[fic] Stars (Western AU); Part I, Chapters 6-9
Previous
Chapter 6
"Guilt," Pastor Veidt began in his low, soft voice, "is one of the hardest burdens to bear."
Dan arched his back against the unyielding church pew in a growing discomfort. Every sermon he'd attended over the years so far had contained topics which were light and comforting in nature; of course this would be the Sunday the pastor would choose guilt. Dan held back a grimace and avoided looking at Walter next to him. He'd never noticed before how rough the wood felt against his palms.
In the days since he'd read the letter from Nelson Gardner, Dan had been feeling more tense and agitated than he had in years, a sick feeling growing up into his stomach. He knew things now about Walter he wasn't supposed to know: his years-long quest for his father and the disappointment of finding out he was no child of Blake's after all. It must have been shattering for him, and Dan knew very well it was something Walter would never have voluntarily told him even if his life depended on it.
The night he read the letter Dan had tried to talk about it, but found his mouth going dry when Walter gave him a blandly expectant look. Instead he'd only asked how he preferred his beans seasoned and regarded him with such sympathy afterward that Walter immediately took up a defensive suspiciousness.
"Guilt can steal us away from the eternal Utopia which is intended for us."
They spent the next few days alongside each other as usual but just out of phase, misunderstandings and fumbled mistakes springing up between them.
It didn't make any sense that he should feel so badly when finding out the secret wasn't his fault, but he did nevertheless. As the service dragged on long, Dan waited nervously for Pastor Veidt to look right through him with those pale eyes and know exactly what he had in his mind.
The only saving grace was that the pastor completely avoided looking into their little corner at all.
"It can destroy us until we are utterly isolated, alone in the desert's level sands."
Walking down the road afterward with head bowed to watch the dust scuffling up underneath his feet, Dan hardly noticed Walter eyeing him speculatively.
"Hn. Quieter than I am today."
Dan's shoulders bunched in closer together. "Guess so."
The short answer seemed to sour Walter's mood, his footsteps landing harder like an angered child. Dan felt a quick flash of irritation; that made him angry? Didn't he give answers like that all the time, in as few syllables as possible? Suddenly, Daniel didn't feel like playing the game of anxiously making sparkling conversation. Jamming his hands into his pockets, he resolutely looked up to the sky where a summer storm was building far away in the distance. It drew up energy into its huge grey belly but would likely as not move on before it rained, leaving their town tensely, desperately dry.
Even still, he could feel the electricity from faraway thunder gathering all over himself like static.
"Usually babbling," Walter continued in such a way that meant he knew very well he was poking at an angry red ant hill with his bare hands.
Dan's fingers curled inside his pockets. "At least I talk."
"Overrated."
It didn't matter what he thought was overrated, whether it was the act of talking, the topics Dan liked to talk about, or Dan himself. It was enough to make Dan stop dead in his tracks, finally looking at Walter where he stood in the shadow of a wall, his eyes sharp and grim.
"Then don't tell me anything at all!"
As soon as the words left his mouth, Dan understood that what he was feeling wasn't guilt in the slightest.
Walter had come to town looking for Edward Blake and Laurel, not Dan. He'd willingly shown his face to Nelson Gardner, not Dan. Told his name once to Adrian Veidt of all people, not Dan. He felt something horrible squirming up inside his heart, the corners of his eyes stinging. Working in the store and living on his own, he'd been able to regard himself as an adult, but in reality he now knew he was the child in this situation, mentally stamping his feet in jealous betrayal.
Walter's face went tense in genuine hurt and Dan thought he might respond; but instead, he held his lips in a solemn line, making his expression blank as ever. Wordless, he turned to keep walking down the street.
Dan stood gaping after his dark silhouette, his breath coming fast and shaky as if he'd been crying for hours, now feeling an upswell of true guilt. They had never argued when they were on the trail together, and it felt as if he'd been thrown into some sort of uncomfortable alternate reality.
With leaden feet, he followed his friend home.
