Then again, might be it was less gratitude he felt than respect, reverence, or simple fear. Because, as Phyllida liked to point out, Reese had been an instrument of judgment, though a singularly rough and contrary one—which meant that the same force Jenkins credited with his recovery had probably set Reese in his path in the first place. Why? To teach a lesson, prove a point?
Reese, who was indubitably gone—laid back down, if not to rest, with Haugh surely traveling alongside him in proverbial double-harness, wherever their eventual destination. Which was probably all the conclusion that dreadful figure’d ever really wanted, in Jenkins’ own estimation.
Impossible to discern which of the images he occasionally found himself summoning at odd moments, caught between dream and memory, were actually based in hard experience. Yet sometimes the former sheriff turned let’s-call-him-marshal heard voices and shivered to recognize their tones—one wildly pleading, the other sure/coolly certain yet somewhat dead, too tired even for anger. Saying:
Moral deeds mean nothing, when the heart’s not in it. That’s a good man, right there, with your bullet through his chest—God only knows I’d do my best to save him, if I weren’t made for other work entirely. You and I, though . . . for all that’s passed, we’re just the same as we ever were.
All I’m asking for’s a little mercy, Sartain. Just that.
Oh, but this is a little mercy, Bart. You really don’t want to see what no mercy looks like.
What then? Jenkins sometimes wondered. Had Reese pulled Haugh into an embrace and begun to decay? Had the dirt sucked them both down like a sink-hole, then, while heavy rains and flash-floods—no longer sanguine yet hardly natural, given the way things had gone those last few months weather-wise—scoured it all clean overtop, leaving no trace at all to show they’d ever been there?
One way or t’other, if Reese’s misfortunes and Haugh’s comeuppance formed any sort of sermon, Jenkins might as well account himself converted. For though in continuing contact with bad men (and some women) doing evil things, he fought hard to keep himself un-blooded, at least by the standards that’d cost Esther Township’s previous sheriff his life and—possibly—his salvation. In a world where invisible principalities and harsh recompense were no longer in doubt, in other words, Jenkins thought it better by far to keep his soul’s immortality intact, safe, at all costs that didn’t endanger the same in others . . . and let his body, in the main, take care of itself.
Haugh’s second child was born as summer turned to fall, a girl, blithe, kind and fair. They named her for Jenkins’ former home, and loved her as best life’s vicissitudes would allow for.
DRAWN UP FROM DEEP PLACES
Ofttimes Jerusalem Parry dreamed of the noise—that one snap, so small yet final—which his mother’s neck had made giving way, or the creak of her body swaying from a Cornish gallows-tree; other times he dreamed that Solomon Rusk lay beside him in the bed that’d once been his, long rogue’s body pressed so close that he near to crushed the breath from Parry’s lungs and slipped a thigh ‘tween his knees to force them open, so their weapons might joust for precedence. From the former visions Parry woke with cheeks wet and throat restricted, while from the latter he woke with teeth all a-grind and trousers shamefully tight, for he well-knew that that great bastard’s ghost still lingered somewhere nearby, smirking invisibly at how easy his murderer was to discomfit.
Less often yet, however, he dreamed of the storm whose fury had first disclosed him, both to others and to himself—seen him bloom up a wizard under its tumult, little though that black apotheosis had seemed to benefit him, at the time. This night, it seemed, had been such a night, borne back on a rush of wind and thunder: a downpour alternately salty and sweet, great swells and breakers tipping the Navy ship he’d signed onto at Portsmouth like a child’s bath-toy while cold rain dashed straight in the crew’s faces, stinging all their eyes half-blind.
Parry found himself handing his way up the deck, clinging to the guide-rope while those around him reeled and shrieked like Bacchantes, busy as any half-drowned ant-hill. Wherever he tried to help they scurried from him, averted their gaze and threw out signs to ward him off as though he were Satan or the plague; called out as soon as they recognized his face, bawling the same idiot warning from stem to stern, no matter their more pressing distractions—
“‘Tis him, the Jonah . . . Ensign Parry’s a Jonah sure, cursed by God, so’s any ship carries him will flounder! It’s he our Saviour hates, and we who suffer for it!”
“You rave, sir,” he recalled telling the bo’sun’s mate, whom he’d seized by the collar—pulling him close as circumstance would allow for and channeling every jot of cold authority the Church had taught him into it, as he did. “Superstitious rot. There’s no such thing, you fool!”
“So you’d say!” the man had thrown back, not quite brave enough to strike at him with aught but words. “Now give me room, you curst damned creature—let me to my work, that real men not perish on your sins’ account!”
It cut him, enough to make him let go with a shove, feeling a cruel jolt of pleasure to see his accuser slip to bruise both knees and tear his palms in the scuppers’ white backwash. Hearing himself roar, at the same time: “Then go, you scum, and good riddance! May the Sea take your bones and Hell itself tear your black heart in half, likewise!”
(That mate had died later on, Parry only now remembered, for which they’d blamed him too. But then, he had never held as short a bridle on his own tongue as he might have wished, under pressure; it was a fault his masters had tried to cure him of, and his back still bore the scars of their tutelage now, ‘neath his current captain’s coat.)
Aye, so I recall, Solomon Rusk’s hated voice told him, here. For I saw those many a time, when you and I were in our sin. But then, ye’d’ve made a terrible parson, my Jerusha, no matter had they managed to beat every last scrap of pride from you, having no great talent for forgiveness—as ye must surely know, if you’re any sort of honest.
But there was no point in answering, for conversation with Rusk was the most blatant of traps, now more than ever. So Parry only shrugged to himself instead, thinking in reply: Well, we’ll never have proof of it now, will we? And whose fault is that, pray tell?
(God’s surely. His, or the bloody Devil’s.)
T
hen, in the way of dreams, he found himself standing several feet above-deck, as those who’d taken his name in vain stared upwards, faces blank and gaping: a moment of purest ecstasy, surer than any proof of the Divine love he’d chased after all his life—so immediate, so real. Ablaze from top to toe with blue-green Saint Elmo’s fire, Parry watched the storm peel back ‘round his presence as his will plunged upwards, parting the weather’s knot, and felt himself lit so bright that all his store of gall was burnt away at once.
I did this, he remembered thinking. This is my work.
Such joy as he’d never known, before, or after. Yet it lasted only until the ship’s witch-finder withdrew a heavy iron cross from his belt and flung it, cracking Parry ‘cross the temple so hard that he hit the deck already unconscious.
***
Here he felt himself bolt awake once more, iron-made collar scar ‘round his neck puffed worse than usual, so choking-stiff he could hardly breathe. Whilst through the cabin door, his own bo’sun hammered hard and called to him, a cringing note of apology in his voice: “Cap’n, sorry t’ disturb ye, but you’re wanted on deck, soon as possible. Ye know we’d not rouse ye but ‘twas necessary, given your orders . . . Cap’n Parry, sir?”
“I hear you, man,” he managed, at last, voice a bare rasp. “What is it?”
“That creature of yours, Mister Dolomance—he’s found somethin’ as has an air of . . . supernature about it, such that we thought it best ye take a look.”
“I’ll be up soon as modesty permits, then. Tell them to leave it be, ‘til I get there.”