Fortuna and the Scapegrace

by Brian Kindall

  “Surely,” said Prudence, and then she made to set me straight on who was who. “This is Will, and this is Force and this…” She held her open palm to the lady between them. “This here is Lamia, our Matriarch, and Will and Force’s wife.”

  The lady tipped her head. “Enchantée,” she said, and coquettishly grinned.

  Yes, at that moment in the introductions I was indeed somewhat perplexed by what Prudence had just said. Will and Force’s wife? But it seemed risky to give away any indication of my surprise, and so I nonchalantly let the conversation roll forward as if I were completely savvy to the bigamous underpinnings of what the hell she meant.

  Force cleared his throat. “What about the ship?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said, bowing my head. “The good ship Cloud. Sadly, she was sunk along with her captain and crew, taken down by the storm.”

  Force banged his fist on the tabletop. “Damn!”

  “What storm was this?” asked Will.

  “Why, the one blown up on the eve of my arrival. Surely it wracked Eden too.”

  Will made a face and shook his head.

  Force regarded me with suspicion, as if I had made up the story of the storm for covert reasons.

  “Perhaps it was sent for the sole purpose of fulfilling the Prophecy,” offered Prudence. “Maybe God only meant it to sink the ship so Adamiah alone could be saved and come here with the sea beast.”

  Although Force markedly sneered at this suggestion, old man Merriwether nodded slightly, as if conceding to his daughter’s miracle-laden thought.

  Prudence stepped to my side and took hold of my arm. “Adamiah here’s the Chosen One, Papa, like I been telling you. I’ve knowed it all along.” She laughed. “Why, God out and out told me so when I was just hip-high to a heifer.”

  The old man considered his daughter’s words. One could see he adored her immensely. He nodded, and then he peered directly at me.

  “And what do you have to say about it, Brother Linklater?” The codger’s voice was not near so frail as his overall appearance would have led one to expect. He opened his hands. “Are you indeed, as my Prudence claims, the Chosen One?”

  Will and Force leaned forward on their elbows, waiting to hear what I had to say. Lamia, too, bent expectantly in my direction.

  *****

  Now I had found myself in tight spots before, but never more decisively than in that moment. I sensed that the words I chose, and their consequent presentation, would most surely configure my fate with the Shining Redemption and, by extension, Prudence. This was a crucial moment in my new life. I dared not blunder.

  I shilly-shallied under the quartet’s probing gaze.

  Cold sweat damped my armpits.

  At last I decided to go with what I figured Adamiah himself might have done in my place. I was, after all, now him. Hither forth, I would have to speak simply. Although it was a stretch for my thespian skills, I donned an air of unrefinement and humility.

  “Brothers.” I dipped to the old man and his sons. “Sister.” I opened my palm toward the lady. “I don’t know much about such holy matters. Truth be told, I’m not very learned in the ways of your church. Maybe that cuts me out from what you had in mind for a son-in-law, sir, and for a pilot of your mission. I am truly sorry for my many imperfections. But all my life…” I looked to Prudence at my side. “…ever since I met your little daughter out back by the ditch, I have felt an angel watching over me. She guided me on a right and narrow path, helping me to avoid pitfalls and sin. I knew it was for something special that she was helping me along, but it wasn’t ‘til I got stupendously rich that God’s big plan for me was revealed.” I shook my head in humble wonderment at my journey. “Am I the Chosen One? It wouldn’t be proper for me to say. But the one thing I’m sure of, in my heart of hearts, is that God has spent my whole life leading me to this spot where I’m standing before you today.”

  I then obsequiously bowed my head, duly impressed by my own sincerity.

  The old man considered me for a time, not speaking, thoughtfully stroking his beard like it was a pet rabbit snuggled up under his chin.

  At last he bobbed his hoary head, implying that I had somehow passed the test. “There’s still the question of your dowry,” he said. “How do you propose to mend the promise you made to supply the church with goods?”

