Solomon Creed

Cassidy stared out of the window at the white stone of the church beyond the wall. ‘Let me go talk to him first.’

‘Now why would you want to go and do that?’

‘Because if I’m going to sacrifice a man’s life to save my town, the least I can do is have the courtesy of looking him in the eye first. And I still think we should establish whether the crash was an accident or not.’

Morgan shook his head and took in the room. ‘Must be nice, living in your oak-panelled world where everyone plays by rules and any disputes can be resolved with a handshake. Let me tell you how things work out in the real world. Talking to this guy is going to achieve absolutely nothing. If anything, it’s going to complicate things. You don’t strike up a friendship with a man you’re about to execute. And it won’t matter a damn to Tío whether the crash was an accident or not. His son died and someone is going to have to pay for it. Someone – or something. Ever hear of a place called El Rey?’

‘Rings a bell.’

‘It’s a little town up in the Durango Mountains. The local banditos took it over and it became a sort of Shangri-La for criminals fleeing south across the border. Anyone who made it there with enough money to pay for protection could stay as long as they liked, knowing no law would ever touch them. El Rey is also Tío’s hometown. Or it was. It’s not there any more.’

‘What happened?’

‘Tío happened. I don’t know the exact details, but when Tío was a kid there was some kind of family tragedy involving his father and brother. Could be they fell foul of the bosses or something but whatever happened, Tío never forgot it. When he rose to power years later, he got his revenge. El Rey was the headquarters of the old bosses, so it made sense for him to take it over. But he didn’t. What he did was massacre every living soul in the town and burn the place to the ground. It was symbolic, I guess: out with the old and in with the new. But it was also revenge, pure and simple; an old-fashioned blood vendetta. Tío did the killing himself, the way I heard it. Showed the world what would happen if anyone dared to hurt him or his family.’ He pointed out of the window at the smoke rising beyond the church. ‘And his son just died, flying into our airfield. So you think about that when you talk to this guy. I’ll be at the control line if you need me.’ Then he opened the door and was gone.

15

Solomon stood inside the door of the church letting his eyes adjust to the gloom after the fierce sunlight outside. Huge stained-glass windows poured light into the dark interior, splashing colour on what appeared at first glance to be a collection of old junk.

To the left of the door a full-sized covered wagon stood behind a model of a horse and a mannequin dressed in nineteenth-century clothes. A fully functioning Long Tom sluice box stood opposite with water trickling through it, making a sound like the roof was leaking. A collection of gold pans was arranged around it, beneath a sign saying ‘Tools of the treasure hunter’s trade’. There were pickaxes too and fake sticks of dynamite and ore crushers and softly lit cabinets containing examples of copper ore and gold flake and silver seams in quartz. Another cabinet contained personal effects – reading glasses, pens, gloves – all carefully labelled and arranged, and there was a scale model of the town on a table showing what Redemption had looked like a hundred years ago. And right in the centre of the strange diorama a lectern stood, angled towards the door so that anyone entering the building was forced to gaze upon the battered Bible resting upon it.

Solomon walked forward, feeling the cold flagstones beneath his feet. He could see the remnant of a lost page sticking out from the binding, its edge rough as if it had been violently torn from the book. The missing page was from Exodus, chapters twenty through twenty-one, where Moses brought God’s ten holy laws down from the mountain on tablets of stone.

‘The Church of Lost Commandments,’ Solomon muttered, then continued onward into the heart of the church, breathing in the smells of the place: dust, polish, candle wax, copper, mould.

The commandments were everywhere: carved into the stonework and the wooden backs of the pews, inscribed into the floor in copper letters, even depicted in the stained glass of the windows. It was as if whoever had lost the page from the Bible had built the church in some grand attempt to make up for it. The altar lay directly ahead of him, the large copper cross standing on a stone plinth. As he drew closer he studied it, his eager eyes tracing the twisted lines and spars identical to the cross he wore around his neck, hoping for some jolt of recognition. But if he had ever been here before or stood and gazed upon this cross and this altar he couldn’t remember it and he felt frustration flood into the place where his hope had been.

The church seemed gloomier here, as if the walls around the altar were made of darker material, and as he drew closer he saw the reason for it. The stonework, bright white in the rest of the building, was covered in dark frescoes. They depicted a desert landscape at night, populated with nightmarish creatures: hunched men and skeletal women; children with black and hollow eyes, their clothes ragged and tattered. Some rode starved horses with ribs sticking out from sunken hides, their eyes as hollow as their riders.

