The Visitation Part 52

Uninvited, maybe even unseen by Cantwell, big, bl.u.s.tery Armond Harrison got a leg-up from some of his men and climbed onto the flatbed. As his followers cheered and the crowd snapped pictures, he smiled, waved back, then held up the Messiah's hand like a referee announcing the winner of a boxing match. "We're standing with you, Brandon! All of us!" Harrison's people let out one big, organic whoop.

Justin Cantwell smiled, waved, and eased Harrison toward the edge of the flatbed.

Then Cantwell shoved him off, right on top of Harrison's followers who collapsed like a house of cards under his weight.

"I am he," Cantwell reminded him, "and there is no other!" He returned his attention to the crowds. "Come to me! Whatever you need, I will give it! I am the one and only Messiah in your future!"

Matt stuck his head out the truck window. "Michael! I don't hear any prophesying out there!"

Michael turned his eyes forward again. He kept walking, but not a word would come to his lips.

Here came a vendor selling picture postcards of Jesus in the clouds and b.u.mper stickers that read, I SAW Him IN ANTIOCH, WAs.h.i.+NGTON, or I SAW Her IN ANTIOCH, WAs.h.i.+NGTON.

They pa.s.sed a booth where a man sold Antioch billed caps and tee-s.h.i.+rts that boasted, "I saw Jesus in Antioch, Was.h.i.+ngton." You had your choice: a picture of a farmer Jesus driving a combine or a jazzy, comic art face of Jesus between two sheaves. The Virgin got a tee s.h.i.+rt too, a more reverent pose of her standing on the curve of the earth, arms outstretched over the wheat fields of Antioch.

A barbecue-on-wheels had come to town, selling ribs and hot dogs, and right next to that was an out-of-nowhere artsy booth featuring little crosses, bookends, napkin holders, jewelry, and even Bible covers made from . . . used lumber from Antioch, Was.h.i.+ngton?

Sirens and screams broke through the din. People started running out of the way and Michael stopped dead in his tracks. Matt jammed on the brakes. Here came Rod Stanton in his squad car, blowing his siren, flas.h.i.+ng his lights, easing from a side street onto the main highway as the crowds scurried aside. He stopped in the middle of the street, jumped out of his car, searched through the crowd, then got back in and kept going.

And now, here came another christ, a blond one carrying a whip and yelling something about pollution, filth, and greed. He tried to overturn the barbecue-on-wheels in righteous rage, but it was too hot to handle and too heavy to upend. The owner scurried around and slapped him a few times, this way and that, and he moved on, dragging his whip. He had a mother too, who followed him, sharing bites of pocket bread filled with sprouts.

A skinny pilgrim in a straw hat stepped up to Michael, munching on a hot dog and grinning as if something was funny. "Michael! I'm confused! Which christ is the real one? Do you have a word on that?"

Michael had no word. No word at all.

Then a gunshot rang out, and Jim Baylor ran onto the highway from a side street, scrambling in circles, screaming something about his crazy wife.

Behind him came Dee, waving a gun in the air and prophesying-" Thou art a robber and a jerk, and thy time has come!" People scattered like frightened rats as she fired the gun and ran by, but then they laughed and took pictures. The sight was so ridiculous it had to be a show!

But wait. A young girl had fallen to the street, her shoulder bleeding. There were screams. This was no show.

The Messiah was laughing again.

AMID SCREAMS, RUNNING, AND RUCKUS, Don Anderson came swinging and shattering his way out the front door of his store, yelling like a warrior, swinging and battling unseen enemies on every side. A teenager wearing a walkman happened to be nearby, and Don went after the walkman. "Take that!" He shattered the walkman, breaking the kid's pelvis. "Don't let them get you! Take them out! It's every man for himself!" The kid's father tried to grab the bat away and Don opened his skull. A lady in a sunhat got it next, collapsing to the street, her camera and the wrist that held it shattered.

The front door of Don's store was broken and hanging open. Penny Adams saw that as an invitation and stepped inside to help herself. Her life ended three seconds later.

Some say she did something to cause a spark. Some say it was Dee Baylor's last bullet that missed Jim and went through the store's front window. The explosion and fireball incinerated any way of knowing for sure, blowing out the store's front windows. Flame and shards shot out, killing fourteen people on that side of the street, setting four parked cars on fire, and breaking the windows out of a plumber's supply and beauty shop directly opposite.

