Mountain Top

by Robert Whitlow

  Mike set the shoe box on the kitchen counter. “This.”

  While Peg leafed through the letters and legal paperwork, Mike spoke.

  “As a lawyer I met people from all across Barlow County. That doesn’t happen anymore. Our church congregation is a lot more homogeneous than I’d realized.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “A little,” Mike admitted, “but not enough to go back.” He smiled slightly. “Maybe that’s the reason I’m representing Sam Miller. He should be different enough to satisfy my itch for the peculiar for a long time.”

  THAT NIGHT MIKE DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TIME IT WAS WHEN HE awoke. He glanced at the clock. The numbers were blurred, and he blinked his eyes several times. It was 3:18 a.m. There was no notebook or PDA on the nightstand, but the dream was so vivid that he could easily remember it until morning. He yawned and closed his eyes before waking up again. It was 3:38 a.m. Trying to make it through the rest of the night in twenty-minute intervals wasn’t going to work. Mike rolled out of bed and walked barefoot downstairs. Judge rose from his bed in the kitchen and greeted him with a loud woof.

  “Quiet!” Mike said. “Don’t you know what time it is?”

  Mike opened the back door so Judge could go outside then retrieved his PDA from its place in the kitchen beneath where he hung his car keys. Returning to his chair in the living room, Mike opened a blank screen and entered the date. Judge scratched at the door, and Mike let him in. The dog always received a treat when he went out in the morning.

  “Remember this in a few hours,” Mike said as he deposited a large dog biscuit between Judge’s teeth. “If I only get one scoop of ice cream, you only get one dog biscuit.”

  Finally settling down in the chair, Mike started to record what he’d heard and seen, but the sequence of events and words spoken in the dream was hazy. It had been as vivid as the dream about Danny, but he couldn’t recall it as clearly. He could remember talking to a group of men. He didn’t recognize any of them, but knew they were affiliated with the Craig Valley Gospel Tabernacle. Sam Miller was also present.

  “What was it?” Mike muttered.

  It had something to do with finding out information about Sam’s case. Everyone was sitting in a dimly lit room. The atmosphere was very tense and no one spoke. Then something happened that changed everything, and the light in the room increased. However, in the midst of waking up, dozing a few minutes, going downstairs, and taking care of Judge, the details of the dream now escaped him. Mike furrowed his brow until it wrinkled like Judge’s forehead, but all he could muster was a general sense of the scene. Closing the PDA, he returned to bed.

  And slept the rest of the night.

  Thirteen

  “I HAD A DREAM,” HE TOLD PEG IN THE MORNING. “BUT I LOST the details before I could write it down.”

  “What do you remember?”

  Mike told her what he could recall. Peg poured him a cup of coffee.

  “Maybe it will come back to you later in the day,” she said.

  “If anything can help, it’s this coffee,” Mike replied, taking a sip. “It should wake up my lazy brain cells.”

  SEVERAL TIMES DURING THE DAY, MIKE TRIED TO REMEMBER additional details of his dream, but nothing came. He arrived home to a message from Peg that she’d gone shopping with a friend and wouldn’t be back before he left for his meeting at the Craig Valley church. Mike fixed a salad before leaving to pick up Sam. He put on a coat and silk tie so he would look like a lawyer.

  The sun was barely above the tree line when Mike turned onto the driveway to the Miller house. Sam stepped onto the front stoop and waved as he approached.

  “Did Papa send you a letter last night?” the old man asked as soon as he sat down in the passenger seat of the car.

  Mike had heard so many of Sam’s off-the-wall comments that he responded without thinking the old man was crazy.

  “Is that what you saw?” Mike asked.

  “Yep. It had your name on it in big print.”

  “Did you open it?”

  “Nope. It wasn’t addressed to me, but the return address was Craig Valley Gospel Tabernacle.”

  Mike told about his dream in the night as he drove down McAfee Road.

  “It was so vivid, I didn’t think there was a chance I would forget any part of it.”

