Bloodstone (10 page)

“Hello, the camp!” he called. It was not wise in the wilderness to walk uninvited into a campsite. With the fear of brigands everywhere, a sudden appearance could lead to a volley of shots from frightened travelers.

“Come on in,” came a voice that echoed eerily up through the cleft. Shannow pushed his coat back over the butt of his right-hand pistol and, leading the horse with his left hand, approached the cleft. It was narrow only at the entrance and widened into a pear-shaped cave within. An old man with a waist-length white beard was sitting before the fire, above which a hunk of meat had been spitted. At the back of the cave a mule had been hobbled. Shannow led his horse to the rear and looped the reins over the beast’s head, trailing them to the ground. Then he joined the white-bearded man.

“Welcome to my fire,” said the man, his voice deep. He extended his hand. “You can call me Jake.”

“Jon Shannow.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Shannow. I kept looking at this meat and thinking, There’s too much here for you, Jake. Now the Lord has supplied me with a dinner guest. Come far?”

Shannow shook his head. A great weariness settled on him, and he leaned back against a rock and stretched out his legs.

Jake filled a mug with a steaming brew and passed it to him. “Here, drink this, boy. It’s a great reviver, and there’s a ton of sugar in it.”

Shannow sipped the brew. It was rich and bittersweet. “My thanks, Jake. This is good. Tell me, do I know you?”

“Could be, son; the world’s a mighty small place. I’ve been here and there: Allion, Rivervale, Pilgrim’s Valley, the Plague Lands. You name it, I’ve seen it.”

“Rivervale … yes, I seem to remember …” He saw a beautiful woman and a young boy. The memory faded like a dream when one wakened, but a name slipped through the shutters. “Donna!” he said.

“You all right, boy?”

“Do you know me, Jake?”

“I’ve seen you. It’s a fearsome name you carry. You sure it’s yours?”

“I’m sure.”

“You seem a mite young, if you don’t mind me saying so. What are you … thirty-five … six?”

“I think I’ll sleep now,” said Shannow, stretching himself out beside the fire.

His dreams were fractured and anxious. He was wounded, and the lion-man Shir-ran was tending to him. A creature with scaled skin ran into the cave, a jagged knife held in its hand. Shannow’s guns thundered, and the creature fell back, becoming a child with open, horrified eyes. “Oh, God, no! Not again!” cried Shannow.

His eyes opened, and he saw that Jake was kneeling beside him.

“Wake up, boy. It’s just a dream.” Shannow groaned and pushed himself to a sitting position. The fire had died down, and the old man handed him a plate on which strips of cold roast meat had been carved. “Eat a little. You’ll feel better.”

Shannow took the plate and began to eat. Jake took a pot from the dying fire and filled a tin mug. Then he added sticks to the coals. New flames flickered as Shannow shivered.

“It will soon warm up.” Jake rose and walked to the rear of the cave, returning with a blanket, which he wrapped around Shannow’s shoulders.

“You were in that gun battle last night,” he said. “I can smell the powder on your coat. Was it a good fight?”

“Are there any good fights?” responded Shannow.

“It’s a good fight when evil perishes,” said Jake.

“Evil does not usually die alone,” said Shannow. “They killed a young woman and her daughter.”

“Sad times,” agreed Jake.

The meat was good, and Shannow felt his strength returning. Unbuckling his gun belt, he laid it alongside him, then stretched his tired muscles. Jake was right. The heat from the fire was beginning to reflect back from the walls.

“What are you doing in the wilderness, Jake?”

“I like the solitude—generally speaking. And it is a good place to talk to God, don’t you think? It’s clean and open, and the wind carries your words to the heavens. I take it you were with the Movers.”

“Yes. Good people.”

“That’s as may be, son, but they don’t plant and they don’t build,” said Jake.

“Neither does the sparrow,” responded Shannow.

“A nice biblical reference, Mr. Shannow, and I do enjoy a debate. But you are wrong. The sparrow eats many seeds, then he flies away. Not all the seeds are digested, and he drops them in other places. All the great forests of the world were probably started by birds’ droppings.”

Shannow smiled. “Perhaps the Wanderers are like the birds. Perhaps they spread the seeds of knowledge.”

“That would make them really dangerous,” said Jake, his eyes glinting in the firelight. “There’s all kinds of knowledge, Mr. Shannow. Knew a man once who could identify every poisonous plant there was. Wanted to write a book on it. That’s dangerous knowledge—you agree?”

