Cluny’s father was weeping in shame and disappointment, pushing her away from him now, turning his back on her. And the poor girl was torn between pleading for his forgiveness and going to Iwan, who was holding out his hand to her.
“The sin eater is not the way to salvation!” Fagan cried out as he straightened to his feet once more.
“You all know what we have to do, people!” Brogan said, turning on them. “You’ve always known! It’s the way things was done in the old country! And so they shall be done here!”
“And if it is so done, then we’ll go on doing evil as we did the first day we set foot in this valley,” Miz Elda said. She toddled forward, leaning heavily upon her cane. “For I will tell you the truth of how this land came to be ours.”
And she did so, not sparing a single detail. I could tell by the downcast eyes of some that they’d already heard the terrible story from their own kin who’d been part of the massacre. Others looked sick at the revelation.
“They were savages! They’d’ve scalped us in our sleep!” Brogan said, defending his father before him.
“If that were true, Laochailand Kai would not have felt the need of a sin eater, now, would he?” Miz Elda said. “He’d’ve not been afeared for his immortal soul. But he knew he was a man with blood on his hands, innocent blood! That’s how this whole wretched business of the sin eater started!”
“It will not end!” Brogan Kai snarled. “Not until I draw my last breath!” He turned, challenging one man after another, all of whom were aware of the Kai’s two sons with their loaded muskets. “Who’s got the guts to end it? Aye? You, Angor? You, Clem?” He turned and looked contemptuously at his own son. “You, Fagan?”
I saw the desire in Fagan’s eyes to strike back at the one who had struck so often at him.
“Be not caught in the wiles of the devil, boy,” Miz Elda said quietly.
“The devil, you say,” Brogan mocked. “I’m not the devil. He is.”
“Ye shout lies at us, Brogan Kai,” the old woman said. “Ye speak words brewed in yer foul mind. Ye’ve set your heart against God, and it’s Satan ye serve. He who would make Jesus Christ a stumbling block is of the devil!”
“May God strike you dead, old woman,” he said, head down like a charging bull.
She stood firm, and Fagan came to stand beside her. She nodded. “I reckon he will, but it’ll be in his time, not yours.”
The strength of faith shone forth from her and from Fagan, so that even the Kai had to see it and feel it. For just an instant I saw a flicker of doubt and fear in his eyes. And then Bletsung Macleod spoke.
“There’s no need for all this fighting. It’s over anyway.”
Brogan glanced at her. “What do you mean, it’s over?”
“Si . . . the sin eater. He’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
“I don’t know.”
People began talking all at once. “What’re we going to do? Who’ll we turn to? God’ll never forgive us. . . .” They were agitated and afraid, confused and looking for someone to tell them what to do.
Had they heard and understood nothing? Were they all deaf and blind?
“I’ll show you how deep I care about our people,” Brogan said. “I’ll prove it to you. I’ll give you my own flesh and blood. Fagan’s brought this grief on us, and Fagan will be our new sin eater!”
“No!” Iona screamed. “No, not Fagan!”
“Shut up, woman. I decide.”
“Brogan, ye canna do this to him!”
“I’m the power in this valley, and I’ll do whatever I want.”
“You’ll not do it, Brogan! Not after all I’ve suffered. Ye’ll not take him from me!”
“I’m the one who says who it will be. Not you! Not anyone!”
“What about the lottery?” someone called out.
“Yes, what about the lottery?” another cried.
Brogan’s face went red, for he could smell the scent of rebel lion. “Ye’ve heard Fagan speak against our ways. Ye’ve heard him speak against his own kin. We don’t need the lottery!”
“There never was a lottery to begin with, you Judas, and well ye know it!” Iona screamed at her husband. “It was a lie from the beginning, a lie, I tell ye!”
The color was ebbing from Brogan’s face as he stared at his wild-eyed wife. “She’s crazy. She doesna know what she’s saying.”