He was ready to make a shamefaced apology by the time he got back to his room. The moment Walter caught him out of the corner of his eye he picked up one of Dan's books, deliberately turned his back in the chair, and cocked his head in the most petulant ignoring-you-while-pretending-to-read angle he could.
Dan's fist clenched and banged against the doorway before he stormed out again, coming face-to-face with Hollis and Sally where they stood frozen in the store with arched eyebrows.
It was like running into his parents after throwing a tantrum. A dizzy mix of embarrassment, hot anger, and underlying shame at hurting Walter choked off the rational part of his brain and effectively turned on the senseless babbling part.
"Don't-! Don't expect me to understand him!"
Worst of all was hearing Sally's amused chuckle as he stomped through the front door and slammed it behind him.
"Isn't that familiar, Hollis?"
//
He didn't know where Walter was getting his meals; Dan only knew that he showed up to work on time looking relatively unruffled, did his share of chores, and disappeared until late at night when he'd crawl into bed slowly in an effort to keep from waking Dan.
It would have worked if he wasn't already awake and restless, sleep disrupted by bizarre, turbulent dreams of shadows and birds streaming away from him across the sky into a thunderstorm.
Walter was always working by the time he woke up himself. Alone in his room by the light of day, it was easy to wash his face and shave with the glinting straightedge razor and consider himself deeply silly. So they weren't getting along-it was a regrettable but normal side-effect of being human. After all, they had only known each other for months nine years ago, and now had only been living together for a few weeks. If Walter was going to be angry over a minor disagreement, he was welcome to it.
By such reasonable thoughts, Dan convinced himself into looking just as calm and unruffled as Walter himself. They constructed a polite wall of mutual indifference, retreating further into silence more out of reaction to each other than any actual lingering anger.
They both played the role as well as could be expected, their believability only marred by the worry etching itself onto Dan's face, Walter's dark-eyed glances, and the way they both startled when their fingers accidentally touched.
One day, Dan stood watching Walter leave in the afternoon's long light, wind tearing away at the severe lines of his body until he passed out of sight. Dan felt tired all the way to the bone, and he nearly jumped when Hollis clapped a hand to his shoulder.
"Come on son, let's have a drink. You look like you could use it."
He was too exhausted to do anything but nod.
Happy Harry's Saloon was as boisterous and rebellious as ever, full of the dark smells of wood and smoke and what Dan's mother might have called sinfulness. That thought alone was enough to propel him defiantly over the threshold. His instinctive knowledge that Walter wouldn't go within a hundred feet of a place like this also helped.
Sally was perfectly in her element in among the noise and vibrant activity, greeting them with her generously wide smile.
"Hope you don't mind Dan joining us tonight, Sal."
"Of course not. How lucky can a girl be, surrounded by such gorgeous young men?" Hollis blushed at her husky laugh, scuffing his boot under the table. Even though Dan did his best to put on a good smile, Sally's infectiously happy expression turned to affectionate concern as soon as she looked closer into his face.
"Aw, poor kid. You two boys still fighting? No wonder you brought him, Hollis."
Dan would have given Hollis a look of gentle reprimand for telling her about the entire situation if he didn't already know he always told Sally about everything possible. "I don't know that I'd call it a fight, really."
She watched him absentmindedly tug at his fingers, a sincere understanding lifting her mouth into a bittersweet smile. "Sure, honey. Just let us know if you want to talk about it."
Hollis mercifully saved him from the task of trying to come up with an answer which didn't sound miserable. "I hate to bring this up, but-where's Eddie? I've never seen a night without him here."
Sally huffed softly, squaring her shoulders. "Hell if I know." A crash and a holler went up at the opposite end of the bar and she irritably swirled the liquid in her glass. "At least we have Shea and his pals to entertain us."
The drink was an assault on his tongue and a fire in his throat, but Dan didn't care. He was content to nurse his glass while his muscles slowly unwound, fondly watching Sally and Hollis reminisce about their childhood friends and the difficulty of playing cops-and-robbers when everybody wanted to be the cop.
Dan left them laughing together and walked down the calm and quiet street alone, the very first stars beginning to glimmer through the low orange glow of sunset. He could get some reading done, and then he would sleep for a very, very long time.
