Page 26 of Chapel at Ender’s Ridge (Ender’s Calling #1)

Rotten Luck

D ecker hissed and jerked away.

Silver.

A bullet like that buried in his gut would burn worse than fire, and if it reached his heart he’d be as good as dead.

Six shells . Six shots. Whitton had used four.

The people of Ridgewater stood rapt across the bridge.

Whitton barreled down on Laurie’s chapel, the steeple like a beacon.

Decker’s breath came in short, hard gasps and he flew, the livery fences blurring beneath him as he leapt and ran, following the hoofbeats until the chapel reared in front of him.

Who knew how many people like Nathan the doctor had recruited, poisoning their minds until they turned their backs on their own people for a chance at normalcy?

Five .

A shout. The chapel door thudded shut, bullet lodging in the thick pine.

Whitton cocked the hammer, spinning his horse to face Decker .

He lurked in the shadows of the alley, the last stand between the Devil and the chapel. Here, away from the prying, human eyes of Ridgewater, he had the advantage.

Decker prowled forward.

Skin puckered between the joint of Whitton’s trigger finger, stitches rubbing against the reddened flaps of skin, and dark blood oozed and spread.

Decker’s stomach roiled and he faltered, the molasses-smooth world clearing, sharpening.

Hoofbeats shook the bridge.

Cricket, pistol in hand as he returned to Ender’s Ridge, crouched low in the saddle as he aimed.

A gunshot cracked through the street.

Smoke curled from the barrel of Whitton’s weapon.

Six.

Cricket doubled over.

Decker lunged. His nails bit into horseflesh, leather, saddle, flesh, blood—

Stitches.

A string of curses wrenched from Whitton and he struck at Decker, the butt of his gun slamming one, two, against his temple.

Decker’s fingers slipped. Whitton’s horse wheeled as he raked spurs along her side and she bolted away, trampling his rotten finger that Decker had ripped loose.

Cricket tipped to the ground and Marshal squealed, shying away from the red soaking the sand beneath him.

Whitton thundered over the bridge and Decker ran, slipping, falling to his knees next to Cricket .

Sand, hot and sticky, bit into his canvas pants as he hauled the boy into his arms and shook him. Bleary eyes opened and Cricket weakly clutched at him.

“Safine!” Decker yanked down the collar of his shirt.

Sores bubbled on Cricket’s chest and the bullet wound shredded a hole next to the perfect circle of his amulet. Blood leaked into the whorls of the metal.

Cricket’s lung fluttered against the exposed white of his ribs, pulsing and trembling as if his luck was desperately trying to knit him back together.

Decker slipped his hand into Cricket’s and gently tugged the sodden shirt back with the other. “You’ll be just fine, kid, just fine. Safine !”

He didn’t know if she could hear him, didn’t know if anyone could hear him other than those goddamn bastards across the river.

The chapel doors banged open in the silence, and Safine flew towards them, Sister Inez’s habit billowing behind them as she followed.

Safine’s face said what he needed to know as she glanced at him, and Decker’s chest clenched. “Get him to the Goose .”

Decker gathered up Cricket, all torn flesh and blood, and the kid cried out as he carried him to the only safety they had.

Scarlet soaked his hands and his clothes and the saloon table he laid him on.

Laurie and Sister Inez barred the heavy door, feet planted and teeth gritted, shoving tables, wedging chairs .

Safine tore at her skirt to press the fabric to Cricket’s chest, and he let out a ragged cry and writhed in Decker’s arms as she hopelessly held pressure, shushing him.

Laurie murmured prayers of empty, pretty words as he took his hand.

“I didn’t want to die this time.” Cricket’s other hand clutched at Decker’s shirt as if he were the only thing yet holding him to this earth. “Don’t let me die—”

“You’re not gonna die.”

Decker had made a habit of lying.

The low hum of Laurie’s voice wavered into the air. “I shall fear no evil—”

Decker’s voice forced past his tight throat. “Laurie, don’t .”

Cricket’s amulet, his once saving grace, was soaked with red.

