* * *
He saw the Old Sheriff pass by and then turn around to follow behind the vessel’s car…such a pretty shade of green. He heard the vessel’s lingering thoughts in his head that it was an ugly color, but this body no longer belonged to the vessel so what he thought did not matter anymore. He had felt the Old Sheriff before and knew he was a good Old Sheriff and that he loved the town. But no one really loved the town as much as he did because no one really knew how to keep the town alive. It required love. It required the will to take that love and turn it into sacrifice. And sacrifice hurt. It hurt him most of all because he always had to sacrifice beauty and perfection for the town.
Beauty and perfection like the Teacher Girl in his trunk. He knew that if the Old Sheriff found her there, he wouldn’t see the love. He would just see his own fear and that fear would blind the Old Sheriff to the truth that pain was required. When he had sacrificed the Old Sheriff’s wife to make the Black Cloud stronger, the Old Sheriff never tried to understand the way he tried with all the others. He let it be an “Accident” because it was easier to have it be that than to understand that love somehow invited destruction. He loved all those he sacrificed. To the town. To the Black Cloud. He had to love them because it was how he kept it all together. Captain and Tennille sang that love will keep us together and they didn’t know that love not only keeps couples together but it keeps towns together.
It was never about him. It never had been. He served the town, much as the Black Cloud served it. Today he needed the Black Cloud for his work. He would go to the little store the Black Cloud kept and move him to his purpose. But the Black Cloud’s father, the Old Sheriff, might interfere with his act of love, might interfere with the Black Cloud’s purpose. Might interfere with the life of the town. As much as he loved the Old Sheriff and his love of the town, it was time to help him help the town one last time.
He sped up and away from the Old Sheriff towards the Black Cloud. He looked for something off in the woods. Oh, there it was. So beautiful and so loving of beauty. He called to it.