A note nailed by the store's front door twisted in the breeze.
"I've got him
bring your money
to the train station"
Dan stared uncomprehendingly at the black slashes of letters. Oh, God. Walter.
Chapter 7
A hot, terrible sickness rose up into Dan's throat as the torn and flimsy paper fluttered in front of him. Walter. Someone had Walter. All along, he'd been complacent about the shooting, content just to leave it in the past and live his life in hopes that the danger would just fade away behind them. He'd even found Walter's "investigations" to be merely a quirky result of his naturally suspicious personality, not a reasonable and logical response.
Swallowing thickly, he leaned his forehead against the rough wood. If Walter was hurt again, he could never forgive himself.
Panic beat hard in his heart. Something had to be done and there was no one but himself to do it. He could hide in his room and worry or he could go out and get Walter himself.
Thoughts cluttered in his mind as he stumbled through the store and into his room. The door was ajar and drawers lay gaping open, evidence of a desperate search. As an insult added to already grievous injury, his favorite and most intricately-constructed owl had been taken as well. He stood staring at the blank space it once occupied, anger and fear tangling up together indistinguishably.
With shaking fingers, he crouched to retrieve his stash of bills and coins kept behind the bookcase. Clenching his eyes shut and leaning against a shelf, he tried to reason through it. Someone wanted money, someone who knew about his father's bank and who knew just how painful a loss Walter would be to him. Mentally, he went over and over the faces of everyone he knew. The only person who had that much information on his life was Walter himself.
Dan grit his teeth. He'd been berating himself for acting like a child; now was the time to prove he could be something better.
He was cutting through the dusk with Archimedes the moment he could get him saddled, staccato hoofbeats jittering his vision.
The Ostermans were together in their front yard, tending the toughening branches of their year-old trees in the forgiving evening temperatures. Laurel was the first to see him and her eyes went round from the stricken look on his face. She gripped her husband's arm tight until he halted the smooth, decisive teeth of his pruning shears.
"Please." Dust choked thick in his throat. "Something's happened to Walter. Please help."
Laurel nodded as soon as the words left his mouth. "I'm going. Jon?" She turned to give him a hard look, far beyond asking for permission and instead pressing for action.
"Yes." He looked gently relieved to reach his conclusion, as if he'd solved a difficult equation. "Yes, I will go as well."
Archimedes's hooves danced skittishly over the dry ground while the Ostermans saddled their own horses and Dan attempted to draw up a confidence he didn't have. They gathered around to read the note crumpled in Dan's hand and then wheeled away into the night, their horses' tails streaming out behind them.
The train station looked different abandoned, all glinting rails and black structure rising up to blot out the last colors of sunset. Without the people's cheerful babble and the train's impatient steam, it was a nothing more than a bleak skeleton of civilization.
Strips of dim light poured out between the gaps of wood in the ticketing office wall. As one, they dismounted to make their silent approach.
Dan's whisper was hoarse. "Jon? Do you have a-"
"-a gun?" Laurie appeared around by his left side, holding up the blessed sight of a small revolver. "Mother made me get it, but I know how to use it." There was no small amount of pride in her voice.
He felt a sudden rush of fondness much different than the upright, traditional romantic interest he had once held for her. How horribly he must have misjudged her to think a daintily jeweled trinket would ever be the perfect gift for her, or that he and his misconceptions would be a suitable match for her.
Dan steadied his shoulders as he walked between the two of them, buoyed by her sharp resolve and his depthless calm.
Tightening his fist, he swung open the door.
Dan would have walked straight into Walter's back if he hadn't stopped at just the right second. Walter turned to stare, his fingers clenched white around the hilt of his dull cowhand's knife, his eyes wide and glistening with fright.
Jon blinked at the room in what passed for surprise. "It seems the situation is more complicated than we first anticipated."
Their mayor was at the center of the room, bleeding and bound cruelly tight into a chair with weathered ropes. Dan distantly recognized the thin, trembling man pressing a rusting gun to the mayor's head as Edgar Jacobi.
