The Night Walk Men Read Online Free PDF Page A

Gabriela is set to do something very important, very
altering, very crucial.
    And I can tell you
this.
    A Night Walk Man is not a
Godly sort. There are some startling contrivances which attend to
the Work that He does, but He is not holy and not divine. We are
not seers. We get no fraction-grasps, no smoldering hunks of Yet To
Come. There are broad strokes, mind you, large trends that are interpreted
and ordered upon, but, just like it is in your world, those
decisions happen farther up the chain than you or me or even
Obsidion. All of us, we can only wait for the Orders to come down.
And for the most part, we can only sit tight and wait to see how it
all plays out.
    What I do know (and what
Obo the Hobo knew) is that there are certain souls, whether by
right or by might, that have to move in certain directions. Franz
and Sophie, the archduke and his wife, they had to be on that step
in 1914. And Pasteur’s mother and father, they had to fall for each other. Just had
to. The whole house of cards would have crashed down otherwise. And
these kinds of little things, these impossibly small details, they
click into place every night, every day. Even when it’s
raining.
    And, surely you must know
by now that, just like that, lickity-split, our Gabriela had to
come out of that train tunnel well with breath in her lungs. Had to .
     
     
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    Fate? A silly notion. Fate
is a man hurrying to get a can of pizza sauce from the grocery
store at rush hour. Fate is his car wreck as he dodges a bicycle
rider on the way instead of slowing down to a stop. Fate is his
head touching the windshield at 45 mph because the few seconds to
fasten his seatbelt would have made him miss the green
light.
    I told you that mistakes
are made. Even up here. Even in the heavenly world of Cruithne.
What you don’t know is quite how the mistakes played out for
Obsidion and Montserrat.
    So I will tell you this. I
will tell you and then you must promise to go because I will have
nothing more for you then. Nothing at all.
     
     
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    Obsidion walks through a
torrent of white birds. Not doves. But sea gulls, crying as they
ascend.
    On the plain, he marches
through waves of grasshoppers, among the honey-coloured staffs that
flow with a gentle breeze and His presence.
    He stands now in a wheat
field in the middle of what you call the bald prairie, just an
elongated breadbasket that, at harvest time this year and most
every other, will offer up your survival.
    It is the morning after
our Gabriela has fallen, the morning after she is brought out of
the dark train pit. Obsidion waits.
    And then Montserrat is
there. The rains don’t come--not yet. But thunder and lightning
tear the sky apart, light it up like the flashbulb behind an angry
sun. Inside a dome of quiet, however, where Obsidion and Montserrat
stand silent, there is stillness. It’s the complete calm you’ve
only ever imagined but have never found yourself. It’s like death.
But the most peaceful sort.
    They stare each other
down. They do not speak for a long time.
    Montserrat’s robe stands
still down to his feet in the dirt.
    Then Montserrat
says, Welcome Brother. I am sad that it
comes now to this.
    I’m sad
too , says Obsidion. But do what you must.
    I charged
you , Montserrat says, charged my Next In Line with taking Gabriela because she is
destined to do momentous things. Momentous things that cannot come
to pass.
    And where do you come by
this knowledge , Obsidion asks.
    We are all Next In Line to
someone , Montserrat answers. You to me. And me to another...further up the
chain, he says. For you, Obsidion, that knowledge should be enough.
It’s always someone else’s decision to make. Perhaps even mine. But
not yours.
    Obsidion cries. Momentous things? You stand here and claim that
she will do momentous things? Her
momentous things are to be battled for, not sacrificed, not
destroyed... They must pass and I know this. So why was it her? Why ? You
made me return her