The Mauler: Part 5-The Good Word

Hello, all! Sorry for taking so long with this. Things got kind of busy on the non-writing side of life. Anyway, hope you enjoy!

It wasn’t a strange thing to see a wagon train this far out in the Wilds. Travelers were often going west, seeking new land and new life. But these weren’t the average pioneers that Hawthorn usually saw.

The uniform black and white clothing every one of them wore, from the oldest, crotchety fogy to the youngest rascal, gave them away instantly. The Brotherhood of the Ascendant Word. A religious sect that had splintered from another sect that had broken off from another sect that had divorced from another sect that had separated from its father denomination over some petty difference in doctrine that Hawthorn failed to recall. Politics, religious or otherwise, rarely mattered a lick to him anyhow.

But the fire he saw them stoking, and the food they had roasting around the dancing flames, did hook his interest.

“Who goes there?” said one of the Brothers stationed as a lookout, a clean lever-action gripped tightly in his hands.

“A traveler.” Hawthorn said, still partly concealed in the shadow and his eyes gleaming through the night’s shroud.

The Brother, with young but sharp-eyes, looked what he could of Hawthorn over from head to foot. He didn’t seem to buy Hawthorn’s answer.

“You don’t look like any traveler I’ve ever laid eyes upon. And no man with a proper mind would dare be wandering this far out in the Wilds without a horse. Especially at night.”

“I lost my horse.” Hawthorn said, getting rightly a annoyed at the rifle being pointed at him.

“How?”

No point in lyin’. “It was shout out from under me. Now point that rifle someplace else before someone gets hurt.”

“You goin’ to make me?”

Hawthorn stepped into the light. His eyes, green and red, glinted against the reaching firelight, and the bodies of the black snakes glittered like they were garbed in actual scales. “Depends on how stupid you want to be, boy.”

The Brother suddenly looked hesitant. His eyes darted up and down with the speed of a lizard’s as they went to Hawthorn and his surroundings, searching and pleading for any sort of help or advantage. A quiver in his hands unsteadied his grip on the rifle. Then a voice cut the tension. “What’s going on here?”

Another Brother appeared, this time wearing the high and white collar that marked him as a Father. That, and his obvious superiority in age, marked by the fine but handsome lines across his brow and cheeks, and the straight-cut white hair that lay smoothly on his head. With two more armed Brothers behind him, he stepped up to the lookout.

“Brother Thackery, who is this man?” the Father said to the lookout.

“He, uh, uh...”

“Speak! Or have the spirits of the night suddenly pilfered your tongue?”

“H—he claims he’s a traveler, Father.”

The Father turned to Hawthorn. “A traveler? Where in the bright blue blazes is his horse then?”

“Says it got shot out from under him, Father.”

“Shot out from under him?” The Father met Hawthorn’s eyes. There didn’t seem to be the slightest ounce of surprise in them. Just suspicion and distrust, honed and bred by years of experience. “And what’s your name, good sir?”

“Hawthorn, Father.”

“And what’s your intent for visiting our camp?”

“I’m in need of water and food. And a horse.”

“And some good clothes, by the look of it.” The Father said, rubbing his white, solid beard. He turned to the hesitating watchman again, who still had his rifle up and trained on Hawthorn’s scarred chest. “Confound it, Thackery! Lower your weapon! Can’t you see that if he had intended to do you harm, he would’ve done it already? Look at him!” With a hand the Father indicated Hawthorn’s guns and knife, and his physique. But it was more than that, Hawthorn knew.

He didn’t just look like a killer, he felt like a killer. But that hadn’t perturbed the Father.

At last, the watchman lowered his rifle, a bit ashamedly.

“Now, that’s better. And haven’t I taught you that the only being in all realms of existence worthy of man’s fear is none other than his Creator? Why then do you shake and sweat at the sight of him? Have you no faith?” The Brother’s head went even lower.

The Father turned away from him. He then walked up and offered his hand to Hawthorn.

“Father Absalom.”

“Hawthorn.”

“Hawthorn? Surely not the Hawthorn?”

“The one and only.”

