Life Without Shoes

Just as the morning mists were lifting from the orchards, an old station wagon pulled up on the far side of the field, near a break in the stone wall. The only sounds at that hour on a Saturday were the chimes in the bell tower calling the Brothers and Sisters to morning meditation at six-thirty.

When the station wagon pulled away, leaving a trail of dust in the air above the summer-dried back road, a large trash bag sat just over the wall in the field.

Father Ambrose saw the puff of dust through his binoculars, which had been trained eastward on a flock of birds catching the morning light on their backs. Lowering his lenses and slipping on his glasses, he saw the retreating station wagon and the trash bag.

He sighed and made a mental note to ask Brother Jeremy to pick up the trash that someone had dumped in the closest pear orchard. Then, he tucked the binoculars back on the shelf over his desk where they belonged and left his office in the administration building for the meditation hall.

Two days later, Ambrose sat at the old mahogany desk on the wooden swivel chair that had been there since the first Abbot.

He thumbed through a pile of invoices left for him by Mother Francine with a note in her looping cursive: “Please advise—sorry to trouble you.” He quickly glanced at the pricing charges from their wine-bottle supplier. Solomon was a good friend to the community, but it appeared he had triple-charged New Life over the past year. By accident, Ambrose hoped.

He pulled a notebook onto his lap and wrote to Francine: “F, we’ll have to have Solomon up to talk—can you see when we might do that before October? A.” He rubber-banded his request to the file and stood up to return it to the Abbess’s desk in her office just down the hall.

He looked up to see Brother Jeremy leaning on the doorjamb, pale and shaking. The young monk clutched his sandals in one hand and wiped perspiration from his upper lip with the sleeve of his robe. “Father,” he gasped.

“Good Lord, what is it? Here, sit down.” Ambrose pulled a chair across the small office and urged Jeremy into it. He held up his hand to forestall the young man’s story until he’d poured out a glass of water and seen that the threat of fainting had passed.

Jeremy’s hand shook on the water glass. He rested his forehead on the other palm. “I...I...” he started, then, closing his eyes, “Oh, God, this is awful.”

Ambrose pulled his desk chair up close and looked intently at the young man’s face. “Just keep it simple, Jeremy, so I can understand what’s happened.”

“You asked me to pick up that trash bag someone dumped in the orchard, so I went out there with the Toyota this morning....” Here, he lowered his gaze, aware that too much time had elapsed between Ambrose’s request and his taking action. Regret and guilt played around his mouth.

“Yes, you should have been out there Saturday afternoon, but let’s forget that right now. What happened?”

“Some dogs had gotten to it, torn it open...” He gulped, then rushed on. “There was an arm sticking out of the bag.” He closed his eyes again and swallowed hard.

“An arm? Are you certain?”

Jeremy nodded weakly. “I pulled the edge of the plastic back a bit. There was some blood.” Another pause, another gulp. “Then I threw up. Oh, God...”

Ambrose pressed Jeremy’s head down between his knees and sat staring at the wall behind the young monk’s chair. Where do I start? he thought.

“Stay there,” he directed, moving over to the desk and picking up the phone. He dialed the administration building’s receptionist. “Sister Marie-Claire? Can you find Mother Francine for me?”

Moments later, Francine picked up an extension. “Yes, Father?”

“Where are you? Can you come with me out to the orchard?”

Francine was used to abrupt changes in direction after years of working closely by Ambrose’s side. But the morning had been quiet so far, without an inkling that something was in the works. Then again, something had been troubling her for a couple days now, for no apparent reason.

“What’s up?” she queried.

“Jeremy found something out there that I have to take a look at. I’d like to have your opinion.”

“I’m just finishing a project in the kitchen with Sister Barbara. Give me a few minutes to wash up,” she replied.

“The Toyota’s out front. I’ll see you there.” Ambrose grabbed his battered Chicago Cubs cap off the windowsill.

“Okay. Do I need to bring anything?” she asked.

“Perhaps some rubber gloves for both of us. Thanks.” Replacing the receiver, he turned back to Jeremy.

The young man was staring blankly out the window. His close-cropped brown curls were matted with perspiration. He was physically strong and a diligent worker but not broadly experienced, somewhat naïve. Ambrose wished he’d sent someone else out to the orchard for that bag.

“Brother Jeremy, I’d like you to stay here in my office and do some things for me while Mother Francine and I go out to look at what you’ve found. I think it’s best if you don’t go back to work or your room just yet.”

