Feast for Thieves

by Marcus Brotherton

  “Well, we had some trouble in town, ma’am—” I started to say, but she was having none of my lip.

  “You sit right down, Reverend Rowdy. We got work to do, and I’m already late for my mail route. Today of all days is when I needed you here the most, and you failed me, boy. You failed me good.”

  I sat in the chair opposite the church secretary and set one boot on my knee. I was in no mood for her feisty ways today and I probed for the real reason behind her hurt. “What’re you talking about, Mert?”

  She shut her mouth tight, and that same mysterious expression appeared on her face, the same I’d seen the day she counted the money from the building campaign. Only this time it wasn’t near to a smile like it was then. Again, she looked to have reached a decision in her own mind, but I didn’t know what that decision might be. This time I chose to press the matter.

  “Mert.” I looked her straight in the eyes. “Come clean. What aren’t you telling me?”

  A long lump went down her throat. “I couldn’t believe you’d be late this morning, that’s all.”

  I leaned forward. “I know I’m late. But what’s really eating you, Mert?”

  She swallowed again. “I wanted to tell you something today—just as soon as I could. I’d made my mind up to tell you, and then you weren’t there, so I couldn’t.”

  “I’m here now.”

  Mert sniffed. “You know my husband, Clay?”

  “Of course.”

  “He’s been ailing real bad, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “He went for his medical treatments yesterday. I drove him up to Rancho Springs, and he had an operation yesterday afternoon. They needed to fly in a specialist and everything. I couldn’t stay with him in the clinic on account of the mail route, but the doctor telephoned Martha at the switchboard early this morning and relayed a message to me. Clay came through the operation fine.” She nodded for emphasis but still wasn’t smiling.

  “That’s good news, then, yeah?”

  “Of course it’s good news!” she snapped. “But this is why I needed you here this morning, Reverend.”

  I gave her a quizzical look.

  She sighed in annoyance. “It’s because of the building campaign money.” She shuffled in her chair, not finishing her thought.

  “Mert?”

  “I stole that money,” she said. “I stole it all! I stole it to pay for his dang-nabbed hospital bill!”

  NINETEEN

  My mouth hung open.

  I stared at this morally upright woman, my church secretary who’d selflessly worked to serve the church for the past eighteen years. “It was you who stole the twelve thousand dollars?” I said.

  “I’m not proud of it, Reverend, but it needed to be done. I lied to Clay—told him the money came from an encyclopedia sweepstakes I’d won. I know what I did was wrong, but I can’t go to jail. Clay’s going to need a heap of nursing when he comes home, and there’s nobody around here who can do that except me. I’m sorry for stealing, and that’s why I’m confessing my sin before you and God. I don’t know what else to tell, so that’s all I got to say about the matter.” Mert shut up entirely.

  I exhaled sharply and leaned back in my chair. I could feel my body sagging. The weight of what the woman was telling me was almost too much to wrap my mind around. “I honestly don’t know what to do right now, Mert.”

  “You going to tell the sheriff on me?”

  “No.”

  “That’s good. How come not?”

  “Because you’re correct—Clay will need a heap of nursing. And if you go to jail, that won’t help anybody right now.”

  “That’s what I reckoned you’d say.”

  “Still, you can’t go around stealing money.” I sat forward in my chair and stared at the woman. The irony of my words did not escape me, but all I could think to add was, “Let’s give it a week. A few days more maybe. We’ll both set ourselves to studying the situation. Maybe we can come up with a better plan forward—a plan that satisfies both justice and mercy.”

  Mert nodded. “I best be off, Reverend. Mail’s waiting.” She patted me on the shoulder, not unkindly, and walked out of the office.

  I knew the real reason I wasn’t going to tell on her. I’d been in the exact same position as her once—in fact, my secret crime still burned within me. Oh, I was fairly certain Halligan Barker knew the truth, or at least he had a solid hunch it was me who robbed the bank. But I’d never paid in jail time for that crime—not specifically, not in how Lady Justice was bound to see the matter. All I’d done was grown remorseful, confessed the crime to myself and God, and then escaped punishment because of Halligan’s bargain. How could I, in good conscience, turn Mert in to the law for doing much the same thing?

