Bloodstone (7 page)

Isis came into sight, bearing a bundle of dry sticks, which she let fall at Jeremiah’s feet. “It wouldn’t do you any harm to work a little,” she said. Both men noticed her tired eyes and the faintest touch of purple on the cheeks below them.

“Age has its privileges,” he told her, forcing a smile.

“Laziness more like,” she told him. She swung to face the sandy-haired young doctor. “And what is your excuse?”

Meredith reddened and rose swiftly. “I am sorry. I … wasn’t thinking. What do you want me to do?”

“You could help Clara with the gathering. You could have cleaned and prepared the rabbits. You could be out hunting with the other men. Dear God, Meredith, you are a useless article.” Spinning on her heel, she stalked away, back toward the wood.

“She is working too hard,” said Jeremiah.

“She’s a fighter, Jeremiah,” Meredith answered sadly. “But
she’s right. I spend too much time lost in thoughts, dreaming, if you like.”

“Some men are dreamers,” said Jeremiah. “It’s no bad thing. Go and help Clara. She’s a little too heavily pregnant to be carrying firewood.”

“Yes … yes, you’re right,” Meredith agreed.

Alone now, Jeremiah made a circle of stones and carefully laid a fire. He did not hear Shannow approach and glanced up only when he heard the creak of wood as the man sat in Meredith’s chair. “You’re looking stronger,” said the old man. “How do you feel?”

“I am healing,” said Shannow.

“And your memory?”

“Is there a town near here?”

“Why do you ask?”

“As we were traveling today, I saw smoke in the distance.”

“I saw it, too,” said Jeremiah, “but with luck we’ll be far away by tomorrow night.”

“With luck?”

“Wanderers are not viewed with great friendliness in these troubled times.”

“Why?”

“That’s a hard question, Mr. Shannow. Perhaps the man who is tied to a particular piece of land envies us our freedom. Perhaps we are viewed as a threat to the solidity of their existence. In short, I don’t know why. You might just as well ask why men like to kill one another or find hatred so easy and love so difficult.”

“It is probably territorial,” said Shannow. “When men put down roots, they look around them and assume that everything they can see is now theirs: the deer, the trees, the mountains. You come along and kill the deer, and they see it as theft.”

“That, too,” agreed Jeremiah. “But you do not share that view, Mr. Shannow?”

“I never put down roots.”

“You are a curious man, sir. You are knowledgeable, courteous,
and yet you have the look of the warrior. I can see it in you. I think you are a … deadly man, Mr. Shannow.”

Shannow nodded slowly, and his deep blue eyes held Jeremiah’s gaze. “You have nothing to fear from me, old man. I am not a warmaker. I do not steal, and I do not lie.”

“Did you fight in the war, Mr. Shannow?”

“I do not believe that I did.”

“Most men of your age fought in the Unifying War.”

“Tell me of it.”

Before the old man could begin, Isis came running into view. “Riders!” she said. “And they’re armed.”

Jeremiah rose and walked between the wagons. Isis moved alongside him, and several of the other women and children gathered around. Dr. Meredith, his arms full of firewood, stood nervously beside a pregnant woman and her two young daughters. Jeremiah shaded his eyes against the setting sun and counted the horsemen. There were fifteen, and all carried rifles. In the lead was a slender young man with shoulder-length white hair. The riders cantered up to the wagons and then drew rein. The white-haired man leaned forward onto the pommel of his saddle.

“Who are you?” he asked, his voice edged with contempt.

“I am Jeremiah, sir. These are my people.”

The man looked at the painted wagons and said something in a low voice to the rider on his right. “Are you people of the Book?” asked White-hair, switching his gaze back to Jeremiah.

“Of course,” the old man answered.

“You have Oath papers?” The man’s voice was soft, almost sibilant.

“We have never been asked to give oaths, sir. We are Wanderers and are rarely in towns long enough to be questioned about our faith.”

“I am questioning it,” the man said. “And I do not like your tone, Mover. I am Aaron Crane, the Oath Taker for the settlement of Purity. Do you know why I was given this office?” Jeremiah shook his head. “Because I have the gift of discernment. I can smell a pagan at fifty paces. And there is no place
in God’s land for such people. They are a stain upon the earth, a cancer upon the flesh of the planet, and an abomination in the eyes of God. Recite for me now Psalm 22.”

