The Preacher's Marsh Page 10

  “Legion,” he said softly. “They are Legion. Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

  “Let us pray.”

  * * *

  Desdemona wasn’t sure when her daughter disappeared from the trail behind her. She watched her son. His steps were clumsy and plodding. He stumbled, and his strength was fading. She knew the state of his mind, and her blood boiled at the way his spirit had been taken, and bent, and broken. She had to take care of him. She didn’t know the exact moment that her daughter disappeared…but she'd expected it.

  She didn’t look back. She could do only so much. Her daughter was strong willed and had a touch of the same sight and abilities that she herself had been gifted, or cursed with. There was no controlling the girl, but she might save her boy. She knew that she might never see her husband again, but she had her son, and he was a part of the man she loved that she could protect. The rest had been lost to her the moment he’d decided to live near the swamp – it had just taken longer than she expected.

  The boy barely knew he was alive. She saw expressions flit across his face, saw him shift emotions so rapidly his features rippled. She had to find a way to bring the light back to his eyes, those eyes so like his father's.

  * * *

  Desi watched her mother, and her brother, fading into the shadows. She hung back, not hurrying into the shadows, or turning from the path – just stopping until they passed on and left her. When she could no longer see or hear them moving off ahead of her, she turned and ran swiftly and silently back toward her home, the man she loved, and toward her father's church.

  EIGHT

  When they finally came, they came fast. Several men on horseback led the way. They carried farm tools – scythes, rakes, shovels, and they swung them like clubs, crashing through the trees and running down anyone and anything that got in their way. Isaiah Pope was there, seated high on the grandson of the horse he’d been on the day he nearly ran Gideon down in the cotton field. His eyes were black pits.

  Bart was on foot. No one followed him too closely, or let him stagger too far in their direction, because he screamed like a man possessed and swung an axe back and forth in a massive figure eight motion. Those in his path moved out of the way easily but he was relentless, and he knew where he was going. They all knew. He cut a swath through the brush, notching trees and remaining upright by some demonic act of will.

  Something inside him had snapped. He was drunk, but it didn’t account for the manic, crazed way he stumbled forward, or for the screams. Isaiah remained silent, but he spurred his mount ahead with purpose. He didn’t know if he’d ever have his brother back – at least the brother he knew. He didn’t know the screaming madman following in his wake, and he didn’t even trust that if he got too close, Bart wouldn’t cut him down as readily as anyone, or anything else.

  He knew what he had to do. He saw the preacher’s face, the way he’d crawled off and into the cotton that long ago day. He knew he should have followed through. He should have done something that day, or soon after. He should have forced the nigger-loving preacher out of his woods and let things stay the way they’d always been.

  Things had changed. The new sheriff didn’t have the nerve to run things the way they should be run, and even Isaiah’s wife, Jenny, had started to act as though there might not be any difference between the colored cotton pickers and her own people. It wasn’t the same world as it had been when he’d first met Reverend Gideon Swayne, and now he believed that if he’d acted sooner, things might have been different. It still would have changed, but maybe not so soon. Maybe not until Isaiah himself was older and out of the picture. Maybe he and Bart would be sitting and swigging beer on the porch instead of out here taking care of a problem that never should have happened.

  Ahead the clearing with the church flickered and glowed. It was so bright it looked as though it might be on fire, but he knew it wasn’t. He knew they were waiting there, all of them. He sensed their presence and felt them flitting from tree to tree just out of site.

  He wasn’t alone. His brothers were with him, Bart and Bart’s eldest son, Enoch. The boy was only fourteen, but he was tall for his age, and very serious. Isaiah hadn’t wanted the boy with them, but Bart had dragged him bodily from the house and pushed him into the field. There were others.

  Men and boys from town had begun arriving as soon as word spread about the beating. The nigger boy thought he was slick, but a lot of folks had seen him on his walk to and from Old Mill. No one liked that they came to town, and even less that they felt they could come in alone, during the day, when the men were out working the fields and mostly women and young children were left behind. It was wrong, and it was cowardly, and it made Isaiah’s blood boil.

