Lord of Order by Brett Riley (the reading list book TXT) 📕

its population, the foundations of Hobbes’s faith. Shit, she thought. That ain’t the half of it. Jacky’s always been an officer and a killer. Now he’s gotta figure out how to be a man. Her horse shifted, stamped, trembled. It wanted to gallop, the wind in its mane. She knew how it felt.

Finally Hobbes cleared his throat. He seemed downright nervous. Comin with us?

She tossed hair out of her eyes. Yep.

He exhaled, but in relief, or dread? Once we go over the wall, you can’t back out. Try it and I’ll shoot you myself.

Stransky slapped her knee. Jacky, you gotta learn how to talk to a lady, or you ain’t never gonna get past first base. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna get some of that food I smell.

She turned the horse and walked it toward the gate. He would have no idea what the metaphor meant. Neither did she. The reference had been lost to history, as dead as the old times and the old people. But it would make him blush. That pleased her, even if she could not see it in the dark.

Then, his voice. Stay with me. Gonna have plenty of food at the meetin tonight.

She reined up and turned back. His shape blended with the statue’s, as if the stone itself were speaking to her. Why, Jacky. If you ain’t a sweetheart.

Shut up and wait while I get my horse.

57

Long stood in her back yard, washing off the day’s grit, when a man on horseback rounded the corner. She was naked, her skin glistening in the moonlight. When she saw him, she uttered a little cry and grabbed her filthy smock off the ground and held it over her body. But when she recognized Santonio Ford, she laughed and let it drop. They had washed together after many battles. As he got closer, his sweet scent, like lavender, told her he had already made his ablutions.

She picked up an old piece of sacking and toweled off. On your way to the Temple?

He dismounted and leaned against her poplar tree. His horse rolled in the grass. Yeah. Gotta say, after the last couple months, I wish Gabriel had let us be for one night.

She splashed a handful of water on her face and scrubbed with her bare hands. I reckon he don’t intend to wait long. You still goin?

Course I am. And so are you. It ain’t even a question.

So what’s wrong?

Ford cleared his throat. Long picked up her grimy clothes. Inside, she had left a few lamps burning—one by the door, one in the den, one in her bedroom. She led him into the den. Ford sat in a chair and waited while she walked to the bedroom and put on a fresh shirt, pants, socks, boots. When she returned, he was kneeling in prayer. She hung back in the doorway and let him finish.

When he rose, he smiled, though his eyes looked sad. I’ve spent half my time in prayer lately, he said. I can’t get past what I did, no matter how I spin it in my mind.

She sat on the couch and patted the seat next to her. He took it, and she grasped his hand in both of hers. His slumped shoulders, his tone of voice, his eyes—they told a story of guilt and sleeplessness.

You’re thinkin about what all we did to save our lives, she said.

Ford nodded. Not so much what happened after the shootin started. Everybody knew what they were gettin into. But the deceit. Charters and Lange—innocents goin out like garbage. I don’t care what the reasons were. We did wrong. I did wrong.

From outside, the shouts of children running through the streets. I feel it too, she said. I reckon we all do. We’ll lose some of our treasures in heaven.

If we get there at all. I feel like Judas, with my own life the thirty pieces of silver. My future the potter’s field.

Long knew what he meant. Her inner aches made the celebrations outside seem farcical. I reckon that’s why Gordy wanted to die, she said. He walked through more muck than we did. I wish we could stay with him. Or take him.

Me too. But we gotta march, and he ain’t ready. Gabe’s right about that.

That would be their reward for deeds both good and ill. To leave the city they had saved. To sleep on the ground and eat what they could kill and fight for their lives every step of the way.

It’s a quest, she said. Our purification.

Yeah.

She got up, crossed to her window, and pulled the curtains. It all made sense. They would march on Washington to balance the scales with the Lord, whose will they had done through devilish misdeeds. They would march for atonement with no more mendacity about where they stood.

She stayed at the window a while longer. Then she walked back to the couch and sat beside Ford, whose head was bowed in prayer again. They sweltered in the heat and drank water and spoke to God. Soon enough they would mount their horses and ride through the streets, pretending to be as happy as most everyone else.

58

The Temple personnel had pushed Troy’s desk against the wall and stacked his straight-backed chairs on top of it. They had brought in dining chairs and tables, most of which were covered in platters of roast beef and chicken, fried pork, corn and beans and rice and peas, crawfish etouffee, smoked sausage and duck jambalaya. A cook hauled in pitchers of water and cups. Someone had set the dinner table. Tonight they would feast. Tomorrow they would start preparations for the journey. Troy intended to go over the wall in one week. They would enter unknown country and ride through it, walk it, sleep in it. Probably die in it, like Moses. A bitter cup that would not pass from them.

They sat together as staff scurried about, filling