Defenders of the Faith

by Williamson, Chet

  "Put on your pants," Paul said, walking toward the man until only a few feet separated them. The man obeyed with startling speed, pressing himself down into the cotton pouch with difficulty, still aroused despite the gun. "Cover him up." Paul was barely able to look at the boy lying on his stomach, a stained pillow beneath his hips. He was breathing shallowly but steadily.

  "All right...all right," the young man said breathily, eager to please Paul's every whim. He threw the blanket over the boy and looked up, half-smiling, a beaten and obedient dog.

  "How could you...do that?" On the last two words, Paul shook the pistol like a ruler at a student caught throwing spitballs. He narrowed his eyes, opened his mouth slightly in the effort to understand the desire for what he saw before him. It was harder than interpreting an alien tongue never before heard. He felt that he should know, but was lost in the very entryway to this man's mind.

  The man, on his knees, waved his hands in the air, as if overwhelmed by the futility of explanation. "I'm...sick," he said, the word a rising and falling plea. "I can't help it. I'm...I'm siiiick. I need help, sir. I need help so bad...I want to be caught, to, to have people understand, see how very sick I am. I don't want to do this. Really..."

  "Were you going to kill him?"

  "Oh, no! No, never! I...I love them...him..."

  "You did this before."

  "No, I -- "

  "Don't lie to me. You did this before."

  "I...I...all right, yes sir, yes, I did, I did, and I feel awful about it, just awful, I can't help it, see? I can't help the feelings I have. I...I need help to get rid of them..."

  "Did you ever ask God for help?"

  "Ask...God?"

  "Pray. Did you ever pray for God to help you?"

  "Yes...yes! All the time I pray. I'm very...religious...except for this I am, really, I do pray."

  "I don't believe you."

  The man's hands waved continually in the air. Paul could see that he was uncertain of whether or not to contradict him.

  "I think you should pray now," Paul said. "Even if you never have before, you can always start. God will always listen, and forgive." The man nodded, tried to smile. "Go ahead. Pray."

  The man bowed his head slowly, as if afraid to take his eyes off of Paul. Paul lowered the gun so that it was pointing at the ground in front of the man. He tried to make his voice soft, but it felt like ice in his throat, fire on his lips. "It's all right. Pray."

  The young man bowed his head, slapped his hands together, and pressed his eyes closed. His lips moved, but Paul heard nothing.

  "Talk to him aloud," Paul said.

  "Oh God," the man said in a voice strangled by fear, "help me. Help me...not to be...sick anymore." A strand of mucus dangled from his left nostril, and he slung it away, then clasped his hands again.

  "Ask him to forgive you for what you've done."

  "Please, God..." The man sobbed several times, then took a deep breath and spoke again. "Please forgive me for what I did. I'm so sorry..."

  Paul didn't think about killing the young man. When he looked back later, there was no single moment when he had made the decision. It was simply something he had done, something elegantly natural, something altogether logical, and, to Paul, something divinely inspired.

  The young man didn't see Paul raise the gun, and was still mumbling when Paul aimed at the center of the dirty blond hair on the top of his bowed head and pulled the trigger.

  The sound of the shot sent the birds shrieking, and a tiny red moon appeared on the man's scalp. His head shot down, smashing the jaw against the chest, and as he toppled over his head fell back so that Paul saw the exit wound beneath the chin, and another ragged hole in the hollow of the man's neck.

  Chapter 8

  Paul stood for a moment, shocked by the carnage his bullet had caused. Then the panic was replaced by the weight of his action that settled onto his shoulders like a robe a priest might wear, heavy with solemnity.

  He had killed, and whether what he had done was right or wrong would have to wait for the leisure of contemplation.

  "You died in prayer," Paul said, his voice now as dry as corn husks brushing together in the wind. "God will forgive your sins. And you'll be with him this day." He said a quick prayer for the man, then began to do what needed to be done.

  He put the gun in the backpack, then pulled back the blanket and gently examined Peter Hurst, whose eyes were partly open but, Paul thought, unseeing. He looked as if he were in a trance. Paul gently touched his forehead, and the boy's eyes drifted shut.

