It was to this string that he looked now, fresh from his dreams, watching the dark shapes of the beavers turn in the blue starlight. He coughed and spit away mucus and in the silence that followed, his eyes roamed the clearing considering each tree and blade of grass as if each harbored some unknown threat to his person.
In the east a pale red light shone like that of the sun in primordial dawn, but he knew it was not. He stood now, folding his wool blanket away, then pulling one boot on after the other. He reached for the rifle and then set out across the clearing, moving through grass that came to his kneecaps.
When he reached the far wood, he could smell the smoke. And by the time he’d gone a hundred yards farther in, passing through dappled shadows and pools of moonlight beneath the overhead evergreen thatch, he had begun to hear the chanting and the calls of the worshippers below. After another hundred yards, he came to a broad rock face that ran for a quarter mile to either side of him and outlined the river valley below. A river ran at the bottom of the rock face, the water black and ink-like but the light of the fire shining in places where it caught on the surface. Farther on he could see the great bonfire. The pile of wood was ten feet high and the fire burning another twenty or thirty feet in the air. He could feel the thermals working out over the river and then rise, a vortex of warmth and cool river air swirling like a whirlpool before him.
The bonfire cast its light all around in the circle that formed at its base and in this Will saw the shapes of those who had come to worship its destruction. The sound of their chanting heard as they prayed and worshipped, their heads bent in a chaotic dance of their own making. The words, at this distance, not clear to him as they bounced off the rock face and were lost in the thermal wind. But Will had heard them before and knew much of what was being said, though he liked not to think of it. They were part of the Eden’s Gate Church, and like Lonny had said, they did what they pleased and worshipped in ways of their own choosing. For this was their land and whether Will liked it or not he had come to them twelve years before looking for salvation, and they in turn had given it to him, making him what he was now, game warden, poacher, killer of beasts large and small.
Keeping back from the ledge a little he found a shadowed bit of rock and, putting the rifle on the forty or so people that danced and circled below, he flipped up the scope cover and began to roam his eye across those below. Many wore the white robes of the church. He ran the scope from the bearded faces of men to the unkempt, flowing hair of the women. He watched not just them but the elongated shadows of their movements, the shadows of legs and arms cast across the fiery ground like some sort of transmogrified creature, half beast and half man.
By the time he had run the scope all the way around the circle they were forming into a line that stretched from the burning pile of wood down toward the river. Taking his eye from the scope, he moved forward on his elbows until he was at the edge of the cliff. He reached back, brought up the rifle and, careful not to let the light catch on the glass lens, he looked down on the figure of The Father there in the river. Fifty-some years old, he wore the same unmoving face that could be terror or salvation to any who looked upon it. The man stood knee-deep in the water in his own robe. The water clung to the material and climbed its way to his chest where it hung from him and showed the strong musculature of his body. He chanted and looked to the heavens and one at a time he invited each worshipper to come to him as he dipped them into the river and held them there, watching as their arms flailed for some sort of purchase.
After all had been baptized a new group was gathered. Some in robes but many in their own clothes, brought huddled together from out of the shadows, some shivering, some visibly frightened. All of them led by men carrying guns and several with machetes. As they walked, the rest of the willing in their baptismal robes closed in behind them, encircling them there on the shore. Out of this group, holding a large revolver, was John Seed, the younger brother of The Father, slighter in build, but cut from the same cloth. Both bearded and tattooed, and both with those all-seeing eyes that seemed to search through the dark with a kind of nocturnal prowess.
With the revolver John went into the water and stopped no more than a few feet from The Father. They waited, the two of them, as men bearing rifles and machetes brought these new worshippers out to them. Each, as had been done with the willing, were baptized in turn and then led back to shore by their guards. And though Will had seen baptisms before, he had not seen anything like this, where men and women were forcibly dipped. Lonny had told him of the shift, and had Will not skipped so many sermons in the past—his own faith waning little by little—Will might not have been as surprised at what he saw down below.
Many on shore were crying and he could see the visible shaking of their shoulders and the terror of the night in their faces. He watched them as if seeing them from out of some bubble that no sound could escape. Their distance and the rush of the water sucking away at the cries they made and the protests they had for this forced ceremony.
For a time he kept the scope on them, watching as they came to the water, tried to fight, to break free from their captors, but none made it far and each met the same fate that had awaited those baptized before them.
Years had gone by since Will had been a part of this. And none of it had been as it was now, watching those down there who were unwilling. In those times, years before, he had seen the giving of a soul and the baptizing of many. He had stood in a robe on the side of a river like this one and he had done his part to be one of them, giving his soul to the church. But that even seemed like another life, another time, a past that had grown distant from the man he was now and the role he’d been given.
Having seen enough, he pulled back from the edge. He stood and moved away toward the forest and then from out of the depths he heard the crack of a shotgun. He rushed to the edge and looked down. He could see many among them had cowered, the guards standing above them. Still farther back stood many of the first of the willing and in the water waited The Father, and John. Will could not tell who had fired the shot and he ran his eyes down the river, wondering if he might see a body pulled toward the rapids and then out of sight where the river curved away farther on.
But he saw no body and when he brought his eyes back to The Father, the man was already calling for the next to be baptized. And Will, as witness in all of this, looked again to the empty place in the river where the rapids turned the water to white, and he was unsure of what he had seen. He let his eyes linger there and he watched how the water ran below him. He thought about the meaning of the baptism and the washing of the sins.
When all had dipped their heads beneath the water, Will moved away from the edge. He did not need to know what The Father would say to them now. He did not need to watch anymore. For he knew this part well, he had heard it twelve years before when he had come willing to the church and he repeated it to himself as he walked back to his camp. “We stand on the edge of a great chasm. Below us is the fate of mankind. Humanity has grown numb to the machine of strife that it has created, but we cannot. We and we alone have been chosen to survive this calamity and rebuild. We are all angels, and we few are set on a path back to the garden. We are a Family. I am your Father. You are my Children. And together we will march to Eden’s Gate.”