Robert Coover - The Brunist Day of Wrath

Reverend Baxter turns back, frowning at his wife in consternation. Where, he wants to know, are their two remaining children? She starts to cry. She doesn’t know. Young Abner, Brother Darren explains, asked permission to go check on the safety of the camp now that it is emptied out except for a mobile home or two. Young Abner said he thought he heard the sound of motorcycles in that direction and Brother Darren proposed they send a team, but Young Abner was well-armed and insisted he could handle it on his own and would be back shortly. Brother Darren hasn’t seen Amanda, but her brother was watching over her, and she might have followed him there. A further prayer is offered up for the safety of Young Abner Baxter and his sister, and another for the protection of the Wilderness Camp, where many here on the hillside will now be living, should this day be succeeded by another.

And where is Amanda Baxter? Far from the Mount of Redemption, sitting in her panties astride a motorcycle behind a biker known only as X outside the blazing West Condon Church of the Nazarene, and smiling her sweet winsome smile. “Hey, that’s my sister,” Kid Rivers says, pulling off his black stocking mask to give his face some air. He has just arrived from the hospital, leaving Hacker’s team after finishing off Old Man Suggs and blowing up the ambulance, Hacker and the others meanwhile on their way now to leave the Wrath’s signature at a couple of fat-cat churches. “She’s mental, man.”

“Yeah, well, X is mental. So what?” Sick says, speaking for his silent buddy. Both of them look dangerously spaced out.

“Why is she only in her underwear?”

“How we found her. Said she lived somewhere around here and was looking for her clothes.”

“That was five years ago.” The Kid doesn’t like it and may have to take care of X when all this is over, but on the other hand, it can’t be worse than living with the old man. He asks his sister where the others are and she only smiles dippily and points. The church camp, maybe. Or the hill. Probably why they’ve had such an easy run so far. His old man’s moves have sucked everybody out there. Perfect. All falling into place, like it was meant to be. When the news about the Wrath gets to them, they’ll be heading back in, but it has given them an extra minute or two. He raises a fist of gratitude to the Big One. Bells are ringing somewhere. Sirens off in the distance. Fire truck heading out toward the power plant. The bad guys are always dumb and do the wrong thing. He and Houndawg exchange quick notes on the hospital and the high school. Army trucks! Cool. And now his old man’s church going up in flames.

Chopper rattling overhead. Doesn’t look army. News creeps, probably. Trying to hang on to history when it’s already too late. Could be a complication, though, when they try to get out of here. “Shall I take that whirlybird out?” Houndawg asks.

“Yeah. But not yet. There are more. Wait till we get downtown and they start flocking. Easier to shoot into a bevy than hit a single bird.” Something old Roy Coates used to say. Coates will be browned off about his kid. He’s a good hunter. Don’t want to get within his shooting range. Kid Rivers glances at his sister (should he tell her something? maybe, but he doesn’t know what) and at his stopwatch, pulls his mask back on. “We got less than twelve minutes. Deacon should be at the Baptists by now. It’s big and brick and has a lot of steps. They may need help. See you at city hall.”

But Deacon’s team is not at the Baptist church and there’s no sign they’ve been here. Rifle fire explodes from the doorway and The Phantom takes a glancing hit off the taillight mount — he rockets away from there. Word must be getting around. Those bells are banging away in Dagotown like a fire alarm. Catholic church bells. Where Deac was headed next. He’s in trouble. The Kid heads that way, but through back streets, head down, expecting to be shot at. He reaches the asphalt basketball courts and parking lot behind the church. A guy jumps out of a car with a gun in his hand and The Kid shoots him, the shot drowned out by the headachy bells. He’s not dead. And then he is dead. The Kid busts a window, crawls into the basement, his jaw clenched under his stocking mask, but he’s grinning, too. He could fly if he wanted to.

