Judas Payne: A Weird Western

by Michael Hemmingson

  * * *

  Katherine Payne went into the barn later that day. She let out a small cry, seeing the soiled, wounded Indian on the ground. The Indian appeared as terrified as she. She stepped back, touching her chest: heart pounding. The Reverend was in town, she was all alone here, and there were no guns in the house. She had heard a great deal of stories about these savages. He merely stared at her with solemn, darkened eyes. She saw that he was bleeding from the side; there was a lot of dried, coagulated blood, it looked like he’d been shot. The Indian did not get up; he lay back down, watching her. He appeared sad. Katherine felt somewhat at ease, which struck her as odd. “How did you get here?” she asked. The Indian did not respond. “You probably do not understand me,” she said. “How did you come to be injured?” The Indian merely gazed at her, then closed his eyes. She feared he’d died, but he opened his eyes again. There was a glow about him, a light that made him innocent to her. He was anything but threatening. He needed help. Katherine Payne could not turn him away. “I shall return,” she said.

  * * *

  THE DEVIL smiled to himself because things were working as planned.

  The woman returned as promised, with water and cloth. He tried to move away from her as she slowly approached, then decided it did not matter. He didn’t have to play the wounded creature too much, she was his. She bent down, putting the cloth in water, then proceeded to clean his wounds. He was intrigued by this woman; why did such a lovely piece of female flesh marry Reverend Payne? She smelled—like a warm day in the sun, and pretty like flowers. He marveled at the smoothness of her skin, how pink it was, and her golden hair. THE DEVIL loathed all these things.

  * * *

  Katherine was gratified the Indian wasn’t being difficult, and allowed her to clean his wounds and wrap bandages around him. The white bandage soon spotted with red. She did not know how to remove bullets, if it was a bullet wound this poor man was suffering from. And what was she going to tell Jedediah when he came home? She helped the Indian up, led him to the hay by the horses, and told him to lie there. He did as instructed, watching her carefully. What had this unfortunate soul gone through? Savage or not, he was one of God’s creations who needed help—and certainly her husband, a man of God, would agree.

  She returned to the house, checking on Evangeline. Her daughter was asleep. Was she being foolish? That Indian could come in here, kill both her and the child. No—now that thinking was foolish. She knew not all Indians were maniac killers, no matter what the papers and the penny dreadfuls said; many of those people were peaceful. This Indian seemed like the latter.

  She took some food out to him: dried meats and fruits. The Indian acted as if he didn’t know whether to take it or not. Finally, his hand went out to the food, and he began to eat ravenously. Katherine smiled.

  She was doing the right thing—a good thing.

  She let him be, checking an hour later to see if he had gone. He was asleep. She didn’t know how she would tell Jedediah of her find, so she didn’t. It was dark by the time the Reverend returned home; he had walked to town (a two hour walk, no less!), so there was no need for him to go into the barn. She would tell him tomorrow, if the Indian were still there. She hoped—and felt guilty for it—that he would go away and the whole matter would be her secret.

  Katherine could not sleep that night. She was both concerned for the Indian and apprehensive of the idea that he might come in and...no, no, Katherine, stop that line of thinking right now!

  She got up, quietly moved through the house, getting some more food from the kitchen and going out to the barn with an oil lamp. He was still in there, awake, standing, and naked. She pulled in a breath. His penis...it was so enormous. She had never actually seen her husband’s, but she knew this Indian was three if not four times the size of the Reverend’s... and the phallus was glowing red.

  The Indian smiled at her. His teeth were a bright white, and there was fire in his eyes....

