TCD

MURDER

During Temple services the Prophet of the Church of Green Dome, Jashen Shybear, declared he was setting aside the discipline of the Church, in a single case, so that Gabriel Shybear could marry Kimberly Zinter. With a loud outcry of righteous indignation the Apostle Klaus Hansen stood up and left the sanctuary, taking half the White Wing with him.

In short order Klaus Hansen declared himself the Prophet of the Reformed Green Dome Church. It went without saying that forbidding interracial marriage was one of the reforms, but there were many others. Listing them made up the bulk of Hansen’s sermon on the Sunday following just days after the disastrous split in the Church.

Hansen said the curse of God lay upon all those who played cards. All who engaged in dancing were in danger of God’s holy judgment. Those who even permitted themselves to listen to race music would face the very fires of hell. He told his flock to let not one single drop of Demon Rum pass their lips. To prove they were indwelt of the Holy Spirit, he encouraged the faithful to roll in the sawdust on the floor of the barn out on River Road, near the bridge, that was their new ‘temple’. That was just as well, as there were not enough benches for everyone to sit.

The beautiful white Temple looking down on them from the highest point in town seemed to mock them by simply continuing to exist. Many got up to leave during the service, but what was most alarming of all to the new prophet, the plate came back largely empty of cash.

The former Deacon Paul Bergin, now Apostle, went door-to-door to the homes of White Wingers passing out hastily-mimeographed tracts promised eternal damnation to backsliders who were tempted to stay or to return to the mother church.

Many of the white parishioners weighed the peril to their eternal souls if they remained in schism. Most found the barn situation to be intolerably pathetic. The pressure mounted on Hansen to approach the Prophet of the mother Church and negotiate a healing of the breach.

Paul and Klaus approached the Temple office door, but it was opened by Gabriel an instant before they could knock.

“How did you do that, son?” asked a startled Klaus.

“The Prophet foresaw that you were about to knock.”

Inside the office Paul and Klaus saw only Gabriel, Dory, and Kim, and it was soon apparent the men knew only one of them by name, which was Kim. Quelle surprise that the former Apostle and Deacon never troubled to get to know anyone in the Red Wing of the Church. “Speaking of the Prophet, I came here to talk to him.”

“She’s right there,” said Dory, pointing at Robyn.

“I just see three kids who broke into the Temple office and are running loose. Where’s Jashen?”

“He’s in a better place,” Gabriel said.

“He’s dead?”

“No,” said Kim, “but he blamed himself for the schism and stepped down.”

“He was absolutely right to blame himself but if he left you in charge he must have been wholly demented in the end, because it says in the scriptures, ‘I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over men. They must remain silent.'”

“You’re going to have to show me a little respect, Mister Hansen, as I am indeed the Prophet of the Church of Green Dome, notwithstanding whatever Paul wrote in the First Century about womenfolk.”

Kim reached into a desk drawer and withdrew a leather-bound green book. “I know you’ve seen this before, Mr. Hansen. It’s Mark Lange’s handwritten copy of the Book of Green Dome. He called it the Printer’s Manuscript. The first few sheets on the inside cover are an official Church document.”

She laid the book on her desk and flipped it open. The first entry on the inside cover said PASTOR MARK LANGE, PROPHET, SEP 1, 1866, followed by Lange’s signature, and this in turn was followed by a mark of an individual unknown, in Hebrew script. Kim said, “We believe the Lord Yeshua himself made this initial.”

This entry was followed by the First Decree, which read, THE PROPHET OF THE CMURCH SHALL CHOOSE, FROM THE WING OF THE CHURCH OF WHICH HE IS NOT A PART, ONE WHO SHALL HOLD THE OFFICE OF APOSTLE. It was dated SEP. 1, 1866, signed and initialed by Prophet Lange.

This was followed by the Second Decree, which read, IN THE EVENT OF THE DEATH OR RESIGNATION OF THE PROPHET, THE APOSTLE SHALL VACATE THE OFFICE OF APOSTLE AND ATTAIN TO THE OFFICE OF PROPHET, dated and certified Sep. 1, 1866. The next entry, in the same handwriting, read, CHIEF WANICA, APOSTLE, SEP. 1, 1866, followed by a ragged ‘W’ and again by Lange’s initials.

Kim said, ‘We hold the first day of September to be the day of the founding of the Church of Green Dome, seventy-six years ago.’

The next entry in the Printer’s Manuscript read, again in the same handwriting, APOSTLE WANICA, DECEASED, NATURAL CAUSES, FEB. 27, 1906, followed by Lange’s initials.

The entry after that was JASHEN SHYBEAR, APOSTLE, FEB. 28, 1906. This was certified by the signature of Jashen and by Lange’s initials.

The next entry was written in a different hand. It said, PROPHET MARK LANGE, DECEASED, SINKING OF REINA RE-GENTA, MAR. 6, 1917, and this was initialed by Jashen and dated March 7, which reflected the delay in receiving the news. A diagonal line was drawn through the remaining blank space to the bottom of the inside cover and this, too, was initialed by Jashen.

On the facing page, the first line read, APOSTLE JASHEN SHYBEAR, PROPHET, MAR. 7, 1917 and this was signed and initialed by Jashen. The next line read, KLAUS HANSEN, APOSTLE, OCT 9, 1931 and this was signed by Hanson and initialed by Jashen.

Kim rotated the book to show Hanson the entry. She said, “Until I read this I wasn’t even aware the Church had gone nearly fifteen years without an Apostle. I suppose Jashen found the choice to be such a difficult one he was willing to risk breaking the clear order of succession with his own death.”

Klaus said, “At the time you were too young to know or care about Church politics. The White Wing threatened to walk over his failure to appoint an Apostle, so we forced Jashen’s hand. And we made him create the office of Deacon to prevent it from happening again.”

“I see. That explains the next line.” Jashen wrote the text of the Third Decree, dated the same day as the appointment of Hansen. It stated, THE PROPHET SHALL APPOINT, FROM ALTERNATING WINGS OF THE CHURCH, A DEACON TO SERVE THE SPIRITUAL AND MATERIAL NEEDS OF THE WHOLE CHURCH. IN THE EVENT OF THE DEATH OR RES- IGNATION OF THE APOSTLE, THE DEACON SHALL ATTAIN TO THE OFFICE OF APOSTLE. And Jashen had signed and initialed this.

The next line read PAUL BERGIN, DEACON, Oct. 9, 1931. This was signed by Paul, and initialed by Jashen. Kim asked, “Does everything appear to be in order, gentlemen?” Paul nodded agreement, and Klaus said it appeared to be so.

Kim then indicated the next line, which none of the men had ever seen. ANY OFFICE OF THE CHURCH SHALL NOT BE TERMINATED EXCEPT IN THE CASE OF THE DEATH OR RESIGNATION OF THE OFFICEHOLDER. Signed by Jashen and dated January 10, 1943.

Kim said, “Jashen told us he never had to think about it before, but that the Fourth Decree became necessary following the events of Wednesday the 5th of January, when you went out from us. But let us go on.”

The next line read APOSTLE KLAUS HANSEN, RESIGNED, JAN. 10, 1943, signed by Jashen Hansen objected to this. “I never resigned!”

“I was there in that barn you call your temple,’ said Kim. “I’m White Wing, remember? You introduced yourself as the Prophet of the Reformed Church of Green Dome. When I reported that to the actual Prophet he took that to be your official resignation. How did he put it, Dory?”

Dory replied, “Father said, ‘No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.’ In fine, if you’re an officer in the Reformed Green Dome Church you can’t be an officer in the mother Green Dome Church.”

Kim nodded, and said, “That led to the next line.”

It read KIMBERLY SHYBEAR, APOSTLE, JAN. 10, 1943. Kim had signed it, and Jashen had initialed after. “The upshot, Mr. Hansen, is that in the eyes of Prophet Jashen Shybear you quit, and he chose me to replace you.”

Kim proceeded to the next line, which read DEACON PAUL BERGIN, RESIGNED, JAN. 10, 1943. This was also signed by Jashen.

Kim asked, rhetorically, “Do we need to go over the same argument for the resignation of the Deacon as it was for the Apostle? No? Then let us go on.”

