Exit Kingdom

When the collision comes, it comes hard and expected. He clips the back end of one of the cars and it spins, letting him past but also roostering his own car into a screeching spin that sends him out of control and off the road on the opposite side. The spinning car collides sidelong into the trunk of a tree – glass shatters and the passenger door crumples inward with an aching twist of metal.

When everything is still once more, Moses releases his grip on the wheel and checks himself for broken bones. There is blood all over his face and hands, but he does not know who it belongs to. Some of it could be his – but the ownership of blood is a sucker’s guess in such a sanguine world. It does not hurt much to move his arms and legs, and he figures that is enough to keep going forward.

The engine is still running, which is a good sign – and even though one of the headlights has been smashed to nothing along with the whole right front of the car, the vehicle still functions well enough to scrape itself away from the tree trunk and huff its way back to the road.

Moses drives. He looks forward, grim and inexhaustible, and the night unfolds before him. He looks for tail lights in the distance but there is only black – no sign of the car that stole his brother away from him.

No matter. He will find where they took him. He will find Fletcher and his band of thieves. And then there will be a surfeit of death – and Moses does not much care whose.

*

He drives through the evening. He does not know where else to go, so he continues to the citadel in Colorado Springs where he left the Vestal. It is still hours before dawn when he arrives. But the place looks different. The front gate looks like it has been driven through with a large truck. There is a whole battalion of soldiers there who all point their guns at him when he arrives.

What happened? he says, climbing out of the car.

They shine a spotlight in his eyes.

State your name, someone calls through a bullhorn.

What happened? he says again. They got my brother.

State your name, the voice repeats.

But he doesn’t have to reply this time, because there is commotion. Someone must recognize him from the night before, because he is taken and escorted onto the compound, across the wide courtyard. The lights on the jaw-bone chapel illuminate the structure violent against the blackness of night.

Inside, he is taken to a new place, a large room where people in uniforms of authority are gathered around a table in grim, controlled debate. On the sidelines, Moses spots the old man, Pastor Whitfield, who approaches him.

Marauders, Whitfield says before Moses has a chance to ask him anything. A caravan. It was led by a man in a sombrero.

Fletcher, Moses says.

You know this man?

He took my brother. Where’d he go? Which direction?

You aren’t . . . affiliated with him?

I ain’t affiliated. Except in the sense that I’m the man scheduled to remove the head from the rest of his body.

They broke through the fence.

They were after the girl, Moses explains. The Vestal.

Whitfield looked confused.

But they didn’t take the girl, Whitfield says.

You repelled them?

We did. At some cost to our people.

He’s still got my brother. Do you know where they went?

Slow down, says Whitfield. You don’t understand.

He reaches a hand out to touch Moses’ arm, and Moses strikes it away. There is something happened inside him. Some safety turned off – some tribal code of civility gone away in the face of his brother’s abduction. He gives Whitfield a look as violent and full of murder as any on the wild plain.

Tell me now, man of God, he says. Two heads are the same as one to me. Godful or godless, it makes no difference.

The Pastor Whitfield does not flinch. He simply gives Moses a mild look and a gentle, pitying smile.

You’ve been on the frontier too long, my friend, he says. But so have we all. I’ll give you the information you want. But you must listen to me.

Moses relents. He has no choice.

We’ve already sent a regiment. This man Fletcher – apparently he’s allied with some local bandits. Together they levied an effective assault. They did a great deal of damage and took some valuable equipment. The fear is that they are gearing up for a larger assault. So we are going to end it. We sent a battalion.

Who? Moses asks. How many?

Whitfield shrugs.

I’m simply a pastor. My colleagues at the table there are the ones who specialize in land conflicts. I watched the soldiers go. Maybe fifty.

Where?

Apparently there’s a gasworks some miles east of here. It’s where the bandits call home – where your man Fletcher might be as well. But listen, my friend, this is a battle between two stubborn factions who have not yet realized that possession means nothing any more. You don’t want to get in the middle of that.

What I want? Moses chuckles sourly. Then he repeats the words, shaking his head: What I want. Pastor, what I want is so far from what I got . . . it’s all semaphores across an empty ocean. I’m gonna check on the girl. Then I’m leavin.

Wait, Whitfield says. Wait.

But Moses ignores him, walking to the door of the wide room – wanting out of the noise and commotion of miniature human strategy.

The girl, Whitfield says more loudly just as Moses reaches the door. She’s not here.

Moses stops and turns. Whitfield walks quickly over to him.

That’s what I was trying to tell you, he says.

You said they didn’t take her.

Whitfield shakes his head.

They didn’t take her, he says. She left.

With Fletcher?

Whitfield shakes his head again.

By herself, he says. Shortly after you left. She didn’t even stay the night.

You didn’t hold her?

We don’t keep people against their will here, says Whitfield. This is not a penitentiary.

But for her own good.

One’s own good – that’s exactly the kind of thing you can’t define for people. As much as we might like.

Moses is silent for a moment. He looks at the floor and contemplates all the silly things in the world – all the things impossible to get your mind around.

Then, in a quiet voice, the Pastor Whitfield says:

They found something out about her.

Why she ain’t attacked?

Whitfield nods.

She’s got a condition, he says. A . . . genetic disorder. Related to something called Huntington’s Disease.

She’s sick?

In a sense. Always has been. It’s something you’re born with even if it doesn’t have an onset until later in life. But there’s something about the disease, something in her blood. The dead don’t like it. Or, no, that’s not right. See, they don’t attack her for the same reason they don’t attack each other.