In Mick’s, Burt Robbins is venting his anger against the racket of the bells. While on the city council he got an ordinance passed forbidding the ringing of church bells except on Sundays. The Catholics were the main abusers. Rang them every day at dawn, noon, sundown. He stopped that. Toot sweet. Can’t have a goddamned immigrant minority moving in and imposing their way of life on everyone else. He makes a few snarling remarks on the theme that affect none of Mick’s customers, but ignore the fact that Mick himself is a Catholic, potato-famine Irish on his mother’s side, who knows what bastardy on the other. Mick says it sounds more like something’s wrong. Church bells aren’t rung like that. Burt’s lip curls in disdain. From the floor Jim Elliott can be heard crooning “The Balls of St. Mary.”

Then Earl Goforth, who owns the skating rink and bowling alley and has a face grotesquely chewed up from the last war, comes rushing in and growls through the side of his mouth, “What do you make of this?” He is carrying a transistor radio, but the signal is so staticky nothing can be understood.

“What I make of it, Earl, is you need a fucking new radio,” Robbins says with customary bonhomie.

“No, I just heard. It’s a station from over in the next county. It comes in better out on the street.” He holds the radio up to the one half-ear he has left; the other is just a button. “They say our power plant was blowed up. The phone exchange, too. People killt.”

“I told you it wasn’t my fault,” Mick says in his squeaky voice.

“Also, there’s something about the hospital and the National Guard, but I couldn’t get it.”

“National Guard!”

“It’s them!” Robbins says in a voice that sounds like anger but is more likely fear. “They’re still here! Lock the doors, Mick, don’t let anybody in! And stay away from the windows!”

Vince Bonali and Sal Ferrero, gloomily shooting the shit on Vince’s front porch not far from where the bells are ringing, also remark on them, wonder if they should wander over and see what’s going on. Somebody getting married? But Sal’s wife has the Ferrero car, needing it for the hospital, and Charlie has Vince’s old wreck out at the mine hill — he takes it now without even asking — and that’s excuse enough to stay where they are. It was raining when they first sat down here. The lights were on, the phone worked, and their coffee was hot. Now, except for the rain stopping, all that’s changed for the worse. Their mood, though, has not; it couldn’t. They’ve been sitting here, screened by the dripping of the clogged and rusted-out gutters, talking about the hard times they’ve been through, which are only getting harder. About this fucked-up town and those murderous lunatics out at the church camp, who have brought all this misery down on them. About the true religion, which is about all they’ve got and which should be of more help than it is, and about women they’ve known who have grown old, pals too, many dead, and how distant all that seems. Conversations they’ve had many times before. About all that’s different this morning is the news about Sal’s father-in-law, Nazario Moroni, who died last night in the hospital, not unexpectedly. Not the easiest guy to get on with; Ange had difficulties with his old man. Gabriela did, too. But in mean times, he was a guy you could count on, and Vince had always somewhat modeled his own life as a union man on old Nazario. Gabriela had to stop by the First National this morning to ask for a loan to pay for her father’s funeral; if they turn her down the only hope left to avoid a pauper’s grave is the mine union, which is in tatters. They gave Dave Osborne a big sendoff and he didn’t even have the guts to see it out to the end; cranky old Nonno Moroni was worth ten Dave Osbornes, but except for a couple of senile old farts at the Hog no one will even notice he’s gone. Several times already Sal has sighed and said he’d better get back and tend his chickens, they’re all that’s keeping them from starving, and he does so again, and Vince remembers to thank him again for the eggs and coffee he brought this morning and takes another sip from the cold cup. Sal says much as they love the Piccolotti salomeats, they’re reduced nowadays to eating cheap breakfast sausage bought directly from a backyard pig farmer — who knows what’s ground up in it, but they haven’t got sick yet — and Vince says he couldn’t even afford that. Sal actually stubs out his cigarette and gets to his feet and stretches and then Vince does too and says he’ll walk Sal partway, wander past the church and see what all the bell-ringing is about.