The Searcher (38 page)

How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to he that is wise.

—
S
OPHOCLES

From the private journal of the Reverend Jack “King” Cassidy

It happened in late morning on the third day of my journey.

I had fallen into a kind of limbo, putting one foot in front of the other over land so flat and unbroken and featureless that it had lulled me into a wakeful sleep where my body kept on walking while my mind drifted like a cloud in a clear sky. So detached was I that the savages were almost upon me before I knew they were even there.

There were three of them, their brown skin shining with animal fat, their heads covered with the skulls and horns of mule deer, making them appear like demons on horseback.

They had moved in on my blind side, my view of their approach blocked by my mule and the large canvas sack it carried on its back. If I had spotted them sooner, I could have slipped my rifle from the saddle and warned them away with a few shots, but if I reached for it now they would be on top of me before I could fire.

A recently slain cour deer lay draped across the neck of the lead horse, two fresh holes in its side and ribbons of red streaming down the horse's flank and dripping onto the decorative tassels stitched along the bridle reins. I was a poor shot at best and the tight group of arrow holes in the dead deer showed that these savages were not.

The savages saw I had spotted them and broke into a gallop. I was frozen where I stood. They would be on me in a moment and there was nothing I could do. This was how it would end. I focused on the tassels jostling with the movement of the lead horse, catching
the sunlight and shining mostly brown or black except for one much paler that made me realize what they were.

They were scalps.

The sight of them conjured up the fear I had felt in the shadow of the burned mission and also in the gully with the long-dead prospectors. It came so fierce and fast that it transformed my fear into something else entirely.

I have often thought that emotions are not linear but circular in shape and that opposites are closer together than we imagine. Thus happiness can switch to melancholy in an instant and laughter to tears. This was what happened to me then. The sight of the swinging scalps turned my fear to rage.

I let go of the reins of my mule and started walking directly toward the savages, reaching behind me for what was slung on my back. Two of the savages raised their bows, long arrows already fitted to the strings, ready to fire, but the sight of the pale Christ surprised them and I was glad to see such a common emotion weaken their stony countenances. I lifted the cross higher, holding it before me like a shield as I continued my advance.

The lead horseman halted at the sight of me and the other two fanned out around him, their bottomless black eyes all fixed upon me. The savage in the center spoke to them, his eyes still on me and the two with bows raised turned and rode away, slinging their bows over their backs as they went.

The remaining savage watched me come closer, the scalps swinging beneath his horse's neck. I could smell him, I was so close, and he smelled of death and blood.

I stopped in front of him and planted the cross into the earth as though I was driving a fence post into the ground to mark a boundary. The savage's pony flinched and reared back a little,
forcing its rider to bring it under control. I could only guess at what savagery this beast had witnessed, this hell mount with blood dripping red down its flank and human skin and hair decorating its bridle, and yet it had been spooked by the figure of Christ.

A shadow seemed to pass across the savage's face and he spat on the ground and uttered a word that sounded like
Sin
or
Shin
, then he kicked the pony's flanks, wheeled around, and took off after the others.

I watched until they melted away to nothing in the shimmering mirror of the heat haze, my arms shaking from gripping the cross. I had faced down evil with only my faith as a weapon—and I had triumphed.

I made it back to Fort Huachuca a day earlier than planned because I no longer skulked my way along, hiding in gullies or keeping to the lower parts of the land. I had no fear of being seen now. Nothing could touch me.

I rode through the gates and straight to the surveyor's office, where I retraced my journey, walking my fingers over lines of terrain it had taken me days to traverse on foot. The place I had reached was not clearly marked on their maps and they had to send for an Indian scout to try and pin down the location of it.

It was strange, seeing a savage wearing the clothes of a civilized man after I had faced his wild, half-naked brethren so recently in the desert. I described my journey to him—the stand of mesquite on the dry river, the twin peaks on a range that curled into a horseshoe of red mountains, and when I mentioned these, the same shadow I had seen pass across the face of the mounted savage crossed his and he pointed to a spot on the map where nothing was marked save for a thin pen line of mountains that petered out to nothing.

“Chidn Chuca,” he said, then stared at me with what could have been fear or suspicion.

I knew Chuca meant “mountain” because Fort Huachuca was named after the Thunder Mountains that rose around it. I asked the scout what “Chidn” meant and his eyes flicked to mine then back down to the map on the table as if he did not want to hold my gaze.

“ ‘Chidn' means spirit,” he said in that flat-toned way the savages have. “ ‘Chidn Chuca' means Spirit Mountain. My people do not go to this place. It is a place of the dead, not the living. It is a bad place.”

I thought about this the whole time they drew up the papers, about why the savage had called me what was probably “Chidn” then ridden away from me in what seemed like fear.

My answer came a few days later when I rode back out with hired men and wagons loaded with equipment to work my claim properly. This was probably the last time I ever felt truly content. My claim was now filed and secure, Sergeant Lyons was in the stockade with charges of murder and treason hanging over him, and I had a church to build and the means with which to build it. My future was secured. My legacy too.