“People reading the book would be able to tell what plants not to eat,” said Shannow.

“Aye, and people wishing to learn of poisons would know what plants to feed their enemies.”

“Did he write the book?”

“No. He died in the Unity War. Left a widow and five children. Did you fight in the war?”

“No. At least I don’t think so.”

Jake looked at him closely.

“You having trouble remembering things?”

“Some things,” said Shannow.

“Like what?”

“Like the last twenty years.”

“I saw the head wound. Happens sometimes. So what will you do?”

“I’ll wait. The Lord will show me my past when he’s good and ready.”

“Anything I can do?”

“Tell me about the Deacon and his war.”

The old man chuckled. “That’s a tall order, boy, for one night around the fire.” Leaning back, he stretched out his legs. “Getting too old to enjoy sleeping on rock,” he said. “Well, then, where do we start? The Deacon.” He sniffed loudly and thought for a moment. “If you are who you claim to be, Mr. Shannow, then it was you who brought the Deacon into this world. He and his brethren were in a plane that took to the skies on the day of Armageddon. It was then trapped, held by the power that also snared the Sword of God. You released them when you sent the sword into the past to destroy Atlantis.”

Shannow closed his eyes. The memory was hazy, but he could see the sword hovering in the sky, the gateway of time opening. And something else … the face of a beautiful black woman. No name would come to him, but he heard her voice: “
It is a missile, Shannow. A terrible weapon of death and destruction.
” Try as he would, Shannow could not pluck any more from his past. “Go on,” he told Jake.

“The Deacon and his men landed near Rivervale. It was like the Second Coming. Nobody in this world knew about the decay and corruption that plagued the old cities, killers walking the streets, lust and depravity everywhere. The world, he said, was godless. The sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were multiplied a hundredfold in that old world. Before long the Deacon was a revered figure. His power grew. He said that the new world must never be allowed to make the mistakes of the old, that the Bible contained the seeds of man’s future prosperity. There were those who argued against him, saying that his plans were an affront to their views of personal freedom and liberty. That led to the Great War and the Second Hellborn War. But the Deacon won both. Now he rules in Unity, and there is talk that he plans to build the New Jerusalem.” Jake lapsed into silence and added more fuel to the fire. “Ain’t much else I can tell you, boy.”

“And the Jerusalem Man?” asked Shannow.

Jake grinned. “Well, you, if indeed that is you, were John the Baptist reborn, or maybe Elijah, or both. You were the
herald to announce the new coming of God’s word to the world. Until, that is, you were taken by God in a fiery chariot to a new world that needed your talents. You still remember nothing?”

“Nothing about a fiery chariot,” said Shannow grimly. “All I know is who I am. How I came to be here or where I have been for the last twenty years is a mystery to me. But I sense I was living under another name, and I did not use my pistols. Maybe I was a farmer. I don’t know. I will find out, Jake. Fragments keep coming back to me. One day they will form a whole.”

“Have you told anybody who you are?”

Shannow nodded. “I killed a man in the settlement of Purity. I told them then.”

“They’ll come hunting you. You are a holy figure now, a legend. It’ll be said that you’ve taken the Jerusalem Man’s name in vain. Personally I think they’d be wise to leave you alone. But that’s not the way it will be. In fact there could even be a terrible irony in all this.”

“In what way?”

“The Deacon has a group of men close to him. One of them—Saul—has formed a group of riders called the Jerusalem Riders. They travel the land as judges and law bringers. They are skilled with weapons and chosen from the very best—or perhaps it is the worst—of the Crusaders. Deadly men, Mr. Shannow. Perhaps they will be sent after you.” Jake chuckled and shook his head.

“You seem to find the situation amusing,” said Shannow. “Is it because you do not believe me?”

“On the contrary, it is amusing simply because I
do
believe you.”

Nestor Garrity took careful aim. The pistol bucked in his hand, and the rock he had set atop the boulder shivered as the bullet sliced the air above it. The sound echoed in the still mountain air, and a hawk, surprised by the sudden noise, took off from a tree to Nestor’s left. Sheepishly Nestor looked around, but
there was no one close, and he took aim again. This time he smashed fragments of stone from the boulder, low and to the right of the rock. He cursed softly, then angrily loosed the final four shots.

