Preacher man, p.1
Preacher Man, page 1
Preacher Man
Last Stand
Volume Twelve
Blaze Ward
Knotted Road Press
Contents
Scene One
Scene Two
Scene Three
Scene Four
Scene Five
Scene Six
Scene Seven
Scene Eight
Scene Nine
Scene Ten
Scene Eleven
Scene Twelve
Scene Thirteen
Scene Fourteen
Scene Fifteen
Scene Sixteen
Scene Seventeen
Scene Eighteen
Scene Nineteen
Scene Twenty
Afterward: Pastor Mike
Read More
About the Author
Also by Blaze Ward
About Knotted Road Press
To Pastor Mike, for everything
Scene One
Abigail couldn’t say she was looking forward to landing on Wabrook. For one, it was well off the usual beaten path that Tessa and Last Stand frequently worked.
In simple terms, the middle of nowhere, which honestly described a lot of Hawkswold Sector. And one of the dullest parts.
Abigail hesitated to call the people dull, but honestly, that was as good a term as any. Small-minded, maybe, because it was a farming world with no cities worth discussing. Just an unending series of county seats.
She was a Player, and that brought with it certain expectations. Or should. Culture, entertainment, music, fun.
Wabrook always tested her patience, because these folks tended to belong to their kirk and think small thoughts about small lives that never traveled more than ninety kilometers from the house where they’d been born.
Today, she was in the kitchen aboard Last Stand, fixing herself some tea, flavored with a bit of lemon thyme and orange mint from the plants that grew in pots and hydroponics about the ship. Fin had landed them late last night, long after everyone in Waverly City had rolled up the few sidewalks and gone to bed, all set to rise with the roosters and cattle, breaking their fast long before the sun rose.
Abigail had slept in anyway.
Fin was just returning from delivering the mail, so he joined her. Cookies sounded like a lovely addition to her day, but Abigail hadn’t gotten off her ass yet to make any.
Wabrook practically demanded it of her, though.
“There’s news,” he said as he hung the empty satchel from the chair and sat down across from her. “Not sure it qualifies as interesting, this being Wabrook and all that, but the laws of thermodynamics might have to get involved at this point.”
Abigail grinned. Entropy was about the only change you had in places like Wabrook. Or ennui. And even Tessa didn’t run out this direction all that often. Mostly when someone had a cargo and a need to deliver it quickly. Abigail was a bit fuzzy on the nature of several crates aft, but she also didn’t pry too deeply into Tessa’s business affairs.
However, Fin was being silly.
“Oh?” she asked, all bright eyed and innocent as the straight chick in this comedy routine.
“Postmaster said that they’d had a new traveling revival set up, night before last, and it was starting to get people around here a little riled up,” Fin nodded. “Though, I suppose that blade cuts both ways. What the hell would happen to Wabrook if they got excited?”
“Somebody might start dancing,” she teased “In public, even.”
“The horrors!” he gasped, then started giggling.
Abigail shook her head and smiled. Definitely making cookies today. Maybe as soon as she finished her tea.
“You ever feel the need to run a good religion scam on folks?” he asked when he caught his breath.
“Players aren’t supposed to do that, Fin,” she reminded him.
Ten years of schooling. Tests. Expertise. Public performance.
Con artists were a whole different breed.
“Oh, I realize,” he said. “But there are hardly any Players on the Hawkswold circuit, and you got a lot of folks needing something to break up the dreariness of everyday life. Hell, I could have stayed home and been a banker, if I’d had no greater dreams in life.”
Abigail nodded, understanding. She’d wanted to become a Player as soon as she learned who they were and what they did. And the group jealously defended their privileges, able to access every level of society from Governors of Beaumonde to dirt farmers on Wabrook.
However, any fool could become a traveling preacher. A great many of them turned out to be grifters, even the ones honest in their beliefs and sincere in their presentation, because they always put out a hat or plate for donations. And frequently fell victim to temptation.
And Abigail hardly ever saw such a person skinny and hungry. Usually dressed in the finest outfits and utterly corpulent with good food, instead of feeding and clothing the downtrodden, as so many of their prophets demanded.
“Anyway,” Fin continued, popping back up, “just wanted to let you know you had some competition for the rubes.”
“It’s rude to call them that, Fin,” she reminded him.
“Not wrong, though.”
She’d give him that. Not entirely wrong. Not on Wabrook. Even Waverly City, which was at least a county seat and about as urbane as those things went. Courthouse and Land Office. General store. A few restaurants serving a generally thriving middle class.
It was still a hard life, farming and ranching.
Fin left, pausing to kiss his much taller wife as Tessa came aft.
“What’s he giggling about?” Tessa asked as she moved to make herself some tea.
“There’s a revival preacher in town,” Abigail said. “He thinks I’ll have to up my game to entertain folks.”
Tessa snorted as she spooned leaves into a sachet and set the pot to boiling.
