Weyland nodded, kissed her still mouth and held her tightly, burying his face into her shoulder and rocking backwards and forwards.
‘We gotta go,’ Keats barked. ‘Now!’
Broken Wing uttered a clipped command to the young Paiute. He then punched Weyland roughly in the small of his back. ‘Come, or you die.’
He nodded, let her head down on the snow and got to his feet.
‘This way,’ said Keats, pointing uphill. He turned once more to look back down behind them as they filed silently past. Their pursuers were getting closer. Beyond them, he saw the muted glow of a smouldering circle, the fading embers of their hastily constructed defences. His assumption that the wood would be too damp to easily catch fire had been an error. They should have used the day to pack what they could and leave, as Preston had demanded of them, instead of digging in.
It was my mistake.
Lambert had seen sense, had seen they were doomed, and left before it was too late. The rest of them could have - should have - done the same. He realised now that there was plenty worse to be frightened of in these hills than the weather.
‘Mebbe them preacher types are right,’ he muttered to himself.
Maybe there are demons and angels . . . a God and a Devil.
CHAPTER 74
1 November, 1856
‘Oh, no . . . no, that won’t do. We can’t have them skulking around in these woods,’ Preston called out to the nearest of his people. ‘You hear me?’
The men nearby nodded.
‘Find them for me. We can’t let them slip away and then come back. Spread out and find them!’
The swinging lights of dozens of oil lamps and flickering, sputtering torches filled the space around them with dancing shadows as they beat multiple paths through the coarse undergrowth and pushed through thick boughs of fir needles.
‘And be careful!’ he cautioned, raising his voice above the murmur of other voices, the snap of branches, and the rustle and tumble of dislodged snow around him. ‘They’re evil spirits. They will jump at you and cut you if they can. Be aware,’ he said with a chilling certainty, ‘if you corner them, they will try to confuse you. Whatever you do, do not listen to them! Do not look into their eyes; do not let them into your head! They may look like people . . . but they’re not.’
Preston pushed forward with renewed determination, frantically scouring the ground in front of him, looking for signs of a recent footfall.
We cannot let any escape. This place must be purged.
The noises of movement from either side diminished as the men around him began to fan out, making their own way through the thickening woods. He turned to look over his shoulder and saw the familiar faces of two men following too closely in his wake.
‘Pieter, Jacob . . . you must spread out some more. We must—’ Turning forward again, the light from his lamp suddenly picked out a trail of kicked-up snow crossing directly in front of him. ‘Look! There! More tracks.’
Several people by the looks of it, running together.
A drift of snow was disturbed and flattened to one side of the tracks.
Someone weakened and fell, perhaps stumbled.
‘We have them!’ He smiled.
The three of them veered to their right, following the recently made tracks, taking them up the gradually increasing gradient. Their breathing grew more laboured as they pushed onwards, and after a while the noises of the other men out combing through the trees were all but lost, except for the occasional distant voice calling out a find, calling to each other.
The tracks suddenly separated.
Preston stopped and studied them. ‘Four of them, I would say. Three went this way, and one has gone to the right.’
Pieter Brumbaugh squatted down and pushed a lock of long, dark hair from his square face. ‘Look! Can you see, one of the three is hurt - do you see it?’ he said, pointing to a train of ink-black stains in the snow. He dipped a gloved finger in one and held it close to the lamp. He looked up at them, invigorated by the chase, his eyes wide.
‘It’s blood all right.’
‘Then you and Jacob hunt them down,’ Preston said. ‘And mark my words, there’s trickery in them. Don’t let them talk. Be quick when you find them. Kill them immediately. They’ll try to trick you, get inside your head and turn you on each other. Do you understand?’
Both men nodded, breathing hard with exhaustion, fear and excitement.
‘God will be with you both. Now go!’
Both men set off, following the larger set of tracks. Preston turned right, to follow the one heading off on its own.
