Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) (19 page)

“Tell us! Tell us!”

“
Wid
dese!” roared Cain
. He held the
corn shuck figures
draped in rags scavenged from local clotheslines.
“
Wid
dese!”

Cain bent and twisted the limbs of the figures into contortions no real limbs of flesh and blood could assume.

“
Dey
at yo’ mercy, my peoples! Go! Go and reap de harvest I done sown for you!”

The people raced out into the night
to the
outlying farms of the white farmers.
When they arrived
at their destinations, they watched in wonder while the white oppressors rolled and writhed in agony, limbs contorted and broken, blood spilling onto the floors.

Cain appeared, moving his way through the crowd.

“I say reap de harvest, my peoples!
Reap yo’ harvest!
”

T
hey poured through the houses, using handy knives, heavy furniture, their bare hands.
Torches flew through the air and a great and terrible burning filled the night.
When morning came, Tonka Creek held only black and smoldering remains and a confused and baffled group of Negroes.
They looked around in wonderment, bewil
d
ered at the smoking carnage. Their nerve ends screamed as the residues of Cain’s
c
ommunion offerings slowly
dis
sipated form their systems.

“My, my,”
Cain
mused
, as he
put as many miles as possible between him and the great wonders he’d
wrought. His pockets were stuffed with all the ready cash he could carry, scavenged from the houses of blacks and whites alike.

“Ain’t dey
go
an
be hurting when
dey
figures out
de
y can’t make dat stuff by demselves!”

A trace of the mad cackle of his bayou professor
echoed in his laughter. “D
ey need some when de white folkses come into town from Twin City. Yea, Lord,
dey
need some den!”
He regretted he wouldn’t be around to watch the hangings.

Chapter
Twenty

In the days that followed,
tension hung heavy over the
middle Mississippi flatlands
.
The
whites started at every footfall, expecting a bloodbath
around every corner.
The blacks walked
in
terror,
afraid some
innocent action would be misinterpreted
and
bring white vengeance down
around
their heads.
And while the Mississippi flatlands trembled,
the instrument of Tonka Creek’s destruction
passed over the Mississippi border
into Alabama
.

Cain
thought hard on how to obtain the best bang from the lessons
learned
during
the seven months he
’d
spent in Tonka Creek.
Appearances were everything.
Folks were fascinated by mysteries.
So how to make himself even more mysterious? He remembered the
great and glowing colors
that bloomed in the wake of his homemade potions. Colors had power.
Numbers had power, too. Like seven. He’d waited seven long years for deliverance from the cane fields of that Louisiana prison camp.
Cane fields. Damn,
that was funny just by itself
right there
.
He’d taken Tonka Creek in seven months.
In his ears, h
is
mad bayou professor ask
ed over and over
,
b
e you de se
bbenth
son of a se
bbenth
son, boy
?

He
walked up to a
little backwoods Alabama black
c
hurch
.
Seven Cedars Baptist. It stood right outside Seven Cedars, Alabama. He laughed.
Be you de se
bbenth
son of a se
bbenth
son, boy?
Well, maybe he
was, maybe he wasn’t. Sounded good, though.
He went inside to join the ongoing service.
Within a month, he’d collected a group of ten or so of
the bla
ck community’s finest young men. He
met with them down by the banks of Seven Cedar Creek.

“My name be Cain,” he announced. “An’ my color be se
bben
.”

* * *

Reverend Jackson Dennard
was a pain in Cain’s posterior that had to go
.
Brother Dennard kept a weather eye out on t
he congregation of Seven Cedars. He
bounc
ed
jauntily in and out of his flock’s homes in his spare time, a habit Cain found most annoying.
Within a few weeks,
Reverend Dennard found himself gripped
with a
low
and
unrelenting fever
.
It wasn’t bad enough to
drop him in his tracks,
but it tired him out.
He spent his spare time in bed, attempting to fight off the low heat turning his bones to ground glass.

Reverend Dennard unwillingly became the first permanent member of Cain’s entourage.
His
flock
dis
membered him in the circle of oak trees down in the deep woods behind his
c
hurch, Cain’s first human sacrifice.
An exhilarating experience that Cain promised himself to repeat whenever possible.
He strung a fine length of chain through the hole he bored in the top
of the meticulously cleaned skull
and hung it from the limb of one of the sweet gum trees standing as outpost for the meeting place.

He didn’t do it often, but this was a special occasion. So Cain
drank from h
is own potions
and
invoked his dark
g
ods
in a special ceremony
.
M
isshapen creatures, bat-like of body and demonic of face, flew out of nowhere, swooping and swirling above
the
c
ongregation.
One
of them
settled on top of Reverend Dennard’s skull and melted itself down over it. An eerie blue light glowed from the bone and red sparked from the eye sockets.

