Chapter 45
Chapter 45
They had barely settled before someone drew back the bolt. It was dark outside by then. The three of them had barely spoken after boarding. Then the door opened. A guard entered with two more behind him. All three wore the same dark summer work clothes.
“Supper,” he said. “Up.”
None of them moved.
“And prayer.”
Gladice looked up.
“Well,” she said, pushing herself upright. “If they’re feeding us, I suppose we must be grateful.”
The guard did not answer. He stepped aside. The guards took them along the corridor one at a time, with one guard ahead and another behind. Their wrists remained bound.
The dining compartment was three cars ahead. It had once been elegant. A Bible lay at one end of the table beside a water pitcher and four thick white plates. The man from the warehouse stood at the head of the table and smiled when they entered.
“Now there they are,” he said in a voice with a Southern accent. “Our poor little travelers. The Lord does lay hard roads under some feet before He calls them home.”
Louis stared at him. The man’s smile widened. He came around the table with both hands open.
“You’ve been through a rough crossing,” he said. “A rough handling. A rough washing. I’m sorry for that. I truly am. But disorder does cling. The world clings. Somebody has to clean what the world soils.”
He went to Angelique first. He looked over her headscarf and plain blouse, then lingered on her face. Louis hated the satisfaction in his smile.
“Miss Bourbon,” he said. “You look better already.”
Angelique stared at him and said nothing.
He turned to Louis.
“And you.” The smile remained as he looked Louis over. “The boy they built a continent’s future on.” He glanced down Louis’s body, then met his eyes again. “A little chastened. A little quieter. Good. Good.”
Then he turned to Gladice.
“And our stray Gulf daughter.” He drew out the words. “Still mean enough in the mouth to suggest there might be something worth saving in the soul.”
Gladice stared back at him. “If you believe that, you’ll die disappointed.”
He laughed.
“Oh, I am hopeful, child. Hopeful is my profession.” He touched two fingers to his chest. “Pastor Ephraim Bell. Senior Covenant Examiner, for the present journey. I am here to help you arrive in a better condition than the one in which you were found.”
Gladice looked him up and down. “You want to clean us again? Or just admire the work already done?”
Pastor Bell kept smiling. “My, my. You have spirit. That is good. Spirit is proof of God’s spark even when it misfires. And we have time yet to teach you how to aim.”
The guards seated all three on one side of the table, with Louis between Angelique and Gladice. Two guards remained by the door. A third stood by the buffet hatch with his arms folded. At the pastor’s nod, a woman in gray ladled stew into the bowls. She added coarse bread, boiled greens, and metal cups of water.
No one touched anything. Pastor Bell took his place at the head of the table and opened the Bible.
“Now,” he said. “Before we put food in ungoverned mouths, we are going to thank the One who brought us all here.”
He waited for them to bow their heads. None of them did.
Steam rose from Louis’s bowl. He kept his eyes on it. Angelique stared at the opposite wall. Gladice kept her eyes on the pastor.
Pastor Bell gestured. One guard came along the table, caught Louis by the hair, and forced his head down.
“Do it.” He turned to Angelique and Gladice. “All of you.”
Angelique closed her eyes. Gladice kept hers open as she lowered her head. Louis kept his head bowed. His scalp burned where the guard held his hair, and he breathed through his nose with his jaw clenched.
Pastor Bell closed his eyes and put one hand over the open Bible.
“Heavenly Father, Lord God,” he began. His voice filled the carriage without raising itself. “We thank You tonight that no storm, no sea, no violence of men can take a soul beyond Your reach. We thank You that You have brought these young lives under Your eye and under Your hand. We thank You that what the world calls chaos, You still use for order. What the flesh calls freedom, You expose as bondage. What pride calls identity, You bring low before truth.”
Louis’s jaw tightened. Pastor Bell went on.
