Chapter Fifteen:
Artefact

"Maybe we ought to wait for Chris," Josiah commented as he brought his Buick Roadmaster to a halt in front of the First National Bank of Santa Fe, where Orin Travis kept a private lock box in its vault.

"We can't wait, you heard them. If they don't get what they want, they'll kill him." Buck declared hotly, hating the idea himself they were doing this without Chris's input but the Erran hadn't given them much choice in the matter. Listening to that woman make her demands, Buck was convinced of one thing just as surely as Ezra had been, she wasn't bluffing. If they did not produce the Pillars, JD would be killed. As it stood, the Erran had proven time and time again, just how ruthless they were in their pursuit of their goals.

Buck knew he was running high on emotion but frankly, he didn't much care for the thoughts of the others on this point. In the last year since JD Dunne joined their number, the kid had become important, not just to the dynamics of the group but each man saw something in JD that touched them all. It was reminiscent of the feeling they felt in the trenches of France when the scrawny twelve-year old Vin Tanner had been, was presented to them as their latest recruit.

They'd all taken to Vin, Chris especially. Their leader had kept Vin at his side throughout most of the war and that connection remained just as binding, even now. Buck had seen it and never understood the intensity of the friendship until JD Dunne entered their lives. Watching this young man struggling through life on his own, needing so much to have someone give a damn about him had touched Buck on a very personal level. Having grown up with similar isolation, Buck quickly developed an almost paternal affection for JD.

Ezra glanced sideways at Josiah a look, implying he ought to let it go. Everyone in the vehicle knew how Buck felt about JD and only Chris could rein in the big man when his emotions were running this hot. Unfortunately, their fearless leader was not here and after leaving word with Nettie at the ranch about their intentions, they had come here to retrieve Orin's piece of Erran folklore.

While they had no intention of giving the Erran the artefact, for this exchange to work, they needed to produce the Pillar to have something to bargain with.

"Buck is right," Orin Travis who was wedged between Buck and Nathan during the journey, was now shifting in his seat to leave the vehicle. "I will not let any harm come to young Mr Dunne, not on my account. The foolishness of my youth has caused enough harm, I won't add JD to the death toll."

"This ain't your fault Sir," Nathan who was already on the sidewalk, held the door open for the older man. "People get in their heads to act all crazy, you're not to blame for their beliefs."

"Perhaps," Orin was not about to let himself be exonerated so easily. "Will, Hank, Donnie and I trampled across a foreign land and desecrated one of their temples. Would we be as forgiving if someone had done that to one of our churches?"

"Perhaps not," Josiah could not argue there but he wasn't going to let the Professor feel any worse than he already did. "But it's a long way from plundering churches to what these folks intend on doing with the Pillars."

"Come on," Buck said impatiently, not wishing to get into this debate. Christ knew Chris was going to have plenty to say on the subject when he got back. And none of it good.


"Your brother was right," Krestos said eyeing the men as they climbed out of the vehicle. "They behaved exactly as he assumed they would."

Aisha smiled from the backseat of the Cadillac Cabriolet following a discreet distance behind the Roadmaster. Now parked in an alley across the street from the bank. As the five men emerged from the vehicle, their destination clear, Aisha marvelled at how astute her brother had been in his deductions. The threat to the boy's life had driven them straight to the location of the Pillar in Orin Travis's possession. While they were certain the Pillar hidden by William Styles was almost certainly in the hand of these men's leader, the location of Travis's artefact had been a mystery.

Now instead of wasting their time with exchanges and pointless bargains, the Erran knew where the remaining Pillars were and go retrieve them, as well as doing away with these meddlesome infidels once and for all.

"Tell our people to move in on the building," Aisha replied. "We'll take it from them as soon as it's in their possession."


While Buck and Josiah kept a vigil on the Professor while he was being escorted through the bank clerk into the vault, Ezra and Nathan remained in the main floor of the premises. As it was a weekday and approaching lunch, the bank was busy and visited by an assortment of individuals, from regular joes carrying out normal day to day transactions, secretaries making deposits into commercial accounts and senior citizens needing the intricacies of their passbook explained by weary tellers. Despite this however, the chatter in the bank was kept to a minimum, as if the worship of money required the same reverence as a church.

Nathan's presence in the bank appeared to be the cause of intense scrutiny, not only from the tellers behind the counter but also the security guard at the door. It rankled Ezra to no end that Nathan who had an impressive fiscal worth, would receive nothing but prejudice in the establishment where if he were a white man, would be welcomed as a worthy customer. Even though Ezra was a southerner, he despised the Jim Crow laws affecting his best friend on a regular basis.

