CHAPTER TWENTY An attic room in the hunting lodges at Widow's Retreat, outside Pine Bluffs, Wyoming Territory, the 1870s
He was alone again, mebbee. He lay face down on a gleaming wooden floor, now, without moving. He couldn't move more than a fraction of an inch, now; not any more than he absolutely had to, to keep on breathing. And how he'd kept on breathing, for a time he could no longer measure was another mystery to him. He couldn't turn or lift more than his fingers. He couldn't raise his arms, his chest, his head, or raise his voice, now, either. And at first this seemed to be because someone must have dropped a thousand pound weight on his head, his neck his back and shoulders, sometime lately when he just wasn't looking.
It seemed to him he was lying face down on a gleaming wooden surface, in a much wider room, filled with beams of light and the dust-motes that floated about as slowly as his thoughts were moving now How he'd ended up here, was a mystery. He couldn't remember leaving or being taken from the grave-like place he recalled nearly suffocating in. He couldn't remember standing, walking or being carried to this other place, with walls ten times farther apart, and a hundred times more light and air in it. He could only remember the searing pain like a branding wire going through his head, and the blank, bleak numbness after. And he thought, he guessed or maybe he only dreamed, he was aching and shivering with fever and had been for time he couldn't mark or measure.
Fact was, awake or asleep, he wasn't sure of anything right now, except for who he was, an empty hearted, death-bearing drifter named Jess Harper, and recalling the fear and shame that never left him now. They weighed him down, like a rain-soaked stable blanket, so that he could hardly move. They wanted to devour him, but not even close to as badly as he wanted to let them swallow him up forever, most of the time, now.
He was and he should rightly be condemned for the awful wrongs he'd done. He should be and he was cast off, cast down and finally caught tangle footed as any newborn calf, in the Fate written down for him since the Foundation! Now, all the nightmares Jess hoped to leave behind forever rose up to nearly drown him. His friend and partner, his brother, and all they'd cherished, loved and worked for was gone!
But now he was finally asleep and dreaming, mebbee. No, he was waking up again, mebbee. No, he was dreaming again, mebbee. He must be dreaming, because suddenly there stood his Pard, watching and shaking his head at him, like always. And just as suddenly, all the nightmares poured back on him like a white-water rapids pouring under, over and right through a busted down dam!
Slim! Ah, G-d! Ah, G-d! Pard, how could I forget, again? How could I think you'd ever … if you could, want t' josh around with me, again? How could I go an' wipe out … all you hoped for, that way? If you were here, right now, this minute, I couldn't face you, Pard! How could I wipe out your home, your family and all your dreams, after you let me claim them as my dreams, too? How could I?''
You couldn't, Jess. Slim's calm, encouraging voice answered in Jess' imagination. You're my partner, I know you. And I know you couldn't do anything like that, ever. It's just not possible, to you. And when you're not sick, and scared and cut off this way, you know that too!
Wisht I did! And ain't that just what the danged nightmare… ain't that exactly what it claimed, that you'd never believe I could be a completely crazed fire-bug? Jess demanded of his very welcome, even when only imaginary friend and brother.
That's what the nightmare said, surely. But you need to listen to me, now, Pard. Slim insisted,laying one long hand on each of Jess' shoulders. What I said is not what I believe about you, but what I know about my friend, my brother, Jess Harper. And there's a big difference between those two things, now wouldn't you say? Also, these nightmares could just be left over from all the danged drugs they're foisting on you. These nightmares could be nothing more than your battered carcass complainin' about lack of sleep.
Well, I'm sure as all get out not willin' to try noddin' off any time soon, now! I don't very much care for th' results that's getting me lately! Jess scowled, and grew somber, silent and not a little scared, again.
What's got you now, Pard? C'mon, look at me and tell me. Slim asked, his bright, wide blue gaze as kind and straightforward as always. C'mon, Jess. If this is just you imagining talking to me, I'll never know what you're telling me now. And if it isn't… Then maybe we're both just dreamin' about trying to figure all this … latest trouble out. And if we are, then maybe this will help us get you on home again, just that much sooner. So tell me, Jess. Please, what is it?
Dang, Slim, you're 'most as stubborn as Daisy, y' know that? Jess complained and then gave it up, looking down and away from his best friend's open face and worried expression. You're right, Pard, much as I hate to admit it. You're right. There's a world of difference between knowin' and believin'. An' … figure I still … need t' know… Y' go on an' get riled with me for even askin…I still need t' know if th' nightmare was right… D' you believe I… 'M not crazed? Do y' believe … I … I couldn't … I didn't… set those fires, Slim?
Yes, that's what I believe, and what I know, Pard. But you don't seem to understand one real important thing here, Jess.
There never was a fire here at the ranch. Not one! So, either your own mixed up brains, or somebody really vicious, or both have got you believing in something that never happened at all. Slim answered, turning Jess back around so they
were eye to eye.
Not only that, but there's something else I know, now, about the fire that killed so much of your family. Jess, listen to me! I've been learning a lot of things you've never got around to tellin' me about my partner. And the most important thing I've learned that you never mentioned, is that you saved both Francie and young Danny when your home was burned. You got Francie out, Jess, and then went back in for Danny, after he'd fallen! And Pard, I don't know why you never told me, or Daisy or Mike about saving your brother and sister. I really can't figure that at all!"