  My mind whirled—this crazy preaching job was getting harder by the minute. Undoubtedly I had a legal responsibility as a reverend to report an actual crime—which this was, but … somehow I couldn’t bring myself to report this one. It was too much like my own. Besides, I figured, the church money was gone now anyway, spent on Clay’s operation. The church wouldn’t get the money back neither way.

  I walked outside Mert’s office and around to mine. The door was unlocked, same as always, and I sat behind the desk I seldom sat at and took out the big old Bible I kept there. Bobbie had lent me a smaller one to use for study that I kept in the parsonage. But this one held a warm place in my heart. It was the first I’d preached out of, so many months ago now. I flipped to any old random page. My finger landed at the beginning of Jonah. The entire book of Jonah was only two pages long, and right then and there I read it straight through in ten minutes. All seemed like a big fish story to me.

  Sure, I got the point of Jonah’s story—it wasn’t hard to get—but I didn’t quite know what to do with that information. Jonah was a prophet of old who was told by God to go preach against a wicked city named Nineveh. Jonah didn’t want to do it—fulfill his calling, I mean. He wasn’t an eager preacher; he was a reluctant reverend, same as me. So he sprinted the other direction, got tangled up with some sailors, launched himself into a storm, and got tossed overboard from the deck of a ship. A big fish swallowed him whole, and there the man sat and stewed in its juices. I liked how the second chapter began in my King James. “Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish’s belly.” Well, in all the history of literature, that was undoubtedly its crowning understatement.

  But then good things began to happen. God heard the prayer and ordered the fish to puke Jonah onto dry land where Jonah got his marching orders again. This time Jonah obeyed. He hiked to Nineveh, told all the folks they was about to be destroyed, and then—this is where Jonah the man turned peculiar in his ways—all Jonah did was sit back with a big grin on his face.

  Peculiar indeed. There sat Jonah condemning folks right and left, waiting on God’s justice to strike them all dead. But those same folks got busy with their confessions. They turned real humble, dressed in sackcloth to mourn their failings, and dumped ashes on their heads to show sorrow. God saw the city turn from its evil ways, and instead of throwing justice at them, God showed mercy. In the end, those city folks didn’t get a lick of what they deserved.

  Maybe that’s what I was doing now with Mert Cahoon—trying to hold forth mercy to her. She was genuinely sorry for what she’d done. At least I think she was. She was sorry like I was sorry, and the sheriff having mercy on me was similar to me having mercy on Mert.

  But, oh that Jonah. That wasn’t all there was to his story, for he continued his fussed-up ways. He was like Deputy Roy, wanting nothing except law. A crime was committed, Jonah reckoned, and even now, in spite of the city folks’ repenting, God needed to call down wrath on the Ninevites. Jonah got plain mad and worked up a big head of steam. He went outside the city and sat near a wall to sulk. It must have been hotter than a Texas summer afternoon because a vine grew over his head, one that provided a relief of shade, but right away that vine withered and died. Jonah grew s
o irate he declared a desire to die.

  “Well, look at you in all your huff and puff,” God said, or words to that effect. “You’re so fired up about a dead vine, Jonah. If that’s how you feel about something so small as a vine withering, then why aren’t you concerned about all the folks in the city? There’s a hundred and twenty thousand people living in Nineveh, and you and your outrage want to bury them all.”

  Jonah didn’t have a smart answer to that, I guess, because that’s where the book ends—with God’s thoughts and not Jonah’s. God’s question is left hanging, jagged and without a conclusion, a question raised without an answer received. I closed up the Bible, and right then I got a small idea what to do about Crazy Ake.

  The vine provided a clue. Not in any mystical way. It was just that the wood of the vine made me think of the wood of the tree stand. One of the jobs I applied for months ago was with the Angelina County Lumber Company out of Keltys, Texas. For years they was known for their selective cutting of high quality Southern yellow pine. It’s the forest behind the mill that counts most, was their motto.

  Well, we could log the tree stand and pay our debts. Replant trees and keep the forest growing. We could pay back whatever Mert took to keep her husband alive, and somehow I could get the church folks to pay back what I owed Crazy Ake too.

