A blazing fire crackled in the stone fireplace, and the scent of blackberry pie broadened my smile when I stepped through the doorway. On a rough-hewn log table, one of my few clumsy attempts at furniture making that made it inside, burned a kerosene lantern.
My smile twisted into a silent scream when I saw what the light revealed.
“I've been waiting patiently,” he said. “So have they.”
The sudden change in circumstance hammered me like a fist and left me reeling, even as my mind raced for options.
Ryder and Crystal sat close together on the leather love seat. Crystal looked imploringly at me, sadness and shame and guilt in a single gaze, a lifetime of hurt. Her arms were around Ryder, and he smiled faintly at me, as though he couldn't help himself, a tentative grin that quickly subsided, draining away like a beautiful painting bereft of color.
“What do you want?”
“Justice,” Gideon said. His voice was soft and musical, and his robes were white. “You have shown that the will of God was not what I thought it was. So be it. I was wrong. But you still face retribution.”
He sat in my favorite rocking chair next to the fireplace, an automatic pistol pointed at my family.
“I'm going to kill you,” I said.
“We all have to die. This world is but a flicker next to eternity. Do come inside and close the door behind you, please.”
“Take me,” I said. “You've been waiting for me. Kill me. Let my family go.”
“Daddy, no!” Ryder wailed.
I closed the door behind me, never taking my eyes from Gideon's face.
“They are innocent,” I said. “If you believe in the same God I do, then you know it's wrong. Some part of you must see that.”
“No one is innocent,” he said. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”
“You're insane.”
“Not insane. Insightful. When you have seen the things I have seen, it changes you in ways you cannot imagine. I see the whole picture while you see a tiny, insignificant bit. I look at the universe itself, the myriad of galaxies all connected, while you experience only your miserable little existence.”
“So you're God? Is that it?”
“Not Him. His messenger. His agent on Earth. I am connected to the majesty of heaven.”
“You're schizophrenic.”
Gideon laughed then, like he was laughing at his own joke. “Oh I've heard that one before,” he said. “Oh yes. But the people who said that are dead now.”
He sat less than fifteen feet from me, rocking gently as he spoke. The machine pistol in his hand would fire at such a rapid rate that Ryder and Crystal would be torn in half before I could even reach, much less disarm, the madman.
I had to get the muzzle pointed at me rather than at them.
I took a step forward, trying to be non-threatening, exaggerating the pain in my leg as I moved.
“No, no you don't,” letting his voice lift like a chiding mother. “You can stand there and hurt.”
“At least let me sit down.”
“Now why would I do that?”
“Maybe you'd think I was less of a threat.”
“Oh, you're no threat, William Fox. I know you. I've heard you cry out, sniveling for your family, for your lost baby girl. You won't lift a finger. You're a wolf without fangs.”
“Why would you pursue this? You could have gone away and started over someplace.”
“I told you. Justice. Continuity. The universe demands it.”
Through the window next to the fireplace, I saw that snow had begun to fall. For Ryder, first snow was second only to Christmas. He would be outside running around, bundled up with his nose pointed at the sky, if this psychopath had not invaded our lives yet again.
I considered trying to open the door again, perhaps forcing Gideon to fire at me, giving Crystal the chance to act, but realized the foolishness of the idea. I'd be dead before the door was open, and Crystal and Ryder would be alone at his mercy.
I had to keep him talking. “What you really want is revenge, right?”
“I call it something else, but yes, I suppose that is close,” he said.
“And do you think that will make you feel better? Do you think that will solve anything?”
“I want you to suffer,” Gideon said, his voice flat. And there was the killer again. The prophet was gone. The trappings of a decent human being, his kind demeanor and gentle face, compassionate eyes and melodic voice, those outward things he wore as naturally as his flowing white robes to make him appear to be something he was not, had fallen away. I stared at the sadist who had always been beneath the mask. He wanted me to see the difference, to acknowledge it, before the end.
I eyed the tools next to the fireplace.
“I want you to know the pain you will feel before you feel it,” he said, his eyes cold and hard. “I have found that the anticipation of pain is almost worse than the pain itself.” He smiled, a grotesque thing.
I edged toward Crystal and Ryder, and Gideon stood. His weapon was still trained on my family.
“You will watch them die, and then you will die,” he said. “I want you to know that. To wrap your head around it. It's going to happen and there is nothing you can do about it.”
He stepped toward me.
“Would you like to say goodbye to them? I'd very much like to watch that.”
My body was trembling, shaking with impotent rage. This could not be it. It was not fair.
“I'm sorry,” Crystal said. “I love you so much.”
“Daddy, will I get to see you in heaven?”
