And maybe something dead.
We crawled out of the hole and I hollered up to Jim, “Let’s get into the trunk.”
He jogged the backhoe a few feet sideways and started scooping again, lifting the dirt and gravel out of the hole like big scoops of flour.
The car was sitting level and upright, the roof no more than a foot below the graveled surface of the turnaround. Jim moved his big bucket deftly over the rear end of the car, pulling loads of dirt from the trunk lid. The bucket’s teeth creased the metal a few times, but we didn’t care. We figured the trunk lid was going to receive far worse as soon as the dirt was gone. As soon as Jim took out his last scoop, Kyle and I hopped into the hole to finish the job, scraping and hurling the wet clay. We got the trunk clear, and just to take a crack at it, pried on the trunk lid with our shovel blades. It was jammed tight. I couldn’t see Jim behind those bright floodlights, but I knew he was watching. We got out of the hole so he could take his turn.
He drove around to the side of the hole so he could get the bucket teeth up under the lid from behind. Kyle and I stood opposite, light beams fixed on that seam.
Jim curled the bucket and the trunk popped open.
There was something in there.
Jim swung the boom aside and set the bucket on the ground. He reduced his throttle to idle and centered the floodlights. Kyle and I stepped into the hole again, the soft, wet clay sloughing and sliding under our feet, our flashlights aimed at the object in the trunk as if they were protective weapons.
Now we didn’t just smell something. The stench, the thick, nauseating atmosphere came at us like a wave, worse than a dead rat in the attic, or a cat’s corpse under a back porch, or a run-over possum in the road ditch. I turned away for some fresh air. Kyle was ahead of me. We hadn’t even seen what it was.
I breathed a moment, then tried again, my mouth and nose buried in the crook of my arm.
“What is it?” Jim called.
We had only told him about possibly finding a buried car. We hadn’t told him what might be inside.
Every surface in the trunk was brown with river silt. I discerned the shape of a blanket, silty brown, with something underneath. With my free arm I extended my shovel, dipped the blade under the blanket, and lifted it aside.
“Aaaaww!” I know Kyle didn’t mean to holler. It just happened.
Jim found words, but I can’t repeat them.
The remains of a face glistened wet and brown in the floodlights, the eyelids crinkled and sunken into the sockets, the decaying lips shrunk back from crooked teeth. Shoulder-length hair lay matted on the trunk floor, patches of black showing through the brown. Under the mud coating, we could recognize jeans, a denim jacket, and cowboy boots. The throat was sliced open.
Kyle had already cleared the hole and was gasping for fresh air topside. I followed, coughing, clawing with my hands, acid rising in my throat. I slipped in the wet clay and fell against the side of the excavation.
The cell phone in my coat pocket shrieked and stopped my heart. I rolled onto my back, the rotting corpse before my eyes.
It bleeped again. Answer me! Answer me!
I pulled it out, could barely get my shaking fingers around the antenna to extend it, and flipped it open. “Yeah,” I gasped, “Morgan?”
“Surprise!”
Terror knotted my stomach, and I fought for air. The eyes were here. By reflex I searched for them, trying to see into the darkness beyond that pit. Finding nothing, my gaze could only return to that rotting, muddy mask grinning in the floodlights.
Cantwell spoke for the corpse, his voice low and taunting. “Looks like you founnnnd me.”
I couldn’t speak. I could only stare.
He became himself. “C’mon, Travis, say something. Tell me how it feels to know so much.”
I tried to form a word. It wouldn’t come.
“Maybe you should climb out of there and get some air—”
The word came. “Better! It feels better!”
He laughed at me.
“I’m, I’m looking at your bottom line, Justin! I’m looking at what you produce! I’ve got my answer!”
His voice went cold. “You’ve got nothing! I am he, and I hold the keys of life and of death—”
“Oh no! You’re, you’re dreaming, Justin! But it’s over. This is the end of the dream, right here.”
“We are not finished with our discussion, Travis!”
“We’re not? What could you possibly have to say after this?”
