By Layne and Jo

(Layne writing Ben, Jo writing Maximus)

PART 2:

Ben thought about the words the man called Maximus had just spoken.  'There are times when pleasing is not possible at all'.  They brought back strong and painful memories of his parents-both of them. 

His daddy had been a drunk.  A drunk gravedigger, Byron McElroy had called him, but he was only partially right.  He'd dug graves sometimes, hired out to farmers sometimes, done whatever he could to make money.  Not to support his family, but to support his liquor habit.  Neither little Ben or his mother had ever seen a penny from him.

Damn, but he didn't like even thinking about that man!  "In my experience," he answered Maximus slowly, "pleasin's never possible."

Maximus looked over at him. "Each experience of life is different and what comes to us comes because we are fitted to bear it."  Marcus had told him that and he had thought of it often in the last months.

"Bullshit."  Ben spoke the single word quietly, and with conviction.

Maximus closed his eyes. The man was a barbarian, had obviously never been schooled in stoic philosophy. He did not wish, not now, to argue such matters with an undeveloped mind.

Ben's mind was still back in his childhood, such as it had been.  "You tryin' to tell me an eight-year-old kid comes to be alone 'cause he can bear it?"

Sighing, Maximus opened his eyes. "Did you bear it?"

Looking quickly over at him, Ben asked, "Who said anything about me?  I said an eight-year-old kid.  Never said nothin' 'bout me."

He hadn't had to. Maximus simply asked a second time, "Did you bear it?"

"No," Ben said shortly.  "I didn't."

"You are here," Maximus replied, "and you have not lost your mind or your body. Have you lost your soul?"

"My soul."  Ben chuckled, crossing his arms over his eyes as he lay back. "Have I lost my

soul?"  He was still chuckling.

"You ask any guard here, or the warden.  Any sheriff or marshal out there.  Anybody I've robbed...  They'll tell you I've lost my soul, all right.  That, or I never had one."

"Every man has one." Maximus' voice was very low. "And it is our choice alone whether we

lose or keep it."

Ben answered him in a weary tone.  "That ain't true, Maximus.  It just ain't true.  Sometimes it just gets took away from us."  He swallowed slowly before going on.  "Sometimes, it just gets took away from us 'fore we're old enough to stop it."

"There is a truth to that ben Wade. A small boy is not so accountable as a man. Sometimes a life may be taken before even gaining the age of eight. Sometimes...," he cleared his throat, trying to get the image of his son's hanging and burned body out of his mind, "...but as men, then it becomes our choice."

"You tryin' to tell me-" Ben was saying dismissingly.  "-that you can get back your soul after

it's done been took?" 

"Until the moment of your body's death, yes, it is still a decision. I know. Mine was taken from me not very long ago. I was as a dead man in a living body...after.  I thought...I thought that was the end...a body with no soul."

"Yeah?"  Ben was interested, in spite of himself.  "Who done took your soul, Maximus?  And how'd they go about it?"

"Someone asked me to do something for them...to be something...and this man's son did not like the idea of it. He attempted to execute me and sent men to kill my wife, my son, burn my home and crops, kill my workers. I tried," he locked his jaw grimly for a moment, "I tried to get home first but...but I was wounded and it was a long way, a very long way. I arrived just after the men had left and found my family dead, crucified, burned, in the ruins of my home." He looked into Ben's eyes, his own still hard with grief at the memory. "I buried them but was too ill from infection to do more."  He looked then at the ceiling. "Then I was sold into slavery. That is how it was taken from me."

Ben studied the man's eyes carefully.  Saw the pain and strength there.  "That's what happens when you get yourself to lovin' somebody.  When you let 'em mean too much to you."

He turned his eyes from the other man.  "Ain't nobody took your soul, Maximus.  You done give it away.  You give it to your woman an' your son, 'an when they died..."  He trailed off there. 

Ben's ability to give had been lost in childhood.  He'd seen too many men like this Maximus.  Men who gave their hearts and their souls to someone or something--the land or a woman--then spent their lives trying to please that person or thing.  Nothing left to give to themselves.

