River of Dust (12 page)

    Then the Reverend noticed the most hideous sight of all: red slashes cut across the backs of the fellow's hands and on his shins below the polka-dotted bloomers.

    "Turn around," the Reverend shouted.

    The crowd inched forward, curious what cruel thing was about to happen next to the midget. The Reverend recognized the sickening look of prurient curiosity on their faces.

    "I said," the Reverend repeated, "turn around."

    The midget did as he was told, his large head bowing lower on his stump of a neck. The Reverend pulled up the brightly colored tunic. Across the pale skin of the man's child-sized back appeared long scars and welts. Beside them were fresh red cuts that oozed fine beads of blood. The Reverend dropped the shirt. A fury rose up inside him that he did not recognize. A low and fearsome growl issued from his lips. The midget dropped to the ground and covered his head with his arms.

    "Stand," the Reverend said through gritted teeth at the shaking creature. "Tell me who did this to you."

    The midget stood and swayed before him, his eyes shut and his whole body trembling.

    "Open your eyes!" the Reverend shouted.

    The eyelids quivered slowly open. The Reverend looked into those unearthly portals and thought he had never before seen such fear and misery in a man. How could the Lord do this to one of His creatures? How could He so punish an innocent soul?

    The Reverend reared back his head, raised up his arms, and let out a piercing cry that echoed down the cliffs and into the ravine below.

    "I will smite whoever has harmed this man. He must not be hurt again!" the Reverend shouted at the crowd. Then he swung his arms around and swooped toward them. The claws of the wolf slapped the ground and stirred up the dust. The people scuffled back frantically to keep out of his reach. "If you lay a finger upon him, I will fly at you in the night and I will swallow your soul. I will suck it out of you and spit it into the valley below. If you do not treat him with respect, you and your children and your children's children will suffer a hideous punishment for all time."

    The Reverend returned to the midget's side and took his pudgy, damp hand into his own and raised it up. "This is a man of consequence," the Reverend said, his voice breaking with sorrow. "This is a man."

    He let the midget's hand drop. The Reverend's own head bowed as well. "The Lord Jesus," he said more softly, "and I, the great Ghost Man, will watch over him from now on, forever and ever."

    The crowd remained frozen and unspeaking. The albino midget

fell to his knees, and the Reverend ran a hand over his hair. Blond to the point of whiteness, it was as fine as dear Wesley's and surprisingly soft. As he touched it, the Reverend felt tears roll down his own cheeks.

    The wind kicked up at that moment in a sudden gust. Black clouds gathered overhead. The tents began to shudder, their flaps making a cracking sound in the rushing air. Rain came in an instant, hard and furious. The updraft from the ravine next caused hail to fall. Large pellets struck the crowd, and they covered their heads with their arms and fled. People screamed and shouted as they ran in all directions, seeking shelter.

    Still on his knees, the midget looked up at the Reverend. His face flinched against the sudden ice that fell from the sky. "Take me with you," he begged and threw himself around the Reverend's legs. "Please, dear Ghost Man, take me!"

    The Reverend kicked him off. "No, man, they won't harm you any longer. Rise up and find your place amongst them. No one here is better than you."

    The man stared at the Reverend with disbelieving eyes. The Reverend would have liked to say more, to quote the Lord about the meek inheriting the earth if he could still believe it. But Ahcho had his arm and was pulling him toward the donkeys.

    The Reverend looked back and saw the midget stagger off into the chaotic scene. No one bothered him, but no one helped him, either. He was a free man, with all the suffering that would entail.

    The Reverend could not rush away. His heart had been broken here, and he wished to remember it always. He noticed then that no one was tending to the animals. The camels had dashed off toward the dangerous trail, and the horses had fled into the open countryside.

    And the poor, panicked elephant had broken free of the chains that bound its legs and appeared altogether lost. The Reverend watched it trot off, the enormous creature's feet surprisingly dainty. The great ears flapped like sails luffing in the wind. Despite its size, the elephant, too, seemed frighteningly vulnerable as it dashed into the sheets of hail. With small eyes closed against the elements, the animal stumbled in the direction of the cliff.