The next line read, GABRIEL SHYBEAR, DEACON, JAN. 10, 1943, signed by Gabriel and initialed by Jashen.

Kim said, “All perfectly legal, of course. Jashen’s decree said the Deacon shall be of alternating race. As you can see, that Sunday was quite the busy day, but now we’re in the homestretch.’ And she advanced to the next item written on the page.

It read PROPHET JASHEN SHYBEAR, RESIGNED, JAN. 10, 1943 and it carried his signature. That seemed to grab the attention of Bergin and Hansen.

Kim said, “Now you can see how I closed out his rather eventful page.”

Kim flipped the page over and showed everyone the first entry. APOSTLE KIMBERLY SHYBEAR, PROPHET, JAN. 10, 1943. And this was signed and initialed by Kim, exercising her apostolic authority under the Second Decree established by Prophet Jashen.

Underneath that was the final entry in the manuscript, which read DORIEL SHYBEAR, APOSTLE, JAN. 10, 1943. This was signed by Kim and initialed by Gabriel.

She said, ‘And all this to show we are not just three kids playing in the Temple office, but actual officers of the Church. So now that I have established my credentials as the Prophet of the Church, what have you and Mr. Bergin come to say?”

Klaus said, “We pray for the reunion of the Church. Were the Golden Gift to alternate in possession between members of the Red and White Wings, even as the office of Deacon, presently does, that would go a long way towards sealing the breach.”

Kim said, “That is easily enough done.” She took up a the pen to write in the leaves of the Green Book, THE SACRED RELIC SHALL REMAIN IN THE POSSESSION OF THE DEACON OF THE CHURCH, WHO SHALL BE MINISTER OF THE LAST RITE. And she dated it January 18, 1943.

“Good,” said Hansen. “But here is our second, and most important demand: God’s sacred law of cousin marriage should be enshrined as the Fifth Decree.”

“Again, “said Kim with a gentle smile, “that is easily done.” She inked the following into the manuscript: MARRIAGE IN THE CHURCH OF GREEN DOME SHALL BE SOLELY BETWEEN PERSONS WITH THE SAME GRANDPARENTS OR GREAT-GRANDPARENTS, ON PAIN OF EXCOMMUNICATION. She dated it January 18, 1943 and signed it.

Hansen said, “Good. When do you announce the end of your engagement to Gabriel?” “Never,” Kim replied. “The decrees of the Church don’t work ex post facto.”

“The decree governs marriage. You haven’t married him yet.”

“Ah, but there you are wrong.” She showed him her wedding ring, and Gabriel flashed hez own. She didn’t mention they had been wed in Heaven, and they’d been married for a year already, because it would just confuse him. “Yeshua himself said if a woman puts aside her husband to marry another she commits adultery against him. That’s one of the Lord’s nonnegotiables. I wonder why you look so surprised, Mr. Hansen. You must not have been paying attention when I signed my entries in the Green Book as Kimberly Shybear rather than Kimberly Zinter.”

Hansen dealt with this news in his usual way, by storming noisily out, followed by Bergin.

The Zinter house on U Street turned into a ransacked mess. A hooded invader held Gabriel at knife point while two others searched through it, but they didn’t find what they were looking for. Gabriel was grateful his wife had seen this all coming and made herself scarce.

She had already laid out the broad outline of how it would go. “This attack is important to Michael’s plans,” Kim had told him. “You should just let things happen.”

After Gabriel’s attackers had searched the house che was taken into Kim’s backyard and hung by small ropes wrapped around hez arms from a basketball hoop. Despite hez great height, Gabriel’s feet, tied together around the ankles, dangled a few inches over the concrete of the patio.

“Cut his shirt off so he’s not wasting my time.”

Gabriel recognized the voice as belonging to that of Johnny Sunkel. When hez shirt fell away in strips another voice said, “Look at that, he’s got little titties!” Gabriel knew that voice too. It was Larry Porter.

“Where’s the Golden Gift, Gabe?”

“It’s in the Temple.”

There was a whistle and a crack. Gabriel grunted. It took about a second to fully disconnect from the sudden slash of astonishing pain.

“Of course it’s in the Temple. But we just came from there and turned that place upside down too. So where in the Temple is it, exactly?”

“I don’t know, Johnny. When I need it for the Last Rites, Kim just gives it to me.”

The whip struck again and this time the skin on Gabriel’s back split open with a cloud of red mist.

“Bullshit! And you don’t know my name!”

Gabriel should have screamed with that blow, but he was silent, so Johnny hit him again, harder. On the backstroke the whip caught one of the other boys and that kid did scream, although it merely hit the back of his leg and he was wearing blue jeans. When the boy cursed Johnny out, Gabriel recognized his voice as belonging to Scott Hill- ing. Scott said, “You Red Wingers don’t get to marry our white girls, Gabriel. That was the arrangement going way back.”

“Your white girls, Scotty? Sure. When was the last time you got laid?”

That earned Gabriel another stroke. Instead of screaming he just laughed because the whip came back and bit Johnny across the chest and it was his own turn to scream.

“You ain’t staying hitched to that Zinter gal,” Larry growled.

“After I pass out make sure you fellows keep going until I bleed to death. Then hide my body, because I’m in this club, see. We look out for each other. If they find out you did this to me they’ll pick over your feet for two or three days with a sledgehammer, blowtorch and knives like they were leftover turkey.”

“This is gonna pinch some.”

Johnny hurled his whip at Gabriel’s back again, two more times, whistle and snap. The boys kept waiting for Gabriel to scream, but instead they started to see a white layer of fat underneath the bloody split skin on hez back. Scott and Larry turned away and started puking.

Gabriel knew it was time to make his move. With hez right hand che reached into the space-time pocket that always tracked with him and came back out of it holding the Golden Gift. Che extended the shaft long enough to cut the rope binding hez left hand. Then che switched the Macro to his free hand and cut hemself down from the basketball hoop.

Johnny swung the whip right at hez face but Gabriel let it fly into the Macro while it fully deployed as a shield. The black dome simply ate the whip, leaving little more than a riding crop for Johnny to swing. Then Gabriel cut hez legs free. All three of the boys ran away, but Gabriel was in no condition to run after any of them.

The neighbors had heard and seen the whipping and called it in, so the boys who attacked Gabriel only just made it away in time before depu- ties arrived.

At the little hospital that served Headwater, Sheriff Roddy Walker asked if Gabriel saw who it was that messed up him up.

“I don’t know, sir. They wore black hoods over their faces. And they also messed up my house and they told me they messed up the Temple.”

“Did they tell you why they were doing it?”

“They said didn’t appreciate me marrying one of ‘their’ white girls, sir.”

“How do you feel, Gabriel?”

“Not any better than the last time it happened, sir.”

“The last time? You’ve been flogged before?”

Gabriel nodded, and stared at Doctor Wahkan.

“It’s a Kuwapi thing, Sheriff Walker. They camp out on the plains overnight and have at each other to see how much they can stand.”

“Ah, so it’s like the Vision Quest?”

Gabriel nodded again, but Dr. Wahkan, who was called Plenty Practice by the white, just rolled his eyes.

Five Kuwapi youths paid a visit after the sheriff left. River Rawdon gestured at Gabriel, who was lying on his stomach in a hospital gown with his back was all bandaged up. “What the hell is this?” “Keystone Cops, with a whip.”

“Who?”

Gabriel wasn’t sure he wanted to spill it. Che knew what would follow next and had given the three white boys fair warning, but Michael and Yeshua mightn’t like it. River ran a hand up the back of Gabriel’s hairless bare thigh affectionately but Gabriel warned him off. “I’m spoken for now, Riv.”

“Tell us who did this to you, Gabe. You know the rules. We gotta keep this from happening again. Frankly, I’m astonished it happened at all. Our deterrence seems to be fading from last time. It looks like somebody needs a freshener.”

“It was three Bunners,” Gabriel said. “Johnny Sunkel, Larry Porter, and Scotty Hilling. I told ’em they better finish me off, otherwise Thanksgiving would come way early this year.”

Rawdon unsheathed his ceremonial blade and held it up, smiling. Plains Indians knew something about torture. “Gobble gobble.”

