27
“LITTLE GAL’S FAST WITH A PIGSTICKER.”
The stranger seemed to have stepped out of nowhere and was in the gap between the rear bumper of the truck and a game trail that vanished into the shadowy woods. He was a tall, broad-shouldered but very thin man in a dusty black coat and wide-brimmed black hat. Long white hair hung like strands of spiderweb from under the brim of his hat, and he wore a smile that twitched and writhed on his thin lips like worms on a hot griddle.
Lilah was so startled that out of pure reflex she snatched up her spear and swung the blunt end toward him. The man was at least sixty, and he looked dried up from the hot sun and bitter winters of the Sierras, but he moved like greased lightning. He tilted out of the swing of the spear, snaked out his left hand in a movement that was so fast Benny could not follow, snatched the spear from her hand, and flung it into the woods. Without pausing, the man shoved Lilah on the shoulder with the flat of his palm and sent her crashing into Nix and Chong. Before Benny could even grab the handle of his bokken, Tom was up from where he had been kneeling, and his glittering katana was in his hand. But then the man did something Benny would have thought to be completely impossible. Before Tom could complete his cut, the man in the black hat had stepped into the arc of his swing, blocked the elbow of Tom’s sword arm, and put the wicked edge of his own knife against the bulge of Tom’s Adam’s apple.
“My, my, my,” said the man softly, his smile never wavering, “ain’t we all in a pickle?”
Instantly Tom pivoted, slapped the knife away from his throat, spun like a dancer, and swung the blade in a lightning-fast circle that stopped a hairbreadth from the man’s nose.
The man looked cross-eyed at the tip of the blade and gave a comical chuckle. He slowly raised his knife and gave the sword a small tap. The ping! of metal against metal lingered in the still air.
“Let’s call it one-all and say the rest of the game was rained out,” suggested the stranger. Without waiting to see if Tom agreed, the man rolled the handle of his knife through his fingers like a magician and slid the ten-inch blade into a sheath that hung from his belt.
Tom did not lower his sword. He cut his eyes left and right to check the woods, then said to Lilah, “You okay?”
She snarled something low and unintelligible and got to her feet, placing her fist threateningly on the butt of her holstered pistol. Nix helped Chong up, and they looked scared and uncertain. Benny had his sword out now, and he shifted to Tom’s right to prepare for a flanking attack.
“Okay,” said Tom, still holding his sword out, “who are you?”
“Would you mind lowering your katana, brother?” The white-haired man held his hands up and kept smiling. The smile did not quite reach the man’s ice-blue eyes. “We’re all friends here.”
Benny noticed that not only had the man avoided Tom’s question, but he knew what a katana was. Interesting.
Tom said, “‘Friend’ is a funny word for someone who attacks a teenage girl.”
The man looked—or pretended to look—shocked. “As I recall it, brother, she tried to rearrange my dentures with the butt end of yonder spear. I gave her a little shove by way of increasing our distance and decreasing the likelihood of my having to eat my dinner without teeth henceforth. Then you and t’other youngster here set to drawing swords on me. I drew my knife only to calm things down.” His look of shock gradually drained away, and his mouth again wore that twitchy smile. He patted his sheathed knife. “And see … I stood down.”
Tom did not lower his sword. Not one inch.
“I asked you your name,” he said quietly.
“These days people seem to have a bunch of names, don’t they?”
Tom said nothing.
“Okay, okay.” The man chuckled. “You’re being serious here ’cause you’re the grown-up and there are kids watching. I respect that. Like a shepherd with his little flock.”
“Name,” prompted Tom.
“When I came yowling into the world I was called John. Biblical name. Means ‘God’s grace,’ which is a kindly thing to name a babe who ain’t yet done a thing worth being remembered for.” He removed his black hat and looked at Nix and Lilah. “I’m happy to make your acquaintance, ladies, and at the same time I beg forgiveness for my rudeness and gruff ways. Please accept my apology, which is earnestly and humbly given.” He bowed low, almost sweeping the ground with his hat. As he rose, he caught Tom with a grin and a wink. “You look like a traveling man, and that sword of yours marks you as a trade guard or a bounty hunter. So you’ve probably heard the name I go by.”
