Riding Under the Ominous Moon – Extended Epilogue

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Sly Priest was pacing the sidewalk outside of the doctor’s office. The doc and the midwife had been working with Angie for hours, but her painful cries kept leaking out from the office, each one sending a bolt of panic through Sly’s body.

The pregnancy had put him and his beloved wife through every trail. Long nights, fevers, bleedings, every scare and challenge. But they’d finally gotten to the middle of the nineth month, and the little rascal just didn’t seem willing to wait any longer. His or her mother, on the other hand, could have waited forever.

Not that she wasn’t happy about becoming pregnant. She was overjoyed. Things had gone so well after their return as a family from Eureka. Sly had stepped into the sheriff’s office with every citizen’s blessings. Orville would up with all the holdings in the Lane Keller Shipping Company, which made the family very wealthy. Her father and her husband were healthy and happy, and Angie was at last at perfect peace. She was even showing interest in political matters, social events, ways to put her considerable skills to work.

And no chore would be happier, no task more worthwhile, than raising a family. Mother and father were both anxious and ready, but the road to their moment of truth had been difficult. The taking of their blessed prize would be no easier, and the struggle would be Angie’s alone.

Otherwise, life around Sly went on to the best of his expectations. Crime was down in Redding, things were peaceable. The trail between Eureka and Redding was being widened and made safer, men hired to curtail road agents to make commerce safer and more successful. This brought greater economy to both towns and encouraged their growth with an influx of new businesses and settlers.

Former deputy Franz Holt was running Eureka as sheriff, without a trace of the former corruption at least as far as the sheriff’s office was concerned. The greed and terror which had become a part of life in Eureka was in decline thanks to his erstwhile efforts. His deputy, Daniel Gostang, formerly known as Squeak, had found his stride as well, a respected lawman who could hold his head high as was physically possible.

If only Angie’s pregnancy hadn’t resulted in such a grizzly struggle, Sly would have every reason to be singing praises in the highest. But the sound of his wife’s agony was like a knife cutting through his tissues, twisting and shredding his nerves and tendons and muscles, his entire body ready to bend and crimp and fall to the street.

His friend and father-in-law Orville put his hand on Sly’s shoulder to calm and brace him. “Take it easy, Sly.”

Take it easy, Sly silently repeated. He thought back to the time he’d told Angie the same thing, those very words, to calm her over the worry for her own father’s fate. Together, with luck and grit, they’d managed to free him. Now he offered the same words to Sly. He knew then how empty they sounded.

“Orville, that’s my wife, my child!”

“I know, Sly, I know. She’s my child, don’t forget. I … I’d lied to her, and it nearly led to my doom. But I didn’t want her to know I’d made investments in human life as I had. I had the chance to win back her trust and admiration, not to mention to see and help spoil my grandchildren.”

“Help raise them, you mean.”

Orville cracked a little smile and gave Sly a reassuring shake of the shoulder. “I’m not about to let that slip away now, am I? You think we all went through all that just to wind up losing each other now?”

Sly wanted to take heart and take heed, to embrace the elder man’s hard-won wisdom. “When you lost your wife, Angie’s mother –”

“I’m not going to lie to you, Sly. Losing Martha was the worst thing that ever happened to me. It took every bit of my remaining strength and courage to push myself up and move on. I know you have that strength too.”

“No, Orville, no, I … before I met Angie, I was just … searching, straining to hear the word of the Lord … not just to read it and know it, but to feel the living word in my heart and my soul. Looking back, I think that’s … that’s what I was looking for, all those years. Gomez and Malvoyne, good men that they were. Avenging them wasn’t my goal, not really. What I was searching for … I found that in Angie, only in Angie. Before her, nothing. After her … nothing. You understand?”

Orville cracked a bittersweet smile. “But if it happens, we’ll be there to help each other up. We’ll need that.”

Sly’s head sank a bit. “No, you’re right, of course. I’m sorry, Orville. I know I’m not alone in this. Me? To sin with me! Angela is in there tearing herself apart!”

“It’s a natural thing, my young friend; frightening, I know, but you’ve got to have faith.”

Sly knew Orville was right. But to accept the fact and act on it seemed impossible. He’d lorded over souls in crisis, he’d laid souls at peace to rest. He’d killed men and arrested others, burying some and watching others be buried after their trials. He’d rescued people like Angie, and Angie herself. He’d won and he’d lost. He’d been on every side of such things as life and death.