"Mos' people are slaves to somethin'.  If it ain't to another man, it's to their land, their fam'ly, or somethin' else.  Near on twenty years ago now, this country done fought a war over it."  He chuckled mirthlessly.

"Thought they was freein' the slaves, but they didn't."  Ben thought about the few black men he'd met out here.  "Most of 'em still can't do what they want, go where they please."

Maximus looked at him, puzzled. "A war over slavery? I fought in no such war and I have fought steadily for those years of which you speak."

"Then you must not've been in this country, Maximus.  Where was you?"

"I have not gone out of the Empire, not in my whole life."

Ben was growing impatient with this man's delusions.  "This is 1881, Maximus.  Your damned Empire ain't been aroun' for a few hunnerd years."

Maximus sighed. "As a barbarian, you have no idea what year it may be, not in any meaningful way. And I assure you, the Empire still rules the known world."

With a tired sigh of his own, Ben answered, "I might be what you call a 'barbarian', but I know how to read a calendar an' a newspaper.  It's 1881, all right."

"Eighteen hundred and eighty one...what? Moons? Seasons?"

"Years," he answered quietly, watching for the response.  Man could be dangerous if he was this crazy.

"Years? Years since what?"

"Since-"  Ben paused, not knowing quite how to explain it.  "As the preachers put it, 'Since Christ was born'.  1881 in the Year of our Lord."  Why the hell was he tryin' to explain all this to a crazy man anyway? 

"The Galilean? Why would they count years from him?"

" 'Fraid I ain't the one can tell you that," Ben answered.  "All I know's that's how it's done.  They got somebody here calls hisself the prison chaplain.  Maybe you oughta ask him."

"You look like a fighting man for a barbarian, even without the furs and skins. Have you trained as a gladiator since you were taken captive?"  Maximus was tired of all the talk concerning time.

Ben gave another sarcastic chuckle.  "Oh, I'm gladiator all right.  Started trainin' early in life, when I was 'bout eight."

"An' just so's you know, I'm gettin' tired of you callin' me a barbarian.  I'm a real civilized man, Maximus.  Real civilized."  He gave the other man a chilling smile that did not reach his eyes.

Maximus was not the least disturbed by it. He'd spent his life looking in the eyes of men who were actively trying to slice him open.  "Civilization is more likely than not in the mind of the person in question.  I suppose even among the barbarians they themselves may consider their culture civilized. " He looked at ben Wade, who though he was some years older than himself, still carried an air of strength. "If you began training at so young an age, you must be very

good. Do you prefer the net and trident or the sword and shield?"

"Neither," Ben said shortly.  "Neither one of 'em beats the Colt .45."

"Is that some sort of weapon? I have never heard of it."

"Best weapon out there," Ben said.  "And the fastest."  Grinning, he went on,  "Drop a man dead 'fore you got time to raise a sword."

Maximus had no idea what ben Wade was talking about, had had no idea since the barbarian first opened his mouth. He was very weak from lack of food, his lips had cracked, his tongue

kept sticking to the roof of his mouth. Talking was an effort. Was this what Commodus intended now, just to leave him in some pit to die from lack of water and food? That was more than possible. Perhaps the Emperor thought that if no one saw him, heard anything about him,
he would be forgotten. And he would be; given time he knew he would be. The mobs were fickle. Champions were for the moment, not for the future. He folded both arms over his face. If water were not provided soon, he would soon be dead.

Ben was observing  Maximus.  He could tell the man was in bad shape.  And, without knowing why he should get himself involved--particularly since the man had insulted him so much--Ben rose from his bunk and went to the bars.

"Guard!" he shouted.  "Guard!"

Cries of 'shut up' and catcalls from the other cells answered him.  But, eventually, one of the guards, a man named Luke that Ben remembered, came shuffling slowly up to the cell.

"What the hell you yellin' about, Wade?" the ugly man with the scar on his chin asked him.

"This man here-" Ben nodded toward the prone Maximus.  "He needs some water.  Bring him

a drink."

