Novel - Dead Reckoning (with Rosemary Edghill)

by Mercedes Lackey

  “I imagine it’d have to,” Jett muttered under her breath. “You aren’t alone here, are you, Sister Agatha? I imagine it’d get pretty lonely.”

  “Oh, not at all! We are seventy souls here at Jerusalem’s Wall. Most of the menfolk are tending to the cattle and horses, but some are at work in the forge, and you will meet them when we gather for supper. I am so grateful I am not a man—it would be a great burden to me if I was not able to hear Brother Shepherd’s preaching every day.”

  That’s odd. I never heard of a forge that didn’t make more noise than a tinker’s cart falling off a cliff. And sound carries out here.

  “So, most of the menfolks don’t come back to the house every day?” No matter what Sister Agatha said, Jett was pretty sure she was lonely and looking for someone to talk to … and that would make her an excellent source of information.

  “Oh, no! They—”

  “Sister Agatha, it grieves me to find you here in idleness,” a new—male—voice said. “Has not our own Blessed Founder said it is the woman’s place to labor, for her labors are as sweet devotion and honest prayer?”

  Sister Agatha gave a startled gasp. “Oh forgive me, Brother Raymond! I was only—we have a guest—” She didn’t wait for Brother Raymond to reply but scurried out of the room with a good deal more speed than she’d shown entering it. Jett clenched her teeth and pasted on a cheerful—and utterly false—smile. It was amazing how much Divine Revelation always seemed to involve women doing all the work and keeping their mouths shut.

  “Jett Gallatin,” she said, holding out her hand (and taking the opportunity to set the tin mug aside). “Hope I didn’t get the lady into any trouble.”

  “She will scourge her soul with prayer and hope to hear the Revelation more clearly,” Brother Raymond said darkly. He was a stocky man about a decade younger than Finlay Maxwell. His face and neck were burnt red by the sun, and he wore a collarless muslin shirt, baggy homespun pants, suspenders, and work boots. Good thing this isn’t still a ranch, Jett thought to herself. Brother Raymond looks like a sodbuster born and bred. And I can make a durned good guess where he was born, too.

  “What brings you to Jerusalem’s Wall, Mister Gallatin?” Brother Raymond asked, ignoring Jett’s outstretched hand.

  “Looking for work,” Jett said blandly. “Sister Agatha invited me to stay for supper, but if I’d be any trouble …”

  “Charity is the first duty of our Fellowship,” Brother Raymond said, echoing Sister Agatha’s words. Innocent enough. Charity was one of the virtues, and most Churchly folks Jett had met on her travels practiced it, whether they were Methodists or Mormons, Quakers or Catholics.

  “Well, that’s real neighborly of you,” Jett said. “’Preciate it. Wouldn’t mind the chance to ask a few questions.”

  “Questions?” Brother Raymond’s voice was suddenly hard with suspicion.

  “Looking to catch up with my brother. He, ah, he lit out for the Territories when we lost the war, and last I heard from him was a while back. Wondering if you folks might’ve seen him.” She knew she wouldn’t need to make it any plainer. If Brother Raymond hadn’t been wearing a gray uniform three years ago, she’d eat her hat.

  Brother Raymond relaxed immediately. “You will find we of The Fellowship of the Divine Resurrection have renounced all Earthly quarrels and allegiances, Mister Gallatin. It is God’s Law that will rule over God’s Kingdom, and the time of that Kingdom is fast approaching. I must ask you to set aside your hatred while you abide among us.”

  “Just looking for my brother,” Jett said mildly. “Only kin I’ve got left.” She’d learned a long time ago that if people thought they knew all about you, they stopped wondering. And her story was a plausible one. After all, it was the truth.

  “When God’s Kingdom comes, all the Saved will be as brothers,” Brother Raymond said. “Our Blessed Founder has told us so, and should you doubt my words, I must tell you that once Brother Shepherd was a man like you, a man consumed by hatred and the love of violence. Then one day seven years ago he was vouchsafed God’s Seal of Divine Grace—but he found to his sorrow his words fell upon ears not ready to hear them. And so he came West, into the wilderness which God in His Infinite Providence appointed to our use. Here he has gathered about himself pure souls who will become the cornerstone of the Great Temple that God will raise up from our humble faith.”

