Using few words to express himself to Macon, the English-speaking priest explained to him that they were a Christian order of mendicant monks, meaning they’d taken the vow of poverty. They were devout, praying six times a day, eating only once a day, and they did not speak unless it was absolutely unavoidable. Nonetheless, to his knowledge he was the only English speaker there.
Macon explained he also was a man of the cloth, pastor, deacon and the rest, of a church in The United States of America. Like they, The Almighty had yoked him—gratefully—to a mission. His calling had in a manner not for him to question or understand, brought him and his flock to that mountain abbey. He and his sons would eventually continue on the path laid out for them to locate the resources to fund their church and spread The Word. However, first they would remain there. It was The Word of God. They would stay for fourteen days to help them rebuild their own church. God said so.
The abbot said that the work of rebuilding the fallen ancient wall was hard. Macon said they welcomed it. They had sat around too long, and besides, to come the way they had came to him from The Lord. The abbot thought, and then advised the man that if they stayed they would be prohibited from speaking, would sleep in bare cells on hard ground, and eat but a single meal of thin vegetarian stew daily. When the reverend before him agreed to the regimen, the abbot considered that with the abbey having empty cells available—the order not exactly being attractive to faith seekers—and a few additional ladles of thin soup costing nothing, they could remain fourteen days time.
>
Gus’ device had instructed the trekkers eastward, and they’d left the last of the thick forestland behind. The many days walking since traveling by vehicle had strengthened their limbs such that the trek ahead each morning no longer intimidated them. What concerned them was Sammy’s deteriorating condition as he slipped further each day into late season. They were also aware that his dilemma was not unique. Their own wasting conditions from Hain’s labors piled on with every step they took through the rolling hills.
At least over the last several days they entered a more populated environment where they found guesthouses to rest in. Nevertheless, at cock’s crow, they’d better be up, or Nathan’s door knock would surely rouse them.
At one village, they stopped in a country store for clean clothes and better footwear. The terrain had not been steep but it steadily climbed each morning they went out. It also became colder as their passage made toward higher country. The former smooth grasses became scrubby and rockier too. The provisioner agreed they were right about the terrain and increasing altitude, and he advised them to exchange the jackets he sold them for heavy fleece lined ones in coming days.
>
Church building and convent living went smoothly for the disciple of his lord, the Reverend Early, but not so for his sons, particularly his eldest. Macon kept to his vow of silence, but not speaking, or more accurately, not complaining, found challenge in Josiah. For Joseph Henry, it was the single daily meal and its meagerness that took a toll. For Joseph, not speaking wasn’t so bad. His mind churned constantly occupied with thoughts of mountain fairies and mythical woods that he felt surrounded them in that distant and solitary place. Whenever he had a chance, he strolled to the abbey’s orchards and ate his fill of rotting apples he found on the ground. There were plenty of acorns and walnuts around too, and he didn’t mind consuming them raw. In fact, his belly was as full as he wanted, and work on the south abbey wall had a warm sun shining on them most every day. To him it beat the damp, humid, mosquito and critter infested swamp work on his father’s church land and trapping gators. Besides, this was all work for The Lord. No matter where they did it, he’d be rewarded on Judgment Day.
Judgment Day or not, seven days and nights into their stay at the abbey, friars reported Josiah missing to his father. In a rage, silent Macon dropped the mortar mix he carried to the monks on the wall, and brandishing a horse harness, took after where his son was last seen running.
>
“Mein Gott,” Gus said tensely, looking up from his GPS. “We had better find those warm garments soon. That is where we are headed.” The others lifted their heads from the device and looked into the distance where imposing snowcapped jagged peaks loomed.
>
Going after his son, Macon Early followed the creek running near the abbey, knowing that his son was stupid to run away from the convent but not dumb. For sure, Macon figured, his son would realize it’d be along the creek that he’d find a mill or farmhouse to rest the night.