  “You’re like a little baby that has to be told the same thing over and over before it understands. Papa is teaching you a lesson. You should have listened to me about the notebook. As you get more mature, you’ll get better at remembering. Then the hard part is interpreting what Papa shows you.”

  “I’ll use my PDA.”

  “What’s that?” Sam asked.

  Mike took the device from his pocket and showed it to Sam.

  “Oh, yeah, but that thing is no good if your batteries are dead. My notebooks don’t need batteries.”

  “I keep it charged. If I start having dreams with meanings, they are going to be high-tech.”

  Mike told Sam about Danny Brewster’s memorial service.

  “That’s good,” Sam said when he finished. “It makes me look forward to meeting Danny myself.” Sam paused. “And it makes me feel better about you being my lawyer.”

  “Why? I lost Danny’s case, and he went to prison where he was murdered.”

  “Yep, but there’s no condemnation from Papa. That’s the important thing.”

  They rode in silence for several miles.

  “What kind of reception are we going to get from the deacons?” Mike asked.

  “Larry is one of my sons, so everything should be fine. He was in a hurry when I called him, and we didn’t have a long conversation.”

  “I didn’t know members of your family attended the church.”

  “Yep. Including you, I have ten sons,” Sam answered. “Papa has bunches of sons, and sometimes He lets me help raise them.”

  “Spiritual sons.”

  “Yep, isn’t that the most important part of being an earthly papa?”

  They made several turns. The Craig Valley area contained several clusters of houses.

  “Is the church near the Rea home place?” Mike asked, referring to the oldest house in Barlow County.

  “Yep. Less than a mile past it on a side road.”

  They passed the Rea home, a weathered log cabin built in 1758. A marker along the road gave a brief history of the site where Scottish immigrants first settled in the county.

  “Turn at the next right,” Sam said.

  It was a paved road. The church, a small, rectangular, concrete-block building painted lime green, was a short distance on the left. A wooden sign with black letters on a white background proclaimed the name of the church. Underneath the name was a place to identify the pastor. It was painted over with new white paint. Two pickup trucks and an older-model car were parked out front. To the side of the building, a large flat place had been cleared and trenches for concrete footings had been dug. Wooden stakes with strings surrounded the work area.

  “That’s where they’re going to build,” Sam said.

  Mike parked beside one of the pickup trucks. They went to the front door of the church, a double brown door that looked too flimsy to withstand a hard kick.

  “You take the lead and introduce me,” Mike said.

  Sam pushed open the door. The inside of the church was as plain as the outside. Rows of wooden pews rested on a floor covered with thin, cheap carpet. A raised platform with two steps leading to it contained a single chair and a wooden pulpit. There was a piano to the left of the platform, but no area for a choir.

  “They use one of the adult Sunday school rooms for deacon meetings,” Sam said. “It’s behind the sanctuary.”

  They walked down the aisle, through a door to the right of the platform, and entered a short hall. No one was in sight. Sam opened a door. Mike followed. Inside, he saw four African-American men on their knees around a table. They stopped praying and stood. The tallest of the men stepped forward and extended hi
s hand to Mike.

  “I’m Larry Fletchall,” he said.

  After he shook Mike’s hand, Larry turned to Sam.

  “We got here early so we could pray for you.”

  Mike couldn’t help staring. The room was similar to the one in his dream, but the men he saw in the night were white, not black.

  “Are you okay?” Sam asked him.

  “Huh? Yeah.”

  Sam spoke to the other men. “Jesse Lavare, Bob Gordon, John Franklin. Good to see you again.”

  “Don’t, Sam,” Larry said. “We’ve been trying to pray through on this situation for over an hour. We agreed to meet with you and your lawyer, but you betrayed our trust. We can’t pretend nothing happened.”

  “But I didn’t do anything,” Sam started, then stopped. “I’d better let Mike speak for me.”

  The men rose from their knees, their faces serious. They were working-class men dressed in clean pants and open-collared shirts.

  “Could we all sit down?” Mike asked.

  They sat around the table. As in Mike’s dream, the lights in the room were dim. One of the bulbs in the overhead fixture must have burned out.

