The boy had felt safety in the executioner's arms.
"LOOK AT HIM!-" Pastor Briarwood spoke in a horrid, high pitched, maniacal yell, robbing every individual of their attention and thought before continuing with only brief inflections of screaming insanity, "-trying to GRAB AND STEAL POOR REGINALD'S BREATH! Because poor Reginald doesn't know any better!"
Reginald looked up a moment. Even with the executioner's mask blocking most of his face, the look in his eyes was lost. He was thinking about what was just said, slowly comprehending that Pastor Briarwood had just told him the boy was trying to steal his?breath? soul?... With a sign of recognition and ignorant horror, Reginald's trunk-like arm swung down in one grand sweep motion to slap the boy away, severing the child's weak attempts. The boy relinquished after this, curling against the pulpit steps until he was in the fetal position with his hands between his knees.
"This boy-you may watch the other prisoner, Reginald," Pastor Briarwood began, then interrupted himself. The executioner had remained standing in the front. Once Reginald was again behind Henri (minus the gun, which remained holstered), the Pastor continued: "This boy's father was a decent, hardworking man two towns over. Jon Beckett Jr. Good, solid man - a man that'd help in danger, as he did the day this WHORESPAWN-" a dramatic point to Henri, "-took his life, stole it right from his calloused fingers. And all that's left of Seraphim Falls?splinter and blood. In with her came the storms of God to DESTROY the very?
"Actually, let us wait on this one. We shall get to her in due time?
"This boy here?his mother was a HARLOT, and she was a BLASPHEMER!" Unlike the word harlot, it was blasphemer that elicited shocked responses and angry grumbling from the crowd. The embers were stoking, and they were getting worked up. Pastor Briarwood spoke their melodies as someone might stroke ivories or strum chords. "Jon Beckett was a good man often denied by this woman, this BLACKSTAIN." Paused, moment's thought. "He's now passed, and with such tragic urgency?I find no guilt in retelling this - his confessions to me of the woman that bore this-this poor demon?" The last word was spoken with an eerily smooth conviction, as if a limerick, and his voice hit a softened groove while he further spoke of the boy. The harsh words were now concealed, innocuous, and all the more ingratiating for it. "You see, Jon Beckett was a romantic. A lover. Sure, he'd fight. And with a skin full of liquor, he was downright crude. Mean but not a man of mean heart-and who isn't on the occasional night of 'a few too many' at the end of many stressful days?"
There were scattered Amens from the voices of solemn men.
"And he loved this woman-Abigail. This was?long time ago. And Jon Beckett gave this woman the world. Showered her with his love. Went to the mattresses for her, took it hard-knuckle and yet still returned to kiss her, to cherish her. So we forgive trespass." Women shared adoring glances with their men; men held their chins higher, a bit more steady. "His seed he did plant in her and from her loins did birth this boy - Jonathon Beckett the third." To make an aside, he pointed his speech to the right half of the congregation but spoke loud enough for all to hear: "From what his daddy said?Jon Beckett the third was born on a miserably cold, stubborn bastard of a night. But when Jon held baby Jonathon, he said he felt warmth throughout his whole body."
The mood had changed momentarily to fond recollection.
"But this Abigail?" Pastor Briarwood sighed heavily and stepped one bare foot down next to the boy, followed by another, and then he sat beside him, looking down at the child. "She was a whore," he said, matter-of-factly, "and she did stray. Jon, he loved her but it seemed he was not enough. There was another, some thug that had been coming around?"
Jonathon's eyes were open with a 1,000 yard stare into the carpeted floor, his mouth strung with thin white foam from around the lips.
Pastor Briarwood looked across his gathered worshipers.
"Suffice it to say, Jon Beckett didn't take kindly to the wandering of his woman. No, they were not married. And no, they did not live together. Jon's life was that of a herdsman, a wanderer?but was it fair to step out on him while he was out earning his keep, earning that money to raise little Jonathon? The answer is an absolute no - I know it, just as you know it, and Jon knew it. So he corrected her. He did as best he could but there?there is just no chance in saving some, as they do not wish to be saved. Some demons lie in the bone."