The Father gave Hawthorn a long look, then laughed. “Well, how momentous! Let’s get you some food and water, and a nice fire. ‘Treat others as yourself would wish to be treated’ the Good Book says, and as a man of His Will, I am only happy and eager to offer my hand to any lost and lonesome traveler and show His love for all.”

“I ain’t exactly lost or lonesome, but I’m obliged all the same.” Hawthorn said.

The Father laughed and led him into the camp, leaving the watchman to return to his duty and contemplate on his misdeeds.

It was the response that Hawthorn expected. Though a man with his own spiritual convictions and conceptions, he knew well of the statutes and pillars of the Good Faith. And the Brothers of the Ascendant Word, he knew, were only too eager to do the Will of God whenever a chance came about.

Women and men sat around the fires, some playing on guitars and singing hymns of that spoke of God’s infinite love and mercy while they reached upward to the night sky. The children were playing games and laughing, running in circles and chasing another and dancing hand in hand. Last night activities before bedtime, Hawthorn estimated.

All of them were dressed in their bland and formal black and white, singing their songs. Most looked at him warily, from the men to the women to the children, the young to the old. Some of the small boys stopped their games momentarily to give him long stares, while the girls huddled to their wary mothers’ arms.

Father Absalom stopped midstride. “Children, Brothers and Sisters, I bring a guest to share in the warmth and comfort of our fires tonight. His name is Hawthorn, and we are, as dictated by the Holy Word, to treat him as we would want to be treated. Now give kindness and welcome, and let him partake in our meals and mirth, for he is weary and without clothes and nourishment.”

That helped to ease the suspicious tension, but not to eliminate it, as Hawthorn clearly saw.

He took his seat around one of the fires, across from Father Absalom. The others seated gave him looks. Even the guitar player ceased his strumming. The Father scowled slightly. “Come, children, is this a way to treat a guest?”

They nodded their consent and guilt. One of the women took a pot of beans from the fire and offered it to Hawthorn, along with a utensil. He took it kindly. “Thank you, ma’am.” They offered him a plate of salted steak too. He wolfed them down, eager to fill his empty and gnawing stomach. The feeling of being filled with food again made him warm.

The Father spoke. “Sister Sharon, why don’t you get mister Hawthorn a new shirt? The night is cold, and he must be so.”

“Of course, Father.” And away the woman went. Hawthorn watched her leave for a moment and had just turned his gaze back to the fire when one of the boys came up to him. Blonde haired and with his big blue eyes full of wonder and boundless curiosity, he stared at Hawthorn’s tattoos, his scars, his hair, and his eyes. Hawthorn couldn’t resist a smile. “And what might your name be, little one?” he said.

But the boy scrambled away before he gave an answer.

Sister Sharon came back a moment later with a fresh black shirt that Hawthorn eagerly put on and buttoned. “Thanks again.” It felt good being warm.

The Father smiled and turned to the guitar player. “Brother Simon, why have you stopped? Come, start a new tune. A song to keep us out of the cold.”

The player strummed up a new tune, and pretty soon he and a few others were singing “I Saw the Light” with their warbling voices and twanging rhythms reaching up to the stars.

Hawthorn let himself listen to the music, let it go inside him for a moment. There was peace there, with the fires and the happy families.

 

The Father closed his eyes and smiled with music. Without opening his eyes, he spoke to Hawthorn. “Hawthorn, do you believe that there’s a God?”

Hawthorn snorted. “There’d sure as Hell better be. Someone’s got to keep the boat of our existence in this cesspit of a world afloat, or else we would’ve all drowned in our own shit and dirt lifetimes ago.”

The Father opened his eyes and smiled. “A cynical but blunt way of looking at it if I’ve ever heard one. And what do you feel is God’s purpose for you?”

Hawthorn shrugged. “Don’t know. Haven’t put much thought to it.”

“Do you think he has a purpose for you?”

“Doesn’t the Good Book as you call it say He’s got a purpose for everyone?”

“It does. But what’s important here is what you think.”

Hawthorn looked up at the stars. “I ‘spose He does. Maybe I’m doin’ it right now.”

