Dead Sleeping Shaman (29 page)

Salvation

Arnold Otis lay in
a pool of his own blood where he had fallen after Officer Winston shot him. People in robes and people in blue jeans made a wide circle around the dead man. They stared in disbelief, gaped over shoulders, and pushed their way through to get a look. Horror spread over their faces. Children clutched at their mothers’ skirts. Most of the crowd was silent, stunned that they were still alive. Little by little, with eerie quiet, they began to slink away, stopping only to give a police officer their name and address—potential witnesses. They would be needed—some of them—for the inquest; people called to back up Winston’s story about the use of his weapon and deadly force. Dolly and I would be there, but more than just the two of us would be needed.

When enough information had been gathered, people scurried off as fast as they could, some to their trailers, some to their tents, where they grabbed stakes from the ground and hurriedly stuffed canvas haphazardly into the backs of their pickups. Little by little the grounds were cleared; the wet and trampled dead grasses left a sea of mud. Before the ambulance arrived to take away the two dead men, a few of us stood looking down at the murderer, Arnold Otis, who had killed his mother and his sister, and had tried to kill his brother, only to bring the end of the world to the Reverend Fritch, just as the reverend had predicted. An honest, if confused, man, the reverend had foretold his own mortality and projected it out onto the world.

After the ambulances left, no sirens blaring because they carried only the dead, Brother Righteous, or Paul Otis, in his bloody robe, had to be helped up from his knees. His long, pale face was streaked with tears. His eyes were terrible—the eyes of a man who had seen his world end more than once.

Dolly helped Sally get him off the stage. They sat him down at a picnic bench and let him rest his head on his arms, all life draining from his thin body.

Dolly was out of her wet robe in a flash, uniform on beneath; her gun strapped at her side. Not the outfit a sane woman would wear to heaven.

“Will he be all right?” I asked Sally, who hovered near the grieving man.

She nodded. “He’ll have to live with another death. But he will go on. There is the reverend’s work to continue.”

I was confused. “The world didn’t end …”

Sally shrugged. “The reverend’s world ended. Arnold Otis’ world ended. Who knows what the messages really meant? Brother Righteous will keep the movement going. Perhaps another message. Perhaps another ending. Who knows but that he was the one, himself, who put this wild day into motion? There are those who must be punished and those who are the catalyst for that punishment. And there are those who are martyred—like our good, dear Reverend Fritch.

“He will be rewarded today. He wouldn’t have wanted to live on. People will say he failed. Better to give his life for someone he loved the way he loved Brother Righteous—like a son.” She closed her eyes and smiled. “He is in heaven now, with our Father. What better reward …”

“But. . .” I still wasn’t understanding. “I’m missing things here. Were you the one who wrote to Marjory?”

She nodded. “The Reverend Fritch asked me to. Something was going on with Brother Righteous. After the terrible accident he had—so many years ago—he came to the reverend’s church, hurt, unable to speak, devoid of memory.

“Little by little his memory returned. But something terrible was buried there. We all saw it, how his eyes would widen—as if he’d seen the fires of hell—and he would cower, face in his hands. One day he came out with a name—he wrote it down for Reverend Fritch. That’s when he asked me to find the woman—Marjory Otis. It was her name Brother Righteous had written. I found her in Ohio.”

She looked over at Paul Otis, his face buried in his hands. She lowered her voice. “More and more came back to Brother Righteous until one day he wrote that he had to confess to a terrible sin before the end. He needed his sister—and it was this Marjory Otis. He had to confess to her first, he wrote. Reverend Fritch thought maybe it was an excess of religious zeal—people get like that when the spirit moves among us; when the predictions are dire.”

“He knew about his mother being buried out there?” I asked.

Brother Righteous looked up at me. “I helped … Arnold. My
… sin too.”

“You put the roses on her grave?”

He nodded. “I needed to … honor her. After what … I helped Arnold do.”

“Why did he kill his own mother?”

Brother Righteous hung his head. “He wanted … to live with our … aunt and uncle. He … said … we had … no chance with …
our mother. He made … me help … bury her. He said I would … go to jail if anybody found … out what we … did. I believed him.”

“Too bad Marjory didn’t come to us first.” Sister Sally, shivering now, moved close to Brother Righteous and rested her hand on his bent shoulder. She bowed her head to his and whispered in his ear.

She straightened. “Marjory came to Leetsville, as we’d asked her to do. But not to us. She must have called Arnold, telling him of my letter and her mission. She didn’t know what she was doing. Arnold knew. All I can imagine is he arranged to take her to Deward. He told her what he’d done and, while she was in shock, maybe crying, he killed her. So terribly, terribly sad. All so he could escape his past.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t bury her too.” Dolly shook her head.

“He … didn’t have me … to help him.” Paul’s voice was sorrowful. “I should have … warned Marjory about … Arnold.”

His eyes were burdened with new guilt.

Sally drew a deep breath. Paul lifted his head and listened as Sister Sally put the last pieces of his family tragedy together.

“I was the one who saw in the local newspaper that a Marjory Otis had been found dead. I had to tell the Reverend Fritch and he told Brother Righteous.

“We seemed to almost lose him there for a while.” Tears filled Sally’s eyes. Brother Righteous nodded. “When he came back to us he wrote that he would speak—on the morning of the End Time. He would tell all. But too late for his brother to seek redemption. He wanted his brother to go to his death unshriven, in a state of sin so awful that he would burn in hell forever.”

