by The Behrg
She’d never understand why these religions oppressed the ones who should have been lauded for their efforts. Crushed those who were already on their knees. Like this poor child with the deformity on his face. He had probably never known a normal life and now, instead of being permitted to go out and gain his own experiences, he was in servitude to some high and mighty priest.
The only thing worse than being a slave, she thought, was being one and not knowing.
Josue hesitated before the door, his fingertips bouncing off each other in a strange rhythmic clap. “Father?” he finally said.
On the opposite wall of the door, diagonal to the rug, was an oil painting of another beardless Saint, that ridiculous halo crown surrounding his head, as he stood confidently before a crowd of men and women. Some listened to his words with rapt attention while others turned their faces away.
Even the church knows it’s not for everyone, Faye thought.
“Father?”
A voice responded from the other side of the door. “I’m in prayer, whatever it is can wait.”
Before the child could turn back to Faye, she pushed her way past him, depressing the lever in the handle. She had already noticed there wasn’t a lock; one benefit of being in a church.
“What are you doing?” Josue said.
She swung the door wide and entered the priest’s chambers. A man in robes scurried on the ground, closing a wooden chest next to the door. In his hurry he knocked over a small Bunsen burner and the metal saucer on top. A dash of amber liquid splashed against a cabinet, the priest sweeping objects beneath his robe in a huff. He glanced about the floor as if there was more evidence he had forgotten to hide.
“That’s some prayer.”
“You have no right!” The priest was ancient; dark bags beneath his eyes, his skin pulled tight across his skull. White whiskers dotted his chin.
“Might want to turn off your burner,” Faye said.
The priest looked past her at Josue standing at the door.
“Father Shumway, forgive me, I did not know …”
“Leave me, Josue,” the priest said. “And close the door.”
Josue did as he was told, tears welling in his eyes.
With the door closed, the priest reached back and grabbed the burner. For a moment Faye thought he might throw it at her. Instead he turned the dial, gas and flame extinguishing. “You have no idea how much damage you’ve just done.”
“By opening his eyes to the hypocrisy of those dedicated to the Lord? Some might say I’ve done him a favor.”
“That child …” the priest paused, hand shaking as he held it out. His right eye twitched as if with an allergic reaction. Instead of continuing, he clenched his bony hand into a fist then gathered up the supplies beneath him. Needle, band for his arm, a brass key which clinked against the stone floor before disappearing into a pocket of his robe.
“It wouldn’t have taken me walking in on you to recognize what you are. I know an addict when I see one.”
The priest’s mouth tightened.
“I’m Faye. Moanna. Been clean coming up on two years.”
“You’re never clean.”
“Says the man preaching repentance.”
“What is it you want?”
“How about a name? Father Shumway, is it?”
The priest sighed. “Call me Remmy.”
“Remmy,” Faye repeated. “Prefer keeping the Father part out?”
“I’m an old man who no longer has time for patience. If you think you can hold this over my head to get me to join your insane cause, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“And what cause might that be?”
Remmy rose, glancing briefly at the tattoo along the side of her head. “I know who you are. Don’t think you’re the first to come around; you most certainly won’t be the last. Carrying your vain and supposed noble quest like some extinguished torch, illuminating nothing but your own ambition, and never once considering the consequences of your actions.
“This town – the people here? They need that lumber mill to survive. The livelihood of hundreds hinging on a grown woman’s stepping stone as she moves on to the next conquest. You’re not here to create a legacy, Faye Moanna. You’re here only to destroy.”
“Sorry to disappoint, Father,” Faye emphasized the title, “But your God beat us to it. But he’s always been aces when it comes to destruction, hasn’t he?”
Remmy wiped at the sweat on his face with a thick sleeve. “Despite what you’ve seen, despite my … weakness, I care about the people here. They’re all I have. And … I’m all they have. We get by without needing more.”
“So help me! I’m not looking for your aid with the lumber mill, I just need to find a man; an American, who I believe is living here, or nearby.”
