the stars were coming out. Felix stepped through the door and closed it behind him and stood there a moment letting his eyes adjust to the dark. Ten feet away, a figure sat on the edge of the wide front porch, his great back a dim softness in the shadows.
"Jack?" he called softly, almost whispering.
"Here," was the tired reply.
Felix hesitated, then walked down the broad steps and sat down. The rain-drenched steps began immediately to soak through his pants and he stood right back up again.
He looked down at Jack, sitting forward - hunched forward - with his elbows on his knees.
"Kinda wet, isn't it?"
The dim figure shrugged, a slight motion in the dark.
Get up, you sonuvabitch! Felix wanted to scream, sudden anger and disgust welling from within him. He was furious with Jack cowering out here and he wanted to grab him and shake him and some part of him knew he was being unfair.
But dammit! Jack was supposed to be the leader of this deal and there were people in there waiting on him. Counting on him.
He tried to calm himself before he spoke, but he knew his tone came out hard. "Time to go, man. Time to do it."
At first Crow didn't move. Then he stood up slowly and put his hands on his hips and stared out into the night.
"Got a cigarette?" he whispered harshly.
Felix nodded. "Sure." He fished out a smoke and handed it over and thumbed his lighter.
Jesus, Jack! he thought when the flame illuminated the man's face.
For Crow looked tight and drawn and weak and... and beaten.
But he didn't say anything. And Crow didn't say anything. He just puffed two or three times on the smoke, still staring into the night. Then Felix felt him take a long deep breath and let it out. Then he tossed the cigarette away into sparks, pulled up his belt, and beaded for the door.
"Come on," he said gruffly.
So off they went to do the deed and as they walked, Jack leading, Felix trailing behind, a transformation took place. At first Jack looked pitiful and sorry, with his wrinkled shirttail out and his baggy pants wet on the seat from the damp step. The walk wasn't much better, more like a reluctant lope. But steadily, the pace quickened and those great shoulders thrust up and those powerful hands reached back and thumbed the shirttail in and that big head went up high on his neck and...
And Felix felt himself smiling in amazement. Thirty seconds before he had been disgusted and now he thought: Look at this guy! Look at him, coming through.
By the time the reached the hallway outside the chapel Jack was strutting like a drillmaster. He stopped, abruptly, outside the chapel door and took another deep breath and turned and looked at Felix.
Felix looked back into those same sunken eyes and he saw the pain was still there and the weariness was still there and decided that was probably more impressive then any of it.
Jack nodded questioningly at Felix.
Felix nodded back.
And they went in and did it.
They had Carl's body wrapped up in some heavy white fabric and laid out on a table up in front by the altar. The bishop was there, surrounded by his robed attendants and that smoking goblet-thing they used and dozens of candles. The women sat in a pew in the back row. The men, Kirk and Cat and a robed Adam, stood by the table.
The whole thing was, Felix had to admit, beautiful. You really needed Catholics for the big stuff.
Jack walked up to the table and Felix took the empty spot beside him. Felix had thought Carl's body looked awkward lying there. And that's when he noticed the saw.
The saw was not a saw at all, but a sharp stone fashioned to slip inside a grooved harness that supported the head and neck of the body. "Cutting" consisted of rapping the blunt end of the stone sharply with a heavy wooden mallet which lay there at Jack's right hand. Beside the mallet was the stake, an intricately carved piece of wood about half the size of a baseball bat and proportionately thinner. In the light from the candles Felix could just read, on the side facing him: "Carl Joplin." He could see further lettering on the other side of the rounded wood but couldn't read it.
First were the prayers, not too different from the mass Felix had become used to, but longer somehow.