Bloodstone (6 page)

Jackson hawked and spit. “We spotted some Wolvers on the edge of my property,” he said, rubbing a grimy hand across his thin lips. “And me and the boys here rode out after ’em. We come near the McAdam place, when she ups and shoots. Jack went down, then Miller’s horse was shot out from under him. What you going to do about it?”

“You were on her property?” asked Evans.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” argued Jackson. “You can’t just go around shooting folks.”

“I’ll talk to her,” promised Evans, “but from now on you boys stay clear of Beth McAdam. You got that?”

“We want more than talk,” said Jackson. “She’s got to be dealt with. That’s the law.”

Evans smiled, but there was no humor in his expression.
“Don’t tell me the law, Shem,” he said quietly. “I know the law. Beth McAdam gave fair warning that armed men were not to hunt on her property. She also let it be known that she would shoot any man who trespassed on her land in order to hunt Wolvers. You shouldn’t have gone there. Now, as I said, I’ll speak to her.”

“Yeah, you speak to her,” hissed Jackson. “But I tell you this: Woman or no woman, no one shoots at me and gets away with it.”

Evans ignored him. “Get on back to your homes,” he said, and the men moved away, but Nestor could see they were heading for the Mother of Pearl drinking house. He stepped forward. The captain saw him, and his dark eyes narrowed.

“I hope you weren’t with those men,” said Evans.

“No, sir. I was sleeping up in my room. I just heard the commotion. I didn’t think Mrs. McAdam would shoot anybody.”

“She’s one tough lady, Nestor. She was one of the first into Pilgrim’s Valley; she fought the lizard-men, and since then there have been two brigand raids out on the farm. Five were killed in a gun battle there some ten years back.”

Nestor chuckled. “She was certainly tough in school. I remember that.”

“So do I,” said Evans. “How’s the studying going?”

“Every time I try to read, I fall asleep,” admitted Nestor.

“It must be done, Nestor. A man cannot follow God’s path unless he studies God’s word.”

“I get confused, sir. The Bible is so full of killing and revenging—hard to know what’s right.”

“That’s why the Lord sends prophets like Daniel Cade and Jon Shannow. You must study their words. Then the ways that are hidden will become known to you. And don’t concern yourself about the violence, Nestor. All life is violence. There is the violence of disease, the violence of hunger and poverty. Even birth is violent. A man must understand these things. Nothing good ever comes easy.”

Nestor was still confused, but he did not want to look foolish before his hero. “Yes, sir,” he said.

Evans smiled and patted the young man’s shoulder. “The
Deacon is sending one of his apostles to Pilgrim’s Valley at the end of the month. Come and listen.”

“I will, sir. What will you do about Mrs. McAdam?”

“She’s under a lot of strain, what with the Preacher gone and the burning. I think I’ll just stop by and talk with her.”

“Samuel says he thinks the Devil has gotten into her,” said Nestor. “He told me she threw him out of the house and called him an abomination.”

“He’s a weak man. Often happens to youngsters who have strong parents. But I hope he isn’t right. Time will tell.”

“Is it true that Laton Duke and his men are nearby?” asked Nestor.

“His gang was shot to pieces down near Pernum, so I doubt it,” said the Crusader. “They tried to rob a Barta coach heading for the mines.”

“Is he dead, then?”

Evans laughed. “Don’t sound disappointed, boy. He’s a brigand.”

Nestor reddened. “Oh, I’m not disappointed, sir,” he lied. “It’s just that he’s … you know … famous. And kind of romantic.”

Evans shook his head. “I never found anything romantic about a thief. He’s a man who hasn’t the heart or the strength for work and steals from other, better men. Set your sights on heroes a little bigger than Laton Duke, Nestor.”

“Yes, sir,” promised the youngster.

2

B
ETH SWUNG THE
ax. It was an ungainly stroke, but the power of her swing hammered the nine-pound blade into the wood, splitting it cleanly. Wood lice crawled from the bark, and she brushed them away before lifting the severed chunks of firewood and adding them to the winter store.

Sweat ran freely on her face. Wiping it away with her sleeve, she rested the ax against the wood-store wall, then hefted her long rifle and walked to the well. Looking back at the ax and the tree round she used as a base, Beth pictured the Preacher standing there and the fluid poetry of his movements. She sighed.

The Preacher …

Even she had come to regard Shannow as the man of God in Pilgrim’s Valley, almost forgetting the man’s lethal past. But then he had changed. By God he had changed! The lion to the lamb. And it shamed Beth that she had found the change not to her liking.

Her back was aching, and she longed for a rest. “Never leave a job half done,” she chided herself aloud. Lifting the copper ladle from the bucket, she drank the cool water, then returned to the ax. The sound of a horse moving across the dry-baked ground made her curse. She had left the rifle by the well! Dropping the ax, she turned and walked swiftly back across the open ground, not even looking at the horseman. After reaching the rifle, she leaned down.

“You won’t need that, Beth, darlin’,” said a familiar voice.

Clem Steiner lifted his leg over the saddle pommel and jumped to the ground. A wide grin showed on Beth’s face, and she stepped forward with arms outstretched. “You’re looking good, Clem,” she said, drawing him into a hug. Taking hold of his broad shoulders, she gently pushed him back from her and stared into his craggy features.

