“Being eaten by zoms is in the Bible?” Nix asked, giving him a frank stare; and Benny liked that she leaned on the word “zoms.”
“Not in words that crude.” He patted the book inside his coat. “But yes… the fate of all mankind is laid out in chapter and verse.”
“Where?” demanded Lilah. “Where does it say that in the Bible?”
Something shifted in the preacher’s eyes. Benny thought it was like a snake looking out through the eyeholes of a mask.
“It’s in there for those who read the scriptures,” the preacher answered quietly. “But I bet that you’ve never taken the time to-”
“You’d lose that bet, mister.”
Everyone turned. It was Chong who had spoken up. He had retrieved Lilah’s spear from the bushes and handed it to her. She accepted it without glancing at him.
Preacher Jack gave Chong an up-and-down evaluation with his eyes and dismissed him with a twitch of his smiling mouth. “I doubt that, son. From what I heard, this young lady’s been living hard and wild in these mountains, far from any church or congregation.”
“How does that matter? Does a sheepdog stop being a sheepdog if there’s no herd or shepherd?” Chong gave his dry lips a nervous lick. “Don’t raise theological questions unless you’re prepared to debate them.”
Preacher Jack’s smile still did not dim. “Well, well, well… what have you stumbled upon, Jack? A Sunday School class trip all the way out here in the Rot and Ruin?”
“Hardly that,” said Tom quietly.
“Then what?”
Chong, Lilah, Nix, and Benny all started to speak, but Tom snapped his fingers, a sound as sharp and urgent as a pistol shot. He gave a hand gesture, a palms-down press as if he was patting the air. It was one of the warrior hand signals he had taught them over the last seven months. Be silent but be ready.
“We’re out here on personal business,” said Tom mildly. “Family business. We don’t discuss that business with strangers.”
“Is that what we are, Brother Tom?” asked Preacher Jack with a hint of reproach in his voice. “Are we strangers?”
Tom said, “If we’d met in town or at Wawona, or in the sanctuary of one of the way stations, then I suppose I’d feel comfortable enough to swap stories. That’s not the case. I find a man tortured and fed to the dead. That’s suspicious. Then you step out of nowhere.”
“I-”
Tom stopped him with a raised hand. “Let me finish. I offer no hostility and mean no disrespect, but I am not in a position to trust a stranger.” He nodded toward Benny and the others. “Manners are going to have to take a backseat to common sense and safety.”
“So I see.”
“I’m going to ask one more time… do you know anything about who this man is, why he was killed, or why he didn’t reanimate?”
Preacher Jack hooked his thumbs into his belt, and Benny noted that this put the heel of his right hand on the pommel of his knife. Having seen how fast the man could draw that knife, Benny had no illusions that the gesture was accidental. He carefully tightened his grip on the bokken.
“I don’t believe that I have any of the answers you seek,” murmured the man in the dusty coat.
“Then I think we’re done here.”
“Done with me or done with this poor sinner?”
“With both.” Tom took a small step back.
Preacher Jack nodded. “Perhaps we’ll meet again under more pleasant circumstances, Brother Tom.”
“That would be nice, sir, but unlikely. You see, we’re heading east.”
For the first time Preacher Jack’s smile flickered. “What? You’re leaving these mountains? When will you be coming back?”
“I don’t expect that we will.”
That wiped the smile completely from the preacher’s face. He looked disappointed and even a little bit angry at this news, and Benny watched Tom as his brother watched the change in Preacher Jack’s expression.
“Something wrong?” asked Tom, his own face and voice neutral.
The smile returned, tentatively at first and then with all its twitchy vibrancy. “Wrong? Why, no, except that it would surely have been a blessing to sit down, break bread, and try this whole meeting again in a more civilized way. I fear we got ourselves off on the wrong foot here. Knives and hard words and all.”
Now Tom smiled, and it looked genuine, at least to Benny.
“Yeah.” Tom laughed. “I guess this wasn’t the most genial encounter.” He shrugged. “On the other hand, it could have been worse.”
“Yes,” said Preacher Jack with a glitter in his eyes, “it surely could have.”
They stood there, eight feet apart with a dead man lying on the ground between them, and Benny had the impression that there were all sorts of conversations going on at the same time. Words that were not being spoken but that were mutually understood. Except to Benny and, from the look on her face, Nix as well.
Preacher Jack bowed to Nix and Lilah. “If by word or deed I have done anything to offend you fine ladies,” he said, removing his hat and bowing low once more, “then I am truly sorry and most humbly beg forgiveness. The Ruin is not a charm school, and in hard times we often forget who we are and where we came from.”
Lilah said nothing, but her honey-colored eyes lost some of their intensity. Nix gave a single curt bob of her head.
Preacher Jack turned to Benny. “Peace to you, little brother.”
“Um… yeah, sure. Back atcha.”
Preacher Jack ignored Chong altogether, but he fixed Tom with a knowing smile. “I won’t offer my hand again, Brother Tom, for fear that it will once more be left hanging in the wind. So I’ll tip my hat and bid you all a farewell. May the Good Lord keep you from snakes and snares and the evil that men do.”
With that the preacher replaced his hat, tugged his lapels to adjust the hang of his jacket, and walked back into the woods, where he vanished so quickly into the shadows that the whole encounter might have been a dream. Tom and the others stood where they were for a full five minutes, listening first for Preacher Jack’s soft footfalls and then to the forest as the ordinary sounds one by one returned.
Benny let out a chestful of air and turned to Tom. “What was that all about?”
“I really don’t know,” said Tom.
Benny could see that Tom was troubled. He followed his brother over to the edge of the road, and they both squatted to study the dirt of the game trail along which Preacher Jack had gone. Benny watched as Tom used a twig to measure the man’s shoe impressions. “Good-quality hiking shoes,” murmured Tom. “Pre-First Night, which means they’re either scavenged or purchased for a tidy stack of ration dollars.”
Benny nodded and bent low to study the pattern of the shoes, just as Tom had taught him. The tread was pretty well worn, and there was a crescent-shaped nick out of the right heel.
“That nick is pretty distinctive,” Benny said, earning him an approving nod from Tom.
“It’s as good as a fingerprint. Remember it.” Then Tom called the others over to look at it too, pointing out the unique elements of each sole.
“Why bother?” asked Chong. “Is he our enemy?”
“I don’t know what he is,” admitted Tom, “but out here it’s a good idea to observe as many details as you can. You never know what’s going to be useful.”
“Was that really Preacher Jack?” asked Nix.
Tom rose and squinted down the game trail. “Well… he fits the description Dr. Skillz gave me. At least physically.”
“Is it okay if I say that he was the single creepiest thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been face-to-face with decaying zoms?”
Tom nodded. “Yeah, Nix, you can say that and mean it.”
“I don’t like him,” growled Lilah, her fists clenched tightly around the shaft of her spear. “If I see him again…” She let the rest hang in the air.
“I think it’s a good idea if we all watch our backs,” suggested Tom.