House of Gold (44 page)

Mark glanced over the priest's shoulder and
observed his son with his newly adopted puppy. A former officer in the Navy, Mark knew when an order was being couched in terms of a request.

Yes, sir.

"Father Anthony, I have two friends who tried to walk to New Hampshire. They left in March."

God rest their souls,
the big man thought.

Mark noted the quick hint of admiration–or was it fear?–that flickered across the man's eyes.

"You were in the
military, no?" the priest asked.

"The Navy."

"Aviator, line officer, or submariner?"

Father McAndrew pronounced
submariner
in the British fashion.

"Aviator, Father."

This guy knows the lingo,
Mark thought.

"Then procure for us an aircraft."

Mark tapped his fingers on the table.

He looked at the boy and his dog again. Mark recalled his Bagpipe pipe-dream on the day he buried his Maggie. And his
phone call to Sam at the butt-end of preparing his place here. And how, when Sam gave him the cash to bribe the guy at the hospital for the nutrient bags, Sam had promised to drive Mel back to Bagpipe in a rental car.

"I don't need to look," Mark said. "We've already got one."

+  +  +

When they arrived at the little country airport in Elyria, Mark was disappointed when he spotted Sam's plane.
It was amidst a jumble of other abandoned planes, missing a wheel, bullet holes in the fuselage.

He checked both fuel tanks in the wings–empty.

Siphoned dry, no doubt, months ago.

He searched the cabin and found this note under the front seat, sealed in a ziplocked bag, in Sam's neat, cursive handwriting:

M,

Sorry about the wheel and the bullet holes. Remember, the worst place to hide something
is within plain sight. No pun intended. Fly like a demon.

S

He showed the note to the priest, who had been chatty during the hike, but had carried the heavy bag containing ammunition and Seamus's books without complaint.

Here,
Mark thought, handing it over,
you're the friggin' genius.

"You told me that Sam Fisk predicted computer malfunctions would cause the Troubles. He is a devout Catholic."

The big man nodded.

Mark imagined little flywheels turning–rapidly–inside McAndrew's head.

"The cypher is revealed in the last line," McAndrew announced after a pensive minute.

"A reference to the demonic is not Catholic in this context. Therefore every sentence in this note is a falsehood. It is obvious that your friend is playing on the pun–that is, his pun was intended, and what you need is
within sight of the plane. Including this plane itself, which he camouflaged by making it appear worthless to ruffians by removing the wheel, discharging a firearm at an inconsequential section of the fuselage, and locating it next to these junkers."

"I need some fuel, two starter batteries, and a wheel," Mark explained, pleased.

Mark sent Seamus (rifle in hand) to the hangar to search for a battery
and the wheel.

The priest looked around, slowly, carefully, standing in each of four directions for over three minutes, praying to his patron, Saint Anthony.

Mark Johnson searched with his eyes, but was also waiting for the supercomputer standing next to him.

"I expect we will find the fuel over there," the priest announced, pointing to a large pile of empty drums dumped behind the hangar. "Near
the bottom of the pile."

"And the batteries?"

"I do not know."

So he's human,
Mark thought, not disappointed.

It took three hours. Seamus found two serviceable car batteries beneath a stack of dead batteries in a storage room in the hangar. The Beachcraft needed two batteries, and these would do in a pinch. Mark found two full drums in the dump–just enough aviation fuel to reach Bagpipe against
the wind, though the prevailing tailwinds would give them a reserve.

They never did find a wheel. Mark figured that the wheel may have been scavenged. None of the rusty wheels on the junkers fit the bill.

"So we can't take off?" the priest asked, becoming more human all the time.

"Hell yes, Fadder."

"But how?"

"I'll improvise. We're still Americans, you know."

Mark ad-libbed by attaching a heavy-duty
loading cart to the plane, using a hobgobble of rope, wire, and metal strapping. He then had the good father bless the plane with holy water; each engine fired up on the first crank.

Betcha Sam had it tuned up,
Mark thought.

It was a rough go on the runway; the rickety cart squealed like a pig, but they made it into the air.

When they climbed to five hundred feet, the cart fell off the plane.
Mark said nothing about this, even though he spied the priest's nervous gaze following its descent. Mark returned his attention to the charts, which featured two routes to Bagpipe marked neatly by Sam's yellow highlighter.

I'm the captain of this ship,
Mark laughed, wondering if he liked this priest or not.

Then he decided that it didn't matter. Buzz, if he was still alive, would like this guy,
he realized.

Buzz knew all sorts of useless things.

Mark had decided early on to avoid blurring his memories of his friends with inaccuracies.

The priest was in the back seat with the boy and the puppy. After turning his gaze from the fallen cart, he pulled out his beads and asked Seamus to join him in a Rosary.

