.