He watched Preston, hunched forward, his oil lamp held aloft in one hand, lighting the way ahead. The man moved with the clumsiness of one unused to tracking through woods, unable to find firm footing on the bumps and troughs beneath the deep snow.
He lacked agility; he lacked grace.
There is no beauty in him. He is as ugly on the outside as he is within.
My promise to you. He is yours.
Thank you.
He moved with effortless speed up behind the man, following delicately in his wake, stepping only on the compressed footsteps in the snow, no crunch . . . no noise at all . . . and now only a dozen yards from him.
If you turned around, you would see me, Preston. You might even have one chance to fire your gun at me if you were quick enough.
He smiled. This was fun. He had been following the outsiders like this, only a few minutes ago; the Indian, the tall southern man and his dying Negro girl, listening to their ragged breathing, the terror in their muted whispers. To be so close as to smell the odour of fear that trailed behind them and yet remain unseen was such good sport - he had to struggle not to laugh out loud with the excitement of the chase.
He’d been close enough to kill them.
But the angel was wise. The angel told him to use them as bait.
The tracks suddenly ceased.
Preston stopped dead. Confused, he knelt down, moving the lamp closer to the ruffled folds of snow. The hurried, carelessly placed footsteps of one fleeing alone simply ended.
‘What?’ he muttered.
To his right he noticed the thick, gnarled trunk of a cedar tree. He looked up at the bare branches above him, each coated with undisturbed snow, like icing on a layer cake. Except one bough directly above him. The snow had been brushed off this branch, where two hands must have grasped it.
Tricky devil.
The angel, Nephi, had often warned him of that . . . the trickery of evil, the games of deception that Satan and his advocates played for their amusement. He stood up, craned his neck to look up into the dark branches above him, raising his lamp as high as he could to project the dim amber light further.
‘I know you’re up there!’ he called out.
Only one of the smaller imps, one of the ones daring to masquerade as a child, would have had the agility to pull itself effortlessly up into the tree like that, like a monkey.
‘Child!’ He used the word, though the taste of it curdled in his mouth. ‘Come down this instant!’
The tree’s limbs swayed with the clicking of twigs on each other in the gentle breeze.
‘Child,’ he called out again, softening the cadence of his voice this time. ‘Come down and I will help you eject the wickedness that has crawled inside you.’
Preston knew the Lord would forgive him that small lie; there was no cure for these creatures. But he was a man of compassion and love - he would make its death a mercifully swift one.
How can a man be so blind, so unaware of the space around him?
He stood behind Preston, now no more than an arm’s reach away, swaying silently and struggling to keep from laughing aloud. He couldn’t wait for the stupid, arrogant idiot to turn round and see him.
You are so blind, Preston.
The tall man in front of him, calling up a tree like a fool, was going to die in just a few moments. But before he died he wanted Preston to know w
ho it was that was going to kill him . . . as he’d managed to do with Eric Vander. Saul Hearst’s killing had been unprepared; it had happened in the blink of an eye, amidst a red rage that had clouded the moment. He would have liked to have taken his time with Saul, to let the dirty old man understand what fear truly was, for him to comprehend what a despicable creature he was . . . but most of all, to have him know for certain before he died that he would burn in the pits of hell for eternity.
He’d had that exquisite pleasure with Eric.
And now it was Preston’s turn.
A gentle breeze tickled his bare skin as he rose up from his hunched posture, now standing straight, the soft clink of bones unheard. He whispered.
William . . .
Preston spun round at the sound of the gentle hiss of his name.
‘Oh my!’ His voice froze in his throat instantly. The head-rush of fear and awe, terror and elation left him momentarily rigid and silent, his pursuit of the child-imp in the tree completely dismissed from his mind.
Preston . . . the apparition before him hissed again quietly.
He dropped to his knees, and looked up in stunned, silent awe at the tall skeletal form standing over him. Love, joy and elation forced a choked sob from his throat.
