by Paul Levine
“Hey, you forgetting something?” Carson asks, tipping an imaginary bottle to his lips.
Dempsey shrugs, pulls out the flask and tosses it to his buddy. He hits the Jeep’s ignition and kicks up gravel pulling away. It’s less than a mile up the road to a windowless Security Building on the lower slopes of the mountain. A steel bridge with a barred door runs like an above-ground tunnel through the building and beyond it to a cone-shaped steel elevator housing cut into a rocky cliff. Several hundred feet beyond the Security Building is the silo cap, a circular pad of concrete six-feet thick and fifty feet in diameter.
The Jeep passes a small wooden barracks and a mess hall built in the shade of a strand of pine trees. A dam and a lake stocked with trout sit at the top of the mountain, and an aqueduct winds down the slope from the dam.
Inside the Security Building, half-a-dozen bored non-coms slouch at their desks shoving paper from the in-box to the out-box and maybe back again, too. Teletypes clack and security monitors scan the perimeter of the missile silo, both above and below ground. Lights show green on motion detectors, though they’ll blink red if either an Iraqi Mukhabarat squad or a field mouse crosses breaks the beam.
Captain Pete Pukowlski, a stocky 40-year-old with a brush cut and a menacing glare, walks through Security Command looking over shoulders, occasionally shooting glances at a bank of video monitors. Airman Dempsey’s face appears on the screen of one monitor, winking into the camera. A non-com buzzes Dempsey through the security door.
“Chow’s here,” Dempsey announces, handing out burgers. Captain Pukowlski grabs two and continues making his rounds.
An airman with loosened tie and grease-stained cuff picks up a ringing phone. “Three hundred eighteenth Strategic Missile Squadron, Airman Cooper speaking.”
* * *
In a grimy tee-shirt, Jack Jericho stands at a communications shed, somewhere in the wilderness, speaking into the phone. “Sixty-ninth bucket brigade, swab jockey second class Jericho reporting from behind enemy lines.”
Through the phone, he hears Cooper’s frantic whispers. “Jeez, Jericho, Captain Pukowlski’s shitting razor blades. You better get—”
From somewhere in the room, the captain’s voice drowns out Cooper. “Is that Jericho? Gimme that!”
Jack waits a moment, then there he is. “Sergeant, get your ass back by 1500 tomorrow, and be in uniform for once.”
“Why, you got a war planned?”
“V.I.P.’s are coming from D.C., so try to pretend you’re an airman. And don’t be bringing back any more road-kill raccoons.”
“Yes sir,” Jack says, “but those were possums, and last time you liked them…medium rare.”
“Jericho, you’re a friggin’ disgrace.”
“Captain, are you eating one of those Wrangler burgers, all the way?”
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“I can smell the onions, sir.”
With the captain still puzzling over that one, Jericho hangs up the phone. Thinking about the brass from Washington coming tomorrow. Knowing the captain will put on a dog-and-pony show and not wanting to be either one.
-9-
Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog
Midafternoon in Coyote Creek, and Brother David drives an old pickup truck with Rachel sitting next to him. David wears a ten-pocket bush jacket favored by Hemingway wannabees and newspaper photographers. Rachel wears a beige dress that comes to her ankles. A stenciled sign on the door of the pickup reads, “Eden Ranch.” Matthew is in the truck bed with a man who calls himself Jeremiah. Matthew’s shoulder-length brown hair is out of its ponytail, and his beard has the unkempt look of an ancient prophet. Jeremiah is an African-American man of 30 with chiseled features and an untamed Afro. A red bandanna is tied around his neck. Both men wear loose fitting pants and sandals.
The truck travels down Main Street, past the Old Wrangler Tavern and the gas station, pulling to a stop in front of a general store.
“Walk with me,” David says to Rachel, and the two of them get out and head down the sidewalk. Matthew and Jeremiah hop out of the truck bed and enter the general store.
Few pedestrians are about in this tumbleweed town. David smiles placidly at a couple of passing ranch wives. “Afternoon, ma’am,” he croons, tipping an imaginary hat, and the women’s pace quickens going by him.
“Your charms don’t seem to work here,” Rachel says.