Grinning insolently, the guard said slowly, "Well now-  it ain't time to bring water aroun' just yet.  You gonna make it worth my while?"

"Yeah," Ben answered him slowly, with an ice-cold look in his eyes.  "You bring him some water and next time I'm outta this cell, I'll let you live."

The grin slipped slowly from the man's face.  He was afraid of Ben Wade and with good reason.  The outlaw had given him the scar that marked his chin and another on his throat, where'd he'd just missed slitting it open the first time he'd escaped from Yuma.

Luke turned and went back up the row of cells.  A few minutes later, he returned with a canteen.  It was full.  As he passed it into the cell, he said,  "You better not tell none 'a the

other guards 'bout this, Wade."

"Wouldn't b'lieve me nohow,"  Ben grinned at him. 

Taking the canteen, he approached the bunk where the man named Maximus lay.  "Got some water here."

At first Maximus didn't move, not sure he should even believe the man.  Then, because the cap was off, he could smell it and he moved his arms away from his face. "Water?" Fresh blood oozed from a large crack in his lower lip.

"Yeah," Ben answered slowly, still unsure just why he should do this.  Only brought attention that he didn't need. 

But he opened the canteen, poured a little of the water on a handkerchief that he took from his pocket, and dabbed at the blood on the other man's lip.  "Can you sit up and take some?"

Maximus propped himself up on his elbows, shaping his lips to receive the edge of the canteen.  He took several long swallows, much of it streaming down his chin, darkening the front of his light blue tunic.

Ben let him drink as much as he would, then took a sip from the canteen himself.  Taking a small tin from one of his pockets, he held it out to Maximus.  "Here.  That there's salve.  Might wanna put some on your lips."  He used it on his own lips when they were dried and cracked from all the time he spent in the sun and wind.

He didn't know why he should do a good deed for this man.  As he'd told Dan Evans, he didn't

do good deeds for anyone.  Didn't wanna see that grateful look in their eyes. The only reason he could think of for doing this was that this Maximus might come in handy when it was time for Ben to make his escape.  Yeah, that must be it, he thought to himself.
 

"For lips?" Maximus took the little tin and opened it. He smelled it, touched a fingertip to it. He'd never put anything on his lips before, didn't know there was such a thing, not for men.

But with the slightest movement making his lips split, he thought to give it a try and so wiped a little across his lower lip then pressed his upper to it. It was soft, rather greasy, with a slight

odd taste that got on his tongue. His lips, though, felt better and, grateful, he handed it back. "You have my thanks, ben Wade."

"None necessary," Ben grunted, uncomfortable with gratitude.  It had no place in his life.  He didn't feel it toward others and they didn't feel any toward him.  Simplified things a whole lot,

in his mind.

"Jus' don' like sharin' a cell with a dead man," he continued.  "Smells up the place."

Maximus managed a slight snort of a laugh. "I shall do my best to live on that account."  He

was beginning to get a bit of the measure of the man with whom he was confined. He'd met a

few similar men in the army, gruff, self-contained, personally private. He'd learned all too well himself of late about keeping matters private. If only he knew what Commodus had planned next for him. There seemed nothing to do for the present, however, but wait.

He drank some more water, which made him feel much better, then his stomach let forth a rather prolonged gurgle.  "Too bad the rats are gone," he said, shaking his head.

Ben grinned.  "They'll bring us somethin' in a little while.  Might even taste a little better'n them rats you're cravin', but I wouldn't swear to it."

"I do not care what it may taste like so long as it fills my belly." No, they wouldn't bring enough for that, he knew, yet still it was a nice thought.

Sitting back down on his bunk, hands clasped between his knees, Ben asked, "You killed many men, Maximus?"

"In battle, yes, but that was a necessary, an honorable sort of killing.  I was a soldier for many years, in many places. Death was always a part of that...enemies killed by my own hand...enemies killed by my men at my command. But now...now it is different."  He let out a long sigh.  "In the beginning of this, after my wife, my son...after...I thought simply to let myself be killed, not to take up a weapon at all. It did not turn out like that, however. That was somehow not... honorable, just to stand and be slaughtered. So I made a choice and even though I had been marked with the yellow," his hand went to the center of his chest, "and so was expected to die and was, thus, sent into the arena with only a shield and no weapon, I had decided to live."