But he’d never been helpless. It had been his sense of helplessness which had driven him from the collar of the Lord to being the steady Left Hand of God, delivering justice too low for the Lord to be bothered with. He’d had the power over life and death, or so he’d thought. But the moments he spent pacing in front of the doc’s office in Redding reminded him just how powerless he was, how little control he truly had over life, death, love, virtually anything.

One thing Sly had always had control over was his own life. He’d always known he had the guiding hand in his fate, even while the Lord had His own designs and purposes. It had been Sly’s decision to replace the bible with the gun, to stop preaching to men and start hunting them. It had been his decision to put that life away, thanks in no small part to the good Lord’s intervention.

But there could yet be a high price to pay for those decisions, and Sly knew that the price would be his to pay. His lingering terror would be that the Lord would use that which he loved most, he beloved wife and unborn child, to drive home the terrific terror of losing the lives which mean most. Sly would cut his own wrists and throat and throw himself from the highest peak to pay that price with his own life if it would free Angie and their child. But he knew that choice was not his to make. He’d already made every choice he could, and now it was time to wait and see what price those choices would extract from him and from those he loved.

Sly knew it was up to the doc, to Angie, and to the Lord. The only resources Sly had were his father-in-law’s support, his faith in his wife’s fortitude, and his memory of the bible. It had been the conduit between his energy and the Lord’s, and its words had always brought him solace.

“Not from the bible,” Angie had once said, “from your heart.” 

Lord, Sly silently prayed, be with my wife and my child. Both have suffered greatly to remain in your service, and ever shall they continue to do so. My child will follow Your edicts and the teachings of Your only begotten Son, the Christ Jesus, and my family will honor you in every way, as I always have and always will.

You know my wife, Lord, she is the greatest blessing You have ever found me worthy of. She is my reason for smiling, for laughing, for crying, for living and for dying. I will abide Your will, Lord, but let that will be merciful and include returning my wife to me, relieving her pain, and bringing forth onto this land, a new and wondrous life. We will ever be in Your service, Lord, and I will go on serving the laws of God and of man, as I know You desire. You set me upon my final course, Lord, all things are because of you. So bestow upon my wife and child long life and good health, and for this blessing I will safe-vouch all that I have, to the last minute, the last ounce of strength, the last breath.

Your humble servant, Sylvester Flack.

Sly and Orville held their vigil outside the doctor’s office. People came by, straggling as the hours crept on, to ask after Angie’s progress and to offer their well-wishes. Sly received them with grace and gratitude and sent them on their way with what little reassurances he could offer.

The hours went on, the darkness of night succumbing to the eventual fading purple of the dawn. The night’s brief reign was over, and the sun king was returning. But Angie’s screams wore on, fading with her strength.

“I have to get in there,” Sly said, “before he kills her!”

“He’s doing everything that can be done,” Orville said, pressing his hand against Sly’s chest to prevent him moving forward. “Have the strength to stand down, Son.”

Sly knew the elder man was right. He bit back on his frustration and on his lip, very nearly through both. But he stood his ground and held his position in front of the doctor’s office even as the sun began its slow ascent over the horizon.

Wires came in, from Franz in Eureka and from other friends and well-wishers, all reassuring Sly that things would be well, all of them hanging on word of his family’s wellbeing. A young reporter had come around to check on her progress, as Redding’s Daily News was running on a story on the blessed event. But as there was nothing definitive, the story had to go to press as it was. Sly and Orville were still standing in front of the doc’s office when the morning edition came out.

Dateline: March 13, 1878, Redding, California:

Redding sheriff Sylvester Flack and his wife, Angela Honeywell Flack, await the coming of their first child, in the offices of Redding’s own Dr. Barnard Beats. By all reports, the pregnancy as been a difficult one and fraught with difficulty. But the little one’s quest for life is expected to conclude sometime after the publishing of this story.

Redding’s Sheriff Flack became famous for helping to arrest the infamous murderer Dayton Kellogg, then doing business as Dale Keller in Eureka, California. The arrests included a number of notables in the shipping industry, Eureka’s own Sheriff Paul Simpson and several of his deputies, and Redding’s former sheriff, Harland Cavanaugh, and former Redwood Saloon owner Rupert Trent, on charges of violating the Page Act. The men were found guilty at trial and sentenced to ten years each. Their fourth partner, Dayton Kellogg himself, was killed the day of the trail in Eureka in an altercation with police.

