Abandon

SEVENTY-TWO

S

he used her thumb to pull the hammer back.

“Good. Now put your finger right here.” He eased it onto the trigger. “No, don’t squeeze yet. Not until you’re ready to shoot something.”

“I’m ready.”

“What are you aiming at?”

“Our cabin.”

The hammer snapped down on an empty chamber.

“Okay, now what if you wanna shoot it again?”

She worked the big hammer back.

“Perfect.”

“This time, I’m shootin the chimney.”

Snap.

“I think you’ve got it.”

She heard harness bells ringing a couple hundred feet below, the burros growing antsy. The preacher took the gun from her and broke it open, dropped shiny cartridges into the chambers.

“This becomes dangerous now,” Stephen said. “It’ll be loud.”

“Why you cryin?”

He gave her the gun, took a wipe from his frock coat, and dabbed his eyes.

“Don’t draw the hammer back ’til you’re ready to shoot it.”

Peering through snow-clad branches, she saw the mule skinner emerge from an empty cabin across the canyon.

“See him?” Stephen asked.

“That man’s sold his saddle like Miss Madsen?”

“He’s even more sick in the head. You wanna help him, don’t you? Send him up to God with everyone else?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You keep the gun inside your cloak until you get close. I don’t want you trying to shoot him until he’s as near to you as that fir tree.”

“Will it hurt him?”

“No. Like Molly, he’s already in great pain. You’re making it go away. After the first shot, he’ll fall down. You be real careful, and you pull that hammer back again, and you walk up to him and shoot him in the head.”

The sick mule skinner shouted, “Anyone here?”—his voice so faint and lonesome, rising like a prayer from the canyon floor.

“I don’t wanna.”

“I know, but it’s time.”

“I’m scared.”

“Nothing to be scared of, Harriet.”

“You do it.” She handed him the gun, but he shoved it back.

“God told me this chore falls to you, that you’re His little angel of darkness, and He allowed me to save you for this very purpose. Do you see the perfection of His grand design? Please, Harriet. Go end that poor man’s suffering.”

“If I do good, you’ll dope me with a sinker and some raspberry jam?”

“I promise.”

“Mr. Cole, is God gonna give me new ones?”

“New what, honey?”

“Daddy and Mama.”

Stephen stared down into Harriet’s dark eyes. “I’ll be caring for you.”

“Bethany’s daddy was the best I ever saw. She called him Papa.”

Stephen blushed. “Well, I suppose that would probably be all right if you wanted to um . . . you know . . . call me that.”

Harriet smiled. “Okay, Papa.”

The little girl pushed through the trees and stepped out from the motte of firs. He watched her through the branches, webbing downhill, hands concealed in her cloak, just like he’d told her.

He looked over Abandon—the empty, smokeless cabins, the cribs, silent dance hall, his dark chapel on the opposite slope—and he couldn’t stop the thoughts, remembering that first day he’d arrived here by stage, the town pure energy and motion, the new-sawn yellow boards of the buildings and the smell of fresh-cut wood, streets a soup of mud and shit and garbage, crowded with horses, buggies, pack trains, sidewalks jammed with miners, packers, whores, gamblers, con men, everyone trying to fill their wallets, eyes electric with a peculiar mix of misery, lust, and manic greed.

Who are you?

Stephen Cole.

No, who are you?

God’s

No,

faithful

you murdered

servant.

an entire town.

A gunshot rolled through the canyon.

Thinking, I am Your faithful servant I am Your faithful servant I am Your faithful servant I am Your faithful servant I am Your faithful servant I am faithful faithful faithful

His head fractured with molten pain, and he fell unconscious before the second shot rang out.