A Guardian Angel (18 page)

Humming as he read,
Tim was impressed. He looked up at Barney in surprise.

“Took to
drafting. Anyway, what do you think? Do you like how the fence is
laid out? It encompasses your house and yard so that you're always on
the inside of this place.”

“I like it,”
Tim replied.

“Let's get
started then, shall we?” Barney proposed.

Many pilgrims came
and went during the construction process. Tim had set up a
rudimentary booth that he took charge of while Barney and his crew
worked away. In no time at all, they finished most of the inner wall
that prevented people from touching the angel. It was small and low
but it encircled the crash. There was a modest five dollar charge
that Tim asked for under the guise of a donation. He set up the
system to play off of his loss and make his visitors feel compelled
to contribute. Another great plus that Tim soon found was that
sometimes people would exceed the suggested donation. The money piled
up during the day and was collected at night and used to pay the men
and purchase more materials and tools.

A proper ticket
booth and office were built, as was a decorative stone pathway that
lead from the driveway and up through the large gate that now stood
between the world and its miracle.

Soon, they were
having entire waves of people showing up to see the angel. A good
portion of them were not religious at all, rather just curious
tourists. Some of them treated it like an attraction, and this seemed
to irritate some of the pilgrims who came to marvel. They all paid,
though. It was proving to be lucrative. Whenever he wasn't working on
the large wall that was to encircle the entire property, Tim liked to
have Gus stand around the ticket booth and keep an eye on everything.
The large man's brutish appearance seemed to calm people down. It
made the younger ones act more mellow and respectful, and in the long
run stopped many bad scenes from starting. Until one time when Gus
was working far from the booth.

A crowd of eight
showed up, consisting of two separate groups of two and six. The
first two thanked Tim as he let them pass through toward the
compound. The first man of the six behind them started walking
through as well.

“Excuse me?”
Tim addressed the man, stretching his arm out to stop him. “You
need to pay to get in.”

“Are you
serious?” the man asked. He was young, just barely not a
teenager anymore. He had acne on his neck and a smallish head for his
square and rigid body.

“Yes, sir, I
am,” Tim said. “I know you're excited to get to see the
miracle but you have to pay a donation just like everyone else.”

“Sounds like
a fee,” the young man had raised his voice. “A donation
is having to fork over my cash to you?”

“Danny...”
one of his female friends started, reaching out to touch him. He
dodged her touch, eyes locked on Tim.

“Son, I lost
a whole lot having this angel fall to the earth,” Tim started,
but the young man's mouth had already begun flapping.

“Yeah, I've
seen the story,” Danny the kid spit at him. “Boohoo! You
know what 'God's will' even means? You don't need to use His miracle
to extort His followers. He wouldn't want that.” He scoffed and
snorted a mock laugh as he looked back at his friends, who had been
staring at Tim with scorn on their faces.

“How exactly
am I supposed to pay for all of this?” Tim started, tossing in
some stank to his own dialogue. “How am I going to eat and stay
alive? Pray that the angel make all of my bills disappear?”

There was shock and
plain bitterness on young Danny's face. “How can you host a
miracle of God if you mock him?” he asked Tim. “I'm not
paying for your bullshit.” Danny started walking past the
ticket booth.

“Hey!”
Tim called after him, reaching past the counter and snagging the
intruder by his collar. As soon as young Danny felt the tension pull
him back, he spun around and slugged the rancher as hard as he could
in the forehead. Tim fell down clutching his head, groaning in
surprise and pain. And a lot of anger. He could hear the gasps and
commotion of everyone's shock to the punch. Tim stood himself up and
snapped his head past the counter and watched as young Danny ran
straight into Gus. The giant had just shown up next to Barney. The
two of them had noticed the aggression and stopped their work in
order to intervene.

“Get OUT of
my way!” the intruder cried without looking up, flailing his
arms up at the behemoth. Gus grasped Danny's wrists and spun the kid
around, pinning his arms behind his back. Barney walked around Gus
and stood before the struggling boy. He leaned in.

“You and your
friends need to leave,” Barney said to Danny in a sharp
slithering whisper that Tim was certain no one else could hear.

“Fuck you!”
Danny spit at Barney.

Barney stood back a
second with extreme displeasure on his face. Tim cocked his head,
squinting his eyes as he watched. Barney rammed his fist into Danny's
stomach. Gus let the kid drop to the ground to fold over himself and
cough in the dirt. Barney leaned back over the squirming intruder.

“You run off
back home now,” Barney hissed. “Do it, or I'll make you
find out exactly what your own genitalia taste like.”

Gus and Barney
lifted the form off of the ground and shoved him toward his friends.
The crowd looked back for just a second before running back to their
car.

Everyone's head
faced the vehicle until it zoomed off around the corner. Then all of
the shocked and astonished faces turned back to Tim, Gus, and Barney.
The two construction workers both had distant, threatening gazes as
they peered after the vehicle. Tim was more surprised than anything.
He looked from all the expressions of disgust to Barney's, who looked
over at the rancher and his face dropped into a mild apology.

Tim nodded back at
him approvingly.

-Chapter Seventeen-

Proposition

Even though Tim was
certain that that particular crowd would never going to give him
business again, business still came. Lines of people showed up and
dropped their bills and coins into Tim's cash drawer. Almost all of
them were respectful, even grateful to Tim and the ranch. In his free
time, Tim had been rereading the New Testament to not alienate
himself from his customer base. It almost seemed to revitalize him.
This read through, the words meant something when he read them. He
bothered to put his personal interpretation into it and, to put it
simply, enjoyed the Bible.