“Who?”
“His name is James Dugan.”
Remmy began walking away from her, carrying off his relics. “I can’t help you.”
“You know him! Please, I need to find him. It’s a matter of life and death!”
“But whose death, Faye Moanna? Whose death? You think only of yourself, but the kicks and screams of your tantrum could send a boulder tumbling down the hill that will smother us all!”
“You do know him.”
“Only enough to not want to know more.”
“So he’s here? In town?”
“I can’t help you.”
“How do I find him?”
“You don’t! He’s not a man you find, he’s a man who finds you. The fact that you know him is confirmation enough that I want nothing to do with you.”
The gun suddenly leapt into Faye’s hands. She pointed a shaking arm at the old priest.
A smile cracked across his leathery face. “I should be so lucky.”
“Don’t make me cause problems for you.”
He looked at her with what Faye thought might be pity. “I worry you won’t need my help.”
Faye lowered the gun. They both knew she wouldn’t use it.
“Go back home. You don’t belong here,” Remmy said.
“He’s my father!”
The priest’s eyes darkened ever so slightly. His right eye twitched as he chewed at the inner lining of his cheek, a nervous habit he probably wasn’t aware of. All addicts had them.
“I haven’t seen him in seventeen years. And I thought … he should know the truth. I’m dying, Remmy. I know I’m young, but … well, that doesn’t guarantee us much. There are things I need to make right before that happens. Of anyone, a man like you should understand.”
Remmy glanced back at the tattoo alongside Faye’s scalp, that clawed hand hovering so near.
She nodded. “I can escape my addictions, but not what’s eating me inside.”
“Cancer?”
“Worse. ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease. It killed my mother.”
“What about –”
“There is no cure. I’m … okay right now; I mean, I haven’t lost muscle control, but … I have maybe three years.”
Remmy chomped on the inner tissue of his cheek. “He comes in to town every few days; him or one of his men. They meet with the alcalde. Sometimes his men are at the tavern but –”
“Never him.”
“No,” Remmy said. “Never Dugan.”
“He stopped drinking when I was young. Do you think addictions are inherited? Or the ... propensity towards them? Does he still smoke?”
“I keep my distance. Father or not, I’d advise you to do the same. He’s dangerous.”
“Then it’s more than just addictions I inherited.”
“They drive a huge military vehicle. A tank without a turret. I can’t tell you when, but at some point, he’ll show there, at the aclalde’s.”
“The prison?”
“The town jail. Prisons here are … much worse.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re in over your head, child.”
Faye nodded, unable to disagree. “Aren’t we all.”
Dugan fell in a freefall, his stomach lurching up toward his throat. Fog swept past like clouds, wind hammering into him from all sides. His pack flew free, banging into something on its descent just above him. He wasn’t even sure which way was up or down, he just knew he was falling. He was dying.
Something struck his head – not the pack; the rope, pulled taut and thrumming from the impact like the cord of a piano. Dugan frantically reached for it, the coiled cable bending his fingers back with his first grasp.
He slammed into something hard, breaking his fall and ripping his breath from his lungs. His body rolled over Zephyr who groaned, unaware of what had hit him before Dugan slipped free.
“Dugan!”
Zephyr hung from the rope by his webbing, his descent at an end, before disappearing in the clouds above.
But Dugan’s fall was far from over.
Grasping at air, Dugan finally found the rope again. He snaked one arm over it, bringing his body close, the rope cradled between his body and armpit. The friction of his slowing created a whir in his ears. He felt the rope biting into his flesh, already having burned through his vest and shirt. Still he held on, teeth clenched, eyes shut, not wanting to see what might be beneath him.
His descent slowed then came to a halt. Dugan wrapped the rope around one wrist, clutching on with both hands. The skin under his arms burned to a degree that made his teeth chatter. But he wasn’t going to die.
At least not yet.
As if by the command of some unseen force, the fog around him lifted, dissipating into the air.
