Sanctuary (11 page)

And now the preacher's eyes bored into Newcombe's. “You'd think after all these years that you would have had enough of killing them.”

The old man's voice rose a notch, and heads turned at the bar as the crowd strained to hear the words exchanged between Newcombe and this strange preacher.

“They're killing themselves. If they weren't so damn lazy, they could get work like everyone else. Only reason they starve is because they won't work.”

“On your place?” the preacher asked. “Can they get work on your ranch or at your slaughterhouse or at any of the businesses around here that you own pieces of? Where are they going to work, Newcombe?”

The old man picked up a shot glass from the bar and slugged down his drink. “I heard you came into town on the train. That's a good way to leave.”

Then he turned to Johnson. “Ben, you ought to be a little more careful about your customers. Businessman with friends like yours might be considered risky. Could be he'd have his loan pulled at the bank.”

Jasper, two drinks under his belt, paused before following Newcombe to the door. “One day, preacher, we'll finish what you started.”

“I always like to finish what I start, Jasper. I try really hard to do that.”

The Cree and Chippewa and Métis people of the little village ringed the five-acre garden plot, motionless as posts. They were all watching Jack Ten Horses plow the land with two horses and equipment the preacher had rented for the day from a homesteader two miles downstream on the Milk.

Ten Horses was new to the task, and after the first straight line the preacher had cut into the earth at the edge of the field, the others waggled a bit, straightening as the neophyte gained experience.

The soil was dark and rich, moist still from winter snows and frost. The plow cut cleanly into the mix of sand and clay and silt, shuddering only occasionally from the resistance of a buried stone. Then one of the people lining the field would dart forward, dig out the stone, and carry it to a growing pile on the side of the field.

Ten Horses wasn't accustomed to the work or the rough footing, and he reeled behind the plow. But he had too much pride to turn the work over to someone else, so he staggered along, stopping at each turn to take several deep breaths and to wipe his face with his shirttails.

The preacher and Judd huddled by the rock pile, talking softly in the warm spring sun. It was too early to plant, but the virgin ground needed to be broken and readied for the second week of May, when the long rows would be put into place.

And seeds had to be planted in the people, too, to ready them.

The smell of burning flesh came to them early that afternoon. Judd sensed it first and his nose pulled his eyes into the wind and the column of black smoke curling into the air from the slaughterhouse.

A fire built of cottonwood and kerosene, burning red and black against a sky too blue to be real, sputtered and crackled beside the slaughterhouse. Even from that distance, Judd could see heat waves rising from the blaze, distorting the pure, clean air of a Montana spring.

And as Judd watched, men—just black shapes against that bright blue sky—approached the fire with pitchforks writhing with guts and handfuls of hearts and kidneys and livers and pitched them on the inferno, watching while the flames licked at the meat.

One by one, the people at the garden had their attention pulled up the hill by the scent of burning meat.

Mordecai sighed, and pushed himself to his feet.

“Get some of the other kids to help gather wood, decent-sized so it will burn down to coals. Set others to building a fire pit as far across as you are tall and waist deep, here,” he said, pointing to a swale in the shade of a cottonwood.

“Ask Mr. Old Hawk if he has a steel bar or a pipe about half again as tall as you are and some wire—not rusty. And bring your grandmother back with you.”

“Please,” the preacher said with a grin, and Judd grinned back, springing to the tasks the preacher had set him.

Mordecai walked up the hill toward the slaughterhouse, losing detail and color to the spring sky as he neared the top.

Judd watched the knot of men step out to meet the preacher, Jasper's arms punctuating words too far away to hear. Then some men stepped between the preacher and Jasper.

A moment later, the preacher reached into his pocket, money changed hands, and two of the men hauled a front quarter from the building and helped the preacher set it on his shoulder. The preacher staggered down the hill toward the people, bearing the makings of a feast.