Beneath the ground, emerging from a vast, burning underworld, were demons with sharp, eager teeth and leathery wings that stirred the dust, and taloned hands that reached up through cracks in the dry land to grab at the wretched people above them. A few of the demons had snagged an arm or a leg and were gleefully dragging some poor soul down into the fire while their terrified eyes gazed up at the distant glow of a painted heaven. And there was something else, something moving in the shadows – a figure, pale and ghostly – walking out of the painted landscape towards him. It was his reflection, captured in a large mirror that had been positioned so that anyone looking at the fresco became part of what they observed. Either side of the mirror were two painted figures – an angel and a demon – gazing out of the picture, their eyes focused on whoever might stand and gaze into it.

Solomon moved closer until his reflection filled the frame. He studied his face. It was the first time he had seen himself properly and it was like looking at a picture of someone else. Nothing about his features was familiar, not his pale grey eyes nor his long, fine nose nor the scoops of his cheeks beneath razored cheekbones. He did not recognize the person staring back at him.

‘Who are you?’ he asked, and a loud bang echoed through the church as if in answer. Footsteps approached from behind a curtained area in the vestry and he turned just as the curtain swept open and he found himself facing a modern version of Jack Cassidy. They held each other’s gaze for a moment, Cassidy’s face a mixture of curiosity and suspicion as he looked him up and down, his eyes lingering on his shoeless feet. ‘You must be Mr Creed,’ he said, walking forward, hand extended. Solomon shook it and his mind lit up as he caught the hint of a chemical coming off him.

Napthalene – used in pyrotechnics, also a household fumigant against pests.

He saw a small frayed hole in the pocket of his jacket – Mayor Cassidy smelled of mothballs. It was a dark suit, a funeral suit. ‘You just buried James Coronado,’ Solomon said, and pain flared in his arm again at the mention of his name.

Cassidy nodded. ‘A tragedy. How did you know him?’

Solomon turned back to the painted landscape. ‘I’m trying to remember.’

There was something here, he felt sure of it, some reason the cross around his neck had brought him to this place where its larger twin sat.

‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ Cassidy said, stepping over to the wall and flicking a switch. Light faded up, illuminating the fresco in all its dark and terrible detail.

There were many more figures populating the landscape than Solomon had first thought, their black arms and shrunken bodies almost indistinguishable from the land, as if they were made from the earth and still bound to it. The ones with faces had been painted in such realistic detail that Solomon wondered if each had been based on a real person, and what those people had thought when they had seen themselves immortalized as the damned in this macabre landscape. They seethed over the desert, their faces ghostly, their eyes staring up at the too distant heaven. Solomon looked up too and saw something he had missed when the fresco had been sunk in shadow, something written in the sky, black letters on an almost black background.

Each of us runs from the flames of damnation

Only those who face the fire yet still uphold God’s holy laws

Only those who would save others above themselves

Only these can hope to escape the inferno and be lifted unto heaven

The brand on his arm flared in pain again as he read the words, bringing back the feeling he’d first felt back on the road, that he was here for a reason, that there was something particular he had to do.

Only those who would save others … can hope to escape the inferno …

‘I’m here to save him,’ he muttered, his hand rubbing at the burning spot on his arm.

‘Who?’

‘James Coronado.’

Cassidy blinked. ‘You’re … but we just buried him.’

Solomon smiled. ‘I didn’t say it was going to be easy.’

A noise outside made them both turn, a siren howling past, heading somewhere in a hurry. Solomon could smell smoke leaking in through the open door.

The fire.

… Only those who face the fire …

The whole town would be heading to the city limits now, preparing to defend their town from the oncoming threat. Most of them would have known James Coronado. Maybe his widow would be there too.

‘Are you OK?’ Cassidy asked, stepping closer. ‘You seem a little shaken. Maybe you should head to the hospital, get yourself checked over.’

Solomon looked back at his reflection, trapped between the angel and the demon, their painted eyes looking at him as if asking: ‘Which of us are you?’

Let’s find out, Solomon thought, and the pain in his arm flared again.

He shook his head. ‘I don’t need the hospital,’ he said. ‘I need to go back to the fire.’

III

‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’

Exodus 20:3

Extract from

RICHES AND REDEMPTION

THE MAKING OF A TOWN

The published memoir

of the Reverend Jack ‘King’ Cassidy

I ARRIVED AT FORT TUCSON with the priest’s gold all but spent. To raise more funds – and to my eternal shame – I tried to sell the Bible to an itinerant preacher name of Banks who balked at the size of the book, saying if God had meant him to have such a thing He would have sent it in smaller form. He told me instead of a Jesuit mission south of Tucson where a fine old example of scripture might find a permanent home on some sturdy lectern where no poor soul nor mule would have to carry it more.

I blamed encroaching poverty on my decision to try and part with the Bible, but in truth I could feel the hold it had on me and I was frightened by it. The visions of the white church and the pale Christ on the cross haunted my waking hours now and I feared I might be losing my mind, as the priest had lost his. But setting it down now, it seems clear to me how all of this was God’s design – the priest travelling from Ireland and finding himself in the bed next to mine, the Bible being signed over to me, the gold funding its journey west, and my chance conversation with the preacher who sent me on the path that would lead me to the Jesuit mission and the pale Christ on his burned cross.