“You mean you STILL DON’T GET IT?” His voice was so loud it distorted in the phone. “What’s it going to take to get through to you? Life and death are in my hands now, and it’s my call! I’m not nailed to the fence anymore, Travis, or haven’t you noticed?”
“Justin. It’s over.”
“No. We’re not finished. Take a good look in front of you, Travis! I give life and I take it away. That means I can bargain with it. So it’s not over. I’m not alone up here, remember?”
That twisted my stomach another turn. “Justin . . . don’t make things worse for yourself—”
“That would be impossible!”
“Don’t, don’t make it worse. Please. Those people trust you—”
“I trusted God! Now give me another reason!”
I struggled, stammered. “Justin, you don’t have any options. If you try to hold out you’ll only get yourself killed.”
“I won’t be the first one to go. Make sure everyone knows that. And while you’re at it . . .” He trailed off. Silence.
“What?”
“Tell them I have Morgan.”
29
IFOLDED THE CELL PHONE shut and fumbled to get it back in my pocket as I clambered, stumbling and slipping, out of the hole. Kyle and Jim grabbed my hands and yanked me to the top.
“That was Cantwell,” I said. “He’s got Morgan!”
“Oh Jesus,” Kyle prayed. “Oh Jesus, help us!”
“He’s got Morgan?” said Jim. “What’s he doing, taking hostages?”
“C’mon!” I urged them toward my Trooper. “There’s somebody watching us and I don’t know if it’s spirits or—”
“We rebuke them in Jesus’ name!” said Kyle.
Jim drew his gun. “What about Dee? He must have her too!”
“He’ll have us if we don’t move.”
“My machine . . .”
“I don’t think they’ll shoot your backhoe. It’s us I’m worried about!”
Jim scanned the darkness and saw my point. He ran with us.
We jumped in my Trooper and I threw gravel getting out of there. The road dipped, jolted, shook us this way and that. I tried to steer around the bigger holes and ruts, but I didn’t take my time—I didn’t have any.
I tossed my cell phone to Kyle. “Call 911. Tell them about Brandon Nichols in the trunk of that car, tell them about Morgan and Dee.”
Kyle’s finger hesitated over the 9 button. “They’re going to give this to Brett Henchle.”
“Tell them it’s a, a cult thing, it’s big. We need the county sheriff, the state police, lots of help. Cantwell’s at the ranch right now with hostages, and he’s a killer. We’ve all seen that!”
“Why’s he holed up at the ranch?” Jim wondered. “If I was him I’d run.”
Kyle pressed in the number and put the phone to his ear. He pulled it away. I could hear the crackle and static from where I sat.
“No reception here,” he said.
I hit the gas.
WELL, thought County Sheriff John Parker, I knew it would come to this sooner or later. We should have had a betting pool on when I’d get the call.
He was no stranger to the religious movement in Antioch. He and his deputies drove through Antioch regularly. They’d seen the pilgrims, noise, and hubbub. They’d watched it building for months. They didn’t interfere. This was Brett Henchle’s jurisdiction, his turf, his problem.
But now Parker was driving his own squad car behin
d Brett Henchle’s, rumbling slowly up the Macon driveway in the dark. Henchle said he needed at least two cars to show up at the ranch to make the arrest. He needed a strong presence, he said, so Brandon Nichols would know they meant business. No lights or sirens, just presence.
Okay, Parker could do that. He’d already sent four deputies into Antioch to help the town’s one remaining cop restore order. If things got stickier, Parker was ready to bring in still more backup, even the state patrol, if he had to. This cult stuff could get complicated very quickly. Weird too. Henchle had said, “Don’t let him touch you, whatever you do.” It would be interesting to see how Henchle planned to arrest this guy without touching him.
They came over a rise and Parker saw the ranch house. There were some exterior lights on in front and a few lamps in the windows, but other than that the place was dark. To the left of the house, dimly lit by some yard lights, were two huge circus tents joined together, and in front of them a small block building—it could have been rest rooms—under construction. To his left was a ramshackle community of recreational vehicles, campers, and tents, gas lanterns burning, some campfires flickering. By the looks of it, this messiah could be booked on health code violations if the other charges didn’t stick.