  “Why, Papa, Adamiah brung us the manna. Surely that counts for something.”

  Force snorted.

  “Of course, daughter. The meat is a godsend. The people of Eden appreciate it greatly. But we need soil and boards to build our enterprise. We need our Bibles to spread the word.”

  This was ass-backward to my old boy way of thinking. Any dowry, I figured traditionally, should be from the would-be bride to the groom. But it seemed unwise to point this out right then, so I just went along.

  “Well, sir,” I said. “If it please you, I could return to San Francisco next chance that comes along and load up another ship with more goods.” I shrugged. “Maybe even two ships, if you like.”

  Lamia brightened at this proposal. “Oh, Mosiah,” she said. “There are so many fine things I’ve been wanting to have.”

  The brothers said nothing, but they, too, looked flagrantly eager that I should perform this service.

  “Maybe,” I continued, “after me and Prudence are married, we could go there together on a sort of working honeymoon.”

  This notion was met with visibly less enthusiasm by the old man, while Prudence all but squealed with delight.

  “Oh, Papa!”

  Old Man Merriwether did not give a conclusive yea or nay to my suggestion, but said, “Until we decide on that matter, it seems our new brother should study the ways of the Shining Redemption.”

  “Of course.”

  “Prudence will instruct you. And then, in due course, you will be required to give a sermon to the congregation, to prove yourself a worthy leader of the people.”

  “I look forward to that opportunity,” I lied, “and pray I won’t let you down.”

  Force pushed back from the table right then, his chair scraping loudly across the floor. “One more thing,” he said, and then he walked to the corner and lifted a large clay jar with a wooden lid from a pedestal. He stood it on the table next to some strips of paper and an inkpot with a pen. He thumped his finger on the paper. “You need to sign your name and put it in the pot.”

  “But, Papa!” Prudence rushed forward and leaned over the table to her father. “Surely it’s not right to have Adamiah put in the drawing. God sent him here to help us out.”

  The old man scratched his beard, considering his daughter.

  Force said, “It’ll be up to God if he gets chose or not. It wouldn’t be right for the rest of the men to be in the pot and leave him out of it.” Force looked to his brother Will for support to this idea. And then to Lamia. They appeared reluctant to agree, but finally did.

  “Papa?”

  The old man laid his hands atop his daughter’s. “It will be all right, dear. God alone can decide what’s right for the church.”

  I stood there oblivious while all this played out before me. This so-called drawing appeared to be a dubious game of chance for which one did not want to be chosen. But I was not worried. I had what an observer might have called dumb faith. Why, hadn’t I just navigated a whole gauntlet of dangers to get to New Eden? God clearly favored me and would deliver me to further happiness. The floodgates of my good luck had been flung open wide, and there was nothing any mortal could do now to hold back that colossal wave of fortune.

  I stepped forward and put a hand on Prudence’s shoulder. “Your father’s right, dear one. We must trust in God.”

  I then went to where Force was standing by the inkpot. He looked at me. It did not take much to surmise he did not care for me as a person, but I would not give him the satisfaction of thinking me fearful. With all the boldness of the God-blessed, I took up the pen and signed a strip of paper.

  “Adamiah
,” I proclaimed, “Linklater!”

  I bent and blew the ink dry, folded the strip in half, and then, as Force held open the lid, I dropped my name into the dark depths of the pot, winking at Force as I so did.

  The tension in the room was disrupted by a knock on the door. The old lady who had helped Prudence nurse me back to health stuck her head inside.

  “We’ve brung you some communion.”

  Mosiah said, “Of course, Sister Beulah. Serve it to us.”

  She entered the room with a platter heaped with whale meat. Behind her came a young girl carrying a stack of cups and plates. Yet another little girl followed with a pitcher of drink.

  Prudence and I took two chairs from against the wall and sat facing the table and the four elders. The meat was served all around, along with the drink. Prudence and I sat with our plates on our laps, holding our cups.

  The old lady and the girls curtsied before us. “God bless.” They left the room.