“We thank You that though the world has tried to write them, You have not yet surrendered the page. We thank You that though false fathers, false cities, and false beliefs have made their claims upon flesh, blood, vanity, and desire, still Your hand has not withdrawn. We thank You that You bring down the haughty in strange places. That You remove sons from wicked comfort. That You uncover women from false crowns. That You break cities in order to see which daughters can still be called home.”
Angelique’s fingers closed more tightly around one another in her lap.
“We ask now,” said Pastor Bell, “that the boy raised in power without reverence be taught manhood under judgment. That the girl raised in memory without submission be taught peace beneath rightful covering. That the southern child gone vain in spectacle, rebellion, and pride be brought low enough to hear the old call still waiting under all her noise.”
He paused there, as if savoring his own mercy.
“Bless this meal. Clean these vessels. And let truth come to the table before food does, for no body is nourished rightly where the soul is still lying. In the Holy Name of our Lord Jesus Christ—”
“Amen,” said the attendants and the guards. None of the three of them joined.
Pastor Bell opened his eyes, looked down the table, and smiled as though that too had been anticipated.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “We’ll work on that.”
Louis picked up his spoon. The stew was thick with beans, meat, onion, and pepper. The smoked meat left a bitter taste at the back of his throat. He ate two spoonfuls before he stopped. However much he hated the room, he was still hungry.
Angelique took one bite, waited, then took another. Gladice tore the bread with her bound hands, dipped it into the stew, and ate in quick bites. Pastor Bell watched all three. He waited until each of them had eaten a few bites, then closed the Bible.
“In Dixieland,” he said, “we do not eat our fill while lies still sit warm on the tongue. So before we continue, each of you will speak truth.”
Gladice leaned back in her chair, her bound hands resting in her lap. “Is this the part where you expect us to confess something?”
Pastor Bell answered without looking at her. “Yes, child. That is exactly the part.”
“Go to hell.”
He looked at her then. His smile disappeared. “This is not a game, Miss Simington.”
“Oh, I know it isn’t,” she said. “A game would be more honest.”
“Enough.” He folded his hands. “You may think yourselves here as captives of force. That is the world’s reading. The deeper reading is simpler. Each of you has been delivered to a table where your names can be spoken properly for the first time in too long. But I do not require all truth at once. I am not cruel. I require only one honest sentence from each of you before bread goes any further.”
He looked at Louis.
“We’ll begin with the boy.”
Louis set his spoon down.
Pastor Bell’s smile returned. “Louis Collins, you have lived your whole life in a lie your father calls empire. Tell us one truth about that life. Just one. Tell us something you know and have not said aloud before.”
Louis said nothing. He could feel Angelique sitting rigid beside him.
Pastor Bell nodded. “The longer you wait, the harder it is to begin. But we will wait.”
Louis looked down at his hands, the bowl, and the black plastic restraint around his wrists. He remembered the warehouse floor beneath him, the hose striking his skin, and the injector entering the side of his throat. He knew what he wanted to say. He had thought it before, but never said it to an enemy.
He looked up.
“My father will kill every person involved in this.” His voice was quiet but steady. “And he will enjoy doing it.” He paused. “And I saw your face. That is one truth.”
Pastor Bell watched him, then smiled. “Oh, that is truth. Very good.”
He turned to Angelique.
“Miss Bourbon. Your turn.”
Angelique held his gaze, her bound hands resting in her lap.
“What truth will you give us?”
She did not hesitate. “I will not play your game.”
“That is not a truth. That is defiance.”
“Then you have your answer.”
Pastor Bell sighed. “Defiance is easy, Miss Bourbon. It requires no courage at all. You sit here bound and think yourself brave because you refuse to speak? Real courage is standing in the ruins of your own vanity and naming the thing that brought you there.”
She did not look away. “Do you talk to all your hostages like this, or am I special?”
He smiled again. “You are special. And the Lord has given you more than one chance to prove it.”
He folded his hands.
“You are beautiful. You know it. You were raised to know it. That is not your first sin. Beauty is not a sin. Vanity is not even your first sin. Your first sin is more elegant than that. You have been taught to convert male disorder into proof of your own significance.”
