They were stripped of most of their priestly powers and allowed to serve without pay, without praise, and probably without much chance of setting things right. Grey had never met one before and didn’t give much of a damn for humility, but he admired their courage. As a man who felt the weight of his own sins and worried about the slim chance of salvation and the very real threat of celestial punishment, he hoped the Outcast Brothers would prove that even the most wretched had a fighting chance on Judgment Day.
He said, “Thought you were all down Mexico way, trying to turn the last Mayans into good little Christians. What brings you up here? You a priest of a church ’round these parts?”
“We missionaries go where the Lord sends us.”
“God sent you here? Why? You lose a bet with him?”
The joke fell flat and Grey was sorry he’d made it. The monk actually winced as if he was in physical pain.
“Are you a Christian, brother,” he asked.
Grey shrugged. “Not sure where I stand on that topic. God and me haven’t had any meaningful conversations in quite a long time.”
“But you believe?”
“That’s a complicated question,” said Grey. “The world’s big and strange. Maybe bigger and stranger than people thought it was. So… I guess I’ll keep an open mind. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to find me in a pew come Sunday morning.”
Brother Joe nodded. He was as thin as a rake-handle, nearly bald. He wore a rough brown robe with the hood folded down on his bony shoulders, and rope sandals on his feet. His only extravagance was a beard that was full and wild. His voice had only the faintest echo of the Spanish that had probably been the language of his childhood.
Brother Joe offered a thin hand and Grey shook it. The monk’s hand was like dry parchment stretched over fragile sticks.
“Although I abhor violence of any kind,” said Brother Joe, “I thank you for what you did. Those men might have hurt Miss Pearl.”
“They might have done worse than hurt her,” said Grey. “I know men like that. I know that type. Maybe I should have schooled them a bit more on how to treat decent folks.”
Jenny smiled at that.
But Brother Joe shook his head. “Judgment and punishment are for God.”
“Sure,” said Grey, “forgiveness, too. But I’d rather be judged by the Almighty for doing what I think’s right than stand aside and let bastards like that make life hell for people. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“It’s not as simple as that.”
Grey put a hand on the monk’s shoulder. “Yeah, padre, I know. Maybe carrying a gun makes me a bad man, too. I’ll talk that over with Saint Peter if I get the chance. Or maybe my answer will come from a lick from the Devil’s riding crop, but I will be damned if I stand aside and do nothing. Some men can. I can’t.”
Brother Joe met his eyes and it was clear that there was much he wanted to say, but they both knew this wasn’t the time. Instead he took Grey’s hand and kissed it.
“May God’s mercy and protection be with you always.”
“Amen to that,” said Looks Away. “Now, how about we draw some of that water and get off the street? I doubt our Deputy Perkins or his employer will let this matter stand where it is.”
“So what? I’m not afraid of them, Looksie,” said Jenny.
Looks Away winced at the nickname, but he let the bucket slide down the well. “I’m not afraid of them coming back,” he said. “But let’s make it later than sooner. I’m fair parched.”
“Looksie?” echoed Grey, grinning.
“Don’t start,” warned the Sioux as he cranked up the laden bucket. “You wouldn’t be the first white man I’ve scalped.”
There was a sudden rumble, deep and heavy, and they all turned toward the west. Far out over the ocean was a massive bank of dark clouds that Grey could have sworn were not there five minutes ago. It was a storm front, and the clouds pulsed and throbbed with thunder. Lightning flashed within and it looked like red veins in the skin of some great beast.
“Looks like the town’s in for a break,” said Grey. “Stretch some canvas and catch the rain. Nothing beats a cup of fresh rainwater.”
“Not that rain,” said Jenny softly. “God…”
Brother Joe quickly crossed himself.
A wet wind whipped off the ocean and blew past them. It smelled of rotting fish and sulfur. Jenny wrapped her arms around her body and shuddered. Even Looks Away seemed to grow pale and nervous.
The first fat raindrops pinged on the tin roof of the nearest house. Fresh thunder growled at them. Closer now.
High above they heard the shrill and haunted call of that strange bird. It seemed to be pushed toward them on the stiff wind.
Rain splatted down on the street a block away and they watched the leading wall of the storm march toward them. Grey frowned at the storm. It was strange. It was… wrong. As the belly of the storm swelled outward like an obscene pregnancy, the lightning changed in color. Where a moment ago it had been like red veins, now it changed into a tracery of blue.
Grey knew that shade of blue. He’d seen it in Nevada. He’d nearly been killed by a burst of it.
“Looks Away—,” he began, but thunder exploded like artillery fire, smashing all other sounds into nothingness.
Inside the storm, behind the veil of slanting rain, something moved. Something vast, something that writhed like a nest of serpents. And tangled up with the growl of thunder he thought he heard something else. Something that roared with a voice from nightmare.
Looks Away glanced down at the bucket he held.
He let it fall.
“Run,” he murmured. Then as the rain thickened and as the sky turned black as sackcloth, he yelled it. “Run!”
The four of them turned and ran.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Running from a storm is like running from a forest fire or the fall of night. At first it seems possible, but then with every step the realities become apparent. What man can do, nature can overmaster.
“Get the horses!” Grey bellowed to Looks Away. “You take Brother Joe and I’ll take—.”
Before he could finish the statement a gray bulk slammed into him and sent him skidding into the stone well. He rebounded and whipped around in time to see Picky race away from him in a full-out panicked gallop. Queenie was neck and neck with her.
Grey wasted no time cursing the horses. Instead he launched himself to his feet, caught Jenny Pearl’s arm, and together they ran. He heard feet slapping on the dampening mud behind him.
“Oh God, Oh God, Oh God,” breathed Brother Joe with every step.
“Move your holy ass,” snapped Looks Away.
Rain pelted them, punched them, and chased them. Grey could see that the street up ahead was empty. Everyone had fled the coming storm. Two of the rocking chairs still wobbled, proof that their occupants had been there only a moment before.
The howl of the wind was a terrible thing to hear. It was the sound of souls in burning torment. It was the shriek of the tortured damned. As he ran, Grey tried to tell himself that it was the wind, only the wind. That the sound was some freakish side effect of ghost rock that was somehow caught up in this gale. That it was no more dire than the hiss of a burning fuse or the bang of gunpowder. Just a sound.
Only that.
But the rain burned as it struck his skin. It hissed and sizzled as if the storm had come howling up from Hell itself, carrying with it the screams of the dead. The cries of a thing that hated the living for what the quick had and the dead did not. It was a hungry, covetous sound that betrayed a greedy want of life. Or to see life torn down and swept away.