The Heretics of St. Possenti

by Rolf Nelson

  Peter tossed and turned on the thin pad he lay on in one of the upstairs bedrooms of the ranch house. He was tired from a long and busy day, but sleep simply would not come. His mind was sharp and alert, and in the nearly silent night every little sound came to him clearly as if amplified. The sleepers around him were not snoring loudly or anything, but even the soft movement of air from breathing was enough to notice. The window was cracked open, but the room was still very warm from all the bodies heating the house.

  He arose and went outside. The cold night air was crisp, clean, and silent. The stars overhead were like brilliant chips of diamond, unlike anything he ever saw from the city’s light-polluted streets. He climbed up the ladder to the arena roof and sat, wrapped in his sleeping bag for warmth, and looked out over the snow-covered and moonlight-illuminated nightscape spread out before him. Truly, if there was ever a land touched by God, this was it. Though he didn’t have much of a voice in his own opinion, he felt like it was a good time to sing. So he sat up straight, took a deep breath, and started with the first thing that came to his mind, Silent Night. It wasn’t Christmas, but he knew the words and tune, and it felt appropriate.

  The melody hung in the silent and snow-insulated nocturne, echoing ethereally off the wooden house and wooded hillside under the still heavens, lending an atmosphere of the deeply holy to the song Peter had never felt before. A shiver ran down his spine when he was done. He sat a while, thinking and feeling it. He sang it again and got the same feeling. Just as he finished, he heard the scrunch of booted feet on snow. Two nearly silent shapes were walking from the house toward him. They climbed up the ladder to join him. Thomas and Joshua.

  “Matins. May we join you?” asked the abbot, rhetorically.

  “Sounded beautiful. Might have to make it a regular thing,” added Joshua.

  They got seated and then sang it again together. Softly in the night, but powerful.

  Joshua murmured something under his breath like, “Wow.”

  Thomas was hushed and reverent, his eyes moist. “It’s traditional for monks to rise in the quietest part of the night to sing vigils. Matins it is called. Free from distractions and the normal noise of the day. Now I understand it.”

  “Never heard of it before, but… yeah. Not sure if I want to do it every night, but if I couldn’t sleep and I heard this, it would be awfully reassuring.” Peter’s voice was soft, but it carried well and sounded clear and mystical in the dim white moonlight.

  Joshua grunted a small sound of agreement. “Know anything else that would be fitting?”

  “Many. But I do not have the voice to do them justice.”

  “Give it a shot, boss.” The other two chuckled at the accidental pun. “We’ll do what we can as backup singers.”

  “Do you know Psalm 95?” The other three grunted a vague negative in the dark. “O come, let us sing for joy to the LORD. Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Does that sound familiar?” Two head shakes and a scrunched-up nose indicating a vague memory. “We must remedy that. How about you just follow along, like one of your cadences? Call and response.”

  It worked well enough. Thomas then chose another hymn, which Joshua and Peter half remembered. The first attempt at Holy, Holy, Holy was respectable enough. But the second time through it sounded like never before to the abbot’s ears, and the two men with him were able to accompany him very well. When they finished, the scrunch of snow underfoot as two more men walked off the steps of the ranch house could be heard, and in another two songs they had a small choir giving it their best.

  “I foresee many hours of choir practice in my future,” said Pete, solemnly.

  “The Vienna Boy’s Choir we ain’t,” agreed Joshua.

  “But you have heart and promise,” said Abbot Cranberry. “Yes, one more thing to do. But it is a very monastic thing. The pope would be pleased to know that a part of your training is to sing at least some of the more common vigil songs. Or, to put it another way, he’d be deeply disappointed with the program if we weren’t doing this at least occasionally.”

  “No disrespect to His Hugeness,” said Clint, “but I’d like to learn because it sounds amazing. It feels like God’s tuning in and tuning us up.”

  “Please use the correct title, Brother Clint. His Holiness.”

  “Sorry, boss. Old habits are hard to break in new habits… so to speak.”

