Fire Wind

  Looking at the burn marks that must constitute the power of the enemy’s guns also confirmed how they had dropped the boy’s body off without leaving any tracks. Their ships floated over the ground and it would’ve been a thing of ease to set up the sacrifice spot in such a way as to stroke the suspicious fears of those prone to being superstitious.

  Truly this was a battle that would require more than just the physical could offer. I turned and headed back to my horse. I mounted up and rode off a ways.

  I was bothered by something. Were the people behind me, so seemingly more aware of what was going on, in a better place right now or were they in hell?

  “There is only one way to God, Taran.”

  I turned to the side and saw the old indian. It was a hard thing that he insinuated.

  “You’re one of the good guys aren’t you? Why didn’t you stop this? You must have the ability? Not only that, but you also have the ability to make them believe!”

  He shook his head no, “Not so Taran. Humans have a free will to choose. Simply knowing a lot and not acting on it gets no one anywhere of consequence. As to stopping the bloodshed all I have to say is that this is not our world. This world belongs to the fallen one and we but do the will of our Master in heaven as we are assigned.”

  “That’s your response to this wholesale slaughter!” I exclaimed.

  “Yes, Taran, but for you it is different. You are human. Behind you lay members of your fellow kind, unjustly slain, now what are you going to do about it?”

  “I’m going to hunt these white hairs down is what!”

  “No, they will come to you. Pray that we are able to come to your aid.”

  “What? You’re saying these people died because someone wasn’t praying for them?”

  “Many battles are lost in the spirit realm before you see the results played out into the physical realm. It is good to pray Taran. And not just for yourself, but for others and there are many others, both here and elsewhere.”

  He started to fade, but catching on to the last part I exclaimed in question, “He was right about me! Tell me what you know!” But he was already gone and I stared futilely into the empty space where he had just been.

  *****

  Riding into town I stopped as I was hailed by Thaddeus, “Find the killers Marshal?”

  “Not yet.” I said noncommittally.

  “Well that’s all right. He was just an indian boy anyway.”

  I rode on trying to hide how much his words had irked me. What had changed in me?

  I, who a week ago wouldn’t have cared one way or the other, but now I found myself wanting to smash his teeth out and then give him a kick to the ribs for good measure.

  I dismounted at the livery and Nathan was back out almost immediately, “How did he do for you Marshal?”

  “Really well. Thanks again for the use of him.”

  Nathan had started to lead the Appaloosa away when I asked, “Do you go to the church in this town?”

  “Sure do Marshal.”

  Nodding I asked, “Is the next get-together going to be, Sunday?”

  “Actually Pastor is holding a prayer meeting right now. I’d already be there, but I knew you would be back so I waited. You’re welcome to come if you want.”

  Nodding I helped him unsaddle the Appaloosa and then together we headed for the church.

  Chapter Seven

  Creation Overseen

  The door opened noisily and I cringed at the noise along with the sound of my echoing boot heels on the wood floor. Only a few of the thirty odd people gathered looked up from the silence of their prayers to see who had come in the door though.

  Nathan quickly made his way down the aisle and stepped in to sit down by a sweet looking girl, who greeted Nathan with a smile. They made a cute couple.

  Looking from the innocent infatuation of the young couple with each other I made a prayer on the spot that whatever happened in the coming struggle that these two would be together in the end and survive whatever happened.

  I caught the Pastor, whose name was Lonigan, motioning to me from the front of the church. Inwardly I cringed. Longingly I looked at the last row of pews in the church before making my way to the front hat in hand.

  Pastor Lonigan stepped in close to whisper, “I’m not trying to embarrass you, but as a man of leadership in the community you need to be up here.”

  I looked at him in wonderment. A position of leadership in the community? Yeah right, only he wasn’t joking.

  Awkwardly I sat down on the first pew of the church and the Pastor sat down beside me and in a whisper asked, “What did you find?”

  I stared at the hardwood floor for a moment. How to answer the man?

  “Do you know what the indians refer to as a white hair?”

  The Pastor’s face tightened and he nodded.

  “Well then could you explain it to me, because I don’t know what I’m dealing with?”

  The Pastor nodded in understanding and I went on, “I keep getting visited by the personage of an old indian, which I think…… I know, is an angel. I don’t know why all this is happening or how I got dragged into it, but I am!”

  The Pastor looked from his folded hands to me and asked softly, “Do you regret being involved by God in this war?”

  What kind of a question was that?

  The more I thought about it though the less I could come up to argue against my new spiritual awakening. Finally I just shook my head no and went back to staring at the floor.

  “Let’s pray Taran.”

  “You still haven’t answered my questions.”

  Sighing he said, “I know as much as you do, which is next to nothing in terms of these white hairs, but in prayer perhaps God will reveal more to us. They are evil that much I know. I also know that our best hope for victory lies in our faith. Pray Taran.”

  “I’m not much good at this praying stuff.”

  “That’s fine. The Lord loves a humble attitude.”

