The Frank Peretti Collection

by Frank E. Peretti

  “Magnify the Lord! Let his joy dwell in your hearts for his time has come! He is our hope, he is our joy!”

  The Macon Ranch hangers-on brought up the rear, waving, shaking hands, shouting greetings, passing out flyers, pointing at Cantwell. Two women sang and rattled tambourines.

  “Now just a minute, young lady!”

  Mary jerked her head around and saw another woman in robe, shawl, and sandals coming toward her, a nasty expression on her face. “Uh, blessings and peace to you!”

  The woman aimed an angry, shaking finger at her. “I’ll blessings and peace you, you little snip! My boy was here first!”

  Mary looked toward the real estate office and gasped. There was another Jesus standing there—or some young character in jeans and a bathrobe trying to look like him. Whoever he was, he was frightfully indignant. There had been a crowd around him with cameras and autograph books, but now they were all moving toward Cantwell and reaching out to catch the loaves he was tossing.

  The mean, old Mary stood directly in the Virgin Donovan’s path.

  “Now you can just turn around and take your big show elsewhere!

  This is our street!” She turned and chased the flatbed, banging on the boards to get Cantwell’s attention. “Hey, creep! Yeah, you! Get this rig out of here!”

  That finally spiked Mary’s ire. “Don’t you talk to my son that way!” She ran after the older Mary and grabbed her by her shawl.

  The mean Mary quickly showed how mean she could be.

  “I am he!” Cantwell shouted at the other christ, who extended a finger at him and bellowed in a southern accent, “Well y’all just come down off that truck and we’ll see about that!”

  From the sidewalks, it was the most bizarre show in town: Two christs yelling and giving each other obscene gestures while their two mothers scratched, tore, and screamed at each other in the middle of the street. Crowds on the sidewalks took pictures and home movies.

  “Glory, glory hallelujah!” sang Elvis.

  “YOU AREN’T GOING TO BELIEVE THIS!” said Gildy. “Everybody thought Mrs. Macon had a stroke, right? This morning she got out of bed and came down for breakfast all by herself. They drugged her! The last thing she remembers is the first shot they gave her.” Then she added with a note of dread, “And let me tell you, she’s hopping mad!”

  “The Macon estate owns half the property in this little square mile,” I observed. “If the corporation’s legit and Cantwell’s the main stockholder, he could control most of the town.”

  “Not from jail, he won’t,” said Nancy. “Did you know about the Harmons in Missoula?”

  We all looked at her blankly. “Speak on,” I said.

  “I’ve sat on this information long enough. Remember Nevin Sorrel?”

  “He was killed,” said Morgan.

  “He was working for me, in a way.” said Nancy. “After Cantwell wowed Mrs. Macon and took his job, he came to me wanting to give me some inside stuff on him. I didn’t listen at first. I thought it was just gossip and mud-slinging, but once I met Cantwell face to face, I thought better of it. It turns out Nevin Sorrel and the real Brandon Nichols used to be ranch hands together on the Harmon ranch rear Missoula. That’s how Nevin knew that our Brandon Nichols wasn’t really Brandon Nichols.”

  “Whoa,” I said. “You mean, we’re talking about another Brandon Nichols, as in, a real one?”

  “A real one,” Nancy replied. “Buck and Cindy Harmon are good friends with Mrs. Macon. They knew Cephus, of course, and they did business with each other. Nevin came from the Harmons to work for the Macons, and then, so did Cantwell, posing as Brandon Nichols, with a good reference from the Harmons.”

  “How in the world did he do that?” Morgan wondered.

  Nancy opened her valise and pulled out a photograph, a snapshot of some ranch hands leaning on a fence. “The Harmons sent this to me. Check out the two guys in the middle.” We all leaned in to study the picture. Nevin Sorrel was easy to pick out. Next to him was a young man with long, black hair and dark skin, apparently of Hispanic or Native American descent. “Meet the real Brandon Nichols.”

  “Kyle,” I said, “remember Hattie in Missoula? She said Herb Johnson used to ride horses on a ranch around there.”

  “Herb Johnson?” Nancy asked.

  “Justin Cantwell,” I explained, “before he became Brandon Nichols.”

  “Oh great.” Nancy shook her head in dismay. “Another name.”

  She continued, “Anyway, piecing it together from what Nevin told me, Justin Cantwell—alias Herb Johnson—visited the ranch a few times to ride horses, and met the real Brandon Nichols. They even joked about how they could be mistaken for each other.”

  We looked at the photograph again. It was possible.

