The Baptism of Jack Sunday

A world-weary frontiersman agrees to help a desperate preacher, but there is one thing he wishes in return.

As sure as the sun sinking into the hills, the trappers of Baldridge Outpost gathered at dusk round the fire, drawn from their shelters by the scents of smoke and roasting bison meat. Beneath the black shadows of the trees above, Jack Sunday, a sharp-eyed mountain man clad in buckskin, noticed a newcomer in their midst.

“I don’t care how many days you’ve been in the wilderness; no one takes a bite before we all say grace!” jeered Jack Sunday.

“To hell with ya Jack, and eat your piece!” the small group of men cackled in jest. Most of the men in Jack’s frontier brigade were glad to be as far from a chapel as possible. Chatter and laughter gave way to quiet as the famished men devoured their meals.

A soft voice spoke from the crowd of grim faces, “I can lead us in prayer.” It was the newcomer, a young man who couldn’t be older than twenty-five. His skin was too soft, his long hair too clean, and his voice too well-mannered to be that of a weathered fur-trapper. “My name’s Isaiah Pierce. I’m a preacher,” he said.

Jack Sunday nodded and hesitantly gestured to the young man to begin, knowing the trappers would chase him up a tree before he could get halfway through an Our Father Who Art in Heaven.

The preacher hopped on a nearby stump and spoke, and to Jack’s surprise, he went on and on talking about mercy and grace. The men were silent and even thoughtful the whole while until the young man paused and solemnly said, “Amen.” They murmured and then scattered until only Jack and the preacher lingered by the dying fire.

“Who are you? And why in hell are you in this wild and godless country?” he said, clutching the horn hung round his shoulder where he kept his gunpowder.

“I’m a minister at Fort Lewis,” the young man said. “Rather, I used to be. The truth is I’ve fallen on some hard times and I am on my way to Flintsville to start a new parish.”

“Flintsville? That’s all the way down the river. I’m afraid you’ve come up the mountain the wrong way.”

“I heard there’s a shortcut through the mountains by way of a place called Malady Bluff,” the preacher said. “I pray there might be some faithful soul among your brigade that might serve as my guide. I’ve fallen on some hardships, so I have no money, but I assure you, Heaven will look favorably on the deed.”

Jack looked on bewildered as the crestfallen young man buried his face in his hands. “What you heard about that shortcut is true,” he said. “You can make the trek in just a couple days if you travel light, but it’s dead steep the whole way. The trail cuts through Blackfoot country and warbands patrol it the whole way.”

The preacher nodded, but Jack recognized the air of despair in the young man’s eyes. Only a man running for his life took such chances. He recalled with sympathy the day long ago when he himself came to the mountains searching for mercy in a cruel wilderness. The next day, Jack and Isaiah departed on foot towards Malady Bluff.

Traveling light, Jack brought only his long-rifle, his powder-horn and a handful of musket-balls. In his belt, he kept a broad knife, an iron tomahawk, and only his most prized possessions in his buckskin pouch. It was everything he needed to thrive by himself on the mountainside.

The trail was as Jack remembered. He recognized each barren ridge and wind-beaten stone, and despite his hunter’s eyes, Jack saw no game for miles on end save for the buzzards that spiraled overhead.

Isaiah hardly uttered a word as they scurried across the exposed rocky ridges back into the cover of hushed ponderosa groves, but every hundred paces or so the sound of dead pines knocking in the wind would startle him.

It wasn’t long before Jack noticed Isaiah lagging behind. “We ought to go farther before nightfall. We’re hardly ten miles from where we started!”

“I need to rest,” the preacher begged. He might as well have had lilies for feet.

Jack fumed. There was a clearing just around the bend that would make a fine campsite with fresh running water nearby. There was no purpose in wasting any more strength. After all, Malady Bluff was nearby.

“Don’t start a fire,” Jack snapped. “No one must know we’re here.”

