A Prayer for the Dying (17 page)

You borrow a glove and punch the window in. John wants to follow you through the parlor, but you turn him back, remind him Doc’s sick.

He’s in the last room, laid out on top of the covers, still in the gown. His eyes are closed, his lips open. One arm hangs off the side, the back of his hand touching the floor. On the nightstand sits an empty vial of laudanum, and propped against the lamp, a letter in rich stationery for Irma.

“Goddamn it,” you say. “Goddamn it all.”

You squat and raise Doc’s arm, lay it beside him, quickly offer the same prayer you gave Sarah Ramsay. Doc. Goddamn. You feel like something needs to be said in his behalf but it’s like a sermon you don’t know how to start. What does it mean to say he was a good man? But he was. He helped others, he loved Irma. It
does
count for something.

Rise and slip the letter in your jacket. Go to the cabinet. There must be a salve for burns here somewhere. Carl Soderholm would know, but he’s gone like the rest of them, the cowards, and you rifle through the jars and boxes and tubes, interrogating labels.

Doc lies there. You’re not disappointed in him, you’re not, but you drop a bottle and can’t stop yourself from kicking the broken pieces and shouting out a curse. There’s no time. Goddamn it all is right.

You open one that looks like earwax and smells like bag balm. You figure Kip would be better off asleep and find a vial of valerian drops.

“Just follow the instructions on it,” you tell John. “And don’t say anything around town about Doc being sick.”

He nods, promises.

Tell him you’re headed out to the Colony, that you’ll be back to take the others down the river. You want John to have them ready when you get back, everyone who’s coming. They can bring Kip in the wagon.

He looks at you, confused.

“Talk to Harlow,” you say. “He knows the plan.”

You grab your rifle and head for Ender’s bridge. The road is mobbed with tracks, and in the ashes lies a flattened birdcage, a canary still in it, clinging sideways to its perch. You pick the twisted thing up and the bird flutters and beats its wings. Pry the bars wide with your knife and set it free, toss the cage aside.

Don’t congratulate yourself. Think of Doc, letting him rot there like an animal.

Why can’t you understand him? Sarah Ramsay. Millie.

Because it’s a temptation you’ve almost fallen into.

Because it’s wrong.

The handcar’s where you left it. You lay your rifle on the floor and pump, the bruise reminding you of last night. You understand Fenton. During the siege, men would run out from behind the horses and be shot dead rather than lie there another night. How many things in life come down to patience, the willingness to accept, to wait for a better chance.

The woods rush up and swallow you, and the bell retreats into the distance. Cyril missing daybreak. It’s getting so you can’t depend on anyone.

Not Doc, you don’t mean that.

He did the best he could.

Did he?

You concentrate on the bar, don’t try to answer for him. Your shoulders hurt, and your collarbone’s sore. Lean into the curve and onto the Nokes spur, the tracks rusty with disuse, ferns thrashing the front of the car. The sky’s taken on a jaundiced tinge, like before a storm. You wonder if Chase has led them down into the mines, then wish you’d thought of it before. Too late now, you’d never get everyone out here in time. Maybe he’s filled the mansion with the sick; they must be overflowing, the nurses careworn, harried. You imagine that he’s burned the great house to the ground, sent it shuddering earthward like Montello’s, the nurses still in it. Revelations, the Last Times, the fire that burns the earth clean. He set it with the kerosene the stout woman bought the other day. It should have been obvious. What kind of a penny-dreadful detective are you?

No, you would have seen it, even in this muck. And Chase is like you, isn’t that what you tried to tell Doc? He’ll send his healthy down south of town, after the circus, keep the sick ones here and tend to them. He’s responsible to his flock, something you doubt in yourself now.

But there’s a chance the schoolboy rumors are true, and after everything you’ve seen this week, you wouldn’t rule out a terrible ceremony, a communion with each believer lining up to kiss the diseased lips of their Messiah.

Anything is possible out here. The trees seem to confirm this, the woods full of shadows, fire raining from the sky. It’s a relief to turn the last curve of the spur and see the mansion still standing, the barns and corncribs and rock-walled slurry. And then you see there’s no one there, not a single chicken.

