Hold Fast (8 page)

It takes me less than a minute to set all the pins at the proper locations. I grit my teeth. I will not give you the satisfaction of knowing you’re hurting me.

More or less, anyway: I’ve misplaced all the pins, just slightly. Most of them are close, within a couple hundred yards at least, except for one: the cluster of hives on the hillside, the one where I’ve hidden my stash of getaway money. I’ve misplaced that pin the most, putting it much further down-slope, and on the wrong side of the mountain. It’s not that far away, in absolute distance, but I hope it will be enough.

When I’m finished, he releases his hold, allowing me to extricate myself from his claws. I swear, I’m going to have the trace of his five fingers on my shoulder for a week.

“Is there anything else you need from me, Father Emmanuel?” I ask, bowing my head in what I hope is convincing mock humility and hoping the interview is over.

His
I know it all
smile spreads on his thin lips as he slowly answers, “That will be all for now, my child.”

This is the green light to take my leave. Normally I would rush out of his office, but today I can’t: I have to find out what happened to Daniel.

“May I ask something, Father?” My eyes are lowered and my hands folded in front of me. My body language screams submission.

“You may, dear child. Certainly you may.” His tone is one of grand and benevolent leader but when I raise my eyes to look at him again, I see a more mature version of Jeremiah’s sadistic gleam in his eyes. His cruelty has refined with age; his tortures have grown more sophisticated. He knows what I’m about to ask, but he will not volunteer any information. It pleases him to make me to beg.

“Would you know where my husband is? Brother Jeremiah said Daniel was with you last night but-- Father Emmanuel, he never came home. I’m worried.”

Satan’s hand waves casually at me, and for a moment I think my question will be dismissed or he’ll torture me with some cryptic answer. I am astonished when he gives me a straight answer, a complete one.

“I have been in communication with another community,” he tells me absently, already turning back to the papers on his desk. “They are an Amish group, living in the town of Unity. They have a fine young bull, and I have arranged to purchase it from them. The Amish are, of course, base heretics, but they are far closer to God than most of the sinners out there.”

“And my husband…” I hardly dare to feel hope, but it seems that I may have something to hope
for.

“Brother Daniel drove down last night with the money and a truck, but no bull. He will return tomorrow with a truck and a bull, but no money. I despise the necessity of dealing with these heretics, but our cows must be bred if the herd is to survive.” He looks up from his papers at me, smiling thinly, eyes cold. “And if my flock is to survive, the ewes must also be bred.”

A chill runs through me. In just a few short days it will be exceedingly obvious that I am
not
pregnant. I can’t bluff my way through that. On Tuesday, maybe Wednesday, at the absolute latest. The hand will be over, and I will have lost, unless I can draw something better this weekend.

“One last thing, my child,” Emmanuel says. “I very nearly forgot to tell you!”

I hold my breath waiting for this additional piece of news. If he’s kept it for last, it must be bad.

“Since your mother is…
indisposed
, Sister Leah will be accompanying you to the market tomorrow, in addition to Brother Nathan. Actually,
both
of my sons will be going with you.
As of tomorrow Jeremiah will be in charge of handling the money,” he tells me. “It will help to prevent any further… misunderstandings.”

“Why don’t you send someone else if you don’t trust me?” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I want to kick myself for saying them. I can’t allow my only window on the outside world to close!

If I run on a bee day, I’ll have a six-hour head start before they notice I’m gone, but six hours in the wilderness won’t get me far at all. On a market day, they’d know instantly if I was gone, but if I can hitch a ride? They’d have no way to chase me instantly, and I could be a hundred miles away before they could even effectively begin a pursuit.

“Now Courtney, child,” Satan scolds. “Pride is
not
your guide, nor is vanity. Think of the good of the flock!” What is he talking about now? “You’re our best representative at the market. All the customers love you, and you bring in more money than anyone else we’ve ever sent.” My eyes shoot wide open as what I fear is confirmed. The man has been spying on me.

“Oh, yes, I’ve been watching you at the market. You’re
very
good with customers; it’s just our
cash
you may have a small problem with. Now, go. Be about your work.” A dismissive flick of his hand sends me scurrying out of his office.

