by Joslyn Chase
“I’m not a Catholic, Father. Will you hear my confession?”
Father Lucas came fully awake from his near doze. His chin lifted from his chest and his fingers touched the skin there, tracing the impression left from his clerical collar.
“Is there not someone of your own faith to whom you could turn?”
“I never embraced a faith, Father. For many years I thought God was dead or disinterested.”
The priest hesitated. There were disputes over the Canon Law on this matter. He preferred to err on the side of caution.
“Perhaps it’s time to commit to religion. Wherever you place your faith, there will be someone to hear and mediate your transgression.”
“It’s past time for me, Father. I am dying, returning to the God I spurned. I pray he will accept me, but I must unburden my soul. Please, Father.”
The anguish was thick enough to reach out and touch.
“Speak,” said Father Lucas. “Tell me your sins.”
~~~~
There was only one great sin, it turned out, for which the man wanted absolution.
“It has tainted my entire life, the life I stole from another.”
Oh dear. Father Lucas sensed an ethical quandary, regretting his decision to hear the man out, but too riddled by compassion now to deny him this release.
“That one wretched moment changed everything for me.”
“It weighs heavy on you, that’s plain,” said the Father. “Tell me, and be at ease.”
“It began when I reached the front of the line. It was a long line and I’d waited nearly two hours to reach the top. There was only one family remaining in front of me, and I heard the clerk tell them they didn’t have enough points.”
Father Lucas was confused at the direction this had taken, but rather than interrupt he waited to see where it went.
“I was standing just behind them, and I couldn’t help eavesdropping. I see it clear, how the man’s shoulders sagged under a threadbare, brown coat, how he scooped a tiny, bundled child from his wife’s arms and brandished her before the clerk. He pleaded in a voice that would break your heart and all the while, his wife was holding onto the hand of another child, clutching her kerchief to her bosom, and struggling to quell these awful, quiet sobs. Almost killed me to hear it, and I wished I’d come sometime sooner or sometime later and missed the scene altogether. Then I wouldn’t have done such a wicked thing.”
The voice beyond the darkened window had risen to a squeak as if passing through a constricted passageway.
“Steady on,” said the priest. “Peace be unto you. When you’re ready, continue.”
A moment of silence, and the priest heard a glug glug as the man swallowed something liquid.
“Well, the clerk was a thin man, dry as a stick in August. he’d heard it before and was past swaying. He said, ‘I’m sorry, the rules are very explicit. You must present the requisite points or I can do nothing for you.’
“You see, at that time many employers offered a point program. We could take points in lieu of commission and trade those points for certain goods and services. When this opportunity opened up, you bet I worked hard for it. My lady and me, we wanted a new start in America, had been saving up for a passage, but I saw right away that the points would mount faster than the pounds, so that’s what I did. As soon as I had enough for the both of us and little Amy, I got in line. But the timing was bad, I see that now.”
Father Lucas was still mystified, and growing doubtful he could do much to soothe the man’s anxiety. He had no idea where this was going.
“The clerk, he looked past those folks, like they ceased to exist. He raised his eyebrows at me, motioning me forward, and I had to step around the man. That’s when I looked at his face. Wish I hadn’t, but it was like a magnet pulling my eyes. His head drooped and I saw his face at a slant, gray with weariness, lined and desolate. And then those great, brooding eyes rolled up and fixed on me.
“Father to father, we stood. Two men trying to do right by their families in a hard world. And I knew I could help him. He knew it, too, and his eyes challenged me to do it. There I was, before God and witnesses, with a choice to make.”
“Ah, I see. This is what troubles your conscience? You feel you turned your back on a brother in need?”
“Oh, Father, it’s worse than that. I gave him my points.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I signed over one of my books to him. The clerk tried to make trouble over it, but we knew it could be done. I stopped myself thinking about what I’d tell my wife when I got home. I took up a pen and signed the paper.
