10. Twenty-One
They say a man should have a stock and trade
But me, I'll find another way
I believe in getting what you can
And there ain't no stoppin' this young man*
"Lukas," he said. Or growled. Maybe it came closest to a bark, so inappropriate for the sanctuary of a church.
Could be it wasn't fair to pull out a name the youngster hadn't heard spoken aloud in years. Not, at least, since he'd lost his father and probably before that. There hadn't been enough fire in Matthew Duke's soul to make him discipline his boys, not since Lureen had died back in eighty-nine. Poor young'un probably hadn't been held accountable for much of anything since he was no more than a schoolboy.
Wasn't fair to trade on that little nugget of familiarity Jesse had with the lad's full given name, to remind Luke of days gone by when they could sit together in front of the hearth of a home that didn't exist anymore. To make the boy's spine stiffen for all of a breath, to make him unleash a deadly glare over his shoulder, to force him to recognize that looking mean didn't make everyone shrink away from him. To match him, blue eye for blue eye until the youngster backed down. Shoulders slumped and he turned away again.
"It ain't doing no one no good for you to be paining like this."
A shrug for an answer. The thought was too deep, maybe, gaped too widely for Luke to make his way across and accept as simple fact.
The post-battle rush was over. Those that were going to live were made as comfortable as possible on the wooden floor or the cushioned pews, bandaged and medicated as much as possible when those tending to them had about half the tools and skills amongst them to administer proper treatment. Whiskey was probably the best medicine they had: it sterilized wounds and, when taken internally, gave them half a chance of sleeping.
Down here at the back end of the sanctuary, near the door for easy transport when the time came, was the one who wasn't going to make it. Had already not made it and all was peaceful now that he was gone.
"Ain't none of this your fault," he pointed out. Another shrug from the boy who stood in the middle of the carnage, somewhere between the living and the dead and committing to neither. "Luke," he insisted, leaving behind the body of the man he'd administered last rites to not five minutes earlier. He'd make arrangements soon enough, since there was no next of kin to contact. "Ace there was a full adult." Unlike the boy Jesse was walking towards. "He made up his own mind what he wanted to do." Another shrug and if he thought it would work, the pastor would grab the boy and shake him. Or just hold onto him until he stopped fighting, but it would take a younger, stronger man to manage that. It would take the boy's father.
"He did what I told him," Luke answered back, finally.
"Because he wanted to." Or because his brains worked about as well as a derailed train. Ace Parker never had been his mama's smartest child, even if he was her only child. It was amazing he'd survived to adulthood, really. Always looking for trouble and unable to handle what he found. "But," Jesse offered, because given the opportunity, the Duke boy would stand there and mentally berate himself all day, hands curled into fists and shoulder muscles so taut it would seem they ought to rip the seams of his shirt. "If'n it's going to make you this miserable, you could always walk away."
"Walk away," Luke mumbled under his breath, shaking his head at dotards who thought they were anywhere near ready to counsel the young. And Jesse had to admit, the boy had something of a point. Luke had already walked away from so many things, by choice or circumstance: his family, his home, his heritage, his sanity and peace of mind. Walking away from the feud would be giving up the only thing he thought he had left.
Away, always away, and Jesse needed to give him something to come toward. Some days he figured that he was the closest thing the boy had to family (and other days his faith on that notion wavered) and that it was up to him to bring Luke back from the wilderness in which he'd lost himself. "You could always come here and stay with me."
Again, Luke turned his head just enough to let those bright blue eyes bore into him over that too tight shoulder. "You ain't got no use for me," he accused. "You got Enos."
Yes, he did, and Enos was everything a sexton ought to be. Across the sanctuary, squatting low and tending to the injured under the questionably watchful eye of Cletus Hogg. Between good intentions and enthusiasm, the two of them might just bumble their way into making sure that Junior Harper and Black-Jack Jackson came out of this mess, this aftermath of night of fighting, with nothing more than limps and scars. In the farthest corner, Luke's right-hand-man, Yellow-eye, was speaking quietly to Emery Potter, who had what amounted to a few scratches from where he fell into the brambles when the gunshots frightened him.
