Exit Kingdom

was one of them, the redhead,shut
up in one of the vans with an emaciated slug who showed no interest at all in eating her. They had been wretched cohabitants for nine weeks before the troupe stopped at the mission and Ignatius
found there his holy woman.
    It was immediately clear to me, he says, that she is an offering from God Himself. The incarnation of His grace. A breathing, walking end to our suffering.
    So he attempted to barter for her, trying to convince the leader of the troupe, a man named Fletcher, to trade her for supplies, shelter, meals, blessings, even some of his congregation willing
to sacrifice themselves for the exchange of this imprisoned seraph. But Fletcher would not have it. The redhead was his prime attraction.
    He was a greasy, spotted man with scabs and scars all overhis body. He chewed on his own fingers as though he were himself part slug. But even though he smelled of foulness and pestilence, and
even though he was oozing with abomination, he was among the horrid crew of the living.
    She ain’t for sale, padre, Fletcher said. But you can take another glance at her on the house. Or for a sift through your medicine cabinet, I could arrange you a quickwick-dip in her. I
know you’re a holy man and whatnot, but holy bangin holy’s gotta be a lawful act, don’t it?
    So Ignatius cast them out of the mission and told them to move on. But he followed them and, three nights later, when Fletcher and his men were drunk and whoring in a compound near Yuma, he
stole the woman away and brought her back here to stay in the mission with them.
    Threedays I waited, Ignatius says. Three days I followed. And when I acted, I left it to look as if she had managed to escape herself. I even had her run for a mile in the opposite direction in
case they followed her tracks, though I don’t think they are hunters by nature. I didn’t want them to trace her back here.
    They’ll come back, Moses says. Sooner or later. She’s too valuable to them. Evenif they believe she’s run off, they’ll try this as a place for her to run to.
    It’s been four weeks, Ignatius says, and they haven’t come back yet.
    Could be they’re tryin other places first. Could be they know that if she’s here she’ll be easy to get. But they’ll be back.
    It makes no difference. She won’t be here.
    Where’s she gonna be?
    With you.
    What Ignatius wants is forMoses to take the Vestal to someone he knows, someone who will know what to do with her, a high priest who oversees the largest citadel still operating in the country
– a haven for the devout, and the devout are populous in these times.
    I ain’t an escort by trade, Moses says. You don’t got enough to endow my bounty for that kind of work.
    I’m not offering to pay you, Ignatius says.
    Then what?
    I’m asking for your service.
    A favour?
    Not a favour. A duty. An obligation has befallen you. These are the things a man of honour does, and I know you to be a man of honour.
    You got it wrong. A man of honour I ain’t.
    A man with a code then. They are much the same thing when there’s no one around to say which creed is honourable and which isn’t.
    It occurs to Mosesthat just two days before he was seeking some purpose, some direction to their travel – a simple reason to be going one place as another. In these times, when all places
and people seem distinguished only by the most ephemeral and muzzy of boundaries, when the peaceful walking dead begin to look like the salvationed and the huddled living the damned – then
does a man seek for something beyondpills and shelter and woman comfort, then does he seek for objective, for vocation.
    But my brother, Moses says, holding up the last weak barrier to what he already sees as his given mission.
    Your brother isn’t taking her, Ignatius says. You are. You have the capacity to protect her – even from your own blood.
    Moses felt himself steeped in blood, all kinds of blood, the family kindand otherwise.
    Where is this citadel? he asks.
    And the monk Ignatius responds:
    Colorado.
    That night, lodged in the stable crib, Moses sees his brother Abraham lying back on his straw bed, scraping at his teeth with a wood splinter. Abraham hums a tune Moses
doesn’t recognize, and Moses wonders how much of his brother’s music is just the creeping harmonic wastage of his own poxymind.
    We’re leavin tomorrow, Moses says.
    That’s fine by me, Abraham says. I had just about enough of the silent life.
    You