I lean against the wall of the main house once I’m outside, my stomach churning worse even than yesterday. Unless something major happens this weekend, unless Fate or the universe or some god
other
than the monster that this church worships drops something in my lap over
this
weekend, I’ll be doomed by the
next
one.

I trudge off toward the distant fields of low, wild bushes with a stack of buckets in my hand. Those berries aren’t going to pick themselves and mindless work is all I can handle right now.

* * *

W
ith all the
empty forest in northern Maine, it’s not hard to find a good place to camp overnight. About an hour past Greenville, there’s a nice spot on paper company land that my dad and I used more than once as a base camp for hunting. That’s where I wake on Saturday morning under the open air with the first hints of light on the horizon in that time between dark and light called morning nautical twilight.

It’s not going to take me long to pack up—the weather was nice enough last night that I didn’t bother to set up a tent and slept under the stars instead – so I can afford to take the time to make coffee on the camp stove using the old percolator. It was my dad’s, and his father’s before that. Three generations of Pearse men have used this on hunting and fishing trips. Realistically, it makes shitty coffee – there’s always grounds in it, and you can’t help but burn it every single time – but there’s absolutely nothing I’d rather have when I’m out in the woods. It tastes like family. Like tradition. I can almost see the ghosts of my dad and grandpa sitting on the other logs around the cold fire pit with me.

Maine’s come a long way in the years since I’ve been home, and nowhere is this more evident than in the cell phone service. The lady at the store had assured me that my phone would work up here, but I’d never more than half believed her. Pulling out my brand new iPhone though, I’m pleased to find she’s absolutely correct. Time to review my maps and plan for today’s mission, and a solid data connection brings me on-demand overhead imagery.

Obviously Greenville is not hostile territory, but it’s still best to treat every mission like you’re walking straight into the heart of darkness. Always remember the seven Ps:
Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

I’m back in Greenville shortly after sunrise, sitting in a decent observation post at Auntie M’s restaurant across the street from where the farmer’s market sets up. Sitting in a standard folding metal chair at a table by the front window, I watch as farm trucks unload people and produce in the parking lot of the Camden National Bank and the small green common area next to it. It’s a perfect vantage point.

By the time I finish a plate of corned beef hash and eggs, it looks like everyone’s set up. All the obvious spaces for stands are filled, and there’s a little bit of a crowd starting to trickle in. Yuppies on their way to one campground or another, produce buyers from local restaurants or the old resorts filter through. Two more cups of coffee and I judge that there’s enough of a crowd for me to blend in at least a little.

A flannel shirt, Red Sox hat and few days’ growth of beard are all I need for camouflage in this environment. I’m reasonably certain that neither Heather nor Courtney – if they’re even there – would recognize my face. The last time that either of them saw me, I was a beardless seventeen-year-old on his way to boot camp, my mom’s signature still wet on the parental consent forms for underage enlistment. Before I stand, I check to make sure the Beretta at the small of my back is secure in its holster. A few dollars left on the table covers my breakfast and a generous tip, and then I’m on my way across the street.

I start at one end of the line of farm stands. I’ll have to buy things here and there to stay inconspicuous, so at the first stand I pick up a cloth bag and some-- what the fuck is bok choy, anyway? I have no idea, but it’s leafy, it’s green, and I buy it just to have something to carry. At each stand, I paw through the produce like everyone else. It strikes me that I definitely want to wash anything I plan to eat – not the bok choy though, that’s going straight in the trash – after seeing at least three people pick their noses before handling the food.

I’m always looking at least two or three spots ahead of the table at which I’m standing. I can see the people tending each stand out of the corner of my eye; get a look at people without being obvious about it.

Most of the stands have at least one woman working, but none of them so far is either Heather or Courtney. I’m halfway around the semi-circular layout before I get my first glimpse of what might be the target area. The stand is one of the larger ones, and it’s certainly distinctive.

From a good distance away I can see there’s three people working there – two women and a boy. A fourth person comes around the side of a truck, and it’s a man this time. The truck has a cross on the side of it, and a bunch of badly hand-painted letters. Bill did say that Heather had a fondness for the particularly crazy flavors of that old-timey religion. Could that be the right one?

