“Yes. You’ve come across some Angels, then.”
“I seem to attract them, whatever they are. On the way home last night, one of them invited me to Sunday Service.” She retrieved the card from her pocket and handed it across to him. He examined it, nodding in recognition.
“Strange,” he said. “I’ve never heard of the Angels proselytizing before. That’s not usually their department, not their style.”
“What is their department?”
“They’re a dedicated brotherhood within the Church, a kind of monkish order. They tend to be tight-lipped and standoffish. Their more visible roles are security of the Church properties and teaching at the Church schools – and keeping an eye on members’ behavior to help everyone stay on the straight and narrow.”
“Morality police? Even here. Lovely.”
“They’re not exactly known for going around giving hugs and lollipops – I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one of them smile in public. For Passion Week, they assist with event security and traffic management, coordinating with the police, shouldering the additional burden and responsibilities. You wouldn’t know it from looking around the valley today – things may seem quiet and normal on the surface – but everyone, Flockers and Strays alike, are gearing up for Passion – ”
“Strays?”
“Yes, sorry – the Church refers to all non-Flockers, all non-believers, as Strays, whether we’ve ever been part of the Flock or not, no matter what religion or creed, or lack thereof. And all Strays are going to hell.”
“To hell? Well, that’s rather serious.”
“Indeed. And yet, we stray,” he said.
She thought she caught a glimpse of a smile.
“Today is Friday,” he continued. “Come this evening, Obadites from around the country and the world will start trickling in. By this time tomorrow, it will be an all-out flood. The stores, restaurants, hotels, all city services – everyone has to be ready. The Flock is flocking to Aurum Valley, and we’ll quadruple in population almost overnight.”
“Oh my. Where do they all stay?”
“The hotels are usually booked up a year in advance. You’re probably fortunate to have a room at The Sophia through Monday. Most of the Obadites who live here make room for a second family to stay for the week. Some stay in hotels in nearby towns. Most camp in tents and RVs down on the flats and in another small valley southeast. The two main campgrounds become their own small towns, with cafeteria tents, kitchens, portable restrooms and shower areas, makeshift stores, medical tents. They erect big circus-sized tents as auditoriums for services and meetings. There are committees and sub-committees working on the planning all year – it’s all very well organized. It always seems to go off like clockwork, particularly with the Angels’ involvement. It probably helps that the Obadites, no matter where they’re from, are all so very well behaved. They take direction and orders well, do what they’re told.”
“It’s like an old-fashioned camp meeting, then.”
“Yes, but on a bigger scale and modernized. The Flockers may dress and behave old-fashionedly, but their technology is state of the art. They transmit live video from the main cathedral out to jumbo-sized screens in the meeting tents. Down on the flats there, you can see all the trucks lined up. Some of the tents are already raised. They’ve been staging all week. By Sunday, everything will be ready to go.”
“It sounds like quite the production.”
“The production has been getting bigger every year lately. Many non-Flock residents make a point to be out of town for Passion: it’s getting so crowded, relative to what we’re used to through the year, particularly along the routes between the Church campus and the camps. Everyone stocks up. You don’t want to have to go to the supermarket or any of the stores during Passion.”
“I can imagine. Are there some kind of special Good Friday and Easter observances?”
“You’d have to see it to believe it. The entire week is orchestrated with services, communions, marathon prayer sessions, classes, music and drama performances – all leading up to the Passion Procession, which starts in the cathedral on Friday, then moves out along a route through town, up to West Gate.”
“West Gate?”
“The gate we passed coming up, with the Hale ‘H’. The week culminates in the Easter morning service, then the town clears out nearly as fast as it filled up. But every year, more and more Obadites from around the world attend, and every year, more Obadites choose to stay after Passion and live here permanently. This is their Holy Land.”