"The sooner we get this thing, the better I'll feel," Nathan grumbled as he noted the sharp stare of the grizzly looking security guard aimed at his direction. Thank Christ the man didn't know he was packing.

Ezra glanced in the direction of Nathan's gaze and gave the guard an equally venomous glare in solidarity with his best friend. He disliked the bigoted thinking that still existed even though a war had been fought to settle the whole matter less than a century before.

"I do not blame you," Ezra replied sympathetically, not even trying to offer a useless epithet like he understood, when there was no way he ever could. The two men were trying to remain unobtrusive as they took up position near one of the marble column in the main floor, staying out of the way of patrons and the traffic coming through the door. "Hopefully the Professor will conclude his business quickly and we can be away from here. There are far too few egress points for my liking."

Nathan stared at Ezra, aware by the tone in the man's voice, he was worried. "You think the Erran may try to ambush us, here?"

Ezra didn't look at him, his sea green eyes were fixed instead on the main entrance, which the guard was flanking but paying little attention to, more focussed on Nathan.

"They have proven before they have no compunctions about where they choose to attack, no matter what the collateral damage."

Nathan swept his gaze across the floor and noted just how many people there were in the bank today. Men, women, children and senior citizens were out in force and if the Erran chose to appear, they would have plenty of targets. Concern for their safety suddenly overrode the discomfort he felt at being in the place as Ezra's worry infected him too.

"Fortunately, if they do appear, we are armed." Ezra remarked, reassured by the feel of the derringer beneath his sleeve and the Remington in his shoulder holster beneath his coat.

"Let's hope it don't come to that," Nathan frowned, completely convinced if there was a gunfight in the bank, he was going to be the first one the guard shot.


Buck never had enough money until recent years to ever have the need to visit the vault inside a bank. To him, the secret place behind the counters, where only tellers and stolid looking men with steel rimmed glasses and bow ties inhabited, was a place of forbidden mystery. Just like the changing room of a ladies store or one of their powder rooms. When Mr Heidegger, the German bank manager of the First National Bank led them through the wall of steel bars, to the vault where the lock boxes were kept, Buck eyed the place with interest.

Leaving Ezra and Nathan at the door because after the Erran's discovery of their hiding place earlier that morning, none of them were leaving anything to chance as they went to retrieve the Pillar kept in this bank by Orin Travis. Heidegger had greeted Orin as if they had a personal relationship and Buck had to wonder when the Professor had met a Kraut. Had Heidegger come here after the war. A part of Buck still had difficulty hearing that accent, especially with the way things were going on in Germany right now.

Once Orin was shown to the area where the lock boxes were kept and allowed to retrieve the elongated metal box, sealed with a key possessed only by himself and the bank, the bank manager took them to an adjoining room where they could view their valuables in privacy. Only after Orin had thanked the man and he left them to their own devices, did the Professor finally turn to the box.

"I had hoped to never lay eyes on this thing again," Orin frowned. "I wanted to be dead in the ground first."

"I'm sorry you had to see it now Professor," Josiah said kindly. "With any luck, once we get JD back we can put it somewhere you'll never have to think of it again."

Personally, Buck thought that viewpoint was being rather optimistic. He was already reminded of what Vin had said in the car on their way to Doctor Styles's home, that the Erran were fanatics and would never stop coming after Orin and his daughter, if there was a chance to conduct their crazy ritual. Following JD's abduction, the abhorrent notion of destroying the Pillars and the Heart, suddenly did not seem so terrible..

"I hope it is that easy," Orin said as he inserted the key into the slot beneath the lid of the lock box and twisted. It turned easily and Orin let out a breath as he lifted the lid. Still concealed within a red velvet pouch, both Josiah and Buck waited patiently as Orin removed the from it, the artefact that was the cause of some much grief to him and the friends of his youth.

Fashioned out of polished bronzed, it still gleamed beneath the hard, white light overhead. The ornate carvings along the side, what Chris or JD would have identified immediately as cuneiform, spoke a language neither man understood. Josiah studied the object, thinking that a craftsman had created this object two thousand years before Christ was born. It wasn't just ancient, it was priceless. History marked every scratch in the meta and in every wear of ceramic along its shaft. It was humbling to be in the presence of the thing, to know it had survived millennia and touching it was feeling some part of its immortality.

"It's beautiful," Josiah stated and saw Orin nod in agreement.

"We never saw it as any more than a way to make a fortune," Orin said shaking his head, feeling ashamed by the short-sightedness he and the others had displayed back in the day. "We went to the Middle East, expecting to make a fortune and when we found the Pillars, we thought it would make us rich. Of course, all it did was ruin us." He picked up the cryptext and stared at it hard. "I've lost all of them because the Pillars and I would give anything to change that."

