The world outside One Horse Bar is cased in layers of frozen rain and the storm is far from spent. Branches in nearby trees grow heavier. Occasionally, one cracks off and lands on the frozen earth in a blast of frosty shrapnel. Electricity in town is tenuous and anyone who drives to the old watering hole outside of town is taunting fate, but Father Bartholomew Claghorn can’t just sit at home.

When he enters One Horse, neon glow is pooling on varnished tables and coyote skulls are mounted on the wall across from the counter. Father Bart asks for a beer and takes a seat on the first of seven stools, furthest from the register. An aging cashmere scarf girds his neck and his nose is still burning from the wind. While he waits he cleans his spectacles.

Father Bart has never been to One Horse before but it’s the only spot open in the storm. Open Horse is never closed. It’s that bar, the sticky, hard-up, bottom-rung, three-finger bar for truckers and divorcees and anyone whose second job is whiskey.

He’s relieved to find only five quiet strangers inside because tonight he doesn’t want to chat. He doesn't want to be a priest. He wants to not be home.

When his beer arrives, he only sips at it, without hurry. Temperance in all things.

Father Bart was called to Natagwa twelve years ago, when a stroke snatched his predecessor mid-dream. The freshly-collared clergyman arrived with a trunk of books, an east coast education, and a desire to serve. Now, the dwindling parish he inherited—and the promiscuous tabby that came with it—are both on their last legs.

Father Bart’s glass dips to three-quarters, the half mark, the quarter mark, and then the front door of One Horse swings wide, letting in a wet lash of wind. A twenty-something girl stomps in, whipping a knit cap from her pink hair and unzipping a quilted black coat in a single motion before the door even settles back into its frame. She hangs her coat on top of another coat on the rack in the entrance, and blows a long breath as she scouts the room.

Father Bart sees her.

She sees him.

He turns away. The girl shows up at Murphy's sometimes, his usual spot on 5th and Jericho. She’s a heat-seeking sort, a bar-hopper who leaves on a different arm every night. Father Bart wears his collar at Murhpy’s so she might place him, too.

“Sarge.” The girl greets the ex-marine owner behind the bar, climbing the stool next to Father Bart. The priest glances at her for just a second. Her lids are black and her t-shirt is too small. Any reasonable person would be wearing a sweater in this weather.

She catches his glance and fixes on him with a twist to her mouth, like finding a priest in One Horse is a punchline. ”You’re here, too,” she says.

Without a word, Sarge pops the cap from a green bottle and drops it on a coaster in front of her.

“Father Bart, right?”

He nods without looking. He could move to a different stool but it’s not going to help. The other five patrons are too old or too drunk so she’s going to stick to him until something better shows up.

“Bart’s an old man’s name,” she observes, wrapping her fingers around the bottle, nails as pink as her hair.

Father Bart takes a deep breath and his shoulders ride the exhale. The girl pivots her body toward him, anchored by her elbow on the bar. “But you aren’t old though.”

He sips his beer and stares straight ahead. A mottled reflection stares back at him from the mirrored backbar. He needs a smoke.

“Must be a family name,” she guesses. “Bart. Bartholomew.”

She’s going to wear him down one way or another so he replies, “It was my father’s name.”

“Father Bartholomew’s father was Bartholomew,” she says. “It's a tongue twister.”

Father Bart truly needs a smoke. He draws an antique silver holder from his pocket and folds it open on one thigh. When he tucks a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, Sarge scowls at him. “Sorry, Father. No can do.”

“C’mon, Sarge,” the girl intercedes, leaning her breasts on the bar, eyes shaded by heavy eyelashes. “All the wires are broken and trees are falling. We’re all gonna die on the drive home. Let him smoke.”

Sarge snaps a towel from its post under the bar and walks away.

Father Bart offers her a smoke and she accepts with a grin. He strikes a match, protects the flame and touches it to her cigarette before his own.

At the far end of the counter, one of the old men squints at the lawbreakers. Then he fishes a foil pack from his flannel shirt. Then the old man by the door takes a pack from his own vest. Tobacco clouds begin to fill the room and blur the neon signs.

“I’m Bridgette,” the girl passes her cigarette to her left hand and offers the other. “Bridge.”

”Nice to meet you, Bridge.”

“You’re a priest,” she says.

”That I am.”

“How about,” she proposes, “since it’s the end of the world, I’ll be your priest tonight. You can confess your sins and I’ll forgive them.”

He still avoids eye contact, just to prevent any misunderstanding. Instead he studies his beer, the foamy peninsula in a sea of brown. “That’s a good offer,” he says.

”C’mon,” Bridge coaxes, “confess somethin’.”

Sarge slides an ashtray down the bar.

