The Heretics of St. Possenti Read online

  Grace at the evening meal was heartfelt. Bonding was happening fast. For the first time in too long these recently introduced strangers felt they were around people they could relate to and, just as importantly, people who understood them. The accommodations were minimal, the food was simple, hot, and sufficient, the company comfortable, and the sense of progress and accomplishment palpable.

  Thomas Cranberry was not pushing a hard construction schedule. He wanted a deliberate pace, with a lot of training and instruction and experimentation, substantive religious training, and regular critiques with thoughts going into program development. He wanted routines that could be scaled up to hundreds of people while the construction of the physical facilities was done at a pace that lent a sense of accomplishment without burnout and left significant things undone for the newer arrivals later. Restoring power, getting sufficient plumbing in working order, and building out the kitchen were priorities, but they needed to be done in a way that training newcomers on wiring, plumbing, institutional hardware, and other job skills would still be easy to do.

  * * *

  The next couple of days fell into an oft-altered attempt at establishing a routine of learning about the property and its buildings, starting cross-training on many aspects of construction and repairs, cataloging issues that needed to be prioritized and addressed, cooking, counseling, and contemplation. Problems were found in several places of the concrete pad, but they were able to set up a temporary kitchen on a solid portion while they determined the extent of the repairs they might need to make to the rest.

  * * *

  Each day, as on the day that they arrived, Abbot Cranberry celebrated Mass in a corner of the main building that had been designated as the chapel. The abbot had brought a supply of the disposable “Monthly Missalettes” that every Catholic is familiar with, and the new monks quickly became accustomed to making the customary responses—the Our Father, the Confiteor, the Lamb of God, the Creed—and dropping to their knees at the Consecration and other high points. They also sang the hymns that they found in the back of the Missalettes. The abbot was assisted at Mass by the chaplain, Father Bunt, whom Abbot Cranberry had designated as his temporary second-in-command, the prior, at least until Mathews showed up.

  * * *

  On the third day the farmer who had plowed the road out for them dropped by to see how things were going as he’d promised. He was impressed at the neatness and orderliness he saw even though substantial progress wasn’t yet very visible.

  He was happy to take a pair of them into town to buy some supplies, and he said he knew another farmer with a truck and an older but working tractor with basic implements for sale if they were interested. They thought they might be and stopped in to take a look on the drive to town.

  The owner was a congenial older man who was mightily amused at the thought of anything as strange as an order of monks moving into the old Madsen place with an eye toward rebuilding it. But he allowed that with a Hutterite colony being established in the south county, the mill trading hands five times in eight years after a century in the same family, and the new nearly middle-of-nowhere cannery, he should expect the world to keep changing in unpredictable ways.

  The truck worked as advertised, and the other equipment was well used but well cared for and serviceable. The pair of monks paid for the truck in cash, shook hands on a deal to come back in a couple of weeks to get properly trained on the other equipment, and drove themselves the rest of the way for supplies.

  The town’s one combined hardware, dry good, and food market looked like it had seen better days—likely in the 1950s—but it had what they needed, and the owner/manager they talked to was more than happy to arrange for the expected weekly increase in demand for staples like milk, eggs, butter, and cheap cuts of meat, providing the monks with a reasonable discount and himself with a reasonable increase in cash flow and profits; he figured he should be able to get better rates himself as a consequence of the increased volume as well.

  The two monks got a few surprised looks, but most of the handful of locals in the store just said, “Howdy,” and welcomed them to the neighborhood. Word had gotten around.

  The manager, a pleasant and plump man with a weathered face by the name of Rodger Sellers, was also happy to hear that the brothers would rather buy locally produced things when reasonable costs and supplies could be had.

  “What sort of things you lookin’ to get other than what’s on the shelf?”

  “Dry beans of just about any kind, preferably a variety of them. Hard red wheat for bread and soft white for pasta unless we can get premade for cheaper. Barley, split peas, lentils, rice, corn, oatmeal. Primary ingredient sort of things. Maybe honey, butter, and cooking oil.”

  “Huh. Not much in the way of lentils around here, or oats. Those are mostly further northwest. Some folks are experimenting with peas and barley because of the low corn prices and the sudden fear of ethanol subsidies going away for real. Lots of corn oil, of course. How much, you figure?”

  “Once things get going… maybe in the neighborhood of eight to ten tons.”

  “Oh…” The manager frowned and thought a moment. “Over… how long?”

  “Each month. Exactly how much, or for how long, depends on a lot of things we don’t have a good handle on just yet. But that’s what we got as a rough ballpark estimate while we work out the details.”

  The manager frowned more deeply. He pulled out a piece of paper and pencil and scribbled for a moment. “So….. Five hundred guys? More or less? Or are you thinking of buying large and using it as feed? Then again, I thought monks were vegetarians.”

  The two monks glanced at each other before Bob nodded slowly. “Four hundred was our top number expected, at least for now. Just forty-five of us now. Some orders are vegetarians. We will just be low meat.”

  “Huh.”

