The God of Salt & Light

by Logan Ryan Smith

  When they were close enough, they patted my shoulder, grabbed my elbow so as not to cut themselves on my hands, their faces all smiles, no eyes or nose or ears. And somehow they held printed copies of my book in their hands. Just printed pages held together by binder clips. Some had bound them carefully with golden thread.

  It was terrifying. My breath ran shallow. My heart somersaulted. Some leaden ball plopped into my hollow belly.

  What was more terrifying is that I brought them there. All those hours spent in internet chatrooms produced this. I wanted to flog myself, stick my head in the sand. It wasn’t my intention to have anyone travel so far to join us. That wasn’t my job. That was for my people to do. But I just couldn’t keep myself from going on and on about Her Word during that prolonged time of isolation.

  That overwhelming number, forty-two, would be the punishment for my naiveté.

  twenty

  After that Congregation of Forty-Two left me to set up their own camp, I walked immediately to the Sea. Who were these people? They didn’t ask anything of me, they only expressed the need to touch me, to know that I was real. Then to leave without asking for a leader to teach them? I didn’t understand. Who would watch over them? How could we divide them up among my people? Ensure the focus remained true, on point, only about the Sea and personal, soul-fulfilling freedom?

  When I got to the Sea, my skin was cracking with caked sweat. Immediately I performed my ritual cleansing in Her waters that glittered beneath the sun. I took Her full scent into my lungs and attempted to calm myself. Storks, gulls, and pelicans brushed Her surface, scooped up green fish before dropping them. Other birds bobbed on the Sea’s surface, content to ride Her waves to the end of the day. The dunes were especially alive with cormorants beating their wings into a storm of dust and lice, elevating their voices into screeches and squeals. There was so much life in the air that day!

  And there I was, in Her glittery waters, blessed to be a part of it all, grinning from ear to ear as the crystals climbed up my hands and wrists.

  Then the Sea quaked.

  At first, the waters rocked as if a mammoth toe had just dipped into Her waters to test the temperature. Then She quaked again and a cascade of rotting fish flowed past me, spat up onto the beach where their bones would be beaten to dust. The Sea shook a third time and another gush of bloated fish flushed past me. My feet sunk into the seabed up to my ankles. I was trapped, the suction of the sediment holding me hostage. I wondered if the land would open and bury me. I wondered if this was really how I’d be ended. It made no sense, except that it would mean I’d never be parted from the Sea.

  Perhaps She, in her infinite wisdom, had decided I’d outlived my usefulness. Or maybe She was welcoming me to Paradise?

  I didn’t have too much time to think on it because right then I spotted something at the heart of the Sea, miles and miles away.

  At first I couldn’t say what the dark thing bobbing on the Sea was. It didn’t look like any kind of bird and certainly was no boat. Sure, boaters sometimes used the Salton Sea recreationally, but there were no white sails out there that day. And what I saw was no white sail. It was, in fact, a massive dorsal fin, so dark green it may as well have been black. It popped up, disappeared. Then everything went quiet until an explosion of birds shot up into the sky, making their exodus from the Sea and Her beaches. All at once, there was a tornado of birds spiraling away from the Sea toward the Chocolate Mountains in the east. They screamed, each to each, in a cacophony of panic.

  Suffice to say, it was not the soundtrack I expected to accompany that day, but in retrospect the terrified squawking of thousands of birds was indeed apt.

  Especially as another dark green dorsal fin pierced the Sea’s surface. Then another. Followed by three more. Whatever was out there was serpentine and circling the heart of the Sea.

  The waters around me rocked and swayed. My feet remained cemented in Her base, sunk into Her mud past my ankles.

  A wet crack broke through the birds’ squall, followed by the sound of cascading water. The creature at the heart of the Sea had shot from it, its massive, dragon-like head stretched up into the blue sky. The thing spread its fearsome jaws and took a slice out of the feathered cyclone before the birds could complete their escape. Then the monster crashed back down into the Sea and disappeared.

  Another gush of green fish rushed past me, rippled and settled. I stood there like a statue, unable to voice my amplified terror, wreathed by hundreds of breathless fishes.

