Salvage (10 page)

"Just like peeling off a Band-Aid," he said, and plunged both feet in. He went down two steps quickly, up to his knees. The frigid water sent a shock straight through to his bones, and he howled in a mixture of delight and holy terror. In the distance, a loon responded with its distinctive cry. For a moment he felt like he might black out, then his bones grew accustomed to the chill, and he wiggled his toes, pallid under water the color of weak tea.

Fat little minnows fearlessly circled his bare legs. Owen breathed deeply the smell of the lake, the trees, and fresh, clean air. Other than the faint smell of gasoline and engine oil from the boat, there appeared to be no sign of human intrusion. No Jet Skis zipped back and forth monotonously in front of the dock, causing wave after wave to pummel the shore. No fishermen trolled past, surreptitiously eyeballing the property. This cabin, in its uninhabited corner of the bay, sheltered from view from the rest of the lake, felt entirely unspoiled by civilization.

On either side of the stairs, white foam with curls of yellow-brown algae washed up, breaking on a rock wall that extended in either direction to prevent erosion of the shore. The dock lay to his right, its hinges creaking as it swayed, the purple and green tin monster thunking against the side. A spider the size of his palm crawled out from one of the stones to his left, dark brown legs with gray stripes, and skittered beneath another.

This was paradise. An Eden among the trees.

It felt fine.
He
felt fine.

He'd barely finished the thought when a piece of trash rose from the depths, caught in a collision between two small waves, and floated toward him. The blue sheet of paper, folded and crumpled but not yet disintegrated, plastered itself on his leg, like slime against his skin. He tore it off in disgust, made to throw it right back into the water, but its message caught his eye, bold black letters streaked across the top:

WILL YOU BE EMBRACED BY

THE ARMS OF THE FATHER?

A religious pamphlet
, he thought.
Should've just tossed it back
.

His gaze skimmed the surface of the lake for others. A couple of gulls were squawking and fighting over a dead fish on the opposite shore, but that was all. The tract must have floated up from somewhere on the main lake.

The warning bubbled up from his subconscious:
She's with us now, Owen.

This tract belonged to the Shepherd and his flock.

Owen read the first paragraph aloud. "'In those days before the flood they were eating and drinking right up to the day Noah went into the Ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and destroyed them all.' Well, that's pleasant," he remarked. The quote was attributed to Matthew 24:38-39. The one below it was from Job:
The dead are in deep anguish,
those beneath the waters and all that live in them. The realm of the dead is naked before God; Abaddon lies uncovered.

"What the hell is
Abaddon
?" Cold shivered up his spine from the water at his feet.
Those beneath the waters
, he thought.
The realm of the dead. Christ!

"Will I be embraced by the arms of the Father?" Owen said smugly, squishing the pamphlet into a wet blue ball and lobbing it back where it came from. "If He's as much a deadbeat as
my
dad, not bloody likely."

A chorus of voices carried on the slight breeze startled him. He stepped down into the wet sand, going in above his knees, to peer around the thick boughs of a sturdy white pine. Needles swished and swayed between him and a stout man who stood hip-deep in the lake, his flowing white robe blossoming like some heavenly flower in the water around him. An unkempt sunset-orange and gray beard sprouted from his nostrils and ears, and fluttered in the breeze as he sang:

My soul is sick, my heart is sore

Now I'm coming home

My strength renew, my home restore,

Lord, I'm coming home.

Owen saw the others then, standing together in the water closer to shore, their own pristine white robes caught in the sunlight between the dancing branches as they sang along with their minister. A mother held a baby girl dressed in a christening gown, a miniature version of the robes her parents, relatives, and friends wore. She huddled close to her husband; both wore beatific smiles. The golden curl high on the baby's crown gave her the look of a cherub.

A high wind whipped through the trees, momentarily obscuring the backwoods baptism. When the branches settled, the minister was not the same man Owen had seen a moment ago: he had dropped fifty pounds, his bushy beard had been trimmed to a neat black mustache, and instead of robes, the man wore a white work shirt, rolled up at the sleeves. Water lapped round his loose black slacks. The crooked smile, stern dark eyes set in deep sockets, flesh the color of a dead fish belly: Owen recognized the man immediately, and fear twisted his guts.

