“Where’re the rest of your men, Mister Rook?” Love asked him, the noise alone enough to render their conversation extra-intimate.
“Not too far. One or two might already have beads on that wife of yours.”
“Then this should probably be kept between you and me, wouldn’t you say?”
“As ‘gentlemen’?” Rook gave out a true belly-laugh, at the idea. “Sheriff, you don’t have one touch of hexation in you, or I’d’ve smelled it by now. We tangle, I’ll crush you like an egg.”
“You’re forgetting — these folk are in my charge, as minister for this town, which makes it up to me to defend them. ’Sides which . . . I have the Lord, on my side.”
“Uh huh. Well, you’re young still — but in matters of answered prayers, I think you’ll find God most often has nothin’ much of import to say back, savin’ the occasional ‘I told you so.’”
Love studied Rook, almost sympathetically.
“He does to me,” was all he said.
Rook sighed. To Chess: “Step back, darlin’.”
Chess looked mutinous, but did it.
“At least throw me your guns,” he complained. “Ain’t like you need ’em!”
Rook did.
He turned to face Mesach Love head on, both hands rising to assume an arcane, unlearned posture — entirely intuited, each individual finger snake-crooked to spit, or strike. Only to realize Love was already doing something similar, in reply — hands first tented to bless, then canted forelong so he could sight at Rook over his own linked thumbs, a two-fisted shooting stance with no bullets behind it but those faith alone might supply.
Rook felt a tweak of sympathy himself, at the sight: I’m somewhat going to hate having to kill this up-stood fool, if he makes me . . .
“Ready, ‘Reverend’?”
“On your mark.”
They squared their shoulders as one, two stags in rut, and laid straight on into it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The sand was a moving wall all around them now, and Rook felt the Word come up through him in a wave, not even consciously summoned. It spilled silver-black and wickedly sharp-edged from his open mouth, a flood of sickness fit only to burn and scald.
Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him . . .
. . . But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.
And Jesus . . . said unto them . . .
. . . if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself. How shall then his kingdom stand?
(Matthew twelve, twenty-two to twenty-six.)
He’d pictured it hitting Love in a swarm, eating that holier-than-thou snarl off his face. But Love stood firm. Spitting back, from the very same chapter: “O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? For an evil man out of . . . evil . . . bringeth forth evil things.”
Obviously, Rook thought.
Love raised his “gun” hands higher, declaiming: “Get out, Satan! Oh, I am strong in the Lord. I cast you out, you sneakin’ Serpent! I am full in His power, filled up brim-full with His infinite and unforgivin’ might — ”
Rook regarded him with curiosity. “You’re fulla something, that’s for sure,” he replied.
Chess, from behind him: “Can I shoot him now, Ash?”
To which Rook just shook his head, firmly — Not while I’m still enjoying myself.
Since this first engagement had proved such an obvious stalemate, however (his power just jumping away from Love, like hands off a lard-slick hog), he must need to up stakes a tad. So, with full awareness of the irony, Rook reached down deep into the anti-Sodomitical grab-bag he’d once used on Chess and began to quote it back at Love, wholesale.
“Nice little town you’ve built here, Sheriff — shame to see it fall on your sin alone, don’t you think? For — Behold, THIS was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.”
Beyond the swirling barrier, Rook heard the creak and crack of timbers, the shudder of opening earth, as Love’s church-to-be folded in on itself, a house of cards.
Further on, Love’s wife was crying out thinly into the wind’s heart, her terror all for his life, rather than her own: “Meeeeeesach! Where are you? Fear nothing — God will help you, husband, in this your hour of need! God will — ”
Rook forced himself a pace or so forward, catching long, tall Mesach Love by both wrists and pulling him close. Saw those God-drunk eyes of his widen prettily, their pupils suddenly aflutter in the wind-tunnel’s ever-changing grey light.
“Scared yet, Sheriff?” He asked.
Love bared his teeth. “Not of you, I ain’t.”