The Messiah looked behind him to see the conflagration, the burning cars, the screaming people, and flaming bodies. He raised his hands heavenward and rejoiced.

Don Anderson, now a block away, saw his own store go up in a fireball and shouted "YES!" Then he saw a hair dryer in the front window of the pharmacy and promptly broke the gla.s.s. "Roast me, will you?"

"Let me handle it!" said an RV lady from the Macon ranch, who quickly helped herself to the hair dryer.

"Partake, my people!" the Messiah cried, his wounded arms outstretched. "The bounty of the earth is yours! Partake!"

Even as the appliance store and the adjacent structures went up in flames, windows began to break all over town-some with stones, some with boots, some with tire irons. The people began to partake.

HER EYES BLINDED AND STINGING from smoke, her hair singed by heat, Dee fled from the inferno, stumbling, b.u.mping into other frantic bodies, trying to run, trying to see. She bowled headlong into another woman and they both went sprawling. A stolen box of hot curlers broke open, the rollers tumbling and scurrying along the gutter. "Now look what you've done!" the woman yelled.

At that moment Dee realized she no longer had the gun in her hand.

Across the street, another window shattered. Folks started helping themselves to paper, pens, and office supplies from the Antioch Harvester office while Kim Staples, shrieking in anger and terror, tried to fend them off with reams of paper and boxes of pens.

The souvenirs, art, and trinkets fas.h.i.+oned from used lumber from Antioch went next, and there was nothing the poor wood carver could do about it.

The ribs and hot dogs were too hot to steal and the vendor too tough.

The blond christ with the whip had encountered the southern christ in the bathrobe, and now they were duking it out, rolling, kicking, and biting in the street.

The Messiah's prophet was cringing and tongue-tied, and the Virgin Mother was clinging to the back b.u.mper of the truck, cowering like a frightened child. Unfl.u.s.tered, even ecstatic, Justin Cantwell threw out some more loaves. "Come and partake!" He began singing along with the recorded music, "Walk on through the wind, walk on through the rain . . ."

The loaves landed on the pavement, ignored. His sheep weren't interested in bread anymore. They wanted toys.

No matter. The flatbed kept rolling, the music kept blaring, and Justin Cantwell kept right on singing as the town came apart all around him.

ROD FLOORED THE GAS PEDAL. After losing his man between houses and trees, he spotted the suspect again and shouted into his radio, "He's heading up Maple, the three hundred block!"

The suspect ducked down an alley and through a yard.

Rod drove down the alley. "He's running through the Wimbleys' yard! Should come out right in front. I'm going on foot." He stopped his car, leaped out, and started running through the yard as a German shepherd chased and snapped at him and a cat in his path panicked and ran up a tree. The suspect ran into the street. Rod bolted into the street to cut him off.

SCREEECH!.

A hard, steel b.u.mper clipped Rod at the knees, flipping him onto the hood of Squad Car One. He tumbled against the winds.h.i.+eld and then rolled off onto the pavement, dazed and bruised, with one knee snapped sideways.

Brett jumped out of Car One and limped after the suspect. "Halt! Halt or I'll shoot!"

The suspect ran.

Brett grabbed his leg, then crumpled to the sidewalk. He pulled his gun, aimed. The suspect was looking back . . .

Mark Peterson darted out of an alley and collided with the man, tackling him to the ground. With a knee in the man's back, he slapped on the cuffs.

Brett hobbled up the sidewalk, gun in hand. "Mark! What timing!"

"Heard the radio," he answered, yanking off the suspect's hat and sungla.s.ses.

Then he backed one step away, surprise all over his face.

The suspect was Norman Dillard.

OUR HUSHED, CLOSED-DOOR MEETING broke up the moment we heard the gas explosion. We ran out on the front steps of the church to see what had happened. Several blocks up the street, flames were billowing out of the appliance store, making black silhouettes of the scurrying mobs. The town looked like an anthill set on fire.

"It's Armageddon!" said Kyle.

Nancy was down the steps in an instant, obviously concerned for her newspaper office and store.

The siren atop the volunteer fire department began to wail. Five volunteers were already rolling out the fire trucks.

"Oh Lord," Morgan groaned. "Oh precious Lord, that's Michael!"

