by D Keith Mano
“Wine and bread.”
“Yes. Wine and bread. Can I?”
“Tomorrow I’ll confirm you. We’ll have a first communion. I might as well go through with the whole thing.”
“Not tonight?”
“Not tonight. Tm going to sleep now.”
“You really socked me good. I think you enjoyed yourself.”
“I wonder.” Xavier Paul yawned. “Did I live until now…all those useless years…did I live just to baptize you?”
“Maybe.”
“I would be very disappointed.” He yawned. “Very. Very disappointed.”
Chapter 8
It was ten o’clock. They had been walking north since dawn. Thousands of white-tail deer waited in the wide Thruway valley. Their hoofs scuffed moths up. Many lay dispirited, heads doddery, anticipating sleep or death. Carcasses showed all states of decay: thin-snouted, clean skulls; mummified skulls as of papier-maché; just dead eyes that stared, jellies still intact. Priest, now twenty yards ahead of Xavier Paul, shouldered deer aside. He struck at noses, flanks with his cane. Deer died under his harmless attack: sudden adrenalin exploded their hearts. His progress was awkward. The Thruway’s double bed had been landscaped with high-bush blueberry shrubs. Their leaves had been stripped by the moths, stem tips pared down by the deer. Thick, low-branch stumps remained, palmate, hands of dead men reaching out of shallow graves. Priest walked with his insect mask open. There were active morning breezes. He was cheerful.
Priest had felt life in his ankle. The joint ached: bones seemed to settle in stages when he stepped, telescoping tubes.
They had seen no other travelers on the Thruway. Priest sang. Deer folded their ears back/away from the raucous sound. The northbound lane was a tier above the south bound lane, fifty feet of slope between. A small river meandered below. The trees were blasted. Only evergreens to his right, on the dynamited rock escarpment, still throve. His boots were tarred with caterpillar substance, feathered with moth wings, some wings yet alive, waving there. The moths seemed to die in special rendezvous, as snow lies within sunless hollows far into spring. Xavier Paul had been lagging for an hour: Priest was impatient. The old man’s back had deteriorated. When they rested, Xavier Paul could not stand again without Priest’s help. On hills he tried to hook with his cane, drawing up. His jaw was inclined; his shoulders bunched. Pain brimmed at the bowl edge of his hips. He balanced it as he walked. Yet twinges sloshed over, and often now he cried out involuntarily.
Priest had made a decision. He was exhilarated by it; he did not want then to think of Mary. He was too close. Al ready, through the valley gap, he saw familiar silhouettes: ob verse faces of the mountain range just south of Bull’s Hump. Priest turned toward Xavier Paul. The baptism had intrigued him. He did not understand its significance, but Xavier Paul had aged overnight, as though Priest had stolen life, had added it to his own great vitality. Priest walked back. He was in a hurry. Yet he was shrewd: he wanted the flesh and the blood. He waited as Xavier Paul approached with prudent strides. Priest grasped die tip of Xavier Paul’s cane and pulled him along. He heard two wine bottles clank: the old man had refused, mistrusting wisely, when Priest offered to carry the heavier sack.
They walked in tandem for half an hour. Then the sky turned overcast with starlings. Their descent was breath taking: the ground for a square quarter mile became gray/ black, choppy. Capes, hoods appeared on the submissive deer. As Priest walked, the starlings ate from his boot tops: he felt ticklish pecks. Along the roadside bare tree branches were fully leafed—an abrupt, funereal summer. Priest laughed into the buffeting turbulence. Birds rode on Xavier Paul’s cane, spiteful, flecked with buff and white. Yellow beaks snipped at the worms of his fingers when he moved them. Priest stared toward the river, and sounds around him, twitterings, purling, seemed the river's sound closer, in rap ids. He could no longer hear Xavier Paul. Then the birds rose, an echelon two hundred yards wide, started by some joint instinct. They flew far north, landed, bodies compact ing, flock compacting, smoke of a long firebreak sucked back to its source. Priest dropped Xavier Paul’s cane.