“They fear what they cannot know.” David clasps a hand around her shoulder, and they stop in front of a rod and gun shop, David admiring a shotgun in the window. “On the other hand, your charm seems to have woven its spell over Billy.”
“He wants to believe. He may even think he believes. But he does not. He is weak and afraid.”
Brother David kisses her on the cheek. “Then we must make him strong and fearless.”
* * *
Matthew loads cans of beans and boxes of rice into the bed of the pickup truck. Sensing movement behind him, he turns to see three local toughs surrounding him. All three wear low-slung jeans and cowboy boots. A wiry ranch hand called D.D. because he spends every Saturday night in jail for Drunk and Disorderly, chews on a piece of straw. “Hey Jesus, get a haircut!” he calls out.
Matthew ignores him and continues loading the truck.
“Yeah, and while you’re at it, get a shave,” says D.D.’s husky buddy, a guy they call Hoss because he’s the size of a horse and just as smart. “And take a bath, for Christ’s sake.”
“Everything I do is for the sake of Christ,” Matthew says calmly.
“Yeah, we know,” says the third one, Cletis. “You Jesus freaks think the world’s gonna end.”
“Oh, it shall,” Matthew says, “precisely when it is prophesied.”
“Maybe we should put your lights out ahead of schedule,” Hoss says, and his buddies laugh.
Jeremiah comes out of the general store carrying a fifty-pound sack of flour. As he steps off the curb, Cletis trips him, and Jeremiah tumbles to the pavement. The bag tears, and flour spills. Jeremiah gets up, dark eyes blazing. Matthew lays a calming hand on his shoulder. “Let it go, Jeremiah.”
This sets Hoss to giggling. “Jeremiah? I thought it was Aunt Jemima.”
“Naw,” D.D. says. “It’s like the song.” Which he tries to sing, “Jer-e-miah was a bull-frog.”
Just as tuneless, Cletis joins in, “Was a good friend of thine.”
Hoss bends over and scoops up a handful of flour from the torn bag. Slowly, he approaches Jeremiah, who stands motionless, waiting. “We don’t like hippies, coloreds, or queers around here,” Hoss taunts him, “and you look like all three.”
“Yeah,” D.D. adds. “We know what you choir boys do out at that ranch. Pray all day and bugger all night.”
This sets Hoss to giggling in a high-pitched squeal.
Jeremiah is silent. Matthew doesn’t make a move.
Slowly, deliberately, Hoss extends his hand – palm up and filled with flour – toward Jeremiah. For a long second, neither man moves. Then, Hoss blows a cloud of flour into Jeremiah’s face. Cletis bursts out laughing. “Hey, Jeremiah, you got your wish. You’re a white boy now.”
Still, no movement from Matthew or Jeremiah.
“What’s the matter, waiting for the Lord to help you?” D.D. mocks them. Then he sees that Jeremiah is looking past him. D.D. turns to find Brother David and Rachel on the sidewalk behind him.
“The Bible tells us to turn the other cheek,” David says with equanimity. “But the Book also instructs that we must teach the children so that they will know. Therefore, we must show you the light.” He nods to Jeremiah.
It happens so quickly that Hoss never moves, never raises his hands, never even cries out. Jeremiah’s hip pivots and he throws a lightning age-zuki, the knuckles of his right fist striking Hoss squarely on the Adam’s apple. The big man topples to the street, gagging.
Matthew snaps out a mae-geri front kick, catching D.D. in the groin, then spins into a ushiro-kekomi, a thrus
t kick to the rear, which lands directly in Cletis’ solar plexus. Cletis drops to a knee, sucking wind. Matthew locks his hands together and drops Cletis to the pavement with a thunderous downward punch to the back of the neck.
Hoss gets to his feet and reaches under his pantleg for a knife sheathed to his leg. But he is too slow, Jeremiah peppering him with a flurry of jabs to the face. Hoss brings up his hands to protect himself, but he’s already spouting blood from gashes above the eyes and his nose is a leaky faucet. With Hoss warding off head blows with his arms, Jeremiah backs up and lands a kick squarely on his sternum, cracking it, and the big man goes down, clutching his chest, coughing up blood-stained mucus.