"Well." Eddie Blake, with a gash at his temple seeping dark blood into his right eye, smiled fiercely around his split lip. "If it isn't the fucking cavalry."
There was nothing but a candle for light, and the new movement of air from the opened door made the flame turn and flicker, casting everything into a sharp but ever-changing relief.
Dan could hardly believe this was the same Edgar Jacobi as the man who dealt keno down at Happy Harry's with a smile, who came into the store with a shyly bowed head, who showed amateur magic tricks to children. The fact that Walter was safe and unhurt was a small comfort against the danger of three weapons in one small room, but being able to stand near to him was enough.
The Adam's apple in Jacobi's throat bobbed in nervous agitation as he swung his pistol up to meet the four of them where they stood together.
"Where is Hollis Mason?"
"None of your business," growled Walter, leaner and sharper and tenser than Dan had ever seen him. He identified the tone in Walter's voice as the one which meant he wasn't going to tolerate any more disagreement. Oh, God, Dan thought, he thinks he can win this fight with an old, blunt knife.
"Wait, just-just wait a minute. Let's be reasonable." Dan fanned his fingers in what he hoped was an appeasing gesture while Eddie chuckled darkly.
"Yeah. It's been real reasonable so far."
Laurie kept her revolver trained straight at Jacobi but aimed a look at the captive so withering that it partially mollified even him. "Uncle Eddie? Shut up."
Dan watched Walter's head tilt minutely in confusion and foresaw a whole new keg of powder being thrown onto the already explosive situation.
"Why! Uh-Why Hollis? I mean. Look. This doesn't make sense. Just help us understand, and we can help you."
Jacobi's face twisted as if the idea of being offered help was a bittersweet pain. Faltering, he slid a sweaty palm across his forehead. "Mr. Mason owns a store-he has to be rich-right?" The thought that his assumptions may not be correct seemed to enter his mind for the first time as a stark fear rose up into his eyes. "And Mr. Blake here is his friend. They told me so. They told me if, if I-"
"So it's money? Just money?" Dan frowned in a sinking disappointment. They had all been put into danger for nothing more than-
"No." Jon spoke for the first time, with his hands clasped neatly in front of himself but with his eyes sharp and observant. "He's terribly ill."
The words seemed to topple one of the last supports holding Jacobi together. He thumbed back the pistol's safety, shivering as if he were falling to pieces. Walter tensed like a hawk ready to strike and Dan stopped just short of grabbing the back of his coat, holding ready to pull him down and underneath and safe.
"No shit!" Jacobi dragged in a deep breath, wild-eyed. "It's bad. Real bad. The mine, it's getting harder. Pay's getting harder too. No doctor's gonna help me." His eyes went fierce, his back pressing against the wall. "I'm getting my money and I'm going back East to see Mama in case-and then, and then once I give them money they have to make me better."
The entire room was silent as if the whole world held its breath; even the candle's flame remained steady.
"I'll treat you. I don't need pay."
Jacobi wheeled and turned his gun on Jon while Laurie swallowed back a hissing gasp. "Nobody in this world gives you anything." His face was twisted in emotion and nearly unrecognizable beneath the sheen of sweat and tears. "Nobody."
"He means it." Walter's voice was impossibly low, but it carried far enough.
The gun lowered an inch, then another. "You'll just-you'll just arrest me for this-"
"Perhaps." Jon moved forward for the first time since he came in, slow and unstoppable as a glacier. "I'll allow Mr. Blake to decide that after you're well."
Jacobi stared into Jon's eyes, pressing back and back against the unmoving wall like a cornered mouse, frozen and trembling until the very moment the gun was eased away from his hand.
//
It all ended so much less eventfully than Dan had been expecting, but it didn't even enter his mind to be disappointed. Jon and Laurie were escorting Jacobi away for treatment; Walter was cutting away at the ropes binding a chagrined but otherwise healthy Eddie Blake; Dan was trying to calm the incredible surge of adrenaline pounding in his veins.
Once freed, Eddie stretched like a lazy cat and purposefully ignored the swollen, red abrasions on his arms. Dan saw the hard look in his eyes being slowly obscured by a practiced nonchalance. He swiped the blood off his forehead and grinned as though being kidnapped was an everyday hazard of being himself.