Three days later Klaus Hansen came to the same hospital. Certainly it was not to visit Gabriel, who had been released the same day he checked in, but instead he came to see Gabriel’s attackers. Doctor Wahkan was still muttering about the “animals” who had slowly turned all six of their feet into just so much ruined hamburger, requiring a clean amputation of each one.

Every time the three boys were visited after their operations, first by their parents, then by the sheriff, and later by Klaus, they took to sobbing miserably. It was not so much from the pain they were still suffering but from the memory of the pain they had already suffered. They had gone through two days and a night in hell as their tormentors worked in shifts, just like Gabriel told them would happen.

Unlike themselves, who had been hooded and disguised when they flogged Gabriel, yet were somehow rapidly identified by hem, the ones who re- taliated on behalf of Gabriel wore no hoods at all. While they went about their bloody business they even openly called each other by their real names. Yet even now their victims refused to identify them at all, other than to say they were “Indians”.

“Where’s the Golden Gift?”

“Gabriel had it the whole time.”

“You searched him, strung him up like a pig, and horsewhipped him, but Gabriel had it on him the entire time? So where did he have it hidden, Johnny, in his asshole?”

“I don’t know!”

“Did you mention he ought to forget all about the Zinter girl, or did that slip your mind too?”

“I did tell him,” Larry whined, “but I don’t think he listened to me! What’s the world coming to when you can’t even get a little respect?”

Klaus Hansen, the Prophet of the Reformed Green Dome Church and the spiritual leader of the Bunners, said in disgust, “Jesus H. Christ on a crutch! Well, I guess it is true what they say, if you want some- thing done right, you got to do it yourself.

Klaus Hansen and Paul Bergin returned to the Temple, but not, as it turned out, with their tail between their legs.

“I agreed to see you fellows again,” Kim said to them, "but if you act like a couple of high school students and storm out again when you don’t get your own way, it will be the last time we ever meet.” And Kim was perfectly able to follow through on that threat. Seeing the future, she could simply avoid going anywhere they went.

“It is you, rather, who have one slim chance to reunite the Church,” Hansen said with his trademark insufferable arrogance. “Paul and I must get our old jobs back, or the reunion will never come to be. That point is my nonnegotiable.”

Kim sighed and turned to her husband. “Will you, Gabriel, resign the office of Deacon?”

“I will not.”

Hansen shrugged, said, “You can’t push a rope” and he prepared once more to leave the office with Bergin, muttering a string of curses that completely obscured what Dory quietly said.

Kim asked Dory to repeat harself.

“I said, I will resign as Apostle of the Church.”

Kim opened the Printer’s Manuscript of the Green Book once more and penned the following entry: APOSTLE DORIEL SHYBEAR, RESIGNED, JAN. 20, 1943. Dory signed it, and Kim entered her initials. “It’s done,” Kim said. “The office of Apostle is vacant. Will you, Klaus Hansen, take har place, or is Paul not getting Deacon still a non-negotiable sticking point?”

Klaus turned to Paul and said, “A temporary setback, Paul, nothing more. It will be remedied soon enough.” Paul nodded. Then Klaus faced Kim once more. “Very well, Mrs. Shybear, make the appropriate entry.”

She wrote KLAUS HANSEN, APOSTLE, JAN. 20, 1943 and turned the book for his inspection and signature. When he was done, Kim applied her initials.

Looking at all the recently entries she said, “I just had a sudden image of someone in 2043 reading this page and wondering what it must have been like, this whole sudden flurry and tangle.”

Hansen said, “The Reformed Church of Green Dome is gathering this morning to meet down at our own temple. Will you meet with them, Prophet Shybear, and affirm that our schism has reached an end?”

“I will.”

“And I would have them meet the new Deacon. One of our parishoners passed away. I would have the Deacon perform the Last Rites.”

Dory was incredulous. “The Last Rites in that barn?”

“It would do much to bring healing between the Red and White Wings of the Church,” Bergin put in.

“I refuse to go,” Doriel said.

“Can it not wait a week until Gabriel can perform the Last Rites properly in the actual Temple?” asked Kim.

“It has already been two weeks,” replied Hansen, “and the corpse is beginning to grow. . . unpresentable.”

Kim nodded her head. “We should do it, Gabe.”

“I have to retrieve the Golden Gift,” Gabriel said, “and I would not have Paul know where I keep it, as he is no longer an officer of the Church.”

Paul said, “This is not a problem. I can drive the Prophet to our temple, and Apostle Hansen can bring you along in his own truck to fetch the Relic and meet us there.” To this Kim and Gabriel agreed, and they shared a farewell kiss before they parted, knowing that it was indeed farewell.

As Hansen drove Gabriel off the mountain he said, “The sight of you kissing that girl was disgusting. You’re not only not cousins, you’re not even the same species!”

“Sir,” replied Gabriel, “the Bible and the Book of Green Dome acknowledge only ethnicities. Wwe read only of peoples and kindreds and tongues, not Whites and Blacks and Red Men. Races are artificial things. Take the aborigines in Australia? They have Caucasian and Mongoloid genes, but they are as dark as Negroids. Even Lord Yeshua is a lovely coffee-with-cream brown.”

Hansen grew angry and pulled the truck over to the side of the road. “Get out. I can’t stand to be anywhere near a blasphemer, let alone one that entices our women to become race-traitors.”

“I still need to get the Golden Gift,” Gabriel objected. “What about the Last Rites?”

“Fuck the Last Rites. Get out.” Gabriel did has he was commanded, and Klaus Hansen peeled out in the snow, leaving Gabriel stranded on the side of the road halfway down the mountain. Che decided to hoof it back up to the Temple where Dory was waiting.

A short distance northwest of Green Dome was a place where the borders of three states came together in a little fenced-off lot. When Hansen arrived he saw that only Paul Bergin’s truck was parked there, and only Bergin could be seen standing in the little corral. A bloody lump of dead and naked womanflesh lay at his feet. Paul stood there staring at Kim’s body, not quite believing that he actually did it. He kept repeating to himself, “I’m going to hell!”

“Shut up, Paul,” Hansen told him when he drew near. “You’d only go to hell if you didn’t do it. Is that the knife?”

Paul nodded, the murder weapon nearly forgotten, but still grasped in his gloved hand.

“Throw it right now,” Hansen ordered. “Anywhere, but throw it as far as you can.”

Paul hurled the blade on the snowy wastelands lying to the west, somewhere in Wyoming. The blade flashed once in the morning sunlight and disappeared from view.

“Now help me lift her on this.” There was a short post and a little sign about chest high that marked the exact place where the three states came together. The sign was canted at a forty-five degree angle. They draped Kim’s body across the sign, letting her head and arms bend backwards and her legs droop down.

After that, Hansen circled the area a few times to make sure Paul hadn’t dropped anything. Good. Even the spot with bloody snow was clear.

“Walk with me to my truck.” Hansen dropped the tailgate. In the bed of the truck were two sets of coats, clothing and boots laid out beside a cardboard box. Hansen took off the boots he was wearing and threw them in the box, along with his blood-stained coat, shirt and trousers. In the cold of January he quickly put on new outer garments, then sat on the tailgate to put on new boots.

“Throw your gloves in the box, Paul. Then do exactly what you just saw me do.”

“How are you going to get rid of the box?”

“Trust me, I’ll have it done in such a way that nothing, absolutely nothing will remain to tie this back to us, as long as you don’t forget to dispose of the set that knife came from when you get back home. Cheer up, Paul, we just saved the Church, you and I. Shy Bear couldn’t see it, but if that girl had children it would have meant the end of both the White Wing and the Red Wing. There wouldn’t be anymore wings, just an unholy hodge-podge growing like a cancer until it ate everything.”

KNOT

On the eve of the first major battle for Salem Raphaela came to Lilith and said, "Your Royal Highness, you have been gracious to instruct me in the way of Bat-El, but many of the Fallen Angels have remarked that you are a yan of very few words."

Lilith said, “The chatter of ordinary yen flows from their nature, Raphaela, but the silence of a yen of war flows from her understanding. When you release a flood of words, there is a greater chance that you may inadvertently utter something that you did not intend to say, and this will reveal your foolishness to all."