She wanted to ask about the significance of the gate but had to fall back as they were turning down another single-track path. After a leisurely descent around the easterly side of the hill, the view opened to a wooded vale below, with a small ranch in a clearing. A white two-story house, backed against the hill’s foot, was frame-and-clapboard, with a tin roof, black shutters, and a porch wrapping the front and south sides. The outbuildings were arranged in an elongated horseshoe around a long looping gravel drive, a sloping lawn in the middle. To the house’s left stood a white barn and a half-dozen small cottages. To the right were several large corrugated-metal sheds, a chicken coop, and a horse barn with a corral that opened to a northerly meadow. Vegetable and flower gardens were newly planted in the ground and in raised beds around the house and barn. A porch swing hung from a pole between the lower branches of two shade trees. In the drive were parked a blue pickup truck and a yellow older-model Cadillac.
The trail dropped into the woods. When the riders emerged to come out behind the barn, more of the hill’s easterly face was visible. Ian pointed to a feature high on the slope above the meadow.
A dirt road climbed and wound two hundred feet to a heavily timbered trapezoidal opening in the earth from which two sets of rails protruded, extending out and over the edge of a wooden platform, broken off in mid-air like exposed bones from a compound fracture. Splintered stumps of wooden pilings – the remains of railway trestles – led down the slope to a stepped series of thick foundations, the last and largest of which lay cracked and crumbling in the meadow’s edge.
Ian slowed for Paige to come alongside. “That was the main entrance to the mine during its heyday, once they had mined deep enough for it to be more practical to come through the side of the hill. The mill, where the ore was processed, was there below. The house was originally the mine superintendent’s office. There were probably five times as many buildings here then, several dozen more cottages.”
“For the miners?”
“Mostly for the foremen, the engineers, the hoist operators. The miners and mill workers lived down in town.”
A border collie with one eye blue and one brown dashed up to greet them, barking and wagging its tail furiously, followed by an equally friendly Australian shepherd. Ian and Paige dismounted, leaving the horses beneath the shade of a walnut tree.
“Hey, girls!” he crouched to pet the dogs, letting them lick his face. The collie dashed away, brought back a chewed tennis ball and dropped it at Paige’s feet. She picked it up and threw it as far and high as she could towards the lawn. Both dogs were gone before it was out of her hand.
“Nice arm,” he said, watching the ball’s flight. It bounced and rolled after landing nearly as far as the creek at the lawn’s end. “If you were playing right field, I might have to think twice about trying to take home on you.”
She laughed. “Many tried, but seldom twice. But it was center field, not right.”
The shepherd came racing back with the ball, the collie in close pursuit. There was no sign of human presence yet.
“I trust you know these people,” she said.
“You wanted to meet the artist. Come on – ”
He led around to the front of the barn. The sliding door squealed as he pushed it open just enough for them to enter, the dogs following.
The interior was dark after the sunlight. Musty straw lay on the floor of the stalls. Cobwebs laced the corners. Decaying leather tac
k hung above spoked wagon wheels and long-retired tills, plows and rakes. Beneath a workbench sat crates of wooden-handled tools and rusted steel implements, the uses for which Paige could only begin to guess. A wooden ladder accessed the hayloft in gloomy shadow above. A dusty sunbeam shone down on an old tractor, its orange paint faded and flecked with brown. Its big tires, still partially inflated, were cracked and dry. Paige wondered if the engine still ran. The dirt beneath was stained black with oil.
The barn had been divided, front and back, with a plywood-faced wall, painted white. A line of light lay beneath a closed door.
“Eileen – ” Ian called.
There was no answer.
A mouse scurried from behind one of the tractor wheels and darted into a stall.
Ian called out again. Again, no reply.
Out of the corner of her eye, Paige thought she saw the tail end of something slither beneath a bale of hay in the corner. The dogs brushed by to sniff eagerly at the gap beneath the door. Ian knocked, calling out once more and receiving no reply. He turned the knob and went in, the dogs leading.
Daylight flooded the room from skylights above. No living person was present, but the studio was filled with characters who, while not breathing, seemed ready to spring to life at the wave of a wand. Standing, sitting, reclining on shelves and tables, some were formed in gray clay, others cast in plaster and bronze, with patinas from light marble to rich ebony, pale green to dark verdigris, copper brown to deep umber. Works still in progress were shrouded beneath dampened cloth. Tacked and taped to the walls were anatomical illustrations, photos of nude bodies, faces, sculptures from ancient Greece to the nineteenth century. Modeling tools were laid in neat rows on a tray on a workbench, reminding Paige of surgeons’ implements.
