The fight begins in earnest.

‘Gouge him, Preacher. Gouge him!’ one man cried.

‘Get him in the balls,’ cried another.

The devil conjured. The preacher picked glasses off tables with his horsewhip. The devil withdrew in defeat. Jonathan’s hands and face were wet with sweat; the audience stamped and cheered.

‘And you might well ask, boys,’ the preacher was saying, ‘why a poor, backwoods preacher should come to a saloon on a Saturday night and fight the devil for your souls. What the fuck do I care? Well, I’ll tell you: I fight for your souls because my friend Jesus died for them. But who fought for Him when He needed help? Huh? I’ll give you the answer to that one, boys. Nobody. Fight for Him? He couldn’t even get Peter to stay awake for Him.

‘How do you think He felt on the night before His crucifixion? He knew they were going to drive nails in His hands and feet and let Him hang in the sun until He dried out like one of the scalps around Bowie Jack’s waist. How do you think He felt? He was scared shitless, boys. Like you’d be. Like me. So what does a man do when he’s scared? He goes to his friend, doesn’t he? He says, “Peter,” he says, “I don’t want to take up much of your time, but you’re my friend, and I need you. Just keep me company tonight. Sit with me a little.” Well, you gotta say for Peter that he’d fished fishes and he’d fished souls all day, and a man gets tired. So he sits himself down to wait with Jesus, and – not meaning any harm by it – he nods off.

‘But, goddamnit, Jesus was a man like you and me, boys, and He had to die like a man. But He was a God, too. And what’s going to happen to you – you, me, all of us – what’s going to happen to us if even a God’s earthly friends can’t stay awake when He needs them?’ The preacher put down his whip and extended his arms to either side, fists clenched, stretching himself out upon the cross. ‘“Sleepest thou?” Jesus said to Peter. “Couldest not thou watch one hour?”’

The preacher opened his hands. There in the middle of each palm was an open wound that dripped blood in spots down over the sheet that covered the altar.

Jonathan heaved himself onto his feet and half feeling his way, stumbled outside. The sky was overcast. There were no stars, no moon. His legs seemed too loose at the knees for a steady gait, but the inside of his head had a glacial feel to it, as cold as the wind that had frozen eyelashes together above the town of Lenssen before the break-in-two, before the change in engine sound that heralded disaster – the sound that nobody heard. He stood in the light from the saloon door for a moment, gathering balance. He’d planned to go to the edge of town. In his drunkenness the edge of town seemed the proper place, but when he reached the crossroads, he could wait no longer. He took College’s Smith & Wesson out of his pocket, cocked it, put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger.