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Even in the chapel's hallowed walls the afternoon heat stood thick and heavy and in the pews sat the people like flies stuck in a jar of rotten honey. Old ladies fanned the stale air back and forth with their hymnals and the men had taken off their wide brimmed hats as the sweat pearled on their foreheads.
Among them sat the boy, Misha, twiddling his thumbs, too young to make much of the holy scriptures that Father Sunday was reading from.
The priest was calling out to a man Misha couldn't see, but he knew he must be one of the men that came to dig for gold in the mines a few weeks prior. Most of the things said in the sermon Misha didn't understand, but the priests had picked him up from the streets and they offered shelter and three square meals a day, so he bore with the homilies and hymns and let Sunday train him as an altar boy.
Father Sunday always spoke with weighty reverence, the tales he told sounded cautionary and prophetic.
The boy swallowed a yawn, and when he exhaled the large wooden door to the chapel creaked open. In the doorway stood a tall man in a wide brimmed hat.
He stood smoking even in this house of God and with the glaring afternoon sun behind him Misha could only make out his face from the flicker of his lighter against the bud.
The clicking of the flint wheel and the sizzling of a flame where the only sound in the chapel. The priest had stopped his sermon and squinted at the visitor.
The door behind him slowly fell shut from the heavy weight against the old hinges. The stranger made his way across the aisle and drew behind himself the faint smell of smoke and candy.
"Ladies, gentlemen, young'uns… Before you stands an imposter," he declared, "the man who calls himself Father Sunday is a fraud. He holds no authority that any church has recognized, and he knows not to read and to preach the word of the Lord."
Misha looked over at the priest. He looked at the man before him the way he looked when he told Misha about sin.
"How dare you, how dare you interrupt the sermon and smoke in a place blessed by the Lord?" Sunday hissed.
The stranger took a big long drag from his cigar and blew the smoke towards the altar. On his lapel Misha saw a Sheriff's badge.
"These holy halls have been tainted by much worse than a lil bit of smoke if you ask me," he went on, "The man who stands before you is a wanted criminal few towns over, he's used his front as a priest to steal and deceive, he has committed adultery, murder and many more crimes."
"Lies," cried Father Sunday, "Lies! The devil has entered our church, be not deceived by his lies!"
A woman in the crowd clutched at her chest in shock, everyone was staring at the altar, reprehensible and disgusted at the man on whose words they had clung so devotedly before.
Misha watched as Father Wood approached from the sacristy door like a murder of crows and snapped forward to put Father Sunday into a headlock.
Though Father Sunday had only been sent to do service in the small chapel few months ago and many of the attendees seemed to forget the weight of their sins as soon as Sunday stopped reminding them he saw the good in all the lambs of God.
There wasn't a soul in the world unworthy of saving, that he had been sure of. However not even the worst among these sinners were so brazen as to interrupt his sermon, to smoke in the chapel, to accuse him of such blatant lies! Sunday knew in his heart only the devil could be testing him in such ways, he felt the presence of the unholy in his halls and saw it as his duty to stand up to face it.
"Lies!" he cried and choked on his next words when a familiar arm in a black sleeve pulled around his neck.
He felt a dull jab of cold metal against his temple, heard the clicking of a revolver being loaded.
Father Wood held a gun to his head.
He couldn't even comprehend what would drive a man so much wiser and holier than him to raise their hand against him in unjust ways.
Sunday knew him to be strict, strict enough to send his adopted son to the monastery until he became a priest himself, and strict enough to remind him of his virtues and duties through corporal punishment and prayer if necessary but a gun to his head, he was sure could only be that wicked stranger's doing.
"You've heard it right, children of God! The man before you is a criminal," Father Wood sang.
His adopted son sank in his hold as if there was any retreat to be found in his accusations. "He's betrayed even me who has taken him in out of the goodness of my heart. But fear not! The Lord moves in mysterious ways but he brings the unjust before him to punish their sins!"
Father Sunday couldn't speak, he couldn't fathom his fate.
He spent what he deemed his last thoughts in silent prayer, as he felt the finger of the man who took him in twitch and-
Bang.
Everything after that was a feverdream.
The people in the pews were screaming, storming the altar while Father Sunday's feet moved so much faster than his mind. They carried him far, through the sacristy and through a small door to the outside, carried him over fields and patches of prairie, over fences and through the undergrowth until the pounding of his own heart had become louder than the ringing in his ears, louder than the screams of the townspeople that must've been after him.
