House of Gold (35 page)

He willed...

What now?

to pray.
He willed to pray.

No longer able to walk, he shifted his will toward prayer, and
his last prayer against the blackness took more effort than any previous footstep...

Hail...

Full black came. He didn't finish his night prayer, but not for lack of will.

+  +  +

Four days without food. Two days without water. He was no longer starving. He was dying.

+  +  +

Mel. Mel. Mel. Mel. Mel.

He pulled himself up.

He tried to open his backpack, having imagined there was a Twinkie there,
or a cheese dog, or one of those great-smelling salty street pretzels his father had bought for him that time he had seen the Statue of Liberty when he was eight...

+  +  +

In a lucid moment, on his back on the bed of needles, the sun setting
(to the west? or was it east?),
he could no longer move, no matter how much he willed.

It was chilly today.

Or was the air warm and his skin was cold?

No
matter.

I don't want to die.

It was the truth.

What you want doesn't matter, Gwynny.
A gentle, familiar voice–a trustworthy voice–whispered to him.
You must, you must...it's time to...examine your conscience.

God, that voice inside his head sounded just like his dad. He missed his dad, the old lush.

Forget the friggin' voice,
he told himself.
Examine that conscience. Get ready for...the day of
glory.

And so he did.

What have I done wrong since my last confession?

Nothing.

Good. Then I'm ready.

He had kept his hand to the plow.

He slept, peace of mind his pillow.

+  +  +

Time passed. He woke.

Despite the pain, and the scorching thirst, and the hunger–merely a distant throb now–he felt good.

I kept my hand to the plow.

"I see Mel,"
the Man had said, and said again, now, here, in the pines.

Mel has died,
he finally admitted.

She's in heaven. I'm gonna see her soon.

He felt good. Good for her.

It was okay.

+  +  +

Buzz's dream was a song sung by a woman...

Back when my hair was short,
I met some friends in court,
for stealing hubcaps from cars...

Where had he heard this song?

Then he remembered. One of those K-Tel albums from the Seventies. A one-hit wonder. What was the name of that
group again? He could not remember. He had only heard the song a few times–during high school, at a party at the house of a friend lost in the mists of memory. But the lyrics were not lost. The lyrics were right here, right now, in the dream...

Chain-smoking under the stars,
played all-night pinball in bars,

He loved this song. Then he remembered replaying it on the phonograph several times, trying
to memorize all the words. What was the refrain? So lovely. The dream lady was still singing. Ah, yes...

I'll tell you of love,
more than ever it's love.
No lack of faith undermines it,
'cause it's the hope that we'll find it,
that makes us go on.

But hadn't that song been sung by a dude, not a babe? He wasn't sure. Who was this woman singing?

The dream-answer came.

Donna.
Donna Beck was singing
to him.

That's lovely.
Donna had such a nice voice.

Hey, didn't she go into the convent?

At first far away, then closer, like recovering a sense of touch when shaking off pins and needles, Buzz felt a warm, damp cloth on his cheeks as his dream morphed from musical to material, in that strange way of dreams.

The consolations of affection. A warm hand on his face. Donna's hand. Then, a gentle tamping
of a warm, damp cloth again. He tried to open his dream-eyes to see her. He had to see her!

A damp cloth. A gentle hand.

Then a word, his name, "Buzz."

He recognized her voice. So it
was
Donna! He was sure of it.

"Wake up," she urged, her voice low and soft. Soft like a mist. "It's time to wake up, Buzz. One last chance. A third chance. It's up to you."

He tried to open his eyes, but couldn't.
He felt a panic coming on.

"Use your will–choose love," she confided to him, letting him in on the secret. He felt the damp cloth again, on his forehead. "Your will is strong."

"Time to wake up," she repeated.

Okay,
he replied, and he
moved
his will. Nothing. It was no use.

"Buzz..." her voice was fading, singing again, "more than ever it's love..."

No! Don't go!
he cried.

He moved his will again
(for love this time, for love of Donna) and a strength came–a strength from the Other, a strength of purity, and majesty, and glory. His will was filled with this Other's strength, and he was...shocked!

Shocked by the
endlessness
of the Other. The love. More than ever it's love.

