Henri Ville

by M. Chris Benner

"?and I could rob you any time I want, good sir. But I'm no crook. So make your accusations elsewhere."

  All of the town's metal was gone the next day, without incident.

  ***

  Wood flooded into Carpatheon every day yet it was never enough.

  The distillery was built outside town and construction had mostly finished, minus the boiler and a couple metal pipes - all of which was on Novak's list. (And even without a fully functioning distillery, Pellsley Grant was still able to make a passable whiskey.) The extra outhouses had been top priority, and the church was coming together quickly, but the barn remained skeletal and in its early stages. The stable boys gave up asking for help and instead took it upon themselves, working most of the day, every day, under Cant's direction. Drewbell worked with the boys, pulling her weight equally.

  They spent every night reading by campfire.

  The Nathans spent their time with the candle-maker but they would stop to join the boys on their breaks, all of them running through the town while playing their various games. Cant and Drewbell didn't join and would spend their time together alone. They'd often climb the hill outside of town to sit and look out over Carpatheon and beyond. It was a wonderful view, the town so small against the scope of the open horizon.

  Their hours together were often silent, just how they liked it.

  ***

  The first delivery consisted of cannons. Chaim didn't bring them into town but instead rode them miles and miles away, deep into the empty countryside, and he set them up in a wide curve.

  The cannons faced nothing but empty hills.

  ***

  Novak rode into town with several carriages following behind him.

  "Some of this stuff was harder to get than I thought. Mainly cause of my dresses, I think. Had to shoot a guy," he told Henri while she lay in bed.

  He had a glass of water and some pills in his hand.

  "Chaim had me pick these up for you. Vitamins, he calls 'em." Novak gave her a disconcerted look. "Says I'm to make sure you take them every day."

  Henri was mostly despondent, her face drained of color, but she took the tan, oblong pills and swallowed them with water.

  Novak felt reassured, at least momentarily, and continued as he had been.

  "And I got a Goddamn kerosene generator. Gotta assemble it but at least I don't have to mess with that Goddamn stupid steam one out back."

  ***

  Another caravan arrived soon after, this time with the smelting equipment. It would have to be set-up outside the town, a project that would take a good deal of manpower. Chaim decided the time had come to hold a meeting, and so he went about finding able-bodied men.

  ***

  Even though it was unnecessary, Novak focused more and more time tinkering with the steam generator. Assembly of the kerosene generator had to wait until the magnetite was gone but, even then, it was the principle of the thing - Novak didn't want a stupid generator beating him. And if there was one thing Novak didn't like, it was giving up. Defeat was one thing but quitting was entirely different.

  During breaks, he brought Henri food and sat with her. She had grown so weak, which was an odd thing to see. Her time was spent in bed. Whatever the sickness, it had gotten worse, then a little better; now she was always drained of energy, lethargic. Her waking hours were spent pouring over Anson Sharpe's notebook, drawing. The floor was littered with the failed attempts of extremely complex sketches, each one a series of networking lines and squares and points and labels. A few sketches were stuck to the wall - they were the ones she understood, the ones she could confidently recreate.

  "You ever feel like a quitter?" Novak asked Henri.

  Her eyes were half-open and her face had lost a lot of its color.

  "No," she answered.

  "Yeah, you don't strike me as the type. Something about the idea of quitting scares me, though. I don't know why. Maybe just 'cause it's there, you know, another ugly bastard standing next to failure and disappointment, watching you, waiting for their chance."

  There was a moment, then he added:

  "I miss my wife."

  He looked at Henri, gave a short nod, and left.

  ***

  Chaim gathered together all of the strong men in the town and held a meeting on the second floor of the apothecary. He had had a large chalkboard installed against one of the walls and he paced in front of it while the men watched. Back and forth he paced; then, he'd stop and his mouth would open but words escaped him. He would continue pacing, the men watching - back and forth - intently.

  Finally, he began.

  "I need your help."

  All of the men leaned in with anticipation, awaiting the next words?

