Nolan yawned.
Damn. He was getting sleepy. Real sleepy.
He tossed the dead cigar butt away.
He got a fresh cigar and a match. He pulled out his turnip watch, struck the match, and held it close to the watch face to check the time.
A huge, long-nailed hand reached over his, snuffing the flame, crushing the watch and Nolan's fingers in one motion. The sound of watch and fingers breaking was very loud.
But not as loud as Nolan's scream, brief as it was.
The passengers came next.
Later, in the deepest part of night, a time when the moon had finally been concealed by the dark clouds and the stars were as dull as blind eyes, the long overdue stage from Silverton rolled into Mud Creek, a dark poncho- swathed driver with pulled-down hat at the lines.
No passengers stepped from the stage. There were no friends or relatives there to meet them. No one was aware, except for the driver, of its arrival. It had been given up for the day a good time back.
The horses snorted and rolled their eyes with fright. The driver set the rusty brake and tied off the lines, alighting to the ground gentle as dust.
The man walked to the back of the stage and threw up the cargo flap. A long crate stuck out at an awkward angle. He pulled it free, lifting it to his shoulder. Then, as if the crate were no more than a stick of stove wood, he ran down the middle of the street toward the livery, his boots throwing up little, short-lived dust devils behind him.
A hinge creaked, went silent. Now there was only the sound of the stage team snorting and a distant roll of thunder beyond the gray-black, East Texas woodlands.
I
THE REVEREND
—
H e had come down out of the high country: a long, lean preacher man covered in dust, riding a buckskin mare with an abscessed back, a wound made by hard riding and saddle friction against dust and hide.
Both man and horse looked ready to drop.
The man was dressed in black from boots to hat, save for a dusty white shirt and the silver glitter of a modified .36 colt Navy revolver in his black sash waist band. His face, like many men of the Word, was hard and stern. But there was something definitely unGodlike about the man. He had the cool, blue eyes of a cold killer—the eyes of a man who had seen the elephant and seen it well.
In his own way, he was a killer.
Men had dropped before the blast of his .36 Navy, their last vision being thick, black smoke curling upwards from the mouth of his shiny revolver.
But in the Reverend's eyes, to his way of thinking, each had been in need of the sword stroke, and it had been God's will. And he, Jebidiah Mercer, had been the Lord's avenging hand. Or at least it seemed that way at the time.
As Jeb often told his tent congregation: 'Brethren, I kill sin. I am the good right arm of the Lord, and I kill sin.'
And there were the times when he did not feel so righteous. But he had learned to put these thoughts aside, swamp them with his own interpretation of God's word.
It was the break of day, and as Jeb rode—slowly— wearily—toward Mud Creek, morning slipped in on the breath of a cool wind as the birds sang in symphony.
Stopping on a velvet-green rise of grass above the town, Jeb—like some saint from on high—looked down. Down on clapboard buildings lined on either side by thick forest.
A tumbleweed thought, one that often rolled by, came to him: East Texas, a hell of a beautiful sight, a long missed home.
Tilting his broad-brimmed hat forward, the Reverend urged his buckskin on, down into the town of Mud Creek, down to plant the seed of his rambling ministry.
II
He came into town slow and easy, like an on-the-watch shootist, instead of a holy messenger of the Lord.
When he came to the livery he dismounted, looked up at the sign. It read: JOE BOB
RHINE'S LIVERY AND BLACKSMITH SHOP.
'Whatchawant?'
When he looked down from the sign, he was confronted by a shirtless youth wearing a floppy hat and baggy suspenders supporting wool trousers. The boy looked sullen and bored.
'If you don't think it'll tire you out too much, I'd like my horse groomed.'
'Six bits. Now.'
'I want him groomed, not shampooed, you little crook.'
The boy held out his hand. 'Six bits '
The Reverend reached into his pocket and slapped the money into the boy's palm.
'What's your name, son? I'd like to know who to avoid from here on out.'
'David.'
'At least you have a fine biblical name.'
'It ain't all that good.'
'It isn't all that good.'
'Hell, that's what I said. You're the one that's all blazed about it.'
'I'm talking about your English. ISN'T is acceptable. AIN'T is not.'
''You talk funny.'
'I return the compliment.'
'You look like a preacher to me, except you got that gun.'
'I
The boy was about to speak when a big man wearing overalls, a leather apron, and a disagreeable expression appeared from the interior of the livery. As he approached, the Reverend saw the boy tense.
'Boy talking you to death, mister?' the man said gruffly.
'We were just making a deal on the grooming of my horse. You must be the owner?'
'That's right. Joe Bob Rhine—he charge you two bits like he was supposed to?'
'I'm satisfied.'
David swallowed hard and looked at the Reverend for a long moment.
'Boy's like his mama,' Joe Bob said. 'A dreamer. You have to beat respect into him.
Damn sure wasn't born with it' He turned to David. 'Boy, take the man's horse. Get to work.'
'Yes sir,' David said. Then to the Reverend. 'What's her name?'
'I just call her horse. Mind you that she has a saddle rub on her back.'
David smiled. 'Yes sir.' He started removing the saddle.
'I'd like to board her for a while also,' the Reverend said to Rhine. 'Is that convenient?'
'Pay when you pick her up.'
David handed the Reverend his saddle bags. 'Thought you might need these.'
'Thanks'
David nodded, took the horse, and went away.
'Where's the best place to stay?' the Reverend asked Rhine.
'Ain't but one.' Rhine pointed down the street. 'The Hotel Montclaire.'
The Reverend nodded, tossed the saddlebags over his shoulder, and started up the street.
III
The sign over the weathered building read: THE HOTEL MONTCLAIRE. Six sets of windows looked down at
