River of Dust by Virginia Pye Page A

more, the Reverend thought. All the people here needed to read more, starting with the Good Book, then proceeding rapidly to the classics. Imagine how Shakespeare would explode their constricted lives. Personal tragedy, such as the loss of a child, would not feel so personal given the context of the Greeks and the bard. Not that Shakespeare had soothed his own soul since Wesley's kidnapping, but the idea remained that he should.
        The Reverend shooed away flies from his donkey's ears and smiled to himself. The chieftain had spied his son and soon his own odyssey would be over. He could envision how this most tragic act in the play that constituted the forty years of his life was soon to come to a harmonious end.
        "I feel we are on a better path now, Ahcho. Things are looking up."
        "Sir, we had better not look up, but keep our eyes on the trail."
        "Yes, yes," the Reverend said. "I meant it metaphorically."
        No reply came, so the Reverend tried again. "Take the temple bells tolling far off in the next village. I envision them as the golden streaks of sunset grown audible. I wonder, what do those bells tell us, Ahcho?"
        Ahcho did not hesitate to reply, "That people actually live up this infernal path and somehow survive its passage."
        "No, not that, man. The bells are meant to remind us of the seraphim, those angels who watch over us. And what do you think of the hawks that circle below us on the updrafts between the purple hillsides?"
        "I believe they are vultures, sir, circling the carrion of bodies lost to the slide."
        The fellow could be a first-rate wit, but he needed to loosen up. The Reverend shook his head, closed the book of poetry in his hand, and held it to his breast. "Ahcho," he shouted back, "I ask you to set aside your literalist interpretation. You need to be a poet at times like these. Those hawks, or vultures if you insist, are carried on the Lord's breath. They circle in sheer delight at the miracle of flight. You see, I cannot help rhyming when describing this divine setting."
        "This place, divine?" Ahcho asked with a snort. "It is only divine if by divine you mean treacherous. For the Reverend, danger has become the only fascination and joy. You care more for the excitement of the hunt than anything else."
        "Ah!" the Reverend replied, for Ahcho's words had pierced his heart. "Clever man," he muttered. "Terribly wise."
        On they rode in silence. The Reverend forced himself to further consider his manservant's comment and determined that Ahcho was indeed correct: in the six months since his son's kidnapping, the Reverend had come to thrive more on the precipice than anywhere else. During his most recent stay at home, he had hardly been able to contain himself. The compound was far too tame for him, too constricted. What pleasure was there in huddling under a roof when his son remained out in the storm?
        As a boy, the Reverend had followed his parents and two brothers down into the root cellar when tornadoes swept across the Midwestern plains. But if one member of their clan had accidentally remained outside, his father would not have hesitated to open the sloped wooden door and charge out into the winds in search of the lost. The Reverend was merely doing his fatherly duty, although, he had to admit to himself, the plains and the neighboring mountains now called to him not just of his son but of other things as well, though he could not name them precisely. Sometimes their call woke him from sleep, and he had no choice but to go.
        He shook his head lightly and told himself to remain on track this morning. His goal was near at hand. He opened the leather-bound volume and slackened the reins. As the chill of the morning wore off and the late-autumn sun rose higher in the sky, the hide warmed him most pleasantly. The chieftain had been right: wearing the fur did make him feel less vulnerable to sorrow. The