Louis’s throat tightened. Pastor Bell went on.
“You speak well. You carry old names. You move as if the room owes you proportion. You let men gather around a structure they do not understand and then call it mystery. But a woman may be mysterious or rightly ruled. She may not be both for long. So say it: I have enjoyed being the prize men fight over.”
Angelique did not blink.
“No,” she said.
Pastor Bell waited. “That is not truth, my dear. It is only more vanity. Try again.”
“The truth is,” she said, “that you are a small man trying to sound large.” She kept her voice calm. “And if you were truly confident in your god, you wouldn’t need to humiliate captives to feel strong.”
Gladice laughed. Pastor Bell closed the Bible and gestured for the guard to come forward.
“Since you have chosen the path of pride, we will set the table for you.” He rose from his seat. “We will see how long your vanity lasts.”
The guard moved toward Angelique. Louis started to stand, but the guard behind him pushed him back down by the shoulder. Angelique did not resist. She kept her eyes on Pastor Bell.
The guard drew a knife from his belt. Pastor Bell watched her face.
“I will give you a chance to reconsider,” Pastor Bell said. “You have not yet begun to understand how many ways the Lord can trim excess from a woman.”
The guard held the blade up where she could see it. Angelique did not look at the knife. She looked at the pastor.
“Go to hell,” she said.
Pastor Bell sighed and nodded. The guard took a fistful of her hair and forced her head forward over the table.
“Stop!” Louis said, and this time two guards had to put their weight on him to keep him in the chair. “Be a man, you sick fuck. Stop!”
Gladice got to her feet before the nearest guard could stop her. She drove both bound hands into the side of the guard’s head. He stumbled away from Angelique. The other guard lunged for her. She kicked the side of his knee, and his leg buckled beneath him. He swore and reached for her. She spat in his face.
The guard with the knife tried to hold Angelique against the table. She twisted under his grip and pulled against the hand in her hair. The guard at the door drew his sidearm and leveled it at Louis.
Pastor Bell raised one hand.
“Enough.”
The guards stopped. The man holding Angelique released her hair but kept one hand on her shoulder. She straightened, breathing through her mouth, with loose hair hanging across her face. Gladice stood beside the table and kept staring at the guard she had struck. Two guards still held Louis in his chair. He pulled against them until the plastic restraint cut into his wrists.
Pastor Bell looked over the three of them and smiled.
“I see,” he said. “We will have to do this differently. I am a patient man, but even patience needs order.” He gestured to the guards. “Separate them.”
“Wait. I have a confession to make.” Gladice was still breathing hard, but her words carried across the table. “I have a sin to confess.”
The pastor turned back to her. “Now, Miss Simington. I wonder if you are finally seeing wisdom.”
“Perhaps.”
“Well?” He folded his hands. “Speak it.”
Gladice looked at him. “I have taken pleasure in killing Dixies. I’ve lost count of how many. But I remember every face.” She smiled. “The way they ran around screaming when they realized their god had let them die while I was shooting them like fish in a barrel.” She kept looking at him. “That is my truth. Are you satisfied?”
Pastor Bell stared at her.
“We will work on that too,” he said quietly after a moment.
He nodded to the guards. “Take them out. Put each in separate cells. No water until morning. No lights. No blankets. And nothing soft to sit on. Let their bodies learn before their mouths do.”
Two guards pulled Louis to his feet. Others seized Angelique and Gladice by the arms. As Louis passed Pastor Bell, he looked him in the eye.
“Pray you never meet my father.”
Pastor Bell nodded without answering. The guards marched them down the corridor and through the next carriage. At the end of the passenger car, a guard unlocked a heavy door. Beyond it was a narrow passage with six cells. Each contained a low steel bunk and a floor drain. Cinder-block walls separated the cells.
One guard shoved Louis into the second cell and locked the door. He slid two bolts into place outside. Louis heard other doors open and close as Angelique and Gladice were placed in nearby cells. The guards exchanged a few words, and their footsteps receded. The corridor light went out.