Purgatory Page 4
Cross checked his back pocket to make sure he hadn’t lost his book when he fell. Gone. “Fuck,” he whispered, getting on his knees. He turned and elbowed the leg of the man who’d been standing behind him, not caring about the gun or the man or any of them. “Fuck!”
“What is it? What’s wrong?” the man with the gun asked nervously.
“You knocked my book out of my pocket,” Cross said. His hands ran across the gravel. “You dumb fuck.”
The men were silent a moment. But then the leader’s flashlight beam began moving in front of Cross. “Help him, for God’s sake. It’s bad enough we tackled the guy.”
“Here,” said the man with the gun. “Here it is.”
Cross took the book, his fingers running along the worn spine. The book had been read so many times that the corners of the pages were no longer sharp. Familiar.
“I thought it was a Bible,” said the man with the gun. “That would have been bad. I don’t think you’re supposed to throw a Bible on the ground. I’m sorry, father.”
Cross stuffed The Principles of Flight in his back pocket. He took a deep breath, collecting himself. He’d lost it. He’d broken character. “It’s fine. You guys State Patrol or something?”
The leader shook his head. “No, just volunteers. We patrol the border.” He stuffed his flashlight in his pocket. “Really sorry about that, father. But you gotta be careful walking around at night around here. Lots of them come through here at night, and they won’t hesitate to rob a priest.”
Cross nodded. “Okay.” He could feel dry dirt granules at the base of his teeth, rubbing against his gums. Behind the men, the stars had returned. Cross closed his left eye, losing his depth perception. The stars seemed as if they were right next to the men, ready to swallow them.
“They could do worse too. If they have an opportunity, they could do a lot worse. Especially if they’re running drugs.”
“I appreciate your consideration.”
“Are you staying in town, Father?”
“The Motel Six,” Cross said quietly.
The man nodded. “You need a ride? We’d be more than happy to drop you off quick.”
Cross shook his head. “Unless you think I might get stopped again.”
“No, no,” the bald man said. “I’ll put a word out that you’re on your way home. No one else is gonna bother ya.” The radio clipped to his belt crackled to life. A distorted voice said something in a code, and suddenly the other men were already back in the truck bed, slapping the truck’s fiberglass bed with the palms of their hands. The leader looked both ways before crossing the road and saying over his shoulder, “Sorry about the mix-up, father.”
“Peace be with you,” Cross said, watching the bald man climb into the driver’s seat. The truck made a U-turn, heading back toward town.
Cross followed, walking a nervous cramp out of his leg. His heart was still beating hard against his ribcage.
“Peace be with you?” he asked the darkness. “You almost punched the asshole. Not very priest-like.”
He kept his mouth shut the rest of the walk back, using his tongue move the grains of dirt around his mouth, trying to spit each one out. The lights in the town were dimmed by heavy curtains that revealed only a dull illumination. Beyond the town, he could see the dark outlines of hills and a procession of headlamps moving like a snake across the landscape.
Back at the hotel, inside his room, Cross sat down at the desk and took out the tape in his recorder, inserting an old one that he had recorded weeks ago. He pushed play, and his voice began reading:
“Article in the Daily Herald from June fifteenth, two years ago, about the first supposed miracle that the Church investigated. Most of the parishioners during the service in question were Mexican laborers, but there was one witness with a fixed address… Mister David Cantrell… who apparently saw the first miracle take place. Mister Cantrell’s last known residence is in the article: 1240 Main Street.”
Cross turned off the recorder and sat back in the chair, staring out the window and letting his eyes lose focus in the direction of the building across the street. The way the rigid square buildings hugged the road reminded him a lot of his own hometown—it made him long to be there again, in a familiar place where the forested back roads made sense and the entire county had a welcoming charm to it. Purgatory didn’t have that charm, he thought; all he felt here was anxiety and tension.
He leaned over the bed to get a good look at the bright red digital display on the clock. It was nine-thirty, maybe not too late for a quick social call to Mr. Cantrell. He stood up and walked outside, feeling the cool night air penetrate through the fabric of his shirt and send goose bumps across his chest. He lit a cigarette and walked west toward the center of town, passing the handful of taverns on the other side of the street. Their beer signs cast a red glow on the street, providing the only illumination between the sparse street lights. Above, he could see lights on in the second floors, and through open windows, he could hear televisions.
He reached the park, listening for a moment to a man and a woman talking to each other in Spanish as they stood beside Father Aaron’s memorial. Not wanting to disturb them, he turned left on Main Street.
The two-story buildings on the south end of Main Street looked more run-down and older, shying away from the street itself to give a wide berth between their front doors and the sidewalk. There were no cars parked on either side of the street and no Miller High Life signs to illuminate the road. He could hear a soft radio playing rock music from one of the open second-story windows, could smell burning bacon. He stuck close to the buildings and followed the address numbers south, down the row of buildings whose first-floor windows were dark, hidden with thick curtains, no business signs hanging until he reached the address from the newspaper article.
