The Judge

Is a Single Light Enough to Conquer the Darkest of Nights?

This story requires a little background. One of my favorite authors has always been Cormac McCarthy. He’s written a number of highly acclaimed novels including All the Pretty Horses, No Country for Old Men, The Road, and his magnum opus, Blood Meridian. Blood Meridian is considered by many to be the greatest American Novel of the twentieth century. It’s a brutal tale based on true events about the filibusters of the nineteenth century in Texas that aimed to eliminate the Indian threat to western settlements. There’s a character in that novel named the Judge who may be one of the greatest villains in all of literature. The judge speaks multiple languages, has traveled the world, knows how to do just about anything and he’s a sadistic murderer, pedophile, and all around evil man. There’s been some who think the judge is Satan, but I don’t believe that’s true. McCarthy’s novels have a nihilistic essence to them. I believe the Judge is the physical representation of the depravity of mankind and that McCarthy doesn’t believe there’s any way for man to transcend this because there’s nothing that transcends our material world. It’s a bleak, sad view of the world and humanity.

In this story, I use the Judge character from Blood Meridian and I attempt to show what would happen if the judge were to meet a strong, tough Texas woman (who I’ve modeled after my wife) who doesn’t buy into his nihilistic bullshit and she’s able to demonstrate that there’s so much more that transcends our material reality. I know I’m nowhere near the same universe as a Cormac McCarthy as a writer but I try here to use one of his characters to show an alternate world view that isn’t quite a bleak as his. So let’s see how Becky Jean Lavolier fares against the judge in this alternate reality. I will warn you in advance that there is a fare amount of violence depicted in this story. I hope you enjoy the story.

The Judge

By: Larry B. Litton Jr.

The wagon slowly makes its way across the west Texas desert in the direction of the setting sun.  The earth here is terracotta in color.  The ground is pitted and cracked with jagged rocks and small boulders strewn across the desolate landscape like a quarry from hell.  The land is devoid of moisture, or any form of life save for a few sickly, brownish shrubs that look like they would crumble to dust in the slightest breeze.  The sun is a blazing bullion of fire upon the western horizon with purpling clouds set upon its face creating a hellish grin.  The two horses pulling the wagon are thirsty, their eyes are hollow spheres, and their tongues are cracked and swollen.

  They struggle up a slight rise where the earth is gouged from an ancient river long since dry, and the horses want to stop, but the teamster urges them on by slapping their sides with a snap of the reins.   He wears a wide brimmed sombrero that is tattered and stained.  He is an older Mexican man with long silver hair tied in a ponytail that streams down his back and he has a thick, graying mustache.  A white woman sits beside him.  She is sixty years old but could pass for forty.  She is a handsome woman, with auburn hair and emerald, green eyes that are as wizened as they are beautiful, with a countenance of absolute resolve. She wears a flat brimmed hat with a flat top and a scarf around her neck.  She holds an old, weathered, King James bible in her hands.

As they top the rise they begin to see the bodies.  There are dozens of them, cast about like discarded dolls and lying in various states of macabre repose.  They are Apache Indians.  Most are men, but some are women.  Their faces are painted in the war colors of black and red.  Some of them show signs of having been gunned down while others have been pierced with sabers or knives.  The one thing they all have in common is that they are missing their scalps.

“Glanton and the Judge have been here,” the man says with a heavy Spanish accent.  “The blood is still wet.  They can’t be far.”

The teamster looks around nervously.  He makes the sign of the cross.

“We must be close to the village,” the woman says.  Her name is Rebecca Lavalier. 

The teamster doesn’t respond.  He is clearly shaken by the sight of the corpses.  They continue as the sun dips further below the horizon.  There is something ahead that casts a long shadow.  It appears to be a horse on its side with a rider lying close by.  As they near the horse, the teamster can see that it is clearly dead, it’s covered in blood and gore, but the man is still alive, his feet and arms are twitching.   The teamster can see the man is missing his ears, they have been cut off and his head is a mess of blood and ruinous flesh – his scalp has been removed.  He is a white man, perhaps eighteen or nineteen years old. The man attempts to crawl towards the wagon.  The teamster pulls back on the reins, and the wagon stops.

“I’m turning back,” the teamster says. His voice is high pitched, very nearly a whine.  Sweat pours off his brow and his breathing is quick and heavy.  “This is more than I signed up for.”

“This is exactly what you signed up for,” Rebecca says.  “I paid you to take me to San Miguel.  You will take me there.”