He's here!
Owen thought.
Lori's ghost…

Stumbling backward in fright, his right heel struck a rock, and he fell butt-first into the chilly water. He was able to throw a hand back just in time, stopping himself just shy of going under, his teeth clacking together as he sat down hard in the muck. But he was soaked to the shoulders, and chilled to his bones.

"Having trouble over there, son?" the preacher said. The low pine bough swayed in the wind, giving Owen a clear view of the ceremony for the first time. On one side of the baby and parents stood a youngish man with tattoos on his arms and a stern-faced woman with German plaits in her hair. On the other side, a stout, apple-cheeked woman stood next to an older man, possibly the grandfather.

The voice belonged to the plump, jovial-looking country minister with the downy orange-gray beard—not the Shepherd. Nor were these others the ghostly apparitions of the Shepherd's flock. They smiled at Owen with compassionate but confused looks. The minister, himself casting a sympathetic look through the boughs at Owen, awaited a reply.

Not him
, Owen thought.
Seeing things again—
still.

"I, uh…" Stammering, he pushed himself to his feet. "I just thought you were someone else," he finished weakly, the sound of his clothes dripping into the lake reminding him of the water in his mother's tub. Even though he was soaked and chilled right through to the marrow, he was relieved to find these people weren't who he'd first thought they were.

The minister gave him a quizzical, playful grin. "Pray tell, just who did you
think
I was, young man?"

"I don't know," Owen said. "Just… someone else."

The grin fell from the minister's face. "Well, the Devil has many faces, does he not, my brothers and sisters?" His congregation agreed with nods and mutters of
Amen
. The young mother squeezed her child to her bosom, and the father protected them both in his strong arms. The mother looked somehow familiar, with an older-style haircut and no makeup. The father appeared ashamed.

"Tell me, son," the bearded minister said, "have you borne witness to the Mystery?"

Owen shrugged. "Not that I know of."

The man was struck dumb for a moment, his big ruddy jaw slapping shut. Then he laughed wholeheartedly, a high-pitched cackle of a laugh that seemed to fit the man perfectly. His people laughed with him as he rolled his eyes toward them in wonderment. Once they'd quieted down, he asked, "Have you been
baptized
, son?"

"I don't think so." Owen thought about his mother's feelings toward religion, which he and Lori had eventually discovered were a facade. "Maybe?"

Again the minister chuckled. "You don't seem very sure of yourself, friend. But the Lord," the pastor smiled, "well, the Lord is sure of
you
."

Owen looked out at the open lake—he could see the main bay from here—where frothy white peaks had begun to form, growing larger as they slinked their way toward shore. He wondered what harm it could do, playing along. At least he'd have something amusing to tell Avery. She was always going on about her born-again brother and sister-in-law, both of whom had found Jesus after years of drug abuse. She'd go apeshit thinking they had brainwashed her partner, too.

Maybe they're the same people Lori came up here to see?
Owen thought.
Maybe this guy with the beard is one of the Shepherd's favorite sons, preaching His word while the Shepherd's in his compound, being tended to by a harem of innocent young girls.

He shrugged the thought away, not wanting to think of Lori in such circumstances. She was too strong to be lured into something so lurid… though he supposed many of these people had once been strong, too.

"Come, brother!" The minister ushered Owen toward them with a hand. "You're welcome to join us, if the spirit moves you. Come and be cleansed!"

His people nodded, waving Owen over. The baby girl cried out for attention. Her mother laid a kiss on her forehead, then took her little cherubic hand and used it to wave him toward them.

Owen shrugged, knowing he'd be fine among them if he was prepared against any attempt to convert him. "Okay," he said, already beginning to wade over.

"
Welcome
, son!" the minister said. "Welcome, welcome! I am Brother Woodrow, son, and these good people and I belong to the, uh… Blessed Trinity Mission."