  Chaim's head dropped and he began pacing again, one hand behind his back and the other moving out in front of him as if he was giving a great speech in his head.

  All of the men followed his every step, each of them held in suspense.

  "Help with what, sir?" asked one of the youngest of the men, finally breaking the silence.

  Chaim cleared his throat and rubbed his bald head?

  A look of determination crossed his face, as if the words had finally come to him, and he approached the board. The men couldn't see what he drew until Chaim took a step back. A single triangle was near the top center of the chalkboard. Chaim beamed at all the men like it was a great work of art. The confusion on the men's faces made him stop and turn back to the board. He stared at the image a moment and then returned to shade it in. He took a step back, thought a moment, then drew zig-zag, squiggle lines off the shaded triangle. Added clouds around it. And a large swirl coming down from it. To one side, he drew a trajectory and began littering the board with numbers. A height from the triangle to a line designating the ground. A measure of distance and wind velocity. On the other side, he started putting the numbers together. He backed up again. Returned, added a circumference beneath the swirl beneath the triangle. He smudged the eraser across empty spaces of the board and created the illusion of background hills. He stepped back once more, the wrinkles of his brow wrinkling further as he looked the many numbers over; then, with a shrug, he turned around and told the men, "We're going to smelt large chunks of magnetite into cannon balls and fire them into a tornado."

  ***

  Marielle took up residence at the end of the bar in Chaim's Saloon. She watched over the town's people much like Chaim did, and he took notice of her immediately. They didn't speak but often made eye-contact and shared brief smiles.

  Both were focusing the lion's share of their attention elsewhere.

  Every night, Chaim would decide where he and his men would need to devote their time the next day while Marielle did her best to oversee the girls in the saloon as well as her daughter, Rebecca, who had been wandering off for reasons she wouldn't explain. This worried Marielle since her daughter had never been one to keep secrets; it had to do with a boy, of that she was certain.

  ***

  Chaim paid Henri a visit one evening.

  "We're leaving tomorrow to finish setting everything up. Camp overnight, make sure everything is ready. Once we're ready, Novak's going to ride with you out there." He put the back of his hand against her forehead. "How are you feeling, kiddo? You don't look so well."

  Henri's cheeks were sallow.

  "I'll be fine."

  He smiled at her perseverance.

  "Are you ready to leave this place?" he asked.

  She had been thinking about that, and only that, lately.

  "Absolutely."

  Her voice still carried a definite strength, her resolution granite.

  "Good."

  "Do me a favor?" Henri Ville asked her old friend.

  "What's that?" Chaim asked, curious.

  "Tell me a happy memory of you and your wife."

  Slowly drifting to sleep, Henri listened as Chaim spoke of a vineyard he visited with his wife. There had been so many grapes, miles of plump purple balls. They
bought a few bottles of Cabernet and spent the day drinking and talking and getting lost. They made love against a tree.

  "It's odd," he told Henri, who appeared to be asleep, "because I remember these things. I remember what we did. At one point she said her foot hurt and I offered to carry her, sort of joking. She said not to bother because I could only carry her so far. Even at the time I remember thinking it was such a sad thing to say. But it was true. I also remember the sun. It was a shade of darker orange, or maybe it just looked that way because of where we were. It was one of the best days we had."

  Chaim stood up to leave.

  "I want to see the sun without being terrified," Henri muttered, her eyes closed.

  Chaim wasn't sure if she was talking in her sleep.

  He leaned over and kissed her forehead.

  "Rest, kiddo. Get your strength. Something tells me you'll need it."

  HOW TO DESTROY ANGELS

  I

  "She's gone. Rode out with some other fellow."

  "Where did she go?"

  "No one straight told me where she was headed or for what good reason."

  "Okay. Anything else? Anything I need to know?"

  "Oh, the saloon was fulla whores. Uhhhh? and some guy named Kam is in charge but he let out yesterday. Lot of the men-folk went with him. Just a bunch of women and chill'uns there now."