Raphaela objected, "But if the wise speak like fools then they are fools.”

Lilith said, "A foolish yan may be considered wise if she simply closes her lips. Long ago before men and women were brought to heaven people walked the way of Bat-El and they did what needed to be done with few words. Then they invented writing and recordkeeping and they recorded what they saw as history.

“Today, few still walk the path laid out by Bat-El, so we are overrun by speechmakers and long-winded politicians with their solutions for this or that crisis, when all of their problems can be solved by letting things freely reach their natural balance."

Raphaela said, "But in that event, Your Royal Highess, the politicians would not get credit for saving the day, and people would begin to think such parasites were not needed at all."

And Lilith said, "You have hit very close to the mark, Raphaela."

Raphaela asked, "Can a yan of war still be loving?"

Lilith said, "We have the word 'loving' to identify someone who loves, and to distinguish them someone who hates, because in this dark age there are many who hate."

Raphaela asked, "Has hatred not always been with us?"

Lilith said, "Long ago everyone loved, so the word 'loving' did not yet exist. Love was as abundant as the air we breath, or like the water a fish lives and moves in. Only the absence of love demanded the invention of the word 'loving' to describe those who still held to my path."

Raphaela asked, "Could the same be said of the wise, or the honest, or the just?”

Lilith nodded in the affirmative. “As more and more people fell away from the way of Bat-El, the names for more and more virtues began to appear, where before there had been only formless innocence. The yan of war sets her foot on the path to return to that."

Raphaela said, "Then it seems that to be a yen of war is to set yourself apart from all other yen, not to mention apart from all len and jen and men."

Lilith said, "This is true, Raphael, but not from a desire to be elite, but only because a yan of war clings to her inner nature while others flutter about chasing their illusions."

Raphaela asked, “Is it misguided to seek the truth?"

Lilith replied, "It is wasted effort to seek the truth, Raphaela. While others run around looking for external truths, the yan of war cultivates the way of Bat-El, which brings her mind naturally into accordance with the way things are."

Raphaela said, “I think, Your Royal Highess, that frequently when the people running to and fro it is simply so they can continue their own livelihood."

Lilith replied, "People lead busy lives because they perceive their wants as needs, so their needs become endless. Being a yan of war means having a good sense of priorities. Her needs are relatively few, and her desires are almost nonexistent, so she appears calm and contemplative."

Raphaela said, "If the way of Bat-El is about always simplifying things, should I not start by ignoring authority figures?"

Lilith answered, "That is a good beginning. Power attracts people who are more interested in expanding and clinging to that power rather than nourishing their mind in the way of Bat-El."

Raphaela said, "Then, Your Royal Highness, what would you say if I also, in the name of simplifying my life, began ignoring you?"

Lilith said, "That is a good direction in which to continue, Raphael. Individual people, even one such as I, may not truly be in harmony with the way of Bat-El despite their claims to the contrary. But now the way of Bat-El has taken root in Heaven, so all the people, taken in aggregate, cannot help but be in harmony with that path."

Raphaela asked, "So if I take all the people as my teacher, I cannot go wrong?"

Lilith said "That is most assuredly true, Raphaela. Individual leaders or teachers mayi have ambitions, and so depart from the way of Bat-El. But the common people lack ambition. Here in Salem and even in distant Rammon they have embraced the preaching of Michael and live in natural simplicity, and so too does the yan of war. She protects her inner dignity even as she protects the people, by being supremely mysterious. Only the outward actions of her can be observed, never her guarded inner core."

Raphaela said, “Your Royal Highness, before I make an assertion, I always take care to qualify it with, 'I may be wrong about this, but...' or 'I'm not really certain, but...' or ‘This will probably sound stupid, but...’”

Lilith said, "That is not what I mean by protecting your center, Raphael. You do not even realize it, but with such self-effacing language as you describe, you are really playing down your intelligence in order to gain acceptance from the opposite sex."

Raphaela said "Your Royal Higness, are saying that mincing words is not true humility, but actually a form of display?"

Lilith said, "Yes! And when your tentative speech becomes a habit, you begin to automatically think bad of yourself. This serves only to perpetrate the dominance that len enjoy over yan which is reinforced by physical strength and by law, None of those things are important to the yan of war. She is interested, rather, only in the survival and well-being of the people she protects."

And Raphaela said, "Excellent."

During the battle the King's forces, which were a larger body than the Fallen Angels, took the role of the primary force. Lilith's yen were the skirmishers, the saboteurs, and the assassins.

On a grander scale, it was King Melchiyahu and his ordinary force that gained the victory, but Zadkiel's yeng remembered only the leather-clad yen who had somehow gotten behind their lines, throwing knives, cutting throats, driving off horses and setting fire to wagons.

And Elyon, watching through the eyes of the dragon Demonstroke flying high over the field, witnessed the defeat of Zadkiel. He discounted his numerical losses and ordered more yeng to march west from Adan. They moved toward Salem like buckets of water in a fire brigade.

Zadkiel spent the lives of yeng on the Plain of Galcha without remorse until the Adanite horde was on the utter brink of mutiny. Then Melchiyahu and Lilith withdrew closer to Salem but the enemy did not pursue.

There was relative quiet for a time as Zadkiel waited for replacement troops to come west. But on the day before the second major battle for Salem Raphaela said, “Look at that, Your Royal Highness! Thrice ten thousand arrayed against us! Did you ever see such a host?"

Lilith said, "A large force does not assure the enemy a victory, Raphael. What are the stakes? They are fighting to restore Salem as a taxpaying province in Samael's empire. But our people can barely made do as things stand now. Paying the ‘worship’ tribute to the Eyes of Samael would starve them. They are fighting to survive."

Raphaela objected, "But the hashmalim Zadkiel and Bezaliel are over there!"

Lilith said, "And they hate each other more than they hate us, Raphael. They only joined together against me only because Samael commanded it."

Raphaela said, "But under them are the most famous erelim and sarim in House Gerash!"

Lilith said, "And how did they get so famous, Raphael? By their reckless aggression. If I present my shock troops to them as bait they will rush out to engage them, thinking how this will advance their reputation."

Raphaela said, "But behind them are the best fed and best trained soldiers in Kemen!"

Lilith said, "But they aren't fighting for their wives or cities or farms in Italy, they are fighting to prop up a bankrupt culture and a fragile slave economy.

Raphaela said, "Your Royal Highness, help me to understand how we, numbering in our thousands, can hope to prevail against our enemies numbering in tens of thousands?"

Lilith said, "A light commando force wreaking havoc behind enemy lines will tie down a much greater force hunting for it. A small army that is still and rested with have the better of a large army that is worn out marching double-time to meet it."

Raphaela said, "But there must be a limit to how small a unit can be before it is ineffective no matter how intelligently it is employed."

Lilith nodded in agreement. She said, "Too light, and we invite aggression. Too heavy, and our army becomes unwieldy. A commander in harmony with the way of Bat-El coordinates the small with the great, the strong with the weak, the eager with the reticent, balancing opposites to attain the middle path. I will unleash the extraordinary force. When they see the carnage wrought by the Fallen Angels, they will hesitate. And in that moment my father the king will strike with the main force. Salem must prevail because the army is humble. Our soldiers and the officers who lead them do not think of self-aggrandizement of the aggrandizement of the state."

During the battle the King’s forces, which were a larger body than the Fallen Angels, took the role of the primary force. Lilith’s yen were the skirmishers, the saboteurs, and the assassins. On a grander scale, it was King Melchiyahu and his ordinary force that gained the victory, but Zadkiel’s yeng remembered only the leather-clad yen who had somehow gotten behind their lines, throwing knives, cutting throats, driving off horses and setting fire to wagons.

They clashed in the ravine of Anixi and Melchiyahu was driven down the brook to Nolesh Wood. But Zadkiel's greater numbers were of no advantage there. Then Lilith came with timely Fallen Angel reinforcements to turn Zadkiel's flank and press the Adanite army to the very edge of the gorge of Armak.

The flags of truce were brought out, and with the King's consent Lilith rode into the lines of the enemy to see if Zadkiel, with hyz back against an awesome precipice, had come to new wisdom. He had not truly believed Elyon's words concerning Lilith, but that was before this fight.

