Dragonslayer

by Emilie Richards

  “I can’t stop you,” Thomas said. “You know that. There are two dozen of you, and only two of us here. I’m putting my faith in you, Andre, you and your goodwill. You came to honor Dorothy Brown, not to dishonor her. Cross this threshold with a gun or a knife, and she will be dishonored.”

  “We got no weapons.” Andre pulled his hoodie up to display a black shirt. The others took his cue and did the same. There were no weapons of any kind in sight. “You gonna search us, Padre?”

  “That would dishonor you.” Thomas stepped aside. “I believe you. You’re welcome here.”

  “Thomas.” Garnet stepped forward. She couldn’t believe that he had taken Andre at his word.

  He turned, and the anger in his eyes told her how far she had overstepped her bounds. She couldn’t tell him that it was fear for his safety and his safety alone that had made her speak out. She couldn’t tell him of the vision of impending disaster that knotted her stomach and clutched at her throat.

  But there was nothing she could do about that vision. Now she could only show Thomas her support. “Thomas, make sure you show them where the memorial book is so everyone can sign.” She turned to Andre. “It will be sent to Dorothy’s sister in California. She couldn’t attend.”

  Andre’s eyes narrowed; then he shrugged. She turned away, but not before she saw Thomas staring at her, his eyes still angry.

  Somehow she walked slowly to her seat, while every second she expected a shot to ring out behind her. There was an audible rustling as heads turned and those already seated watched the MidKnights find chairs.

  Greg began the prelude. There was nothing somber about the music Dorothy had chosen. The medley of hymns was as cheerful as Dorothy’s smile had been, but the room was still tense when the hymns had ended. Garnet could shut her eyes and still feel suspicion and anger choking off her oxygen. The little church was a conflagration waiting to ignite.

  “Let us pray.” Thomas bowed his head. Garnet bowed hers with effort, but she doubted that many other heads in the room twitched in response.

  “We come together to honor a woman’s life, a life that has touched each of us because of the contributions she made to this community. As we both mourn Dorothy Brown’s passing and celebrate her life, help us to remember that we have been called here to listen to her last words to us, words we may not desire to hear. Give us courage, O Lord, to listen with open minds and willing hearts. Amen.”

  She was surprised at the abruptness of Thomas’s prayer. She tried to compare it to other prayers she had heard him give, but surprisingly she could not. Upon reflection, she could not remember the substance of one, much less its length. Thomas seemed to spend as little time as possible invoking the Lord’s assistance.

  There were opening words. Several close friends of Dorothy’s did readings. Several others spoke of her role in their lives, of the important differences she had made in the lives of others. Community leaders who had worked with her stood to pay her tribute. Two songs, both favorites of Dorothy’s, were sung.

  Then it was time for Thomas’s eulogy.

  As he always did, he abandoned the pulpit at the first opportunity. He came down the aisle and stood in the middle. The Coroners and the MidKnights had aligned themselves perfectly along each side. Had they stood, faced each other and bowed, the scene would have looked like the opening strains of a deadly minuet. Now, with Thomas standing between them, they looked only like volatile young men bent on destroying their lives and the lives of anyone who loved them.

  “Dorothy asked me to dispense with praising her life,” he said. “It was a life worthy of praise, an exceptional life, but I, like most of you here, would never dare disagree with Dorothy Brown. So I am not going to do a eulogy. Instead, I am going to do exactly what Dorothy asked of me.”

  Thomas hooked his thumbs in his pockets. He was wearing a suit, but he didn’t look like a preacher. His hands were clenched. His mouth was grim. His eyes blazed with almost unearthly light.

  “This service will be concluded when Dorothy’s body is respectfully carried out to the hearse waiting in front. Then there will be a short ceremony at the graveside. In her last moments Dorothy named her pallbearers. I can’t tell you how glad I am that they’re all here today. I can’t tell you how much I hope that each of them will stand when I call his name and come forward to carry Dorothy’s casket out that door.”

  Garnet felt her heart beat faster. She knew what was coming next. Dorothy, damn her saintly soul, was about to make her final statement.

  Thomas looked around the church as he spoke. “Dorothy named six young men whom she was especially fond of. She was color-blind, and blind to all other immaterial differences that keep us from respecting and loving each other. She chose young men who she believed would someday take her place in this community as leaders. She believed that each of them can help change the Corners from a place of despair to a place of hope. She believed that each one of them would stand proudly today and take his place beside her casket.”

  He paused to let that sink in. “May her belief in the goodness of others, may her good instincts and supreme faith be rewarded with this final act.”

  He turned and pinioned Andre with his gaze. “Andre Rollins, Dorothy believed in you.” He found Francis’s older brother Xavier with his eyes. “Xavier Ramon, Dorothy believed in you.”

  There was an audible gasp, as if the two hundred or so people crowded into the room had all realized, at the same moment, what Dorothy had intended.

  Thomas continued calling out names until three MidKnights and three Coroners had been singled out. Thomas straightened, and his arms fell to his side. “It’s time to take your places beside Dorothy Brown’s casket.”

