in the hereafter.”
Terence took a deep breath and slowly let it out.
“I should have gone with them and skipped all this fucking nonsense.”
Terence rose to his feet and yelled to the north.
“Did you hear that!? This is all fucking nonsense! The Church, the Zona, the Preachers and goodmen, sins and laws, it’s all fucking nonsense!”
Terence sat back down in the street. He shoved his pistol back into the knapsack and rubbed his sleeve across his nose. He looked self-consciously at Lead.
“Sorry,” Terence said.
“Where would you die if you had the choice?”
Lead was thoughtful for long minutes. His mind drifted in the formation of his narrative.
“I think I would have died with my mom in the fugee camp. Not how she died. She died burning with plague and seeing men and shapes that were not there. I would have liked to have died with her, but with me having the pneumonia. A healer in Flagstaff once told me dying of pneumonia is like slipping into a pool of warm water. That sounds alright, as far as dying goes.
Maybe I should have died in Vegas. I’ve seen things that I wish I’d never seen on the road, crucifixion, butchery, men feeding on men. The fugee camp was a horror show too, but I had never been part of anything as ugly as Vegas. Everything changed with Vegas. If I’d been closer to downtown, the nukes would have dusted me. I imagine that’s a relatively quick and painless way to go.”
“I like my answer better.” Terence said with a smile.
“Yeah, I like your answer better,” Lead said.
Terence scavenged the trees for dry wood and tinder. He dug a fire pit between slabs of asphalt.
“Do you think they’ll come tonight?” Lead asked.
“I don’t know. They’ll come at us at night; I just don’t know which night.” Terence dumped his twigs in the pit and went to collect more.
Eliphaz observed the ex-Preachers with his field glasses. He handed the glasses to his assistant.
“They know about us. The wood Indians must have tipped them off,” Eliphaz said. “I suppose there’ll be little surprise in our confrontation.”
The assistant placed the field glasses back in their case. He knew better than to speak to Eliphaz.
Time shifted in its constant worldly crawl. The sun drifted behind the trees and blessed the earth with color and receded to darkness, leaving the ex-Preacher’s campfire to take up the burden of providing light. Terence and Lead sat in front of the fire and waited. The moon had yet to make its appearance and the darkness outside of their fire was absolute. The ex-Preachers sat in silence, listening for the inevitable.
Lead woke to the sound of gravel popping underfoot; he suddenly realized he’d been asleep. Exhaustion and the stillness of night and the hypnotic hum of locusts had turned his body against his will. He had drifted off and now the camp fire was burning low. Danger was present.
Lead scanned the darkness for the source of the noise. He saw Terence slumped over onto the street, the firelight reflected off the tarp wrapped about his body. Terence breathed the shallow breath of sleep. Lead heard another pop from the darkness. He reached into his jacket pocket and gripped the handle of his knife.
A chunk of asphalt whistled in flight and struck Lead above the eye; he yelled as a camouflaged soldier leapt out of the darkness and tackled Lead to the ground.
Terence threw off his tarp, grabbed the soldier by his collar, and yanked him off of Lead. The soldier whirled around, pulling the cord of his Van Cleef. Terence caught his wrist and pressed the barrels of his gun against the young man’s nose.
“Let that Cleef hang, Crusader,” Terence said.
The young Crusader dropped his cord.
“Raise your hands and turn around,” Terence commanded.
Terence spun the soldier and pressed his gun against the back of his head. Clapping sounded from the darkness.
“Congratulations,” Elipaz said from cover. “My assistant assumed Lead would have put up the better fight. He doesn’t understand, when attacking two marks you must spend more time assessing the situation. Lead, though younger, was obviously asleep until a minute ago Terence, though older, was obviously faking sleep and waiting to ambush us. The older man was craftier, and thus should have been taken first.”
Eliphaz strode into the edge of light. He was dressed simply in a flak vest and camouflage pants. Both hands gripped a Browning Hi-Power. Terence turned his hostage to face the Crusader.
“I’m willing to barter if you are, Crusader.” Terence said from behind the assistant.
“I do not want to shoot your man, but I will.”
The Eliphaz pointed his gun at Lead, who was on the ground clutching the gash over his eyes, blinded by blood.
“I don’t want to kill your man either, old Preacher,” Eliphaz said. There was joy in his voice, Eliphaz relished confrontation.
“We’re at a stand-off. One man gets to shooting and none us of will live,” Terence said. “You turn back, everyone here lives.”
“You assume too much, old Preacher,” Eliphaz replied. “I see things differently. I’m holding a Browning loaded with armor piercing shells. You’re holding an Engholm four-pipe. Assuming your gun is not a toy replica, they haven’t made one of those since the eighteen hundreds. You might shoot my assistant in the head, or you might blow up your hand, or you might misfire. Even if you’ve taken care of that gun, and it was in firing condition, I’d be shocked if it was even loaded.”
Eliphaz took one hand off of his pistol and reached into his backpack. He pulled out a blanket and threw it on the ground. He then pulled a bundle of yellow nylon rope and tossed it next to the blanket.
“You know the routine. I present the question to both of you, blanket or rope? I’ll see you to Purgatory or I’ll see you to your grave.”
“It doesn’t have to…” Terence started when Eliphaz fired his gun at the assistant.
Two rounds tore completely through the young man and pierced Terence’s stomach and chest. The assistant yelped in confusion and collapsed on the road. Lead jumped to his feet at the sound of pistol fire. He pulled the knife out of his jacket and lunged for Eliphaz. The Crusader twisted into a fighter’s stance. Lead drove his knife into Eliphaz’s forearm. The Crusader hissed and clubbed Lead in the face with his pistol. Lead fell to all fours. Eliphaz clubbed Lead again. He collapsed in a heap.
Before blacking out, Lead looked into Terence’s yellow-blue eyes. They showed the embers of the dying campfire. Terence’s breath was short and labored, his lips streaked red. His hands clutched wounds that bled out into the dirt and sand and road. Eliphaz put his knee on Lead’s back and pulled his arms behind him; rough nylon rope wrapped around Lead’s hands and wrists.
“Like I said, old man. You assumed too much.”
Eliphaz pulled Lead’s knots tight. Terence struggled to breath. Blood roared in his ears like waves against rocks. Terence closed his eyes and saw things that were not there, or perhaps had always been. On the Highway Nineteen, outside of New Pueblo, Terence Wood took his last breath.
“You shot me!” the assistant screamed in panic. His hands gripped his wounds, his fatigues showed dark and wet with blood.
“Boo hoo,” Eliphaz said sarcastically. “Maybe if you’d done a better job, I wouldn’t have had to shoot you!”
Eliphaz gagged Lead with rope.
“Say a prayer for healing and another for forgiveness. If God can find it in his heart to forgive a shitty Crusader, maybe you won’t have to die of blood loss.”
Eliphaz finished tying Lead and struck him again with his pistol. It was unnecessary. Lead was already unconscious.
