Colt sat in the boxing ring of the Daniel Ritchie Centre for Sport and Wellness. Once the jewel in the crown of the Denver University campus, and now another part of the head quarters of the resurgent Neo-Clergy.
Colt had moved the Colorado branch of the Clergy into the university soon after the Apostolic Church of the Rediscovered Dawn first rose to power. The arboretum surrounding the campus and its location, seven miles south of downtown made it eminently defendable. The halls of residence made a great barracks and there was plenty of space to administrate a state wide organisation. This was one of the reasons why Colt's branch of the Neo-Clergy had maintained control of Colorado.
Colt didn't spend much time around the boxing ring. His men held regular bouts. It helped them blow off steam. Betting on the matches was a sin however and strictly forbidden. He had chosen it today as the site of an important meeting.
He was alone when Simon Peter walked in and announced that the Prophet had arrived. Colt told him to show the man in. He entered flanked by two of Colt's best men. "Mr Kinnison," said Colt, with a genial smile. "Or should I call you Prophet?"
"You can call me Robert if you like, Mr Colt."
"That's Samuel to you, seeing as we're on first name terms now. Come on in."
The Prophet climbed into the ring. "You didn't bring me all this way to spar did you Samuel?"
"No," said Colt, with a smile. "Though I understand you used to box a little yourself when you were at college. Amateur State champion for a while weren't you, bantam weight division?"
"You've been doing your homework I see. And how about you Samuel, did you ever don the gloves?"
"I was a welterweight, back in reform school. Southpaw as it happens."
"Lost my only fight to a southpaw. Couldn't box clever enough to get around his left hook. Legs just went from under me and I hung up my gloves soon after."
"The Lord had something else in mind for you."
"That He did," said the Prophet. "That He did."
Robert Kinnison smiled a broad smile. He had charm and charisma aplenty, but he carried himself with enough gentle humility that it wasn't overpowering. It was hard not to like or trust him straight off. Colt guessed he was around five-nine in height, in good shape too, with a lean muscular figure that looked like he was in his late twenties and not his late forties. An African American whose grey beard and salt and pepper hair, made him look like a backwoodsman. His weather beaten skin and the calluses on his hands added to this impression.
Kinnison was right about Colt doing his homework too. Colt had done extensive research on the Prophet. His network of informants had been digging up everything they could.
Before The Cull Kinnison had been a ranger at Yellowstone National Park, one of the few African Americans to ever hold the job. He was also a conservationist who taught workshops in back-to-basics wilderness survival and ran a programme to get kids from inner city ghettos out into the forests to explore nature. It was on one such outing that he was caught in a landslide and fell into a coma, a matter of weeks before the Cull tore through the country.
According to rumours, while in the coma his soul left his body and was called before the Almighty. Upon meeting his creator, Kinnison was charged with bringing all of God's children back into the fold.
Kinnison woke three months later in a hospital in Buffalo, Wyoming. It was full of rotting corpses. He left the hospital and began to round up the survivors, preaching of the visions the Lord had sent him. He gathered together a band of followers and led them out of the city and on a long trek to his beloved Yellowstone, stopping along the way at places like Worland, Powell and Cody to pick up more followers.
Together with his people he formed a commune in the heart of Yellowstone. With his specialist knowledge of survival he was able to keep them alive through the hard winter and, with the visions he had received from the Lord, he was able to sustain their souls. Word spread of his commune and their numbers slowly grew. Kinnison came to be known as 'The Prophet.'
When the Neo-Clergy fell, Wyoming cried out for the word of the Lord, and the Prophet stepped in to fill that need. He travelled to the towns and communities of the survivors, and preached of the prophecies. His followers handed out fresh meat, herbal remedies and animal pelts to those who came to listen. The Prophet's grass-roots following became so large and he became so loved that gangs like the Good Shepherds couldn't suppress or profit from him. The people of Wyoming protected him from the gangs, no matter how great the cost to their own lives. This was why Colt was so anxious to meet him.
"They tell me you have the gift of prophecy Robert," Colt said. "Did you foresee this meeting?"
"Well now, it don't exactly work that way. I don't hold no truck with crystal balls or any of that gypsy nonsense. When the good Lord sees fit to contact me, He don't give me no specifics. He gives me what you might call a broader picture. But to be frank Samuel, I don't need to read no tea leaves to know what you called me here to talk about."
