House of Gold (26 page)

Staying here was the
soft
option. Why else would that scumbag have come crawling up
the drive, locked and loaded and ready to rumble? Everybody was after
soft.

Maggie deserved better than
soft.

Then what?

It was a hard, cold world.

Mark Johnson was a hard, cold man.

He would have to come up with something.

Time passed. He rose from his perfect stillness and returned to the shack to hold Meggie, to cherish as much time with her as he could before she left him.

Chapter Twelve

Blackstone

New York State.

Off the beaten path of interstate highways, the town of Blackstone nestled at the bottom of a hill. It had seen its best days in the mid-1800s, when its paraffin factory, closed in 1910, had employed three hundred and supplied a world that lusted more and more after electric bulbs.

A handful of mountain farms in the surrounding hillsides stood barren, waiting
for a harvest of sweet potatoes and yams that would probably not come this year–the farmers had no diesel left for their rickety tractors.

Buzz Woodward stopped on his bicycle, and gazed down at the town from the road. He briefly considered moving along until he spotted white smoke puffing from the chimney of a white clapboard building that he deduced must be a church of some denomination or other.
It was too far away and there were too many trees for him to see if there was a telltale statue on the grounds.

Maybe it's a Catholic church?

He needed a confession more than food. The bitterness in his heart about losing the Man was starving his spirit.

Mel, Markie, Packy...

An old Clash tune drifted into his head:
Should I stay or should I go?

You need a confession,
his angel whispered.

Maybe
there was a priest down there.

Buzz decided to find out. The dull ache of hunger in his stomach, and the decline of the road into town, sealed his decision. He listened.

Yes!
He heard the sound of a brook.

He jumped off his bike, walked into the woods, and found it running parallel to the road, a quarter mile in. He methodically went through his routine of cleaning himself, including, as best
he could, blindly trimming his crewcut. The style was his link to the past–and without the luxury of bathing, his scalp remained less miserably itchy.

His back wheel clicked as he glided slowly up the main street. There was no roadblock or sentry here, just the usual empty storefronts–Unique Antiques! Mrs. Donut, Johnson's Shell and Service, Three Penny Diner. There was no traffic light, and only
one paved road running perpendicular to the main street (this time, however, it was named Oak Avenue–he was no longer in Pennsylvania, after all). The other road was Church Street, and as he cycled through the ghost town, he noted that there were two other churches–a tiny Church of the Nazarene and a gray, stone First Presbyterian Church of Blackstone, the Reverend Nathan Hawthorne, Pastor (if
the glass and steel sign was still accurate).

He pulled up to the front steps of the third church, the last one on the block, sandwiched between two residential homes with overgrown grass (a common site now that lawn mowers were museum pieces).

Our Lady of the Angels.

There were three bicycles parked here, and he arched his neck to look around to the back of the church. No cars. An abandoned U-Haul
trailer stood alone, its doors swinging-open.

Buzz heard the sound of a man's voice coming from inside the church.

The priest.

He climbed the steps, opened the door, and saw a man at the lectern who was reading out loud. Behind the reader was a skinny, bald man in a suit, sitting in the sanctuary. Buzz was immediately disappointed at their glaring lack of Roman collars–they probably were not priests.

There must be a priest here!
Buzz deduced as he saw the monstrance on the altar, exposing the Savior. His disappointment shifted to elation.

"–the light shines in the darkness–"

The bespectacled man behind the lectern stopped reading and looked up from his Bible. His seersucker suit was clean and obviously well-pressed, and he had a little paunch.

"Well hello, stranger," he addressed Buzz. "We're
just finishing a prayer vigil here. You're welcome to join us."

Buzz looked around and saw that the little church was packed. Every space in every pew was occupied. There were children, adults, old folks. Teenagers knelt in the side aisles. Their clothes hung loosely on their limbs, but their faces were clean; their clasped hands were not shaking. Some were even shaven.

Buzz nodded, smiled sheepishly,
and found a place in the back behind the last pew, where he knelt on the carpet.

"The light shines in the darkness," the preacher continued. "But the darkness has not overcome it."

The man closed the Bible, put his hands on the lectern, then shut his eyes.

