River of Dust

by Virginia Pye

  The chief spoke up again when the pipe returned to him. "We heard you were coming."

  The Reverend smiled ever so slightly. He spoke far less often than he used to and seemed to weigh his words more carefully. Ahcho could tell that this gave him the air of a holy man, which was true as well as a good strategy.

  A young buck shook his head excitedly, and his loosely twined hair thrashed about his shoulders as he spoke. "We were told you were nearby, and I said we should go out and find you before you left the region again. But our great leader was right that you would come to us. This is a most propitious day!"

  The Reverend leaned toward the young man and asked, "And what did you hope for from my arrival?"

  "Oh, just to see you, Ghost Man. I will tell my children, and they will tell their children. And maybe if you want to perform a miracle, that would be fine with us." He nudged his friend beside him, and the two men chuckled.

  The second said, "We will shoot you and watch you not fall down, yes? That would be something!"

  Ahcho clenched the pistol under his robe.

  The chieftain cleared his throat, and the men quieted down. The pipe began around the circle again.

  After a long moment, the Reverend spoke. "I, too, am in search of a miracle. The miracle of my firstborn son, who was stolen from me."

  The chieftain bowed his head in what appeared to be genuine sympathy. "There is no greater loss than this," he said.

  "Yes," the Reverend said. "And you can help my miracle come true by telling me if you have seen any signs of a small white boy with hair the color of gold."

  The wolf's jaw upon the chief's brow shook slowly from side to side. "I am an old man now, and I know very little."

  The men around the circle made polite sounds of disagreement.

  "No, it is true," the chieftain said to his people. "I may know how to handle a horse or how to keep my people fed even in lean times such as these." Then his voice rose as he lifted his old shoulders. The wolf hide on his back rose, too. "And I enforce the law! This I must always do!" He lowered his arms, and the animal's long muzzle sagged again. "But I do not know why the Spirits act as they do. I try to keep us safe from their wrath, yet I do not always succeed."

  The Reverend let out a long sigh. "That is the problem, is it not? To understand the Lord's wisdom, even when it is more painful than a person can bear."

  The two men passed the pipe between only themselves, and the others watched.

  "You understand that things are different out here in the border lands?" the chieftain asked him. "Anything but petty thieving is punishable by death. Under our system, elders are held responsible for the actions of offspring. A parent may be rewarded for his son's good services, or he may be beheaded for his grandson's crime."

  The other men nodded at this arrangement.

  "This is best," one of them said.

  The chief continued, "And it works the other way around as well. If a father harms another, his son can be held accountable and even traded for the crime. The family, and not the individual, is the unit in our law."

  The Reverend shifted in his seat. Ahcho suspected that he was made uncomfortable by these remarks and not just because his long legs ached in their crossed position. He studied his master's face and searched for any sign that the same questions and speculations were arising in his mind. But the Reverend's face remained inscrutable.

  "Out here," the chieftain continued, waving a finger over the abstract pattern of the brightly woven rug as if it were a map of the borderlands, "labyrinthine rules based on familial retribution keep order. It means that one can ill afford to offend. Any punishment is severe for either accident or error. You must approach every situation alert for signs of danger." He looked at the Reverend and asked, "Do you understand this?"

  The Reverend's eyes became narrow and intent. "I do," he said.

  "You are not an ignorant man, then?"

  The Reverend did not reply but raised a single red and bushy eyebrow.

  "All right. Let us assume that you are wiser than I thought," the chieftain said. "I will tell you what I know."

  The Reverend whispered in English, "Thank you, sweet Jesus."

  "But first," the chief said, "I will need something from you."

  "Anything."

  The chieftain smiled for the first time that evening, and Ahcho was not surprised to see that his teeth were all but gone. The two he had left were as black as tree stumps after a forest fire. "I am not a successful man by accident, am I?" asked the chief.

  His men chuckled at this, and Ahcho could not help letting out a disgusted grunt. Even the best of these people were greedy louts. You could not turn your back on them even for a moment. Nomads, of all people, needed the Lord Jesus. Ahcho wondered when the Reverend would get around to mentioning Him.

  "All right, what do you want?" the Reverend asked.

  "Your boy is most precious to you. So, I think, something precious in return."

  The men muttered in agreement, clearly proud of their conniving leader.

  The Reverend did not hesitate. He pushed aside the swath of red cloth that crossed his chest, unbuttoned his long coat, and reached inside his vest pocket. Ahcho let out a slight puff of air as the Reverend pulled forth his handsome gold watch on its chain.

  "Reverend," Ahcho said in English, "he may be lying to you."

  The Reverend lifted a hand to silence him. Ahcho had seen how grief could make a person turn foolish or even temporarily insane. He had witnessed this any number of times in the past, most recently with the mistress on bathing day, but here he was saddened to see it happening with his clever master as well.

  The gold of the watch shone dully as it swung in the firelight. The chieftain reached for it and clasped it in his soot-stained hands. He showed his compatriots how heavy it was by letting his hand sink under its weight. Then he brought it up to his mouth and bit down on it with his two sorry teeth. Ahcho could not bear the sight any longer and stepped forward.

