TRAPPIST TALES
Short Stories
by
John R. Sack
Copyright 2011 John R. Sack.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
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ISBN: 978-1-4659-9569-8
Published by Cyberscribe Publications at Smashwords
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Preface
These Trappist Tales, short stories set in the mid-to-late 1950s, describe an era of American monasticism predating the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. The canonical hours and other services were still sung in Latin, and the monks were divided into three groups: the choir monk priests (called Father in these stories), choir monk novices and scholastics (called Frater), and lay brothers (called Brother). The daily routine of the choir monks involved primarily chanting and study, with a few hours of physical labor, while the lay brothers tended to most of the farm chores. These distinctions were blurred after the reforms, and services were thereafter conducted in the predominant language of each country, English in the case of the United States.
Our Lady of St. Bernard Abbey is a fictional monastery. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either imaginary or, if historical, are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, or locales is coincidental.
The Abbot and Otis Strong
August, 1956
When the dog days hit Missouri, the locals sit and sweat. The heat crushed Dom Vincent, who had never lived further south than Kentucky. Wave after wave beat down upon the metal construction shack that served as the abbey’s temporary office. He sucked his breath in short gasps as he read through the last of the day’s mail.
One of the local farm supply outlets had refused his order for equipment. The other had not yet bothered to answer his letter. We’ll have to ship our tractors all the way from Joplin, he thought with some bitterness. Just like the building materials. Just like our food. You’d think they’d be used to us after six months.
The phone rang on the table that doubled as his desk. His fingers tightened around the receiver when he recognized the voice from the county fire tower.
“Where is it this time?”
“Out’n yer nawth proppity,” the voice spoke casually. “Back a Jether’s Knob. Ye better hustle. It’s been goin’ a spell, but ah been occupied and couldn’t call right off.”
Dom Vincent clenched his teeth to keep from saying anything he’d later regret.
“Say — when ye fellas gonna stop bein’ so careless?” the voice added.
Careless! “I can’t talk now. Have to get on it.” He bit off each word. He replaced the receiver deliberately to keep himself from slamming it onto its cradle. He stuffed his breviary into the deep pocket of his denim work robe and ran from the building towards the truck. It was already loaded with firefighting tools. The monks had put out two fires each week since the dry spell began a month before.
It was nearly 3:30 and he knew most of his men would be returning from work on the new church to clean up for Vespers. As he drove toward their converted-barn home, he saw several ahead of him, trudging single file, their cowls pulled up over their heads. They kicked up little clouds of dust as they shuffled forward.
“Father Philip, Father Louis, Frater Anselm — come with me.”
The three stepped from the line, bowed slightly, and climbed into the back of the truck.
“Father Arnold, you’d better come too.” He swung the truck door open and the old priest clambered in beside him. “Another fire,” he said as he hit the accelerator.
They’re exhausted, he thought. We all are. These people may not be able to burn us out, but they might wear us down to nothing.
For more than a mile the road wound through grassy uncultivated fields. “I hope to have corn over there by next year,” Dom Vincent said, mostly to himself. The other priest turned towards him, his eyebrows raised in question.
The words seemed oddly out of place to Dom Vincent too against the drone of the pickup — almost as though they had dropped from the engine. As abbot, he could ignore the Order’s rule of silence, but he tried not to use the privilege without reason. His wish for corn didn’t fit that definition.
“Sorry, Father,” he apologized. “This whole business is getting me down. I had to say something. Sometimes I feel too young for this job. I asked you to come along just now because … well, you’re a stabilizing influence and I need that just now.”
Father Arnold nodded. He understood. The tension had increased in all of them this past month with the combination of fires and torrid August weather.
The truck skirted their property boundary. The road on the driver’s side bordered a public lake. Dom Vincent noticed only one man fishing on the opposite shore. The bathers, who used the shore closest to the road, must have already left for home.
At least there’d be no heckling this day while they drove past. The women seemed to be the worst. They knew the men were celibate and made a game of taunting them, but of course the monks couldn’t answer back either, which suctioned much of the fun from their entertainment.
In his nightmares, the abbot often fretted that their neighbors might someday turn violent. So far, there’d been only the fires. How would he handle a direct attack? Turn the other cheek? That would be suicidal.