It was near the day's end on the fourth day when the horseshoe of mountains had begun to rise ahead of us that I saw it. It was caught on the trunk of a large saguaro and lay directly on my trail, almost as if it had been put there for me to see, which, thinking about it all now, I suppose it had. I steered my mule toward it and my heart soared when I saw what it was. It was the missing page from the Bible, caught there by some miracle. I halted the mule and slid to the ground, my heart pounding with the joyful prospect of being able to make the Bible whole again and carefully peeled the page away from the spines.

The page had been battered some in its journey across the
wilderness, the surface scoured by sand and grit until the printed words had been all but removed. I turned it in my hand and my heart almost stopped beating in my chest. I wish it had. I wish I had died before ever seeing what was written there. But I did read it, and when I did, the light went out of my life, and I truly understood all that I had lost.

S
OLOMON WOKE TO THE SMELL OF DISINFECTANT AND DISEASE.

He was lying on starched sheets and staring up at the ceiling of a small private room in the hospital. It sounded busy outside in the corridors. He tried to sit up and his head felt like it was about to split in two.

“Take it easy.” Dr. Palmer was standing at the end of his bed, writing some notes on a clipboard. “You banged your head pretty bad.”

“The church,” Solomon said, his voice dry and croaky.

“The church is fine,” Palmer said, hooking the notes back on the foot of his bed and walking around to his side. “The Cassidy residence however . . .” He clicked on a penlight and shone it into Solomon's eyes. “Any double vision? Nausea?”

“No. What happened?”

“They're still trying to figure it out.” He switched the light to his other eye. “The rumor is that the mayor and Chief Morgan were involved in some kind of cartel deal that went wrong. Morgan got himself killed and Cassidy was locked in the church with a bomb. They think he dragged it into the tunnel between the church and his house to deaden the blast. They haven't found him yet, so . . .”

The church was still there. Solomon looked down at his chest. The cross was still there too. And so was the altar.

He glanced over to the door and saw his jacket and shirt folded on a chair next to it.

“Forget it,” Palmer said. “You're not going anywhere. You took a real knock to the skull and you lost a significant amount of blood from that wound on your back. How did you get that, by the way? It looks surgical.”

“No idea,” Solomon said, unwilling to get into it. “Where's Holly?”

“In the next room. What about those bruises and contusions on your wrists—any idea how you came by those?”

“No. Is she okay?”

“She's stable. She lost a lot of blood but she's been transfused. That tourniquet she arrived with probably saved her life. I'm guessing that was you?”

“You need to take extra care of her,” Solomon said.

“We always do.”

“No, I mean extra care. Run an HCG test on her, you'll see.”

Palmer raised an eyebrow. “Really?” He wrote more notes on the clipboard. “You should take care of yourself too.” He hooked the notes back on the end of the bed and headed to the door. “And get some rest. I don't want to find you wandering around the corridors.”

“Don't worry,” Solomon said. “You won't.”

S
OLOMON STEPPED OUT INTO THE MORNING LIGHT AND BREATHED IN THE
cool air.

He stiffly slipped his arms into his jacket and started to walk toward the church, the new dressing on his back feeling tight beneath his shirt. His hands and wrists hurt, and he flexed his fingers as he walked along, trying to work out some of the stiffness. His legs felt shaky too.

“Man, you need to get yourself in shape,” he muttered to himself as he stepped into the shade of the boardwalk and headed along it to the church.

There were trucks and fire crews and out-of-town police vehicles crowded around what was left of the Cassidy residence. The side nearest the church had collapsed entirely, with half rooms exposed as if a giant had smashed his fist down on it. A couch was hanging over the splintered edge of an upper floor and wallpaper fluttered like streamers in the morning breeze.

The church appeared relatively untouched, but as he drew closer he saw that a large crack had spread up the stone wall by the door
like a streak of black lightning, and bright pebbles of glass littered the floor where the stained-glass windows had shattered.

There was a strip of black-and-yellow tape across the door with D
O
N
OT
E
NTER
written across it, but Solomon ignored it and went inside.

The church was deserted, everyone clearly focusing their efforts on the ruin of the Cassidy house, probably still looking for the mayor, hoping they might find him alive, though Solomon doubted they would. Death must have seemed like a preferable option, given what else the mayor would have faced had he lived. The trusts would pass to the church now and there was little to no money coming in from anywhere else as far as he could see. Cassidy might have saved the church, but the town would die anyway, along with his name.

He moved down the aisle past the mannequin that had toppled over and now lay in stiffness staring up at the ceiling. All of the windows on the right-hand side of the church, the side closest to the blast, were broken, the depictions of the various commandments rendered abstract by the pieces that were missing.

Four large black crates were lined up along the aisle but whatever had been inside them had been removed. Solomon sniffed the air as he walked past and smelled the lingering ether of gasoline.

The altar cross lay toppled and dented on its side. Solomon reached the plinth it had stood upon and saw the words revealed on the inlaid stone surface, the exact same design he had seen on the drawings Holly had produced at the campsite.

I

THOU SHALT HAVE

NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME

He ran his finger over the words and probed the
I
and the mark on his arm throbbed in concord, as if it was a living thing anticipating what was about to be revealed.