I … I dunno. What? Slim, how would you … I don't even remember that much about … How'd you ever figure I … I done that? Jess asked, the nightmare's confusion almost drowning him again.
I didn't have to figure it, Jess. Slim answered. We've had letters from Francie and Danny both, the past few weeks. And both of them are worried sick, wondering what's happened to the brother who saved their lives. And both of them are telling me and Daisy and Mike that they wish they could return the favor and help us get you on home, somehow.
And I know they would, Pard. I know they'd do anything to save your life, same as I would, same as Daisy or Andy, Jonesy or Mike… If they had any way to do it, all the way from California and Texas! Now, you know as well as I do, Jess, Francie isn't going to lie about something like that. And if she wouldn't, why would your brother?
Oh and Francie had something else she wanted us to know, Pard. She said your Uncle Danny, your Aunt Beth's husband wrote down every word, every account, and every scrap of evidence about that fire in his journal. And I've seen that journal now, Jess. Your cousin Cooper has it. And I've read it cover to cover now. So I know a lot more now, about what happened out on the Panhandle.
I know it had to be four, maybe five or six riders who murdered your parents and the rest of your siblings. It had to be, because they fired the house, burned the outbuildings and stables, trampled the gardens and hayricks into the dirt, pulled down the corrals and scattered the stock, all in the space of an hour at the most! And if I know that from Danny Smith's journal, Jess, then you know it too! The damage done that night, aside from the murders, was more than three grown men, much less one ten year old boy could ever create!
Ten and a quarter. Jess protested, sighing. It was almost October, when they raided th' place, so I was ten and a quarter. An'… back then I was kinda a light sleeper, truth be told. But, thanks, Pard, honestly, thanks a whole heck of a lot… I dunno exactly what kinda trouble I'm in or how I got here. But it's real good to … well, confab, even like this. Figure I was hopin to get a word in with you, mebbee even countin' on it. Figure I could mebbee get some sleep after all.
You go on and rest, however much you can, Pard. We're working our tails off right now to get you safe home again. And we will, Jess! And that you can, and you'd better believe! So, just you hold on, Pard. We're not leaving you with these… so and so's much longer, I promise! The tall, blond rancher insisted
Uh, yes, sir, Gen'rl Sherman, sir! An' please, would y' extend my deepest apologies to your superior officer, Gen'rl Cooper, an' tell her I feel awful bad, for havin' gone AWOL, this way, sir?
I wasn't plannin' this side trip a bit, will you tell her that, please? Jess imagined joshing his partner, and almost believed for a moment he could see Slim relaxing, the way the rancher often did, while they exchanged their usual brotherly banter.
Oh, don't worry, you're already on her sick list for at least the next five or six months, at this point! You might, just might be allowed out of bed, in time for Christmas! Slim jibed back, at least in his partner's thoughts, then became somber, again.
This is your home, now, Pard, whether you actually believe that or not. And you're needed, and you're loved here, whether or not you believe that, either. So, no giving up, no giving in, either. Seems as if I've heard Texans don't know what either of those things mean. Seems as though my brother Jess never once thought surrendering was even possible for anybody named Harper. You're counting on us? Well, no more than we're counting on you, Jess. So, hang in there, okay? Jess, answer me! You're going to hang in there for all of us, right? Jess?
'M gonna try my darndest, Pard. Jess agreed, feeling exhausted. An' m' real glad you're not givin' up on' ol Jess here, yet. M just kinda worn down, right now. Just kinda wearied out, about now.
Go on, hit the rack, then, Cowhand. Slim suggested, as Jess had heard him do a thousand times with Mike or Andy, with a warm, 'big brother grin' spreading all over his face. We'll be there just anytime now, Jess, you've got my word!
That's good t' know, real good, Pard. Jess grinned wearily back, and almost relaxed into genuine sleep, finally. Almost.
How very timely! The nightmare's icy voice called out, now, catching the exhausted man on the near edge of falling asleep. And how very comforting, truly! And how exceedingly close all that blather came to being EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR MOST JUST NOW!
N-N-No! The nightmare-ridden man cried out, as the freezing laughter came back like a blizzard pouring down out of the Rockies to wrap him head to toe in self hatred and loathing.
Y-Y-Yes! The laughter mocked him, billowing like a thunder. You were asleep. You knew it. You told yourself that, and yet, here you are, seeking to believe in yet another inviting delusion! You were asleep and dreaming of your devoted friend's compassion and trust and affection! You were imagining him and you knew it! You were looking at ghosts, seeing spectres and listening to more laudanum induced lies! Those you most wish were alive, you recreate living and thriving in your lunatic thoughts. Those you fear most to have harmed you envision unscathed!
Those you know full well you destroyed by your madness, your arrogance and your most adamant folly, you draw from memories you claim not to have any longer, while waking! Well, you're fully awake now, it seems. Open your madman's eyes and see what is real and what is illusory here!
Shuddering, all but helpless to do anything else, he complied, opening his eyes to the size of two chinks in a rough wooden door. The wide, warm, sunlit room he'd 'seen' just now had vanished, taking all the light and ease he'd begun to feel with it. The sense of being somehow welcomed, worried and waited for was gone now, too. He'd only invented them, anyway. He had no home, no shelter, and no haven. He had no right to any such thing!