"Gonna go join the kids. See if the Doc will restore my skull."
As Eddie passed, Walter studiously avoided looking into his face.
Then they were alone together and Walter was avoiding looking at him too.
They both went very busily to work clearing away the twisted remnants of rope and restoring the ticketing office to a state of cleanliness it probably hadn't seen in ten years. When Dan finally snuffed the candle, the room was thrown into complete darkness, the sun having long since set. His arms and legs felt hollow from the collision of relief and tension. Walter sighed faintly from somewhere behind him.
Bucephalus and Archimedes had strayed nearby each other, bending their long necks to the ground and snuffling for traces of grass in the quiet night. Dan and Walter rode home together under the unblinking stars, a thick slice of moon transforming everything into a landscape of gentle silver.
Once they were back to the room, Dan didn't ask why Walter was wearing a coat in the middle of summer-didn't ask anything-just leaned the whole length of his spine against the door frame and watched Walter as he brought a candle to life, narrow-shouldered and quiet and alive.
He paused with his back to Dan, slowly closing one of the gaping drawers until it slid shut, fingers trembling even after he clenched his fist.
"I'm sorry, Daniel." From an inside pocket of his coat he produced the missing owl his thumb skimming its tiny round face. "I don't have money. Couldn't find any-thought this was a good owl. Thought you wouldn't mind if I traded it to get you back."
Art by etherati
Their mutual alienation, how badly they'd been pretending to understand each other, now seemed both monumentally stupid and too frail to hide behind anymore. Dan had already realized in the back of his mind that they must have both assumed the same thing and raced off to each other's rescue, but Walter turned and the remembered fear was plain on his face, impossible to ignore. He finally looked at Dan with an expression that was deeply vulnerable, tense, and unbearable for both of them.
Dan should have apologized back, but that wasn't what he ended up doing at all. He didn't know why he moved but all he really knew for certain was that it took two steps and less than a second before they collided and he had his hands on Walter's shoulders, his arms, kissing his mouth with everything he had-he'd been on the edge of a precipice so long, so long and his careful internal mechanisms were unfurling all at once with springs and gears exploding-and Walter was still and dangerous at first but then he jolted as if struck by lightning and all his muscles vibrated like live wire, his body twisting, his hands pulling hard on Dan's hair and they were stumbling blindly until Dan's back hit the wall.
Neither of them knew how to kiss and they were awkward and they were gripping onto each other so hard it hurt but none of it mattered in that enormous burst of released pressure. They were making hungry, agonized sounds into each other's mouths until they had to break apart and take huge drowning-man gulps of air, staring at each other with round, stunned eyes, shaking harder even than Jacobi had been.
Walter took two breaths and then two steps back, two more and two more, slow and cautious.
"Good night, Daniel." His voice was nothing more than a hoarse whisper.
Dan knew better than to take it as a rejection because it wasn't. He understood the feeling, because nothing inside him right then had names or words to speak and his head felt giddily empty.
Neither of them even remembered to change out of their day clothes. They stretched out on the bed facing away from each other but with backs pressed together all the way down, and then sank heavily into a blank and formless sleep.
Chapter 8
It was still before sunrise when Dan awoke, feeling as empty and tranquil as a distant shore. The candle they had forgotten had burnt itself down to a waterfall of wax spilling down the desk's edge, and it was odd how much relief that simple proof of the previous night's events was. Sometime during the night Dan must have turned over, his chest only inches from the curve of Walter's back, heat pooling safe between their bodies. After a soft breath he succumbed to sleep again, setting his face first against Walter's neck, then sliding down to his jutting shoulder blade as he curled inward.
By the time he woke again, the sunlight was thick and Walter was already up, dressed and shaving. They looked each other in the eye; Walter's expression was some poignant mix of turbulence, fear, and hunger. Nonetheless, it was an acknowledgment. Dan felt a powerful need to pull him close once again, but knew somehow it would be crossing an invisible line neither he nor Walter could bear to be crossed yet. Dan's mind seemed to change on a whim, deciding one minute that what he had done the night before was terribly indecent, deciding another minute that it was the only thing he could possibly have done.