When Macon came up on the son he’d chased the whole wet day and into the night, Josiah slept soaked to the bone by a dwindling fire. Without break in his driven stride, Macon reached the horse bridle back over his shoulder and brought the leather straps down against his son’s back. With a start, Josiah was on his knees, but lashed by leather, he sank back and ate dirt. As if instinctively knowing what it should do, his body turned toward the creek and in the abbey’s direction. Once at the creek, stumbling in and out of it in the dark, Josiah set a steady stride.
Anytime he paused or fell, the leather bit his head and back, and he quickly got off his knees. All the time through the drizzling night and into dawn, his father said not a word, and he did not either. He did not know why except that it would have done no good to beg or plead. The lash was the word for what he had done.
Joseph ran down the incline leading to the abbey when he saw his brother and father, and he helped Josiah crawl up to the monastery. The working friars watched with Joseph Henry by the wall as the father pushed his stumbling mud covered son to the living quarters.
Josiah opened the door and entered, his father motioning Joseph wait outside. Inside the row of cells—the grated cell doors making them look like prison cells—Josiah lurched to the end of the hall, turned in to a cell and fell to the floor. Behind, his father threw the cell door closed, and leaned exhausted inside against the grate.
They remained that way for a while, each slowly perceiving the others breathes as his own receded. Josiah turned and lifted a painful face to his father and saw him for the first time worn, tired, and sobbing. And it wasn’t just a crying, but a full heaving sob—that his father tried to control. He couldn’t let his son see him cry, Josiah figured. Or maybe he couldn’t let The Lord see, so when his father was about to flat out bawl, his face strained to hold back, his mouth opened, and no noise let out. But Josiah did see how many teeth were missing from his father’s mouth, and how long and brown the ones remaining.
When his father looked controlled, he pushed off the grate and headed back down the hall. And although from his cell he couldn’t fully see when his father reached the outside door, he thought he saw and he did hear the wet harness lash his father’s back.
>
Along the foothills to the mountain peaks, Sammy came down with a high fever, and the team decided to wait for his recover before continuing. Had he not been in late season, they could have left him in a village until they returned from the latest leg of the trial. However, not knowing how long they’d take, they could not risk leaving him alone in a village of eighty people. His deteriorating appearance and odor were difficult to hide despite Leeda’s makeup and perfume, and if a townsperson went mysteriously missing, suspicion would fall on the stranger first.
At least they managed to find plenty of warm clothes for the coming cold. Each had a sheared sheep coat and woolly vest made. Some got gloves, and Leeda, a pair of tall, fleece and leather boots.
When the villagers asked where they were going in the mountains, they said to the harvest and sheepherders festivals that the villagers had told them about. It sounded believable to the folk, and they were honored that people from far away had an interest in seeing and learning about their local beliefs and celebrations.
When Sammy recovered from his fever, several village folk suggested he remain until the others returned, since he looked to suffer from cancer or some flesh eating disease. One old woman warned that
a spell may have been cast on him, and as a farewell token, she breathed vapors and passed incense of some medicinal wood over him.
“Tell granny thanks,” Sammy said to Gus as they left. “I hear Woodsy Smog is the rage in men’s cologne today in Dusseldorf, and that it’s got me feeling better already.”
Gus smiled and thanked the old woman. She refused the coin he offered, her yapping toothless mouth warning only that they not leave food on the trail, or the mountain Yeti would get it and grow stronger. Later on the trail, Sammy asked Gus what the old hag was talking about. Gus said she was talking about the Abominable Snowman, and they all laughed.
XVIII
Fifteen days after arriving at the abbey, Macon and his sons silently took leave of the friars. All the monks and abbot stood by the new wall they helped finish. As a token of appreciation and so they’d remember the abbey, the abbot gave each a pebble from the original church. They were not any pebbles, he said, but from the keystone mortar that had held the original front wall in place for twelve centuries. Later, on their way to a town where the abbot told them they’d find provisions and shelter, Josiah and Joseph Henry threw their pebbles at a hooting owl. “Just ‘cause those monks all have rocks in their heads, don’t mean we got to,” Josiah said to his brother. “Can you believe it, workin’ for them half a month, and all they give us is some rocks?”
