A Far Country by Daniel Mason Read Free Book Online

of their lands with sharpened hoes before squadrons of the Military Police. Late at night, in Saint Michael, Isabel’s uncles and father sat around the table alone. From behind the sheet in the doorway, she heard the clicking of guns as they were cleaned and loaded. The sound brought a soft cry from her mother. She has seen this before, Isabel thought. When she couldn’t sleep, she looked over to her brother and watched him staring up at the specks of sky.
    At the crossroads, offerings appeared, scattered corn and half-empty bottles of cane wine.
    They waited for the priest. When he didn’t come, they opened the church. In the gray shadows, Isabel stood by her mother in a row of women with bowed, kerchiefed heads. An old aunt put a worn prayer card of Saint Michael to her eyes and began to wail. The others fell to their knees, pressed callused hands together, whispered,
Protect us, Saint Michael Archangel, warrior who thrust the devil into hell, Defend us in our battle against our enemies, Crush Satan beneath your feet so that he may no longer hold us captive, Spare us, Saint Michael, Have mercy on us in the hour of our trial, Assist us in the dangerous struggle we are about to endure
. Out of the corner of her eye Isabel watched their lips moving. She felt herself part of a long line of daughters. She knew her mother had once kneeled where she was kneeling and her grandmother where her mother was kneeling, shifting through the pews as each daughter came in and took her mother’s place.
    ‘You aren’t praying,’ said her mother, and Isabel pressed the base of her thumbs to the top of her head. She imagined SaintMichael smelling of dust and feathers, diving toward the earth with his wings tucked behind him. She saw him perched on the church tower, preening his feathers and waiting. She imagined him with talons, scratching on the roof tiles above her, red dust filtering down; she heard the crackling uncrinkling of his feathers as he folded and unfolded them; she saw him pacing the plaza and letting the children stroke his wings, sharpening his spear on the stones and tucking his head into his down at night. She watched him waiting for the cars, and when the cars came, unfurling into a great bird and, with a single clap of his wings, tearing up plumes of gravel, overturning the pickups, unpeeling the roads and hurtling the henchmen into the white forest, their pistols fluttering harmlessly down.
    They locked up the church again when they left. They waited through the long days and watched the shadow of the statue sweep the square and stretch up the walls like the silhouette of a stranger.
    Isabel’s uncle continued to go out to the land, although her aunt stayed home. At night Isabel could hear them shouting at each other in their house across the square. He became silent and sullen, and at the weekly fair, he bought a scapular and an invocation against bullets. He sat in the square and with his thumb broke the spines from a spray of thorn. Her father told him, ‘Be careful, or we’ll find you with a mouth full of ants.’
    Then, in a bar in Prince Leopold, a drunk whispered that he was already marked. The men in the family began to escort him everywhere. When it was Isaias’s turn, he brought a sharpened cane scythe, choked up on the handle and let it sway cautiously as they walked off down the road. Her motherwaited nervously by the door, but to Isabel, it was inconceivable that Isaias might be hurt. ‘He knows strong prayers,’ she said, to comfort her mother.
    A week later, her uncle didn’t come home. His wife wailed and rolled on the ground, tearing at her hair until the women came and sat on her and rubbed her chest with herbs and holy water. When they found his body out on the road, his mouth was open and his tongue was stuffed into the pocket of his shirt. The men went and carried him back in a hammock. As the women fell over him, Isabel turned away, frantic, to look for Isaias. He wasn’t home or at the