Well that, at least, and at long last, you have right! The nightmare's chill voice insisted. You are remembering rightly now, aren't you, my fine young lunatic? You are recalling the core truth of your life, despite all efforts to deny, to digress, and to dissemble. You are insane. But that cannot change the facts. And the key fact is, you are a murderer! You murdered two families, two I say!
You wiped out two bands of loving, welcoming innocent souls, in two lunacy-driven murder sprees. They took you in and you took them in, entirely! Then you devastatednot one but two loving families. You destroyed their homes, their lives and their future. You shattered their worlds and buried the fragments in fire and madness on two, I say two separate occassions of unadulterated, brutal dementia!
Jess felt his eyes flying wide open, staring, his throat closing, his fists clenching, his arms and legs struggling to send him bolt upright. But he couldn't see the nightmare-figure clearly. He couldn't raise his voice or his hands against these terrible charges. He couldn't make his limbsor his whole frame obey him at all. The most he could do now was shake his head in terrified denial.
Ah, yes, of course, you would like to refute the truth of the matter. You would still like to erase your past. The nightmare figure nodded. And the pity is, the genuine pity, is you might have done so. But it seems your ancestral madness is no longer dormant within you, Harper . Because as it turns out, when nearly twenty years passed after that first tragic arson, you found a new home and new family,
to boot.
Once more you wove your sad stories. And they let you in. And you destroyed them, as well. They trusted you, they cared for you, my fine young lunatic. And once more you turned on them, with all the violence in your deranged spirit. They made you a part of their lives, and were repaid with death and destruction they could never possibly have twenty years had passed since that first, pitiable conflagration, you unleashed your personal demons and you struck again! Once more, in the dead of night, you left your horrific signature there with a killing fire!
No, as we already told you. They never could have imagined the profundity of your madness, could they? No, as I said, they were too innocent for that. And if you are finally come to the Bar of Everlasting Justice, it is only because someone realized your deranged, demented and terribly dangerous state, at long last.
Driven awake again, his thoughts swam like ponies panicking in a mudslide, never getting them, or him, anywhere. He had no hope of escaping now, nowhere to turn. He hadn't any dreams left and no right to them. He'd wrecked every dream, every hope, and every chance he'd ever had. That much he should have known already, the nightmare-figure somehow silently told him. He had no friends, no kin, and no help he could expect here. He'd torn their lives and hopes apart, he'd slain and buried all their dreams, right alongside his own.
No! No! I couldn't have! No, I don't remember! Jess tried to tell the nightmare. How could I have done such awful harm and have no recollection?
Liar! Deceiver! Hypocrite! the nightmare answered, laughing coldly. You only remember what you wish to, or so it seems. Or is that just another lie, one you've convinced yourself is fact? Recently you claimed to remember a great many things. But now, you're back to this defense by virtue of amnesia? It won't serve you, it won't help your case now. And it may be nothing will help. Come, come, do you think you may escape Perdition with a lie?
I dunno if I'll escape Perdition by any means. That's not up to me, or up to you, Nightmare! Jess insisted. If I'm written down for Glory, I'll get there. If not… If not, well, I guess I'm bound for hell fire… at least then th' accounts will be settled.
Hell fire? How very odd that you should use just that term. You may in fact have lost some elements of recollection, it would seem. That does not signify here. We have, in fact, taken these things into due consideration on many, many previous occassions. And I am not required, neither am I here at all in order to clear your confusions, my fine, young lunatic!
I am not here at your service, but that of The Eternal. And if you now stand at the Bar of Perpetual Judgment, that is not my doing, either, but your own!
And if you're to be cast down, cast out forever; all the while declaring you do not know, you cannot recall your own unspeakable transgressions, well, that is on your head, madman, and yours alone. But, as it happens, The Eternal is not without It's own Ineffable Mercies. So I will leave you with what may be enough to bring you some semblance of understanding. Please do pay heed, you may need to be deposed, or cross-examined on this, later.
You have recalled that you are Jacob Emrys Sayre Smith Harper, named for your father's distant cousin and benefactor of that name. You are the eldest maternal grandson of Nathaniel and Meredydd Cooper, and on your late father's side, of Alexandre and Mirielle Harper. And as you noted, you learned, at an early age, at your grandfather Cooper's own church in Texas, that either Salvation or Damnation are written down for every living soul, from the Foundation of the World. Well, that is where the answer to your most urgent question lies, young Harper.
You are far more the heir of Mirielle Anastaise Meraud Clement Harper than you are of Nathaniel Kieran Anglim Cooper. You are a dangerously, indeed uncontrollably violently mad pyromaniac; and a cunning one, I'd add. You followed your grandmother Harper's dire, disastrous, maddened arsonists example in life, almost to the letter. Like her, you set ruinous, murderous fires. And like her, you somehow hid your lunacy for decades. And like her, you told lie after lie after lie to conceal what you'd done. And as those who loved her so well long believed the fables she spun for them, those who loved you equally as well, for the most part believed your lies as well.
As a boy, you played on and you won all the sympathy and concern one could wish, as a poor, bereft, tragically orphaned child. As a youth, you maintained your fabric of lies and misdirection that kept a great many kind souls believing your tales. As a man, you went so far as to seek final condemnation for the persons you cast as the villains in your tragic stories.
