Show Me the Sky - Nicholas Hogg [91]
‘Well, reverend. This “stupid” girl could read.’
The reverend sputters for breath. His jaw hangs and trembles at the news that the words clutched to his chest may have spread their wings.
‘And tell me a story this whore did.’
‘Lies, lies. All lies.’ The reverend jumps to his feet, spitting forth his innocence, how the cunning take league with the devil, that this is a test of the righteous and the good, a test for the soul of McCreedy. He is shaking the journal back and forth as though he were before his flock on a Sunday morning.
‘Come now, reverend.’ McCreedy stands and steps towards the reverend. The plank flooring of the church rattles with the shuffling, sidestepping reverend, and the steady advance of McCreedy.
‘It may be about you, reverend, but that doesn’t mean it belongs to you.’
The reverend is backed on to the raised stage. He puts a hand on the pulpit to steady himself, but both he and the stand topple. The bible, pistol, and the bag of shot spill across the floor. The ammunition rolls away like scattered marbles. The reverend scrabbles for the pistol, grasps the stock and quickly, shakily, aims it at McCreedy.
‘Now, now, reverend.’
‘Cast you under a spell he has. The devil’s poetry, I tell you.’ The reverend stands, quivering with the pistol. He does not take his finger off the trigger, nor the bead from McCreedy.
‘Reverend, you told me I was a sinner long before, that I had to redeem myself in the name of the Lord by doing his work, that you could help me help myself. I gave you my blood and sweat building this church. I gave you my darkened soul in the belief you could bring me to the light. And you told me the Lord wanted murder, that I was to go away and despatch the devil incarnate from this good earth.’
‘A cannibal he was. A flesh-eater, for ever corrupt before our Lord.’
‘He was a gentleman in a suit. You know what he was doing before I twisted the blade? Polishing his shoes, buffing them to a mirrored shine before his evening engagement with the other diners in the restaurant. And do you know what, reverend? I doubt human flesh was on the menu that night.’
‘A wolf. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.’
McCreedy looks beyond the barrel of the pistol at the reverend. He is studying the shaking hand, the sweat dripping from his face, and the cold stones of his eyes. He knows now that everything in the journal of Nelson Babbage is fact, not fiction, not the work of the devil.
‘You know what else, reverend? I think that frock of yours is made of wool.’
Now the reverend composes himself. He steadies his shaking arm, the pistol. ‘Forgive me, Father,’ he prays without bowing his head or lifting his eyes from McCreedy, no distance between them but the end of the barrel, ‘for I have sinned’.
Then the reverend fires the pistol into the face of McCreedy. But McCreedy is smiling, even after the reverend has pulled the trigger. He is smiling because he knew there was no shot in the chamber. The powder flares and hisses, a flame spurts from the flint. It burns the reverend and he drops the pistol to the floor. He swings back his fist to strike, but McCreedy sways and yanks him to the floor by his sleeve. The reverend kicks out, catching the broken pew. The hammer clatters on to the planks. McCreedy has one hand on the dog collar, twisting the material bunched in his fist, slowly garrotting the reverend. With his other hand he picks up the hammer and raises it high above his shoulder and shows the reverend how to strike a nail correctly by splitting open his skull with a single blow.
When McCreedy came out of the church he was dressed in the clothes of the reverend. He paused and fixed the collar, then turned and dragged out the naked body. The aborigine beneath the gum tree had still not moved, but the pregnant girl now stood next to him. They watched McCreedy pull the pale dead flesh of the reverend by his heels across the sand and towards the creek. His broken head left a stain on the dirt, but not for long.