Why was this happening again? What was he moving his will toward?

"Wake up," Donna had said.

That's right.

He willed
to wake up, his will super-charged by the Other, infused with–pure grace...toward...waking up...waking up...

+  +  +

...waking up in the pine forests of New Hamsphire, somewhere near Mount Magalloway, on a bed of needles.

What was that on his face?

It was wet and slobbery–and moving around. Almost yucky. But also, warm, and wet, and Buzz was oh so thirsty.

Curious and thirsty, with great effort,
he opened his eyes, and though they burned, when he focused, he saw the dog.

A dog had been licking his face!

Here, in the middle of nowhere.

Hi, big fella,
Buzz thought, directing the thought toward the dog.

As if reading his mind, the dog barked back a greeting. He recognized that it was a collie.

Lassie. Is this heaven?
Buzz asked himself, still disoriented.
Are there collies in heaven?

No.
No way. It all came back to him. The pain in his ankle. The hunger peck-peck-pecking away. The utter lack of energy. These were all here and now. Not heaven.

This sucks.
Buzz was genuinely disappointed–and also angry.

Obviously, this dog was a hallucination.

Go away!
Buzz shouted inside.
Let me die in peace.

The dog, real, licked his lips. Buzz coughed.

It barked twice. Simple.

Buzz accepted the
reality of the situation.

He looked at the dog, if only to distract himself from the pain and hunger. If a dog could smile, Buzz swore, this one was grinning ear-to-ear.

The dog suddenly trotted off; Buzz was alarmed–quickly disappointed–and he tried to arch his neck to follow the dog's path, but pain and lack of energy defeated his effort.

The collie returned in a flash and came and stood with
its head over Buzz's face, his front paws practically on Buzz's right arm.

There was something in the collie's mouth.

A rabbit.

When the smell of the rabbit wafted into Buzz's nostrils, and his brain processed the message, the jitter-pangs in Buzz's belly cranked up all the way, like an instinctual gong sounding:
Food! Food! Food!

"Good boy," Buzz rasped to the dog.

The dog barked.

"Now go get
me a Pepsi."

+  +  +

It took him almost an hour, but Buzz willed himself to sit up. He willed himself to open his backpack. He willed himself to take out his knife and gut the rabbit. This was all very difficult, but the golden brown dog was pacing around him all the while, licking his face, barking; basically goading him with a happy kind of dog-joy.

Eating the rabbit, raw, bony and bloody, however,
was not difficult. Buzz chewed on the tiny pieces of flesh slowly and methodically, pausing often, wishing he had more saliva.

The best meal of his life. He savored it.

When he was finished, the dog darted off.

And came back twenty minutes later with a squirrel.

Dessert!

+  +  +

After the squirrel, Buzz took a closer look at the dog, which had layed down beside him, resting his muzzle on his thigh.
It was big for a collie. Extra-large-jumbo. Its hair was matted and dirty, filled with pine needles and the flotsam and jetsam of the forest. There was plenty of fine, dark black hair around its face, and a giant plume of white on its wide chest. It had no dog collar. Buzz felt plenty of muscle on its bones.

It was a beautiful, lovely animal. In a way that he couldn't quite put his finger on,
its mane reminded him of... a nun's habit. It reminded him of Donna.

Come a long way, too, eh?

He scratched its snout; the dog let out a long groaning belly rumble of pleasure.

"We'll have to give you a name, pupster," Buzz told him, patting him affectionately on the head, which obviously pleased the collie.

Buzz's voice was still raspy; his mouth was dry, parched. He was barely able to lift his
arms. The pain in his ankle was an excruciating clamor, yet, as he waited for the rabbit and squirrel to digest, he felt the old energy–that special brand of Buzz energy–coming back. Coming back for a...

A third chance,
he thought.

He looked at the sky. There was still plenty of sun left in the day.

"Help me get to my feet, pupster, and lead me to some water–so we can get moving. You're coming
with me on the long walk."

The dog lifted its head from Buzz's leg and barked loudly.

"That's right, pupster. We're going to Bagpipe."