  "Of course it's real gold!" he shouted in their language. "It was a gift to the Reverend from his father. The Reverend John Wesley Watson is not to be trifled with, you old fool."

  The two younger men hopped up from their seats and instantly pinned Ahcho's arms to his sides. Ahcho tried to pull himself free, but they held him fast.

  "Please don't be offended by my man," the Reverend said quickly to the chieftain. "He is only being loyal to me. He is upset that I am willing to make this significant sacrifice to you." The Reverend pointed at the watch. "For this is certainly real, is it not? As I assume your information about my son is also completely real."

  The chieftain snapped his fingers, and the men let go of Ahcho's arms. "I see this is a sacrifice," he commented, fingering the watch. "I like this sacrifice." His black eyes danced, and his despicable smile returned.

  "Now you will tell me where to find my boy?" the Reverend asked.

  "Yes, I will tell you what you want to know. I have seen a person low to the ground and with hair the color of this golden watch. With my own eyes I have witnessed it! You will sleep here tonight, and tomorrow I will send you in the direction of your son. He is not far from here."

  The old man struggled to stand, and two of his men took him under the arms and helped him up. To Ahcho's surprise, the chieftain could not have been more than four and a half feet tall. How had he not noticed this peculiar fact sooner? The gigantic wolf hide that he wore over his shoulders had made him appear much larger. Now its claws hung down to the rug, and the old chief looked swamped beneath all that fur.

  "I want you to have this," the chieftain said to the Reverend. He started to pull the thick hide off his own shoulders. "Years ago, when my son died, my people brought me offerings. That is our custom. The shaman of our tribe was ancient by then, as old as I am now, and knew he would die soon. He passed this on to me. For many years, it was the only thing that helped me carry on. I have been invincible when I wear it. Truly. You, Ghost Man, are already i
nvincible to physical harm if the story of the two bullets is true. But I can see by looking into your eyes that you are not invincible to grief and loss. This hide will help with that."

  The old chieftain held the heavy thing in his thin, trembling arms. The Reverend thanked him and bowed. The two younger men helped their leader lift the wolf skin up onto the Reverend's high shoulders. Ahcho knew he should assist with this task, but he did not. In no way did he approve of the dead thing now draped across the Reverend's back. It was a primitive, superstitious, and ridiculous garment not worthy of his fine master.

  But when the Reverend lifted his head and rose to his full height with the fur hide over his shoulders, he appeared enormous and otherworldly, frightening even to his manservant. The yellow eyes of the dead animal stared out at Ahcho and caused the hairs on his neck to rise. Although the Reverend offered a proud smile, Ahcho knew that nothing good could come of it.

  Twelve

  T he Reverend steered his trusty donkey along a precipitous path that seemed to grow narrower by the step. If he had not witnessed a camel caravan successfully approaching from the opposite way, he would never have believed it possible to traverse the path ahead. Camels, however, could be surprisingly agile, whereas an old donkey with clouded eyes and at least one sore hip was another thing altogether.

  The Reverend put himself in the Lord's hands. He might survive the journey, or he might not. Since his son's kidnapping, he had steadily given up his former efforts to master his own destiny with overzealous care. It wasn't lost on him that the theistic doctrine to which he had always subscribed was being steadily eroded by a laissez-faire atheism, as dangerous as the sheer cliffs on either side of him now. But, no matter, he was on a private, nonecclesiastical mission.

  In the face of great trials and tribulations, the Reverend maintained his focus and simply kept himself, his manservant, and his animal calm. Not in any higher, biblical sense but in actual practice. That seemed to be the key to survival in so many instances. The more complicated goal of maintaining goodness and virtue at all costs seemed somewhat beside the point out here in this godforsaken wasteland.

  The Reverend found himself retreating to a basic principle passed on to him by his dear mother: the best a person could do in life was to maintain overall good cheer. And why not, given the dreadful way that things occurred? Although now, as he approached the obscure outpost that he felt certain harbored his stolen son, maintaining her suggested attitude felt remarkably easy.

  He called back over his shoulder to Ahcho, "Nothing can surpass the evening skies of these foothills in their late-autumn glory. I find they infiltrate my whole being with serenity."

  Ahcho replied with an anxious grunt.

  The Reverend had noticed that his number-one boy— as loyal a man as he had ever met— lacked nerves of steel and was prone to worry. The Reverend found that if he kept up the timbre of his voice, then both his manservant and his donkey were more likely to relax. He wished he could impress upon Ahcho the benefits of his evolving come-what-may philosophy, but he did not want to bother the fellow while he was concentrating on the trail. The Reverend adjusted the animal hide on his shoulders and returned to reading.

  "Sir," Ahcho called forward, his anxious voice echoing across the ravine, "shouldn't you set aside your book for the time being?"

