Conflagration

XLVI

The Reverend rose and watched the sleeping girl below as he buttoned his shirt. Her sallow chest expanded and fell as she snored quietly. He could see through a break in the sleeping bag's zipper that she was still naked. Her underwear decorated in some unknown cartoon character wrapped around one of her ankles. Some show after his time.

He tucked the shirt into the pleated khaki pants he had bought from the Salvation Army in town some months before. It was too short to fit him and it took a long time for him to wrestle all of it down so that no part of it was poking out of his waistband. When he was finished he pulled a plastic crucifix out of his pocket and lowered it over his head. It was lined with rosery beads that were cool against his skin although he did not know what they were for or how to use them.

He left the tentflap open behind him when he stepped outside. Most of the women were now awake and busying themselves. A group of them were congregating beside the big tent, looking up at the sky. He followed their eyes and saw a wall of black smoke in the distance. Above and around them was the ambient noise of distance helicopter blades.

He looked down at the thin layer of dew on the ground and then back up at the smoke. The plume was too large to be coming from a structure and he knew that in that direction there were no structures to burn. It was a forest fire, but any fire that existed there would not burn for long. Not unless he was missing something. It had rained for several days straight the week before. He remembered this because rain was bad for business.

He continued to study the smoke until he was satisfied that it wasn't moving in their direction. Then he crossed the campsite towards his tent.

The women hovered around it but none of them ventured inside. It was a part of his routine to draft his evening sermons in the morning and his flock knew not to bother him during this time. The helicopter's shadow darted past them, reigning down on them like a vision from heaven. Perhaps he could use that later on. He imagined that he could always reference actual scripture if he ran out of material, but that point had yet to arrive.

He waded through a break in the nylon wall of the tent and entered. What he saw at the opposite end made him pause and squint his eyes. A naked form was perched in a chair which rested on the stage he used when preaching. Two breasts reaching towards him and the face above laying back against the chair's wicker. The woman's legs were crossed. One arm was bent upwards to conceal the half-hardened scab along the inside of her elbow.

It was Dynamite. The Reverend smiled.

He crossed the distance between them with slow, purposeful steps. When he reached the mouth of the stage he leaned forward and picked up the candy red book he had left there. He then raised his hand.

"Are you ready to submit to me?"

Dynamite nodded. Her eyes glazed.

"I am," she said.

"Good."

The Reverend climbed onto the stage and walked up to the chair.

"Now get on your knees."