by K M Stross
Purgatory
A novel by K.M. Stross
CHAPTER 1
The moment Chandler Cross saw the town of Purgatory appear on the dry horizon, he knew this would be the place where everything ended.
A pair of two-story cream-colored square buildings climbed into sight first, hugging the highway so close that they almost seemed to be sitting partly on the asphalt. As the bus got closer, he could see the town plainly even through the stinging pain in his left eye, a moment of clarity that he attributed to the hot sun overhead and not some kind of divine intervention that he no longer believed in.
According to what Cross had read in the newspaper clippings, Purgatory was a border town, on the southern edge of Arizona surrounded by a dry patch of nothing and not much else. A town that could be squeezed together into one Wal-Mart parking lot, where a small tumbleweed could blow from one end of town to the other unabated until it reached the empty limits, where dry desert was cordoned off by fences that held in sleepy-looking brown cattle whose sole purpose seemed to stop wayward balls of Salsola from running into one of the ranch-style houses with flaking roofs.
Cross had seen the large ranches surrounding the downtown area on his way in from the north. They peppered the arid, brown landscape: pale wooden barns and silver lines of barbed wire stretching right up to the shoulder of the highway. With the bus’s window open, he could almost taste the rawhide of steers grazing in the open fields. Fencing was awkwardly cut in some areas nearer the large hills to the east, following the patches of dark green grass and choking off the dryer areas.
The Greyhound slowed down to thirty inside the city limits as the highway temporarily turned into Main Street. The entire city seemed to hug one of two streets that intersected at the center of town where a small circular park broke up the intersection and created a roundabout. As the bus circled the park, Cross could see a small memorial standing out in the grass shaded by dark green maple trees. A sprinkler protruding from the grass sprayed the stone memorial with a jet of silvery water. Standing just out of reach of the sprinkler’s stream were three Mexican men, their eyes on the memorial.
The bus pulled over in front of a motel on the western end of the town, and Cross got out and stood on the gray sidewalk in the heat with his backpack hoisted over one shoulder and his worn copy of Principles of Flight tucked in his back pocket. The air smelled like dry concrete, tickling his nostrils. He could feel the sun on the back of his neck and started walking, past the motel, past a small grocery store with white aluminum siding and into a cafe whose small red sign reading “Family Café” hung over the sidewalk up ahead. The café was nestled in between a liquor store and a knitting shop. On the other side of the road—whose speed limit was officially twenty-five—was a similar row of two-story buildings with a self-described knick knack shop, two bars with identical beer signs hanging in their small tinted windows and a general store advertising ranching supplies.
The view from inside the café, looking out onto the main road, was that of the general store. It looked closed, Cross judged from his view at the counter, trying in vain to see if he could catch any activity through the dark window and relying primarily on his right eye. All he could make out were the vague details of the building itself: old bricks along the base, light blue paint dried and peeling from the shingles like banana peels under prolonged exposure to Arizona’s hot sun.
“Excuse me,” he said once the waitress re-emerged from the tiny kitchen in the back. He could see through the opening next to the coffee maker two Mexican men working a large stainless steel grill, and his hunger disappeared the moment his nostrils picked up the scent of sweat gathered between folds of skin. Maybe it was fried meat, he tried to tell himself. The thought did little to settle his stomach. The cooks were talking in Spanish in low voices, but it was quiet enough to hear them. They were glancing at Cross.
“Could I get a cup of coffee?” he asked.
The waitress tilted her head to toss aside graying strands of black hair and reached under the other side of the counter. She pulled out a saucer and cup. The black water already inside the cup didn’t release any visible steam. Cross frowned, looking at it and waiting for her to pull it away with a smile.
“Do you have any specials today?” he asked.
She turned and looked at the empty chalkboard hanging next to the door leading into the kitchen. “Doesn’t look like it.”
He forced a polite smile. “I’ll stick with the coffee, then.”
The waitress gave a nod, turning on her heels and returning to the other end of the counter to mingle with two other customers sitting in front of plates that were empty save for a smattering of crumbs. White men, in their late forties, aged ten years faster by the uncompromising heat that had slumped their shoulders and forced their skin to fold into itself, wrinkling like a piece of clothing stuck in the corner of a dryer. They could have been brothers, the waitress a long-lost cousin, perhaps, with slightly more weight around her stomach and heavy breasts that pushed out her black grease-smudged apron.
Cross took a sip of the bitter coffee, winced, swirling the cold liquid in his mouth, so it bit at the edges of his tongue. He carefully set it back on the white saucer. He looked up when he caught something out of the corner of his eye: a black man, sitting two stools over to the right, eyeing him over the top of a wrinkled newspaper from Phoenix. The paper’s date—June 15, 1995—caught Cross’s eye.
June 15. It had been so many years.
“Too strong for you?” the man asked.
Cross shook his head. “Too cold.”
The man snorted hard. “Jenna’s not a big fan of tourists traveling through.”
“Why's that?” Cross asked.
The man's dry lips curled back into a smile; Cross could almost hear the delicate skin cracking. “She likes to stand around and get fat,” he said in a low voice.
“What makes you think I’m traveling through?” Cross asked.
