'Sir?'
'I read this article in a Harper's Monthly Magazine called 'Arab Slave Traders of the Congo'? The screws had been passing it around 'cause there were pictures of a nigger woman naked from the waist up. A young woman she was, with pert little titties. A high-quality magazine like Harper's would never offend its readers by offering them peeks at a white woman's titties, but somehow black titties are understood to be educational and uplifting things. Well, this article described how Arab slave-traders used to control a whole village of niggers by collecting all the weapons before anyone knew what was happening, then they'd choose one person from the village to be an example of what would happen to anyone who gave them trouble. They'd take this Example Nigger out in full view of the village and they'd give him a taste of what the writer called 'most excruciating and humiliating tortures.' After that, they didn't have any trouble. I read that article over and over till I'd memorized it. Those Arabs knew their business! That's the way to control a town. So Mr. Delanny's going to be my Example Nigger. I'll bet that sounds sort of cruel to you.'
'It does, and that's a fact.'
'Uh-huh, well, actually it's just the opposite of cruel, because in the end it saves a lot of unnecessary pain and punishment. Making decisions like this is not pleasant, but it's part of being a leader. And it's necessary… for the greater good. The same kind of thinking made me choose Tiny and Bobby-My-Boy to bring along when I busted out. They're not very smart-hell, let's face it, they ain't even normal! — and they don't give a damn about my Sacred Mission, but they're the sort of mean, ugly bad-asses that gets the local yokels' attention. You follow me?'
Matthew didn't answer.
'Of course, scum like them could never be leaders in my Army of Liberation. For that, I need bright young men with grit and brains and bone-deep patriotism. I need someone to be my sword and my shield! My eyes and my ears! Someone to take over, if I fall a martyr to the cause… as I am likely to do. A prince regent is what I need! And you know what, son? You just might be that prince regent.' He moved his hand across the space before him, as though envisioning the print on a big poster. 'Wanted: Prince Regent! Reasonable hours! Opportunities for travel and advancement! Dummies and yellow-bellies and foreigners need not apply!' His voice dropped to an earnest register. 'You know why I chose you?'
'No, sir.' Matthew inched his bottom over, making more space between them on the step.
'I chose you because we're the same sort, you and me. I saw it in your eyes. You know what we are, kid? We're damaged boys. Damaged boys! And if you damage a boy before his spirit has set strong, you end up with one of two things, either a spineless slave that lets the world trample him and smear his face in the mud, or a dangerous Force of Nature with an unquenchable rage boiling inside him! And when that rage is harnessed to a noble cause… well, then you've got something awe-inspiring and dreadful!' He turned and looked into Matthew's eyes with searching solicitude. 'Who damaged you, son? Me, I was damaged by my pa, then by a man teacher, then by a warden in a home for boys. But I can't be damaged no more. From now on, it'll be me who does the damaging. So tell me, boy. Who damaged you? Was it your pa?'
'I wasn't never damaged.'
'Now that's just pure bullshit, boy. You got damage writ deep in your eyes! You're either going to end up nothing at all in this world, or something awe-inspiring bad! That's the way it is with us damaged boys. It's what they call our Karma!' He grinned and winked.
Matthew was glad for the chance to change the subject that came when he looked past Lieder and saw the Reverend Hibbard step off the tracks down at the end of town, having walked back from the Surprise Lode after preaching at the miners. Matthew snapped his fingers. 'Oh, there's one other person living in town. I plum forgot about him.'
'Who's that?'
'A preacher name of Leroy Hibbard. He goes up to the Lode every Sunday to give the miners a dose of brimstone. But he usually gets back before sundown on Monday.'
'A preacher, eh?'
'Well… not much of a preacher. He drinks whiskey, then he reels down the street late at night, yammering on about how he's a sinner and vile and worthless and all. Mr. Stone agrees with him about his being worthless. He says Reverend Hibbard ain't worth the powder to blow him to-Hey, talk of the devil.'
Lieder grunted up from the step and stood awaiting the approach of the preacher, the cup of his right hand resting on the butt of the pistol stuffed into his belt. 'What'd you say his name was?' he muttered out of the side of his mouth.