And now, even now, there are those who want to believe you did not destroy the home you had in northwest Texas, years ago. Even now there are those who want to believe there could be no place for such malice, such wickedness or such madness in a boy they cherished so much. So it seems mostly normal human disbelief and compassion has kept you from either a madhouse or a gallows all these years. Even now there are those who, knowing the few facts of the terrible matter, will not admit you murdered your own family.
Wholly awake now, chilled through, sick and shivering, Jess tried again to push himself upright and failing that, fell back on his left side. He could hardly think. He could hardly understand what he heard. The nightmare's charges pounded him like lead-gloved fists, like knives made of fire. A thousand pound weight seemed to drop onto his shoulders, and all he could manage was a despairing moan.
''Ah, G-d! Ah, G-d! Ah, no, no, G-d, no!''
I could never… I could never do any… such thing! I couldn't harm them… I couldn't hurt them… I could never …
Ah, G-d! I could never … kill the people I love! I … couldn't… Jess tried to fight the sheer weight of words, of nightmare visions, and his own life long remorse for surviving when so many greatly loved kinfolk and friends were long gone. He tried and the terrible weight wouldn't budge from his shoulders, much less from his heart.
Ah, G-d, forgive me! Have I been purely outa my mind all this time? Have I swept these awful… memories … under some kinda rug?… Ah, G-d! I murdered my family? Momma, Daddy… Alec an' Lissy… the Twinners…
No, all of them… all of them died, he said! Francie died, then … Danny, too? But that's not… that can't be so! I … couldn't've dreamed them… I couldn't have made all that up! How could I imagine the damn Bannisters raidin' and burnin' us out? I must be about as crazed as they come! How else could I forget I caused the worst night of my life?
How can a man be sane who, still more n' half the time, doesn't know who he is, or how he came to be a prisoner, a patient, or an inmate of whatever place I'm bein' held now? Jess wondered dismally. How can a man just forget doing the worst things any man could ever do? And what kind of absolute coward would run away from what I've done… And run inside his own damn all befuddled brains?
No, it's not… it can't be true! I … No, no, it's … true! It's true! Sure it is! Didn't I always know? Yeah, I knew it would happen! I knew I'd do… just what I was most afraid I'd always do! I got a second chance at home and family and … just smashed it, too! Daisy, you didn't believe I could be this crazed! Ah, G-d! I'm … I wish you'd been right! … I wish I'd … run, each and every time I got the sense I oughta, and kept runnin' purely forever! …
Well and truly locked inside his own head, Jess fought back his fear, confusion and increasing frustration, using all the faculties left him to make his living presence known here. He thrashed at the hands and arms that lifted, moved and cleaned him. With his sore right shoulder protesting all the while, Jess twisted and pulled away from the needles, cups and bowls they forced on him, over and over again.
Hands and arms fed the Texan, carried him, touched him, turned him, and even bathed him, and he couldn't tell if they were harsh or gentle with him. Sounds ran like babbling streams along side and above him, and he couldn't make anything more than murmuring noise of what he heard. Nor could he manage to so much as echo those sounds. Slurring, garbled, rasping nonsense was all his throat and his voice box could manage.
Without wholly understanding why that was, he only grunted at the sounds someone was constantly making around and above him. He squinted at each blurry form that came close enough, and furiously blinked if he thought they might look at him.
With his 'good leg and foot', with the left still stiff and nearly useless, Jess wearily, constantly kicked out, pushed and shoved his captors away, That made up most of the laundry list of things he did now. What he couldn't do was keep them from jabbing, pouring and dosing him with Jess didn't know what, any longer. It happened so often now he couldn't tell when they'd started. It left him so scared and sickened he couldn't tell when they were done. He shook half the time as if with a high fever, and lay as if wholly paralyzed the rest.
He suffered beatings every time he fought his tormentors. He lay without food or water for time without any measure every time he pushed away the drugs. He grew weaker and less able to fight them all the time, and knew without question this was just what they wanted. And they only came back, after each time he fought, with more blows, more anger and more of their drugs. Each time he woke, Jess was sick, shaking, anxious, and certain they'd dosed him once again.
What more he couldn't do, was rest, much less sleep. Over and over again, Jess started falling asleep, that was so. But over and over again, each time, he woke in terror he could barely understand. Each time, just on the edge of sleep, suddenly he saw a threatening, shadowy figure standing at his feet, or at his side, or looming over him. Each time, just when the young Texan might have dismissed what he saw as figment or a nightmare, a feeling of pure dread took hold, he was helpless and didn't know why.
Long familiar, sick self loathing, was drawing him back into its shadows. It covered him now, like a blanket lined with lead. It weighted down his back, his head, his neck and shoulders, his whole frame, really, so that he could barely move a muscle. It held him paralyzed, pressed against the ground, face down, more helpless, more downhearted and more afraid than he could ever remember being. He couldn't raise his head, or his voice now. He couldn't make his fingers take or keep hold of anything. He couldn't see beyond the tip of his own nose, in the dimness around him.
He couldn't hear much beyond a kind of gasping, struggling old man's sort of wheezing. And only after yet more struggling did he realize it was his own strained efforts to breathe he heard. Something he couldn't name or remember had worked to weaken every inch of his frame, his arms, his legs, and now it seemed, his lungs as well. Someone he couldn't recall or name had beaten him black and blue nearly from head to toe. Every element of his body, mind and spirit felt battered, trampled and terribly abused
At first, waking again, he told himself this had to be another of his own worst nightmares, increased by a magnitude in gloom and guilt and grief that threatened to drown him. At first, he almost believed the bleakness of his condition, his surroundings and his prospects was too immense to be reality at all.