“Which is?”
The man straightened and opened the flap of his coat to reveal the worn black cover of a Bible tucked halfway into an inner pocket. “Preacher Jack.”
Tom’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re Preacher Jack?”
“Yes sir, I am, in both flesh and spirit. You have heard of me, then?”
“We know some of the same people,” murmured Tom. “J-Dog, Solomon Jones, Dr. Skillz. Lot of people in my trade pass through Wawona.”
A light suddenly seemed to ignite in Preacher Jack’s blue eyes, and it seemed to Benny as if the man went pale. The preacher looked at Tom, giving him a thorough up-and-down appraisal, and then turned to look at Benny, Lilah, and Nix. Each time his eyes shifted to another person, Benny thought he could see that strange light flicker in the old man’s eyes. All of this happened in the space of a few seconds, but the whole temperature of the day seemed to change. The only thing that stayed the same was the preacher’s wriggling smile.
“Well, well, well. What a blessed day, sir, and if you ever put that meat skewer down I’d like to shake your hand, because I do believe I know who you are. Yes, sir. Tough-looking man, early thirties with black hair and black eyes. Japanese sword and Japanese face to go with it. I would bet my last ration dollar that you are none other than Tom Imura. Tom the Swordsman. Tom of the Woods. Fast Tommy. Tom the Killer.”
Tom slowly lowered his sword. “I don’t use nicknames,” he said softly.
“No, not like most folks,” said Preacher Jack, pushing a strand of white hair from his face. “After First Night, most of the folks who live out here were more than happy to shed their family names the way a serpent will shed its skin. Gave them a chance to stop being who they were. Gave them a chance to be reborn as different people. Sometimes much better people. Sometimes not, but you’d know all about that, Brother Tom.”
Tom merely grunted as he resheathed his sword. Everyone else seemed to let out a breath at the same time, and Benny lowered his bokken. Not that he could have done much. It still amazed and baffled him how this grizzled old man could be as lightning fast as Tom. And besides that, why was a preacher able to handle a knife like a professional fighter?
“Most of those nicknames,” Tom said, “were hung on me by people who don’t really know me.”
Benny caught the careful way his brother was speaking. Tom may have put his sword away, but he was still on guard.
“I’ll call you whatever name pleases you, brother,” said Preacher Jack, holding out his hand. “I’ve heard so many interesting and fabulous things about you that I would like to shake you by the hand, yes sir I would.”
Tom ignored the hand and used his chin to point to the dead man. “You know anything about this?”
Preacher Jack looked at his own hand as if surprised to find it hanging out there in the air. He gave a rueful shrug and used that hand to adjust his broad-brimmed hat. The preacher walked slowly past Benny and looked down at the corpse. Nix and Lilah stood on the other side of him, giving him guarded glares. Chong had his hands dug into his pockets and was staring at the dirt between his shoes.
“The Children have been at him?” said Preacher Jack.
“Children?” Nix blurted. “We didn’t—”
“No,” Benny said, “he means the Children of Lazarus. Zoms.”
Preacher Jack winced as if Benny had squirted him with lemon juice.
“Ooooh … you’re right and you’re wrong, young sir. Right, in that it was the Children of Lazarus who did for this poor man; but wrong in that ‘zom’ is an ugly word that decent folk won’t use.”
“It’s just short for zombie,” said Benny.
“I know what it’s short for, little brother,” said Preacher Jack, “but no part of that word should be bandied about. The word comes from Nzambi, the name of a West African snake god. Do you say that you speak that word to worship a pagan animal spirit? Or do you use it as a twist on sombra, the Louisiana Creole word for ghost? Because that would be like acknowledging the power of the devil himself here on earth.”
Benny was confused. Preacher Jack’s voice was as charming as an ice cream seller, but his eyes were as cold as winter frost.
“I—,” Benny began, but Nix cut him off.