“Doubt it,” Tessa offered. “But hey, maybe we need to go scout them out, just in case? Wyatt can be all grumbly and tough.”
“What’d I do this time?” Wyatt asked, entering from the rear hallway and yawning.
“Preacherman in town ahead of us,” Tessa replied.
“And I need to scare him off?” Wyatt asked, confused from dropping into the middle of a conversation.
“That, or we get you all dolled up in a fancy suit next to him and let you charm folks,” Abigail teased him.
Wyatt was finally relaxed enough around her to be teased, but the scowl on his face could polish steel right now. She and Tessa shared a giggle as he moved to the pantry and started opening doors.
“Planning to make cookies in a bit,” Abigail called.
“I’ll be back,” he said, turning immediately away and heading aft again.
Tessa set the pot to boiling and took the spot Fin had been in.
“Might be fun to go see whoever it is speak,” Tessa said.
“I was already planning to be dressed like a farmer’s wife so nobody knew me,” Abigail nodded. “Maybe Fin or Wyatt needs to be all fancy, with a whole harem of wives, just to seduce some of the locals with dreams of lust?”
“You are incorrigible,” Tessa rolled her eyes.
“Duh,” Abigail laughed. “Still, it would be a nice change. Usually, I have to sit up on a stage and talk news in places like this. Maybe stories. I doubt that they’ll have any money to hire me to drag out the cello.”
She practiced every day, but only performed in public for money.
Or favors.
Wabrook didn’t have anything that interesting, last she’d checked.
“And hey, it might even be entertaining,” Tessa offered.
“I doubt it,” Abigail sighed. “That’s why I felt the need to make cookies.”
“Not arguing,” Tessa grinned. “I only come out here when there’s good money in the carriage fees. Someone else doing the work, because I agree with you about how drab and dreary Wabrook can be.”
Abigail rose with Tessa when the pot whistled.
Definitely cookies. Then, maybe something to break up the sameness that was Wabrook.
Scene Two
Tessa had obviously missed something in the afternoon’s planning, because Fin had dug out one of his nicer suits. Plus-four knickerbockers in a heavy twill. Shooting-style jacket with patch pockets. Tall wool socks. Tie. Beret. Everything in shades of green over a white shirt and black walking boots.
Abigail and Auntie had both put on dresses tonight. Constanz and Brianna were dressed for a night at the opera. Laney had dug out one of her nicest vests. And Wyatt had actually worn something that wasn’t his usual dark gray that vanished into shadows when he wanted to hunt. Dark blue pants and a maroon shirt so deep it was almost black, but it wasn’t gray.
Tessa stood out because she’d worn her usual outfit for a place like Waverly City. Black leather slip-on boots she’d heard called cavalry. Tight pants and matching vest without a jacket. Light brown with white pinstripes. White shirt with a standing collar. It was too nice for the dark double-breasted leather jacket she wore in cold weather, but she did have her holster and the revolver handy.
And she stood out like a sore thumb around the rest of her goofball crew.
She fought to keep from rolling her eyes at everyone, uncertain if there had been a quiet conspiracy tonight that had left her in the dark, or if everyone had felt that same unconscious urge to get fancied up to go to town.
Certainly, Tessa wasn’t dressed as nice as the large group of folks walking slowly towards the edge of town, w here an open-sided pavilion tent in a field had been set. Everyone was in their Friday Go To Mosque outfits, though she supposed these folks went two days later and called it a church.
Something.
She didn’t do religion. Didn’t find any useful value in it, but she’d put that squarely at the feet of the Lorastir Emperor, Amarns Sigra. He had a relatively famous quote from a book he’d published back when he’d been merely a revolutionary general.
Religion is what keeps poor people from killing rich people.
Tessa couldn’t really argue with that. Too many preachers told folk to stay in their place and live Wabrook kinds of lives, instead of trying to make things better.
Of course, she’d have stayed home on Nulbuzir if it was up to her. Avoided the wars and shit, and all their aftermaths.
Hadn’t been her choice, what with Zaddinul deciding to eradicate the Vlikine if they could. Or Lorastir invading when the Zaddinul Emperor’s face had been turned away.
Ergrove and Hawkswold didn’t care about her color. Or her supposed religion. Or much of anything, as long as she could carry goods around for folks at a reasonable price and an honest deal.
Folks like Wabrook needed the revival circuit, it seemed. Anything to break up the monotony.
Even asshole preachers telling them they were all going to hell if they didn’t dig into their pocket and find a few coins to buy their salvation.
Yeah, she’d heard that song and dance routine a few times too many.
And Abigail wasn’t about to bake any of these fine folks cookies.
Tonight, she’d needed a break. As had everyone else. They found spots to settle on hard wooden benches pulled from somewhere. Maybe one of the local churches, but more likely the senior center where folks sent their elders off to bother each other instead.
Weren’t comfortable, that was certain. Would certainly keep the audience awake, if nothing else.