The preacher set down a bundle of firewood, starting to strike a tinder. “I haven’t heard so much as a mourning dove coo all day. We’d’ve heard horses if there was anyone up here.”

“The Blackfoot don’t need horses to catch a tenderfoot from Fort Lewis. Besides, I don’t believe you’ve told me everything. No doubt, you give a fine sermon, but why would a minister be so desperate to reach Flintsville that he would entrust his life in the wilderness to an armed stranger?”

Jack began sharpening his tomahawk on a stone as the light of the little fire grew.

“I pray you are not calling me untrue, Mr. Sunday. I started this journey with nothing but godly intentions. I could well ask the same of you. If this trail is indeed so treacherous, why risk it for a tenderfoot, as you put it?”

Jack grumbled. The preacher was reserved, but Jack had forgotten shame after so many years with only the mountain to talk to. “I’ll tell you why,” Jack reached to cradle his long-rifle. “I could hit the head of a beaver from a thousand paces with the ol’ long-rifle here,” he said, inspecting the flintlock and barrel. “But when his time comes, no man, not even the toughest brick-headed trapper escapes death, and that’s a fact. There have been nights in these hills where the voice of my heart wouldn’t let me rest. I agreed to this damned excursion because, truth be told, I fear for my soul, and I need the help of a true man of god.”

The preacher’s expression softened. “It cheers me to see such earnest repentance. I’ll pray for you, Jack.”

“I don’t believe you are getting my meaning.” Jack reached into his buckskin pouch and produced a plain wooden mask. It was rough and featureless except for two little holes for eyes.

The trapper held the mask over his face. “I never learned reading, so my bible was never much use, but one day I met an old peddler who traded me five beaver skins for this mask. He told me ‘wear it and look at your reflection in freshwater, and whatever you see is the face of your soul itself.’” Jack became very quiet as he spoke now. “I only tried it once. I saw a face the color of blood with eyes so full of rage they looked like hot coals. Ever since then, I knew for certain that I was a damned man.”

“Only the Lord knows the fate of a man’s soul,” Isaiah said, side-eyeing the mask. “You mustn’t lose sleep over some frontier ghost story.”

“Ghosts of another kind,” Jack Sunday whispered with a hand over his heart, searching the young man’s eyes for understanding. “You see, I was once a guide for soldiers when Fort Lewis was just a scant camp. I was raised in the mountains, and I hoped to make a name for myself. But one day, the commanding officer heard a rumor that my mother was a Blackfoot and accused me of planning to lead his soldiers into an ambush. That didn’t sit right with me.”

“What did you do?” Isaiah asked. “Did you tell them the truth?”

“I was simply overtaken by hatred of this man. I waited weeks for a thunderstorm, and when my storm came, I ran into the barracks and burst into his cabin. I hesitated and he barely got a scream out before I planted my hatchet in his chest. I watched him die and then I ran for the mountains hoping the rain would wash away my tracks.” Jack’s gaze strayed into the fire as he put the mask back in his pouch. “Can there be grace for a man like me?”

“When we arrive in Flintsville, I’ll baptize you myself. That’s a promise, Mr. Sunday,” the preacher said in a hushed voice.

