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

were eating corn and beefsteak at a sidewalk table. She nodded. Gautreaux turned away and spat, his big belly heaving, juice dripping from his thick gray beard. Derosier saluted without getting up, the gesture almost defiant. She’s gonna slip one of her knives in my back if this goes on much longer. For all Long knew, Mordecai Jones and Antoine Baptiste lay in wait somewhere ahead, guns already cocked, the bullets that would shatter her skull already chambered. Them four. They’ve always been tight, but ever since Gabe fell, they’ve been joined at the hip. They’ll be a real boon to us if they don’t skewer my gizzard first. I wish I could tell em to be careful, but these days, they ain’t like to hear anything I say.

Ford waited in the darkening woods, looking over crops and workers. He was still riding Rachel. She held her head aloft, sniffing the air. Long allowed Cherokee, her reddish stallion with the white star on its forehead, to saunter under the cedars and pecans. She reined up beside Ford. They watched as the workers left the fields. The sun set, the long gamboling shadows of humanity blending with the forest’s shade in a great and shadowed pool. As if the people were fusing back into the land they worked.

You pick your man yet? Long asked.

Ford did not look at her. Fleming Lange. He ain’t in charge of nothin but a few rows of tomatoes and okra. Good at his job. Never late, seldom absent. He ain’t married, and the last of his family died in that cholera outbreak eight or nine years back.

He still a Loyalist?

Borderline. Ain’t spoke of rebellion, but in the fields and around the cannin jars, he’s talked of how the Crusade’s plan must be one of God’s own mysteries because he sure can’t see a good reason to wreck this town. He’s mouthed off just enough to make him a likely candidate but not so much to make him obvious. And I doubt he’d be useful in a fight. The meanest prey he ever killed was a fried green tomato.

Sounds perfect.

Perfect. Hell and damnation, LaShanda.

We’ve been through this. You’re doin the right thing.

Ford grimaced, as if he smelled something rotten. Sure. For everybody but Fleming Lange. You ever think maybe we deserve the water?

Overhead, a bird and squirrel argued in their chattering language. The last of the workers carried their hoes and baskets and shears from the field, along with the plenty bequeathed to them by God and the rich soil.

Sometimes, Long said.

I liked it better when we were just puttin our own lives at hazard.

I know.

To the west, an orange fingernail’s edge glowed like a beacon, drawing them to whatever event horizon God had formed there. They sat their horses under the trees for half an hour past dark, the woods coming to life around them, crickets and frogs and mammals that crouched a safe distance away, eyes burning in the starlight. The world coalescing and dissipating, watching them as they watched in their turn. They did not speak again until, as if in response to some signal, they nudged their horses and rode back toward the road.

Fleming Lange had no idea why they had summoned him to the dilapidated building on South Carrollton. The place was dusting back into the earth. He passed it every day but had never given it any thought. Now, according to his area supervisor, who had heard it from her foreman, who had gotten word from Santonio Ford himself, Lange had been chosen for a special duty. But what would find its genesis in such a place? The building reeked of age and weather, its boards crumbling, the brick and mortar broken as if some baleful child had gouged out the chunks with a dull knife. The long and glassless picture window, latticed with cobwebs, faced the street like a dead eye. The façade had probably been painted once, but it had faded to a no-color that disturbed him somehow. Perhaps the place’s destitution explained its utility.

Lange carried no special dispensation to be about after sundown. I shouldn’t have come. But Mister Ford and my bosses have always done me right. I just hope I don’t disappoint em.

The humid night was a fist wrapped in damp cotton. A weak breeze only underscored the misery. In the distance, hoofbeats drummed the streets. Boot heels clocked the seconds. Chains clanked amid groans and muted conversations. The horde’s whispers rose and hovered like the buzzing of a beehive. Nearby, the black river flowed through the moonless evening. Someone lit the streetlamps one by one. An occasional voice called for water.

Lange spat and thought about curfews and punishments.

Soon some of the footsteps grew clearer. They seemed to be heading his way.

Figures emerged from the gloom, their silhouettes bobbing together like the body of some misshapen beast. Lange stood straight, his pulse racing.

Then Santonio Ford’s voice called out. Lange? That you?

He relaxed. Yes, sir. Over here.

The figures were only ten yards away when one of them lit an oil lamp and turned the wick up high, dazzling Lange, who held one hand in front of his eyes and blinked, spots playing over his vision like swamp gas floating over a bog. The figures surrounded him, pressing in, their faces like skulls in the lamplight—Ford; new Lord of Order LaShanda Long; the young deputy, Gordy Boudreaux; that hot-head envoy named Clemens; High Minister Jerold Babb; and two Crusade guards, one of whom held the lantern. Clemens and Boudreaux and the second guard had drawn their weapons and were aiming at Lange’s head.

Lange blinked. What is this?

Clemens stepped forward, his voice flat. Is this the man?

That’s him, said Ford. He sounded sad.

LaShanda Long approached, a pair of cuffs in her hand. Stand against the wall. Palms on the wood. Make a wrong move and they’ll gun you down like the dog you are.

Lange blinked. He felt foggy, as if he had drunk whiskey and awakened on