Abandon

FIFTY-NINE

H

arriet McCabe lay in the middle row of pews, hiding. There had been gunshots a short time ago, but it was quiet now save for the wind. She thought about her mama. Her friend Bethany. Her new doll, Samantha, which she’d had to leave behind at the shack. She was thirsty, hungry, but more than anything, cold and scared.

The sun had gone to bed, and the wind made a long low sound as it pushed against the boarded-up windows, the tiny church swaying and creaking like the hold of a ship, icy air filtering up through the space between the planks.

She shivered under her mama’s gray woolen cloak. Just across the aisle stood a stove in a gap between the pews, a stack of logs next to it, and she’d just decided to light a fire, when the chapel doors flung open. Harriet gasped, brought her hand to her mouth. The doors slammed shut, the plank boards groaning beneath the weight of approaching footsteps.

She rolled under the pew, watched a pair of arctics pass two feet from her head. Toward the front of the church, something thumped on the floor, and Harriet scrambled quietly to her feet, peered over the top of the bench. She saw someone in the shadow of the nave. The man was on his knees, facing the barrier separating the front pews from the stage, his arms lifted, hands open to the simple wooden cross mounted on the wall behind the pulpit.

When he spoke, she startled, his voice loud enough to fill the sanctuary, though faltering and brittle as sandstone.

“It is finished, Lord God. Your good and faithful servant kneels before You to say that Your will . . . has been done.”

He suddenly fell over, his stomach flat against the floorboards.

Harriet thought he’d died, until he wept, softly at first, then outright sobbing, pounding the planks with his fists. Harriet had seen her daddy cry once before, but not like this. She’d never seen anyone in such soul-splitting anguish.

“Why?” The word exploded—guttural, ragged, raw. He screamed it three times, so loudly that Harriet thought it might shatter the glass of those tall south-facing windows. He got back onto his knees, and when he spoke again, Harriet had to strain to hear the words.

“You say You love truth. Well, here’s my truth. I don’t know who You are right now. I don’t understand how the Creator of love and mercy and compassion, the God who seared my heart in Charleston, can command His servant to lock a town into a mountain. Women! Children! How can a child give You such offense? Are You not the God I think You are? Of David? Of Christ? You are ultimate, whatever Your nature, but I need to know if I’ve been wrong about You. Correct my perception. You know I love You. That I chose a cimarron’s life in Your service, over a woman who still haunts my dreams. If You love me, Lord, if You love me at all, infuse me with a peace that passeth all understanding. Because I need it now. I’m in a bad way. This is my deepest trench, and I may not see the morning. Don’t draw back from me. I’ve destroyed myself for You, and I am so alone.”

He bowed his head, and as he cried, Stephen felt something graze his shoulder. He spun around and fell back, bristling with fear. A little girl stood before him in the darkening nave, her curls pitch-black and her eyes aching with hunger.

“Why you sad?” she asked.

Stephen pulled his cape around and wiped his face with it.

“You buggered me. How’d you get out of the mine, Harriet?”

“I been here since long before you came, hidin from injuns.”

“You shouldn’t have left your mama.”

Stephen reached forward, wrapped the cloak tighter around her small frame. “You’re shivering,” he said. “Let’s see if we can remedy that.” He stood up and took the little girl’s hand and led her over to the stove. Inside, balled-up sheets of the Silverton Standard and Miner awaited a Sunday service that would never come. A wicker basket full of dried-out fir cones sat under the closest pew, and Stephen took a handful and arranged the kindling and shoved in two logs. One strike from his machero did the job. He left the iron door open, and soon the flames raged, sending out eddies of heat, throwing firelight on the walls, the cold plank floor, the vaulted ceiling.

“Scoot up close, sweetie. I want you to get warm.”

Harriet extended her hands toward the open door and Stephen sat behind her, setting his hat on the floor, tying his hair up. He pulled a small bottle out of his pocket.

“Here, sip this tincture of arnica,” he said.

