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Bill knew the horse was no match for all that mud. “Mr. Burneside, sir, I don’t believe poor Samson can manage all ’at mud.”
“I’ll worry about the horse. You worry about my crops, boy, or you’ll be off my land.”
The rains kept coming. Out in the field, Samson stepped into a hole that couldn’t be seen under so much angry water. With a terrible shriek, he fell, throwing Mr. Burneside into the raging flood. Bill ran to Samson, but he could see the horse’s leg had snapped clean in two, and when he put his hands on Samson, he could feel the horse’s heart galloping wildly with fear and pain. They’d put a bullet in him for sure. But how long before they could do that? How long would the poor animal have to suffer like this? Would the gunshot hurt? Would Samson be frightened?
Bill would not leave his friend to suffer. “Shhh, shhh, boy. It’s just your old friend Bill come to see you. Don’t worry none. Shhh,” he soothed. He put his hands on the horse’s mangled leg and sang softly. The connection took. The horse stiffened for a count of two, then stilled as Bill ushered him gently into peaceful death.
When Bill came out of his trance, tears ran down his face, and he was glad for the cover of rain. Mr. Burneside was screaming at him from a prickle berry bush where he’d washed up.
“You damn fool! Get over here and he’p me up!”
Bill’s anger was alive and ready to strike. He strode through the floodwater and stood over the foreman, casting a powerful shadow across the ravaged land. “Told you not to take Samson out.”
“I’ll do what I like with my horse.”
“Ain’t your horse no more. He’s free.”
Tiny motes of electricity danced along the tips of Bill’s trembling fingers. The inside of his head roared like a storm.
“I said he’p me up!” Mr. Burneside commanded.
Bill didn’t move.
“Goddamn it, you gone deaf, boy? I said he’p me up!”
“Yes, sir.” Bill grabbed hold of Mr. Burneside’s hand, tightening his grip, the electricity flowing between them, and Bill couldn’t deny the pleasure he took in seeing the foreman’s eyes widen with fear and knowing.
Mr. Burneside’s son called out: “Hey! Daddy? Daddy, where you at? Guillaume? Whatchoo doing? Hey! Hey!”
Bill had run deep into the trees. Now that his anger had receded like the waters, he was frightened. The men would come for him soon, he knew. Come with their ropes and their brands and their guns and heaven knew what other cruelties. It was another sharecropper, Jed Robbins, who came for him first. “Guillaume, Mrs. Burneside is calling for you. You got to come back.”
“And let ’em hang me from that old oak? No, sir.”
“Ain’t like that. Young Mr. Burneside says he saw you pulling his daddy outta the water. Said you saved his daddy’s life. Say if it wadn’t for you, his daddy mighta died. Looks like he caught a stroke out there when he fell offa that horse.”
Back at the house, Mr. Burneside lay on the cot. His face was slack. His eyes, though, found Bill’s. They were full of fear and accusation.
Jed Robbins looked at him funny, too, and Bill wondered if his sin was out for all to see.
“What you looking at?” Bill said.
Jed pointed to Bill’s head. “You got a stripe a gray right down the middle of your head. Wadn’t there this morning.”
Word got around. There was something of a shine to Guillaume “Bill” LeRoi Johnson, something from beyond. Word got all the way to the Department of Paranormal. Some folks came to ask him questions about his gifts, and Bill heard the word Diviner for the first time. The Shadow Men came after, and B
ill went with them. He let Margaret Walker poke and prod him. Test his powers. Then those Shadow Men asked him to do things he didn’t want to do.
“We need you to help your country now, Mr. Johnson,” they said.
He’d done it. It was a time of war. What choice did he have? Most of the men he’d killed were bad men, weren’t they? Men the world was better off without. That was what Bill told himself. But some of those men looked like Bill. Like maybe their only crime was wanting change. It all took a turn with prisoner number twelve.
“What’d he do?” Bill had asked. He was afraid. Deep in his gut, he could tell this didn’t feel right. None of it felt right anymore. His body hurt all the time.
“You don’t need to know that, Mr. Johnson,” the Shadow Man assured him.
Bill took a step toward the man and faltered. “Yes, sir. Believe I do need to know.”
“He’s one of those agitators. We caught him and his coconspirators plotting to blow up a mine in a country pertinent to our interests.”
