Those who sat in the rear of the tent would later swear they saw The Deacon wrestling with a great serpent. It writhed and flailed about, but he held it tightly, all the while his powerful voice cutting through the mist and smoke and shadows. Others saw a brilliant, greenish light pulsing between The Deacon and a shadowy shape they could not make out but that they were certain was not Colleen. Most remembered very little beyond the hymn, and the smoke.
There was a scream. It pierced the night and drained all other sound from the world, stilling the horses, and the birds. The air was stifling and motionless. Darkness hung like a shroud over the world. Then the words of the hymn began again, slowly and steadily, in The Deacon's voice. He walked from the cloud of smoke and blackness down the center aisle of the tent and into the night. He held Colleen's still form in his arms.
No one moved to block his way. Their voices, choked and dry, fought to join the song. They rose and stumbled out after him, leaving the tent to the dust and the breeze. The Deacon carried Colleen around the corner of his wagon and to the rear of his tent. They stood in the dying night, with the hint of dawn brushing the skyline until he was out of sight. They turned, and they saw the empty tent behind them. They saw that The Deacon's folk had drifted off to their own shadows.
Slowly, half aware and half dazed by what they'd experienced, they turned and climbed into their wagons. Those who'd ridden in from town found their horses, and those who'd walked climbed into the back of John Bender's wagon with the coffin. It was sealed, and though there was the vague sensation that it was wrong to do so, they huddled in beside it until the wagon groaned from their weight, and without a word, Bender slapped the reins and sent his team plodding homeward.
‡‡‡
As the dust from their passing settled, a lone form staggered out of the gulch. She was tall and thin. She wore a man's clothing, worn and dark with the dust of the road. Her hair was matted and had gathered brambles and thorns. Her face was streaked with tears and lined with pain.
She made her way into the circle of tents and dropped to her knees, staring at the huge cross topping the central tent. No one saw her enter. The only light in the camp came from the rear of The Deacon's tent, which was lit so brightly with candles it seemed to be on fire. Her gaze was drawn to that light, and like a moth to flame, she staggered to her feet and started forward.
From the shadows, kneeling beside his horse, Creed watched. He'd trailed her from half a mile beyond the empty trapper's camp. He'd been ready to call out to her, to try and calm her and get her to ride with him back to town when the scream silenced the world. The girl had turned toward that sound, not away from it, and she'd started walking again. Creed had followed. He would have caught her, too, but as he saw the wagons and horses line up and leave the camp, the crows took flight once more. The suddenness of it stole his breath, and had him reaching for his gun, and by the time they'd wheeled into the sky and disappeared into the distance, the girl had made it to the gates of The Deacon's camp and inside.
Now there was nothing left but to watch.
Chapter Nine
She crawled out of the night like a creature from hell, seeking salvation.
There were no saviours in The Deacon’s city of canvas and prayer.
She knelt, flakes of hard rock cutting savagely into her knee. There was so much pain in her thin body she barely felt the bite of the stone. The tears in her eyes robbed the clutter of tents of any defined shape or form. The light she'd seen flickered above her like hot flames, and colors bled into one another as her grip on the world slipped away. The world had descended into the primal, leaving her to fight for her life on instinct alone, her mind too numb from the pain for coherent thought. Cramps tore at her stomach in waves. She cradled her belly and whimpered into the darkness that rose up to swallow her. For one single beat of her fracturing heart, she gazed up at the sky and saw that it fill with a thousand points of silver light, and then a million and a billion as the pain exploded white-hot across her eyes. Then everything dipped to black.
She lost her balance, unable to stay up on her knees. She slumped and curled in a foetal position, instinctively trying to protect her unborn child from the agony devouring her flesh. There was no protection. No relief. There was nothing she could do as another stab of pain tore up through her womb and into her heart.
Somewhere deep inside, a sound echoed. She latched onto it, clung to it like a branch held over quicksand. It came again, louder, and she fought to make it out. The pain threatened again and she bit her lip hard, willing it away. She needed to hear that sound, to hear any sound, to see or feel something beyond the pain.
She turned her face to the sky again, but there were no stars. Instead she saw a face, a man's face. He smiled down at her gently.
'Something's wrong.' She said. 'It hurts..God, it hurts...'
The words choked out of her, so drenched in tears and misery they were barely coherent. She spoke to the man, but whispered to the world. They were simple, heartbreaking words; the desperate plea of mother who felt the impending loss of a child she'd never even seen.
'Hush girl.'
The man's voice soothed her. He knelt beside her and rested a hand on her distended belly. He kept his voice low, a gentle barrier against the pain raging through her. She surrendered to that voice, grateful she was no longer alone.
When she opened her eyes, he asked, 'How far along are you?'
She tried to think. Voices swirled through her thoughts, breaking them apart before she could pin them with her tongue and spit them out. She concentrated.
'I don't know.' She said. 'I...'
She couldn't get beyond that thought. She had seen childbirth. She knew the risks. If her child came like this, it would die – she would die.
'Help me, please.' She clutched the stranger’s hand. It was firm and strong, and just for a moment that touch steadied her. He didn’t pull away as her cracked and broken fingernails dug into his wrist. She fixed her gaze on his lips – he was saying something but she could not hear the words. A prayer? An invocation? Her fevered mind imagined he might be beseeching the heavens or calling down an angel to guide her soul to the next world. She tried to shake the thoughts free, but they lingered. His voice was not only soothing – it was mesmerizing.
She felt blood and water between her legs and she knew it was too late. She was as good as dead. She didn't scream. The finality of the moment slid into her like a long, sharp blade of ice. She closed her eyes. The last sight she saw was the rough wooden cross, high atop the biggest tent. That image strobed in her mind, and she felt the tickle of her heartbeat. It was funny, after everything that had happened to her, that two lengths of wood should evoke such a sense of hope. But just as there were two spars to the cross there were two underlying sensations; the first was the hope, the second weighing down so heavily on her she could barely breathe, was futility.
Fresh cramps tore through her and she drew her legs up tight to her stomach even as the man hushed her again.
'What’s your name, child?'
'Mariah.'
In a gesture of curious tenderness the man wiped a finger across her cheek, his warmth absorbing the tears that stained her face. She felt a tiny flicker of heat swell beneath his touch and spread slowly through her skin into the bones beneath. He stroked her gently, his hand moving from her cheek down her neck and between her breasts to her distended belly, and lower. There was nothing sexual in the connection despite the fact that she found her body responding to the warmth, her back arching even as he knees drew up tighter to her stomach.
'A pretty name,' the man soothed, keeping his voice calm. 'Around here they call me The Deacon. Believe
