"Yes, in fact I did, Jem," Father Charles said. "In fact, I can't stop seeing it. Power of God," he sniffed. "What the hell was I thinking?"
"You were thinking that we were going up against impossible numbers and needed to even the odds. This thing saved our asses and it ain't finished yet."
"Yes it is, Jem," the preacher said. He grabbed a handful of wires from the firing controls panel and yanked them free, sending sparks across the metal frame. "I'm gonna face Gentleman Jim man to man. One on one, like the Good Lord intended. That way, if I lose, I can go in front of my maker and say I relied on him and not some cursed space weapon."
"If our enemy had his hands on this, you can bet he'd use it in a second. There won't be no questions about what God intends."
"Then I guess that's what makes us different, Jem. Now stand back." The preacher dropped the metal harness to the ground and keyed in a sequence on panel alongside the machine and looked up. Purple and blue waves of energy cooked along the surface of the barrel, glowing until Jem had to shield his eyes.
The cannon whined to a high-pitched whistle and then went silent except for the low drone of power draining. All of the electrical circuits were black. "That's it," Father Charles said. He stepped back and admired the humongous contraption. "It's finished. I been lugging this thing around for almost a year. Carrying it with me everywhere I went. It feels good to be free of it."
"You certainly are one strange old man," Jem said. "You cut off your damn trigger fingers, then get it in your head to go wrangle up some outlaws. You drag a cannon all the way out into the desert and decide it ain't fair to use it. That what they teach you in church?"
"Sometimes," the preacher shrugged.
"Well then I'm glad my daddy never made us go. I'd have turned out as crazy as the rest of you."
Father Charles patted Jem on the shoulder and said, "Someday you'll come around, Jem. Faith catches up with all of us in the end."
The women were already assembled to travel in front of the dwelling. Lakhpia-Sha was trying to get them to line up along one side so he could count them, but no one would listen. Finally, he gave up and asked Hehewuti for help. She barked one command and the woman did as she said.
"This is going to be a disaster," Thathanka-Ska said.
"The most important things are food, water, and shelter," Haienwa'tha said. "You are going to spend every minute of your day finding them. Do not be afraid to listen to the women. They will help you."
"I am not used to dealing with them," the boy complained.
"They are just women. How hard can it be?" Haienwa'tha said with a sharp smile. "Do you know what Thasuka Witko always said about Agaidika? He said that she lets him think he's in charge, and he lets her do the same."
Thathanka-Ska nodded slowly. "I understand. All right, I suppose we must get going. How long will it take you to catch up with us?"
"A few days at most." He turned to his brother and took him by the shoulders, "But you must swear one thing to me. If it takes more than a few days, even if I do not return at all, you must get home. Do you understand?"
"But you will join us," Thathanka-Ska said.
It was time to stop treating him like a child, Haienwa'tha thought. "If I do not return, you will take these women back to our tribe. You will tell the elders of what took place here. And you will be a great Chief someday. Better than Hoka-Psice, better than Thasuka Witko, even."
Thathanka-Ska pushed him back and said, "No! That is your fate. You were the one in the vision." The boy's voice broke as tears formed in his eyes. "After everything we've gone through? I won't listen to that."
Haienwa'tha grabbed the boy's hands and held them to his chest, "Listen to me. If there is one thing I've learned from all this it's that visions are flexible things. Maybe going through the fire meant what I did, or maybe it meant you running through the lightning. Maybe it meant something that hasn't happened yet. I do not know, and I do not care. Chasing visions around is something I no longer have time for. In the end, I can only do what is right. That is what I am asking you to do as well. Only what is right."
"I will try," Thathanka-Ska whispered.
Haienwa'tha embraced the boy and said, "Go now, and do not look back."
***
Jem waited for him at the end of the path, giving him the respect of not intruding on his goodbyes with the others. The young warrior kept his head down as he rode toward Jem, using his long dark hair to cover his face. "I reckon I ain't gonna call you Squawk no more," Jem said.
He sniffled and said, "You gave me another name?"
"I like Haienwa'tha better. Seems disrespectful to call you something else."
"Would you prefer I call you Jem Clayton instead of El-Halcon?"
"Absolutely not."
Haienwa'tha shook his head in wonder but did not speak.
"I know. Wasichu, right?" Jem said with a quick smile. "That's the thing about us. We're full of complications."
Haienwa'tha pointed at the woman riding ahead of them and said, "I am surprised you let her come. She could have gone with the others."
"There wasn't no letting her do it," Jem said. "She basically told me what was going to happen and she put it in a way that I couldn't bring myself to argue."
"As you say. You are full of complications."
"No, that ain't a wasichu thing, my friend. That's a regular man and woman thing. You'll learn all about that in the near future, I bet." He looked over at the Beothuk and said, "One thing's for certain, you're talking a lot more. Last time I saw you, you wouldn't do much more than grunt a few words I could understand."