Buck saw the sorrow in his eyes and understood all too well the man's feelings on the matter. He thought of Chris, Vin, Josiah, Nathan, Ezra and JD, all of them who had become a family, starting from their service in France, right up to this moment. They had become such a part of each other's lives, the idea of losing even just one of their number felt unimaginable. Just as it must be to Orin Travis, who had lost his friends in William Styles, Hank Connelly and Donald Avery, because of the Erran.

"We'll get justice for them Professor," Buck patted him on the shoulder in sympathy. "Somehow, we'll make the Erran pay for this."

Yet even as he said the words, Buck knew for Orin, it would never be enough.


Ezra hated being right.

When he heard the familiar voice of Buck above the quiet conversations across the main floor of the bank, Ezra instinctively turned his attention to their approaching comrades, just like Nathan beside him. With the guard still eyeing them, convinced the two well-dressed men with no business with the bank lingering about, were in fact casing the joint for a robbery. Gratitude filled him, because with Buck, Josiah and the Professor's return, they could finally get out of this place.

"About time," Nathan grizzled, giving the guard an equally derisive look before he turned towards their party, stepping through the short wooden gate separating the main floor of the bank from the rest of the premises. "We don't get out of here soon, that guard is likely to call the Feds and accuse us of getting ready to rob the bank like Dillinger or something..."

"Dillinger?" Ezra rolled his eyes. "I am certainly dressed better than him."

Nathan shook his head, "well as long as we're keeping our priorities in check..."

No sooner than he said those words, the main doors flew open, allowing the sounds of the street to break the hallowed atmosphere of the bank. Nathan glanced over his shoulder just as an afterthought and did a double take when he saw the Erran, led by the behemoth and the women, striding through the doors. Their faces were partially concealed with a red sash tied over their nose and mouth, immediately prompting Ezra's memories of mustard gas.

It was an apt association because no sooner than the words had crossed his mind, the woman who had reached beneath the cloak over her shoulder was throwing those glass orbs into the air. They spread out like ball bearings, shattering against the marble floor and filling the room with a noxious green gas, that had everyone gasping in seconds.

"Jesus Christ!" Nathan exclaimed and grabbed Ezra's arm, "come on!"

"I concur," Ezra replied hastily and didn't waste time arguing with him as the Erran spread out quickly, determined to keep them from leaving. The two men hurried across the floor as pandemonium broke out, their time in France giving them the ability to react better to the threat of gas with more speed.

One only had to see the effects of mustard gas in a field hospital to know whatever the woman was poisoning the air with, was something neither of them wanted to breathe.

Around them people were starting to wheeze and cough, a few were trying to make their way to the exits but were hindered by the cultists. The security guard who had been eyeing him, had dropped to his knees, his face turning purple as he started to foam at the mouth from the effect of the gas. The healer in Nathan wanted to help but right now the imperative to get to the Professor overrode that compulsion. As they hurried towards their friends, Nathan looked over his shoulder long enough to see the Erran searching for them.

It took less than a second for eye contact to be made.

"THERE!" The woman shouted, pointing a finger at Nathan and Ezra, before her larger companion, the giant surrounded by a cadre of Erran started running towards them, drawing weapons.

"Get back! Get back!" Nathan warned Josiah and the others, casting a glance at the bank guard who was no longer moving, his mouth stained with spittle. Other patrons had also succumbed to the gas and Nathan knew if they did not leave now, they weren't getting out at all. "We've gotta get out of here before that gas gets to us too!"

"I agree but I am certain they would have placed their people at the rear exit of this establishment!" Ezra remarked, revealing his derringer from beneath his sleeve and firing two bullets at the approaching Erran. Both bullets met their mark as the two cultists providing him with the best targets, fell down dead. One fell face first, the blood oozing out of his punctured forehead in dark, thick rivulets.

Seeing one of their own dead by Ezra's hand, the Erran opened fire, increasing the panic already running through the place into pure pandemonium People were screaming, some from the noxious fumes poisoning them and others who were struck by stray bullets. Everyone was simply terrified by being caught by the crossfire.

"Watch out!" Nathan warned as he returned fire as he and Ezra kept their head down and motioned wildly at Buck, Josiah and the Professor to retreat the way they came.

"There's no exit back there!" Buck declared as Nathan ushered them towards the vault again. Even if they did reach it, Buck knew as well as Nathan the probabilities were high there would be reception committee waiting to ambush them. Then again, staying where they were, was not an option either.

