Balaam’s Sorrow
Balaam’s face was shrunken with age, as if his mouth was somehow slowly swallowing the rest of his wrinkled, bald head. The Dogs noted his unshaven face and exhausted eyes that had sunken into his face. He had been living out of doors for some time and it was showing its strain.
“Y’all are here to avenge the murder of my son and his young bride, no doubt.”
“If that be God’s will,” replied Cain.
“It will be or else you ain’t listening hard enough,” Balaam replied and Jeremiah nearly jumped.
“Sir, that is mighty prideful of ya to talk to Dogs like that.”
“Sorry, brother, I am sorry,” Balaam looked to the ground and let his shotgun muzzle drop down to the earth. “Seth killed my son and his beautiful wife. He shot ‘em in their marriage bed. He shot for no good reason.”
Cain asked, “Why don’t you tell us the whole story, sir.”
“Seth Betheldom is the Master Printer in town. He was schooled in some big-shot university Back East. He was supposed to help our town print the Book of Life and take it to the Faithful throughout the Territory.
“Day he come back we were making our first big shipment of the Book and bandits hit our town, runaway soldiers. He shot their leader four times and then went and then, drunk on violence, used the final two bullets in his pistol to shoot my boy and his wife.”
The Dogs exchanged looks. “We’ll look into it, sir. Rest assured of that.”
Balaam pointed towards the town. “The Steward’s easy to find. His house is attached to the Temple. Though he’s preaching mercy and the like. Don’t take his word on no lies about my son.”
Balaam watched them ride away. “Please kill the murdering bastard. Please Lord let ‘em kill him.”
The Good Ole Hoop
The Temple for the town was one of the four buildings around the town’s central well. When folk saw Jeremiah and Cain enter the town they nodded. Some yelled, “Hang ‘em high!” as they road past. Others just muttered to the person next to them, “Well, just in the nick of time. Praise the Lord.” The Dogs watered their horses first while children loudly played around the well, running and screaming.
“I shot you! I shot you!” one of the boys yelled, his fingers making the shape of an imaginary pistol.
“Did not!” another boy disagreed, falling to the dust anyway, preparing to die.
“Did too! You was the Seth and I caught ya and shot you for your sins.”
“I don’t wanna be the Seth no more. You be the Seth and I’ll hunt you and kill ya.”
Jeremiah looked at Cain and walked over to the boys who were to busy playing to notice the quilted trench-coats on the newcomers. Immediately their mouths gaped open.
“You here to shoot Seth, Watchdog, sir?” one of the boys asked, naked awe showing on his face.
“I’m here to do the Lord’s will. You said you didn’t want to be Seth in this game. Why is that? Why don’t you want to be Seth?”
“Cause if I was Seth, you’d come and kill me for doing murder and the like. I’d be a hunted man who had to leave his family and friends to live the life of a no-good fugitive.”
“Because if you were Seth,” Jeremiah corrected, “You would be a man who had sinned and made a heinous mistake. Your life would be complicated and awful. That’s what sin does, makes your life complicated and awful.”
The boys nodded, earnestly.
“Don’t you boys have other games you could be playing? When I was a boy I had this lovely hoop. So many good games a boy can play with a good hoop. Throw rocks through the hoop, take a stick and roll it around town. All kindsa games we played with that ole hoop.”
“We got us a hoop and a stick but we wanted to play something different.”
Jeremiah went back to horses after telling the boys, “Go play with your hoop and leave Seth to us.”
“Yessir,” the boys chorused, running from the town square to go find their long lost hoop.
Meeting Amasina
The Temple was of goodly size with a bell-tower and a fine porch. On the porch was an older woman with gray hair tied back in a neat bun and knitting needles on her lap. The boys could tell from her milked over eyes that she was blind.
They walked up the Temple steps with hats in hand just as horses rounded the corner. A slim older man with a neatly trimmed gray beard got off one of the horses and hitched it near the water trough.
“Go home and sup with your families, men. We’ll head back out in a half an hour. Those blood posses will be eating dinner on the trail so eat fast and be back at the Temple in good time. I know you won’t let me down, know that you won’t make me go out there to look for Seth alone.”
A chorus of promises met the Steward as he climbed the steps and saw the Watchdogs of the Lord. He smiled and touched the blind woman’s shoulder, kissing her on the cheek. “Thank the lord, brothers. I know you aren’t here from our messenger sent to the Watchdog’s Temple. He only left a day ago. You must be here due to good ole fashioned providence.”
