Exit Kingdom

by Alden Bell

  A bizarre and horrible exhibition of distorted humanity indeed – an antic and fleshy rococo delivered in metal boxes roving across the country. And she was one of them, the redhead, shut up in one of the vans with an emaciated slug who showed no interest at all in eating her. They had been wretched cohabitants for nine weeks before the troupe stopped at the mission and Ignatius found there his holy woman.

  It was immediately clear to me, he says, that she is an offering from God Himself. The incarnation of His grace. A breathing, walking end to our suffering.

  So he attempted to barter for her, trying to convince the leader of the troupe, a man named Fletcher, to trade her for supplies, shelter, meals, blessings, even some of his congregation willing to sacrifice themselves for the exchange of this imprisoned seraph. But Fletcher would not have it. The redhead was his prime attraction.

  He was a greasy, spotted man with scabs and scars all over his body. He chewed on his own fingers as though he were himself part slug. But even though he smelled of foulness and pestilence, and even though he was oozing with abomination, he was among the horrid crew of the living.

  She ain’t for sale, padre, Fletcher said. But you can take another glance at her on the house. Or for a sift through your medicine cabinet, I could arrange you a quick wick-dip in her. I know you’re a holy man and whatnot, but holy bangin holy’s gotta be a lawful act, don’t it?

  So Ignatius cast them out of the mission and told them to move on. But he followed them and, three nights later, when Fletcher and his men were drunk and whoring in a compound near Yuma, he stole the woman away and brought her back here to stay in the mission with them.

  Three days I waited, Ignatius says. Three days I followed. And when I acted, I left it to look as if she had managed to escape herself. I even had her run for a mile in the opposite direction in case they followed her tracks, though I don’t think they are hunters by nature. I didn’t want them to trace her back here.

  They’ll come back, Moses says. Sooner or later. She’s too valuable to them. Even if they believe she’s run off, they’ll try this as a place for her to run to.

  It’s been four weeks, Ignatius says, and they haven’t come back yet.

  Could be they’re tryin other places first. Could be they know that if she’s here she’ll be easy to get. But they’ll be back.

  It makes no difference. She won’t be here.

  Where’s she gonna be?

  With you.

  What Ignatius wants is for Moses to take the Vestal to someone he knows, someone who will know what to do with her, a high priest who oversees the largest citadel still operating in the country – a haven for the devout, and the devout are populous in these times.

  I ain’t an escort by trade, Moses says. You don’t got enough to endow my bounty for that kind of work.

  I’m not offering to pay you, Ignatius says.

  Then what?

  I’m asking for your service.

  A favour?

  Not a favour. A duty. An obligation has befallen you. These are the things a man of honour does, and I know you to be a man of honour.

  You got it wrong. A man of honour I ain’t.

  A man with a code then. They are much the same thing when there’s no one around to say which creed is honourable and which isn’t.

  It occurs to Moses that just two days before he was seeking some purpose, some direction to their travel – a simple reason to be going one place as another. In these times, when all places and people seem distinguished only by the most ephemeral and muzzy of boundaries, when the peaceful walking dead begin to look like the salvationed and the huddled living the damned – then does a man seek for something beyond pills and shelter and woman comfort, then does he seek for objective, for vocation.

  But my brother, Moses says, holding up the last weak barrier to what he already sees as his given mission.

  Your brother isn’t taking her, Ignatius says. You are. You have the capacity to protect her – even from your own blood.

  Moses felt himself steeped in blood, all kinds of blood, the family kind and otherwise.

  Where is this citadel? he asks.

  And the monk Ignatius responds:

  Colorado.

  That night, lodged in the stable crib, Moses sees his brother Abraham lying back on his straw bed, scraping at his teeth with a wood splinter. Abraham hums a tune Moses doesn’t recognize, and Moses wonders how much of his brother’s music is just the creeping harmonic wastage of his own poxy mind.

  We’re leavin tomorrow, Moses says.

  That’s fine by me, Abraham says. I had just about enough of the silent life.

  You seemed to get along just fine.

  I been on my best behaviour.

  You done all right.

  Anyway, I don’t much care for the witchy shit they got goin on. I ain’t in all my life seen a slug pass up a meal. That girl’s cursed.

  Cursed? Moses says. The friar thinks she’s blessed.

  These religious types think everything’s blessed. Dump a bucket of shit on their head, and they’ll thank God for it not being two buckets. But I’ll tell you something.

  Abraham points the toothpick at his brother to make his point.

  I’ll tell you this, he goes on. Whatever hell those walking dead came out of, I ain’t interested in gettin cozy with the girl they’re afraid of.

  You got a vision, Abe. There’s no denyin it. The way you see the world – those eyes of yours ought to be enshrined somewhere important.

  Abraham casts a suspicious gaze at his brother, as if unsure of the true thrust of the remark – but he grins proudly despite himself.

  But it don’t make any difference, Moses says. Because tomorrow when we leave, we’re takin her with us.

  Who?

  The Vestal.

