Salvation City Read online

  A squirrel watching from a maple dashed along a branch for a closer view, one paw curled toward its chest in a fretful gesture. Somewhere a window flew open and Cole saw his mother leaning out and making the same gesture. Probably only he could hear when PW finally sighed. The heavy hand lifted. Fingertips brushed Cole’s nape. “Let’s go, son.”

  Over his shoulder, PW said what he always said when they met up with strangers: “Have a blessed day.” But there was no trace of warmth.

  “You take care, mister.” It was the third man, speaking now for the first time, and as they headed downslope he continued to call after them, in a mysteriously agitated voice. “You take care of that boy of yours.” He sounded like a person trying to hold back laughter. “Don’t you let nothin’ bad happen to him, hear? Hey, mister! Take good care of your boy!” Then another voice snapped: “Goddamn it, leave it, Wayne.” And the laughter burst.

  The laughter faded, leaving just the sound of their footsteps, quick and sliding on the downward path. PW stayed in the lead, saying nothing. Cole noticed he kept his hand in his jacket pocket. A log lay across the path. As he stepped over it, Cole saw, sprouting from the bark, one of those fleshy brown mushrooms he’d flashed on before, and he heel-stomped it.

  The first time he looked back, Cole could see nothing except for trees and brush. But farther on, after a sharp curve, he looked back again and he saw them. They had climbed up onto an outcrop, where they stood in a row, facing downhill. Cole caught just a glimpse of them before another curve in the path made them vanish again. Because of the angle of the light, the three men had appeared as silhouettes against the sky. Their faces were indistinguishable, but whoever was in the middle had his rifle propped horizontally across his shoulders. The echo of Calvary sent a shock through Cole. But later, when he was working on a comic strip about the whole event, he’d wonder if his eyes had played a trick on him, or if he’d somehow imagined this part entirely. PW, who’d kept his own eyes straight ahead and never once looked back, could not confirm it.

  They came to where a huge dead tree lay alongside the path, a spot at which they’d stopped before, to rest on the way up. PW sat down on the hollow trunk, letting out a short blast of air as if he’d been swimming underwater. He reached for Cole, pulling him down beside him. “Well, well,” he said. “How do you like them apples?”

  Now that he wasn’t afraid anymore, Cole was bursting with questions. “Were those guys real soldiers?”

  “Maybe one time.”

  “You think they live up there?”

  “Could be.”

  “Do you think they were brothers?”

  “I think they were queers.”

  Cole knew that PW didn’t really think this. He’d just wanted to say something really bad about the men. He had heard PW use the word queer like this before, though when he preached he always said “homosexual.” (“There is no such thing as a saved homosexual.”) He never said “gay.” Instead of “gay marriage” or “same-sex marriage” he said “unnatural union.” Sometimes, when he was repeating something some man whom he disliked had said, he’d use a falsetto voice.

  Suddenly, an unwelcome picture of PW at around his own age rose to Cole’s mind: a boy on a bicycle, almost running another boy down. Outta my way, fag-boy!

  Was that the kind of kid he had been?

  A reptile child.

  These thoughts knotted Cole’s stomach. They made him feel guilty and disloyal. Realizing that PW was staring sideways at him, he said, “Why did they make us turn around?”

  “Don’t know, exactly. Maybe they got something back there they didn’t want us to see. Used to be moonshine stills you’d stumble on. Then it was marijuana crops. Now it’s meth labs. Or maybe it’s already on to something new.”

  “Why didn’t you tell them you were a preacher?”

  “Wasn’t sure how they f-felt about p-preachers.”

  Cole didn’t understand what there was about what had just happened to put PW in such a good humor.

  “Do you think they’re believers?”

  “Do believers usually take the Lord’s name in vain?”

  Cole hesitated before his next question. “Didn’t you want to try and save them?”

  PW laughed so loud Cole was sure it could be heard as far as gunshots would have been.

  “What, you think it’s like some kind of magic formula I carry around? You can’t convert the pagan without the power of the Holy Spirit. I was praying hard up there, and looks to me like Jesus heard. But the Spirit never took hold.”