  The Pastor seemed to close off from me then and I was left alone on the bench for the most part. I stared at my hands as the whispered prayers of those gathered in the room helped create a complex atmosphere of mood that was hard to explain.

  I began going over in my mind everything that had happened of late, only I made note to thank God for my deliverances, my second chance, and the courage to take it. I started to find myself praying for almost everything, even things unconnected with the situation at hand.

  I began to feel sleepy, but then it all evened out somehow. I wasn’t in the church anymore, but yet somehow I was. It didn’t make any sense as nothing of the church was around me and yet I knew what I knew.

  I walked forward into what I knew had to be a dream of some kind. Whether past, present, or future I did not know. “What’s going on God?” I inquired.

  “Look and see.”

  I looked again and there was nothing. Literally nothing!

  The land before me, the Earth, literally everything was gone.

  “God?” I quivered out in great fear.

  “Watch what I did with nothing.”

  I saw it all transpire as a fast-moving blur of realization after realization. The heavens and earth were made and sights strange to me and yet similar in some ways passed by with blinding speed. It was as if I was a spectator over countless eons of time and change that had transpired upon the planet that had been created from nothing.

  Then the pictures that I was looking at became marred by war, death, and violence beyond any comparison I could offer. I shivered within the framework of my mind at the terribleness of the once glorious creation now being destroyed before me.

  “I can’t bear to see any more!”

  “Watch!”

  I did and I watched the world as it had once been destroyed beyond seemingly any repair. My view shifted until I stood as if in the air above the planet from a great distance away.

  Earth, if that was what it was and yet I knew it to be, was before
me. The planet was cold and lifeless. All the light was gone from it and the surface was barren ice for as far as could be seen. It was a forbidding landscape of hopelessness.

  I looked and looked but could not place what I saw within the framework of what I knew of Biblical history. A warm wave coursed by me and pierced through the darkness surrounding the planet and seemed to hover over the surface of the ice.

  Ice began to crack up and where extreme cold had been before warmth began to rise as steam that seemed to wipe away the ash of the world’s former destruction. I then watched six literal days of creation play out before me and then as if in a blink of time I saw the passage of several thousand years pass by as if but a few seconds had gone by.

  In the brief time after the planet’s rebirth I saw the same elements that had destroyed it over eons of time still present within the new creation as if hovering on the edges of a herd of bison waiting for the herd to sicken before moving in for the kill. In that brief moment it was as clear to me that they intended to do no less than what they had done before.

  As if to back up that thought I heard, “As it is written, ‘The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.’”

  The creatures I saw, no matter their origins, were now morphed forever into the form of being destroyers of worlds.

  My view expanded past the Earth and I saw the devastation of both ages past and those quite recent almost everywhere within the greater created cosmos. The sight of it all sickened me. Destruction was being carried out on a daily basis almost everywhere!

  “There is an end, but yet for now time remains. My Spirit is yet upon the waters and I have not withdrawn My Divine favor from mankind, whom I created in Mine own image. My order to My creation of man remains. Be fruitful and have dominion.”

  I was suddenly back in the world I knew looking out over the desert towards dark. Before my eyes the wind blew up a maelstrom of sand into the air which then abruptly took flame and burned as if oil caught on fire. The swirl of flame seemed to call to me, but in hesitation against the heat of its brilliance I drew back and suddenly I was falling.

  *****

  With a start I reared up. Gasping for air I looked about the darkened church in fright.

  “Easy! Easy! It’s all right!”

  I looked to the Pastor kneeling beside me on the floor to then stare about the darkened church.

  “I don’t understand! How long was I out?”

  “About eight hours. What did you see Taran?” The Pastor asked, with keen interest.

  I clutched at my head with both hands. What had I not seen?

  Looking to him I said, “Some of what I saw I understood, so much of what I saw at first I have no comprehension of.”

  “What did you see?” The Pastor asked patiently.

  “At first a period of time that seemed without end. The Earth and its surface was all different. Creation as you and I know it was different. It took time, but eventually it all became destroyed. The planet was left cold and dark. It seemed to be covered in ice. Much how you read in Genesis I then saw the days of creation unfold over six literal days. From there I could comprehend what was going on, but the time before? Is such an expanse of time even possible? I thought we were the only thing God created.”

  The Pastor shook his head and leaned over to snare a Bible off of a pew. Turning it he showed me the binding and said, “The Bible wasn’t first written in English. This is but a translation off the original scrolls written in ancient Hebrew and there are quite a few flaws with the translation. Most notably in the first few verses of the Bible. For years I believed that the creation of the Earth occurred in the six days of creation, but looking further I discovered a translation error. Here I’ll read it to you in the English first and then I’ll read how the verses should’ve been properly translated. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

  Pastor Lonigan looked up to me and said, “The most notable translation issue is with the word, ‘was’. It should have been translated as the word, “became” from the ancient Hebrew and perhaps a better way of expressing the meaning of the Hebrew then saying, ‘without form and void’ would be to say, ‘ruin and uninhabitable’. Instead of “moving” in verse two the correct translation from Hebrew is ‘vibrate’. Here’s what the first two verses should read as, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  And the earth became a ruin, and uninhabitable; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God vibrated upon the face of the waters.” Tell me Taran did you see the ice covering the planet broken up?”

