Authors: Lynne Hinton
T
hey all walked or drove up the winding road that Sunday morning. Just as if they were going to a church service. Just as if it was a typical Sunday morning in Pie Town, just as if it was only the Catholics going to midmorning Mass, hoping for redemption or inspiration or something to get them through another week. They walked in file, Protestants and nonbelievers, old-timers and the newly baptized, all of them making their way to a church that no longer existed.
The late autumn winds had started blowing, and the sand cranes circled high above the heads of those moving along the road and making their way into the parking lot next to a charred and ruined piece of land, while the snow geese called out, announcing their arrival. The birds, native to Canada and the Pacific Northwest, were already arriving at Socorro, a few miles east of Pie Town, having made their way south, another sort of migration of salvation.
Although many of them had their own reasons for going to the called meeting, most of them were going just out of curiosity. They had all gotten the flier, stuck in doors and under mats, on the sides of mailboxes and on windshields. Nobody knew who had created the mailing or who had delivered them, since no one had taken responsibility for making the handbills and distributing them. But everybody in town had gotten one, and everybody in town, Catholic and otherwise, was curious enough to go out to the burned-down church and see who was calling a meeting and what was going to be reported.
Everybody from Pie Town was there except a few who never participated in any public gathering: the Indians living on the edge of town, Frank Twinhorse, having already left for Texas, his son Raymond, the old people at Carebridge, a few teenagers who had intended to go but overslept, the sheriff and his family, and the new girl who lived in the apartment behind him.
Danny White figured he should be the first one to arrive. He knew he was going to be the only person of authority in attendance, and he wanted to get there first to establish his presence to anyone planning to make trouble. He also thought that getting there early would give him a look at who else arrived before the crowds and help him figure out who had planned the assembly.
He left his house early, around eight o’clock, drove around town to do standard surveillance, and stopped at his parents’ house for a cup of coffee and his mother’s sweet rolls. He and his parents talked for a while, read the paper together, and then the couple went back to their bedroom to get ready before church. Checking his watch, Danny got in his squad car and drove to the church. He had not seen his little sister at breakfast, but he hadn’t expected to. She was a teenager, and it was Sunday morning. Danny just assumed she was asleep.
Thinking she was still in her bed at home was only part of the reason he didn’t recognize her standing alone in the center of the charred lot, the area that used to be the front of the sanctuary, the area marked as most sacred. He also didn’t realize it was her at first because she looked so lost and helpless. He never remembered seeing Katie look so broken, so small.
He pulled up and got out of the car. He turned behind him and could see the line of people coming up the road, slowly moving in their direction.
“What are you doing, Katie?” he asked, heading toward his sister, suddenly concerned that something was not right.
“This is it,” she answered. She had dropped down and was touching the ground. “This is where it happened.”
“Where what happened?” Danny asked, reaching down to lift her up. “What are you doing here? You’re chilled.” And he took off his jacket and threw it around her shoulders. “How long have you been here?” he asked, looking around to see if anyone else was there.
He noticed that the rectory was empty, the doors and windows closed and covered. He knew that Father George had left and that the new priest wasn’t due for a few weeks and might not live in the rectory in Pie Town anyway. A truck pulled into the lot, and Danny turned to see who it was.
“I need to tell you something,” Katie replied. “I need for you to know the truth.”
A door slammed. It was Bernie King. Of course, Danny thought, this meeting was his doing. He hadn’t shut up about the fire since he first discovered it. He turned back to his sister. “What are you talking about?” he asked, thinking he needed to get his sister away from there, thinking she was acting a little crazy. And then he looked at her more closely, noticed that she had been crying for a long time, saw the deep red marks on her neck from scratching her nervous hives, and suddenly thought that something had happened to her. “Katie, are you hurt? Did somebody hurt you?”
The girl shook her head. “I just need for them to know.”
More cars pulled into the driveway and parked. People were getting out and starting to walk toward the deputy and his sister. Just then, Danny turned around and saw Rob Chavez coming in their direction.
“Katie,” the boy yelled out. “Katie, shut up!” And he started running toward them.
