"I have nothing to say to him," Thathanka-Ska said.
"He is your next Chief, the one who will lead us to the new lands."
"I do not believe that."
"Exactly as Thasuka-Witko predicted," Haienwa'tha said. "Get some sleep."
Chapter 16: Is Your Back Against the Wall, or Just Across the Line?
The preacher regarded the man riding next to his wagon with careful glances, working in his assessments as he surveyed the landscape. He handled his destrier like he was born in a saddle and carried two engraved Colt Defeaters. He was a lawman but he had a hunted look in his eyes like a man who'd sooner cut your throat than let you lay a hand on him. And then there was the way he gunned down those men in front of the bank, Father Charles thought. That's not the reflex of a lawman. That's pure killing, and you don't learn to do it without practice. "You mind if I ask you a question, Mr. Clayton?"
"I never thought much the church, padre, so if you're about to try and save me, we are gonna have a long and unfriendly ride ahead of us."
Father Charles chuckled and said, "No, not me, son. I learned a long time ago you can't convince anyone of anything. Most folks don't want to hear new ideas, just ones that support what they were already thinking."
Jem nodded and said, "Then ask away."
"What made you get into law enforcement?"
"Grew up in it, I guess," Jem said.
"You used to be a deputy before you became the big boss?"
"No. Not hardly."
"So you changed your ways and became a man of the people, is that it?"
Jem cocked his eye back at the old man in the wagon and said, "Last year I tied a man to the back of my destrier and dragged him across ten miles of desert into that canyon over yonder. Then I cut his head off with my knife and spiked it on the ground for his brother to find. Then I killed his brother and shot another man who was like a father to me at the same time. After that, I killed the Sheriff and the Mayor. That sound like a man of the people to you?"
Father Charles' eyebrows raised as Jem spoke and he said, "No. It surely does not. Everything you just said is gonna take you straight to hell."
"At least I'll have plenty of people I recognize."
"Why'd you cut that man's head off?"
Jem turned away from him to look back at the road. "He tried to force himself on my sister in front of her crippled husband. She fought him off as best she could. I got there before it was too late."
"You got similar reasons for the other things you did?"
"Similar enough," Jem said. "Not that I intend to explain them to anyone, and that includes you."
"Some things we do in this world we just have to learn to live with, Jem. Others we have to worry about dying with. I spent a good portion of my life destroying things. It was all I knew how to do, but you see, once you create something, it changes all that. When I had my little girl and I saw what the Lord had made through me, I couldn't go on being the man I was before."
Jem smirked, "I ain't cutting my fingers off for nobody, padre."
"You'd be surprised what you do when you find that one person, Jem. The one who makes you change."
"I knew a man once who fell so in love with a woman that when she died, it was like the lights went out on his front porch. You know what I mean? He had two little kids and as much as he tried to do right by them, he had some kind of giant hole inside that kept him from ever feeling anything good again. I watched him go through that and you know what I said to myself, padre? I said that I didn't think I was ever going to love anyone that much. And you know what else?"
"What else?"
"I was right."
***
They didn't speak much after that, heading deeper into the wasteland until both moons emerged through the wash of crimson left like paint strokes by the setting sun. Jem yanked on his destrier's reins and said, "Whoa."
Father Charles stopped his wagon and leaned over the side of the carriage, trying to look in the same direction as Jem. He didn't see anything but worn out road and long stretches of red dirt and mountains. "What is it?"
"Somebody passed through there not too long ago. That's a wagon wheel rut."
"So?"
"So it's getting dark," Jem said. "We're stopping for the night."
"We ain't got time to stop this early into the evening, Jem," the preacher said. "We can cover another few miles before we need to make camp."
"Yeah, or we can walk up on the wrong people and wind up in a shootout. You do what you want, but I'm stopping here." He undid his saddle bag and bedroll and walked far off the road until he found a wide flat spot that backed up against a rock wall. There were sticks and bushes aplenty all around, and he lit a few of the branches on fire to help him look. Won't be no fun if I reach for a stick and it turns out to be a rattler, he thought. By the time he finished, Father Charles had wheeled his carriage over to the campsite and started to break it down for the evening.
Jem threw the pile of brush on the ground and lit the dry branches with a match until it was engulfed in flames. Father Charles worked a crank on his destrier's harness and the thing hissed as its hinges popped open and two hydraulic arms lowered to the ground, keeping the contraption propped up while the animal stepped out from under it. "You hungry?" Jem said.
"I didn't see no leapers," Father Charles said.
