Hallowed Ground (29 page)

The man shivered, his hands curled like claws around the sweat stained blanket.
 
He looked like hell, but it was obvious his fever had broken.
 
The Deacon watched a moment longer, and then he stumbled to the back of the wagon and half-climbed, half fell to the ground beyond.
 
The earth was mucky and moist, and it soaked through the knees of his jeans, but he ignored it.
 
He felt a surge of something inexplicable, a burst of energy and vitality that defied explanation.
 
Inside, he roared.
 
The pouch throbbed and pulsed against his blistered chest and he gasped for breath.

And then, as suddenly as it had come, it passed.
 
Whatever it was he'd felt drained from him in the time it took for him to lick his bone-dry lips.
 
He rose to his knees, panting for breath and soaked in mud.
 
He lost track of everything beyond the rise and fall of his chest and the ragged sound of his breathing.
 
The next thing he knew, hands dropped gently onto his shoulders.
 
He glanced up.
 
The two women stood, one on either side of him.
 
They lifted him to his feet seemingly effortlessly.

And he stood there, shivering and cold as they stared at him.

"He's healed," the first woman he'd met spoke quickly.
 
"I don't know what you did. . . I don't . . . You healed my husband," she said, shaking her head.
 
"He's sitting up.
 
He's asked for food.
 
I never thought I'd hear his voice again.
 
I don't know what to say.
 
I don't know how to thank you.
 
You saved his life."

"I am glad," The Deacon replied, not certain what he should say – what the woman wanted him to say.
 
"The Lord is pleased."

"He sent you," the older woman told him with utter conviction.
 
Her voice broke as she sniffed back the tears.
 
"We were going to be stranded here, alone, but He sent you. He provided."

The Deacon ordered his thoughts.
 
"Such is His way," he said, lowering his head slightly.

"Come back inside," the first woman said.
 
"My name is Grace.
 
What we have is yours.
 
You will not sleep in this weather while we have walls surrounding us."

Grace.
 
It was a fitting name; the gift that separated the angels from the filth of mankind.
 
The Deacon followed them back inside.
 
After so long alone the woman had something of the divine about her, he thought, watching the sway of her backside as she climbed back up into the wagon.
 
He followed her in.
 
The Pastor was sitting on the bed, naked to the waist.
 
The old man and the boy hovered over him, staring down as though they were sure the miracle was about to be snatched away from them at any moment – it was obvious in their eyes that they didn't trust it. . . and with good reason.

The old woman screamed, and Grace fainted.

The Deacon caught her in his arms, though his own legs had lost most of their strength.

Protruding from the Pastor's side, twin dead eyes gazing up at them, a face pressed outward from the ribcage.
 
The features were misshapen and stretched.
 
Where the mouth should have been, the skin rippled.

Pastor
Ochse
glanced up at the Deacon.
 
Instead of an expression of horror, he wore a beatific smile.

"It's a sign," he said softly.
 
"I was dying, but now I am healed.
 
You brought the healing, and now there is…this.
 
It is a reminder, that I might not lose my faith, or take this life for granted.
 
You have given me life, and a new cross to bear – proudly."

The Deacon swallowed down the bile that rose in his throat, and managed the barest of nods.

"You have a great gift,"
Ochse
said.
 
"A great and wonderful power.
 
I will follow you.
 
We will all follow you.
 
Such a gift must be shared.
 
That is God's will.
 
That is your purpose."

Again, The Deacon nodded.
 
He laid Grace gently beside her husband. Without a word, he leaned out, retrieved his bag, and carried it to the bar end of the wagon, where he set it down on the floor.
 
He dropped then, utterly drained and unable to support his own weight.
 
He laid his head on the pack.
 
He slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.
 
The others watched wordlessly.

That was the first.

‡‡‡

The Deacon sensed the presence of that dark woman, that spirit, again.
 
He felt the weight of the talisman as he never had before.
 
He felt things coming to an end, things outside of his ken.
 
There was an aura of imminence; the air was charged with potential about to be fulfilled, and that fulfillment chilled The Deacon to the bone.
 
He felt the weight of fate hanging over him.
 
Twice in the last hour he had glanced over his shoulder, sure she was there, looking at him.
 
He harbored no illusions.
 
Whatever she was, she had no interest in his future or in his desires.
 
More likely he'd be a casualty, tossed aside and forgotten, and that just wasn't how he saw the story playing out.

He turned back to his desk.
 
On one corner sat a jar.
 
Longman had delivered it that morning.
 
It contained all the venom collected from Cy and Andy's haul of serpents.
 
Normally when they performed a serpent handling ceremony, the venom was used to create anti-venin.
 
The Deacon was a man of many talents, and the snake-bite cure was worth good coin at nine out of ten stops along the road, but this time it was different.

He hadn't told Longman, but he sensed that the little man knew more than he let on.
 
He sensed, in actuality, that
Longman
was more than he let on.
 
As with the sisters, and Cy, and a few of the others, he had come to believe that they joined his troupe for some greater purpose he had no part in.
 
The notion set a shiver running through his soul.
 
They followed him.
 