  Overhead, birds screeched and complained. Again and again until they were far enough away that their fear could hardly be heard.

  Eventually the Sea calmed to Her usual loll. Everything calmed. There was no sound. Just silence. Not even wind to hide the heartbeat in my ears.

  I thought I’d be cast there forever, Her foot soldier with his feet cemented in the mud of Her foundation.

  The irony!

  Thankfully the mud around my feet loosened and I scrambled backward up and onto the beach.

  My heart raced. My heart gasped. What fear was that?

  And what was that thing? How was it even possible?

  Though I understood that through Her all things were possible, the Sea went quiet. Once again, the Sea was giving me the silent treatment.

  twenty-one

  My walk away from that bizarre spectacle and back into The Slabs happened in slow motion. My feet moved as if still planted in thick mud. My breathing seemed spaced out between unbearable seconds. My heart contracted and expanded in the most languid rhythm. Slowly, I walked past desert brush, ocotillo, and strange twisted roots expunged from the land to dry and petrify.

  At Slab City, I walked by a number of those dilapidated shacks and vehicles sunken into the desert’s shattered floor until I was interrupted rudely by a local I’d spoken with on very rare occasion. She was sitting outside her van outfitted with a wooden extension, making the immobile vehicle a two-room apartment. She hooted at me from her creaky lawn chair. She whistled between chipped teeth.

  Shocked, still in a daze, not sure who to talk to or what to say, I wandered over to the woman in her chair and asked her why she was making such ugly sounds.

  She hissed and winked, leaned down and stubbed out her cigarette. Offering me one, I waved it away and waited while she lit herself another. She drank what appeared to be antifreeze from a chipped coffee cup.

  As usual, it was hot. A standing fan next to the woman blew the desert’s hot breath over the both of us. Dogs skittered across the sparkling desert floor. The birds that had managed their escape were no longer in sight, on the other side of the mountains. I feared they’d never come back.

  That withered woman took three drags on her cigarette and another sip of antifreeze before she spoke. She asked me if I’d heard the news, and I laughed. She asked what I was laughing about and I told her it didn’t matter. I asked her to make her point. She said that the government was going to sell our land right out from under us.

  I laughed again, looked over my shoulder with trepidation, but found a moment’s calm: the Sea was still back there. That monster hadn’t swallowed Her up.

  I’m serious, she told me. She said the state of California was suddenly eager to flip the land they’d let go to the Sea and Her people for decades now, uncontested. All for a few million dollars. The richest state in the country wanted to make a few extra bucks.

  Suddenly, what was abandoned was wanted again.

  I laughed once more and asked who’d want it. Who could possibly want this land?

  Sun worshippers, she told me, and cackled again. My heart shuddered. Sun worshippers in the shadow of the Sea?

  She went on to tell me it was energy companies. They’re going to turn Slab City into a massive solar farm. A spiral of solar panels would be laid as far as the eye could see. That energy, the woman said, was worth more money than the land. Then she pattered on about taxes and other such unholy things. I walked away before she finished her speech. Dou
ble, double toil and trouble was the last thing that snaked between her lips, followed by another cackle.

  It was too much for me. First Marcy, then the Leviathan of the Sea, now this woman, this wretched thing laughing in my face about the dissolution of my faith. She knew about The People of the Salton Sea. Everyone around there did, and clearly she thought it was all so funny.

  Darkness. Nothing but darkness in that one’s soul.

  Sure, if sun worshippers destroyed this place, we could move to another town along Her shores. There’s Salton City, Bombay Beach, Niland, etcetera, but Law and The Great Eye reside in those places, to some extent. Temptations and falsehoods, too. It just wouldn’t be the same. What would happen to East Jesus? Salvation Mountain? Us? A watered-down version, that’s what. Or gone. Just gone. Like Marcy, blinked out of existence. Or, at best, we’d be broken up. We’d move to one of those places kept under the Law and we’d lose focus, lose touch, until finally Her Word was all but unspoken.

  No, it just wouldn’t do. They couldn’t have this land, sun worshippers or not.