He scrambled ahead. The Thruway had been walled in along its right shoulder. A sheer granite face began there, seventy feet high, extending north nearly two miles. A ten-foot fence lay along its steep upslope, as though sieving the earth. Priest clambered, on fingers and toes, hooking into the rusty wire angles. For several minutes he watched Xavier Paul, all perpendiculars, cane and legs, as he walked below. He did not see Priest, unable to crane upward. Priest heard his name echo on the granite face. He did not answer, but stared north. A corona of Bull’s Hump, mauve, twenty miles distant, was eclipsed by the nearer summit of Eagle Peak. Across the river a bear lumbered, udderlike sags of flesh and fur jiggling under its body. The bear had gone crazy. It swiped brusquely, killing, maddened by a strange diet of venison, by the shiftless multitude that had destroyed its privacy. Deer panicked, heads up; fear was high in their nostrils. Priest drew Xavier Paul’s prayer book out of his thigh pouch, then the .45. He sighted along its barrel. But the bear was too far away.
A last capsule nestled in the seam of his thigh pouch. Priest held it against the sun, between thumb and forefinger. Then he listened to it. He pinned the capsule between upper lip and nose. Wind charged his face. He felt urgency in his bladder. Northwest, across the river, a broad surge of mist appeared at the horizon. It was flat, plump as a comforter; it pulled down over the foothills, tucked ends into a wide valley. It sent out blunt fingers: white, but marbled underneath with brown streaks. It was ten miles away. Priest watched, curious. Then he said, no. He shook his head. He brought his arm back and hurled the capsule out/across the Thruway. Momentum nearly carried him over the bluff‘s edge. Priest huddled down on his knees. He laughed. He had decided not to die.
Xavier Paul waited for him. His hands trembled. He walked now with forearms rigid, outriggers for his spine. Priest talked to himself. Xavier Paul thought Priest was handsome; he had seen such a face once gnarled in a tree root: brown, Asiatic, ineluctable. Priest walked almost normally, cruel to the ankle. He stopped in front of Xavier Paul. He knocked caterpillars from the old man’s shins with his cane. Xavier Paul steadied a hand on Priest’s elbow.
“I’m slowing you down.”
“Well, hurry up then.”
“No. I can’t. I have to rest. You go ahead, you have to see your family.”
“Sit down now, and you won’t get up again.”
“I won’t sit. I’ll go over there. I’ll lean against the rock wall.”
“No.” Priest heard the wine bottles kiss. “I’ll help you. Lean on me.”
“It makes no sense.”
“Like this.” Priest nudged under his armpit. He insinuated a long right arm beneath the haversack, then around Xavier Paul’s shoulder blades. Priest thought the old man had become shorter. He felt a tic jumping in the pectoral muscle against his cheek. Xavier Paul’s left arm lolled on Priest’s neck, fingers responseless. He matched the old man’s stride in length, doubled its frequency. Priest’s roughness exacerbated the pain, but his strength seemed helpful. Xavier Paul was surprised by his concern.
“There’s a mist coming,” Xavier Paul said. “Easy. Easy. Strange. I’ve never seen a mist come from the north. Not at this time of day. Not with so much wind.”
“I saw it from up there. Stop dragging your big feet.”
“Across the river. Just a little beyond here. That’s where I was born. Small town called Tuxedo Park. Almost ninety years ago. Ninety in October.” Priest grunted. “What things I’ve seen. The first man on the moon. The last man on earth.”
“You haven’t seen that. Not the last man on earth.”
“I haven’t?”
“No. I’ve made up my mind. In the night. I’m not dying. I threw my last pill away.” Xavier Paul was silent. “Did you hear me?”
“Good.”
“Good. Is that all you can say?”
“Good. It’s enough.”
/>
“Are you mad at me?”
“Uh? Mad why?”
“When you put the water on me. I know—you did it because I was going to die, didn’t you?”
“Perhaps.”
“I didn’t know then. I didn’t try to cheat you.”
“Forget about it. You can’t give it back. Wait. Stop. It hurts me.” Xavier Paul straightened his back in stages. “I didn’t do it only because of that. I think I baptized you to spite God. He hasn’t done much for me lately. Now He’s stuck with you.” Xavier Paul laughed circumspectly, neck set. Priest stared. Then he laughed too.
“When can I eat the blood and the flesh?”
“Wine and bread. Ha…” Xavier Paul laughed again. “And they used to talk about primitive Christians. The new Adam. Look on him, Lord. And what a Garden of Eden.”
