Golgotha Falls

by Frank De Felitta

  Cardinal Kennedy held his hand out the window, slowing down the procession, and gazing nervously at the limousine behind him.

  It was then that Mario saw the white and gold papal flags fluttering on each fender of the last Cadillac in the convoy. Within its deepest recess, the visage of Francis Xavier, the Pontiff himself, stared questioningly back into Mario’s stricken eyes.

  All at once Anita’s words came hurtling back at him: “He feeds on priests . . . he’s after bigger game . . . !” And his own cynical response: “And who would that be? . . . The bishop? . . . The Pope? . . . Jesus Christ Himself? . . .”

  Anita believed Eamon to be in danger of the Antichrist. Was that what had ultimately possessed him?

  Or was it, as Mario still tried to believe, an uncanny power of psychic projection out of the priest?

  Could that power have gone beyond Harvard? Into, say, the cathedral of Boston, into the minds of clerics and prelates there? Or further, further than the cathedral, into the very heart of the universal Church, to mesmerize, falsify, and torture with its extraordinary primal rage of personal pain?

  Either way, only he knew the danger into which the papal entourage was driving with such blind assurance.

  “Go back!” he shouted, waving his arms before the startled Pontiff. A police car moved out of the cavalcade, heading for the intruder. The two motorcycles converged on him.

  “For Christ’s sake get out of here!” Mario yelled, rushing at the Pope’s Cadillac and beating his fists against the bullet-proof glass. “IT’S A TRAP!”

  Instantly the two motor policemen tackled him. They struggled in the dust. Mario kicked, bucked, and threw himself forward, crawling on hands and knees.

  “THE PRIEST IS MAD!” Mario shouted.

  A nightstick crashed down on top of his head. He fell, but did not lose consciousness. The police car stopped beside the Pope’s limousine and two more policemen jumped into the clouds of swirling dust, revolvers drawn.

  “The priest is—” Mario tried to say, his arms twisted and handcuffed behind his back, legs kicking out into the air.

  Two more police dismounted on the crest of the ridge and with revolvers drawn examined the edge of the birch woods for further interlopers.

  The chief’s squad car drew up to the handcuffed Mario. “Get him in the patrol car!” he grunted from his open window. “Keep a sharp eye on him!”

  Mario felt himself lifted, then thrown bodily into the rear of a car, behind a mesh that separated him from the front seat.

  Slowly the limousines moved forward and continued their descent into Golgotha Valley.

  “Get out of here!” Mario bellowed, kneeling toward the patrol car window. “It’s a—”

  A rough fist stopped the shout. Mario fell slowly against the glass. He saw dessicated fields below and the dark, shadowy form of the Jesuit inside the church.

  “. . . trap . . . God . . . stop him . . .”

  Disgusted, the policeman in the front seat closed the wire barrier.

  “Loony bastard,” he said.

  From the squad car’s vantage point parked on the ridge, Mario had a mezzanine view of the unfolding drama. Further up the ridge the papal party was congregating, arranging itself for its triumphal entry into the Church of Eternal Sorrows. Below, a steady stream of incoming traffic inched its way toward the throng already gathered before the church.

  “Christ,” the policeman commented. “Looks like all Boston’s come out for this circus.”

  Mario threw himself forward against the restraining cage. “The Pope . . .” he stammered through gritted teeth. “He’s in mortal danger!”

  The policeman turned and stared at Mario. “Why?” he asked dryly. “Are there more of you?”

  Mario edged closer to the wire. “The Jesuit priest inside the church,” he rasped. “He’s got a gun!”

  The policeman scrutinized the burly figure in the back seat. “Where would he get a gun?”

  Mario licked his lips. The police hostility was far more intense than anything he had experienced from the campus cops. These men were accustomed to violence. Mario had the impression they’d be glad to work him over a bit with their nightsticks.

  “I—I had a revolver. He stole it.”

  “You licensed to carry a gun?”

  “No—”

  The policeman leaned intently toward the wire divider. Flickering shadows of the morning sun passing through trees dappled his face.

  “Who are you working for?” he asked tautly. “Some revolutionary group?”

