Gideon's Angel by Clifford Beal

his disguise. I then saw that the hammer of his pistol was lying already down upon the wheel—spent. The trigger had been pulled some time before, loaded or not. This the buffle-head had failed to notice in his eagerness to rob me. I reached up and gripped the barrel with my right hand and stepped forward and clouted him with my left. He quick enough let go and clapped a hand to his smarting ear, much too surprised to do all else. I yanked down his mask and looked into the face of my drinking companion from the Bell and Tun.
    “Beg your pardon, Mister Eff, sir! I had no blessed idea that it were you, I swear to the Lord!”
    I held him by his jerkin and shirt, the pistol poised to pummel his brains if he tried to fight.
    “You followed me up from Plymouth,” I said, shaking him. “Then you rode ahead to take me here at the narrows!”
    “Never, sir, I swear it!” He stood and pleaded, more embarrassed than eager for escape. “I’ve been in the wood there for hours—no horse—waiting on a lone traveller who looked to have a bit of money. It was God’s will that brought us together!”
    “And for all your godly words, you’re nothing but a highwayman.” I lowered the pistol butt, disgusted, but also amazed that we had indeed crossed paths again.
    “There is no such thing as sin in the eyes of God. We are all in His image,” said Billy, somewhat meekly.
    I let go of his shirt and grasped the reins of my horse. “A neat argument, sir, and one you have told me before. But I’m sure the magistrate would be willing to dispute it on several points of the law.”
    “You’re going to turn me over?” His flat voice said he was resigned to it already.
    I looked him in the eye. He had suffered a hard few years of late and it showed upon him, from his scrofulous skin to his scrawny neck. He might be a poor recruit but I had to begin building the king’s army sometime. Besides, he had shouldered a pike once and that alone made him brethren.
    “No. I’ll not turn you over to face the assizes—or the noose. I need a companion on my travels and you’re in need of a legal vocation. What do you say, Billy Chard?”
    He blinked a few times. “Are you in earnest—or in drink, Mister Eff?
    “Just don’t you run off on me now, and I shall make it worth all our whiles. If you leg it, I promise you I shall swear out a warrant.”
    He nodded his agreement. “I give you my word, sir,” he said, the snot running down his prominent upper lip.
    “Then let’s get us to Brent town to make our supper. I’ll tell you what I need of you and you can tell me what you know about King Jesus and the end of the world.”
    The light was failing fast but I could see his brow crease. “You don’t follow those Fifth Monarchy folk? What do you want from them?”
    I shoved the hand-cannon under the satchel on the cruppers and then turned Billy around to face the road as I tugged the mare to follow us. “No, I don’t follow them but I am curious to know more. If it will set your heart at ease, I think I can say that I have more sympathy for the Ranting creed. What was it you call yourselves again? ‘My one flesh’?”
    Billy Chard looked back over his shoulder and flashed a grin at me. “Aye, that be it, Fellow Creature!”
    We were soon halfway across the old stone bridge, the sound of the river tumbling furiously below. Suddenly, as if someone had laid a cold blade on my back, I felt the urge to look behind me, back down the long road. In the grey gloom and sheep’s wool mist that floated past the highway, pooling into the ditch on either side, I saw a black creature standing at the road edge, though still some distance away. It was a big shaggy cur the size of a pony, the largest dog I had ever seen. And it stood there, unnaturally stiff, gazing at Billy and me.
    “What do you see down there upon the road?” I said.
    Billy stopped, looked back, and then looked over to me. “I see nothing but the fog settling down.”
    And