We saw the smoke rising in the morning sky a couple of hours after sunrise on the second day. I had joined a cavalry supply train heading south to Fort Huachuca via the trading post where the Jesuit mission was based. We smelled them long before we saw them, poor murdered souls roughly delivered to God at arrow point or at the keen edge of a savage’s knife. The trading post was an inferno, roof timbers sticking up from burning buildings like smoking ribs and a large burning cross standing by a pile of smouldering timbers that had been the Jesuit mission. At first I thought the cross and crucified figure of Christ upon it too large for such a humble chapel. It was only as we drew closer that I saw the truth. The burning man was real.

He blazed like a grotesque torch, all signs of identity razed from him, his head thrown back in agony and fire pouring from his open mouth as if his screams were made of flame.

Captain Smith, the officer in charge, ordered someone to throw a rope round him and drag the cross to the ground and away from sight, but no rope could ever drag the image of that burning man from my memory. I uttered a prayer, commending his immortal soul to God where it would be forever at peace and free from whatever demons had made their evil sport here. And when I finished I heard a murmur of ‘Amens’ around me and realized that my prodigal companions, normally so cavalier and contemptuous of God when in the warm embrace of a bottle or by the light of a campfire, were drawn straight back to His goodness and love when faced with this bleak and terrible example of its opposite.

We set to work smothering the smouldering church with shovels of dirt and I wondered how an all powerful and merciful God could allow such monstrous sport to be visited upon His faithful servants and lay waste to His own house of worship. I could see no purpose in it and wondered if, in the battle between God and the Devil, it was the Devil who had already won. It was only then, in the deepest depths of my doubt, that Christ Himself appeared to me, rising from the ashes of His father’s ruined church to show me the way and the truth.

I saw His face first, shining white against the grey-black ashes. He was staring straight at me with an expression of such agony and anguish that I stumbled back in shock and my boot trod heavy on the charcoaled remains of a roof spar, which levered the thing up further and I saw it entire. It was the Christ crucified, carved from pure white marble and fixed to a cross of hard wood that had been burned by the fire but not destroyed.

I guessed from its position in the ruined church that it must have hung above the altar and I imagined how the Christ must have stared down in lament as flames consumed His father’s house. It was a miracle the cross had survived, a miracle that I had found it, and I recalled the words of the raving priest as he had pressed the Bible into my hands and transferred his mission to me.

– You must carry His word into the wasteland. Carry His word and also carry Him. For He will protect you and lead you to riches beyond your imagining.

And here He was.

I walked into the smoking ruin of the church and took the pale Christ in my arms – His cross now mine, my burden now His. I could feel the trapped heat of the fire radiating out of the solid wood and it felt like the warmth of His love flowing into me and I realized then why God had allowed the savages to slaughter good Christian folk and burn His house to the ground.

It had all been for me.

He was showing me, in such a way as a simple soul like mine could understand, that the church I had to build must be stronger than this. If it was to stand against such evil as thrived here in this blasted wilderness, it had to be like the pale Christ who had been untouched by the fiery instruments of evil that had destroyed all else.

The church I was to build had to be made of stone.

16

‘He said we should stay right here?’

‘That’s what the man said.’ Mulcahy was standing by the window of the motel, cell phone in hand, staring out through the grey sheer curtains at the parking lot beyond.

Behind him, Javier paced, stamping dust and the smell of mildew from the carpet. ‘He didn’t say nuthin’ else?’

‘He said plenty, but the main thing he said was that we should stay put and wait for him to call back.’

Javier shook his head and continued to pace. He’d already visited the john several times in the twenty or so minutes they’d been in the room and Mulcahy had only heard him flush once, suggesting either that he had terrible hygiene or he was doing something in there other than pissing. The slime-shine in his eyes gave Mulcahy a pretty good idea what.

‘You think Papa knows where we’re at?’ Javier said, twitching and flicking his fingers as if they had gum on them.

‘Probably.’

‘Probably? The fuck does “probably” mean? Either he know or he don’t.’

The only illumination in the room was coming from the TV. It was tuned to a local news station with the volume turned low. Carlos sat silently on the edge of one of the beds, his eyes fixed on the flickering screen as if he’d been hypnotized by it. He’d been like that ever since they’d walked in the door and heard what Papa Tío had to say. Mulcahy had seen that look a few times before: once in a jail cell outside of Chicago when he was still in uniform and Illinois still had the death penalty, and a couple of times since when he’d been the cause of it. It was the look someone got when they’d resigned themselves to whatever was coming their way, like a rabbit when the headlights were speeding towards it and there was no time to get out of the way.

‘You got a cell phone, either of you?’ Mulcahy asked.

