Exit Kingdom by Alden Bell Read Free Book Online Page A

whose duty it is to honour my brother, how many others are
out there – not blood to him, mind you – whose duty it is to hold him true accountable for the things he does? How many? What would your reckon on that number be?
    Moses points angrily, first at the statue of the Virgin Mary in the alcove on the right and then to the entombed statue of Saint Xavier in the alcoveon the left.
    A man ain’t built like a church to hold divided loyalties. How can a man do honour to both a man and the man’s victims? You tell me that. Where is the order that would punish this
man? What about all this?
    Again Moses gestures to the church – all the statues of saints and angels and martyrs looking down upon them.
    I brung him here, and I lay him down before you – andwhere is the arbiter to set him true or make him pay? You command tongues to hold themselves for the name of God – and now
there’s a sinner, nay two, in sore need of redemption or condemnation – either one’ll do. So redeem or condemn. I keep to my order, so why ain’t you keepin to yours?
    Moses, having spilled forth this liturgy of frustration, looks again to the monk Ignatius, who sits benignantwith his head bowed and his hands folded in his lap – as though his were a
peace that becomes stronger the more you assail it.
    Finally, Moses sits back in the pew and breathes deep.
    I apologize, friar, he says quietly. I’m a coarse lout who sometimes talks out of turn.
    Ignatius shakes his head, as though forgiveness were too bulky a thing for two such puny beings to trade betweenthem.
    You are looking for an order, the monk says, some structure beyond your own contrivance. It may be that there is no such order.
    This strikes Moses as funny, and he gives a brief, aborted chuckle.
    You’re not much of a friar, friar, he says.
    The laws we create for ourselves are beautiful, says the smiling Ignatius, but don’t expect the world to conform to them. You’d be luckyto find one single other person who shares
your code. If you do find that person, cleave to him with ferocity. But otherwise . . .
    Order’s a dancin megrim, eh?
    Now Ignatius chuckles.
    You have a poetry that makes me miss the words I so infrequently use.
    That’s a kindness, friar, assuming you’re not makin fun.
    Rest assured. Friars don’t make fun.
    They sit in silence fora while, listening to the crackle of the single torch left burning in the church. The shadows move long and panicked in the orange flicker, and the statues cast
phantasmagoric shadows across the frescoed walls – and the effect is of two different artforms in combat.
    It’s a beautiful place you’ve got here, friar, Moses says.
    It was built by the Papago in the eighteenth century under thedirection of a man named Juan Bautista Velderrain.
    Moses nods.
    There’s been a lot of history between then and now, Moses says. The memory of a man’s name – what does it get you?
    Not much, I suppose. Just a thing to collect. Like stamps or currency – things whose values used to be accepted as common. Still, not all the magics of the past have gone away. There are
still some in thedesert. Still some even here at the mission.
    Like what magics?
    Ignatius breathes in deep and narrows his eyes as though looking past the very walls of the structure.
    Interesting thing about the Papago, he says. Apparently their customs lacked much of the pageantry of other tribes’. Their dances were shuffling barefoot on the earth. Their music was
drumming on overturned baskets –which makes almost no noise. Everything they did was aimed downward, as though life were something that came from above and were meant to be spilled into the
earth. Now everything’s backwards. You plant life in the earth – call it death if you like – but it gets spit back up. Maybe we’ve fed the earth too much. Maybe it’s
lost a taste for us.
    Maybe, Moses says. He’s thinking about thesound of dry palms pounding on overturned baskets in the middle of