    The Reverend left Ahcho and ran after the creature. He ducked his head deeper into the wolf hide for protection. He wasn't sure what he was going to do, but he couldn't very well stand by as a great beast fell to its death down the precipice. Yet, as the Reverend pulled closer, he was shocked at the elephant's size. From a distance, it had appeared large, but now, standing next to it, he understood that this was one of God's grandest creations. Its scale suggested the expansiveness of the Lord's will. He could make anything He pleased, and this elephant was what pleased Him most.

    The Reverend dared not go nearer, for one stomp of the animal's foot would end his life. But the animal had run precariously close to the rocky edge. The Reverend grabbed one of the chains that dragged in the dust and yanked on it hard. The animal stopped in its tracks, turned its head slowly toward the Reverend, and stared directly at him.

    The small, dark eyes looked out with what could only be described as infinite sorrow. The creature conveyed a deep weariness with the world and all its follies, especially those wrought by humans who had bestowed upon it nothing but pain. The Reverend felt his heart wilt even more as he recognized and understood the animal's misery.

    "Dear Lord," he whispered, dropping his chin to his chest, "why do you abandon us so?"

    He set the chain back down upon the ground and stepped away. He was no match for the Lord's cruel whims. If He, in His cruelty, chose to kill one of His finest creations, whether an elephant or a precious child, then who was the Reverend to stop Him? But in one final effort, he called out to the beast, shook his fists in the air, and even stomped his foot. The animal appeared not to hear his weak voice, nor did it seem to care about footfalls that were not powerful enough to shake the ground.

    Then, as if to confirm how ineffectual the Reverend truly was at saving even a single soul, a bolt of lightning struck the field of poppies only a hundred paces away, and further mayhem ensued. The crack and boom shattered the air, as if God Himself had shouted down from the heavens. The Reverend instinctively covered his head with his arms and gripped the wolf's fur with trembling fingers. The sound rang magnificently in his ears. A fire began instantly on the spot where the bolt had hit. The wind swirled with smoke and fire and falling ice as the terrifying blast continued to echo all around.

    The innocent elephant took fright in this hellish moment. It dashed forward, and as the Reverend watched, the great, grand creature plunged over the cliff. Just like that. The Reverend stared unbelieving at the blank space where the animal had stood. The sleet struck hard, and fire spread, but even with disaster on all sides, there was no cause and no reason for the magnificent beast to have been sacrificed on this day. There was no possible understanding of such a pitiless world. The elephant had simply turned away from life.

    And the Lord, the Reverend's good Lord, had done so, too.

O
ne mild and moonless evening, as Grace sat by the closed window, she thought she heard bells— high, tinkling bells of the sort camel drivers tied to their beasts to keep them from becoming lost in dust storms. She cocked her head and listened and waited for the sounds of voices. She felt certain she would recognize her children because they would be brought home to her by a chorus of angels, or, given the bells, perhaps camels, or both.

    Instead, it was her husband who returned through the open gate of the compound a little after midnight. He wore bells strung about his neck as if he were a beast of burden. She pressed her fingertips against the chilly glass. No dust swirled in the courtyard, and first he was not there and then he was. He wore his long traveling coat like a cowboy from the American West and over it the dead animal fur that he seemed to like. The worst of winter was upon them with bright, chilly days. At night, a sparkling frost covered the ground, and the moist air cut to the bone. She was glad he had the warmth of the hide, although he appeared weighed down by its heft. From her secondstory window, she noticed that he walked with bowed head and down cast eyes. Two donkeys trailed behind him, and after that came Ahcho, bent lower still by their journeys.

    Another trip, another return, and still no sign of the boy. In his ongoing search, Grace's admirable husband had become a haunted apparition. Had she not heard the actual tinkle of bells, the footfalls of their animals, the clapping of the pouches and bags attached to the Reverend's belt, she might have believed he was made only of sorrow and air. In the silver moonlight, he appeared to be a ghost man indeed.