On a stand in the middle of the room, raised on the toes of one foot, was a life-sized figure still in clay – a young girl, an expression of joyous focus and concentration on her face. At first glance, she appeared to be skipping, but her elbows were tucked in, her forearms extended laterally, her hands holding what looked to be handles of some kind. Paige realized with delight that the piece lacked only a jump rope turning overhead. She was marveling at the motion in the flying pleats of the skirt and the bouncing locks of hair when she spotted something over the girl’s shoulder –
“Ian! My sculpture . . .” On a crate against the wall was a bronze casting of the very piece that had caught her attention in the window of the gallery – the woman rising off the ground, floating, enraptured. “The patina is lighter on this one – Oh, I love it even more!” Paige was drawn to it, her fingers caressing empty air, wanting to touch the curves and feel the flow, but not daring. She turned and looked to Ian in frustration. He had been watching her. His blue-gray eyes, so cool and easy outdoors, were piercingly intent. She didn’t look away.
The unmistakable shuh-shuck of a shotgun shell being chambered broke the moment. The barrel of the gun led through the door, followed by the gun’s stock, the weapon clutched by knobby-knuckled fingers belonging to an elderly, silver-haired man, a gray Basque beret clinging to his head.
Ian raised his hands reflexively. “Max! It’s me – Ian!”
“Jesus on a stick, Ian,” the old man muttered, lowering the gun. “Where’s your truck, son? Did you walk? And who’s this lovely lady?” His face was weathered and deeply creased, his nose and ears long with age, his eyes squinting, watery but still quick. A gray wool cardigan covered his stooping shoulders. Orange suspenders supported a stiffly new pair of blue jeans, cuffs rolled at the bottom over work boots that were dusty and worn. He nodded to her, tipping the beret. “Is this a new girlfriend, Ian? If so, I certainly approve, but what happened to – ?”
“We rode over. The horses are out back. Sorry, I guess you didn’t see us. Max, this is Paige Keller, a fan of Eileen’s work and a prospective client. Paige, this is Max. He’s Eileen’s – well, what is your title today, Max?”
The old man took his cue, a twinkle in his eye. “When I asked for a raise, she made me Chief Engineer. When I asked for benefits, she promoted me to Vice President of Operations. I am Maximillan Zarandona, Chief Engineer and Vice President of Operations of the Vasari Mining & Ranching Company, with no raise and no benefits, a wrench for my scepter and a shovel for my staff, and I’ve got the best damned job in the valley.” Cradling the shotgun, he doffed his beret and bowed theatrically, as low as he could manage. “At your service, ma’am.”
Paige responded with a light curtsy. “Pleased to meet you, sir.” She took his offered hand. His grip was strong, his manner charming, though he seemed distracted, anxious perhaps.
“Is Eileen in the house?” Ian asked.
“She’s . . . she’s away at the moment. I’m sorry, Miss Keller, but I’m afraid you’ll have to come back another time if you’re hoping to meet her. Sorry you came all this way, Ian. Beautiful day for a ride though, with a lovely lady friend. Now, if you’ll excuse me, kids, I have to get back to – ”
“Max, what’s wrong?” Ian cut in. “Where is she?”
Max sighed, wiping his hand over his face and forehead, taking off the beret. “She didn’t want me to tell anybody, Ian, but damn it – she’s in the hospital.”
“God, Max! What happened? Is she okay?”
“I don’t know. I think she’s fine. I just don’t know. Last night at dinner, she started feeling dizzy, then she just fainted right over onto the floor before I could get to her.” The color drained from his face at the memory. “She came to again as I was driving her to the hospital – claims she’s completely fine now, but they want to keep her another day or two for observation. I can’t get anything out of the doctor or nurses.”
“I can’t remember her ever having so much as a sniffle, Max.”
“I don’t think she’s been sick a day in her life. But, as she was quick to remind me, she’s eighty-nine and these things happen. . . .” He was saying it, but shaking his head, willing it to be otherwise.
Ian didn’t know what to do with his hands. They ended up on his hips. “Will they let us see her?”