D.D. tries crawling toward the general store, but Matthew grabs him by a foot, drags him back, his nose banging on the sidewalk, letting loose a flow of blood. Matthew gives a hard twist, breaking D.D.’s ankle with a sickening snap. D.D. rolls over, clutching his leg, screaming in agony.
It had taken only a few dizzying seconds, and now it was over, the three locals moaning, begging for peace. With Rachel clutching his arm, David walks into the circle of destruction. Suddenly, the whimpering D.D. reaches into his boot and comes out with a short-barreled .38. Blood dripping from his nose, face twisted in pain, he points the stainless steel gun directly at David’s heart.
David’s response is a tranquil smile. He lifts his left palm to show that it is empty. He runs his right hand behind his back, slips it beneath the flap of his bush jacket and removes a hand grenade from a metal loop. He continues to smile as he holds the grenade toward D.D., then pulls the pin.
D.D. licks his lips and says in a shaky voice, “That thing ain’t real.”
“In twelve seconds we’ll find out,” David replies, holding the grenade in one hand and the pin in the other. “Nine, eight…”
“Shoot him!” Hoss yells.
“Six, five…”
Cletis scrambles to his feet. “Don’t do it, D.D.!”
“Three, two…”
Looking into the bottomless depth of David’s penetrating stare, D.D. drops the gun. David swiftly inserts the pin in the grenade.
“Son-of-a-bitch,” Hoss whines.
“Was it real?” D.D. asks, like the poker player who folds but still insists on seeing the winner’s hand.
“Oh, most assuredly,” David tells him. “Standard Army issue.”
“Then what’s the trick?”
“Ah, the trick,” David says, letting them see the warmth and wisdom of his holy countenance. Enjoying it now. He is the rabbi, which he knows from his studies of the ancient Hebrews, means teacher. “The trick, as you call it, is the essential message of life. The trick, my simple lost child, is having no fear of death.”
“Crazy fucker,” D.D. says under his breath, but David hears him, and approaches. D.D. staggers back a step, afraid of being hit. David stops, his face a few inches from the cowardly heathen, who cringes in fear.
“On your knees, sinner.”
“What?”
“On your knees before He who would save you.”
D.D. drops to his knees, his head level with his teacher’s groin. David feels the power now. Lording it over the fallen man, a King among peasants. David leans over and lifts D.D.’s head by the chin. “Now, what lesson have you learned today?”
“Lesson?” Even when he is not in excruciating pain, D.D. is not the quickest mind in Wyoming. Now, he is completely befuddled.
“Again, my child, what have you learned?”
“I don’t know,” D.D. says, fighting off tears. “I skipped a lot of Sunday school.”
“Then I must tell you.” David releases his grip, letting the infidel sink to the pavement. “The lesson, you woeful sinner, is this. Never fuck with the Lord.”
-10-
The Trout Are Calling
Airman Sayers drives the Air Force Jeep, Reynolds next to him, Jericho sprawled in the back. The sun sizzles just below the mountains on the horizon, and the clouds shimmer with a lustrous glow over the valley. Folded beds of black and purple shale slope down toward a rock-strewn river.
A rancher in a dusty pickup pulls out and passes the Jeep on the two-lane road. The pickup coughs a burst of oily smoke. The Wyoming license, with its cowboy and bucking bronco, is personalized, “BEEF.”
Sayers flicks on the headlights as the Jeep approaches a bridge. “Captain’s got no cause to bust your chops, Sarge.”
Slouched with his helmet over his eyes, Jericho is silent.
“Only weapon the Captain’s ever held,” Sayers continues, “is the little one between his legs.”
“Which he only fires on solo missions,” Reynolds adds.
The Jeep rumbles across the bride. Jericho stirs and looks out at the water tumbling over small rapids in the moonlight. “Stop the Jeep!” he yells.
Sayers hits the brakes and the Jeep squeals to a stop. “What?”
Jericho’s head is cocked toward the river. “I can hear them.”
“Who?” Sayers says.
“The trout. They’re calling to me.”
“Nothing doing, Jack,” Sayers says.