“’Cause you got the Lord on your side.”
“Miracles go both ways, ‘Reverend.’ Long as I’m doing his work, I trust in His good will.”
“‘His work,’ huh?” Rook threw a glance back at Chess’s wrecked face, and felt his rage whip up higher than the wind itself. “Well, all right, then: Try this on for size.”
The verse was from Psalms — 139, to be specific. This close, it rained down on Love in molten silver-black, a cursed shower of wriggling worm-words blind-seeking for every entrance-point they could essay, to the very pores of Love’s straining skin. A blood-beat soul choir run anticlockwise, screaming out.
Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men.
For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain.
Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? And am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?
I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.
Love took it full to the face, but Rook had to give him credit; all it seemed to do was make him madder.
“How dare you?” he demanded, bitter-thick, through near-clogged lips. “How dare you take the Lord’s Word in vain, when you stand already on the edge of damnation — ”
“Oh, it ain’t in vain, believe you me. Still, if this ain’t proof enough of that, already . . .”
Rook clapped one hand against Love’s forehead, knocking the preacher-hat groundward, and forced himself inside: a healing in reverse, opening that invisible third eye in Love’s skull up like a glory hole with one violent thrust forward into darkness, sure to his back teeth he could fuck anything he found inside ’til it screamed. And fully expecting that what lay beyond would be nothing more (or less) than the contents of his own brain-pan — a hollow core of ignorance and doubt, wrapped in memorized words. Good intentions, masked in a bag of wind.
He’d never seen any angels, after all. Never heard any still, small voice . . . not ’til after he was hung. And even then — only hers.
Instead, Rook gasped out loud, staggered and went down hard, all a-tremble. Around them, the sand stuttered, thinning far enough in places to show the crowd outside what was happening, and Love’s champions literally leapt to his defence — Tree-trunk at the fore and grabbing for Chess yet again, only to take a bullet straight in his growling mouth. Meanwhile, more shots rang out from a handful of very different positions, as Hosteen and the rest weighed in at last.
Love’s woman hit the dirt, baby tucked against her with both arms. And Love — nose bleeding, but otherwise unscathed — yelled back at her over Rook’s head, which had begun to flail back and forth as the contents of Love’s soul coursed through him: “Sophy, take the boy and run, ’fore our Lord’s vengeance busts its banks! He’ll keep you too, girl! Run run run — ”
Sophy, Rook knew, wishing he didn’t. Sophronia. And the boy, the boy is — Gabriel. Like the angel.
Chess grabbed hold of Rook’s shoulder and shoved, hard. “Ash! What the shit — ”
&nbs
p; “That’s right,” Love told Rook, drawing himself to full height, while the tunnel around them shook and spat. “Now you see the true power of God Almighty at work, at long last.”
Was that more sympathy he heard, just a touch of it, in Love’s clarion voice? Rook almost hoped so. He lay caught between two equal-matched forces, prey to Hell’s undertow.
“Goddamnit, Ash, you Bible-drunk king prick — we’re under fire, soldier! Get your big ass up and do your damn duty!”
The central mistake — the hubris, for which Rook was now paying — had been trying to take hold of Love’s soul in the first place, seeing how that obviously belonged to one far more equipped to fight for it. Christ knew, if Rook’d just picked up a damn mountain and dropped it on him, faith alone could never’ve kept the son of a bitch uncrushed.
“That’s right, Serpent,” Love said, sadly. “On thy belly shalt thou go. Of the dust shalt thou eat — ”
Not just another opportunist — the Lieut wouldn’t’ve been fit to shine this one’s shoes. He loves this shit-flat place, these stupid, quarrelling people. Wants to do right by them, no matter the cost. Sophy over there’s his wife, or will be — and little Gabe’s fruit of their sin, ’til they get that reward money, and raise the church he’ll marry her in. Sinners or no, though, they’re firm in their commitment, their hope in redemption not so much a lie as telling the truth in advance.