  Mosiah Merriwether stood. He opened his arms and lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “Thank you, dear God, for this scapegoat.” He lowered his gaze so that it fell on me. “And for the one who delivered it to us.” He held his drink in my direction. “May he prove himself worthy of our trust.”

  I nodded reverentially.

  “Amen,” said Prudence.

  “This is my flesh, and this is my blood,” said Merriwether, assuming the role of Christ in the Last Supper. “Eat and drink of it as you remember me and my sacrifice.”

  We all drank. The milk juice was from palm nuts, and it was sweet and tasty, if not a tad ripe.

  Then everyone started in on the meat.

  I studied the carbonized chunk of flesh in my lap. I do not know why, but it struck me as repulsive. Maybe it was on account of my having been so recently dead and reborn, but solid food seemed wrong for me. Everyone around was smacking their lips with creophagousonian delight. Even the ladies had thrown off their manners and were tearing into their Eucharist like half-starved dogs.

  Still, I could not make myself partake.

  “What’s the matter?” grunted Force.

  My companions stopped mid-mastication and looked to where I was sitting with my untouched lump of leviathan.

  Prudence shot me an interrogative smile.

  I felt sorely put on the spot. I had no desire whatsoever to eat but felt that if I did not I would somehow be diminished in the eyes of this bunch of meat-chomping Shiners.

  “Heh-heh,” I said. “It’s fine. I was just thinking of how glad I am to be here with you all.” I feigned emotion. “It’s a prayer come true.”

  Prudence reached over with her greasy fingers and patted my leg.

  Lamia and Will said, “Amen.”

  And then I picked up the meat from my lap and, while everyone watched, sank my teeth into it.

  “Mmmm!”

  It was strange.

  I do not rightly know how to describe the subsequent sensation, as it was surely not one that many people have ever experienced.

  As that meat crumbled in my mouth, I had the absolutely unmistakable impression that I was consuming a big bite of my own roasted butt cheek.

  It was all I could do not to retch.

  My eyes teared up as I chewed; my stomach turned like a butter churn.

  And then – scronk! – I bit into something hard.

  I reached to my lips. I extracted the hardness and rolled the slobbery, meat-covered pellet in my fingers, examining it in the poor light. I knew right what it was when I saw it, and yet could not quite believe it was so.

  Oh, freakish coincidence!

  Was this meant to be a harbinger of reassurance, sent to me by an over-watching angel?

  Or was it a prank played on me by some irony-loving devil?

  Of all the bites of the whale meat in the world, I alone was given the one that housed a bullet.

  Lucky me.

  MY SCHOOLING BEGAN THAT very afternoon.

  Prudence led me to a shady spot away from the village.

  New Eden, being an atoll, was geologically configured so that there were two variations of shoreline separated by a narrow band of land. The outside edge of the island ring was open to the ocean and offered dramatic views of waves smashing onto the nearby reef. The interior edge bordered what appeared to be a bottomless lagoon. The water here was protected and calm as a duck pond, riffled only by a breeze, or the occasional black-tipped fin of a cruising shark.

  The palms rustled overhead.

  We sat on a log before this paradisiacal scene.

  Prudence held a big fat hand-written version of the Shining Redemption’s Bible unopened on her knees.

  She asked, “How much of our doctrine do you know?”

  “Oh, a fair amount,” I fibbed. “But I suppose the best course would be to start at the beginning and teach me like I don’t know nothing. That way I’ll be sure to get it all learned up good and proper, from an authority.”

  She bobbed her head and bit her lip. “Well, I suppose the first thing you should do is make the promise.”

  “The promise?”

  “Uh-huh. We have all our new members make it. You need to promise not to tell anyone outside of Eden about our secret ways.”

  This confused me. “But ain’t that contrary to how a missionary works? Ain’t your father wanting new folks to join up?”

  “Oh, yes. But in these first days, we need to be careful. There are evil forces who want our church killed off. They don’t take kindly to Papa’s revelations and Originalism.”