  “We’ll mostly be keeping to the monastery, of course. Shouldn’t disrupt things much around here.”

  “No, I’d expect not. But that’s a lot of beans. Might be worth planning ahead on. You sure you gonna be here a while?”

  “More than likely, God willing. But the Big Guy hasn’t been telling us his plans until the last second lately, so…” He shrugged with a smile.

  “So… you’re looking at something like, maybe, two hundred acres more or less. D’pendin’ on weather and crop and all. That might be worth a few more experimental plantings.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “Dunno. A lot of locals might be interested in a piece of action that size. Good price is nice, generally speaking, ‘cause they gotta make a livin’, but local and American and God fearing are always nice to do, too.”

  “Yeah, I can see that.”

  “So it might get interesting.”

  “How so?”

  “A new buyer who’s bringing in four hundred potential voters in a county of less than ten thousand people.”

  “I suppose so,” Bob, one of the monks, replied. “Hadn’t really thought about that.”

  “You should.” The manager smiled and stuck out his hand. “I also happen to be mayor. A very part-time job. We normally meet across the street at the Blue Bird Café on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month. I hope I can count on your support.”

  Bob shook his hand. “Can’t promise anything, of course, because I don’t know anything about local politics… No, I take that back. I can honestly say that as far as I know, we don’t plan on rocking the boat, if that’s your concern. We plan to work out a simple life, get closer to God, get our shi… ship in order–”

  “–Long way from the ocean, my friend!”

  “Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

  “Glad to hear it. I’ll ask around. See who is planting what in test plots that might be of interest. Got a phone number?”

  “Not yet. No line out there. Need to talk to the power and phone company while we’re in town. Line’s down.”

  “Ah, the old fashioned way then.”
Bob cocked his head inquiringly. “Next time you are in town, look me up. Work here, meals across the way, house down the street. Church on Sundays, of course. I’ll be around somewhere. And I can pass word on to the phone and power guys for you.”

  “Thanks. Appreciate it.”

  “Anything else I can do for you fellas, just let me know.”

  “We will.”

  They shook hands and parted ways after loading up the truck.

  * * *

  The mayor watched the monks drive away, stroking his chin and thinking hard. A customer came out of the store behind him with a box of welding rods and stood next to him to watch the departing truck.

  “What do you think of them?”

  “Seem nice enough. Expected that.”

  “But…?”

  “Enough votes to swing an election.”

  “But they are out past the city limit. They can’t vote for you or against you.”

  “I’m thinking maybe even a county could feel it. County commissioner was close last time.”

  “So was DA.”

  “Don’t want to be a DA.”

  “You’re a good mayor. Why the commish?”

  Rodger shrugged. “Just thinking. DA’s a good man. Walk softly until we know more about ’em.”

  First Sunday

  And the king gave orders to them, to speak to the Jews in every city, and to command them to gather themselves together, and to stand for their lives, and to kill and destroy all their enemies with their wives and children and all their houses, and to take their spoil.

  —Esther 8:11

  The next day being Sunday, the official order was sleep in, pray, Mass, meditate, eat, relax, and work through the logistics of one bathroom and four dozen men in need of a bath. Just about everyone had taken a “bath in a bucket” before, and conditions were not exactly primitive, but it was still a pretty minimal sort of clean. With the whole day to work through it, though, they got it done.

  Shortly after sunrise, Joshua Mendez, looking up at the gorgeous azure sky and the sun peaking over the valley wall and thought that he needed a good place to sit and look out over the valley. Inspired, he went into the covered arena to examine the roof design. He smiled and searched for a long ladder. After clearing a space amid the heaps of snow that had slid off the metal roof next to the building, Joshua leaned the ladder against the wall. Two minutes later he was sitting cross-legged near the edge, twenty-five feet in the air, sitting on a pillow and bundled up against the cold breeze with his sleeping bag around him and looking out over snow-covered valley.

  Twenty minutes later, three more brothers were similarly ensconced at five-meter intervals, alternately staring out across the vista and sitting, eyes closed, stretching out their other senses and thinking deeply or thinking not at all beyond feeling at peace.

  An hour later Joshua broke the silence. “I see why some gurus go meditate on mountaintops.”

  “Truly,” came a muffled reply. “Might have to make this a regular thing.”

  “Never thought I’d be someplace so silent I could hear frost forming.”

  The others agreed by letting the silence continue a while longer.

  “Think I’ll let someone else have a turn and walk out a flat spot in my butt.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll join you.”

  * * *

  In the kitchen, Abbot Thomas talked with Amos McGee as the latter made bread, kneading the loaves that he’d finished weighing out into two pound portions.

  “This is supposed to be a day of rest, you know.”

  Amos shrugged slightly without pausing his rhythmic motions. “I find this relaxing.” Turn, fold, push. “It’s a gentle sort of workout.” Turn, fold, push. “You can’t rush it.” Turn, fold, push. He added a bit of flour to the counter with a flick of his hand. “Sort of meditative.” Turn, fold, push.

