Levi and the Ferryman - Ch. 1

Levi had met the Devil once.  It had been just outside the old church back before Talton had burned and there was dust rising up from the street as it hadn’t rained in a whole fortnight.  The Devil was a pale, well-dressed man with hair black as pitch and eyes so dark they ate up all the light from around him.  One might have thought that such a meeting was by design, meant to snatch something away from him or lure him into a trap of some kind…but the Devil had been just as shocked to see Levi as Levi had been to see him.

This time, it wasn’t all that shocking.

This time he was standing in the middle of a prairie with wildflowers swaying this way and that around him, and as far as he could see there was sky.  He wasn’t wearing his straw hat but it didn’t seem to matter, as the sun was diffused here despite there not being much more than wisps of clouds scattered above.  He didn’t have to squint and it wasn’t hot or cold or anything at all—just comfortable with a gentle wind which rustled his hair away from his face.  Vacantly, he reached up to his throat and touched it but he couldn’t remember why he would have needed to so he let his hand fall down to his side again and dangle.

It was beautiful.  The coneflowers and black-eyed susans bobbed their happy little heads and he was calm and there was nothing in the world that mattered much.  Nothing in the world at all.  Somewhere off in the distance there were mountains and…shouldn’t he have been able to see them?  He lived in Bridgeton, after all, and he hadn’t been in a prairie like this since he was a boy but…but…it was so darn pretty, what was the harm in just being here?

There was a presence a few feet to his left and he couldn’t rightly explain how he felt it, he just did. Like it was intruding on a particularly pleasant little piece of his mind.  

Piece?  

Peace?  

He turned his head curiously and saw him there, his weight centered on one leg while he smoked with a thumb hooked into his belt.  He was in a worn set of farmhand clothes and a dusty black wide-brimmed hat.  Around his neck was a bandana, once a light color and now stained in wet patches of red blood flowered into brown where it dried at the edges.  It was so soiled with it, in fact, that it was impossible to know what the original color used to be and for some reason, that gave Levi pause.

It was blue.  Light blue.  Like the sky just after sunrise when the orange and red faded and the sun was still white on the horizon.

But how did he know that?  From where he stood, the whole damned thing was soaked through with blood.  But Levi was certain it had been a sweet sun-faded powder blue.

The Devil looked up at him from under that wide black brim as smoke coiled from his lips.  “Didn’t think to see you again so soon, boy.”

He swallowed, almost certain that if he tried to speak he wouldn’t be able to before his voice rang crystal clear through the breeze.  “Good mornin’, sir.  I ain’t got no business with you, I don’t think.”

“You don’t?”  His brow twitched downward and he appeared incredulous, as if Levi had said something particularly absurd.  “Well then, I must be the bearer of bad news, as I usually am.”

Levi frowned, turning his face back toward the breeze while he looked out over the wildflowers.  He took a deep breath in.  “I ain’t got nothin’ to say to you, Sir.  If I done wrong, I’ll own it but I won’t be judged by you.”

“Nobody gave me jurisdiction anyway,” he replied, his voice oily and somehow graveled besides.  “No, no…see, I’m not really what they say I am.”

“You’re no Saint Peter.”

Why did he say that?  He shoved his hands in his pockets, feeling sweat on the back of his neck as his thoughts grew increasingly bizarre.  Why did he say that?  Was he—?  Was…this…?  He looked around himself, at the flowers and the sky and the strange gray light of the sun.  He reached out and plucked the head off of one of the bobbing flowers and crushed it in his hand not knowing exactly why he was doing it.

“It sure is interesting to watch all o’ you come to terms in your own time.  Knowing before you know.”

The flower was crushed.  He’d felt it crumple, damp and soft, and he let it drift down to the thick grasses that mired his old leather work boots that were just a little too big for him.  He’d gotten them from another farmhand on the ranch who’d been prudent enough to save for a good set for himself and he’d let Levi take his old ones.  But…what was his name?  For that matter…what was the name of the ranch?  He’d remembered Bridgeton, but what about the rest of it?

“I can see you thinkin’ real hard, kid.  You ain’t gotta bring it all back if you don’t want to.”

“I remember you.”

“I remember you.  Spooked me but good you did, lookin’ right at me when I was tryin’ to…well…nevermind that.”

“Perry Townshend.  He’d fallen off his horse.  Broke his damn neck.  I remember his eyes.  Scared and wide and he was just…gone.”

The Devil took another drag from his smoke and blew it upward into the air.  “And I was there.”

“And you were there.”  He turned fully to look at him, half expecting him to be ephemeral, wisping, or translucent.  He was solid, as tangible as the flower Levi had crushed in his palm.  “But he was just a kid.”

“There ain’t an age that makes more sense than any other, if that’s what you’re thinkin’.”

