An ancient street sign proclaimed TOPOCK. Lead looked to the depths of a dry riverbed. A rail bridge of the Broken Times stretched halfway across before crumbling to rust. It hung in the air, connected to oblivion. Under the rail bridge hung a child’s swing, impossibly high for the dry riverbed, put there for the amusement of children long gone and over water that would never return.
Lead opened the old man’s canteen and drank the last of his water. He remembered the river. He remembered how this place had once been cleared by a brush fire. His mind saw young men and women swinging into the river, playing. There was once a young boy in pink shorts and a younger girl with a sore on the corner of her mouth, holding each other, staring into the water. He wished the water was still there. He wished the children were still there and that he was again one of them.
Lead had spent the day walking to this riverbed with the promise of fresh water. He dared not go to Kingman. He had not done his job, to report failure was a sin. If the Church declared him a sinner, he would be purged.
Lead spent the evening before in Terence’s shack. He’d found the overturned car and hoof tracks leading to Kingman. His mule and provisions were gone. No supplies in the desert meant death, Lead held no optimism in that regard. Yucca contained nothing but abandoned fugee trailers, empty save scorpions and Gila monsters and dust. Terence’s shack was outfitted with a bit of jerky, a shallow ditch well that leaked brackish water, an old canteen and a stack of books. Lead slept on Terence’s couch, shut in against the nighttime. The night contained lizards and snakes with violent dispositions and poisonous bites. Man without fire or the sanctity of the Church’s blessing had no business out at night. Demons and poulters also preferred the night. Better to walk in the sun.
Lead looked back to the riverbed. A motorboat half lodged in the hardpan pointed to the sky like a finger accusing the heavens of not providing. Nothing existed in Topock that didn’t belong to the past.
Lead looked west to the setting sun. Over the far horizon hung thick clouds and tornado funnels illuminated with cobalt lightening flashes. Days away but fierce and lush lay the Abandoned Earth, the place taken by the Lord and the Storms.
Lead looked south. Hell continued on. Havasu Parish lay in that direction. Lead scanned the vast desert up to rocky hills. Heat waves rose off of rock and sand creating false lakes and shimmering ethereal towers of bent light.
Lead climbed to the edge of the broken rail bridge and took shelter from the impending night.
Dawn came with new light and new heat. A layer of dust coated Lead’s mouth. He followed the riverbed south, the sun beat merciless on his straw sombrero. The sand roasted his feet through the cracks in his boots which breathed stink in the otherwise scentless scrubland. Lead looked to the ground and focused on walking straight. He knew a man in the scrub without water tended to drift right and form a circuitous route. Lead was determined not to be that fool.
The omnipresent sun ate his strength through the early morning. The sweat on his hands and arms evaporated as soon as it beaded out. Lead smiled and whispered a prayer of salvation under his breath. This was penance. This was castigation for not apprehending the old man. He’d gone against God’s will and the Church’s will and had been set against by the Holy. It made him afraid but also relieved that he was within God’s vision and judgment. He might survive and be made clean again. He smiled.
The first time Lead fell was unexpected. He was deep in the mind, contemplating God and walking straight and he simply tumbled into the sand. One foot caught the other and he plunged. He held his face from the grit and breathed peppered air.
Lead pulled himself up. His steps took on an uneven sway. He drifted from left to right, spinning to avoid clumps of dead brush.
Lead fell again when the sun reached mid-sky. He dropped to his knees in a patch of tumbleweed. Lead rolled out of the brush and regained his legs. He picked thorns out of his left hand. The scar left by Century’s dinner knife was numb, would always be numb.
Lead promptly fell again shortly thereafter. His body had reached a place where the solidity of muscle ebbed and flowed and he could no longer trust functions taken for granted. He rolled to his stomach and looked at the sand. It was an ocean of quartz and pink gypsum flakes built into wave-like dunes by wind, then shifted by wind and shifted again into infinity. It got his mind wondering again about time and God. Lead pushed himself back to his feet and strode forward.
After the fourth collapse, Lead contemplated staying down. He looked to the sun and counted to one-hundred. He whispered a prayer to the Lord and found tenuous strength; enough to get up, enough to move forward.
Over the next dune a thin line of smoke crept and showed through the heat waves. Lead shaded his eyes and stumbled forward towards the smoke. He smiled again. God had spoken and revealed salvation. He wasn’t going to die.
Lead continued his jagged trek through the desert, past rock and dead brush. Over the dune he spotted tents set around a large cooking fire. The blurred images of people shuffled from tent to tent, a group in brilliant white robes walked towards him.
Lead held out his Preacher’s cross.
“Attention,” he croaked, his dry throat stung with the effort. “I demand sustenance and sanctuary. In the name of our Lord and Savior and on behalf of the Church I demand sustenance and sanctuary.”
