Spellbinder

by Harold Robbins

  He stood there for a moment listening to the silent sky, then drew a deep breath. “I don’t want to seem doubting and blasphemous, Lord, but I am only a simple man who wants nothing but to bring Your Gospel to the people as Your Son Jesus has commanded. I implore You, O Lord, give me a sign so that I may know it is Your work I am about to do and that I am not being led astray by the venal temptations of the devil.”

  He waited, searching the silent sky, and was just about to turn and climb the steps into the van when he saw it. A shooting star flamed across the heavens over his head and fell beyond the horizon. His breath caught in his throat and he felt a strange warmth pour into his body. Then another shooting star flamed through the sky, following the exact path of the first, and when that was gone, a third shooting star, even larger and brighter than its predecessors, flamed overhead, seeming to hang over him for a moment before it too fell beyond the horizon.

  He felt the tears flood into his eyes and he sank to his knees in the field. He clasped his hands and bowed his head. Three stars flaming over his head. He knew them. The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. All had come to reassure him.

  “Thank you, Lord,” he prayed. “Forgive my doubts and fears. I am no longer afraid. I pledge my life to do Your bidding and bring to all the message as I was commanded to by Your Son Jesus Christ, who died on the Cross for my sins and those of all mankind. Thank you, Lord. Amen.”

  He knelt in the field for a moment longer, then rose to his feet. He felt curiously strong and refreshed. Somehow everything now seemed new and bright. A faint smile came to his lips as he went up the steps and opened the door of the van.

  Beverly and Joe were at the table playing cards. Beverly had a pile of coins in front of her, and as Joe threw his cards down in disgust, she swept the coins from the center of the table toward her.

  Joe looked at Preacher. “She’s a mean lady. Don’t you go playin’ cards with her or she’ll have your ass.”

  Preacher seemed not to hear him. He nodded absently, then turned and went forward to his bunk, pulling the curtain closed behind him. He took his Bible from the shelf and sat down on the bed. The curtain was pulled open before he could open the Bible.

  Joe and Beverly looked down at him. “Are you all right?” Joe asked, concern in his voice.

  Preacher’s eyes were still distant, almost as if he were looking into a world beyond their ken. “We’re going to build a church here.”

  Joe stared at him. “All this asshole town needs is another church. They can’t pay for the ones they already got.”

  Preacher was silent.

  “Randle’s got you hypnotized with his money,” Joe said. “But his money alone won’t make the church. A church is got to have people and there ain’t enough people around here.”

  “I know that,” Preacher replied.

  “Then don’t be stupid,” Joe said. “If he wants to give you money to build a church, at least build it someplace where you got a chance.”

  Preacher met his eyes. “Here is where God wants it. Here is where we’ll build it.”

  “What makes you so sure God wants it here?” Joe asked. “He tell you Hisself?”

  “Yes,” Preacher answered simply.

  Joe stared at him. “You been smokin’ or drinkin’?”

  Preacher shook his head. “I asked God for a sign and He gave me it.”

  “Wait a minute,” Joe protested. “Remember it’s me you’re talking to.”

  Preacher got to his feet. “It’s true. Outside, before I came in, I prayed to God to give me a sign that this was what He wanted me to do, that I was not being led by the devil, and He answered me. He sent the Holy Trinity flying over my head. Three shooting stars, one after the other, each brighter than the one before, and when the last one hung over my head for a moment I felt His knowledge come into me and I was bathed in His warm glow.”

  “You sure you not imagining it?” Joe asked. “This is the Panhandle. The sky here is always filled with shooting stars.”

  “Not like these,” Preacher answered. “I know what I felt.”

  Joe stood silent, looking at him. After a moment Beverly put her hand on his arm. “Come, Joe, we’re all tired. Let’s go to bed. We can talk in the morning.”

  Joe nodded. “Yes.” He turned back to Preacher. “Sure you all right? Anything I can get you?”

  “I’ve never been better,” Preacher said.

  “Okay,” Joe said hesitantly. “Well, then, good night.”

  “Good night, Preacher,” Beverly said.

  They let the curtain fall in front of his bunk and walked back to the table. Joe turned to her. “What do you think?” he whispered.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered back.

  “You come to the window,” he said. “In an hour, I’ll show you a hundred shooting stars.”

  “Maybe,” she said, still whispering. “But they won’t be the stars he saw.”

  “Then you believe him?”

  Her eyes were large as she turned to him. “Of course I believe him. I always did. And so did you. If we didn’t, what other reason would we have for being here? None of us are getting rich by doing it.”

  “Do you love him?” he asked.

  “Of course I love him. Don’t you?”

  Joe nodded. “I guess I do.”

  “But I’m not in love with him. That’s something else,” she said.

  “I know that,” Joe said. “I’m not stupid.”

  She met his eyes. “Well, you’re sure acting like it.”

  “Hey,” he said. “I thought—”

  “Stop thinking,” she said, placing a silencing finger on his lips as she came into his arms. “It’s not good for you.”