“I don’t know what I’m thinking.”  He took his hands out of his pockets, feeling unsettled.  Inexplicably, he reached up and touched at his throat again.  Things felt muddy now when before they were open and unobscured.  He wished the Devil would just leave him here alone, let him wander this prairie unconcerned.  Still, like in some kind of dream, he was struck with the notion that it was understood this was not a permanent kind of place.

“I think…” the Devil started, “that you’re tryin’ your damnedest to figure out what’s goin’ on.  You haven’t decided if you want to know what’s goin’ on and I get that feelin’ very well.  Some folks decide not to and that’s their right but if you’d like to, you’re more than welcome to it.  Some folks, like our young Mr. Townshend, did not get that opportunity.”

“But I can’t…stay here.”

“You can try.  Some folks do.  But I can’t guarantee there’ll be another chance to leave if you do.”

“And I…might remember…”

“Later on, yes sir.  You can take your time with me, we’re not on a deadline.”  He smiled as he said the last word, as if it were something of a jest to which Levi was not privy.

“Why did I see you before?”

He shrugged one shoulder.  “Sometimes it happens.  Here and there.  Something about your eyes, I think.  Made different.  It’s not common.”

“I was meant to?”

“If you believe in fate.”

“Surely I have a purpose…”  He paused, a sudden drop in his stomach forming as he gripped again at his throat.  “Had…?”  He’d never been one to entertain much in the line of deeper thinking.  That was for what his old teacher in Talton had called philo-so-phers.  Levi was just a boy who ought to do what he was told and if there was anything more to it, that was between him and God.

But God wasn’t here.

His horror was mounting and he knew it was plain on his face and in his scent.

The Devil flicked away the end of his smoke into the grasses after he’d smudged it out on the bottom of his boot.  “You’re gettin’ around to it.”

He whispered, his thumb harder on the side of his neck.  “That’s my bandana.”

“It is.”

“That’s my blood.”

“It is.”

He was breathless, feeling like the whole world was suddenly crushing down over him as though he were the flower and the endless sky as the hand what might come to crumple him up and discard him.  He sat suddenly among the flowers and sought to let himself breathe, still confused and unmoored.

“Talk it through if you like, boy.  It helps.”

“Are you…are you here for me because of…Jamie?”

Stolen kisses in the middle of the night.  Creeping past the cooper’s workshop to the old plucking house where they kept a spare straw mattress and a lantern.  Where Jamie let Levi suck his cock and whispered shock and praise for how good he was at it.  There weren’t enough Alpha or Beta men of a certain taste to be picky out west and Levi had been lucky enough to find a man willing after Saul Winters had up and gone got mated by Father McOnder.

The Devil cleared his throat.  “In the most direct of fashions, I am here for you because of Jamie, yes.”

Levi allowed himself a little levity among his panic, feeling a small bit hysterical as he did.  “Well…I suppose it was a little bit of a transgression.  But other than that…I was alright.”

“Other than that you were alright,” he agreed.

“So I’m…”

The Devil leaned forward, urging him with his expression to finish his thought.

“…dead.”

“You are deciding that right now.”

“Deciding.”

“Some folks get to turn around once or twice if there’s sufficient means by which they might stay.”

He felt his heart squeeze hard in his chest and sweat prickle in his palms and at his temples.  There was a catch.  There was always a catch.  There was something to lose here and he was going to have to bargain it away if he decided he wasn’t done yet.  If he decided he didn’t want to give up the sun on his face, the smell of flowers, or the taste of Jamie Everwin’s lips tinged with whiskey.  “What do I…have to give you?  Not to go yet?”

“Well there are things you are going to lose, but they aren’t going to be mine.”

“Can I…know what they are?”

“It’s all in there, you just haven’t remembered it yet.”

He was trembling too hard to try to stand up and he didn’t have it in him to be brave.  Never had, really.  He was a timid boy by nature and he’d always known it.  “M-My s—”

“A very common concern, but there’s no value in what’s beyond right now and to be honest, a soul is relatively worthless if it hasn’t got uhm…” he waved his hand as if searching for a word.  He found it.  “…direction.”

That was a bit of a relief, he thought, all things considered.

“I should tell you though that if you do decide you’re not done, it’s going to be very difficult.  But that is something for you to choose.  You could have plenty of years of trials ahead of you, but there are chances still that you can find more beyond.  It is, as they say, what you make of it.”

He felt heat behind his eyes.  “Why me?”

The Devil smiled.  “I don’t know.  In fact, I don’t know why me when it comes down to it.  Ain’t that a bitch?”