  What in the hell would we do that for? If you want to steal some holy bride, why not go for one of the other ones? Maybe one that knows how to cook.

  We ain’t stealin her.

  That Ignatius ain’t gonna be very happy with you stealing his cannongirl.

  I said we ain’t stealing her. The friar asked us to take her somewhere, and we’re gonna take her.

  Where?

  North.

  How far north?

  Colorado Springs.

  Colorado? Shit. Is it gonna be snow on the ground?

  It’s a likelihood.

  You know I ain’t good with the inclement weather. I got bad circulation in my legs.

  You’ll endure.

  What’s in Colorado anyway?

  A citadel.

  A what now?

  A church.

  Another church?

  That’s right.

  Jesus, we’re spendin a lot of time with the gospel. What happens if I come out the other end all godified and priesty? What happens if I want to take the vow?

  Moses chuckles.

  I wouldn’t worry about it.

  Abraham is quiet for a while. He picks his teeth with the wood splinter and looks thoughtfully at the beams running across the roof of the stable.

  What’re we doin this for, Mose? he asks. Really now.

  It’s a mission, Moses says. We wanted a mission and we got one.

  Abraham nods.

  But let’s be clear on this, Abraham says. You were the one that wanted a mission. It was never me.

  Moses nods.

  Fair enough, he says. My mission, then.

  Abraham considers a while longer.

  All right then, he says finally. I’ll come along with you on your mission. It’s a brother’s duty, ain’t it?

  *

  And later, well past midnight when Moses cannot sleep, he rises from the crib and steals out of the stable to stand under the coal-black sky and listen to the shrill cricket-song stretched taut and incontrovertible over the desert.

  He sits heavily on one of the picnic tables and folds his hands as though waiting politely for someone to bring him sustenance. His beard is dark
and heavy.

  Soon someone does come. It is the Vestal Amata, still dressed in her white robes, and she sits down across from him and looks into his eyes.

  He has not been, for many years, the kind of man whom a woman approaches. It used to be different, long ago, before things changed. Then he was cleanshaven, tall but still lithe. He knew how to be playful. He knew how to juggle oranges found underneath a laden orange tree. Now he has forgotten much of who he was before. Now he stomps and rages and draws lines he dares people not to cross. He is a man of hard laws and hard action, a man sharpened on the grit of constant violence. He is a barbarian, he knows.

  So he does not know what to make of a woman who approaches him alone in the middle of the night. He suspects again this Vestal – her slightly sneering mouth, her red hair, her eyes that do not look away in fright at the world and its barbaric things.

  We’re taking you, he says to her. My brother and me. We’re settin out tomorrow.

  Ignatius told me, says the Vestal.

  She confronts him with her obstinate silence. He does not know whether he seeks refusal or gratefulness, but he finds that he has no gambit against the woman who does not reveal her game.

  Sunrise, he says. Just after sunrise.

  That’s fine, she says.

  Colorado, he says. That’s where we’re goin. I don’t know if the friar told you. It’s a citadel.

  He told me.

  It’s in the mountains. It’ll be cold. Bring what you have. We’ll make room.

  Fine.

  We’ll keep you out of harm.

  That’s fine.

  She deflects his words easily and looks at him as though she is the one trying to unlock his secrets, as opposed to the other way around.

  He stands and begins to walk away, but he can feel her eyes on his back – and large as he is, he feels delicate and frail.

  Hey, she calls to him.

  He stops and turns to face her but says nothing.

  You and your brother, she says. Are you holy men too? Or just hired guns?

  He is no expert of locution, but her words seem different now than they were earlier in the day. Perhaps she is a phantasm – her night form and her day form not the same.

  But her question unsettles him. He does not know how to answer it. So he replies in kind.

  How bout you? he asks. You an authentic miracle of God’s holy grace – or just a hoax?

  She smiles at him now – and now all pretence of purity is gone. What replaces it in her expression is something conspiring and downright lascivious.

  All right, Mosey, she says. Let’s get out of here and play for a while on the big checkerboard. Maybe we’ll both find out what’s what.

  So he leaves her there, clad in her white robes, her red hair spilling lurid on her shoulders, her eyes like false gemstones – and, too, like a fluid and perverse treachery, her curving lips.

  *

  Though the sun is not yet risen before the commotion begins.

  There is a man’s voice, loud – spitting and thick, as though the tongue were too big for the mouth.

  We’ll burn it! the voice calls. We’ll burn the whole goddamn place to the ground!

  Moses rises, kicks his brother awake and moves to the stable door to look out. There’s nothing to see except the parishioners gathering in fearful huddles around the courtyard. The voice, he realizes when he hears it again, is coming from outside the perimeter wall – at the front gate.

  Open the goddamn doors! If she’s in there, we’re takin her. If she ain’t, we got no truck with you all. It can go quiet, or it can go rough. Your choice.

  Then Ignatius is there, dashing around the corner of the building with the Vestal Amata in tow. The expression on the woman’s face is equal parts fear and anger.

