Bradley Denton - Blackburn

"Oh, generation of vipers!" the long-haired man shouted, shaking a finger toward the sound of the departing car. "Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Me, that's who!"

Blackburn was perturbed. He stood, sure that he was covered with ticks again, and stepped back into the clearing.

"Hey, you!" he said. "You're Morton, right?"

The long-haired man froze, his finger still raised. Then his head swiveled, and he stared at Blackburn.

"My child," he said. His voice was hoarse.

Blackburn raised the Python and shook it as the longhaired man had shaken his finger. "You may have just ruined my chances for getting out of here alive. I'd kill you, but killing crazy people is bad luck."

The long-haired man turned so that his finger pointed at Blackburn. "I am the good shepherd," he said, "and know my sheep, and am known of mine. Thou knowest I am the Morton. Thou art mine." He lowered his hand and scratched his crotch. "As for killing me, go ahead. That's what I'm here for. But if ye seek to be set free-" He turned and shuffled toward the trees from which he had emerged. "Follow me."

Blackburn considered. Insane or not, Morton had managed to escape from a state hospital, and so far he had avoided capture for three days. Blackburn followed him into the forest.

Morton was fast, and Blackburn had trouble keeping up. Sometimes Morton vanished, then reappeared farther away, a will o' the wisp in a hospital gown. Blackburn scraped his elbows on tree trunks, and tripped and fell twice. The forest seemed endless, and Morton flitted through it as if he were composed not of flesh, but of white gases that could pass through tree trunks as easily as through air.

At last, when Blackburn was sweating and his lungs had been aching for what seemed like hours, Morton stopped in a clearing. Blackburn collapsed a few yards away from him, breathing hard, not caring about ticks. After a minute or two he was able to sit up and saw that Morton had made a small pile of sticks on a strip of bare earth. Morton was sitting cross-legged before the sticks and setting them on fire with a butane lighter. When the fire was burning well, Morton tossed the lighter over his shoulder. It landed behind him with a clink.

"Isn't it warm enough already?" Blackburn asked, rising to a crouch and moving closer. He saw now that Morton was wearing dirty high-topped sneakers with cracked soles and no shoelaces.

"Be willing for a season to rejoice in a burning and shining light," Morton said. He leaned over the blaze and grinned. "Fire good," he said.

Blackburn sat down across the fire from Morton and laid the Python beside him. "You said you'd set me free," he said, "and for me that means getting out of Texas. You don't happen to have a car, do you?"

Morton shrugged. "I am the way, the truth, and the life, but I got no wheels."

"So how do I get out of here?" Blackburn asked. "I'm lost."

"Yea, the son of Stan is come to save that which was lost," Morton said. "No man cometh unto the fat herd, but by me."

"What's that mean?"

"Hang out with me until the old farts come from town for their picnics tomorrow," Morton said. "Then you can snag a Buick and take a journey into a far country. But waste not your substance with riotous living unless your old man is a soft touch. Fatted calves don't grow on trees."

Blackburn decided that, at its core, Morton's plan made sense. His only alternative was to take off through the woods on foot again, and that would get him nowhere. He had no idea where the nearest road might be or what he would do even if he found it. He might as well consider himself settled in for the night.

"Speaking of fatted calves," he said, "I'm hungry. I had some bread and cheese, but I left it beside a tree. Do you have anything?"

"I have food for the spirit, my son," Morton said.

"Anything else?"

Morton reached behind his back and produced a small foil-covered box. "A few Cracker Jacks," he said. He held the box out to Blackburn. "Take, eat; this is my body."

Blackburn accepted the box and shook some of the contents into his mouth. He had to chew for a long time before swallowing. "You're a little stale," he said.

"Watch your mouth. Know that I am indeed the Morton, the Savior of the world."

Blackburn took another mouthful of Cracker Jacks. "No fooling?"

"I shit you not," Morton said. "For lo, Stan went up from Indiana, out of the city of Goshen, into Pennsylvania, unto the city of Bethlehem. And there Bernice his espoused wife, being great with child, brought forth her firstborn son and did call him Morton, saying, This city doth reek with the fumes of many mills of steel, and it is not meet that a child of decent people should be brought up in a stinking cesspool. So Stan took the young child and his mother, and turned aside into the parts of Kentucky; and he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, population seven hundred. But lo, there was no labor for Stan in the parts of Kentucky thereabouts, and he didst drink of the fruit of the vine and clobber his wife and child when they didst cry out for meat. And behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth to Stan in a dream, saying, Arise, and dump yonder bitch and brat. For what dost thou need this crap? And verily, Stan did arise, and gat himself the hell out of Dodge."

"You were better off without him," Blackburn said.

"Tell me about it," Morton said. He reached behind his back again and produced a quart bottle of orange Gatorade. He held it out to Blackburn. "Drink ye all of it, for this is the blood of Morton of Nazareth, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." His eyes narrowed. "You do have sins, don't you? I don't want to waste this stuff. We're talking blood here."

Blackburn was thirsty, so he took the bottle. "I only have one sin," he said, "but it's a big one. A woman was raped because I didn't do anything to stop it." He shook the bottle, took off the cap, and drank. The Gatorade was warm and salty. He drank half the bottle in seven gulps, then lowered it and caught his breath.

"I said all of it," Morton said. "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. So chugalug." He clapped his hands and chanted. "Chugalug, chugalug, chugalug."

Blackburn chugalugged, draining the bottle. Then he belched.

"Attaboy," Morton said. "Now, if thou wilt confess thy sins unto me and accept me as thy Savior, thou wilt be born again of water and of the Spirit and dwell in Paradise, a small town in Utah."

Blackburn dropped the bottle, and it clanked against the Python. He saw then that the Python's muzzle was clogged with mulch from his falls in the woods, so he picked up the pistol and removed its cartridge cylinder. "I told you, I only have one sin," he said, pulling a weed and running it into the Python's barrel. "And the woman I committed it against has already absolved me, so I don't need to be born again."

Morton sat up straighter and glared. "Unless she has written permission, she can't absolve squat. And even if she does, you still need a Savior."

Blackburn continued cleaning the Python. "I don't think so. I was willing to accept a Savior when I was a kid, but everyone who tried to sell me one turned out to be peddling snake oil."

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh," Morton said, "and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. They were false prophets; I'm the real McCoy."

"The Christians say that Jesus is."

Morton snorted. "Yea, but if Jesus had to die for Christians to be saved, and Jews killed Him, then shouldn't Christians be kissing Jews on the backside at high noon instead of burying them in shallow graves at midnight? Hear then my condemnation: That light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light. Verily, a new, improved Savior with superior night vision is required."