  “Goddamn it!” Mario shouted. “I’m trying to tell you the priest in that church is insane! He’s capable of psychic projection! He can deform thought! He can make you see Satan!”

  The policeman blinked, staring at Mario. Then, without warning, he burst out laughing. He laughed so hard he had to wipe his eyes with a handkerchief. His partner behind the wheel joined in the hilarity.

  “Satan!” the policeman gasped, drying his eyes. “Dear God— Satan!” Focusing his red-rimmed eyes on Mario, he shook his head. “You want to see Satan, mister, you don’t have to go to Golgotha Falls to find him. We can show you Satan right in our precinct house. We got a man there killed his brother, raped his sister. We got a sweet little lady put strychnine in the milk of schoolchildren. Satan is everywhere you look, buddy!”

  Defeated, Mario slumped back in his seat. Miserably he stared at the spectacle below. The Catholic Church, following its nose for exploitation, was transforming the twentieth century’s clearest proof of the paranormal into a religious bacchanal.

  Mario could take on Harvard, Dean Osborne, Eamon Malcolm. The police of the world. False sentiments and illusions, backed by the almighty Catholic Church. But not all together, in concert. Not handcuffed in the rear cage of a police car, forgotten and disdained by anyone in power.

  The bitter residue of complete defeat left salt on Mario’s lips.

  “All right, you bastards,” he whispered. “You’ve been warned.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Francis Xavier stood on the ridge of Golgotha Valley. The ground below was ashen gray, disturbed by a breeze that shifted the sediment of the clay at the river. Lilies poked up from the slopes and purple irises shimmered on the banks. A smell of smoke curled down through the valley.

  In the deepest part of the valley, where the wind-blown dust and ash circled, stood the white clapboard church.

  Francis Xavier studied the Church of Eternal Sorrows.

  “It’s not what I imagined,” he murmured. “Not what I expected at all.”

  Cardinal Bellocchi peered down past the shivering scrub brush and brambles at the edge of the cemetery. A motion at the church door caught his attention. The church’s Jesuit sensed he was being observed, and ducked abruptly back inside.

  “I don’t like it,” Cardinal Bellocchi said worriedly.

  Crowds had gathered before the church and along Canaan Street. Their faces were filled with an agitated expectancy as the police firmly took up stations around them.

  A need appeared in their eyes, something coming from deep within their worn bodies and beaten spirits.

  The robes of the Pope filled out in the wind. He rubbed his hands together against the morning chill. “It’s a desolate place. As are the caverns of hell, and Christ’s tomb.”

  In the restless ash and fields of the valley encompassing the church Francis Xavier saw a curious mixture of Christ and Satan, life and death, struggling with each other to a bitter, savage end.

  The crackle of police car radios and the low commentary of radio and television crews rose with the breeze. A droning murmur came from the crowds who pressed impatiently against the police lines. From the north and the south a steady procession of cars and trucks moved sluggishly into the town, converging on the white church.

  Then the church bell tolled; each peal strong, commanding, vibrant. Francis Xavier saw the heads of the crowd jerk in the direction of the white steeple, and with each clang of th
e iron bell, press forward in a massive phalanx. Police and secret servicemen nervously spread out in a vain effort to contain the hordes.

  “Yes,” Francis Xavier whispered. “It is here. It is now.”

  At a signal from Francis Xavier the Jesuits lifted the wooden boxes onto their shoulders and prepared to descend the dusty ridge.

  “We are in the living presence of evil,” Francis Xavier cautioned. “Trust in Christ and observe the signs of His tormentor.”

  The Jesuits, pale, hair blown wildly by the increasing dry wind, licked their lips and nodded.

  The newsmen could not comprehend why the Pope stayed so long on the ridge, nor why the limousines had stopped there at all.

  Bishop McElroy edged back, closer to Francis Xavier. The crowds below were pushing upward against the police lines, and the dark hunger in their eyes looked to him like some barely muted animal rage. Cardinal Kennedy, too, felt an ominous emotional density in the valley.

  “Extraordinary. Really extraordinary,” spoke the WABC commentator into his microphone. “Francis Xavier, simply by seeking out an isolated parish church, which boasts only a single Jesuit priest, has galvanized Catholics and non-Catholics alike. This valley, like the airport and the suburbs, is filled with an expectancy and hope I have never witnessed before.”