His lips welled with blood when they parted, panting, struggling for another breath. “I know,” he gritted out, eyes wide as his nails bit into Decker’s arm. “Please.”

I know.

All those years of joking about hiding bodies in the whiskey barrels and Cricket knew. He knew, and he wanted the fate Decker could give him. To be a hunter and killer, preying on lesser creatures and never accepting that humanity was always out of reach, no matter how much of it he consumed.

Death was a far better fate for Cricket Conklin.

Under the wanted posters plastering his room and beyond the easy grin and quick jokes, he was only a scared boy clinging to hope that never existed .

Decker swallowed back a bitter taste. Thomas Haven had not known. Yet the same betrayal flickered on his old lover’s face as he took his last labored breath, like Decker was to blame for it all.

Maybe I am.

His thumb grazed along his cheek, his voice stretched thin. “I’m sorry.”

Cricket’s chin quivered.

Dipped in a fragile, understanding nod. His voice came out as a rasping, blood-tinged whisper. “Mercer . ”

One last name. Decker reckoned they’d find her in Amaretto.

Limp strands of blond hair fell across tear-damp cheeks and Decker smoothed them away.

“Your momma will be expecting you,” he said softly.

Cricket’s fingers left permanent creases when they fell away from Decker’s shirt.

A scarlet puddle formed under the table and filled the cracks in the floor.

Safine’s arms trembled as she held her ripped skirt to his chest, waiting for it to rise again.

It never did.

A muffled sound escaped her throat, thin and desperate. Sister Inez slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her in and cloaking her with some form of peace.

Decker’s fingernails bit grooves into the table next to Cricket. Ender’s Ridge hadn’t been right for a long time, but those who lived there were complacent, believing they found a town that protected them if they protected it.

And Cricket atoned for our sins .

Decker wished for Cricket to spring to his feet, laughing while he spun another tall tale about being chased across the desert after a daring robbery.

Across from him, Laurie held his still-warm hand. Decker shrugged off his duster to stretch over Cricket’s body. There was no afterlife, there was only this life, and he had failed him.

Decker stared at him until the sting in his eyes faded.

Gathering him in his arms for the last time, Decker went to the back room and Laurie followed, soundlessly heaving the trapdoor open.

A cold blast of air from the root cellar met him as he carried Cricket down the narrow stairs and laid him on the blocks of ice and straw lining the back dirt wall. This was where he had to stay until the town recovered from the sickness.

They would be digging more than a single grave for Cricket.

His family was the one thing Cricket kept behind lock and key. Always protecting them, tight-lipped and careful about endangering the family of a notorious outlaw. He’d be buried in Amaretto, by his girl.

Decker carefully searched Cricket’s pockets, only coming up with a note scrawled on cigarette papers. A crude attempt he would have delivered to the telegraph office, if he made it past the bridge.

“His family won’t be expecting him,” Decker said, rereading the rough lettering again and again before slipping it in his pocket. His mother wouldn’t be waiting expectantly for a son that was never coming home, and the thought could have comforted him if he wasn’t so empty .

Laurie twisted his hands, his gaze fixed. “I was always told there’s a reason for things happening,” he said. “But this—he was just a boy. Younger than me.”

Decker could hear the unspoken words.

Perhaps God has forsaken this town. We have become the people left behind by the ark.

“Cricket didn’t need God to save him, preacher. I could have been the savior he needed.”

Laurie’s face bordered on anguish. “Why weren’t you?”

From anyone else, it would have been a bone-deep accusation. With Laurie’s words Decker only felt resigned acceptance of his failure.

“He deserved peace I couldn’t offer. Do you think he’s at peace now?”

“If I don’t, then what is all this for?”

Decker glanced sideways. “You live for your death. Some of us don’t have the luxury of having a life after we die. Our souls were traded a long time ago and we have to make the most of this life.”

“You’re wrong,” Laurie said, suddenly insistent, as if he was trying to convince himself. “No soul is beyond saving. Even yours. Especially yours.”