And at first he tried with all his remaining, waning strength to grasp some thread, some scrap, some straw of hope that the terror building in his mind and heart and spirit would vanish when he awoke. Then it hit him. He wasn't sure any longer when or whether he woke, slept or dreamed. He couldn't tell anymore where he was or how he'd come there. He had no idea how long he'd lain helpless and nearly hopeless.
He didn't know the difference now between what he recalled and what he dreaded. Worst of all, he couldn't make his mind, his spirit or his heart tell him what was real now, and what wasn't. And that only let the dread threatening to squeeze the air and the life from him now grow that much more leaden, press that much harder.
Now he knew, in fact all he knew now was this one cold, heart-breaking truth: He'd been found out, cast out. Now he was simply, finally enduring his rightful indictment, trial, sentencing and long since written Doom. All his many awful failings, all his heinous crimes, all his terrible wrong-doing had been discovered.
All his offenses, lies and frauds from a lifetime of being half-buried within him had been revealed at long last. All those he'd devastated, all those he'd destroyed and then, insanely, somehow forgotten were finally to be awarded some measure of justice, some fragment of recompense for what he'd stolen from them and their cherished, bereft kin and friends.
The Fate assigned him from before the world itself came to be was now pronounced upon him in their hearing. Inescapably, the Judgment of the Eternal had him in custody, to face and to suffer as he'd caused so many innocent lives and hearts to suffer. This was surely the answer to all his pain-wracked questions. This was without any doubt the price he should have paid so very long ago. This was only the just desert of a man without conscience enough to lay down and die in the place of any or all of his victims. He was, as was only right and just, already condemned out of his own words and actions, out of the inexorable, illimitable Hand of G-d.
What seemed real to him now, changed drastically, frighteningly each time he opened his eyes again. What he saw was constantly shifting, constantly slipping from his grasp each time he tried to hold it. What he heard or touched, tasted or scented grew more and more weird and unpredictable. And that was barely half of what now fed his growing terror. The rest were the elements of pure nightmare randomly visiting him here:
Shrilling, sobbing, screaming, cursing, raucous voices came just within his range of hearing, but never close enough to be understood. Flashing, discolored, glowing, starkly fiery, frenzied images flowed around him, but always too far away for recognition. Finally every kind of sensation struck him as he lay defenseless, from feather-touches by unseen finger tips to vicious blows from invisible fists from all directions, to sharper, stranger, still more disturbing, violent manipulations he couldn't recognize, much less describe.
But what he knew or understood or wanted now mattered nothing to his despicable tormentors. What he dreamt or believed or feared held no meaning for them, either. And with each new assault, the defenseless man's body, mind and spirit began to do more than wander in one nightmare after another, after another.
Together and separately, they began to wonder if he or his tormentors possessed a single scrap of sanity between them, or if there was anything resembling sanity left in a world he no longer lived in. Separately and together the elements of the tortured being began to wonder if he was real to his abusers, or if they were real, or if there was anything left that could be called reality, anywhere at all.
In one sense, they were far more real than he could wholly endure, any longer. Their hatred and loathing for him was as painful as any beating he could bring to memory now. Their contempt for everything he tried to keep and lost hold of now was more frightening than any nightmare he'd ever known. And their power over him, based on lies, half truths, dreams and terribly distorted memories was overshadowing every thing he'd once known about himself.
Did he remember caring and being cared for? The nightmare jeered. Those were lies he told himself to get from one empty-hearted night to another. Did he believe he'd once welcomed and been welcomed anywhere? Those were just more frauds he'd used against the cold of the Big Open. Was he still clinging to the notion he'd once loved and been loved, much less accepted anywhere at all? That was only another swindle he'd managed to pull… mostly on himself and his own wrecked memory.
He'd been alone so long, the nightmare insisted, he'd begun to go mad, and in that madness invented homes and friends and family he never had and never would! Did he find himself reacting in ways that seemed strange, unnerving, uncanny and even self-destructive to this onslaught of bitterness, self hatred and isolation? That was only what he should always have expected. What was a hapless, friendless saddle-bum supposed to do, if not seek whatever peculiar ways and means he could find, of shutting out his loneliness and longing for what he could never know?
Did he begin to comprehend what the nightmare had to offer as something he'd always truly wanted? That was only a fragmentary gift of reason, of common sense and acquiescence to the way his world had always and would always be now. He should have given up and given in to this long ago. He should have known, he had known most of his life how it would all play out, hadn't he, really?
He should have, and now he finally could let go of all the fancies and foolery of the baby-dreams he might have heard at his momma's knee. The world he lived in, for however longer that might be, was nothing remotely akin to her fairy tales, or his Daddy's dreams, either. None of that was meant for him and he'd always known that was true, right?
Hadn't he tried for years to keep from buying back into that old nonsense? Hadn't he pushed and fought and cut himself free of the world that believed in such claptrap? Hadn't he seen at less than eleven years of age, and again at fifteen and again over and over and over as he grew how the real world took and shattered, took and crushed, took and killed dead and buried all that fantasy of happiness fools wanted to believe in?