  Peter had several small bruises on his face and thighs, and his penis and hairless testicles were red and sore. There had been some bleeding from the boy's anus, but it had stopped, and Paul cradled the boy, whose eyes remained closed, and rocked him, and started to cry for the boy's pain and shame, for the memory that would follow him through life.

  The boy began to stir, and a whimper escaped his bruised lips. Paul fought back more tears. "It's all right, Peter. No one's going to hurt you again. I promise. Shh...shh...you just lie here for a minute, okay? Just sleep if you can." He gently lay the boy down and covered his nakedness with the blanket, then started to think about what to do with the thing he had just killed.

  There was no way he could go to the police. The man had been unarmed, and even though he was no more than a human beast, he was still human, and protected by man's laws. No. Paul could not get publicly involved.

  He removed his shirt so that he would not get blood on it, and hoisted the dead man in a fireman's carry over his shoulder, then walked further into the woods. Although the man was slightly built, his bare flesh against Paul's perspiring skin felt hot and clammy, and made Paul sweat with more than the heat. Flies and gnats swarmed in clouds about him, but, his hands busy holding his burden, he could not drive them away, and kept shaking his head and blinking to keep them from his eyes.

  At last Paul came to a large agglomeration of gray rocks. There, in a wedge where two massive boulders joined, he found a spot ideal for his purpose. It was only with a great deal of effort that he was able to get his head and shoulders into the small cleft, but when he did, he discovered that the hole dropped down several feet into darkness. He pulled himself out, then tossed in a rock, which fell for a second before he heard it strike the bottom and roll farther down.

  Paul hauled the body to the dark opening and stuffed it in head first. He had to break one of the shoulder bones, but once that was done, the torso, hips, and legs went in smoothly. He kept pushing until gravity took the body, and the bare feet slipped from his grasp. Then came the sound a bag of potatoes might make tumbling down a slope, and all was silence.

  Paul lay exhausted for a minute, then swept the insects away with a wave, and piled branches and dead leaves in front of the small opening, approximating the vagaries of wind and time. Then he started back to where he had left Peter. On the way he prayed in a rough whisper.

  "Oh dear God, you've taken me this far, brought me as if by a miracle to the very place I sought so that I could save this boy. Now help me restore him to safety without having to give up my own freedom, so that I may do your will again. Please, God, I ask you in the name of your son, Jesus. Amen."

  Another thought came to him before he got back to Peter, and he added it. "Dear Lord, look with kindness on that sinner who stands before you this very day for judgment. Consider his confession and repentance...heal his illness, and grant him the joys of eternal innocence in paradise with thee. In Christ's name, Amen."

  I had to do it, he thought. He would have taken more children. But by ending his life while he was in prayer, I not only saved all those he would have sinned against, but I sent him to heaven through the grace of God.

  Peter was sleeping when Paul came back to him, and he picked up the boy and his torn clothing and carried them to the dead man's van. Paul wrapped his right hand in his shirt, and touched as little as possible. The keys were in the ignition, and he started the engine, turned
the van around, and drove carefully down the rutted dirt road.

  The day had faded into a humid twilight, the air made thick by moisture visible as gray mist. Paul stopped the van when he saw the main road. He knew that he should take no chance of being seen, but he had to get the boy into responsible hands. So he took a deep breath and let the van drift to the bottom of the hill. When he saw no traffic in either direction, he pulled onto the road, drove a short distance toward the other side road down which his car waited, and steered onto the shoulder.

  He took one last look at the boy, who was breathing easily now, opened the door, wiped everything he had touched with his shirt, then slipped on the shirt and backpack and got out of the van, closing the door with his foot. He took a handkerchief from his pocket, reached through the open window, and pressed the cloth against the emergency flasher button, turning it on. Then he ran off the road up a short incline of rock, and followed the trees at the top until they came out on the loose stone road to the overlook, where his car waited. Finally, he started home.

