snow on the ground?
It’s a likelihood.
You know I ain’t good with the inclement weather. I got bad circulation in my legs.
You’ll endure.
What’s in Colorado anyway?
A citadel.
A what now?
A church.
Another church?
That’s right.
Jesus, we’re spendin a lot of time with the gospel. Whathappens if I come out the other end all godified and priesty? What happens if I want to take the vow?
Moses chuckles.
I wouldn’t worry about it.
Abraham is quiet for a while. He picks his teeth with the wood splinter and looks thoughtfully at the beams running across the roof of the stable.
What’re we doin this for, Mose? he asks. Really now.
It’s a mission, Moses says. Wewanted a mission and we got one.
Abraham nods.
But let’s be clear on this, Abraham says. You were the one that wanted a mission. It was never me.
Moses nods.
Fair enough, he says. My mission, then.
Abraham considers a while longer.
All right then, he says finally. I’ll come along with you on your mission. It’s a brother’s duty, ain’t it?
*
And later, wellpast midnight when Moses cannot sleep, he rises from the crib and steals out of the stable to stand under the coal-black sky and listen to the shrill
cricket-song stretched taut and incontrovertible over the desert.
He sits heavily on one of the picnic tables and folds his hands as though waiting politely for someone to bring him sustenance. His beard is dark and heavy.
Soon someonedoes come. It is the Vestal Amata, still dressed in her white robes, and she sits down across from him and looks into his eyes.
He has not been, for many years, the kind of man whom a woman approaches. It used to be different, long ago, before things changed. Then he was cleanshaven, tall but still lithe. He knew how to
be playful. He knew how to juggle oranges found underneath a laden orangetree. Now he has forgotten much of who he was before. Now he stomps and rages and draws lines he dares people not to cross.
He is a man of hard laws and hard action, a man sharpened on the grit of constant violence. He is a barbarian, he knows.
So he does not know what to make of a woman who approaches him alone in the middle of the night. He suspects again this Vestal – her slightly sneeringmouth, her red hair, her eyes that do
not look away in fright at the world and its barbaric things.
We’re taking you, he says to her. My brother and me. We’re settin out tomorrow.
Ignatius told me, says the Vestal.
She confronts him with her obstinate silence. He does not know whether he seeks refusal or gratefulness, but he finds that he has no gambit against the woman who doesnot reveal her game.
Sunrise, he says. Just after sunrise.
That’s fine, she says.
Colorado, he says. That’s where we’re goin. I don’t know if the friar told you. It’s a citadel.
He told me.
It’s in the mountains. It’ll be cold. Bring what you have. We’ll make room.
Fine.
We’ll keep you out of harm.
That’s fine.
She deflects his words easily and looks at himas though she is the one trying to unlock his secrets, as opposed to the other way around.
He stands and begins to walk away, but he can feel her eyes on his back – and large as he is, he feels delicate and frail.
Hey, she calls to him.
He stops and turns to face her but says nothing.
You and your brother, she says. Are you holy men too? Or just hired guns?
He is no expertof locution, but her words seem different now than they were earlier in the day. Perhaps she is a phantasm – her night form and her day form not the same.
But her question unsettles him. He does not know how to answer it. So he replies in kind.
How bout you? he asks. You an authentic miracle of God’s holy grace – or just a hoax?
She smiles at him now – and now all pretence of purityis gone. What replaces it in her expression is something conspiring and downright lascivious.
All right, Mosey, she says. Let’s get out of here and play for a while on the big checkerboard.
It’s a likelihood.
You know I ain’t good with the inclement weather. I got bad circulation in my legs.
You’ll endure.
What’s in Colorado anyway?
A citadel.
A what now?
A church.
Another church?
That’s right.
Jesus, we’re spendin a lot of time with the gospel. Whathappens if I come out the other end all godified and priesty? What happens if I want to take the vow?
Moses chuckles.
I wouldn’t worry about it.
Abraham is quiet for a while. He picks his teeth with the wood splinter and looks thoughtfully at the beams running across the roof of the stable.
What’re we doin this for, Mose? he asks. Really now.
It’s a mission, Moses says. Wewanted a mission and we got one.
Abraham nods.
But let’s be clear on this, Abraham says. You were the one that wanted a mission. It was never me.
Moses nods.
Fair enough, he says. My mission, then.
Abraham considers a while longer.
All right then, he says finally. I’ll come along with you on your mission. It’s a brother’s duty, ain’t it?
*
And later, wellpast midnight when Moses cannot sleep, he rises from the crib and steals out of the stable to stand under the coal-black sky and listen to the shrill
cricket-song stretched taut and incontrovertible over the desert.
He sits heavily on one of the picnic tables and folds his hands as though waiting politely for someone to bring him sustenance. His beard is dark and heavy.
Soon someonedoes come. It is the Vestal Amata, still dressed in her white robes, and she sits down across from him and looks into his eyes.
He has not been, for many years, the kind of man whom a woman approaches. It used to be different, long ago, before things changed. Then he was cleanshaven, tall but still lithe. He knew how to
be playful. He knew how to juggle oranges found underneath a laden orangetree. Now he has forgotten much of who he was before. Now he stomps and rages and draws lines he dares people not to cross.
He is a man of hard laws and hard action, a man sharpened on the grit of constant violence. He is a barbarian, he knows.
So he does not know what to make of a woman who approaches him alone in the middle of the night. He suspects again this Vestal – her slightly sneeringmouth, her red hair, her eyes that do
not look away in fright at the world and its barbaric things.
We’re taking you, he says to her. My brother and me. We’re settin out tomorrow.
Ignatius told me, says the Vestal.
She confronts him with her obstinate silence. He does not know whether he seeks refusal or gratefulness, but he finds that he has no gambit against the woman who doesnot reveal her game.
Sunrise, he says. Just after sunrise.
That’s fine, she says.
Colorado, he says. That’s where we’re goin. I don’t know if the friar told you. It’s a citadel.
He told me.
It’s in the mountains. It’ll be cold. Bring what you have. We’ll make room.
Fine.
We’ll keep you out of harm.
That’s fine.
She deflects his words easily and looks at himas though she is the one trying to unlock his secrets, as opposed to the other way around.
He stands and begins to walk away, but he can feel her eyes on his back – and large as he is, he feels delicate and frail.
Hey, she calls to him.
He stops and turns to face her but says nothing.
You and your brother, she says. Are you holy men too? Or just hired guns?
He is no expertof locution, but her words seem different now than they were earlier in the day. Perhaps she is a phantasm – her night form and her day form not the same.
But her question unsettles him. He does not know how to answer it. So he replies in kind.
How bout you? he asks. You an authentic miracle of God’s holy grace – or just a hoax?
She smiles at him now – and now all pretence of purityis gone. What replaces it in her expression is something conspiring and downright lascivious.
All right, Mosey, she says. Let’s get out of here and play for a while on the big checkerboard.
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