"My God," Orin exclaimed watching the effect of the gas on the innocent bystanders, to say nothing of the bodies lying on the floor of the bank, having been caught in the shootout between them and the Erran.

"Come on Professor," Josiah said gently, accepting the man's horror at the callous disregard the Erran showed for others standing in their way. "We need to move."

"Move where?" Ezra demanded having switched to the Remington, now that he'd exhausted the derringer. They were cut off from reaching the other exit and even if they did manage to reach it, it was almost certainly covered by the Erran, unless they were complete fools, which Ezra did not think they were. The gambler had no doubt they would be cut down the minute they stepped through the doorway since the Erran only wanted the artefact and did not need any of them alive.

Nathan didn't answer until they reached an intersection in the corridor. One led to the vault and the other led to a dead end, with only a large grate on the floor to mark its purpose. As the building was old, the healer quickly surmised that it was a disused drain for a time when the structure was used as something other than a bank. It was wide enough for a man to fit through, even if it was a bit of a squeeze.

"Wait," Nathan hurried down the corridor and drop to his knee the instant he reached the drain. He slid his fingers through the holes, feeling the corrosion and dust from years of disuse press into his skin as he heaved. Meanwhile, Buck and Ezra had taken flanking positions along the corridor, certain the Erran would soon be appearing in pursuit. The gunfire had paused a moment since the Erran lost sight of them but it would not last long.

"What are you doing?" Josiah called out.

"I want to see if this goes anywhere!" Nathan declared as the grate came loose finally, shaking off years of grit and dust as it did so, the weight of it forcing Nathan to fall backwards.

"Whatever you plan on doing, do it fast!" Buck hollered and Nathan looked up just in time to see him squeezing off a round. The bullet sounded even louder in the narrow hallway and was soon returned in kind as Ezra told the Professor to get back.

Nathan scrambled quickly to the grate and peered through it. It was old and musty, covered in cobwebs but wide enough for them to traverse. With any luck, this connected to the main drains beneath the street, giving them a way out of the building.

"This way!" He shouted at them, waving them over.

"Come on Professor," Josiah guided Orin towards the open drain, not looking forward to climbing into the small space but deciding it was better than trading gunfire at a bank. No doubt, the police would soon be drawn by all this commotion, if they weren't on their way already. Another run in with the law would require explanation and without even hearing the man say it, Josiah knew this would not sit well with Chris Larabee.

"Yes, yes," Orin nodded. "Before anyone else gets hurt!"

Before Orin could descend, Josiah stopped him. "I'll go first."

They had no idea where the drain would empty into and Josiah was not about to let the older man endanger himself by going first. Climbing into the drain, his broad shoulders scraped the grimy walls Fortunately, his coat spared his skin any injury. It reeked of stale water and blunted acrid aromas but nothing he could not handle for a short time. Reaching into his coat, Josiah pulled out a lighter and flicked it alight. The illumination of the flame revealed the passage was quite lengthy, given credence to Nathan's hope it might lead beyond the walls of the bank.

"Alright, let's go." Josiah started crawling and the Professor followed closely.

"Buck! Ezra!" Come on!" Nathan shouted at the two.

No sooner than he said that, another orb of glass was flung into the narrow hallways, shattering loudly against the stone floor. Once again, that terrible smoke began to fill the room., prompting the two men into movement. Ezra covered his mouth with a handkerchief as he followed Buck, trying to outrun the noxious smoke snaking up the hallway like an insidious fog. For a moment, he thought of some moody horror movie with Boris Karloff.

Once Orin was gone, Buck jumped into the drain, scowling unhappily because he was barely able to keep his head from hitting the roof of the passage, given how tight a fit it was going to be for him.

"I swear, I'm going to enjoy putting down these bastards for good!" Buck cursed.

"No kidding," Nathan declared, agreeing with him wholeheartedly. "Get in there!"

Uttering another curse which Nathan didn't quite hear, Buck disappeared as the healer raised his eyes to Ezra. "Come on Ezra! Don't dawdle!"

"I do not dawdle!" Ezra shouted and closed the distance to the drain. Peering down the hole he glared at Nathan, his nose wrinkling in disgust. "What do you have against me and my clothes? Every time we embark upon any plan of yours, it inevitably ends with my throwing out another good suit."

"I'm your best friend ain't I?" Nathan asked as Ezra climbed into the drain.

"Unfortunately, yes," Ezra tossed him a begrudging look. "Although I fail to see the correlation."

Nathan followed him down and replied grinning, "well I know how much you like buying new clothes. I do this so you can go shopping."