'I find I want you working for me and not against me,' Zadkiel told har as Michael watched from his cage only a few paces away. 'You can destroy this finger of army in this position, but I fear that Michael is close to the edge and something might happen to hym during the confusion. To keep Michael safe you will dissolve your band of yen dressed as warriors, ride at the head of this army, and go where I command you in the East Lands and the West Lands and Salem, and every place where angels and men dare to hold the law of the God of Kemen in contempt.'

'Where is the honor here, Zadkiel? Where is the glory? Do you really want me to command your army while every decision is tainted by holding hostage a peaceful yang that I love? Elyon would do better to shun pretense and send Demonstroke down to finish the Fallen Angels.'

Zadkiel was delighted to hear Lilith declare that she loved the prisoner. 'Then are the rumors true, Princess? Michael must not fall outside of the control of my army but he need not be confined to a cage. Consider very carefully. You could go to hym this very night.'

'At a word from my father every Salemite would flock into his army, Hashmal Zadkiel; yea, even the yen, the infirm, the dirks and the dolls. The war would grow so bloody that the whole face of the land would be covered with the dead, and no one would be left to bury them.

This,' said sha, 'must not be.' Then she turned on her heels and quit the parley. There had been no need to prod Lilith to do the right thing. Never was Michael more proud of her .'Sha knows, Elyon. The things you love are always used against you. Always! she knows!'

'Sha does know,' Michael replied, 'but woe to those who turn love into a weapon and dare to use it against the ones who love. Beware, Zadkiel. Your doom lies before you. It takes no supernatural power of foresight to know the struggle for Salem will end badly for you.'

Many years before Zadkiel brought war to Salem, the Cherub Gordiel hitched a wagon to a nearby tree with a knot so elaborate no one has ever been able to fairly begin to unravel it. At that time an oracle said whoever untied the wagon would rule all the angels in Heaven.

Zadkiel had heard the prophecy, of course. When the Army of Elyon drew near the city he found the wagon and laid eyes on the Gordian Knot. For several days, while the army built camps in the surrounding fields, Zadkiel tried to undo the legendary knot, but to no avail.

This he did in great secret, for the Eyes of Elyon would look askance at any attempt to usurp the power of Samael by fulfilling the prophecy. Then, accepting at last the wagon was going nowhere, Zadkiel had his yeng lash Michael's cage to the old wagon on the hilltop.

Sibiel, the farmer from Odargas who once smuggled Princess Lilith into Salem, was fingered by witnesses after the Eyes of Elyon threatened torment. The Eyes elected not to kill or even maim Sibiel, for it seemed a waste of good yengpower. Lilith had made Zadkiel's army short-handed.

Sibiel was issued army livery and pressed into service as a waterbearer in Zadkiel's camp. Having little else to do for entertainment, often the Adanite soldiers tripped hym, laughing together with their fellows as Sibiel trudged back and forth to refill hyz waterskin.

One night when Sibiel wandered off toward the edge of the camp he was attacked by a hooded shape and dragged into a ravine. When they were alone the attacker revealed her self to be Lilith and ordered hym to swap their clothes. As he stripped Sibiel said he wanted to help.

But after some stern words from the Ophan, tempered with ample thanks for what he had already done for her, Sibiel faded off into the night under the black robe.Lilith adjusted Sibiel's second-hand armor and helmet, which was almost worse than no protection at all.

Sha padded out her ample curves and applied false facial hair to offset the soft yenish features that belied her status as commander of the most fierce army in heaven. Then Lilith drifted into camp fetching water for the yeng and taking abuse as though she were Sibiel.

Lilith searched in the area where Sibiel told her Michael was being held captive. The wooden cage that had been his home for far too long had been taken off the wagon tied to a tree by the Gordian Knot and relocated to the center of the camp. It was guarded by only two yeng.

The cage was covered with a canvas to keep Michael from dying of exposure. It would not do, Zadkiel knew, to break the single thread keeping hymself and his whole army alive.Lilith could swagger with the best of them. The guards permitted her to bring water to Michael.

Lilith appeared between the canvas and the cage with her ladle of rancid water. For light she put on a green flexible band of intricate make, a gift from Michael. In the center it possessed a brilliant white light that allowed Lilith to move on the darkest nights.

There was none like it in Heaven. The canvas covering Michael's cage was thick enough that no light escaped to betray the princess and whispers could not be heard outside. Michael was initially filled with joy when he saw the face of his disciple but this quickly changed.

'Nice beard.Hush! Take my headband.I gave that to you and I never ask for my gifts to be returned.You will have to make an exception.Do you want me to use it to escape?Please don't do anything stupid, Michael. Better yet, don't do anything at all!'

Michael immediately got the joke and smiled. Lilith offered the water sha brought, such as it was. Then she said, 'That headband is the only thing I have that says 'Lilith was here' without mistake. Zadkiel will come here later to gloat over you like they always do.'

'At that time I want you to let hym see that you have my headband. That's my message to hym, and it is a very simple one: that I can come or go at will.It will rattle hym good.It will rattle him to the point of pulling many yeng off the front lines to guard you.'

'It is a sound plan,' whispered Michael. 'I never doubted that you had a scheme to get me away from Zadkiel.'Their last moment together that evening was spent in a passionate kiss that was made necessarily short because the guards were already getting suspicious.

At dawn Lilith and her father beheld the enemy, now very close to the city, from a small rise. Michael's cage was visible in the center of the field, protected by a sizeable fraction of Zadkiel's available yeng, perhaps up to a third. Lilith marveled how easy it had been.

'Do you see what I have done, father?' said sha. 'Things have been neatly reversed. Michael has become Zadkiel's greatest weakness instead, a precious jewel tying down a third of his force just as our attack begins.'And Melchiyahu did not hesitate to let the attack begin.

The armies slammed together. With the new disparity in numbers the battle inexorably began to tip against Zadkiel. Lilith fought her way to the top of the hill behind Zadkiel's army where the wagon was tied up, standing all by itself and forgotten. Zadkiel spotted her.

Zadkiel nudged his horse up the hill to cut her off. A sudden fear gripped hym that Lilith could accomplish what no others had achieved, solve the Gordian Knot, and inherit the promise of the oracle to rule Heaven.Alone on the summit they both dismounted and squared off.

After a flurry of clashing swords just the tip of Zadkiel's blade slashed Lilith's bare midsection and he attained first blood. Sha feigned shock at the injury and slowed her dance.Zadkiel saw that and let his guard wither for just a few heartbeats, but it was enough.

Seeing her slim opening, Lilith let fly a ferocious kick of one booted foot to his face and Zadkiel was laid out cold. his sword separated from his unconscious hand. Lilith tossed it far away, then returned to har helpless prey with a strong urge to make an end of hym.

Before she met Michael, Lilith would have done precisely that, to avenge Imriel. No, far better to let the Hashmal live and explain hyz defeat to his god. she suppressed her rage and glanced at the forgotten wagon fastened to a tree on the hilltop. Lilith ran to it instead.

Sha attempted to untie the knot that her mad grandfather old King Gordiel had made to secure the wagon to a mighty tree, but like so many that came before her she made no headway. she looked down and saw Adanite skirmishers ascending to come to the aid of their commander. Finally, with no time to lose, Lilith just hacked at the knot with her sword. The wagon was free, but she was certain Gordiel didn't have that solution in mind when he created the knot. The wagon began to roll downhill and Lilith jumped inside, hanging on for her very life.

Lilith's war cry caught the attention of the troops guarding Michael but the wagon gripped it. They gaped at the horror rushing down upon them faster than any horse could drive it. All of the yeng fled as her desperate gamble played out. she ducked inside and braced her self.

Michael saw what she was doing also, and flattened hymself against the side of the cage that he guessed would avoid a direct impact. The wagon collided with enough speed to shatter both the cage and the wagon to splinters. Lilith was unceremoniously dumped on her ass. But somehow they both survived the collision. Lilith was more bruised and beaten than she had ever been in her life but Michael was free. Melchiyahu and the Fallen Angels under Lilith's lieutenants pursued the defeated and scattered forces of Zadkiel's army into the forest.

