A Tree of Bones (Hexslinger 3)

And that procession went on a while, far longer than Chess had thought it would — Chilicothe and the rest, the Lieut, the bluebellies; Sadie and her beau riding two to a mount, him firm-set, her hugging him side-saddle. Yet more followed after, like every man or woman killed within Chess’s eyeshot these last three years was making up the bulk, called to follow after by the promise of whatever impermanent vengeance ghosts might wreak on ghosts.

Oona pressed closer still, so she could say — voice dropping to a cautious whisper, as she did — “Damn, son. You really ’ave killed a lot of men, just like you said. But not more’n I’ve fucked, as it ’appens.”

Sliding back to their final living conversation, in the “hospital” under Selina Ah Toy’s, as though all the intervening incidence counted for nothing.

Chess snorted, and shook his head. “Boast on, why don’t you,” he replied.

’Round and ’round, in and about and out once more, cutting patterns in the desolate waste with their hooves, ’til eventually the Posse drew to a shuddering stop, apparently stymied. The Lieut leaned to cut Love free and kick him sidelong in almost the same motion, while the rest looped back, turning their rides for the ’Hold, the crossroads, War-Heaven, Gehenna . . . anywhere but here.

You can walk back, preacher, Chess thought he heard the dead man say, into his high-muffled shell-coat’s collar. I’ll count it as toll for slowing us down, since we might’ve caught him yet, were it not for your interference.

Love stood up slow and dignified, re-ordering his bloody rags while the Posse gave one shared, heaving sigh and dispersed with a moan of hungry hate unfulfilled, leaving nothing behind but ache.

Turning his back on their trail — even the part of it he’d contributed to, just as it began to fade — Love said: “You may safely reveal yourselves now, I believe — Pargeter, ma’am. Since I can tell you’re here.”

“Funny, that,” Chess replied, letting slip his mother’s grip, so’s to make himself take shape once more. “How you can but they couldn’t, is what I mean.”

“No great trick to it. It’s like you said, before — ”

“God told you?”

“Indirectly, yes, through simple intuition — God-given, like all other things. Yet I live . . . subsist, rather . . . in hope.”

So easy to mock Love’s ridiculous gimcrack faith, his sideshow humbleness. Once again, however, an unwanted sympathy scoured Chess’s insides, making him feel small, raw. Almost as skin-bare as Love looked, at least for now.

“Well . . .” he said, at last, “fun as it’s been, we’d better be movin’ on. Good luck with your penitence, Sheriff.”

He went to turn, only to see Love raise a hand, less in command than entreaty. “Wait but one moment more. I — there’s something I’d say, if you’ll hear it.”

Chess scowled. “Like what?”

Love hesitated, studying the dirt below as though he hoped it’d give him clues, advice on how best to phrase what he so didn’t want to say. “You’ve done wrong all your days, I know you won’t deny it; that you take a certain perverse pride in the truth of it, even. But Mister Pargeter — Chess — your due fall’s already done with, deservedly harsh, and sudden. Which means now you’ve been weighed, you have another chance, as I do.” His nod took in Oona, even Hosteen, whom he seemed to recognize, perhaps from the first face-off at Bewelcome. “Remember what I told your Reverend, once? How grace is resistible, yet available for all? What I’m saying is, Chess — forgiveness isn’t an impossibility, even for such as you. And much as you like a fight, perhaps it’s time you ceased resisting.”

Chess drew a long breath, oddly ragged; felt his own eyes slide to Oona, who stood there hugging herself again. “Does like to ’ear ’imself talk, don’t ’e?” she asked, of no one in particular.

Chess shrugged. “They all do, the preachers. Or so’s I’ve noticed.”

“You may mock,” Love told them. “But believe me when I say that God withholds nothing from the truly contrite, no matter who they may be.”

“Even if what they ‘be’ goes against Bible itself, at least according to one particular part? ’Cause forgiven or not, I ain’t never gonna lay down with a woman like I do with a man, Sheriff — be unnatural to my person, like it’d be unnatural to you to do the opposite, what with that gal of yours waiting for you.”

“Sophy, you mean.”

“Yeah, her. Granted, I used to think I hated all females, and that turned out t’be tripe — but I ain’t about to change my habits now, even so. Not after all this.”

“You already have, though, where it matters. I was there, at Bewelcome — saw first-hand how you saved me, my boy, my wife and all the rest, at the cost of your own skin. That you are capable of great good, no matter your inclinations . . . or how fervently you may claim the opposite, either.”

“Oh, that was just for pique, to fox Rook’s plans — to stick my dick in that infernal Machine of his wife’s, and see what-all popped off.”

“Yet you ended up doing the Lord’s work nonetheless, if unintentionally; that counts for something.”

“Does it?”

“Why would it not?” A pause, as Chess felt the exhaustion of the last few . . . days, hours, who the hell knew . . . wash up over him in a single flood, high enough to choke on. But the Sheriff went on, unabashed. “Though once I might have believed differently, I no longer consider your proclivities, your upbringing, the source of your truly sinful behaviour, since I know all too well that I too was guilty of real sin, before and after death — the sins of pride, of wrath, of despair. At the War’s end, when I vowed to hammer my sword into ploughshares, but did not; when I judged myself fit to pass judgement on Reverend Rook and you, along with all your fellows; when I blamed you for your part in Bewelcome’s fall, but took no responsibility for my own. Yet this is the charge God laid upon us all when first he gifted us free will, bittersweet fruit of that fateful Eden-tree, and I take it up happily now, in my time of need — bite down and swallow gladly, to its veriest dregs, regardless of the taste.”

Jesus, Chess thought, this really is some sermon. Too bad I ain’t got a watch to set.

The Sheriff went on, fervently unaware of his audience’s growing restlessness. “I eat of the tree, and true knowledge at last is mine — I feel His grace falling down on us, like sunlight: even here, even me, even you. These others too, if they’re amenable. All we ever have to do is accept it.”