  Bob and Fred Winslow were with them, the Fearing boys from across town, and half a dozen of the Bucks. There were a couple of field hands down from the Smoky Mountains for the picking season, hill people without much more social status than the nigger workers – but they were white, and they were big. The closer he came to the brightly burning candles and the church, the more he was glad to have them along.

  Voices cried out now. They’d been spotted, and word was spreading like a wildfire back into the trees. He heard them crashing ahead of him and he spurred his horse forward. On his left he caught sight of an old man, limping slightly and falling behind those running to the church. Just at that moment he heard Bart. The boy screamed and it sounded like a wild animal, or a demon. Isaiah joined his voice to that sound and goaded his mount to higher speed.

  The old nigger swerved once, and then stumbled, and in that instant, Isaiah was on him. He swung the scythe he carried in a quick arc without thinking. It caught the man in the center of the back. He felt the blade bite, and the man went down with a horrible scream. Isaiah yanked the blade free and rode on, bellowing with rage. His horse shied at the scent of blood, and he nearly went down, but somehow he clung to the animal, clenching his knees and ducking low over the mane. He shot through the last few yards into the clearing and pulled up hard.

  “Gideon Swayne,” he cried.

  Faces swam before his eyes. He saw men and women staring out from the doorway of the church. He saw the pews stretching up toward the altar in the front of the building. The doors were open wide, and he saw Gideon Swayne, as well. The man stood, ignoring everything around him. His head was bowed. His hands were clasped before him, and Isaiah knew that if he were close enough he’d hear the man praying. Praying!

  Someone to his left screamed, and he heard a wet smack, but he didn’t turn. Bart stepped into the clearing and squared off, as if he might charge the wall of the church and crash straight through to the other side. Isaiah watched his brother for a moment, mesmerized. Bart held the axe easily in one hand. He’d slipped somewhere beyond his pain, and beyond the whiskey he’d been guzzling only a short time before into some other place. The axe blade dripped blood, but it was black in the candlelight, and Bart was half cloaked in shadow.

  Isaiah glanced down at the scythe he still gripped so tightly the knuckles on his left hand were white. The blade was black. He couldn’t see if it dripped, but he knew that somewhere behind him a man lay in the dirt, wounded and maybe dead, a hole the size and shape of that blade in his back.

  In the church, Reverend Swayne raised his head and stared straight out the doorway at Isaiah. He opened his mouth, and he spoke a single word. It didn’t carry, but the men and women gathered before Gideon echoed it, sending it rumbling out like a wave of sound, gaining power and volume as it came.

  “Amen.”

  It was too much for Bart. He broke and ran at the doorway. The axe swung up in a glittering arc, and suddenly something inside Isaiah snapped. Something in his stomach lurched, nearly unseating him, but he drove his knees into the horse’s flanks. It screamed in sudden pain, and reared, then plunged ahead. Isaiah flung the scythe away and clutched the reins, rushing toward his brother, even as the wetly glittering
blade of the axe whipped forward into the wall of the church. It bit deep, splitting one of the old planks and splintering the flame behind.

  Inside, a woman screamed, and Isaiah saw the congregation rushing away from the door, away from the wall, where Bart drew back and swung again. Isaiah was nearly on his brother when the blade whizzed forward and broke through the wall. Wood rained on those too slow to move away from the wall.

  Isaiah dropped to the ground and grabbed Bart by the shoulder.

  “Bart,” he cried out, trying to get a grip with his other hand as well. “Bart, stop. It’s enough. Come away.”

