from your eyes.'
So Colt had knelt with the Prophet in prayer. Mainly just to prove to him how wrong he was. The Prophet spoke to the Lord and Colt joined him. Only this time it seemed the Lord was listening.
Colt had his eyes closed and he had the definite feeling there was someone else there in the room with them. Not right next to him, like one of his men, but hovering just above his head.
Colt opened his eyes and he wasn't in the tent anymore. He was on a hillside just outside an ancient city. In front of him there was a post in the ground. No, there were three posts. Only they weren't quite posts. Colt began to look up.
Then he stopped himself. He closed his eyes and shook his head. This wasn't real. He was inside a tent in Montana. The Prophet must have slipped him something. He opened his eyes again and the hillside was still there, only it was starting to get indistinct. He looked through it and saw the Prophet in the tent with him, still praying.
The Prophet looked over at him and smiled and pointed upwards. Colt turned to look and he was back on the hill. Slotted into the top of the post in the ground was a crossbeam. Hanging from that crossbeam by the nails in his hands was a man, with two other men hanging from the crosses either side of him.
No, it wasn't just a man. Colt took one look into his eyes and he knew who it was. In those eyes there was more suffering and more love than Colt knew existed in the world.
It was all true. He really had suffered all those centuries ago and He had gone on suffering ever since. He would continue to suffer for as long as there were men and women who needed to atone for their actions.
He did this because of love. The love of a creator who gives life to the universe as a sacred gift and asks for nothing in return. The love that compels Him to put on human form and come down and suffer with His creations for as long as there is human suffering. To show them that no matter how low they sink, no matter how great their despair and how terrible their degradation, He is always there with them and always will be.
'No!' Colt shouted and jumped to his feet. It was all too much for him to take. The vision evaporated and he was back in the tent next to the Prophet. The vision was gone but the meaning wasn't. They were responsible for that perfect, sacred man's suffering. Everyone alive was. Colt was, in everything he did. Yet He suffered willingly. He submitted to those agonies because He loved us all.
Colt could hardly bring himself to speak the man's name. A name he had been raised with, fought and killed for. A name he was going to go to war for, and thereby cause the man even more suffering. Christ, his saviour.
'No!' Colt shouted and knocked the wooden crucifix off the tent pole.
The Prophet got off his knees and took hold of Colt's shoulders. 'Samuel. Did you see it? Did you see it?'
'Get off of me!' yelled Colt and he pushed the Prophet to the ground.
The Prophet stood again. 'But don't you see what this means? Samuel, don't you grasp its meaning?'
'Get out of here,' Colt pushed the Prophet out of his tent. Of course he grasped the meaning. That's what he couldn't take. Every time he closed his eyes the vision was there. Challenging everything he had ever fought for, was the very thing he thought he was fighting for.
'Go on get out,' Colt shouted as the Prophet stumbled backwards into the camp, looking hurt and confused. 'You stay away from me, you hear? Don't you come anywhere near me again!'
The Prophet pulled himself up to his full height and left with as much dignity as he could muster.
'Looks like someone had a lover's quarrel,' said a voice from around one of the campfires.
Colt went apoplectic. 'Who said that? Which one of you lousy, stinking cowards said that?'
A hush fell across the whole camp.
Colt bore down on the fire from where he'd heard the comment. Around fifteen men sat huddled there. 'Which one of you was it? Come on tell me or I'll have the lot of you shot.'
Three of the men pointed to one bearded individual. He was shaking with fear. He patently regretted what he'd said. 'I'm sorry Mr Colt sir. Truly I am. I didn't mean nothing by it. Just a dumb quip was all.'
Colt saw the man was wounded. His shoulder was crudely bandaged.
He remembered that an advance party had traded shots with a group of Injuns two days before. They'd killed two of the redskins but suffered the first casualties of the war. This man must have been among them. He sat in front of the fire with a filthy coat draped around his bandaged shoulders and shivered from the night air and his fear of Colt. Colt could see the man was suffering and he was reminded of the endless suffering of the man on the cross.
One of his sergeants stepped up next to Colt. 'I'll have the man disciplined right away sir.'
He nodded to two men around the fire who leapt to their feet and hauled the bandaged man to his.
Colt's every instinct told him he should punish the man. Such insubordination should never be tolerated in the ranks. He had to maintain his own standing in front of the other men. But his instincts were stifled by an untapped well of compassion that suddenly rose inside him. He knew its source. It was the vision. Like a creeping weakness it seemed to sap all his strength and anger.
Cot turned his back on the man. 'Don't bother,' he muttered to the sergeant. 'He's suffered enough.' Then he walked back to the tent and under his breath he said. 'He'll never stop suffering.'
The morning after Simon Peter had outlined the plan about the bridge, Colt stood looking at it. It wasn't entirely complete but it was an impressive sight. Put together with steel girders the bridge spanned the chasm at its narrowest point. It was just wide enough for three men to cross it side by side.
Simon Peter and his team had worked through the night to build it. They hadn't been seen by the UTN, they'd have been shot if they had. Colt was impressed by their bravery and their industry. By late afternoon it would be ready.
Colt had arrived in advance of the other troops. The whole army was proceeding along a special route that would allow them to arrive at the north side of the plateau without the redskins seeing them. The plan was to get the main force to march straight across the bridge the moment they arrived and get as many as possible onto the plateau before the Injuns noticed.
Colt was gambling on sending a tight phalanx of soldiers into the centre of the Injun's ranks to catch them by surprise and rout them. Then the rest of his troops would advance as they arrived on two outward fronts like the horns of a bull.
It was a risky manoeuvre that until a few days ago would have had Colt's adrenalin pumping. Now his heart wasn't entirely in it. It was taking all the mental energy he had to repress the memory of the vision. And to stop himself thinking about the futility of bloodshed and the families of all the men he was sending to their deaths. Damn that fool Prophet.
'Err, sir,' said Simon Peter breaking Colt's stream of thought. 'There's a man on the other side of the bridge who wants to see you. He's asking to speak to our leader.'
'What,' said Colt. 'Who the hell is he?'
'He says he from the complex. He wants to make a deal with us.'
'A deal. What kind of a deal?'
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
'It's quite simple really,' said Joe Black Feather. 'We have two armies camped out on our doorstep. We think we know what you're after. We can't keep both of you out so our best bet for survival is to strike a deal with the side most likely to win.'
'And you think that's us?' said Hiamovi.
The Iroquois smiled. 'Well, I hope it is. You got here first and you've got the best tactical position. So it's a safe bet to say you've got the upper hand. As project leader it's my call as to which side to pick and, well to be fair, I'd rather fall in with my own people.'
'And what about your associates?' said Hiamovi pointing to the man and woman with Joe. 'They don't look like our people.'
'No but with respect, I see a lot of white faces among your ranks too.'
'Fair point. So what are you offering?'
'Am I right in assuming that you're here for the Doomsday Virus?'