His lungs burned. He collapsed in an old barn.
Gallagher was an excellent gunslinger.
The one shot he fired from his revolver didn't miss.
The priest's body sank down and a pool of blood formed over the altar as the townspeople rose from the pews, and so did young Misha, dragged by the masses and his own curiosity.
"Bring the man to justice", Gallagher said, too quiet for the pharisaic lynchmob to hear. Loud enough for Misha. He shoved the gun back into the holster underneath the sheriff's badge on his jacket.
It wasn't the first time he'd seen someone die. Not the first time he'd lost his caretakers. The roof over his head. Life went on without regard, too fast and too violent for a child so young to process.
Misha followed Gallagher outside rather than watching the mob vandalize the church and run after the escaped second priest.
They entered a saloon, sat down at the bar.
Gallagher held two fingers up.
The barkeep understood and slid two glasses across the polished wood. When he tried to pay for the drink the man behind the counter shook his head.
"It's on the house," he insisted, "it isn't everyday I get to pour drinks for a man who helps upkeep justice and order."
They drank in silence. Misha didn't ask what was in the glass. It tasted a little bitter.
After a while some of the churchgoers joined them in the saloon. They were out of breath from chasing and destroying what they once deemed holy and just. Linenshirts clung to sweaty bodies, some of them sprinkled with mud, some of them smearing blood from the dead priest on their dirty boots into the saloon.
"Esteemed Sheriff, how did you know the priests were accomplices? I would have never thought Father Wood and Father Oak were such vicious criminals."
"I didn't. I've never met Father Oak before. Barely even heard of him."
Misha ran his thumbs over the glass in his hands.
"Is that why you let him escape? He's not gonna make it out there. There's no way he wasn't in cahoots with-"
"The Lord works in mysterious ways, isn't that what they say?"
After Gallagher finished his drink he got up, Misha still followed him.
"Is it hard to become a sheriff?" the boy asked, squinted at the glaring sunlight when they left the saloon.
"No idea, lad. I'm a bounty hunter. Did you live in the church? I heard the priests had taken someone in recently."
Misha nodded.
Gallagher unfastened his horse's bridles from the saloon's deck. Misha was small enough to fit into the saddle beside him. He held on tight as the bounty hunter spurred the horse on, soon gallopping away.
The setting sun had painted all the clouds in a deep crimson shade when Sunday came to again.
He threw up twice, the image of his parent threatening him, bleeding out underneath him then, it haunted him. His ears still rang from the gunshot.
Father Wood was dead, there was no mistaking that, and that scoundrel who took his life- and Misha?
Good Lord.
Outside the barn he heard the thundering of hooves.
Had the townspeople come after him after all? Had he not run far enough? He'd commited no sin he was aware of and yet—
He'd seen the bloodlust in their eyes. There wouldn't be an oppurtunity to defend himself. Escape was equally impossible. He must've sprained his ankle on his way through the prairie. His foot stung with a dull pain when he tried to stumble forward.
Sunday looked around and decided to hide in a carriage that had been shoved into the empty building, maybe to protect it from the elements.
The hooves came to a halt somewhere close. Two people landed on the ground.
Father Oak crouched down. The carriage must've been used recently and frequently. Not only was it stocked with rations and water, there were boxes of ammunition, a few personal belongings and—
"Anyways you can stick with me for now but I'm sure as hell no caretaker! Next town we find a decent orphanage I'll drop you off. Sorry… what was it, Misha?"
When Gallagher opened the curtain to his carriage he'd already had a hand on his revolver. He'd hesitated to shoot. Gut instinct.
He snorted out a little chuckle when before him sat the escaped priest, cross in his hands held up against the bounty hunter.
"You have no claim to my soul, devil! As long as I trust in the Lord— hey!"
Gallagher snapped a finger against the other man's forehead.
"Yeah, yeah, okay how about you quit preachin'? I'm not interested in whatever the Lord has to offer. Here, how about you take your ward and try telling him instead?"
He hoisted Misha into the carriage.
"I'm sure as hell no devil, your colleague however… I wouldn't be so sure"
Heavens above be thanked the boy was safe. Sunday pulled him into his arms to shield him from the vile man, the murderer.