‘Yeah, I got a phone.’ Javier said it like he’d just asked him if he had a dick or not. He held up a BlackBerry in a gold-and-crystal encrusted case, the blank screen angled towards Mulcahy. ‘I switched it off though, motherfucker. I ain’t stupid.’

‘Good for you. Who pays the bill?’

‘The fuck’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Because if Tío pays the bill then he’ll be able to track it whether it’s switched off or not. Does he pay the bill?’

Javier didn’t answer, which was answer enough.

Mulcahy nodded. ‘Then he knows where we’re at.’ He turned back and looked outside, squinting against the brightness. Beyond the reception building he could see the traffic out on the highway.

He checked his own phone, making sure the Skype app was still running. Tío had said he was going to call some people then call him back, but that wasn’t why he was checking. His pop still hadn’t called.

‘How come your phone’s still switched on, pendejo?’

Mulcahy stared out at the day, felt the heat of the outside burning through the window and the cool air from the ancient air-con unit blowing feebly against his legs.

‘I asked you a question, motherfucker.’

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. If he had to kill Javier in the next few minutes – which was entirely possible – it would definitely be the highlight of an otherwise shitty day. ‘Papa Tío doesn’t pay my bill,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t pay my bill, so he doesn’t know the number or the network, and I called him on Skype so it would take him at least a few hours to trace the call and I don’t plan on being here in two hours’ time. But the main reason I’ve still got it switched on is because he said he was going to call me back – on Skype – so if I switched my phone off he wouldn’t be able to. And if he couldn’t get hold of me he might get all suspicious and send a bunch of guys round to find out why I’d turned my phone off. And he’d know exactly where to find me because you’re too cheap to pay your own bill. That answer your question … motherfucker?’

‘Shit, man. Oh shit, shit.’ Carlos was rising to his feet and pointing at the TV.

A shaky aerial shot of a big fire in the desert filled the screen. It wobbled unsteadily behind a caption saying: BREAKING NEWS – plane crash starts large wildfire outside Redemption, Az.

‘Where’s the remote?’ Javier had stopped pacing, his eyes fixed to the screen now. ‘Where’s the fuckin’ remote at?’ Carlos held it up. ‘Turn it up, man.’ Javier jabbed his finger at the screen.

Carlos pointed the remote at the TV, nudged up the volume and the room filled with the sombre tones of someone reporting on something serious. Mulcahy stared at the twisted wreckage of the plane, fuel and desert burning all around it, catching snatches of what the reporter was saying:

… believed to have been a vintage airliner … en route to the aircraft museum outside Redemption …

This was not how it was supposed to happen. The plane crash was not in the script. It was most likely an accident, it was an old plane, old planes crashed more than new ones he imagined. Except Papa Tío didn’t believe in accidents. He didn’t believe in coincidences or apologies either. If something went wrong then there was always a reason and there was always someone who had to pay.

And Tío hadn’t called back yet.

And neither had his pop.

He turned to study the traffic out on the road, a slow-flowing river of metal and glass, and felt envious of the safe little lives each car contained. He wanted to join them and slide away from here, but that wasn’t going to happen. He knew that as soon as he saw the truck ease off the road and up the ramp towards the motel. It was a Jeep Grand Cherokee, just like his. Black-tinted windows, just like his. It slowed to a stop at the top of the ramp by the reception building, but the two men inside showed no interest in going in. They were checking the parked cars, looking for someone.

Looking for him.

17

Cassidy drove, Solomon sat in the passenger seat, his window wound right down so he could feel the wind on his face. It was an old car, leather seats, chrome trim, lots of space.

Lincoln Continental Mark V, Solomon’s mind informed him.

It was nicer than being in the ambulance, the leather seats and padded doors made the experience less synthetic, but he still didn’t like it.

‘Would you mind closing the window, the air-conditioning doesn’t work so well with it open.’

Solomon pressed the button to raise the window. He was thinking about the church and the altar cross and the words written on the wall, all of it revolving around the remembered image of his reflected self, the stranger in the mirror, the big mystery at the centre of it all. The church was peculiar. Maybe that was why he felt an affinity to it. For a start it was way too big for a town this size, like it had been built as a declaration of something grand or maybe to compensate for something. The interior was odd too, the fresco more reminiscent of a medieval European basilica than a church from the Old West. And then there was the strange collection of memorabilia cluttering up the entrance like an afterthought.

‘Why have a mining exhibition in a church?’ he wondered out loud, his toes gripping the carpet as his sense of confinement started to gnaw at him.

‘Tourists,’ Cassidy replied, like he was cursing. ‘About a year back we moved some of the exhibits from the museum into the church to try and get more people through the door, on account of people being far more interested in treasure than God these days, and ain’t that a sorry state of affairs?’

Solomon nodded and gripped the edge of his seat, trying to relax away his growing nausea.