But Melchiyahu knew this defeated army was a fraction of the strength that Samael could bring to bear on hym. The king knew Samael would return with an even greater force.

When Lord Zadkiel awoke he drank in the scope of his humiliation from hyz vantage on the hilltop. Cursing, he fled the field alone on his horse. For the rest of his life, which endured little longer than his long ride back to Adan, he contemplated how to explain it to Samael.

Raphaela came to aid Lilith but was waved off. She said, "The Adanites no longer have a coherent army. We are seeing them flee east by platoons and companies. Shall we cut them off?"

Lilith said, "My father has left one escape route open, inviting the enemy to retire. What is now a trickle out the back door will become a flood. We must never engage in slaughter for the sake of slaughter, dear Raphaela. It is enough that we have won the field this day."

Raphaela rejoiced, and said, “Happy is the city that thinks of war in times of peace!”

Lilith answered, "And wise is the yan who immerses herself in military lore. But make no mistake, dear disciple. Happiness has nothing to do with it. The clash of arms is the worst experience the dwellers of Kemen can ever experience.”

Raphaela said, "And Your Royal Highness, what of these vainglorious thrill-seekers we often hear about, who claim to love warfare?"

Lilith said, "They are either lying and have never tasted actual combat, or their mind has failed them."

But something more pressing weighed upon Lilith's mind, the well-being of her husband. She hobbled her way to the pile of sticks that had once been his cage.

'No more adventures for a while,' Lilith told Michael while he made certain she was not seriously hurt. 'I've cracked a rib, for starters. But you know this battle would have been unnecessary if you had just let me carry out my plan at Adan.

'You would have been killed.'

Lilith touched the back of her head. 'But now you have changed me, and unleashed a warrior yin in Kemen who does not blanch at the consequence of death.'

'I would unleash an army of them. But tell me, why did you throw away everything you've worked for since you met me?'

'I don't understand what you just said.'

Michael held up one end of the wagon's rope. 'I'm talking about the Gordian Knot. I'll admit, cutting it was probably not what the oracle intended, but now you are destined to rule Kemen. Fate! The unreformed Lilith must return.'

'Must sha? You say Elyon was behind all this, but do you think he will have his way forever? What if the oracle really meant the spirit of the new Lilith will take over Heaven? The one who changed --' her eyes brimmed with moisture and her voice broke, but she went on. 'The one who changed on that unforgettable day when she first heard you speak.'

The last word was a sob. Michael ran his had over Lilith's side, and somehow he took the underlying pain away. Lilith didn't have to use her new talent to shunt the agony away enough to breathe deeply.

'It may take many centuries to play out, my beloved, both here and in the other world. But I really believe you turned a corner here today. If every person in every age grows willing to do for each other what you did for me today, then love won. Once and for all, love won!'

SHERIFF

Huge swaths of the high plains still lay under snow that first fell in November of ’42, but it was a dry cold and the roads were clear. From the air Headwater looked like an abstract map drawn in fine black ink on paper bleached an unearthly white.

The victim was found by a man in his eighties named Tashunka. He was older than the town of Headwater, a mere boy of the People when the Golden Gift came to Wanica in that final hunt. The biggest animal he ever killed was a coyote baited with a rabbit he caught in another trap. Tashunka almost didn’t see the girl. Her body was dangling at a roadside attraction that had always bored him. On a map somewhere one line terminated on another. Three states came together at this place, but even when there was no snow Tashunka had never seen any lines.

What caught his eye was not so much that the dead girl was naked but how her head and arms drooped back, and how her feet didn’t touch the ground, as though she were nailed to an invisible cross. So he backed up his truck and parked in the little tri-state corral. There were two other set of tire tracks in the snow and two sets of footprints which became a tangled net near the body.

Tashunka tried to be careful in his approach to leave the site clean for the sheriff. He could see no movement of the girl’s chest and no condensation from her mouth. The dead girl was too pale to be one of the People. Of a certainty she had part of the White Wing of the Church of Green Dome. Her ponytail gave that away. And Tashunka wept with frustration that he could not do the simple kindness of closing her frozen eyes staring out upon eternity.

Tashunka recognized the dead girl at last: Kimberly Zinter. Then he wept more deeply, knowing why she was murdered and guessing who the killer must be. Of a certainty the unhappy union of the Red Wing and White Wing of the Church was finished. He retraced his steps to the truck.

An hour later Tashunka returned with Sheriff Roddy Walker to the little fenced-off area nigh to the road. The tri-state marker was a wooden beam embedded in the ground, one foot square with a sloping top, and Kimberly’s back rested on this, held fast by frozen blood. The sheriff told deputy Bill to start snapping pictures while deputy Bob followed Roddy around with a notepad and took down a running commentary.

“I need to steal your sole with my camera, Chief,” Bill said, so “lay it out there.”

Tashunka smiled weakly at the joke and lifted one leg as best he could. Bill got a photo of the bottom of both the old Indian’s boots to make sure they could differentiate his footprints from that of the perps. Then Tashunka was left behind as Bill methodically photographed his way to the girl’s body.

Roddy and Bob followed in his wake while ld Tashunka watched from the road.

When the sheriff and his deputies completely surveyed and documented the murder scene they all pitched in, lifted Kimberly free of the survey marker, and laid her gently on a foldaway stretcher that sheriff Walker had brought with him. Tashunka was surprised to hear the sheriff shout an oath. Roddy has read the plaque that Kim’s body was covering and realized they were at the exact place some surveyor decided the corners of two states ran flush against the border of a third.

At a stroke that made the case Federal.

Then they walked the body out of there, pausing a moment for Tashunka to get another close look at it.

“This was Kimberly Zinter,” he told them, and he put his fingers on her face just long enough to melt the eyelids so he could close them. “I’ve seen her at Temple.”

The sheriff dug around in the glove box of his truck and came back with a manila folder containing a photo, which he compared to the dead girl’s blood-streaked face.

“The gentleman is right, boys. This was the local girl the FBI was looking for. One of the two, anyway.”

He noted how the girl wore a headdress that was similar to one that some of the Kuwapi townspeople often wore. It was a lattice of beads adorning two sharp white horns.

After the deputies carefully loaded the body of the girl in the canopy of the department’s green 1940 Dodge half-ton truck, Bob said, “So this wasn’t gonna be our case from the gitgo, even if she wasn’t lying dead spread out over three states. What do we do now, sheriff?”

Tashunka said, “I remember when you were just a boy, sheriff, and I remember when you left us. None of your men are Greendomites. You might not be up on Church politics and they can’t help you. I don’t know who did this terrible thing to the girl but I can tell you why.”

But inactivity had cooled the sweat under Roddy’s coat and he shivered in the face of a stiff wind from the frozen plains. “This is not the place, Tashunka,” he said, “This body must go to our little hospital. But if you meet me at the station in an hour I will listen to what you have to say about this.”

After that Sheriff Roddy drove deputy Bill and the body around the large hill near the crime scene which was named Green Dome. It was almost five thousand feet above sea level, but only eight hundred feet above the town of Headwater, and it was never green at all in January.

“I just can’t win, Bill,” Roddy lamented. “Half the male population of Headwater between 18 and 45 is off killing Japs and Krauts and Eye- talians. Things were getting real quiet around here. Then the FBI sets up shop and stay all summer. Now I got my first homicide.”

They passed the stretch of national grasslands where the Bureau parked their trailer but there were no lights on, no smoke from a wood stove.

Bill said, “The FBI was here last summer but now people are saying they saw some G-men back in town, staking out the bus station and ask- ing people of they’ve seen our victim and another girl named Sofie Krause. Those girls were in federal custody somewhere for half of last year, but apparently they’ve escaped and made the FBI look … hell, they are incompetent.”

“But they wouldn’t kill the girl for doing that, if your thoughts are trending on those lines, Bill.”

Roddy drove around the northern slopes of Green Dome and Headwater came into view, the biggest town for a hundred miles around. The population was down to a thousand, now, owing to the war.

Bill asked, “What do you want me to do after we give the body to Dr. Wahkan?”

