Alex Scarrow - October skies

Rose stifled a whimper as he said that.

You can.

Cooke stirred drowsily on the floor.

Hurry now. The man is waking up.

This can’t be what God wants of me.

Yes it is. He wants them dead. He wants you to lead the world to Him. And I’m here to help you.

‘No, I’m not sure…’

Yes! God sent me to you. Now do it!

If He wants them dead, then let Him do it.

The voice was silent.

Cooke opened his eyes blearily and moaned. He squinted drunkenly at Shepherd. ‘Where’s m’ glasses?’ he mumbled with a thick, clogged voice.

‘Julian,’ hissed Rose quietly, keeping her eyes warily on Shepherd. ‘Shh, just be still, Jules.’

William Shepherd turned to look down at the tattered canvas sack on the wooden bunk frame to his side. His hand reached for it, feeling the small, infant-sized bones inside through the threadbare cloth.

‘It’s an angel in there,’ he said quietly to Rose and Julian.

‘An angel.’

Rose nodded obediently.

‘We need him,’ he explained in a quiet, abstracted voice.

‘We need him to read the words.’

Julian was still squinting, trying to make sense of what was going on.

‘That’s right,’ whispered Rose encouragingly, ‘we need him.’

Ignore the bitch! Do it!

Shepherd shook his head, a nervous shake that looked more like a tic. No, I can’t. He couldn’t murder two people in cold blood, and in the next moment turn to the holiest relic in the world and paw at it with his bloodied hands. That couldn’t be what God would want, that couldn’t be Do it!

He raised the gun from his lap, slowly, heavily.

‘Shepherd!’ cried out Julian. ‘Stop! I got a signal earlier… I got a signal!’

Shepherd hesitated.

‘I made a call!’

He held the gun on Cooke.

‘I made a call, Shepherd! It’s going to be enough to sink you,’ said Julian. ‘It’s enough information to have the press sniffing around you.’ He lowered his voice, making it sound as reasoned and calm as he could. ‘That’s enough to fuck your campaign up. It’s over.’

Do it!

Shepherd’s finger slid onto the trigger.

‘Wait!’ cried Julian, raising his hands. ‘Listen!’

The gun remained on him, Shepherd’s finger trembling on the trigger.

‘Listen… the point is… you haven’t killed anyone, have you? It was Barns who did it. Not you. We saw that.’

The voice fell silent in his head.

‘What happened with Grace… yes, that’s going to look bad, I know. But… but, you’re not guilty of murder. Barns is,’ said Julian. ‘Do you understand? Lower the gun. Rose and I — we can still help you.’

Shepherd stared silently at him, the gun still aimed, but wavering.

‘I know you’re a good man,’ Julian whispered. ‘I know you just want to spread God’s word,’ he said shooting a curious glance at the linen and tattered canvas bags on the bunk and managing to force a smile through the jagged pain in his leg. ‘That’s a noble thing. This story… what happened out here in the past… is the past. It’s just that. You’re not Preston. You’re not evil. I know that.’

Shepherd’s hand was shaking. ‘Who did you call?’

‘I won’t tell you,’ said Julian, struggling to keep his voice even. ‘You know that would be very stupid of me.’

‘What did you say?’

‘Enough.’

‘What did you say?’

‘Enough to make you look too… unstable to elect.’

Shepherd bit his lip angrily. The muzzle of the gun twitched and trembled erratically. ‘Fuck you!’ he snarled. ‘FUCK YOU!’

‘But… it’s not murder! Shepherd, listen! I’ve damaged your reputation, okay? Forget about the White House — it’s over. I had to make the call. But look, you’re not guilty of murder. Not yet.’

Shepherd’s eyes flicked from the gun down to the sack of bones beside him. ‘You don’t know what you’ve done,’ he hissed angrily.

This man has ruined you?

Shepherd winced at the voice.

‘If you lower the gun,’ said Julian, ‘please… we can still help each other. There’s a story.’ He pointed at the linen sack on the bunk. ‘There’s a message there… we can help each other.’

Rose nodded earnestly. ‘We can help spread your word.’

This man has ruined you?

‘Please.’ Julian slowly held out a hand. ‘Lower the gun… please…’

The gun did feel heavy in his hand now — heavier with each passing second. He lowered the weapon by a fraction. But the voice returned, angry and shrill.

God has no use for you, William.

What?

You’re pathetic.

I’ve given my life to God.

But you are no use to Him now.

Please, let me prove myself to Him.

All right. Kill yourself.

He cocked his head and stared out into the dark, his troubled mind taken aback by the sudden request. A final test of faith, yes… he could understand that. With the most important task in the history of mankind yet to do, yes… it made sense. It made a lot of sense.

‘Okay,’ he whispered and slowly raised the gun.

‘Shepherd?’ cried Julian. ‘What’re you doing?’

He pointed the gun towards his face. ‘You know I’d do this for Him,’ he said quietly. ‘I told you I’d do anything for Him.’ He placed the short stub of the barrel in his mouth, his lips clasped around it dutifully.

You know I would do this, if He asked it of me.

Kill yourself.

Shepherd obediently placed a finger on the trigger and began to gently squeeze.

Do you see? I’d do it if He wanted. I’m prepared to do anything.. to die for the Lord, if He wanted it. Do you see that now?

He knew God had once stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son at the very last possible moment; that the patriarch had to have every intention of killing his own child in order to make evident his fealty. Shepherd knew God would stop him too, but only if he could demonstrate his complete sincerity in this test of faith. Shepherd pushed his promise a little further with another ounce of pressure on the trigger.

I’ll do anything… do you see now? God was right to choose me. God was right to lead me here.

And another ounce of pressure.

Do you see?

And another.

God? Is this really what You want?

The small, delicately balanced trip lever inside Barns’s pistol answered the question prematurely.

27 April, 1857

I am alone now. I finally worked out how to stop the voice in my head. I put him back in the chest with the plates.

But I am alone.

He looked up from the journal on his lap. His measured handwriting contrasted with the deteriorating childlike scrawl of Ben’s on the previous pages. The snow across the camp was melting in the warm light. It was warm enough, in fact, that he sat on a cushion of blankets in the open, with his shirt off, taking some small pleasure from the heat on his pale back.

The snow still remained in deep, slushy piles, but in the places where it had not been so thick, dark muddy patches showed.

There is a smell here in this place that I cannot take any longer, he wrote.

Across the mottled ground of mud and snow, the bodies lay rotting and bloated, both oxen and human. The meat from the beasts had turned too bad to eat.

He saw faces in the dirty slush that were once families he knew; faces that had once had names — Jeremiah Stolheim, Sophia Lester, Aaron Hollander — but were now swollen and purple and anonymous.

The angel killed so many of them. He came back here to this place and killed them all. I tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t listen. He wanted to make an example of them.

Sam’s hand stopped scratching words across the page. There were things sitting before him, in front of the temple, carefully stacked beside the campfire like logs. His eyes momentarily rested on them; grisly things that his hand refused to transcribe on the page.