Lead shook his cross at the approaching villagers. They were pale despite the intense sun. Each wore a robe cut from white linen, kept immaculate despite living outdoors. The faces of their young showed the inbred traits of kinship, they all bore the same sharp nose, cleft chin, and asymmetric eyes. An ancient woman stood with them, dressed in the same linen but with a rattlesnake skin tied around her forehead. She opened a black, toothless maw and barked into the desert wind, like an animal. The villagers surrounded Lead.
Lead fell hard to the ground, cross still clutched in his hand.
“Sustenance and sanctuary,” he whispered.
His head pounded. He waved his cross meekly from villager to villager, to each unknowing stare. One of the men lifted Lead to his feet and brought him to the elderly woman.
“You be of the Stormbringer?” She asked. Her breath was powerful. Lead tried to focus on her face though it blurred in and out of his vision.
“You be a harbinger? You know the Stormbringer?” She asked. The villager who had picked Lead up, wrapped arms around him from behind.
“You in Crystal. You look a wraith. You touch the Noumenal, we find you true or leave you to sand.” She nodded her head and hissed. The villager dragged Lead into one of the tents and dropped him into the embrace of its shade.
Lead woke in darkness. His tongue was large and heavy. Thirst and sun stroke tilted his world on an axis appalling and unnatural. Lead turned his head and vomited into the sand. The stench turned his stomach, he vomited again.
The tent’s flap rippled in the wind, revealing a flicker of firelight. Near the flap lay a wooden bowl of water. Lead tried to stand but couldn’t find his legs. He thought of going back to sleep but stopped by the knowledge that he would probably die if he did. He whispered a prayer for salvation and crawled out of the tent, dragging the bowl with him.
The sun had quite the day, leaving a darkness cut only by the firelight. Nothing was visible but the tents at fire’s edge and villagers scurrying in and out of the illumination like phantoms. Lead observed and took a small sip of water. His body wanted to gulp it down but his mind knew better. He watched a group of villagers erect an iron frame and cauldron over the fire. Lead took another sip. He saw no well but knew a water source must be near. The water tasted of alkali and minerals. Water from bottle reserves did not taste this sharp and earthy.
One of the villagers leaned back let out a long howl. Villagers answered the call and came into the firelight. They hovered near licking flames and watched the cauldron boil and hummed a song, some chorus from the Broken Times. They perpetrated a scene ancestral to all of humanity though sometimes forgotten and sometimes found again; food, and fire, and song to break the fear of the darkness. Lead watched them dance and sway to the wordless song. Arms flailed without rhythm. Feet kicked up clouds of dust which mixed with the smoke of the fire.
“End!” shouted the old woman with the rattlesnake headband. “End! End!”
The villagers stopped dancing, but the hums continued uninterrupted. The old woman pointed at Lead.
“You,” she said. She licked her lips with a large pink tongue.
“You walk from waste,” she said over the hums. “You come from land of No Man, like Stormbringer. You eat Jimson Datura. You touch the Noumenal. You people, you stay. You harbinger you become sand.”
Lead wanted to understand, but her words were alien and his mind was bruised by the sun. He brought the water bowl to his lips and finished it in a single swallow. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
“I’m here on behalf of our Lord and Savior,” he said.
The old woman smiled. A villager handed her a steaming bowl of stew. She offered it to Lead, who traded it for his empty water bowl.
“Jimson Datura,” she said.
Lead’s stomach clenched at the smell of boiled vegetables.
“I and the Lord thank you,” Lead said gratefully.
The villagers hummed in unison with crickets and cicadas and all the other creatures accustomed to night.
Lead watched villagers dip bowls and cups into the cauldron. He smelled the stew and took a sip. It tasted like water, dirt, and potatoes. On the surface, white petals of some native flower floated. Lead took another sip and chewed the petals which were thick and flavorless. The villagers danced around the fire without a break in the hypnotic humming. A primal chant rose from the dancers.
“Noumenal, Noumenal, Noumenal.”
Lead watched and ate.
Lead woke with sweat pouring down his face. It was deep into the night. The stars had shifted long on their sphere and those which Lead had seen before were replaced by other gods and constellations. The fire still blazed, still cut the night, but the villagers were silent. They all stared at Lead; a sea of large misshapen eyes with pupils dilated to black pits and mouths that gave no sign of friend or foe. One of the villagers barked. Lead got to his feet.
“You’re in violllaaa ub…” Lead’s tongue and lips were too heavy, his lungs felt tight. Words refused to take proper form in his mouth. One of the villagers smiled in the darkness, another barked. Teeth and eyes sparkled in the moonlight and all remained silent.
“Brooooooough!”
Gibberish spilled forth from Lead’s mouth. The villagers circled the fire, the old woman stepped forward.
“You of Stormbringer,” she yelled with an accusing finger pointed at Lead. A low chant rose among the villagers.
“Ohhhh, ohhhh, ohhhh, ohhhh…”
Panic seized Lead’s heart. He reached into his shirt and gripped the Van Cleef.