  Garnet shut her eyes. She had no hope that any of the six young men would comply. Thomas had asked too much, too publicly. They would not stand, and when the import of what had been asked of them was understood, they would react with anger.

  And their anger would be enough to ignite the church.

  She heard a rustle. She could not block out the inevitable. She opened her eyes in time to watch Andre slowly get to his feet. He started toward Thomas. She lifted her hand as if somehow, even from yards away, she could protect her husband. Then, as she watched, Andre brushed past Thomas and started toward the casket. The other two MidKnights stood and moved to join him.

  “God,” she said softly. It was another prayer.

  Xavier Ramon got to his feet. “For Dorothy,” he said clearly. He snapped his fingers. The other two Coroners who had been chosen rose and joined him.

  Garnet took a deep breath as the Coroners reached the casket and took their places on the opposite side from the MidKnights. Then she forgot to breathe again as they lifted and shouldered the heavy casket as if they had practiced together for hours.

  The procession, with Thomas at the head, was slow and silent. Those gathered to witness it rose, as if they were one body, and stood respectfully until the casket was gone. Then they filed quietly and tearfully from their seats.

  Garnet, following Tex and Finn, was the last to leave. At the door she turned and stared at the picture of the multi-faceted Jesus that Dorothy had given to the church. Then she closed and locked the door behind her.

  9

  There had been no violence. Maybe Dorothy Brown, wearing angel wings, had been just out of sight directing her own funeral, or maybe God himself had rained blessings on the Church of the Samaritan.

  Or maybe, even more miraculously, a man named Thomas Stonehill had displayed enough courage, enough commitment and charisma, to convince the teenage fiends from hell to act like human beings for one afternoon.

  Garnet peered out the window for the fifteenth time, hoping to see Thomas’s car pull into the parking space just below. She had gone to the graveside to assure herself that the truce in the war between the Coroners and the MidKnights was going to last. Then, when the service had ended and the only remaining mourners were a few community leaders and family member
s, she had gotten a ride home with Tex and Finn.

  Now she waited impatiently for Thomas to return. She didn’t know how to tell him she was sorry. She had showed an abysmal lack of faith. Granted, all her reasoning had been sound. She had lived here forever. She knew these boys and what they were capable of, both good and bad. They did not respond well to coercion or public tests, and even the respect they felt for Dorothy Brown would not outweigh devotion to their chosen gangs.

  She had been sure she understood so much more than Thomas, but in the end, he had been the one who understood. He had understood about miracles. Dorothy, even on her deathbed, had understood about miracles, too.

  While Garnet waited for Thomas to return, she put the finishing touches on the table. She had worked swiftly to turn the apartment into a place to celebrate. The table was covered with her favorite blue tablecloth, and she had unearthed her most festive pottery to set it. There were candles in the center and an arrangement of dried flowers. She had even defrosted a steak she’d intended to divide for three nights of stir fry and set it to marinate in cooking wine and herbs in preparation for broiling. There were potatoes roasting and a salad in progress.

  And no Thomas.

  She changed her clothes. Black had hardly seemed appropriate for an event as uplifting as Dorothy’s last stand. She put on cropped pants and an oversize dark red T-shirt and let her hair hang loose around her face. Her necklace was a double strand of papier-mâché watermelon slices and her earrings matching hoops of watermelon seeds.

  And still there was no Thomas.

  She had just finished making dessert, her mother’s favorite Key lime pie, when Thomas walked through the door.

  “If you were a drinking man, I’d say you needed a drink,” she said.

  Thomas felt completely drained; there was nothing left of him. He had watched Dorothy’s coffin being lowered into the ground, a simple pine coffin that held the remains of one of the finest women he had ever known, and he had felt such despair that he had wanted to throw himself in after her.

  He hadn’t wanted to come home. In the past few days the tension in his apartment had been nearly as thick as the tension in the church today. Garnet was impossible to ignore. He was sure she had no idea how aware he was of every move she made, every sensuous, provocative move. She couldn’t know how his eyes followed her, how his traitorous body reacted to her presence, how desperately he wanted to talk with her, touch her, replenish himself with her warmth and wisdom.

  But he owed her more than that. He owed her a life free of his inadequacies. He could not bind her to him in any way; she had to be able to leave when the time was right. In the meantime, he had to keep his distance.

  But how could he keep his distance at this moment, with Garnet gazing at him and her earthy Garden of Eden smile flooding the room with light? How could he keep his distance when she was not about to keep hers?

  “Since you’re not a drinking man,” she said, “how about hot cider? It’s all made.”

  He wanted to turn and run. After the funeral he had found a hundred excuses to avoid coming home. He should. have found a thousand.

  “Thomas?” She walked toward him, frowning. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine."

  She stopped just an arm’s length away. “You’re burned-out,” she said. “I know the signs, preacher man. You’ve given your last for today. Sit down.” She pointed at the closest armchair. “Sit and let me take care of you, starting with some cider.”

  “You don’t need to wait on me.”

  She tossed her head, and her smile widened. “Sure I do. This is my party. We’re having a wake for Dorothy. Just you and me, and probably Dorothy, looking on from above.”