“You’ve gotten your wish …” Sally leaned in toward Brother Righteous. “He would have killed Marjory anyway. He wanted so badly to be a senator. Once Marjory was dead we all knew Brother Righteous—Paul—had to be next. But there was no way to prove anything. Our word against the word of a powerful man. That’s why I was so afraid and needed Dolly’s help.”

Paul Otis heaved a deep sigh and looked skyward as if searching for something there.

Dolly moved close to Sally’s side. “It isn’t Brother Righteous’ fault, you know, Sally. He wouldn’t have wanted the reverend to die like he did.”

“I know that.” Sister Sally pulled back. “It’s the way of all things, Dolly. Out of our hands.

“And thank you,” she said, smiling into Dolly’s solemn face. “I don’t know what we would have done without …”

I looked at Dolly, too, still angry but catching on that more had been behind her instant conversion that I’d given her credit for.

“You knew …” I said.

Dolly made a face. “Later.”

Around us, the men of their church quickly dismantled the damp stage. Everything was down and being packed into vehicles. The huge RV was pulled up close, waiting for Sister Sally and Brother Righteous.

“We’re not leaving,” Sally said as she helped Brother Righteous to his feet. He looked down at his blood-stained robe and hands. He folded those hands up into the thick sleeves of his robe.

“We’ll claim his body first, then we’ll continue his ministry,” Sally said. “That’s what he would have wanted.”

Brother Righteous looked from her to Dolly, then me. He nodded.

“Death has passed … on by,” he said in his halting, flat voice.

Sally patted his arm. “Yes. It was as it was supposed to be. Now we walk into the future.”

He looked back at Dolly, pleading written across his face.

“Thank … you.”

“I’m sorry … about your friend,” Dolly said, her small face, under that bald head, almost melting with regret.

“I’m staying until … We will …” He gulped hard, as if reaching down inside himself for words. “… bury my sister … and my mother. And my … friend.”

Later, at EATS, over warming cups of tea, Dolly had to tell her story again and again. How Sister Sally had gotten her off in a corner on that first night at the campground and begged her to help. She knew Brother Righteous was in trouble; that Leetsville was more than a place to wait for the End Time. And then his sister was found murdered. No one knew what to do. They only knew Paul was in trouble and had to be protected.

“Sister Sally told me that they were afraid Brother Righteous would be next. They feared he would die without cleansing his soul of the awful sin bothering him. He’d never been in a mental home, the way Arnold Otis hinted. But he wouldn’t share what was so troubling to him, with the flock, until the last day. That was his wish—the last day. He would speak—he’d been working on one word at a time. He would tell everything, be absolved, but curse his brother. A real Cain and Abel kind of thing going on, I guess.”

Dolly took a deep breath and looked around at the people gathered, listening.

“Sally told me they couldn’t get it out of him. Whatever the terrible thing was he carried inside him. Brother Righteous promised to tell everything in his last confession, on the day of the End Time. But that tied everybody’s hands. Who were they supposed to protect him from? Eventually we knew, but had no way of proving anything.”

Dolly shook her head and leaned back, stretching her arms wide. “I figured all along we’d find out this last morning.”

She put up a hand, stopping the questions bubbling around her. I jumped in anyway.

“You couldn’t trust me?” I was madder than ever now that I knew she might have spared me so much misery.

She gave me her usual sour face. “Lucky said I’d better get into character and stay that way. If anybody suspected what I was up to, the whole thing would have been blown. Just like out there at Deward, when Arnold found you there at his mother’s grave. He must have had that aide follow you and steal your camera and the roses. Maybe he’d already told his people that blackmail story. Who knows what makes one man break the law for another?” She turned my way. “I’ll get your camera back. Don’t worry.”

I moved right on from that bit of good news, on to the other thing she’d said. “Lucky knew? He pretended he didn’t.”

“I had to tell him, Emily. What could we do? I guess you really gave it to him about your allegiance to the newspaper. Something like that. Anyway, poor guy, he’s been trying his best to include you.” She stopped to take a deep breath. “And poor Winston, never shot anybody before. Your newspaper’ll be making a big deal of the whole thing—Arnold Otis being a candidate for state senate and all.”

“That’s my job,” I said.

“Yeah, well, keepin’ it a secret was ours.” She shook her head.

“I feel bad for Omar. I kinda like the guy,” Dolly said. People around us nodded. All firmly in his corner.

“Omar?” I asked.

“Yeah. Officer Winston. That’s his name. I think he’s top notch.”

“You would,” I groused. “Peas in a pod and all of that. Next time you try to get me into one of these things you keep stumbling into, drive on past my house, ok? You left me holding the bag. Why, I …”

Crystalline, Felicia, and Sonia moved up behind me. Crystalline touched my shoulders, quieting me and holding me in place. Felicia set her fingers gently on top of my head. Sonia reached down to take my hands. Between them they had me pinned where I sat, soothing the anger I hugged close.

“You’ve got wonderful things ahead of you, Emily,” Crystalline said, in what must have passed for a mystical voice. I could feel the warmth of her fingers on my back, coming through the cashmere of my sweater. I tried to shake the calming hands away, but couldn’t. “Why, you will do something spectacular with your writing.”

Dolly cocked her head my way, lifting her chin at me. “You hear from an agent or somebody like that?”

I wasn’t about to share great news with somebody who could shut me out of her life so easily. I said nothing, holding my secret to myself.

“An agent? You sell the book?” she prodded, leaning closer. “Well, what do you know? I’m gonna be famous.” She settled back in her chair, a fatuous smile spreading over her face.