Before I could say another word, she wandered off.
“I’m sorry.” Those words I meant. Sorry Wren struggled in the world, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to help her.
The horses nuzzled me, and I petted their noses and brushed their flanks and smelled their strong smell. The night was chilly, but being surrounded by the bodies made it feel just right. My family was trouble, and I couldn’t imagine we’d ever get over all the pain we’d caused one another, but at least I could find solace in my horses.
I left them, looking forward to sleep, but my night wasn’t over. Pilate sat at the fire, a cigar in his mouth. If he lit up I would strike it off his lips. He fixed his eyes on me. “You and I need to talk. There’s a few things I need to get off my chest since it appears you are now our fearless leader.”
My heart took off thudding in my chest.
What did Pilate want to talk to me about?
(ii)
This was Pilate, so he didn’t get to the point right away. He lounged back in his Neofiber chair, cigar in his mouth, coffee mug in his fist. “Did you read Stephen King in high school, Cavvy?”
I shook my head. I was sitting in a folding chair near him, but not too close, so the smoke from the fire could pass between us. Normally, I would’ve asked for the truth quick, but I wasn’t in a hurry to hear how young and stupid I was.
“No, of course not,” he said. “We’ve all gone back two hundred years, to simpler times. You’re reading Dickens and Jane Austen and those long Henry James novels. Like if we read enough nineteenth century literature, we can pretend the Sino never happened and that the Juniper is the set of a John Ford or Sergio Leone western. It’s sweet. With the New Morality dresses and the cute way of talking, I sometimes feel like I’m trapped in a Little House on the Prairie episode. But we can’t go back. Only way through is forward. For us. For America. For all of our troubled civilization.”
Okay, he was going on and on, so I got impatient. “Pilate, are you going to preach me to sleep or are we going to talk, really talk?”
He smiled. “I was thinking about fate, that’s all. You’ve never read any Stephen King, but the Dark Tower series is about obsession, fate, and destiny. Given my nature, I’ve been obsessing. I think it’s our destiny to bring these cows to Wendover, Nevada. But Micaiah is more important. Somehow. He’s a part of our destiny, and we’re a part of his. I can’t say how I know. I just know. Fate.”
“If he’s out there alone, should we track him?” I asked. “Should we try to bring him back and hide him?”
“No,” Pilate said. “If we look for him, the watching Regios will follow us right to him. It’s better that he’s out there alone. He’s smart. Really smart. Whoever he is, and whatever he has, it’s important. Obviously. Why else would the Vixx sisters be hunting him with an army?”
I knew part of the answer—he was the son of the richest man on earth—but did that explain four zeppelins and hundreds of soldiers?
“They shot Jenny Bell for nothing.” I had to swallow hard to get the lump down and the words out.
“Yeah, I know. I held Zenobia while she cried. I touched Jenny Bell’s cold face. I offered to do the funeral, but Zenobia wanted us all gone.” His voice dropped. “Before we left, I got more Skye6 for Petal, just in case. She wants to quit. She’s in our tent now, asleep or delirious enough to not realize I left her alone. She’ll beg. She’ll plead. She’ll scratch the skin off her bones. And those are the good times.”
“How can we help her?” I asked.
He chewed on his cigar. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen her like this. You have to know that Petal is done shooting.” It was his turn to swallow hard. “And Wren is going to get worse. What Sharlotte said was Wren’s worst fears coming true—that her own family hates her.”
“How come Petal hates Wren so much?” I knew it didn’t really follow anything in our conversation, but I didn’t want to talk about me leading. Not yet.
“The truth?” He sighed long and hard. “Petal thinks I’m in love with Wren. Petal knows all about the women I help. It hurts her because she wants me to be faithful and I can’t. With Wren, though, it’s a different type of thing. I do love Wren. Not in a sexual way, more like agape love, unconditional love, because we’re such kindred spirits. Me and Wren. So alike. Troubled. Contrary.”
He removed his cigar to sip his coffee and then pushed the cigar back into the corner of his mouth. Coughs wheezed out of him, but he suppressed them with a grimace.
