Avenging Angel by Rex Burns Page A

trees, where the weight of sun suddenly lifted. Wager caught glimpses of towheaded children peeking like animals hiding from a predator behind outbuildings or screens of willows. The sound of the shallow river blended with the rustle of cottonwood leaves, and somewhere behind the outbuildings a bird whistled persistently above the flat clank of an animal’s bell. Zenas led them to the farmhouse. Its mortarless walls were of brown sandstone, its windows and doors framed in thick wooden timbers that had faded almost to white. The concrete entry slab was patterned with brightly colored stones set in some kind of awkward script that Wager couldn’t make out. Upstairs, a baby cried fitfully, and Wager had the feeling that the life of the house had drawn back to watch and listen invisibly until the strangers were gone. The parlor was a small room, sparsely furnished with a dark shiny table and a few overstuffed chairs that Wager’s ex-wife would have called “antique Victorian.” One wall was hung with photographs, the top rows having the brown, stiff look of tintypes; the bottom ones were stiff, too, but in a more modern way, as if both subject and photographer knew the picture would go on that wall. Wager did not think he saw Orrin’s face among the generally young men and women who peered back. A dark oak chest of drawers filled another wall, and closed doors led to the rest of the house. Wager suspected that this was a room for meditation or prayer, or formal counsels. Zenas, taking off his straw cowboy hat to show his own strip of balding scalp, pointed a work-thickened finger at the chairs. “Be comfortable.” He waited until Orrin and Wager sat, then he sat himself in the largest of the chairs, the only one with arms. As soon as he was settled, one of the white doors opened and a woman wordlessly brought in a large pitcher and three glasses. She filled them silently, serving first Wager, then Orrin, and finally Zenas, who was equally quiet until she disappeared, her ankle-length dress whispering across the frame as the door closed behind her.
    “Ease your thirst.”
    Wager was not certain whether Zenas was used to giving orders or unused to showing manners to infidels. Probably a little of both, plus a strong sense of the patriarchal dignity needed to govern his tribe. He was certain that the man was not acting this way to impress Wager; what a stray Gentile might think would never trouble Zenas’s mind.
    When the glasses of cool, tart apple juice were emptied, the man gazed at Orrin. “Well?”
    “He don’t know the names of the two, so he’s brought some pictures to show you.”
    The dark eyes turned to Wager, who held the photographs out to Zenas. The man carefully studied first one face and then the other until, without a sound, he rose and went into another room, shutting the door behind him.
    “He’s gone to show them to Miriam. She’s the one who brought in the drink.”
    “Which wife’s she?” murmured Wager.
    “First. That’s why she served the drink.”
    “The tribe of Zenas.”
    “Lo, they wandered in the desert until the Lord delivered them unto Zion.”
    “And showed them the way of the righteous.”
    “The way of the self-righteous.” Orrin winked.
    When Zenas came back he handed the pictures to Wager and sat and stared at the wall of photographs.
    Wager gave him a few minutes. He heard footsteps somewhere on the second floor. The baby’s cry had stopped abruptly with the muffled sound of feeding, but a young voice drifted through the curtained window, earnestly talking about something indecipherable. A bird whistled. Wager raised an eyebrow at Orrin, who gave a slight shake of his head and sat still. Finally Zenas sighed, as if waking from a light sleep.
    “We know them. Both of them. They are brethren of the church.”
    “Names?” said Wager. “Can you give me names, Mr. Winston?”
    “I can. This one is Asa Kruse.” The thick finger moved to the face of the man found in