The Ill-Made Knight

"The boy thought that there was something wrong with him. All through his life -- even when he was a great man with the world at his feet -- he was to feel this gap: something at the bottom of his heart of which he was aware, and ashamed, but which he did not understand."

- The Once and Future King, T.H. White

Lance lay on the cell floor staring up at the ceiling. The night guard coughed, then spoke without looking his way. "So, I hear tell you got caught traveling with a group of them mormon pioneers." He paused, then when Lance didn't respond, he said, "Given your history, I'd have sooner believed a traveling band o' demons than a buncha mormons."

"Believe whatcha want." Lance responded with derision.

"Awww, go ta hell." The guard drawled.

"Go to hell" - well, that he would, and probably at dawn if the town lawman had his way, but that didn't mean he couldn't help a group of good people get to heaven.

The night guard shifted on his chair, then got up from his post and walked outside. There wasn't anyone else except Lance in the old town jail. It would've been easy to break out of here if he'd been traveling with anyone from his old crew. This little town was hardly the kind of place where he thought he'd buy it. Well, he'd made his decision when he walked away from that group to help the pioneers. As much as he'd grown to love the mormons, it was unlikely any of them would be back to break him out. Even if they'd want to, he was certain they didn't have the experience to pull it off. Small as this little jail was, it still took a certain kind of expertise to break a man out. That and a willingness to kill if need be.

Lance stood up and walked to the barred window. The moon was bright and the stars looked like someone had pricked holes in the sky. Maybe his mormon friends were right and there was some kind of heaven away from all of this. Maybe that starlight was just heaven streaming down from those holes.

At that thought, he snorted. I'm turning into some kind of poet, he thought, quietly laughing 'til he felt a lump rise in his throat and a tear prick at his eye. Well, if this is what poetry did to a man, then he was glad he'd had less of it than most.

"Leave that to them mormons" he said without realizing he'd spoken aloud.

He lay back down on the cold cell floor and thought about how he'd come to be here. His mother'd be saddened to see him this way. Although everyone knew him as "Lance", his given name was Lancelot, a gift from his mother. Like most gifts, though, it was something the giver had wanted more than the getter. So many times she had told him the story of the noble knight Lancelot, how he'd fought like a lion to champion King Arthur's cause, how no one could best him at arms, how he'd struggled so long to be worthy to perform a miracle. Well, she'd gotten the arms part right. There weren't many men who could draw as fast or hit their target as well as Lance. Plenty a graveyard could attest to that.

He hadn't meant to end up this way. In the beginning, he thought he'd like to be a preacher. He'd only learned to shoot a gun because it was a necessity in the little town he'd come from. A little town not too different from this one, he thought, darkly amused by the irony of coming full circle. It's probably no different here. A man is expected to know how to defend himself and his family.

Well, Lance had been the man of the family since he was seven. His father had died young in a fight over water rights. Other men had wanted to be his father, at least they'd wanted to be with his mother, but by the time they came around he'd already learned the hard truths about being a man. About how sometimes you just have to do a thing because it has to be done, no matter what doing it does to you.

He thought then of the traveling preacher, unconsciously turning his thoughts away from his first killing.

Aside from his own father, the traveling preacher was the one man he'd loved as a boy. He hadn't wanted Lance's mother - although, Lance had wished to have him for a father - not because his mother wasn't worth wanting, but because the preacher was too good to ever take advantage of a poor widow, no matter how pretty or available. What he had done, though, was to teach Lance about the Bible, not the way his mother had, by reading him all those strange and formal "thees" and "thous", but by telling him the stories in words that breathed the fire of life into those dead old pages. Even now, he could feel their stories inside him like the history of friends he'd never known.

Daniel in the lions' den, that's me right now, he thought, stirring from his reverie. The night guard had come back in and sat whittling something from a stick. He paused when Lance stirred, looking at him for a moment, then went back to whittling.

Lance stretched, then rolled onto his side and went back to his memories of the preacher. Father Cartright was his name, but to Lance he'd always just been "Father". Father had shown up in town the year after Lance's father'd been killed. Men had already begun to gather round Lance's mother like dogs around a bitch in heat. When Father first showed up, Lance had hated him as he'd hated the others. It was filthy what they were doing, no matter how pretty their words were, and he'd sworn that none of them would unseat his father.

It was the night that two men killed each other over his mother that Lance realized Father was different. Prior to the fight, both men had shown up wanting to court "Miss Lake", as they'd called his mother, in spite of the fact that she hadn't been a "miss" in a long time. Father was already there, sharing a message about the comforts of heaven. He'd just finished the story of Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, when the men had shown up arguing at the door.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, can't we behave like brothers? This poor sister has suffered enough." Father had said, attempting to play the peacemaker, but the two men had already come close to blows and wounded pride is the wound that sometimes takes blood to heal. Neither of the men had stayed to court, probably out of shame at something Father had said to them outside the closed door.