  * * *

  THE DEVIL did not expect Katherine at this hour of night, standing before him in her night clothing, with an oil lamp and food. Perhaps she came for this, he wouldn’t have to force her after all. Indeed, why would she be so clean, so sweet to smell, so pure of skin, if not for him? He grabbed her hard, pulling her close. The lamp fell to the ground, and so did the food. She tried to cry out and he clamped his hand on her mouth. He whispered, “Hush, my dear.” He dragged her toward the hayloft. She put up a struggle, but not a good one; no, she gave in too easily, too quickly. “You have been waiting for this all your life,” said THE DEVIL into her ear; “since you were a little girl, I have known your true being, and the same fate shall fall upon your daughter.” So he got on top of her, pried her legs open. He stroked his giant red penis. Her teeth sank into his palm as he entered her, but he did not bleed. Her eyes gazed up, bright and blue, then closed tightly. He could see it in her face: she was in pain, but there was also ecstasy; it wasn’t easy to get into her but once he did her vagina became wet and clasped around him; he quickly spent himself into her, and lay on her, gazing on her skin and hair and beauty.

  “This is my dark gift to you,” said T HE DEVIL, “and a nice slap in the face to Jedediah.”

  “You speak...”

  “What? Like a white man?”

  THE DEVIL laughed, stood up, and revealed his true form— with a snap of the finger.

  “Behold, my dear!”

  Katherine was not frightened; she was not surprised or horrified. She sighed, closed her eyes, said, “I should have known.”

  When she opened her eyes, THE DEVIL was gone.

  * * *

  The walk from the barn back into the house felt, to Katherine Payne, like forever. She cringed, feeling THE DEVIL’s seed coming out of her, running down her leg. Violated. She had just been raped. Couldn’t Jedediah hear that? No. The sounds were not loud, and the house was placed a good two hundred feet from the barn. It goes without saying she felt quite soiled. She could smell THE DEVIL’s grime and sweat on her. She wanted a bath, needed one more than anything she ever needed in her life. But Jedediah might wake up and want to know why she was bathing at this odd hour.

  So she went to her bed, prayed to the Lord. Asked Him to erase the incident from her mind, if not history. How could she tell her husband? She could not. In the morning, she decided she would not.

  * * *

  Katherine Payne’s belly was growing; the sickness she’d had when pregnant with Evangeline was also present. She knew what she had to do. She attempted, on several occasions, to coax her husband into the marriage bed. He ignored her, he had no interest in the act. He said, “Woman, what has gotten into you? Only whores ask for it!”

  She looked at Evangeline one night and cried, saying to her child, “You should have been a boy, this is a world of men; for a woman, there is only anguish and affliction....”

  One night, her daughter put to bed, Katherine went to her husband, who sat by candlelight in the front of the house reading from The Book. She saw that he was reading from The Book of Samuel.

  “Jedediah,” she said, “have you noticed something different about me?”

  He looked up. “What say you?”

  “Look at me,” she said, turning to her side, “can’t you see?”

  “See what?”

  She sighed, then lifted up her blouse and showed him her naked belly.

  “Katherine!” he bellowed, rising to his feet. She pulled her blouse down. “You are with child?!?” he shouted, rather stupefied.

  “Yes,” she answered, oh so timid and soft...

  * * *

  Yes, Jedediah Payne was, needless to say, quite the flabbergasted man in God’s flock. The last time he had relations with his young wife was in Boston. Not once since their months out here had he gone to her...touched her...or even considered the vile desires of wanton flesh.

  “I cannot be the father,” he realized, saying this accusingly to his emotionally embattled spouse.

  �
��No,” she admitted.

  Payne was surprised by how calm he reacted; it was almost as if he was relieved that he had not spawned another offspring.

  He said, flatly, “You have some explaining to do, wife.”

  She began to talk, fast, fearful he might stop her before she could tell her story. She told him of a wounded Indian who had been in the barn, and how she had helped clean his injuries, and how she gave him some food, and how she hoped he just might go away, and when she went to check to see if he was there, he violated her. It was against her will, she assured him of this. There was nothing she could have done. He was a strong, irreligious animal.

  She did not confess who the Indian really was. She was certain she had a hallucination, that vision of evil.

  “Why...” and he cleared his throat. “Why did you not tell me of this when it occurred?”

  “What would you have thought of me?” she asked.

  The anger started to boil inside him. “So you only tell me when you are with child!?!”

  “I did not know I—” and she began to cry.

  “Look at me,” he said.

  She sobbed.

  “Look at me, wife!”