  ***

  He was sitting on his bunk, the Bible still unopened on his lap, when he heard the door of the van close behind them. He rose to his feet and began to undress slowly. So much was happening. It was as if he were caught in a tide that he could not control, a tide taking him to a distant shore that he could not see.

  He stretched out naked on his bed, propped his single pillow behind his head, and turned on the small reading light on the wall next to him. He picked up the Bible and, opening it to the First Psalm, began to read, mouthing the words softly to himself.

  Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

  But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

  And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

  Preacher put down the Bible, snapped out the light and stared up into the dark. He crossed his arms behind his head. Some of his doubts were answered. Was it not written that whatsoever he doeth shall prosper? There was nothing wrong if he should benefit from the spreading of the Gospel; he was doing God’s work.

  But there were still some faint doubts lingering in him. Could it be that he was deluding himself in order to justify doing what he wanted to do? He rolled out of the bed and knelt beside it and clasped his hands in prayer before him. His voice echoed in the empty van, his words were the final words of the 139th Psalm.

  Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:

  And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

  Still kneeling, he crossed his arms on the bunk and rested his head on them. He remembered what his mother had once said. “You’re not like the others, Constantine. You will not be able to preach your vision of God until you stand on the pulpit of your own church. Then you will touch the world.”

  At the time he did not understand what she was saying. But now he did. His God was a very personal God, his Jesus was a very human Son of God, filled with an understanding of the weakness of man because He was one of them and so could find in Himself the forgiveness for them an
d the strength to take all their sins into Him and die for them so that all could find absolution in Him. No threats, no wars, no punishment. Not like the vengeful Lord, His Father. Only forgiveness and absolution in the acceptance of Him.

  He did not hear the van door open, and not until the curtain of his bunk was drawn back was he aware that someone had come into the van.

  “Preacher.” Charlie’s voice came from behind him.

  He turned to look up at her. She was wearing a faded woolen robe over her nightdress. “Yes?”

  “Beverly and Joe are fucking in the back seat of the car next to our van,” she said.

  He rose and sat on the bunk. “Why tell me?”

  “I got jealous,” she said. “They were having such a ball it made me horny.”

  Suddenly he laughed. Nothing had really changed. People were still the same, still children. For the first time that night he felt a weight lifted from his shoulders. “I can understand that.”

  “You do?” she asked in a wondering voice. “I thought you didn’t get horny anymore.”

  He got to his feet and, taking her hand, guided it to his erection. “What made you think that?” he asked.

  Chapter Ten

  The rotors of the helicopter were turning slowly as the black limousine pulled up to it. The chauffeur opened the door and Preacher got out.

  Randle stuck his head out of the cabin door of the copter. “Come on, son,” he shouted above the noise of the rotor. “We ain’t got all day.”

  The pilot stuck his hand out the door to help Preacher into the cabin. “The seat next to Mr. Randle is yours, sir,” he said, sliding the door closed.

  As soon as Preacher had fastened his belt, the copter began to lift off. It was a six-passenger Bell and besides Randle and the pilot there was another man sitting in front of him.

  Randle chuckled. “Got you up early, didn’t I, son?”

  Preacher glanced at his watch. Seven thirty. “Yes, sir.”

  “Get up at sun-up, I always say. A man does his best work early in the morning,” Randle said. “Figured I’d get you out before that li’l girl had a chance to drain your morning juice.”

  Preacher looked at him silently.

  Randle met his eyes. “Told you I know everything that’s going on down there.”

  Preacher was silent.

  “I suppose you’re wonderin’ where we’re goin’ this morning that’s so important?”

  Preacher nodded.

  “We’re going to look over the site where we’re goin’ to build the church.”

  “We couldn’t drive there?”

  “Easier this way,” Randle said. “It’s forty miles north of town.” He leaned forward, tapping the shoulder of the man seated next to the pilot. “Got them plans ready, Chuck?”

  “Right here, Mr. Randle.” The man turned and handed a large clipboard to the old man. He glanced at Preacher.

  “Chuck Michaels, Dr. Talbot,” Randle said, taking the clipboard. “Chuck is president of Randle Construction Company.”

  They shook hands as Randle fastened the clipboard to the back of the pilot’s seat. He turned to Preacher. “Know how to read a map?”

  “Some,” Preacher answered. “Needed to in ’Nam in case I got cut off from our troops.”

  Randle glanced from the window, then pointed to a line on the map. “We’re here now. We’ll go over the city, then north along Highway Ten.” His finger pointed to the upper right-hand corner of the map. “That’s where we’re going.”

  Preacher leaned forward and read the small print. Churchland, an incorporated city. He looked at Randle. “I never heard of a city around here called Churchland.”

  Randle chuckled. “That’s because there ain’t any.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will,” Randle said. “I told you that I work fast. I don’t have the time you young ’uns have to develop somethin’. I been waitin’ a long time to find the right man for the kind of church that will lead America out of the wilderness. Meanwhile I been planning.”