He gestured. Priest saw. There was a smart regiment of pines below the southbound lane, to his left. Fifty trees, sown ten each in five parallel rows. They made crazy perspectives. Seen head on, five composite trees; as Priest moved, they seemed to proliferate, a deck of cards fanning out. Xavier Paul vdped his forehead. The sun neared its zenith: eleven-thirty, Priest judged. He was out of time. The mist continued to flood from the valley, over foothills, quite low, a gray husk. Priest chewed his lip. The starlings had come back, swarming to the south, calling peet-peet: it was a different sound; they did not land. An emaciated doe lurched upward. Priest had thought it was dead. The doe’s eyes jiggled; it responded to some vivid fear, postponing death. The animal took three steps, then folded heavily, four legs splayed. A bone broke. And now other deer were moving reluctantly, slowly, in a driven saunter. Toward the south.
“Better go, Priest. It’s late.”
“Yes.” But Priest hesitated.
“Be careful. They won’t let you get away with it. They’ll try to kill you.”
“Let them. I’ve got the gun. I’ve got time. I know the woods.” Priest watched deer; he frowned. “There’s plenty of meat. There’s a feast out there. I’ll get fat. And Mary. I’ll have more children.” Xavier Paul’s face went pale. “You knew all the time. You knew I would make up my mind.”
“No. I didn’t. But I knew this—when the time came, you wouldn’t die. It’s like holding your breath—you can’t commit suicide that way. It’s not possible: in the end you breathe. The body says, live. Good. Maybe there is a God after all.”
“Maybe? What do you mean, maybe?”
“Maybe. Maybe.” Then Xavier Paul shouted pain. “It’s a disk. It’s gone. I felt it go. Help. Help me, for God’s sake. Help me to lie down.”
“Maybe?”
Priest laughed. “Please. Let me brace myself on you. Please. I’m afraid to fall. I’m afraid of the pain. I can’t move my legs.”
Priest unshouldered the haversack: two wine bottles pushed through the bottom, thin nates. Xavier Paul groaned; he was terrified. He went down, backward on heel points; Priest braced with both arms under the long, clenching ramp of his back. He lay supine. Priest slid chunks of pavement rubble from beneath his hips. Xavier Paul crossed hands over his abdomen. Priest stood: he stared angrily toward the mist. Xavier Paul shaded his eyes. The muscles of his jaw appeared; his feet were perpendicular against their ankle joints. Deer trotted past. Priest knelt, placed a palm on the haversack. Xavier Paul whispered,
“This is as far as I go. This is where I end. Some pilgrim age. I would sit in that big church, afraid to make a cross. Not even two pieces of wood nailed together. It was days, months between prayers. Or maybe it was all a prayer. You know what I thought about for twenty years? Food. There were wild blueberries on the hill behind the church. I would crawl there at night. I felt my way across that field. On my belly. Yes. ‘And dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.* Gladly, Lord. Gladly. Popping them into my mouth. 1 got to know the night animals. Shrews and moles; we shared the same table.” He laughed. ‘When I was a child someone gave me a chocolate Jesus for Easter. Who would make such a thing? A chocolate Jesus. Where did I get it? My mouth is watering.”
“You mean it doesn’t work. The baptism.” Priest spat. “Eternal life—what a stupid thing. Who could believe it? And the power. You promised me power.”
“Oh yes. Power. There’s plenty of power. But where does it come from?” Chipmunks ran: perhaps two dozen in a ragged skirmish line. They hurdled Xavier Paul’s chest. Rushing south.
Priest stood. “What is that mist? Is it mist?”
“God forgive me.” Priest looked down. The old man’s eyes were terrible. Sockets had welled full of liquid; in it, the blue pupils seemed dead, drowned. “God forgive me.”
“God? Make up your mind.”
“I’m sorry. Tm sorry.” He wept.
“You make me sick.” Priest walked away, ashamed for men. He yelled back at Xavier Paul. “Crying. Big bag of wind. I’m stronger than you are. I knew that all the time. I don’t want to be stronger. I was always stronger. Stronger than my father. I didn’t want it that way. I couldn’t help it. And they smelled it on me. They hated me because of it. They ganged up on me.”
“Yes.” Xavier Paul turned his head. “I’ve been feeling sorry for myself.”
“You’re an asshole. You don’t even believe in what you are.”
“I have believed. I will believe again. You don’t under stand.”
“I understand. You’re an old woman.”
“I shouldn’t have said that to you. It was spiteful. I had a chance to witness—not, God knows, that you’ll ever care two figs for Jesus Christ. A chance…and all the more reason for that. For your cynicism. But I wanted a sign. I expected more than this.” Xavier Paul felt feverish: he was afraid to shiver; he clenched fists. “What did I expect? What did you expect. Priest? Think, man. Have some compassion. In thirty years I haven’t seen another Christian. They decimated us. A man locked in a dark room, alone, do you wonder if he doubts the sunlight? For two thousand years people have believed in Jesus Christ. What was I supposed to think—that it all ends in Paramus, New Jersey? That it all ends in me? Paramus. Can any good come out of Paramus?”
