Salvage

by Duncan Ralston

  "It's time, son," Brother Woodrow croaked. "Do you see the Mystery?" His wild, bulging eyes twinkled under the dark heavens as he looked over his flock, and he drew an arm over Owen's shoulders, pulling him in to a friendly, chilling embrace. The dead man's flesh writhed against Owen, as if his robe had been stuffed full of snakes.

  Owen snapped awake, twisted up in the sweat-dampened covers. It took a few tries to tear and shake himself free, long enough to think he'd awakened to yet another nightmare, to wonder if the dreams would go on happening over and over, wondering if he'd ever wake for real. Then he was free, gasping as if he'd been underwater and had just come up for air. He kicked the sheet away and sat up in bed. The morning sun had already warmed the room.

  He sat in bed thinking about the frighteningly lucid dream for several minutes before deciding it was silly to waste a day made for getting out in the lake. He climbed out of bed on the window side. The sun shone through gauzy brown curtains, and when he peered out between them, the lake looked like a polished jewel. Already people were out and about, kids climbing the rocks across the bay, and a man and boy fishing from a small tin boat in the shallows.

  He threw on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, trying to forget about his dream as he dressed. Heading for the door, he squelched down in a wet spot on the carpet, and a shiver stole over him. He froze where he stood, the soles of his feet damp, just as they'd been in his dream.

  "Nope," he assured himself. "Probably a leaky roof. Washed-out shingles and exposed nails, remember?" He lifted his foot carefully from the cold wet stain and looked down. It had left a print. "That's my footprint, not—" With a hard swallow, he tried to make himself believe it. "—not his. It's rising damp. Wood rot in the floorboards. This place is a money pit, not a haunted house."

  Feeling as though something in the room might be watching him, he added more forcefully, "There's no such thing as ghosts."

  Then he tromped over the vague footprints leading out into the hall, obliterating them from sight, but not from mind.

  3

  He ate a hurried breakfast, cereal and toast with jam, then headed for the back door. As he passed, he saw the red light on the answering machine blinking. Someone must have turned off the ringer. Either that or he'd slept through the call.

  "Message one," the robotic voice announced.

  "Hi, Owen, it's, uh… It's Constable Selkie. I don't know how to tell you this; I'm not even sure why I'm calling you… I just… Nance has locked herself in the bathroom, and Howard's in an MRI… I've got no one else to talk to."

  Selkie's voice quavered, as if he was crying. In the background was a bustling of people, chattering, scurrying.

  "Christ, man… He was just a kid. Call me when you get this, okay? Just… Please."

  The phone was cradled improperly. Owen pressed STOP.

  "Didn't leave a number," he said to the machine. He dialed 911. "The number you have dialed is not in service," the automated voice told him. "Please hang up, and try—"

  He hung up. Dialed 0, hoping to speak to a person.

  "Hello. Information."

  "Hi, I need the number for the police. I tried 911 but it said it's not in service."

  "Right. We don't have 911 up here. You'll have to dial the full number."

  "Okay, if you could just do that for me, that'd be great. It's kind of an emergency— Actually, do you have the number for a Michael Selkie? Maybe I should call him directly."

  "If this is an emergency call, I can connect you with the police—"

  "No, it's not an emergency. I mean, I'm not sure what it is, exactly."

  "Sir, do you want me to dial the police, or don't you?"

  "Dial Michael Selkie," he said, frustrated. "Constable Michael Selkie. Please."

  "One moment," the operator said, annoyed.

  The phone rang. Selkie picked it up on the first ring.

  "Constable Selkie," he said, his voice ragged.

  "Mike, it's Owen. Owen Saddler."

  "Owen! Oh, thank God, you called back."

  "I just got your message," he said, dragging a kitchen chair over to sit by the phone. "Is everything okay? You sounded—"

  "Owen…" Selkie sighed heavily. "Howie's dead."

  "How—?" He wasn't sure if he'd meant to ask if he'd heard Selkie correctly, that Howie was dead, or if he'd meant how had it happened. Selkie took it for the latter.

  "Drowned," he said, incredulous. "He fucking drowned, Owen."