Jack threw dirt on the fire and stamped it out. “God bless ya, Mr. Pierce.”

~~~~

The young preacher couldn’t believe the mountain man’s tales. Only the Lord could know one’s soul. And yet, the thought of his own guilt tortured his dreams. The night was warm, and the trapper who went by the unlikely name of Jack Sunday was sleeping like a dog.

Isaiah sat up on his bedroll. His back hurt and his feet were covered in sores. He felt disgust at every part of his body, which was now stinging and itching all over. The roar wind wouldn’t let him think, let alone pray. His little sermon on the stump was pure spectacle. The truth was it had been a long time since Isaiah Pierce had spoken to the Lord, or felt His hand guide the way. He had entrusted his fate to an illiterate trapper who was no less than a fugitive murderer.

By the cold coals of the little fire from earlier, the trapper’s buckskin pouch seemed to beckon him. Isaiah couldn’t resist it. He crawled to it and searched inside for the crude wooden mask. A chill danced over his skin as he clutched it.

In moonlight, he stumbled through a grove of aspen toward the sound of running water nearby. The air became still, and each rustling of a leaf or snapping of a twig sent terror to his bones.

He finally crouched by the murmuring stream and took a few gulps of fresh water before putting on the mask. A shriek of mountain wind rocked the surrounding slopes, but Isaiah felt perfect calm all around him. The stream before him had ceased to flow and the water now resembled a quivering pool of mercury reflecting the cool hues of the night.

To his astonishment, Isaiah looked in the pool and saw his own face - the brown curls falling over his blue eyes, the red fullness of his lips. He was mesmerized by the shimmering image of himself but then the eyes began to redden, and the skin of the face began to char and peel away like burning parchment. Soon, all he could see was crimson smoke but before he could pry the mask off, he felt a blunt strike on his head and everything went black.

When he came to, Isaiah’s hands and feet were bound with rough rope. He was crumpled near the edge of a stone bluff. A disheveled cavalryman loomed over him, brandishing a saber on his shoulder while running his fingers along the two pistols tucked in his belt. “You think you’re so clever, don’t ya, Isaiah? I’m gonna make you stand trial. I’ll make sure you hang for what you done.”

The corporal held up the wooden mask, shuddering at its eerie expression, before putting it in his pocket. Isaiah wondered for a moment if he was still somehow lost in a dream. The chill of a saber on his neck was very real, “I’d leave the mask, if I were you,” he said. “It belongs to a trapper that goes by the name Jack Sunday, and as sure as the devil in Hell, he’s on his way to claim it.”

The remark earned him a sharp knuckle blow to the mouth. “Shut your trap,” the soldier said. “Just remember. I know everything that comes out of your mouth is a lie.”

A kick to the gut made Isaiah spit blood. The corporal’s eyes seemed to glow with fury, as he reached into a pocket for a rag. “Before I gag your lying mouth, I wanna know just one thing. Did you love her? Was your night of passion with my Joanna worth your life?”

“All men die,” Isaiah spat. “Men like you die for less.”

His heart was cheered by the glint of Jack Sunday’s knife signaling in the morning sunlight.

~~~~

Jack was silent as a snake in his moccasins, and swifter than the Blackfoot hunter that taught him to read soldier’s tracks as easily as a game trail. He sauntered into a meager campsite. For Jack, the faintest wisp of campfire was as good as a beacon. The prints on the ground told him this: one warhorse, one man in military riding boots, likely armed for a brawl. This was a manhunt.

Jack followed the sign down a game trail that led to the stream where he recognized Isaiah’s stumbling tracks beside hoof-prints. He followed them across the ridge and soon Jack could make out the shape of two figures standing on Malady Bluff. Though he could hardly make out their faces, he knew the unmistakable pomp of a cavalry officer’s uniform. He knelt behind a tumbled spruce, and loaded his rifle. He trained the rifle sights on the officer’s chest. He took a deep breath, closed one eye, and pulled the hammer back.

But his finger on the trigger wouldn’t budge. The searing image of his damned soul was turning in his brain. One man’s lifeblood was more than enough of a burden to have on his conscience. Jack lowered his rifle, and paying no mind to what might happen next, he walked to the bluff and announced himself. He flashed the polished blade of his hunting knife in the sun, and fired his rifle into the air.

Jack emerged from under the trees to find a cavalryman’s pistol pointed at his chest.

“You must be Jack Sunday,” the cavalryman said.

Jack dropped the knife and gently placed the rifle on the ground. He held up empty hands. “I don’t mean trouble. I don’t know what designs you got with that man you’ve gagged there, but I hope you weren’t planning on doing him no harm. See, there’s something that he owes me.”