  But before they started walking again, PW did offer a prayer for the men: “Father, may they come to find you and know you and choose life.”

  Later that day, they drove home. By then the encounter with the three men—which PW pointed out had lasted probably all of five minutes—no longer felt like such a big deal. Cole would have been glad to forget what now seemed to him a cowardly overreaction on his part.

  They stopped for dinner at a Dairy Queen. The sun was low but still bright, so they ate their burgers and fries at a picnic table outside.

  “By the way,” said PW, “what happened this morning? With the Three Stooges back there? No reason Tracy’s got to know any of that.”

  Just then a minibus driven by a man in a black baseball cap pulled up and about a dozen boys jumped out. The boys were all somewhere between the ages of eight and fifteen, and everything about them, from their sloppy clothes to the aggressive way they fought to be the first to reach the restaurant door, announced that they were orphans. As they passed the picnic table their eyes burned into Cole, this creature they could have ripped to pieces out of envy: a boy with a father.

  When they were on the road again, PW said, “You seemed to take to the woods, Cole. Did my heart good to see it. And if you don’t want to learn to hunt doesn’t mean I can’t teach you how to track. Nothing like getting close to an animal in its natural habitat. My daddy said he once got close enough to touch the tail of a fox. Sorry we didn’t see any bear. But black bear’s on the rise around here. We go back, chances are good we’ll see one sometime. And you can forget what them old boys said. Bear are all up and about this time of year. Except maybe the really lazy ones.”

  Cole nodded. He definitely wanted to go back sometime, but he was thinking he didn’t want to go into the woods again unless he, too, had a gun. First he’d have to learn how to use one, of course. Tracy would be pleased, but he’d have to be careful not to let on what had brought about his decision. It struck Cole that he was looking forward to seeing Tracy when they got home, which meant that, though he might not have known it, he must have missed her.

  He said, “Do you think they knew you had a gun?”

  “Yeah, they probably figured. Like they figured it wasn’t something they had to worry about, neither.” He laughed, and again Cole wondered what it was about those men that kept tickling PW’s funny bone.

  “Are you going to tell the police?”

  “Tell who? Tell what? Did you see a crime being committed?”

  “I meant, like, if there really was a meth lab or something.”

  “You see a meth lab or something?”

  “No, but you said—”

  “Hold on, Cole. Whatever I said, here’s what I think. I think the best thing is for us to forget all about those dudes. Nothing happened, no one got hurt. And if there’s a lesson in all this, it’s that sometimes the right thing to do in a bad situation is to walk away from it. Not to worry about who’s a bully and who’s a coward, just beat a retreat. But the police. Well. I don’t like the police. Might as well say it: I don’t like the law. My daddy used to say, Too much law ruined this country. Jesus taught there are things that belong to Caesar and things that belong to God. But when you look at the big picture—the laws, the courts, the tax collectors, and all the rest—seems to me way too much is going to Caesar and not enough to the Lord. Sometimes I think if it was up to me, I’d rather let the bad guys go than condemn them to one
of Caesar’s prisons—especially after what happened with the flu.”

  Cole knew he was talking about the men’s maximum-security prison about fifty miles north of Salvation City where he sometimes preached, and where he had brought many inmates to Christ.

  “Imagine being locked up with dead bodies and no way to escape. If everyone was too sick or scared to stay and do their job, they should have let the men out. At least give them a fighting chance! I was there when they finally unlocked those gates, and it was like going back in history. I felt like one of those GIs that liberated the concentration camps. Stacks of corpses and a handful of walking skeletons, alive but half out of their minds. Same thing happened all over. You tell me, where was Caesar then?”

  Where was God? Cole was thinking—but his eyes were closing. He didn’t want to talk anymore. He hadn’t slept well either night in the tent, and he was exhausted. His muscles burned from trudging so many miles. His limbs felt rubbery. His head lolled. He wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or if he actually heard PW’s phone ring.