The garden lay open, plowed, harrowed, and cleared of stones, the soil fine and fertile. All the people of the village had contributed to the effort, and now they sat in little knots around the fire pit, sharing talk and meat.

The air was redolent of roasting beef, and occasionally one or another of the people would pull himself to his feet, groaning theatrically, and step grinning to the fire for still another helping.

The sun was flirting with the horizon and it was a quiet time for the land and the people. Even the children's play had quieted, one after another pulling into his family's circle, seeking a mother's lap or a father's hand.

Judd hadn't seen Old Hawk and several of the other men leave or return, but they were sitting silently now, ringed around ancient, almost forgotten ceremonial drums.

The song began spontaneously, the men obeying instinct and not social order. The singers' voices melded into one, melded into the wail of centuries of prairie winds and the call of coyotes and the wonder of life and land.

The first beat of the drum drilled into Judd, seeking the core of his being.

He could see the singers across the fire, their faces flickering with flame and shadow as the sun slipped behind the horizon. He could see their hands moving, sticks slapping against the stretched hides of the drums. But now they were playing the nerves and muscles and sinews of the people around the fire, and the people were jerked into a shuffling dance, legs and bodies and minds compelled to find the old steps to match that ancient music.

Judd found himself in a circle of dancers, knees flexed and back bent to be nearer the earth, closer to the echo of those drums beating through rock and soil and earth and straight into his soul.

And as he danced, Judd lost his sense of self, became one with the people and the earth. Only vaguely did he realize that the preacher was dancing beside him, only vaguely did he see the sun rise the next morning and earth rushing up to meet his falling body.

The sun stabbing into Judd's eyes awakened him, and the pain when he twisted to free himself from its glare brought him into full consciousness. He ached from the bottom of his feet to the top of his head, and he groaned as he rolled over on his belly and pushed himself to his hands and knees. He shook his head, and a sharp pain stabbed him in the nape of the neck.

More carefully, now, he raised his head. There were bodies strewn still around the fire pit, some stirring, but most unmoving. The beef quarter, reduced to bones, hung still from the steel pipe over a bed of ashes, and on a pile of stones next to the pit sat his grandmother, eyes intent on the hill overlooking the garden site.

Judd's eyes followed hers to the hillside.

The preacher was standing on the hill, his arms raised as though to embrace God, and he was praying.

“Aieee,” his grandmother crooned, and then she was silent, hiding her thoughts behind her clouded eyes.

Eight

Starlight pattered against the stained-glass windows of the church and died, leaving the Reverend Eli Timpkins in darkness.

The Reverend, back straight as the word of God, sat on the hard oak pews imported from Missouri—Montana wood was too soft to command the parishioners' attention on long Sunday meetings.

The windows—gray, black, and ghostly in the soft light—shrouded the kneeling man, attendants in a ritual Timpkins had observed since he had learned as a child that wonderful and terrible secret.

“Almighty Father,” he whispered, the words lost in shadow. “Once again I am being tested by Satan. Your black angel follows me wherever I go, hoping that I will abandon you. He comes now in the guise of a preacher, but I see the wickedness of his heart.

“He would turn the people of Sanctuary against me and my work as he has in all those other towns, spreading dissension and evil over the earth. I cannot allow that again. My time is too limited in this place of your creation.”

Timpkins sighed. He tried to focus on his conversation with God, but the devil interfered, drawing his thoughts back to those other towns.

Reflexively his hand dropped to his ankle and he rubbed the scar tissue there. Always the scar itched when his mind pulled him back through the years to that little town in Nebraska.

He could still feel the heat from the bonfire and smell the mix of horses and sweat and hate. But even heavier on the air was the redolence of tar bubbling in a pot over the fire and the awful smell of chicken feathers.

Torches carried by the men cast the scene in an unreal, flickering light, and the sound of their voices was low and subdued, like the sound of a prairie wind, mild still, but carrying portent of storm. Bits and pieces poked out of the babble now and then like ice picks.
Castrate the bastard! Leave him hanging! Son of a bitch!