He was merely the defendant at the bar of the Eternal, waiting only to hear the sentence sealed for him since the Foundation. Nothing could be done about that now. And nothing should be. The Almighty's ineffable, enigmatic Justice was to be served upon him here. Nothing mortal could or should withstand it.
No one mortal should or could so much as try to understand it. He was without any question guilty as charged here. He couldn't quite seem to recall why he hadn't simply been instructed to make a guilty plea here, thus speeding the Eternal along a bit, just to be helpful. He couldn't quite seem to recall much, now, except his own guilt and the remorse he surely felt to his core. He'd shift his weight on the defendant's rough, unpolished bench, and grasp the railing and turn, in just a minute, definitely. He would. It was important. It was. Surely.
Some thing here was important. Somehow he'd forgotten and sat down here with his back to the door, and that was – bad. Yes, that was always – wrong. He'd done something else horribly wrong – again. He too often did. Yes. Much, much too often. It wasn't something anyone could just – put up with.
Nor should they. No. No. They'd suffered a fool gladly – when that was – wrong. Yes. That had to stop. They would come and stop it – yes. That would only be – what was supposed to happen. Shouldn't he be on his feet now? He thought so. Yes. Wasn't he supposed to stand up and – say or do or – listen to – something? Yes, he was surely supposed to stand – supposed to stand and – hear – something – They would come and tell him – what now was supposed to happen. And he should – be standing when they told him.
Yes. He should. That might be a problem –now, though. it seemed highly unlikely to the exhausted man that he could even take his feet again, unless someone pulled him to them. And that would be – wrong. He was supposed to stand – He was supposed to stand, even though now his legs seemed to be made of sand and putty. He had to try. He had to give at least the appearance of trying yes, that was – right. He had to – try to – to He had to face his long since written doom, his verdict, and his sentencing, now
Would he be ordered to alocute his insupportable crimes? Would he be allowed to speak his vast contrition? What was now expected of him? Surely those spirits, however long departed had every right to hear him admit his monstrous offenses of letting them die, his grievous sin - of surviving them all. Surely those so wrongly bereaved, gathered here, deserved to take whatever reckoning they could from his sentence.
What should he be doing now? The amnesiac at the Bar of Justice wondered. At the very least, shouldn't he be standing, soon, if not this instant, to receive his sentence, his verdict? At the very least he should be trying to contain his shivering, the random spasms in his arms and legs now. No, no, he shouldn't be sitting now. He should be standing.
Now, someone … maybe more than one someone here was weeping. That was only right. That was just and proper. And surely someone, a lot of someones here were also bitterly angry. And so they should be. Yes, yes. They should also be allowed to speak, making certain … making sure there could be no doubt at all that this defendant deserved punishment to the fullest extent of the Eternal. They probably should speak before… or should he somehow, try to speak before them?
He swallowed, painfully, his throat raw, for no reason he could quite remember. Had he been sobbing, shouting, or screaming and just forgotten? He tried to turn his head and ask a question. No, no, that was wrong. He had no right to speak here, without being ordered to list his crimes, to state his guilt, to acknowledge his Everlasting disgrace.
His voice didn't seem up to the challenge, just now, anyway. The most he could do was rasp and squeak like a broken, rusty gate-hinge. Perhaps he'd be permitted to scrawl out a statement that could be read to the Eternal, by someone whose voice box was in working order.
That could be tricky too, since his right hand felt pretty much like a lump of putty, just now. He'd tried and could hardly get his fingers to act like they were attached to his palm, much less to his fogged in brain. Perhaps he could set down on paper what he would have told them all , if he could just stop his hands shaking as if he'd come down with a fever.
This was important. It was, surely. They'd want to see, if they couldn't hear how deeply he felt his shame, how well he knew his fault in all this. Or had he already made a confession? He had… of course, he had. But would the Eternal accept such a paltry attempt as that? Maybe he could make some other gesture, now, to show…
Perhaps those he'd wronged so awfully could take their privilege, their right to confront him. They surely were entitled to that and much more. Were they truly here? Were those who should have lived long and full here, now, to tell him precisely how they'd been cheated? Would he be able, would he be allowed to at the very least squeak out a heartfelt ''m' sorry''?
The nightmare was relentless now and only growing ten times stronger every time he tried to turn it away. The horror of his long ago losses was turning into the truth of his whole, entire life, now. The emptiness of a grief stricken boy, a lonely youth and a bitter man on the drift was surrounding and suffocating everything else in him now. He'd lost them all, he tried to say, and mourning everyone he loved in one bitter instant.
No! the nightmare insisted. No, he'd destroyed them all and should be glad to accept his bleak, justly abbreviated future. Shouldn't he just give in at last to the oldest wound in his battered heart, and let it take him? Shouldn't he be glad to die, now? At last, together or separately, the nightmare was winning. The nightmare was defeating every remaining fragment and scrap of the man, the youth and the boy it hated so profoundly, because it so profoundly envied his open, caring, honest, deeply loving heart, and spirit. That heart was all but buried, as deeply now as a young boy had once been buried in an old irrigation tunnel.
That spirit was all but collapsed, as devastatingly as a battered ranch house on the Texas Panhandle once collapsed in flames and horror. That man, who had been the boy watching his home dying, the youth watching his friends and foes destroyed by War, now lay watching his life, his mind and his understanding vanishing. He had no more strength to fight his enemies alone, the same enemies he'd always had, loneliness, grief and longing.