“I knew. I knew all about what you’d done years back when I found the lots ye hid underneath the house.” Her knuckles were white on the porch post as she looked out at the friends she’d lost in their fear of her chosen husband. “Fagan had hidden from his father after a beating, and I’d gone looking for the boy after Brogan went out hunting. I found him back in a corner under the house. He was playing with some bones. Chicken bones, they were. And then I saw the markings on ’em. All of ’em were the same, every last one of them.”
“She lies!”
“Does she?” Miz Elda’s eyes blazed. “I dunna think Lao-chailand Kai ever cared what God thought of him. I knew the man. I knew the man better than anyone else in this valley. It was my husband, Donal Kendric, who stood against him. And my darlin’ Donal died for it, right there where Brogan now stands. Had I a gun in my hands, I’d have killed him for it, and he knew it. He told me if I ever said anything about it, he’d come back and take the only thing I had left in the world, my daughter, Iona.”
Iona Kai pressed her forehead against the post, her shoulders shaking as her mother kept on.
“He said he’d smash her head against the rocks just the way he had the Indian children.” She looked down at Brogan Kai. “And you are of his blood and of the same mind.”
“Then so is Fagan,” he said, blatantly unashamed of his inheritance.
“I’ll prove what I say is true!” Iona said, letting go of the post and tearing at the buttons of her worn dress.
“She’s gone mad,” someone cried.
Brogan laughed. “Get your mother, boys,” he told his other two sons. “Take her home where she belongs.” They began to shove their way between people.
“I’ll show you!” Iona said over and over. “I’ll show you!” She unlaced what looked like a corset and tugged at it, yanking and pulling at it until it slipped out from the front of her dress. “See! Look!” She held it out for all to see. Stitched carefully in neat rows like a bone corset were the lots with their markings.
Stunned silence fell over the group as they studied the bones. Some moved forward to see more clearly, then turned back to the others, their stricken faces telling the tale as clearly as could be.
“Why did ye do it, woman?” Uncle Deemis called out. “Why did ye keep silent all these years?”
“Because I love him, God help me. I’ve loved Brogan all my born days. And I was afraid for him. I was afraid of what all of you would do to him if ye knew what he’d done.” She bunched the corset with the lots in it against her heart. “And I was afraid if I told, the sin eater would come down off the mountain and kill him sure.”
“And he’d have the right, wouldn’t he?” Though Bletsung spoke quietly, her tone was bitter and furious. I looked at her, startled. Tears hung in her blue eyes, and her expression made my heart feel like it was breaking. “He done it ’cause of me, didn’t he? Didn’t he, Iona? That’s why ye hated me so much all these years.”
“Aye.” That one word, so full of grievous hurt and sorrow, hung in the air between the two women. After a moment, Iona drew a trembling breath and went on. “Aye, he did it because of you, Bletsung, and I’m sorry for my mean-spiritedness. It weren’t your fault how Brogan wanted ye. He done it because he’s loved you, you see, only you, all these years. He’s never loved me for a single minute, even after I give him the sons he wanted. Though I lived in hope, it didna make a difference. He could never forget it was you he wanted. That’s why he made sure your beau was the sin eater. To get rid of him. So he could win you for himself after the poor mon was gone up to Dead Man’s Mount
ain.”
“I only ever loved one man in my whole life,” Bletsung said. “Sim Gillivray.”
“I never thought ye’d throw your life away, waiting for him.”
At Brogan Kai’s bitter words, Bletsung turned to him. “Though he’s never touched me in all these years, I’ll wait,” she said. “I’ll wait and I’ll love him until I draw my last breath.”
Brogan’s face darkened. “Or he draws his!”
“Even then,” she said, defying him. She threw back her head. “Sim!” she called out. “Sim Gillivray is the man I love.” She proclaimed it for all to hear and then looked at Brogan Kai again, her tears spilling over and streaming down her face. “And next to God, there will never be another so loved in my life.”
Iona wept on the porch, her corset still pressed against her breast. Brogan looked at his wife in disgust and turned on Fagan. “Ye’ve done this, you Judas! You’re fatherless, boy. Ye hear me? Fatherless!”
It was a cruel blow, for despite him, Fagan still loved the man who had begat him.