There was that slight hysteria again, knocking around like an errant egg someone tried to spin on the countertop.  He heaved a breathless laugh.  It might be difficult but he’d have someone with him.  Jamie would know what to do, like he always did.  A beacon of optimism with a heart full of plans and ambitions.  Jamie and he could run off like they’d fantasized while looking up at the stars through the hole in the plucking house roof.  Levi had saved up some money.  It wasn’t much but it might get them somewhere.  Anywhere but Bridgeton.  Maybe to the East where all the pilgrims came from in their nice clothes and high brow taste.

Of course that would be difficult.  It was new and frightening and strange and utterly terrifying to think about pulling up everything he’d ever known to run away with a man who looked at him like Jamie did.  Who was so goddamn kind and always had a cheerful word when things were hard at the ranch or if Levi had hurt himself being his ol’ clumsy self again.  But it would be worth it if he could hold his Jamie’s hand and tuck his nose into his neck to pull in that relaxing Beta scent of parchment and cedar…

The flickering motes of sunlit dust in the late afternoons of a hot summer day…

He couldn’t pull up any more of it, even when he closed his eyes and focused, disconcerted that he had forgotten it at all.  He blinked his eyes open.  “Is there a way that I can…not see you again?  A path I could take?”

“None you’d like, I promise.”

He flattened his lips together, his heart squeezing again while tears leaked and blurred his vision.  “So if I go now…I go…and if I choose to stay…I’m fixin’ to go anyway?  Just…later?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, shit.”

He smiled again, wide and genuine, clearly amused despite his clear sympathy.  “If it helps, you’ve done rather well compared to most who’ve come here to make this choice.  Maybe it’s whatever it is about you that makes you different.  I think you’d do well if you stayed.”

“To be honest with you, sir, I’m scared to leave.”

“If I were you, I’d be more scared not to.  But how you feel about it is very common.  Very human, if I may.”

Levi mumbled.  “Better the devil you know…”

“Than the devil you don’t,” he agreed.  “Well, I’ll make you a deal if you’re open to it.  Make it a little easier on you if you’ll entertain the notion.”

He frowned, suspicion immediate and ‘no’ on his lips.  Before he could voice it, the suggestion was made.

“I’ll send you a little help.  A ferryman.  I think you’ll find some use of ‘im and I think he’ll find some use of you.”

“And what would that cost me?” he spat, feeling anger just under his simmering melancholy.

“You’re already losing enough and whatever you give him, that’s the fee.  He’s got his own needs, you see.  He’s just a man, after all.  Just like you.  He’s got a bit of a gift, though…I think you’ll find it helpful.”  He adjusted his hat, lifting it up to rub the top of his head with it, ruffling his pitch black hair before he set it back down over his head and cleared his throat.  “Or are you thinkin’ of goin’?”

“I…”  He relaxed his shoulders, letting the tension seep out of him as he thought about everything he could remember.  All the memories of running through the mudded streets of Talton, jumping each foot on the impressions of horse shoes and tripping over the wagon ruts.  The warmth of Saul Winters behind him in the saloon talking sweetly to him through his first time, calling him ‘little one’ and promising to keep his secret just between them.  That perfect, incandescent euphoria of sinking himself down over Jamie’s cock and discovering the absolute power in another’s pleasure.  The happiness of falling back asleep after waking too early in the morn and having a little bit more time to rest.  A fresh crisp apple in the early autumn.

He sighed and stood up, brushing off his trousers.  “I want to stay.”

“Alright.”

“That’s it?  ‘Alright’?”

“That’s it.  Easy as that.  Of course, you’ll have to take this with you,” the Devil reached behind his neck and untied the once-blue bandana, pulling it away from his neck to reveal a hideous wound in his throat, gaping and difficult to look at.  It was a wonder the man could even speak, as it seemed he’d been opened quite severely with some kind of sharp instrument, sloppily handled.  He held out the bloodied bandana and Levi reluctantly took it, feeling the weight of it and watching the wet blood come away on the pad of his thumb.  “You’ll have to take this too, I’m afraid.”

“What?”

Before he could react, the Devil was before him, his hand upon Levi’s throat.  His eyes were two black, open pools and all the prairie around them faded while those pools grew bigger until they had melted together and it was all that was left of his vision.  He could still feel the hand on his throat and at first there was no pain before it gradually came into his awareness and grew until it was intolerable and he made to make a sound but couldn’t, feeling air just barely making it into his struggling lungs.

Levi?

He was gasping and it felt as though he were trying to pull air in through a thin reed, his lungs burning for breath.

A deep male voice through the nothingness.

“Levi, don’t struggle.”

He knew this voice.  Calm, authoritative, professional, and kind.  He could smell the mild burning pine of Alpha and something about it was keeping the other scent at bay.

Copper.  Blood.  In my nose.  My mouth.  Everywhere.

He’d had a dream…but he couldn’t quite remember it.  There was one part he did seem to recall though and he squeezed his hand, feeling the damp cotton in his fist and remembering that it used to be blue.