The Reverend had screamed when that hot tar first touched his body, screamed again as the feathers were matted into the mix. But even worse was that awful trip down the main street of town with men, women, and children lining the boardwalk on either side.

They threw curses at him like stones, and he grunted each time one found its mark. He had tried then to drive the words and the pain and the night from his mind, to focus on Golgotha, the place of the skull, and that day two millennia ago when Christ was nailed to the cross, when in his pain and suffering He cried out, “My God, my God, why has Thou forsaken me?”

The Reverend had tried to say those same words, to hurl them back at the crowd, but only a pathetic mewl rose in his throat like bile.

And now in this dark church in Sanctuary, Montana, the Reverend mewled again, the sound breaking into shards against accusing windows.

The Reverend could feel Satan's strength. It lay over Sanctuary like a dark cloud, scattering his thoughts, making them dance like fall leaves in the breeze.

He
must
regain control! If he didn't, Satan would tell his lies with his serpent tongue, and the people would believe him and drive the Reverend out.

And then, just when Eli thought all was lost, he could feel God's strength flooding into him. The time for the final confrontation with the devil was near. The time of judgment was upon the land. The Reverend Eli Timpkins could feel that, feel it in his bones, in his soul.

He stood then, steadying himself against the back of one of the pews, waiting for the blood to return to his cramped legs. He must be strong as he had been strong earlier that night during his meeting with the congregation's young people.

Even now the throught of that meeting brought a film of sweat to his forehead. He had stood silent before them, his eyes scourging them. They wanted his approval. They wanted him to smile at them, to tell them that they were no worse than anyone else. They wanted to be weak.

But he said nothing, speaking only with his eyes, letting his accusing gaze burn through the children's deceitful facade to the corruption beneath. They fidgeted in the pews under his glare, and when they could no longer meet his eyes, he had whispered so softly they strained to hear him. He courted their attention as carefully as a shopkeeper courts a customer, his voice building until it roared like the flames of a fire gone wild, consuming everything in its path.

The Spirit had raged within him as he told the children they were evil, hateful creatures and an abomination in the eyes of the Lord.

Sin would drip from their burning bodies in hell as the fat drips from a steak frying in the pan, he shouted.

The younger children had cried then, frightened beyond caring what the other children thought. They sat wide-eyed in the pews, tears running in sheets down their faces.

A shudder ran through Timpkins' body as he remembered the terror on their faces, and an involuntary moan escaped his lips.

He had felt the power then, felt it deep in his gut, deep in his loins. His eyes roved through the ranks of children, feeding on their fear until the power cracked in him like a whip. And then his gaze reached Naomi Parkman.

Naomi's eyes met his. Her head was thrown back, mouth open and face flushed. Her arms were folded tightly across her sixteen-year-old body, and she squirmed ever so gently in her pew.

Naomi felt the power, too: she had since that first time when she was twelve and still tentative, and he had taught her what it meant to serve the Lord.

Naomi needed ministering to, and the Reverend called the class to a close. The children filed wide-eyed into the night, watching for the demons the Reverend had said were lurking at each corner, lusting for their souls. The younger children were still sobbing, holding hands with older brothers and sisters, souls hanging on the strength of their grip.

Timpkins asked Naomi to stay, and she smiled that knowing smile. And after the other children had gone, and the church was dark, he had blessed her with his body.

In each of the congregations the Reverend had served, one special child had emerged, one child who understood the power and the role that the Reverend was destined to play in the world.

But when those children's bellies began to swell with the wonderful secret the Reverend had planted there, the families of the congregations hadn't understood how special that gift was. They had turned on him, deaf ears not hearing the word, forcing him to flee for his life.

But now he was in Sanctuary, and he would run no farther. He would reveal the preacher Mordecai's real identity, and the battle between good and evil would be fought on the Montana prairie. The Reverend's army was stronger this time. He had instilled in his congregation the discipline necessary to fight the forces of evil.