“My mother taught me that words only mean what we want them to mean, mister.” Her voice was cold and precise.
“Oh, that’s a nice sentiment, but it’s a crooked mile from the truth. Reality is that words are full of power. The good clean power of the Lord and dark, twisted magic.”
“Everybody uses the word ‘zom,’” said Benny, though he knew that wasn’t true. Brother David never used it and didn’t like to hear it, and Benny had no problem editing himself around the monk … but now he felt like yelling “Zom-zomzom!” at the top of his lungs.
Preacher Jack’s dark eyes twinkled. “The word is offensive to many, and to the—”
Tom cut him off. “No offense is intended. We can’t speak for anyone else, but if offense is taken from what my brother and his friends say, then that burden is on the listener.”
“Is it indeed?” Preacher Jack’s smile never wavered. “That’s a no harm, no foul way of seeing things, Brother Tom, and I respect it. However, it is in the nature of free will that we can agree to disagree.”
Tom ignored that, and instead said, “Do you know anything about what happened to this man?”
The preacher knelt beside the dead man. He made some indistinct humming sounds for a moment, then cocked an eye up at Tom. “What in particular do you want to know, Brother Tom? The man has received the ministrations of the Children of Lazarus and has gone to his maker. He’s been quieted courtesy of the white-haired young miss’s knife. I’m not sure there’s more of this story to tell.”
“Lilah didn’t quiet him,” blurted Nix. “He never reanimated.”
Preacher Jack swiveled his head like a praying mantis to look at her. “Now is that a fact, girlie-girl?”
“Don’t call me that,” Nix snapped.
“Oh, I am sorry. Is that phrase offensive to you?”
Oh boy, thought Benny. He wanted to brain this guy with his bokken.
Before Nix could serve up an acid reply, Tom said, “When we found this man, it was clear he’d been dead for at least a day, and he did not reanimate. I’m asking if you know anything about that.”
“No, Brother Tom,” said Preacher Jack as he stood, “I can’t say as I do.”
“Any idea who fed him to the dead?”
Benny noted that Tom used “dead” instead of “zoms.”
“That is also a mystery to me,” said Preacher Jack. “Why on earth would anyone do such a thing?”
“Any idea who he was?” Tom asked. “I hear you’re living out at Wawona. Did he come through there?”
“I never laid eyes on this poor sinner before.”
Tom almost smiled. “Sinner? If you haven’t seen him before, then how do you know he was a sinner?”
“We’re all sinners, Brother Tom. Each and every living, breathing resident of this purgatory. Even humble men of the cloth such as my own self. Sinners all. Only the Children of Lazarus are pure of heart and immaculate of soul.”
“How’s that work?” asked Benny skeptically. “They eat people.”
“They are the meek raised up from death to inherit this new Garden of Eden.” He opened his arms wide to include the green and overgrown expanse of the Rot and Ruin. “They have been reborn in the blood of the old world, washed clean of their sins, and they now walk in the light of redemption. It is only us, the dwindling few, who cling to old ways of sin and heresy and godlessness.”
“Um …,” Benny began, but realized that he was no candidate for a religious debate.
Lilah stepped forward. Her eyes looked a bit jumpy, and Benny realized that she was probably unnerved by having her weapon taken away from her so easily. The only other person who had defeated her was Charlie Pink-eye. “You are saying that we are all sinners? That we deserve whatever happens to us?”
“It’s not what I am saying, little miss; it’s what the Good Book says.”
“Being eaten by zoms is in the Bible?” Nix asked, giving him a frank stare; and Benny liked that she leaned on the word “zoms.”
“Not in words that crude.” He patted the book inside his coat. “But yes … the fate of all mankind is laid out in chapter and verse.”
“Where?” demanded Lilah. “Where does it say that in the Bible?”
Something shifted in the preacher’s eyes. Benny thought it was like a snake looking out through the eyeholes of a mask.
“It’s in there for those who read the scriptures,” the preacher answered quietly. “But I bet that you’ve never taken the time to—”
“You’d lose that bet, mister.”
