Chapter Twenty-Four

 

 

 

Dean had persuaded Doc to go out with him from the safety of the house, leaving quietly an hour after supper was finished, to creep across the night coolness of the desert toward the camp fires of the Slaves of Sin.

 

"Are you certain that young Master Lauren and Mistress Wroth have given their permission for this shadowy enterprise, my dear boy?"

 

"Sure, Doc."

 

"What precisely is the point of this nocturnal expedition, if I may make so bold as to ask?"

 

The boy had stopped and grinned at him, as they paused by the fence that separated the old orchard from the pasture. "Sometimes you speak even odder than other times, Doc. Point is to go and take a look-see, see?"

 

"I suppose so."

 

"We can loop around the arroyo to the north. Bring us close to where they are without them spotting us."

 

"Unless the flagellants have taken the elementary precautions of placing sentries."

 

"Yeah. I mean, no. Triple crazies like that need both hands to find their assholes, Doc."

 

"If you say so, my gilded bird of youth." Doc sighed. "If you say so."

 

 

 

THE WILDERNESS SEETHED with nocturnal life.

 

Dean led the way, moving at a fast crouch, followed by Doc, stumbling over the uneven terrain, knees creaking like muffled pistol shots.

 

An unidentifiable mutie snake, twenty feet long, its skin black as jet with streaks of silver, slithered away from them, looping up and over the brim of the narrow draw, hissing in anger.

 

A pair of coyotes suddenly appeared ahead of them, eyes glinting in the moonlight like burned rubies. Dean halted, waving his Browning Hi-Power at the scavengers. For several long beats of the heart the animals didn't move, crouching, bellies down, tails stiff. Their slightly open jaws dripped threads of pearly saliva into the dry sand.

 

"Move," the boy whispered, and the coyotes spun and loped off toward the north.

 

Doc ducked as a hunting owl swooped low over his head, its great skull face as white as parchment, claws raking at the air just above him.

 

"By the Three Kennedys!" He wiped perspiration from his temples with the swallow's-eye kerchief. Dean had persuaded him to leave the silver-headed cane behind at the house, but the commemoration Le Mat was snugly bolstered at his waist, the hammer set over the single shotgun round.

 

"Keep it down," the eleven-year-old ordered. "Can't be more than three hundred yards from their camp." He sniffed at the night air. "Taste their fires."

 

Doc tasted the air, nodding as he identified the familiar scent of burning wood.

 

In the early days of his marriage, he and his young wife, Emily, had taken pleasure in going camping, an activity that most of their friends in 1890s Omaha regarded as being suspiciously bohemian.

 

The smell of the fires brought back those happy times the small two-person tent, its ridge throwing sharp shadows across the box canyon where they'd pitched it; a pot of fresh coffee brewed over the flames; their empty plates waiting to be washed in the nearby stream; the curved meerschaum pipe that Doc had favored in those far-off days, sending out plumes of smoke, keeping the invasive midges at bay.

 

And he remembered Emily, her formal hiking clothes disarrayed, the collar of the silk blouse open, revealing the beginnings of the soft swell of her breasts, the roll of hair, unpinned, tumbling about her shoulders, the ankle boots unlaced, her skirt pulled up to her knees as she relaxed.

 

"Doc?"

 

He saw the tenderness in her eyes and the pouting smile, half teasing him, both of them knowing that the evening was nearly done, soon they'd be snug in their tent, bundled together, gently exploring each other's bodies.

 

"Doc? Come on."

 

"What is that?"

 

"Quiet." Dean grabbed him by the arm, his fingers digging in hard. "You dropped off into a dream, Doc."

 

"My sincere apologies, Dean. I shall do better and concentrate more. I promise you that."

 

 

 

THE OLD MAN FOLLOWED the boy as he crawled the last few yards, cautiously sticking his head above the top of the arroyo.

 

"Shit!"

 

Doc joined him, moving more slowly, looking out the camp of the group of religious crazies, now less than fifty yards away from them.