  "That's not possible. He told me he wouldn't be caught—" He'd almost said the d-word, and he knew, he knew, that it was somehow the fault of Brother Woodrow, that Woodrow and the Shepherd were somehow, invariably, one and the same. "He said he'd never set foot in that lake."

  "I know," Selkie said. "I know."

  "Well how did it happen, did they say…?"

  "Dump owner found him at eight a.m. Figure he musta gone out there to dump some trash, maybe got a little closer to the lake than he'd thought. The garbage goes right down to the water over there—"

  "He told me."

  "His truck rolled right over him, pushed him right into the lake. It looked like there was a washout, a small flash flood—I dunno how that's even possible. His head's pretty… Oh, Jesus, Owen, it's just a mess. It's a mess—" His words cut off in a choked sob.

  "I'm so sorry, Mike." I just saw him yesterday, Owen thought, as if it made a difference, as if having seen him made his death less real. He waved to us from the ambulance.

  "How'm I gonna tell my wife?" Selkie was saying. "My little girl, Owen—Jesus! I just don't get it."

  But Owen knew. He'd stood with Howie's murderer. He'd seen the Mystery. "'The dead are in deep anguish,'" he said, "'those beneath the waters and all that live in them.'"

  "What?" Selkie said, angry, confused, and Owen realized that he must have said it aloud.

  "It's from Job," he said, unable to cover. "The Bible."

  "What does it mean, though?"

  Owen weighed his options: he could dive down to the church under the lake, hoping to find answers among the dead, or try to wrestle information out of a grieving father, to find out what the old man knew about Brother Woodrow and his Blessed Trinity Mission.

  Suddenly, the thought of getting in that lake didn't seem quite so inviting. Suddenly, it was the absolute last thing he wanted to do.

  "Owen…?"

  "I need to talk to Howard," he said.

  4

  The old man sat at the window in a small room with a single bed, wrapped in a rough wool blanket as gray as his mood. His hair was unkempt, bristles of stubble as white as snow on his chin and cheeks. A pleasant Filipino nurse in blue scrubs with a Mickey Mouse print had shown Owen the way and left him at the door. He knocked on the outside wall.

  "I won't roll up my damned sleeves for one more bloody test!" Howard grumbled, squinting out at the sun. "I don't care on whose authority you've been sent. I'm in mourning, God damn you."

  "It's me, Howard. Owen."

  The old man turned. His foggy gaze settled on Owen and showed no recognition. Then the old man's face brightened. "Owen, my boy!" His smile turned down at the edges. "I suppose you've heard the dreadful news. All over town already, I'd imagine. They do like to natter, flapping their gums without saying much of worth."

  "I'm so sorry about Howie," Owen said, sitting down on the radiator beside him.

  Howard gave Owen a hopeful look, and ushered him near with a jittery hand. Owen leaned in, the old man's hot, sour breath filling his nostrils. "You didn't happen to bring any—?" He made a gesture as if swigging from a glass. Drinky-poo, he meant.

  "Sorry, it didn't even occur to me." Of course it had occurred to him, having lived with an alcoholic, but now was probably the worst time to support Howard's habit.

  "Probably for the best," Howard Sr. agreed. "I'd just get shit-faced and have to go through the DTs all over again. Did you know they don't even have a smoking lounge anymore?"

  "That's awful," Owen said, thinki
ng the opposite.

  "Sodding prison camp, is what it is. Thank bloody hell that Gestapo nurse of mine's on a day off. At least I can have a wank with a modicum of privacy."

  Owen laughed.

  "You laugh, but it's true. You get a stiffy at my age, it's a point of pride to beat that wormy bastard with all you've got." Howard giggled along with him, until his cheeks went beet red and his eyes began to water. He broke into tears somewhere amid the laughter, looking off at an unfinished puzzle Owen just now noticed lay on the mattress, an enlarged photo of Chapel Lake on a partly cloudy day. He hadn't seen it from the doorway, obscured as it was by the heavy blue-green curtain.

  Howard put a hand on Owen's knee. "He hated the lake, Owen. Hated it. I don't understand why he'd have been anywhere close enough to—" He choked on the word. "—to drown."

  Owen put a hand on the old man's. Howard's hand quivered against Owen's knee, then slipped free and fell to his side, over the edge of his wheelchair.