Everyone turned. It was Chong who had spoken up. He had retrieved Lilah’s spear from the bushes and handed it to her. She accepted it without glancing at him.
Preacher Jack gave Chong an up-and-down evaluation with his eyes and dismissed him with a twitch of his smiling mouth. “I doubt that, son. From what I heard, this young lady’s been living hard and wild in these mountains, far from any church or congregation.”
“How does that matter? Does a sheepdog stop being a sheepdog if there’s no herd or shepherd?” Chong gave his dry lips a nervous lick. “Don’t raise theological questions unless you’re prepared to debate them.”
Preacher Jack’s smile still did not dim. “Well, well, well … what have you stumbled upon, Jack? A Sunday School class trip all the way out here in the Rot and Ruin?”
“Hardly that,” said Tom quietly.
“Then what?”
Chong, Lilah, Nix, and Benny all started to speak, but Tom snapped his fingers, a sound as sharp and urgent as a pistol shot. He gave a hand gesture, a palms-down press as if he was patting the air. It was one of the warrior hand signals he had taught them over the last seven months. Be silent but be ready.
“We’re out here on personal business,” said Tom mildly. “Family business. We don’t discuss that business with strangers.”
“Is that what we are, Brother Tom?” asked Preacher Jack with a hint of reproach in his voice. “Are we strangers?”
Tom said, “If we’d met in town or at Wawona, or in the sanctuary of one of the way stations, then I suppose I’d feel comfortable enough to swap stories. That’s not the case. I find a man tortured and fed to the dead. That’s suspicious. Then you step out of nowhere.”
Tom stopped him with a raised hand. “Let me finish. I offer no hostility and mean no disrespect, but I am not in a position to trust a stranger.” He nodded toward Benny and the others. “Manners are going to have to take a backseat to common sense and safety.”
“So I see.”
“I’m going to ask one more time … do you know anything about who this man is, why he was killed, or why he didn’t reanimate?”
Preacher Jack hooked his thumbs into his belt, and Benny noted that this put the heel of his right hand on the pommel of his knife. Having seen how fast the man could draw that knife, Benny had no illusions that the gesture was accidental. He carefully tightened his grip on the bokken.
“I don’t believe that I have any of the answers you seek,” murmured the man in the dusty coat.
“Then I think we’re done here.”
“Done with me or done with this poor sinner?”
“With both.” Tom took a small step back.
Preacher Jack nodded. “Perhaps we’ll meet again under more pleasant circumstances, Brother Tom.”
“That would be nice, sir, but unlikely. You see, we’re heading east.”
For the first time Preacher Jack’s smile flickered. “What? You’re leaving these mountains? When will you be coming back?”
“I don’t expect that we will.”
That wiped the smile completely from the preacher’s face. He looked disappointed and even a little bit angry at this news, and Benny watched Tom as his brother watched the change in Preacher Jack’s expression.
“Something wrong?” asked Tom, his own face and voice neutral.
The smile returned, tentatively at first and then with all its twitchy vibrancy. “Wrong? Why, no, except that it would surely have been a blessing to sit down, break bread, and try this whole meeting again in a more civilized way. I fear we got ourselves off on the wrong foot here. Knives and hard words and all.”
Now Tom smiled, and it looked genuine, at least to Benny.
“Yeah.” Tom laughed. “I guess this wasn’t the most genial encounter.” He shrugged. “On the other hand, it could have been worse.”
“Yes,” said Preacher Jack with a glitter in his eyes, “it surely could have.”
They stood there, eight feet apart with a dead man lying on the ground between them, and Benny had the impression that there were all sorts of conversations going on at the same time. Words that were not being spoken but that were mutually understood. Except to Benny and, from the look on her face, Nix as well.
Preacher Jack bowed to Nix and Lilah. “If by word or deed I have done anything to offend you fine ladies,” he said, removing his hat and bowing low once more, “then I am truly sorry and most humbly beg forgiveness. The Ruin is not a charm school, and in hard times we often forget who we are and where we came from.”
