Lord of Order

by Brett Riley

  Mister Royster will be pleased, he said to Melton. Do you need anything?

  Melton indicated the crew. Replacements. These rogues are almost played out.

  I’ll make it happen. In the meantime, if these ask for a bath, give it to them. They stink worse than hell itself.

  He spurred his horse and headed back toward the Temple.

  15

  That night, Jack Hobbes slipped through the clanking Troublers. He went afoot, just as Troy had ordered, his injured arm held tightly against his body. Later, he would hoof it back home or, if that seemed too risky, spend the night in the church. He was not worried about anyone asking why he looked so tired. No one slept well these days. Too much noise and too many problems.

  Still, Hobbes dreaded the rendezvous with Stransky. She just plain bugged him, what with her looking at a man like she planned to fornicate with him and then bite off his head. She had looked at him that way, at least, both when they caught her and as they broke her out of the tower.

  Well, we all got our crosses to bear. Ain’t never shirked mine.

  The sisters’ spire rose against the half-moon sky. It had always seemed sinister, housing all those popish ceremonies and nuns’ cold faces. Would have run em out long ago if it had been my call. But I would have been wrong. They’re useful. Besides, Gabe and Sister Sarah are sweet on each other. Foolish, but when did love ever make sense?

  Hobbes scanned the road, the outlying buildings, even the rooftops. He could not afford for anyone to see a deputy lord visiting the Catholics this late. If someone did, he would have to kill them, and he did not want murder on his conscience.

  Unless it’s Benn or Clemens. Could shoot them bootlickers, dump em in the river, and sleep like a babe.

  Nothing moved, so Hobbes sprinted down the street, up the steps, and through the double doors. The air in the sanctum was so hot it smelled burnt. Sarah was absent, but a bareheaded woman sat on the front pew, a lamp on the altar bathing her in a pool of muted light. He barely recognized her. Dark hair, clean and silky, spilled to her shoulders. Before, it had looked like a wet skunk pelt. With his good hand, Hobbes untied the rawhide holding down his gun. He did not like the thought of killing inside a house of worship, but he would do as he must.

  He stepped on a creaky floorboard. She stood and turned to him, her face lost in the gloom.

  Jacky, Stransky said as he walked up the aisle, cute as ever.

  Hobbes scoffed. Might as well bury that bone. Got nothin to say about it.

  She shrugged. Fine. Pull up a pew, asshole.

  Stransky sat. She wore a pair of deerskin pants and a cotton top. Her face looked fuller. The sisters had been feeding her. Her skin was ruddy but clean. If she had been anyone else and they had been anywhere besides a church, Hobbes might have found her fetching.

  He looked away. Remember she’s a rattlesnake.

  She patted the pew and grinned. Hobbes cleared his throat and sat a good five feet away.

  Ain’t much to tell, he said. But he told it anyway.

  My people’s been watchin them prisoners and talkin to em all casual like, she said when he had finished. Most of em seem like what you Crusaders would call upright citizens. I think your boy Rook’s gettin a jump on the Purge by sendin a shitload of regular folks down here to drown.

  Hobbes wiped sweat from his brow. Only got her word on this, but don’t see no sign of falsehood. Or maybe I just wanna believe her because she’s been straighter with me than my own superiors. Regular folks, he said.

  I know you’d like proof, Stransky said. But all you’re gonna get is somebody’s word. Mine, whatever prisoner you talk to, or Royster’s. The sooner y’all figure out we’re in the same boat, the better chance we’ll have.

  The scorched air hurt to breathe. Was this what drowning would feel like once the levees were gone? Would your body float? For how long? Would it bloat and rot? Would some river creature consume your dead flesh? Would it rip you apart or take you a bite at a time?

  Hobbes’s hands shook. Calm down. Don’t show weakness.

  Be in touch, he said.

  Don’t take too long. From what I’m told, that wall’s growin fast.

  Hobbes inhaled, held in the hot air, let it out. He hoped his face betrayed nothing, least of all the unmooring of his courage, however brief. The lamp burned the oil Ford’s workers had rendered from animal fat, the greasy, smoky flame spilling its dirty light into the room.