For four hours, Mark flew as low as he dared to avoid unforeseen security problems
(as he still thought of them). To the unmusical hum of the two engines, Sam's plane danced over the Green Mountains after a relatively peaceful flight. The priest poked his head up into the cockpit just as Mark visually confirmed that they were passing over Colebrook–using notes describing landmarks carefully prepared for him by a man who was now dead, but was anxiously monitoring their flight from
his air traffic control headquarters in the sky.

Thanks, Sam,
Mark prayed, turning the airplane a few degrees northward.

Next stop, Magalloway Mountain.

"What about the missing wheel?" the priest called to Mark over the engines.

"What about it?"

"Improvise?" the priest offered with a noticeable lack of confidence.

"Roger that." Mark then called back, "Shay!"

"Yes sir?"

"Get ready to jump, son.
Take the puppy. I'll find you some water."

The next thing the priest heard gave him his biggest jolt since the collapse itself, if only for reflexive ease and casualness in Seamus's voice.

"Sure thing, Dad."

A true Johnson.

A breed apart,
the priest thought.

Then, directed to Mark,
You knew precisely what that note meant before you handed it to me.

"Strap yourself in, Fadder," Mark ordered. "Time
for the fun stuff."

Fun stuff?

The tables had turned, and now it was Fadder Tony who had no idea if Mark was kidding or not.

Mark checked his charts for the last time. He saw the top of Magalloway frowning at them from above the clouds.

Father Anthony McAndrew scrambled to attach his safety-belt.

The boy, armed with only a pupster, unlatched the door of the cabin, which promptly banged open as
his father shaved the airspeed, letting in the frigid, screaming wind.

That there was a body of water below came as no surprise to Seamus. Then he saw a collie running away from a woman in the arms of a man.

Excellent!

Mark eased his baby out of the clouds. The two fathers looked through their respective windows and saw their first glimpse of Bagpipe.

And it grew on them.

+  +  +

Buzz named the
puppy (a pure-breed of the female persuasion from a long line of sturdy Ohio farm dogs) the day before the wedding.

He named her Lady.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Hidden Tabernacle

Nothing had changed, except the whole world.

That night, after the stories had been told about kings and days-not-old, Tommy Sample gave them a ride back to the homestead. Mark and Seamus retired immediately to Markie and Packy's room.

Boom, snoring.

The priest prayed the Divine Office in silence before the altar in the living room while Buzz and Ellie whispered
their Rosary on the couch behind him.

Buzz had set up a cot in the basement office for the priest. Before retiring, Father Anthony solemnly placed his hands on their heads, invoked a blessing (in Latin), then bade them good-night.

Buzz jumped from the couch, ran to the stairway, then called down a promise to adjust the good father's back the following morning.

Buzz walked back toward Ellie, following
her gaze to her hands. She was standing in front of the altar, still in her simple cotton dress, Mark's blood on the hem. She was looking down, at the ring, appearing for him and all the world like a little girl.

A candle on the altar, burning wax; throwing light.

He lifted a hand to her face, but did not touch her, wondering. She kept her gaze on the diamond. He lowered his hand.

Buzz was seeing
her.

He was waiting for profound words to come. Words failed him, perhaps because they no longer mattered.

He was not thinking of Mel because he was a man; he was a man who lived in the present.

Because, wordless, since Grace had gone, he had accepted that Melanie would have it so for Ellie's sake. One cannot serve two masters. He needed simplicity. So he opened his mouth and let the words come
out.

"Good night, sister Ellie."

She looked up now, directly into his eyes, and held him again; she had been waiting for this moment since the party at Tommy's; all during the sleigh ride, then here, during the Rosary.

Because she was a woman who falls, then rises, she fell into remembering; remembering their jetty in the ocean of snow. Remembering the stirring in her belly when this man had kissed
her. Remembering when the angels came to save them.

She had loved Sam with all her heart and soul. All the way. Til death did he part. No problem there. Yet with Buzz, with Buzz on the jetty–

To have and to hold,
she remembered.

Buzz was a new
having.
A different holding. Buzz gave something that Sam had not given her. Perhaps because Buzz had given her Buzz. Having carried other crosses, she-accepted
this one. A new fiat.

After all, she was an intelligent, practical girl.

"Can I ask you something?" she said.

"Anything."

"In all this time, why did you never offer to adjust my back? My back is not strong."

She retained his gaze. Buzz smiled as he stepped forward, closer.

"Because we're not married," he said.

"But you worked on married women during your long walk to Bagpipe," she countered deftly.

"That was different."

"But you'll give me one now, if I ask, won't you?"

"Sure, anytime," he replied.

"Why?"

They were inches apart, not touching, enjoying the ocean crashing inside. This tide was coming in fast.

"You know why," he said, waiting for the wedding.

"But I want to hear you say it. I want to hear the way you will say it. No pressure, Buzz, but I want to be surprised."