And he looked back down at the boy.
IV
Anson Sharpe woke from a dream about snakes.
There had been a bank. Guns. A vault, front wheel spinning as it opened. Flashes of gunfire. And running, breathless and terrified and endless running. Then, after it all, there was a man in grey waiting for him in the distance of a deserted road. The road went on forever behind the greyman; the road back led into grassy fields and unending North Country. Anson stopped to rest. The greyman approached. In the words of a language only spoken by silver tongues, the greyman asked Anson what was in the white sack slung over his shoulder. Though Anson wanted to reply with anything but a truthful answer, the greyman's words cast a strange spell over him and he answered honestly. The greyman asked (again in that wondrous voice, again in that unspoken language) to see the contents of the bag. Without hesitation, Anson held the sack by its mouth and the greyman peered inside. He didn't say anything else. One hand he stuffed into the bag while the other raised up to distract Anson, and then the greyman pulled forth a fistful of crisp bills and threw them to the wind. Anson began desperately grabbing the money and stuffing it back into the sack when he noticed the sack was moving on its own accord. He stuffed another handful of money back in the bag and then felt around. Inside, the money had turned to rattle snakes. And then he woke.
The ground had been so comfy, and the night so warm and calm, that Anson slept without a fire or blanket. He woke confused, as he so often did. The remnants of his dream came out of his mouth in a jumbled moan that sounded like "snokes" when he jarred and sat up. An empty bottle was inches from fingers still conformed to holding it; the stiff joints of his knuckles cracked as he flexed them, rotating his wrist, stretching his arms over his head. A stray sunbeam hit his eyes and filled him with dread - it was nearing mid-day.
Releasing a torrent of curses, he gauged his location and set off for camp.
A half-hour of panicked rummaging through the open forest and Anson could hear something moaning, somewhere. The noise was distinct, familiar - it was the muffled cry of despair. The sound was near but he couldn't place the source so he ran, fearing Henri and the child were in danger. Finally, that which supplied the forest with muffled pleas came into view-Anson stopped (even at 20 paces he worried he was too close) and narrowed his eyes in an attempt to better focus on what he was looking it. Two men had been stripped to their underwear and their clothes had been used to tie them together in a most peculiar position: both men had a shirt with one end wrapped around their neck and the other securing their head face-first into the thigh of the other; socks were stuffed in the mouths; arms were fastened to legs with belts, feet to hands; and in this anamorphous, pseudo-sexual 69 position, the two men were wiggling to free themselves. They seemed to be crawling toward a nearby tree, although one of the men appeared to move in a counterproductive shuffle. The other man was growing exasperated, his face flush red.
Anson came within 10 feet and refused a foot farther.
With their faces flush against another man's thigh, the struggling duo could not see Anson or the amusement on his face as he leaned against a tree and marveled their predicament. Henri was near here, that's certain. And so Anson sought the direction from which they had come. There were drag marks and Anson followed them back to the camp. The small amount of supplies - guitar case, knapsack, blankets - it was still there, if not disheveled and strewn in an untidy mess. The only warning sign came from the guitar case: on closer inspection, the clasps were undone. Someone had opened it. When he opened it, the face of a polished acoustic guitar glistened back. With a pluck of the out-of-tune low E string, he undid the
extra notch and lifted the guitar fa?ade. The thin layer of wood serving as a "guitar" lifted up from a hinge in the back. After a quick inventory, Anson was sure the parts were all there.
Okay, so?
I'm an asshole?yeah, we know that?
She didn't want to relocate camp, right? Took the men from camp so she wanted to stay here, right? Because it might risk losing me?
Okay, so?
Then where the hell did she go?