"Wouldn't matter. Gunfire will draw whoever's out here to us faster than flies. I brought some provisions." Jem dug two cans of beans and gravy out of his saddlebag and cut their lids off with his knife. He poked holes in the sides of the cans and stuck long sticks inside them to hold them directly over the fire, cooking the beans inside.
Father Charles took the stick from him and looked down at the sizzling broth. "This smells delicious."
"It'll burn a hole in your face if you don't let it cool down first. Give it a few minutes."
The night took place all around them. Everywhere, a slither or whimper of something wild. Father Charles lowered his lips to the can of beans and was about to test its temperature when something sounded over the hillside. "You hear that?"
"Hear what?" Jem said. "Don't go getting jittery on me out here, knuckles."
The preacher cocked his head and said, "Listen. There it is again."
A child's voice called out, "Help! Help us! Anyone!"
Jem snatched his canteen off the ground and splashed the fire, then he stuck his boots into the burning embers and stomped them out.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Quiet!" Jem whispered. He pulled out one of his guns and cocked it, staying low.
"Anybody down there? We need help!" the high-pitched voice cried. "My Pa's hurt real bad."
Jem searched the darkness for signs of movement. Satisfied no one was coming, he nodded at the preacher and said, "They're just trying to draw us out. Wrap yourself up in that blanket real good tonight. We're sleeping in the cold."
"What are you talking about? That child needs our help."
Jem laid back on his bedroll and cocked his hat over his eyes. "I didn't hear nothing."
"I begin to believe I misjudged you, sir," Father Charles said. "I thought you a man of principal. I will not hide here in the darkness while someone is screaming for assistance just up the road."
"Suit yourself," Jem said. He pointed at his saddle, "Take the shotgun with you. Not that you could shoot it, but it might scare them off."
"I don’t need it. I have the Almighty with me."
"Then praise the Lord," Jem said.
"Indeed."
"And pass the damn ammunition."
***
The preacher rode up the hillside squinting into the dark for signs of movement. The moons were fat and full in the sky, throwing blue-speckled light down over his head. He turned around to see how far he'd gone from the campsite but it was like looking into a bucket of black paint.
"Hello?" he called out. His voice echoed off the rocks and sent his hail ringing out in every direction.
&nb
sp; "Hello!" the girl shouted. "Oh thank the Lord! Can you help us, mister?"
He stopped his destrier and tried to get a bead on where the voice was coming from. "Where are you?"
Something round and metal touched the back of his head. He didn't need to turn to know what it was. "I am right behind you. Move the littlest bit and you are dead."
It was the same voice he'd heard earlier but without the high-pitch affectation. The preacher held out his hands and sighed, flush with embarrassment. "I am a simple man of God. I came up here to help a child in need and yet you repay me by sticking a gun in my head?"
"You are a preacher?"
"That's right."
"I have met preachers before. They would all impregnate the choirgirls and steal the collection plate as soon as look at you."
"Well, not I."
"So you are noble, then?" she said. She reached around his waist and started to run her hands up and down his chest, searching him for weapons. He tried to turn in his saddle enough to see her, but only caught a glimpse of long blonde hair and ivory pistol grips. "Do not look at me," she said.
"It's despicable to lure a man into a robbery by pretending to be a child, young lady. Shame on you."
She checked the small of his back and up between his shoulder blades and said, "You are hardly in a position to give your opinion, noble preacher."
"It wasn't an opinion. It is a fact. Cast down your weapon and repent your sinful ways, woman."
She laughed sharply and said, "Perhaps if we have time. First tell me who else is down there."
"I have no money and I am not armed."
"That is not what I asked you."
Father Charles heard the mechanical click of the gun's hammer drop back, ready to leap forward and fire. "We weren't bothering you."
"So you say, so you say. I ask again, and if you do not tell me, the number of men in these hills goes down by one."
"There are two of us. The other man is a Sheriff."
"That also does not help your cause. I have known many Sheriffs as well."
***
She tied his hands behind his back before he got down from his destrier, so he had to swing his leg over the massive thing's head and try to slide down the side without breaking his ankles. She took the leads from both animals and tied them to a bare shrub. Her destrier was short and muscular, with a front chest as thick as a barrel. She reached into her saddle bag and fed both the animals apples. "I think you're a liar, Father Charles," she said.
"Why's that?"
"Because if your man was a Sheriff, he'd have come here by now to free you. He'd be dead, of course," she said. She was tall for a woman and did her best to hide whatever was underneath her layers of baggy clothing. Her pants and boots were caked with dirt and mud. She wore a floppy leather hat that bent down over her face on all sides, folding just enough at the front for her to see through. "But I think at least he would have tried."