  Stransky watched him from behind the curtain of her hair.

  Somethin else on your mind? he said.

  She put a hand on his knee. You took a bullet gettin me out, and you’re a damn sight handsomer than most of the lapdogs I met. Maybe you and me can have some fun some time.

  Her touch sent a chill up his spine. His engorged pecker pressed against his trousers. Hobbes took her hand in his good one and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them again and pushed her away.

  You’re talkin fornication. You look a load better with clean clothes and that rat nest off the top of your head, but I took vows. Aim to keep em.

  Stransky laughed. Vows. Like one of Sarah’s priests. You ever wonder why they made you do it? What harm havin a family would have done you?

  Ain’t got time to ponder it.

  He stood and put his hat back on. Her laughter floated down the aisle behind him as he left.

  Next time, sexy, she called.

  He poked his head out the door and saw nothing, so he jogged across the thoroughfare and into the shadows beyond the streetlights.

  As he reached the alley, a voice drifted out of the darkness. So how’d it go?

  He whipped around and drew. Come on out. Slow.

  A short, misshapen shadow ambled toward him, breaking into two as it got closer, and Hobbes uncocked and holstered his gun. McClure and Bandit, silent as death. The girl must have clipped the dog’s nails.

  Willa, said Hobbes. Almost blew your head off.

  The child’s voice suggested a smile. You was aimin too high. You might have knocked off my hat, though.

  What’s your purpose?

  Just wondered if you had any news.

  A bit. Hobbes wiped the sweat out of his eyes with his shirtsleeve. He told McClure what Stransky had said.

  When he finished, the girl said, It sounds like somethin the Crusade would do. Efficient and cold, just like Royster. Just like Rook.

  She’s never loved the Crusade.

  Confirm it if you can. Gotta get home before somebody figures out I ain’t in bed.

  That’s why it helps not to have a house.

  She melted into the darkness, the dog on her heel. Hobbes headed home.

  16

  A day later in Troy’s den, the lord of order and Hobbes rested their feet on the coffee table and held glasses of tepid water while McClure reported. She had slipped across the river and had spoken to a dozen prisoners. Two had been openly hostile to the Crusade. The rest were bewildered, depressed, and despairing, but they expressed none of the naked disloyalty or heresy that generally marked a Troubler.

  You’re convinced they was tellin the truth? Troy asked.

  McClure shrugged. One man told me if I was born from a Crusader, I could go fuck myself and die. Another said he’d just as soon set a Bible on fire as bow before Matthew Rook. The rest of em all sounded alike. Why am I here? I ain’t done nothin. Mr. Rook must have made a mistake.

  Troy looked at Hobbes, who seemed ready to spit. Good. He’s been distracted all day. I better find out what’s eatin him. We thank you, Troy said. You’re one of the best we got, even if you ain’t grown yet.

  McClure settled into the chair. You got anything else for me? I got nothin better to do.

  Can you sniff out the ordnance Royster’s confiscated? You ain’t gotta try to get it back. Just bring us a list of what’s where.<
br />
  Hell, Gabe, I thought you might have wanted somethin hard. I can tell you right now they’ve roped bundles of dynamite to all the river bridges’ piers and abutments.

  Troy passed a hand over his eyes. We was afraid of that. Get back to us with the rest as soon as you can.

  McClure stood. The men followed suit and shook hands with the girl. She tipped her hat. Then she turned and went out, clucking her tongue. Bandit had been asleep in the sunlight filtering through a window. Now he woke, scrambled to his feet, and trotted across the room after McClure, glancing at Troy and Hobbes as if to say, See you later.

  The men took their seats after the door closed. Troy sipped water. Hobbes put his glass on the coffee table and rubbed his temples. The heat was beginning to radiate through the house. Soon Troy would have to open the windows or cook like a pig in a roasting pit.

  Okay, he said. You been somewhere else half the mornin. What’s up?

  Hobbes grimaced. Been thinkin about Stransky. That meetin with her—it kindly shook me up.

  Troy frowned. Shook you up how? You don’t scare easy.