  “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me,” Mike began. “Part of my job is to find out what happened.”

  He put a legal pad on the table.

  “No notes,” the oldest of the men said. “We don’t want you trying to twist our words if this thing goes to court.”

  Mike placed his pen on the pad. “All right. I won’t write down anything unless you give me permission; however, it might be helpful to record a name or phone number if that comes up.”

  Larry nodded. “We’ll see.”

  Mike continued. “First, I’m a minister who used to be a lawyer. I don’t want to do anything that would embarrass you or hurt your church. My job is simply to investigate the charges against Sam. To do that, I need to ask you some questions. I’m not going to try to trick you, and if you don’t want to answer, that’s fine.”

  Mike gave a reassuring smile, but no one reciprocated. He suspected his natural charm wasn’t going to create an atmosphere of trust.

  “I’ll get right to the point. How many bank accounts does the church have?”

  “Two,” Larry answered. “An operating account and a building fund.”

  “Who has access to the accounts? Who can sign checks?”

  “All the deacons are on the operating account,” Larry answered. “Jesse, Bob, and I signed the card for the building fund account.”

  “What about former deacons?”

  “They’re removed from all accounts when they stop serving on the board.”

  “How long have you been without a pastor?”

  “About a year.”

  “Was your former pastor on either bank account?”

  Larry looked at the older man. “Bob, was Brother Mark able to sign checks?”

  “No,” Bob replied. “It hasn’t been that way since Brother Tyner was here.”

  “How long ago was that?” Mike asked.

  “Over twenty years,” Bob answered.

  “Was Sam given authority to sign checks?”

  “No,” Larry replied. “But when we went to the bank, the man showed us the checks Sam filled out and put in his account.”

  “Who did you talk to at the bank?”

  Larry reached into his pocket and took out a business card.

  “Brian Dressler and another man who didn’t give us his card.”

  Mike knew Dressler, a vice president at the bank.

  “How many checks were there and for what amounts?” Mike asked.

  “Two, one for $10,000 and another for $95,000.”

  “Who signed the checks?”

  “They had Jesse’s signature on the bottom, but they went into Sam’s account.”

  Mike turned toward Jesse. “Did you sign checks in those amounts?”

  Jesse, a large man with powerful arms and a deep voice, jumped up from his seat. “No! And don’t you come in here accusing me—”

  “Wait, calm down,” Mike interrupted. “I only meant, did you sign checks in that amount for a legitimate building fund purpose? Did you have construction bills to pay?”

  Jesse continued to glare at Mike.

  “No,” Larry responded. “There weren’t any bills to pay.”

  “Do you recall the dates on the checks?”

  Larry looked at Jesse. “Do you remember?”

  Jesse sat down, but there was still anger in his voice. “They were two days apart. It was during the time Sam was preaching for us. He forged my signature on the first one, and when it went through decided to do another one. It was most of the money we’d saved over the past five years for our building fund.”

  Mike saw Sam out of the corner of his eye. The old man was sitting with his eyes closed, patting his stomach.

  “Did you pay Sam when he was preaching here?” Mike asked.

  “Yes,” Larry said. “A hundred dollars a Sunday.”

  “Did you pay him by check?”

  “Yes.”

  “From the operating account?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he know about the building fund?”

  “Yes,” Larry said, shaking his head with obvious regret. “He told us five years ago that a greater harvest was coming, and we needed to build a bigger barn to hold it.”

  “Was he right? Has the church grown?”

  “Yes. Sam knows what has happened.”

  Jesse grunted. “Don’t come in here with that soothsayer stuff.”

  “No, Jesse,” Larry said. “We agreed that I would do the talking.”

  Jesse stood and stretched out a meaty hand clenched in a fist at Sam. Raising his voice, he thundered, “He came in here like a fortune-teller and fooled everybody! I warned them, but they wouldn’t listen to me! Then he tried to make it look like I was the one who done wrong!”