 

"My sweet Lord," he breathed. "It's like something from the fevered imagination of Bosch, the inner circles of hell! How can they"

 

There had been fourteen of the Slaves of Sin, including their leader, the Apostle Simon. Thirteen of them paced slowly around the large cross that had been dragged up to the house. Now it was set upright in the sand, in front of the largest fire.

 

And it had a tenant.

 

The fourteenth member of the group was crucified upon it, dark blood showing black in the moonlight at the center of both palms and through the center of the crossed ankles.

 

A crown of rusty barbed wire had been jammed over the man's head, leaving worms of blood to inch down over the agonized face. And someone had stabbed him in the side, under the ribs. Not hard enough to kill him, but enough to leave a gaping wound with glistening lips.

 

The wretched man's mouth sagged open, but if he was making any sound, it was drowned out by the slow, rhythmic chanting of the rest of the sect.

 

Led by Simon, banging his staff into the dirt, each scourged the back of the man in front, in a circle, so that every man received an equal whipping.

 

After the initial shock and revulsion had worn off a little, Doc found that be could actually make out the words of their obscene hymn.

 

"Dear Lord of Pain aid us. Blessed Virgin of Suffering, weep tears of blood that will blind our enemies. Dolores, our lady of agony, tear at our worthless flesh with your many-thonged lash of silver nails. Accept the sacrifice of our own humble spots of fallen crimson and give us help."

 

"These people are in serious need of advanced and prolonged psychiatric counseling," Doc whispered.

 

"They're just sick stupes," Dean replied.

 

"Perhaps we should return to the ranch now. I hardly think that they would welcome the knowledge that they were being watched in their disgusting practices."

 

Dean was lost, staring at the tableau of horror so close to them. The man on the cross writhed in agony, head moving from side to side, more blood flowing over his eyes and face. The nails hammered through both his palms held the arms rigid, and his whole body strained forward at an unnatural angle that put an immense strain on his lungs.

 

Doc closed his eyes, sickened at the sight. He had read of crucifixions in learned textbooks, tomes that spoke of the bodies of the thousands of losers in the revolt of Spartacus, exhibited all along the endless miles of the Appian Way. Most had eventually died of suffocation, their chests constricted, each breath that little bit smaller and more painful than the one before. The executioners, bribed by despairing relatives, would remove support from the feet, making the final passing of the anguished victims that much swifter.

 

He had never, in his worst laudanum-tainted nightmares, imagined that he would one day be a witness to this barbaric method of execution.

 

"Butchery," he whispered.

 

The steady pacing in the circle had ceased, and the twelve acolytes of the brotherhood were standing looking toward their skinny leader.

 

He had lifted the staff with the tortured Christ on its head, pointing with it away to the south, toward Jak's homestead.

 

"Those who are not for the Slaves of Sin are against them. Those who are not believers are blasphemers. Those who will not help us on our chosen journey to the Indies shall die. Yea, verily, they shall die. Die one and die all!"

 

"Should warn Jak," Dean breathed.

 

Doc shook his silver mane of hair. "He heard Simon say this kind of arrant nonsense-babble earlier, did he not? Empty words. For all her manifold faults, Dr. Wyeth is a good hand with a pistol. She would be able to cleanse the planet of all of them before they closed to within fifty yards of her."

 

"Yeah" The boy sounded doubtful.

 

Doc patted Dean on the shoulder. "They seem to have no weapons, except for an occasional knife. I believe they could do precious little harm to us or our friends."

 

"I guess not."

 

The Apostle Simon had turned toward the man on the cross, the rest of the followers silent. The tortured victim moaned softly. His head had fallen forward on his breast, and it seemed as though he'd already slipped into semiconsciousness.

 

"The sacrifice is seemly." Simon fumbled with the head of his staff, and Doc and Dean heard a metallic click. A long slender blade of steel had shot out of the head of the Christ figure, glinting brightly in the moonlight.

 

"I suggest you look away, dear boy," Doc said, his mouth close to Dean's ear.

 

"Seen plenty of chilling, thanks."

 

"Very well."