Parker smiled sardonically. Yeah, getting the charges to stick, that was the rub. Domestic violence, assault and battery, inciting a riot, malicious mischief, holding a parade without a permit, and—this was the best part—littering. The other charges were more serious, but the littering charge had the better story behind it. Henchle said Nichols had tossed hundreds of loaves of wormy bread all over the street in Antioch and just left them there. And where did he get the loaves? Great story. Great story.
Henchle followed the paved, circular driveway to the front of the house, and Parker followed Henchle. Some curtains moved, shadows hurrying behind them, and Parker quit smiling. With a glance, he checked the shotgun mounted against the dash. This wasn’t a high crime district. They weren’t busting this guy for weapons violations, crack cocaine, or bank robbery. Even so, Nichols had plenty of friends up here, it was dark, and as yet Parker hadn’t seen a face, friendly or otherwise. If these people were armed— Without warning, the rear window of his car shattered. He saw the flash of a muzzle from a living room window. He flopped down for cover, his hand wrapping around the shotgun.
Another shot. Breaking glass. That had to have been Henchle’s car.
Parker stole a look. There was a shadow in the window, the outline of someone’s head.
He saw a flash, and heard three shots. The right side of Parker’s windshield shattered. Another shot pinged off his fender.
The situation: an armed assailant in the house in front, a whole community of hostile campers behind. Not workable. “Henchle, let’s get out of here!”
Henchle’s engine roared and his tires squealed. Parker jammed his own car into gear, his head just high enough to follow Henchle in a tight one-eighty away from the house and down the driveway.
Two more shots just missed as he went over the rise.
His radio squawked, and the dispatcher came on. Something about a body being found on the Macon ranch . . .
I WAS BACK ON THE HIGHWAY, racing toward town and just coming by the main entrance to the ranch when I saw the lights of two vehicles speeding down the driveway. When they reached the highway they spun around, halted, and lit up all the lights they had. I slowed. Cops. Just what we needed.
Kyle got reception. He was talking to the 911 operator. “Yeah, Macon ranch. He has followers up there and—”
“Looks like Henchle,” I said. “And the sheriff.”
I pulled up and stopped. Sheriff Parker ran up to my window. “Get outta here! You’re in a crime scene!”
“We’re at the entrance now,” Kyle said into the phone.
“The caller is at the entrance now,” said Parker’s radio.
“We’re the ones who called in!” I said.
“My wife is up there!” Jim yelled.
Parker turned from us and replied to his shoulder mike, “Say again.”
“I think we’re talking to the sheriff now,” said Kyle.
“The caller says he’s talking to a sheriff right now,” said Parker’s radio.
Parker’s smirk showed the extent of his amusement. “Okay, I got ’em. They’re right here in front of me. How’s that backup?”
“En route.”
He turned to us. “All right, what’ve you got?”
Both Parker and Henchle were ready to listen. We tumbled out of the Trooper and then stumbled over each other’s sentences trying to tell our story: Morgan/Dee/hostages/buried car/dead Brandon/cult situation/dangerous.
Henchle sniffed a bitter chuckle. “We came up here to arrest him for assault. The Sally Fordyce thing.”
“He’s got Morgan,” I repeated.
“And he’s got Dee,” Jim hollered.
“So we’ve got problems,” said Parker. “We need to contain the area. Where’s that other road onto the ranch?”
Kyle pulled out Michael’s map of the ranch and Parker studied it with his flashlight, speaking into his shoulder mike. “North 102, mile marker 20. Look for a gate.” He asked us, “How far does this road penetrate before it splits?”
“About three miles,” I replied.
“How far to the ranch house from there?”
I had to admit I didn’t know. Michael didn’t tell us.
Brett Henchle had a cell phone of his own. He was flipping through his notepad. “I’ve got the ranch’s number here somewhere . . .”
