Simon Toyne - Solomon Creed

Mulcahy could see flames to the west now. A twisting wall of fire curling up from the ground and spreading fast. He could see emergency vehicles, too, which meant at least the cops would be well occupied.

‘Plane!’ Javier shouted, pointing back to where they had just come from.

Mulcahy felt a flutter of hope take flight in his chest. Maybe it was all going to be OK after all. Maybe they could turn the truck around, pick up the package as arranged and have a damn good laugh about it all over some cold beers later. Maybe he would get to keep his nicely squared away, uncomplicated life after all. He took his foot off the gas and twisted in his seat, taking his eyes off the empty road for a few seconds to see what Javier had seen. He saw the bright yellow plane banking in the sky above the airfield and spun round again, stamping down hard on the gas to claw back the speed he had lost.

‘The fuck you doing?’ Javier said, looking at him like he was crazy.

‘That’s not the plane we’re waiting for,’ Mulcahy said, feeling the full weight of the situation settling back on him. ‘And it’s taking off, not landing. It’s a tanker of some sort, probably MAFFS.’

‘MAFFS? The fuck is MAFFS?’

‘They’ve been talking about them on the news ever since this dry spell set in. Stands for Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System. It’s what they use to fight wildfires.’

The chop of propellers shredded the air as the plane flew directly overhead, the sound thudding in Mulcahy’s chest.

Javier slumped back in his seat, a teenager again, shaking his head and sucking his teeth. ‘MAFFS,’ he said, like it was the worst curse word he had ever heard. ‘Tole you, you was some kind of a military motherfucker.’

Solomon’s skin glowed under the lights, the mark on his shoulder standing out vividly against it. It was red and raised and about the length and thickness of a human finger, with thinner lines across the top and bottom making it resemble a capital ‘I’.

‘Looks like a cattle brand,’ Morgan said, leaning forward. ‘Or maybe …’ He left the thought hanging and pulled his phone from his pocket.

Gloria gently probed the skin around the raised welt with gloved fingers. ‘Do you remember how you got this?’

Solomon recalled the intense burning pain he had experienced when the name James Coronado had first appeared in his mind, like hot metal being pressed to his flesh, only he had been wearing his shirt and jacket when it had happened and it had felt like it had come from inside him. ‘No,’ he said, not wishing to share this information with Morgan.

Gloria dabbed the reddened area with an alcohol wipe.

‘You visited our town before, Mr Creed?’ Morgan asked.

Solomon shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘You sure about that?’

‘No.’ He glanced over at Morgan. ‘Why?’

‘Because of that cross you’re wearing round your neck for one thing. Any idea how you came by it?’

Solomon looked down and noticed the cross for the first time, a misshapen thing hanging round his neck from a length of leather. He took it in his hand and felt the weight of it. ‘I don’t recognize it,’ he said, turning it slowly, hoping his scrutiny might shake a memory loose. It was roughly made from old horseshoe nails welded together and twisted at the bottom so the points stuck out at the base. There was a balance and symmetry to it, as though whoever made it had been trying to disguise the precision of its manufacture by constructing it from scrap metal and leaving the finish rough. ‘Why does this make you think I’ve been here before?’

‘Because it’s a replica of the cross standing on the altar of our church. You’re also walking around with a copy of the town’s history in your pocket that appears to have been given to you by someone local.’

Someone local. Someone who might know him and tell him who he was.

‘May I see it?’ Solomon asked.

Morgan studied him like a poker player trying to figure out what kind of hand he was holding, and Solomon felt anger simmering up inside him at his powerlessness. His body started to tense, as if it wanted to spring forward and grab the book from Morgan’s hand. But he knew he was too far away and the nylon bindings were still strapped tight across his legs; he would never be fast enough, and even if he was Gloria would react and stick him again with whatever she had knocked him out with the first time – propofol most likely, considering how quickly he had recovered from it –

… Propofol … how did he know this stuff?

How did all this information come to him so easily and yet he could remember nothing of himself?

I have an ‘I’ burnt into my skin and yet I have no idea who ‘I’ am.

He breathed, deep and slow.

Answers. That was what he craved, more even than an outlet for his anger. Answers would soothe his rage and bring some order to the chaos swirling inside him. Answers he was sure must be contained in the book Morgan held in his hand.

Morgan glanced down at it, deciding whether to hand it over or not. He chose not to. He held it up instead and turned it round for Solomon to see. It was opened at a dedication page, something designed to encourage people to gift the book.

A GIFT OF AMERICAN HISTORY

– it said –

TO – Solomon Creed

FROM – James Coronado

Pain flared in his arm when he read the name and again he felt what he had experienced back on the road, a feeling of duty towards this man he couldn’t remember but who apparently knew him well enough to have given him this book.

‘You have any idea how you might know Jim?’ Morgan asked.

Jim not James – Morgan knew him, he was here. ‘I think I’m here because of him,’ Solomon replied, and felt a new emotion start to take shape inside him.

The fire was here because of him

But he was here because of James Coronado.

Morgan tipped his head to one side. ‘How so?’

Solomon stared out of the rear window at the distant fire. A yellow plane was flying low across the blue sky. It reached the eastern edge of the fire and a cloud of vivid red vapour spewed from its tail, streaking across the black smoke and sinking to the ground. It sputtered out before it had covered half of the fire line. Not enough. Not nearly enough. The fire was still coming, towards him, towards the town, towards everyone in it. A threat. A huge, burning threat. Destructive. Purifying. Just like he was. And there was his answer.

‘I think I’m here to save him,’ he said, turning back to Morgan, certain that this was right. ‘I’m here to save James Coronado.’

A shadow flitted across Morgan’s face and he stared at Solomon with an expression that could not mean anything good. ‘James Coronado is dead,’ he said flatly, and looked up and out through the side window towards the mountains rising behind the town. ‘We buried him this morning.’

‘What lies behind and

what lies before are tiny matters

compared to what lies within.’

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Extract from

RICHES AND REDEMPTION

THE MAKING OF A TOWN

The published memoir of

the Reverend Jack ‘King’ Cassidy,

Founder and first citizen of the city of Redemption, Az.

(b. DECEMBER 25, 1841, d. DECEMBER 24, 1927)