"Is that right? And just what might that be Robert?"
"Well. I hear tell that you're re-building the Apostolic Church of the Rediscovered Dawn."
"You hear right."
"I also hear that you got run out of town when you went to take Wyoming back into the fold. Now the Good Shepherds have formed an alliance with the Crazy Eights and Los Rancheros to keep their former masters out of the State."
"So they can continue their Godless rule? I would have thought as a man of God you'd want to put a stop to that."
"As a man of God I want to save as many souls as I can."
"I'm all about saving souls. I want to drag this country up out of the sewer it's fallen into. I want to put the fear of God back into the hearts of every man woman and child."
"Well now," said the Prophet. "See I've had the great privilege of actually meeting God. And I can tell you from my own personal experience that He ain't nothing to fear. Less, of course, you got sin in your heart."
"Are you insinuating something Robert?"
"There's a lot of blood on your hands Samuel. But is there Jesus in your heart?"
Colt's hands clenched into fists. If any other man had asked him that he would have knocked him to the ground and made sure he never got up again. But there was something about the Prophet's gentle, penetrating stare that seemed to look right into him, leaving him searching for his certainty all of a sudden. Searching to see if Jesus really was there in his heart.
"I don't mean no disrespect by my question Samuel. As I said before it don't take no crystal ball to guess why you've brought me out here. You want me to help you take Wyoming without taking too many lives, 'cos I've got the ear of the people."
"And will you?"
"Well that all depends on what I'd be party to. Now don't get me wrong, I've read my Bible. I know the Lord can be vengeful and, at times, calls upon his followers to exact vengeance. He brought down the walls of Jericho and drowned Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea. Those Good Shepherds and their like, well it wouldn't be the worst thing to happen to Wyoming if they were brought into line. But would the Neo-Clergy be the best people to do that?"
"I can't think of anyone better. We picked this country up off its knees when The Cull hit it. We spread the word of God to every State and beyond."
"There was a lot of fear back in those days. A lot of it was of the Neo-Clergy. You spread the word of God but did you put the love of Jesus in their hearts?"
"Well now maybe I need someone like you for that."
"How do you mean?"
"You can't stop the rebirth of the Apostolic Church of the Rediscovered Dawn Robert."
"Don't reckon I can."
"But maybe you can influence its course. Maybe you can put that love of Jesus in people's hearts. In our organisation's heart."
"I'm listening."
"You ever heard of the Tomorrow Show?"
"I've heard tell of it," said the Prophet. "I never saw one, but wasn't it the television show the Neo-Clergy used to broadcast?"
"Yes. The only television show to be broadcast anywhere in the Western hemisphere since The Cull happened. Five years we were on the air until Satan cut us off. Turns out my boys came across the group of technicians responsible for running the show. Living as a gang of scavs they were. They reckon that all the hardware and the networks are still in place to get the show up and running again. All it needs is some repairs and a little reconstruction. We're even gonna build a signal booster out by Montana. Thing is though, we don't have no one to present our broadcasts."
"I see," said the Prophet.
"Think of it. If you were the face of the Tomorrow Show, how many people could you reach with word of your prophecies? How many hearts could you fill with the love of Jesus?"
"You make a mighty persuasive case."
Colt grinned, a big knowing grin. Turns out the Prophet had a price after all. He'd worried Colt for a while there, with his probing stare and his heartfelt questions. But now it seemed he could be bought. And that made him a man Colt could do business with.
Colt offered the Prophet his hand. "Do we have a deal Robert?"
"You know Samuel," the Prophet said, pausing before he took Colt's hand. "You asked me if I'd foreseen this meeting. Well the Lord is kind of particular about what he shows me. I wasn't too certain until now that this was what I'd foreseen. But I did see this handshake and it's significance. You're aiming to redeem the souls of an entire broken nation. One soul sits at the centre of all those souls and influences their fate. That's your soul Samuel. That's the one soul the Lord has sent me here to redeem. If I accept your hand, you have to accept Jesus as your personal saviour."
With that they shook hands and said their goodbyes, leaving Colt to wonder what he'd really bought with his promise to promote the Prophet's preaching.