  He woke to find the blond man driving the van and the other two making out in the back.

  He woke to find the van surrounded. The man in the black baseball cap and the orphans were trying to tip it.

  He woke when the van hit a familiar little dip in the road that came just after the last turnoff.

  It was dark out now. Light rain was falling. But why were they stopping? Why was PW sitting there with his head on the steering wheel? “Did we run out of gas?”

  Slowly PW raised his head, and Cole could tell that he’d been praying.

  “Hey, son.” His eyes were strange—glassy, like a drunk’s, or like someone who’s just had a scare. “Tracy called while you were asleep. We got a surprise waiting at home.”

  “What surprise?” He was thinking it must be something to do with his birthday. But there’d already been a special dinner and presents and cake the day before they left to go camping. Maybe it was a present someone had dropped off late. But Cole was too tired to feel much excitement.

  “You’ll see in a minute,” said PW, starting to drive again. “Nothing bad, don’t worry. I just want you to be prepared.”

  A bat squeak of warning pierced Cole’s fatigue.

  A strange car was parked outside the house.

  “Tell you what,” said PW. “Let’s not mess with unloading tonight. We can do it in the morning.”

  “In here, y’all!”

  They followed Tracy’s voice to the living room. She was sitting on the couch, but Cole didn’t see her. All he saw was the ghost at her side. For the second time that day Cole felt the weight of PW’s heavy hand on his shoulder. Then the room tipped. Cole shut his eyes. When he opened them again, his mother was still there.

  PART FOUR

  My sister and I were never into dressing alike. Actually, we thought that was kind of tacky. If anything, we wanted people to forget we were twins.”

  “Oh, isn’t that interesting? And here I always thought it’d be double the fun to be a twin. Didn’t you, Wyatt?”

  “Never really thought about it. More coffee, ladies?”

  “None for me, thanks. Look, I don’t mean to be impatient, but do you think Cole will be up soon? I’m pretty worried about him after last night, and we need to move along.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me.”

  Everyone stared at Cole as he entered the kitchen. Tracy started to get up but he gestured her down, saying, “All I want’s orange juice, and I can get it myself.” He poured himself a glass from the container on the table, but instead of sitting down with the three of them, he crossed the room and leaned against the counter. He wished they would all stop looking at him. As they did not, he faked a yawn.

  “How’d you sleep, son?” asked PW. Cole saw Addy wince at the word son.

  “Fine. I’m telling you, really, I’m fine.” Not even trying to keep the irritation out of his voice.

  There was more than irritation in Addy’s voice. “Would it be too much to ask if I could speak with my nephew alone now?”

  “‘Course not,” said PW. “Why don’t you two use the den?” Cordial words but the same cold-metal tone he’d used to wish the Three Stooges a blessed day. The hostility in the room was unmistakable. But at least this morning everyone was being civil.

  “You sure you don’t want some breakfast first?” asked Tracy. Cole studied the birdfeeder hanging outside the window above the sink and shook his head. He drained his glass and placed it in the dishwasher. When he turned around again, he saw that Tracy was crying. PW had put his arm around her, but his eyes were fixed on Cole as he followed Addy out of the room.

  In the den, Addy recoiled at the sight of the rifles and Cole smiled in spite of himself.

  “I guess this is gun country, isn’t it. You have no idea how insane Europeans think the whole American gun culture is.”

  She sounded like his mother—they had the same voice—and the way she sat with her arms crossed and her hands resting on opposite shoulders recalled his mother as well. (For a while, when he was younger, he’d thought his mother did that so he wouldn’t stare at her breasts.) But it was almost inconceivable to him now that he could ever mistake his aunt for his mother. Even looking at old photographs, he’d always been able to tell them apart.

  The instant he sat down he wanted to bolt. He wasn’t ready to talk to Addy. He hadn’t even washed his face or brushed his teeth yet. And he never skipped breakfast. He needed to eat something. He needed to eat breakfast and then he needed to go back up to his room and do some thinking. He could feel himself getting queasy at the memory of last night. How everyone had fussed over him, insisting he lie down on the couch with a pillow under his head and another one under his feet, and how he had lain there for the next hour, like a rictus, listening to the two sides shout at each other.