We all spotted him, walking out in front of the big flatbed truck. There was no question who the character riding on the flatbed was.

"What are we going to do?" Kyle asked.

"Same plan, everybody," I said. "Kyle, meet me at my place." I turned to Morgan, "You have to go to that engagement dinner. Try to act normal. We'll call your cell phone." Then I dashed to my Trooper.

I drove right up the center line of the highway and then slowed to a careful, deliberate crawl, weaving my way through the looters with my windows rolled up and my doors locked. I had an appointment with that flatbed, that ludicrous one-vehicle parade with Justin Cantwell waving to the crowds and the voice of Elvis singing about believing that "for every drop of rain that falls a flower grows." Michael Elliott was walking in front of the truck, a microphone in his dangling hand, and I could tell from his face and posture that he was having the same, woeful awakening I once had. It was time to grab that kid.

I pushed forward, braking as a lady ran by with a lamp and two kids ran by with computer games still in the boxes. Broken gla.s.s littered the street and crunched under my tires. The whole town was cast in a flickering, orange glow.

When I was within two blocks of the flatbed, Justin Cantwell's eyes locked on me with radar precision and remained there. I stared right back and kept rolling, not straying from the center line. After one block for each of us, his truck and my Trooper came b.u.mper to b.u.mper in the middle of the street, and Cantwell's parade came to a halt.

Matt Kiley leaned on the horn. I put my gears.h.i.+ft in park. I had the Messiah of Antioch's undivided attention and I was going to seize the moment. I wanted him to read in my eyes that he no longer had advantage. I'd been to Texas, and now I knew him the same as he knew me.

I understood those scars he was trying to show off. I could clearly imagine the fence in his back yard on that blistering day in Texas. I could see how the galvanized spikes went through those arms and into the fence rail, and how they tore his flesh as he struggled. I could imagine the pain, the terror, the horrible bewilderment of a fifteen-year-old accused of being "full of the devil," an embarra.s.sment that needed to be corralled.

I understood, and I wanted him to know.

He knew, all right. He turned away quickly, but I caught it in those crazed eyes, in that sweating, wild-haired visage backlit by orange fire. I had breached his mystique, and by doing so, deflected his power. That could make me his closest confidant-or his most dangerous enemy.

Enough. I turned my eyes away and searched for Michael. He was standing beside my rig, staring as if he couldn't believe what was happening. I lowered the power window on his side. "Michael, hop in."

He came closer, looking at me puzzled.

"I'm Travis Jordan. I know your mom."

That turned a light on. "Oh."

"Climb in."

He climbed in.

A loaf of bread landed on my hood. I saw other loaves flying through the air, bounding off the big truck, bouncing off my rig. The loaf on my hood had been bitten into, and now green worms were crawling out of the bite.

So, Justin's product quality had gone south and people were finding out. I knew that would be the script from now on. It was time to get out of there.

I slammed the Trooper into reverse and left Cantwell with his public. At the first cross street, I got off the highway just as Brett Henchle and Mark Peterson came on the scene in Antioch's two squad cars, sirens wailing and lights flas.h.i.+ng. Was that Norman Dillard in the back of Car One?

In my mirror, I could see Antioch's two fire trucks arriving on the scene, and two volunteer firemen raced by me in their private vehicles. Crossing Elm Street, I stopped to let an ambulance roll by with its lights flas.h.i.+ng. I found out later it was carrying Rod Stanton.

The folks along Myrtle Street were out in their yards, cl.u.s.tering with their neighbors, looking up at the black plume of smoke rising only blocks away. I kept driving toward my place, glad it was as far away from the war zone as a home in Antioch could be.

I noticed Michael was fighting back tears. When he lost it completely, I put a hand on his shoulder.

"Michael, let me tell you about the time I took a trip to Minneapolis."

JIM BAYLOR peeked out from the alley near Florence Lynch's boutique. The fire trucks were getting water on the blaze. Brett Henchle and one of his deputies were fanning out, night sticks in hand and whistles in their mouths. Loot thudded, crashed, plopped, and tinkled to the street as the looters emptied their hands and ran for cover. The two sc.r.a.pping christs suddenly found they had something in common-their fear of cops-and slunk off in different directions. Jim tried to see Dee through all the smoke, steam, and confusion, and finally spotted her.

