Harry freed his knife hand and lunged, missing. He was lying on the bottom, with the other man’s right knee pressed into his stomach.
“Drop the knife,” Geronimo ordered. Blade had said they should try to take one of these men alive, if at all possible.
“Go to hell!” Harry hissed, swinging the knife again, missing again.
Geronimo wrenched his right arm free and slashed the tomahawk straight down, the blade biting into Harry’s forehead, driving deep.
Harry’s eyes widened, he gasped for air, his limbs thrashing, and he tried to rise.
Geronimo stood and watched the Watcher’s death throes. “You can go to hell,” he stated as Harry died. “When I go, I’m going to the higher worlds of the Great Spirit.”
“You all right?” Blade called from the other ridge.
“Fine. How about you?”
“Okay. Where do you think Hickok is?”
“Right here.” Hickok was standing between three boulders in the ravine below. He seemed to be having difficulty staying on his feet.
Blade and Geronimo moved toward Hickok.
“You hurt?” Blade asked the gunman. He noticed Hickok’s hands were tied behind his back, his buckskins were streaked with dirt and grime, and his face appeared to be badly battered. There was a prominent wound above his right eyebrow.
“I’m plumb tuckered out, pard,” Hickok said feebly as his two friends approached. He began to sway. “As far as being hurt is concerned.” He grinned weakly. “I’d have to say… the… answer… is yes.”
Hickok’s eyes closed and he fell, bouncing off one of the boulders before he hit the ground.
“Nathan!” Blade shouted, racing toward the boulders. Please, he prayed to the Spirit, please let him be alive!
Chapter Eleven
“Josh, wake up!” Bertha smacked his left arm. “You’ve been sleepin’ long enough.”
Joshua raised his head and opened his eyes. “I’m not sleeping,” he informed her.
“Then what’ve you been doing all this time?”
“Praying.”
“Say what?”
“Praying. Don’t you know what praying is?”
Bertha shook her head.
“What kind of religion do you practice in the Twin Cities?” Joshua inquired.
“Religion? Oh, you mean the God stick.”
“The God stick?”
“Yeah.” Bertha nervously scanned the trees for the hundredth time since Blade and Geronimo had gone after Hickok. “The Horns do something called the God stick. Never did understand it myself, but then I was born a Porn and I would of died a Porn if I hadn’t met Zahner and been convinced to switch to the Nomads.”
Joshua, bewildered, pressed her for additional information. “Can you tell me anything about the God stick?”
“Not much. It’s one of the big differences between the Horns and the Porns. Has something to do with magic, I think.”
“Magic?”
“Yeah. Some mumbo-jumbo about askin’ this God for things you want.
Sounds crazy, right?”
Joshua was trying to understand. “The Porns don’t believe in God?”
Bertha studied him to be sure the question was in earnest. “Are you nuts? Of course they don’t. How can you believe in somethin’ you can’t see or touch or taste? That’s what this God bozo is, some kind of invisible thing. Imagine that!” She laughed.
“How do the Nomads feel about God?”
“The Nomads is made up of former Porns and Horns for the most part. Some of ’em believe in the God nonsense, the ones who used to be Horns. The Porns don’t, of course.”
“Of course.”
Bertha fidgeted in her seat. They had climbed into the front seats after Blade departed. She glanced at Joshua. “What are you thinkin’ about?” she asked him.
“What you just told me,” he replied. “I find it incredible that people could exist and not accept the reality of a Supreme Creator.”
“What?”
“I believe in God.”
“You do?” Bertha showed her surprise.
“Yes, I do. As a matter of fact, I was talking to God before you hit me on the arm.”
Bertha appeared startled. She quickly looked around the interior of the SEAL. “You was talkin’ to God?”
“Yes.”
“God’s in here with us, right this minute?” She bent and peered under her bucket seat.
“Of course.”
Bertha sat up, grinning. “You’re jive-talkin’ me, right?”
“I beg your pardon.”
“You’re puttin’ me on, Josh? Aren’t you?”
“No. I’m completely serious.”
“Uh-huh,” Bertha said slowly. “I can’t see no God in this thing. Where is it?”
“Right here.” Joshua reached up with his right hand and touched his forehead.
“What?” Bertha nearly screeched. “You tryin’ to tell old Bertha that God is you?”
“No,” Joshua patiently answered. “I’m simply saying that God is inside of me.”
“Don’t it get kind of crowded in there?” Bertha cackled.
“You don’t believe me?” Joshua asked.
“Do I look like an idiot?”
Joshua smiled. “I’ll try to explain.”
“Please do. I’ve been tryin’ to understand this God business for a long time.”
“God is spirit,” Joshua began, and was promptly interrupted.
“What’s spirit?” Bertha demanded. She placed her elbows on her knees and rested her chin in her hands.
“Spirit is a level of reality existing on a plane other than the material.”
Bertha made a face. “Can’t you use a language we both can talk in? I don’t understand this at all.”
Joshua sighed. He touched his leg. “This body is called material. It’s part of what’s called physical reality…”
“Cute body too,” Bertha interjected. “Not as pretty as White Meat, but cute. You got skinny legs, though.”
“How am I supposed to tell you about God,” Joshua wanted to know, “if you won’t let me finish a sentence?”
“I’m all ears.”
“Okay.”
“I won’t break in again.”
“Okay. Now…”
“I promise.”
Joshua shook his head, grinning, and rolled his eyes skyward.
“You feelin’ sick?” Bertha asked.
“No. Now can we finish our talk about God?”
“You ain’t said nothing yet,” Bertha pointed out.
“I’m trying.”
“Well, don’t let me stop you.”
Joshua mentally counted to ten.
“Any time,” Bertha said eagerly.
“As I was saying,” Joshua continued, “our bodies are called material.
We live in a physical, material world. Everything we see and touch and smell is part of this material world.”
“I got that,” Bertha said proudly.
“There is also another level of reality we can’t see or touch or smell. It’s called the spiritual level, or spiritual world.”
“And where’s it at?”
“Right here. All around us. But we can’t see it.”
“Then how do we know it’s there?”
“By feeling it in our lives.”
“I just don’t get it,” Bertha snapped, annoyed at her own lack of comprehension. “How can we feel it if we can’t even see it?”
“We feel it here.” Joshua touched his forehead again. “When we talk to God, who is spirit, we feel it inside our heads. We can actually feel the presence of God, and the more we talk to God, the more we feel the presence of God.”
“Sometimes,” Bertha said hesitantly, “when I’m all by my lonesome, thinkin’, I do feel something in my head. Could it be God?”
“You need to be talking directly to God to feel God.”
“How do I talk to God?”
“The same way you talk to me.”
“Come again?”
“You talk to God exactly the same way you talk to me,” Joshua explained. “Just remember God is inside your head. The Spirit dwells in every man and woman, every child, on this entire planet. You can talk to the Spirit, but first you must open the door to your mind.”