'Hibbard.'
'Well now, if it ain't Reverend Hibbard!' Lieder greeted. 'As I live and breathe! Welcome home, Reverend! I've been keeping your flock safe for you!' He thrust out his hand, which the confused clergyman took tentatively, only to have the bones of his clammy fingers crushed in Lieder's strong grip. 'Now, here's what we're going to do, you and me, Reverend. We're going to your place and have a chin-wag, in the course of which you can give me any guns you might have lying around. Who knows? I might even suddenly feel a great urge to testify.'
Throughout the dusty six-hour walk back down from the mine, Hibbard had been tormented by visions of the back door of the Traveller's Welcome, where he habitually bought his bottle from Jeff Calder, so he was reluctant to turn back and accompany the stranger up the street to the old depot. But Lieder's handclasp tightened painfully as he smiled into the Reverend's eyes and told him that if he didn't take him to his house-right now! — he'd likely get his kneecaps shot off and have to hobble around for the rest of his life, a useless cripple, and it would be on his own head'… for he who tempts a man to violence is himself guilty of that violence… Paul to the Chippewas: 7, 13. I'm sure you're familiar with the passage.'
Matthew sat on the steps, watching the two men go back up the rutted street toward the last embers of the sunset, Reverend Hibbard's thin, black-clad body followed by a snake of a shadow that slithered after him.
Matthew returned to the marshal's office and sat heavily on the edge of his bed, his eyes fixed on a crack in the floorboards as the gloom deepened around him. Some time later… an hour, maybe more… he emerged from the Other Place, blinked, and slowly stood up to take the shotgun down from above the door. Then he fished the canvas sack out from under his bed and spilled his treasures over his blanket, including the marshal's badge and the homemade shells. He broke the gun open and pushed in a shell. The tight fit scraped off a thin curl of the candle wax that sealed the shell. Argh! He shuddered with disgust as he snapped the curl of wax off his fingernail! He clawed the shell back out of the gun and threw it into the sack, as though it were something organic and loathsome, then he wiped his hands on his shirt to scrub off the feeling of the waxy shell.
When his heartbeat returned to normal, he tried to sort out his thoughts. In about an hour, he had to go to the Mercantile to meet with B. J. Stone and Mr. Kane. But first he'd better slip over to the boardinghouse to see if the Bjorkvist men were game to join them in fighting against these… What the hell were they?
As he turned back from hanging the shotgun above the door, his eyes fell on the book Lieder had tossed aside.
He really hated the thought of a man like that reading the Ringo Kid books!
STANDING IN THE DEEP shadows close to the Bjorkvists' woodshed, Matthew could see through the screen door into the kitchen of the boardinghouse, where Kersti was working by lamplight, ladling stew out of a big iron pot on the stove into the bucket that she would carry over to the Traveller's Welcome to feed the usual residents and those three strangers. Mrs. Bjorkvist had prepared enough for her own family as well, but at the last minute she decided to send it all over to the hotel, so the strangers couldn't complain that there wasn't enough. And as for her son and husband? Well, they'd pretty much lost their appetites anyway, after what those men did to them.
Matthew crept up the back steps. 'Kersti?' he whispered, his lips almost touching the screen.
She let out a half-stifled yelp of surprise. 'What is wrong with you?! Scaring a body like that!'
'Sorry, but I-'
'I almost spilt the stew! There'd a been hell to pay!'
'Sh-h-h, keep your voice down, please. Come over to the door. I got to talk to you, but I don't want to step into the light, just in case one of them's wandering around.'
Sniffing with annoyance, the girl carried three large tins of Beechnut brand peaches (extra-thick syrup) to the stone drain board and began opening them, working the can opener up and down with angry energy, her lips compressed in stubborn refusal to talk to him. He could see her clearly because she was on the lamp side of the screen; she could barely make him out because he was on the dark side. 'Well?' she hiss-whispered, after he had stood there in silence for fully a minute. 'What do you want?'