His glanced at Father Arnold, sitting silently beneath his cowl. The hood reminded Dom Vincent of the craziest of the stories being spread, that the monks covered their heads to hide their horns. How could people believe such a fantastic tale in 1956, even in the Ozarks? He suspected one of the fire-and-brimstone preachers had started the rumor, which would be good enough for most of his congregation.
He thought of the posters opposing smallpox vaccine when it first came out. The kid just vaccinated sported a cow’s head and tail. People believed that too, so it only seemed probable that the monks had to be hiding something bizarre, or even sinister, under their hoods.
He spoke again, as though the old priest had been privy to his thoughts. “I heard that this Otis Strong, who’s some sort of local leader, saw some of our monks at work with their cowls pulled back. Not until he confirmed it, would anybody believe we’re not devils, or that we don’t have antlers. I suspect plenty still have their doubts.”
The truck crested the top of Jether’s Knob as he finished. Father Arnold pointed down to his right where the smoke was thickest.
They moved slowly down the hill. The road narrowed and Dom Vincent had to bounce the truck through deep ruts worn by winter rains. The furrows had baked hard in the course of the summer.
He halted the truck about fifty yards from the fire. Anselm had already strapped on an extinguisher and was helping with a water tank. The abbot was glad he had a husky novice in the monastery. The priests unloaded the other equipment.
“Not as bad as I feared,” Dom Vincent called aloud as they moved in. “Mostly underbrush. We’ll just restrict it and let it burn itself out.”
He found traces of an old path that seemed to form a natural boundary. The fire was blowing toward it.
“Start clearing away the brush here. Father Arnold, you stay behind the path and snuff any sparks that fly over. Frater Anselm, do you know how to work that extinguisher.”
The novice signed that he did.
“Okay. Pick your spots, but don’t get too close.”
The abbot began clearing brush with the two remaining priests. They worked steadily, uprooting small bushes, then raking the dry grass around them toward the fire. Several small saplings lined the path and had to be cut down. They, too, went into the ring. The fire’s heat, added to the sun’s, had reached unbearable. Dom Vincent perspired freely, his face flushing warm. He turned his back momentarily to the flames.
Something was wrong. He glanced around quickly. Frater Anselm was missing!
“Where’s Frater Anselm?” he shouted. “Anselm, where the hell are you?”
The astonished boy ran from the center of a smoke cloud. The priests paused in their work, trying not to look shocked.
“What in God’s name were you doing in there?”
The novice responded with a flurry of signs. He hadn’t been too close to the flames.
“Then what’s this?” The abbot poked his finger through a hole in the boy’s work robe. The undershirt was singed behind it.
More sign language. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. A stray spark? He would be more careful.
Dom Vincent could smile again. “Be sure that you are,” he said. “Ours is still a new and small community. We can’t spare you. Besides, this fire isn’t big enough to rate any heroics.”
Spiritual leader and nursemaid — some combination, he thought. Frater Anselm moved back down the line. The abbot turned sheepishly to Arnold and shrugged.
Within two hours, the fire was under control. Dark clouds had blown up from the south, shrouding the dim light of dusk. Dom Vincent felt the beginnings of a soft drizzle.
“I don’t know which of you prayed for rain,” he said, “but it looks like this will keep up most of the night. The fire won’t break out again. We can make it back in time for Compline.” The monks gathered up their tools, fell into line according to their seniority in the Order, and turned tiredly towards the pickup.
“Reverend Father!” Anselm yelled in spite of himself. “Look! At the side of the truck.”
A thin red rubber hose dangled from the gas tank and the dirt beneath was shiny and black. They had been siphoned.
Dom Vincent took a flashlight from the glove compartment and checked the tank. He tested again with a twig that came up mostly dry and finally tried to crank the motor. It coughed, then died with a high whine.
“Brothers, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. We’re stuck this time. It’s dark, starting to rain, and we’re almost six miles from the abbey.
“We’d best spend the night here and hike back for gas in the morning. I know things look bad, but if we get some big piles of leaves and burrow into them, they’ll keep us dry enough. Father Arnold, there should be room enough for you to sleep in the cab of the truck.”
When they had raked the leaves, the monks turned expectantly to their abbot. The rain still fell gently.