The rock was untouched. Nestor sat down, broke open the pistol, and fed six more shells into the chambers. It had cost him eighteen Bartas, almost a month’s wages at the logging camp, and Mr. Bartholomew had assured him it was a fine, straight shooting piece created by the old Hellborn factory near Babylon.

“Is it as good as the Hellborn used to make?” Nestor had asked him.

The old man shrugged. “I guess,” he said.

Nestor felt like taking it back and demanding the return of his money.

Sheathing the pistol, he opened the pack of sandwiches he had purchased from Mrs. Broome and took out his Bible. Then he heard the horse approaching and turned to see a rider coming over the crest of the hill. He was a tall, handsome man, dark hair streaked with silver, and he was wearing a black coat and a brocaded red waistcoat. At his hip was a nickel-plated pistol in a polished leather scabbard.

The rider drew up a little way from the youth and dismounted. “You’d be Nestor Garrity?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Clem Steiner. Mrs. McAdam suggested I speak to you.”

“In connection with what, sir?”

“The Preacher. She has asked me to find him.”

“I fear he’s dead, Mr. Steiner. I looked mighty hard. I seen blood and wolf tracks.”

Steiner grinned. “You don’t know the man as well as I do, Nestor. His kind don’t die so easy.” Nestor saw Steiner switch his gaze to the bullet-scarred boulder. “Been practicing?”

“Yes, sir, but I fear I am not skilled with the pistol. Safest place in these mountains is that rock yonder.”

In one smooth motion Steiner’s gun seemed to leap to his hand. At the first shot the rock leapt several feet into the air,
and the second saw it smashed to powder. Steiner spun the pistol back into its scabbard. “Forgive me, Nestor; I never could resist showing off. It’s a bad vice. Now, about the Preacher, were there any other tracks close by?”

Nestor was stunned by the display and fought to gather his thoughts. “No, sir. Not of a man afoot, anyway.”

“Any tracks at all?”

“No … well, yes. There was wheel marks to the east. Big ones. I think they were Wanderers. The tracks were recent, though, sharp-edged.”

“Which way were they heading?” Steiner asked.

“East.”

“Any towns out there?”

“There’s a new settlement called Purity. It’s run by Padlock Wheeler. He used to be one of the Deacon’s generals. I ain’t … haven’t been there.”

Steiner walked to the boulder, selected another small rock, and placed it on the top. Strolling back to Nestor, he said, “Let’s see how you shoot.”

Nestor took a long, deep breath and wished he had the nerve to refuse. Drawing the pistol, he eased back the hammer and sighted along the barrel.

“Hold it,” said Steiner. “You’re tilting your head and sighting with your left eye.”

“The right is not as strong,” Nestor admitted.

“Put the gun away.” Nestor eased the hammer forward and holstered the pistol. “All right, now point your finger at my saddle.”

“What?”

“Just point at my saddle. Do it!” Nestor reddened, but he lifted his right hand and pointed. “Now point at the tree on your right. Good.”

“I never had much trouble pointing, Mr. Steiner. It’s the shooting that lets me down.”

Steiner chuckled. “No, Nestor. It’s the lack of pointing that lets you down. Now, this time draw the pistol, cock it, and point it at the rock. Don’t aim. Just point and fire.”

Nestor knew what would happen and wished with all his heart that he had chosen to stay home that day. Obediently he drew the long-barreled pistol and pointed at the rock, firing almost instantly, desperate to get the embarrassing moment over and done with.

The rock exploded.

“Wow!” shouted Nestor. “By damn, I did it!”

“Yes,” agreed Steiner. “That’s one rock that will never threaten innocent folks again.”

Steiner moved to his horse, and Nestor realized the man was about to leave. “Wait!” he called. “Will you join me in some lunch? I got sandwiches and some honey biscuits. It ain’t much, but you’re welcome.”

As they ate, Nestor talked of his ambition to become a Crusader and maybe even a Jerusalem Rider one day. Steiner listened politely, no hint of mockery in his expression. Nestor talked for longer than he ever had to one person at one time and eventually stumbled to a halt. “Gee, I’m sorry, Mr. Steiner. I think I near bored you to death. It’s just, nobody ever listened so good before.”

“I like ambition, Son; it’s a good thing. A man wants something bad enough and he’ll generally get it if he works at it and he’s unlucky enough.”