As far as his enemies were concerned, they were watching the man they hated and feared ten times more than he feared them, dying. As far as they could tell a creature of their own violent making was coming to birth in the ruins they'd sought after with so much bitterness, rage and terror. The creature that was emerging from these horrors knew only the sanity, the reality and indeed the beliefs his captors intended for him. He was wholly their creation now and they turned at last to giving their creature his sole remaining purpose, his own self-destruction.
'The prisoner at the bar has something to say to the plaintiffs, to the prosecutor, to the Eternal Court of Judgment, now? The prisoner asks to make a statement?'' a chilling, angry voice, one the amnesiac knew better than he wished, asked from somewhere beside him.
"Wait, colect your thoughts. Very well, now, make your statement."
'' M' statement.. is" he rasped, using all his strength, to push past the weariness, the rawness, and the ache of tears in his throat. Had he been weeping too? '' I … only … tell… 'em… I … 'm sorry.''
Abruptly the nightmare wheeled more deeply into the uncanny. The voice, the only one speaking to him here, began raucously, mockingly, almost hysterically laughing. The prisoner/defendant cringed at the bitter sound, wishing he could somehow unsay the words that brought it on. That laughter, the defendant/prisoner felt like icy knives cutting him open to let his blood soak the earth as he'd heard some folks believed was the only way a killer should be executed. And that laughter, that mockery, was only part of the punishment he so well deserved! That laughter, the prisoner/pre-condemned man knew from a time and place so deeply lost to him he couldn't touch, much less name them now.
He had no right to know, to see, to hear, or to recall the lives and the names, the times or the places he'd devastated. He had no place, no ties, and no name here. And in what was the only justice left him, he'd soon give up his life for what little recompense that might bring his victims and their mourners now. Dying was all there was left for him to do. Paying with his own ruined span of years seemed barely enough now to him, when put in the balance against the dreams he'd stolen, the lives he'd shattered and all the places he'd destroyed.
Now the icy, cutting laughter stopped and the bitter voice returned to accost and accuse him. That was the prosecutor's right, surely. The charges must be announced in meticulous detail now, that was only right. That was only just. The prisoner tried once more to stand, as he knew he was expected to do now.
With all his arm's remaining strength he struggled, pushed and leaned his weight against the bench he sat on. With all the effort he could bring, he shifted first one leg and then the other to a stance that might hold him upright. With all the will in the world he tried to do what was needed and expected of him now. It was no good, it was no use, and he could no more keep his balance than he could keep his feet. Heavily, and helplessly he fell against the enclosure surrounding him.
'' If the prisoner at the bar of Eternal Justice had any true regard whatever for those he so grievously, so terribly, and so profoundly wronged, the Prosecution would have expected some gesture of expiation from him at a much earlier juncture. The Prosecution would have thought that any living creature with any semblance of a human conscience would wish to make his comprehension of his terrible guilt abundantly clear to all concerned.
The Prosecution would never, and indeed has never wavered from its support of a prisoner's right to declare, to alocute his crimes in open court before the Eternal and those he devastated with his shameful deeds and yet more shameful deceptions. That is the least a prisoner, standing condemned at the bar of Eternal Retribution should be not only capable of but willing. Indeed, it has long been the stance of this Office to accept genuine acts of Recompense and Reparation, not to say Repentance on the part of such a prisoner as this.
Moreover, this Office has on numerous occassions made its policy as regards what a prisoner standing already condemned here should willing, if not eager to do, as a means of showing genuine remorse and true compassion for his more than numerous victims. Regrettably, the prisoner presently standing condemned before the Eternal has vouchsafed no such obliging gestures, has communicated no such accommodating remorse, nor has he made so much as one single, solitary attempt to remove himself from the Eternal's demanding docket!
Rather, he has made every attempt to maintain his appalling defense strategies of claiming for himself abject empty minded madness, clinically impossible global amnesia, or what is worse, some totally bizarre idea of his own innocence as regards these charges! And by doing so, the Prosecution cannot help but note, the prisoner here condemned has put the Eternal to no little trouble, to no small difficulty, and to no end of nuisance complaints from the tiny remnant of those who survived his dangerous, capricious, and always murderous bent for ruin and annihilation!
One would have thought anyone brought to a full understanding of his full culpability in such a catalogue of foul deeds would have made begged to make his quietus before the Eternal's verdict had even been required.
One would have surely thought that any conscience-bearing human soul would have taken the first opportunity that presented to erase the awful ignominy of his brutally mad existence! And yet here stands the prisoner, condemned out of his own mouth by what he confided in disbelieving innocents years ago!
Well, sir, do you have anything you wish to add to your pathetic notion of a last statement before the Eternal gives out your sentence? Do you perhaps, have some final request you wish to make, to ease the matter now before the Eternal? Wait. Summon your thoughts as best you can. Very well, speak your piece before the Eternal Bar of Justice. '' The Prosecutor, who seemed bizarrely familiar to the condemned man's blurry vision demanded.
''I … should… have… I should… have died… when they … died.'' the prisoner whispered, believing what he said completely. '' I … should've … died … not … them… never them… ''
''And what precisely do you mean to do to redress that long-lived imbalance?'' the Prosecutor asked, hiding the glee in his icy-grey gaze by turning his face from the prisoner. "Stop. Wait until directed to answer. Very well, now. Tell the Court of the Eternal what you intend."
