A Guardian Angel (16 page)

“Tim, I like
you,” he started. The rancher rolled his eyes. “I'm bein'
honest here. I am going to submit an amazing and borderline
fraudulent claim on your cattle but I already know it's going to get
rejected – ”

Tim stared down at
his feet in annoyance and disappointment.

“Hey,
listen,” Barney said. “There's this group of social
workers in town that work specially for victims of natural
disasters.” He glance at the metal angel. “Now this isn't
exactly a natural disaster but it is tragic, violent, and,
importantly, very spiritual.”

“Sorry?”
Tim asked for clarification.

“It's a giant
angel, man,” Barney said. “And lucky for you, these
natural disaster people are church-owned. They may be inspired to dig
deep in their hearts, a bit to the right, and withdrawal from their
coffers.”

The rancher sighed,
a little unnerved by the greedy nature of Barney's suggestion.
“Thanks, Mr. Slechta – ”

“Barney,”
the claims agent insisted.

“Thanks,
Barney,” Tim said.

Then Barney got an
odd look on his face, the type of look that relays a brilliant idea
that he had hesitation to reveal. “Tim, how old are ya?”
he asked, placing his hands on his waist.

“Sixty-one,”
the rancher replied with an equal amount of hesitation.

“Okay, well
here's my card,” the agent started, handing him the identified
object. “I'm gonna worry about you, and as a 'paranoid
individual,' I can help you out when no one else will.”

He started walking
to his Volvo, opening up the door as Tim looked over the card with
confusion. He looked up at the claims agent just as he waved and
climbed in.

“Call me if
you need anything,” Barney said, then shut the door and drove
off.

A couple of days
had passed on the Simacean Ranch. With the exception of a hurried
visit to a highway side liquor store, Tim had isolated himself in his
house, as drunk as he could be and still watched the television in
the mornings. He started to doze on this particular morning, two days
after Barney's visit. A young woman was on the TV screen in a
digitized news studio.

“Today, the
Decree trials focused on the crime of hired assassination, an issue
that had until this point seemed almost nonexistent,” she
spoke. The footage showed some prerecorded images of the trial, in
which Haley Flynn was speaking. Her words were silent as the news
lady continued. “Haley Flynn described her encounters with the
infamous assassin known as Andrew Winter. The hired gun had
apparently turned over quite a few pieces of incriminating evidence,
revealing his contracts for over ten different assassinations. Winter
himself has not been placed in custody and remains at large.”

The image of a
lanky looking man in a designer suit appeared to the left of the
reporter. He was bald and sported shaded spectacles.

“Two hours
after resigning from his leading position, the company's former
president Sampson Miles, was arrested in Los Angeles this morning,
facing the brunt of the homicide charges,” the lady on the
screen explained. “It is believed that he will reveal a large
network of conspirators during questioning.”

The phone's old
fashioned loud ring sounded and Tim turned down the television to
answer. “Hello?” he said into the receiver.

“Hello, Mr.
Simacean?” an excited female voice said from the other line.
She did not wait for a response. “My name is Nora Blaunette and
I'm calling because I was told by a local about your tragedy. I'll be
perfectly honest, I didn't know whether or not to believe it, but old
Barn swore on his life that it was true. I am terribly sorry to hear
about your loss,” she offered.

“Thank you
very much,” Tim said, hanging onto the words so he had more
time to think of actual responses. He didn't have much time before
she took the wheel again. He didn't mind that so much.

“Getting down
to why I called you, I lead an organization of similar minded
business owners who like to do things like donate to homeless
shelters and hold fundraisers,” she continued. She spoke as if
she was being charged per millisecond to do so. “We're all very
active members of our First Church of Christ, and as terrible as what
happened to you is, we believe there is a purpose to everything. That
God has a plan for you and your ranch, and we want to do what we can
to help. What would you say to me and two other members coming and
taking a look at the angel?”

“You want to
see it?” Tim asked, proving not to be a man of conversation.

“Yes, sir,”
Nora replied. “I could not be more interested in it.”

“When were
you thinking?” Tim asked with as much effort as he could
muster, keeping his tired voice from sounding ungrateful or annoyed.
He succeeded barely.

“Four?”
the woman asked.

“Four it is,”
the rancher replied.

Again the rancher
sat in front of his home as he found himself doing whenever company
was expected, smoking his hand rolled cigarettes. He didn't have to
wait long before a minivan pulled off of the highway and onto his
bumpy driveway. Something inside him cringed when he saw the women in
the vehicle. They were tight-faced, short-haired, clown-makeup
wearing women clearly in denial of their age and so out of touch with
their social tendencies that they group together with other
horrifying women because their affection for Christ rivaled each
others'. The sort of women who call for Avon or knock for Jehovah and
any other interest that allows them to pester people on their own
doorsteps about things that Tim wasn't convinced they could care so
much about. They seemed over excited as they collected their purses
and climbed out of the minivan.

“Mr.
Simacean?” the woman with short, permed brown hair asked. “I'm
Nora. We spoke on the phone.”

“Yes, Nora,”
Tim said, trying not to roll his eyes as he offered a handshake. She
accepted it but cut him off short, making him have a sub par grip.

The bubbly woman
turned and indicated the others. One was older with very short,
almost buzzed silver hair. She had a tight and displeased look in her
eye. The other was much younger, much larger, and much shyer. She
seemed to wince every time Tim stopped to focus his gaze on her for
just a moment, turning away. “This is Glenda,” the elder,
“and Maude,” the child.