The building was two stories, like the others, with white aluminum siding and one thin window on either side of the door. Dirty water stains ran down from between the closed windows. Cross knocked lightly on the thin door, waiting for some response but not expecting it. He knocked again, then tried the doorknob, which turned and clicked twice. He pushed the door, and it opened without any use of force, swinging freely and noisily on its rusted hinges.
“Hello?” Cross called out into the darkness. He reached into his pocket for his keychain and turned on the flashlight, shaking it a couple of times. The light stayed on, but it was dim, barely cutting into the darkness. “Mister Cantrell?”
He risked a step into the dark room. The smell of rank mold hit his nostrils, forcing his eyes to blink out tears. The front room was an empty save for one small wooden table pushed against the far corner. The first room connected with another open room that was divided by a wall that opened like a wide doorway. There was clearly a soft orange light source somewhere inside, bright enough to bounce off the bare walls but too dim for Cross to make out the pattern on the wallpaper.
“Hello?” he said again, knowing he should leave but unable to step back. He heard a noise, reached for his knife, then stopped. The man named Cantrell was most likely long gone, but whoever lived here now might know his whereabouts. “My name is Father Cross,” he said in a loud voice. “I’m a priest. I’m looking for someone who used to live here…”
Cross kept his hands at his sides, moving slowly but staying in the open so he wouldn’t present too much of a threat. He turned his head around the corner and spotted an old queen-sized mattress tucked against the back wall of the room. A young girl and older woman sat on top of a wrinkled sheet, cuddled closely together, their dark brown faces illuminated by a single candle sitting on the moldy carpeting next to the bed. They stared up at Cross through twin brown eyes.
Cross immediately took a step back. “I’m sorry,” he said. At the sound of his voice, the woman wrapped one thin, bony arm around the little girl. “I was looking for someone else. I’m so sorry.”
They said nothing. They looked Hispanic, and he wondered if they spoke any Engli
sh at all. He wondered where the husband or father was (if there was a man at all), and suddenly felt the darkness beginning to squeeze his body. He spun around and checked the rest of the room with his good eye to make sure no one else was lurking in the shadows. The flashlight died again. His heart had begun beating fast, the outer layer of his skin prickling with adrenaline. He hated himself for treating them like animals, as if the male was out hunting, as if he might be nearby and ready to attack in order to defend his brood.
But the darkness frightened him.
“I’m looking for a man,” Cross said to them, holding out one hand as if to steady their nerves from a distance. He looked down and realized his own hand was shaking slightly under the faint glow of the candle. “David Cantrell. Do you know where he lives now?”
“Padre,” the woman said.
Cross nodded, recognizing the word. “Yes, I am. I’m looking for the man who used to live here.”
“Padre,” she said again. She began to cry—stifling, choked-back sobs that scared her daughter.
Cross looked around again, then awkwardly moved over to the mattress and knelt down next to her. She rested her head against his shoulder, crying harder. She smelled like body odor and dry dirt and her tears soaked through his shirt quickly, sending a chill down his spine. He was glad to be closer to the candle, out of the darkness.
“
“Cantrell,” he said, trying not to notice just how weak the woman’s grip felt, how her blouse clung loosely to her thin body. He didn’t understand Spanish. “Do you know who he is? How long have you lived here?”
The woman tore her head away from Cross’s shoulder, glancing in the direction of her daughter. Her daughter said something in Spanish, and the woman gave a response.
“Three weeks,” the daughter said quietly.
“Did you meet the man who lived here before you?”
The girl nodded. Cross felt his body warm.
“Where did he go?” he asked.
“California,” she said.
Cross closed his eyes. It would never end, he thought. This curse, this journey, there was no end.
“He was also from Puerto Penasco,” the girl said.
Cross opened his eyes and looked at her. “Mexico?”
“Yes,” she said.
“
Cross gently pulled her away, standing up and reaching into his pocket. He pulled out two folds of paper money, unable to see the currency in the corners but sure both of them read either “20” or “50.” He handed them both to the woman. She reached out to them, touching them with her fingers but leaving them on her lap.
“We thought you were Mexican at first,” the girl said.
Cross nodded and stood up. He thought vaguely about bringing them something to eat, thought twice about leaving them a little more money, but then he was thinking about Cantrell. About the curse in his eyes and how he could lift it.
He was getting closer.
“Be careful outside, Padre,” the little girl whispered to him. “They will hunt you.”
CHAPTER 2
The phone rang once, then stopped. Cross turned off his recorder. He was listening to another newspaper account, one from two years ago detailing the disappearance of Father Aaron. He had already listened to the articles about the miracles, which had been given a couple of paragraphs in the State section of Phoenix’s newspaper. It was almost midnight now, but he still wasn’t tired.
It rang again.
He brought the phone over to the table, letting it ring two more times before finally picking up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Father Cross, it’s Sheriff Taylor. So sorry to call so late.”
Cross leaned back in the uncomfortable chair. “Hello, Sheriff. What can I do for you?
“I just wanted to give you a heads-up on a person you might want to read up on. Her name is Gabriella Marcia. She was close to Father Aaron after he helped her.”