  Addy had accused PW and Tracy of kidnapping. She would not listen when they tried to explain how they thought she had passed. “It’s true that I was very sick. But the only way you could have thought I was dead was if you made it up.”

  “Let’s call it a mix-up,” PW said evenly. “It’s not like there weren’t plenty of them. I don’t know how bad it was where you were, but here it was total chaos. At the orphanage they couldn’t tell us hardly anything about Cole. They said he’d been so sick he’d developed some kind of amnesia. They told us filling in the gaps could take months, maybe even years. There were way too many cases like his and not enough people for the job. They even managed to lose—”

  “You must think I’m a complete idiot,” Addy said. “As you can see, hard as you made it for me, I did manage to find you. I don’t care what kind of story you told Cole. The fact is, you had an obligation to do everything possible to track down his family. Instead—admit it—you took advantage of the chaos to do whatever the hell you wanted. You had no right—”

  “You act like we tried to hide the boy!” said Tracy. “It’s not like we changed our identities or fled the country with him, for goodness’ sake. We’ve always been right here. How can you call it kidnapping when the state placed him with us?”

  “Oh please. Don’t tell me you didn’t do everything you could to cut him off from his past. Including pretending I was fucking dead!”

  “This is a Christian household,” Tracy said, enunciating each syllable. “I will thank you not to use Satan’s language under our roof.”

  Addy started to laugh. She laughed merrily, as if genuinely amused by Tracy’s words. Tracy looked ready to burst into tears.

  “Pardon me, ma’am,” said PW. “But there’s something you’re not getting here. First of all, from what we could tell, you’ve always been more of a stranger than any kind of family to Cole. But in any case, my wife and I had no obligation to go looking for you, none at all. That was for the government to do. And you’re right, they don’t seem to have done a very good job. Can’t say as I’m much surprised, though. But it wasn’t our responsibility. Our respons
ibility was to give Cole a good Christian home, and now that you’re here you can see for yourself that is exactly what we’ve done. Did I try hard to find you? No, ma’am, I did not. What I did was pray hard. I prayed to the Lord and asked for his guidance. And I want you to know, I am right with the Lord on this. My wife and I are both right with the Lord.”

  Addy looked at him as if he’d just admitted he and his wife were cannibals. “You people are un-fucking-believable.”

  “You sure got a mouth on you, don’t you, lady.”

  Cole held his breath. He had never seen PW look at anyone with hatred before. For a moment, he was afraid PW might slap Addy. If he did, Addy would go for his eyes. If she did, Tracy would rip Addy’s throat out.

  Cole sat up. “I have to go to bed now.”

  In the silence that followed, shame condensed in the room like a fog. Then PW said, “I think we could all use some time to chill. Why don’t we call it a night. We can talk again in the morning.”

  Addy was whipping her head this way and that with an expression of mixed outrage and helplessness. PW and Tracy exchanged a look. Then Tracy cleared her throat and said, “Miss Abrams, at this late hour it only makes sense you spend the night. Please say you’ll be our guest. Spare room’s all made up.” In spite of everything, her voice was sincerely hospitable. And though Addy looked as if she’d been offered a straw pallet with bedbugs, she gave a weary nod. She had been traveling for days, flying from Berlin to New York and then to Chicago, where, after spending the night with a friend, she had borrowed the friend’s car and driven to Salvation City, beating Cole and PW by about two hours.

  “I didn’t give any warning because I was afraid to,” she told Cole. “How could I be sure they wouldn’t run off with you or send you away somewhere? Once I found out they were fundamentalists, I knew I had to be extra careful. To people like them I’m the enemy. An atheist expatriate Jew—what rights do I have? These fanatics will use religion to justify anything—especially the ones who believe in the imminent rapture. You do understand, don’t you? That’s what these monsters were counting on? The Messiah was supposed to show up before I did.”