I gritted my teeth and got to the heart of our conversation. “Most folks know it already, but Sharlotte took off. I’m in charge. What I said to Crete and Dolly Day were lies.”
Pilate nodded. He spit tobacco flakes into the fire, burned down to embers now, creaking in the heat. The coals gave off a hot, dry smell.
“I’m your security, Cavatica,” Pilate said. “I watched you sneak Sharlotte in, watched you gather supplies, then watched her go. Made me smile. It’s her turn to leave and be the wild one.” Pilate fixed his eyes on the coals. “You were able to leave. Wren got to be wild. And all Sharlotte ever got was more work. So, she’s taking her turn doing both, leaving and going wild. You have to respect that. Most people want to rebel, but they don’t have the courage. I didn’t think Sharlotte did. But, here she is, leaving at the worst possible time.”
“Mama never would’ve left us.” I couldn’t help but be petulant about it.
Pilate laughed. “What? She did leave! She left her family right when they needed her the most. During the Sino, after the Knockout, the economy was going to hell, people were dying like mosquitoes in a frost, and her family needed every hand to keep their business afloat in Cleveland, and that’s right when Abigail Weller gave them the big ‘go jack yourselves’ and ran off to the Juniper to salvage. And where did she get her salvaging skills? From the family business.”
I frowned at his cursing.
Pilate tried to soothe me some. “Don’t worry. Sharlotte will come back. She loves you, she loves her cows, and deep down she enjoys how much she hates me and Wren. Like Catullus, she loves and she hates, and it tortures her, but she likes the torture. People can be funny like that.”
“Until she gets back ...” My heart turned jittery in my chest as I asked in a breathy, broken voice. “Do you think I can lead?”
It all came down to that one question.
Chapter Eight
War, in reality, is prohibitively expensive. The cost in natural resources, in armament, in loss of productivity, is cheap, so cheap, compared to the price we pay in the shattered minds and ruined lives of those who return. The expense of taking care of our veterans in body, mind, and spirit is more than this country can afford. War is far too costly, always has been, always will be.
—Dr. Anna M. Colton, PhD
Professor of Sociology, Princeton University
60 Minutes Interview
February 27, 2056
(i)
PILATE THREW ON A COTTONWOOD log and said what he said every time he stoked the fire. “Flame on, Johnny Storm.”
I never asked him what it meant. Trying to figure out everything Pilate said was like spelunking into prairie dog tunnels. He went every which way—the Bible, old video, fantasy novels, comic books, English translations of outdated Latin theologies.
The piece of cottonwood smoked for a bit, then caught flame. Cottonwood burns with a sharp, almost bitter smell, but it was one of my favorite odors in the world. It was home.
“I went hunting with my dad when I was thirteen.” Pilate settled in to talk a long time.
“We drove all the way out from New York to Colorado. It took days and days, but back then, I had my Tendo XVS, and we had tons of movies in the car, and I was reading The Lord of the Rings, so the ride went quick. Even though I was just a kid, I laughed when we drove into Denver. I mean, I was used to New York City and Washington, DC and Boston and Philadelphia. Denver seemed like a cow town with skyscrapers. Then we hit the Rocky Moun
tains, and it was another world. I loved the trees, the peaks, and the wildlife. It was gorgeous. Loved it all until it was time for the hunting part.
“We were looking for deer over near Steamboat—me, my dad, a few of his friends. I had my own rifle. I had practiced shooting, and I was pretty proud of my aim. Hubris, of course, but a teenager’s pride can change the world if they can hang on to it.
“I’ll never forget it, Cavvy.” His voice dropped, and he sat with the cigar in his fingers, inches from his mouth, the campfire gnawing at the cottonwood log. “I had a doe in my sights. But I was worried about the recoil. I was worried what my dad would say if I missed. And then I really looked at the doe, so pretty, so scared, eyes with long lashes. Gentle. I couldn’t do it. It was murder, and I couldn’t murder her.”