When Rob got to Danny, the deputy turned to his sister, and when he saw the look of fear in her eyes as she cowered behind him, he snapped. He thought that whatever had happened to Katie—and something had certainly happened to Katie—happened at the hands of her boyfriend. He spun around and threw a punch at Rob, knocking him off his feet.
“What the hell did you do to her?” Danny asked, grabbing Rob by his collar and yanking him up for another blow.
“I didn’t do anything to her!” he yelled, trying to pull away. “I just need to talk to her!”
Danny reached back and slammed his fist into the boy’s face. A crowd was starting to gather. Katie was screaming at her brother to stop, trying to pull him off, and Rob was trying to cover himself. Danny was going after him again, yanking him off the ground and throwing more punches. “Did you hurt my sister?” he shouted, punching him harder and harder until he was finally restrained by Bernie and a few other men.
“What the hell is going on?” Bernie asked. “Danny, get ahold of yourself!” He pulled the deputy away.
Katie ran over to Rob and knelt down by him, trying to see how badly he was hurt, trying to wipe away the blood, crying, telling him she was sorry. And he pushed her away and began walking to his truck.
“Get back here, you little son of a bitch,” Danny yelled out to Rob, trying to free himself from the men holding on to him. “Come back here and get what you got coming! I swear, I am going to kill . . .” He didn’t finish because somebody was yelling that Roger was calling on the radio in the squad car, telling his deputy that he needed help at Malene’s.
“It must be Alex,” Bea called out. She and Fred had walked from the diner. They had hoped to bring the crowd the reassuring news that Trina had left town and so they could leave well enough alone and move on with their lives.
Upon hearing Alex’s name, the crowd followed Danny to his car, leaving Katie alone as she dropped to the ground and wept, crying for the crowd to listen, crying to be understood. The people of Pie Town gathered around the squad car as if that was the reason they had all been summoned to the church parking lot in the first place and waited for the news.
“Sheriff, it’s Deputy White, over,” Danny reported, his tone short and clipped, the anger still obvious. “What’s the problem?” he asked, wanting to get back to taking care of Rob Chavez.
As everyone held their breath, they heard the news they’d hoped they would never hear.
“It’s Alex, Danny. He’s gone.”
F
ather George had his instructions. He was to go to Northern California for an extended personal retreat before starting his new assignment. The Monsignor thought the priest needed some time alone to consider his situation, find healing for the stress he was under that was a likely result of the trauma of the fire. It was common practice for priests to go to a monastery and receive spiritual direction from one of the monks, have time for rest and prayer before the next placement. Everyone agreed it was the best thing for him.
George had disagreed at first, claiming he didn’t need the retreat, explaining that he wanted to go ahead to his new assignment. And then Oris had shown up in Gallup at the diocesan house. Late in the afternoon, just before prayers, just before the reading of the Psalms and the silent supper, he stood at the chapel and waited. The old man had asked to speak to George, and once alone with him tried to talk him into returning to Pie Town.
The visit, the talk, had unsettled the young priest. Oris told him he had been sent to bring him back, and when George had questioned him about who had sent him, thinking the parish had called a meeting, that maybe they were making the same request to the Monsignor, Oris spoke of angels, a woman he once loved, and messages from heaven. Clearly, the old man was having some sort of breakdown. George listened for a while but then politely explained he couldn’t go back to Pie Town, that he didn’t belong there, the fire had made that clear. And after saying no to Oris, declining his invitation to return and his plea to go back and try to make things right for the old man’s hometown, try to rebuild the church and the community, he had decided the retreat was probably in his best interest. He decided he wanted to get out of New Mexico, out of Catron County, and far away from Pie Town. As soon as he had gotten permission, he had taken a cab to the bus station and was waiting for the westbound bus.
“You going to Oklahoma?”
Father George glanced up. A girl stood next to him.
He shook his head.
“You got room for me to sit?”
He nodded and then moved his duffel bag from the bench, giving her room. He was wearing a windbreaker wrapped tightly around him so that his clergy collar did not show.
“I’m going to Oklahoma. I’m going to move in with my sister,” the girl explained.
He smiled.
“Well, she’s not really my sister. She was married to my brother and she told me to think of her as my sister. That was about six years ago. I was only thirteen. My brother was killed last spring. He was in Iraq.”