  Bart turned, or at least, the man he held by the shoulder turned. There was no intelligence in the gaze, only rage. The axe rose again, and Isaiah shied away, stepping back. “Bart…”

  The axe flashed forward again and bit into the frame of the door. Reverend Swayne was walking very slowly down the aisle toward them. His face was calm – serene, even – and his steps were measured. All around him his people squirmed and fought to get clear of the door and the wall Bart had attacked. Others swept up behind Isaiah and he turned, uncertain who to call out to, or what to say. The Fearings had shovels and they stepped through the door, shoulder to shoulder. There were three of them, dark haired and stout. Their eyes glittered, and they paid no attention to the madman on their right, swinging wildly at the frame of the church. It shook with each blow, but showed no signs of falling.

  There were too many people inside for them to stay out of range. They split and Gideon strode through them like Moses. The Fearings didn’t back down, they spread out, one on either side of the door, and the biggest, Ed Fearing, standing his ground in the center aisle. Isaiah backed away as more and more of his friends and neighbors poured from the woods and into the clearing. Some joined Bart, attacking the walls so that the frame of the building shook. Others tried to push their way in behind the Fearings, and still others moved around to the sides, guarding the windows and watching for anyone who might try to slip away.

  “Give us the boy,” Isaiah cried suddenly. “Reverend, give us that boy, or I won’t be able to hold them.”

  There was no way he could hold them, with or without the boy, but Isaiah believed he might call them off – that he might prevent the thing happening before him if he could just focus them on the boy. The reason they’d come. None of them remembered now. None of them cared. He knew them all, but in that moment he didn’t recognize anyone. No one, that is, but Reverend Gideon Swayne, who still walked slowly toward the door as if he feared nothing from the shovels and the axes, as if the power of his God were really running through his veins and would sustain him.

  “Yeah,” Gideon called out, “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”

  Bart let out a scream. He swung the axe with the full strength of his broad shoulders. He bent his back into the blow and whipped the blade forward. The entire building shivered as the sharp steel bit deep.

  “I will fear no evil,” Gideon cried, holding his hands out and up, like some old world prophet.

  Isaiah stared Gideon, then past him. He opened his mouth, and then closed it, unable to force enough breath from his lungs to form words. Unable to breathe at all as he backed away. He raised his hand, and he pointed into the church, but no one understood. They saw him back away, and they saw Gideon step into the doorway, his eyes open very wide, brows furrowed like some angry, ancient God. The Fearings had stepped aside as he approached, but they moved in behind him. All eyes followed his steps. All eyes but Isaiah’s.

  He backed another step, gulped air, and finally managed to scream.

  “Fire!”

  The candle light flickered, just as it had, but brighter. Gideon turned back, startled, but as he did so Ed Fearing stepped forward and shoved him. Gideon spun out the door, arms flailing. He tried to catch himself on the frame of the door, and failed.

  Isaiah moved forward to catch him. The Fearings followed the preacher out the door, and seeing Isaiah reach for Gideon, surged forward to help. They believed Isaiah was going to claim the man for himself, and they wanted to be part of it.

  “God damn it,” Isaiah screamed at them. He stepped aside and let Gideon stagger back and fall, preventing the others from reaching him. “Turn around! The church is on fire!”

  As if cued by his words, screams broke out from inside the building. The candles that had lined the window sills and ledges had tipped and fallen. Bart’s repeated blows shook the structure and more candles fell. Those inside tried to stop it. They picked the burning sticks of wax up, flinging them at the windows and doors. Someone broke out the glass on the right side of the building, but grinning faces greeted them. Shovels and rakes slammed into the window frames, beating those inside back into the interior. The hot wax from the candles splashed those outside and enraged them.

  Isaiah saw a woman stagger into the aisle. Her hair was on fire and it framed her face in orange flame. She screamed and stumbled toward the door, catching herself once on a pew. Someone grabbed her from behind, and pushed her down, as if they might roll her over or put out the flame, but where she fell, wax had pooled and burned, and she dropped into the blaze.

  Screams echoed from the rickety rafters and the fire raged suddenly out of control. Someone inside broke and ran, diving through the window. His shirt was on fire, and the men outside cried out and fell back. More followed, coming out like rats off a ship, but too many were trapped. Too many burned, and Isaiah could only stand and watch.

