Walter Miller, Jr.: Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman

His confessor and spiritual adviser had sharply warned him, more than once, against taking seriously any seemingly supernatural manifestation that came to him during the contemplative work, such as a vision or a voice, for such things were usually either the work of the Devil or simply the spurious side effects of the intense concentration demanded by meditative or contemplative prayer. When the visions began coming to him one night in his cell, he attributed them to fever, for he had fallen ill the previous day, and was excused from the scriptorium.

He knelt on a thinly padded block of wood beside his cot and gazed unwaveringly at a small picture of the Immaculate Heart that hung on the wall. When his mind strayed, or a thought arose, he brought his attention back to the picture. The painting was undistinguished, lacking in detail, and hardly more than a symbol. The prayer was a wordless, thoughtless fixation of the mind on the image and the heart of the Virgin. He was a bit dizzy from fever, and a numbness came over him as he knelt there. Occasionally his field of vision darkened. The heart began to pulsate, and then expand. He could no longer focus his eyes on it. His mind seemed to be plunging into a dark corridor toward emptiness.

And then, there it was: a living heart suspended before him in the blackness of space, beating in cadence with his own pulse. It was complete in every detail. A puncture of the left ventricle leaked small spurts of blood. For a time he felt neither fear nor surprise, but continued to gaze in complete absorption. He knew, beyond words, that it was not the heart of Mary, but not until later reflection did this puzzle or perplex him. He simply accepted what came to him, at the time it happened.

A rap at the door dissolved the trance. His skin crawled at the sharp change in his consciousness.

“Benedicamus domino,” he answered after a moment.

“Deo gratias,” came a muffled voice from the corridor. It was Brother Jonan, arousing everyone for Matins. The footsteps receded.

He arose and made himself ready for his usual routine, but he carried the spell cast over him by the vision all that day and the next. It was very puzzling, even after his fever passed.

When Prior Olshuen had not summoned him by the third day of Dom Jarad’s absence, Blacktooth sought him out. Olshuen was an old friend; he had been Blacktooth’s teacher and confessor in the days before he was made prior, but just now the appearance of his old student at his office doorway evoked no smile of welcome.

“Oh, well, I did tell you to come see me, didn’t I?” said Olshuen. “You might as well sit down.” He returned to his chair, put his elbows on the desktop, pressed his fingertips together, and at last smiled thinly at Blacktooth. He waited.

Blacktooth sat on the edge of his chair, eyebrows raised. He also waited. The prior began flipping opposed fingertips apart, a pair at a time, and flipping them back together. Blacktooth always found this habit fascinating. His coordination was perfect.

“I came to ask—”

“Dom Jarad told me to throw you out if you came to ask for anything more than a blessing, unless you’re through with Boedullus, and I know you’re not. I don’t throw you out, because I had already invited you.” He punctuated each phrase with a pause and a flip of the fingertips. He did this only when nervous. “So what do you want, my son?”

“A blessing.”

Easily disarmed, the gentle Olshuen lowered his hands, leaned forward, and laughed his relief.

“On my petition to be released from my vows.”

The smile vanished. He leaned back, pressed fingertips together again, and said in a mild tone, “Blacktooth, my son. What a dirty rotten little Nomad kid you are!”

“You’ve obviously spoken to Dom Jarad about me, Father Prior.” Blacktooth risked a rueful grin.

“He said nothing you’d want to hear, and he said a few things you’re better off not hearing. He spent at least half a minute on the subject, talking fast. Then he told me to throw you out, and he left.”

Blacktooth stood up. “Before I get thrown, would you mind telling me how I can find out about the procedure?”

“The procedure for what, to abandon your vows?” Olshuen waited for Blacktooth’s nod, then went on: “Well, you turn right when you go out the door. You walk down the hall to the stairway, and then you take it down to the cloister. You go around to the main entrance, and on out into the courtyard. Across the courtyard is the main gate, and outside that, you go to the road. From there, you’re on your own. The way to your new future lies open before you.” He found it unnecessary to add that Blacktooth would be under excommunication, ineligible for employment in many places, deprived of all right to petition in ecclesiastical courts, cut off from the sacraments, shunned by the clergy and the pious among the laity, and readily victimized by anyone who realized that he was unable to sue in the courts.

“I meant to get out legally, of course.”

“There are books on canon law in the library.”

“Thank you, Father Prior.” Blacktooth started to leave.

“Wait,” said the prior, relenting. “Tell me, son—if, after you’ve finished Boedullus—this is hypothetical, understand?—if, then, you’re given a choice of jobs, how would you feel about the other thing?”

The monk hesitated. “I would probably think about the other thing all over again.”

“How close are you to being finished?”

“Ten chapters to go.”

Olshuen sighed and said, “Sit down again.” He rummaged through papers on his desk until he found a sealed envelope. Blacktooth could see his own name on it, written in Dom Jarad’s hand. The prior slit it open, unfolded the enclosed note, read it slowly, and looked at Blacktooth. He put his fingertips together again and began tapping them by pairs as before.

“A choice of jobs?”

“Yes—he left you a choice. When you finish The Book of Origins, you can do the same author’s Footprints of Earlier Civilizations. Unless you’re sick and tired of the Venerable Boedullus.”

“I’m sick and tired of the venerable one.”

“Then you will be assigned to translate Yogen Duren’s Perennial Ideas of Regional Sects.”

“Into Nomadic?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you, Father Prior.”

Blacktooth went down the hall to the stairway, descended to the cloister, left it by the main entrance, crossed the courtyard, and walked out to the road through the main gate. There he stood for a while, gazing uncertainly at the arid landscape. Down the trail lay the village of Sanly Bowitts, and several miles beyond the village arose the flat-topped hill called the Mesa of Last Resort. There were mountains in the distance, with a few hills in the foreground. The land was lightly covered by cactus and yucca, with sparse grass and mesquite growing in the low places. There were distant antelope, and he could see Brother Shepherd leading his flock through the pass, his dog snarling at the heels of a straggler.

A wagon drawn by a swayback mule pulled to a stop, engulfing Blacktooth in a thin cloud of dust. “Going to town, Brother?” asked its grizzled driver from his perch atop a pile of feed sacks.

Blacktooth was tempted to go past the village and climb Last Resort. It was said to be haunted, a place monks sometimes went alone (with permission) for a kind of spiritual ordeal in the wilderness. But after a brief pause he shook his head. “Many thanks, good simpleton.”

He walked back through the main gate and headed for the basement vaults. When Saint Leibowitz had founded the Order, tradition said that there had been nothing here except an ancient military bunker or temporary ammunition dump, which he and his helpers had managed to disguise so that one might pass a stone’s throw away and never notice its existence. It was in this place that the earliest Memorabilia were preserved. According to Boedullus, no living quarters were constructed on the site until the middle of the twenty-first century. The monks had lived in scattered hermitages and came here only to deposit books and records until the fury of the Simplification had abated and the danger to the precious documents from skinheads and simplifiers had waned. Here, still underground, the ancient Memorabilia and the latter-day Commentaries awaited a destiny which had, perhaps, already come and was swiftly receding.