  "Very good."

  "Thank you."

  "Anything else?"

  "Umm?oh, yup. Get this - no one in the town got any weapons. They was all confiscamated-confisk?a?"

  "The weapons were confiscated? Why?"

  "They was building somethin' or somethin' - I didn' really understand. But a town fulla heathens and ain't none of them got knives or pistols or nuthin."

  "It would appear that God has opened the doors for us."

  "Yes'm."

  "Spread word that we're leaving the supplies here. Tell everyone to saddle up and be ready to ride out in thirty minutes."

  "Yes'm. And thank you for let-let-givin' me a importint job."

  "You're very welcome, Michael. Now please, go spread the word. There's no telling when the demoness will return and there is much of God's work to be done before she does."

  II

  Tall grass lulled calmly in the steady wind. A handful of wide pines were in the distance of the meadow. Overhead were varying shades of gray and blue, the clouds roaming like the tide of a river, their rolling shadows crossing the curves of vast, shallow hills. The mist-like outline of a mountain could be seen in the far horizon. Twenty-four cannons formed a half circle. (Six had been defunct; all of them from a civil war armory.) Three cannonballs of magnetite were near the base of every other cannon. Quarter-barrels of gunpowder were within reach. Fifteen men quietly waited. It was remarkable how well the countryside avoided silence, how there was always the sound of something, of air rushing over earth or an animal calling out; then came the clopping of two horses.

  Henri was on Dire and, when they stopped, she bent forward to pet the mare's neck and whisper in her ear. She had a new bandana across her face. The design was an intricate rosebud whose petals twisted out in dark red. It still had the appearance of a gothic smile except this one was warmer, more feminine. Novak had bought the bandana as a token of good luck before they left. He stopped just ahead of her, dismounted, and walked back to help Henri off her horse. She landed and hobbled a moment as if uneasy on her feet.

  "Ooooh man. Are you sure about this?" Novak asked.

  Henri answered with an absolute, "Yes."

  There were two hitching posts the men had recently built. Novak tied his and Henri's horses up with the others and joined Chaim, who was handing each of the men an unlit torch.

  Novak picked at the crotch of his jeans as he approached. Pants were uncomfortable, though he had no complaints about his long sleeved tee-shirt or the sturdy boots he purchased that morning. It was the first time he hadn't worn a dress in months.

  Chaim mistook him for a stranger and did a double take.

  "It's an odd Goddamn day when I'm put off by a man not wearing a dress."

  EARLIER THAT DAY

  Novak stared into his closet for several minutes.

  He was thinking about his wife, the smell of her hair in the morning. The time she had run from the outhouse because a spider had startled her. The last time he saw her laugh. It had been in sunshine, on a warm June evening. They had been walking, slowly, toward home down that long dirt road. He couldn't recall the joke but he remembered her eyes, and the sweet sound of her giggle. It wasn't but two months later she had passed on but that moment, he always remembers it as their last.

  He stared deeply into a satin gown, the one she often wore to bed.

  Her clothes in his wardrobe.

  Today, he decided, I must put my thoughts elsewhere.

  And Novak pulled open a drawer instead.

  ***

  The tension broke a bit after Chaim's comments on Novak's attire and everyone, including Henri, smiled.

  "Does anyone have questions?" he asked the entire group, once again stern.

  No one moved.

  "When do we fire?" Chaim hollered in a rehearsed call.

  "When you fire, sir," the men answered in unison, much like an army regiment.

  "When do we retreat?"

  Again, they answered together:

  "When you retreat."

  He turned to Novak and Henri.

  "Ready?"

  "Yes," she answered.

  Novak glanced at Henri before nodding.

  "Okay. You're going to ride out to that post." Chaim pointed to a hunk of wood several hundred yards away. "See it?"

  Novak nodded.

  Chaim locked eyes with the man.

  "Have you ever seen anything like this?" he thought a moment, "?like what's coming? Have you ever seen it before?"