The eyes were a sparkling blue, and the grin made him look boyish despite the gray at his temples and the weather-beaten lines around his eyes and mouth. His coat of black cloth seemed to have picked up little dust from his ride, and he wore a brocaded waistcoat of shining red above a polished black gun belt.

Beth hugged him again. “You’re a welcome sight for old eyes,” she said, feeling an unaccustomed swelling in her throat.

“Old? By God, Beth, you’re still the best-looking woman I ever saw!”

“Still the flatterer,” she grunted, trying to disguise the pleasure she felt.

“Would anyone dare lie to you, Beth?” His smile faded. “I came as soon as I heard. Is there any news?”

She shook her head. “See to your horse, Clem. I’ll prepare some food for you.” Gathering her rifle, Beth walked to the house, noticing for the first time in days how untidy it was, how the dust had been allowed to settle on the timbered floor. Suddenly angry, she forgot the food and fetched the mop and bucket from the kitchen. “It’s a mess,” she said as Clem entered.

He grinned at her. “It looks lived in,” he agreed, removing his gun belt and pulling up a chair at the table.

Beth chuckled and laid aside the mop. “A man shouldn’t surprise a woman this way, especially after all these years. Time has been good to you, Clem. You filled out some. Suits you.”

“I’ve lived the good life,” he told her, but he looked away as he spoke, glancing at the window set in the gray stone of the wall. Clem smiled. “Strong-built place, Beth. I saw the rifle slits at the upper windows and the reinforced shutters on the ground floor. Like a goddamn fortress. Only the old houses now have rifle ports. Guess people think the world’s getting safer.”

“Only the fools, Clem.” She told him about the raid on the church and the bloody aftermath when the Preacher had strapped on his guns. Clem listened in silence. When she had finished, he stood and walked to the kitchen, pouring himself a mug of water. Here there was a heavy door with a strong bar beside it. The window was narrow, the shutters reinforced by iron strips.

“It’s been hard in Pernum,” he said. “Most of us thought that with the war over we’d get back to farming and ordinary life. Didn’t work out that way. I guess it was stupid to think it would after all the killing in the north. And the war that wiped out the Hellborn. You had the Oathmen here yet?” She shook her head. Crossing the room, he stood outlined in the open doorway. “It’s not good, Beth. You have to swear your faith in front of three witnesses. And if you don’t … well, at best you lose your land.”

“I take it you swore the Oath?”

Returning to the table, he sat opposite her. “Never been asked. But I guess I would. It’s only words. So tell me, any sign of him since the killings?”

She shook her head. “He’s not dead, Clem. I know that.”

“And he’s wearing guns again.”

Beth nodded. “Killed six of the raiders, then vanished.”

“It will be a hell of a shock to the righteous if they find out
who he is. You know there’s a statue to him in Pernum? Not a good likeness, especially with the brass halo around his head.”

“Don’t joke about it, Clem. He tried to ignore it, and I think he was wrong. He never said or did one-tenth of the things they claim. And as for being the new John the Baptist … well, it seems like blasphemy to me. You were there, Clem, when the Sword of God descended. You saw the machines from the sky. You
know
the truth.”

“You’re wrong, Beth. I don’t know anything. If the Deacon claims he comes direct from God, who am I to argue? Certainly seems that God’s been with him, though. Won the Unifier War, didn’t he? And when Batik died and the Hellborn invaded again, he saw them wiped out. Scores of thousands dead. And the Crusaders have mostly cleaned out the brigands and the Carns. Took me six days to ride here, Beth, and I didn’t need the gun. They got schools, hospitals, and no one starves. Ain’t all bad.”

“There’s lots here that would agree with you, Clem.”

“But you don’t?”

“I’ve no argument with schools and the like,” she said, rising from the table and returning with bread, cheese, and a section of smoked ham. “But this talk of pagans and disbelievers needing killing and the butchery of the Wolvers—it’s wrong, Clem. Plain wrong.”

“What can I do?”

“Find him, Clem. Bring him home.”

“You don’t want much, do you? That’s a big country, Beth. There’s deserts and mountains that go on forever.”

“Will you do it?”

“Can I eat first?”

Jeremiah enjoyed the wounded man’s company, but there was much about Shannow that concerned him, and he confided his worries to Dr. Meredith. “He is a very self-contained man, but I think he remembers far less than he admits. There seems to be a great gulf in his memory.”

“I have been trying to recall everything I read about protective amnesia,” Meredith told him. “The trauma he suffered
was so great that his conscious mind reels from it, blanking out vast areas. Give him time.”

Jeremiah smiled. “Time is what we have, my friend.”

Meredith nodded and leaned back in his chair, staring up at the darkening sky. A gentle wind was drifting down across the mountains, and from there he could smell the cottonwood trees by the river and the grass from the hillsides.

“What are you thinking?” asked Jeremiah.

“It is beautiful here. It makes the evil of the cities seem far away and somehow inconsequential.”

Jeremiah sighed. “Evil is never inconsequential, Doctor.”

“You know what I mean,” chided Meredith. Jeremiah nodded, and the two men sat for a while in companionable silence. The day’s journey had been a good one, with the wagons moving over the plains and halting in the shadows of a jagged mountain range. A little to the north was a slender waterfall, and the Wanderers had camped beside the river that ran from it. The women and children were roaming a stand of trees on the mountainside, gathering dead wood for the evening fires, while most of the men had ridden off in search of meat. Shannow was resting in Jeremiah’s wagon.