  “Looks suspiciously like work.”

  Turn, fold, push.

  “Meh. Too late to back off now, or it’ll be wasted.” Turn, fold, push.

  “I suppose so.”

  “Got tired of reading.” Turn, fold, push. “Not used to it, you know.” Turn, fold, push.

  “What did you do for fun? Before you came here, I mean,” queried Thomas.

  Turn, fold, push.

  “I… don’t really remember.”

  Awkward pause.

  Thomas looked up at the man’s face, immobile and concentrating hard, in surprise.

  “You don’t remember what you used to do for fun?”

  Amos stood silent for almost a minute.

  “Cards, I think.”

  “You think?”

  “My parents were very… strict. Every minute I wasn’t in school, I was doing homework. Or extra lessons. Tutoring. Working at the shop. Dad did car maintenance and repair. Wanted better for me. Wanted me to get into a good school and knew he had to pay for it with scholarships, so I had to get good grades. No; perfect grades. Pushed me to be doctor. Heavy course load, summer term, worked breaks. I dropped out after the third year; the anxiety was killing me. I joined the Army, like my mom’s dad. Father was livid. Airborne and air assault infantry qualified, one grind after another, always twelve things to do and time for only six. Five deployments in a row. Never really let up. Always running hard.”

  Turn, fold, push.

  “It was a tremendous relief to be able to shoot the bastards causing my problems or calling in airstrikes on them with a couple of five-hundred pounders. Watching my antagonist disappearing in a cloud of dust and smoke can be very satisfying. Can’t do that with the irrational Writing 101 prof who took a dislike to me after I spoke my opinion about what turned out to be her favorite writer. Civilians frown on that sort of domestic problem-solving.” Thomas looked at the ordinary-looking man standing across the table from him, appalled. “Don’t think I didn’t think about it though…. Discharged with knee injuries, a pair of Purple Hearts, and psyche questions after an incident involving grenades and… unauthorized targets. Had a hard time finding a job. Not much fun on the street. Can’t really call catching and killing rats the size of wombats fun even if it’s just to pass the time…. Likely had more fun pulling cars out of ditches on the way here than in the previous two years.”

  ….

  Turn, fold, push. Flick some flour.

  Turn, fold, push.

  “But this place is relaxing. Food’s okay. The guys understand when I want to talk. Don’t bother me if I don’t. No vow of silence, but not being nagged to share my feelings is a nice change. Always things to do, but the pace is sane. And the helping hands actually help.”

  Turn, fold, push. He put it into a loaf pan and reached for the next piece of dough. “Just feels… comfortable. Thanks for inviting me.”

  * * *

  In the great room of the ranch house, six monks sat in a reading circle. Each had a different Bible. They were taking turns reading aloud and following along, comparing differences and quietly debating what the differences meant, if anything significant. One of them, holding a large Douay-Rheims and Clementina Vulgata parallel edition, was making a valiant but awkward attempt at pronouncing the Latin version it contained.

  Upon hearing this, Thomas Cranberry joined them briefly as they worked their way through the Last Supper scene. “Read it as if it were Italian, Peter.”

  “Italian? Why?”

  “Where is Rome?”

  “It’s in Ital– oh, right.” The others laughed at the realization. “Okay, how about, ah… like this. dixit ergo eis sed nunc qui habet sacculum tollat similiter et peram et qui non habet vendat tunicam suam et emat gladium.” Cranberry winced at the pronunciation; even with his relatively perfunctory knowledge of Church Latin, rarely used except on special occasions, he recognized it as criminally poor. It was, however, better than the previous attempt that Anglicized everything.

  “Sounds beautiful,” said Clint, a former sniper and college dropout. “Not a clue what you were saying, Heidelberg, but it sounded
pretty great.”

  Heidelberg looked across at the English version. “Luke 22:36, But they said: Nothing. Then said he unto them: But now he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise a scrip; and he that hath not, let him sell his coat, and buy a sword.”

  “Ah. A gladius is the Roman short sword. Okay, but…” he scanned his page, “this says money, and wallet. Scrip is money then, right? Or a pouch for money? Okay, small difference. But they all say sword?” The rest consulted their own books and nodded. “Huh. Funny how that one was never preached back home. Wonder what other things we’ll come across.”

  “More than you might imagine, Peter. More than you might imagine. But don’t forget to do the question-answer catechism to make sure you stay on track. Has anyone seen Mickey?” They all shook their heads. “Carry on then.” He rose and moved away as they picked up the reading and listening.

  * * *

  Mickey was cleaning the revolver he’d removed from the would-be robber’s hand at the diner now that he’d finally had a breathing spell. He was also doing some elementary gunsmith training for James, a former AC and support systems tech on forward bases. He was mechanically inclined and trained but hadn’t done a whole lot with civilian arms. Mickey thought it wasn’t work to talk guns, so he figured it was okay for a Sunday.

  “Any good ideas for the first Sunday homily? Nothing specifically and unavoidably dictated by the Church calendar this week,” he asked upon seeing Cranberry.