  “Tomorrow we can start rotating through the psalter. Nocturnal singing like this is a regular thing for monks, who are expected to sing the entire psalter through each week. Not all at once, of course, but spread out, some each day. We will review how it would be done by ordinary monks and adapt it to our schedule and needs. Likely beginning at once a month, working up to every two weeks. But for now, I think, it’s time to return to bed and sleep.”

  With that, the squad of monks (we’ve got to work on that designation, thought Thomas as he lead the way back) returned to the house, their pads, and sleep in the silence of the snow-muffled night.

  Range

  In Yavapai did Uncle Jeff

  A stately shooting range decree,

  Where senators and belted earls,

  And cooks and cops and working girls,

  Could study weaponry

  About the only guns at the new monastery were Mickey’s personal arms. He’d not brought his entire arsenal—not by a long shot, he said, with no hint of irony—but it was enough to start training. A couple of AR-platform rifles, five .22s, a few old bolt-action rifles, and a dozen handguns would give them a start.

  They selected a pair of hollows a short way up the valley to set up two handgun ranges, and after measuring carefully, they decided that the long swoop of the valley offered a usable firing line that could accommodate up to thirty-five shooter-spotter pairs, decent ordinary rifle berms at normal training ranges, and even an acceptable thousand-meter target area.

  After a long day’s work with the rented bulldozer and a lot of labor with shovels and chainsaws, they had created the basic layout of the range, with berms for backstops, an acceptable roadway the length of it for posting and pulling targets, and a flat and slightly elevated firing line that could be used prone or from a bench. A lot of the details were a mystery to Abbot Cranberry, but some of the newly minted monks clearly knew what they were doing, and with Finnegan’s guidance and a lot of enthusiastic dirt-heaving the new ranges came together rapidly.

  Hard work and cold air went together well.

  The first day of range creation, as so many things were wont to do, turned into an impromptu classroom. A dozer-driving lesson, a range design lesson, a surveying lesson, a road-building seminar, a logistics class, and a shooting-class curriculum development series were included in the first day discussion and training. The teaching and learning carried on when they continued over the next few weeks, improving it and turning it from rough terrain into a neat, orderly, and usable range, complete with target-pulling pits, target holders, storage, and shooting benches. It wasn’t done—they planned on letting the newer brothers do a lot of finishing and expansion work—but it was a great start. The range-road still needed to be properly graveled and reworked after the spring thaw, but it was one more piece that was taking shape.

  After a day of all-hands labor and another two weeks of sporadic work, the range was ready to break in. Because the Catholic liturgy was a little short on standardized shooting-range blessings, Abbot Cranberry decided on a modified version for blessing a house. Of course, teaching the basics of blessings came with the title of “monk,” so it was a class on how to do them as well as an actual-for-real event. Hugh’s dry comment about never knowing what prayer the faithful might be called upon to deliver when there was a delivery was met with laughter and jokes about “Hugh, Jr.”

  But Cranberry had to invent appropriate blessings for the septic system installation—which had gone well, even drawing a wry smile from the quiet Cade Wilson—and a number of other odds and ends, so it wasn’t the first time the
discussion was needed.

  Thomas thought that soon would be the right time to start doing more of the Liturgy of the Hours and that he would add Angelus before the noon meal since they were already attempting something like Prime at breakfast and an abbreviated Matins in shifts at night. So much to do, so much to learn, so much to teach!

  New Old Guns

  A fine marksman with a second-rate rifle is far more effective than the reverse.

  —Col. Jeff Cooper

  It was mid-afternoon when the UPS truck arrived, as it had so many times before in the last month. “Mickey Finnegan?” the driver asked. “Got a whole heap of things for him to sign for.”

  They found him working with three others doing speed-drills and dry-firing at range Cain. He came running, wearing a smile on his face that couldn’t be hidden.

  “What’s the hurry?” asked Bill as Mickey trotted past.

  “Christmas in February.”

  “Oh?”

  “Ohhhh, yeah!”