“Our sentry!” roared Cain. “
D
e
dis
believers,
de
y serve us yet, to deliver
dere
warning do any of our enemies draw nigh!”

Seven Cedars fell in seven months. Cain looked back on his work, pausing now and then in his flight to turn and savor the flames flickering behind him. His pockets were full
, his expertise increasing.
Reverend Dennard’s skull rested in his saddlebag.
Sentries were very handy.
In fact, he’d need more.
Bigger things were coming.

* * *

He rode south, towards the Alabama Gulf coast, and nine months later he rode away from the smoldering ruins of Tarper, heading northeast towards the Chattanooga River and the Georgia border.
Three more
skulls join
ed
Reverend Dennard’s in
his saddlebags, on
e to face each direction. Two of these belonged to white men who’d dared walk among shadows where white men weren’t meant to walk.

He stopped briefly in a valley on the Al
abama-Georgia border. He consid
ered briefly and regretfully shook his head. Too close.
He needed to go much further into Georgia, into the interior.
Did he want another small town, a mid-sized target, a small city?

He s
hrugged.
What the hell?
He wand
ered into a general store and asked for a map of Georgia. He closed his eyes and placed his finger on the map
. W
hen he opened them, h
is fing
er
was
almost squarely in the center of the state.

“Suh!”
Cain motioned the store clerk over.
Reading wasn’t one of the subjects studied with the mad bayou professor.
“Whut dis town be?”

“Macon,” the clerk advised.

Macon. Cain frowned.
One of the larger cities in the state.
Centrally located.
A railroad depot of considerable traffic. Was he ready?
For something that big? But hell, it was a rich little city. There’d be many Negro servants serving many well-to-do white families, large farms spreading out from the city limits. And the Ocmulgee River. Cain was very partial to creeks and rivers.

He laughed. Oh, why not? Why the hell not?

He rode out of that Alabama valley astride the finest horse he’d ever ridden. He turned his face east.
In early February, 1888, he rode into Macon, Georgia. He spent several days touring, passing the time of day with the Negro inhabitants, and before the week was out, he knew where he needed to be on Sabbath next. St. Barnabas.

It wouldn’t be easy, but it was doable. And he needed a challenge, challenges kept folks on their toes.
Of course, Reverend Gorley
, he was a big problem.
Reverend Gorley was much better educated
than the unfortunate Reverend Dennard.
Had a whole lot of personal charisma himself, too.
But it could be done. Oh, yes, it could be done.

* * *

Cain moved slower in Macon.
Bigger town, more sophisticated audience.
He ha
dn’t even held
one of his special Communions yet.
So far, n
othing
had gone on at the river meetings that couldn’t
take place
in full
public view
. Reverend Gorley’d been having headaches from hell,
but t
hat was the extent of Cain’s preparations so far.
But tonight he’d brought some of those wafers and drinks his prior
c
ongregations loved so much.
Time to step things up a notch or three.

Joshua’s friend
s
settled him down beside them in the semi-circle gathered around the campfire. Cain strode to the center of the group and took the stage.
His eyes checked the attendants.
Three newcomers. Good, that was good. Slow and steady. The summer was young.

“My brothers
and sisters
,” he began. “I be pleased to see y’all tonight, out in de beauty of God’s world, not all cramped up and hid from his sight in de walls of de
c
hurch. Now y’all knows how I value de
c
hurch, but
surely He loves
to hear our voices raised in praise out in His great and beau
ti
ful world.”

“Amen! Amen!”

“So c
’m
on
!
Raise our voices in praise of His great works!”

The gathering dusk filled with low and melodious voices blending in simple harmony. When the last notes had died away, Cain raised a bottle.

“Christ broke bread with H
is
dis
ciples
. He shared de wine, and ‘fore He went to his Glory, H
e told ‘em,
dis
is my body.
Dis
is my blood.”

“Praise de Lord!”

“An’ we share His body and H
is blood, we do dat to
dis
day, and brothers
and sisters
, we fin
d
such love and happiness here together by
dis riverbank, could der
e be a better place to join with Christ? So, brothers and sisters, it please me greatly do you do dat now, here with me.”

“Praise God!”

The
young people eagerly passed his Communion wine and specially baked wafers down their ranks.
Cain g
rinned as their eyes widened, as the world expanded in their vision, as the great and glowing colors bloomed.
He’d
never get tired of watching this
.
It signaled the beginning of his rule.