“That’s where ye’re wrong, Brogan,” Miz Elda said almost gently. “Though ye’ve cast him out, he’s got a Father. His Father reigns in heaven and on earth. Fagan belongs to the Lord!”
“Amen!” came a deep voice from the heart of the woods just above Miz Elda Kendric’s house.
People looked up, startled and afraid. Brogan’s dark eyes went wide, and his face paled as a tall man in worn leather clothing appeared at the edge of the forest. He came down the hill with purposeful strides, and all who dared look could see his face.
Sim Gillivray, the sin eater, had come back among us.
T W E N T Y - T H R E E
"Welcome, Sim," Miz Elda called out to him.
“It’s been a long, long time.”
“Yes, ma’am, it has.”
People moved back from him as though he carried a deadly plague, but I’d never seen a man with such strength and humble dignity. And purpose.
Bletsung Macleod seemed to melt at the look of him. “Sim,” she said, her heart revealed in that single utterance. Brogan’s head snapped around when she took a step toward the sin eater. Without even glancing at her, Sim put out his hand, warning her back. He didn’t take his gaze from Brogan Kai as he kept on coming.
Most of our kin and friends had turned their faces away so as not to look at Sim. A few had turned their backs. Even Brogan had stepped back at first sight of him, but now he stood his ground, his eyes black fire.
“You don’t belong here, Sin Eater.” He thrust his arm out. “Douglas! You, there, boy! Give me your gun!”
“No, Pa!” Fagan put himself between them. “Don’t do it!”
“Stand back, Fagan,” Sim said quietly. “This is between me and your pa.”
“Ye’re right about that,” Brogan sneered. “Ye’ve no business coming down off the mountain unless ye been called.”
“He was,” Miz Elda said loud enough for all to hear. “Same way ye all was called. We rung the bell.”
“To no good purpose, old woman.”
“The best purpose, I’d say. Sim Gillivray’s coming home.”
Brogan glared up at her. “The devil, ye say. He canna come back to us! He’s been eating sin twenty years and more.” He appealed to the people. “Ye all want him living down here among us, him and his blackened soul?”
People were drawing back from both of them, turning this way and that, whispering among themselves, afraid and torn.
Sim spoke with a quiet nobility of manner. “As much as I’ve wanted to save our friends and neighbors, all I was ever able to do was eat the bread and drink the wine. It was nothing but an empty ceremony. It accomplished nothing.”
“That can’t be true,” someone cried out. “It canna be.”
“It is true,” Sim said, looking round at the stricken faces. “I knew in my heart while I was doing it, but I hoped. That hope was pure in vain. I hope now in Jesus Christ!”
“But we’ve been taught ye could take away sins!”
“I can’t. We’ve all been deceived. Every last one of us.” Sorrow filled his face. “Ye’ve all been looking to me for your salvation all these years, and I ain’t nothing but a man like any other.”
“Your name was drawn because ye were the worst sinner in this valley!” Brogan declared.
“What’d ye do, boy?” Miz Elda said. “What was so bad ye went up on that mountain without a word of protest?”
“Don’t tell them, Sim,” Bletsung said. “Ye don’t owe ’em nothing after all these years.”
“It needs the telling, beloved,” he said tenderly and then faced his peers. “I killed Bletsung’s father.”
“Murderer!” Brogan shouted. “Ye hear that! He’s amurderer!”
“No more than you, Pa,” Fagan said, sorrowful shame on his face.
“I dinna kill one of our own. I killed a stranger come among us to stir us up and lead us into lies. This man murdered one of our own! That’s why he’s the sin eater.”
Bletsung’s face flushed with anger. “Ye want to know the whole truth of it?” she shouted at them. “You want to know everything?” Her face contorted in anguish, and of a sudden I wanted to stop her. I knew not what she had to say, but if it was as awful as the look on her face, I knew it would pain her in the speaking.
Sim beat me to it. He stepped toward her, raising his hand in protest. “Bletsung, no—”
But she cut him off. “As you said, Sim, it needs the telling.” She faced the crowd, her shoulders straight, though her lips trembled. “My father’s cruelty drove my mother to kill herself. She ate foxglove just to get away from him, for a day never went by that the man did not abuse her with hand and word.” She looked around at them all. “Some of ye knew what he was like. Ye knew and ye did nothing to help us.” Tears coursed down her cheeks, and her voice went quieter. “Sim did. Sim saved me from him.”