  Several of the brothers followed Finnegan to the brown truck. The back was open, and the shelves were stacked high with long, narrow boxes of very similar size. “Can you sign for Finn Brothers Enterprises, Ltd?”

  Finnegan nodded.

  “Okay.” He took down one of the many boxes, scanned the label, looked at the scanner, and handed it to Mickey. “Sign there, please.”

  A quick scrawl later, the driver handed down the box. He picked up the next one, scanned it, checked it, and handed the device to Mickey. “Sign, please.”

  Mickey paused a moment. “Do I have to sign for ’em all individually?”

  “Mostly. Only a couple are done as multi-box deliveries.”

  “Okay then. Let’s get on with it. Bill,” Mickey turned to the small group of gathered brothers, “get a couple of squads down here. Got some heavy hauling to do. Put them in the third store room, right side of the arena.”

  “What are they?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  They unloaded box after box, each about four feet long and weighing somewhat more than ten pounds. The brothers, all veterans, strongly suspected they knew what was in them but were not sure what specific make and model they might be.

  When all 264 boxes had been signed for and put away, the UPS truck drove away down the frozen road. It was watched by forty pairs of eyes, eyes that pivoted to look at Brother Finnegan the moment it was out of sight.

  He looked around at the silent faces. “What?” he asked, oh so innocently, a repressed smile barely being kept off his countenance. “I saw a deal I couldn’t pass up.”

  “A deal on….?” prompted Thomas.

  “Hardware. Iron. Shooting irons, to be specific.”

  “We figured that,” drawled Brother Amos. “But what type of shooting iron?”

  “Old, mostly. A mixed lot of mil surp bought as-is in bulk from an estate sale. A collector who died unexpectedly. Should be various Mausers, Mosin Nagants, Schmidt Rubin K-31s, Lee-Enfields, Brit 303s, some other odds and ends.”

  The brothers looking at him were not sure if he was tricking them or playing it straight.

  “You simply ordered up a few hundred guns online and had them delivered to our door…. Is that legal?” Thomas asked.

  “Of course. When I knew we’d be coming out, I made sure that one of the holding companies has an FFL to buy and sell guns and do paperwork. All legal and proper. And unless someone is looking to audit books and is specifically looking though the shell companies trying to trace controlling interests and all that, nobody in the Church can ever find out. There is a limit on how long the records have to be kept. After that times passes, a slight reshuffling of the corporate structure, and all records disappear entirely. Simple concept. Complicated details. Fourteen separate legal entities right now.

  “A few hundred cases of ammo and the basic reloading equipment should be here next week, but that’s going to take a bigger truck. Components in a couple of months when we have a proper storage facility. Can’t store a ton of powder without a proper magazine.”

  “…You’re serious.”

  “Of course. Monks don’t lie. Well, technically it’s 2,160 pounds of powder. Got a deal on that, too.” His wide grin was giving the assembled company very mixed messages.

  “For the love of God, why?”

  “Well, for starters, price. It was an unbelievably good package deal. Secondly, these guns are tough. Thirdly, learning to shoot with marginal hardware makes you appreciate its limits, your limits, and theoretical versus practical limits much better. Fourth, if you start with something you don’t think much of but get good with it, your confidence in yourself and in high-end hardware will be that much better. I’m sure there are other reasons as well, but for now, this is what we’ve got.”

  “So… who gets what?” asked Luke.

  “I figure we’ll let God decide. I’ll get them all inventoried in the bound book and what-not, and then you can pick whatever blank box-end tickles your funny bone, and that’s yours for the duration.”

  “What if we draw a total piece of– a rather less than desirable arm?” asked Hugh, skepticism writ large on his features.

  “Then you’ll have a lot more praying to do. And more need for precise breathing and trigger control.” Finnegan’s grin was confident.

  Abbot Cranberry saw the angle Mickey was aiming for. “I’m sure God will give you the tool you’ll need the most even if it is a little more challenging when you are starting out. But for now, let’s return to our regular duties while Brother Finnegan sorts out all these fine tools.”