Dissatisfied with her answer the teamster throws his hands in the air in frustration and he shakes his head.  The fear in him shows in the way he hunches his shoulders and how tightly he grips the reins.

“Do you not see the evil these men are capable of?” he shrieks.  “Satan himself dwells among them.  What chance do you have against the Judge?”

Rebecca looks him directly into his eyes and she does not flinch.

“You will take me there as we agreed,” she says calmly, as if addressing a child.  “I will complete my business, and then you will return me to San Antonio, and you will be paid the handsome sum we discussed.”

He stares at her, but her piercing eyes do not waver in the slightest.  He begins to say something, perhaps a final protest, but he stops and nods with resignation.

“You know that’s a Glanton man, right?” the teamster asks, pointing at the man on the ground.

“He may have information we can use,” Rebecca says.  She motions for him to pull up next to the man.  The teamster stops and Rebecca hops down, looking back over her shoulder to see if the man was going to turn the wagon around and leave her.  But he stays.  He pulls a pouch of tobacco from his breast pocket and begins to roll himself a cigarette, but his hands tremble and he spills the tobacco.

Rebecca kneels next to the man who is on the ground.  In the gloaming, the fading light casts an orange glow upon his skin – it is the death glow of eternal damnation.  She can see the man is in even worse shape than she had thought.  Blood and ripped cartilage spills from the spot where his ears once were and one of the man’s eyes is missing.  It looked to have been removed by a knife or some other sharp object.  The man has fallen back on his stomach.  His breathing is slow and labored.   She turns him onto his back, and she can see his lips are swollen and cracked and the skin on his face has blackened with sunburn.  She pulls a canteen from the bag she carried on her shoulder, and she opens it, giving the man a bit of water.  He laps the flow eagerly and then begins to choke.

“Easy now,” Rebecca says.  She wipes away a mass of dried blood and dirt from his brow.  This young man looked about the same age as her own son. 

“What’s your name,” she asks.

The young man looks up at her with his one good eye and he motions for another sip of water.  She holds the canteen over his lips, and he takes another drink.  He tries to speak but his lips barely move and a guttural, breathy sound comes from his mouth.  He motions for her to lean down closer to him.

“The Judge is waiting for you,” the man says in a raspy whisper.  “Go back from where you came.”

With that, the man starts coughing and blood gurgled from his lips.  Rebecca gently wipes it away.

“He is Satan,” the man says.  “And he is insane.”

After saying the last word, the man has another coughing fit and then he suddenly stops.  The young man breathes no more.  His remaining eye stares lifelessly at the darkening sky.

The teamster watches Rebecca intently as she climbs back onto the wagon.    

“What did he say?” he asks.

“Nothing that made sense,” she says.  “Let’s get moving.”

Over the next hour they continue their journey to the west.   It is full dark and there is no moon.  They hang an oil lantern upon a post in the bed of the wagon.  It produces a sickly yellow light, and it is all they have to prevent the blackness of the night from completely enveloping them.   They crest another little rise and off in the distance they see a large fire that is burning just outside of a village.  The horses smell water and they began to quicken their pace, shaking their heads up and down in excitement and they snort.  The teamster pulls on the reins to slow them down.

“They’re here,” he says.  “Are you sure you want to keep going?”

“Yes,” Rebecca says. 

“He will kill you,” the teamster says.  “You’ve seen with your own eyes now what he’s capable of.  He doesn’t spare women and children.”

Rebecca smiles at the man.  It’s a soft, gentle smile.

“Have faith,” she says to him.  “We have a job to do.  I aim to see that it’s done right.”

They continue and after a few minutes they are on the outskirts of the village and the embers of the fire crackle and pop and launch themselves into the night like angry fireflies in search of hell.  Crude scaffolding has been erected along the sides of the fire and men can be seen tossing what looks like bodies into the flames.  Some men pull wooden carts that are loaded with more bodies and all of them are missing their scalps.  The smell is like that of burning pork and the Teamster begins to gag.  Rebecca watches in silence as the flames jump higher into the night each time a new body is thrown in.  The men who are atop the scaffolding and pulling the carts are blackened from the soot of the fire and they are dirty, rough looking men with scarecrow bodies and zombie like eyes that look like those of a shark.  Rebecca watches them as the wagon passes them slowly by and then she turns away. The Teamster mutters a prayer under his breath.