  She turned to face him.

  Was she telling the truth? There seemed to be no deception. He struck her across the face, very hard. Katherine fell to the porch, spitting blood from her mouth. Payne wanted to kick her, boot her in the belly and flush this evil tot from her bowels. He stopped, taking heed of what he had done. She lay at his feet, choking.

  He couldn’t do it. It would be murder. He wouldn’t do it.

  “You are no wife of mine,” he said, and went into the house, into his chamber, locking the door. He opened the Good Book, sought a passage to soothe his mind...

  He found none.

  * * *

  Payne and his wife did not exchange words after that; they avoided crossing each other’s paths. Payne fed himself. He didn’t see his daughter, either, but that did not matter. He was a stranger in this home, his own home, purchased by the dirty money of his defiled wife’s father. He spent most of his time in town, tending to the congregation, saving their eternal souls from damnation. When people asked of his wife’s whereabouts, he said she wasn’t feeling well, and opted to stay home with the child. This was not entirely a lie.

  Many notions danced (like demons) through Reverend Payne’s mind. The first, that there had been no Indian. She had a lover somewhere, some young man from town who came to her when he was gone, and gave her that child; she was lying to him, trying to play at role of victim, trying to win sympathy. Payne looked into every man’s face in town, wondering: Is he my wife’s lover? Is he the David to my Bathsheba? He later ruled this out; what man would be so low as to seduce the wife of a Reverend and risk eternal fires? Anathema, yes: Satan. It all became quite clear now. This was the work of Satan. THE DEVIL feared Payne, always had: for wasn’t it Payne who saved so many souls in Boston, causing THE DEVIL to possess the men of his church and go against him? Satan had followed him out here, and struck him straight at home. Perhaps there was an Indian out in the barn, a shape Satan had taken. It made sense: why would she help such an animal? Like the serpent who had sweet-talked Eve in the Garden, so had this devil-in-Indian-guise do to his wife. Women were such ignorant, gullible creatures, indeed! Satan had beguiled her, taken her, placed his wanton seed into her womb to give forth an anti-Christ. It was so damn clear now, and the Reverend knew his mission. The world’s fate was in his hands. THE DEVIL would have a son here to rule and destroy the planet as was prophesied in the Book of Revelations. God, he knew now, had chosen him to change the face of the future.

  Payne dreamt one night that he came across a burning cacti plant in the desert.

  “Tell me my mission,” he said, for he knew what the plant was, as did Moses.

  “Thou salt not kill,” the bush boomed in a large voice.

  “I will not break a commandment,” Payne avowed, falling to his knees.

  He woke, thinking, I shall not kill....

  THE DEVIL was sitting outside the window—listening to Payne, having watched Payne’s dream—and quietly laughing.

  * * *

  When she went into labor, Katherine stumbled from her room, knocking hard on her husband’s door; he opened it reluctantly. She was on the floor—water broken, blood at her feet. Reverend Payne refused to fetch the town doctor or take her to him. He helped his wife back to her bed, but this was all he would do. He would let this aberration take its own course. If Satan’s child should die due to lack of proper care, so be it. This was out of his hands.

  Evangeline woke from the sound of her mother’s screams, and began crying herself. Payne ignored both females, watching the birthing with rapt repugnance.

  His wife thrashed on the bed, shrieking, spittle flying from her mouth like a bullet-shot coyote in the dirt—back arched, body off the bed. The child slid out from between her legs. Payne gasped. He had expected something with hoofed-feet, horns, a tail—a demon of fitting pretense. No. This was a human child. Brown of skin, green of eyes, and healthy with cry. A boy. A boy child. The afterbirth came next, looking more of the thing of nightmares than the Reverend had expected—as well as a flux of blood. Katherine wailed, then fell still, blood pouring around the infant. What was wrong with her? Why was she bleeding so?

  “Jedediah,” she said.

  He looked at her face.

  Her glare pierced into him, undiluted, straight to his od-given soul. “Come here, Jedediah,” she said.