  Hoo boy. I sat back in instant deflation and rubbed my face with my hands. It was a foolish idea, and I knew it already. There were a trillion holes with the plan and Crazy Ake would never go for it. Shoot—the church folks wouldn’t neither. How would I ever explain to them why I needed to pay Crazy Ake. He robbed your bank, see, and now I still owe him.

  I put that foolish plan far out of my mind, then ran back over to the parsonage and clattered up the front steps. It was only 1 p.m., and Crazy Ake wasn’t set to come around until dark. I wanted to get my rifle ready, to put it in a position where I could reach it easy. If it came to a showdown, then I wasn’t going down without a fight.

  Now, if I was truly watching over my shoulder for the evil that was following me, I would have noticed that the handle to the parsonage doorknob was warm. Too warm. But I was in too much hurry to reach the rifle. Straightaway through the front door I heard a voice that wasn’t mine and knew I’d made a deadly mistake.

  “Wasn’t expecting you so soon.” The voice came from out of the front bedroom, the one with the crib and cots.

  I whirled to face the man.

  “Take it easy, boy,” Crazy Ake said. “I ain’t gonna shoot you without my money in hand first.” He laughed and emerged from the shadows. “Maybe we could cook up a little grub first. You hungry?”

  My heart pounded in my chest. “I … I don’t keep any food in the parsonage.”

  “Well, that’s a shame. A crying shame. No food except coffee? How about brewing me a cup?”

  I nodded and turned toward the kitchen. Another mistake. Such a tiny mistake it was—turning my back on Crazy Ake. Did I really think he wanted a cup of coffee?

  A sudden thud sounded on the side of my head. It was one of those star-seeing whacks you hear about in books but can’t quite describe until it happens to you. My knees grew soggy but I kept standing. Crazy Ake walloped me again with his rifle’s butt. My mind reeled. My head wasn’t thinking straight but I spun around anyway and moved to get my guard up. The next blow flew toward my chin. The rifle came at me too fast for me to stop.

  He set the rifle down on the floor so as not to damage it, I reckoned. I recoiled, and another blow came to my cheekbone with his fist. I was staggering now, wobbling on my feet. He slugged me in the gut and I was finished. I coughed and hacked and went to my knees, struggling for my next breath. Last thing I remember seeing was his boot fly toward my jaw.

  After that I knew no more.

  “Ain’t no cash at all, ain’t that right?” came an angry voice.

  I struggled to open my eyes.

  Crack! Crazy Ake hit me bare-knuckled on my face. I struggled to sort out my surroundings. We were still in the parsonage, I could see by the familiar floor, though I was tied now with ropes to one of my hard-backed chairs. A gag was stuffed in my mouth. I tried to glare at him. My mind blurred.

  Crack! Crazy Ake busted his fist against my jaw again. My head felt on fire. He drug over another chair, turned it around backward, and sat down in front of me. He picked up his rifle in his left hand. He was about three feet away, and I could smell the sweet-ugly scent of whiskey on his breath.

  “You think I’m stupid, Rowdy? You haven’t gone anywhere since we last spoke. No digging. No tracking. No traveling to old barns. All you did since our last talk was cut trees!” Crazy Ake’s voice rose and he yanked the gag free of my mouth. “What have you done with my money? Answer me when I speak to you!”

  I spat blood and managed a frown. “How much you wanna know?”

  “Just tell me where it went!” He slapped the side of my head.

  For a moment I saw stars, then my head cleared and I said, “It’s all back in the bank.”

  “Back in the bank?!” the man spluttered. He was frothing at the mouth again and he stood up, paced from one side of the parsonage to the other, then sat back down and tried to breathe so it wasn’t uneven. “Now … why in the name of all that’s hallowed would our money go back to the bank?”

  I tried to steady my breathing. The man was as loony as he was wily, and I knew he didn’t want to hear the full truth. All he wanted was a solution to getting rich—and I didn’t have one, same as him. What was I gonna say—Take a seat, Crazy Ake, and lemme tell you a fun story about a war hero turning into a preacher, about a fella overcoming his less-than-stellar past. I spat again. Well, my past was catching up to me now. The key for me was to be as truthful as possible without revealing more than he wanted to know. I found my voice: “I encountered the sheriff, and the sheriff struck a bargain with me. I need to fulfill my role as preacher for one year, or else he’ll come down on me with the full weight of the law. That’s what I’ve been doing this whole time.”

