August walked along the road, snapping the slicker together, he was calculating in his head how this might have happened. Shouts from the first responders were numb to him as he focused on the tracks through the mud leading to a black SUV hanging on the edge of a drainage ditch. He could hear the water running off from the field passing under the vehicle. From where he stood he could tell the vehicle rolled at least once.
There was a body lying on the other side of the road covered in protective yellow tarps.
“God, I hope it is not some kid.”
Driver or passenger it was too early to tell. Closer to the scene, he could smell the ugly odor of burnt rubber and vehicle fluids.
Stan Farley, owner of the hardware store in Watercreek and a Lieutenant with the Watercreek rural fire department stopped August from getting any closer.
“August, you need to know something about this wreck.”
“What’s wrong Stan?”
“I hate to tell you this August, its Fr. Steve’s SUV.
He also had a passenger with him. Some young woman. We found her about ten feet outside of the vehicle. It appears she was thrown through the window. We don’t know who she is. We might know better once we can get in the vehicle.
Father Steve is still alive; we need to use the jaws to get him out.
He’s hurt, Sheriff. I’ve never seen a car banged up this bad and someone survive.
He’s asking for you August.”
The weight of the news about Fr. Steve pushed August down on the guard rail next to the idling fire pumper. The rain was suddenly cold for July. Rain hitting the brim of his ball cap sounded like pebbles smacking cardboard. He watched as drops rolled around the brim and then drop off like lemmings jumping off a cliff one after another. The drone of the diesel matched his heartbeat. All the memories of Steve, his introductions and support were overwhelming him. The one persons that could call him by his right name might be gone. A car passed behind him and August felt the spray blow back against him. Lightning blued the scene.
August knew who the woman was laying under tarp on the asphalt.
Chapter 3
It seemed his whole world was centered on that guardrail. If he stayed there, none of this would be real. If he moved life would leap back into action.
August finally forced himself off the rail and deeper into the scene. August never even realized Stan was still standing next to him just waiting for him to move. August flicked on his small tactical light and cast it a few steps ahead. Some of the firemen were standing around with their hands in the pockets of their turnout gear as casual as if they were discussing last night’s Royal’s baseball score.
August knew what their topic of discussion really was. More than once, one of them turned back towards the tarp covered mound on the opposite side of the road. August gave them a look that turned their conversation to immediate embarrassment.
When August reached the black Ford SUV it was perched at an angle looking as if it would roll again any minute. The roof was caved close to the top of the front seats. The windows were all blown out and the front windshield folded back into the driver’s compartment. Much of the hood followed behind the windshield. Deflated air bags hung limp and white powder from them coated the inside.
The emergency lights stuttered the movement of everyone in the scene creating a grisly horror movie. Through the passenger window August could see Fr. Steve slumped over the wheel, his head bent to the side by the roof pushing down. The white hair that in any other situation made him appear like a distinguished captain of a cruise ship, was now wet from the rain, matted and red with blood. Rain hitting his face washed blood down the side and ponded on his shoulder
Stan ordered two young firemen down to help August move around the slippery embankment. Moving to the driver’s side against the advice of the firemen, August made his way to the front door. The two responders put their weight to the SUV, fearful of it moving.
“Steve!”
“Steve!”
August felt the rain running down his back under the slicker as he leaned in to Steve.
Hollering again. No response.
Reaching through the window, August grabbed Steve’s hand which still had a solid grip on the wheel. Steve moved at the touch.
“Steve, its August.”
Unable to move his head to August, Steve moved his eyes as far to the left as he could.
“August, this is not good.
I think my neck is broken.
I can’t feel my legs, I am not sure they are even there.
I can feel something in my side.
I can’t tell you what happened.
I must have blacked out. Where is she?”
Steve began to get very agitated.
“She is out of the car Steve. Don’t worry, we need to get you out of here.”
“I am not getting out Auggie. You know that… I have things I need to tell you.”
August knew Steve was slipping away fast.
August tightened the grip on his friend’s hand. He could feel the cold limb that was being fed by death rather than blood.
August knew that feeling all too well.
August worked at holding back tears. He could feel his gut getting tighter in response to his tension.
The rain suddenly picked up intensity. Bouncing off the metal it made it harder to hear Steve.
“You know what I am going to ask you and you need to do it for me. We have to do it now.”
The two of them had joked many times about this possible scenario and like two teenage blood brothers they made each other a promise. August never took it serious but now what was said in jest was coming back to haunt him.
Steve stammered the words August did not want to hear,
“You… need…. to hear my confession.”
Chapter 4
The responders holding August and the car heard the request. The two responders looked at each other with the expression of,
“what do we do now?”
August backed away from the vehicle.
What he was asking was impossible.
“Steve, I can’t do that I am not a priest anymore.”