"I reckon he's out here with us, watching. Waiting for the right opportunity to make his entrance. He strikes me as the type who favors the melodramatic."
"Is that right?" she said. She pulled out a long bowie knife and said, "I'm going to ask you one more time and if I don't like your answer, I will turn you into a woman. What are you doing this far out in the desert?"
"Looking for the man who took my daughter and looking for the man who sold her."
The woman turned to look at him, her blonde hair flinging over her shoulder. "Interesting. And what are their names?"
"A Beothuk, calls himself Toquame Keewassee and the leader of an outlaw gang calls himself Gentleman Jim."
The woman turned around and came at him, her eyes so full of fire that the preacher backed up a step. She put the knife up between them with the tip of the blade aimed at his face, "Are you truly a preacher?" She spoke with an accent that made him pause as he tried to place it. Her dark eyes searched his face for an answer, she grew impatient and put the knife closer to him, shouting, "Are you a preacher or not?"
"I am, I am," he said.
"And you're really looking for your little girl?"
"Yes, ma'am," he said.
She stared at him in silence for so long he was about to say something just to interrupt it, but she held up her hand and said, "Shhh. I'm trying to decide if you're lying or not."
"Just by looking at me?"
"I said to hush."
"Okay," he whispered.
She blinked several times and nodded slightly, as if she'd come to a determination and it was good, when suddenly she grunted and collapsed to the ground as if someone had kicked her feet out from under her. Jem Clayton had his pistol upside down in his hand with the butt sticking out like an axe handle. He looked down at the woman's crumpled form and said, "I hate using violence on a woman, but there was no way she was gonna let you go peaceably. I figured it was either this or shoot her."
"You idiot!" Father Charles shouted. "She was about to join up with us!"
"She tell you that right after she said she was gonna turn you into a woman?"
"Untie me so I can check on her," Father Charles said.
Jem picked up the woman's knife and slit the rope around the preacher's wrists. The woman had a lump on the back of her skull but there was no blood. "Thank God," he said. "Hitting a woman from behind is just about as low-down as it gets, Sheriff."
"I didn't hit her that hard. It wasn't like I was trying to cave her skull in," Jem said defensively. He looked down at the woman with sudden interest and cocked his head to the side to get a better view of her face. He reached into his shirt pocket for a wooden match and struck it off his thumbnail to see in the vanishing light. "How old did you say your daughter was?"
"Sixteen. Why?"
"I reckon this one's a little bit older than that, but she's definitely Beothuk."
Father Charles grunted in disbelief, but fell silent when Jem lifted off the woman's hat and picked up one of her blonde braids between his fingers. "Hair's dyed, but you can see it in her face. Dark-skinned, high-cheekbones."
"I'll be damned," the preacher whispered. "I knew there was something."
Jem shrugged and said, "All right. Let's get before she comes to."
"What are you talking about? We can't just leave her here!"
"The hell we can't. She put a gun on you, tied you up, and stuck a knife in your face when you tried to help her. What do you think she'll do when she wakes up?"
"There's too many werja in these hills. Not to mention everything else slithering and snarling around in the darkness."
Jem sighed and said, "I suppose we could build a fire for her. That would keep the animals away."
"And alert every two-bit rustler around. Imagine what they'd do to some pretty young thing like that if she was incapacitated."
"Okay, padre. What do you suggest?"
"We take her with us. At least until she wakes up and can take care of herself."
"Let's lock her up in your wagon, then."
"Absolutely not. It's dark and cramped and she'll get hurt on what I got in there when she comes to."
Jem squeezed his temples with his hand for a moment, then said, "Fine. But we do this my way, and you don't argue with me about how it's done."
"Fine," the preacher said. "Maybe."
Jem picked the woman up and laid her across her destrier's saddle on her stomach. He tied her hands and feet together and strung them under her animal's belly to keep her anchored down. He rolled her over on one hip to unbuckle her gun belt and slid it out from under her, taking a moment to admire the ivory-gripped pistol in the holster. "Nice gun."
"Not when it's pointed at your head."
Jem slid his hand along the woman's side and up under her shoulders, then down the center of her back and backside.
"Hey!" Father Charles shouted. "Just what in the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Checking her for any other weapons, you damn fool. Calm down."
Jem reached down to feel around th
e inside of her boots, and then up her thighs, moving higher and higher until Father Charles said, "That's enough. You checked her good enough. Get your hands off her."
"Do you honestly think−"
"I honestly don't give a shit. I'll be keeping her close to me, you can be sure of that, Sheriff."
Jem laughed and said, "Okay, old timer. Let's just hope your sense of honor doesn't get us both killed."
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