  Crazy Ake shook, like he didn’t have any place to land with this information. “What kind of idiot follows a plan like that?”

  “The plan kept me out of jail.” I tried to shrug nonchalantly and not reveal to him my changed ways. That was too much information for him to handle in his escalated state. “The sheriff is head of the deacon board. It’s a rough town. He reckoned I could do the job.”

  Crazy Ake slapped my head once more for good measure, then snorted in disgust—“So you’re a real reverend. Well, I doubt that.” I could see his eyes were working in his head. Working hard. He was already on to the next thing. He didn’t want to kill me so much as he wanted his loot, and it takes at least two fellas to rob any place of substance. He wanted me alive more than he wanted me dead.

  “I agree that staying out of jail is respectable,” he added. “But lost cash is lost cash, so here’s what we’re going to do. We’re gonna finish this job and we’re gonna do it right this time. Up in Rancho Springs, I know folks there—and one got his hands on a Kraut 88. Know what that is, boy?”

  I nodded.

  “His gun’s on wheels. He assembled it for me once just to brag. Only took two and a half minutes. It could shoot down a plane if needed. But we don’t need to shoot down no plane. All we need is a vehicle big enough to haul it, and that’s where you and the DUKW come in.” He grinned. He’d already worked out a new plan.

  I tried to swallow and spat again.

  “The job won’t be at Cut Eye this time,” Crazy Ake continued. “The bank in Rancho Springs holds ten times as much. We’ll wait until nightfall, haul the gun to the side wall, and blow a hole clear through. We’ll use my truck as a getaway vehicle, same as last time, but we’ll have a third man stay in my truck to keep it running. I reckon we’ve got a solid five minutes from the time the blast hits to when the law shows up. You and I will sprint into the vault, fill as many sacks as we can carry in three minutes, and shuttle out the loot to the truck in a jif
fy. You savvy all that? Answer me, boy. Yes or no.”

  I paused and knew in the predicament I was in there was only one option I could choose and stay alive. Slowly I answered, “Yes.”

  He busted me on the jaw with his fist again. “You were a military man, Rowdy!”

  I nodded.

  He smiled wide. “When you address me, you say ‘yes sir.’”

  TWENTY

  Crazy Ake’s truck was parked in the bushes a quarter mile down the road. He left his rifle on my kitchen table so as not to be seen, pulled a .38 special out of an ankle holster around his lower leg, and kept the revolver aimed at my back as we walked down Lost Truck Road to retrieve his vehicle.

  “Why you carry a tow bar?” I asked, nodding with my chin toward a mess of tools he kept in back of his pickup.

  “For stealing police cars. Now shut up and get a move on. You drive.”

  Crazy Ake slid into the passenger’s seat, and when we got back to the parsonage he had me hitch up his truck to the rear of my DUKW with the tow bar, then come inside while he retrieved his rifle. We headed back outside and he stored his rifle in the cab of his truck for safekeeping and kept his revolver pointed at me.

  We climbed in the DUKW and I started the engine, then backtracked down Lost Truck Road, turned left on Highway 2, and headed through Cut Eye with him sitting in the seat beside me, his revolver pointed low and out of sight toward my stomach. His truck rattled along nicely behind us, and to anyone who saw it, it looked like their preacher was giving a neighborly pull to a fella whose truck broke down and needed a tow. Gummer wasn’t at his filling station when I pulled up, and I felt a bit of panic brush over me, although I didn’t have a plan for tipping him off anyway. I topped up both of the DUKW’s tanks as well as the gas tank in Crazy Ake’s truck, and we headed northward up Highway 2 for the four-hour drive to Rancho Springs.

  The DUKW roared along easily at an even 45 m.p.h. My face must have looked a mess, but Crazy Ake had the good sense to scrunch a ball cap tight on my head while we were still back at the parsonage and throw aviator sunglasses over my eyes. He’d been planning on beating my face for a while, I gathered. We didn’t talk none as we drove. There wasn’t nothing more to say. I knew I was being commandeered into doing another bank job with him, and for the time being the only plan I could think of was to shut up and keep driving.