  “If Cantwell wanted to call himself Brandon Nichols and get a Washington State driver’s license, it’s conceivable he could have done it. So Cantwell came to Antioch, posed as Brandon Nichols, introduced himself to the widow, and he had a job. Mrs. Macon called the Harmons for a reference and they gave her a glowing report of what a great worker Brandon was—and the description was the same: dark-skinned, long black hair, medium build.”

  Nancy smiled whimsically. “The Harmons were a little amazed to learn their former ranch hand was such a spiritual man and miracle worker. They’d never seen him do anything of the kind.”

  “No cameras,” Kyle mused. “Cantwell never allowed cameras on the ranch.”

  “The Harmons had never met Cantwell and the widow had never met Nichols. It was a perfect switch.” Nancy shrugged. “But I sneaked a camera onto the ranch and got a shot of Cantwell, just as you did. I sent it to the Harmons and they confirmed: Cantwell isn’t Nichols. No way.”

  “Which raises a dark question,” I said. “What happened to the real Brandon Nichols?”

  “Brandon Nichols was unknown, with no family, and had no address other than the Harmon ranch where he worked. He was transient, and moved from place to place, job to job. If someone wanted to slip into his shoes and carry on his life in his place . . .”

  “And use his driver’s license and social security number,” added Morgan.

  “You’re saying Cantwell killed Brandon Nichols?”

  Nancy returned my gaze. “From what you’ve told us about Cantwell, he may have done more than that.”

  Twenty-Eight

  BRETT HENCHLE stood on the front steps of Our Lady of the Fields, notepad in hand, trying to find out what made so many people go so wild. The way Arnold Kowalski was carrying on, you’d think the mob had murdered his mother.

  “It’s all my fault . . .” Arnold wept, sitting on the steps with his face in his hands.

  Father Vendetti sat beside him, his arm around his faithful old maintenance man. “Arnold, no, not with this bunch. They were different, they were . . .” Words failed him.

  “Can you name any of them?” Brett asked, notepad ready. He’d managed to nab five people carrying various pieces of what used to be Our Lady’s crucifix, but the rest of the mob and the rest of the pieces were quickly scattering.

  Al Vendetti only shook his head. “We want no vengeance here.

  What’s done is done.”

  Brett wasn’t ready to accept that. “Father, they destroyed church property. They made a mess of your sanctuary.”

  “And they chopped up the Savior!” Arnold lamented. “What will we do without him?”

  “Arnold.” Al patted his shoulder with his free hand. “They were the same as you: They thought they could take a little bit of Jesus with them.”

  “Well, he’s gone now!”

  “No, Arnold. We can always buy another one.”

  The handheld radio clipped to Brett’s belt squawked: “Car One, Car One, Brett, you there?”

  Brett tweaked the talk button and spoke into the mike clipped to his shoulder. “Yeah, go ahead.”

  “Mrs. Fisk called. There’s some unknown character lurking around the Sundowner Motel. Might be a peepin
g Tom.”

  Brett winced. “Brother. What more do we need?” Then it hit him. “The hitchhiker!” He hit the talk button. “Rod, let’s get over there. It might be our man from the other night!”

  Rod came back, “I’m trying to break up a fight right now.”

  Brett was already heading for his car. “Rod, I want this guy!”

  “Okay, I’m rolling!”

  JIM BAYLOR burst through his front door. “Dee?” No answer. “Dee?” The other car was in the driveway. She had to be here. He ran into the kitchen. Her purse was on the table. She was home, all right. “Dee?”

  “I’m in the bedroom,” she finally replied. Her voice sounded low and strange.

  He hurried down the hall. “You okay? Mark Peterson says he saw you ripping through town—”

  She was sitting on the end of the bed with his .357 Magnum revolver in her hand.

  He froze in the doorway. He tried to smile. “Hey, Dee. What’s, what’s up?”

  “Ichabod,” she said, her eyes cold and brooding. “My life is Ichabod, our house is Ichabod, and it’s all your fault!”

  “Ichabod. Who’s that?”

  “The clouds never came and the blessing is gone—and it’s because you drove them away! You and your spirit of unbelief!”

  “Uh, Dee? Why don’t you just put that gun down—”

  “If thine right eye offend thee, pluck it out!” She pointed the gun his direction and—

  He was already on the floor when it fired and a slug punctured the wall behind him. “DEE!”

  She jumped to her feet, clasping the gun in both hands. “Purge out the old leaven and let there be a new lump!”

  Should he wrestle her, try to take the gun?