  "Michael said it happened near the dump. A flash flood, or some such thing."

  Owen knew better, but Howard didn't need to know the truth: that his son was just another casualty of that terrible church beneath the lake.

  "A flash flood, can you imagine? It doesn't seem likely to me." Squinting again, the old man brought a shaky hand up to shield his eyes. "Will you close the blinds?" He gestured toward the cord tied in a knot halfway up the window, just out of his reach. Owen yanked it and the blinds dropped. Slats of light and dark fell over the room. "Merciless thing, the sun."

  Owen didn't know how to respond, and so he said nothing.

  "My son never hurt anyone," Howard said. "He was a wonderful boy, a good boy. Never caused any trouble. Oh, certainly, he was a handful in his early years, but his mother took care of all that. I was always—" The old man pulled a resentful face. "—always working. When he was born, there were those who pitied us, Charlotte and me." He wrung his hands together, obsessively, the sound of his dry palms distracting. "There were actually people who thought we'd have been better off if he'd died in his crib, if we'd drowned him in the tub. Because of his disorder. His Down's syndrome. I heard them, you see. They were always nattering."

  "That's awful."

  "Yes," Howard said. A slow, repetitive nod shook loose a tear. It streaked down the deep valleys of his face and came to rest at the corner of his lips, where he licked it away absentmindedly. "I couldn't fault them for it. When the doctor informed us of Howie's condition—the cheeky prick actually had the nerve to call it mongolism, if you can believe that, as if we still lived in the nineteenth century!—and when I saw my boy for the first time… God help me, I considered it myself. A child can be a burden to his parents under the best of circumstances, and when I looked into his little eyes, I saw only trouble ahead for us, Charlotte and me."

  Owen nodded, but of course he couldn't understand, only sympathize, with baby Howie as much as with his parents.

  "He wept so much in those first weeks at the house. Some nights I lay awake believing I was cursed. I cried out to God, Owen, to take the poor boy while he slept. To make it quick…" His lower lip quivered at the thought. "…and painless. But a quick and painless death is death nonetheless. One final gasp expelled into the ether, and then… Poof. Rien. Nothing. And I wished this on my own son, you understand. My own flesh and blood."

  In a sudden rage, Howard struck the mattress, scattering the pieces of the puzzle across the mattress. He calmed himself with a thin, jittery exhale through his teeth, squinting out through the slatted blinds.

  Owen grasped the old man's hand, and squeezed it until Howard looked up at him. "This didn't happen to Howie because you prayed for him to die," Owen said. "If people died because someone prayed for it, this world would be a lot less crowded."

  Howard smiled through his tears. "Yes, I suppose you're right." He studied Owen amusedly. "That's a rather cruel brand of optimism, wouldn't you say?"

  "I learned it from my mother," Owen said with a brief smile. "Try to forgive yourself, Howard. I'm sure Howie would have."

  "Mmn." His dry tongue peeked out to moisten his cracked lips. "But has Crouch…?" A strange segue, in Owen's opinion—Who or what is Crouch? Howard's gaze drifted from Owen's left eye to the other, searching for something. "Close the door," he said then, nodding toward it.

  Owen stood and crossed the room. He peered out into the hall, which bustled with activity, then pulled the door shut with the serpent's hiss of its hydraulic hinge. He locked it, in case a nurse wanted to take more of the old man's blood, and returned to his seat at the radiator.

  "What I say here, you don't repeat," Howard said, sotto voce, despite the privacy. "Do you understand?"

  "Of course."

  The old man nodded. He opened his mouth to speak, and then appeared to reconsider his words. Finally, he began: "The schism in that church began quite suddenly, I recall. One Sunday, it was business as usual, God is love and all that, and the next, it was agitated talk of interlopers and Satan's pimps."

  "Imps?"

  "Pimps. I'll explain in a moment." The old man swished a hand out toward the tray table, where his breakfast lay untouched, congealed scrambled eggs and dry bacon. "Would you be a lamb and fetch me that juice?"

  Owen stood and brought it over.

