Excerpt: Book Four of the Laodicea Chronicles: Powers and Principalities

Charles Lemuel Adamson had never won anything in his life. In fact, since leaving Scotland, his fortunes had gone from bad to worse to desperate, all in one short year. Now, with less than two ounces of gold remaining from what he’d sewn into his clothes before departing his father’s house in Glasgow to seek his fortune in America, the locksmith’s only son had little to lose.

“You goin’ to bet or not, Adamson?” the squint-eyed man said with a wink to the onlookers. “The pot’s waitin’.”

Charles placed a delicate thimble and two English coins in the pot—a total of two ounces of nearly pure gold—and glanced again at his cards.

“Macy! Weigh this out, will you?”

“Sure, Stromie,” called a portly clerk from behind the bar. He picked up Adamson’s offerings and settled them gently onto a rusty scale. “Just shy o’ two. I’d say ‘bout forty dollars.”

Stromie Amburgey sipped his whiskey thoughtfully, keeping his cards folded into a close semi-circle within his left hand. “That’s a lot, son. You sure you want to keep going?”

The Scot nodded; he had no choice now. Elsa Schmidt had refused his offer of marriage, naming his meager fortunes as her primary reason, so penury no longer mattered. If he could but find a stake, Adamson believed Elsa would reconsider.

It was at this moment that fate intervened in Adamson’s life, forever changing not only his future, but also that of the entire town. It came in the form of a seven and a half foot Indian named Walking Tree. Though no one at the time learned the native’s name, his frame and demeanor would never be forgotten—and his eventual return to the settlement of Eden in 1814 would leave a scar on Adamson both physically and spiritually.

Amburgey’s dark eyes stared at the gigantic Indian, who stood in the evening shadows of the saloon. “You got something to say, Chief?”

The Indian set a dead rabbit on the bar and pointed to an unopened whiskey bottle. “Pour me one,” he said in perfect English.

Macy looked to Stromie as if asking permission. His ample chin quivered in the lamplight.

“No fire water,” Amburgey said, pouring himself another double shot from the bottle near his elbow. Charles watched the Indian’s eyes, all the while mentally drawing his pistol.

Walking Tree kept his back to Amburgey. “You can’t kill me,” he answered simply. “A drink of the whiskey.”

Macy pointed to a hand-lettered sign over the bar. NO INJUNS.

“I guess he can’t read,” Stromie said, laughing and striking a match to a thinly rolled cigarette. “Go on back to your teepee, Big Chief.”

Adamson’s fingers eased toward the pistol grip beneath his vest.

Without warning, the Indian turned on a dime and stood just behind the Scot’s left ear, bending close and apparently whispering.

Charles listened, his gray eyes rounding. His fingers relaxed, and he looked toward his opponent with a steely expression that surprised the onlookers.

“Do you call?” he asked Amburgey.

Stromie, born of a German mother and an unnamed father, stood, his eyes never leaving the Indian’s.

“I see your forty and raise you—fifty…” he boasted, reaching into his pocket with his right hand. The cards in his left shook slightly. “I—I got it right here,” he continued. “Where the hell is it! Damn it all, I had two hundred dollars! Injun! Did you hex me?”

“Show the money,” the Scot persisted. He remained calm, and his back had grown straighter.

The massive Indian smiled.

“Show the money,” Macy echoed. “It’s the rules of the game, Stromie. You know it. If you can’t call, then you’ll have to forfeit.”

Amburgey’s face reddened, and he stomped the wooden floorboards, rattling the whiskey bottle so hard it toppled onto a nearby chair, spilling the precious golden contents all over the dusty boots of a toothless onlooker with a white beard and cracked spectacles.

“The money,” Adamson persisted. “Or else I win.”

Sweat beaded up on the smaller man’s brow, but his left hand clung to the cards while the right fished in every pocket. “I’ve been robbed! I cain’t prove it, but I’ll find it, and I’ll take a pound of flesh for every dollar!”

“Very Shakespearean,” the Indian said smoothly. “Show the money.”

“Very Shaker what?” Macy asked.

“Ok, ok,” Stromie blustered. “You all know that big house I built up on Main. It’s worth five thousand if it’s worth a dollar! I’ll bet that house—all the furnishings with it!—that you’re bluffing!”

Dodd Macy’s jaw dropped. “Hell, Stromie! Don’t be a fool—it’s just a game. The pot’s not worth more than a hundred anyway! Let it go! Lord, your wife’ll kill you if she hears about this!”