They were just as awkward, their conversations just as stilted, but there was a deep-rooted mutual understanding between them in the days which followed. Their antagonism, seemingly just a method for evading the enormously building feelings between them, disappeared overnight. In quiet words they spoke about everyday matters, business, customers.
July afternoons were bright and hard, but as August took over its reign there was a particular full goldenness to the air, almost blurry at the edges. Dan would sometimes pause outside mentally comparing the elusive quality of the light to the new, unspoken undertones between them.
Walter had no more use for bandages, the gunshot wound finally having healed to an angry but subdued tear in his side. He finally started availing himself of the shared meals in Hollis's kitchen and grew stronger on nourishment and steady work, seeming somehow impervious to the smothering heat.
Anyone else could assume that they were the same as ever, two friends grown close after an argument; but under cover of the moon and stars, they moved hesitantly outside the bounds of friendship.
It started with Walter brushing gently across Dan's wrist under the blanket, curious enough and light enough to be an accident. When the world failed to end at that bold transgression, Walter continued the next day and the next, exploring his fingers further up Dan's arm, watching his face with eyes as unblinking as an owl's in the darkness.
One night, Dan lay still, very still, and allowed Walter to ghost his fingertips up and over his face, across his cheekbones and under his eyes and into his hair with the deepest concentration. Every time he did it, Dan's heart hammered so hard that he was afraid it would break or explode or both. If he closed his eyes, Walter would sweep a thumb under his lip and lean close enough that Dan could hear his breath.
A few nights later, Walter tilted his head in such a way that meant Dan could place his hands on his lean face and simply hold them there while Walter shook out short, shuddering breaths. Dan never knew whether he was allowing Walter to slowly become familiarized with the idea of them both touching each other, or whether Walter was the one familiarizing him.
And then there was the night when Dan dreamed.
He dreamed they were swimming together in a deep tropical sinkhole under a riotous canopy of vegetation and a cacophony of birds. Heat rose from deep within the pool of water, so much more welcome and relaxing than the everyday sweaty temperatures of summer. They dove deeper and deeper under the black shadows of leaves, every time rising to the top for gasps of air and to smile giddily at one another. Deeper they went until the sunlight was far above them and they found they could breathe huge lungfuls of water.
In the secret darkness as warmth soaked up into them, their limbs entangled and their mouths pressed together, skin meeting down the length of their naked bodies. They were touching each other everywhere, everywhere, movements first leisurely then urgently frantic, losing their cries into the water as it grew colder and colder and Dan was on a desperate edge about to fall but he couldn't breathe and he needed to stay here entwined with Walter but his lungs burned for air. They struggled up toward the surface and Dan dragged Walter up by the wrist when he stopped swimming, but he was getting so heavy that Dan's fingers ached and then gave way. His instinct for survival propelled him up to the surface even when he wanted to follow Walter as he sank all the way down into the forgotten depths.
Snow stung his face as he surfaced and heaved in gasps of air, the water freezing over at an impossible rate, the birds silent and the plants curling dead in the howling whirl of a blizzard.
Pastor Veidt stood at the edge of the ice looking down at him, his clothing still and untouched by the fierce wind. Strips of Walter's old cloth bandage dangled from his outstretched hand and Dan watched in horror as blood crawled up the fabric, Veidt giving no answer but a serene, enigmatic smile-
Dan awoke from his dream into a normal, mundane early morning, gasping as if he were still drowning. He curled his fingers into the solidity of his bedclothes when he saw Walter beside him sleeping heavily, and laughed shakily at himself.
How ridiculous to think that Pastor Veidt would ever-
That Pastor Veidt would ever hurt Walter-
His fingers went slack as a terrible realization settled into his mind, colder and more certain even than a dreamland blizzard.
Chapter 9
Dan knew that going over to the church would be crazy, the most insane thing he'd ever done, worse even than going out west alone as a clueless teenage boy. He also knew that if he was going to do it, he would have to do it immediately.