“He mentioned that,” the soldier said, pulling the mask from his coat pocket and tossing it to Jack. “But I reckon what he took from me is greater.”

“The mask is just a trinket. He owes me a big favor, and I can’t let you take him.”

The cavalry man tugged the rope around Isaiah’s wrists, pulling him to the ground. “This man is a lying bastard,” he explained. “I got stranded on a scouting mission a hundred miles north of Fort Lewis. My men never found me, so I trekked by foot across the wilderness until finding an outpost where I could recover. I got to Fort Lewis only to find my bride-to-be expecting a preacher’s bastard child. But the spineless bastard couldn’t even face me, and skipped town before I could see his face!”

Jack could see in Isaiah’s eyes all of this was true. The soldier raised his pistol, “I don’t care what favor he owes you, Jack Sunday. I would sooner die than let this man go, and you don’t look like a killer.”

Jack’s eyes hardened. “I killed once before. I was the mountain guide at Fort Lewis in 1829. I was the half-breed who slew Captain Johnny Braxton.”

A puff of white smoke erupted between Jack and the cavalryman. Jack ducked and reached for his rifle, then bolted for the shelter of the trees. Isaiah threw himself on the ground, and began crawling away.

“There’s one thing you oughta know, Jack!” the soldier cried out, drawing another pistol, and calmly mounting his horse. “He damn sure had a nasty gash, but Captain Braxton lived!”

Those words took the wind from Jack’s lungs. He remembered the mask’s vision. If he never was a killer, why did he see his damnation through the mask’s demonic eyes? It wasn’t until then he felt the wet heat of blood gushing from a pistol wound in his side. He began loading his long-rifle, but his fingers were slick with blood.

Another pistol shot rang in the hillside. Jack dropped his rifle and ran, only to see the cavalryman charging him on horseback with his saber swinging.

In one mindless motion, Jack reached for the tomahawk in his belt which flew from his fingers and twirled forward as if weightless before taking root in the rider’s skull. The horse trotted to a halt, and the limp cavalryman collapsed. Jack stared in horror at the face at his feet – a face the color of blood with eyes so full of rage they looked like hot coals.

Jack felt a twist in his gut and fell to his knees to vomit. He could barely stand, but he crawled across the aspen grove to the cool stream, fumbling for the mask in his pouch.

The preacher found Jack flat on the ground. Isaiah’s wrists were raw from the soldier’s rope which he managed to cut with the knife Jack had left at the bluff.

“They’ll be sending men after you. You best hurry,” Jack croaked, his mouth sputtering blood.

“I won’t make it far in Blackfoot country without you, Jack,” Isaiah said, his voice pleading.

“Only the Lord knows,” Jack put his gunpowder horn in the preacher’s shaking hands. A soft breeze cooled his face and for a moment, Jack felt a familiar peace in that ancient shady grove.

The two men clasped hands, knowing they would soon part ways. “I must keep my promise to you somehow,” Isaiah said, his voice shaking.

He knelt by Jack at the edge of the stream, and with cupped hands poured clear, cold water on the trapper’s bloodied head. “Jack – you are baptized now,” he whispered. “In God’s name.”

Isaiah’s face was blank and somber as the cursed wooden mask floating away in the stream. Now in earnest, he prayed.

Words from the Author

This became my second story ever published when it was part of the Honorable Mentions in The Writer’s Playground 1-Year Anniversary Challenge. The first two of my stories to make it past my Documents folder had a key element in common. Both are Westerns with a gothic twist.

The original contest prompt of this story required one of the characters be a religious leader. It also required the use of “a wooden mask”. With such a particular character and such a mysterious item, I knew that I wanted to tell a story with the spiritual concerns of gothic fiction, but I couldn’t resist setting the story in the Old West.

I have always been drawn to the Western genre because in many frontier tales, the wilderness looms large over characters. The historical context of frontier stories also allows for such interesting explorations of identity and the tensions between civilization and nature. For this story, this distinct blend of elements was a winning combination.