“By murdering one of our own!”
“Aye, one of your own,” she said bitterly, “if ye want to claim him as such.”
“That’s not the whole of it, is it?” Elda Kendric said. “What else was going on?”
Bletsung looked up at Miz Elda, her stricken face going white.
“Tell ’em, child,” the old woman said. “Tell the whole truth once and for all. Lay your burden down.”
“Ye don’t have to say nothing about it, darlin’,” Sim said. “It was my sin, not yours.”
“It’s secrets that’s got this valley into darkness, Sim Gillivray, and secrets that’ll keep it so.” Miz Elda looked at Bletsung again and spoke gently. “Would ye have it ever thus, child?”
“No, ma’am,” Bletsung said in a little-girl voice. She turned slowly and lifted her head, looking round at them all. “A few years after Mama killed herself, Pa took it in his head that it was his right to use me like a man uses a woman.”
I didn’t understand what she was saying, but I saw from the faces of those looking at her that they did. It must have been something terrible, for I saw shock, disgust, and pity. Bletsung covered her face and turned away again.
“Tell ’em the rest, Sim,” Elda said gently. “Be done with it.”
Sim’s eyes mirrored Bletsung’s anguish. “I was coming up from the meadow when I heard Bletsung screaming. I ran into the cabin. When I saw what he was trying to do to her, I took hold of him and—” He shut his eyes at the memory.
“Ye smashed his head into the hearth,” Brogan said. “That’s what ye did. Ye crushed his skull against the stones.”
“Yes,” Sim said quietly, looking at him. “Yes, I did.”
“And then let Bletsung lie for ye, ye coward. Ye let her say her pa fell when he was drunk.”
“I did,” Sim said quietly.
“My father was drunk!” Bletsung said. “Drunk on whiskey and the power he had over me. And God forgive me, I was glad when he was dead!”
“And no wonder,” Miz Elda said, tears coming to her eyes.
“Ye wasna gl
ad the way it happened,” Sim said. “For all he done and for all he was, he was still your father. He was still a human being.” He turned his head away from her and faced those now looking at him. “I want ye all to know that. Bletsung had no part in what I did.”
Bletsung reached out a hand to him. “Ye didna mean to kill him, Sim. Ye was so mad ye wasna thinking.”
He made no attempt to take her hand. “Dunna matter. He was a man and I killed him. That’s why I thought God put the finger on me to be the sin eater. That’s why I agreed to go up on Dead Man’s Mountain. And now I’ve come down from there to tell ye what I’ve found out. The truth! I ain’t never been able to give ye or yer loved ones what ye needed. The fact of it is I’ve stood in yer way.” Tears ran down his face. “God forgive me, I’ve been the Judas goat leading our people to slaughter without even knowing that Satan was using me to do it. And it’s gotta stop!”
“Don’t listen to him! He’s just looking for a way out of his duty to us!” shouted Brogan.
“Fagan speaks the truth,” Sim said. “You don’t need a sin eater. You need Jesus Christ!”
“Don’t listen to him, I tell ye! We’ve lived this way as far back as we can remember, and we ain’t changing our laws now.”
“It stops now, here and now!” Sim cried out in a voice of authority. “The work was done on the cross of Christ!”
“This is my valley!” Brogan’s rage was out of control. “No one stands against me and lives!”
“No, Pa!” Fagan cried out.
“Ye speak of God. Well, let God be the judge between us!” Brogan Kai raised Douglas’s gun and aimed at Sim’s heart. Fagan threw himself between his father and the sin eater, but Sim moved faster. He caught hold of Fagan’s arm and dropped him to the ground out of the way as Brogan pulled the trigger.
The gun exploded. I heard a scream and realized with a shock that it was the Kai. He dropped the musket, his right hand half blown away, his face black with powder burns and red with blood. Falling to his knees, he shrieked in terrible pain. Douglas looked on in terror.