He wasn't sure why he was saying so much to ben Wade. Possibly because such things didn't really matter any more.  "And so I lived.  Even chained to another man and with no weapon, I lived. It was not, you see, so hard for me to take the weapon of one trying to take my life."  He closed his eyes a moment, remembering. "After that I began to kill because that was what was required of me that I might live.  There is no honor in that, no honor in the crowds who come

to watch men kill for sport."

Ben had never understood soldiers.  Now, he asked Maximus, "Would you tell me what the hell men think is so damned 'honorable' 'bout killin' and dyin' 'cause some damned president or king or whatever tells you to?"

"At the time I was a soldier...," he paused a long time. "At the time I was a soldier, I believed that the Empire was the means to bring light to a dark world. When I led men into battle, I did so in that belief, that light is always better than darkness. I was wrong. The Empire I fought for was its own darkness."  He sighed. "It was not always so. There were times of good rulers, when good men were Emperor. I knew such a one and I served him gladly. But good men meet their ends and the light ends with them. Now darkness rules and the only honor remaining is to rid the world of it." His eyes took on a grim, hard look.

Ben looked equally grim.  "You're fightin' a losin' battle, Maximus.  You can't 'rid the world

of darkness'.  Darkness is always there.  You kill one source of it, 'nother one crops right up in its place.  Always been like that, 'an always will be."

"There is a single source, ben Wade, of all my darkness, and I intend to squeeze the life from it.  Then it will be done. Then I may go home."

"Home?"  Ben snorted.  "You got a home still?"  Ben understood the concept of home, but he hadn't had any place that he called home in years.  Wasn't sure he'd ever really had one.  They'd had a house when he was little, but it hadn't been any place warm or inviting, like most people talked about when they spoke of a 'home'.

"There is no home left to me in this world, ben Wade, not a place in any land that I may apply that word to with any meaning."

"You're talkin' 'bout dyin', then."  It was a flatly spoken statement, not a question.

"There are sometimes things that are worth more than a single life, ben Wade.  I took it up again for the narrow purpose of laying it down.  There is nothing to mourn, not even myself for myself."

In Ben's experience, life had been lived on an 'every man for himself' basis.  Now, he looked closely into the eyes of the man called Maximus.  Searched for some sign that he didn't believe what he was saying.  Saw none. 

Then he said slowly, "Way I see it, the only thing worth mournin' IS myself."

"I left my self between two graves. If I had some need to mourn, it would be for that man. The man who is here, now, no, he needs no mourning."  His eyes pulled away from Ben's, looking at a scene only he could see.  "One thing more to do then it is finished."

"Sounds like you're lookin' forward to dyin'."  Ben's tone was sarcastic.

"It is not so much, ben Wade, that I hasten to its arms, but that it will be the inevitable result of what I desire to do, what I must do."  He closed his eyes again. Right now he had no idea how that might be accomplished. Originally, his hopes had been pinned on the end of the reenactment of Carthage, but Lucius had unknowingly taken that from him. Then he had centered in on winning the favor of the crowds, of surviving whatever Commodus would
devise next for him, but now, locked away in this cell and not taken again to fight in the great arena, all he could do was wait.  If he didn't perish from lack of food first. Again his stomach rumbled.

Ben had read some writings of a famous ancient, Marcus Aurelius, and now he quoted softly, "Be content with what you are and wish not change, nor dread your last day, nor long for it."

Maximus turned to look at Ben. "Perhaps you are less uncivilized than I thought, ben Wade."

"That ain't likely.  Ain't likely at all."  Ben chuckled derisively.

As he met Maximus' eyes, searching them the way he often did those of other men, Ben heard them beginning to bring food to the men in the cells down the end of the cell block.

ON TO PART 3

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