The Recluse Storyteller Read Online Free

forty years. There was a scattering of houses-on-stilts distributed throughout the rice fields, each one shaded by a cluster of palm trees. The road itself was lined with trees, and there were patches of banana-tree-clusters, whose large leaves would somewhat cover the road itself. Reverend Taylor’s daughter, Nicki, sat beside him. She watched the vivid expressions on his face and tried not to say anything at all. She could tell that he was reliving some intense moments—Vietnam moments that continued to haunt him to this day.
    “Vietnam drove him to faith. After his tours, faith haunted him like a VC in the jungle—he heard it breathing, felt its presence, and feared its next move. Faith gave life to his fears and nightmares, made sense of the senseless, and strengthened his resolve to become a better person. He would be dead without his faith. He was sure of it. But even all the prayers, all the years of Bible reading, and all the weeping and intercession could not help him escape the internal hell that Vietnam had wrecked on his soul. At least once a week, he would wake up screaming in a cold sweat, holding his phantom rifle, and standing over a young Vietnamese boy ready to shoot him to hell. He couldn’t shake the dreams, the visions, or the reality of what happened there.
    “He had pastored a small, successful church for the past fifteen years. He baptized the repentant; he dedicated the infants; he prayed for the infirmed; he comforted the families of the dead. He believed, sincerely, in what he was doing. But he couldn’t shake the pain, the doubt, and the sin of his own life. The nightmares had only become worse over the years. On a whim, a church elder asked him if he had thought about going back to Vietnam to ‘set the demons free’, so to speak. With some prodding from his wife and the encouragement of his college-aged daughter, he finally decided to do it, and he knew exactly where he needed to visit. He and his daughter flew into Ho Chi Minh City, took the train to Nha Trang, and hired a Land Cruiser with driver to deliver him to the source of his nightmares—a tiny village in Dak Lak named To Hap.
    “‘Daddy. What are you thinking?’
    “‘I don’t want to tell you what I’ve done.’
    “‘Daddy, it’s OK. It was a long time ago. We know what war is like.’
    “‘It’s not war that I’m concerned with. It’s humanity.’ He paused, his hands clenched together tensely as he looked out over the peasants in conical hats going about their daily lives. It was just a day like this when it all happened. The memories flooded thick, overwhelming his emotional state. He sighed like a man caught in a tempest. ‘Am I even human?’
    “‘Daddy!’”
     
    * * *
     
    Margaret stopped and looked down at the groceries on the floor. She went over to her work desk, opened the center drawer, and picked up the stack of about twenty envelopes from Reverend Davies. All of them remained unopened, and they dated back nearly four years. She felt it sitting heavy on her shoulders. The presence.
     
    * * *
     
    “The Land Cruiser stopped in a village of about a dozen houses spread out over an area half the size of a football field. Mesmerized as he walked into the past, Reverend Taylor stepped out and surveyed the familiar surroundings. He scoured the ridge on the northern end of the village which led to an elevated rice field built into the side of a small mountain which towered over the village. He panned south, past the thatched-roof houses, out over the waffle-ridged, flat rice fields which fanned out in both directions. His eyes trailed the dirt paths balanced delicately on grids made of earthen mounds which separated the paddies. Everything looked like it did forty years ago. His heart pounded, and his stomach nerves nearly bent him over in anxiety. His ears couldn’t hear his daughter’s questions. His eyesight kept drawing him back to the northern ridge.
    “‘Daddy, are you all right?’ queried