  Stepping onto the valley floor, Francis Xavier clenched the black rosary tightly.

  “Let us begin,” Francis Xavier said. The Pope walked into Golgotha Valley.

  Steam rose at each step.

  Bishop McElroy, astounded, drew back. Cardinal Bellocchi pulled the bishop onward by the crook of the elbow. Behind them came the Jesuits carrying the boxes, and the undersecretary of the papal state and his assistant, dressed in carmine robes and capes.

  Cardinal Kennedy fell behind Cardinal Bellocchi. As they walked down along the edge of the cemetery toward the mass of worshipers, an acidic scent assailed his nostrils.

  A policeman drinking coffee by his motorcycle in front of the grocery store looked behind him. Canaan Street steamed from the fissures in the old asphalt, rising above stalled cars, trucks, and the crowd.

  Francis Xavier advanced toward the Church of Eternal Sorrows, photographed by three television teams.

  Two secret servicemen stepped out of the church. All they had found inside was a lone Jesuit preparing the mass and some electronic cables and equipment they assumed belonged to WABC.

  Like sheep before the shepherd, farmers, townspeople, and out-of-towners massed before the church door in anticipation of Francis Xavier.

  A cameraman for WSBN waited in the rubble mounds for a good shot. A cacophony of competing radio and television commentators jabbered over his head, and the dust swirled up from the boots and shoes of the multitude. At last the head of Francis Xavier came into view, framed against a clear blue sky.

  The Pope looked at him through the lens. The cameraman felt a sudden suspension of weight and time. It was his first experience with charisma. Then it was over. His camera swung around as nearly two thousand people, worshipers in total awe of Christ’s surrogate on earth, fell back and cleared a path for him and his holy entourage.

  From the north a white Volkswagen van raised a cloud of gray dust in the morning sun.

  The van screeched to halt at the police roadblock, skidding halfway around on the broken asphalt, sending bits of pavement flying.

  Instantly two patrolmen advanced with their hands on their revolvers.

  Anita stuck her head out from the driver’s side. The van now straddled the road, from which point she could look down the gentle slope toward Golgotha Falls. Steam wavered up from the streets. Police and reporters milled about, and along the rooftops were stationed more police in plain clothes.

  In the clay hollow, among the crowds of people massed before the church, she saw the mechanic Fred Waller, the eccentric spinster Miss Kenny, and the grocery store clerk. Then she spotted the carmine cape of a cardinal, his hands folded together, moving majestically through the masses before the church.

  Anita stepped out of the van. Why were all those people here? Where was Eamon Malcolm? Where was Mario? Then she saw another prelate, wearing a shimmering white cape and skullcap, appearing in advance of the marching group.

  She turned to the approaching patrolman.

  “Who are those church officials? Why are they in Golgotha Falls?”

  “They’re part of the Vatican party,” said the first patrolman.

  Anita stared at him. “The Vatican party—” her lips formed silently, as she stepped further up the asphalt road.

  The patrolman’s arm stopped her.

  “That’s about as far as you go, lady,” he said. “The town is filled with all the people it can hold.”

  She shook off the hand. In the rising gray dust below she saw a familiar figure approach the church door.

  “Who is that man?” she said, her voice flat and slow.

  “Now who do you think he is?” smiled the patrolman.

  Anita studied the olive-skinned face under the white skullcap. An aggressive face, a worried face, yet alight with confidence and determination.

  Anita looked above at the ridge. There were three parked black limousines, one of which bore the fluttering papal flags on the fenders. Suddenly the presence of so many policemen made an awful, unmistakable sense. Suddenly she knew who the familiar figure was.

  Dean Osborne had climbed out of the van and was standing by her side. “What’s happening down there?” he asked her.

  “I can’t believe it,” she whispered in shock. The words she had used to warn Mario now assailed her. “He’s collecting priests . . . These are only steppingstones!”

  Suddenly Anita broke away, running toward the church.

  “No!” she shouted. “God, NO!”

  “What’s your problem, lady?”