V
After a moment, Pastor Briarwood recoiled from his seat beside the motionless child. There was a flicker of disgust before his eyes turned to the group and he called upon a woman in the second row of benches, "Belinda, would you tend to this child? Reginald, help her. Take him around back, to the choir shack. Get him a change, wipe him up. Fresh clothes. Water, if any's about. I wish him to be clean but I do believe he has soiled himself."
Reginald moved from behind Henri and picked the limp boy up. The thin-framed woman named Belinda approached the pulpit and followed behind Reginald out the gateway doors and into the sunlight. Henri's eyes didn't leave the boy's chest and body until he was completely out of sight. It had been minutes since she had seen any sign of breathing or movement. Though Jonathon William Beckett the third had likely suffocated to death - and evacuated his bowels as he passed on - fussing over the boy before anything was certain would ruin the chance for survival. There was a single, solitary chance to get this right and if it were messed up, death for both of them was all but certain?even if one of them may already be dead. Knowing that, though, didn't stop Henri from crying silently; so silently that if it weren't for the tears streaming down her cheeks and off her chin (tears she refused to wipe), there would have been no way to discern any emotion from her granite expression. Tears cornered and fell from steadfast eyes. Her lips were faintly pursed. She kept her head tucked down slightly, her chaotic hair in jagged patches pointing every which direction. Nothing moved but her pupils, staring from beneath a shield of yellow, straw-like hair.
One chance?
Pastor Briarwood was standing, his attention turned to Henri. As his mouth opened, she stood up in the box. Men drew guns. Women shrank back into their seats and the seats of those accompanying them, horrified.
"I wish to confess!" called Henri, the repentant.
Briarwood stared at her a moment, his steel-blue eyes icy against her skin. It was with this gaze that she decided - without any lingering doubt - that Rigby Briarwood was young, no older than 25. The statement left a thick hush, the congregation frozen in a cross between disgust and intrigue.
And she waited?
"And what is-" began the Pastor.
Henri started again, purposefully interrupting:
"I have many claims to make but there is something I must ask of you."
The Pastor stood, annoyed but interested.
"And what might that be, Miss??" and he waited for her name.
"Five minutes of silence," said Henri Ville, not answering the Pastor but instead speaking directly to the congregation.
"Five? A bit arbitrary," he chuckled. "Why five minu-"
And she cut him off again, still speaking to the congregation.
"Give me five minutes, just five. But it has to be outside-"
"Ahh," scoffed the Pastor, "and there's the-"
"You can bring as many people and as many weapons as you like. Surround me, tie me, whatever. Just give me those five minutes. It has to be in sunlight. Five minutes right outside that door and I'll show you what I am, what I truly am."
Pastor Briarwood's face tightened. There was rage in his cold eyes each time she disrespected him, cut immediately by an inquisitive glance brought on by each of her statements. The parishioners were curious but none made a sound until, after a minute of silence, Pastor Briarwood was ready to again speak:
"We know what you are. You are a demon. You are the end-times?" and there were a few sighs of dismay as the congregation's curiosity became bounded, their interest about to go unrewarded. Pastor Briarwood noted the dissension and changed pace, "however?we will allow you to travel outside, allow this five minutes of silence. On two conditions."
This time, Rigby waited for Henri to speak, which she didn't.
They stared at one another for some time.
"First condition," began the Pastor, pacing the pulpit with his eyes on his bare feet, "is that you confess here, right now, to your crimes in Saintstown?"
VI
There were people - a half-dozen of them occupying a carriage, and two horses, by the sound of it.
Anson Sharpe moved though the last of a brush patch to emerge in a thin clearing, with forest on either side. The Journiers had yet to pass, approaching at a slow pace as they meandered down a grass-covered trail bare two thin lines from the wearing a way of previous carriages. The two men atop the coach pulled the reins and slowed the horses as they passed Anson. Both men wore black, ripped top hats that rose a half-foot above their heads. They were dirty: their clothes, though nice suits, were stained, matted, wearing thin, and torn in areas; their long brown hair was flush against their cheeks, uncombed and dripping with grease; their faces had black and brown flecks of Lord-knows-what; their smiles were black and lacking teeth; and their every surface of skin was yellowed. Two women and a young girl poked their head out the open window of the carriage to question their delay.