He put the cigar in his mouth and chewed on it. Pilate rarely told stories about his past. This was a first, but I couldn’t quite imagine him gun-shy. I’d shot a deer before. It was hard, but I’d done it. And here he was, Pilate, this great warrior, too soft to pull the trigger on a doe.
“Thou shall not kill,” Pilate continued. “It’s a full one-tenth of God’s holy commandments, and people could go to church, week after week, and still go off and kill. Oh, how I loved Mass. The grandness of it all. The spectacle, the ancient history, the otherworldliness. Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might. And every Sunday, we got to witness a miracle, bread and wine changed into flesh and blood. A holy sacrifice. Magic.”
“Is that why you became a priest?” I asked. Couldn’t help it. I needed to know if he thought I could lead the cattle drive, but he was drawing me into his story.
“Partly. Partly to avoid the war. I was fifteen when China invaded Taiwan, to restore their great empire. Chinese history is cyclical. Lose land during the bad times and gain land in the good. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers flood, and it all starts over again. The Chinese were just following history’s script. And the U.S. has a script of her own ... when natural resources grow lean, go into countries with armies preaching freedom, democracy, and blue jeans while companies fill their pockets with oil, tax dollars, and gold.”
I did the math in my head in a minute. “So you were my age when they nuked Yellowstone.”
He nodded. “I was a thousand miles away in upstate New York, in my little town, and we all watched the smoke, felt the chill as the sun went away. The great Sino-American War didn’t pause a bit, and I knew if I didn’t figure out how to get out of the draft, I’d find myself in Shanghai with a gun in my hand.”
What he said sounded cowardly, but this was Pilate. How could he have changed so much?
Pilate smiled wanly. “My dad encouraged me to become a priest. He knew I was different. He knew the church was the perfect place for me, especially the Jesuits.”
I interrupted again—backing things up. “So he didn’t yell at you when you couldn’t shoot the doe?”
Pilate let out a low chuckle. “My dad? No. He said maybe the world would be a better place if more men failed at pulling triggers. He was a good guy, my dad. A good guy.” He then gave me a pointed look. “And if you keep interrupting, we’re going to be here all night. Let me finish.”
“But what about me? What about Sharlotte being gone and me leading?”
He turned the log so the fire could get to the unscorched side of the wood. “We’ll get to that. First, though, back at the Scheutz ranch you asked me about my goddamn faith. I’m going to give you an answer.”
“Okay.” I strapped on my listening ears.
“So I went to St. Louis and studied at the Kenrick Glennon Seminary. It was so easy for me, Cavvy, especially the celibacy part. I guess I had the same desires as everyone else, but I knew how to turn them off. A switch. Click. I’d read another book or go to another movie and live some more inside my head.”
When he switched gears, I kept up.
“The Sino, like all good wars, does a great deal of lying. The war will be over by Christmas. Okay, the war will be over by Groundhog Day. No, no, no, the war will be over by the freakin’ Fourth of July. Year after year after year. They needed chaplains. The Father Provincial of my region wanted me specifically to go. ‘They need a gentle hand over there, Father,’ he told me. I went, even though I was so afraid, even though I’d done everything I could to avoid it. Then again, I’d always liked Father Mulcahy on MASH. It’s old video about the Korean War, but really, it’s about all wars.”
I nodded, though I didn’t catch any of his references. More prairie dog tunnels twisting to nowhere.
“You can’t imagine the Sino, Cavvy. It was a journey into the heart of darkness. Apocalypse Now. In the end, it all fell apart. The whole thing. It was years of chaos and bloodshed as the hierarchy and discipline of the troops fell apart. The United States armed forces turned into a killer robot, headless, mindless. Only slaughter mattered. Murder on a scale undreamed of. It made World War I look like a Weller family fight. The generals thought our technology and drones could do the work, but it takes people on the ground to do the actual slaughtering because in the end, people are far cheaper than technology, and we are far better at murdering than machines are.” He laughed a little at that. “And there I was, little Father Pilate, anointing the sick, whispering last rites over the dying, hearing confessions that gave me screaming nightmares. God came out of the twentieth century wheeling and ready to fall, and the Sino was that last grand punch. A knockout. God was knocked out of the ring.”