  "Heavens, no, man," the Reverend shouted back. "I need the Romantics more than ever in moments like this. A line from Wordsworth— just like the pealing of those distant bells— serves to remind me of the Lord's elegant intentions even in the face of misery elsewhere. We are blessed, are we not, to be in the midst of such beauty?"

  Ahcho offered a feeble sound of agreement.

  The man needed to read more, the Reverend thought. All the people here needed to read more, starting with the Good Book, then proceeding rapidly to the classics. Imagine how Shakespeare would explode their constricted lives. Personal tragedy, such as the loss of a child, would not feel so personal given the context of the Greeks and the bard. Not that Shakespeare had soothed his own soul since Wesley's kidnapping, but the idea remained that he should.

  The Reverend shooed away flies from his donkey's ears and smiled to himself. The chieftain had spied his son and soon his own odyssey would be over. He could envision how this most tragic act in the play that constituted the forty years of his life was soon to come to a harmonious end.

  "I feel we are on a better path now, Ahcho. Things are looking up."

  "Sir, we had better not look up, but keep our eyes on the trail."

  "Yes, yes," the Reverend said. "I meant it metaphorically."

  No reply came, so the Reverend tried again. "Take the temple bells tolling far off in the next village. I envision them as the golden streaks of sunset grown audible. I wonder, what do those bells tell us, Ahcho?"

  Ahcho did not hesitate to reply, "That people actually live up this infernal path and somehow survive its passage."

  "No, not that, man. The bells are meant to remind us of the seraphim, those angels who watch over us. And what do you think of the hawks that circle below us on the updrafts between the purple hillsides?"

  "I believe they are vultures, sir, circling the carrion of bodies lost to the slide."

  The fellow could be a first-rate wit, but he needed to loosen up. The Reverend shook his head, closed the book of poetry in his hand, and held it to his breast. "Ahcho," he shouted back, "I ask you to set aside your literalist interpretation. You need to be a poet at times like these. Those hawks, or vultures if you insist, are carried on the Lord's breath. They circle in sheer delight at the miracle of flight. You see, I cannot help rhyming when describing this divine setting."

  "This place, divine?" Ahcho asked with a snort. "It is only divine if by divine you mean treacherous. For the Reverend, danger has become the only fascination and joy. You care more for the excitement of the hunt than anything else."

  "Ah!" the Reverend replied, for Ahcho's words had pierced his heart. "Clever man," he muttered. "Terribly wise."

  On they rode in silence. The Reverend forced himself to further consider his manservant's comment and determined that Ahcho was indeed correct: in the six months since his son's kidnapping, the Reverend had come to thrive more on the precipice than anywhere else. During his most recent stay at home, he had hardly been able to contain himself. The compound was far too tame for him, too constricted. What pleasure was there in huddling under a roof when his son remained out in the storm?

  As a boy, the Reverend had followed his parents and two brothers down into the root cellar when tornadoes swept across the Midwestern plains. But if one member of their clan had accidentally remained outside, his father would not have hesitated to open the sloped wooden door and charge out into the winds in search of the lost. The Reverend was merely doing his fatherly duty, although, he had to admit to himself, the plains and the neighboring mountains now called to him not just of his son but of other things as well, though he could not name them precisely. Sometimes their call woke him from sleep, and he had no choice but to go.

  He shook his head lightly and told himself to remain on track this morning. His goal was near at hand. He opened the leather-bound volume and slackened the reins. As the chill of the morning wore off and the late-autumn sun rose higher in the sky, the hide warmed him most pleasantly. The chieftain had been right: wearing the fur did make him feel less vulnerable to sorrow. The Reverend smiled as he recognized lines of poetry he knew by heart. He pinched shut his eyes, tilted his face into the sunlight, and recited them under his breath. He felt most blessed precisely when he made the least effort to be so.

  "Master!" Ahcho called out. "Look ahead."

  The Reverend's eyes snapped open. They had passed the final turn of the mountainside, and there before them stood a vast field of late-blooming poppies and, beyond it, an open expanse where deepmaroon-colored tents had been set up and people gathered.

  "It is as the chieftain described," the Reverend said.

 
Ahcho pulled up beside him on his donkey and offered that skeptical look again. The man was a worrier, a naysayer even.

  "This is where Fate has carried us," the Reverend said. "We must trust our path, Ahcho, if we are ever to achieve our ends."

  Ahcho nodded, although he appeared unconvinced. "Please be cautious, sir."

  The Reverend let out a laugh and spurred his donkey forward. "It will be all right, Ahcho. Everything works out in the end."

  Out of the corner of his eye, the Reverend saw Ahcho shaking his head. The proof was in the pudding, the Reverend would have liked to say, but the serious fellow would never have been able to grasp that strange idiom.

  Instead, the Reverend called back, "Come along!"

  The poppies danced in the wind, their glorious Chinese-red skirts swaying. The Reverend knew that these flowers were the culprits that caused every opium fool to loll away his life, but for the moment he did not care. He was going to carry his son home on his lap through this field and even allow the boy to pick a few.