"The hangin' done already begun, Phillip," the oldest of the women scolded. She had yellow teeth and a thick coat of make-up similar to a clown. Her eyelids were painted the darkest purple, with thick black lashes rendered above and below. The rest of her face was bleached white by paint, as if the woman had purposely covered the color of her bare skin. The two others, both obviously daughters, looked the cleanest. The youngest, a 7 year old, wore a sundress and had dirt smudges and brown on her white summer gown but her skin, hair, and face looked clean. The last female, a teenager near 16 or 17, hardly glanced at Anson before disappearing back inside.
"Who's this stranger?-Who are you, stranger? You ain't from round here," the 7 year old girl in the sundress shouted out, surprising Anson by her sheer volume and straight-out guff.
"Susan Marcy May, shut yer mouth," the younger man atop the carriage hollered back. He appeared to be a middle son. His pop had the reigns, his attention on the stranger.
The coach stopped beside Anson.
"You goin' to the hangin', mister?" the man asked.
"Uh?what? What hanging?" Anson asked back.
The man lifted the reins to again move forward.
"Ne'mind. Carry on 'boutcher business," responded the man, dismissively.
"Yes-yes, I'm going to the hanging. Sorry," Anson spoke quickly and gave a soft laugh to cover his forgetfulness. "It's a woman bein' hung, right?"
Both men nodded.
"Tsk, yup. 'Course she is." Anson's tone was very calm and matter-of-fact.
"We gon' be late, dear!" the older woman called from inside the carriage, only the face of the 7 year old still poking out.
"Well get on, then," invited the man.
The men made room and Anson climbed up.
The carriage continued on.
VII
Henri rode into Saintstown in the late evening carrying only a guitar case and something that looked like a saddle bag hanging against her left hip; it was slung over her neck and shoulder, a tough-skinned pouch to carry all of her belongings.
She tied her horse up and went looking for Anson Sharpe.
There were two saloons in the town. The first proved fruitless. In-between searching, she gathered supplies from the stores - all of which still appeared open, even at such a late time. Unsurprisingly, the second saloon proved just as unsuccessful, except now she was exhausted. Her riding had been entirely at night for the two weeks prior, all in order to get back to this area and find a drunk that wouldn't be able to help even if he wanted to (which he probably didn't). Though there was little doubt, Henri did hope her late-night roving and the immens
e fatigue it induced had all been worth it?that it was enough to escape that which had dogged her all this time?
Henri took a room at the inn across from the saloon. There were horses and she could make the next town by daybreak, just in case. Since her stops in this area were going to be in close proximity, and they stood on the border of flatland, with an endless desert beyond that?well, this was the perfect terrain for her to get herself killed. Henri didn't like feeling cornered, as she did pressed up against the desert terrain as she was.
Anson Sharpe, if he hadn't drank himself to death?
Chaim Bialik, if he was back from crusading against all things evil?
The routine before bed had grown monotonous: secure enough clean water to clean herself; open the guitar case, clean and assemble the pieces (the finished product hidden under the bed); then, her bag needed tending and reorganization, the various foods and supplies inventoried, any weakening lining sewn and reinforced; lastly, her S&W needed cleaning but this came as a meditative deed, where her thoughts were allowed to drift and conclude and her focus could sway.
Then she laid in bed and instantly slept.
A thud against the wall woke her some time later. It was dark outside, probably 2 or 3 hours till dawn - she had been sleeping less than an hour, by the looks of it. There was another thud against her wall and the hinges creaked; it was locked but not especially sturdy. There was another thud and-