Chapter 12 - A Shot Through the Heart of Midnight
The inside of San Xavier smelled of centuries of burned tallow, beeswax, and cold incense. High up in the vaulted ceiling, the shadows were deep and blue, broken only by the red sanctuary lamp that hung by a silver chain before the gold-leaf altar.
Ethan slammed the three-inch oak door and threw the iron bolt.
Outside, Kane fired twice into the wood, but the old mission timber was three layers of seasoned mesquite pinned with iron spikes; the slugs buried themselves in the outer skin with dull thumps.
"He will come down the bell rope," Nahimana said, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Her calico shirt was torn at the shoulder, revealing the brand, which had begun to bleed again where the scab had cracked against the tunnel rocks. "There is a hatch above the choir."
Ethan checked his magazine. Four rounds.
"Stay behind the font," he said, pointing to the massive baptismal bowl carved from a single block of river granite. "If he gets past me, take this."
He pulled the Colt from his hip, laid it on the edge of the stone bowl, and started up the spiral staircase.
The steps were narrow, carved out of mesquite blocks that had settled and tilted over a hundred years of use. Ethan climbed with his boots off, his socks clinging to the rough wood, the Winchester held short in his right hand.
Above him, the wind was screaming through the open arches of the belfry.
A shadow passed across the choir rail.
Kane was already down from the rope. He stood on the balcony, framed against the circular rose window, a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun resting across his forearm. He had discarded his duster; he wore only a red wool shirt, dark with sweat, and a pair of rawhide chaps stained with old blood.
"You're a stubborn pup, Miller," Kane whispered, his voice echoing weirdly down into the nave. "Your father was the same way on the Brazos. Held onto twenty cows like they were his own children until we shot him out of his saddle."
Ethan’s heart stopped. The air left his chest as if he had taken an eighteen-pound maul to the ribs.
"What did you say?" Ethan breathed, his boots freezing on the seventeenth step.
Kane laughed—a dry, rattling sound that was drowned out by a sudden roll of thunder from the mountains. "You didn't know? Vogel bought your father's paper thirty years ago. We let you run those cows on the ridge because we needed a fool to pay the county taxes until the railroad survey went through. You were never a rancher, Ethan. You were just our caretaker."
Kane swung the shotgun toward the staircase.
Ethan didn't duck. He didn't fire.
From below, through the sacred silence of the church, a sound rose that made Kane’s thumb freeze on the twin hammers.
It was the death chant.
Nahimana was not behind the baptismal font. She was standing at the base of the central aisle, directly under the great dome, holding the bronze sanctuary lamp by its chains. She swung it twice, the burning whale oil splashing against the dry, hundred-year-old altar hangings.
A wall of red-gold flame leaped twenty feet into the air, illuminating every corner of the choir loft with terrifying brilliance.
May you like
Kane flinched, blinded by the sudden glare.
Ethan took one step up, leaned his rifle barrel over the mesquite rail, and shot Silas Kane through the center of his forehead.