  Gideon regained his feet. He stared into the door, hesitated for only a moment, and then ran and dove back through. He grabbed the woman and lifted her, his arms searing and his shirt bursting into flame. He lifted her and shoved her toward the door, then he turned, and he disappeared into smoke and fire. Isaiah stood watching, and in that moment, Bart gave a hideous final scream. He swung the axe with all the maddened, crazed strength of his broken mind and it severed the corner support of the building. The roof caved in, dropping inward in a glowing, blazing avalanche of death.

  Isaiah turned then. He saw his horse, shying away and nosing its way out of the clearing, and he ran to it. Without thought, without looking back, he swung up onto the animal’s back. Amid screams and the roar of flames, he dug his knees into the horse's side, leaned close over its neck, and closed his eyes as it tore off through the trees, praying it wouldn’t brush him off on a solid trunk.

  Behind him he heard another roar join that of the flames. His brother was laughing, screaming his challenge to the night and laughing in the face of fire and death. The flames and smoke rose to blot out the sky.

  * * *

  Desi moved as quickly and quietly as a shadow through the swamp. She had learned from her mother, and she had learned from the trees, and the bushes, the slimy water, and the smooth, bleached white bones she carried at her waist. Her father had taught her as well; his strength and inner peace was the anchor of her world, but from a very young age she’d known there was something more. Her mother confirmed it, and though they kept it as quiet as they could around her father, it wasn’t long before some of the others began coming to her when they might have gone to her mother. She helped when she could, and she kept her visions to herself – except around Elijah.

  When her father ordered her from the church, she’d felt as if something vital had been removed from her heart. When she walked away, she didn’t look back, because she felt his eyes – not her father’s but Elijah’s, burning into her back. A thin, golden thread bound the two of them at all times – something she sensed, and sometimes could even see, when they were alone, and there was no light. As she moved away, it stretched, growing thinner and thinner. When she stopped and turned back, it was just at the point she felt it would snap. The thought of that terrified her – and she knew that if it snapped for her, the pain would be as great for Elijah. She might have sacrificed herself to that pain to help her brother, but she couldn’t sacrifice the man she loved. She knew her father would understand, a
nd she knew her mother had already done so.

  She passed from the damp ground near the marsh that skirted the edges of the swamp and onto the trail back through the trees. There was a scent in the air that she didn’t understand, at first. Then, as the smoke curled through the branches of the trees and teased over her skin, she knew. She stopped, stood very still, and tasted the air.

  Blood, and smoke. Pain and death. Then her eyes flew open and she screamed. She ran through the trees, feeling branches whip and slash her cheeks and arms, but she ignored it. She banged off the trunk of a tree, staggered, and continued, oblivious. The image of his eyes, wide and filled with pain and terror filled her mind, and she was unable to shake it. She ran, and she screamed his name, and she forgot her lessons. She forgot her caution. In the distance she saw the glow of the burning church and the rising cloud of smoke. They grabbed her a quarter of a mile from the church.

  Jared and Zachariah Buck had hung back when the others assaulted the church. There wasn’t any good way to join in without another axe, and when the screams started and Bart Pope let loose with a laugh that reminded them both of one of the demons old Reverend Cumby preached about on Sundays, they hung back. That laugh was too loud, and it didn’t sound right. In fact, it didn’t sound like Bart was ever going to be anything approaching “right” again. Men and women and children were dying in that church, and the boys figured it was time to become scarce, before someone managed to reach town for help.

  Enoch Pope was with them. He was wide-eyed and half crazy himself with fear. His father and his uncle were at the church, but there was no way the boy was going near there. His eyes were too wide, and his lips kept parting, then closing, as if he had something to say, or scream, and couldn’t scrape it off his tongue.

  They retreated, and in doing so, they stood directly in Desi’s path as she ran, screaming through the night, toward the church. She was on them before she realized it, and Jared grabbed her in a quick bear hug, stopping her flight. He was a big man, strong and quick, and he lifted her off the ground easily, though she thrashed and continued to scream.