PART FOUR

On the Jetty

I know what you're doing, I see it all too clear. I only taste the saline when I kiss away your tears. You really had me going, wishing on a star...
Duncan Sheik,
Barely Breathing

Know how sublime a thing it is to suffer and be strong.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In the bar we sit like blackbirds With our broken wings Like clocks without their springs Just like time doesn't
mean anything
Fastball,
Which Way to the Top?

A trifle is often pregnant with high importance.
Sophocles

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations...without weakening in faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead... and that Sarah's womb was also dead.
Saint Paul, Romans 4:18-19

I am his Highness's dog at Kew; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog
are you?
Alexander Pope,
The Dunciad

Chapter Sixteen

Grace in Her Arms

Big Steve was glad Buzz's spirit was alive. He didn't understand this new man's words, but this did not matter. Like all dogs, all he really cared about was the tone of voice, and his new master's tone was easy to understand.With a few sniffs, even a dog as dumb as a cat could tell the master needed food and water.

Strangely, the new man also smelled like roses.

As the big collie trotted alongside the limping man, he was happy. Completely happy. Dog emotions don't come mixed and cut and conflicted. Simple. Big Steve was
simply happy.
Big Steve could tell that Buzz was happy, too, even though he was weak and slow.

The world was all right.

But the world had not been all right two months ago, with his master's corpse rotting away in Saint-Pascal, eighty-five
kilometers north of the City of Quebec, draining the soul-life from Big Steve. The dog had eventually stopped eating. He had allowed the sheep to wander. The other night, when the bear had come near the porch, Big Steve had growled him away with a sickly desperate rage. Even a bear knew better than to mess with a love-sick dog.

Still, Big Steve continued to hold out hope that a human would come
and put the spirit back into Yves Charbonneau.

Then, one day, just like that, a man had come. (For dogs, time is often
just like that.
For dogs, there are three basic kinds of time:
now, back-then,
and
back-then a-lot.)

The collie heard him first, singing a song, the soles of his shoes lightly scuffing the road. The melody was familiar–one of Yves's favorite hymns–although the words were not in
French:

"O sacred head, now wounded,

With grief and shame weighed down,

Now scornfully surrounded,

With thorns, thine only crown..."

Dogs don't care about words anyway. It was the tune that mattered. Most certainly, this approaching person–the wind was going the right direction, and Big Steve suddenly smelled
male/not/female
–this man coming must be a friend of his master!

Wary of leaving the porch,
Big Steve jumped up,-suddenly filled with energy, and waited for the man to appear over the crest of the road. His ears perked up in that special way that only collies can manage.

Then Big Steve saw
him.

He was not a tall man. He was thin, with a silky, smooth gait, and sported a bald head with gray, frizzy hair cropped close to his ears.

And he was black. Singing and smiling, the black man reached
up and waved, and
conveyed
to Big Steve that everything was going to be okay, by saying silently (in French):

Hey there, Grand Stephan! Sorry I'm late. I was waylaid in purgatory. The Master sent me.

Big Steve had no idea what
purgatory
was, but this black man knew his
name,
and sang the master's song–and now that he was closer, almost to the porch, the collie could tell this man smelled just
like his favorite smell in the whole wide world.

He smelled like roses.

Just like the master! The master always had roses in the house. Always always always. Always long-stem roses,-always next to the statue of the blue woman on the stand beside his bed.

Big Steve barked as loud as he could, conveying:
Come on come on come on, hurry!

The man skipped up the porch steps, and reached down to pet
Big Steve's excited head.

Attaboy, Grand Stephan, good-dog. Good-dog.

He sounded just like Yves Charbonneau.

Big Steve did not register the dark, wrinkled hand on his head the way a dog normally registers a real hand, but the dog did
feel
the sensation of being petted–in his heart. It was as if Yves himself was petting him.

This all registered as my-master/this-black-man, if one could put words
to dog thoughts. Big Steve was confused, but being a particularly smart dog, only for a second.

After all, what did it matter? The new man was here, and the new man felt and smelled and sang and gave affection in precisely the same way as the master, and used Big Steve's
name
just like the master.

You can't serve
two
masters.

Every dog knows that.

The master had once been lost, and now he was
found. It was quite simple, really.