No, no, no! She was joining up with that crowd of Nichols Nuts around Brandon Nichols's big truck! They were clambering onto the truck as Nichols and anyone else already aboard reached down to pull them up. They were clearing out, and Dee was going with them!

Jim ran out of hiding. "DEE!"

She didn't hear him. Maybe she was ignoring him.

"DEE!!"

A gray-haired executive in lemon yellow shorts offered his hand and pulled her up.

Jim broke into a run. He couldn't let her go with this bunch. "DEE! Wait a minute! Stop!"

Nichols banged on the roof of the truck cab and Matt Kiley got rolling, turning off at the closest cross street and roaring away from the trouble.

Jim almost tripped over his gun lying on the sidewalk. He checked which way the cops were looking, timed his move carefully, and recovered it. It was empty now, but he could remedy that. He tucked the gun in his belt, draped his s.h.i.+rttail over it, and got out of there.

MICHAEL CALLED HIS MOTHER from my place to tell her he was okay and with me, and then we sat at my kitchen table eating microwave pizza. I recounted my story about Minneapolis and then, for good measure, told him about my Nechville trip. Hearing my accounts brought him as much enjoyment as a stomach cramp, but it was medicine he needed at the time, and he hung on every word. I threw in some sweetener as often as I could, telling him in dozens of ways that there really was a Savior-he just wasn't Justin Cantwell. For one thing, Justin Cantwell was too small. The real Jesus was greater than the best show any man could put on. He was greater than any building you could put him in or any tradition you could wrap around him or any expectations you could impose on him. Throughout my life, in a variety of ways, I'd tried to do all four of those things, but now I was learning-again-that it's only when you're willing to know him on his terms, for who he is, that you really start to know him at all.

I could see some light bulbs coming on in his head. They were dim, but they were coming on. I was thankful just to have him in my house, quiet and sitting still, so I could work him through all this. When the daylight began to fade, I checked the clock on the wall. Kyle was due at any time, and we still needed a map. "Michael, I need to ask you a favor."

By now he was ready to tackle the job as a moral duty. "Here's the ranch house," he explained as he drew, "and the main driveway. But you can't go in that way if you don't want to be discovered. The spring development is in the willow draw, way up in back. . . ."

IT TOOK BOTH COPS to contain Don Anderson's one-man war against the great technology takeover. He thought the handcuffs held a personal grudge against him. The squad car meant to slam his leg in the door. The speed radar was aiming at him-he could feel it h.o.m.ogenizing his brain.

Mark found one fleeting moment when either Don's head, arm, or leg wasn't protruding and got the door shut. "Whew! What's gotten into him, anyway?"

Brett was somber, staring as the crazed appliance dealer screamed and pounded against the car window. "He has a bad case of Brandon Nichols-just like the whole town."

Mark surveyed the damaged storefronts and littered streets. They wouldn't know the extent of the fire damage until the flames were out and the smoke cleared. "Guess the honeymoon's over." Then he had to ask, "But what about your leg? I mean . . ."

"I'm taking it back." Brett felt his leg, then flexed his knee. "It's just about normal-I mean, the way it was before Nichols messed with it-and it can stay that way." Don was still hollering, something about the squad car having indigestion in its fuel line. "You'd better get Don to the clinic. He needs a shot or something. I'll lock up the window peeper-and then I'm gonna call the county sheriff and get us some help."

MICHAEL SKETCHED EVERYTHING OUT, showing me how the "willow draw" was a small valley between rows of hills two miles north of the ranch house. The hills could be seen from the house, he said, but not the valley between them. Cantwell could have been doing most anything up there without being discovered.

Hopefully, Kyle and I would have the same advantage.

The disadvantage was the ranch's backhoe. Michael couldn't be sure where it was.

"The last time I saw it, it was in the low red barn, but the tractor might not have the backhoe attachment on it. They don't have that hooked up when they're stacking hay."

"Oh brother."

"But here's the other way to get in . . ."

He went to the opposite edge of the paper. "Figure on about six miles across here-" He drew the north highway, then a road entering the ranch from the north side. "There's a gate, but you can just open it. Make sure you close it behind you, or the cattle will get out. Then you follow this road . . ."

The road penetrated vast rangeland, then forked: The north fork led into the hills and the willow draw between them. The south fork led back to the house.