Abandon

“Preacher said to wait until—”

“And what if that fire escape’s already lost his hair? Considered that? Sounded like quite a powder-burnin contest out there.”

“Mason, get up here and bring the key with ye! We done waitin!”

Gloria watched the unassuming smith push his way through the cluster of miners, heading to the iron door.

“What’d you say?”

She couldn’t see Stetler, who was surrounded by the mob of taller men, but his voice rose above the bedlam, far deeper and louder than his size seemed to accord.

“Said we need the key to this door. I do believe that’s the only way to open it from inside.”

“You see a keyhole there, Will?”

“What are you talkin about?”

“Preacher asked for the key, and I give it to him. What’s it matter anyway? This door only opens from the outside.”

“The fuck you do that for?”

“He asked for it!”

“Jesus. He gets himself kilt, how we gonna get out?”

Stetler ran his fingernails over the rippled surface of his bald head, which glistened with rivulets of sweat.

A miner said, “We better find some bang juice and powder. Blow that hunk a iron off its hinges.”

One of the Godsend’s dynos said, “Y’all not see this door when we come in? It’s a inch thick. Amount a powder it’d take to blow it open, be a long chance this whole damn mine didn’t come down on us.”

Gloria turned to Rosalyn, whispered, “I can’t listen to them anymore. Will you stroke my hair if I put my head in your lap? Like you was doin before?”

“Of course, honey. Come here.”

FIFTY-NINE

 H

arriet McCabe lay in the middle row of pews, hiding. There had been gunshots a short time ago, but it was quiet now save for the wind. She thought about her mama. Her friend Bethany. Her new doll, Samantha, which she’d had to leave behind at the shack. She was thirsty, hungry, but more than anything, cold and scared.

The sun had gone to bed, and the wind made a long low sound as it pushed against the boarded-up windows, the tiny church swaying and creaking like the hold of a ship, icy air filtering up through the space between the planks.

She shivered under her mama’s gray woolen cloak. Just across the aisle stood a stove in a gap between the pews, a stack of logs next to it, and she’d just decided to light a fire, when the chapel doors flung open. Harriet gasped, brought her hand to her mouth. The doors slammed shut, the plank boards groaning beneath the weight of approaching footsteps.

She rolled under the pew, watched a pair of arctics pass two feet from her head. Toward the front of the church, something thumped on the floor, and Harriet scrambled quietly to her feet, peered over the top of the bench. She saw someone in the shadow of the nave. The man was on his knees, facing the barrier separating the front pews from the stage, his arms lifted, hands open to the simple wooden cross mounted on the wall behind the pulpit.

When he spoke, she startled, his voice loud enough to fill the sanctuary, though faltering and brittle as sandstone.

“It is finished, Lord God. Your good and faithful servant kneels before You to say that Your will . . . has been done.”

He suddenly fell over, his stomach flat against the floorboards.

Harriet thought he’d died, until he wept, softly at first, then outright sobbing, pounding the planks with his fists. Harriet had seen her daddy cry once before, but not like this. She’d never seen anyone in such soul-splitting anguish.

“Why?” The word exploded—guttural, ragged, raw. He screamed it three times, so loudly that Harriet thought it might shatter the glass of those tall south-facing windows. He got back onto his knees, and when he spoke again, Harriet had to strain to hear the words.

“You say You love truth. Well, here’s my truth. I don’t know who You are right now. I don’t understand how the Creator of love and mercy and compassion, the God who seared my heart in Charleston, can command His servant to lock a town into a mountain. Women! Children! How can a child give You such offense? Are You not the God I think You are? Of David? Of Christ? You are ultimate, whatever Your nature, but I need to know if I’ve been wrong about You. Correct my perception. You know I love You. That I chose a cimarron’s life in Your service, over a woman who still haunts my dreams. If You love me, Lord, if You love me at all, infuse me with a peace that passeth all understanding. Because I need it now. I’m in a bad way. This is my deepest trench, and I may not see the morning. Don’t draw back from me. I’ve destroyed myself for You, and I am so alone.”

He bowed his head, and as he cried, Stephen felt something graze his shoulder. He spun around and fell back, bristling with fear. A little girl stood before him in the darkening nave, her curls pitch-black and her eyes aching with hunger.

“Why you sad?” she asked.

Stephen pulled his cape around and wiped his face with it.

“You buggered me. How’d you get out of the mine, Harriet?”