My next stop is at a small refreshment stand set up in the gazebo in the middle of the green. From here I can drink a bottle of soda – it’s Moxie, possibly surpassed only by Allen’s Coffee Brandy as the state beverage of Maine - shaded against the mid-morning sun, and observe the stand without looking like I’m staring.

The banner above the table and the lettering on the truck proclaim this stand belongs to The Church of the New Revelation, whatever the fuck that is. The man looks younger than me, with a patchy beard and lank hair, and he has powerful shoulders. Farm work will do that to you, I guess, but his movements are gawky, awkward. Not a serious threat.

Next, a boy, young, with a strong family resemblance, probably a brother or a cousin. He’s got shifty eyes and a face like a weasel. Matching greasy black hair. He’s watching everything, observing. He can’t be more than ten or twelve - maybe even younger - but there’s a cunning in his eyes; a light that speaks of cruelty.

One of the women has gone around to the back of the truck and out of my sight, but the other one is still up at the table hawking what looks like goat cheese and vegetables. Mostly carrots and corn, but there’s some cucumbers, tomatoes and eggplant, as well as blueberries. She’s definitely not Heather – she’s too short for one thing, and her hair is a salt and pepper that started out far darker than Heather’s light brown. Mother to one or both of the guys? Dark blue gingham dress with an apron. She looks like she stepped off the set of a movie about the frontier.

I’m already mentally writing this lot off, moving on to the next stands when the other woman comes back struggling under the weight of a heavy load of more… something. Some sort of unidentifiable food product that gets grown in dirt and manure. Beets maybe? She’s definitely younger, and she’s wearing the same sort of shapeless dress-and-apron rig that the older woman has. She moves awkwardly, bowed under the weight of the baskets and limping. I can’t see her face, but she looks unremarkable enough and my eyes are already slipping toward the next stands.

I’ve already given a cursory once-over to the rest of them, and I’ve just about given up this trip as a bust, but something drags my eye back to the young woman at the church stand. There’s something about her, something calling me back. I need a closer look.

I finish off the bottle of Moxie with one last long swallow, wincing at the taste. As a native Mainer—
Mainah,
if we’re going to be precise with the accent—I should love this stuff, but it tastes like pine needles dissolved in fucking cough syrup, and one bottle per decade is about my limit. Bottle goes in the blue bin, and when the older woman is several feet away from the table talking to the older of the two males, I approach.

I
did
tell Mom I’d pick up some blueberries after all, and I handle a few small paper cartons of them while studying the girl out of the corner of my eye. I haven’t seen Courtney in years, and there’s a lot of changes that happen between fifteen and twenty-three.

This young woman is above average in height, which makes sense. Bill is tall, well over six feet, and Heather came pretty close to six feet herself. The shapeless blue-and-white checked dress – might as well be a gunnysack, really – does a good job of hiding the shape of the body underneath, but as she arranges the new batch of produce on the table it stretches and moves against her and I get the impression of soft, sweeping curves beneath the fabric. With the load of vegetables set down, the awkward movement has not gone away. She walks with a pronounced limp, one leg dragging slightly behind her.

The young woman looks down intently at the table. From this angle, I can’t see her face, but her hair has been bleached by long days and years of farm work in the sun. She’s naturally gotten the sort of highlights for which housewives and office workers pay hundreds of dollars. I need to get her to look at me, get a better look at her face. I grab two of the cartons of pea-sized berries and turn to face her.

“Excuse me, miss?” She sighs, and her shoulders slump for a moment before she straightens and looks at me.

It’s her.

She has the same strong chin, the same wide expressive mouth. The freckle-spattered nose that was always just a little too big as a child, looks just right on her now that she’s grown into it. The bright blue eyes that always used to follow me inquisitively when we were young are dull, without the spark I remember, but there’s no mistaking them. She looks tired now, drawn. Haggard and worn. Lips that smiled often and questioned everything are pinched tightly with- what? Worry? Fear? This is definitely Courtney Dwyer, though.

“These berries, can you tell me about them?” Fuck, what am I supposed to ask about blueberries? They’re berries, they’re blue, they’re tasty. What else is there to know about them? C’mon, man, come up with something. “Ah, are they organic?” There. That sounds like a not-stupid question. Jesus, those lips. The last time I saw those lips, I was reeling from a kiss that might as well have been a baseball bat to the gut.