  He flipped the top sheet over, revealing another map beneath. Across the top was the printed word churchland. Preacher looked at it. It was a complete plan for a small city. He turned to Randle. “That’s heavy,” he said.

  Randle looked puzzled.

  “It’s big,” Preacher explained.

  “Just as easy to do somethin’ big as somethin’ small,” the old man smiled. “I got more’n a thousand acres out there that’s God’s own wilderness and just crying to be made Christian use of. I intend for this to become a shinin’ light to America.” He leaned toward the window and looked down. “We’re almost there,” he called to the pilot. “Come down over Highway Ten. There’s somethin’ I want Dr. Talbot to see.”

  “Yes, sir.” The copter began to descend toward the road.

  “There.” Randle pointed. “Look.”

  The giant billboard was at the edge of the road. The copter came down and hovered just above it. Preacher read the sign.

  CHURCHLAND

  THE FUTURE HOME OF

  THE COMMUNITY OF GOD CHURCH OF CHRISTIAN

  AMERICA TRIUMPHANT

  DR. C. ANDREW TALBOT, PASTOR

  DEDICATED TO THE SERVICE OF GOD AND COUNTRY

  OPENING IN MAY 1976

  Preacher looked at the old man. “That’s less than two years away. It will take longer than that to build a ministry. Oral Roberts, Shuller, Falwell, Pat Robertson, they all took years to do that.”

  “They started before television,” the old man answered. “Once they got into TV they grew in spite of themselves. And they still really don’t know what they have, they’re feeling their way. But we know what we have. We have the experience and the equipment. We’ll build this ministry like a TV network builds a hit series. Everything will be tested and worked out by the time we open. Market studies, test programs, public relations, everything fed into the computers and all merged together. By May ’76 you’re going to be the best-known preacher in America.”

  Preacher was silent. He looked out the window as the copter rose again and began to cross country. They lifted over a small forest of trees and in the fields beyond came over a scene of what seemed to be frantic activity. Small trucks were racing to and fro across the flat fields, leaving behind them a trail of white lime lines. He stared for a moment, then turned and looked at the map on the clipboard. Suddenly he understood what they were doing. Everything he saw on the map was being chalked out on the ground. He looked at Randle.

  The old man was smiling. “I told you I didn’t intend to waste time.” He paused for a moment. “Chuck will explain the layout to you when we get back to the ranch.”

  The enlarged map was mounted on a wallboard that covered the length of Randle’s study at the ranch. The butler brought them coffee on a silver tray, then retired discreetly, closing the door behind him.

  Randle nodded to Michaels. “You can begin now.”

  The burly constructor picked up a wooden pointer. He looked at Preacher. “Just as a bit of background, I thought you might like to know that this is not a half-baked idea that was conjured up at the last minute. Mr. Randle and I have spoken about this project over a period of several years and this plan is a result of those conversations. The preliminary drawings have been revised over those years until we have what you now see on the map before you.

  “Let’s begin with what you see as you drive up the road to Churchland after leaving the highway. You pass a park, carefully landscaped, small lakes, flower gardens, trees. The first building is a twin-towered seven-storied building, the towers of which are joined by a giant cross that extends another five stories into the air and should be visible day or night for a distance of thirty to fifty miles. This will be the main building which will house the church. The church itself will actually be a large theater auditorium with a seating capacity of one thousand five hundred people on the main or orchestra floor and an additional six hundred people in the balcony. There
will be a completely electronic stage with automated platforms that will raise, lower, move forward or backward on command. The entire theater will have built-in television facilities that can scan and broadcast everything that happens in the church, from the stage to any portion of the audience, all operated from a remote-control room located in the proscenium arch over the stage not visible to the audience. The interior height of the auditorium will be five stories. In the remaining two stories above that will be offices and visitors’ and guests’ rooms for those who are to participate in the programs. There will be ample parking behind the building for seven hundred cars.”

  He moved the pointer to a group of buildings set in a semicircle behind the twin-towered church. “The large building in the center of the semicircle will be the parsonage, in which the pastor will live with his staff. Three stories high, it will contain on the top floor the pastor’s own nine-room apartment. The floor below will have several apartments of two and three rooms each. The entrance floor will consist of offices and meeting rooms.

  “The smaller buildings, two each flanking the parsonage, will be chapels where visitors of different faiths may go to meditate. One building each for Catholics, Protestants, and the Hebrew and Islamic faiths.

  “In addition there are planned two motels, each with a three-hundred-room capacity and complete food and recreational facilities including swimming pools, tennis courts, miniature golf, and children’s special day-care camps and amusement facilities. There will also be one hundred individual cabins available to families who wish to visit or vacation.

  “Two hundred acres at the far end of the section have already been approved by the Federal Aviation Administration for the construction of a private airfield licensed for jet aircraft up to the size of Boeing 727s. Also, a special side road will be built to the airport reception center for buses bringing visitors via the highway. All visitors planning to stay will be registered at that reception center and then transported to their facilities by internal buses.