Father Bart wouldn’t have a cigarette if it wasn’t for her, so he plays along. “Forgive me, Bridge, for I have sinned. This is my second pack today.”

“I don’t actually know what a priest does next.”

“Tells you what your penance is,” Father Bart says.

She squints. “I, Father Bridgette, sentence you to three beers and two whiskeys. Drink, and be forgiven.” She tips her bottle skyward and swallows until it’s empty.

Father Bart smiles. He finishes the last of his own beer. “One time, I quit for four days,” he motions with the cigarette. “Then after two hours on the phone with my insurance company who wouldn’t pay for a dent in my car, I saw old butts in a dustbin. They were covered in vacuum dirt.” He grimaces. “I smoked them anyway.”

“That’s desperate.” Bridge motions Sarge for another round.

“Want to know the lesson there?”

“Take out the trash more often?”

“No,” he crushes the dying cigarette. “When you walk away from something, don’t keep any trace of it.”

“You oughta use that in a sermon.”

“Yeah,” he says, “and I’d lose the seven people who still come to mass.”

They drink for a while without speaking and Father Bart notices Sarge watching them with his Semper Fidelis arm bent on the counter. Bridge signals for another refill.

“How’d you end up here?” Bridge asks.

“In Natagwa?”

“At One Horse. I’ve never seen you in here.”

“It’s the only place open.”

They spend the second beer of Father Bart’s penance on black ice stories and the risks of driving on a night like tonight and the likelihood that they’ll have to sleep on the floor of One Horse.

“Gross,” Bridge says, looking like she just tasted the floor. “So, what happened today?”

”Nothing happened.”

“Somethin did. This place is too fuckin low rent for you. You’re the kind a guy that stays home in a storm, with his little scarf all tied up.” She shakes her head. “Somethin bad happened today.”

Father Bart simply drinks.

“Tell me,” she presses. “Tell Father Bridgette.”

Two beers down. Wind pushes at the door, trying to get in.

“I talked to my mom today,” he says. “My parents live in Rhode Island. They’ve been married forty-three years.”

“And they’re getting divorced,” she guesses.

“They’re getting divorced,” he repeats. “Forty-three years. They’re the kind of couple everyone puts in the forever category.”

“Kids always put their parents in that category.”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” Bridge offers, ”I had cramps, so my day was worse.”

Father Bart chokes on his beer. He pinches off his spectacles and considers the challenge. “I also burnt my eggs. I had to go hungry all day.”

“My horse broke his leg and I had to shoot him.”

“I was abducted by the FBI.

“I was actually abducted by aliens.”

"Well, at least you weren’t alone.”

Three beers down. A slide guitar mourns in the speakers overhead. Father Bart calls, “Sarge, can we get a couple of whiskeys?”

Just as the barman grips a red-label bottle by its neck, One Horse’s front door slams open. A big brown man wrestles through the frame in his dripping parka. Bridge twists on her stool to inspect the newcomer.

“Y’all hiding from the storm?" ask the man.

One of the old-timers looks up from his door-side post. “You hiding from your wife?”

The man laughs. “Hey, Abe,” he says.

“Juan.”

Bridge turns back toward Father Bart. “You believe in angels? Or demons?”

“Of a sort.”

“That’s vague,” she twists her whiskey with two fingers. “You pastors just love holdin back.”

“Technically I’m not a pastor.”

“You’re a fuckin bouncer is what you are.” She focuses on her shot glass, weaving slightly like she just left a merry-go-round. “You guys are in charge of a door that people wanna go through. The more you let people think you know secret shit they don’t know, the more powerful you are. And the crazy thing is, is people want you to know secret shit.” Bridge leans toward him. “Because if you know the answers, that means there are answers.”

One whiskey down. Father Bart looks up and notices Sarge eyeing them again—no, her. He’s eyeing Bridge. “So you have a history with the church,” he says.

“You could say that. I grew up in the big one.”

“Grace Tabernacle?”

”When I was in high school the elders cast demons outta me. Rebellion and Independence. Also Lasciviousness. You know what that is?”

“I’m a priest.”

Chatter disappears as the neon signs falter. All nine souls in One Horse wait to see if the electricity will hold and it does. As drinking resumes Sarge opens a cabinet. “Bout to get romantic in here,” he warns, stacking tealights on the counter. “Anyone got a light?”

“You ever done an exorcism?” Bridge asks.

“I’ve yet to meet someone possessed.” Father Bart uncoils his scarf and lays it across his lap.

“Oh, this place is crawlin with possessed. Accordin to my church elders, this town is a spiritual battleground.”

Father Bart frowns, “Your church says that?”

“It’s what all the churches say.”

“Why are they possessed?” He offers her another smoke.