“The woman gave up trying to stifle her sobs. She clung to me, kissing me with a tear-streaked face, and the baby touched my cheek. I knew I’d have to work another six or eight weeks to earn my own passage, but I went home feeling fine that night.”
“I’m afraid this does nothing to explain your battle with guilt. Why do you reproach yourself for this?”
“I toss in bed at night, tortured by what I have done and wondering, if I could change it, would I? I’m damned either way, Father, and it grieves me.”
“In what way?”
“I can’t wipe the vision from my head. I picture the family boarding the ship, standing at the rails, their faces turned to the future. A future they will never reach. I see their faces as they realize this and wonder if they curse the day we met, as I do.
“Why should they?”
“In place of my own family, I sent theirs. Thanks to me, they booked a steerage-class passage on the RMS Titanic.”
NOTES
The prompt for this one came from Writer’s Digest, Your Story. It asked for a 700-word piece based on this sentence:
You don’t have enough points, sir.
I think the first spark of an idea came when I heard those words, phrased in a British accent in my mind, and decided it was based in England, and in the past. The rest of the story fell into place after that.
The original version didn’t have Father Lucas. I was limited to 700 words and had to economize. He came later, with the luxury of more space to grow and his function is to voice the questions the reader would like to ask as the story progresses. His job is to speak for you.
A Touch of Native Color
____________
The name on his driver’s license was
George Henry, but people called him Chief.
He had the bloodline, the heritage, the native skills.
And no desire to live up to the name.
Until the day he helped murder an innocent girl.
When the breeze whistles through green leaves at a certain pitch or the crumbling smell of damp earth permeates the air, I remember the day I helped murder an innocent girl. Days like that, my part in fulfilling a gypsy’s curse and perpetuating a legend of blood and violence sits on me like a heavy sweat. The hell of it is, I don’t even count hers as the first death on my score sheet, but I’d roll naked through a bed of razor-fisted Dungeness to make sure it’s the last.
Folks around here call me Chief, but the name on my birth certificate is George Henry, the origins of which can be traced back to the days when The Hudson Bay Company held sway in the Pacific Northwest. Many natives of the time took English names such as the Duke of York, but my ancestor chose to honor one of the great figures of the American landscape, dubbing himself Patrick Henry after the celebrated traitor to the crown.
Summertime, come daylight, you can find me wearing the traditional mountain-goat’s wool robe with twisted fringe and a feathered headdress made of dentalium shells. I have to cheat and wear an undershirt or the robe chafes my armpits like a rawhide torture device, but I like wearing the bonnet. The feathers catch the wind and whisper back a song. Sometimes I can almost hear the words, like the stirrings of an ancestral memory. Feathers were not really a common feature of the customary head gear, but tourists seem to expect them and who am I to disappoint?
My bloodline’s authentic
and I remember many of the stories passed down through the family line, but I’ll admit to a fair amount of embellishment in my spiel: I am Chief Redfish, leader of my people and keeper of our record. I have seen many moons here on the banks of the Hood Canal, etcetera. Such is the preamble to my sales pitch and I’m not above a little song and dance to seal the deal. It’s my skill with the salmon that earned me the title of Chief Redfish. I host a sizeable salmon bake every summer and folks come from miles around to sample the smoky planks of tender-pink flesh. It’s a big deal on the Canal and when I lost my job at the shipyard, I decided to capitalize on my reputation. I give tours, organize fishing expeditions, grace evening campfires with recitations of the local folklore, arrange clambakes, and generally lend a touch of native color to the Hood Canal resort where I am employed. To my mind, it beats running a scam at the casinos.
According to legend, June 26th is the cursed day, and the morning arrived, hot as soup. By half past ten, I was tossing around the idea of stripping down to a simple loincloth while I watched Doris, the woman who runs the Information Kiosk and gift shop, put out brochures and key chains adorned with Sasquatch or profiles of George Washington’s head. I rested my elbows on the counter, listening to her describe the antics of her housemate’s new puppy. She finished her story and swiped a finger down my nose, brushing off the drop of sweat that had formed there. I looked away.