“Helped her?” Cross asked. “In what way?”
“She was the beneficiary of one of his miracles.”
Cross glanced down at the articles strewn about his table, searching for the name but all of the words on the white paper had begun to blur together again. The hanging stainless steel light fixture cast only a dim, sickening yellow glow over the newsprint. “And what miracle would—”
“Sight,” Sheriff Taylor said. “She was blind before she met Father Aaron. He returned her eyesight during her baptism when he rubbed the holy water around her eyes.”
“Well,” Cross said. “That definitely sounds like something worth investigating.”
“Let me know if you want some info on her,” Sheriff Taylor said. “I can dig up the medical report. Happy to help, that’s for sure.”
Cross grabbed a pen and flipped over one of the articles. “While we’re on the subject of miracles, you don’t by chance know where a man by the name of David Cantrell currently resides, do you?”
Sheriff Taylor was silent for a moment. “Cantrell?” he finally said. “Why the hell would you want to talk to that bum?”
Cross shuffled through the papers, hoping to find the hard copy of the newspaper account to make sure he had dictated the name correctly. He tried to blink away the growing pressure in his left eye. “Well, I think Mister Cantrell was said to be a witness to one of the miracles the Church investigated. I’d like to talk to him if that’s possible—”
“David Cantrell is a drunk,” the sheriff said, “who spends the majority of his time hopping from bar to bar and pissing off anyone he can. I’d take anything he says with a grain of salt, father.”
“I understand,” Cross said. He could hear a clear change in tone in the sheriff’s voice, unsure how far to press it.
“Listen,” the sheriff said. Louder now. “You don’t need him. Gabriella is the real thing, the real deal. Cantrell only went to church for a sip of the wine after a long bender. You don’t need to talk to him.”
“I need to talk to everyone I can,” Cross said. He bit his lip so he wouldn’t say more, so he wouldn’t curse the overweight obstructionist and explain to him that this was bigger than a drunk and a small town sheriff.
A sigh, directly into the phone. “Try Club Ninety-Two on the west end of town. But don’t be surprised to hear more than a little skepticism when the bastard tells you about Father Aaron.”
“Okay,” Cross said. “Thank you very much, Sheriff. I’ll be in touch.”
He hung up the phone and searched the dozen newspaper clippings until he found the small mention from the State section. Only the highlighted paragraph stood out well enough for his eyes to focus on:
He told her to open her eyes, according to resident David Cantrell, who was present at the baptism service. “And she opened her eyes and darned if she didn’t look like she was about to faint. She started crying, and telling everyone she could see again. Her family started crying and then everyone wanted something fixed.”
Below the article was another much smaller space of text reserved for current news about Arizona legislation. Cross recognized “Purgatory” in the text and tried to concentrate on the writing, but found the words slipping together, the permanent frame of blackness around his left eye letting the black ink seep away. Something about border tunnels. Fences. More money to pay for more official patrols.
He stopped and leaned back in the chair, pulling his shirt out of his pants and unfastening the top buttons so more of the cool conditioned air would reach the bare skin. “Tunnels,” he whispered, closing his eyes. With the light on, there was no suffocating darkness behind the eyelids, only a comforting pink emptiness. There was no disease. No worries about parasympathomimetics or prescriptions of T
rusopt or Xalatan.
Darkness was the disease.
CHAPTER 3
In the morning, Cross opened his eyes, then immediately shut them and rolled on his back.
“It’s just a side effect,” he whispered. “Breathe. It’s just a side effect.”
The tingling in his fingers and toes began to intensify. He’d seen the red display of the clock on the nightstand, its red letters blurred and the edges of the lamp next to it fuzzy.
“A side effect. The Diamox.” The hot tears felt good. He let them roll down the sides of his face, his eyes still unable to face the sunlight streaming in through the thin white curtains. He said a prayer, then asked for forgiveness for being so selfish. Then another, for doubting all of it.
The tingling stopped. He opened his eyes and carefully rubbed the water away with the tips of his fingers. The blurred vision had subsided mostly, but the normally sharp outline of the digital clock—11:43 a.m.—still seemed to be slowly leaking out like a red sauce. He got out of bed and stood up, jumping from foot to foot to return the feeling to his legs. Everything felt slightly out of place as if his mind had pulled away from REM a handful of seconds after his eyes had actually opened. He dressed in the same jeans and shirt from the day before, the same jeans and shirt he’d worn for the past two weeks, and grabbed a cup of cheap complimentary coffee from the lobby before walking out into the parking lot.
On Abaddon Drive, the town had grown much more alive since the day before. Vehicles, mostly trucks, passed along without stopping at any of the small shops, heading out of town either to the west or the east. Cross walked past the café with no interest in lunch whatsoever, turning south when he reached the park in the center of the town. He followed Main Street until the buildings ceased and then walked to the first ranch he saw, a small one-story complex just outside the town that commanded a large pasture filled with chocolate brown steers, fenced in with razor wire that gleaned in the hard sunlight.