She unscrewed the cap, took a swallow, handed the bottle back.

“What are all those dots on your face?” she asked.

“Nothing.” Stephen wiped the sticky specks of her father’s blood from his brow, his cheeks, his mouth. Then he reached into his greatcoat and withdrew the single-action army revolver, opened the loading gate behind the cylinder. Three cartridges left.

Is this Your will, God? That I shoot Your child in the back of the head. Because I will do it. I am your faithful servant, but please. Please. If there is any other way . . .

“I’m hungry,” Harriet said.

“We’ll get something in our bellies here in a minute.”

He coughed to mask the sound of the hammer thumbing back.

“I got a doll for Christmas, Mr. Cole.”

Stephen blinked through the tears. “What’s her name?” He choked on the words as he put the revolver to the back of her head.

“Samantha. She has red hair.”

He knew he’d be sick after, fought off the urge to jam the barrel down his own throat. Is this Your will? Speak now or forever—

“She has two dresses, and my favorite thing is to comb her hair.”

When Stephen touched the trigger, it came—peace flooding through him, warm liquid light. “Thank you,” he whispered, and slid the revolver back into his coat.

Harriet glanced back, said, “You’re cryin again.”

“It’s okay. These are happy tears. God is so good.”

Harriet cocked her head. “Where are all the injuns?” she asked.

“How old are you, Harriet?”

“Six years.”

“I think you’re old enough to know something. Last night, God spoke to me. He told me that His judgment was coming down upon Abandon, that I was to be the instrument of His wrath, His brimstone and fire.”

“So there weren’t ever any heathens?”

“No, although at times today, God allowed me to believe there were. He let me see the heathens when I was standing at the Sawblade. Let me believe the lie. Showed me how to use it.”

“Then where’d everbody go?”

“Do you believe in God, Harriet?”

“Yes.”

“Does your father ever get upset with you? Like when you’re disobedient? When you don’t listen to what he says?”

“Yeah, when Mama’s gone, he hits my bottom real hard with the metal part of his belt.”

“But that’s his job to punish you when you misbehave. In the same way, God is the father of Abandon, and all the people who live here are His children. But do you know what?”

“What?”

“The people of this town were very wicked.”

“Why?”

“They were greedy. Sinful. They didn’t love God. Thought only of themselves and what they wanted. They were obsessed with gold, and some of them were very evil and did terrible things to others. They took what didn’t belong to them. Caused incredible pain.”

“That’s wrong. You’re supposed to be nice.”

“Yes, you are. And that’s why God decided to punish everyone who lived in Abandon.”

“What about Bethany and Mama?”

“Even them.”

“But they aren’t evil, are they?”

“Listen, Harriet. We can’t start questioning God. Why He chooses to punish some but not others. We might not understand, but that’s our shortcoming. We can only love and obey Him.”

Her bottom lip began to quiver. “I wanna see Mama.” “Come on, sweetie. Listen to me. God told me not to punish you. That He loves you. That your heart is good. He wants me to take care of you.”

“What about Mama and Daddy?”

“You need to shuck that question. Don’t ask it again.”

Harriet turned away from him and stared into the flames. Stephen put his hands on her delicate shoulders. “Let’s walk to my cabin,” he said. “I’ll build another fire and make us supper.”

“Did God punish Samantha?”

“No, sweetheart.” “She’s alone and scared at home on my bed.”

Stephen stood up, so tired that he felt he could lie down on his pine-bough mattress and sleep for thirty years.

“We’ll stop by your old house and get her.”

Stephen helped Harriet up and took her by the hand. Then the preacher and the child walked out of the church together.

The night was clear, the moon full and rising.

Infuse me with a peace that passeth all understanding.

Pinpoints of starlight twinkled, among them the rusty bulb of Mars.

Abandon lay dark and silent in its canyon, and from high above, Stephen heard a faint sound like a distant stamp mill.

They were beating on that iron door inside the mountain.