"Dear Jesus, we believe in You and we love You. Turn not Your ears from our heartfelt pleas. Heal Your daughter, Sister Emmanuel, so she may
continue to lead our town in Your Holy Will. Amen."

The congregation echoed the man's amen, and all raised their heads from prayer. Those in the back who were kneeling stood up, Buzz included, and those on the kneelers sat down.

"Amen," the man repeated. He sat down in a chair in the sanctuary, and the skinny man behind him rose and came to the lectern.

"Thank you, Pastor Ellison, for that beautiful
homily and Word of God. Our service is almost over."

"Will we be laying on hands, Deacon Samuels?" a young male voice called out from somewhere in the front.

"Yes, certainly." Samuel's eyes shifted to a spot in the front of the church. Buzz could not see who he was looking at.

Pastor? Deacon? Is this really a Catholic church?

But there was a monstrance. Yet it just didn't feel Catholic. Maybe
it was Anglican. But the sign had said
Our Lady of the Angels Catholic Church,
hadn't it?

"Is this a Catholic church?" Buzz asked the pimply-faced teenage boy standing next to him. The boy gave him a funny look, but nodded.

Some in the congregation were filing up to the front now. Buzz saw a wheelchair as it was rolled to the center aisle before the altar. The wheelchair held an old lady wearing
a religious habit.

This must be Sister Emmanuel.

The old nun's eyes remained closed. Buzz knelt in the center aisle and watched. He prayed a Hail Mary, then,
Lord, please heal this woman.

A dozen others from the congregation gathered around her, including Pastor Ellison, and laid hands on her–on her head, her shoulders, her hips, her torso–and proceeded to pray in silence over her for what seemed
like a long time to Buzz. Over ten minutes.

No one left the church. Those remaining in the pews returned to their knees and prayed.

For the first time since the Man had died, Buzz did not feel alone.

Without any cue, the laying on of hands ended, and the congregation began to file out past Buzz, who remained kneeling, his eyes closed, unwilling to abandon the deep state of recollection he was
experiencing.

When he opened his eyes, there were seven people remaining in the front with the sister. The Sacred Host had been removed from the monstrance–Buzz caught a last-second glimpse of the man who had been called Deacon Samuels closing the tabernacle.

He must be a Catholic deacon,
he surmised.

Buzz slowly walked up to the nun and her friends. He carefully genuflected before the tabernacle
to his right.

They looked at him. He looked at them.

"My name is Buzz Woodward. I'm a Catholic on my way to New Hampshire to get to my family. I practice chiropractic medicine. Maybe I can help."

The astonished look in their eyes floored him. They broke out in huge smiles.

"Hello, Mr. Woodward," the pastor said, sticking out his hand.

Buzz shook it firmly. The pastor was no doubt surprised by
the strength of the grip, just as Buzz was surprised by the weakness in Ellison's. Beneath his seersucker, the man was skin and bones, despite the small paunch.

"Sister has a broken back. She fell. At least we think it's broken. We have no doctors here. Can you fix her?"

There were three women and four men around him, and he looked at their faces. Despite their cleanliness, he saw bags beneath
their eyes, and sunken cheeks on their faces–the same sorry breakdown indicators he had seen in every town.

The nun's eyes were still closed.

"I'm sorry, I don't think I can fix something like that. Is she conscious?"

"Sometimes. Not right now," an older woman with gray hair spoke up. "She's been asleep for two days."

"Are you a priest?" Buzz asked the pastor.

"No," Ellison replied calmly. "I'm
the former minister of the church down the block, although my entire congregation and myself are now members of the Catholic Church. I recognize Sister Emmanuel as a true woman of God. An anointed prophet. She told us you would come."

"She what?" Buzz asked.

"A month ago, when most of the food ran out, before the Miracle of the Eucharist, Sister Emmanuel told us to expect a big man with a short
haircut to come to Blackstone, riding a bicycle. She called you a man of sorrows, and told us that you were a healer, and that you would be an instrument of the mercy of God for this town."

His words hit Buzz like a medicine ball. He stepped back, plopped down on the pew, looked at his hands, then looked at the sleeping nun.

"She must be mistaken," he mumbled, as much to himself as to his listeners.
"I'm no healer."

"But you are a chiropractor, no?" Deacon Samuels asked.

Buzz shook his head, dazed.

This doesn't happen. This doesn't happen,
he told himself.