    "Master returns with a heavy heart," Mai Lin said.

    Grace startled, not having noticed that her amah had risen from the cot in the corner. "It is he, though, isn't it?" she asked. "You see him, too?"

    Mai Lin put her hand on Grace's thin shoulder and said, "Yes, he is home. Mistress can sleep now."

    Grace tipped her face into the oil lamp. "Do I look all right? Pleasant enough, I mean?"

    Mai Lin was too good to her, Grace thought. Her old amah's eyes did not let on about the dark shadows that Grace knew puffed under her eyes. Nor did Mai Lin mention how Grace's light brown hair had lost its sheen, or that her neck had become as thin as a chicken's and the corners of her mouth shot downward too much of the time. At seven months pregnant, her clothing bound her uncomfortably, and while her cheeks were sallow and drawn, her whole being felt bulky and unappealing. But Mai Lin chose not to dwell on these disagreeable truths.

    Instead, she said, "Mistress most beautiful."

    "Luckily, beauty is within. The Reverend knows that. He will not be taken in by surface appearances. His mind is much on the soul." Grace stood and held Mai Lin's arm to steady herself.

     "You need rest."

    "I am perfectly all right. You run along now. Sometimes a wife must see her husband alone."

    Mai Lin looked sternly at her mistress.

    "It was not long ago that we were newlyweds," Grace said. Then, in a smaller voice, she asked, "Perhaps you have something to help us?"

    Mai Lin made a clucking sound with her tongue, but Grace felt her heart quicken as she watched her amah reach into one of the many pouches that she wore. Mai Lin brought out a handful of fine powder which she sprinkled over Grace's bed. Then she touched her mistress's forehead with a finger that bore the same potion and touched her large belly with it to protect the child inside, too. Grace studied each of these magical gestures, and when Mai Lin was done, she reached for the old woman's hand and kissed the bony back.

    "Thank you. You are too good to me."

    Grace then heard the Reverend's heavy footfalls rising up the stairs. She was surprised that he had entered the house so quickly and had not stopped in his library on the first floor. He had taken to sleeping on a cot in there, but on this night, he must have been mad for sleep in a true bed. Still, she hoped he would pay her a visit on his way to his bedroom at the end of the hall and not wait to see her until the morning.

    "Mai Lin, open my door," she said.

    Mai Lin did as she was told just as the Reverend was passing.

    He looked up and saw Mai Lin. "What in the devil?" he said. "Is the whole house awake at this hour?"

    Grace slipped forward and hoped he would notice the way the lamplight danced on the folds of her silk robe. Surprisingly, he had on his coat and that awful animal still over his back. She could not understand how Ahcho had allowed her husband to march into the front hall and rise to the living quarters with desert dust flying off him.

    "Reverend," she asked, "would you like to take off your coat?"

    He stared down at his traveling attire as if noticing it for the first time. His hand touched one of the ropes of leather around his neck, and a bell sounded. "Yes," he said, "I believe I would."

    "Mai Lin, don't keep the Reverend waiting."

    Mai Lin shuffled forward and tried to help with the animal hide, but it was too much for her elderly arms and short stature. He yanked it off himself and tossed it onto Grace's chaise. The lace antimacassars fluttered and were instantly covered in a fine layer of dust that flew out from the fur.

    "Heavens," Grace said, "that creature has seen better days."

    The Reverend did not smile. He bowed his head and allowed Mai Lin to remove several leather ropes from around his neck. She started to undo the red sash that crossed his chest, but he held on to the pouch with the twin yellow dragons and would not let her. Then Mai Lin reached up to unbutton his long coat, but he brushed her aside again.

    "That's enough," he said. "Leave me be."

    Grace was alarmed by his gruff tone. Usually, he was the model of civility with the servants, always attempting to teach by example. Do unto others, his tone customarily seemed to suggest. Now he sounded as coarse and uncaring as the lowliest coolie.

    "Reverend, perhaps I can help you remove your overcoat?" Grace asked.

    He peered down at her through glasses covered in dust.