The villagers hummed in unison with crickets and cicadas and all the other creatures accustomed to night.
Lead watched villagers dip bowls and cups into the cauldron. He smelled the stew and took a sip. It tasted like water, dirt, and potatoes. On the surface, white petals of some native flower floated. Lead took another sip and chewed the petals which were thick and flavorless. The villagers danced around the fire without a break in the hypnotic humming. A primal chant rose from the dancers.
“Noumenal, Noumenal, Noumenal.”
Lead watched and ate.
Lead woke with sweat pouring down his face. It was deep into the night. The stars had shifted long on their sphere and those which Lead had seen before were replaced by other gods and constellations. The fire still blazed, still cut the night, but the villagers were silent. They all stared at Lead; a sea of large misshapen eyes with pupils dilated to black pits and mouths that gave no sign of friend or foe. One of the villagers barked. Lead got to his feet.
“You’re in violllaaa ub…” Lead’s tongue and lips were too heavy, his lungs felt tight. Words refused to take proper form in his mouth. One of the villagers smiled in the darkness, another barked. Teeth and eyes sparkled in the moonlight and all remained silent.
“Brooooooough!”
Gibberish spilled forth from Lead’s mouth. The villagers circled the fire, the old woman stepped forward.
“You of Stormbringer,” she yelled with an accusing finger pointed at Lead. A low chant rose among the villagers.
“Ohhhh, ohhhh, ohhhh, ohhhh…”
Panic seized Lead’s heart. He reached into his shirt and gripped the Van Cleef.
“You no good! You no righteous! You be sand!” the old woman shrieked into the night sky.
The chanting villagers stepped away from the fire, into the darkness. Their eyes dazzled ruby red and fierce. The teeth in their grinning mouths grew with an unnatural speed. Front teeth grew past their bottom lips and chins, enormous and sharp like rats.
“Homme Jesus Lord Gob!” Lead screamed as the creatures lunged at him. Their legs turned pencil thin in the shadows of night, like crickets legs, yet they held the weight of their bodies inexplicably. Their teeth grew past their chests and swung like bone swords with each stride.
One of the beasts grabbed Lead’s shoulder with a clawed hand. Lead pulled the Van Cleef and fired into the creature’s chest. The beast clutched the wound and twisted into nothingness. It burst like a sack of sand. Lead swung his gun at the next nearest monster and pulled the trigger. The crack of pistol fire broke through the villagers’ chants a second time. The wounded beast put a hand to its neck and gurgled blood before falling to its knees.
Lead was engulfed by the horde of monsters. He screamed and whipped his pistol across the face of another beast. A glint of light reflected on teeth and blood as they showered the desert sand. Lead smashed his gun against the skull of another beast and twisted through clutching hands and gnashing teeth. He broke free bolted into the darkness beyond the fire. Behind him demons giggled and crashed through the brush.
Lead ran with the strength of fear. He desperately tried to remember the Church’s teachings on the Devil and demons, but his mind refused to focus on anything but blind panic. Lead glanced over his shoulder. His eyes adjusted to starlight. Formless demons pursued him, their shapes bobbing like drifts of smoke, their eyes glimmered red though they had no business illuminating the darkness.
Lead jumped to the left, a demon crashed face first in rubble and dust where he’d been running. Another demon tackled Lead to the ground. The beast glared fiercely at Lead with its ruby eyes. It spit a long tooth into its hand and raised it to strike. Lead pointed his Van Cleef, but the pistol clicked in misfire. The demon drove the tooth into Lead’s shoulder. Lead swung the Van Cleef across the demon’s face. One of the ruby eyes winked out and the demon recommitted to the sand. Lead ran on.
The night lived a life beyond its natural duration. Lead ran past the demons and past the brush and past the limitations of his weakened body and mind. The yells and laughter of the beasts drifted away, but Lead did not slow. His vision tightened to a small distant tunnel. He repeated prayers in his mind but could not force his tongue to speak them. He prayed for safety, he prayed for God to smite all the sin and devils of this land, and when the sun’s light returned to the earth Lead was still running, fueled by fear and panic. His lungs and legs burned deep.
In the dawn’s light Lead arrived onto a broken street which marked the entrance to Havasu Parish. Regular men in parishioner clothing stood in front a general use building waiting for morning bread. They saw Lead filthy and wounded and dismissed him as another desert crazy, another rag man.
Lead’s legs buckled with exhaustion. He breathed long and hot and looked for aid among the men of the bread line. If he could find words, he would demand sanctuary as a Preachers’ right. Tears streamed down his face. A gun cocked behind him, its barrel pressed against his head.
“Greetings,” Terence said.
Lead looked up to see the old man holding a four barrel pistol looped with a rawhide cord, a Van Cleef.
“Thought you might come here, you look worse for the travel,” the Old Preacher said.
Lead looked down at his chest. He’d lost his shirt and sombrero and his bare torso was painted with a concoction of blood and filth; a testament to the evening’s violence. His pants were torn and ragged. A wood-handled kitchen knife stood with its blade buried deep into his left shoulder. He clutched his pistol, at some point the rawhide loop had broken. It dangled from the butt of his gun. Lead raised his hands and gun into the air.
“I have no qualm with you, mark. Leave me be and continue your retreat,” he said.
Terence kept his pistol pressed against Lead’s head.
“I got the drop on you. Your life is but a decision between me and this pepper box.” Terence looked up to the men in the bread line. “You gentlemen mind to your business,” he hollered at them. The morning parishioners made no move to aid.
“I’ve taken life, young man. I know the feeling and price.” The Old Preacher released the pistol’s hammer and slipped it back into his shirt.
“You won’t die by my hands. Not today.”
Lead looked up at the Old Preacher’s face, a leather visage of dirty creases and grey beard and yellow-blue eyes that spoke of humanity.
“Why was I sent to apprehend you?”
The Old Preacher’s eyes moistened. He rubbed them in irritation and looked back to the rising sun.
“I was what you are; I preached the word of the Church. They sent you to me because of killing.”
“What killing?”
The Old Preacher looked into Lead’s eyes. “Killing doesn’t make me happy. Killing doesn’t make me good. I can’t kill anymore. That’s why you were sent to apprehend. I’m a rusty tool of new use or value. I need to be disposed of.”
Lead tried to regain his feet but instead lost consciousness in the Arizona sun.
IV. Eliphaz the Crusader comes to Havasu Parish
Lead woke in a comfortable bed with sheets that smelled of lilacs and bleach. His room was painted a shade of green he remembered as glow-in-the-dark. The Old Preacher watched him from a stool in the corner. On a wooden plank table lay the parts of Lead’s gun, dismantled and oiled. The Old Preacher smiled.
“What were you going to do with no ammunition?”
Lead mumbled about demons in the night. The sliver of metal left by Century’s knife was cold in his chest. In contrast, the knife wound in his shoulder was hot and puckered.