The sheriff’s wife, Angela Honeywell Flack, married the new sheriff in a widely attended ceremony upon their return from Eureka, where her father, former bounty hunter Orville Honeywell, was being tried for several murders under the guise of Dayton Kellogg. Honeywell, who was partnered with the aforementioned Trent and Cavanaugh in a shipping company operating out of Eureka, the Dale Keller Shipping Company, which went to Honeywell’s sole ownership after the incarceration and deaths of his partners. The operation is highly regarded as among the most efficient and principled in the Pacific shipping lanes.

Doctor Barnard Beats, 55, has been Redding’s leading physician and surgeon for over thirty years. Updates on the condition of mother and son will be published as soon as information is released and verified.

Two days later, the news had been announced in a follow-up story in The Daily News. Citizens came in from every corner of the city for Sly and his little family. The news spread fast and soon it was all anybody could talk about.

All were invited to attend, and they did so in the First Baptist Church of Redding. The pews were packed with the town’s finest.

Sly had to pick up the bible once more, donning the cloth of the Lord for the first time in almost ten years. His hands trembled as he held that sacred tome and faced his friends and fellow citizens. They had come to revere him, to rely upon him. Only then did he realize how much he needed them.

They were the community he’d sought for so long, the home he’d worked so hard and paid so dearly for. Without them, without his wife and child, his life would come to nothing but a string of violent interactions and wasted opportunities.

A cold silence filled the sanctuary.

“Not from the bible, from your heart.” But this time, the words came from both, one seemingly interlocked with the other. Despite a long stretch of violence and death, the peace and love of the bible was still within him, God’s love still giving him the strength he needed to triumph over any challenge.

Sly looked out over their grim faces, heads down in respect. They seemed to share the gravity of the moment, the poignancy of the even lost on nobody.

“Buried with him in baptism,” Sly read on, “wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.”

Orville stood near, looking on with his aging face. He himself had been released from the grave by the courageous spirit of his daughter, the very best part of who and what he was.

Sly went on, “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.”

Daniel and his new bride Caroline looked on, clinging to one another in the sanctity of the moment.

“Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us,” Sly went on, “which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”

Sly looked down, his future before him. He would face it, whatever the trial and whatever the challenge, as was is pledge to God. It would take everything he had and would ever have, and he remained stalwart in that commitment.

“Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of any holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.”

Angie looked on, a tear in her eye. She wore the finest dress in all of Redding, a sweet little smile cracking in the corner of her rosy lips. Her infant son wriggled in her arms, squinting up at his father without any possible understanding of the miracle that was his own healthy birth.

“Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels,” Sly advised his young son, in accordance with the rites of baptism, “intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.”

The boy cried out, his little voice filling the sanctuary, tiny hands grasping as Sly reached out over the boy’s head and formed an invisible cross.

“Do you, Michael Honeywell Flack, accept the Christ as your only savior, and renounce the ways of the devil?”

Orville answered for the infant child. “I do renounce them.”

Sly dipped his fingers into the flask of holy water and dripped it onto his own baby boy’s forehead. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I do hereby baptize you, witnessed in this holy place by this community, in the year of our Lord. Amen.”

The crowd muttered a united, respectful, “Amen.”

They all gathered outside of the church to offer and receive congratulations. Sly and Angie stood with her father and their newborn and newly baptized baby. Daniel and Caroline were among the first to congratulate them, and Sly didn’t doubt that she would be with child herself after not too long. They would gather again for another blessed occasion soon, and many more after that. The future was bright for the family Flack, for Redding and for California and for the rest of the country. The century was coming to a close and a new era was to open up real progress for the country, for the entire world. It would rise and fall on the backs of men like Sly and Orville, and of women like Angie. More and more, they would carry the burden of leadership, increments bringing them ever closer to the seat of power. It would be the century of American ascension, nobody had any doubt. And Sly considered himself blessed to have survived long enough to believe he would have a chance to see it, perhaps much of it. His children surely would, and their children would lead the way into the century thereafter.

But in those waning years of the Nineteenth century, the family Flack would oversee a new era of peace and prosperity, pillars of their community. Their children would be numerous and successful, their lives would be long and happy, and the name would ever be known by the people of Redding and far beyond.

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