  “Yes I did!”

  “Well that explains that part of the mystery to me now. I always wondered what ‘vibrating’ could have to do with the Spirit of God. Now I see. It seems hard to fathom, but it’s rather simply laid out that there was an indeterminate period of time between the first two verses of Genesis and then verse three where God actively starts the re-creation of His earlier creation, by making a great light, and a separation of light from darkness, which at the completion of He said was the end of Day 1. It seems rather clear that the creation of the heavens and earth in verses one and two are separate from verse three and yet many do not see that distinction, but choose to loop the first two verses in with verse three and claim that it all transpired on Day 1, in spite of the fact that God specifically outlines exactly what transpired on Day 1. I think it interestingly collaborative that God’s first action of recreation in verses 3-5 was to create a great light and thus the creation of heat by which a frozen planet could begin to be thawed out by. Well what do you think Taran?

  I stared at him astonished at the possibilities, “So you think the great expanse of time I saw could’ve happened?”

  “Yes, I believe so. Indeed I believe you have been gifted with a great insight, but tell me how what you saw is of help to us now?”

  “I saw them, the white hairs and many others. I saw what they were before and how they came to be. They are old and their hatred for us is real. They have no hope and they hate us for the redemption we have in God’s Son. They would’ve killed us long ago, but the Spirit of God has been holding them back. They are far more advanced than us.”

  “Then how do we fight them?”

  I looked him in the eye, “I didn’t say they were stronger than us.”

  Just then I heard a peel of laughter drift into the church off the evening breeze. I glanced from the open windows of the church to the Pastor and mentally sized him up.

  I felt different somehow now and going on the faith inspired in me by all I had seen I said, “Last night this church, indeed your whole congregation of believers was spiritually attacked. Are you ready to defend the faith and claim victory?”

  “I am!” The older man said thumping his Bible to his knee.

  Smiling I got to my feet and extending a hand to the Pastor I said, “Well come on preacher man I know where a monster of old exists in the flesh.”

  He looked at me oddly, but took my hand. Pulling him up I headed for the door with him close behind.

  Twilight was passing by and the evening of the day, when life seemed to settle down was upon us, but tonight I felt alive with the challenge of what I felt to be my new commission in life. Whether I died or lived I didn’t much care, because for the first time in years I had the joy of feeling completely alive.

  My God had brought me this new life and to Him I would dedicate what remained of it.

  Edgar and his lady love of the night before were together just outside the café. I tipped my hat to both, but didn’t stop.

  Angus was putting his ‘Closed’ sign in place and I stopped to tap him on the shoulder and say, “Come along Brother Angus. I have need of you.”

  Angus blinked, but didn’t hesitate to drop in alongsid
e of the Pastor and follow along behind as I continued on down the boardwalk.

  Thaddeus stepped into my path with his usual overbearing manner. There was a queer anxiety to be seen in his beady eyes as he said, “I heard you got religion Marshal.”

  “Get out of my way!” I said testily.

  “Now Marshal don’t be going and doing something you might be regretting later. I for one don’t think it’s a good thing to be mixing too much religion with a position of governance and all. Now maybe we should just simmer down and……”

  Angus cut in hotly, “What are you blathering about man?”

  “He’s just doing as he’s been trained Angus. Thaddeus, the towns under new management and if you can’t change then I think it’s time for you to be moving on.” I said point blankly into his face.

  Belligerently Thaddeus drew himself up to say, “Who do you think you are to threaten me? I hired you and I can fire you!”

  “Well since I’m fired there’s nothing to be said about me doing this!” I said, as I slugged him in the gut.

  He pitched over gasping and I straightened him back up with a roundhouse right that had his eyes doing strange things. He started to fall, but grasping ahold of his collar I drug him along behind me as I made my way towards the dance hall saloon.

  Reaching the double doors I busted through them with a quite sizable party of townspeople in tow. The eyes of everyone in the place were on us.

  With gasps of exclamation saloon girls cleared out of the way and shot glasses of whiskey toppled off their trays to crack onto the floor loudly. Men forgot their poker chips and drawn hands of cards as they tumbled out of their chairs and to their feet in sudden fear of incarceration for past misdeeds.

  In general a state of alarm gripped the saloon and everyone in it except for the woman in red, who stared at me with cold disdain.

  Coolly measured words flowed smoothly off her lips, “Look what the tomcat drug in. My my Marshal come to raid us already? I already offered you more than any man in your pathetic position could ever hope to achieve for himself.”

  She could talk a good case all she wanted, but I was through with formalities. Shoving Thaddeus onto a nearby poker table I took my hand and wiped it across his broken nose and then smoothly I spun to drag my bloodied hand down the side of the saloon mistress’s face.

  “Take that Princess of words and be damned!”