Work Text:
Josiah's Way
by Pirate Turner
Josiah's learned to take everything in life with a grain of salt. He doesn't believe in anything any more except that there's some omnipotent force watching over him and laughing at his futile, human efforts to etch out a miserable existence. He used to believe that that force was a caring, loving God, but that was way back when he was a little boy. It was before he saw what his father, a supposed man of God, would become when turning too deeply into his bottles. It was before he felt the sting of his hands upon him and before he watched, helplessly, as his sister was all but destroyed. Her innocence and faith were taken from her, and when he lost Hannah, Josiah finished losing his own faith in there being any one up there in the great skies who loved him.
He soon came to realize that nobody gave a damn about them. He couldn't get help for Hannah or for himself. No matter where he preached or how good he was to the people, they always turned against him when he asked for help. Eventually, Josiah laid down the Bible and picked up a gun, but although he was freed from his father, he still couldn't free Hannah.
Time moved on, and with it, he had no choice but to also move. He became older, wiser, and more hardened. He realized there was nothing he could do to truly help Hannah and had to let it alone. He tried to escape their fates. He really did, but neither at the end of a gun's barrel nor at the bottom of countless whiskey bottles could he find an escape that would last for long. After every fight, and every time he became sober, Josiah found himself again and was reminded harshly of both what a failure he had become and how messed up his family was.
He traveled the world. He sinned, and he saved both lives and souls. Before long, there wasn't any sin with which he did not possess a familiarity. He saw things that most people didn't believe existed, leading him to believe in the impossible, but again and again, he found horrors throughout the world and more reasons not to believe in a God who cared. He saw innocents suffer. He saw animals be slaughtered for the "prize" of their dead body parts. He witnessed women being raped and children being slaughtered, and all the while, he was reminded of his Hannah.
He saw a few miracles; he even worked a couple, saving lives and stopping villains whom nobody else thought could be defeated or saved. He brushed up against death and walked away the victor, even when he tried hard not to. But in every woman, he saw either his mother or Hannah. In every girl child, he saw his sister, and in every boy, he saw another lad who would grow up being kicked around by the world until they became as cynical and doubtful as he.
Yet, still, there was a voice who would speak to him from time to time when Josiah was lost in the whiskey and wine. He thought himself crazy when he sobered up, but somewhere along the way, he began to search for that voice. He began to seek for it to tell him what to do with his life and how he could right the wrongs he encountered. He did a lot of soul saving and played the hero many times, but still, his own soul remained dark and full of doubt.
He couldn't believe in a God who would let children suffer. He couldn't understand why any caring, omnipotent power would let innocent people endure tortures or die from hunger and thirst. He couldn't comprehend a love that would allow for spouses or parents to beat those cherished lives placed into their protection. He couldn't understand how a man who claimed to walk with God could beat his wife and children and still be called a man of God.
The Preacher was smarter than most people he met and almost all who he knew. Yet, he still had questions that plagued him every moment of every day. He still sought the answers in the wrong places, often turning to the wrong spirits, as he liked to call them, sometimes to avoid the right spirits and sometimes simply because the burdens he carried were just too much for him to bear. He had so many close calls with death that even he lost track of the number, but still, his life remained the same. Still, he couldn't rescue Hannah, couldn't restore her sanity, and couldn't save himself.
Somewhere in his journeys, Josiah found himself out in the desert in a place no sane man would dare call home. He didn't have a home -- he hadn't since he'd seen his father lay his hands on his sister --, but he did settle there for a while. He stayed there while trying to find a sign, any sign that would solve his life's burdens.
He thought that out here, at least, he could be alone, away from all other humans and their treacherous ways. Perhaps in the quiet, he could hear God's voice while he still had some hold on what little sanity he had left and maybe finally reach an understanding. Even here, however, he was not to be alone for long.
A man came, a black doctor who claimed not to be a doctor, a man who saved lives while saying he wasn't a savior. Josiah tried to ignore him, but the man kept coming. Then, one morning, he awoke to a different sign. He awoke to death birds circling over his head and calling his name. It wasn't very long after that that the man, whose name he'd learned, without wanting to, was Nathan, came again and offered him an impossible mission.
Josiah had wanted to die for years, so he took Nathan up on the task of protecting an Indian village with just a few men and a little ammunition against an entire army. It was a mission from which none of them expected to walk away from alive, but as he told Nathan, that day was as good as any other to die. He'd sought death, but he'd never wanted to die a coward's death. He didn't want the world to know that he was a coward who couldn't save his own sister, no matter how little they cared. He wanted to die fighting for a good cause, one that would perhaps stand a chance of weighing more heavily on the scales of Justice than allowing his father to destroy his sister would.
Only, somehow, he managed not to die again. The men around him wouldn't let him die. Nathan, especially, was there beside him throughout the journey, lifting him up and caring for him when Josiah had thought no one else would. He saved his life, and at last, Josiah had a different thought. Maybe the birds weren't the sign he'd been looking for all along. The Good Book said God fed Elijah with crows, so they weren't always harbingers of death.
Perhaps the sign, instead, had been Nathan all along and the men to whom he would eventually bring him. Maybe this was what he'd been searching for his entire life. Maybe with this gang of men, almost all of whom had as questionable pasts as his own, Josiah would finally get his second chance. Maybe now, he'd find a family who loved him as well as his balance. Maybe now he could find some form of peace as well as perhaps still help his sister. Maybe this was where his life had been leading all along.
Josiah didn't know for certain, but he did know two things. He finally had something more to believe in greater than a grain of salt. These men upheld their word, had earned his trust, and saved his life. He could believe in them. He also learned that God is watching, and whereas He might not always give us the help we think we need, He does care, is mysterious in His ways, and has a wicked sense of humor as He watches us pick ourselves up again and again until we finally get it right. Josiah smiled as he showed Nathan that he had regained his balance and secretly hoped that, this time, he would have it right.
The End