I saw flashing lights come around the distant corner to the south and more coming over the horizon to the north. Parker was getting his backup.
“Kyle.” I reached for my phone, still in Kyle’s hand. I punched in my home number. “I’ll get Michael on the phone. Maybe he can tell us some of the distances on that map.”
Brett Henchle got through. “Hello? This is Henchle, Antioch police. Who am I speaking to? Matt?”
We looked at each other. Matt Kiley!
“Matt, this Brett Henchle. Somebody just shot at us.” Brett crinkled his forehead. He was hearing a bad response. “Now just calm down. You don’t have to shoot anybody, nobody’s going to do anything that stupid. We’re going to talk about it, that’s all.”
I wasn’t getting an answer at home. I ended the call. “Is Morgan up there?”
“What about Dee?” asked Jim.
“Put your sidearm in your vehicle and leave it there,” Parker warned.
“Is Morgan Elliott up there with you?” Brett asked. “Travis Jordan wants to know.” He heard an answer, then handed me the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”
“Hello, Matt?”
Matt’s voice was agitated, his words rapid, as if he were back in the foxholes of Vietnam. “They aren’t coming anywhere near Brandon, Travis! If they come up here I’ll shoot ’em!”
“Okay, okay. Listen, nobody’s moving right now, we’re just sitting down here trying to figure out what to do. . . .”
“They’re not going to arrest him! That man gave me my legs!” “Okay. Message received. Matt, can I, can I talk to, uh, Brandon? Can you get him for me?”
“He’s here. He’s here in the house.”
“Well can I talk to him?”
“He’s on the other line.”
“What other line?”
“You know, the other line, line two. We’ve got two lines up here.” Who in the world could he be talking to?
“What’s he saying?” Brett Henchle wanted to know.
I waved to Brett and the others to stand by. “Uh, Matt, have you seen Morgan? Is she all right?”
“Dee!” Jim whispered at me.
“How should I know?” Matt came back.
“Well is she there?”
“DEE!” Jim hissed.
“No. She’s not here. Dee’s here.”
“She’s there,” I told Jim.
Jim tried to grab the
phone, yelling at it, “She’d better be all right, you hear me? You touch her and I’ll kill you, so help me God!” With Kyle’s gentle help I got the phone back. “Sorry, Matt. You’ve got some folks really upset down here.”
“Dee’s okay,” said Matt. “Tell Jim she’s okay.”
“She’s okay,” I told him.
“But I’m gonna do what I gotta do, Trav. I mean, I lost my legs once trying to fix the world, and I can do it again.”
“I understand.”
Brett took the phone back. “Yeah, Matt? This is Henchle. Listen, we’ve got no gripe with you. But Nichols has some really terrible things to answer for, some things you don’t know about. No, I’m not lying. Matt, come on, you don’t want to be an accessory. All you have to do is put your gun down and walk out of there. . . .”
“Why aren’t we talking to Nichols?” Parker asked.
“He’s on another line,” I said. “The ranch has two lines.”
“Well let’s get the number!” He started signaling Brett.
Other cars were arriving, lining the highway shoulder with lights flashing. State police and sheriff’s deputies were blocking off the highway, working the airwaves, scrambling for containment.
I got my own phone out, praying that Morgan would be at home.
“How many hostages are up there?” a patrolman asked me.
“Well . . .” I had to turn my phone off in the middle of Morgan’s number. “It’s a religious group. There are hostages and there are followers. I don’t know how many of each, how many are being held there and how many want to be there.”
“Oh great.”
“There could be as many as a hundred followers. There’s a whole RV park up there.”
“Jonestown all over again.”
“Maybe.”
The patrolman moved on, barking orders to subordinates. I’d never seen so many cops appear so suddenly in the middle of the prairie. I punched in Morgan’s number again.
“TRAVIS?”
I almost collapsed from relief. “Morgan! Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I just came in the door.”
“How are you? Where are you?” That conniving liar, I thought.
Sheriff Parker butted in. “Where’s the guy who drew the map?”
The Visitation Page 48