At the main lodge, a door to one of the upper rooms opened with a creak loud enough to carry across the parking lot, and a youngish couple descended the steps to the blacktop. They wore the tourist’s uniform of T-shirt, khaki shorts, and hiking boots and I wondered about my chances of selling them on a guided trek or a canoe ride. The smell of hot oil and corndogs floated on a tepid breeze as they ventured across the pavement. A canary yellow Corvette pulled into the parking lot and a pair of long well-tanned legs emerged, followed by the rest of a young woman, dressed in tropical print and fuchsia, with floppy hat and sunglasses. As she bent over to rummage through the car, I heard the man gasp.
“Alexis!” he called. Her pink-swathed backside halted mid-sway and the woman turned from the car. She uttered a loud trill of laughter. “Gods above, it’s Joe.” She dropped her bag to the tarry blacktop and ran to smother him in a hug.
Joe returned her embrace, before detaching himself to perform the niceties. “Dana, sweetheart, this is an old friend of mine, Alexis Ruben. We were at college together. Cheated off each other’s homework, gave old Professor Wickham a hard time, wreaked havoc in the Theater Department, and various assorted activities. Alexis, this is my wife, Dana.”
The two murmured greetings and Doris, beside me, snickered. “Now there’s a study in types.” The women were, indeed, a remarkable exhibit in contrasts--exotic orchid versus the common daisy--and I found myself wondering about the “various assorted activities”. A family of five sauntered past and I spent a moment plying my trade. When I turned back to the drama in the parking lot, they were discussing plans to visit The Primeval Forest. I thought the wife looked dismayed to discover their twosome had burgeoned into three and I felt my heart twist a bit, seeing her faint distress and the husband’s oblivion.
I thought about my own wife, Valerie. About her pain and my casual dismissals. Acknowledgment was a concession I was unwilling to make. If I admitted that my tendency to over-imbibe affected our relationship in a negative manner, I might have to change. In the end, she won her point. I don’t drink anymore. Ever.
The three in the parking lot finalized their plans to visit The Primeval Forest and Dana seemed to breathe a little easier when it was decided that Alexis, who wouldn’t dream of missing the nature walk, would hike to the entrance alone, and on foot. Joe, who had twisted his ankle recently and was still feeling a bit tender, would drive over with Dana.
The Primeval Forest is among my favorite sites in the region. Since I was a boy, I’ve been fascinated by the place. In the green-filtered sunlight, it’s easy to imagine that alien life forms have taken possession of the earth. Trees sprout from other trees, locked in territorial battle. Weirdly shaped fungi push up through the marshy soil and sprout from nearly every surface. One variety resembles a batch of biscuits dropped by a careless baker. If you break open the “biscuit” it looks and smells of bread, but I advise against eating it. Other varieties are huge and ominously industrial-looking, as if giant vats of some foamy mixture had boiled over, running onto the ground, splashing trunks and branches, and solidifying in spongy masses. The entire Forest is covered by fuzzy green lichens and mosses, some resembling a carpet of tiny ferns while others drape in ropey festoons. Massive green velvet trunks reach into the sky and disappear in an explosion of shimmering jade and emerald, nature’s wind chimes writhing in eerie harmony. The whole place is like some bizarre, mutant paradise and I love it.
I enjoy introducing people to the Primeval Forest and, hoping to convince the threesome to hire me, I stepped forward and launched into my sales pitch. Joe cut me off, declaring they preferred to explore on their own, so I bowed out and Alexis started off down the wooded trail while Joe and Dana retreated to the coffee shop for one of Nina’s famous cinnamon rolls, each bite so good it makes your tongue sorry to swallow. I stood for a moment, feeling uneasy without knowing why and chalked it up to the Curse Day blues.