Jeremy sighed gratefully. “May I finish working on your bookshelves? I’ve been meaning to get to that for the last couple weeks.” He glanced up at the dark cherry floor-to-ceiling shelving built into the wall next to the desk. It was filled with books except for the empty top shelf, whose stacked tomes sat waiting for a home on the faded Oriental carpet below.

“That’s a good idea. I’ll be back as soon as possible—meanwhile, don’t mention this to anyone. I don’t want to get the rumor mill going.”

“Sure, I understand. I’ll just work here until you get back. Let me get my toolbox out of the truck.” Jeremy stood and straightened his robe, stepped out into the hallway then turned back. “Thanks, Father. I didn’t know what else to do but run over here to find you.”

“You did the right thing, Brother Jeremy. And try not to worry. Whatever this is about, we can handle it.”

The young man looked relieved. “Yes, I know. We’re a strong community,” he affirmed, then headed off downstairs.

Ambrose followed him outside, slipping on his well-worn leather sandals at the door. The truck, a silver ’98 with a fine coating of back-road dust, was pulled up askew in the circular area near the entrance. Jeremy was hauling his box out of the cab and wiping the seats down with the back of his sleeve.

“Sorry it’s a bit dirty, Father. I didn’t have a chance to—” Jeremy began. Ambrose smiled and waved him silent with a brief gesture.

“Tell me exactly how you left the bag.”

“I only pulled back the edge a little bit. The dogs—or whatever—had made the hole. It was then that I saw…” He started to whiten again. Ambrose stopped him for a second time and gestured for the truck keys.

“That’s fine. Go on up and get to work. Focus on what you’re doing, keep your mind clear—you know how to do that. You’ve done your part and I appreciate it. Don’t dwell on the pictures floating around in your head. We’ll have some answers soon enough.”

“Thanks, Father...I mean it. I see how easy it is for me to get off track. I feel like such a kid sometimes.”

Ambrose both reassured and prodded him forward with a firm pat on the back, taking the keys and hoisting himself into the driver’s seat. “Remember, no talking about this until I get back. That’s important to me.”

“Yes, Father, I understand.” Jeremy ducked his head and greeted Mother Francine silently with his free hand to his heart, scooting past her back inside. She looked over her shoulder to watch him go, her expression quizzical as she turned back to Ambrose.

“He’s scared,” she observed.

“Yes. Yes, he is.” Ambrose turned toward her as she hitched herself in on the passenger side. “Let’s just go see. He thinks he saw a body.”

“Really? He’s not prone to visions much. I wonder what this is. What did he tell you?”

“Saturday morning, I asked him to go pick up a trash bag that I saw dumped over the wall in the first pear orchard. When he got out there today, he found dogs had torn it open. What he thought he saw made him sick—he came to find me, shaking like a leaf.” Ambrose pulled out onto the main entrance drive and turned left, up toward the orchards.

“Saturday, huh?” Francine’s eyes were unfocused and lifted skyward. She sighed. “I had a funny feeling on Saturday.”

“Hmm.” Ambrose had years of experience with Mother’s “sixth sense.” He recollected the image of the trash bag and station wagon. Yes, it had troubled him briefly, but he’d chalked it up to irritation with local kids and then gone about his morning.

Ambrose pulled the truck off the main drive and onto the dirt road that led through the pear orchards. Fields of other fruit trees easing toward harvest time rolled down to the right as the truck climbed the gentle slopes ahead and to the left.

“The pears look good this year,” Francine remarked.

“Yes, they do—the peaches and apples, too, I think—and plenty of them. We’ll need Benito’s full crew soon.”

Ambrose eased to a stop at the corner of the orchard, just down from where the black plastic bag sat inside the east wall. The late-summer day was warming up rapidly, its likely high would be near a hundred degrees.

“You know, you don’t need to come over there with me until I’ve checked it out,” Ambrose offered.

“Don’t be ridiculous! Of course, I’ll walk with you.”

They hiked up the skirts of their light summer robes, Ambrose taking Francine’s arm to help her over the low stone wall. The field grass under the pear trees had been mowed recently and was almost browned out, giving off a sweet haymow scent underfoot. As they approached the bag, however, the late-summer sweetness of fruit and grass was overwhelmed by a stench that made Francine bring her hand up to her nose and mouth. A cloud of flies circled over the bag and the ragged tear was visible.

“Please, let me go ahead,” Ambrose insisted, holding one sleeve up over his face and waving the other to disperse the flies. He came up as close as he could tolerate—the smell was shockingly nauseating—and stared down at what Jeremy had found.