They took his orders, and they worked his revivals, but they weren't like the others.

Most of his flock had come to him for healing.
 
Most of them had given to him – or to the talisman – at times there was little difference between the two of them – some part of themselves.
 
They were bound to him and served out of warped and broken gratitude.
 
Within the circle, another circle had grown steadily.
 
They had their own ways and their own ripples of influence.
 
The children gathered at Longman's wagon to watch him paint.
 
Everyone in the camp went to the sisters and sat rapt at their fire, watching the falling bones and listening to their cryptic
foretellings
.

There were others.
 
Cy had a knack for dropping scripture into any situation that actually changed things.
 
He saw more with a single eye than most saw with two, and yet he was slow to speak and slower to act.
 
His time was not the time of the world, it was somehow distant and removed.

They gathered, and The Deacon observed.
 
They did nothing to impede his efforts, and more often than not, they served just as the others did.
 
The talisman drew them.
 
The signs compelled them.
 
Soon, he would know why.
 
Soon they would know that he was more than a pawn in their game – that, or finally, he would find out that he was a fool after all.

He returned to the book and continued to read as his lantern burned long into the night.

Creed and Brady kept watch on the streets through the night.
 
Both felt the same prickling unease but there was no sign of the dark strangers.  The sky was empty of fluttering wings and no strange cries rang through the shadows.  People stayed later than usual in the saloon, drinking.
 
The talk veered between two extremes, the fear of the gunfight upstairs and the excitement of the coming revival.

By the time the place had emptied, and Brady had stepped out onto the porch for the final time, dawn was tickling the rooftops with the promise of the new day.

Creed leaned on the corner of the bar with his hands wrapped around a warm mug of strong, bitter coffee.  Every now and then he glanced out at the street, but he was pretty sure the threat had ended, for the moment at least.
 
Still, his gnawing unease refused to fully quiet.

The door closed.
 
Silas slammed the bolts into place, locking the place up for the precious little of the night that remained.

"You'd better get some rest," Silas said, coming over to the bar.  "You look like hell."

Creed glanced up, and then grinned at the bartender.

"I feel like hell," he agreed.  "I guess you're right though.  This all night vigil ain't doing either of us any favors.
 
I don't reckon we'll see any more of those three ‘til sundown.
 
Just a gut
feelin
' but they don't seem the type to come for high tea.
 
Tonight's a different story; darkness has a whole different feel about it.
 
So I'm thinking we want to sleep, rest up and expect the worst come sundown."

Silas, who was polishing the last of the night's stains off his bar, nodded.  "Ain't you a cheerful soul?
 
The bitch of the matter is I don't think you're wrong."

Creed stood up and stretched.
 
Every bone in his back cracked.  Before he could turn, Silas leaned in closer.

"How'd they do that, Creed?" he asked.  "How in hell does a guy get shot to shit, throw himself out of a second story window, and God damned disappear?  It doesn't make a lick of sense.
 
Where'd the bastards go?"

"I wish I knew the answer to that, Silas," Creed said.

He felt the feathers in his pocket scratching at him through the denim.  The locket rested cool and smooth against his chest.

"Well, it gives me the fuckin' creeps, and I don't mind telling you," Silas grunted, scowling at the sun as it caught in the window.
 
"Think I'll bed down for a couple hours, catch some shuteye myself.
 
It's going to be busy with everyone getting ready for that damned revival.  Between you and me, I'll be glad when it's over and that Deacon fella moves on.  Things haven't been quite right here since he arrived, you know what I'm sayin'?"

"Still smarting over Colleen, eh?" Creed tried for a grin, but it fell short of humor.

"It's not just that," Silas said.  "There's other whores, and sooner or later one will wander through town.
 
Look around you, man.
 
Everyone's all fired up, and I don't see it
goin
' anywhere good."

"It'll be over soon," Creed said.  "They'll roll out there tonight, sing a few hallelujahs, and be done with it for another ten years, until the next guy comes through.  Can't blame them for being excited.  Next to dust
blowin
' down the road and stray tumbleweeds, this is the only thing that's happened here in a long time."

"I'd think you'd be about tired of things happening," Silas grunted.

Creed laughed.
 
"When a man gets tired of things happening, he's tired of life, my friend.
 
I ain't that far down the road just yet."

He mounted the stairs and climbed slowly up to his room.  He stopped outside his door, listening before he opened it.
 
A part of him didn't trust those peculiar strangers to stay gone.  Everything was as he'd left it.  He checked out the floor where the tall one had stalked him.  There was some sort of greenish gray substance on the stained wood, and more on the wall behind.
 
What there wasn't, and what there really ought to have been plenty of, was blood.

He pulled the feathers from his pocket and laid them on the table.  Then he gathered up the scattered remnants of the pack and its contents.  Nothing of importance was missing, as far as he could tell.  The three had obviously been after something, but he was fairly certain they hadn't gotten it.

He wondered if it was the journal.  There was a lot of it he hadn't read, but he had the impression that only the last bits mattered.  He thought about the Deacon, and what he'd witnessed a few nights back.  He wondered if the man knew about his three visitors, or if they'd be paying the healer a visit next.