"Thanks," Owen said, stepping into the fold. "Hey there," he said with a timid wave, as the congregation patted him on the shoulders, delighted voices greeting him, and then began singing
Oh come to me, co-o-ome, let the little children come
. When he reached Brother Woodrow, Owen realized he had begun to smile.

"What, may I ask, is
your
name, son?"

"Owen," he said, taking in all the smiling, singing faces, the clapping hands and swaying bodies. "Owen Saddler."

"
Saddler
," the minister repeated dubiously. A ripple of discontent flowed through his parishioners before they fell suddenly quiet, unmoving, watching Owen with seeming distrust. Amid their silence, Owen noticed the baby—the only one still making a noise, her little features pinched together as she wailed—had a small blue cross embroidered on the dress near her heart, the kind with clubs at the ends of each arm, like the ones on playing cards.
A budded cross
, Owen thought, unsure how he knew it.

"Now, hush, now," the minister said, holding out his hands in supplication. "The boy comes to us for
salvation
. Who are we to turn him away? We are
all
God's children, are we not?"

Tentative nods met this. Owen didn't like the vibe he was getting, and suddenly—
desperately
—he wanted nothing more than to creep away, to dive under the minister's legs and
swim
if he had to.

"Well, okay, then," said Brother Woodrow. "We've come down here to the lake to bestow upon this child the Sacrament of Immersion, or baptism, if you prefer, though we do
not
." He smiled over his congregation again, settling his eyes and his smile upon the child in his mother's arms. "But we are always looking for Seekers like us, aren't we, brothers and sisters?"

The congregation agreed.

"Seekers?" Owen wondered aloud.

"Of the Mystery," the minister explained, as if it were obvious. "Of our Father's Eternal Love."

"Right," Owen said, and hoped his sarcasm hadn't been noticeable. "You know, I think one of your tracts washed up over there. Blue thing. Stuff about the days before the flood and whatnot." He remembered the word that had troubled him. "And something called Abaddon?"

Brother Woodrow sneered. "
Abaddon!
" he scoffed. "I assure you, Owen, we don't issue anything so vile as
tracts
, and if you are referring to our, uh…
religious readings
, you are similarly mistaken. We carry nothing but the clothes on our backs and the word of the Lord to the Immersion, isn't that right, brothers and sisters? Excepting, of course, for my very own personal copy of the Good Book." At this, he patted the rectangular lump in the deep breast pocket of his robe.

"Oh," Owen said. He hadn't meant to offend them, but he seemed to have stumbled into something. "Sorry."

"No apology necessary," the minister said, replacing the sneer with his big, bushy smile. "Now, if you'll just step a touch closer to me and turn to face our brethren and sistren, we can begin."

Owen trudged out to Brother Woodrow, and turned to face the others. He crossed his arms over his chest as he'd seen people do in the movies and TV when they "went down to the water," crouching before Brother Woodrow, who laid his right hand gently on Owen's chest. The left hand, Woodrow raised toward the heavens.

"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost—"

The congregants said, "
Amen
."

A sudden chill came over Owen. Another holy-rolling ghost had tried to baptize him just last night—baptize him or
murder
him—while his flock had looked on, just like these people watched now. Brother Woodrow's hand pressed on Owen's chest like the Shepherd's had, and Owen suddenly feared
this
was a hallucination, not the men and women he'd seen before.
Abaddon lies uncovered
. If these people were products of his weary mind, he was in more danger here than he'd been in the tub. Last night he'd merely been in three feet of water. Here he had an
entire lake
to drown in, the same lake that had taken his sister.

And it was very likely these were the same people who'd sold Lori salvation. They'd filled her full of old time religion, and drowned her for her sins.

Owen slipped out from under the holy man's hand, rising quickly from the water. "I'm sorry," he said, so cold he was shaking. "It's the water. I can't—" He considered how not to further offend them. "I don't like going under," he said, and after last night, it wasn't exactly a lie.