Lilah said nothing, but her honey-colored eyes lost some of their intensity. Nix gave a single curt bob of her head.
Preacher Jack turned to Benny. “Peace to you, little brother.”
“Um … yeah, sure. Back atcha.”
Preacher Jack ignored Chong altogether, but he fixed Tom with a knowing smile. “I won’t offer my hand again, Brother Tom, for fear that it will once more be left hanging in the wind. So I’ll tip my hat and bid you all a farewell. May the Good Lord keep you from snakes and snares and the evil that men do.”
With that the preacher replaced his hat, tugged his lapels to adjust the hang of his jacket, and walked back into the woods, where he vanished so quickly into the shadows that the whole encounter might have been a dream. Tom and the others stood where they were for a full five minutes, listening first for Preacher Jack’s soft footfalls and then to the forest as the ordinary sounds one by one returned.
Benny let out a chestful of air and turned to Tom. “What was that all about?”
“I really don’t know,” said Tom.
Benny could see that Tom was troubled. He followed his brother over to the edge of the road, and they both squatted to study the dirt of the game trail along which Preacher Jack had gone. Benny watched as Tom used a twig to measure the man’s shoe impressions. “Good-quality hiking shoes,” murmured Tom. “Pre–First Night, which means they’re either scavenged or purchased for a tidy stack of ration dollars.”
Benny nodded and bent low to study the pattern of the shoes, just as Tom had taught him. The tread was pretty well worn, and there was a crescent-shaped nick out of the right heel.
“That nick is pretty distinctive,” Benny said, earning him an approving nod from Tom.
“It’s as good as a fingerprint. Remember it.” Then Tom called the others over to look at it too, pointing out the unique elements of each sole.
“Why bother?” asked Chong. “Is he our enemy?”
“I don’t know what he is,” admitted Tom, “but out here it’s a good idea to observe as many details as you can. You never know what’s going to be useful.”
“Was that really Preacher Jack?” asked Nix.
Tom rose and squinted down the game trail. “Well … he fits the description Dr. Skillz gave me. At least physically.”
“Is it okay if I say that he was the single creepiest thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been face-to-face with decaying zoms?”
Tom nodded. “Yeah, Nix, you can say that and mean it.”
“I don’t like him,” growled Lilah, her fists clenched tightly around the shaft of her spear. “If I see him again …” She let the rest hang in the air.
“I think it’s a good idea if we all watch our backs,” suggested Tom.
“Are you sure he’s really a preacher?” asked Chong.
Tom shook his head. “I’m not sure of anything about him. Not one thing.”
He looked up at the sky.
Benny started to ask something, but Tom shook his head.
“We’re burning daylight,” Tom said. “We need to get to the way station, and I need to think while we’re doing it. We’ll talk then. For now, we’ll go at Scout pace. That means we walk two hundred paces, run three hundred, walk two hundred. It’ll chew up the miles.”
And it’ll keep us too busy to ask questions, whispered Benny’s inner voice. Smart.
“Nix—this is up to you. Can you handle the pace? No screwing around: yes or no?”
“Yes,” she said with real fire. “And I promise to tell you if I can’t keep up.”
Without another word, Tom turned toward the southeast and set off.
The others followed. Running and walking and running. They didn’t have time to ask questions, but about ten thousand of them occurred to Benny, and he knew that the same questions would be occurring to Nix.
Who was Preacher Jack?
Was he connected to the dead man? Who had killed the man? And why? Could Charlie Pink-eye still be alive? Was he out in these same hills? Did he know they were out here?
And, maybe more important than any of those questions: How come the dead man had not reanimated? Since First Night, everyone who died, no matter how they died, came back to life.
Why hadn’t he?
What did it mean?
The questions burned in Benny’s mind as he ran.
How many people are still alive out there?
Tom says that there’s a network of about five hundred bounty hunters, traders, way-station monks, and scavengers in central California. And maybe as many as two hundred loners living in isolated and remote spots. Sounds like a lot, but it’s not. Our history teacher said that California used to be the most populous state and that there used to be almost forty million people living here.