I spent the next hour trying to persuade passing tourists to engage my services and finally hooked a couple with two sulking teenage daughters into a boat ride along the bank. The girls bickered over clothes, boys, breakfast cereal, and how often you should clip your fingernails. I cranked the motor to a roaring crescendo and finished the tour in quick time. The parents gave me apologetic looks and a tidy tip, so I headed back to the Kiosk in good spirits. Doris was busy ringing up souvenirs and cold drinks for a couple dozen milling customers and I decided it was time to roll out the old gypsy legend.
I began with a few whoops and hollers to set the tone and rein in their attention. There are a couple rows of split-log benches under a fringe of trees next to the Kiosk and the thirsty group settled down easily enough, eager to be entertained and grateful for the cooling shade. I placed my tip jar in a prominent place and began to speak.
“There are many tales I could tell about my land and my people. Stories told around campfires for hundreds of years and passed from father to son, as my father passed them to me. But the story I share with you now has special significance, for today is the anniversary of a tragic event.”
I inserted a dramatic pause, during which I noticed that Joe and Dana had returned from their outing and were climbing the stairs to their room. I drew my gaze back to the audience.
“Three hundred years ago, my people and many other tribes inhabited this land freely. But the time of the white man had come. Fleets of men from Spain, England, and the eastern part of the continent came to squabble over the land, to fight and to kill for it.
My forefathers built a village here, in the very place where you are sitting, and a company of Spaniards camped nearby while trying to negotiate the takeover of the land. The Indians wanted peace, but they were unwilling to give up their crops and their homes. They thought of a plan to get rid of the Spanish. They pretended to make preparations for a celebration. They hunted deer and rabbit and set the meats to roasting with herbs so the smell of seasoned meat would announce their intention to feast. The women dressed in beautiful clothing and sang the tribal songs. And as the sun went down, they built a bonfire behind one of the longhouses. They attached headdresses on the end of long sticks and instructed the children to hold the sticks aloft and dance around the bonfire, whooping and hollering. From the distant vantage point of the Spanish camp, the whole village seemed to be at the party and the Spanish guard was down.”
“The Spaniards were celebrating, as well. Fine wine, stamped with the tang of Andalusia, flowed freely, and bawdy singing filled the camp. Included in the company were a number of gypsy women and there was wild dancing, accompanied by fiery guitar music. One of the women
had a son, a lad of thirteen years, by the name of Alejandro. The boy was despondent, homesick for Spain, and could not be persuaded to join the festivities. Instead he brooded, and hoping to find a quiet place where he could steep himself in misery, he crept from the camp to walk in the forest. He came to a place on the hill where, looking down, he could see the Indian village and smell the cooking meat.
As he watched the activity below, he began to feel uneasy. When he recognized that there were no warriors among the Indians, only women and children, his heart clenched within him. He raced through the forest, slipping on pine needles, foundering on loose stones. The men who had been set to guard the camp scarcely took notice of his anxious arrival. Alejandro ignored them, as well. He wanted El Capitan. He found the knot of men who commanded the company. They were in various states of disarray and soused, every one. Alejandro poured out his suspicion that the camp was in danger, but his fears met with laughter and derision. Dismayed, Alejandro rushed to find his mother. She would persuade the men to arm themselves for attack.
The gypsy mother heard the cries of her son. She came to meet him as he stumbled toward her, clasping him in her arms as he fell to the ground. He tried to tell her what he’d seen and what he thought it meant, but the words tangled with the coppery taste of fear and wouldn’t leave his throat. It was the arrow shaft which protruded from his back and the warm blood that flowed over the mother’s hands that delivered his desperate message. Alejandro died in his mother’s arms.
The Indian warriors had circled around and taken the company by surprise. There was a great slaughter. Not one Spanish man was left alive on the blood-soaked earth. The women were spared and left to fend for themselves. The mournful mother dug a grave for her son. As she laid him in it, she pronounced a curse on the land, then curled up on the mound of freshly-dug earth and waited for death. It is said her spirit still haunts this land, manifested in the sighing wind and tears of rain. A legend sprang up which decrees that every hundred years, this place will be visited by violent death.”
