expected to be shamed by him. But it was their first-born, abandoning law books for the West, who had proved the greater disappointment. They were both dead now, buried in a cold and crowded churchyard.
After minutes that stretched like hours, Joseph took the spectacles from his face and, hands not shaking, laid them down. He was transformed. Hendrik saw a new calmness. His brother had won battles with himself He beamed like a happy baby, but his smile was frightening.
The Ute's gaze swivelled, neck moving like a snake, and he looked to Eddy.
The poet swallowed and took the glasses. He put them on, looking not at the book but at its owner. For a moment, he stared the Ute full in the face.
A scream began deep in Eddy's chest and exploded from his mouth with the force of a cannon-blast. In the tiny room, it was as loud as thunder, as high as the wind.
Eddy stood, stool falling away, and staggered as if smitten. Hendrik was on his feet, arms out to catch the poet. He met surprising resistance. The little man fought like a bobcat, screeching as if dying.
'What is it?' Hendrik asked, seeing his own face in the mirrors over Eddy's eyes. 'What do you see?'
They fell against the stove and Hendrik felt searing pain in his hip. The poet broke loose and twisted around, the skirts of his coat flying, upsetting the table. Hendrik smelled his own scorched clothes. The Ute seemed mildly interested in the commotion. Joseph was still transported to the heavens. Words scattered among Eddy's screams.
'The maelstrom at the heart of all,' he babbled. 'The colossal maelstrom, always sucking, devouring, destroying! The void inside the night's maw, where darkness and decay and death hold illimitable dominion over all…'
The poet threw himself against a door, his whole body shaking, and battered with his fists. He was snivelling and sobbing, liquid tracks pouring down his face. The latch was displaced and the door swung outwards into the alley.
A blast of icy air blew into the room, killing the flame in the stove. The heat was exhausted at once. Hendrik's face stung with the sudden cold.
Eddy was a shadow in the doorway, struggling to free himself of invisible things he found in his hair and clothes In his ululation, pain mixed with panic.
The poet turned and ran, caroming off the wall opposite and tearing away into the night. The Ute bent down and picked up the spectacles. Eddy had dropped them. Hendrik heard him in flight, a clattering of boots on cobbles and an extended garble of terror.
Hendrik stood in the alley with the Ute, struggling with his own panic. The poet's nonsense had in it something of the screeches of the Seminoles, the howling of wolves, the drone of the Mexican
Eddy had fallen silent or was beyond earshot. Joseph was alone inside. Hendrik looked at the glasses, so odd and innocent in the Ute's weathered hand.
The offer was still there.
V
Brother Carey stripped to the waist, arranging his neatly unpegged clothes in a parcel which he fastened to his saddle. His skin was pink in the early light, unmarked. Hendrik's own chest and limbs were a map of his campaigns, each engagement marked with a scar.
The Paiute waited patiently, holding aloft torches whose growing flames were barely visible in the early morning light. The Ute laid out the pots of paint on an unrolled skin.
Carey finger-streaked his face blue and red, and drew designs on his chest, circling his nipples with angry eyes, drawing a toothy mouth on his belly. He looked like no sort of Indian Hendrik had ever faced.
Pretending to be savages was an American tradition, dating at least to the Boston Tea Party. The pretence masked a deeper truth. Europe was used up; now, America was the battleground of Darkness and Light. His brother had wrapped the whole thing around the Cross of Jesus, but Hendrik knew this was an older conflict and that, in ways he would never understand, it was nearing its end.
Armageddon would be a city in America. The foundations were already marked out with lines of blood.
The Ute squatted by the paints. Hendrik could see his own savage face reflected in twin miniature. He was painted like death, face blackened, black outlined with red.
Today, the Brethren of Joseph and their allies, the people of the Paiute, would ride against the invader. This was the Brethren's territory, no matter how the claim might be disputed. If the action meant war with the United States of America, then the Josephites were prepared to take arms and protect themselves.
The Brethren had been provoked sorely. And the Gentiles had fired warning shots at the Indians.
Satisfied with his war paint, Hendrik returned to his horse. He fastened his belt around his waist. His bowie knife hung heavy on one hip, his .36 Colt was holstered on the other. In a pouch that hung from the back of his belt, his razor nestled.
In all the meetings, the Elders had agreed that the Gentiles were to be run off the land. A good fright should accomplish that. There was no reason to harm them.
No reason.
Clegg inspected the new-painted Brethren, commending them as compleat heathens.
Hendrik took his hat from the horn of his saddle and set it on his head, then mounted his horse. The Indians called the Josephites Black Bonnets. A torch was given to him; he held it aloft, a signal for all. He looked up at the sky and saw no birds. He scanned the horizon and saw no strangers.
'Them Gentiles won't know what's hit,' Brother Carey said, laughing with no humour, 'they'll keep running till they've sea around their boots.'
Hendrik let his torch fall, flame slicing through the air…
VI
After that night in Samuel's Tavern, Joseph Shatner was a reformed man. He permanently and publically abjured drink and dissipation. He persuaded Molly O'Doul to join him in abstinence. Saintliness spread to Molly's sisterhood. Hendrik took the pledge for his own reasons but found little comfort in purity.
Joseph still preached; now his sermons were conducted in chapels and meeting halls, not ale-houses and street-corners. He spoke, eyes burning with the fire of the Lord, of the revelation that had come unto him. The Book was opened. Shining cities would rise in the West, dedicated to the glory of God. Sin was to be obliterated utterly.
The Ute was perpetually in attendance, hanging back, never speaking. Most took him for Joseph's manservant. He seemed to smile now, though it was impossible to gauge whether his stone features actually changed their habitual configuration. He still wore the spectacles.