The man shrugged. When he did, the skin along his fat jaw line crossed together in wild zigzags. “Purgatory’s not the type of place many well-dressed people stick around in for too long.” He nodded to the white vestment hugging the collar of Cross’s black shirt. “Don’t have a church either, father. Not one that’s open for business, anyway.”
Cross held out a hand and reached over the empty stools, letting the man shake it twice before pulling away. “Chandler Cross.”
“Cross, huh?” The man thoughtfully licked the front of his yellow teeth. “Funny name for a priest.”
“My parents had a vision.” Cross took another sip of the coffee, swallowing it quickly before it could touch his teeth. He hadn’t had caffeine for more than a day, and the withdrawal had formed into a headache squarely between his eyes.
The man nodded. “The name’s Phil, by the way—sorry if I was too mean for your tastes. It’s not my way. Just got my fill of priests last time one came through snooping around is all.”
Cross nodded and brushed aside the apology with a wave of his hand. “Don't bother, and nice to meet you. And for what it's worth, my business isn't with the town. My business is with a priest who lived here named Father Aaron Abaddon.”
Phil glanced around the empty diner. He hopped over onto the next stool, setting his paper over the half-eaten plate of eggs and bacon. The grease soaked through the thin newsprint, melting the lines of black ink together. “I know who you’re here for. And you’d be wise to keep that name under your breath. People around here all have a pretty passionate stance on that man.”
Cross set down his cup. “I didn’t know it was a touchy subject.”
“Well, then you don’t know much about Purgatory.” Phil leaned hard on the counter, resting his head on his closed fist, so it pushed up his right cheek
. The black skin of his face looked pocketed in places, old acne scars that hadn't fully healed but had been filled out some by the excessive calories of a bacon-and-eggs diet. “People got sick of the hoopla. Even I got sick of it, and I don’t spend much time here.”
“No?”
Phil shook his head. “I’m a full-time trucker. I try to pass through here when I can because it’s home. Still took a long time before I could get a fresh cup of coffee.”
Cross looked down at his cup. “I suppose the media circus that surrounded the miracles probably made a lot of people in town cranky. I don’t blame them.”
“Empathy is a virtue,” Phil said with a smile. “Not that it wouldn’t be nifty if your bosses just went ahead and venerated our priest already.”
Cross squinted his left eye, willing the nervous itch away. “The Church isn’t usually so quick to take up the veneration process; the town should be thankful the whole thing is getting fast-tracked.”
Phil shrugged. “Maybe the Church knows Father Aaron was the real deal. Who knows?”
“Certainly not me,” Cross said. “They don’t tell me anything.”
Phil laughed. “Always the way with bureaucracies. It’s a lot for a small town to handle, though.” He scratched at the dark shadow of whiskers under his nose. “Any publicity makes this town nervous, what with being so close to the border and all.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a five-dollar bill. He set it on the counter next to the paper. “I need a cigarette. You got one I could bum?”
“Sure.” Cross smiled. “But I’m trying to quit.”
“Let me help you, then.”
Cross threw two singles on the counter and followed Phil outside. They walked down the street toward the park in the center of town and sat on a long wooden red bench in front of another all-purpose store advertising milk and Graham crackers. The bright beige shades were drawn down, and the door had an OPEN sign hanging behind the glass, but the spaces where hours could be filled in for each day were empty.
Cross pulled out two cigarettes and handed one to Phil, along with the lighter. A warm dry breeze was blowing down from the north, wrapping the entire town in a heavy musk of manure. Phil cupped his hands around the cigarette to light it, then handed the lighter back to Cross.
“If you don’t mind, why are you so damned interested in our priest?” Phil asked after a long drag. “We already had a fellow from the Church come through and ask a bunch of questions. Father Aaron wasn’t a pedophile, was he? God, I hope he wasn’t a pedophile.”
Cross lit his own cigarette and let it sit between his lips. The breeze picked up again, sending vapors of smoke into his right eye and forcing it to shut. Through his open left eye, he could make out only shadows in his peripheral—gray ghosts of images that disappeared in the stale breeze. “I’m just tying up some loose ends. It’s a bureaucracy like you said. There are a lot of hoops to jump through.”
“Well.” Phil took another drag and squinted up at the blue sky. “You’re not gonna find much else that isn’t already in the Vatican records. The last priest they sent pretty much ransacked this place for info when he poked around.”
“I’m hoping I can bring a fresh eye to the investigation.”
Phil nodded, licking his lips. “Do you think they’re gonna make him a saint?”
Cross exhaled, blowing the smoke away from them. “Oh, I think so, God willing. But I'm more interested in what you think, Phil.”
Phil thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “I dunno.”
“Do you believe in the miracles?”
Phil smiled, coughing lightly and expunging two thin streams of smoke from his nostrils. “Good question. Yeah, for the record I do. My ma’s a firm believer in every single so-called miracle that happened, and I trust her.”
Cross tugged at his tight collar and watched a dirt-brown pickup cruise past, pulling up next to the general store across from the café.
“May I ask a question only a tourist would ask?”
Phil laughed. “Of course, father.”