“Develop the film and file it,’ Roddy told his deputy. “Then get back to the scene and help Bob look for the murder weapon. I didn’t see prints leading away from the marker so I figure the perpetrator either tossed it away or kept it. To know what he chose would be a good thing for me to know.”

The town’s sole doctor was known as Wahkan to the People, but the whites called him Plenty Practice. No one had ever died under his knife, but even a local legend such as Doctor Wahkan could not call back the dead.

“Kim Zinter,” he said when he saw the bloody corpse. “Heartbreaking.” Dr. Wahkan donned a pair of rubber gloves. “I have never carried out this protocol for you, Sheriff, and for your father I have only done so five times. I last saw this girl last spring. And I also saw the other girl, the one named Sofie Krause. They both had the same symptoms.”

“Symptoms?”

Dr. Wahkan pulled Kim’s headdress away, but the two white horns remained in place. Holding out the jewelry, he said, “I know you’ve seen this before.”

Roddy nodded. “It’s a Kuwapi thing.”

Wahkan reached down to grabbed one on the horns on Kimberly’s head and he shook it, which caused her whole head to shake as well. “They wear the jewelry to cover up the fact that these horns are real.”

“I’ll be damned,” Roddy said. “I never guessed!”

Dr, Wahkan lifted Kim’s hair away so the sheriff could see how the skin of her scalp lay where the horns emerged from her skull.

“We call this the Change,” the doctor told him. “Naturally both girls were alarmed when it started to happen to them, but they were actually quite safe. The Change is known among the Kuwapi people. It spreads by sexual contact, but some are born with it. I told Kim and Sofie it had been present among some members of the Red Wing for a human lifetime and more, but they wouldn’t listen to me. Then I tried to explain it to their mothers, but they insisted on a second opinion. Now Headwater is infested with outsiders.”

“Headwater is a good place, Doctor, but my hand is forced simply by where the killer chose to leave the body. Kim was draped across three states. I must report the crime to the very outsiders who have made things not so good here over the last few months, and I’m not best pleased. So help me learn who did this to her, and why. I never knew the horns were real until you showed me just now, so I don’t think anyone else suspected, and I can’t believe she was killed just for wearing Red Wing jewelry.”

The town of Headwater, true to its name, sat at the source of the Squaw River. Paved road ended there, as did the railroad. There were no hotels. West, north, and south of the town was nothing but empty grasslands. No one from outside of town ever spent the night in Head- water because no one ever passed through. The Bureau had to crane off a trailer just to have a place for its agents to sleep.

The Church of Green Dome had steadily lost adherents since peaking in 1917 but there were still many congregations scattered across America and even a few in Europe. When families of the deceased came to Head- water for the Last Rite often the only place for them to stay was the Temple itself.

The C Wing had six modest rooms which were offered to visiting fami- lies for their brief stay of a day or two. Klaus Hansen had never giv- en them much thought. As far as he knew or cared the beds made them- selves, so when he arrived at the temple with Paul Bergin in tow he was startled to find Dory and Gabriel cleaning the rooms.

“What is this?” he demanded.

“It went with the position of Extraordinary Lay Minister of the Last Rite,” Gabriel replied. “Somebody has to get the rooms ready, and now I guess the Deacon does it.”

“Then what’s she doing here?”

“Cousin Dory is pitching in.”

“I’m reclaiming Sundays for the White Wing. I only want Red Wingers to be here on Wednesdays.”

Dory and Gabriel, being Red Wingers both, made as though to leave, but Klaus said, “Not you, boy.”

“I’ll pick you up at five, cuz,” said Dory on her way out.

When sha was out of earshot, Klaus asked, “How’s your back?”

“The same as last time, sir.”

“Last time? You’ve been flogged before?”

Gabriel nodded hez head. “Lotsa times, sir. The fellas I run around with, we whip each other every now and then just to see how much we can take. And they’re not just love taps, let me tell you.”

“Where’s the Golden Gift?”

“It’s right here in the Temple, sir, just as we agreed.”

“How do I know that’s true?”

“This is the Temple of Green Dome, sir. Liars have no part in the life to come.”

“Show it to me.”

“Sir, Mike told me to only bring it out at need.”

“Who’s Mike?”

“Michael, sir. As in the original Michael.”

“Nevermind. Fuck Mike. You need to show it to me.”

Gabriel unlocked a supply room similar to the one downstairs in the temple basement. A red butter cookie tin sat on a shelf. It was empty but Gabriel needed the can for his trick. When che reached outside of the universe it always looked like somebody chopped hez hand off with an ax, which would need explaining. Gabriel produced the relic. To Hansen’s eyes it looked like che pulled it out of the tin.

“How do I know that’s not just something you whipped up in metal shop and painted gold? Make this box disappear for me.”

Paul Bergin set down a cardboard box he was carrying.

“What’s in the box, sir?”

“Old clothes and shoes. Never mind what’s in the box, just make it disappear with your alleged relic.”

Gabriel squeezed the Artifact. The hissing shifted down in pitch as the black rip in reality grew, drinking in the light and air of the room. Hez ponytail tossed in the growing breeze as he lapped up the box into nothingness. He tried not to damage the floor but it was unavoidable.

Neither Klaus Hansen nor Paul Bergin had never been so close to the Golden Gift in operation and they were entranced by the sheer other- worldliness of it. Gabriel was amazed at hez self-restraint for not slicing the men in half where they stood.

“Alright, Gabriel,” said Hansen when the thrill of the Golden Gift wore off, “put it back in the can and lock this room back up.”

Gabriel gave a very convincing performance of putting the Artifact away. A clever slight-of-hand never entered the mind of Klaus.

When it was done Klaus told hem to hand over the key and the look on his face seemed to dare hem to show even a twinge of insubordination, but he got nothing. “Who else has a key?”

“Paul does, sir,” replied Gabriel. “He never returned it after he quit.”

“I never quit,” Bergin said.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Hansen said. “Your wife is dead.”

“Oh, I know, sir.”

“What do you mean, you know? You don’t seem too cut up over it.”

“Cut up. I get it, sir.”

“The last thing I need from you is your mouth, boy.”

“She predicted it would happen, sir,” Gabriel said. “Besides, our Lord himself said, ‘He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”

“Do you know what I believe, son? I believe the death of your so-called wife makes me the Prophet of the Church, and I believe that in turn makes Paul the Apostle. We’ll be in the office making it official in the founder’s Green Book. And I believe you still have some rooms to clean.”

Tashunka waited outside the sheriff’s office long past when Roddy said he’d meet him, trying to stay warm inside his running truck. Roddy apologized for the delay and invited the old fellow to come indoors for some fresh coffee. “Doctor Wahkan had some interesting things to say,” the sheriff told him.

Tashunka followed Walker inside and sat shivering in his seat until the coffee was ready. “And what of the three stupid boys who took a bullwhip to a plains Indian and didn’t think he’d have friends who could do something far worse in retaliation?”

“The three stupid boys were still there looking perfectly miserable until they laid eyes on the dead girl. That seemed to make their whole day. Would that Headwater had a bigger hospital. They wouldn’t tell me what was so funny. I figure you’re about to tell me.”

Tashunka leaned back in his seat nursing the coffee. His eyes landed on a photograph of the elder Sheriff Walker, now deceased. Two years already? “Everyone greatly respected your father, Roddy, both White Wing and Red Wing alike. I was there at his Final Rite.”

Roddy flushed with sudden anger, but it was not directed at the old Indian. “And I, his only son, trained to replace him, was not permit- ted to be there at his precious Rite because I don’t believe in fairy tales about angels and sun gods and killing relics and I made the mis- take of letting everybody know that.”

“Sheriff, if you allow your heart to grow black then you will take everything I tell you as coming from the left hand of the damned. What you call the ‘killing relic’ sets the Church of Green Dome apart from all other faith assemblies. It is evidence of divinity which can be seen.”

Roddy glared at him while he took another sip of coffee, then lowered his eyes. Soon he was calm again and said, “You are absolutely right, Tashunka, and I know how important the relic is in the life of your Church. So let us call it by its right name, the Golden Gift.”