They move through the narrow streets of the village on a path of compressed caliche that is stained with blood and mangled, veiny offal from bodies that have already been removed .  Dirty, cracked adobe buildings line each side of the path, their walls littered with an uncountable number of bullet holes.  They see more bodies.  Some lie in doorways, some in the street, all of them lack scalps.  The flies swarm the air feasting upon the carrion.  A wagon is turned over, its owner dead beneath a wheel, and bags of meal have been spilled.  Half a dozen scrawny, starving chickens peck and scratch at the dusty remnants.   At the end of the street there is a small plaza with old wooden benches and a couple of long dead trees where crows roost in foul rookeries of death and their yellow eyes study the wagon and its occupants. 

Across the street on the other side of the plaza is a church built of stone and ancient timber.  A large stone cross sits atop the roof and it is cracked and pitted from rifle shot.  A man lies dead next to the cross, dressed in a chocolate-colored frock.   A vulture stands atop the cross and four more vultures sit upon the edge of the roof like gargoyles from a gothic European cathedral.  They stand an evil watch. Their feathers are as black as pitch and their eyes reflect the pale moonlight like windows into the depths of hades.  There is lamp light coming from the windows of the church and Rebecca can hear the sound of men’s voices inside.  The voices are loud and there’s laughter.  In front of the church is a trough that’s full of water and a dozen horses are tied to a hitching post. 

Rebecca hops down out of the wagon.

“Please don’t go in there,” the teamster pleads with her. 

“Stay with the horses and wagon,” she says.  “Get them some fodder and let them get some water.  I’ll be out shortly.”

“He’ll kill you,” the teamster says.

“Do you know the twenty third Psalm?” she asked.

“Of course I do,” he said.

“Do you believe it?”

He nods his head.

“Say it,” she said to him.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me.”

“If you believe it,” she said, placing her hands on his shoulders.  “Then act like it.  Actions and truth are all that matters now.  Someone must be the light in this dark place.  It might as well be us.  Understand?”

He nods reluctantly.

She turns and walks towards the stone steps that lead to the entrance of the church.  The doors are massive slabs of oak that are ten feet high.  The vultures above watch her, and they let out a devilish caw.  She pushes the door open, and it creaks, and the teamster utters a prayer for her as she steps inside.

***

The first thing she notices are twelve oil lanterns hung along the walls that produce a pale reddish light.  The pews have been removed, most likely used as part of the scaffolding around the fire that burned outside the village.  There are paintings of twelve saints that adorn the walls that run the length of the church and they have been vandalized with crude objects and even cruder anatomy painted upon their faces.  Above her head, strung along the rafters in the ceiling, are two long wires that run from the front to the back of the church.  Affixed to the wires are hundreds and hundreds of scalps, some still dripping blood upon the stone floor.  The altar and pulpit at the front of the church have been butchered by axes, the remnants thrown into a corner.  A life-sized wooden carving of Jesus hanging on a cross has been desecrated and lies on the floor near the confessional booth at the back of the church.  A long wooden table sits where the altar once did, and thirteen men sit at the table. A huge, bald man sits in the center seat.  He is a head taller than the other men.  His head is a glowing orb of lilly white skin that reflects the red lamp light like faded blood.  He has no eyebrows.  Six men sit on the right of him, six on the left.  They are dirty and grimy, and she can smell their foulness.  They are drinking whiskey and eating from a roasted pig that sits on the center of the table. She once heard stories about a beautiful painting depicting Christ’s last supper with his disciples that was painted hundreds of years ago upon a wall of a church in Italy and she had dreams for weeks envisioning that painting.  What she sees now is the opposite of that, and she shudders. This is a communion of the unholy, awash in the blood of the innocents whose lives they have stolen.

“It appears gentlemen that we have a visitor,” the Judge says.  He bows slightly and laughs.  The men seated at the table stare at her.  She can feel their eyes crawling over her, probing her, and chills run down her spine.  She wants to wrap her arms around herself and hide from their stares, but she resists the urge. She will not give them the satisfaction.

“This is the beautiful lady from San Antonio I thought might drop by,” he says, taking a large swig from a whiskey bottle.  “Mr. Jackson, would you mind checking to make sure our visitor isn’t carrying a weapon?”

A large black man sitting at the end of the table stands up and walks back towards her.  He wears a black hat that is crinkled and frayed, the brim ripped across the front.  He wears a buckskin vest and leather cartridge belts crisscross his back and front.  He smiles as he approaches and he’s missing most of his teeth and the few that remain are yellow and jagged.  He wears spurs on his boots, and they make a clinking sound on the stone floor as he walks.  Rebecca makes no movement as he stands before her.  She holds her bible in her right hand, and she reaches it towards Jackson.