  Chaim spoke the words as if they were a warning.

  Novak shook his head.

  "Good luck," Chaim chuckled. "It's a hell of a thing. By the way, your heart's going to beat out of your chest. Try not to go into cardiac arrest. Be careful." He moved his face closer to Henri's and repeated himself. "Be careful. Okay?" He exhaled deeply and turned back to the men.

  "Alright," then, yelling, "get to your battle stations!"

  The men scattered to their positions.

  III

  They rode to the post at a slow pace. Henri softly talked to her mare but Novak couldn't make out the words. Arriving, they stopped side-by-side and looked out across the open land.

  "Too bad it's so pretty," said Henri.

  Novak shot her an alarmed glance. His heart was already beating fast. Chaim's words had done the opposite of encouragement. He turned back to look at the line of cannons. Chaim was behind the farthest right cannon. Suddenly he began flailing his arms. Novak couldn't distinguish what direction he was signaling, if it was for them or to the men at the cannons.

  "I think Chaim?" and he trailed off.

  Henri wasn't on her horse. She had already walked away. Something dark was in her right hand. Part of it swayed in the wind. Fabric, with a rose on it. Novak saw each detail but had trouble putting them together.

  "Here I am," she called out to the sky, passionless.

  "Henri, get back to your horse. Where are you-stop!"

  Henri kept walking.

  Novak dismounted and ran to catch up, following a few feet behind.

  The bandana slipped from her fingers and caught on the wind. It passed Novak with a quick wave. For a short moment he resented her for releasing his present?but then he felt something, something tangible, a menace in the air that sent a chill through his body. Novak's eyes lifted and what he saw stopped his body from walking any further. The shades of blue had dimmed. Inside one of the clouds, he could make out a black rectangle. Jagged, lightning-shaped slivers of grey began extending from the small shape; these branches swelled, seeping and smearing and smudging in all directions. The darkness moved faster, dee
per, spreading like a wildfire. In less than two minutes, a murky, disquieting grey had fully overwhelmed the sky. The tiny black shape was no longer visible, having drank in every cloud within miles.

  Novak snapped out of it.

  For the first time he noticed all the cannon balls dug into the soil around him, obviously practice shots from the cannons.

  Henri was standing a few feet away, watching.

  "It's beautiful," she said, "and I've never hated something so much in my life. Every time I see it, there's a moment. Right now. This moment, just before it takes shape. You asked if I was a quitter? I think about quitting all the time. This moment, right now, I could stop running. There would be no more fights, no more trouble. No more home. It could swallow me."

  The clouds were moving in a wide, slow swirl.

  "This could be the end?" Henri reminded herself.

  Novak couldn't form words.

  The wind was gaining momentum.

  And then Henri turned around, dissatisfied. She strolled over to a frozen, awestruck Novak and hooked an arm in the crook of his elbow. He didn't notice until she pulled and forced him to stumble back. He shot her a bewildered look but she had already moved on. The horses were whinnying and it was lucky they hadn't run off. Novak sprinted to his horse, leapt up in one agile, fluid motion, firmed his seat, slapped the reins, kicked the horse, and rode back toward the cannons at full speed.

  Henri held Dire close for an extra moment.

  Their eyes met and she whispered, "Some things aren't fair, baby girl."

  Then a fire lit in Henri's eyes.

  And her posture straightened.

  And her grip became more firm, her face resolute.

  And she spoke two final words:

  "Not today."

  Henrietta Villanova then mounted her mare and rode back.

  IV

  Chaim repeatedly yelled "What the hell?" as Henri and Novak approached.

  They crossed the line of cannons and circled back.

  "Get a good look, did you?" Chaim's disgruntled scream was barely audible over the gushing wind.

  He turned and hollered at the men, "Torches!"

  None of the men reacted, either preoccupied with the swirling storm or just plain unable to hear the command over the storm's encompassing whoosh. Henri heard him, though, and she slid off Dire, handing Novak the reins before walking over to Chaim.