Background noise had been a quiet buzz of polite conversation around her. Folks greeting old friends and asking about kin. Finding a place to sit and maybe talking about doing lunch tomorrow or something equally irrelevant.
It fell to silence as a figure emerged from between two partly shadowed buildings in back, and walked up onto the stage, with a guitar on a strap around his neck.
The stage was just a platform a meter or so in the air, and he settled on a stool Tessa had ignored earlier. Lighting was good. Breeze was enough to keep things pleasant.
She expected him to speak, but the man looked down at his guitar instead. Flipped a switch and strummed a single note, then dialed the volume down from normal to what she might call intimate.
Never spoke. Just started playing. Audience fell silent as if captivated. Enchanted.
Tessa found herself leaning in with the rest.
If nothing else, the man had found a new way to get people’s attention.
Scene Three
Constanz had ended up asking Laney, as nobody else could really explain what to expect from a tent revival. Certainly, he’d never seen anything remotely like it, even back when he’d been a girl. But he’d also lived near the very peak of Zaddinul society, and these were apparently targeted at a different social class.
Laney had explained the phenomenon to be a thing to remind the poorest strata of society that they belonged to a larger entity. Of course, Laney had done so in a most derisive tone and vocabulary, leaving Constanz no doubts as to her opinions on organized religion.
Thoughts that the rest of the crew seemed to agree upon, but Constanz already knew that this group generally believed in themselves, rather than relying on some formless greater power to rescue them in their time of need.
As he’d done for his sister.
Thus, Constanz had expectations of a man selling salvation by the yard, depending on your ability to pay up front. Fire and brimstone, as Abigail had warned him was likely. Howling, imprecating, and demanding obedience to some god that was going to judge everyone on a harsh scale, like a farmer measuring his flock to determine which sheep to keep for the winter.
The man up there hadn’t spoken at all.
Merely started playing his guitar at a volume quiet enough that the entire audience had fallen still and silent.
He had a magnetic charm about him.
His hair was far too long for most of Ergrove, almost harking back to the nobles of a previous century in Lorastir, in an era when the rebels had shaved their heads as a mark of distinction and difference.
A full beard in a rich chestnut, but kept impeccably trimmed, with a loose-fitting tunic and pants that draped in such a way that the man was likely not much more than skin and bones, when Laney had expected obesity almost too much to waddle.
Then the man finally looked up at the audience.
It was like a light switch had been flipped on. A searchlight that traversed the crowd from right to left.
Even Constanz felt the impact of those eyes.
A moment later, the man changed chords on his strumming and began to sing. It was one of the older Church hymns that Constanz remembered from when he’d been a little girl, a tale of loving and friendship and building up a kirk into a nation.
Neither fire, nor brimstone.
Rain, if anything. Cool and invigorating as a glass of fresh lemonade.
Constanz glanced at Brianna on one side and Marusya on the other, but both seemed equally mesmerized by the man, so Constanz let himself be drawn into the song.
And the next one. And the one after that.
At some point, Constanz had lost track of things, but the man turned off his guitar. Removed it and leaned it against his stool after standing.
Walked to the front of the platform and studied the audience, as if breathing in their musk to taste them.
“You are called upon to love one another,” he said in a voice as magnetic as his playing. Loud in the sudden silence that had fallen. “There are older commands, dealing with things no longer relevant in the modern day. What cloth to wear. What foods to avoid. And what evils might be allowed in the exercise and defense of your beliefs.”
Constanz watched him sweep a hand out flat like a cat knocking a glass off a counter.
“You are called upon to love one another,” he repeated, a notch louder and more intent than before. “That is first and foremost. To see that the poorest among you are fed and housed. Clothed and educated. Made safe, that they might be made comfortable. That they might be made happy. If you fail those basic things, you fail at all the rest.”
Constanz felt the entire audience around him sag. A quiet moan escaped their lips, multiplied by a few hundred mouths until it was a physical thing.
“The first and greatest sin you can commit is to turn your back on the one in need,” he continued, his voice another notch louder now. “To pretend ignorance of their plight. To look past them as if they were invisible. You are not invisible when you do such things. Your sins are obvious, and will be judged so, for you are called upon, first and foremost, to love one another above all else.”
Constanz found it difficult to catch his breath, caught up on the rush of powerful emotions that the man evoked. And he was not alone.
“Your gold will not save you on that day,” he thundered now. “The monuments you build to your ego and your folly will be left behind and you will stand alone, and He will ask you one question. Did you love? Did you work to save your fellows from falling into poverty and despair? Did you lift them up, offering a hand to the one that you found in the gutter, cast there because others failed? Nothing else matters save that.”
He paused, taking a long breath and summoning the entire crowd into the palm of his hand in ways Constanz couldn’t remember ever seeing before. The magnetic power of his charm engulfed them all like a rising tide of warm water.