He got his stir stick and beat the fire until sparks flew and flames sprang from the mashed corpses of logs. He tossed on more wood and sat back down. “I read about the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Back in the 1970s, during the killing fields, the generals found a farm boy, and do you know how they turned that simple farmer into a killer? They made him practice on pigs. The boy slaughtered pigs day after day after day, until killing pigs meant nothing. And then they brought him people. Day after day after day of killing people until killing people meant nothing. That was me in the Sino. A thick, yellow callous grew over my soul. God was dead. My silly words and scriptures didn’t matter. But if I helped kill? If there was one less China girl shooting at us? That mattered. Every death brought us closer to home, or that’s what I told myself. Couldn’t kill a doe, but I could kill people, rather easily, ironically enough.”
Pilate let out a long breath. “Petal shares my same story. I pulled her out of the Battle of the Hutongs, and we needed a sniper. I taught her, and she took to it. She knew the anatomy of the enemy, so she could kill more efficiently. And with her medicine, well, it calmed her, so shooting people meant nothing. Just killing pigs. I made her into a killer, and I kept her doped, so she wouldn’t crack, so she could shoot. After that, sleeping with her didn’t feel like a sin. We needed each other, and war glues people together. Or maybe it’s more like chains. Shackles.”
That was why he was with Petal. He was shackled to her. The truth slouched sick and slippery in my belly. A hush fell over us. Our people in their tents slept, the cows lowed, and horse hooves shuffled in the dirt. The flames hissed when they found a wet stick, still green.
“My goddamn faith is gone.” Pilate smiled sadly. “Has been for years. I don’t believe in anything anymore, and I don’t believe our souls can heal. Bodies can heal, I’m living proof. But not souls. I’ll never heal from what I’ve done, from what I continue to do. Unrepentant.”
He coughed, cleared his throat several times, then spit off to the side. “Doctors and priests killing right alongside soldiers. That was the Sino. I’m not surprised President Swain sent all the Ladies in Waiting to the Juniper. America likes to march her soldiers far afield but then does a piss-poor job of taking care of them when they get back. I feel for June Mai Angel, but if we were in a gunfight, I’d still do my best to put her down.”
He let out a breath, not a sigh but an exhale, like inside it hurt to breathe. “And you know, Cavvy, people think me sleeping with all these women makes me a sinner regardless of my motives
. It’s not for me, you understand. Even with Petal, it’s not for me. I do it as a service, and I know that sounds like the worst pick-up line in history, but it’s the truth. I miss celibacy. My head was a whole lot clearer back then.”
He paused for a long time, eyes on the fire. I watched him. Kept quiet and waited. My insides stayed sick, listening, and I wasn’t sure I could bear to hear more.
“It’s just sex,” he said finally. “It’s crazy to come down against gillians when ninety percent of the population is female. Such crapperjack. At times, I think if the Church didn’t have sex to talk about, they’d find themselves silent. And the Church can’t be silent. Silent churches don’t get donations. Ad meioram Dei gloriam. All for the greater glory of God. As long as the collection plate is full.”
He snorted.
“No,” he said, “the sex doesn’t matter. But the killing. The hardness that’s in me ... nursing Petal and watching her crippled soul crawling through this world ... it hurts me. Every time I gave her the medicine, I didn’t know if I was treating Petal’s sickness or my own despair. In the end, that’s what it was. I know it. I gave her the shots because I couldn’t handle my own despair.
“Why do you think the minute I got home from the Sino I came to the Juniper? Traded in one war for another. Because if I went back to teaching, if I went back to reading and movies and my quiet life of study, I’d get bored, and then I’d have to drink again, or I’d have to blow my own fucking head off.”
He said it ... the f-word ... the worst swear word anyone could say. Not the j-word, but the f-word. It sent a shock through me. Everything he’d said shocked me, but that was the electrical charge that triggered the explosion. I realized I was hearing his confession. And suddenly, the power of it all, my daddy explaining himself, made me cry. Tears fell down my cheeks.
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