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dominion.
At the upper rim of the hollow, the crowd held back as if it were an arena.
Nathan Lee couldn t slow his momentum, much less halt it. He felt propelled.
The horde was his bane, but also his main chance, witnesses to whatever was
about to unfold. There was no time to deliberate. He cast himself down the
slight decline, and it was like falling. He grabbed at every detail.
Izzy was still alive up there.
Ochs had his back to the rim. He was facing a host of warriors near the foot
of the cross, sermonizing, voice deep, a priest and his prop.
A soldier on the outer edge glanced up at Nathan Lee s approach. He had a red
cross painted up the bridge of his nose and across his forehead. He decided
the newcomer must belong or else he wouldn t be here, and returned his
attention to Ochs.
Nathan Lee went deeper. Suddenly it all seemed so effortless. His feet hardly
touched the ground. His path was decided.
The cross was a tall thing, with no ladder in sight. The executioners had
rooted the stem in a hole and shimmed it with boulders and pieces of wood.
Izzy s teeth were bared. The veins in his neck looked like something on an
Olympic powerlifter. He was straining with all his might, gaining an inch,
losing it. It was a delicate act. Every movement was agony.
His head hooked back against the wood, anything to aid his climb for air.
In mid-stride, Nathan Lee bent and reached under his pant leg. He d taped the
knife to his shin, handle down, and it came loose with one motion. He was sure
someone in the crowd would call an alarm. But not a voice lifted.
Ochs raised his long arms, blessing them, summoning the apocalypse. His back
was wide and bare, laced with whip scars, all bone and stretched leather.
Through the lucid skin, his scapula showed like wings.
Men knelt on the cold soil around the cross. Ochs was invoking Izzy s
suffering. He gave thanks for his example.
For an instant Nathan Lee felt time slip. Myth was their gravity. The past was
the present. His head spun.
Izzy s toes showed beneath an upside-down, white-and-black Texas license
plate, balling, then spreading apart with simian pain. Crucifying a man was
something of a lost art. They d had to invent a little, using sixteen-penny
nails driven through stainless steel washers and old license plates so that
his wrists and ankles wouldn t tear loose.
Ochs paused. The tall cross swayed with Izzy s fragile motions. In the
silence, the wood squeaked.
Nathan Lee quickened his step. No holding back. Now others noticed his
approach, but without concern. Each step he took made him more trustworthy.
Overhead, Izzy opened his eyes. He blinked at the sky and the dark, wheeling
birds. Then he peered down, skull pressed sideways against the wood. That was
when he caught sight of Nathan Lee. His eyes lit up.
Ochs saw the instant of hope where hope did not belong. That was his warning.
He started to turn.
Nathan Lee didn t feel his legs jump. Somehow he was suddenly just airborne.
He landed against Ochs s bony back. Ochs struggled, but for once Nathan Lee
had the advantage. He bulldogged the giant backward. Nathan Lee had never
practiced anything like this, never wielded a knife in anger. Yet it all came
together.
Ochs collapsed under his weight. He fell to his knees. That quickly, Nathan
Lee found himself facing the band of soldiers and the cross. He glanced down,
and there was Ochs s head tucked in the crook of his arm. His fingers were
locked behind the far side of that big jaw; the knife was under that throat.
He owned the man s life.
For the next few moments, they were like a forest at rest. The crowd ringing
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the rim above, the disbelieving warriors, everyone was still. You could hear
the ravens calling overhead, and Izzy s soft, panting breaths, like a climber
in very thin air. Frost piped from his teeth.
Nathan Lee cranked back. He aimed Ochs s face at the cross, and tightened his
knife hand.
Near the back, one of the soldiers tried angling to one side to flank him. I
don t need more excuses,
Nathan Lee told them. Move back. Lay down those guns. His words smoked in
the cold air, straight out of some Western.
When no one moved, Nathan Lee gave the knife a tug, not much, an inch, enough
to cut the skin. Ochs s blood ran along the blade. It was hot on his fingers.
They obeyed by fits and starts, shuffling back. More, said Nathan Lee. The
gap grew. Soon the ground was littered with rifles and cheap handguns.
They sent you, said a man. The city.
They didn t need to, said Nathan Lee. This is personal.
You came, rasped Ochs. He sounded joyful.
He wants this,Nathan Lee realized. Again he felt that dizzying vertigo, the
sense of myth. He was a twig being swept along on a big river.
You know each other? said a tall soldier.
Nathan Lee watched their eyes. They were angry eyes, deadly and calculating,
but most of them were fixed on his face, not Ochs s. That said something. His
trespass shocked them. It offended them as men of action. No doubt some felt
brute loyalty to Ochs. But the majority of their outrage seemed more prideful
than distressed.Their prophet was not beloved. Indeed, as their surprise was
wearing off, Nathan
Lee saw several trading glances, full of conspiracy. Ochs s hostage value was
dwindling by the heartbeat.
Go ahead, make your speech. Or kill him, a man called. You can t stop us.
Nathan Lee looked up at Izzy. There was very little blood. Someone had rigged
a plastic soda bottle on a pole to give him water. He was being kept alive.
Eventually his strength would give out and he would suffocate.
I came to take him down, Nathan Lee said. He made his voice loud for people
to hear. The crowd on the rim behind him rippled. Good or bad, he couldn t
tell. Maybe they cherished the torture. But just maybe it had gone sour for
them.
He s nailed up there, you idiot, one said. The notion of undoing the
execution boggled their minds. Izzy had been judged. That was final.
Look at him, a tall soldier reasoned. It s all but over.
That doesn t make it right, said Nathan Lee.
Ochs pulled at his arm. Nathan Lee dug his feet in and reeled back. Ochs s
spine bowed. His vertebrae creaked. The man quit fighting.
You ll never make it out alive, a voice called at him.
That s not the idea, said Nathan Lee.
No ladder. No hammer. This should be a trick. They were amused.
It was a towering thing. The wood alone probably weighed two hundred pounds.
He couldn t do this alone.
Help me, Nathan Lee answered simply. It slipped out of his mouth.
They gawked. The absurdity stupefied them. The assassin wanted a favor?
I can finish off your friend, the tall soldier offered to Nathan Lee. He
spoke quietly. Privately. Is that what you want? It was not unkind.
He deserves better that that, said Nathan Lee.
Don t we all? mocked a man.
Yes, said Nathan Lee. We do.
It started to snow just then. People looked up at the sky. The flakes fell in
sloppy wet clots. For a minute, that preoccupied them all. The ground was cold
as iron. The snow didn t melt. It pasted the land white.
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What about him? the tall soldier asked. He thrust his chin at Ochs.
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