"You're starting
to figure me out," he observed, seeing her, seeing her eyes, ready for anything.

"You're stalling."

"Not at all."

"Then tell me, brother Buzz, why would you give me therapy now if I asked?"

She was truly, sincerely curious.

"Because El, one day, after Grace died," he began, "I started to pray, and I couldn't find God inside me, like I told you, and I realized there was no Jesus-Eucharist on that
altar right there behind you.

"So I decided to keep taking the long walk to find Him. How hard could that be? I walked to New Hampshire to find Mel. That wasn't so hard. So I kept walking, kept walking to find Him."

Buzz was a big wave, she realized, knowing–just knowing–what would come next, even though she still did not know how he would tell her.

"I got up from the altar, Ellen, and I walked
into your bedroom, even though I never go into your bedroom," he began again, his words deliberate, just above a whisper, his brown eyes shining.

He was charming her, being Buzz, doing that thing he could do. For her.

"It is a sanctuary, your room, and I'm not a priest. And I saw you sleeping there. You're so pretty with your eyes closed. And I heard your heart breaking–that sound never goes away,
not until Mark came today. And I felt like an idiot just looking at you sleeping in the bed. Maybe it was the beauty. Beauty can save the world.

"Then pure grace came. Then I knew. I knew where God was. He was in you, my Ellie. Right there all the time. So simple. I'm such a moron.

"Then, at that moment, I made you my tabernacle, Ellie, and I found the Holy Trinity inside you. And I worshiped
Him there, and–"

He paused.

"And?" she asked.

"And I love you now. And I couldn't stop even if I wanted to. So you can have a backrub whenever you want."

She closed her eyes, and let the wave flow through her, and unaware, allowed a healing to begin–

–as Buzz reached for her hand, no longer able to keep himself from touching her.

Oh Buzz, you're my knight in shining armor.

+  +  +

He did not give
her a massage that evening; instead, a simple, chaste kiss on the hand, as he had at the safe-place on the day they were engaged. She found this courtly and chivalrous, and it made her feel like a princess.

She slept alone, for the first time in years, in their bedroom, while he slept on the couch, with the dog and his Ruger. They kept this arrangement because they were still faithful Catholics,
and because it was the right thing to do. And because, wisely, he no longer trusted himself.

Also, though Ellie did not know it, Buzz had been cured on their jetty in Bagpipe, just as he had been cured of alcoholism on his jetty in New Jersey so many years ago. The particular condition that had beset him since his fall from the scaffold a year earlier had disappeared.

Miraculously cured, as a
believer might diagnose. Buzz thought of it as a matter of grace. A surprise gift with the added benefit of good timing.

God is never late,
he thought, echoing Mother Teresa, as he fell off into his sleep, waiting for the wedding night.
But rarely early.

+  +  +

It was December the fourth, a Monday in the two thousandth year of Our Lord. Just four days left until the wedding. Mark, Seamus, and
Father Anthony moved into Ellie's old house, which Buzz immediately dubbed the Monastery.

The next day, Mark had Buzz give him a thorough inventory of the physical plant. He told Mark about what happened to Sam and Chris, successful in his effort to remain clinical. They hiked down to the river, and Buzz showed him the boundaries of the property. It took several hours.

"Well?" Buzz asked.

"Looks
like you need better security and a hand-pump for your well."

"No shit."

"Sorry," the Naval Academy graduate said.

Mark reminded himself that Buzz was a Notre Dame man, and therefore, was practical, quick-minded, and caustic.

One hour later, Mark Johnson disappeared over the hill with Seamus, who had started Latin classes with the priest that morning. (Johnsons, ideally suited in many ways to
the new realities, don't waste time.) They left with a canvas strap, two rifles, a backpack, and a bag of potatoes.

They returned with a deer, no potatoes, the rifles, the pack, and strapped to Mark's back, an enormous, heavy-duty hand-pump, including piping. Together, the load must have weighed over three hundred pounds.

"You carried that all the way?" Buzz asked.

"Of course not. Shay helped
me."

Shay gave Buzz an open smile.

"Where'd you get it?"

"I didn't steal it."

"That's not what I asked," Buzz replied.

"Look Buzz, if I didn't steal it, then does it really matter?" Mark rejoined.

Buzz thought about this.

"No."

Mark was glad that Buzz was not the type to sweat the details. Mark's kind of guy.

Mark unloaded it next to the well, and wiped his brow with a sweaty hand in the chill
air.

"Mark," Buzz asked. "Can I ask you for a favor?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Don't move away from here."

"Okay."