The recess of the
I
was loose, compacted dust rather than solid stone. Solomon leaned forward and blew on it to clear it and the hole got deeper. He repeated this, working the dust loose with his little finger, then blowing it away, until there was no more left to clear.

He took the key from around his neck and carefully fit it into the slot.

It was a perfect fit.

He twisted it gently, aware that the lock had not been used for almost a hundred years.

It was solid.

He took the key out again and moved over to where a candle lay on the floor, knocked over by the blast. He rubbed the tines of the cross over the waxy surface to lubricate it a little, then moved back to the plinth, spat in the hole, and tried again.

This time it shifted a little, and he wiggled it in the lock, twisting it ever more until something gave and the whole of the inlaid square of stone moved and a line appeared where it met the lip. Solomon pulled it up, using the key as a handle, and revealed what lay beneath.

The niche was filled with a twist of cloth that had yellowed with age and been knotted in several places in the approximation of arms and legs to make a doll. Solomon reached in and lifted it out to reveal a book beneath it. It was as small as a paperback and as thin as a cigarette, its plain black cover tied shut with a long black ribbon that wound around each edge and was secured by a bow in the center, like a solemn Christmas present. There was a folded page trapped near the back of the book, bulging the pages on either side of it.

Solomon carried the book and the linen doll over to a pew, lay the
doll down on the bench beside him, and pulled the frayed end of the bow to open the book. Inside the pages were filled with neat copperplate handwriting that swirled and looped across the page. Solomon turned to the first page and started to read.

I write these words on the twenty-third day of December in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and twenty-seven. Two days from now it will be my birthday. I will be eighty-six years old, or I would be if I were to make it that far . . .

He read quickly, learning the true account of how Jack Cassidy had really survived in the cauldron of the Arizona desert, the sacrifice of Eldridge, the drinking of his blood, and the light in the darkness. And when he reached the end, where Cassidy told of the miracle of finding the missing page of the Bible out in the vast desert, Solomon knew what the loose folded page in the back of the book must be.

He pulled it out and examined it. It was old and yellowed and carried the ghost of printed words upon it. It looked as though it had been roughly scoured with grit to remove the original text, but enough remained for Solomon to see that he was holding the missing page of the Bible. It had been folded in such a way as to form an envelope, and Solomon could feel something inside it, something flat and irregular and solid.

He unfolded the page, being careful not to tear it along the fragile creases, and a sliver of glass fell into his hand, along with a second folded page. He held the glass up to the light, turning it in his hand, and saw that it was a fragment of mirror.

He held it up to his face and caught his breath when he saw, not himself reflected, but a desert at night, vast and empty save for a dark figure standing close by and staring straight at him.

“Hello, Jack,” Solomon whispered.

He turned the triangle of glass in his hand and the reflected landscape shifted, showing him what the land had been like before the town was here. He could see the mountains and the sky, unchanged and timeless, and the
V
in the mountain range, there long before it had served as a background to James Coronado's childhood photographs. And when he turned the glass back to his face, the dark figure of Jack Cassidy had gone and it was only himself reflected. Or was it? There was something different about his eyes. They were darker now, a deep brown instead of pale gray, and his eyebrows had some color to them too. He rubbed his thumb across the surface of the glass to clear the dust and regarded himself again. It was him but not him. A slightly fuller version of his previous self. A blank page, but at least with some writing on it now.

He slipped the glass into his pocket and was about to unfold the second sheet when he noticed writing on the inside of the sheet he had already opened. He held it up to the light and saw the faded commandments still faintly visible beneath a declaration written in brown ink:

I, the man known as Jack Cassidy, hereby pledge to exchange that most treasured and immortal part of myself so that a great church of solid stone may rise from the desert and spread God's word and charity until all savagery is driven from this land and Christian people have taken dominion here.

JC

So here it was. Jack Cassidy's shameful secret. He believed he had sold his soul in the desert in exchange for a fortune and a church and a town.

Solomon gazed around him at the broken church and listened
beyond the walls to the sounds of voices and splintering wood as people continued to search through the rubble for Cassidy's last remaining relative. Maybe he had. The town certainly seemed cursed rather than blessed.

He took the second folded page and carefully opened it. It was as old as the first page and of the same quality and size. There was writing on both sides, a note from Jack Cassidy on one side and a dedication in a hand he did not recognize on the other. He read it and felt everything click into place.

He rose from the pew and hurried back to the entrance, taking the linen doll and the notebook with him. The Plexiglass box that protected the old Bible had shifted in the explosion, with cracks around the screws that held it to the wooden base. Solomon pounded the side of it and it came away entirely, exposing the old Bible beneath.

It had lain open at Exodus for almost a hundred years but Solomon closed it now and opened it again to the first few pages, searching for a dedication page. He didn't find one. Instead he found a fine tear close to the binding, three pages in. He took the page he had just read and held it up. The serrations at the torn edge of the page matched perfectly. This second page had been torn from this Bible too.

He reread the dedication on it and smiled. He no longer needed to save James Coronado. He already had.