  There ain’t one blessed thing humble about you, “Brother” Raymond, Jett thought to herself. And I guess if I was a yellow-bellied coward, I’d’ve had a Revelation that meant I had to light out before the War, too.

  But she’d never have been a successful gambler if the men across the card table could tell what she was thinking. She made herself look interested and impressed, and Brother Raymond seemed to take this as an invitation to do some preaching of his own. Except for those few facts about Brother Shepherd, his speechifying was long on vague promises and short on hard information. She didn’t bother to try to work the conversation around to the walking dead. She suspected it would hurt his feelings.

  There didn’t seem to be any place for her to jump into the conversation anyway, and she began to think Brother Raymond had enough words stored up to be able to go right on preaching at her until sunset, mostly about her violent and unChristian ways. She was finally rescued by the familiar clatter of an iron triangle signaling dinnertime.

  “Come, Mister Gallatin,” Brother Raymond said grandly.

  Jett picked up her hat and followed him.

  They walked through a second room—this one completely empty of furniture—and then into what was obviously the dining room. It held benches and long trestle tables, but the tables weren’t set, and the room was empty. It was clearly not their destination.

  “Prayer before food, Mister Gallatin. I trust you agree it is far more important to feed the spirit than the body?” Out of the corner of her eye Jett caught Brother Raymond smirking, and wondered how many “guests” at Jerusalem’s Wall had beat a hasty retreat when they realized they’d been offered a meal and were getting a sermon instead.

  “Ain’t ever had trouble feeding both,” she answered mildly, and was rewarded by seeing Brother Raymond’s mouth settle into a thin line of discontent.

  The chapel doors stood open and the hallway was filled with people moving toward them. The ranch chapel had probably been part of the original building, and not something The Fellowship of the Divine Resurrection had gotten up itself. A lot of spreads were so isolated that if they wanted to do any God-bothering, they needed to make local arrangements. There were circuit preachers who rode among places without a minister in residence, staying a few days to marry and bury (or at least say a funeral), baptize any new young’uns, and offer up a good serving of hellfire. In between, a rancho’s chapel would be used for prayers and Bible readings.

  The place looked more like a lecture hall than a chapel, with benches of the same rough construction as she’d seen in the parlor and the dining room and an unadorned lectern at the back. The only thing that didn’t fit in was the pipe organ in one corner. It was the finest thing she’d seen here at Jerusalem’s Wall, all gleaming brass and polished mahogany.

  All the men Jett saw were dressed much the same as Brother Raymond, and the women like Sister Agatha. Jett drew more than a few curious looks as she followed Brother Raymond inside. The light in the chapel came entirely from kerosene lamps attached to the walls. There were four on each side of the room and two at the back, and a fan of lampblack on the wall above each one, indicating the room saw a lot of use. Jett wondered if she’d been wrong about this originally being the chapel. Not only was there nothing here resembling an altar, there weren’t any windows.

  No, wait. There used to be. She looked carefully to be sure. I can still see where they filled them in. That was more than strange, but plenty of these so-called “holiness churches” had odd ways about them. It might not mean anything.

  Brother Raymond led her up to one of the benches in front
of the lectern. He was still—obviously—trying to make her uncomfortable, but better men than he had tried and failed. She didn’t like having people at her back, but she still had her guns and her knife and she hadn’t seen a single firearm here anywhere, not even so much as a shotgun. She pretended to fidget on the bench, using the movement to let her look around the room. There were maybe three dozen people here, most of them women. Sister Agatha had said there were seventy people living here; she wondered how many beeves Jerusalem’s Wall had if they needed forty or so hands to wrangle them. That was twice as many as it took to drive a herd to Abilene—and some of those drives numbered a thousand head of cattle. Of course, spring was branding season too …

  There was an expectant rustle behind her. Brother Shepherd must have arrived.

  The man who walked up the center aisle was short for a man—about Jett’s height—with thinning gray hair cut short. His skin was pale and smooth, and he had much the look of a law clerk: stoop-shouldered and soft. Jett was willing to bet he didn’t lift anything heavier than a pencil from one end of the year to the next.