  "There's a lad." He tore off the top with jittery fingers. "With any luck it'll trick my liver into believing it's a screwdriver," he explained, and raised the container in a mock toast. "Chin chin." He drank the contents greedily, with a slurping, bubbly sound that reminded Owen, for one sick moment, of the bubbles from his severed oxygen tube as he drowned in the house at the bottom of the lake. He shivered, despite the warmth of the radiator.

  The old man sucked out the last drops, smacked his lips, and shrugged, neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, before setting it down on the window ledge. "Where was I?"

  "Satan's pimps."

  "Right, right. It is my contention, Owen, that the church's sudden change of direction was caused by a certain revelation, so to speak, at town council that very Wednesday. There'd been a guest speaker, you see, a government official from out of town, and he'd carried with him word of a certain impending development in the community—"

  "The hydroelectric dam."

  Howard winked. "Now you're playing catch-up. As you can imagine, word got around quickly. He was a wolf in sheep's clothing, as the minister himself might have said in one of his homilies. The phrase spreading around town was Satan's pimp. Having met with the man myself, I must admit, I rather liked the term. He'd come offering money, you see. What he'd called fair compensation. But it was understood the development would move forward with or without our consent. As an architect, I'm sure you're familiar with the concept of expropriation."

  Had he told anyone about his job? Owen didn't recall, but he supposed it was just another example of small town curiosity. "More than I'd like to be," he said.

  "As was Crouch."

  That name again. "Who's this Crouch?"

  "Our local pastor, in those days of milk and honey," Howard said.

  "Not Woodrow?"

  Howard eyed him queerly. "Woodrow? Where the Devil did you hear that name?"

  "I met him, my first day here."

  "You met—?" The old man flustered. "No, no, son, the pastor was Crouch. Everett Crouch." He gave Owen a sidelong glance, and then squinted out through the blinds as red lights flashed through them. Owen peered out. Down below, an ambulance had pulled up, and EMTs scrambled to open the back doors for an elderly woman wrapped on the gurney, who peered confusedly at all the commotion. He let the blinds fall back with a metallic swish.

  "After the town hall meeting," Howard continued, "Crouch's sermons perverted into angry, paranoid rants of Noah and the Great Flood, about Babylon and Sodom and Gomorrah. All the wonderful examples we find in the Bible of God's everlasting wrath." He pronounced it like a last name: Roth. "Crouch even had new windows put in—this great, God-awful stained glass depict
ion of Moses parting the Red Sea."

  "Mike said you used to be their lawyer."

  "It's true. I separated from the church after the Schism, but Madge, your mother, stayed with him." He shook his head, Owen supposed, at her foolishness. "I suppose we always believed Crouch would have a change of heart. But he never did. When the flood came, your mother and I, along with many others, fled the church. We abandoned him. I suppose in Crouch's mind, we betrayed him."

  "What happened down there in that church, Howard?"

  "Crouch and his flock chose to stand against the flood. Crouch had them believing some madness about how God would spare His faithful. They stood against the deluge to protect their church. Little did those poor people know, they would have lost it with or without the flood." Howard nodded as if Owen had challenged him. "Flat broke, so they were. Everett Crouch had run that church into the ground well before the water overtook it."

  "How does a church go broke?"

  "Lack of membership. It was stripped of its tax-free status after the Schism. There were accusations of cult-like behavior, and with the events in Guyana still fresh in our collective subconscious, the government took the allegations quite seriously. You know, the Chinese call suicide abandoning the body," he said, still wringing his hands obsessively.

  "Suicide? You think—?"

  "Oh, quite certainly. It was never proven, but it's what I believe. It's why I pay for salvage. I suppose a rather morbid part of me expects to one day have evidence that Crouch and the rest of them died in that flood, to hold it in my hands. His final words to me were, 'Earth, do not cover my blood. May my cry never be laid to rest.'" Howard let the words hang before remarking, "It's from the Book of Job. I had to look it up." At last he turned to the puzzle he'd shattered, regarding it the way he would a mess made by a child. "I really wish I hadn't done that."

  "You can put it back together."

  "Howie wanted me to help him with it. I told him it was a child's game." His eyes never left the unassembled pieces. "I wasn't much of a father to him, I'm afraid. I hope he knew that I loved him, at the very least."