“Tell me one sin,” I pleaded with Florence. His face was very close to mine now, and when he shook his head to tell me again that he didn’t have sins I saw a frightening truth in his eyes. He was telling the truth! He did not believe that he had ever sinned against God! “Oh my God!” I heard myself gasp.
“Confess your sins or you’ll go to hell!” Rita cried out. She grabbed his blonde hair and helped Ernie and Agnes twist his head.
“Confess! Confess!” they cried. Then with one powerful heave and a groan Florence shook off his tormentors. He was long and sinewy, but because of his mild manner we had always underestimated his strength. Now the girls and Ernie and even Horse fell off him like flies.
“I have not sinned!” he shouted, looking me square in the eyes, challenging me, the priest. His voice was like Ultima’s when she had challenged Tenorio, or Narciso’s when he had tried to save Lupito.
“It is God who has sinned against me!” his voice thundered, and we fell back in horror at the blasphemy he uttered.
“Florence,” I heard June whimper, “don’t say that—”
Florence grinned. “Why? Because it is the truth?” he questioned. “Because you refuse to see the truth, or to accept me because I do not believe in your lies! I say God has sinned against me because he took my father and mother from me when I most needed them, and he made my sisters whores—He has punished all of us without just cause, Tony,” his look pierced me. “He took Narciso! And why? What harm did Narciso ever do—”
“We shouldn’t listen to him,” Agnes had the courage to interrupt Florence, “we’ll have to confess what we heard and the priest will be mad.”
“The priest was right in not passing Florence, because he doesn’t believe!” Rita added.
“He shouldn’t even be here if he is not going to believe in the laws we learn,” Lloyd said.
“Give him a penance! Make him ask for forgiveness for those terrible things he said about God!” Agnes insisted. They were gathering behind me now, I could feel their presence and their hot, bitter breath. They wanted me to be their leader; they wanted me to punish Florence.
“Make his penance hard,” Rita leered.
“Make him kneel and we’ll all beat him,” Ernie suggested.
“Yeah, beat him!” Bones said wildly.
“Stone him!”
“Beat him!”
“Kill him!”
They circled around me and advanced on Florence, their eyes flashing with the thought of the punishment they would impose on the non-believer. It was then that the fear left me, and I knew what I had to do. I spun around and held out my hands to stop them.
“No!” I shouted, “there will be no punishment, there will be no penance! His sins are forgiven!” I turned and made the sign of the cross. “Go in peace, my son,” I said to Florence.
“No!” they shouted, “don’t let him go free!”
“Make him do penance! That’s the law!”
“Punish him for not believing in God!”
“I am the priest!” I shouted back, “and I have absolved him of his sins!” I was facing the angry kids and I could see that their hunger for vengeance was directed at me, but I didn’t care, I felt relieved. I had stood my ground for what I felt to be right and I was not afraid. I thought that perhaps it was this kind of strength that allowed Florence to say he did not believe in God.
“You are a bad priest, Tony!” Agnes lashed out at me.
“We do not want you for our priest!” Rita followed.
“Punish the priest!” they shouted and they engulfed me like a wave. They were upon me, clawing, kicking, tearing off the jackets, defrocking me. I fought back but it was useless. They were too many. They spread me out and held me pinned down to the hard ground. They had torn my shirt off so the sharp pebbles and stickers cut into my back.
“Give him the Indian torture!” someone shouted.
“Yeah, the Indian torture!” they chanted.
They held my arms while Horse jumped on my stomach and methodically began to pound with his fist on my chest. He used his sharp knuckles and aimed each blow directly at my breastbone. I kicked and wiggled and struggled to get free from the incessant beating, but they held me tight and I could not throw them off.
“No! No!” I shouted, but the raining blows continued. The blows of the knuckles coming down again and again on my breastbone were unbearable, but Horse knew no pity, and there was no pity on the faces of the others.
“God!” I cried, “God!” But the jarring blows continued to fall. I jerked my head from side to side and tried to kick or bite, but I could not get loose. Finally I bit my lips so I wouldn’t cry, but my eyes filled with tears anyway. They were laughing and pointing down at the red welt that raised on my chest where the Horse was pounding.