It wasn't even just
suburban Christians coming around anymore. A triad of Orthodox rabbis
stopped by and praised the angel as well. Tim found that his facility
was welcoming and comfortable for all shades of men. Nothing about
his services implied a belief one way or another. But, just as
important, it doesn't deny it either.

Tim was just a
friend of God.

One morning, the
old rancher woke up with a cold. His body ached and his sinuses
throbbed, so when Barney's crew showed up for the day's work, he
asked his friend for the favor of watching over the booth. Barney
claimed over and over that he would have no idea what he was doing,
but he left the house agreeing. He told Tim to get better soon.

The old man wrapped
himself in a blanket and kicked up his recliner. He was a little
grateful for his sickness today. It allowed him to finally take a day
off, take a breath and step back from all of the activity. He was
worried that with his current momentum, he could lose sight of
himself and decide on key issues before he had the right mind to do
so. Mindlessly, the images on the television danced before him. He
sipped on his tea and glanced out the window. People continued to
flow as the men worked hard through the morning.

Tim noticed the
sound of an engine driving up as much as he noticed the rustling
leaves on a windy day. The only thing that drew his attention to the
outside world was Barney standing outside the booth, talking with
interest to two men in casual suits. One carried a briefcase, the
other hand used for shaking Barney's. Together, they all started to
walk toward the house. There was a knock on the door.

Groaning as he
stood up, the rancher shuffled over and opened the door for Barney.
“Hey man,” Barney started. “So there's a couple
guys here that wanted to talk to you. Can't say for certain, but it
sounds like something of property interest.”

Tim furrowed his
brow in confusion.

“They want to
buy your ranch,” Barney stated. Tim's eyebrows shot to the top
of his head. “I think you ought to come out here and talk to
them.”

“Tell them
I'm not interested,” the rancher said. “I'm not selling
the ranch.”

“What about
the angel?” Barney asked.

“Sell the
angel?” Tim echoed.

“They're
talking really big numbers,” Barney replied. “Like, I may
have heard the world 'million' used.”

Tim's eyes widened.
“Go ahead and have them come into the house,” Tim said.
“Tell them I'll be right with them.”

The rancher
showered in a hasty flurry and got into some clean clothes, doing his
best to ignore his sickness. His age was apparent as he looked into
the mirror. The men were drinking water and chatting in low tones
when he entered the living room again. The talking ceased and the men
looked to him.

“Ah, Mr.
Simacean,” the one without the suitcase greeted. He was older
than the other but still younger than Tim, somewhere in his fifties.
His bald head shone as he stood up to shake the rancher's hand. “My
name is Matthias Jordan.” The younger one with the briefcase
emulated him.

“Tom King.
How are you?” he asked as he shook his hand. His hair was
slicked back, which seemed unnatural on the man.

“Eh, sick as
a dog,” Tim replied to sympathetic looks. “But not so
bad.”

“Terribly
sorry to hear that,” the young one said. The two visitors sat
back down around the coffee table. Tim took his seat in the empty
recliner, looking over the men. Barney seemed to seek his gaze. When
it was given, his eyes were questioning. Tim had no answer for him.

“So, we came
down here to take a look at the angel on your property,” Mr.
Jordan explained.

“Oh yes?”
Tim mused.

“Yes, and
it's exactly as we thought it would be,” the business man
started. “We want to buy it.”

“You two do?”
the rancher asked, pointing between the two visitors.

The young man
giggled a little bit. Mr. Jordan chuckled as he replied. “No,
not us specifically, but our church does. We've set aside a large
amount of money to secure it,” he explained. With an air of
showmanship, Mr. King set the briefcase up on the coffee table,
turned it around, and opened it. From within the container he
retrieved a stack of papers.

“We want to
offer you one million dollars for the statue,” Mr. King said,
smirking.

“A million
dollars?” Tim asked, the interest thick in his tone. “Why?”

“Why?”
Mr. Jordan echoed. “Because it would be a crucial part of our
church's worship. A lot of our members have turned their attention to
things like your angel. This style of art intrigues us.”

Tim looked over at
his friend. Barney stared back at with excited eyes.
Why is he so
enthusiastic?
Tim wondered. “Tell me a little bit about
your church,” Tim asked. He took a sip of his own water.

“Well, we
represent the Heaven's Crusade church,” Mr. King started after
a reassuring gesture from his partner. “Our members are very
devout, most of them live at our site. It's sort of like a monastery,
if you can imagine.” The man grinned.

“In fact,”
the older one said, “the campus is built around a crucifix
constructed exactly like the angel.”

“Really?”
Tim asked, intrigued.

“Oh yes,”
Mr. Jordan ensured. “Like we said, things like this are crucial
to our congregation.”

“What do you
think, Mr. Simacean?” Mr. King asked.

The rancher sat
back in his recliner. He looked at the men almost from the bottom of
his eyes, along his nose. They seemed so disconnected. So false. As
Tim thought about it, forcing his processing to run faster than it
liked to, he did not favor the idea. Who were these people that stood
around dilapidated forms of religion? What were these forms
themselves? Did the crucifix fall from the heaven as his own miracle
had? There was silence for a long string of seconds while the men
watched Tim think.