Pull the brake lever, get your rifle and hop off. Wind in the trees, the patter of ashes. The gate is an arch of raw branches, the Holy Light sign swinging beneath it.
REV. S. P. CHASE
, it says. You cross a long swath of yard toward the mansion. No footprints, hoofprints, nothing. The windows are shuttered, the porch stairs caked with ash.

Beyond the mansion stands the carriage house, also closed, then a row of cottages with saints’ names above the doors. Sebastian, Stephen, Thomas. All martyrs. None of them are locked. Inside they have identical furniture—a single bed, a desk, a simple chair—and each is tidy, unlived in.

The formal gardens are planted with vegetables, the grand fountain in the middle used to water them. Despite the drought, their beans are high climbers, their tomatoes fat as apples. All of it’s dusted with ash, a slick skin on the water.

The mines, you think.

He’s smarter than you, he’s taken better care of his people.

Yes, but it was easier—they listen to him.

Turn, the rifle loose in one hand, pointed toward the ground. The chapel, another barn, the chicken house with its rows of windows. You slog across the yard, leaving tracks, and as you angle for the chapel you hear—lightly, as if far off—singing.

It grows as you come closer, blinking away flakes. The stairs bear faint traces of footprints, the stoop the twin arcs of the doors. You lean your ear to the crack.

They’re in there, singing.

You take advantage of the noise to lean the rifle against the stair railing, then open the door.

It’s a small congregation is your first thought, the seats half-filled, maybe twenty of them. And then you notice the cots along the walls, the sick lying there while the rest of them bellow
Jesus Our Redeemer.
You know it well; only your disbelief prevents you from joining in.

Chase is up front in plain white robes, bearish beside the pulpit, the stout woman at his right hand. He tips his chin at you, leads the singing in a fatherly, half-spoken baritone, keeping his place with a finger. Some of the members sit, some stand; some of the ones on cots are asleep, others tended by nurses.

The song ends, and with a rumble everyone sits down. A long hard coughing as Chase mounts the pulpit. He pauses and looks up again, smiling, as if he has good news.

“Deacon Hansen,” he booms, and raises a hand, as if blessing you.

Faces turn, and you give them a nod, a tight grimace of a smile.

“You have something for us?” Chase asks.

“The fire’s coming,” you say, so they can all hear.

“We know,” he says.

“I’m taking a train of everyone who’s not sick out of town.”

“Everyone who
isn’t
sick.”

“That’s right.”

“How about those who are?”

“There’s nothing can be done for them. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you, Deacon,” Chase says. “We all appreciate your offer, but I’m afraid it’s come too late for us to accept.”

“There’s time,” you say, and start to go on about the train, three o’clock, how many people can fit in a boxcar.

“It’s not that,” he says calmly, “I wish it were that simple. I’m afraid all of us—” And here he spreads his hands to include everyone in the room, the remnants of his entire flock. “I’m afraid we’re all similarly afflicted.”

You hadn’t expected this, and so you don’t have an answer.

You can hear the ash settling on the roof above. “What are you going to do?”

“Right now,” he says, “we’re going to pray.”

And you know why you bow your head along with the rest of them, why you recite the lines. They’re going to stay and die together, pay the price for what they believe in, willingly, and this, this you completely understand.

8

The fire doesn’t come in a line, a front of troops sweeping through. It foots through the dry woods like a spy, rides the burning wind. As you pump for town, the sky whirls, thick and dark as a twister, shedding debris. Smoldering pinecones rain down like incendiaries, starting spot fires in the brush. The trees thrash, toss off their leaves; dust devils kick up along the tracks, then vanish. You have your bandanna tied over your nose, and still each breath is like working in a furnace. It’s all taking too long, but you don’t dare free a hand to read your watch. Any other day you could hear the freight puffing south of town, the clean scream of its whistle, but the wind is deafening, the trees, and you pump, trusting you’ll beat it to the main line.

Where the spur switches in, the tracks are covered with ash, but it’s falling so hard that you can’t be sure. In the distance, a steam whistle calls a long note, and you turn, expecting to see the huge engine bearing down on you, the driver highballing it, the brakeman unable to stop. Nothing but a blizzard of ash—and then it calls again, and you look north, toward town. It’s the mill, signaling the fire’s slow approach. It calls and calls, a child that won’t stop crying.

