The shadows began to dance on the top of the mountain. Some becoming brave enough to whisk by the old man but not daring to touch him. Hurling silent insults at Boots, trying to provoke him. He stood calm. Unaffected.
Boots had looked approvingly from above as Jack laid out Colten and ran inside the cave. Seth’s anger began to build, reflected in the increasing storm overhead. The rain came down and pelted the hermit’s clothes like tiny fists. Boots was soon soaked, the water running off his beard in strands, dripping onto the ground before him. A shaggy dog in a waterfall.
“Is that who you’re putting your money on, Boots? Really? He doesn’t stand a chance, and you know it.”
Boots looked down into the chasm as if gazing into a cauldron. The scenes of the fight coming up to him in prophetic bubbles.
“Sure was cruel of you, old man. Bringing a guy like that out here. Even I couldn’t think that one up. And you think I’m the depraved one!”
“It ain’t over, Seth. Don’t you go getting ahead of yourself.”
Seth laughed . . . the thunder rolling through the clouds. “You’re sick. Old and sick in the head. You know what the worst thing is . . . you probably told him that he had a chance. That he could come up here and get back down the mountain in one piece. Didn’t you?”
“You best shut your mouth . . . it’ll be the last time I tell you.”
“Or what? What’re you going to do, Boots? You going to curse me? No . . . you are just going to slink back to your edge of the world and hide out for the rest of time, pouting about the way things are. You never had the nerve to stick around, to finish what you started. To see the potential in this place. No, you’re not going to do anything. Just like that time up in Reno—yeah, you’re not going to do anything.”
Boots pulled back his arm and swung, backhanding the air in front of him. A ripple of force shot out, knocking the shadows on the far canyon wall into oblivion. The remaining shadows looking on stunned, shocked.
“Not this time, Seth. Naw, I think I’m goin’ to stick around for a bit. Get my hands dirty this time.”
Gradually, like slow-boiling oil over a Norse campfire, the fury in Seth built up, spilling over into his shadowy cohorts surrounding the ridge. He screamed, unleashing a torrent of wind, thunder, and lightning that filled the sky and echoed out across the desert to the east like a sonic boom.
Boots found himself surrounded by shadows taunting him on all sides, each one waiting for its neighbor to have the stomach to take the first swing. The hermit stood firm, the rain pouring down his face, his eyes narrowed, the crow’s feet ready to claw out his cheeks. A faint smile crossed his lips.
“Now, old man . . . you are going to wish you never came up here,” Seth yelled.
Calm filled the air around Boots, as if the world inhaled before diving into deep water.
“Naw . . . now you’re going to see who you’ve been messing with.”
And with those words, all hell broke loose.