He knows it’ll happen. God told him so.
Mesach Love’s done bad things in his time, like all men, but he’s certain in ways you never were, about anything. Except . . . Chess.
Chess, even now grabbing fast hold of Rook’s hand and pulling at him like he was a skinful of water on the Devil’s griddle, without knowing he was doing it at all. Sucking power from him in waves, his face re-ordering itself, nose straightening with a visible ripple, eyes re-emerging from their bruisy nests, as mean and bright as ever. Bound and determined to pound Sheriff Love into the dry ground, on both of their behalves.
And Love don’t stand a tinker’s dam of a chance against him, poor bastard — God or no.
Rook’s head swam as he tried to form the words, but his dazed mouth wouldn’t obey. Thinking, instead — Oh, let me go, sweetheart, let me go. This fight’s one I don’t deserve to win.
To which he somehow “heard” Chess reply, over their mutual nerve-strung telegraph-wire: Yeah? Well, too bad, Rev. Fuck that bullshit, right in the Goddamn ass.
Chess drew careful aim on Love, right between the eyes. “Eat this,” he said.
While, at the same time, Rook reached desperately up — stop Chess shit stop —
His hand spanning Chess’s, fingers and thumb overlapping, so Chess wore them like a huge flesh glove — Chess’s index tightening sure and vicious on the trigger, Rook’s slippy-sliding in cold sweat. About as restraining as a wedding ring.
It was like the doubled force of both of them came rocketing right out through the barrel, along with the bullet. Hitting Love not quite square-on, but with enough force to spin him ’round, one spurt of blood arching up to break apart on the sandstorm’s churning maelstrom.
Only winged him, thank God . . . guess he’ll thank Him himself, after.
Chess, rightly amazed by his point-blank miss, swore ably.
“You shut your mouth,” Love ordered. To Rook: “And as for you, you hypocrite antidinomian . . .” Here he stopped short, however.
Because something was already licking out from the wound in his shoulder, all white and icy-sparkling: salt, blanching him the way flame blackens paper. His long body froze, all bones and glass, eyes wild in a calcinate mask. Rook saw Love’s flesh bloom pinkly through here and there, a breathed-on coal, before stiffening forever into an almost-featureless pillar. His saint’s gaze forever lidded over, in a single terrible blink.
So fast, Jesus! Like judgement.
At the same time, the sand-wall blew away, allowing young Missus Love-to-be to catch sight of her man’s fate. She screamed, while others fought to pull her to safety — the baby already having begun to wail too, mimicking his Mama’s grief, if all unknowing of its cause.
Chess laughed out loud, to hear it. “Yeah,” he snarled. “Go on ahead and cry, little boy — your Daddy ain’t comin’ home anytime soon, not now, not ever — ”
Rook retched a sour lick of spit, genuinely sickened by Chess’s cruelty, the anger that had spawned it, his own complicity in both. Then cringed back a half-stride when he saw bits of verse glinting in the spew-up, silver-black and stomach-mucky — verse he didn’t even recall thinking up. Genesis again, Lot in Sodom. Abraham the Patriarch, begging: Give me but one honest man, my Lord, and stay Your hand against the city —
And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the LORD:
And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace . . .
The words came torn straight from Rook’s head, unbidden. And in that same puking breath, he felt the tide turn — swigged deep, sucking all the power Chess’d taken from him back again, and more. The sheer jolt of it lit him up, then backwashed, and sent the same salt that had snared Love quick-dripping down the Sheriff’s legs, curdling the earth beneath into a floodplain mire. Each of his congregationalists sunk to the ankle, the knee, the waist, salinified from their extremities up, so they crumbled and broke apart even as they struggled to flee.
“Don’t look!” Rook could hear Hosteen screaming from somewhere behind, to the rest of the gang. “Cover your face! For Christ’s sake, shut your God damn eyes!”
The salt skirted both him and Chess, though, avoiding them like they were the plague at hand. Like he’d suspected it might, so long as they only kept fast hold of each other.