Cross pointed to the general store across the street. “So you’ve got a general store over there, and a general store over here,” he said, pointing past the café. “What’s the difference between the two?”
“Well,” Phil said, exhaling with a quiet groan. “The only difference is that the store across the street has different hours. It’s open in the evening, so it gets all of the immigrant business when everyone gets off from work in the late afternoon.”
Cross nodded, exhaling. “It’s a nice town.”
“Was,” Phil said. “Back before we got some new crackpot snooping around every other week searching for the mysteries of the universe.” Phil glanced at him, narrowing his eyes. “How do you feel about Mexicans?”
Cross shrugged, taken aback by the question. “I’ve met enough to know they’re just like anyone else if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Good.” Phil took a drag, blowing the smoke out. “Good. If you’re here to get answers for the Church, you’ll need to talk to Mexicans. The last priest who showed up here, he wasn’t too keen on talking to them. Caused a little tension, from what I hear. ”
“I’m not here to cause any trouble.”
“You come looking for answers about Father Abaddon,” Phil said, “and you’ll get trouble no matter how much you try to avoid it. I’m sorry if that sounds like something out of a bad movie, but it’s true.”
Cross tore his eyes away from the bar on the other side of the road. His left eye had unfocused, causing the image of the small one-window shop to blur and distort and play tricks on the image entering his brain. “Pardon me?”
“You know,” Phil said, smiling. “Like how in the movies there’s always someone sitting around telling the hero to turn back before he gets in trouble.”
“I’m no hero,” Cross said. “All I’m here to do is cross the T's and dot the I's so the Vatican can move ahead with veneration.”
Phil tossed the cigarette butt on the sidewalk. “Hero never listens anyway. God, but there ain’t much to do out here except watch movies. Still love this town, though. Love coming through this place. It just has that small-town atmosphere.”
“I can feel it,” Cross said. He doubted they were feeling the same thing. Cross was feeling anxiety. He was feeling the hairs on the back of his neck sticking up. There was something about this place. Something he hadn’t felt in a long time.
“Where are you staying during this little vacation of yours?”
Cross reached into his pocket and pulled out a small receipt for various medications he had purchased in Phoenix and flipped it over. “Motel Six. I guess that's the one down there,” he said, pointing the way they’d come.
Phil stood up. “I’ll walk you over there, and then I’ll take another cigarette off your hands to help you quit. How does that sound?”
“Fair enough,” Cross said. He stood and followed Phil back down toward the café.
They walked in silence, slowly, so the sun wouldn’t press down too hard on their backs. An OPEN sign hung in the front door of the knitting shop, along with a typewritten list of current fabric specials taped beside it. Red, white and blue twine was five percent off.
“Did you ever see him?” Cross asked, glancing at the sign; there was an updated listing of narrowed hours written over the typeface in black marker.
“Sure,” Phil said. He kept his eyes on the dusty sidewalk ahead. “Anyone who ever went to St. Joseph’s church did. He seemed a friendly type of fellow.”
“I’ve been told he was a very nice young man. Did you ever talk to him?”
Phil shook his head. “Never really had much reason to. I only went because my ma needed someone to take her. Like I said, I’m not a very religious man. Someone comes up to me and tells me the new assistant priest healed some woman’s bum leg, and I’ll believe you. But I'm sure as hell won’t I say it’s any sort of miracle. Modern science, you know? I spent a year in
Afghanistan and saw a lot of things that looked like miracles, but God didn't ever grow back someone’s legs.”
“You were in Afghanistan?” Cross asked.
Phil nodded. “Just for a few months. Contract work on a few convoys, all that bullshit. But I saw doctors do a lot of amazing stuff when I was in the military camps. Hearts shocked back to life, legs sewn up after taking a goddamn armor-piercing round. I guess my threshold for miracles is a little higher than the Vatican’s.”
They stopped at the liquor store just past the cafe. This one had a Bud Light sign hanging in the window with the shades up, but the lights inside were off. Cross peered into the window to look at the chilled selection inside the glass coolers lining the walls of the small space.
“You ain’t really here to just come and wrap up loose ends, are you?” Phil asked quietly.
Cross turned back to him, his face suddenly hot. “What makes you say that?”
“Dunno. Just a hunch. I hear before they venerate a new saint, the Vatican brings in a Devil’s Advocate … someone who’s supposed to argue against the veneration. You know, make sure the saint-in-question isn’t just a fraud.”
“If you’re worried about some ulterior motive …” Cross searched for more words to stave off the man’s suspicion. “It’s true that the Church may have some questions it needs to be answered before it can proceed.”
Phil started walking again, and Cross followed. “Just make sure you broach the subject carefully. A lot of people in this town have a lot riding on this priest’s veneration, and they take it seriously. They’re not too patient anymore.”
“Thank you, and I’ll keep that in mind. Any other advice?”
“Yeah,” Phil said in a low voice. His head was bent toward the sidewalk. “When you find out about the disappearances, try not to act too surprised. When the sheriff tells you the illegals did it, you nod your head. When he tells you everything in this town is hunky dory, you take him at his word.”
“Illegals?” Cross asked.
Phil nodded, keeping his eyes ahead of him.
