Bloodstone Read Free Page B

stallion. It was almost noon, and the children were leaving the two school buildings and heading out into the fields to eat the lunches their mothers had packed for them. The stores and the town’s three restaurants were open, and the sun was shining down from a clear sky.
    But a half mile to the north smoke still spiraled lazily into the blue. Nestor could see Beth McAdam standing amid the blackened timbers as the undertakers moved around the debris, gathering the charred bodies of the Wolvers. Nestor did not relish facing Beth with the news. She had been the headmistress of the lower school when Nestor was a boy, and no one had ever enjoyed the thought of being sent to her study. He grinned, remembering the day he had fought with Charlie Wills. They had been dragged apart and then taken to Mrs. McAdam; she had stood in front of her desk, tapping her fingers with the three-foot bamboo cane.
    “How many should you receive, Nestor?” she had asked him.
    “I didn’t start the fight,” the boy had replied.
    “That is no answer to my question.”
    Nestor had thought about it for a moment. “Four,” he had said.
    “Why four?”
    “Fighting in the yard is four strokes,” he had told her. “That’s the rule.”
    “But did you not also take a swing at Mr. Carstairs when he dragged you off the hapless Charlie?”
    “That was a mistake,” Nestor had said.
    “Such mistakes are costly, boy. It shall be six for you and four for Charlie. Does that sound fair?”
    “Nothing is fair when you’re thirteen,” Nestor had said, but he had accepted the six strokes, three on each hand, and had made no sound.
    He rode slowly toward the charred remains of the little church, the stallion meekly following his bay mare. Beth McAdam was standing with her hands on her ample hips, staring out toward the wall. Her blond hair was braided at the back, but part of the braid had come loose and was fluttering in the wind at her cheek. She turned at the sound of the approaching horse and gazed up at Nestor, her face expressionless. He dismounted and removed his hat.
    “I found the raiders,” he said. “They was all dead.”
    “I expected that,” she said. “Where is the Preacher?”
    “No sign of him. His horse headed east, and I caught up with it; there was blood on the saddle. I backtracked and found signs of wolves and bears, but I couldn’t find him.”
    “He is not dead, Nestor,” she said. “I would know. I would feel it here,” she told him, hitting her chest with a clenched fist.
    “How did he manage to kill five men? They were all armed. All killers. I mean, I never saw the Preacher ever carry a gun.”
    “Five men, you say?” she replied, ignoring the question. “There were more than twenty surrounding the church, according to those who saw the massacre. But then, I expect there were some from our own … loving … community.”
    Nestor had no wish to become involved in the dispute. Wolvers in a church was hardly decent, anyhow, and it was no surprise to the youngster that tempers had flared. Even so, if the Crusaders had not been called out to a brigand raid on Shem Jackson’s farm, there would have been no violence.
    “Anything more you want me to do, Mrs. McAdam?”
    She shook her head. “It was plain murder,” she said. “Nothing short.”
    “You can’t murder Wolvers,” Nestor said, without thinking. “I mean, they ain’t human, are they? They’re animals.”
    Anger shone in Beth’s eyes, but she merely sniffed andturned aside. “Thank you, Nestor, for your help. But I expect you have chores to do, and I’ll not keep you from them.”
    Relieved, he turned away and remounted. “What do you want me to do with this stallion?” he called.
    “Give it to the Crusaders. It wasn’t ours, and I don’t want it.”
    Nestor rode away to the stone-built barracks at the south end of town, dismounting and hitching both horses to the rail outside. The door was open, and Captain Leon Evans was sitting at