Bridge tucks a white cylinder into her mouth and leans into the flame Father Bart is offering. An orange reflection flickers in her pupils. “Because of the Lumines and the demonic activity they left behind.”

“I thought Lumines were like off-brand freemasons.”

“They were. And also thugs, and kind of like warlocks. Churches ran ‘em out of town but apparently the demons stayed behind.”

“What makes your church think that?”

“Haunted trees,” she inhales. “And an old woman who lives in the ground and comes out at night. People acting nuts.” She exhales.

“A woman who lives in the ground?”

“There’s always been a weird hole in the middle of Seller’s field. When we were kids, we used to throw trash in it. Lumines said the Auspex lived down there. She’d come out at night and sit on a flat rock by the woods.”

Father Bart smiles like he knows how that particular magic trick is done. “What does the Auspex want?”

“She marks people,” Bridge replies. “Story goes, you wake up with your hair cut off and sprinkled in a circle around the bed.”

“And then what?”

“Don’t know,” Bridge confesses. “I don’t think it’s happened in a long time." She draws a finger along the rim of her empty shot glass. “But my ass hasn’t seen a pew in forever, so who knows.”

Suddenly, One Horse’s door bursts open and wind howls in, flinging bitter drops on the linoleum. A patron who already has a fist through a coat sleeve heads into the storm. Two others are right behind. The door swings closed and the six remaining souls get back to it.

“Final round,” Sarge pours a jet of red whiskey in each of their tumblers. “On the house.” He drops a glass between them with a bill curled inside and aims a hard stare at Bridge. “Since when’ are you two friends?” He tucks the bottle under one arm and gathers empties.

There is some history between them that Father Bart can only guess at. “In a town this size, people don’t have to meet each other to know each other,” he says. “Especially if they’re both a little different.”

“It ain’t gonna end well,” Sarge declares. Then he turns to clean and close the place.

Bridge squares herself to Father Bart. “What do you mean ‘different’? It ain’t like you’re Chinese. Or gay.”

“You don’t have any idea what I am.”

“I have some idea.”

“I’m the Catholic priest in a Protestant town, Bridge. I don’t get a lot of invitations to dinner.”

“Tragic,” says Bridge. “Fine. How am I different?”

“You’re in a bar in the middle of a storm while everyone else is sleeping.”

“I thought maybe you meant because I’m a slut.” Bridge tilts the shot glass to her bottom lip and swallows the last liquid offering of the night.

“No one deserves that label,” is what Father Bart would normally say, but tonight he doesn’t. “Why do you take people home?” He knocks his own shot back.

A long moment passes. “I don’t know.” She stares at the warped mirror. “Every night, I’m standin on a bridge and I never know if I’m gonna get down or jump off.” Her forehead wrinkles. “In the mornin I couldn’t tell you why I was fuckin on it in the first place.”

As if to make the point, she jumps off her chair. “I gotta visit the ladies’.” In that same instant, the neon signs blink off and black night floods the bar.

“Here we go,” announces Sarge.

In the obscurity, Bridge’s fingers find Father Bart’s arm, “Come home with me,” she whispers. “It doesn’t have to be…it can be…whatever.” In the background, a match head hisses to life. Sarge begins to light candles along the bar.

Father Bart is drunk. He can’t remember the last time he had a conversation as a man instead of a collar. His answer is to tie his scarf, rise, and lay his hand on the small of Bridge’s back.

Sarge comes to inspect the twenties that Father Bart and Bridge left on the counter. He shoves Father Bart’s bill away and plucks Bridge’s twenty, stuffing into the bill glass. “Don’t do it, priest,” he warns. “A priest with the clap won’t stay secret for long. You can say adios to your seven Catholics after that.”

Bridge salutes the bartender with a middle finger.

Sarge salutes back. “Drive safe.”

_____

Bart is zipping a toddler’s raincoat. He’s pinching the serpentine head of a jumper cable because Bridge left the headlights on. He’s reading ghost stories to grade schoolers. He’s topping the Christmas tree with middle schoolers. He’s burning eggs for his wife in their empty nest. Another life passes in less than an hour in the middle of a freezing rain storm, with Bridge’s left arm hugging his waist. It’s what could be. Father Bart is relieved that he’s the front spoon. He doesn’t want his erection to ruin the unexpected harbor of a shared blanket. He didn’t ask and she didn't try. Rain ticks against the bedroom window, building fresh layers of grey ice. Wind rattles the glass. The muddled forms of dark branches weave into and out of view. Shadows sweep over their feet. Father Bart thinks about how many men have laid on Bridge’s sheets and about the cigarette burns in his own and about what can be washed from a sheet and what can’t. First stones and all that.