The view was worse than the fog had been.
Dugan hung on the taut line staring at the canyon floor, a good fifteen hundred meters below. The wall of the cliff’s side stretched straight down alongside him. Unlike any tepui Dugan had seen, this wall was sheer rock without a single break in it, not formed over time but in an instant. A legend come to life.
Temple of the gods.
The locals spoke of the table-top mountains with reverence. Most Venezuelans held to the native beliefs that the tepuis weren’t formed through the natural erosion of the sandstone plateaus that had covered this basin millions of years ago, but a god raising mountains from level dirt.
Dugan had always scoffed at such a belief. Until now.
“Woo-hoo!”
Leech dangled from the end of the rope below Dugan, screaming defiantly. “Oh, man, talk about a rush! Thought for sure we were done, there.”
“You alright?” Zephyr asked, hanging above Dugan.
“I’m good. The rope okay?”
He felt a vibration travel all the way down from where Zephyr plucked the cord. Pebbles and loose dirt rained down on Dugan from above. Zephyr’s hanging feet and body blocked his view of the upper rim.
“Rojo, you muku,” Zephyr shouted. “Don’t you dare come over that edge!”
“Aghk,” came the voice of Rojo from above. “You think I’m tryin’?”
Dugan heard Rojo’s feet scraping against gravel, more tiny rocks tumbling down. He closed his eyes, the turning rope making him dizzy.
“Have someone help him,” he shouted.
“Fog’s still thick up top,” Zephyr said. “Rojo? Can you –”
Suddenly the cough Dugan had been keeping inside forced its way from his lungs, a stringy wet rasp that racked his entire body. The rope shifted from the new tension, that sway traveling upward. More loose dirt rained down after breaking on Zephyr.
“Son of a –”
Dugan lost the rest of Leech’s cursing with another hollow cough that felt like it was raping his insides.
“You reach your smokes?” Zephyr said.
“I lost them … in my bag,” Dugan managed to squeak out between coughs.
The rope dropped another three feet, Dugan barely grappling on with the unexpected motion.
“Mother-freakin-mukus! Stop moving!” Rojo shouted, his voice strained.
“Nah, nah, nah, I don’t want to die, man.”
Through watering eyes Dugan caught sight of Leech staring down at the ground below them. Tree tops that had shrunken down to the size of broccoli. Or smaller.
“Leech, is that a ledge? Out there on the wall?” Zephyr shouted.
“Man, there ain’t no ledge!”
Wet splatter spilled from Dugan’s mouth. He felt lightheaded, a combination of the coughing, fall and potential blood loss from what he imagined the rope had done to his skin.
“Where the cliff turns white,” Zephyr said. “Can you reach it?”
Along the cliff’s sleek wall, a slight indentation made for a small platform not far from where Leech hung.
“You can jump that,” Zephyr said.
“Are you freakin’ crazy? That won’t hold me!”
“Do it!” Dugan coughed out, barely able to see with the moisture in his eyes.
“You’re the extra man on the line – you jump!”
Another bellow forced its way up Dugan’s throat. The rope rocked back and forth from Zephyr’s movements above.
“Hold on, Doog. I’m gonna drop a pack. Cigarettes.”
Dugan coughed into his arm trying to keep from adding to the movement. “You don’t smoke.”
Above him Zephyr held a pack of cigarettes in one outstretched hand. “Yeah, but you do.”
Just as he let go of the pack, the rope lurched – Zephyr slid sideways, Dugan getting a clear shot of Rojo’s foot sliding out over the edge of the cliff. The rope jostled and bounced, Rojo cursing above and scrambling at something.
The pack of cigarettes fell to Dugan’s left. He could reach them if he spun out on the rope.
Rojo snarled above, and Dugan watched as the pack of cigarettes fell, inches from his outstretched fingertips. His coughing this time nearly caused him to lose his grip.
“He’s gonna come over!” Zephyr said.