  She knew she was going to die. She felt her insides rupturing, bursting. There wasn’t much time left. She could hear the newborn’s wails. She saw that it was a boy. He looked beautiful.

  She beckoned her husband to come to him, her voice weak yet insistent. He moved toward her, and he was frightened. How much of THE DEVIL was still inside her? She reached out and grabbed his wrist. He tried to pull free. Her nails dug in, puncturing flesh.

  Blood....

  “I’m leaving you now,” she said, coughing up her guts, “but you must make a vow.”

  “Katherine,” he said, still trying to free himself.

  “No matter what, no matter what—you will not harm this child. You will not give him away, you will not hurt him, you will not leave him to starve. He is my son, and he is the brother of your daughter.”

  “Katherine,” he said again.

  “Swear to this,” she said.

  He would not.

  “SWEAR IT!” she cried. “IF YOU DO NOT, AND IF YOU GO AGAINST YOUR WORD, BY THE LORD MY SOUL WILL HAUNT AND TORMENT YOU FOR ALL YOUR YEARS! I MAY GO TO HELL BUT I WILL MAKE A DEAL WITH SATAN TO LET ME HAUNT YOU UNTIL YOU GO MAD!”

  He was shaking to near paroxysms. “I swear,” he said.

  “SWEAR IT TO THAT UNJUST GOD OF YOURS!”

  “Blasphemy!” he choked.

  “SWEAR!”

  “I swear to the Lord, I—I—”

  “SWEAR ON THE BIBLE!”

  He did.

  She let go of him. “Give me my child,” she murmured.

  He would not do this. He had done enough. Evil was all around him. He began to pray out loud, asking the Angels for exact and swift relief. Katherine strained to grab the child by herself, pull him to her bosom. Blood was everywhere he looked. Payne went to get his daughter, to take her away from this sight. Evangeline was crying for her mother.

  The boy child stopped his wailing as soon as Katherine offered him her breast. As the child suckled, she took her last breath.

  Reverend Payne returned a few hours later, inquisitive more than concerned. His wife was still, her skin icy cold, the child asleep. Her stiff arms held the demon infant. He pulled the baby free, with abhorrence. The child began to cry. He wanted to smother it on the spot. But he had sworn an oath to her; he’d agreed to abide by God’s mandate in the dream. God had His Ways and those Ways were strange, yes, of course, he knew this. Payne had his own motives, however: he had to watch and make sure
this child of iniquity did not do the biding of his true sire. If he gave the boy up for adoption, he may fall into the hands of someone who could lead him to a position to destroy the world. No, he would keep Satan’s child here, as a prisoner, and make sure he did no detriment to and in the world.

  Reverend Jedediah Payne looked down at the brown newborn with green eyes and said, “Your name shall Judas...”

  CHAPTER TWO

  They were running up the hill—a young boy and girl, holding hands. Her long curly blonde hair flowed back like dreamy ripples in the wind; her pale blue dress offset her pale white skin—a grave contrast to the boy she was with, whose hair was black as night, skin dark and red-brown like clay. The pants the boy wore were too short for him, his shirt soiled and torn. He was a little younger than the girl who happened to be his sister. Evangeline Payne was more than a sister to ten-year-old Judas Payne. She was also a mother, a friend, the only person of the opposite sex that he had ever come into contact with, since his father didn’t allow him to go into town, and people seldom came to visit the Payne’s homestead.

  Judas was losing his breath, hand still in hers. “I’m getting tired, Evangeline! Can’t we stop? Here?”

  She halted, looking at the clear sky, arms out. Gazing on her face, her glinting eyes, her smile—well, Judas felt an odd warmth inside his heart.

  “It’s too beautiful out here!” Evangeline said. “The sun is out and the clouds and rain have gone! The baby birds are opening their eyes and singing and surly—you take note of my words, little brother—the angels are dancing and rejoicing...” She sighed the sigh of one with purity in the soul : “—for this here is the true beauty of God.” She turned to him, reaching out to touch his face with one dainty, frail hand. “Like you, my brother. The proof of the beauty in God. A very angel sent to this earth. I know this in my heart—I know this from my dreams.”