‘Nephi, is it you? You . . . you’ve come to me at last!’ His voice quivered with gratitude. Tears rolled from the corner of his deep eyes, down hollow cheeks into the dark thatch of bristles beneath his jaw.
‘Oh thank the Lord! I thought I had disappointed Him, disappointed you somehow . . . that you’d sought someone else for this work.’
The angel remained still. Preston’s eyes wandered up the pale form, over the spines and bones that protruded from it, up to the long, horned skull and two dark eye sockets through which he thought he saw the reflected glint of his flickering oil lamp.
‘It’s done! We . . . we have cleansed this place as you asked . . . cleansed it of devilish parasites; they’ve all gone.’ His voice trembled with excitement. ‘Pure enough that y-you’ve come back to us.’
The angel raised a long bony finger up to a jagged row of teeth. Shhhhh.
Preston felt the dark eye sockets studying him intently and was certain he sensed the angel was pleased with him - proud of him for having the strength of purpose to see through what needed to be done.
‘Do you wish to b-begin our work?’ Preston asked, ending the still and silent tableau. ‘The golden plates are w-waiting in our temple, ready for us t-to begin—’
Shhhhh.
Preston stopped.
You have waited long for this, William - to revive me. He nodded, feeling tears of joy welling in his eyes. ‘I’ve wanted to see you, to talk with you, to hear the voice of an angel . . .’
But, William . . . why would an angel come to you?
‘What?’
Why would God trust you to deliver His word from those sacred plates? Hmm?
Preston shook his head, confused. ‘Because . . . He . . . He brought them to me, asked of me that I—’
No! You are a fake! A liar. A thief!
‘No!’
Eric, Saul and you . . . the false prophet. You know what happens to false prophets?
Preston shook his head.
The angel suddenly took a step forward, one hand swiping across Preston’s belly.
Preston was startled and confused by the sudden movement. It was only when a twisting tendril of warm steam flickered past his eyes a couple of seconds later that he understood the angel had just cut him open. He looked down to see a growing pool of dark, viscous blood soaking into the snow at his feet, and a coil of glistening intestine protruding from the ripped gash in his clothes, hanging pendulously towards the ground.
He looked up at Nephi. ‘Why did . . . ?’
There are so many interesting things inside you. You’re going to see them all before you die. The angel giggled like a naughty child.
Preston felt an emerging sting of pain from his opened belly. But his confused, struggling mind was trying to comprehend a more important thing.
‘Why? Why . . . do . . . this?’
The angel swung a hand of long, razor-sharp fingers across the open wound, catching the bulge of intestine and pulling a long loop of it out onto the snow. Preston felt the tender tug pulling him forward. He collapsed onto his knees.
Because you are not a good man. Not good enough for God.
Another swipe and Preston felt more of himself being eviscerated, landing with a wet splash on the ground between his legs. His mind dully registered that in one hand he held a gun, loaded and ready to fire. But that was irrelevant now; it was too late. He knew he was dying.
What mattered more to him right now, more than anything else, was trying to comprehend why this was happening to him, and what fate awaited him in the hereafter.
‘Have I not been good? Have I not—’
‘YOU’RE A BASTARD!’ The angel’s whispered voice had suddenly transformed into an all-too-human scream filled with anguish and hate.
Preston flinched. He rocked back drunkenly on his knees. The little world around them both, this small space of snow and bare branches, lit an amber hue by the flickering glow of his solitary oil lamp, was beginning to sway and spin. He felt light-headed.
That screaming voice certainly didn’t sound like an angel.
‘I HATE YOU!’ the skeletal creature screamed. ‘Your dark fucking evil soul is going to burn in hell! I want you to know that before I rip your heart out! You’re gonna burn and burn and burn for ever!’ it screamed with a shrill voice. For the first time in Preston’s fogged mind, confusion gave way to fear, and the first inkling of suspicion.
‘No!’ he whispered.