  “Originalism?”

  “Uh-huh. That’s why God wanted to start up our church for – to get back to how it’s supposed to be, like back in the very beginning, before the Bible got all rewrit and twisted up.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  She took my hand and laid it on the cover of her tome, and then she held up her own hand, as if swearing an oath, directing that I should do the same.

  “Repeat after me,” she said. “As God is my witness…”

  I repeated the oath.

  “I solemnly vow never to utter a single word of the Shining Redemption’s secret ways…

  “until the world is ready to hear them…

  “as will be decided by the then-residing head of the church.”

  Prudence let down her hand and smiled. “That head of the church will be you, Adamiah, just like the Prophecy foretells. You’re the Chosen One.”

  I felt myself blush.

  “Out of this whole big earth, She picked you to shine Her light on the world.”

  I nodded absently, an uncontainable grin on my face, priding myself for being chosen, until Prudence’s words penetrated the thickish casing of my brain and thunked smack dab in the bullseye of my comprehension.

  “Uh,” I said. “Hold on.” I scratched my jaw. “She?”

  “What?”

  “Er…” I chuckled. “She chose me?”

  “Why, yes, Adamiah. She chose you to pilot Her church.”

  “Implying that God’s a woman?”

  “Why, yes.” Her smile slipped. “You didn’t know the most importantest thing about it?”

  I surmised by Prudence’s ensuing droop that I had damn well better have known.

  “Of course!” I reacted. “I’ve just never had anyone so openly tell me so.”

  “Well…” She tapped her Bible. “It’s all right here in God’s Restored Word.”

  I regarded the unwieldy ream of theological elucidation resting on my sweetheart’s knees. “And how do you come to have it?”

  “Why, by way of my parents’ miracle.” She squinted suspiciously. “Don’t you know the story of it?”

  “Oh, I’ve heard the legend right enough. But why don’t you go ahead and tell me again, so I can be sure to get it straight?”

  AND SO HERE IS the Shining Redemption’s History – or, in this case, Herstory – as Prudence Merriwether relayed it that day by the glimmering lagoon –

  *****

 
; It all started back in Ohio, she told me, before I was born. My ma and pa was devout in their church, but they felt something wasn’t quite right with it. Something felt wrong in how its message was told to its members. They couldn’t say just what it was, but it troubled them in their souls. They got to praying to God about it, asking for guidance, until one day mama was took over by an angel. That spirit slipped right inside her skin and made her glow with a bright white light, which is why to this day we call our church the Shining Redemption. That angel delivered God’s message through my ma to my pa.

  “Hear me!” The angel said everything in an original old language that Papa was somehow able to understand. “The time has come for My Word to be brung back from where it’s been hidden under the dark surface. And you, Mosiah Merriwether, will be the man to start up righting the wrong your sex has committed upon my beautiful creation.”

  Papa learned that God had been a woman all along, but that over time, wicked men had come to power and changed the Bible to suit their hungers and greed. They turned it all upside down so it blamed Eve for the Fall, and then over the ages those men set to rewriting the whole book until everything and the characters was all twisted around to how it would best suit them. God told Papa that it was his job to submit and listen to the angel as she spoke through my mother. He was to write down the Bible as she told it so as to get it back to like it was meant to be in the first place.

  They worked on it for months and months. Mama would glow and talk in the old language while Papa translated and wrote down what she said.

  Finally, the Bible was all done, but my folks didn’t know what to do with it. Then the angel came once more and spoke through my ma.

  “Be real careful,” she said, “and start up a church for people who believe my original word. For they are many, and the compass of truth in their hearts will guide them your way.”

  Sure enough, in no time my ma and pa started having folks come around to talk religion. And sure enough again, most of those folks weren’t a bit surprised to find out God was a woman. Why, it made perfect sense! A woman has a magical womb from where things like the earth and oceans and creatures can be born. But a man ain’t got but a little ol’ beanpole that can’t do much of nothing.