 

The Apostle Simon stood below the crucified man, stared at him, then reached slowly up toward the exposed throat with the concealed dagger.

 

"Take this life for all our lives. Take our blood for their blood. In return, for our humble self-abasement, give us divine vengeance. Give us that, dear Lord. Let us crush all those who mocked and derided us. We have truly scourged ourselves clean of pride, Lord."

 

Doc was beginning to feel physically sick from the acrid stench of their unwashed, tortured bodies and the bitterness of fresh blood.

 

"We have made of ourselves a seemly sacrifice. The sands of the desert are red with blood."

 

The movement was quicker than a striking rattler, the pilgrim's staff that had become a spear darting at the neck of the helpless victim.

 

Blood jetted from the severed artery, the pattering sound as it fell into the thirsty earth clearly audible to the pair of hidden spectators. Simon moved swiftly to one side, retracting the blade from the head of his staff, showing all the skill and balance of an expert knife fighter, avoiding both the blood and the urine that fountained from the dying man.

 

"Take our blood and give us vengeance!" chorused the thirteen members of the cult.

 

"Let's go," Doc said, pulling insistently at Dean's jacket. "Now."

 

"Wait."

 

"I see no Ah, should we not warn them of the danger ahead?"

 

"Too late. Don't worry, Doc. They won't let this mess of triple-stupe crazies catch them."

 

One of the most ill-matched couples in all Deathlands, Jak Lauren and Mildred Wyeth, were walking casually across the desert toward the camp and its bright fires, following the dusty track, making no attempt to conceal themselves from the Slaves of Sin.

 

The albino teenager, his white hair blazing like a brilliant torch, carried a hunting rifle, with his big blaster at his hip. Mildred had her .38-caliber Czech target revolver bolstered at her belt. Neither of them looked at all apprehensive.

 

Simon saw the two strangers coming and gave swift orders, snapping them out in an undertone. In less then a dozen seconds the cross and its dead victim had been struck to the ground and laid flat. A few ragged blankets were heaped over it.

 

Dean knew that seeing at night was often difficult and misleading, guessing that the combination of bright moonlight and the flames of the fires would have made it hard for their two friends to make out much inside the camp.

 

"No," Dean said, sensing that the man at his side was about to shout some sort of warning. "Make things worse, Doc."

 

"But"

 

"You and me got short-range weapons. Wouldn't do much chilling. Chances are the crazies don't mean any real harm to Jak and Mildred. Be too scared of us."

 

"Hope you're right, son."

 

Dean was wrong.

 

 

 

JAK AND MILDRED WALKED unsuspectingly in among the fladgies.

 

"See kid and old man?" Jak asked.

 

"No," Apostle Simon replied, not bothering to conceal the sneer in his voice. "You mean your precious party? Haven't seen anyone since you refused us water and food. Not a living soul. Gone missing, have they?"

 

Mildred, sensing that something was off-kilter, dropped her right hand to the butt of the blaster and stared at the raggedy man with a growing anger.

 

"You seen them or not?"

 

"Not."

 

Jak looked around, seeing that something was hidden under the pile of rags. "What's that?" He started to draw his Colt Python.

 

Simon swung the staff, with its lead-loaded butt, in a vicious circle, striking the teenager across the side of the head, just behind the left ear, felling him like a poleaxed steer.

 

Mildred started to turn, the pistol in her hand. "What the fuck are"

 

She was too slow. Three of the brotherhood of pain flung themselves at her, wrestling away the blaster, punching Mildred quickly into unconsciousness.

 

It was all over and done with in less than five seconds. The Slaves of Sin had a rifle and two handblasters, as well as two prisoners, both out cold.

 

Dean and Doc watched in helpless silence. The boy looked at the old man, eyes wide in the moonlight. Suddenly Dean seemed no more than a frightened child.

 

"If Dad was" he began uncertainly.

 

"He's not," Doc whispered. "Best we can do is get back along the draw to the house and warn Krysty."

 

"Then?"

 

"I don't know, Dean. I just don't know!"