Grey wanted to walk out of the room. He didn’t want to see this man’s shame and grief and remorse, or to share in any of it. Nor did he know how this related to the matters at hand, but he did not move. Something deep inside his chest, inside his heart, told him to stay. He glanced at Looks Away and the Sioux’s face was troubled and sad, so Grey sat there drinking the bitter coffee and thinking bitter thoughts as storms raged outside and inside the old house.
It took Brother Joe a long time to claw himself back from the edge of his personal abyss. Jenny eventually stepped back and reclaimed her chair. The monk wiped his streaming eyes with his sleeve. He took a sip of coffee and coughed his throat clear.
“I’m sorry,” he said, but no one responded to that.
Instead Grey said, “Tell me the rest. What happened after that?”
“After that? Paradise Falls was destroyed,” said Brother Joe. “Most of it, anyway. Three-quarters of the homes and buildings. Nine tenths of the people. Gone. We would learn later that this was not a judgment leveled against us but against many. Most of what had been California had been rent apart and thrown down. Like a bandage removed to reveal a terrible wound, we saw what lay beneath our land. Pits. Great caverns where the foul things of the earth long dwelt in shadows. Bottomless holes and endless caverns from which the earth exhaled a breath of brimstone and ash. Men have come to call it the Maze, but it is the landscape of Satan’s burning kingdom revealed.”
Jenny poured him more of the wretched coffee.
“Paradise Falls nearly died on that day. I do not know why any of it survived and I do not pretend to understand God’s mysteries. Like many of the survivors did, I left. I went down to Mexico and made a confession to the Cardinal.”
“What happened?” asked Grey.
Brother Joe almost smiled. A rueful, twisted little smile. The kind never associated with a happy memory. “He spat on me.”
“He spat on you?”
“And I do not blame him,” the monk said quickly. “If he’d had a knife at hand I believe he would have plunged it into my breast, and he would have been right to do so. There are some sins that go beyond any tolerance. I had broken faith with God and with my flock, and I had crawled across my Savior to—.”
“Bullshit,” said Grey, and it brought Brother Joe up short. “Far as I can tell you’re an ordinary human being. I’m no Catholic and I’m not much given to attending church, but I seem to remember from having been there once or twice that priests and parsons are no different than anyone else. You’re flesh and bone, man. You’re not an angel or God Himself.”
Brother Joe shook his head. “No, you don’t understand what it means to be a priest of the church. It was my duty to protect my flock.”
“What, like Jesus protects everyone who calls themselves a Christian? No, don’t look so shocked. You can’t sit there and tell me that faith alone is any kind of shield. It never has been. The Romans nailed Jesus to the cross, and they whipped him bloody before they did it. And I read enough of the Bible to remember that most of the apostles and saints got themselves tortured and killed. John the Baptist lost his damn head. They crucified Peter upside down, and millions of good Christians have died since then. You want to sit there and tell me that none of them—including some of the saints — weren’t afraid? That they didn’t want to bargain their way out? You think all of them went willingly to their deaths? People think that because that’s how the Bible’s written, but didn’t Jesus ask God to let that cup pass by?”
“He still went to the cross.”
“Sure. He was Jesus. You’re not. You’re only a man like the rest of us. If it had been me in that church, I’d have crawled over more than a wooden cross to get out of there.”
The monk kept shaking his head, and Grey let it go. He flapped a hand at Brother Joe.
“Whatever. Tell me how that walks us all the way to right now.”
“Very well,” said Brother Joe. “After I made my confession I was defrocked. My robes were torn, my surplice cut to pieces and my holy orders rescinded. The cardinal stopped short of excommunicating me because another priest interceded on my behalf. A good and righteous man who had been in seminary with me. He begged that I be allowed to work for my reclamation by returning as a brother of the Order of Outcasts. The order was formed after the Quake and is made up of brothers and a few priests who have each survived the destruction of their churches.”
“Like I said, you’re not the only one.”
“I am the only coward,” said Brother Joe.
“I doubt that,” said Grey unkindly. Then he amended it. “I mean, I doubt you’re the only one who did what he had to do to survive.”
Brother Joe chose not to comment on that. Instead he picked up the thread of his narrative. “When I returned to Paradise Falls, I expected to find only scattered people. Or perhaps no one at all. Instead I found that a leader had risen among them. A good man who, though not a Catholic, was clearly doing God’s work. He had gathered the survivors and organized them into work parties to search for other survivors, to gather food and water, and to begin rebuilding the town.”
“You’re talking about Jenny’s dad,” said Grey. “Lucky Bob Pearl, am I right?”
“Yes,” said Brother Joe. “Bob Pearl saved this town. He protected it the way I should have. He was a great, great man and if he is indeed dead, then I know that he sleeps in the arms of the Lord.”
Jenny smiled a sad little smile.
“Brother—?” prompted Looks Away, “at the risk of being indelicate, we are straying from the point.”
“No he’s not,” said Jenny. “This all started with the Quake, and the people here in Paradise Falls are what’s left of a good town. Brother Joe may have done wrong as he sees it, but he came back. He worked right alongside my pa to rebuild. He worked hard, day and night. Since he’s come back he’s bled for the people here.”
“Miss Pearl, please—,” began the monk, flushing with embarrassment.
“Hey,” said Grey, “you don’t need to defend this man to me. I’m not in any position to throw stones, God knows. I have enough check marks on my own soul to buy me a front seat in Hell, and that’s not a joke.”
They all looked at him. The rain rattled against the windows and lightning burned the night.
“Maybe these days there’s no one pure as a babe,” continued Grey. “So let’s not waste a lot of time on confession or absolution. Let’s talk about what the hell is going on.”
“What’s going on, old chap,” said Looks Away, “is that as soon as the dust settled from the Quake they discovered ghost rock.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Ah,” said Grey. “Now we’re getting to it.”
“You know about that,” said the Sioux. “Everyone does. And you know that the supplies of it are becoming scarce very quickly. Prospectors found several large pieces of it in the caves just over the cliffs from where we’re sitting. Enough of it to make those gentlemen enormously wealthy. They hired other men to continue mining.”
“If there was so much of the rock around then why is the town so damn poor?”
“Ah, well there’s the crux of it,” said Looks Away. “You see Lucky Bob and the good Brother Joe here weren’t the only people offering to help out the good citizens of Paradise Falls. A certain gentleman from the East came and offered to provide start-up capital and loans for rebuilding. At a modest rate of interest, of course.”