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

could not embrace sinners when you held a loaded gun to their heads. You had to choose, the open hand or the pistol.

Hush up, Tetweiller said to her.

She’s earned the right to believe what she wants, Troy said. Willa, once the soldiers get here, I’ll need regular reports about the levees.

McClure’s voice floated out of the darkness. Sure.

The rest of you, keep on filchin. We’re gonna need as much ammo as we can get. Let’s grab tools too. Lord knows what all we’ll need. Ernie, I want a list of every place the Crusade might wire. I doubt they’ll bother with every foot of the floodwalls. Too much to guard.

Got it, said Tetweiller.

Boudreaux stepped closer. What about me?

We’re the ones workin closest to Dwyer, and he’ll be watchin, Troy said. You’re gonna watch him back. If he moves against us, we’ll cut him down. The lord of order stood and shook all their hands. I wish this had fallen to somebody else, but I couldn’t ask for a better crew. LaShanda, would you like to lead us in prayer?

See y’all later, McClure said. A stirring in the night, and she was gone.

The others bowed their heads. Troy closed his eyes out of habit.

Lord Father, Long said, we know it’s always darkest before the dawn, but sunrise seems a year away. Lead us down the path of righteousness for Your name’s sake. Let Your light guide us. Give us understanding and clarity, Father. Help us serve Your will. And if the devil drags us down and yokes us to his wagon, bury us under the mountains, Lord. We’re nothin if we ain’t your servants, and we want to be good ones. Your will be done, forever and ever. Amen.

Amen, Troy said. I love every one of you. You’ll do this city proud. Now go get some sleep. Company’s comin.

They melted into the shadows, except for Boudreaux. Neither he nor Troy spoke until the sounds of the others’ leaving had faded. The hoofbeats of another patrol grew louder, clopped by, faded.

Can we really find a way through this? Boudreaux asked.

I’m prayin every five minutes, Troy said. He listened to the guards’ passing conversations. Soon all those voices might be raised against him or stilled forever. Despite the heat, he shivered.

9

Troy sat his horse facing the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. It stretched across the water and disappeared into the horizon, two parallel trails of concrete and steel that time and weather had eroded but not crumbled. To Troy’s left, Dwyer worked his string in the saddle. To the right, Gordy Boudreaux chewed jerky and patted his horse’s neck every few minutes. Behind them, Jerold Babb sat in the two-horse wain he had driven, sweating through his robes of office, his wispy hair plastered to his head. He had drunk one canteen dry and had started on a second. He’s gonna have to relieve himself every five minutes on the way home.

Hobbes had left the infirmary, but when he tried to saddle up and join them that morning, Troy had denied him.

I can ride, Hobbes had said.

Troy patted his good shoulder. I know it. But we don’t want them stitches bustin open. Take her easy till they come out.

Hobbes had ridden home in a wagon’s shotgun seat, glaring whenever the boy Troy had conscripted to drive it tried to speak.

Now Troy pulled his hat low. The rising sun sparkled off calm water in dazzling crystal facets. A cool breeze blew over the lake, the horses’ manes fluttering. Boudreaux snuffled, hawked, and spat a wad of phlegm onto the road. Troy glanced at him. Boudreaux shook his head.

If he gets a fever, he’ll keep pushin until it burns him down or we have to shoot him too. Mostly because he’ll know we can’t afford to lose somebody else.

Dwyer slipped the string into his saddlebag and dismounted. Then he walked to the edge of the causeway, where he stopped and stretched, his palms flat against his lower back. He groaned as the vertebrae popped. What a sight, he said. So many of the ancients were heathens, blasphemers, and adulterers, but when they put their minds to it, they built their structures to last.

Troy knew what Dwyer meant. He had read the church’s secret history of this city and the journals of past lords. The causeway had nearly been destroyed in some of the hurricanes that often skirted the city’s edge, and once a storm called Katrina had nearly wrecked it in a matter of hours. Sometime later, when Hurricane Melvin overwhelmed the improved levees and flooded the city again, killing nearly fifty percent of the population, a quarter-mile section of the causeway had sunk into the lake. Troy had always taken those events as proof that the ancients, for all their ingenuity, learned their lessons slowly. Like the builders of Babel, so sure they could master God Himself until His mighty hand showed them their folly. After Melvin, the levees had been raised another fifteen feet and reinforced yet again, the causeway restored and buttressed. It had been spot repaired many times since, the basic structure and design never changing. In his lifetime, Troy had never even seen it damaged. It had most recently survived Hurricane Oscar, which had flooded lower-lying streets, taken off roofs, shattered windows. The levees held that day too, despite storm surges and heavy rains swelling the lake like the fat gray ticks that plagued dogs in summer.

Troy dismounted and stood beside the herald, thumbs tucked into his gun belt. What time you reckon they’ll make it? he asked.

Dwyer’s white teeth practically sparkled. I have no idea. They’re riding herd on the biggest prisoner migration in history, all those Troublers chained together at the ankles and walking in lockstep. You can imagine the delays that would result from even one child tripping over its own feet.

Troy whistled long and low. A tangle of arms and legs and heads, each Troubler landing on someone else, only to be