Who’s doing it? you wonder.

Not Cyril. John Cole probably.

Bend and drive the bar down, then back up hard. Your chest has gone beyond a knot, the muscle like a knife. The whistle’s a good sign, you think; the mill’s still standing. And John Cole’s got sense enough to get out of there while he can. You hope it’s not Cyril.

All of this is your fault.

A hail of branches flails you, an acorn ricocheting off the bar, and you pump harder. In the woods to your right a small fire jumps in the dimness, lurks there like an animal. The river’s not far now, just another curve and then the long, slow grade running up to the bridge. You hope Harlow has them ready. If it’s not three yet, it’s darn close.

Turn the curve and they’re ahead, standing on the track—only a few of them, maybe seven, all lugging carpetbags and in bandannas, a clutch of robbers. Harlow, Cyril, some of John’s crew. Not a woman among them. Kip Cheyney’s laid out on a cart, a leather apron draped over him to keep the embers off. You throw the brake on too hard, and it pitches you against the bar, another bruise. Fred Lembeck comes running up, his one arm out for balance.

“Is she coming?” he asks. In the roar, it’s hard to hear.

“Should be,” you shout, and mark the time—five minutes till. “Where is everybody?”

“The river, most of ’em,” he says, and points, and you crane to see what’s left of Friendship, thirty people milling waist-deep in the filthy water, tossing hatfuls of it on each other. Some you haven’t seen since the beginning of all this—Karmanns, Armbrusters. Their possessions litter the near bank: clocks, pots, a sewing machine wrapped in a quilt. The children are swaddled in sopping blankets, their mothers slapping at their hair. Crying, keening. Katie Merrill holds a lacy parasol; the cinders hit it, smolder a minute, then burn through. A lone cow wanders among them, lowing, shouldering people aside, and atop the water floats a host of fish killed by the heat.

“Lot of folks couldn’t wait,” Fred says. “Didn’t think the train would make it.”

You know who those folks are. Emmett Nelligan. Bagwells. And why should they believe in you, Crazy Jacob the Undertaker?

You look down the track. The sky to the west is a dark wall.

“It’ll make it,” you say. And you do believe it. At this point, what choice do you have?

Kip Cheyney’s passed out, probably from the valerian. You pat Cyril on the shoulder, glad to see him, his sleeping in forgiven. Harlow gives you a nod of confidence.

Palm your watch again. It’s foolish; do you really think they’re following their schedule today?

You part John’s crew and stand in the middle of the bridge. What’s left of Friendship looks up at you, waits for your word, and you think of Chase, how you have even less to give them.

Or maybe it’s the same—a prayer.

It’s not enough for them, admit it. They want to be saved while they’re still in this world. Like you, no?

“All right,” you holler. “I want everyone up on the tracks right now. Leave your things, you won’t need them.”

You have to tell them again, then go down to help them out, trusting Fred to watch the tracks. They splash across the flats and crawl up the bank, slippery with ash. They squish with each step, their clothes clinging to them, a second skin the color of mud. Cyril almost falls in. You’re parched from the handcar, and dip a hand in the river; it’s gray and tastes of lye, and you spit it out.

“Sheriff!” Fred calls from the bridge. He’s pointing frantically down the track, and you don’t have to hear the rest of what he says.

Scrabble up the bank and sprint for the bridge. Even in this light, you can see the lush plume of the freight looming above the curve.

You shove the handcar onto the siding and grab your rifle. Get everyone ready, the men a skirmish line four deep on the tracks, with you at the head of them. The plume seems to grow blacker the closer it gets, a rich charcoal, and still you can’t hear the steam, only the trees tilting in the wind. You step forward and raise the sight to your eye, try to guess where the engine will clear the pines.

This must be what it feels like holding up a train.

Well, that’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?

The face of the train turns the curve—cowcatcher, headlamp, stack. You’re high, and bring the sight down, the post steady on the engine. You don’t see the driver, and think of popping off a shot, just a warning. You can hear the chuff of the boiler now, feel the railbed give under the train’s weight, the gravel ballast crunching underfoot.

You fire a shot high above the cab, the crack lingering, singing in your ear like an insect.