"And here I was thinking I could just drop the kid off next town over, seems this old hound has found himself a pack of refugees to howl at the moon with… so much for peace and quiet. I hope one of you is good at cooking at least, I don't do charity work," the bounty hunter sighed to himself as he rummaged through his pockets, "Ah, there you go. Real nutcase your Father Wood. True scum of the Earth if you ask me. Even tried to pin his crimes on his own son... Really makes ya think..."
In his hands he held a wanted poster with the dead priest's likeness in black ink and the recount of his sins beneath. One couldn't overlook the hefty bounty on his head either.
"This… can't be. Father Wood would never-" Sunday gasped.
Misha looked down. He couldn't read particularly well. What words he could make out made him feel tense, anxious.
"Maybe you should try telling that the Lady at the orphanage he used to do service at. Other the innkeeper he still owes, sorry. Owed. Or perhaps we should go back to your chapel and check his documents, though I wouldn't recommend you to go back there, might cost you that pretty head of yours."
The man scratched his head and left Sunday with the wanted poster so he could hitch up the horse to his cart.
"The name is Gallagher by the way. Since I know who both of you are…"
After learning about his adoptive father's crimes Sunday hadn't lost faith. He still woke up in the middle of the night from time to time, woke with shock from nightmares where the man he'd trusted held a gun to his head again. Where his father smiled at him and told him about the Lord's unending forgiveness. Nightmares after which sometimes he would huddle his sleeping back closer to Misha's to keep him safe from the horrors of this world.
The bounty hunter Gallagher was an irritating and slovenly man, but Sunday had nowhere else left to go. While he couldn't take up his work at a church again after all that had happened, he refused to don his identity as a priest.
Perhaps meeting that man had been a test from God all along, perhaps Sunday had been sent his way for a reason. He liked to tell himself that when he prayed even for the souls that Gallagher told him where beyond saving.
It wasn't particularly pious to live with a man that made a living from killing others, even if they'd earned their place in hell. But if it was his mission to better the man then Sunday thought he had a reason to stay by his side.
In the cold of the night they had huddled up infront of the campfire. A thin column of smoke rose into the starry night above them.
Misha had long since nodded off against the priest's shoulder and Sunday, too, had allowed himself the comfort of community - leaning against Gallagher's shoulder in a similar manner.
"Still so insistent on saving my soul, birdie? I told you time and time again I don't think that's as helpful as you deem it to be," Gallagher chuckled. He rubbed his hands before the flame.
Sunday looked up at the stars. He didn't remember when he had grown so familiar with him, and he didn't care anymore.
"I think every soul deserves a chance at forgiveness. Don't you think it is reassuring that no matter how badly you slip up you can still be forgiven?" Sunday asked.
He thought of himself. Of the way he didn't see the things Father Wood was doing behind his back; thought of the things he could have done to his ward, and was maybe already planning to do.
"Do you think Father Wood should have been forgiven, too? Or the man I shot yesterday, the one who killed his wife?" Gallagher questioned him instead of giving a direct answer, "Just being forgiven… pff I'd lose my job if it were that easy…"
Sunday glared daggers at the man.
"Would a world without bounty hunters be so bad?" he growled "a world where everyone knows they can try and redeem themselves? Why would you try to get better if redemption is impossible?"
Gallagher clicked his tongue. He'd grown too fond of their little discussions.
"It's not redemption I don't believe in, it's this bogus about forgiveness and God's love. You say the devil tempts with sin, and then even if you give in to that, the Lord will forgive you everything."
He lit himself a cigarette and blew the smoke into the cold fresh air.
"Being forgiven everything just tempts you to sin again. Regretting your mistakes and learning from them however… That can truly change a man. Knowing that something you've done wasn't right will always spur you on to grow. So tell me again, how is the devil, who offers you to learn from the past worse than a god, who will let you commit any crime and forgive you if you ask him for it?"
Sunday was quiet for a moment, chuckled with him then.
He closed his eyes, allowed himself the comfort of his warmth, his company.
"I swore on my soul to see the good in everyone, and yet it's you, who sees the good in the devil himself. Truly a devil's advocate. Maybe that's why we're destined to travel together. Opposing forces that balance each other out."
Gallagher, too, closed his eyes.
"Pfff… enough sermons for today. Let's sleep."