Steve could only muster a slight turn of his eyes in the direction of August. Blood was sliding down Steve’s chin from the corner of this mouth.
“Augie, we don’t have time to argue. You made a promise, don’t let my soul down now.
You will find out things later,
I know you.
I need forgiveness now.
You know you can do it.
You don’t have a choice.”
August ordered the two responders to the far ends of the vehicle. He leaned in as close as he dared without adding weight to the SUV.
Steve, started,
“God forgive me of my failings.
I have betrayed many that are close.
Forgive me.”
August sensed that Steve was talking more to him than God.
“August, take care of our people…”
Steve did not finish.
August’s only friend was gone.
August whispered in Steve’s ear hoping there was just one breath of life left,
“Go in peace my friend, God forgives you. I forgive you.”
With his thumb extended, August reached in and traced the sign of the cross on Steve’s bloody scalp. When he finished he let his thumb linger on Steve’s forehead shocking himself how instinctively he carried out the act. He was thrown back thirty years when a desperate woman, Galina, was kneeling in front of him begging for God’s forgiveness.
Just like Steve, minutes after he administered the sacrament, she was dead and August life changed forever.
If only he had pulled the trigger then, maybe they would both be alive today.
Chapter 5
A new smell coming from the interior of the car caught August. The smell of day old cigar stench mixed with remnants of a fresh struck match.
The recogniti
on of the smell almost knocked August off his feet.
The two responders, who obviously heard enough, looked at August like they had never seen him before and he didn’t belong at this scene. The sheriff they knew was just addressed like a priest. August glared at them with his best Marine stone face. He knew what they were thinking.
He accepted their help back to the road. He suddenly felt old and tired.
When he reached the highway deck, the sound of the jaws crunching metal echoed off the idling trucks. A sickening sound. He thought how lucky relatives of victims are never hearing that sound. A pop startled August followed by the stretching groan of metal as the firemen bent the roof back. Lightning danced through the western sky displaying towering thunderheads connected by spiderwebs of light. Thunder was seconds coming.
August walked over to the yellow tarp. Puddles formed in the valleys of the tarp mimicking the body underneath. Bending down on one knee, August pulled back the canvas.
It wasn’t the woman he expected to find.
Chapter 6
Even with the bruises and twisted disfigurement to the body from the wreck, August knew he was not looking at the woman Steve was bringing him to meet tomorrow. Her body was contorted like the dead roadside deer he passed on his daily drives.
Steve was taking with him secrets bigger than just August’s history.
Standing up and looking back at the responders August could read their lips and he knew what happened down below raced through the radios and whispers like a bunch of cackling women sitting around Trish’s Beauty Shop on a Saturday morning.
August walked back to the jeep then turned back for one more look at the scene. The lights were distorted by the rain. He let his mind wonder and it trailed back many years. He saw the beautiful Galina kneeling in front of him holding her baby begging for God’s forgiveness for her sins. Her beauty such a relief from the tortured faces and bodies on many of the villagers he dealt with daily. Again he fought back the tears and the pit growing in his stomach. He turned the jeep around in the middle of the highway and drove back to town. He stopped before he hit the city limits to throw up and let the tears flow.
While the door was still open the pain hit. August double over against the steering wheel. His left arm felt like it took a punch from a ghost attacker. His chest tightened and he pulled his right arm in. He rolled to the left and fell out on to the road, his face making the first contact with the pavement.
The John Deere cap rolled to the center of the highway.
Chapter 7
Bill Colestock spotted the sheriff’s idling jeep. He was a surprised to see August lying on the road. That wasn’t part of the plan, but he thought to himself it might get him what he wants quicker than they promised. He walked across the highway hoping to find August dead. As he got closer August called his name.
“Jesus Auggie, what the hell happened to you?"
“Bill, thank God it’s you. Get me up. I’ll be okay just help me up.”
“You look pretty bad Auggie, let me take you to the hospital.”
“No, just get me up in the jeep. I think my arm might be broke.”
Helping August up in the jeep,
“You are one stubborn Marine.”
Bill walked to the middle of the highway and picked up the ball cap. He came back to the jeep handed the cap to August.
“It was Fr. Steve, Bill. He didn’t make it.”
“I am sorry to hear that Auggie, he was a good man. I know the two of you were good buddies. Not much of a church guy myself you know, but I always liked him. You sure you don’t want me to at least follow you to the hospital? That arm and your face looks pretty messed up. You almost ruined that precious tattoo of yours.”
“I am fine, I’ll see a doctor tomorrow.”
Bill climbed back in his truck and thought to himself,
“SOB, I should have let him lay there. This better pay off like they promised.”