“Collectively,
you are...” Tim offered.

“The Pray
Away The Storm group,” the sociable one replied.

“PATS,”
the young one mumbled, trying to provide information without seeming
like she had.
Strange,
Tim mused.

“PATS,”
Tim echoed.

Nora lit up. “What
we really specialize in is helping people who have been left less
than fortunate by natural disasters,” she explained. “We've
contributed quite a bit to Katrina and Haiti, and are still sending
bits over for Sandy.”

“Remarkable,”
Tim commented.

They all had been
throwing intimidated looks at the looming metal structure. “Now
Tim, tell us about the angel,” Nora demanded.

“Well,”
the rancher said, taking a look back at the thing himself, “there's
not a whole lot to tell. Gigantic metal angel fell straight out of
the sky and killed all my livestock.”

“Fell from
the sky?” Nora echoed.

“That's
incredible,” Glenda said.

“Do you want
to take a look at it?” Tim offered. “Just be careful, I
don't know if it's safe to touch.”

Nora chimed in.
“That would be lovely!” as if he had offered to feed them
or something. He turned and gestured for the three of them to follow
him as he sauntered off to the angel.

“Oh my,”
the women sighed when they came around to the full scene of the
crash. The sun was in such a position in the southern mountains that
it gleamed just at the top of the angel's head. Like a halo. This
mesmerized them. Even Tim.

“And you lost
how many cows?” Glenda asked, eyes glued to the metallic shape.

“All
twenty-seven,” Tim said, adding in an extra dash of grief to
his voice and saw that it was used to good effect.

“There must
be a greater purpose,” the quiet younger girl said. “Some
reason for God's will.” She smiled subtly, but with warmth.

“Yeah,”
the rancher sighed in response. “Thank you.”

Nora put her hand
on Tim's shoulder, a strange contorted look of sympathy on the front
of her head. “You know, I would really like to get in touch
with our local TV news station,” she began, “and see if
we couldn't get a good spot for you and a fund raising account. So
that way, you can come close to having back what was so strangely
taken from you. What do you say?”

“Oh,”
Tim said with modesty, “television? I'm not sure.”

“It could
only help,” Glenda said.

“Yes, Tim,”
Nora explained. “Not only must we get your plight known so you
can get some help, but we must tell others about this – this –
” she stuttered. “This miracle. It is so much bigger than
us. It must be shared.”

“Oh yes?”

“Yes.”

After a week, Tim
started sweating as he looked over his bank statements. He was
starting to tap into his personal retirement savings to feed himself.
This was the source of his anxiety as he paced around his living
room, now disregarding his no smoking in the house policy. He paced
about the floor, cursing Barney, the religious women and even God
himself for sending his “miracle.” All a waste of time.
The cattle, the ranch. He started to worry about all the time he
couldn't get back.

Then the phone
rang.

That afternoon, Tim
watched from behind the shades of his window as multiple vehicles, a
large equipment van and two cars, drove off the highway and onto his
property. He exhaled smoke as he peered into one of the cars. The
three women from PATS waved at him as they parked.

“Tim!”
Nora exclaimed as she stepped out of the car, summoning the rancher
onto his driveway. He walked out of the door and stomped out his
cigarette before accepting the extended hand Nora offered him. She
pulled him into a hug.

“Isn't this
great?” she asked him. “Not only can we let Christians
all around the area see this miracle, but the station has even agreed
to set up a hotline for donations. Everyone will see your plight and
can help out.”

“That's,”
Tim started, peering around the corner of his house to watch as
camera operators set up their equipment, “great. Really, it
is.”

A tall, slender
Asian woman approached Tim from the second car. “Are you the
owner? Mr. Simacean?” she asked.

“Uh, yes. Hi,
that's me,” he responded with his hand extended. She accepted
it and smiled tightly.

“Hi there,”
she started, charismatic. “First off, let me just say from the
bottom of our heart at the station, it is a terrible tragedy what
happened to your ranch. Let us know if there is anything we can do
for you.”

“Thank you.”

“When we
start, we'll want you in front of the angel, behind the van,”
she explained.

Tim nodded.

“Great,”
she said before wandering off toward the cameras.

“Tim
Simacean's ranch has seen incredible losses since this bizarre
occurrence,” the reporter said on the television as the rancher
watched the taped version of the story later that evening. “The
'angel' itself, as it is being called by locals, is from an unknown
source. Most theories point to this being debris from a private
aircraft, or quite possibly a satellite. But, so far there are no
reports that match the scene. The facts remain uncertain. Only
speculation can be made.”

The screen cut to
Tim himself. “I have no honest clue where the thing came from,”
he said, his voice gravelly on tape. “Two Sundays ago it just
fell from the sky and crashed into my barn. You know, there were lots
of things shaking and falling until that final crash. Now I have
almost thirty dead and very flat cattle.” He laughed
halfheartedly. “I don't even know how I'm going to afford to
eat.”

I didn't realize
how grumpy I sound,
Tim thought. How much it seemed like he was
being bothered. He thought he had come off rather apathetic.

“This is the
angel, still lodged in the crater it created when it fell from the
sky,” the reporter smiled as she posed next to the large rusted
form. The cameraman had found it very difficult to capture the whole
image in frame. “Perhaps this could be seen as a divine
intervention. It leaves many questions and many hopes in the hearts
of so many. Where did the angel really come from? What is its
purpose? All I can say is that I hope this fallen angel is a good
omen. Back to you, Margaret.”