The woman with the gray hair came and sat down next to him. She put a frail arm around his shoulders.

"I'm Donna Melville. Sister Emmanuel is my older sister. Our brother Mark is the priest here. He's not well...two weeks ago he had a stroke.
He's no longer able to speak, or say Mass."

Buzz's hope for confession gurgled down a drain in his heart.

"Father Mark and Sister have held this town together since the troubles, mister," another man, younger than the rest, with an open face, and thin black hair, explained. "Sister said you would come. Sister said you would heal."

"But I'm just a chiropractor," Buzz protested. "But even that's
a lie. I know what I'm doing, but I never finished school. I've been trading adjustments for food all the way from Cleveland...until the Man...until the Man..."

"Who's the man?" Ellison asked, coming to kneel on one knee in front of Buzz, placing a bony hand on his leg.

"Huh?"

"The man. Who is this man?"

"Oh. His name was Hal Smith. He was traveling with me. He was shot. He...didn't make it. My
friends in Cleveland, we always called him by his nickname, the Man. It's a long story."

Buzz was finding his voice. Their hands on his shoulder and his leg felt...good. Warm. Accepting. Comforting.

"Can you help us? Can you help Sister?" Donna Melville asked.

He raised his head. Words came to him.

"Now is not the time for talk," he said firmly. "Now is the time for action."

He found his feet,
left the comfort of their affection, genuflected again, and crouched beside the wheelchair,-ignoring the soreness in his ankle.

She was ancient, the skin on her hands and face a city map of wrinkles. She appeared to be sleeping, her head resting on her chin.

"How old is she?" he asked.

"Ninety-one," said the man with the black hair–his name was Roy Mulholland.

"If you bring her to a table, or
even a bed, I can perhaps give her some comfort, a shoulder massage, adjust her neck. I can do that for you," Buzz said evenly, looking up at them.

+  +  +

There was a firm bed in the tiny kitchenette behind the sacristy. Buzz decided against moving her when he saw the bed, fearful of exacerbating her back injury. She remained asleep and her pulse was strong, though her breathing was thin.

"She
can sleep like this for ten, fifteen, sometimes twenty hours straight," her sister explained to him in a whisper. "Even before she fell."

"Where is the priest, her brother?" Buzz asked.

"In the rectory," Deacon Samuels responded.

"I want to see him first, before I begin. I want my soul to be clean before touching a holy woman."

"But he can't speak to you," the deacon responded.

"I know," Buzz
replied somberly. "But I would like to see him anyway."

The deacon led him to the rectory, where Father Mark Melville was sitting in a chair, staring at a blank television. A large painting of the Divine Mercy was on the wall behind it.

A young man, a teenager no older than fifteen, dressed in denim shorts and a T-shirt with the words
Marie Bellet Rocks
screened on the front was sitting on the
couch, reading a thick book called
Strangers and Sojourners.
He looked up at the visitors and smiled.

I've read that,
Buzz thought.

The deacon made the introductions, and the shy young man left the room.

The room was small, with an old, comfortable couch, and several bookcases jammed with religious books. There was a brown rug with intricate white designs on a wooden floor beneath their feet.
One bookcase was devoted completely to Catholic videos and audio tapes. Buzz walked around the room, glancing briefly at the titles, and recognized many.

"He takes food, thank goodness," the deacon explained nervously. "What little we can bring him. We have to mash it up. He drinks water from a straw.

"But he has lost weight. He was a heavyset man in December. He doesn't recognize any of us anymore,
or respond to questions. Sometimes he counts to ten, or cries out when we try to move him. We're all afraid he'll catch the flu, or have another stroke, or will waste away without a proper diet."

Buzz could believe this, having lost over eighty pounds himself since before the coma.

He crouched next to the old man, who was wearing the standard uniform of a priest: black pants, an open, black cardigan
sweater, a black shirt with a Roman collar. The clothes hung loosely on his body. Buzz saw a child's bib on the stand next to the easy chair.

The priest sported thinning, jet-black hair which contradicted his eighty-nine years on earth. He had a long, thin nose, and Scottish folds over his eyes. The only gray was on the flecks in his beard and mustache, which were neatly trimmed. It was obvious
that his personal needs and appearance had been taken care of by others.