“I don’t want that damned book,” he says to her.  The Judge laughs in the background.  “Turn around lady.”  She slowly turns and Jackson begins to frisk her, his hands roaming freely over her body.  She wants to scream but she makes not a sound or a move.   The men at the table are laughing and catcalling her. 

“No gun Judge,” Jackson says.  He then places his hand on Rebecca’s thigh. 

“You best remove that hand,” she says.  “Lest you want to lose it.”

The men break out in another round of laughter and the Judge chuckles.

“C’mon now Jackson,” the Judge says.  “You best be a gentleman.”

Jackson drops his hand, but he stares at Rebecca with bloodshot eyes. 

“I’ll see you when the Judge is through with you,” he whispers into her ear. “And I will get to know you – in the biblical sense of that word.”  He then walks back to his seat at the table.

The Judge motions her forward and she slowly walks across the stone floor until she’s standing before him.  The men at the table continue to devour her with their eyes – they are ravenous wolves and would no doubt pounce on her if given the tiniest sliver of an opportunity. 

“I need a word with Captain Glanton,” Rebecca says.

“The captain is indisposed,” the Judge says.  “But I will be happy to grant you an audience.”

Rebecca opens the cover of her bible and removes a folded sheet of paper that was tucked there.  She unfolds the document.

“The Mexican government has retracted their engagement with you,” she says.  “You have violated your contract.”

“Is that so?” the Judge asks with a large smile.  “And how have we violated the contract?”

“There have been numerous reports that you have gone far beyond the original scope of the agreement,” Rebecca says.  “You were contracted to remove violent tribes of Apaches from northern Mexico.  But you have gone on to attack peaceful tribes and even Mexican villages such as this one in order to increase the number of scalps you turn in for payment.  And now you have ventured into Texas and committed wholesale murder upon Mexican American settlements here.”

“So, they send a woman to tell us this?” the Judge asks. 

“I am here by the authority of the Governor of the State of Texas,” she says.  “There’s a one-thousand-dollar bounty on your head and the head of Captain Glanton.  I aim to collect that bounty.”

“Authority,” The Judge says.  “A word that implies so much but means so little.”

Rebecca doesn’t react.  She stands coolly before the Judge.

“The ‘authority’ of which you speak is no more than a tortuous screed derived from an irredeemable myth.  If I were to ask your governor from where his authority derives, he would no doubt point me to the Texas and United States Constitution.  If I were to ask the President of the United States from where his authority is derived, he will direct me to the Declaration of Independence and its proclamations that natural and moral law are the foundations of our rights.  If I were to ask a priest from where such moral law is derived, he will of course say that it emanates from the God of the bible.  The priest will point to Saint Thomas Acquinas, and he will say that God exists beyond time and space and there exists a platonic realm where moral law, good and evil, and abstracts ideas like mathematics and other ideals exist.”

The Judge stands, and now Rebecca can see just how enormous he is.  He stands nearly seven feet tall, and his chest is as thick as a barrel.  His shadow falls on her like a cloak of looming death and she involuntarily takes a step back and the Judge grins and she can see his teeth are sharp like that of a jackal and the reddish light of the oil lamps gives him the appearance of a deranged marionet that has been possessed by legion. 

“But I say to you now that moral laws exist only in the mind of man and that violence and war is the one true God.  For it is only through war and violence that a country can be created and sustained.  Those who worship at its altar and are practitioners of its creed are the most pure of heart and stand to inherit the spoils of the earth.  We reject the moral law that has been created by the weak so they might be saved from the strong.” 

Rebecca has listened intently to each word uttered by the Judge.  There’s a regal tonality to his words that is almost hypnotizing.  She steps out of his shadow and towards the table despite her fear and she forces herself to smile at the Judge.

“I have heard that you are fond of giving speeches,” Rebecca says.  “I suppose you are the high priest of this God of War that you speak of?”

“I am so much more than that,” the Judge says.  “I am his son come manifest in the flesh.  I am his ultimate practitioner.”

The room is silent save for the sound of rats scurrying along the wall at the back of the church.  Rebecca can feel the eyes of every man upon her, awaiting her response.

“I believe you are insane sir,” Rebecca says.

The twelve disciples of the Judge look towards him, waiting to see his response.  The Judge regards her, and Rebecca was certain for a moment that he was going to leap across the table and strangle her with his own hands.  But after a few moments, he begins to laugh, and the twelve men began to laugh with him.