Jeremiah responded, “What we hear, you could use some providence hereabouts. I’m Jeremiah and this here is Cain.”
“I’m Elihu and this here is my fine wife, Amasina. I’m going to get washed up. Amasina will make sure you get some cold water in ya. I know she will be a wise hostess, my wife.”
Leaving puzzled Watchdogs in his wake, Elihu headed into the Temple to wash up for his guests. Cain and Jeremiah were left with Amasina.
“May I be so bold as to touch your trenchcoats, gentlemen? I can’t see you but there is a lot I could tell about you from your fine, quilted coats.”
The Dogs gently laid their coats on Amasina’s lap.
“You’ve seen some action, sir,” she remarked to Jeremiah, whose coat had a rip in it and still some blood clung to the collar from their duties in Eden. “How long have you boys been off the mountain and in the Vineyard?”
“Not yet a week, ma’am.”
“We’re on the trail of a Serpent,” Cain remarked.
“I was a Dog before my vision was taken in the line of duty. I could sew up your jackets of any rips or tears. I’m a fair hand with a needle.
“This here town is ready to explode. You two are here in the nick of time.”
Cain asked, “How did you lose your vision.”
She grimaced, thinking back on those days with her trench-coat and pistols. “There was an explosion…a mishap.”
Jeremiah asked, “Could we ask you to appraise us of the situation?”
“You probably heard that Shem and his fine wife Naomi were killed. Master Printer by the name of Seth done the killing. Turns out he got off the carriage from his journey across the Plains. He walked into some bandits who were robbing our payroll of the money we had made from our first Bible shipment.
“He put four bullets in the bandit’s chest. Wish I had seen it or gotten a look at him. Sounded like he took the gun out of his bag, as if he had gotten the pistol Back East or perhaps acquired it on his journey to the Desert Territory.
“Some heard him mutter something about the bullets he had put in the Bandit weren’t meant for this work. He stomped off and shot Shem and Naomi in their beds. Plenty of folk had seen him walk into their house and walk down the streets with his pistol out.”
“Now we have one bandit locked up with four bullets in him, might not live the night. The other three are locked up in the Territorial Authority Lock-up. There are posses that are hunting Seth for the blood they say is on his hands and there are those who are calling for the hanging of the bandits.”
“Rough situation,” Cain remarked, still taking it all in.
“Get’s worse,” Amasina continued, “Rumor is that Shem raped Seth’s sister, Clarissa, and that’s why he shot him. Word is that Clarissa wrote him a letter about Shem’s having treated her rough while Seth was Back East. None are sure why he kill’t Naomi too. So there are also those who want Seth to walk away from this a hero.”
The Dogs Take Action
Elihu returned to the porch, having freshened up from his time on the trail. “I hope my wife was a good hostess.”
Cain nodded. “She was superb. Can you call the town to the Temple, Steward? Ring the bells, perhaps? We should talk to them all at once to avoid any confusion.”
“We could,” the Steward said, “but those that are hunting Seth won’t come in when they hear the bells.”
Jeremiah, a little shocked at the sudden calling of a town meeting, looked over at Cain, proudly looking at his brother dog with new eyes. “I’ll deal with the posse, Steward. You, Cain, deal with this town meeting.”
The bell began to ring loud and clear. The folk of New Gidea put down their dinner forks and gathered their families to make way to the Temple. Word had spread that two Watchdogs had ridden into New Gidea at dusk; everyone wanted to know what the visitors had to say.
Cain shook his head emphatically at Brother Jeremiah. “I thought you would talk to the people. I’m no good in front of crowds, Jeremiah. You’re the face.”
Jeremiah laughed. “You called the meeting, Cain. This is your meeting so you will arbitrate. I’ll go out and find the posses and get them to go home. You’ll do fine, I’m sure.”
Nervously, Cain watched the Faithful of New Gidea shuffle into the Temple. They all eyed the Dog with a mix of suspicion and awe.
Calm in his saddle, Jeremiah rode out into the night to meet these posses and send them where they belonged, home with their families.
Cain’s Temple Sermon
The people of New Gidea looked up at Cain, the Steward, Elihu, and Amasina sat before them.