As quietly as possible, he slid first one foot and then the other onto the floor, watching over his shoulder the entire time for Walter's hypervigilant senses to spring into life. When they didn't he exhaled softly, trying to calm his messily colliding thoughts.
There couldn't be any other explanation. The way Pastor Veidt had reacted on July 4th, looking at Walter like he was a ghost-or should have been; the way he'd been avoiding the store ever since; the way he'd given that uncharacteristic sermon on guilt. The only question was why Dan hadn't seen it sooner.
Rising to dress, he promised himself more time for self-recrimination later.
It was still early, the entire town still asleep and the sun only beginning to warm the sky from beyond the long horizon. Although he had no idea what he was expecting from the meeting, Dan hoped the element of surprise would at least work to his favor.
His hope was dashed as soon as he drew nearer to the church and saw a lone figure in the adjoining churchyard. Of course, of course Pastor Veidt with never a hair out of place would already be awake this early. To expect less would be to expect less than absolute perfection.
Gently urging Archimedes into a slow approach, Dan fought down the encroaching feelings of how absurd this accusation was with the still-fresh image of the gruesome damage a bullet could wage on skin.
The six graves of their town's tiny cemetery were shaded by a row of lilac bushes. Adrian was bent underneath their glossy-leafed, spreading arms, tipping water from a wide basin to wet their roots. The plants had grown short and tough from the effects of dry wind, but their presence alone spoke of a great deal of attention from their caretaker. The blooms had already passed but their smell seemed to linger, sharply sweet.
He acknowledged Dan's approach with only a calm glance, not pausing in his work until he had poured out the last drops underneath a sturdy set of violet crepe myrtles in the church's shadow.
"Yes, Daniel? May I help you?"
Dan swallowed against the eerie placidity of thin branches swaying in the breeze and dismounted, his speech much more polite than he felt. "I'd like to talk with you."
"Of course." Setting the basin up against the wall in what must have been its precisely preappointed spot, Adrian motioned for Dan to join him before setting a slow and measured pace into the church.
He was led into a narrow hallway he hadn't seen before, and then to a room just as unfamiliar to him; it must have been the pastor's personal quarters. The room was small, fastidiously clean, and as generically anonymous as a guest bedroom. There was nothing personal inside the room except Pastor Veidt himself, a single shelf of books, and a huge Maine Coon cat sleeping on the windowsill, flicking its tufted ears at dreams.
Dan was quickly feeling deflated by the surroundings. He'd been expecting something quick or violent, but instead was faced with a pale man wearing a wan smile and purple shadows under his eyes.
"I have to admit, you fascinate me, Daniel." Adrian offered him the room's lone chair by gesture. "Dreiberg-a Jewish name, is it not? And yet I've never seen you miss a service of mine."
Dan wasn't sure at all how he'd been diverted from accusations of murder to religious choices. He remained warily near the door. "It-well, it is. I'm non-practicing. But there must not be a synagogue for five hundred miles, anyway. And I find it... calming here." It was. Instead of fire-and-brimstone and hellish visions, the sermons had always instead contained surprisingly peaceful lessons.
Adrian truly focused on him for the first time in their conversation, looking somehow surprised as if Dan had spoken something he hadn't realized himself. "Yes... yes. I do too." After a long look out the window, he came back to himself with a small shake of his head. "Forgive me. You must have come here for a reason."
A dry panic closed his throat. What had he been expecting, coming here with no plan and no evidence but a dream?
Excuse me, Pastor, but have you tried to kill anyone lately?
"Ah, I was wondering how you know Walter?"
An unnamed emotion twitched at the corners of his mouth and eyes. "He hasn't told you? I suppose he wouldn't."
Veidt turned and walked slowly to the window, the lines of his body completely composed and still except for where he idly scratched behind his cat's ear. His voice was just as smooth as if he were reading the story of someone else's life from thin pages.