Buzz, wasting no time, walked into his house, then talked to Ellie for two minutes. He strolled out of the house twelve minutes later with two copies of a contract (post-dated five days), pen on paper, which read thus:

I, Ellen Woodward, resident of Bagpipe, New Hampshire, as testified by my
signature below, agree to give forty-five acres of land on my property, no less than ten of which shall include cleared, tillable farmland, ten acres of timberland, and a right of passage to Dead Diamond River Road, to Mark Joseph Johnson, in exchange for the delivery and installation of one handpump. Said property shall include the post-and-beam structure, referred to locally as "the Monastery."
The exact dimensions of said property shall be determined by mutual agreement of both parties to this contract before 8 December 2001. And screw all the lawyers.

This was followed by Ellie's signature, and the signature of one witness, the Reverend Anthony T. McAndrew, IV.

"That last line was my idea," Buzz said proudly.

"Why forty-five acres?"

"Isn't that how old you are?"

"I'm forty-six now."

Buzz shrugged his shoulders, then turned around and bent his back.

"Shay-Shay, give me a hand here," Buzz asked the boy.

The boy came and placed one of the contracts on Buzz's back, holding it in place for his father.

Mark, never one to sweat the small stuff, took a deep breath, prayed one Our Father, then signed the documents, handing his copy to Shay.

"Go ahead and put this in our new house,
son–in with the birth certificates."

"Yes sir."

The kid ran off.

+  +  +

It did not snow on December the eighth. They were able to take Tommy's sleigh all the way to Colebrook.

Ten minutes before the Nuptial Mass, Buzz Woodward approached the wrinkled, wiry French priest in the sacristy of the plain, large, wood-hewn church at the Shrine of Our Lady of Grace. Father Anthony was already robed,
ready to concelebrate, and preparing for his duties by praying on a kneeler before a crucifix off to the right of Buzz and the Frenchman.

"Ellen Fisk and I have decided we want to drop the whole, uh, brother-sister thing," he stated baldly, though in a-whisper.

The old Frenchman, familiar with the second part of the story of the parents of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, nodded politely.

"Are you both
certain?" he asked the groom.

"Yes."

"You have my blessing."

This development gave the priest a spiritual boost.

It is always uplifting to have one of your prayers answered.

+  +  +

Ellie wore the same wedding dress she had worn for Sam, along her favorite diamond earrings. Seamus had brushed her hair in the morning as she sat before the mirror in the bedroom. She did not have the veil from her
first wedding, so she put her hair into an elegant pony tail (or at least, as Seamus thought, it looked pretty classy).

Finding Buzz a suit of clothes proved troublesome. Nothing they owned fit, including his one cruddy suit from before the Troubles. In true North Country style, not sweating the details, he wore a carefully pressed pair of khakis and a woolen, red-checkered shirt over a white
T-shirt (they had used precious bleach to make it bright), his shoes, cordovan wingtips, shined to perfection by one Mark Johnson, the newest homeowner in the town of Bagpipe, New Hampshire.

Tommy Sample was the best man. Shay, passing the ultimate test of filial obedience, stood in as the maid of honor.

Before the sacrament:

"Good luck, Uncle Buzz."

"This is one of the happiest days of my life,"
said Tommy.

"Hey buddy," Mark said. "You look like crap. Good strategy. Make the bride look better."

"Thanks, Mark. I knew you would understand."

Both men had grown up in New Jersey.

+  +  +

To begin the Nuptial Mass, Mark gave the bride away. Buzz and Ellie looked directly into each other's eyes as often as possible, nailed their vows like two marksmen shooting skeet, then received Holy Communion
with understated reverence.

Aiming to finish strong, in accord with his unique vitality, the groom kissed his bride for a prolonged period of time, while achieving his secondary objective of turning the Right Reverend Anthony T. McAndrew three shades of red.

Grace Kelly, eat your heart out,
thought Ellie, on the arm of her king, when they threw the rice.

+  +  +

By the new standards, it was an
expensive wedding–six gold coins, including the cost of the rental hall. It was not attended by many, though Tommy did his best to invite some of his trading partners from Errol, the Notch, Colebrook, and Pittsburg. Tommy's cousins from West Stewartstown, Harris and Cordelia Maye Sample, attended. The main course consisted of roast beef sandwiches because Ellie had decided at the last minute to go
all out.

"Kill the fatted calf. Bring it on," she had ordered.

Tommy Sample, who
had
definitely planned for this wedding, unveiled his most ingenious wedding gift (in addition to the one milk cow) during the reception. A wind-up Victrola he found, along with some old 78s, in the attic of the abandoned ranch he fled to when the bad guys had come.

As Tommy watched Buzz and Ellie Woodward waltz,
he judged their sublime perfection worth the cost of his parent's rickety old house.

Except for Father McAndrew (who, an excellent waltzer, having been forced to take years of dance lessons by his parents, was offering it up), the men and the boy took numerous turns dancing with the ravishing Mrs. Woodward, including the old priest, who was almost as good a waltzer as her husband, by her reckoning,
and much better at the jitterbug.