The Father raised an eyebrow. “You think hunting other men down either to kill them or take them to certain death in exchange for money is God’s will for you?”

Hawthorn looked from the stars and finished the last bite of his pork. “I ain’t ever heard Him tell me otherwise.”

The Father laughed again and turned his gaze up toward the stars. “I believe God’s purpose for me was, and still is, to tell and spread the truth. The truth of His power, of His love, His coming judgment.”

Hawthorn said nothing. Matters of the divine rarely concerned him these days.

The Father went on, still staring at the stars. “At first I was fool enough to think that I could achieve my purpose. But I was wrong. No matter how much I’ve tried, how much I’ve struggled, I don’t seem to be any closer. I feel stunted, like I’m running in place.” He sighed. “Then I realized with horror another truth: I am running out of time. My time on this earth is grossly limited, and without enough time I’ll never complete my task. My purpose.” A look of ease slowly came upon his face. He looked at Hawthorn suddenly, with a righteous flame burning in his old blue eyes, and he spoke with unconquerable and zealous conviction. “But God heard my cries. He heard my pleading and He knew my desire to teach His truth. And he gave me a vision, Hawthorn! A vision! And in it, He told me the way. The way I could complete His purpose for me and not ever worry about running out of time ever again!”

Hawthorn’s eyes narrowed. The guitarist had kept playing, even through the Father’s words. He had reached the last verse.

“Must’ve been ‘a hell of a vision, then.” Hawthorn said.

Father Absalom released a laugh for all to hear. “You could say that!” he said, between his guffaws.

Hawthorn smirked and turned to the fire. His eyes strayed away from the flaming light and to the darkness, where he stared at the shadows playing on the white of the sandy earth. The goal still blazed in his head, ever looming, ever waiting, and never leaving. The Mauler was still out there, with Dance and the object.

“Father.”

“Yes?”

“I’m on the hunt for something I’ve lost. A man bein’ hauled by another who ain’t human. Have you seen them in passin’?”

The Father rubbed his beard as he searched his memory. “As a matter of fact I do recall seeing something yesterday morning. They were riding in the far distance against the horizon. I couldn’t see them well enough to discern who or what they were, but they were heading in the direction toward Riddlebrook. That much I am certain.”

Hawthorn mulled that over. Riddlebrook was a nothing town. Like a lot of towns struggling to dig their heels in the harsh freedom of the Wilds. But it was a step closer to Redemption. And by now they were probably gone. Hawthorn had to think of how to catch up to them and fast, before someone else bushwhacked Revik and took Dance.

“Thank you, Father. I’ll be needin’ that horse now.”

The Father’s brow raised in surprise. “But it’s the dead of night! And I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what that means in the Wilds.”

“No. You don’t. But I’m known by another name, Father. And they don’t call me ‘The Man That Never Sleeps’ just for jawin’ privileges.”

The Father smiled widely, showing perfect teeth. “That may be true, but you haven’t even taken the time to have a full meal. And as a host and Man of God, I cannot allow you to leave without that.”

“And I’m sorry for being an ungracious guest, but I must get ridin’. The owls don’t wait for the sun when they go on the hunt. The same goes for me.”

The Father nodded grimly. “I understand.” He turned to one of the Brothers near him. “Brother Lyle, would you be so kind and fetch one of the spare mares from the wagon? I’m sure we could lend one.”

“Yes, Father.” The Brother went off.

Then the Father got to his feet with a canteen in his hands. “At least let me give you this one drink.”

“Much obliged, Father.” And Hawthorn took a good and long swig, letting the cool water wash the parchedness from his throat. “I truly am grateful for giving me your food and hospitality. I hope the cost weren’t too high.”

The Father chuckled. “It wasn’t. But even if it were, as God’s Word reminds us, getting close to His Glory at times requires…” he paused on the last word. “sacrifice.”

It was then that Hawthorn felt the water’s effects take hold of him. Something was wrong with his eyes…things went blurry. “What in Hell…?” he muttered before he fell.

He felt sand against his face. He saw the smiling Father standing over him, before the darkness consumed him.