And Sophy No-Last-Name curled in on her child, praying, ’til the rising wave of white choked her. ’Til only Mesach Love’s name was left on her bitter lips.
Hours after, as the sun rose, Bewelcome gave it back from every angle, a bleak wilderness of mirrors. In the end, everything had turned to salt — no exceptions. Oh, there’d be wind-wear and erosion to come, ’til the town’s edges lost their clarity, and travellers struggled to identify the place as made by human hands. For now, however, it was pristine, so clean it cut.
Rook looked over at Chess, so triumphant before at Love’s expense — and saw him waver, reeling under the full weight of what’d just happened: the spectacle of Love’s dead congregation, his woman fallen to her knees and bent double to hide her baby from the tide of rime. Same baby whose pudgy hand still protruded from the folds of her shawl, the two of them already blurred together, inseparable.
“Jesus, y’all right?” Hosteen asked Chess, genuinely worried. Chess spat and shuffled himself back upright, batting the older man away from him.
“Fine, idjit!” was all he said. But Rook, like Hosteen, knew better. Because they could both see what Chess had brought up, shining there amongst the drifts — a spray of liquid jewellery, bright red on endless white.
I can’t see him killed, Rook cast out into the ether, his mind reaching for that Indian woman’s — Grandma, why not? I won’t.
To which she sent back, faintly, from someplace far away — her Yellow Mountain? — You do not want to. But you will have to see it, eventually, knowing what he is . . . what you are. Unless . . .
Unless?
“You’re goin’?” Chess demanded. “Where? Why? Alone?” He paused. “For how long?”
“Don’t know, exactly. It’s this mountain over in Injun territory, back by the border — ”
“You’re a Bible School-bred liar, Ash Rook. I come in here alone, get myself beat to shit for you, and you lie right to my face? I killed the Lieut for you!”
“You were plannin’ on killin’ him anyhow, I believe.”
Chess threw up his hands. “Yeah, sure . . . but when I did it, I did it for you!”
Rook grit his teeth, and began again
. “Chess, what happened here just ain’t right, and you know it. I don’t whip this thing, I might hurt — somebody — I don’t want to.”
“So you’re gonna leave me behind!”
“I don’t want you hurt, Chess. Is that so hard to understand?”
“Yeah, well — talk’s cheap, Rev. Prove it!”
Rook paused, sighed, heavy as Balaam’s laden ass — and clapped a hand over Chess’s face, willing instantaneous sleep into him with one muffled burst, a soft mortar-round. Chess folded back into Hosteen’s grip, without a hint of protest.
“I just did,” Rook told him, knowing Chess couldn’t hear. To Hosteen: “Look after him.”
“I will,” Hosteen replied. “I mean, much as he’ll let me.”
Not much point in further goodbyes, from Rook’s point of view. So he just nodded — I know you will, Kees — and left, heading for open desert. Thinking, as he did: Okay, then.
Show me somethin’.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Two days later, as Grandma’s Yellow Abalone Shell mountain rose to scar the sky, Rook suddenly realized that this was the longest he and Chess had been apart since the day he’d been hung. But the desert was a shockingly empty place once you faced it alone, and he’d been walking slow enough now, for long enough, to let it steal a good portion of the daily sound and fury of Chess’s companionship away, though parts of him ached for lack of what he’d increasingly come to regard as their due reverence. In fact, without Chess here to do him worship, Rook’s formerly swelled head was deflating like a popped pig’s bladder.
Like coming down off a three-week drunk, your very piss still alcohol-laced enough to light up blue and high-flaming at the slightest touch of a dropped lucifer. Or maybe the morning after signing up, when he’d come to already in uniform.
Now, Rook stood in the peaks’ shadow, knowing San Francisco lay somewhere on the other side: that terrible city which had spit his own true love out into an unsuspecting world — all teeth from the very start, yet still quite the prettiest thing Rook’d ever seen, let alone killed for.
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