  He wanted to protest again, but she had already gone into the kitchen. He sank into the chair. He did not have the strength to leave. God help him, he had never had the strength to do what was right.

  His eyes were closed when she returned. His hair fell across his forehead, and he had managed to loosen his tie.

  But he looked like a warrior who had returned from a battle so terrible he would never be the same man again. She set his cider on the table beside him. When he didn’t move to take it, she squatted to look at him, resting her hand on his arm.

  “Thomas, that funeral was the most wonderful thing that’s happened in the Corners in years. Those boys stood together without a fight or even an angry word. I know you must be exhausted, but I hope you realize how important that was. There’s still hope here. Maybe all hell will break loose tomorrow, but today there was hope. And that was something.”

  He opened his eyes. For once her face was devoid of all defenses. Her expression was earnest, her lovely mobile mouth rounded in entreaty.

  “It wasn’t enough,” he said.

  “No? Well, you didn’t save the world, that’s true. But this little corner of it looked brighter for a while.”

  He wanted to deny even that much, but he couldn’t. He reached for the cider and swallowed some as she watched. It was hot and spicy, and it spread warmth in its wake, chasing away some of the chill that had felt almost natural.

  “Your problem, Reverend Stonehill, is that nobody ever taught you how to celebrate. How can you possibly slog through life without celebrating the good things that come along? Even the church has more pizzazz than that. For every Good Friday, there’s an Easter.”

  He searched her eyes.

  “I’m sorry I doubted you,” she said softly. “No, that’s not quite true. I never doubted you. I just doubted that even you could pull off something this impossible. But you did, and I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t want an apology.”

  “Too bad.” She smiled. “Seems to me there’s a lot of things you say you don’t want, but I think you’re lying to yourself.”

  “Garnet-”

  “For instance, I think you want to rest right now and let some of your sadness drain away. Then I think you want a good dinner with good company.” She began to untie his shoes.

  “Garnet-”

  “I think you really want to be quiet and relax. You want me to wait on you a little, maybe turn on some soft music and dim the lights before I go and broil the steak. You want to sit here and remind yourself that something good happened today until you feel it inside you a little more.” She slipped off his shoes.

  “No one ever taught you the meaning of the word no.”

  “And you won’t be the one who does, so relax.”

  He didn’t want to feel better. Feeling better was dangerous. It made him believe that life could be good, that he had something to offer in return for what he got. But she was gone before he could protest again. Gone just far enough that he could still hear the husky music of her voice murmuring love songs with the radio.

  His body responded to the sound of her voice as it had responded to her presence. His desires were still imprisoned deep inside him; only his ability to relieve them had disappeared. The torments of hell existed inside him, and there was no escape. The connection between desire and fulfillment had somehow been lost, and he was doomed to suffer until death.

  He shut his eyes again and willed himself to relax. He could get through this evening as he had gotten through others. Garnet would back away if he remained uncommunicative. He didn’t want to hurt her, but there was more hurt just around the corner if he let himself respond. He had nothing to give her, just as, in a different way, he’d had nothing to give Patricia. But the biggest difference between the man he was and the man he once had been was that now he knew the truth about himself.

  He was a fraud and a liar.

  In the kitchen Garnet sang along with the radio. Under the broiler the steak spat and crackled. She put the finishing touches on the salad and tossed it as she kept her eye on the oven. But beneath all the bustle and good spirits was a certain anxiety that, despite all her plans and intentions, Thomas was not going to respond.

  He had come to her fresh from Dorothy’s hospital bed,
and he had shared himself in a way he never had before. She had rewarded him by doubting his abilities. She hadn’t trusted him. She had let fear for his safety stand between them. Now it was too late to go back to those moments of sharing.

  She turned off the broiler and finished setting the table. Then, when everything was done, she went into the living room to tell Thomas.

  He was half reclining on the sofa, asleep. In repose his face looked younger, less the Roman soldier, more the man. But sleep, which should have been rejuvenating, seemed to suck something essential from him. As she watched, his head turned restlessly, as if he was following movement with his closed eyes.

  She knelt beside him, studying his face. He looked younger, but even more troubled. She wondered what he was living or reliving, what fear or memory had him in its grip-

  “Thomas?” She touched his arm. “Thomas?”

  He jerked upright. His hand grasped her wrist, and she gasped from shock.

  “Patricia?”

  She shook her head. “You were dreaming. Thomas, you’re hurting me!”

  He seemed disoriented. “No... I can’t—”

  She wrenched her arm from his grip. “I’m not Patricia. I’m Garnet. You were dreaming.”

  His eyes focused slowly. He saw Garnet, nothing like Patricia, alive and vibrant and... hurt. He reached for her hand. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I saw...”

  “What?” She cradled her throbbing wrist with her other hand. “What on earth did you see?”

  “The man who killed her.”

  She forgot her own pain. “Oh, Thomas.” She leaned toward him. “I’m sorry. But I’m glad I woke you.”

  He shut his eyes.

  “You said she died in a fight for her purse,” Garnet said. She touched his cheek in sympathy. “Did they find the man?” She didn’t know what else to ask. She didn’t know how Patricia had died, or even why, exactly. Except for that one fact, she knew nothing at all about his past.