“You know Mark Lange was the first Prophet of the Church, and Wanica was his Apostle. When Wanica died, Prophet Lange chose Peter Two- feathers to replace him. Then Lange himself died, making Twofeathers the Prophet, and he in turn chose Klaus Hansen to be the Apostle, though he was very reluctant to do so. Years intervened before he was pressured to name Hansen.”

Roddy nodded. “Yes, I know authority in the Church moves from White to Red Wing and back, over and over so long as heaven and Earth last. That was the theory, anyway. It worked like a charm until the day the authority actually moved to the Red side and the White side didn’t much like it.”

Tashunka said, “Red and White wings swap power but the Golden Gift stays in the Red Wing. God gave it to Chief Wanica, who gave it in turn to Twofeathers. Hansen says the Apostle should have it. Twofeath- ers thought it would quiet things to personally give it up, but he gave it to Gabriel Shybear.”

“Gabriel Shybear. That explains how he got his whipping. And he said his house and the Temple had been ransacked too. They must have been trying to beat the Golden Gift out of him. Oh, it’s a good thing I never embraced the faith of the Green Dome Church as my own, Tashunka. It’s much too violent for me.’

“It gets better,” Tashunka said. “Twofeathers said he was setting aside the rule that Greendomites can only marry their cousins, in just one instance, so that Gabriel could marry Kim Zinter. When they heard that the Apostle, Klaus Hansen, and half the Bunners stood up and walked out of the Temple.”

Roddy smiled at Tashunka’s use of the word ‘Bunners’. By strict canon law all Greendomites had to wear their hair in a ponytail, even the men, but in the White Wing this ponytail was done up in a bun, even for the men. He shuddered at how close he had come to being a Bunner.

But even people who had nothing to do with the Church knew about their biggest hobby horse. For a time the Mormons had polygamy. The Greendo- mites have mandatory cousin marriage. Roddy knew a deep current of racism ran among the Bunners but the requirement for consanguineous marriages had kept a firm lid on it. Kim Zinter was fourth generation White Wing at least, she’d have no kin among the Red Wing. Her marriage and any subsequent children would have blown the door wide open.

As though he could read Roddy’s mind, Tashunka said, “Hansen would see this marriage between Gabriel and Kim as a horrible disease infecting the body of the Church. Their children would have marriageable cousins in both wings and it would just grow worse from there.”

“So now I have a possible motive,” the sheriff said.

Deputies Bill and Bob rushed in just then and threw a Cellophane bag on the sheriff’s desk containing the murder weapon. “We found it,” Bob said, “Just like you guessed, Sheriff, not more than throwing distance from the body.”

The blade was thin and flexible, nothing more than a steak knife per- haps.

Roddy picked up the bag and frowned with disappointment. “This game isn’t as fun when the other side isn’t even trying to win. Not a run- of-the-mill Sears Roebuck kitchen knife: no, something handmade, some- thing an admirer would make special just for the Church Apostle.’

Next came a duty Sheriff Walker found to be every bit as distasteful as his father described, the five times he had to do it. Roddy recal- led the recent death of Erik Zinter and he yearned to dodge the responsibility to notify Clara Zinter of the discovery of her daugh- ter’s body. How does one break it to a newly-widowed woman that her family has now been entirely wiped off the face of the earth?

The young woman who answered the door was not Clara Zinter. Her hair was a rich, dark red. She had eyes that were a light, icy green, striking for being so rare. She also had a pretty face but she was a little too chubby even for a time before film actresses and models made being skinny sexy.

“Are you…?” Roddy was looking at the spitting image of the deceased, Kimberly Zinter, standing in the doorway, patiently waiting for him to speak. He pulled out his file to be sure. Identical. He was not aware that Kim had a twin sister. “Is Mrs. Clara Zinter at home?”

“Mother isnt here anymore,” the young lady said, “I swapped places with her. Mom’s with her own folks in Pennsylvania. You’re Sheriff Walker, right? I’m Robyn. Do you want to come in? I’m sure you have questions and it will be better than standing here in the doorway.”

Roddy took off his hat and accepted her offer. The hardwood floors were covered with throw-rugs. He could smell the light odor of a gas furnace. A radio was playing “Ive Got a Gal in Kalamazoo” by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra, and Robyn turned it down.

“Please, Robyn, if you could turn the radio entirely off. Its hardly appropriate for what I must tell you.”

The girl complied, and invited the sheriff to be seated. He did so and got the overall impression that the Zinter family was firmly in the middle-class. Not destitute by any means, but not ostentatious either.

A small coffee table lay between them. Robyn smoothed out her plaid dress and Roddy saw that she wore bobby socks and saddle shoes. “You were about to tell me that you found the body of my sister,” Robyn said, “and that she had been brutally murdered.”

On one level Roddy felt relief. His duty to notify the next-of-kin had been mooted. But Robyn had stated things she should not know. “You dont seem to be too upset about it,” Roddy said, taking a small note- book and pen out of his jacket liner. The sympathetic bearer of bad news was a detective again. “When did you know your sister was dead, Miss Zinter? Did an old Indian fellow pay you a visit today?”

“Just Robyn, please,” she said. “One name. Robyn. Not Miss Zinter. No- body else has visited me today. I find it difficult to say how I knew she had died. If I speak it will be the truth, but then you would believe me to be insane.”

Roddy said, ‘Robyn, this is a murder investigation so I exhort you to hold to that thought, that whatever you tell me must always be the truth. Now, as for believing you are insane, I’m already having trouble with your attitude toward the news of your twin sister’s murder.”

Robyn asked the sheriff whether he had heard stories about identical twins who seem to have a link that defies any explanation. Perhaps stories about twins who were separated at birth. They never met, yet they led lives with coincidence piled upon coincidence, with the same type of job, and even the same type of spouse.

“Robyn, are you saying you and Kim had some kind of radio in your head that let you know what was happening to the other? If that’s what you- ‘re trying to tell me, young lady, I wouldn’t believe you were insane. I would run you in to the station for further questioning, for knowing material facts about this case with no plausible explanation why.”

But Robyn was shaking her head. She stood up and walked over to her record collection, where she pulled a ten inch 78 RPM record from its sleeve. Holding it up for Roddy she said, “Let’s do this by analogy. This is Kim. And in every instant of time, a copy is made of her. By the time shes seventeen Kim is quite a stack of records. But something happens to her that she can’t explain. Maybe she starts skipping. Her friend Sofie is another stack of records who starts skipping too. The music store says nothing is wrong with them. But Kim’s mother is a stickler for high fidelity and she won’t take that for an answer. She quits her job at the music store and takes Kim to Lusk for a second opinion, and she convinces Sofie’s parents to do the same. Soon after, both re- cord stacks are in impound. There’s six months of tests but nobody figures out why Kim and Sofie skip. The girls realize they’re never getting out of quaran- tine, so they escape, but that’s another story. Kim Zinter changes her label and becomes Robyn. Sofie Krause changes her label to Hunky. And soon Hunky is back with Doriel, and Robyn is back with Gabriel. Robyn and Gabriel want to get hitched, and the Prophet says he can swing it. But the Apostle says: ‘Will no one rid me of this troublesome platter? So the Deacon takes a kitchen knife to her. Now enter an otherworldly giant named Mike. Seven and a half feet tall! Somehow he reaches back into that stack of records named Robyn and pulls out a disk from after the Deacon stole it, but before he broke it, and starts a new stack.”

Robyn fell silent and stared placidly at Roddy.

Finally he said, ‘You win, Robyn. People as growing stacks of records? Thats too batshit crazy to take you downtown or lock you up. The Deacon did it, you say? Paul Bergin?”

She nodded yes.

“You didn’t give me enough probable cause to even check him out.”

Robyn said, “My sister was killed with a knife from Bergin’s kitchen, one with a distinctive handle.”

Roddy held his face immobile and said, “Possibly.”

“Tomorrow is trash day. If you dig in his garbage can you’ll find the whole set. You wont even need a search warrant since he has already thrown it out.”

“Now that I can use,” Roddy said. “Kim’s body was found on the tri- state marker, which makes it a federal case. Whoever killed her did that on purpose. That’s why I’m trying to break this case before the FBI gets here, on the principle that you never give a perp what he wants.”