Jeremiah took a deep breath. “I am not a scholar, sir. My Bible is in my wagon—I shall fetch it.”

“You are a pagan,” screamed Crane, “and your wagon shall burn!” Swinging in his saddle, he gestured to the riders. “Make torches from their campfires. Burn the wagons.” The men dismounted and started forward, Crane leading them.

Jeremiah stepped into their path. “Please, sir, do not do …” A rider grabbed the old man, hurling him aside. Jeremiah fell heavily but struggled to his feet as Isis ran at the man who had struck him, lashing out with her fist. The rider parried the blow easily and pushed her away.

And Jeremiah watched in helpless despair as the men converged on the fire.

Aaron Crane was exultant as he strode toward the fire. This was the work he had been born for, making the land holy and fit for the people of the Book. These Movers were trash of the worst kind, with no understanding of the demands of the Lord. The men were lazy and shiftless, the women no better than common whores. He glanced at the blond woman who had struck at Leach. Her clothes were threadbare, and her breasts jutted against the woolen shirt she wore. Worse than a whore, he decided, feeling his anger rise. He pictured the wagon aflame, the pagans pleading for mercy. But there should be no mercy for such as these, he resolved. Let them plead before the throne of the Almighty. Yes, they would die, he decided. Not the children, of course; he was not a savage.

Leach made the first torch and handed it to Aaron Crane. “By this act,” shouted Crane, “may the name of the Lord be glorified!”

“Amen!” said the men grouped about him. Crane moved toward the first red wagon … and stopped. A tall man had stepped into view; he said nothing but merely stood watching Crane. The white-haired Oath Taker studied the man, noting
two things instantly. The first was that the newcomer’s eyes were looking directly into his own, and the second was that he was armed. Crane glanced at the two pistols in their scabbards at the man’s hips. Acutely aware that his men were waiting, he was suddenly at a loss. The newcomer had made no hostile move, but he was standing directly before the wagon. To burn it, Crane would have to push past him.

“Who are you?” asked Crane, buying time to think.

“
They have gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion
,” quoted the man, his voice deep and low.

Crane was shocked. The quote was from the psalm he had asked the old Mover to recite, but the words seemed charged with hidden meaning.

“Stand aside,” said Crane, “and do not seek to interfere with the Lord’s work.”

“You have two choices: live or die,” said the tall man, his voice still low, no trace of anger in his words.

Crane felt a sick sense of dread in his belly. The man would kill him; Crane knew that with an ice-cold certainty. If he tried to fire the wagon, the man would draw one of those pistols and shoot him. His throat was dry. A burning cinder fell from the torch, scorching the back of his hand, but Crane did not move … could not move. Behind him were fifteen armed men, but they might as well have been a hundred miles away, he knew, for all the good they could do him. Sweat dripped into his eyes.

“What’s happening, Aaron?” called Leach.

Crane dropped the torch and backed away, his hands trembling. The tall man was walking toward him, and the Oath Taker felt panic surging within him.

Turning, he ran to his horse, scrambling into the saddle. Hauling on the reins, he kicked the beast into a gallop for almost half a mile. Then he drew up and dismounted.

Kneeling on the hard-packed earth, he tasted bile in his mouth and began to vomit.

*   *   *

Shannow’s head was pounding as he walked toward the group of men. The Oath Taker was riding away, but his soldiers remained, confused and uncertain.

“Your leader is gone,” said Shannow. “Do you have other business here?” The thickset man who had passed the burning torch to Crane was tense, and Shannow could see his anger growing. But Jeremiah stepped forward.

“You must all be thirsty after your long ride,” he said. “Isis, fetch these men some water. Clara, bring the mugs from my wagon. Ah, my friends,” he said, “in these troubled times such misunderstandings are so common. We are all people of the Book, and does it not tell us to love our neighbors and to do good to those who hate us?”

Isis, her face flushed and angry, brought forward a copper jug, while the pregnant Clara moved to the group, passing tin mugs to the riders.

The thickset man waved Isis away and stared hard at Shannow.

“What did you say to the Oath Taker?” he snarled.

“Ask him,” said Shannow.

“Damn right I will,” said the man. He swung on his comrades, who were all drinking. “Let’s go!” he shouted.