  Hours later the very tired but enthusiastic Irishman went in search of the Abbot. Thomas was in the ranch house’s main room helping a study-group understand a passage in The Cloud of Unknowing. “Got time for a blessing and a handout?” he asked.

  “I suppose so. What? Oh, right.” Abbot Cranberry’s face showed a moment of doubt. “I’m afraid I don’t know any blessings for guns.”

  “Wing it with heart, Father. I’m sure it’ll be well-receivered if it’s well intended.”

  “That is not how things normally work in the church, you know.”

  “Yeah, but we’re not really in the normal part of the church now either, are we? C’mon.”

  “You said hand out,” inquired Brother Tyler. “Do you mean it’s time to pick our shooting irons?”

  “Indeed I do. You should come, too. Tell everyone else to join us.”

  The whole monastery was shortly assembled next to the stack of boxes, packed into or near the store room without an inch to spare. Thomas looked at the stack of boxes, the nominal physical raison d’être for the order, drew a breath, and began.

  “Let us pray to our Father in Heaven, who has given us these…”

  “Well-made traditional rifles,” supplied Mickey.

  “…well-made traditional rifles for our use.” He paused and crossed them, flicking a bit of holy water across the stack. Mickey cringed reflexively for a moment at the thought of water and steel, even though he was confident the bluing and cosmoline would like render the actual harmful effects of the water negligible.

  Abbot Cranberry continued. “Blessed are you, Lord God, King of the universe: you have made all things for your glory. Bless these arms, and grant that we may use them in your service with true aim, a steady hand, and a sharp eye and for the good of all your people. And perhaps keep them ready while withholding use. Father, we praise you through Christ our Lord. Amen!”

  The brothers repeated the “AMEN!” in near perfect unison.

  “Who draws first?” came a call from the back.

  “Alphabetical by middle name,” replied Cranberry promptly.

  “Hoo-Ra! Right here!” Brother Allan cried out.

  “Really? Thought you would be more… something,” called another.

  “Nah, belay that!” yelled Mickey. “Got the solution right here!” He held up an empty soup can with what looked like popsicle sticks in it. “Draw yo
ur number here! One through fifty in the can. We go in order—” he paused dramatically “—starting with whatever number the good abbot draws, and he picks first.”

  “Oh, no, I really couldn’t,” Thomas protested.

  “Yeah, you go first!” the others called back.

  The abbot lost the argument with good grace. The can was passed around until everyone had a number, and Thomas drew the last stick. “Six!” he called out.

  Cheers mixed with groans as the brothers recognized their places in the lineup.

  Brother Ken, standing near the front of the group, waved grandly to the pile of mystery armaments. “Your magnificence gets first pick.”

  “Please, that is not the proper title.”

  “Oh, right, this is a somewhat formal occasion. Please, your Right Reverend Father, Founding Abbot of the Order of St. Possenti, please make your God-guided choice. We humbly await your selection.” While the words were much better, his tone belied the mock humility. Abbot Cranberry frowned at him. He would need to have a talk with Ken later in private, but now was not the time or place.

  Thomas examined the boxes. They all looked nearly identical. He knew little enough about guns that it would not have made a huge difference to him had they all been marked with make, model, chambering, and year of manufacture. He thought briefly about making a show of hefting and examining boxes closely, putting a lot of thought and effort into the decision. He decided against it. The pope had agreed to this venture on November 11. Row eleven, stack eleven it was.

  He pulled it out but left it in the box despite calls to open it up and show everyone what he’d be learning to shoot. “No, no. We’ll all draw and then open at the same time. We’re all in this together.”

  “Right enough he is!” agreed Hugh. “We focus on what we have, not what the other guy has. Remember that!”

  “Indeed. Always remember to focus on what you have, not what you want. This–” he held up the box he’d picked, “–is mine by the grace of God and his Holiness. Let us do what we can with them. Now, number seven. You’re up!”