“You are still a stranger, Mr. Lane. You don’t know our town, you don’t know our customs, you don’t know our life, ” he said, each word softly edged with pain. “There is no hope except tomorrow for most of us. We don’t need prayers, we need to live, and if you want to help, we need to keep going.”

Laurie hesitated, face unreadable as Cricket’s telegram. “I can’t be like you. ”

“I’ve seen a hundred years of death, Mr. Lane. Too many by my hand. Forever would be a punishment if I let each one affect me.”

Forever was a punishment, and this death would be held close to his chest until it was staked to the bottom of the deepest ocean.

I am as much to blame as Whitton.

Decker’s voice softened. “Come, preacher. Let’s save the rest of the town while we still can.”

They left Cricket behind, cooling in the root cellar.

Safine raised a blank face from Sister Inez’s habit when the trapdoor rattled shut behind them.

Decker took the mop, dragging it across the floor and under the table. The rags turned red and stiff, and he splashed more water across the floor. “We need to take the bridge,” he said.

Laurie cut him a sharp look.

“Let them keep their town, and we will keep ours until we know what’s going on.” The bridge was two years away from falling apart anyways; a few well-placed explosives and they wouldn’t have to worry about Whitton or the rest of the town folks for a few days—enough time to form a plan.

“We’ll get dynamite from the mercantile,” Decker continued, “and the rest of you get back—”

“I’ll do it.”

Three heads swiveled towards Laurie. He shifted in place, rubbing his thumb over the beads of his rosary. “I can take care of the bridge. Decker, you’ll be more use at the chapel.”

“Who put you in charge?” Safine’s low voice scraped through the room like a bullet in the chamber. “Come to town, think you can start runnin’ shit. Everything went to hell when you showed up—”

“Safi,” he murmured.

“—and now Decker’s mopping up Cricket.”

Laurie blanched, his rosary strangling his hand. “I didn’t have anything to do with this.”

“Awful big coincidence,” she sneered.

Sister Inez was silent, taking a rag to the table.

Decker considered her accusation. Things unmistakably changed when Laurie arrived. His arrival was a coincidence, wasn’t it? Laurie was like a train barreling into the station, shards of their life splintered into a thousand pieces, but none of this was his fault.

The mop splashed firmly onto the floor. “Laurie’s a part of the town now. We’ll figure this out together,” Decker said.

“Together like how we were when Cricket got shot?”

“I didn’t know he was going to act a fool and come back.”

“Where were you, huh? I seen you hunt, seen you kill. You could’ve done more.”

“Safine,” Decker said sharply. This wasn’t helping anyone.

This wouldn’t bring Cricket back, no matter who she blamed.

His jaw tightened, and he glanced towards the bridge where people still milled at the Ridgewater side.

They were running out of time. “There was a crowd of witnesses. I couldn’t jeopardize us. ”

“You jeopardized Cricket. And they’re still gonna come after us, but he’s gone. You should be gone instead,” Safine shot at Laurie. “Go back East and take your bad fucking luck with you.”

Laurie’s shoulders curved in, and he glanced at Decker. When he said nothing, he slipped the rosary in his pocket. “I’ll find the dynamite,” he said, voice small.

Water sloshed onto the boards as Decker jammed the mop back into the bucket. Red puddled to the edge of Safine’s white boots .

At the chapel, Decker returned to the steady, callous machine by Sister Inez’s side. Water, blankets, food, death, repeat.

The chapel windows rattled from the blast.

Willa stirred, eyes bleary. Clearing.

Laurie joined him, ruffling splinters from his hair. “Everyone looked and no one cared,” he said.

The Blessing wavered, regained strength, returned. But for how long? How many more of them would be nailed into pine boxes before this was over?

Decker kept vigil throughout the night, long after the girls curled into a corner and Laurie stretched out in a pew, softly snoring.

Cricket should be a bottle deep by now, cracking a joke about how liquor cleaned him from the inside out, rolling a small mountain of cigarettes for anybody who needed a smoke.

The stained glass depiction of Christ bent under the weight of the cross watched over them. In death, Decker hoped Cricket had finally found his peace.