As they rode away, Shannow returned to the fire and slumped down into Dr. Meredith’s chair. Jeremiah and the doctor approached him.

“I thank you, my friend,” said Jeremiah. “I fear they would have killed us all.”

“It is not wise to stay here the night,” Shannow told him. “They will return.”

“There are those among us,” said the Apostle Saul, the sunlight glinting on his long, golden hair, “who shed tears for the thousands who fell fighting against us in the Great War. And I tell you, Brothers, I am one of those. For those misguided souls gave their very lives in the cause of darkness while believing they were fighting for the light.

“But as the good Lord told us, narrow is the path and few
who will find it. But that Great War is over, my Brothers. It was won for the glory of God and his son, Jesus Christ. And it was won by you, and by me, and by the multitudes of believers who stood firm against the satanic deeds of our enemies, both pagan and Hellborn.”

A great cheer went up, and Nestor Garrity found himself wishing he could have been one of those soldiers of Christ in the Great War. But he had been only a child then, attending the lower school and living in fear of the formidable Beth McAdam. All around him the men and women of Pilgrim’s Valley had flocked to the Long Meadow to hear the words of the Apostle. Some of the other people present could still remember the sleek white and silver flying machine that had passed over Pilgrim’s Valley twenty years before, bringing the Deacon and his Apostles to the people. Nestor wished he could have seen it in the air. His father had taken him to Unity eight years earlier, to the great cathedral at the city center. There, raised on a plinth of shining steel, was the flying machine. Nestor would never forget that moment.

“It may be over, my friends, but another battle awaits us,” said the Apostle, his words jerking Nestor back to the present. “The forces of Satan are overthrown, but still there is peril in the land. For as it is written, the Devil is the great deceiver, the son of the morning star. Do not be misled, my brothers and sisters. The Devil is not an ugly beast. He is handsome and charming, and his words drip like honey. And many will be deceived by him. He is the voice of discontent whispering in your ears at night. He is the man—or woman—who speaks against the word of our Deacon and his holy quest to bring this tortured world back to the Lord.

“For was it not written,
by their works shall ye judge them?
Then I ask you this, brethren: Who brought the truth to this benighted world? Tell me!” Raising his arms, he stared down from the podium at the crowd.

“The Deacon!” they yelled.

“And who descended from the heavens with the word of God?”

“
The Deacon!
” Caught up in the hypnotic thrill of the moment, Nestor stood, his right fist punching the air with each answer. The voices of the crowd rolled like thunder, and Nestor found it hard to see the Apostle through the sea of waving arms. But he could hear him.

“And who did God send through the vaults of time?”

“
The Deacon!
”

The Apostle Saul waited until the roar died down, then spread his hands for silence. “My friends, by his work have you judged him. He has built hospitals and schools and great cities, and once more the knowledge of our ancestors is being used by the children of God. We have machines that will plow the land and sail the seas and fly through the air. We have medicines and trained doctors and nurses. And this tortured land is growing again, at one with the Lord. And He is with us through His servant in Unity.

“But everywhere sin waits to strike us down. That is why the Oath Takers move through the land. They are the gardeners of this new Eden, seeking out the weeds and the plants that do not bloom. No God-fearing family should fear the Oath Takers. Only those seduced by Satan should know the terror of discovery. Just as only brigands and lawbreakers should fear our new Crusaders, our fine young soldiers, like your own Captain Leon Evans.”

Nestor cheered at the top of his voice, but it was lost within an ocean of sound.

As it died down, the Apostle Saul raised his voice one last time. “My friends, Pilgrim’s Valley was the first settlement over which we flew when the Lord brought us from the sky. And for that reason the Oath Taker’s role shall be a special one. The Deacon has asked me to fulfill that role, and I shall do so, with your blessing. Now let us pray …”

As the prayers were concluded, and the last hymn was sung, Nestor made his way back to the main street of Pilgrim’s Valley, moving slowly within the crowd. Most of the people were returning to their homes, but a select few, Nestor among them, had been invited to a reception at the Traveler’s Rest and the
formal welcome for the new Oath Taker. Nestor felt especially privileged to be asked to attend, even though his role was only that of a waiter. History was being made there, and the young man could hardly believe that one of the Nine Apostles was actually going to live—if only for a month or two—among the people of Pilgrim’s Valley. It was a great honor.