“You are not the first to say so,” the Judge says.  He takes and deep breath.  “But hear this.  Neither you nor your state have authority here.  The very foundation justifying your claim is built upon a God no stronger than sand that shifts and falters and fails to stand the test of time.  I am the only authority in this place.”

“I disagree,” Rebecca says. “And the state of Texas disagrees.”

“Can you guys believe the balls of this woman?” the Judge asks, looking towards the men on both sides of him.  “I believe she has balls bigger than all of you.”

That got the men laughing and clapping each other on the back.  Rebecca takes another small step towards the table.

“Sometimes it takes balls to be a woman,” she says.  The men laugh again and for a split second the Judge’s eyes narrow with a furious intensity that vanishes as quickly as it came.

“Be that as it may,” the Judge says.  “These men gathered with me and those outside have derived our rights from the one true God.  Nothing we have done has occurred without my consent and as such, there is no wrong in our actions.”

Rebecca chuckles.

“You can’t justify evil acts by decree sir,” Rebecca says.

“Have you not heard me woman?” the Judge shouts.  He pauses a moment, rubbing his chin. “Perhaps I can gain your understanding with a simple demonstration.”

The Judge begins to pace as if he’s in deep thought.

“I suppose that you believe that one plus one equals two.  Furthermore, I contend that even if mankind ceased to exist at this very moment, one plus one would still equal two.  Am I correct?”

Rebecca nods her head.

“As such, the implication is that some transcendent reality exists, a platonic realm let’s say that was created by God where the laws of mathematics, morals, and other absolute truths exist.”

“I believe that very thing,” Rebecca says.

The Judge paces for a moment while he continues to rub his chin.

“Jackson,” the Judge says.  “Stand up.”

From the end of the table Jackson rises to his feet.

“What is one plus one?” the Judge asks him.

“Why it’s two of course,” Jackson says.

In the time it takes one to blink an eye, the Judge draws a Colt revolver from the holster on his hip and he fires a shot that strikes Jackson directly between the eyes.  Jackson’s face goes blank, and he teeters on his feet for a second, then he falls face first into the table in front of him.  The men around him push themselves away from the table where blood begins to pool into the pork.

“I now decree that one plus one equals zero,” the Judge says.

The Judge then proceeds to ask each of the men in the room what one plus one equals, and each of them eagerly says zero.  He turns to Rebecca.

“You see,” the Judge says.  “I have declared that one plus one now equals zero.  We have replaced whatever transcendent law you posited that existed with a new law.”

Rebecca begins to laugh.  She laughs so hard that she doubles over and the men at the table, still in shock over seeing Jackson get his brains blown out, watch her and they instinctively back away from the table, sensing something big is about to happen.  The crows in the tree outside the church and the vultures on the roof begin to screech and caw.  The Judge’s face flushes red and he balls his fists and then he steps so that he looms over Rebecca .

“You find something funny?” he screams. 

“I do,” Rebecca says.  “I find it hilarious that you’ve somehow managed to get men to believe this mindless bullshit that you preach.  They must be even more stupid that you are.”

The Judge slaps Rebecca, sending her sprawling to the floor.  The bible never left her hand.  It takes a her a moment but she stands.  Her right cheek glows a bright red.  She brushes the hair out of her face with her free hand.

“This book carries the seeds of your salvation as well as your destruction,” Rebecca says. 

“There’s nothing in that book that can help me or harm me,” the Judge shouts.

She slowly opens the bible and there inside, the pages have been cut in a form so that a revolver fits inside.  She pulls out the gun and aims it at the judge’s head and she fires one round, then another, striking him in the head.  He falls dead to the ground.

The men behind the judge fall silent.  She turns to look at them and they stare at her with mouths agape, unable to comprehend what they had just witnessed.  Their messiah lies dead before them, killed by a woman with a bible.  They shrink before her.

“I fired one shot, then another,” she says.  “Despite the ravings of this man, it was two shot’s that killed him.  If it was zero, the Judge would still be alive. It appears as if the Judge was full of shit.

The men at the table sit in stunned silence.

“Now if you don’t mind, I need your help loading the judge into my wagon.

***

Later that night, the Wagon heads back towards east with the Judge’s lifeless body lying in the bed.  The horses have been rested and fed.  The teamster smiles, happy to be heading home.  The darkness is as black as coal, but the little lamp affixed to the wagon provides just enough light to cut through the night.  One lone, puny little light against an all-encompassing night that is full of terrors both real and imagined but it’s enough to get them home. The Teamster looks over to Rebecca who lies next to him sleeping peacefully.  And for now, at least, all seems right with the world again.