“I love you both,” I said. My voice breaking. My chest hurt.
I rose to my full height and let the crutch topple to the floor, waiting for the horror. I couldn't rush him. But at the first sound, I'd be on him, tearing out his throat with my teeth with my last breath.
It happened quickly and left me blinking in disbelief.
The lower half of Gideon's face exploded, atomized in a pink mist, and bits and pieces of his jaw, a few teeth, and raw pieces of meat splattered onto my chest. He lurched forward and fell into me as his weapon clattering harmlessly to the floor.
Neither Crystal nor Ryder screamed. They exploded from the love seat and ran to me, and I put my arms around them while the Prophet lay at our feet.
I tore off my messy smock and wiped flecks of blood from my face, and then the three of us laughed. It was an odd feeling, a release, and Crystal giggled and then Ryder, and then we were belly laughing with gratitude and joy and we fell to our knees and held on, our heads all touching. We were a family again.
The door opened, and with snow swirling around him and a sniper rifle over his back, Chilli strode into the room.
I stood and hugged him tight, and I will never again know such gratitude. I put my forehead to his, unable to speak.
“I've got your six,” he said. “Always will.”
“Brother…”
“No worries. It's finished. Sorry I didn't figure it out sooner. Let's sit.”
Aware I was still shaking, I collapsed into the loveseat. Crystal and Ryder gave Chilli heartfelt hugs, and then they piled on to me. Crystal kept touching my face, Ryder with his head buried in my shoulder and his arms tight around my neck.
“I have no words,” I said, choking.
“You don't need any,” Chilli said. His eyes were merry and his grin easy as he leaned forward in the rocking chair.
“That was a risky shot,” he said. “I was watching, waiting. I had to put a round through his apricot; it was the only way.”
He had shot Gideon through the cerebellum, what snipers called a “no twitch” shot. It had to be precise, but if the round was perfect, the target would not move even involuntarily after impact, the brain and spinal cord disconnected.
“I don't want to think about how close that was,” I said. “It's windy, too. Another second, and it would have been too late.”
“I could tell I couldn't wait. You looked like you were about to do something foolish.”
“How did you know we were in trouble?”
“Up at Maggie’s, they got word the Chinook had been spotted at a clearing across the river. I figured I'd better check in on you. Hawk is on the way; he went to get more help in case we were able to try an assault. I came straight here.”
Chilli rose to his feet and dragged Gideon's corpse outside by the arms. Crystal got up to try to clean the streak of blood from the floor, but Chilli would not let her.
“My mess,” he said. “I've got this.”
*
That winter was cold and long, as all winters are in Lamar valley, but inside it was warm with love and laughter, and the frigid wind did not touch us.
The day before Christmas, we gathered for a feast in a new Great Hall that many men had built in only a few months. I had mentioned to someone that it would be nice to have a place large enough to entertain and break bread as a community. The next day, Lamar Valley was buzzing with helicopters from The Hole. Workers came from all around, felling trees, digging and cutting stone, and laying a foundation.
The result was a log building with four stone fireplaces so large I could walk into them, soaring ceilings, and many windows, so that the interior was light and bright. The walls were adorned with tapestries and oil paintings and a tiger pelt, and the wooden floors were polished to a reflective sheen. A separate kitchen structure contained ice boxes, a generator, and multiple stoves.
It was an act of love, a kind of tribute to humanity, a monument to our collective triumph over evil.
At a long head table, I stood, looked out at the crowd of friends who sat at row upon row of round wooden tables. Abe and Angela sat next to Crystal and Ryder, their newborn at Angela's breast. Elijah was there too, leaning in to talk to Samuel, who had made the long trip from his mountain enclave. Chilli and Hawk sat to my right, empty seats next to them for Chewy and Gonzo. On the other side, Colonel Dan sat smoking his pipe. Sharp Knife and Mike were grinning at me from the crowd drinking ale with Max.
“My friends,” I said. “We have won, although we have lost much. The greatest commandment is love, and maybe we needed to be reminded of that. Many of us have lost someone. It hurts. But their sacrifices have given us a chance, and tonight we celebrate them.” I took a deep breath. Chewy's widow and her six year old son Jacob sat at a table in front of me.
I took the old battered Bible from my breast pocket, the blood of heroes soaked into the soft leather cover. “This belonged to my friend.” I stepped down and walked forward to the table, still limping a bit. I extended the book to Jacob, who looked at me with eyes wide with a bit of fear and suspicion. “This was your Daddy's,” I said. “He believed it was the key to everything. I think he was right.”
We laughed and sang songs until long into the darkness, the fires blazing cozily while the wind howled outside. At midnight, we sang “Silent Night,” as one great family, and it was good.
The End