  But when he passed the van with its flashers blinking, he knew he could not desert Peter Hurst until someone had found him. If no one did, he would have to risk going to the hospital himself. He stopped a hundred yards away, around a curve in the road where he could just see, in his rear view mirror, the flashing lights of the van reflected on the rock sides of the Indian Hill cut.

  As it grew darker, several cars passed in either direction, but none slowed. After twenty minutes, a police car passed Paul and rounded the curve. He saw the red glow of its brake lights, and then, after a minute, the brighter, intermittent flash of its bubble top.

  Peter was found, and safe. Paul breathed a prayer of Thanksgiving, let his car drift down the hill, finally turned on the ignition, and drove home, free and unknown.

  Chapter 9

  The flashlight shining in his eyes woke Petey up. He looked at it for only a second, and pressed his eyes shut again. Then he started crying, partly at the memory of what he had had to do and what had been done to him, but mostly because of the way he hurt down there.

  Then he heard voices talking, a man and a woman, and after a while he realized that they were talking to him, and they were saying things like the bad man had said:

  "It's all right, honey, it's all right now, you'll be home soon."

  "We'll take care of you now, it's all right..."

  The same things the bad man had said every time before he did the bad thing. And maybe these new people were going to do the bad thing too, and he started to scream, and he kicked, even though kicking hurt him down there, but the new people grabbed his arms and legs and now he knew, he knew the bad thing was coming, and he pressed his legs together and panted no no no...

  "We're police...police," the woman's voice said, and Petey opened one eye and looked and gasped when he saw the big light shining on the woman, making her face look like a monster, and Petey was so scared that he couldn't close his eyes or scream or kick. And then the woman shined the light on her chest, and Petey saw the badge. And the man shined his light on his hat, and Petey saw that it was a policeman's hat, and he saw the red light turning around and around, and he finally believed, and he knew that he was as safe as he could ever be again.

  "See? You're okay now," the woman said gently. "We're gonna go to the hospital, and then you can go home to Mom and Dad."

  Petey went limp then, and let them carry him into the police car. The lady policeman held him while the man drove, and they were both very nice, and the lady who held him sang the hush-little-baby-don't-say-a-word song that Mommy used to sing to him, but the lady policeman didn't know all the words and had to hum a lot. But Petey thought the humming was even better than the words, because with the words he had to think too hard, and Petey didn't want to think right now, and the humming made Petey feel better.

  The hospital was scary because there were so many people and the lights were so bright, but when Petey was in a room with just the nurse, it was okay, and the doctor who came in was nice, and talked soft, and didn't tell Petey to do anything, but asked, telling Petey everything that he was going to do and why before he did it.

  The doctor and the nurse touched him down below, and Petey started to cry, but the doctor told him again that they had to make sure that Petey was all right, and they would do something so that it wouldn't hurt as much, and they were gentle and they told the truth, and when they were finished, it didn't hurt as much as it had before.

  The nurse took Petey to another room then, a pretty room with soft colors on the walls, and asked him if he wanted anything to eat, but he wasn't hungry. Then another lady came in who Petey thought wasn't a nurse because she wasn't wearing a white dress, and she told Petey that his Mommy and Daddy were coming soon, and that she was sorry, but she had to ask him some questions, and as soon as he answered them Mommy and Daddy would be here.

  "Do you know where the man is who took you, Peter?"

  Petey tried to remember, but the only thing he recalled was a loud noise and the other man, the man who looked familiar, standing there with a gun in his hand like they used in the G. I. Joe show that Daddy let him watch when Mommy wasn't home. But he didn't know where the man who did the bad thing was.

  "No," he said.

  "What did he look like, Peter?"

  Petey told her that he was tall, since all men were tall, and that his hair was light, and that he was skinny and had red marks on his face. The lady who wasn't a nurse made him say things over again, and Petey tried to make her understand, but it was hard.

  "Who put you in the van, Peter? The big car? When the police found you? Do you remember?"