“You no good! You no righteous! You be sand!” the old woman shrieked into the night sky.
The chanting villagers stepped away from the fire, into the darkness. Their eyes dazzled ruby red and fierce. The teeth in their grinning mouths grew with an unnatural speed. Front teeth grew past their bottom lips and chins, enormous and sharp like rats.
“Homme Jesus Lord Gob!” Lead screamed as the creatures lunged at him. Their legs turned pencil thin in the shadows of night, like crickets legs, yet they held the weight of their bodies inexplicably. Their teeth grew past their chests and swung like bone swords with each stride.
One of the beasts grabbed Lead’s shoulder with a clawed hand. Lead pulled the Van Cleef and fired into the creature’s chest. The beast clutched the wound and twisted into nothingness. It burst like a sack of sand. Lead swung his gun at the next nearest monster and pulled the trigger. The crack of pistol fire broke through the villagers’ chants a second time. The wounded beast put a hand to its neck and gurgled blood before falling to its knees.
Lead was engulfed by the horde of monsters. He screamed and whipped his pistol across the face of another beast. A glint of light reflected on teeth and blood as they showered the desert sand. Lead smashed his gun against the skull of another beast and twisted through clutching hands and gnashing teeth. He broke free bolted into the darkness beyond the fire. Behind him demons giggled and crashed through the brush.
Lead ran with the strength of fear. He desperately tried to remember the Church’s teachings on the Devil and demons, but his mind refused to focus on anything but blind panic. Lead glanced over his shoulder. His eyes adjusted to starlight. Formless demons pursued him, their shapes bobbing like drifts of smoke, their eyes glimmered red though they had no business illuminating the darkness.
Lead jumped to the left, a demon crashed face first in rubble and dust where he’d been running. Another demon tackled Lead to the ground. The beast glared fiercely at Lead with its ruby eyes. It spit a long tooth into its hand and raised it to strike. Lead pointed his Van Cleef, but the pistol clicked in misfire. The demon drove the tooth into Lead’s shoulder. Lead swung the Van Cleef across the demon’s face. One of the ruby eyes winked out and the demon recommitted to the sand. Lead ran on.
The night lived a life beyond its natural duration. Lead ran past the demons and past the brush and past the limitations of his weakened body and mind. The yells and laughter of the beasts drifted away, but Lead did not slow. His vision tightened to a small distant tunnel. He repeated prayers in his mind but could not force his tongue to speak them. He prayed for safety, he prayed for God to smite all the sin and devils of this land, and when the sun’s light returned to the earth Lead was still running, fueled by fear and panic. His lungs and legs burned deep.
In the dawn’s light Lead arrived onto a broken street which marked the entrance to Havasu Parish. Regular men in parishioner clothing stood in front a general use building waiting for morning bread. They saw Lead filthy and wounded and dismissed him as another desert crazy, another rag man.
Lead’s legs buckled with exhaustion. He breathed long and hot and looked for aid among the men of the bread line. If he could find words, he would demand sanctuary as a Preachers’ right. Tears streamed down his face. A gun cocked behind him, its barrel pressed against his head.
“Greetings,” Terence said.
Lead looked up to see the old man holding a four barrel pistol looped with a rawhide cord, a Van Cleef.
“Thought you might come here, you look worse for the travel,” the Old Preacher said.
Lead looked down at his chest. He’d lost his shirt and sombrero and his bare torso was painted with a concoction of blood and filth; a testament to the evening’s violence. His pants were torn and ragged. A wood-handled kitchen knife stood with its blade buried deep into his left shoulder. He clutched his pistol, at some point the rawhide loop had broken. It dangled from the butt of his gun. Lead raised his hands and gun into the air.
“I have no qualm with you, mark. Leave me be and continue your retreat,” he said.
Terence kept his pistol pressed against Lead’s head.
“I got the drop on you. Your life is but a decision between me and this pepper box.” Terence looked up to the men in the bread line. “You gentlemen mind to your business,” he hollered at them. The morning parishioners made no move to aid.
“I’ve taken life, young man. I know the feeling and price.” The Old Preacher released the pistol’s hammer and slipped it back into his shirt.
“You won’t die by my hands. Not today.”
Lead looked up at the Old Preacher’s face, a leather visage of dirty creases and grey beard and yellow-blue eyes that spoke of humanity.
“Why was I sent to apprehend you?”
The Old Preacher’s eyes moistened. He rubbed them in irritation and looked back to the rising sun.
“I was what you are; I preached the word of the Church. They sent you to me because of killing.”
“What killing?”
The Old Preacher looked into Lead’s eyes. “Killing doesn’t make me happy. Killing doesn’t make me good. I can’t kill anymore. That’s why you were sent to apprehend. I’m a rusty tool of new use or value. I need to be disposed of.”
Lead tried to regain his feet but instead lost consciousness in the Arizona sun.