"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.
"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 saddlebag 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," the preacher muttered.
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 dirty-minded old fool. Calm down."
Jem reached down to feel around the 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."
Father Charles wrapped his hand around the woman's destrier's reins and said, "You just get up on your destrier and let's go. I know how you young fellas are. Follow your little captains into battle every time. Not on my watch. No sirree."
Jem climbed up onto his saddle and said, "I'm not trying to quarrel with you, padre. Listen, how about we not go pointing fingers at each other?"
The preacher looked at him sideways, seeing Jem's earnest expression except for the slight spark of mischief in his eyes. He shook his head and said, "You can seriously kiss my righteous ass."
Chapter 17: Personal Jesus
Comee woke all of them up before dawn with various orders. Some of the men were sent out to collect as many large branches as they could find, while others were detailed to begin digging a pit in the hard desert floor. The three boys headed toward the thicket of barren and barbed trees but Toquame Keewassee called out to Haienwa'tha to wait. "Where are you going?"
Haienwa'tha looked at the other two and said, "Comee told us to gather firewood."
"No, he told them to gather firewood. You come with me," Keewassee said. "They won't mind. We have more important things to do than pick up sticks."
Thathanka-Ska watched his brother run back to the taller warrior and grimaced. "Why are we doing it if it isn't important?"
"I think he's making a sweat lodge," Lakhpia-Sha said. "The pit is for the stones and the fire. At least that's what it looks like, because something is wrong." When the younger boy asked him what it was, the apprentice said, "All sweat lodges are supposed to face the sun as it rises. Where he's building it, the mountains will cast their shade on him."
"If he's doing it wrong, you should tell him," Thathanka-Ska said.
The older boy shrugged as he bent down to pick up a long stick, "What do I know?"
"What makes you say that? Did Mahpiya teach you how to make a sweat lodge?"
"Yes."
"Did he say it had to face the sun and be out of the shadows?"
"Yes."
"Then you are disrespecting his teachings by not correcting someone who is doing it wrong."
"And what do you think Keewassee will say when I show him up in front of all his warriors? 'Thank you, meaningless worm. Without you, I would have looked like a fool?' No. I think he'll skin my hide for the insult and wear it like a coat."
Thathanka-Ska looked back at the man, who was now standing so close to Haienwa'tha that he was able to lay his hand on the boy's shoulder. The two of them were smiling and nodding. Telling each other secret things that only they knew. Things that made Haienwa'tha laugh and the older man smile, even as the sight of it twisted in Thathanka-Ska's chest like a barbed spear. "I don't think you're a meaningless worm," Thathanka-Ska whispered. "And I would not allow anyone else to say that, either. Least of all him."
Lakhpia-Sha finished loading his arms up with sticks and said, "Stop being so dramatic. I just meant that it isn't my place to tell our new Chief what to do."
Thathanka-Ska saw a large stick on the ground that was perfect for kindling. He made sure no one was looking as he stepped on it with one foot and kicked it with the other to break it in half.
Once the pit was dug and the long sticks assembled to form a canopy over them, the men soaked their blankets in the water of the nearby stream and carried them back to hang them on the structure. A fire was lit outside of the lodge and several of the men threw large stones into the flames until they smoked and glowed red. They shoveled the rocks out of the fire and threw them into the pit inside the lodge.
Toquame Keewassee watched all of this with solemn approval, and when there were enough rocks inside the lodge, he held up his hand to stop the work. "Behold, brothers. I go to communicate with our ancestors and seek their wisdom." He stripped out of his clothes and stood naked as Comee lit a bundled stick of sage and blew on it until it started to smoke. Keewassee held out his arms to let the smoke roll over him, then waved more and more of it toward him. He pulled back the blankets and ducked inside the lodge.
All of the other men moved away from the lodge and sat on the ground, waiting for their leader to emerge once more. Thathanka-Ska leaned close to Lakhpia-Sha and said, "Did they do that correctly?"
The older boy shook his head and said, "But maybe their way is just different than ours."
Thathanka-Ska looked up at the sun, now fully in the sky. The makeshift sweat lodge was covered in shadows from the hills above. The wet blankets were starting to steam.
For two hours the Pwatsak warrior sat within the lodge while his men waited outside. Some of them played games with stones in the dirt and others tended to their gear by sharpening their blades or re-tying their satchels.
Thathanka-Ska was tired of sitting and he got up to inspect the camp. All of the warriors were hard looking men with battle-scarred torsos. He looked on in disgust at their rifles that we
re decorated with long wooden stocks decorated with locks of flowing hair. Black hair, Thathanka-Ska thought. Beothuk hair.
There was a cart at the rear of the camp that he hadn't seen before, and the destrier it was attached to munched contentedly on a patch of tall grass. He patted the animal on its nose as he passed toward the side of the cart and lifted the blanket covering the contents inside. It was a cache of weapons. Not like the guns the men carried, but advanced rifles with electronic gauges and scopes. Boxes of grenades and rocket launchers. Thathanka-Ska whistled softly before he put the blanket back over the cart and headed back to find his brother.
The men around the sweat lodge were in an uproar. Dark smoke was billowing out of the sweat lodge and small flames danced across the surface of the blankets that spread in the wind and flared.
They could hear Toquame Keewassee coughing inside the lodge and several of the men tried to tear away the flaming blankets but could not get close enough. Suddenly, there was a crash of sticks and Keewassee burst through the side of the lodge, sending the entire thing collapsing onto itself. He rolled on the ground and burning bits of charred wood were stuck to his flesh that his men rushed forward to pluck off of him.
As he laid there coughing and trying to catch his breath, he whispered, "I have passed the final test."
He sat up and covered himself with a blanket and gratefully accepted water from one of his men. He downed the cup quickly and wiped his mouth, his face covered in black soot, but his wide smile white and pointed beneath it. "I saw your father," he said to Haienwa'tha. "He came to me and told me that I was to lead his people into the new lands, but that first I must prove myself to you. He reached into his medicine bag and cast fiery dust at the walls of the sweat lodge and he told me that I must escape unaided. It was Thasuka-Witko who started the fire, and it was he who showed me the way out."
The men nodded and murmured to one another at Keewassee's words. Lakhpia-Sha looked to Haienwa'tha, who was also staring at the man with wide eyes. Haienwa'tha stood to his feet and said, "It is true. You are the one."
"Yes, I am," Toquame Keewassee said. He held out his arms toward Haienwa'tha and said, "Come to me, little brother. Embrace the chosen leader of your people."
Guns of Seneca 6 Box Set Collected Saga (Chambers 1-4) Page 34