'' I… I … I'll die… '' the prisoner/creature Moray had built on the ruins of the man he feared and hated answered, staring, entranced at the long, shining steel barber's razor that suddenly seemed to be there on the bench beside him.. '' I'll… … die… please….'' the creature/prisoner rasped and losing all his remaining strength, collapsed, unconscious.
"No. No, Harper, you won't die. Well, not quite yet." Moray said, and swallowed a cry of triumph and turned back to glare at the prisoner. With
the brutally efficient use of counter-reacting drugs he'd brought his youthful, strong willed enemy to this depth of desolation in something over a fortnight. With the assistance and the silence of his servants and distractions provided by his still loyal followers among the Company, he'd kept his violent manipulations secret from the Widow.
In any case Eugenie Pascale mattered next to nothing to the Charlestonian, now. He had papers drawn and ready for her real or, if need be, her forged signature, giving him not only her power of attorney but the proprietorship of her estate. The Widow Pascale could easily join her lost loves at any time following the filing of those papers. Her twin brother was already under 'indictment' by the tribunal Moray had taken control of. Lee Henry Morrissey would also cease to be anything but a bothersome memory sometime in the not too distant future.
Moray had plans well under way at this very moment to rid himself of Solomon Howell, Roberto Geronne, Ezekiel Adamson, and any other Company men who retained an unhealthy loyalty to 'the Colonel'. The South Carolinian hadn't worked since the Conflict for what he wanted, wealth, influence and power, only to let ruffians and brigands such as those bar his way to Ultimate Victory now.
Any others in the Company who thought to take what Moray had indubitably earned for himself alone would be neatly disposed of, by means of sealed records going directly to any and all regional and Federal authorities. That those records bore not one trace or sign of Heydon Moray's complicity in the Company's many terrible deeds was only what any sensible jurist doctor would have made sure of, the jurist doctor in question decided. None of them were in the same class or on the same level of matchless wits and acumen as he. None of them had the least idea of what it meant, or what it took to be a true Southron aristocrat in these terribly altered times.
Only one person with any connection whatever to this band of conveniently expendable killers had ever come close to attaining Moray's approbation and acceptance. That young gentleman lay in his family crypt the past six years outside St Bernard's churchyard. And that young gentleman had brusquely refused all of Moray's offers of support, of patronage, or of genteel friendship.
Edward Denys Augustin Morrissey, the Second had rebuffed, not to say repudiated every offer Heydon Palmerston Catesby Moray ever made him. Shining like a young Lochinvar when the Conflict started, wealthy young Neddy Morrissey declined every gift or promise Moray would have made him. And then he heaped insult on injury, by joining a band of Texas rowdies masquerading as Confederate cavalrymen. Wounded and later maimed in a Yankee held hospital in Yankee-held Atlanta, Neddy Morrissey still rejected every word or act of friendship, no matter what truths or what lies were offered with them.
Never once by word, or look or deed had the still handsome, still deceptively frail seeming youth accepted Moray's promises, threats or attempts at extortion, all meant to move the lad where he would not be moved. But Moray couldn't help but blame the two rowdies from east Texas who backed up Neddy's angry accusations against the Charleston native. Aaron Caulder and Jess Harper made themselves altogether too memorable to Moray and he never forgot the damage they did him and his reputation.
Neddy knew the former prosecutor and made just as much trouble, or tried to. All of them would have to be dealt with… as time went on. And finally, dying in a loathsome bordello or 'crib' in the French Quarter, 'Neddy' Morrissey still declined Moray's every attempt to 'help' him. Now, Neddy was long since dead and moldering amongst his ancestor's remains. And moving him from a pauper's to a suicide's to a sanctified resting place had taken no small influence at the time. Moray, once more made cognizant of the wealth and power the Morrisseys and Pascales retained even after the Conflict was lost, remade his plans and notions and offers. And all these he took to the Widow.
Now we have reached the endgame. Morrissey considered,sneering as Jaimey and Phillips moved Harper to a hidden room in the hunting lodge Moray had taken over. Now I will take all I have worked for, with, or without Her Ladyship's approval! And let her lose the rest of her wandering wits in a Federal prison somewhere, or let her die on a Yankee gibbet. It matters naught to me! I have all I sought after all this time, all this while you thought you were gaining your vengeance, My Dear Lady!
Let you wonder, for as long as you have the mind to wonder with, how it came to be that I won all and you came away empty handed and broken? Let you and your beloved ghosts whisper and ponder the glorious ascension to his rightful place of Heydon Moray, Esquire! Not for one more moment than I must shall I bow and scrape and flatter you, my Dear Mad 'Empress Eugenie'! Not for one more moment than I must shall I suffer such fools as you and Harper anywhere around me! He will be dead before another week's out, and you… well, I care naught …
Except that you will never learn now who it was who prompted, plagued and finally pushed your Dearest Neddy to his lamentably early end! Except that you will never know how I lied and told half truths and repeated the vilest of gossip to a lad who held his family name somehow more sacred than anything in his foolish young life! Except that you will live and die your life out believing Heydon Moray was your suitor, your friend and supporter always, when nothing could be further from the truth! Yes, I have won and you will never even know how profoundly you have lost this game of ours!