“Only thing I wanna feel in my pockets are fists full of gold,” Joseph Henry said, their father ahead, and Joseph trailing behind him kicking ground. “These old guys are all the same, if you ask me.”
“Including Pa?”
“I’m startin’ to wonder if he’s gettin’ soft in the head with all this talk about all these old lofty things. I mean, who cares if that old building fell down.”
“Old is old. No point in savin’ it. They just get sentimentally attached to old things.”
“Rocks in their heads. Give me gold like that T fella.”
“Him and his treasure seekin’ friends got the right idea.”
“Whatever we may think though of Pa, Joseph Henry, stick with him. He’ll get us to the promised land.”
“Fer sure, Josiah. Fer sure.”
>
The rainy German North Country autumn and the cooling eastern foothills contrasted with the unusually balmy fall that New York City was enjoying. Looking out over Central Park, former New York City Police Department Detective Chief Landowski compared the park’s orangey brown foliage to a pliant cigar wrapper. He hoped it wouldn’t be the last time he would observe his town from that privileged duplex penthouse atop the most expensive residential building in New York. He also hoped that the fourth $50,000 check he held wouldn’t be the last from his sole employer, Cecil Bloom, owner of the enormous duplex. The other stub in his hand, a first-class air ticket, wasn’t a bad perk either from working for Mr. Bloom.
He was going to stretch the time out all he could to locate the guy he thought might have murderer Bloom’s wife two years earlier. Was it in really that long ago, he thought back, taking a cigar from the box Bloom gave him for his trip. Damn cigars, he thought. Well, not really. It wasn’t cigars that got him booted from the department.
Landowski had thirty some years with the NYPD the day he was fired. He’d been feeling much crabbier than usual, his permanently chomped unlit cigar plugging his mouth, when the mayor was publicly announcing top brass promotions at HQ. After everything he’d given the department, he’d thought, and with every right he had to expect a promotion into the top ranks, what was the mayor doing but giving guys ten-years his junior nods and stars. “Next time, Landowski,” his boss had said to him, barely looking his way, saying word for word what he’d said the last two times he was passed over for promotion. Well, F-you, he’d thought, and the commissioner and mayor too, the whole damn thing. That’s when he lit the stogie right on the main platform where the famously health conscious mayor stood speaking to a filled auditorium of New York’s Finest—of which wasn’t he one too!
Not only did he refuse to put the illegally lit cigar out, it caused the mayor to cough during his remarks. Moreover, and to seal his coffin, when the mayor passed, he blew smoke his way, dropped the cigar and made a scene crushing it under his heel—along with his future. Demands for his resignation within 24-hours arrived within one. He refused to leave, said they’d have to cart him out from his office. Cart him out they did, along with his bentwood coat-rack, “and all his other crap,” his commander told the police movers to toss him out with.
For a month, he stewed in his Staten Island apartment before the message from Mr. Bloom arrived through a friend. He should call the billionaire. He’d been suggested to Bloom as a good choice to investigate the unsolved brutal murder of Bloom’s wife Eve. The police had gotten nowhere, and Bloom became suspicious they’d mishandled evidence. He wanted someone who knew the inside, was on the outside, and had nothing to lose.
When Bloom asked him about any suspects he could name, the name Landowski gave was one familiar to Bloom. It belonged to a man with whom he had discovered his wife had been involved. He hired the scruffy former chief.
A year and a half later, Landowski had located their suspect, and he had laid out a plan to bring him to Bloom. If it turned out that Nathan Nols, nee Owen Odem was his wife’s murderer, Bloom would take it from there, and Landowski would receive a quarter million-dollar bonus. Nice work if you can get it and Landowski aimed not to lose his meal ticket. He embarked that night first class on an Air France.