  Never feared anybody walkin the earth. Not even you. Reckon I can fear this woman, though.

  She can’t outdraw you.

  Ain’t that kind of scared. She touched me last night. Propositioned me. All clean and soft lookin. I wanted her. God forgive me. Wanted to take her right there in that church.

  Troy felt as if someone had kicked him in the gut. If Hobbes had ever been interested in romance, or sex, he had kept it well hidden. And now this, at all times, and Stransky, of all people. Better if Hobbes had confessed lust for Bandit.

  I know better than most how the heart wants what the brain tells you might be crazy or dangerous, Troy said. And with what’s goin on here, it’s easy to question our vows. All I can tell you is follow your conscience. But be careful. If Stransky guts you, don’t let it be in bed.

  Hobbes looked tired and wasted. Don’t know why she gets to me like this when nobody else ever has.

  Love makes us all stupid. So does lust. After the city’s safe, maybe we can look at Stransky and everything else with some perspective.

  Hobbes looked out the window again. Somewhere out there the other Conspirators toiled at their jobs. Maybe they were recruiting. Lynn Stransky was hiding wherever the sisters kept her, probably in the nuns’ living quarters, though now that Sister Sarah had started sending her fellow brides of Christ and her parishioners away, perhaps they had moved the Troubler. Lord help us, I ought to know. Perhaps Troy suffered from the same illness that had struck Hobbes. Maybe he just wanted another excuse to see Sarah. Half of him was glad she was leaving. The other half wished she would stay.

  He and Hobbes talked as the temperature soared, as the guilty and innocent tramped into their city, as the sun rose on another day in the long, slow flow of time’s river. They talked of lust and ammunition, women and plastic explosive, love and hatred and death. And when they finally went out for grub, they had resolved absolutely nothing regarding Lynn Stransky, Sister Sarah Gonzales, or the confines of their own hearts.

  Troy, Hobbes, Ford, McClure, Boudreaux, and Long met after dark and sat on Boudreaux’s back porch, shooing away mosquitoes and drinking warm lemonade as Bandit lay at their feet, enticing each of them to scratch his belly. His muscles rippled. He had been eating well. I wish I knew how Willa does it, Troy thought. Her and that dog always seem fit and fine, and whenever they ain’t right in front of you, it’s like they cease to exist. No one ever saw the kid or the dog meandering about the city.

  They’ve set charges on the bridges and the first fifty yards of the causeway, the girl said. They got caches on the 17th Street Canal too. I ain’t checked em all yet, but I figure they plan to blow every canal and levee, plus any roads outta town. Wouldn’t be surprised if they hit the highest-populated areas too.

  They’ve started confiscatin our boats, said Ford.

  What? said Troy. I thought they just wanted an inventory.

  Not as of this mornin. A tenth of my fisherfolk are already down to rods and reels and cane poles.

  Everyone let that information sink in. The undertows and currents and sheer effort it took to swim the river made using it to get out of town without a boat potentially, even probably, fatal. Santonio Ford’s recruits had started building rafts and canoes and hiding them in every conceivable nook and cranny, but they were making beds in a burning house.

  Okay, said Troy, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. We can’t move the explosives, or else Royster will know somethin’s up, and then he’ll turn this town upside down. Probably throw the lot of us in jail. LaShanda, can you disarm the charges without makin em look disarmed?

  Long scoffed. Who you talkin to? Anything they can cobble together, I can take apart. Problem is findin em all and gettin close enough.

  McClure scratched Bandit’s ears. Findin em’s my job. Gettin close, that’s somethin else. Just to look, you’d think they ain’t nobody guardin the goods, but when you study the situation for a spell, you see three or four folks millin near every location. They act like they’re just walkin by, but they don’t go far. We’re gonna have to slip past em, distract em, or kill em. I got no preference.

  If we kill guards at every cache, Troy said, they’ll figure out what’s goin on long before we finish.

  Long nodded. Even if we can get close enough to disarm the caches, we’ll still have to stop em from detonatin the ordnance manually, come the day.

  We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, Troy said. Y’all get any assignments yet?

  Ford and Long shook their heads.

