Broken Angel

by Sigmund Brouwer

  Not bad, Carney thought.

  “Was it your deputy? He big enough to make a hole like that through this brush?” Pierce answered his own question. “Nope. The girl and the boy aren’t big enough to lift him on a horse, let alone subdue and tie him. Chances are it was someone else and the deputy did all the hard work.”

  Carney grunted again.

  “Why go to all this work?” Pierce said. “There’s three of them. The girl. The factory boy. Your deputy. If this is a fourth person, why kidnap him, tie him up, and leave him with the horse from the livery?

  “The one they tied up, whoever it was, and left behind, he must have had a horse when they found him. They took his horse and kept going. Back at your office, the guy is probably waiting to report all this. Once we start tracking his horse, we’ll find them.”

  “Curfew.”

  “Right.” Pierce made a clucking sound. “Anyone our three met last night was out after curfew. With the horse they took from him. No one will be in your office to incriminate himself.”

  “Not yet.” Carney squinted at the screen of his vidpod and made a few adjustments. “Just logged in the coordinates of this location. We can do a reverse trace. Send in this location and approximate time, and we’ll get back a list of all the vidpods that went through this area overnight. That will lead us to the owner.”

  “Unless the owner threw out his vidpod too.”

  “Nobody moves anywhere without a vidpod. Penalties are too severe. Besides, people get lost in this territory. These parts are like an overgrown maze, and the vidpod has software to help him find his way around.”

  “Unless your deputy stole it after dumping his.”

  “Billy’s stupid, but not so stupid he’d ignore a knife while going through the guy’s pockets for a vidpod. And if he did steal the vidpod, when we track it, we’ll find Billy. He knows that, so he wouldn’t steal it. And…there’s something else,” Carney said. “If this played out as we suspect, how could this person have traveled after curfew on horseback without triggering any alarms?”

  Pierce shook his head. “Explain.”

  “Our satellite software is set up to alert the sheriff of the nearest town if any of the horse GPS chips are moving after curfew. So why didn’t I know about the other horse last night?”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Jordan could not guess at how much time had passed. He’d slipped into and out of consciousness as if repeatedly dipping into a cool river.

  He was still on the wagon; he could feel the motion. How long until the graveyard?

  The light entering the coffin changed shades in an irregular pattern, and he guessed that the wagon drove down a lane arched with trees.

  The wheels stopped creaking, but he was too exhausted to try to scream again.

  There was a slapping sound. A scraping sound.

  Then his coffin shifted. Again, two men were carrying him. He could tell by the rhythm. These men never spoke.

  They were carrying him to the gravesite. Jordan pictured it easily. The hole in the ground would be prepared already, then the coffin would be lowered. The first shovelfuls of dirt would thump against the top of the coffin. Too soon, the cracks of light would be filled.

  Then there would only be embalming silence. If he were lucky, the dirt would be wet and the weight of it above the coffin would be tightly packed enough to seal him from air. He’d suffocate quickly. If not, it would take him days to die, helpless to move, his thirst amplified by the other agonies of his broken body.

  Tears filled his eyes, because the dirt slamming his coffin lid would also be slamming any hope of seeing Caitlyn again. He continued the prayers that he used to fill his conscious moments, prayers that she would survive the journey to Outside, that he could believe in those he’d entrusted with her life.

  The rhythm of steps stopped abruptly. The coffin was lowered and set gently down.

  Would there be a preacher at the gravesite to say words over his burial? Or would he be buried as an unknown pauper?

  He thought of the years that had brought him there since the fire in the lab. Would he have changed that one act all those years ago?

  No, it had to be done.

  He was about to close his eyes to pray again when bright light filled his world. He squinted and saw the outlines of two figures against the sky, leaning down, looking at him.

  He tried to speak. But he was too exhausted, too stressed.

  Jordan felt the black timeless void surrounding his consciousness, and he fell into it yet again.

  In the tree, screened by brush, Caitlyn listened to the approaching drums. She wasn’t worried that they would be discovered. No one crossing the bridge to their side of the river would think about anything except for what would happen when the march of the procession ended and the drumbeats quickened until the herald’s public proclamation.

  She was lost in these grim thoughts when Billy nudged her. He pointed at Theo, who sat with his knees drawn to his chin. His face was wet with tears as he stared at the river.

  Caitlyn moved closer and sat beside him.

  “Theo?”

  The procession had reached the bridge.

  Theo shook his head, refusing to look at her. “I can’t watch. I can’t watch. I can’t watch.”

  “You don’t have to. We’re not part of the crowd.”

  Theo pushed his head against her shoulder. He pressed his hands against his ears. His body shuddered.

  Caitlyn turned her head back to the bridge.

  She’d heard about these, recognized what the rock pile meant, but had never seen one.

  Bruno was the name Mason had given the black bear. Not original, but Mason never claimed creativity as a talent outside of dealing with prey. The bear paced constantly in the cramped cage, hidden far into the foliage behind Mason’s private cabin. The place was in the hills, a quiet perk provided by Bar Elohim.

