Lead sat up and felt a dull pain in his left shoulder. He pressed his hand against his wound. It had been packed in a thick poultice.
“We beat the infection,” the man said. He pulled a brown bottle from the pocket of his blue jeans.
“Penicillin, I make it here. Makes you pretty lucky I guess.” The man’s face froze as he realized the error of what he said. The Church had long ago decreed that the use of drugs was offensive to God as it fought against his inclination to cull the sinner and save the righteous. Preachers put men to blanket for such offenses.
“What’s Penicillin?” Lead asked.
“It’s a drug. It kills infection. I’m sorry.” The man looked around the room, as though searching for a place to hide.
“Never heard of it,” Lead said. “Where am I?”
“C.R.A.S.S.,” the man replied. “Colorado River Aqueduct Science Station, California side. We monitor storms, look for patterns, chart strength or winds and the like.” The stranger was visibly relieved to change the subject.
Lead searched the room again with his eyes.
“So we’re out of the Zona?”
“No,” said the stranger. “We’re on the border, but not many come around here. The weather here is too savaged to be any good for colonists. Church doesn’t know about us.”
“Thank you for helping me heal,” Lead said.
The stranger bowed his head. His reflective lenses flashed in the light.
“Where’s the old man?” Lead asked.
“Terence? He’s here, I’ll get him.” The man pulled a cord hanging from the ceiling. A muffled bell sounded in a distant room.
Terence entered the recovery quarters. His appearance had changed dramatically in the days since his escape on the Colorado River. He had scrubbed the dirt of the wastelands off his face and hands until they glowed pink. His mane of gray hair was tied behind his head and rested on a new blue flannel shirt. He stood straight and strong as a man well nourished and well rested.
“Glad you’re back,” Terence said. He gestured to the stranger. “This is Eric the Dead, my friend.”
“Why do you call him ‘the Dead’?”
“By all rights he is a dead man. Years ago, the Church sent me to make him a Goodman, by rope or blanket. He chose the blanket.”
“It wasn’t as easy as all that.” Eric said.
“All humility aside, it was that easy. I stuck a gun in this poor, polite man’s face and asked him how he wanted to attain perfection. He had the nerve to tell me to shoot him dead.” Terence looked away from Eric. “That didn’t work for me. I had stopped shooting people long before. I couldn’t go against my word and bind him. It was a problem, a situation. I had no choice but to let him live. So instead of punishment I took from him an oath. He had to change his name and location. He had to help anyone I sent his way.”
“What was his offense? Why were you sent to apprehend?” Lead asked.
“No one told me, of course. Church doesn’t work that way, as you know. Far as I could tell it had to do with Eric’s profession. Man was a pharmacist before the Storms, sat on a pretty good stash of medicine and whatnots. He was doctoring in what remained of the Prescott Parish before being expelled for witchcraft.”
“I’m not a witch,” Eric said defensively. The accusation still held an obvious weight and pain with the doctor. “Ignorant peasants didn’t understand the workings of my medicine and assumed magic.”
“The order came, he was designated a mark, I was handed the bounty. Pretty sure that’s it, not unless he did something unsavory and didn’t tell me.” Terence looked at Eric and chuckled. “Wouldn’t that beat all, if you were really a murder or sex pervert or something gruesome, and I still let you go.”
“Why did you stop killing?” Lead asked.
Terence’s expression turned solemn. He looked to the boarded window.
“I was a grown man when the Storms struck. I lost a lot. Everything that made sense vanished. You may or may not get what I tell you, but that kind of thing puts a hole in a man. I joined up with the Guards in California, later we joined with the Zona Militia, Arizona at the time. I stopped trying to make sense and started following those who told me they understood what was happening. My life found purpose with the Guards and the Church. They ordered me to strike the cause of the Storms, to extinguish sin and make the world whole, to do my duty and earn my place in the lesser inherited Earth. I can’t say I believed them, but at the same time belief didn’t matter. With them I had purpose. With them I helped raze Vegas. With them I swept and crushed the Mexican scavenger parties in the Hot Zones. With them I hunted and murdered or imprisoned enemies of the Church, the marks. The killings didn’t fill the hole. One day I found myself facing a blanket Goodman in Saint John’s Town and I couldn’t pull the trigger. I lashed him in my rage. I beat him till he lay bleeding out on the floor of his cabin, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. Afterward, I nursed him to health. He became the first Dead. His name was Jackson Corning. I brought him back to life and he helped me keep alive the others who wouldn’t go to Purgatory, he renamed himself Aaron Century, though I always called him Aaron the Dead.”
Lead’s face turned white. He tried to swallow against the lump in his throat. Anxiety filled his chest with imaginary needles. Terence saw Lead’s panic. He nodded knowingly at the Preacher.
“I put Century under the blanket.” Lead said. “I gave him the choice and he attacked me.”
Lead rubbed the numb palm of his left hand against the bubbled scar on his chest.
“I know,” Terence said solemnly. “Just like I knew they’d send you to me after Century was put down. If they figured out Century, they’d know about me. I don’t agree with how Century took after you, but I knew after he was laid low you’d come for me.”
Terence leaned against a wall.
“I didn’t know if you’d put me under until I saw you. One look and I knew. You’re not mindless, kid. You’re like me, a man with a hole, but not all the way empty. You’re a man who’s starting to figure that killing doesn’t fill that hole.”
Terence turned his attention back to Eric the Dead.
“We’ve got Crusaders scouring our trial. Anywhere we set becomes dangerous ground. I’m sorry, but you and yours need to move to another station.”
Eric nodded at Terence. Terence looked back to Lead.
“You get to make your choice now. If you ain’t had your fill of the Church, we’ll knock you out, blindfold you, and put you somewhere safe where you can continue your life until a Crusader or Preacher puts you down. Maybe you’ll go to Purgatory. If, on the other hand, you’re done with the Church, you can come with me. I’m headed to New Pueblo. It’s a hidden place. They live the old ways outside of Church jurisdiction. I can’t make any promises to what life there will be aside from different.”
Lead let the words sink in. He thought back over the years of wondering, hunting, and killing. He had killed under the name of God’s will, and every death bound him with an anchor of guilt. Every murdered face stared at him when his eyes closed. He whispered the prayer for wisdom and forgiveness. Terence remained silent.
“I’ll go with you.” Lead said.
“Good. We leave tomorrow. Get some sleep; I’ll come for you later.” Terence and Eric left the room.
The next morning, men parted ways outside of C.R.A.S.S. To the west of them, a churning wall of dust marked the winds of the Storm Boarder. The ex-Preachers journeyed south, the pharmacist and his mule wagon of lab equipment journeyed north. The men continued in their lives and in parting, unknowingly severed forever from each other, for there comes a point in all men’s lives when they see each other for the last, and this was that point for the ex-Preachers and Eric the Dead.
VI. That which occurred in Las Vegas
Lead pulled the cloth mask off of his face and watched Terence twist smoke and fire out of a nest of desert branches.
“That day in Yucca, I recognized you from Vegas. That’s what kept me from gunning you dead,” Lead