That's right, Grand Stephan. I'm here now. Good-dog. Attaboy. That's right.

Big Steve looked up at the black man and
accepted the reality of the situation,
in that way of dogs.

That body rotting in the house was not his master. That corpse was...just nothing.

His master was here. It was as if he had never left.

Big Steve was happy.

Let's go, boy,
said the Man
cheerfully.
Got a lot of work to catch up on. Lots of stuff to do, you and me. Got promises to keep. So let's get some food in your belly. We're going on a long walk.

Big Steve was five years old–thirty-seven in dog years–the prime of his life. With a little food and exercise, he would quickly return to his normally fabulous condition.

The collie's father, and his grandfather, and great grandfather
had also been strong, intelligent, energetic extra-large-jumbo-size collies. They had to be to work the farm, all right. In fact, Big Steve was the fifteenth
Grand Stephan
in the Charbonneau of Saint-Pascal line, all of them named after the first Christian martyr, Saint Stephen.

Big Steve leaped off the porch and followed the Man to the barn, where the chow was kept. He quickly caught up and started
barking and bounding around the thin black holy ghost who smelled like roses. He loved to bark for joy, and was almost always frisky–even for a collie. Big, strong, smart, faithful, stubborn, and frisky.

Kinda like our friend Buzz,
thought Hal Smith from his lofty perch in the Beatific Vision, as he turned to the soul of the woman who had been stout, and had worn a brown habit on earth.

Hal was
with Big Steve, and at the same time, not really in Saint-Pascal, Quebec, just as he was with Buzz, yet no longer on the long walk.

I wonder what Buzz will name the collie?

+  +  +

Buzz wanted to run, to finish strong, but his ankle slowed him, and so it looked rather strange–a big man with a crewcut and a crutch, lope-limping on a dusty, hilly road in Bagpipe, New Hampshire, led by a barking,
golden-brown collie struggling not to get too far ahead of his master.

After two days of rest and recuperation, the dog had led Buzz–first to water, bringing him more food, then south to a path that traced around the southern end of Magalloway Mountain, and finally to the river.

They emerged from the bush then crossed over the Dead Diamond River south of the town, and though he was discouraged
when he discovered that the town was completely empty–abandoned–Buzz knew the way by heart now.

The ensuing six miles, from the center of town to the homestead, were the longest of the long walk. For the first time since Buzz left Donna at the Poor Clares, he was certain he would make it. And now, there it was, coming into sight, at the top of the swell, the long driveway.

Long?
Buzz laughed to
himself.
I can tell you about long.

He stepped up his pace.

It was just over the swell. The homestead.

Mel, the boys. The new baby. Ellie and Sam and Chris.

Buzz Woodward stopped abruptly at the beginning of the driveway, his ankle pounding with pain; he could not bring himself to feel happy.

He could not smile.

Mel; the boys. Mel.

He rubbed his crewcut in the sun, and for the first time, noticed
how dry and tan his forearms were. The rest of him was all sweat and dirt. There was no time to shave.

"I see Mel!" the Man had said.

He could tell the dog wanted to run ahead, but he dropped his hands onto his knees–screw the ankle–and caught his breath.

Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Hal.

Maybe he should say a better prayer?

He remembered the reality of the situation. This wasn't a movie. This
was the new millennium.

The town had been empty. There might be
nobody
down there, beyond the stand of trees, where the houses had been built.

Our Lady had never left the side of her consecrated son–her little man of sorrows–during his long walk. Hers had been the unseen hand which had lifted him after his many falls on the road of suffering. The kind of road which tested gold in the fiery furnace.

She herself was a woman of sorrow. She procured from her Son the graces needed here, and thereby prompted Buzz to pray, though, in his blindness, he did not know it.

He closed his eyes. He stood up straight, like a man, and clasped his dirty, sweaty hands together. He prayed.

"I am an unworthy servant of the Lord," he said aloud, feeling a bit numb. "Let it be done unto me according to Thy word."

He opened his eyes. He threw away his crutch. He pulled the pack off his back, and held it in his hand.

Mel.

He walked down the hill, slowly.

+  +  +

Weeds. Ellie Fisk was concentrating on the weeds.