  Mason approached the cage with a dart gun in one hand and a collar dangling from the fingers of his other hand. The air reeked with feces, as cleaning the cage was not high on his priorities. Nor was feeding the bear. He wanted the bear in a constant state of irritable hunger.

  The bear stopped pacing and stared suspiciously at Mason, as if sensing this was not another visit to throw half-rotten meat in the cage.

  Leaving the collar dangling in his fingers, Mason rested the barrel of the dart gun on a cage bar, resentful that his cast made it necessary to use the bar to steady the gun. Without ceremony, he aimed at the bear’s flank and pulled the trigger. With a puff of compressed air, the dart struck the bear solidly. The bear spun in tight circles, trying to identify the source of pain.

  Mason leaned the dart gun against the cage and unbuckled the collar as he waited until he saw the first signs of the anesthetic taking effect. Then he opened the cage door, stood in the opening, and taunted the bear.

  Groaning in rage and confusion, it staggered out of the enclosure. Once outside, it took a few feeble swipes at Mason before falling on its side. Mason had arranged the whole event with practicality in mind. If he didn’t release the bear before it collapsed, he’d be forced to walk into the cage, risk dirtying his polished boots by stepping in bear crap, and have to drag the stinking animal out.

  Mason waited another minute, watching the bear’s ribs, until a slow rise and fall showed that it was completely unconscious. He knelt beside the bear and attached the collar.

  The collar included a small weight to ensure the front remained lodged under the bear’s chin—the payload sat on the back of the collar, and Mason didn’t want the bear to be able to reach it.

  He put the payload in place. Without looking back, Mason hurried into the cabin. When Bruno woke, he would wander the valley, hunting a meal, with Mason’s vidpod on his neck. Just in case someone was going to check on Mason’s location.

  Which now gave Mason about as much freedom as a person could expect in Appalachia.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Caitlyn watched through the
branches from fifty yards away as townspeople followed a drummer and the local Elders across the bridge. The Elders wore silent grimness like cloaks, their bearded faces straining with the seriousness of their task, but their bold vestments gleamed in the sun. A young woman, not yet thirty, walked in front of the Elders on the far side of the drummer, and it took several minutes for Caitlyn to see her without obstruction. The woman was draped in a brown girdled blanket, her hands bound and hanging in front, and her recently shaven head bowed. The church herald, sweating heavily in a tasseled cassock often worn for these ceremonies, stepped in front of the men and children in the crowd. Caitlyn knew they were all headed for the pile of fist-sized jagged rocks piled like a cairn.

  Above the beat of the drum, the herald called out a singsong proclamation of ritual, as if he served an audience of hundreds instead of only the population of a tiny town. Caitlyn strained to hear him, but after he repeated the proclamation, she picked out his words.

  “Jaala Branigan, daughter of Michael Branigan, is going to be stoned because she has dishonored him and Bar Elohim through the act of rebellion. If anyone knows anything in favor of her acquittal, let him come and plead it.”

  The herald stopped and the entire procession followed, with the children straining to peer around the larger bodies of the adults. The herald turned to face the woman with the shaved head.

  “Make your confession,” he commanded her. Caitlyn knew a formal confession was required by Appalachian law, a practice the preachers said was based on Old Testament law.

  She could see that the woman raised her head and looked at the herald. She had folded her bound hands together. From what Caitlyn could tell, she had the build of a laborer. Caitlyn imagined that any beauty Jaala had was in her eyes and wondered what lights glowed there now in the face of such terror.

  “Make your confession,” the herald demanded again. While Caitlyn had never witnessed this type of execution, her father had taught her all about Bar Elohim’s rules and punishment. The woman was supposed to say, “May my death be an atonement for all my sins.”

  Caitlyn watched as Jaala silently shook her shaved head.

  Wanting guidance, the herald looked to the town Elders, who stood away from the crowd to his left.

  “Let her die without peace then!” An Elder declared this to the crowd. He was the largest of the trio, with the face above his untrimmed beard flushed red.

  He waved the townsmen to move forward and push the woman toward the pile of stones. They grabbed the woman’s arms and forced her forward. She shook them off and walked alone to her place of execution.

  Caitlyn silently moved a branch to see Jaala. Now that the woman was close enough, she saw the tears trail from her eyes and her large hands clench and strain at the bounds of rope.

  The Elders still had not taken any rocks from the nearby pile. Instead, two of them marched toward the woman. Wordlessly, they stripped the brown tunic from her body and left it at her feet. Because of the watching children, they allowed her undergarments to remain in place. The renewed humiliation appeared to lower her head once more.

  The two Elders returned to the group. The first spoke loudly, facing another man in the crowd. “This is your daughter, Michael. You are bound to throw the first stone.”

  This man, same square face as the woman, stood as if paralyzed.

  The large spokesman Elder began reciting. “If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother…then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city…and all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die.”

  “She will obey!” the anguished father said. “I promise! Give her another chance.”