Father George looked away. He didn’t want to think about it but the girl reminded him of Trina, her size, the way she dressed, the way she talked, her bright, open eyes.
“I was in a women’s shelter here,” she noted. “Saint Mary’s,” she added. “You heard of it?”
Father George shook his head.
“It’s nice. A woman from North Carolina runs it. Sister Charlotte,” she said.
Father George nodded.
“My boyfriend beat me up. That’s why I was there.” She leaned back against the bench. “He’s in jail.”
Father George placed his hands in his lap, his shoulders drooped.
“I’m going to Oklahoma City because Laura says she has room for me and that I can stay and get my GED. She didn’t get married again.” The girl turned to study George. “Are you from Oklahoma?”
He shook his head.
“You going to visit somebody in Oklahoma?”
He shook his head again.
“Is there something wrong with you? I mean, why don’t you talk?”
Father George glanced away. “Just enjoying listening to you,” he replied.
“Oh well, that’s different. Most everybody tells me I talk too much. Randy . . .” She paused. “That was my boyfriend,” she explained. “He said I was like a damn leaky faucet, drip drip, drip . . . he’d say.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just like to talk.” She turned to George. “Are you in college?”
He shook his head.
“You been to college?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“You come home?” she asked.
George studied the girl. “What do you mean?”
“Did you come home to Gallup?”
He shook his head. “No, I’ve been working and now I’m going to California to rest.”
“That’s home then? California?”
George shook his head again. “No, that is also not my home.”
She nodded. “I understand. I don’t really have a home either,” she said. “My dad was in the navy, we moved a lot. And then my mom left him and we moved back to Albuquerque and then when I turned sixteen she told me I had to get out of the house.” The girl yawned and then covered her mouth. “Randy and I lived in a motel downtown for about six months, but before that I don’t think I had the same address for more than a couple of weeks.” She laughed. “Funny, isn’t it?”
George waited. “What?” he asked.
“Just funny that neither of us has a place to call home and now we’re getting on a bus, going somewhere else that isn’t home.”
There was a pause.
“Randy always promised me he’d make me a home. Must have said it a hundred times.” She shook her head like she was trying to rid herself of unwanted thoughts. “But you should never trust a man who has to make a promise.” She turned to George. “Naomi, at the shelter, told me that. This was her third time in there. She kept going back to her husband even though she knew he would kill her. She said he always promises he won’t do it again.” She shuddered. “Well, at least I wouldn’t believe that promise!”
George thought about what the girl had said. He thought about her comment about home and he wondered when the last time was he had felt at home. Moving around so often as a child, going away to seminary. The truth was that the only time he really did feel at home was when he was at church, but even that had been a long time ago. And then he thought about what she said about promises, and suddenly remembered the conversation he had with Trina the night of the fire, something he had said.
She had just explained that she was pregnant, and after she said it she held out her hand and he had taken it. He couldn’t remember before that night the last time he had held a woman’s hand. And it startled him to feel how small it was, how easily and simply it fit in his.
“If I have this baby,” she had said, “I need to have a home. I need this baby to have a home.”
He had made a pot of tea and after telling her about the girl from seminary, the one he had gotten pregnant, the one who had an abortion, he reached out for her hand and he told her that he would help her make a home. No, he didn’t just tell her, he promised her. “I promise that I will help you and your baby have a home here in Pie Town.” That’s what he said, the exact words.
George rubbed his eyes. That conversation, that vow, felt like it happened so long ago. He knew he had meant it when he said it, believed it when he promised her, but then after the fire, after the accusations and the realization that everybody thought Trina had done it, after the first interview with Roger and the fire chief and the questions that were never asked, the ease with which his silence fell, he just couldn’t go back, just couldn’t tell the truth. He could not keep his promise.
“You okay?” The girl had been watching him. “You sort of look like you saw a ghost or something.”
George faced the road ahead of them. A bus was coming in their direction. “I think this is the one to San Francisco,” he said. “The one to Oklahoma City comes in about an hour.” And as he stood up to leave, he bent down to pick up his duffel bag and his jacket fell open, his collar suddenly becoming visible to the girl.
“Hey, you’re a priest,” she said as he turned away.
And he stopped and zipped up the jacket, covering himself, and headed to the bus.