Bill Pronzini - Snowbound

“I wish I could really believe that.”

“You can. You have to.”

He extended a hand, as if to touch her and transmit by osmosis some of his own conviction; but he did not make contact, and his arm lowered and dropped again to his side. He held her eyes for a long moment, and Rebecca once more felt the new strength in him, felt some of the same intimacy they had shared the night before.

He said finally, “You’re going to be okay, all of us are going to be okay,” and one corner of his mouth spasmed upward in what might have been half of an ethereal smile. He moved past her and away along the front wall.

Rebecca watched him stop in front of the entrance doors and stand there staring straight ahead; watched him for a full thirty seconds. Then she thought that she wanted to sit down again and took a place in the nearest pew. She looked at the round whiteness of her joined knees, saw them mistily-and realized that the eyes which never cried were suddenly brimming with tears.

Cain waited gravely, leaning against the locked doors, for it to be time to go into the vestry.

His nerves jangled now and then, as if in reaction to a silent alarm bell, and a clot of fear existed parasitically just under his breastbone. But his earlier self-composure and the sharp anger remained forcefully dominant. He had only to look deep within himself again to know that he would be able to do whatever had to be done.

He thought of the unburdening of himself to Tribucci and Coopersmith. He had known, of course, that he would have to tell them, and he’d been both reluctant and willing. Like the words which had piled up inside him and finally spilled over to Rebecca last night, the entire tragedy had reached the limit of containment-she had been perfectly right in her comments about bottled-up emotions needing an outlet, too, sooner or later-and with self-perception there had come the need to relieve some of that pent-up pressure. The telling had been much easier than he might have thought, and even easier still when he’d related some of the facts to Rebecca minutes ago, and would be progressively easier each subsequent time he did it-if there were to be any subsequent times. The onus became so much more bearable when you confided to somebody, he knew that now: not because you wanted their pity or reassurances, but because it was like lancing a festering boil and letting some of the hurt drain away with the pus.

He had come to Rebecca with at least a half-formed intention of doing exactly as he had done-and he was not quite sure why. There were surface reasons, but there was also an underlying motivation that was elusive and amorphous. Perhaps it had something to do with Rebecca herself rather than Rebecca as just another person, something to do with empathy and mental concord and the way she had huddled against him in the pickup…

Abruptly he told himself: You’re doing too much thinking, there’s just no point in it now. Remember what the military taught you about survival in combat: concentration on fundamentals, on the external and not the internal; instinct, training, death as an abstract, doing the job at hand. The military was wrong about a great many things, but not about that.

Cain glanced down at his watch, and it was five thirty-two. He located Tribucci with his eyes, alternately pacing and standing along the northern wall. Coopersmith had been sitting by his wife, but now Cain saw him stand up and come toward the front, stop by the woman who worked in the Mercantile-the church organist.

Time, he thought. And walked with careful, though apparently aimless, strides to the opposite aisle and past Tribucci and up onto the pulpit.

Coopersmith bent, at the waist, resting his left hand on the pew back, and said sotto voce to Maude Fredericks, “Maude, I think it would be a good idea if you played some hymns for us.”

Pouched in red, tear-puffed hollows, her eyes moved dully over his face. Ordinarily she was a strong-willed woman, but the day’s life-and-death crisis, coupled with the twin shocks of Matt Hughes’ death and unfaithfulness-Coopersmith knew she’d maternally worshiped her employer-had clearly corroded that inherent strength.

“You mean now?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It would give us all a little comfort,” he told her, and it was at least part of the truth. “A hymn is a prayer, you know that, Maude.”

“Is He listening? If our prayers reach Him, why has He allowed us to suffer like this?”

“I don’t know, Maude. But I haven’t lost hope or faith, and I don’t believe you have either.”

Faint color came into the crepy whiteness of her cheeks. “No,” she said, “no, I suppose I haven’t.”

“Will you play some hymns then?”

She nodded and rose, and they went together to the pulpit. Sitting at the organ, Maude reached out to touch the open hymnal with the tips of her fingers; then she began to flip the pages slowly toward the rear of the book. Coopersmith did not see Cain, and Tribucci had just entered the vestry. He turned and announced quietly what he had requested of Maude. A few nods or murmurs of acceptance followed his words, though most of the drawn faces registered a kind of benumbed apathy. There was a single vocal objection.

“What for?” Frank McNeil demanded in shrill tones. “What’s the sense of it? We don’t need any damned hymns.”

The Reverend Mr. Keyes, conscious for some time now, struggled onto his feet. Pain-narrowed eyes sought out McNeil and pinned him with a look of uncharacteristic vehemence. “We are prisoners here, yes, but this is nonetheless a house of God. I won’t have further blasphemy, I won’t have it!” His voice was surprisingly strong and galvanic.

“The Reverend’s right,” Verne Mullins said. “Watch that mouth of yours, McNeil.”

More softly, Keyes said to Coopersmith, “Thank you, Lew. The playing of hymns, the singing of hymns-conjoining ourselves in prayer-is exactly what is needed now. Only Almighty God can put a swift and righteous end to this siege of wickedness.”

God and two men named John Tribucci and Zachary Cain, Coopersmith thought. He saw McNeil’s pinched mouth form words without voice, could read them plainly: “Hymns, prayers, religious mumbojumbo-ah Christ! ” Pursing his own lips, he went to sit once more beside Ellen; took one of her large, rough-soft hands in both his own, and gazed over at the vestry door.

“They’ll do it,” he thought, and then realized that he had spoken it aloud.

Ellen said, “What, Lew?”

He did not have to fabricate an answer; in that moment, Maude Fredericks began to play.

As he came into the vestry, Tribucci saw that Cain was standing like a sentry beside the ladder which led up into the belfry. He went over next to him, taking the penknife from his trouser pocket and thumbing it against his palm while he buttoned his coat. They did not speak.

Long minutes dragged away, with the only sound that of the wind hammering beyond the outer wall. Tribucci was a simple, if intelligent, man who did not think in terms of metaphysical or Biblical symbolism, but standing there, waiting, he was struck with a wholly chilling perception: In its snowbound isolation, invaded by godless forces, this tiny valley had been transformed into a battleground; All Faiths Church was the focal point, its ultimate sanctity to be preserved or irrevocably destroyed along with the lives of seventy-five individuals; the conflict being waged and about to be waged here seemed in an apocalyptic sense to transcend the human element and become a battle between random representatives of Good and Evil.

Hidden Valley, California-on a Sunday two days before Christmas-was a kind of miniature Armageddon…

Raised voices came suddenly from inside the church proper. Tribucci tensed, listening. Another minute passed, and then the organ burst into swelling sound out on the pulpit; the Reverend Mr. Keyes commenced to sing in a shaky contralto, and Lew Coopersmith’s voice and a few others joined in. The chill deepened within Tribucci as he turned ahead of Cain to start up the ladder.