There was an arm, yes, with pale white skin, slightly chubby fingers and black-painted fingernails. There was blood, yes, smeared down the upper arm. And beyond it, slightly deeper in the bag, Ambrose saw the side of what looked like a head—there were earrings and the hair was that spiky bottle-black that went with the fingernails—all of this at the wrong angles. The arm shouldn’t be up there next to the ear like that, he thought.

“Oh, dear God.” Francine had come up behind him and was peering over his shoulder with both sleeves pressed over her nose and mouth.

Ambrose turned toward her and took her shoulders, steering her back toward the truck. “We can’t do any more here. Let’s go.” They stumbled a bit heading back down the gentle slope, still holding their sleeves up and moving away from the bag as quickly as they could manage without falling. In the cab of the truck, they sat without speaking for several minutes, breathing in the fresh air, eyes closed, bringing their attentions inside meditatively. This was what they knew how to do when life presented them with revolting developments. And this was certainly that.

The atmosphere in the cab gradually lifted, softened a bit. Ambrose and Francine both sat forward in their seats and opened their eyes at the same time.

Ambrose keyed the ignition and turned the truck around, heading back down the hill.

“That poor child,” Francine began. “I keep thinking...” She sighed deeply. “Her hair...it looked like...”

“Yes, indeed, that could be.... So, I must, Francine, you know, phone Charlie Cormley right away. We can’t delay. She’s been up there more than two days. In our orchard. In this heat.”

Ambrose could only imagine what the weeks ahead might look like. He had been anticipating a pleasant harvest season, a bucolic picture that now had dark smudges all over it. Ambrose was not a believer in evil per se, but something rancid had inserted itself into their life. The tendrils of it seemed to be creeping down the orchard slope from the bag. There was nothing he could do to stop it.

They were silent most of the way back to the main buildings, not so much privately absorbed as establishing within themselves the right mindset for facing what lay ahead. They were a good team with a lot of mileage over rough roads—they were strong together, but this trash bag far exceeded anything they’d had to deal with.

New Life Ecumenical Retreat was less than seventy-five years old and still fragile in many ways. Residents were mostly involved with life inside the gates, not deeply engaged in the outside world. A stranger’s corpse, a violent death, these were things that took place elsewhere—not here.

“The sheriff...” Francine began as they pulled up neatly where Jeremy had parked in a hurry an hour and a half before. She didn’t need to say any more. Ambrose understood her worries. Once this door was opened, there would be no going back.

“What else is there to do? I’m afraid of it, too. It could destroy us. But we can’t hide it, can we? And the longer we wait, the worse it’ll be. Will you come up and take Jeremy with you—keep him with you—while I call Charlie?”

“Of course. I think maybe we’ll go work on the tomato trellises. I saw he had his box with him. No one’s likely to come out there to chat—too much chance of me assigning a weeding job.”

Ambrose smiled briefly; Francine could carry the heaviest loads and not lose her good cheer—it was such a blessing. Slipping off their sandals at the shoe rack inside the door, they grabbed their skirts with one hand and the banister with the other, climbing to the office where Jeremy was hammering on the top shelf. He stopped and straightened as they entered, his face full of questions.

Before Jeremy could get started, Ambrose took the reins of the situation firmly in hand and began to give directions.

“Brother Jeremy, I’m going to ask you to leave this project for now and go with Mother Francine. She has some things she wants help with. Take your toolbox; you’ll need it.”

“But...” the young man objected tentatively.

“Mother Francine will fill you in. I need to make some phone calls right now and I’ll want to have the door closed while I make them.” That picture should be clear enough, Ambrose thought. I don’t want to be harsh with him, but neither do I want to get into it—not now, maybe not ever. We’ll have to see what’s needed to get him stabilized. Francine’s the one for the job, that’s for sure.

She understood immediately. “Come on, Brother Jeremy, pack up quickly. I need to get back over to the kitchen garden.”

Jeremy lowered his eyes and bent over to his tools on the floor. There was no point in pushing back when they were a united front. Truthfully, Ambrose thought, he’s probably dying to get over to the men’s dormitory to see if anyone else knows what’s happening. The shock had no doubt worn off, and the young monk would need help managing any fascination with his memory of the trash bag.

Toolbox in hand, he followed Francine downstairs.

Ambrose settled back into his desk chair, rubbing both palms over his nearly bald pate. He pulled his battered planner over and thumbed through it to find the sheriff’s direct office number. He’d been given it a few years back when they were having trouble with vandals at the winery sheds. It seemed best not to go through dispatch if he could avoid it.

Before dialing, Ambrose sat back, closing his eyes and reaching for a feeling of clarity about what he wanted to say. There was no getting around it: this would change things in the community. He couldn’t exactly control that, but his strong protective instincts wanted to minimize the damage.

