The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities

There was no golden reliquary to house it; he simply placed it in the bare niche built into the altar, toes jutting slightly beyond the edge of their new den. He turned and explained to the assembled, “You must not touch it with your hands, but fold them in front of you, lean forward, and kiss the toes. In this manner, the power of the saint will be yours for a short time and you’ll be protected and made lucky.”

Each of them present, the father, Sister North and her sisters, and a young man and woman on their honeymoon, who wandered into the churchyard just before the ceremony got under way, stepped up with folded hands and kissed the foot. Then they sat, and Father Walter paced back and forth, whispering to himself, as was his ritual prior to delivering a sermon. He’d written a new one for the event, a fifth sermon for the year. Sister North was pleased with his industry and had visited his bed the night he’d completed it. He stopped pacing eventually and pointed at the ancient foot. The wind moaned outside. Sand sifted through the reeds.

Father Walter’s Sermon

When I was a young man, I was made a soldier. It wasn’t my choosing, I don’t know. They put a gun to my head. We marched through the mud into a rainy country. I was young and I saw people die all around me. Some were only wounded but drowned in the muddy puddles. It rained past forty days and forty nights and the earth had had its fill. Rivers flooded their banks and the water spilled in torrents from the bleak mountains. I killed a few close-up with a bayonet and I felt their life rush out. Some I shot at a distance and watched them suddenly drop like children at a game. In two months time I was savage.

We had a commanding officer who’d become fond of killing. He could easily have stayed behind the lines and directed the attack, but, with saber drawn, he’d lead every charge and shoot and hack to pieces more of the enemy than the next five men. Once I fought near him in a hand-to-hand melee against a band of enemy scouts. The noises he made while doing his work were ungodly. Strange animal cries. He scared me. And I was not alone. This Colonel Hempfil took no prisoners and would dispatch civilians as well as members of his own squad on the merest whim. I swear I thought I’d somehow gone to hell. The sun never shone.

And then one night we sat in ambush in the trees on either side of a dirt road. The rain, of course, was coming down hard and it was cold, moving into autumn. The night was an eternity I think. I nodded off and then there came some action. The colonel kicked me where I sat and pointed at the road. I looked and could barely make out a hay cart creaking slowly by. The colonel kicked me again and indicated with hand signals that I was to go and check out the wagon.

My heart dropped. I started instantly crying, but as not to let the colonel see me sobbing, I ran to it. There could easily have been enemy soldiers beneath the hay, with guns at the ready. I ran onto the road in front of the wagon and raised my weapon. “Halt,” I said. The tall man holding the reins pulled up and brought the horses to a stop. I told him to get down from his seat. As he climbed onto the road, I asked him, “What are you carrying?” “Hay,” he replied, and then the colonel and the rest of our men stormed the wagon. Hempfil gave orders to clear the hay. Beneath it was discovered the driver’s wife and two daughters. Orders were given to line them all up. As the driver was being escorted away by two soldiers, he turned to me and said, “I have something to trade for our freedom. Something valuable.”

The colonel was organizing a firing squad, when I went up to him and told him what the driver had said to me. He thanked me for the information, and then ordered that the tall man be brought to him. I stood close to hear what he could possibly have to offer for the lives of his family. The man leaned over Hempfil and whispered something I could not make out. The colonel then ordered him, “Go get it.”

The driver brought back something wrapped in a dirty towel. He unwrapped the bundle and, whisking away the cloth, held a form the size of a small rabbit up to the colonel. “Bring a light,” cried Hempfil. “I can’t see a damn thing.” A soldier lit a lantern and brought it. I leaned in close to see what was revealed. It was an old foot, wrinkled like a purse and dark with age. The sight of the toenails gave me a shiver.

“This is what you will trade for your life and the lives of your family? This ancient bowel movement of a foot? Shall I give you change?” said the colonel and that’s when I knew all of them would die. The driver spoke quickly. “It is the foot of a saint,” he said. “It has power. Miracles.”

“What saint?” asked the colonel.

“Saint Ifritia.”

“That’s a new one,” said Hempfil and laughed. “Bring me the chaplain,” he called over his shoulder.

The chaplain stepped up. “Have you ever heard of Saint Ifritia?” asked the colonel.