  He did. It was the man with the gun, and he rocked him and was nice to him. And Petey knew that he had seen him before, but he didn't say anything to the lady, because he was too busy trying to remember when. He saw him when he was holding his gun, and then he closed his eyes, and he saw him later, later in that big car, when the good man got out of the big car, and Petey looked up and saw him through the window...

  Through the window. That was where he saw him before.

  Through the window.

  "Mistle...uncle-toe," Petey said softly.

  "Mister who?" the lady said, and then the door opened and Petey's mother came through, and she grabbed him so fast and so hard that it scared him. And when he looked up, Daddy was there too, and the nurse who had been nice to him.

  "Praise God, thank you Jesus," Mommy was saying into his hair, and he could hardly breathe, and pushed away from her, and he saw she was crying. He never saw Mommy cry before, and it scared him so much that he started to cry too. Then Mommy turned to the rest of the people and said, "Leave us alone. Leave us alone with our boy." The lady who wasn't a nurse didn't want to leave, but Mommy said something quick and mad that Petey didn't hear because he was crying so loud that his sobs were filling his ears, and everyone left the room then except for Mommy and Daddy.

  Mommy held him until he stopped crying, and he looked up at her.

  He had never before seen her look the way she did now. She had her mouth pressed shut so hard that the skin around it was getting white, and the holes in her nose looked real big. She still held him, but she looked at him as though he had done something bad, badder than anything he had ever done before, and though he knew she still loved him because she was his Mommy, even though she was his second Mommy, she looked like she was ashamed of him too. It was like the look she got when Daddy tickled him and he had to go to the bathroom and wet his pants, just a little, because Daddy made him laugh so hard that Petey couldn't help it. It was the look that told him he had done something bad.

  "Petey," she said, "what did you tell them?"

  "I...nothing. Say nothing. I didn't..."

  "Good. Don't. What happened to you was a bad thing, a very bad and filthy thing, and you don't have to tell anyone anything about it. Not ever."

  "I tell...you?"

  "No. No. You just forget all about it, you hear
me?" She was grabbing him by the shoulders now, and it hurt so much his eyes filled back up with tears. "You hear?"

  "Miriam," Daddy said, "don't scare him..."

  "This is important," Mommy said, spinning around to look at Daddy. "This gets out, it could ruin his life, don't you know that?" She looked back at Petey, and he didn't know how, but he knew that he had done something wrong, something dirty, a very, very bad thing.

  "You can tell them what he looked like, you can tell them whatever you know about who he was, but don't you say a word about the things you did when you were with him. I don't want you talking about it, I don't want you even thinking about it. It was a bad thing, and it's over."

  Petey looked at her and nodded, and for the first time he thought that maybe what happened was his fault too, that bad things happened to bad boys, and he remembered Mommy saying lots of times that if you were bad, God would punish you.

  Maybe that was just what happened. He was bad, and God punished him, and that was why Mommy was mad.

  He started to cry again, and Mommy hugged him, and Daddy hugged him, and he knew that he would have to show Mommy and God that he wasn't a bad boy, wasn't a dirty boy.

  He could, he would show them.

  From now on, Petey would always be a good boy.

  Chapter 10

  Though the nightmare of kidnapping and molestation remained in Peter's mind, it was, in its official and public capacity, only a brief footnote in his life. His name was never printed in the newspapers, and no details of a sexual nature were ever revealed. Though the medical examination indicated that Peter had been penetrated anally, this information was withheld from the public, and was never brought forth in a court of law, since William Davonier, the owner of the van and the man identified by Peter as his kidnapper, never faced trial.

  By the time investigators swarmed over Indian Hill, it had begun to rain heavily, a leaden, summer cloudburst that obliterated nearly every mark, tire track, and footprint that had been made in the woods the day before. It also washed away William Davonier's blood. Although hounds were brought to the hill the next morning, and taken into the van to get the scent, there was no trace left in the woods for them to follow. No one knew where William Davonier had gone, or why he had left Peter Hurst inside a van that was so easily traced to him. William Davonier, of all people, would not have wanted to be traced.