“Spike’s right,” Reynolds says. “We’ll never make it back in time if—”
“Go on without me. I’ll meet you at the sentry post at 1500 hours tomorrow. Puke’ll never know.”
Sayers pounds the steering wheel in frustration. “You crazy? How you gonna get back? Call a cab, rustle up a buffalo? We’re a hundred miles from base.”
“Not as the crow flies,” Jericho says. “Fifty bucks says I beat the two of you there.”
Sayers and Reynolds swap startled looks. Then they exchange high-fives and, in unison, yell, “You’re on!”
-11-
A Great Star Will Fall from the Sky
The setting sun slants through a stained glass window and across the altar in the Eden Ranch chapel. A beacon from heaven.
The chapel is a converted horse barn that still smells of straw, sweet molasses feed, and creosote. About eighty worshipers sit, ramrod straight, on wooden benches. Women without makeup in long, flowing dresses, men in baggy pants and sandals and a pack of children, many barefoot, digging their toes into the wood chips that cover the floor. Matthew and Jeremiah are in the back row, flanking the door.
At the altar, Brother David looks out over his flock. “I see your auras, and they are strong and vibrant,” he proclaims. “You are healthy in body and spirit, and your halos reflect your holiness.”
He goes on for a while about his parishioners’ energy fields and the body’s seven major chakras points. Finally, he slips from his New Age mumbo jumbo into fundamentalist Biblical preaching. Dropping his voice into a seductive sing-song, he calls out, “Our cities are sewers of pornography and sin!”
The congregation murmurs its righteous ire. In the front row, Lieutenant Billy Riordan, in jeans and a pressed blue oxford cloth shirt, stares in rapt attention. Next to him, Rachel laces her fingers through his and squeezes. He blushes. On the other side of Billy is a ten-year-old girl in pigtails who prays silently, but moves her lips.
“In Isaiah, it is written, ‘I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity,’” David chants.
“Amen!” they cry.
“In Revelations, it is written, ‘I have the keys of Hades and of death.’ It is our Savior’s proclamation that He alone has authority over hell and the grave.’”
“Amen!” the faithful chorus.
“And how, my brethren, do we achieve everlasting life?”
“From the Word!” they shout back.
David nods. “In chapter two, verse ten, it is written, ‘Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.’”
More prayerful “amens” are sung to the heavens.
David beseeches them, his voice thundering across the chapel. “Do you believe!”
A unanimous chorus of “hosanna” and “praise the Lord.”
“As is prophesied in Revelation
s, ‘The angel shall sound his trumpet and a great star, blazing like a torch, shall fall from the sky. The waters shall turn bitter, and the wicked shall die.’”
“Let the torch fall!” Billy screams from the front row.
“Amen!” the others roar.
“The Day of Reckoning beckons!” David cries out. “Are you ready for the Apocalypse?”
In the front row, Billy rises from the bench. “Yes! Praise the Lord, I am ready!”
From the back, bellows of affirmation, the crowd frothing with devout fervor.
“Are you ready to do the Lord’s work, no matter the price to be paid?”
“Yes!” screams Billy. Around him, the others join in.
David beams. His army of the righteous would follow him anywhere. Of course, they will have to. He closes his eyes. He has been listening to his own voice. Detached, floating above them. Tasting his words, believing them one moment, doubting the next. Am I the vessel of the Lord, he wonders, or the false Messiah? Not a charlatan, surely not that. For he believes. The voices he hears are real. But do they come from Him or from the fallen angel, Satan? What bitter irony there. Lucifer with his ventriloquist’s voice, leading the shepherd astray.
A final thought, too. Could the voices simply be his own? David pictures a second brain inside his skull, wrinkled gray matter festering with disease, polluting his thoughts. Didn’t his father send him to the shrink when he first saw the visions? Then later, the judge ordered him treated. But that year was a jumble. The shooting, the carefully constructed plea, the hospital with the sloping green lawn. An active imagination, his mother used to say about him. The shrink used a different word. Delusional.
David opens his eyes and lets his voice rise to the rafters of the old barn, maybe even to heaven itself. “The fools all around us will not listen! We cannot convince them with either reason or faith. Will you join me?”
The roar is deafening.
