Under the pervasive woodsmoke and the unsettling odor of the roasting thant, he could smell where they went to shit, not bothering even to put a decent distance between themselves and their leavings, and this told him a great deal about the sort of men they were. Careless men. Irresponsible men. He felt a gut-deep disapproval of the lot of them. Even outlaws—no, make that especially outlaws—needed discipline.
But they were dangerous nonetheless, perhaps even more dangerous for that very lack of discipline.
A frighteningly ordinary-looking man stood up. “Name’s Mahoney.” He looked a little to either side, as a man with dogs might, if he were not perfectly secure in his control of his hounds. “Ye’re a far way from home.”
“Ayah.” As nonchalantly as he could, Hanson said, “Looking for someone to hook up with.”
Mahoney considered the gun, looked at the imposing size and bulk of Hanson, and drew the obvious conclusions. “Ever kill a man?”
Hanson nodded slowly. “I guess.” The words hung heavy before him. It was the first time he had admitted his terrible crime aloud.
Mahoney twisted his hand strangely and a knife appeared in it. He walked toward and then past Hanson, to the remains of the thant charring over the fire, and sliced off a slab.
“Go back to your post,” he said to the still-unseen man behind Hanson. Then he thrust the meat into Hanson’s hands. “Eat.”
So it was, with a one-word command and a mouthful of meat so repugnant that he barely managed to force it down, that Hanson joined the band of outlaws. He was ravenous, but after that first bite, he quietly set the meat aside. He had proved his obedience. Maybe tomorrow there’d be something more wholesome to eat. And if not… well, he’d see.
Suddenly, a little man leaped up on top of a log to the smoky side of the campfire. The firelight leaped and jumped on his sunken features, and he worked his loose and toothless mouth for a bit before he spoke. “Praise God!” he cried. Then, lowering his voice so that he was speaking almost confidentially, “We are all of us insane. And yet, it is not our fault!”
With good-natured disdain, the outlaws turned to look at him.
“We can’t help it. It’s the Wall’s fault. Its existence forces us to acknowledge that our reality is out of phase with our desires. But we cannot admit this. We cannot. So, in denying it, we go mad. This is called cognitive dissonance.”
Sitting on the log beside him, Mahoney grinned wolfishly. “The Preacher’s in one of his moods. This oughta be good.”
“Angels used to walk the Earth, indistinguishable among men. They could pass through the Wall at will, because they had subjugated themselves to the will of Heaven. And, if angels could do so, then why not you and I?”
“Tell it, Preach,” one of the men said sardonically.
Encouraged, the little man waved his arms. He spoke feverishly, with a passionate intensity. “Man and Heaven must be reconciled. Once I was a great man, a worldly man, learned in all the things that did not matter. I spent my days among the archives of Harrisburg. Until finally I realized that Reconciliation was my destiny, and began the search for the key.” He looked around to either side. “And I found it!” he said triumphantly. “I found the key to Heaven, and I hold it within me. Right in here!” He slapped his chest enthusiastically. “It’s wrapped around my heart, dearer than life, closer than breath, and it will open the—” He faltered and paused. “Open the—” His voice trailed off, and he looked around vaguely. “What was I about to—?”
One of the men pursed his lips and made a lewd sucking noise. The others laughed uproariously. The light of fanaticism went out of the little man, his face collapsing into pathos and misery, body slumping like a balloon with a slow leak.
Hanson felt sickened. There was only one reason such a group of men would tolerate this broken creature. Worse, to survive here, to gain their acceptance, to be recognized as one of their kind, a man who didn’t set himself above his fellows, he would have to avail himself of the Preacher’s services as well. And he didn’t think he could. There were limits, there had to be limits, to what a man would do to survive. Let it pass, he told himself, nobody’s expecting you to do anything tonight, no sense borrowing trouble.
Not much more was said that evening. A joke or two, the purport of which was beyond Hanson’s comprehension, some lifeless verbal scuffling between two men whose hatred for each other aroused no passion, and some quiet, inconsequential talk about a planned raid on an outlying farmhouse—Hanson got the impression that the ambitions of these men did not extend very far. They were as good as dead already, and most likely knew it. Thinking about things would only make them worse.
Mahoney leaned close and spoke into his ear. “Tomorrow,” he said quietly, “I’ll need you to take care of a little problem for me.” Drawing back, he gave Hanson a sharp look to make sure he understood.
“A’right,” Hanson said. Maintaining an outward calm, though his heart was pounding like a jackhammer. He understood well enough. He had just agreed to kill a man and he didn’t even know who.
Mahoney blew his breath out noisily. “That’s a’right then.” He stood briskly, and slapped Hanson on the back. “We sleep in the ruins. Pick yourself out a spot.”
He disappeared into the darkness. Several of the others were already gone.
So they had not even bothered to build themselves shelters. Somehow Hanson was not surprised. He scouted out a flat spot in the angle of two ancient walls, and laid out his blanket preparatory to sleep.
The Preacher came stumbling around the corner, stopped, and stood blinking and bewildered. “This is—” he began. “I was—that is, I was sleeping here and I, I—” His mouth opened and closed, gulping against tears.
Disgusted with the little monkey-faced creature, Hanson gathered up his blanket. “Oh, hell,” he grumbled. “Take it, if y’ want it. I’ll find another spot.” He left, sickened by the pathetically grateful expression that flooded the Preacher’s face, the moist and worshipful look that came into his eyes.
Hanson was caught in an endless, looping dream when the raid began. He was on the transport again, rolling up and down to the rhythm of life on the roads. It was a long, easy rhythm; it lent itself to a watchful contemplation that was an edge away from sleep, and yet was almost preternaturally alert. There was nothing to mark it but the passage of the sun, rolling up across the arch of sky, under the horizon, up again, and the roads themselves, slipping endlessly under the transport, sometimes paved, sometimes mud, sometimes sunbaked and dusty, the trees along the roadside white with the dust kicked up by the transport, as if they had been hit by a blizzard in the midst of summer. The heat would be rising in waves from the deckplates, shimmering vision. The sky would be dazzlingly blue, and the sun a hot copper penny in it, except when the dust-trail would shift and swirl around the transport itself, and then the sky would become dirty white, and the masked sun would become a smoldering bloodshot eye. Always the endless moving ribbon of the road sliding smoothly toward them, being swallowed by the prow of the transport, with new road always coming into being ahead of them, around the next curve or over the next hill, sliding forward to be swallowed in its turn. And occasionally a hamlet or village, borne up by the current of the road, bobbing nearby for an instant, and then whirled away behind, like a drowsy, peasant-infested, cow-carrying chip of driftwood. He would become aware that he had dreamed this before and then immediately lose all assurance that this was so. So he would anxiously relive the nonevents of traveling the roads, the muted waterfall thunder of the engine, the constant swaying of the transport and the relentless thudding of the treads, the trees, the road, the villages, Willis’s grunted orders, Brigault’s sudden and pointless laughter. Until he forgot what he was worrying about and it all began again.