110

The report of a .45 caliber pistol awakened Ackerman from a dream about the bloodbath that was the Roman Coliseum. It took him a moment to register he was awake. But when he did, he realized that he needed to act as soon as possible. He immediately recognized the necessity of action because he had heard Maggie scream. Unfortunately, he was unable to move his limbs. For a moment, all he could manage was the opening of his eyes, which were filled with sand and grit.

Standing above him somewhere, he heard the voice of Thomas White. His father said, “You need to get up, or you’re going to die. Francis, get up!”

Ackerman mumbled aloud, “Don’t call me, Francis. What’s it to you anyway? You hate me.”

With the shake of his head, his father replied, “I am you!” Then, he reached up, and grabbing his face as if it were a rubber mask, he ripped the skin away to reveal the sinew and bone beneath. Leaning down to Ackerman’s ear, the spectral projection said, “I am you…Frank, if that’s what you prefer. If you don’t act now, Yazzie is going to win. He is going to kill Maggie, make you watch, and then he’s going to kill you. So, if you’re planning something brilliant, now would be the time.”

Ackerman nodded to the hallucination and said, “I’m right, of course. But we have no weapons, nor the means to wield them.”

He no longer knew whether he was awake and speaking aloud or if he was dreaming and merely thinking the words in his head, or any combination of the two. However, he was still certain that action needed to be taken.

Ackerman forced himself to sit up enough to see the commotion near the edge of the small cliff leading away from the ruins. Yazzie, gun in hand, stood over Maggie’s prone form. When Yazzie spoke, it sounded to Ackerman as if they were underwater, Yazzie said, “Are you talking to yourself over there, Frank, or were you speaking to me?”

He didn’t waste the energy in replying.

Ghost eyes filled with madness and malice, Yazzie smiled over at him and said, “Don’t you go dying on me. Not yet. Not until you watch what I do to your friend.”

Yazzie then closed the gap between himself and Maggie and pulled her up by her hair. Maggie screamed and clutched her wounded shoulder. Ackerman had noted the Beretta in the dust behind her, but it was too far out of his reach. He needed to act, but he wasn’t sure what he could do. There was the garrote concealed in his watch, the push daggers, the Beretta, and the Bowie knife that he had left embedded in the ground after severing Yazzie’s trap. But, when he looked for the knife, he was unable to find the spot where it stuck out from the dirt.

He supposed it didn’t really matter. He didn’t have the strength to brandish any of the weapons at his disposal. He barely had the strength left to keep his eyelids from falling.

Yazzie said, “Stay with me a few more moments now, Frank.” Then he dragged Maggie to the edge of the canyon where the stone floor met open air. Yazzie placed his pearl-handled Peacemaker against the side of her head and asked, “Which would be more cruel? To shoot her in the head before tossing her over the edge, or let her enjoy the fall?”

Ackerman raised a shaking arm and proclaimed, “I have a few last words.”

Yazzie pressed the muzzle of the gun deeper into Maggie’s flesh. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her right arm hung lifeless at her side. The right side of her shirt was soaked in blood.

Yazzie said, “I’m curious enough by nature to hear what you have to say, but you had better make it quick.”

Ackerman barely had the strength to speak, and his reasoning was beginning to blur. A rather larger part of himself was still unsure whether he was dreaming or awake. He declared, “I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

Yazzie looked at him strangely for second and then said, “Is that a quote from your white man’s Bible?”

Ackerman replied, “Yes, I’m having a bit of trouble focusing right now and that was the first thing that came to mind.”

“Are you trying to stall me for some reason, Mr. Ackerman?”

“Well, yes, I suppose I am. I’ve always found it best to stall in situations like this.”

“Why is that?”

Frank shrugged. “Because something always happens. Marcus will save the day, or a brilliant idea will come to me at the last moment. Trust me, it will work out just fine. It always does.”

Yazzie laughed. “I’m afraid, my friend, that there is a time when all of our debts come due, and things aren’t going to work out for you this time. But better luck in your next life.” Yazzie cocked back the hammer of his single action revolver and added to Maggie, “What about you, my dear? I suppose I owe you a few last words.”

Maggie seemed to consider this a moment and then locked gazes with Ackerman. She said, “Tell your brother that my answer is yes. One hundred percent, yes. In another life.”

Yazzie laughed and said, “My dear, why are you telling him? He’ll be following you in death a moment later and your boyfriend is probably already on the other side. Now, since I have taken your entire family away from you twice in your life, it’s only fair that I give you the choice. Would you prefer me to shoot you first or would you like to enjoy the ride down? I imagine that the fall wouldn’t be entirely unpleasant.”

Maggie winked at Ackerman, and in her eyes, he saw a cold determination. He knew that she was about to make a move, and based on the finality of her earlier comment, he surmised that it was going to be something drastic.

Now was his time to act.

While they had been conversing, Ackerman had been building up his strength and positioning one of the push daggers in his hand, readying it for a toss directly at Xavier Yazzie’s eye.

He silently prayed, Lord, give me strength for one more moment.

Then, expending his finals reserves, Ackerman launched the push dagger from his fist.

The small blade sliced through the air with speed and precision, and thankfully, enough force to hit its mark. Unfortunately, either his vision or his aim had been slightly off, and instead of puncturing Yazzie’s eye as he had intended, the push dagger sliced a long gash into his adversary’s forehead and fell away. Yazzie instinctively released Maggie’s hair and brought his left hand to his bleeding head as he turned the pistol’s aim toward Ackerman.

This gave Maggie an opening, and from a hiding place that to Ackerman seemed like magic, she produced his bone-handled Bowie knife. With the knife in her left hand, she sliced Yazzie’s forearm to the bone, the razor-sharp knife doing its job well. Yazzie wailed in agony and released his gun.

Ackerman lacked the strength to further join the fight, but perhaps he could crawl to the Beretta.

Digging deep for more power, he rolled over, but the effort exhausted him and caused the world to slide out of focus. In his dizzied senses, he looked up to see Maggie pounce upon Yazzie with the ferocity of a feral animal. In her left hand, she had some sort of weapon resembling an ice pick. With a savage scream, she stabbed Yazzie in the neck and drove him back over the edge into the open air. Riding him down, stabbing all the way, Maggie disappeared from Ackerman’s view.

He heard her screaming fade in volume and then abruptly stop.

Rolling over and looking up at a stone sky, Ackerman prayed that this had all been a dream, but a strange and overwhelming emotion that cut deep into his soul told him that what had just transpired had been very real. He wondered if this feeling was what the normals experienced when they spoke of pain.