Elihu approached the pulpit and the crowd hushed. “New Gidea has seen its share of blood these past days and thankfully the Lord has sent us aid. Here is Brother Cain to talk to us about the aid the Watchdogs can offer.”
Cain looked out and saw the fear in their eyes. The bloodshed had been hard on these folk. Balaam sat on the front pew, shotgun leaned against the wall. He could see Clarissa, Seth the murderer’s wronged sister, whom the dead Sheb was said to have raped. He could also see Seth’s bereft wife.
“People of New Gidea, we are going to see that justice is done,” Cain said simply.
Silence sat like a wool shroud over the congregation. Cain was done talking.
Murmers began, “What’s that mean?”
Cain replied, “It means that the Dogs are here. Seth will be found, the truth will be uncovered and justice will be done.”
“What’s justice?” someone asked.
Balaam, Clarissa and a host of other members of the congregation began to scream at the top of their lungs about their own definitions of justice.
Cain replied with his pistol, putting a bullet into the roof of the Temple. Holding the smoking pistol, a hulking piece of iron, brass and wood, barrel pointed to God to accentuate his point, Cain repeated his statement. “Justice will be done.”
Leaving the Faithful to decide what that meant, Cain holstered his pistol and walked out of the Temple.
Jeremiah’s Torchlight Sermon
The posse was easy to find. They were brandishing torches and making enough noise to rouse the Devil himself from a slumber. In the distance, the Temple bells were ringing, calling the congregation home.
Enoch, the posse’s leader, stood on a bail of hay with a rifle in his hand. Jeremiah waited outside the torchlight, listening to Enoch’s words.
“-think we’re stupid. Those bells are meant to call us back from our hunt. Rumors of Dogs in town…as if the messenger could’ve even reached the mountains by now.
“There is no fire and there is no emergency other than the murderer on the loose. We don’t hear no bells because they are false.”
Jeremiah rode into the torchlight, allowing the bright colors of his trench-coat to speak for the rumors of Dogs in New Gidea. “Don’t you boys have anything better to do? As if y’all are going to catch this man with your torches burning in the night. C’mon, now.”
Enoch locked eyes with the young Dog who was smiling big, as if this was a friendly discussion on a festival-day. The rabble-rouser knew this was going to be a battle of wills. If he lost, his hard-won posse would amble home. If he won they would hunt through the night until they saw the murderer brought to justice.
Jeremiah smiled. “Go home, gentlemen. If there is a murderer on the loose, shouldn’t you be with your families?”
Enoch spit. “Shouldn’t you be out here looking for this man lest you and your wives are next.”
Jeremiah countered. “The Dogs are here and this is our calling. We will see to the catching of this man.”
Enoch added, “More eyes is more chance to bring him. We aren’t working against you. We’ll bring him to ya once we’ve got the bastard.”
Jeremiah looked shocked. “The bastard? What would your ma say if she heard that kind talk?”
Enoch, despite it all, blushed. “She’d whoop me good, I reckon.”
“And whoop you, she should. She sounds like a fine woman. Shouldn’t you do her right and go home. I know your ma’s wouldn’t want you all out here. So go home for you ma’s sake. Go home to your wives and families. Eat supper with ‘em and think about the anger that brought you out here.
“It isn’t like you are going to find anyone while brandishing torches at night. If he is out here somewhere, he can see ya from a mile or two away. He will be gone before you ever get near him.”
Talk of mothers broke their will. Suddenly, the rifles in their hands seemed silly and the torches just plain foolish. Enoch’s mischievous eyes darted from his breaking men and the Dog. He considered charging the Dog and taking him off his horse. If the young Dog was whooped here in front of everyone they might stay. Despite Enoch’s considerable stones, he didn’t have the stones to jump a Dog just yet.
Enoch began to trot away before Jeremiah stopped him. “No, Enoch, not you. Why don’t you stay here with me.” Jeremiah grinned that good ole boy smile of his. “Ride me back to town lest I get lost on the way.”
Still to come in New Gidea:
Cain and the Lynch Mob
Enter Anadarch
Hellions Reunited
Boy’s Gotta Drink
Clarissa’s Sermon on the Porch
Jeremiah and the Prophet of the Gun
Cain and the Murder Flies
Anadarch and Jeremiah Have Words
Satan’s Own Pistol Takes a Final Shot
New Gidea Witnesses the Dogs’ Judgement