>
As former Chief Landowski flew over France drinking Champagne, Macon Early dialed Constance from the dreary inn he’d settled his brood in “since arriving from their penitential service to The Lord.” The place was sparse, the buys thought, but it beat rain, cold, and mixing cement all day.
Macon asked Constance if she’d heard from her husband. They’d just missed their friends by a day or so at the inn she’d sent them to. She had not heard anything, she said. She asked if he confirmed Leeda was with them. He could only confirm that a woman, a beautiful one, traveled with the men, stressing that she was a beauty who traveled with her husband. Constance suggested he try calling every few days. If she heard from Nathan, she’d convey their whereabouts to him. She also recommended that he continue calling only that private number, as Antoine might pick up if he called any other.
“Don’t you worry, Constance, we’re on the same team you and I,” Reverend Early said, hanging up.
“How long we gonna stay here, Pa,” Josiah said, watching the rain out the window.
“Don’t know. Why? You miss the buildin’ trade?”
“No, Pa. This is fine. Suits us just fine.”
>
Several days of slow but steady climb into the mountains, autumn had turned cold for Nathan and the companions. Luckily, shepherd huts along the way provided warm places to rest.
“What I don’t understand,” said a wearying Sammy, stretching on a bed of hay in one of the candlelit huts, “with a road up the mountain, why we have to take these steeper paths.”
“I know your frustration, and the toll, Sammy,” Gus said, “but you have to understand that we must follow the directions exactly as they arrive.”
“I don’t know if I’m going to make it, is all. Do we know yet where we’re going?”
“Again Sammy, I see only short distances ahead. Rest. Please rest for now.”
“I’m turning into a goat, Gus.”
“We all are, Sammy,” Nathan smiled.
“You aren’t, are you, Leeda? Turning into a goat?”
“No Sammy, I suppose I couldn’t.”
“A lamb then. A soft, warm, cuddly lamb, Leeda, that’s what you can turn into for me.”
“Okay, Sammy, I will, maybe a little later.”
“Okay, Leeda,” he breathed weakly, eyes closing.
“I have nothing ahead from here, Nathan,” Gus said.
“Then just rest until it arrives.”
“Do you have coverage
?” Leeda asked.
“Yes. Strong. They may be simple mountain people up here but they have coverage like city folk.”
“Then we should be okay,” Nathan said. “When Hain is ready to have us go, he’ll text.”
“He saw how Sammy looked,” Leeda said. “He’s liable to keep us waiting. He knows we’re all on some season that takes us closer to our end, and which he clearly wants to see. I do feel sometimes like we’re sheep, ordered and herded by the head shepherd or goatherd, Mr. Conrad Hain. He’s surely controls our bridles now.”
“You, any of us, can still leave, go back at any time,” Nathan said.
“I sometimes think that’s what you’d like me to do.”
“Nonsense, Leeda,” Gus said.
“He never wanted a female along.”
“Not true, Leeda,” Nathan said.
“Or a conscience,” she added. “And he and I have a bargain, Gus, which I expect him to keep when we’re closer to our goal.”
“That’s not my business, Leeda,” Gus said, growing weary.
“It’s not climbing back down that keeps me from leaving, Nathan,” she said.
“What then?” he asked sternly.
“Nothing’s changed. We each still maintain our wonder regarding The Book and our reasons for wandering into this adventure. I think Shawn was the best of us. It was enough for him to just be as a group working together toward something. I have my dreams and hopes for what The Book of Yulen may bring me. I trust it may fulfill them. But if not, like for Shawn, realizing our communion will have made it worthwhile, unlike you, Nathan, who values only the final destination. I never suggested I was changing my mind about continuing. Did I? Hmmm? I simply pointed out that as long as we remain on this journey, Mr. Hain holds the crook.”
“He does, Leeda,” Gus said, “and he’s not finished wielding it over our heads and against our sides. But for now, let’s do as Sammy, and rest. Please, you too Nathan. It sounds as if a storm is picking up outside.”
Yulen: Return of the Beast – Mystery Suspense Thriller (Yulen - Book 2) Page 19