“No need for her to hear about it, Macy. It’ll all be over in a minute, and I’ll have the pot. Well, Adamson? My house says you’re a liar. Beat a Jack high straight!”

Despite his bravado, Amburgey’s hands trembled slightly as he spread the tobacco-stained cards across the table. “Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, and Jack of Diamonds. Read ‘em and weep. Hah!” he exclaimed, ready to scoop up the winnings.

The Scot’s mouth twitched. He began to speak, but the Indian leaned in once again to whisper, and suddenly Adamson’s demeanor shifted. He glanced down at his right hand, filled with cards, and only a tiny quiver of his little finger revealed what churned inside the Scotsman’s soul. Slowly, he unveiled the cards, one at a time, laying one upon the other: Ten of hearts, Jack of hearts, Queen of hearts, King of hearts, and Ace—of hearts.

“Damn! He’s got a royal flush, Stromie! But that’s impossible,” Macy said, his chin jiggling excitedly, “I dealt him a—.”

“Dealt me a what, Mr. Macy? Are you saying you tried to rig the game?”

“N—no!” Macy blubbered, panic rising in his gray cheeks.

“A royal flush,” Stromie muttered, looking like a ghost. “That ain’t possible.”

“Looks like you win, Scottie,” the white-bearded onlooker crowed. “Gee, that means you get that fine house o’ Stromie’s, don’t it?”

Amburgey had grown smaller, and his eyes fixed not on Adamson, but on the Indian. “This your hex, Injun?”

The giant native turned without answering and strode toward the door.

“You speak when you’re spoken to!” Stromie demanded, jumping after the Indian; his chair toppling in his wake.

The Indian stopped and turned. He looked dead into Stromie’s narrow eyes and began to whisper, his voice so low only Stromie could hear. Amburgey listened, his left hand tensing, lips quivering….

“….and some say Amburgey left town that night,” a young man in 21st century clothing continued. “And that he never learned the name of the Indian, though the folks in Eden did. It was Walking Tree, the Ghost Man. It’s said he placed the hex on Stromie ‘cause of a deal with the devil. And that the Adamson house is cursed because of it. And that it’s that curse that fell on Katy Adamson when she moved back to Eden. Some say that old Stromie’s ghost took her—others that Walking Tree came back to claim his payment for helping Charles Adamson win the card game. And that it’s his blood that flows through the tall people of Eden.”

Marilyn Proctor cleared her throat and tapped a ruler on her desk. “Thank you, Lee. I’m sure we’re all enlightened now, thanks to your report. Tell me, where did you find this curious version of Eden’s history?”

Hands shot up all over the classroom. “It’s not a version, Miss Proctor,” Amelia Gordon proclaimed. “It’s the truth. I found the same thing in the library. And it’s what the elders at the Temple teach. Eden’s cursed by blood and only blood can heal it. Walking Tree was real. And his spirit won’t rest until Eden is cleansed.”

Proctor bristled, striking the ruler firmly so hard it broke. “The Temple is not grading you on history, Miss Gordon! I am! Kindly, remember that there is a constitutional wall of separation between what the church teaches and what the state allows.”

Lee Holcomb held up his hand timidly. “Miss Proctor? What if that wall of separation fell down?”

The middle-aged teacher blinked, clearly out of patience. “And what bulldozer could do that, Mr. Holcomb?”

“My bulldozer,” a man’s voice called, seemingly from nowhere. “The bulldozer of the Seven Thunders.”

Everyone stiffened.

A flat screen television flickered to life, and the image of a young man appeared. His eyes had an impossibly golden hue, and his hair gleamed of silver. Though the man could be no more than twenty, he had an ageless quality, a disarming demeanor that both calmed and terrified.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” the man continued, “but when I hear such blasphemy spoken aloud, I simply have to intercede on behalf of the true Faith. Lee, you spoke well. The wall your teacher mentioned has indeed crumbled to dust, and we are all the better for it. Miss Proctor, I believe you and I must have a little chat. Please remain in your classroom until one of my elders arrives. We’ll send someone to take over your class. Good morning, children. Evil flees from bended knees, so I suggest you all recite prayer number 231.”

The screen went dark.

Twenty-seven pairs of knees hit the classroom floor, and two burly men in black suits crossed into the room—seemingly out of nowhere.

Miss Proctor left, never to be seen again.