"I'm the son of a very rich man. My father owned quite a few things. Among them was one of the first large-scale garment factories in Philadelphia. Walter was a boy, perhaps eight; he began as a sweeper cleaning up scraps and graduated to one of the machines. Father preferred children for the machines," he noted distantly, "since they were more nimble. I was encouraged to oversee the factory as preparation for my future life as a businessman. I was also sixteen and fancied myself a magnanimous guardian of the child workers."
He seemed lost in the story, his eyes fixed on nothing. "There were times he couldn't be persuaded to go home and I was determined to give charity, so I cornered him and read to him. I had hundreds of books on kings and pyramids, you see, but all he wanted to hear was a story about a soldier. So I read to him about Alexander the Great."
Daniel was so distracted by the image of a very young Walter grudgingly allowing himself to be enthralled by a story that he almost missed Veidt turning away from the window with a look so sadly knowing and gently reproving that Dan felt as if he'd just slapped a favorite great-uncle.
"I didn't shoot your friend, if that's what you're here for." He didn't pause long enough for Dan to make any response but a guilty cringe. "No. If I'm to be accused of a crime, it's one which has nothing to do with Walter."
There was something so raw in his expression that it was almost painful to look at. "It's one I already committed thirteen years ago."
Adrian seemed to be coming unraveled, the tight control cracking like a thin layer of ice. Where before he had been staring outside the window, he now stared steady and unnerving back at Dan, the corners of his mouth pulled in a pained smile.
"I'm the son of a very rich man. My father owned quite a few things." He mocked his own words, beginning a second, darker story. "Among them was a newspaper called the Nova Star-Telegram. Only a few months overseeing the factory, and I was already growing bored. I fancied myself a writer. So I was given column inches to express the thoughts of a presumptuous aristocratic teenager."
Dan didn't dare say anything, and hardly remembered to breathe. The words were spilling from Adrian like a man speaking in tongues. "I felt the War Between the States bearing down upon us all with an oppressive weight. Everyone could see it coming, but no one would lift a finger to stop it. It was one day as I read through the telegrams that a solution, so brilliant to my mind, came to me. And who better than me, in my genius, could perpetrate this? So I wrote like a man possessed. Column after column, picked up in many papers besides just the Nova Star-all about the Indian threat."
His smile grew wider, more brittle. "Do you see? But as you know, it did little to avert war. I continued writing nonetheless, believing myself only steps from fame as a world-class journalist. One morning, Daniel, I received a telegram which came with a slap of congratulations on my shoulder. There had been one small tribe I had focused on in particular as an example-I knew nearly everything there was to know about them-and that morning I learned they had been massacred. Entirely. Not a child was spared."
"Pastor-"
"I convinced myself of what a righteous act it all had been. That I was merely holding together the fabric of society. It was easy to believe until-at night-their faces-"
It was the first time he broke eye contact, his entire body tensing as if in anticipation of a wave. After a few seconds, he began breathing again.
"There isn't much eventful to tell of the years after. I studied religion, I wandered west. There was a passenger stop here. I saw the overwhelming remoteness and-and here I've been. Perhaps I can't blame you for being suspicious. It had been easy to forget that there was ever a life before Star Bluff, that there was ever a horribly foolish young man as I was. I saw Walter, and I thought for a moment he was a ghost, returned from those old times to punish me. It must have shown on my face."
The room was entirely quiet. Adrian stared unseeingly at the floorboards while even Dan's incessant instinct for babbling quieted itself. There was absolutely nothing he could say, and he knew it.
"I'm sorry, Daniel. I'm not sure why-perhaps that story has been waiting for a long time."
"It's all right." He was surprised by how sincerely he meant it, and Adrian seemed to be as well. "It's-look, don't be a stranger at the store."
"Thank you." It was just as sincere, and they smiled weakly at one other over the weight of confession still thick in the air.
The sunshine outside was bright, in garish contrast to the old memories he'd just been privy to. By the time he returned to the store Walter was already up and working, moving crates before the heat became too much. Dan stopped and stared at the work of muscle in his back, wondering why it felt so deeply good just to see him. Walter arched an eyebrow in silent question and Dan drew closer, leaning his head and shoulder against Walter's in brief physical reassurance.
"Just investigating."
His small smile was enough to make Dan smile too.
Next