Looking for Beta-reader for a Short (just <7K words) - sci-fi/suspense - Crow's Road

Hi
Well, I've an AWer for a long time but this is the first time I seriously look for a beta-reader. Mainly 'cause I have a tendency to not finish anything. I now have my first finished draft. It's a fairly short story but I've been working on it for a long while.

The title is "Crow's Road". It's sci-fi (set in a post WWIII steampunkish sort of post-apocalyptic word). I would love a good in-depth critique of the story itself and maybe the language (English being my third language). I have a thick skin so please don't be discuraged about this being my first finished draft Oh, and the main character is a priest but this is in no way a critique of religion.

Here's a bit of the beginning.

MichaelWhyte had been the Speaker of the Truth for the whole area surrounding his native village of Angel Falls for over ten years. The damnable birds had been gone for half of them. Now, however, they were back and circling lazily above the trees some twenty minutes away by a slow walk. From the street, it looked as though the crows formed a black crown over the little church scaring his congregation away to the almost distant village of Angel River on Sunday for mass. Those that remained behind—because of their age or loyalty to him, their own preacher—were dissolute and distracted as he recited the holy words of the New Bible over the cawing.
He looked down from his pulpit at them with disappointment and affection. He had thought them more pious. By all rights, he could have reported them to the Central Council of the Churches of America for this irrational fear of birds based on nothing but pagan superstition. Nevertheless, he loved his congregation and was always more forgiving with them than he should have been. He had been born in this very village and knew better than any other preacher the CCCA could have sent what was in their hearts. Thus, he only raised his tone and improvised a sermon meant to make them contrite and attentive for the sake of their immortal souls. He needed to do something about the crows.
He hung his coat on the peg by the door of his small house to the back of the church and loosened his collar. He peered out the window and glared at the birds he saw, those flying highest. They left him unsettled. Back when they had first come, some twenty years before, the men of the village had gone off into the woods to see what sort of carcass was attracting all the scavengers. This time, he had forbidden them from going into the forest to see what was attracting the crows. He had hated the looks they had given him, they remembered. He had gone by himself and thankfully had found nothing.
The doorbell rang and he almost missed it. He despised loud noises and had paid old Alphonse The Cripple to make his bell quieter. It rang again as he walked back to the entrance and opened the door. There, a face from the same time as the crows’ first visit was smiling at him. He stared into eyes that seemed to waver between sentimentality and hardness, an expression that he would always associate with his mother.

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