"I have been practicing," he said.
"That's good. It shows, too," Jem said.
Haienwa'tha frowned as he looked the group over. "There are so few of us. If Toquame Keewassee has joined with the man who covers his face we will all die quickly."
"Maybe, maybe not," Jem said.
"What makes you so sure?"
Jem winked at him, "I been practicing too."
***
When the blood trail dried up, they searched for hoof prints on the shifting desert floor. Jem stayed behind Haienwa'tha to let the boy cut sign. The tracks followed the stream where the boys had first met the Hopituh-Shi-nu-mu, taking it all the way out until the patches of tall green weeds appeared along the banks. Jem got down from his destrier to let his animal drink and he bent down to study the flow of the water. "I bet this bottoms out at the Wabash."
"Does it come out this far?" Ichante said.
"It might. I heard of an old miner's camp off the Wabash too." He looked up at Haienwa'tha, who nodded grimly. "If I'm right, it's probably only about four more miles away."
No one moved. Father Charles cleared his throat, "If you all don't mind, I'd like to say a quick prayer before we go." Everyone shook their head and the preacher closed his eyes and said, "Heavenly father protect us in our righteous endeavor to rid this land of something evil. Make our hearts pure and our aim true. In your name we pray, amen." He looked around as everyone opened their eyes and said, "How was that? Wasn't too bad, Jem, now was it?"
Jem clapped him in the shoulder on the shoulder and said, "You know, padre, I think you really put your finger on it."
"I hope you got a plan to go along with all them jokes. Or were we just gonna waltz in there and start shooting?"
"I got a plan," Jem said. He looked up at Ichante as she unloaded her guns and inspected them for debris by spinning the cylinders and pulling the trigger over and over. "But she ain't gonna like it even a little bit."
"Whatever it is, I want to be right up front for it. I want to look in that man's eyes and ask him what he did with my little girl right before I kill him."
Jem scratched his head, "Not to sound crazy or anything, but what good are you going to be in a gunfight? It's not like you can shoot."
"Give me your shotgun and I'll be fine."
Jem looked at him and frowned, "I don't think so, old man. By the time you get a s
hot off, we'll all be dead."
"Wanna bet?"
Jem folded his hands on his hips, "Bet what?"
"I bet I can hit any targets you set up faster than you can snap your fingers ten times."
"Any targets?"
"That's right."
"And what do I get if I win?"
"I'll stay out of your way until I'm needed."
Jem looked at Ichante who nodded slightly. "And what if you win?"
"You have to let me stay up front."
"In the shit?"
"In the shit," Father Charles said. "And you have to go to church with me."
"Forget it."
"Just once. What are you saying no for if you're so convinced I'm gonna lose?"
"Fine. Crazy old coot." Jem walked around looking for things to serve as targets. He found a few rusted cans and a discarded plate in the weeds and handed one each to Haienwa'tha and Ichante. "We'll use these." He walked toward the trees and set his can on the lowest branches. "Can you see that far, grandpa?"
Father Charles shook the gun and said, "What's that, sonny? You want me to shoot it while you hold it?"
Haienwa'tha put his can on the ground farther back from the tree, and Ichante stood holding hers. "I'm going to roll it across the ground," she said. She looked at the preacher and smiled, "I have faith in you."
Jem pulled his shotgun out of his saddle and said, "This here's a Winchester pump-action. Once you pull the trigger, you gotta rack that slide back all the way and throw it out again. It's got eight shells inside it." He handed the gun to Father Charles, "Now everybody stand behind him before he starts shooting."
The preacher held up the gun and said, "Since I can't use my trigger finger, I'm gonna have to use an alternate." He extended his middle finger in the air at Jem and said, "Guess I'll rely on this one."
"Real nice, preacher man," Jem said. "In front of a lady and everything."
Ichante smacked Jem on the arm, "How dare you call me that."
"Say when, Sheriff," Father Charles said.
"Go!"
The preacher budged the butt of the shotgun's stock against his right hip for balance and hunched forward over the weapon, keeping it tight against his body as he fired the first round. The first can exploded as he racked the slide back and shot at the second one, sending it ten feet into the air.
Ichante stepped forward and rolled her plate across the dirt, sending it past Father Charles' feet like a wheel. "How many snaps you up to, Jem?" he said over his shoulder.
"I don't know."
The preacher racked the gun back and forth and fired three more times, leaving dozens of small holes in the plate as it skipped and skidded along the flat, dusty surface. Father Charles lowered the weapon and turned around with a triumphant smile, "I guess that means you and me are going to church, boy. Come on now, don't look so glum. It's a lot of fun. You get to sing hymns and join all your fellow worshippers in prayer. It only takes about four hours. Best of all, when you're dressed up in your Sunday best in a hundred and ten degree weather standing nut to butt with an hundred other folks inside a room no bigger than a shoebox you don't even mind the sweltering heat and flop sweat because it just makes you feel so good to be there."