  The room settled into expectant silence as Brother Shepherd took his place behind the lectern. Brother Raymond had spent a good deal of time on the subject of Brother Shepherd’s humility and how all the Fellowship were equal, but it was obvious to Jett they all kowtowed to this Blessed Founder of theirs. She settled her hat on her knee and prepared to be bored.

  “My dear brothers and sisters in the Divine Resurrection, I bring you greetings once more from the angels Cassiel, Dumah, Jehoel, and The Heavenly Throne of Revelation. Truly we are fortunate to live in an age where the Highest prepares to close the great book upon this earthy Jerusalem in preparation for the building of a Jerusalem of Fire. It is by your hands and by your unstinting labors that an army of Holy Angels is being forged to go forth upon this sacred task—a sinless, stainless army whose bodies are of the substance of the Almighty’s first children, recalled to life without the stain of Eve or the mark of Cain to lead them astray—”

  Jett revised her opinion from “law clerk” to “preacher.” Brother Shepherd had the knack of hooking an audience, and the same ability Maxwell Finlay had to fill a whole room with his voice and still make you think he was talking just to you. He didn’t just stare at the back wall, either, but glanced around his congregation. When he locked eyes with her, Jett saw his were such a pale gray as to be almost colorless. The uncanny effect gave her chills.

  It hadn’t taken her long to decide “Brother” Shepherd was crazier than a cage full of bats. It didn’t mean he had anything to do with the zombies—she was prepared to believe that if he saw a zombie, he’d just start preaching at it. The fact he was still alive was a pretty good indication he hadn’t seen any. Maybe they had just crossed Jerusalem’s Wall on their way to parts unknown. She knew they’d come this way. White Fox hadn’t lost the trail or followed the wrong one.

  But the longer Brother Shepherd preached, the more worrisome his preaching got. The last time I heard this much about fire, the preacher was talking about the Other Place, Jett thought sardonically. Brother Shepherd moved on from praising the congregation and describing the “Jerusalem of Fire” that was to come, to praising the army that would make it happen.

  “It is the Blessed Resurrected who will go forth to work the Almighty’s will! They will build the Jerusalem of Fire to which our Blessed Savior will return! You will say it is a great labor beyond the strength of mortal man—and I say to you, you are right! But the Blessed Resurrected draw their strength not from the things of this world, but from their baptism in the Divine Fire of the Jerusalem to come! The Blessed Resurrected are possessed of an angelic nature forged in Heaven’s own fires, a fire that burns away all earthly taint—”

  As Brother Shepherd continued describing the holy army of the blessed resurrected, something occurred to her that made Brother Shepherd’s speechifying a lot less entertaining. If you stripped off all the ‘holiness’ jabberjaw and Bible-talk, what Brother Shepherd was describing …

  “—by their angelic nature, the Blessed Resurrected need no Earthly substance! Those anointed by the fires of the Jerusalem to come neither eat nor drink—nor shall the Blessed Resurrected sleep while their work is unfinished, for their every hour is dedicated to the will of the Heavenly Throne of Revelation!”

  … was zombies.

  His “Blessed Resurrected” didn’t eat, drink, or sleep. They were “silent before the walls of the fiery Jerusalem,” which meant they didn’t talk. They were “impervious to the pains of death,” and the only thing Jett knew of that didn’t have to worry about dying was something already dead. They were “perfectly obedient to the Will of the Lord and to the will of The Lord’s Appointed Captains”—and Maxwell had said the zombies in Alsop had followed a living general. But there were too many breathing people here for this to be a haunt of zombies.

  Could be coincidence, she insisted to herself. Could be. She’d almost convinced herself it was when Brother Shepherd headed into the homestretch.

  “My truth is a truth revealed of the mind of the holy angels of the Almighty God! Alsop has long stood as a rebuke to the pure and stainless Throne of Praise, a cankerous woodworm within the walls of the Jerusalem to come, a Temple of Ba’al and of Mammon, filled with harlotry, with drink, with wagering, and with money-lending! But no longer! This very day Alsop stands cleansed by the hand of the Blessed Resurrected, by an angelic army obedient to the highest law! But rejoice! The angels of the Lord have revealed unto me, the most humble servant of Righteousness, that Death has been vanquished, nor will Almighty Heaven cast even the blackest malefactor into Hell! Those whom the angelic army cleanse die not, but rise up redeemed and sanctified to join the army of the Blessed Resurrected! Alsop is only the first such to join in the army of the Blessed Resurrected! It will not be the last!”