  We wouldn’t let them, right?

  I waited for the Sea to answer but still She kept quiet. I hoped that the sea serpent, that dragon-headed demon, hadn’t swallowed Her voice.

  It was all too much!

  I stopped by the internet café, asked Sparky for some of his moonshine. A happy old man, he was happy to oblige, and I was soon on my way with a warmth in my belly replacing the fear in my heart. I passed by the Congregation of Forty-Two and they smiled and waved and called out to me but I didn’t go to them. Who was teaching them? Who was leading them? It was driving me insane!

  It was all too much!

  When I came within thirty yards of my luxurious camper, my comfy air-conditioned home, I stopped. There were flashing lights. In the daytime, there were blue and red and white lights flashing. They came from the Imperial Sheriff’s SUV and two State Trooper cars. Pulled right up to my camper.

  I turned and walked the other way.

  PART II

  twenty-two

  Before long there was a documentary crew scurrying through The Slabs like excited cockroaches. And they weren’t there for the Leviathan. No! They attempted to interview me several times, but I refused. Still, they walked around The Slabs with handheld video cameras, mostly following the Congregation of Forty-Two. Members of that Congregation called these people to us. Someone had ties to a magazine that produced short documentary videos that they posted online. They were intrigued by the ideas being nurtured there near the Salton Sea. They thought they were capturing the birth of a new religion, not realizing their cameras, their attention, could be the death of it. But the Congregation of Forty-Two was a colorful group. Boisterous and young. Many had long, silky hair and expensive tattoos. Their complexions were flawless. They loudly claimed that they were about to change the world. They spent a lot of their time where I had first met them, repeating that proclamation: chatrooms. Or social media. Through it, they were a force to be reckoned with.

  But, change the world? That was not what this was about. Souls were being set free, sure, but our intentions—Her intentions—were never world domination, for She already said there wouldn’t be so many. Only few are worthy.

  This is what happens when faith has no one to guide it. A book provides the rails, the tracks, but a leader keeps the train from jumping them.

  I didn’t understand this Congregation. They knew all about The Great Eye and how Law is always close behind. I encountered one of the women of that group one day as she wandered through The Slabs passing out Xeroxed copies of my book. I asked what she was doing and she smiled and softly told me she was spreading Her Word. I told her that was not her job, that the Sea didn’t bestow that duty upon her. Her lazy smile persisted. Her glossy eyes glistened. She was on more than faith and freedom, I’ll tell you that. I asked her if she understood who I was and she said, Oh, yeah, man. You’re like, the, um, leader? The cult leader? And I was aghast. Cult? What cult? I asked her why they allowed the film crew to come here. She laughed as we walked along. She’d stop at each cardboard shack or shanty, lean down and drop a copy of my book before them. Or she’d find people in their lawn chairs, at picnic tables slathered in bird droppings, and hand them my book, saying only, It’ll set your soul free. And I couldn’t understand it. She told me I should be grateful to the Congregation for bringing the film crew to this place. They will only help me spread Her Word that much faster. I protested. I told her that the Sea makes those decisions, not the Congregation of Forty-Two. She laughed, said I told them to come here. That if I didn’t want people here, I shouldn’t have invited them. Besides, she said, no one person can stand in the way of Her message. She told me that if I continued to be a firewall between the freedom She offers and mankind’s salvation, that others would have to step up. She told me that perhaps it was time I hung it up. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this sort of stuff. Maybe it was time The People of the Salton Sea had a new leader. Perhaps one elected democratically. It was ludicrous! The woman’s judgment was clearly impaired by whatever poison clouded her veins. She told me that if I wanted to stake my claim, I really should talk to the documentary filmmakers and state my case. That I should take back control of the narrative.

  The narrative? What narrative? I was flabbergasted. I turned and walked away from her as quickly as I could. I found myself at the camper, guzzling down moonshine, grateful only that the Imperial Sheriff hadn’t returned. That Law remained repelled.