Later that night, old Mr. Fischer shot the younger suitor, Dan Laramie, in the back. A dawn hanging took care of Mr. Fischer, but had done nothing to make the other men clear out. If anything, they behaved like that old story about the snake with so many heads: where two were cut off, four more sprung up to take their place.

Ultimately, though, his mother hadn't settled on any of the suitors. When they continued to come around, she began to talk about moving back east to live with her mother.

By the time Lance was twelve, she'd made arrangements for both of them to leave in the fall. They'd already begun to take down the old homestead that September when Father showed up looking concerned. The weather was unseasonably warm that day and he'd asked if he could speak with Sister Lake outdoors.

Lance was large for his age and had already established himself among the other boys as someone not to be crossed lightly. There were even a few men in town who hadn't come off so well against him. (Although, whenever the story was retold they always claimed to have gone easy on him "since he was just a poor boy without a father to teach him right.")

Lance's temper and his habit of fighting those who angered him, regardless of their size or age, were the reason Father had come to visit that morning. As Lance listened through the door, he'd heard Father say, "Miss Lake, I'm afraid I come bearing bad news. As you know I love Lance almost as though he were my own son. Given his short fuse, I thought you ought to know that it has come to my attention that ..." Here he had paused, then Lance had heard the rustle of petticoats and the crunch of dry grass beneath heavy boots as Father and his mother had walked further away from the cabin. Although he had wanted to sneak out to where he could hear them better, he was already ashamed of himself for listening through the door. Instead, he'd busied himself packing things until his mother had come back looking tear-stained and worried.

"Lance, I want to speak with you," Father had said. They'd gone outside

...

And so on. I've outlined the rest of the story below.

His father's killer is coming back to town. Father tries warn his mother to get out of town so that Lance doesn't do anything foolish, but the man shows up early. Father attempts to intervene, but is beaten and humiliated by the man. Lance witnesses the beating and kills the man in a gun fight, then leaves town on the run. Later, after becoming pretty hardened in the life of an outlaw, Lance encounters some mormon pioneers in trouble on the plains. Reminded of Father by their mode of living and their habit of calling each other "Brother" and "Sister", he leaves his gang to help them out, but is ultimately captured by the local lawman. Flashing back to his life now, he talks with the jailer about God. At dawn, he is condemned to hang. Standing on the gallows, he sees "Brother Parker" in the crowd, a mormon man he'd grown to love during his time with the mormons. As the noose is fitted around his neck, he sees Brother Parker transformed into Father, then he swings.

I'll be working on finishing this story over the holidays, if you want to check back in. I expect it will end up around 3000 to 4000 words before I'm done. I'd be interested to know what anyone thinks of it so far.

...

So the holidays are over, but this story isn't. So much for that goal. Happy New Year to anyone who might be following along. I've gone ahead and continued the story below. I debated whether or not to leave these comments right in the middle of the story and decided, why not, this is how the story evolved, so this is how I'm going to leave it.

...

to talk away from mother. When they'd walked a ways away from the little cabin, Father had turned to Lance and looked him in the eye.

"Lance", he'd said, "I know you've tried very hard to be a man since your father was killed, and I hope that some of what I've taught you has made you want to be a good man, too."

At that, he'd paused, as though uncertain how to continue. Finally, he had said, with a catch in his throat, "Your mother is going to need your help more than ever, son. It isn't easy to leave everything you know and start all over again."

Here he had paused again, then continued, "Promise me that you'll stay here today and help her pack, Lance. Don't go into town tonight. You can say your goodbyes on the way out tomorrow morning."

Lance had agreed; although, he'd felt certain that there was something more to what Father was saying. In the morning, he'd learned that he'd been right to think so. As they'd passed through town the next morning on their way out, one of the boys from town had seen him and gone running off down the dirty street. When he came racing back a few minutes later, a ragged tail of boys from town streamed behind him, their faces burning with excitement.

"Are you going to fight him, Lancie?" one of the boys had shouted as they'd caught up with the wagon. The question had caught him like a sucker punch and he'd looked around in confusion at the circle of eager faces surrounding their wagon.

"Fight who?" he'd asked, but his mother was already on her feet slapping at the town boys with the riding crop and shouting, "Get out of here! Get out! There'll be no fighting here today. We're leaving town! We're leaving!" There was something wild in her eyes and the boys had backed out of reach as she'd slashed the air with the crop.

"What are you talking about?" he'd asked again as the boys had fallen back from the wagon. At that his mother had turned blindly and struck wildly with the riding crop, catching him across the face. "Be still!" She'd been shouting, "Just be still!" He'd seen tears glinting in her eyes.

The boys were silent now and some looked ashamed.