“Yes, sir. They’re wild berries. They grow as a gift from God, and are hand-picked by the brothers and sisters of the Church of the New Revelation.” She speaks so softly, I have to lean closer to hear.

“But are they organic?” I ask. Hell, in a farming context I barely know what that even means. I seem to recall from chemistry class that organic just means that something contains carbon. Why didn’t I prepare better? My knowledge of and interest in chemistry pretty much begins and ends with how to blow shit up using improvised explosives.

“The berries are wild, sir,” Courtney sighs. “They are not planted, nor are they fertilized or treated with any chemicals. They have nothing more than The Lord’s divine blessings to help them grow.” Her brow furrows, she’s looking at me hard now. Some of the old light has come back in to those blue eyes now, but I can’t tell if she recognizes me. Time, tattoos and the beard have done a good job of disguising me.

“Okay, that’s good then. How much do they cost?”

“They’re eight dollars per pound, sir.” Her eyes go wide as she finishes the sentence, and her mouth snaps shut. She starts to look behind her at the others at the stand – the moment I recognized Courtney, the other people at the stand were redesignated in my head as targets Alpha, Bravo and Charlie – but catches herself before turning too far toward them. There’s recognition in her eyes, but also fear. More than fear. Terror. Who is she afraid of? Surely not me? Them?

“Courtney?” I keep my voice low. “Are you okay?” There’s a barely perceptible shake of her head, and she speaks again.

“If you buy three pounds, there’s a discount, sir. One pound for eight dollars, three for twenty-two.”

“Oh, that is a much better deal,” I say as I fish for my wallet. “Do I pay you?”

Her face turns panicky, and Courtney puts her hands behind her back. “No, sir, I don’t handle the money. Please give that to Brother Nathan over there.” She turns, pointing at the younger male that I’ve labeled as Target Bravo. “I’ll box these up while you pay him, sir.” She looks back at me, her eyes pleading. “Your purchase will be ready when you come back to me.”

“Thank you, miss.”

Target Bravo is still down at the far end. He’s on the tailgate of the truck, sitting on what looks like a cash box. I stretch out my hand toward him with a twenty and a five and he approaches to take the money.

“Three pounds of blueberries. She said that’s twenty-two dollars?”

Beady eyes squint at me as Bravo takes the money wordlessly. I leave my hand stretched out for my change, and the edges of the sleeves of colorful ink are visible past the cuff of my dark plaid flannel.

The older male subject, Target Alpha, speaks up.

“Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you,” he says with a sneer. “Leviticus. Nineteenth chapter, twenty-eighth verse.”

Cuttings in my flesh for the dead? I have a sudden urge to roll up my pant leg and show him the inked names of my dead brothers from the Teams. I’ve barely met this arrogant greasy-haired prick, but I’m already taking a strong dislike to him. I paste a forced smile on my face, biting back the desire to give him a much closer look at the ‘printed marks’ on my knuckles.

Bravo gives me back my change along with a mimeographed tract of some sort. The blurry purple-blue ink takes me all the way back to kindergarten, back in the dark days before Portland’s public schools had photocopiers.

“Thank you very much,” I tell them with the same false smile. Their eyes are still on me as I go back to Courtney to pick up my berries.

She’s arranged it so that her back is to Alpha and Bravo, and she speaks to me in a hushed whisper. “Sean, is that really you?”

I nod slowly.

“I need help. Can you help me? Please.”

I nod again, and Courtney hands me the plastic-wrapped package of berries. “Can you wait for me, meet me behind the restaurant?”

I look down, playing the part of your standard issue customer, fat dumb and happy, while putting the fruit in my cloth bag.

She continues in a louder voice. “Please enjoy these berries in the light of Christ’s redemption and salvation, sir.” The fear is still in her eyes, but there’s also a note of hope now. Because of me?

“I will do that, miss. If these berries taste half as good as they look, I’ll
come back soon
for more.”

Courtney’s small, tight smile says she understood the subtle emphasis. She had always been a nice kid, clever and bright. The old protectiveness I’d always felt for her is roused again. Along with… other feelings.