  Jesse took a step toward Sam. Larry jumped to his feet and reached out, but Jesse pushed him aside. Mike stood and stepped between Jesse and Sam, who pushed his chair against the wall.

  “Don’t! You’ll be sorry!” Mike yelled.

  Jesse came directly into Mike’s face. “And have to hire some dirty lawyer turned preacher!”

  Mike felt a hand on his back.

  “Now,” Sam said softly.

  Mike stared into Jesse’s face and knew the threat of harm wasn’t a bluff. Suddenly, involuntary tears filled Mike’s eyes. The room blurred, and if Mike had wanted to block a blow from Jesse, he couldn’t have seen clearly enough to do so.

  No blow came.

  Mike rubbed his eyes with his hands, but the tears continued. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried in public or private. The emotion he felt at Danny Brewster’s memorial service was the closest he’d come to tears in public since he was a teenager. Mike groaned. The tears continued to flow. He sobbed with an agonizing groan that embarrassed him even more. He heard Larry’s voice.

  “Sit down, Jesse.”

  Mike held his sleeve against his eyes. After several moments, he took a deep breath.

  Sam spoke. “Papa’s heart breaks when His children hate. Those were His tears for us.”

  Mike looked up. Jesse had returned to his chair. The large man sat with his head down, staring at the floor.

  “It’s the Spirit of the Lord,” Bob said simply.

  Mike could feel the tears drying on his cheeks. Larry turned to Bob.

  “What are we supposed to do?”

  “Quit talking and go back to praying,” Bob replied.

  Larry motioned toward Mike and Sam. “With them?”

  “Yes.”

  Jesse stood up and quickly moved toward the door. “I don’t want any part of this! A lying spirit has come on all of you!”

  Larry reached toward Jesse.

  “Let him go,” Bob said.

  Jesse left the room, leaving the door open behind him. Without another word, Bob slipped to his knees in front of his ch
air. The other men and Sam did the same. Mike hadn’t prayed in a kneeling position for years, but he joined them. The room was silent for several minutes. Then, Mike felt the heaviness he’d experienced the previous Sunday in the Little Creek sanctuary.

  “Oh, God; oh, God,” Larry began.

  For the next hour, Mike listened as the men cried out to the Lord in a way he’d only imagined. Mike didn’t believe emotion moved God’s heart, but he suspected the three deacons didn’t agree with him. They acted as if the future of the Almighty’s will for Sam Miller and the Craig Valley Gospel Tabernacle depended upon their zeal. Sam didn’t speak, and Mike wondered if the old man prayed the same way. The deacons’ words built to a zenith and ebbed several times before Larry said, “Amen and amen.”

  Mike opened his eyes. Everyone rose from the floor.

  “Thanks for meeting with us,” Sam said. “The time will come when we will break bread together.”

  “The light will come; the truth will be known,” Larry said. “My heart is clear.”

  “Amen,” the other two men echoed.

  “Who should I contact if I have other questions?” Mike asked.

  “Me,” Larry replied.

  MIKE AND SAM WALKED THROUGH THE SANCTUARY. SAM TURNED and faced the pulpit.

  “I’ll be back,” he said then turned to Mike. “You, too.”

  When they sat down in the car, Mike took a deep breath and exhaled.

  “I didn’t know what to expect, but that was different,” he said.

  “Yep.”

  “Were you surprised by Jesse’s reaction to you?”

  “He’s shaken my hand many times, and I’ve prayed for him and his family. I don’t know all that lives in a man’s heart. Sometimes, a good heart lets a bad guest come for a visit. I hope that’s the situation with Jesse.”

  Mike put the car in reverse and drove away from the church. They passed the Rea homestead.

  “I have a theory about what happened at the bank,” Mike said. “And Jesse is at the heart of it.”

  “How?”

  “It’s not complicated and eliminates the existence of proving a bank error. Jesse wrote the checks from the building fund and put them in your account to discredit you and eliminate your influence in the church. He’d be taking a tremendous risk, but it would explain the financial transactions. Finding out the number of your bank account wouldn’t be too difficult. He then simply presented the checks for deposit to your account.”