  “You’ve got to stop him! He mustn’t enter that church!”

  “Stop the Pope? It’s his church!”

  Through the roseate window, Anita vaguely glimpsed the black form of the Jesuit at the altar. He moved in a stealthy way, reptilian, and not at all like Eamon.

  “No, it isn’t! It isn’t his church at all!”

  Francis Xavier clutched the black rosary as he stepped onto the threshold of the church door.

  The crowds pressed against the police lines. Many of the police crossed themselves as the Pope knelt on the threshold and kissed the ground. Then, rising, Francis Xavier in a loud voice called, “Where is the priest who brought us here?”

  The church door slowly opened.

  The figure of Father Eamon Farrell Malcolm humbly knelt in the vestibule. He held out his hand to Francis Xavier, who stepped over the threshold and into the Church of Eternal Sorrows.

  Standing in the sunlight, Cardinal Bellocchi dimly saw the face of the Jesuit. It was the face of an unabsolved man. The shadowed eyes were confused, dangerous, and driven by a mute horror.

  Eamon reached for the extended hand of Francis Xavier, pursed his lips, and kissed in obedience the gold Ring of the Fisherman.

  Cardinal Bellocchi quickly ran toward the church threshold.

  “No, Your Holiness!” he shouted. “That priest is not absolved!”

  Eamon rose quickly, turning to Cardinal Bellocchi. The Jesuit’s eyes narrowed, and a reddish glint came from their depths. A malevolent grin displayed sharp, white teeth, and a black tongue flicked out of the lips.

  Cardinal Bellocchi drew back sharply, covering his face in the stench.

  “Baldoni’s mine!” rasped a strange voice out of the Jesuit. Whereupon the oaken door slammed shut with a resounding reverberation, cutting off Cardinal Bellocchi at the threshold.

  Cardinal Bellocchi rapped desperately on the door, then pulled on the handle with all his strength.

  “Open the door!” he shouted hoarsely.

  “Not until Christ Himself touches the bolt!” came the twisted voice from inside the vestibule.

  The Vatican Jesuits lowered their
wooden cases and ran to join Cardinal Bellocchi at the door. They pulled at the handle, pounded, tried to jimmy the hinges, but the simple wooden door, glistening in the sunlight of Golgotha Falls, was obdurate.

  Cardinal Bellocchi, dismayed, trembling with premonitions of catastrophe, walked weakly back from the door as beyond he heard, “Come, Baldoni,” hissed by a voice like an insect’s. “Come with me to my altar.”

  The police and secret servicemen beat against the door furiously. It was no use. The door was closed with a preternatural force.

  “Get the axes!” commanded the police chief. “Break it down!”

  Two policemen wielding heavy axes strode up to the door and raised them above their heads. At the very first contact of steel against wood a bolt of lightning and a shower of fiery sparks sent the axes flying from their hands and their bodies hurling senseless to the ground. The mob and prelates fanned back in terror.

  In despair Cardinal Bellocchi looked through the Gothic window. Francis Xavier, face white in the light of a strange and flickering yellow altar lamp, walked toward a gleaming white altar. The black-cassocked Jesuit, obsequiously bowing and leading the way, led him toward the center of his own unholy domain.

  Francis Xavier walked calmly beside Eamon, down the central aisle, examining the face of the Jesuit. In that agonized, arrogant visage there were two souls: one in supplication to be freed, and a second filled with a venomous hatred.

  For a long time neither spoke, each taking the measure of the other.

  Francis Xavier turned to observe the details of the nineteenth-century church: the modest architecture, the spare pillars and rafters, the straightforward Gothic windows. It had neither the splendor of Rome nor the stone crudeness of San Rignazzi.

  The light of day ceased at the windows. Removed from the external world of matter and appearance, the church atmosphere flickered in the light from the yellow altar lamp.

  “I would love to have served in such a church,” the Pope said softly.

  Francis Xavier turned to Eamon. In those eyes he saw, overwhelming the nature of the man within, the ancient power that had tormented him from San Rignazzi to Boulogne to the Vatican. In the abode now of evil’s creation, Francis Xavier would either expel the defilement from the Jesuit and his church or suffer himself the excruciating death of the soul.