"It ain't about what I got, Luke," he reminded the boy. "It's about what you could have. Your pa wouldn't have wanted you to live like this."
"My pa—" ain't here to stop me, the boy might have said, but he didn't get the chance. A clink and a clatter, a splash and some nonsense sounds kept him from getting that far.
"Oh, Enos, I'm sorry," Yellow-eye stammered in a voice so high it sounded like child's. "I didn't mean to."
"That's all right, Yellow-eye," the sexton answered back, taking a step back from where Luke's scout was trying to use a corner of his coat to wipe at a disaster that was well beyond being patted away.
"Now that's a fine mess," Jesse commented as he and Luke watched water drip out of Enos' hair, his eyebrows, the hem of his coat and the seat of his pants. Old Yellow-eye must've stumbled while carrying the pan of water he'd been using to cleanse Emery's minor wounds and dumped it right over the poor sexton's head.
"It ain't no big problem," Enos was insisting.
"Just hold still," Yellow-eye commanded, "so I can clean you up." It was like using a pebble to stem the incoming tide; there was no hope for success.
Luke's head dropped, and then a miracle occurred – the boy laughed. Just a few snorts at first, then a choking sound before he tipped his head back and let loose.
"Very funny, Luke," Yellow-eye snapped as he kept trying to tend to a somewhat reluctant Enos, while Cletus joined in the fray with bandages to try to sop the water away.
The Duke boy, well, Jesse had watched him grow from a little tyke to a strapping young man over the course of fifteen years, and then he'd seen how the boy grew hard and bitter over the last four. But somewhere deep inside, the elder figured, there was still that gentle heart that had beat inside Luke when he was nothing more than a farmer's son. The pastor stepped up beside the youngster and dropped an arm across his shoulders.
"Your assistant is about as coordinated as my assistant, I'm afraid," he announced, before Luke could decide to glower at him for standing too close.
"Don't rightly know what got into Yellow-eye," the boy chuckled back as they watched Enos give in and let himself be tended to. "It ain't like him to make a mess like that."
"You and him is just alike, Luke." That got those eyes to study him. Suspicious or skeptical or just plain confused. "You're young. You're a little bit foolish, and you make mistakes. Big ones, small ones, don't hardly matter because they're mistakes. Don't neither of you mean no real harm and it ain't nothing you can't make amends for."
The boy stepped out from under his protective arm then, shot him a hateful glance, followed by a long look at where Ace Parker was lying far too still.
"Luke," he tried, but the boy wasn't about to listen to another word from a foolish old man like him.
"Yellow-eye, leave him be," the youngster commanded, straightening his spine and lifting his chin with the sort of arrogance that marked him as a high-ranking member of the Porter gang, a man used to giving orders and getting them followed. "We got to move on anyways."
Of course they did. This was nothing more than an intermission, the break between bloody battles. Some kind of unspoken truce that cropped up every time things got really ugly, and one feuding faction would take over the Doctor's office where Cooter would tend to their wounded, and the other would bring their injured here for Cletus to look after. But soon enough all the tending that could be done would be, and the Hickorys would avenge the revenge that the Porters had already gotten in retaliation for the revenge sought before that.
"You probably got a little time, if'n you wanted to stay a spell," Jesse offered. "Cletus over there tells me that Thackeray didn't make it."
And for all that it would make sense for Luke to be happy at the news that one of the higher-ranking members of the Hickory gang had been killed in last night's skirmish, the boy just frowned all the harder.
"Nonetheless, I reckon me and Yellow-eye got to go now," Luke answered, grabbing onto the sleeve of his slow-moving scout. Who finally relented in his attempts to take care of Enos, and left the task to Cletus.
"All right, Luke," Jesse agreed. "You just remember, if ever you want it, you got sanctuary in this here building. With me."
Nothing more than a grunt of response came from the boy, but Yellow-eye thanked him sincerely for his concern before being all but dragged out of the church by the hand.
Which left old Jesse to send Enos off to the rectory to find himself something dry to wear while the pastor made arrangements for the dead man.
* "Twenty-One" © 1973, music and lyrics by Bernie Leadon