In the old world, she had spurned the joys and frustrations of gardening. What had been the point? What with the bounty of perfect, fat, waxed vegetables from all over the world crowding each other
in open, refrigerated stalls down at the supermarket.

Now she was on her knees, her blond hair tied back tight on her scalp with a clean rag, the skin on her hands etched with the kind of dirt that permanently lodges in the creases and calluses.

Weeds were the enemy–just one enemy among many in a world filled with adversaries. Weeds suffocated the fruit-bearing plants. She needed these tomatoes,
these beets, these cucumbers.

She was bent in warfare, her back like a board on a hinge, folded on her haunches, her thoughts on the words she had read in the Bible this morning...

...unless a seed falls to the ground and dies...

Get these weeds. Or a little baby would die. It was that simple, really.

And besides the baby, what else was there?

A new thing–a nuzzle. It almost startled her. But
the dog had so gently tucked his long nose under-between her arm and ribs...

"Ellie?" A voice.

She turned and looked up, then brought her hand up to her brow to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun. She saw a vision of a man framed by a middling sunset. She squinted. A stranger? A beggar? Another violent lunatic... a
stranger
who knew her
name?

She remembered her rifle. She had left it on
the deck.

"I–" he began.
I–made it, Ellie.

The collie barked, shaking her out of her daze.

Ellie Fisk did not recognize him, but she was not alarmed. She watched the figure drop the backpack, take a rifle off his shoulder, then lean it on the stump next to him. Her eyes adjusted to the sun behind him, and she saw, all at once...

...the word
Tabasco
on his ratty shirt. And then his sleepy eyes,
the crewcut, and his rounded shoulders...

"Buzz!!" she cried out, and now she was running the last five steps toward him as he opened his arms.

She practically rammed into him, and unlike the old Buzz, it was like slamming into a solid wall, not a thick couch, and his arms closed around her.

You're a reed,
Buzz thought.

You're a rock,
she thought.

Somehow, they fell to their knees, the barking
dog bounding around them like a wacky circling golden tumbleweed.

They sobbed, kneeling on the dry dirt path; the kind of weeping that wells up from the soul. The cry of the weak, the alone, the lost, the empty. Tears they knew not in their old world, but which now defined their new one.

"Buzz, Buzz, Buzz," she blurted sadly, over and over, her chin on his shoulder.

He said nothing.

Mel.

A time
passed, and they were empty, dry. Tears a luxury, they pulled it together, and pulled away. They were not married, but friends. There was no urge to kiss, and when she looked at him, she saw that their tears had mingled to carve tan clean channels on his cheeks before disappearing into the sweat of his stubble.

He saw the damp grey bags beneath her eyes.

"Mel said you would come," she whispered.

"Mel?" he asked, courage hidden in his serene question. He knew the answer, but still...

Unable to stop herself, she looked toward the house, beyond the garden, to the mounds of stone, with the make-shift, wooden...

...he followed her gaze and saw the five crosses.

He stood up, and she remained folded at his feet.

"Buzz..." she said. "They–"

She couldn't finish.

Where were the tears when you really
needed them? They both had spent them so frivolously just moments earlier. Words, words from a mystic–one of Mel's favorite books–sprouted from between the weeds in Ellie's soul into her mind:

Tears are the only river on which fire can burn.

She looked up, and he was still looking at the five graves. Keeping his eyes on the bitter reality, he reached down and opened his hand, and she rested her
cheek into it.

Hard,
she thought. But warm, too.

"I knew all the time, even though I didn't admit it to myself," he told her calmly, his voice above her, toward the graves. "During every step on the long walk. That was the worst part, Ellie, knowing all the time that they were gone. The Lord told me."

"Buzz," she said, closing her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"The Lord told me. Prepared me."

Where was the
sorrow in his voice? She could not hear it.

He pulled his hand from her cheek, reached down, then lifted her up as if she weighed nothing.

"It's okay," he told her, concern in his voice.

"I miss them. I really miss Sam and Chris, Mel, Markie, Packy. Every day."

Saying their names, out loud, was good.

He knew. He held her again, this time in perfect silence, the birds and the dog and the winds
a world away.