“Stupid God. Stupid old man. Fairy tales. You make me sick.”
“”I’ll make the mass for you. The flesh and the blood.” He untied thongs of the haversack. “Please let me.”
“I don’t want your mass. It smells of weakness. You’re a woman. The blood is between your legs.”
“Please. Forget what I’ve said. I’ll make the mass.” With one hand he slid the wine bottles from his haversack. Priest walked closer, curious. Xavier Paul removed a small tulip chalice, a paten, four wafers.
“I haven’t got time. Give me those bottles. I’ll make my self the mass.” He reached down. Xavier Paul fell across the bottles. He howled with fear and pain. He hugged the wine to him. Priest laughed. “Old woman. When you’re dead, who will make the masses? I will. Me. I will make all the religions. I will make the gods and their flesh and their blood.”
“Priest.” Xavier Paul looked at him. “You terrify me. I hope you die. I hope they kill you.”
“Yes? You think I can’t take your stupid bottles away?” He stamped his foot. Xavier Paul cringed. “Where is your God?”
“He’s tired of us.”
“Not of me. He’s tired of you. Not of me. I’m alive.”
“Priest. I know it—you can do anything you want with me. I’ll have to trust you.” He drew back. The two bottles lay side to side on the ground. “Will you let me make a mass? The way men have done it for two thousand years? I have doubted. You can’t have faith without doubt. But God exists. He is teaching me now. At the last. Will you let me make the mass?”
“I’ll give you until the mist comes down.” He pointed. Fringes had reached the plain. “To the big oak. That will be your mass. My wife is waiting for me.” Xavier Paul nodded.
“Thank you. It’s enough. You must be a bridge between us. Between then and now. It’s important. It seems very im portant.” He leaned sideways.
Xavier Paul said, “Ssssh.” He was transfixed, hopeful. He listened for revelations; he thought it was a sign. The noise became shrill. He murmured. Instinctively the thumb knuckle of Xavier Paul’s right hand struck his forehead, his breast. It stopped, the cross uncompleted. Priest was on all fours, brushing a space of crumbled pavement clear. Prone then, he shut his ear on the ground. Thunder was transmitted to him. Reluctantly Xavier Paul put his hand on the bottles: they were still at once. Priest knelt up, stared north west. Sound was independent now of the earth’s telegraphy. Xavier Paul could hear it: a distant, stupendous drumming. Priest stood, and it was in the soles of his feet.
“An earthquake?” Xavier Paul asked. “The veil of the temple—”
“That mist—” Priest began.
“What? I can’t see it.”
“Fire. Big fire. But the sound—wait here.”
“Wait.” Xavier Paul repeated. ‘I’il wait.”
Priest ran north on the Thruway bed, until his vision had flanked the stand of pines. He saw for two miles, northwest: across the river, across the brown/yellow plain, to the bank of mist, beyond to the gap between foothills. Something had dropped from the mist. A shadow that broadened swiftly, breasted the plain across its mile width. Priest thought, a flood. It approached in crescent shape, concave at center. He squinted, shading sun glare with two saluted hands. “No,” he said aloud. “Deer. A million deer.” The brush fire had gathered them for a radius of ten miles; wind had herded them south with the smoke. They stampeded: a tidal wave. In the few seconds Priest watched, they had covered a hun dred yards. Big trees went over. Only stone outcroppings, islands now, surfaced. They were coming toward the Thru way.
Priest hurried back to Xavier Paul. The scrub underbrush teemed suddenly, crepitating, the snap/pop of kindled twigs. They raced beside him, through his legs, rolling, caroming, bouncing—chipmunks, rabbits, mice—ferreted from their tunnels by the long, penetrant vibration. Deer collided. Erratic breezes played the tremendous sound, blowing it near, muffling it. Priest stopped. He stared back, for the sight had fascinated him. Dust arched up; it had obliterated the smoke. The vanguard formed out of a ghostly plasma. Color was erased: black and gray and white drove it ahead across the plain. They were less than a mile from the river. Backs rippled up, the herd rippled up, mounting shallow dips in the plain, a single great back, alive, invertebrate. I have five minutes, Priest thought.