The world suddenly keeled over to one side. Preston felt cool snow pressed against one side of his hot face as he lay supine. He turned to see this creature of bones and spines step over him and then kneel down, one knee planted either side of his pelvis.
‘DO YOU UNDERSTAND NOW, WILLIAM?!’ it screamed again.
A spiny hand disappeared into his gaping belly, and Preston felt the pull and rupture of tender things tearing inside of him. He gasped, convulsed and vomited blood. His eyes were losing focus, beginning to cross and roll uncontrollably . . . and then close.
‘LOOK AT ME!’ the thing screamed angrily, leaning down towards him, its face so close that the ragged teeth at the bottom of the long skull rested on Preston’s bearded chin, hot gasps of fetid air billowing out into the space between them.
‘See what I am!’
Preston’s eyelids obediently fluttered open. He tried to focus on the bone-yellow face and the dark empty sockets inches away from him.
One hand of long spines came into view, covered in dark blood and shreds of tissue dangling from serrated edges, and Preston’s dying mind vaguely noticed the leather straps tied tautly around a gloved hand, securing the sharpened blades of bone to it. In an abstract moment he wondered why an angel would want to construct such a strange device.
‘I want you to see who I am,’ it snarled with a keening whine, ‘before those eyes of yours come out. I want you to see me!’
The hand grasped hold of the jagged teeth and pushed the long bone-face upwards. The skull - Preston’s dulled mind managed to comprehend - was just a façade, a mask. And beneath that mask, dimly lit by the flickering amber hues of his oil lamp, he saw a face contorted with rage, every bit as terrifying as he’d imagined an angel might look.
It was his face he saw . . . only younger.
Sam smiled. ‘You thought I was dead? Buried?’
Preston could only nod and gurgle in response.
Sam laughed at the pitiful, confused look on Preston’s face. ‘No, it wasn’t me. That was the angel’s idea.’
He’s so very clever.
The angel had so deftly taken charge when he most needed it; his mind fogged with anger and grief, he had been incapable of thinking clearly. His memory of it was vague now. Mr Hearst’s attack had been
brutal and without warning. Momma had been slashed open once, twice and again; a deliberately barbaric attack to look like an Indian’s handiwork. And as Momma collapsed, Saul had turned towards Sam and Emily.
Sam’s memory was jumbled. He had killed Hearst in a rage, hacking and hacking at his open bowels as Emily stared in horror at him. He remembered a lone Indian arriving, and turning on the savage with Hearst’s blade . . . the Indian snatching Emily from him and running.
These things had been a confused web of half-memories, until Nephi came to him and helped him make sense of it all - advising him with a quiet whisper, like a much wiser older sibling, a father, a mentor.
The angel told him there was work to do, and that work was not the translation of sacred metal plates - not immediately, anyway. The task at hand was to punish those arrogant people who presumed they spoke for God, and the charlatan who was leading them.
The grave for Momma; the same grave for the dead Indian shot by Saul a week earlier and buried wearing Sam’s clothes; making an example of Hearst’s body . . . an example that let Preston know his secret was out. All of this, Sam knew, he’d not have been smart enough to conceive of by himself. The angel was so, so clever.
I’m glad you came to me.
You have a good soul.
His mind returned to the here and now, looking down at Preston’s flickering, confused face. The man’s lips were wet with blood and twitched, struggling to form what would prove to be his last word.
‘Why?’ he gasped.
‘I’m doing this for Emily,’ Sam replied. ‘For me, for Johanna . . . and all your other bastard children.’
Preston squirmed and gurgled.
‘I’m doing this for Momma. She was going to tell them all about you, but you had Saul kill her. I hate you!’
Take his eyes.
Sam raised his clawed hand and smiled. ‘So, now you’ve seen.’
With a sudden thrust, the sharpened point of the bone claw strapped to his index finger penetrated Preston’s left eye. It burst with a soft, wet pop. He pushed the claw in all the way to the knuckle, feeling cartilage and bone crack and surrender.