  Caitlyn thought she saw the Elder smile, as if waiting for this response from Michael. He turned to the young woman. “Jaala Branigan, will you give up your defiance? Will you stop serving the evil of the Clan?”

  “Don’t call the Clan evil.”

  “So you admit again that you are part of the Clan?”

  “I have never denied it.” The unexpected sound of joy replaced the remnants of fear in her voice.

  “Will you tell the authorities who led you to the Clan?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Please, Jaala. Save your life.” The woman’s father sobbed now.

  “And lose my soul?”

  The large Elder was the first man to step to the pile of rocks. The other men followed and armed themselves.

  At that moment, wind came up from the valley and kicked a cloud of dust over the bridge. Caitlyn thought she heard a branch crack and thought Billy might be shifting in his tree. Somewhere in the crowd, a voice wailed.

  The group waited for Michael Branigan, her father. Caitlyn knew the stoning could not begin until he threw first, but he remained stone-still in place. Men returned to drag him forward. The spokesman Elder forced a rock into Branigan’s hand.

  He dropped it at his feet, weeping.

  “As required by law, the first stone has been cast.” The Elder hefted his own rock, only a few paces away from the young woman.

  “No!” she cried. “Allow me to speak.”

  The men hesitated.

  With both bound hands, she raised her arms above her head. “Since childhood, like you, I was told to serve the church. But I learned that God is different than the church.”

  The Elder spoke. “You had your chance. You have no say.”

  She ignored him and yelled to the crowd. “The church is a prison!”

  “Enough!” The Elder hurled his rock, and it struck her upper arm, gashing a streak of bright red.

  Caitlyn saw the woman’s father fall to his knees and bury his head beneath his arms.

  “We must be free to believe.” Jaala continued her shouting as the stones were hurled. “God’s love is not a prison.”

  “You blaspheme, woman! God has commanded us to purge this evil from the people,” the Elder shouted. He lifted another rock and threw it. The woman chose not to duck; she stood very still, and Caitlyn thought her lips were moving as the stone hit her cheekbone, knocking her to her knees.

  As all the other men threw rocks, Caitlyn turned away.

  On the road, the body was still beneath a pile of stones.

  The crowd was gone, and Caitlyn put an arm around Theo’s narrow shoulders. She felt how he shook with sobs, fighting to keep them silent.

  “Don’t…” He could hardly speak.

  “What?”

  “No…matter…what…”

  “What are you trying to say, Theo?”

  “Don’t…take…me…to…a…doctor.” His shaking was rapidly becoming more than silent sobs.

  “Theo?”

  “The stoning. That’s how my parents died. I had to throw the first rock. I’d…rather…be…dead…than…go…back.”

  He fell against her shoulder. She saw his eyes roll back into his head.

  Caitlyn gently took his chin in her hand. “Theo! Wake up!”

  No response.

  THIRTY

  Pierce had rolled up an office chair to watch the computer screen in Carney’s office.

  The keyboard didn’t have any lettering but icons that matched the icons on the screen. Carney was fast, using the keyboard to open various files by punching the keyboard icons or directing the programs with the computer mouse. Occasionally, the computer requested input, which Carney did orally, speaking in a slow measured voice that the software obviously had been trained to recognize, for there were very few mistakes. Information was delivered in a soothing female voice from the computer speakers. Pierce marveled that all of it could be accomplished without any reading or writing.

  “I’ve been in Appalachia for long enough,” Pierce said. “All I see are contradictions. It’s like living in Mayberry.”

  Carney’s frown showed he didn’t understand.

  “A fictional town, part of a popular television series from t
he last century,” Pierce corrected himself. “But, Sheriff, Mayberry had cars. You’ve gone even farther back in time, to horses and wagons. Yet you have as much tech as Outside.”

  Carney clicked on another icon. Pierce wasn’t familiar with it. He realized that Appalachians did have an alphabet of sorts, like Egyptian hieroglyphics or Chinese characters.

  “So why mix horses with high tech? Mayberry meets Star Trek?”

  Carney sighed. He pulled out his vidpod. Pierce understood the sheriff was making it obvious again that the conversation was on official record.

  “I don’t know what Star Trek is. I do know that Outsiders are slaves to technology, whereas Appalachians pick and choose. We’re a small country; we don’t need highways. And Greenhouse credits from the Outside make up a third of our exports.”

  “Along with slave labor churning out computer chips.”

  “I’m supposed to comment on that?”

  “Probably not.” Pierce glanced at the vidpod. “Fine. I’ll shut up.”

  Carney clicked at the keyboard again, then turned suddenly toward Pierce. “That’s why secession has worked. Outside minds its own business. We mind ours. We prefer not to murder unborn children. Or genetically manipulate embryos.”

  “I said I’ll shut up already.”

  Carney swung back to his computer screen. He clicked another icon on the keyboard. “Got it. The personal identification number on the vidpod that was moving around near the horse's location last night near the stable. Movement matches where we found the abandoned livery horse too.”