Sighing, he picked up the black receiver on the still functioning ’80’s phone set and dialed the number. He went directly into a genial voicemail greeting that told him Charlie was on the other line. It gave the option of dialing Charlie’s cell phone number—“if this is an emergency”—and he resolutely pressed the button. Yes, I’d say this is an emergency, Ambrose thought. He waited only a couple rings before the sheriff picked up.

“Cormley.” The sheriff’s deep, gruff voice was instantly reassuring.

“Sheriff, this is Father Ambrose up at New Life. I’ve got a bit of a situation here.”

“Father, how nice to hear from you. Starting picking season, aren’t you? And I hear it’s been a great year. I’d love to stop up for some fresh cider when you’ve got the presses running.”

Ambrose found himself impatiently wanting to cut Cormley off, so he reached for the right tone—not too relaxed, not too urgent.

“Yes, of course.”

“A situation, you say?” Cormley hadn’t missed anything, he was just setting the stage in his deliberate country way. “Hang on, let me say goodbye to Ruth, we were just chatting about supper.” Ambrose heard him muffle the cell phone and briefly finish with his wife on the other line.

“More trouble with the kids?” the sheriff queried. He was probably dating a fresh sheet on a yellow legal pad.

“No, I wish. I’m afraid we might have a body up here.”

“A body?” Not exactly incredulous, but near enough. Ambrose could almost hear the sheriff’s brain kicking into another gear. “You mean a human body?” Of course, there could be deer bodies or even, heaven forbid, a bear body, but would Ambrose have that tone about an animal corpse, even one out of its usual range?

“Yes, I’m almost sure. We didn’t look too closely—it was pretty disgusting and we didn’t want to touch anything, so we just came back down here to the office so I could call you, and…” As the image came back vividly, he could feel himself starting to babble.

Cormley cut him off. “Where was this, now?”

Deep breath. “Up in the orchards. A trash bag. It’s been there a few days.”

“Well, Father, I’m hoping this is nothing important. You’re a level-headed guy, so I’m sure you’re not imagining things. I’ll have dispatch send one of the deputies up to the orchard to take a look, and I’ll be at your office in about half an hour. You just stay put—don’t go up there again. And keep your folks close to home. Which patch?”

“Turn left off the main drive onto the road through the pear orchards, then it’s the first field on the left. If he gets to the road that goes upcountry toward Lynnfield, he’s gone too far.”

“I know it. Someone’ll be out there directly. A trash bag?”

“Yes, one of those big black ones, right next to the wall. Can’t miss it.”

“Okay. Then I’ll see you in your office shortly?”

“Yes, thanks. Thanks very much. I don’t—”

Cormley cut him off again. “Father, if it’s a body, we’ll have a lot to deal with, plenty of time to talk. Just get yourself a cup of tea and sit tight. I’ll be right there.”

“Yes, yes, I will.” Ambrose replaced the receiver slowly, noticing he’d been gripping it fiercely. He was really wound up inside and it troubled him that he couldn’t let it go. Of course, the last time he’d seen a body was when his best friend Tom, a med student at the time, had snuck him into a cadaver class. Somehow, this wasn’t the same, like the difference between buying steaks in the supermarket and seeing a steer taken down.

He sat back, sat forward again, reached toward the phone, stopped, sat back again. Tea, yes, that was a good idea. He really wanted to talk to Francine again, but she was keeping Jeremy busy and best just to leave her to that right now. He finally dialed Sister Marie-Claire at the reception desk.

“Sister, I wonder if you could ask someone to bring me a tea? No, not herbal. English Breakfast. Strong, two bags. Some milk on the side and some sugar lumps, too, please.” He heard the Sister’s wheels turning, but he chose to ignore it. An amped-up tea was a sure sign that Father Ambrose was revved about something, but she knew better than to ask.

Ten minutes later, he sat contemplating a steaming mug. His thoughts were on the community he’d joined in 1962 and served as Abbot since 1991. New Life had gone through many struggles over the years. In the ’60’s and early ’70’s, they’d taken an activist stance, responding to the calls of the civil rights movement and the war on poverty.

Then, a number of situations had arisen which alienated them from San Miguel County and the town of Green Butte. This rift had caused them to pull back inside, almost resisting intercourse with the world outside the gates.

When Ambrose took the reins as Abbot, he’d found it hard work to turn the fields and vineyards of New Life into capable income-producing ventures to sustain the community.

He sighed. He knew that New Life could not afford to lock the gates—the community would shrivel and die.

But, a body? From where, whose? And why in our orchard?