For the rest of September and the first part of October 1944, I reported each morning at Fort Richardson to a Building 100, where I was supposed to receive my new orders. But each day I was told the captain I'd been assigned to was away, and I was dispatched to some service detail in his absence-unloading supplies, setting up tents, even directing traffic. Or I was simply sent back to the barracks. But I didn't like spending time there, since the barracks I'd been assigned was nothing more than a giant tent, half the length of a football field. It was dark and damp and had an odd smell that one of the guys said was mustard gas and another said was formaldehyde.

Of course, avoiding the barracks had put me downtown during the leaflet drop. I was a good Catholic boy and thus ascribed little to chance; God was obviously displeased I'd gone to Fourth Avenue, what with all its temptations. So when the next free block of time presented itself, I stayed on base. To prove to God I was starting anew, I even sought out the chapel.

Inside, I discovered just how upset with me God was.

“You're late, Sergeant!” Father Pabich barked when I entered. Tall, bearlike, and every inch the longshoreman he once was, Father Pabich, I came to discover, had a vigorous faith. He mostly saw me for what I was-a kid, scared and vulnerable and misplaced-and decided to do what he could.

“Sir,” I said, lurching forward.

“Father,” he said.

“Father, I-” I looked at my watch. “Late for what?”

“For Mass,” he said, and walked back through the door he'd just come out of. He returned pushing a small cart and wearing a stole.

“You'll serve,” he said. He looked at my name strip. “Belk?” he asked. “You're not a Jew, are you?”

I shook my head. “Catholic.”

“There's no rabbi here,” he said. “Shot down. Aleutians. No other rabbi for a thousand miles,” he added, ducking below the cart, and slapping whatever he found there on top: a candle, a napkin, a breviary. “Don't light the candle,” he said, and then darted back through the door. I stood there, trying to decide whether I could leave. But before I did, Father Pabich had reappeared, hands folded. He pointed me to my place with his chin and began the Latin. I didn't look up until it was my time to chime in. When I did, his voice paused as he evaluated my response, and then rolled on. At communion, he filled the chalice with wine, almost to the brim, and drank down half of it. Then he saw me out of the corner of his eye, and held the chalice out to me. I took a sip and handed it back. He looked inside and handed it back to me. I took another sip. He grabbed it back out of my hands and drank down the rest.

When Mass was finished, he told me to stay, and then rolled the altar cart back inside. He reemerged without the stole, carrying a package of cigarettes. He shook one out, looked at it a moment, and then lit it. I'd already prepared an answer for when he offered me one, but he never did. Instead, he sat there, studying me, until something over my shoulder caught his eye. He stood up.

“Too late!” he said. A couple of blond, young-very young-soldiers looked up at him, confused. “We're closed!” he said. They didn't move, so he stood. “I'm hearing a goddamn confession!” The two backed out. He sat down again. “So?” he said. I started to say something, but he held up his hand, took a long drag. He took the cigarette out of his mouth. “Your name was-” He squinted. “ Bell? Belk.”

“Father?”

“Mass is every God-granted morning at 0555.” He looked at his watch. “It's now 1400.”

“I wasn't even looking to-I didn't even know.” I looked down.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I was going to take-I was going to-pray.”

He looked at my insignia. “Bomb disposal?” I nodded. “I think we'd all feel safer knowing you weren't relying on prayer.”

I looked away and said nothing.

“Oh, Lord,” he said. “I understand now. Sergeant from the bomb disposal unit, in chapel alone, midafternoon. You want out.”

“No, sir-”

“That's right, the answer is no.”

“Father?”

“Every week, I get a nervous nellie in here, decides he doesn't like the way war smells, wants to transfer to the chaplaincy corps, or worse. They look like-they look like you, Belk. And here's what I tell them: no.”

“I don't want-I wasn't looking for a transfer.”

“You're not getting one, you especially.” He paused. “Bomb disposal,” he said, and shook his head. “Well, that's your lot, son: you're a kid, at war, in Alaska, the back shelf of the devil's own icebox, and you've been told to run after bombs the rest of us are told to run from. It ain't fair, but neither was the cross.” He looked at me. “You want to know what's not fair? Three times, Belk, last week, I get on a plane, fly out to some god-awful piece of frozen waste, and say last rites for a guy who'd gotten blown up by a mine or a bomb. Two of those bombs were ours, by the way. One, Jap.”

I waited.

“I couldn't do a damn thing for those boys, other than try to get them into something like a state of grace before they made a run at heaven. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” He paused to shake out another cigarette and light it off the one he had. “Pray for us,” he finished. “This army doesn't need any more damn priests saving souls, Belk. We need somebody who can save lives.”

“Yes, Father,” I said.

He waved this away. “Or take some lives,” he said, hunching forward. “Then you come to me, Belk,” he went on. “You shoot a few of those bastards for me.” He stood. “Then we'll see if you want to be- or can be-a priest.” I stood as well, thinking I was supposed to leave, but instead, he talked for another twenty minutes.

Anchorage, apparently, was a frozen Gomorrah, and Father Pabich was worried about me. Not so much that I'd damage my potential as a priest, but more that I'd “fall into the sins of distraction.” And Anchorage offered many: bars, women, men-and, Father Pabich said, “magicians.”

“I'm not much for magic, Father,” I said.

“I don't mean card tricks,” he said, “although you'd be wise to give cards a wide berth, too. I mean people who don't trust the way of God, people who see spirits, people who worship idols. Masons, Republicans, or strike-breaking Pinkerton men-you know who I'm talking about. Magicians: I'm trying to make it simple for you. People who put their faith in something other than God.” He looked at me carefully. “Listen: people say God's got a lot of work still to do up here,” he said. “I say, we've got work to do. Right?” I nodded. “Go in peace, son,” he said. “Just don't go too far.”

MAGICIANS: SUDDENLY, I wasn't worried so much about doing evil. There were plenty of others here doing it for me, and what's more, it sounded pretty damn interesting. Rather than striking fear in me, Father Pabich gave me a kind of fearlessness. As a stand-in for God, Father Pabich was of the roaring, Old Testament variety, but the cigarettes and swearing made me realize that, just like everything else, God operated under different rules in the Alaskan army.

Which is a long way of saying that I went straight back downtown. But after Father's hype, downtown was actually something of a disappointment. Magicians: maybe I'd expected I'd walk down the street and be in the midst of a circus parade. But it looked a lot more like scout camp. Mountains all around, loud voices, uniforms, dirty faces, and everywhere, mud and muck. No girls.

Scout camp isn't so far from the truth, I suppose. Alaska was still a territory then, not a state, and Anchorage was more outpost than town, its civic boosters' and newspapers' claims to the contrary. Downtown, such as it was, looked like a city for a few blocks, but soon enough, paved streets gave way to gravel and, inevitably, mud. Much of it looked like it had been built by a film crew for a B-grade western-sagging wooden facades, peeling paint promising goods and services from another era. A source of great pride was the city's Federal Building, which housed the court and post office. It showed up on more than one postcard, looking quite formal and impressive, if a bit small-it helped that the various ramshackle buildings nearby were always cropped out of the picture.