  I ain’t goin back with them, she says under her breath. Ignatius doesn’t seem to hear her, and the words are directed to no one in particular. It is a personal vow to herself and nothing more.

  It’s the man Fletcher, Ignatius says to Moses. He’s back. The whole carnival of them. You have to go now. Leave by the back.

  Abe, let’s go, Moses says, gathering his satchel and weapons. Show us where to go, he says to Ignatius.

  The monk gestures for them to follow and leads them around the chapel itself to a place where barrels are stacked against the back wall and can be climbed upon. Moses goes up first until he can see over the top of the wall. It’s clear.

  Don’t worry about us, Ignatius says to reassure them. They won’t bother us if she’s not here.

  It did not occur to him, until the monk Ignatius uttered this last, that he should be concerned about defending the residents of the mission. He did not think of it at all.

  And so it is that he is no hero by nature. And for what cause, then, is he a warrior?

  Hand her up, Moses says to his brother. His brother lifts the Vestal Amata into his arms, and Moses hoists her to the top of the wall. Then he tosses his satchel over the back and turns to leap down himself. But before he goes, he looks back over the mission. On the opposite side there’s a glow against the sky, the front of the structure illuminated by the headlights of Fletcher’s convoy. It is eerie, the blaze and fracas at the intersection of people’s lives.

  He turns and looks down on Ignatius.

  I’ll protect her, he says to the monk. But I ain’t a good man. You understand that?

  It doesn’t matter, the monk replies. Partly strong, partly broken. It’s the same with everything. Just go.

  And they do.

  *

  Moses drops down on the other side of the wall then helps the Vestal Amata to the ground. Abraham comes last, leaping down with a yee-ha like a cowboy and tumbling in the weeds. He wears a mad smile on his face, as though there is no difference in his economy between fear and frolic. He stands and dusts off his hands.

  The Moses realizes something.

  The car, he says.

  What about it? Abraham asks.

  It’s around front with them.

  So what? We’ll find us another one.

  It’s got our things in it.

  Nothin we can’t replace.

  Moses thinks about the weapon in the trunk, the bladed mace made for him by the tinkerer Albert Wilson Jacks. Abraham is right – most things in the world are replaceable, but that is not one of them. And this is a time of cherishing unique things.

  We ain’t leaving without our things, Moses says.

  Abraham looks off into the distance, as though he would rush headlong into it were he unleashed to do so.

  All right, he says. So what’s your suggestion?

  Then, suddenly, there’s another voice behind them, a man. He has crept around the corner of the wall while they were talking, and now he aims a gun at them.

  If it’s any help, he says to the three of them now, here’s my suggestion.

  The gun in his hand fires, and Moses’ brother Abraham cries out and falls to the ground.

  Five

  An Injury, a Murder and a Hostage » Fletcher » A Test of Mettle » A City Hotel » A Jar of Olives » An Operation » A Note of Farewell » A Search » Fountain Hills » A Bandit Camp » Rescue and Reclothing » A Mountain Stream » Mademoiselle from Armentières » Interlude » A Bronze Disc

  Aw, fuck! Abraham yelps. He lies on his back on the ground and clenches his thigh with both hands.

  Before Moses can determine his next action, he sees the Vestal already running towards the man with the gun. The man wears jeans and a pair of boots and a baseball cap, but no shirt. His bare chest is gaunt and taut against his ribs, his skin tattooed with homemade designs. The Vestal runs straight at him, in spite of the fact that the gun is pointed directly at her chest. This is something Moses will remember about the girl. It’s not bravery – he wouldn’t call it bravery. Nor is it fury or daring or hard mettle. Not exactly those things. In fact, it is nothing she possesses in the positive but rather something she lacks. There is a blankness in her action –
an absence that allows her to move rapidly and without hesitation. Yes, that is it. It is not bravery but instead the absence of fear.

  Whoa, says the bare-chested man to her. Hold it there. I’ll shoot you, I swear to—

  But he doesn’t shoot. Instead he begins to back away, and he can’t even complete his sentence before she is on him. She seems to pass right by the gun, as though he were merely holding his finger out to her in playful mimic of warfare. She moves past it, leaping at him, her small form still dressed in the white robes tossed absurdly against the larger man, her body itself a weapon, her thin elbow cracking him across the face, something snapping in his jaw, a jet of blood, black in the night, spitting from his nose.

  Her movements are not beautiful or elegant – she is no graceful spectre or lithe athlete. Her violence is not art but simply the act of a weary and brutal practitioner.

  The man drops the gun, and screams loudly.When he stands upright again, Moses can see that his jaw is dislocated, his lower teeth jammed at an oddly angled underbite, the bony hinge protruding at the side of his face, tenting out the flesh of his cheek and giving an inhuman droop to his eyelid. The man has been made immediately monstrous, and he is suffering – his hands up around his jaw as if wanting to put it back in place but at the same time afraid to touch it lest it pop off completely.

  Moses sees the Vestal retrieve the man’s pistol from the ground, and before he can call to her to stop, she has aimed it at the man’s head and pulled the trigger.