  Jett concentrated on sitting very still. The only way for Brother Shepherd to know what had happened in Alsop was if he’d been there. And if he said Alsop was only the first to be “cleansed” that way …

  It meant the zombie army was going on a recruiting drive.

  * * *

  Gibbons felt a certain amount of relief at White Fox and Jett’s departure. They were good people, both of them, but they were not scientists, and they were inclined to believe in irrational things without ever bothering to examine their beliefs. She was used to solitude as she conducted her investigations. Having to explain every step as she took it—and probably argue about it—would be tedious in the extreme.

  First things first, she told herself briskly. She intended to spend some time here in Alsop—she could hardly search an entire town for clues in just a few hours—and that meant it would only be sensible to move her Auto-Tachypode into shelter. The three of them might be the only people here now, but that could change at any time.

  She walked up the street to where her conveyance waited. Swinging herself up onto the driving bench, she adjusted several levers, waited a few moments for the pressure to build in the boiler, then released the brake. But instead of being rewarded with the familiar rhythm of the pistons and a smooth forward motion, the Auto-Tachypode began bouncing up and down in place.

  Well … drat, Gibbons thought.

  Before it could explode, she grabbed the emergency levers and yanked hard. The double-walled iron floor of the firebox swung free, dropping its load of coals and ash onto the ground. From the roof of the wagon, a brass nozzle extended and a long arc of boiling water jetted out above and behind the wagon, to fall harmlessly to the street. Last of all, she opened the regulator in order to let the remaining steam pressure escape.

  Science is a process of trial and error, she told herself consolingly. The Auto-Tachypode was a great leap forward in mechanical transportation, but it was still a prototype, and as such, it failed to start properly at least one time in three. I was certain I’d compensated for the steam loss in the low-pressure cylinder. Perhaps I need to rebalance the flywhee
l once more, she thought broodingly. She jumped down from the bench again. Her machine wasn’t going anywhere for several hours at least: she’d need to allow enough time for the cylinders to drain and the boiler and firebox to cool completely before an attempt to restart it, or else uneven expansion in the cylinders would lead to a larger explosion than the one she’d just averted. Meanwhile, she could take advantage of a luxury she’d never expected to find in a town like Alsop to further her investigations.

  The telegraph and post office building was across from the jail at the far end of the main (and only) street. Both it and the jail were brick, the only non-wooden structures in the town. In the case of the jail, it was undoubtedly for the sake of constraining the inmates from escape or untimely liberation. In the case of the telegraph office, it was probably to reassure the townspeople that this new technology wouldn’t destroy everything for miles around with its strange electromagnetic waves. She wrinkled her nose in amusement. As if there have not been telegraph lines strung from one end of the continent to the other for six years already!

  Samuel B. Morse, Joseph Henry, and Alfred Vail had invented the telegraph in 1844, several years before she’d been born. The invention had made it possible to converse with someone a hundred miles away almost as easily as with someone in the same room. Telegraph lines were usually run along railroad right of ways, for in addition to providing the wires with an unobstructed path, they could also be easily inspected for accidental breaks or deliberate vandalism. For a town such as Alsop to have a telegraph was unusual, but as a waystation along the Chisholm Trail, it was not entirely unexpected. Trail bosses might have to let ranchers know of unexpected good or bad fortune.

  She opened the door and stepped inside. The silence and sunlight gave the place much the feel of a cathedral, and so it was—a cathedral of Science. The outer office held a wide counter with bars like a bank teller’s cage, a desk with pigeonholes for message forms, and a plaque on the wall with the rates charged for messages. (A piece of paper pinned up below it said that no incoming telegraphic messages would be available before four p.m. or after six p.m. and concluded with “No Exceptions!!!”) The expense of sending and receiving messages meant telegraphy was still beyond the budget of most people. But that will change! Gibbons thought joyfully. Someday there will be a telegraphy office on every street and an Auto-Tachypode in every barn!