  But those people, that Congregation of Forty-Two, brought with them The Great Eye. And the last thing me and mine needed was The Great Eye to catch a glimpse of the Leviathan lurking in the Sea. If that creature, itself, was not the end of this place, then surely The Great Eye would be.

  twenty-three

  I had to speak to my people, but first I had to sleep off my drunkenness. After I had, I found Jasmine and Curtis at the library, reading dime store novels. Their pupils were sleeping at their feet. What were they doing? Was this how they taught?

  When I found Angela, she was strumming the nylon-strung guitar outside her shanty. Jacob was mixing up some plants in an old chemistry set at a picnic able. Their pupils were somewhere reading my book, I was told.

  But, were they?

  Once I had everyone in place, I explained to them the troubling nature of the Congregation of Forty-Two. They agreed that they were creating a scene, drawing The Great Eye near. But, they argued, perhaps it was time not to fear The Great Eye. Perhaps, they suggested, we could use The Great Eye to our own advantage. I asked how, surprised at the relative ease they showed in disagreeing with me. In disagreeing with Her, really. They said the documentary and the Congregation of Forty-Two could help our numbers grow. I told them the Sea said there would not be so many. They looked down at their feet, kicked at the cracked dirt, or brushed invisible flies from their arms. There’s power in numbers, Curtis finally said with a shoulder shrug.

  I merely nodded, though I was tempted to cut them with my crystal hands. To teach them a painful lesson. Instead, I held my cutting hands in the air and caught the Light.

  My people watched and their features softened with smiles. It was like they had been powered off, then turned back on. Reset. Back with me, as they had always been.

  I turned away from them and walked westward. I told them to follow me.

  At the Sea, I asked them to listen. They said they didn’t hear a thing. I said that was exactly what I was getting at. Where is Her voice? Where is that everpresent murmur? Their faces turned white, then red with embarrassment. How had they not noticed Her silence? Wasn’t it their job to always listen?

  We waited for a time in silence, let the sweat drip down our temples, let the sun bake our shoulders as we listened, our eyes cast upon Her glimmer, our nostrils wide with Her odor.

  Distant car engines and the soft breeze were all we heard. My people, patient as they were, grew restless. They were clearly confused, perhaps thinking I had
lost my mind, or my way. Perhaps they thought I’d lost my connection to the Sea, as I had feared myself some time ago.

  Then the Sea quaked. Then it quaked a second time. Even the washed-out sky seemed to shake when the Sea quaked for a third time and a dark green dorsal fin pierced Her surface. It broke through the water with fierce intention and moved swiftly. There was no reason to believe the thing wouldn’t come straight at us, end us for good on that day. No reason to believe we were safe. And though fear sat hard in my heart, I planted my feet and pointed and watched my people’s complexions turn white again, The Mark on their faces go pale, bloodless, free of the usual scar-glow.

  Jacob took cautious steps backward in the bone-sand. His legs turned to jello and he took a knee, his breathing short and quickened. Jasmine held a hand over her mouth, her eyes darting along with the sea monster cutting up Her waters in the distance. Curtis, aghast, yelled, What is that? and absent-mindedly took a few steps into the suddenly rocking surf before realizing the error of his motions and retreating back to the beach. Angela let out a tiny gasp, one hand placed over her heart, her breast now heaving. It was clear they hardly believed their eyes.

  Stifling my own fear and awe, I asked them if they noticed the Sea’s surface was free of birds. They had yet to return since that first escape from the Leviathan. Of course my people could hardly remove their eyes from the monster, but with effort they scanned Her glittery surfaces, taking note that no winged thing attended to them.

  I was ashamed and disappointed I had to open their eyes for them. After all, hadn’t they also experienced The Drowning? Weren’t they also of heightened senses, at least when it came to the Sea? Did they not share a direct link with Her? In that moment I experienced deep frustration that I now know was unwarranted. How could I expect anyone besides myself to be so in tune with Her and Her surroundings? For not only was I Her interpreter, I was also Her caretaker. Though to be caretaker to a god might seem ridiculous, I was and always have been. The bond between us was too great. I would never have a deeply shared experience with another human again, for my senses were so sharp, so heightened, so supernatural and multidimensional, having been entwined with the Sea’s.