“No he won’t.” Dugan reached into his vest and came out with a folding knife – not nearly as sharp as his hunting knife, but it would do the trick. He brought it to the rope just below him.
“What the hell –” Leech began, when something else fell free from Dugan’s vest. It flapped in the wind as it dropped.
Dugan’s notebook.
“Grab it,” he yelled, the knife slipping from his fingers and plummeting down. “The notebook, Leech!”
Its leather string unwound with its fall, whipping in the air as the pages began to flutter.
Leech swayed back and forth like a pendulum, barely managing to snatch the notebook from the air as it flew past. He held it high, triumphantly.
“Ha, I got it! I got it, Dugan!”
Dugan breathed in and out through his nose, his coughing subsiding momentarily. He watched as Leech held the book back out as if preparing to drop it.
“No!” Dugan yelled. “I swear to God, I will destroy you if you even think about it!”
“Is this book more important than your life? ‘Cause I’ll drop it if you don’t jump to that landing!”
As if to emphasize Leech’s words, more dirt and rock sprinkled down from above, the noise of Rojo’s grunts echoing down the canyon wall.
“Don’t drop it,” Dugan said.
“One!”
Dugan cleared his throat, trying to ease the pressure mounting again. “I’ll do it. I’ll jump.”
“Dugan, don’t!” Zephyr yelled.
“Two!”
“No, I’m going!” Dugan crept down the rope hand over hand, lowering himself slowly.
“That’s close enough. No tricks.”
The ledge was smaller than Dugan had thought; not really a ledge but a wrinkle in the stone. No one could make that leap – there would be nothing to hang onto.
“Just like stepping into a ring. You don’t think, you just do it,” Leech said.
Rojo groaned loudly, rope swaying anew. “Hang on!”
A dark shape tumbled from the top of the cliff.
We’re too late, Dugan realized. But the ro
pe hadn’t budged beyond the slight vibrations from above, so it wasn’t Rojo falling toward them.
Not a yelp or cry came from whoever had stumbled over the edge, their apparent descent not accidental but planned. And then Dugan recognized the bare feet dropping toward him. Black hair lashing back and forth like a whip.
Oso fell silently past Zephyr, holding on to the end of the second rope. The arc of his curve brought him back against the canyon walls, his feet slamming into the rock as he bounced back out, continuing his descent. He dropped past Dugan, his line pulling him again into the wall before bouncing back out near Leech.
“Haha! I knew we’d be alright!” Leech shouted, clapping Oso on the shoulder as the native swung back to the rock.
This time Oso stayed there, positioning himself on the tiny indentation of a ledge. He swung the rope back out, one arm cradled in a small divot in the stone wall.
Dugan grabbed hold of the second rope, transitioning himself over. There was a moment of weightlessness, the feeling that he would drop despite his grip. Looking down certainly hadn’t helped.
Until Dugan realized what Oso held in his other hand.
Dugan’s worn notebook fluttered in the native’s clutched grip. Leech seemed to realize it at the same time.
“No, no, no, that could have fallen! I wasn’t gonna let it go!” He looked up at Dugan. “I swear, I wouldn’t have done it. I would’ve jumped myself – I would have!”
Oso stuffed the notebook into his pants, pulling free a long slender blade from his side. The machete’s steel was black except for its edge which shone with a brightened gleam.
Leech instantly had a gun in his hand pointing it at Oso. The second rope had moved further away from the wall when Dugan climbed over, a good four or five feet’s distance from the native.
“Don’t even think about it,” Leech said. “You’re staying there till they pull us up or I put a dart through your forehead.”
The machete twirled in Oso’s hand.
“I mean it!”
The soft call of a bird sounded from above. Dugan glanced up just in time to see Zephyr release his own machete, the knife dropping straight toward him. It turned in the air, blade flipping awkwardly.
“No, Dugan, don’t!”
Dugan barely heard the whining man beneath him. He grabbed the blade out of the air by the handle and with the same backward motion brought it to the first rope, sliding its smooth edge against it.