“When I left a half hour ago, she was sitting up, watching TV in her room, but they’ve been putting her through tests all day. She seemed pretty tired. It would probably be best to let her rest through the evening. I’m going back as soon as I feed the animals and tend to a few things here, but maybe tomorrow morning, Ian. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Okay, Max, sure. Sure . . .”
* * *
Ian was silent on the ride back to the resort. For the return trip they followed a more direct trail around the base of the hill, connecting with a paved two-lane, riding its shoulder for a mile before turning into The Sophia’s front gate. Ian’s truck and horse trailer were parked at the back of the employees’ lot. When they dismounted he was still preoccupied.
“She means a lot to you, doesn’t she?” Paige ventured.
“She’s like a grandmother to me.”
“I’m sorry, Ian.” She touched his shoulder. “Can I go with you to the hospital in the morning?”
“That’s very thoughtful of you, but thanks, no. I do appreciate the offer though.”
He fell silent again. Paige helped with the tack and with loading the horses.
“Despite the way the day ended,” she offered, “I had a really good time. It was a beautiful outing. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’m sorry you didn’t get to meet Eileen. She’s a remarkable woman. You said you’re leaving Monday?”
“Well, yes . . .”
“Maybe if they let her come home by Sunday, and if she’s feeling up to it – ”
“No, really – thanks. I couldn’t bother her. I’m sure she needs to rest. Maybe the next time I’m in town.”
“Sure. The next time.”
There was nothing left to do but go. But neither went.
Hands on his hips, Ian glanced southward in the direction of the hospital. Paige began to turn towards the hotel but she stopped.
She didn’t want it to end, not like this.
“Could I interest you in coming back here for dinner tonight?” she asked. “The chef is quite good, and I’d enjoy hearing anything more you could tell me about Thomas Hale or Eileen’s work or . . .”
“I’m watching the gallery again this evening, but thanks for asking.”
“Sure. Right. I forgot.”
“I’m sorry – where are my manners? Let me walk you back inside.”
“Thank you, but it’s not necessary. Perhaps I’ll make it back down to the gallery this evening.”
“Yes, perhaps.”
“Well . . .” After a moment, she extended her hand. He took it, but rather than shaking, he held it. Looking down, he gently turned it over, studying it. Her hand lay in his, her palm up, fingers open. He looked up and into her eyes before letting his hand slide away, letting hers fall.
She turned and walked toward the hotel, hoping to hear a word to make her turn again, any word.
Ian watched her go, biting the inside of his lip. He checked the horses once more before securing the trailer’s doors. For the fifth time in the last two hours, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He wanted just a few minutes more before replying. He had been entertaining a prospective client, taking her to see the artist. That was all. . . .
He opened the truck door but paused when a glint in the southern sky caught his eye.
A private jet was banking low over the eastern hills, on approach to the airport. He retrieved his binoculars from the truck’s console, focused in on the plane and checked the tail number. When he lowered the binoculars, he was smiling.
The great-great-great-great-grandson of Thomas Hale was home. He happened to be Ian’s best friend.
Five
Other than the pilots and a personal assistant, only two passengers were aboard the private jet. Of the two, the professor wasn’t the one whose family name was on the title. As the craft descended on its southerly approach, he glanced across the aisle to the heir to the Hale empire.
Aaron Hale was trim and tall, with a firm jawline, high cheekbones, oaken hair swept across his broad forehead, and honey-amber eyes which, like his mouth, were expressive and full but with a discernment and gravitas rare for his twenty-four years. When on business, his customary attire was a suit tailor-made in London or Hong Kong. This being a travel day, he had opted for a white open-collared silk shirt, light-weight beige trousers and jacket, and Italian calfskin loafers. Dressed casually, he looked better than most men did in formalwear, his discriminately selected apparel forgotten once donned, worn as unpretentiously and naturally as a carpenter’s tool belt. A fashion editor had once described him as alarmingly handsome – fallen from Michelangelo’s ceiling, she proclaimed, and with the David’s brooding brow – but she hadn’t been able to lure him into modeling for even an hour. Aaron Hale was a businessman through and through, by passion, education, and choice, like his father and the generations of Hales in Aurum Valley before him.
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