Jem tipped his hat back on his head and said, "Suddenly it don't feel like surviving the day is the best outcome anymore."
Father Charles took a deep breath and started singing, "Prayer is the key for the bending knee, to open the morn's first hours. See the incense rise to the starry skies, like perfume from the flowers!"
Chapter 21: Wabash River
The other men wanted to do things to the dead itjin's body before they burned it but Bob said no. After that, they mostly stood around watching while Bob built the pyre, regardless of how many times he told them to, "Get to it." Finally, he finished assembling the bed of sticks and dried out branches and said, "Either you all drag him over here or I go get Jim."
Each of them grabbed one of Toquame Keewassee's limbs and hurled him onto the pyre. Bob bent down to light a match when he felt water sprinkling his hand. He leapt back when he realized the rest of the men were pissing on the itjin. "Real funny!" Bob cried. "Real smart, too. We're trying to start a fire and you're all wetting him down."
Bob swiped his hand in the dirt in disgust. He tossed the book of matches at the closest man and said, "Don't come back until he's cooking. That's an order!"
They smirked as he walked away and he could make out one of them repeating his words in a high-pitched voice. Go on and let them underestimate, Bob thought. Been using it to your advantage all your life. They're a bunch of white trash and you're a bonafide outlaw.
He hurried through the camp to get to the embankment. He saw Ruth through the tall river grass growing there. Still washing clothes, like she hadn't even made a dent in the pile of dirty shirts and under britches laying scattered on the beach. Bob walked past her without speaking to dunk his hands in the water and started scrubbing. The elbows of his sleeves were wet but he couldn't tell whether it was from the river or the other men, so he quickly lowered his suspenders and undid the buttons. It was probably piss. He pictured Ruth picking the shirt up out of the pile and saying, "Somebody been pissing on you, Bob?"
He dropped the shirt in the water where the soap bubbles popped on the surface and said, "Oh, my," before he picked it back up again and tossed it in the pile. Ruth didn't even look. Then he saw the feverfew flowers were still in the road, trampled now to muddy pulp.
Bob snapped his fingers at Ruth, "Make sure my shirt gets cleaned next, woman."
Ruth looked sideways at him and said, "Sure thing, Bob."
"You sassing me, girl?"
"Not at all, Bob."
Bob went down to the edge of the water until it ran over the edge of his boots and leaned forward, "You best not be sassing me. I'm the lieutenant of this outfit and what I say goes before anybody else as far as it concerns the likes of you."
Ruth kept her eyes on the laundry in her hand, "I understand."
"You deserve to be talked to like this, because you chose this. I offered you something else. Something better, but apparently you'd rather wash clothes and whore than have a respectable life."
Ruth turned to say something but stopped at the sight of Bob's red face, his shaking hands resting so close to the menacing gun strapped across his narrow hips. There was no one close enough to hear her in time if he snapped. "Bob, I just don't think it could work is all," she said. "I don't want to get my hopes up. Everyone seems pretty sure we're getting sold in the next few days."
"So that's what you think but it ain't what you know," he said. "All you ever needed to say was the word and I'd have gone and taken care of it."
"Okay, Bob."
"You want me to go and find out?"
"If that's what you want me to do."
"I guess that's the only way we'll know for sure, ain't it?"
Bob hitched up his pants and turned to head back up to the camp. Gentleman Jim was standing at the top of the hill looking down, "Didn't I tell you to burn that itjin?"
Bob hurried up to him and said, "I am on my way back there right now to make sure it's finished."
"I already made sure of that for you, Bob. Why do I need a lieutenant if I have to run around double-checking everything, Bob?"
"I don't know that I have a good answer for that. Maybe I'm too distracted. There's something I need to talk to you about. A favor I need to ask."
"A favor?" Jim said. "You wait until after you screw up to ask a favor? Must be a daisy."
Bob took as deep a breath as he could manage and let the air out real slow, taking the time to sum up his courage all in one breath and say, "I want to buy Ruth off you. Whatever you were gonna get from those men, I'll match it. I'll pay more. Anything it takes."
Gentleman Jim stared at Bob in confusion, not knowing whether to smile or not. "You being serious?"
"I got a little bit of money. I got this gun. You can have both, plus my share of
whatever I earned with you. If that ain't enough, we can draw up a contract real official and I'll pay you once a month until we're square."
The outlaw closed his eyes as Bob spoke, his face the sudden expression of bemused realization. When Bob stopped talking, Jim put his arm around Bob's shoulders and pulled him close. "Bob, Bob, Bob," he said softly. "You are a romantic soul. I understand that, because I too am a romantic soul. Let me ask you something and you tell me the truth, all right?"
"All right," Bob said.
"Was that girl down there your first?"
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