  So far, it’s all hypotheticals and business as usual, Boudreaux said. I’m supposed to go on some errand with Benn and Clemens tomorrow, though.

  Be careful, said Troy. Them boys are snakes.

  They lapsed into silence, swatting bugs and watching the sun set. It shone through the clouds and over the lake’s killing water, turning the sky blood red. On the porch, Bandit’s legs twitched as he dreamed his canine dreams.

  17

  The next morning, Gordy Boudreaux walked through the High Temple, trying not to look as nervous as he felt. A kind of creeping dread had shrunk his scrotum. A lump of wet paper settled in his throat, even as his mouth filled with spit. I’m ridin with men who want to kill everybody I’ve ever known and loved, but I can’t show fear. For all I know, Benn and Clemens are gonna take me to the swamps and shoot me. And for all I know, they’re right and just, and I’m damned for thinkin we should stand against em. What in the name of the Most High am I supposed to do?

  He passed through the sanctuary and mounted the stairs to Troy’s office, wondering if it were for the last time.

  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow.

  Upstairs, Royster was absent, but Clemens and Benn stood near Troy’s desk, Clemens inspecting his weapons.

  You’re early, Benn said. I like that. Let’s get going.

  Where we headed? Boudreaux asked.

  Clemens slapped him on the back. Pest control mission. You’ll love it.

  Benn led them downstairs. The morning cleaners dusted and swept, raising small clouds that hung in the air. Several said hello. Boudreaux nodded and tipped his hat. Benn and Clemens ignored them. When the three men passed the front desk, Norville Unger saluted. Neither Benn nor Clemens so much as glanced at him. He scowled and seemed about to speak. Boudreaux shook his head, and Unger’s mouth snapped shut. The old desk sergeant would make a loyal addition to whichever side he chose. Troy’s Conspiracy grew by twos and threes every day. Had Unger already been approached? Boudreaux wished all of them could share their lists of loyalists. But then, if someone were captured or turned, everyone else would be at hazard.

  And the worst part? That might be best. A man could go mad tryin to figure this out. Maybe that’s why Royster met with me and LaShan
da and Santonio—not because we’re valuable, but because we’re uncertain.

  The sky was overcast and gray, with clouds hanging so low it seemed you could stand on your tiptoes and touch them. To the west, they grew darker. A cool wind blew, carrying the promise of rain. Should have brought my duster. Boudreaux’s horse waited next to the Jesus statue. The animal smelled the air and shifted from foot to foot as grooms led the envoys’ horses across the square. Benn and Clemens took their reins without a word, Benn patting his horse and rubbing its muzzle. They saddled up and rode out of the square.

  Boudreaux could feel Clemens staring at his back.

  They rode through the Lower Garden District and across the expressway. Boudreaux broke into gooseflesh, and not just because of the breeze. They had crossed into the regions from which locals had been forbidden. Perhaps the deputy envoys planned to initiate him into their inner circle. Or maybe his old jurisdiction would be his dying ground. He knew where they were going. Not far from a bend in the great river lay an old base that had once lodged part of the ancients’ armies. Since the Purge, it had held enormous stores of weapons and gunpowder, dynamite and plastic explosives, guard quarters. With Dwyer’s arrival, the Conspirators had managed, with the help of a few sympathizers, to move some of the stores and alter the records, but the place still housed plenty of goods.

  Perhaps Benn and Clemens planned to interrogate him about the missing ordnance. Or maybe they wanted him to confirm the records’ accuracy.

  All around them, prisoners baked in the morning sun. Whenever one dared look at the passing figures, a Crusader lashed them until they screamed and fell, pulling their fellows down with them. Sweet Lord, how do they relieve themselves? How do they sleep? The whole area stank of human waste and rotting food, both of which littered the streets. Gulls and crows swirled overhead and pecked at the refuse. Adults moaned and children cried, their lamentations mixing with the calls of the great flock. Would bigger animals maraud among the Troublers at night? Would the guards drive predators away? Or would the wildlife take as it pleased, human flesh or otherwise? The whole cityscape south of the river suppurated like hell itself. At this rate, they won’t even need the flood to kill everybody.