Chapter 8
August struggled driving back to Watercreek by with one good arm and straining to see out of a wet windshield with one eye. He instinctively pulled in the parking lot of St. Mary. Once there, he had no real recollection of pulling in. He sat and stared at the blurry image of the church. The light from a few security lights inside the church backlit the elaborate stained-glass windows. He was sitting in front of the window of Jesus in the Garden of Olives. The scene depicted Jesus bent over a rock begging God to take away the pain.
The image held him for more than an hour.
The only sound was his own breath passing in and out and rain tapping on the jeep roof.
Fixed on the window, August broke his own silence by speaking out loud.
“I can’t even imagine what you were thinking. I’ve lived my life the best I know. You keep throwing me in situations that force me to doubt you. How can I return to a life you called me too when all I want to do is curse at you?
You’ve taken everything away from me and given me nothing back.
You’ve taken my parents, my vocation, and now my only friend.
I hate you as much as those who threw me into this situation.
If I were Jesus at the garden, my response to you would not have been so compliant.
Leave me alone and let me fix my own messes.”
August ignored the pressure from his soul to go inside the church and continue his rant.
A squawk on the radio broke in calling for a tow truck out at the accident scene.
August reached over to the radio and almost broke the knob turning it off.
He went through a lot of knobs.
No one in town would know about the accident yet but by morning the whole town would know. Internet and social networking had nothing on small town connections. August sat in the lot for a couple more minutes then decided to move on before someone spotted his jeep.
No sense adding to the stories.
By the time August pulled into the driveway at home the rain stopped. Crickets were chirping as he walked up from the driveway. Mugginess in the air from the daytime heat wasn’t cooled by the rain; it only served to remind him of a tropical night. A night thirty years ago that he thought was behind him until tonight.
The swelling memories along with the loss of his friend brought him to his knees in the middle of the yard. August fell forward with no concern how he was going to land. He landed on the injured arm and he screamed in pain. He rolled on his back. The rain started again. It beat on his face but he was glued to the ground as if hands were holding him down.
The rain sounded like helicopter chops making another pass over the village dropping its oily mixture covering everything it touched with its slick and deadly film. Fire balls launched from the village jungle borders. Within seconds the whole village was on fire.
Villagers were running everywhere.
A clap of thunder mirrored the shot from Hectors gun to the back of Galina’s head. August saw her body rise and drop with the shot.
August was brought back by another clap of thunder. He struggled to get up with one arm. Drenched with mud and grass sticking to him he finally made it to his back door.
The screen door slammed behind him as he walked through the unlocked door. August sat down on the closest kitchen chair and laid his head on the table and tried to pray this time rather than yell at God. The first prayers uttered in years. He felt like a child all alone, deep in hostile woods like those stories of lost kids in the fairy tales.
He was surprised he could even form the words of a prayer.
“God, why are you tormenting me like this. Leave me alone, just let me go. I am not worthy of your time. I have lost everything you have given me, my parents, my grandparents, my friends, even my identity.
I am a coward and a fraud.
Just let me sleep and leave me alone.”
Chapter 9
Monday
August woke from his spot at the table as the sun splashed through the window. His clothes were dry, but the mud
and grass was still stuck on his face, arms and legs. His face ached from the fall and his eye was still partially swollen. Stretching his arm was painful, but at least it wasn't broken.
He had runs this morning and he couldn’t do it in this condition. Coffee and shower was all he wanted. His usual morning appetite was gone. He also knew the life he built so carefully in Watercreek was now over. By the end of the day, everyone would know some part of his past and what they didn’t know they would make up.
August finished his shower and walked naked across the room to his closet. Fresh jeans and a polo shirt was his uniform of the day. Since the day he took office he vowed not to wear an official uniform. He had spent too many years dressed as something he wasn’t. He believed the people who elected him knew him well enough. The casual dress gave him the appearance of being younger than he was. His body still reflected a strict and disciplined life, the two qualities that attracted him to the Jesuits and then the Marines. His grandparents were always after him to loosen up and relax but August always felt like he had some internal standard he had to meet.
The women of the county loved how their sheriff looked. The men respected it.
Pulling the polo over his head stretched the scar that ran across his midsection cutting in half a respectable six pack. The action made him wince as he pulled the injured arm through the sleeves. He bent the arm slowly convinced he could work with it but it wouldn’t be of much use to him for the rest of the day. August grabbed his badge and stuck it in his back pocket and walked to the kitchen lured in by the smell of brewing coffee.
Chapter 10
Sitting in the chair where August spent most of the night was a woman dressed as casual as he was. Tight jeans that showed some wear as well as a figure that made other women jealous, a wrinkled white blouse which she purposely didn't button very far up and sandals exposing painted red toenails. Her smoky blonde hair was styled in a casual cut and fell just over her ears and dropped a small wisp of bangs down her forehead. If it was any other woman, August would have given her a second look and more respect.
Necessary Sin Page 5