  She was aiming it again. He scurried, half crawling, out of the doorway as the gun fired and another slug hit the wall.

  BANG! She was in the hall now and the bullet went right over his head.

  He ran.

  NANCY LEANED TOWARD US, her voice hushed and intense. “I talked to Pete Jameson, the county health inspector. He never required an additional source of water for Cantwell’s building project, so Cantwell never had to develop that spring up in the willow draw. But he had Nevin dig a huge hole up there, bigger than was needed. Nevin thought there had to be something else going on besides a water development—but then he had that ‘riding accident’ and came back dead.”

  I turned to Kyle the same time he turned to me. “The car,” I said.

  “The car!” he echoed.

  “What car?” Nancy asked.

  “The car that might be buried in that big hole!” I answered.

  “Let’s go!” said Kyle, jumping to his feet.

  “Let’s plan,” I said, and he sat down again.

  ROD TOOK THE HIGHWAY. Brett took the back road behind the grain elevators. No sirens, no lights. They were hoping they could surprise—

  “Got him!” Rod hollered into his radio. “He’s behind the building right now!”

  He screeched and fish-tailed off the highway, rolling and bouncing through a yard and a flower bed and finally into the overgrown field behind the Sundowner Motel. Brett came the other way, hitting his brakes on the gravel road and sending up a cloud of dust.

  The Sundowner Motel was a long, one-story building with ten units and plain, evenly spaced, rear windows. Their man, wearing sunglasses and a low hat, was standing just outside the ninth window when they converged on the scene. Now he took off running.

  Rod and Brett were out of their cars in an instant, Brett closest to the suspect, about to head him off. But Brett was limping on that leg of his. The suspect got by him and headed up the road toward the grain elevators.

  “Don’t lose him!” Rod hollered, then got back in his car and rolled like a tank through the field and onto the gravel road. He turned left, heading around the block, hoping to block the suspect’s route of escape.

  DON ANDERSON crouched behind the counter like a soldier under siege, eyes darting about, fists clenched, looking for his next move, his way of escape.

  The washing machines were rumbling like Patton’s tanks, mobilizing, marching, forming a blockade to trap him. The CD players were screaming and cheering and the televisions, with their big, gray eyes, were watching his every move and giving away his location.

  Of course, the customers in the store had no idea what Don was so agitated about. Was he just kidding around or what?

  “No, no way!” Don whispered. “Not today!”

  The CDs on the rack were scraping and scratching like little flat rats, trying to dig and gnaw their way out of their shrink-wrapped boxes. They wanted him. He was their jailer!

  The radios were blaring like an angry mob, hopping, rocking, and rattling on their shelves as their ringleader, a Sony Surround Stereo, bellowed in a deep, slow-speed voice, “When Don Anderson screams his last, hear it first on K-I-L-L! You want Death?

  We’ve got it!”

  “We’re bad, we’re bad, we’re bad, we’re bad!” sang the others.

  “Radio Kay Eye Double Ell!!”

  Don feared it would come to this. He had brought a baseball bat to the store just in case. Now he intended to use it.

  A million angry bees swarmed through every wire in the place, fighting to get out, to get to him.

  The radio control race cars were spinning their wheels, wearing their way out of their boxes, wanting to run over him.

  The metal detector on the wall was beeping, probing, bending and weaving like the head of a cobra, trying to send a signal that would fry his fillings.

  The microwaves were inviting him in.

  The flashlights were looking for him.

  The international power converters were trying to step down his nervous system.

  The remote controls were jamming his brain.

  And the washers and dryers kept marching, marching, rumbling and rocking, getting closer and closer, closer and closer— “YAAAAAAHHHH31” He leaped over the counter with his baseball bat and pulverized a radio control car.

  Crunch! Smash! Radio after radio went flying from the shelves.

  Rattle, crack, crinkle! The CDs flew like Frisbees and fluttered like snowflakes.

  “YAAAAA!!”

  The customers cleared out as Don started discounting all the washing machines. Off went a lid, off went a door, a stacked washer and dryer toppled like a crumbling tower. He smashed away a shelf, then a row of TVs, and then his bat went through the gas line feeding the store’s furnace. He smelled the stench of leaking gas.

  “Try to poison me, will you?” he screamed, and dispatched a row of clock radios.

  MICHAEL KEPT MARCHING along that white line, prophesying to the point of pitiful fabrication. “Though an army of evil rises against him, still the good of his hands and the fire of his mouth will be felt and seen, beginning here, and spreading there, and waking people up from their slumber of unbelief and making them, uh, pay attention to what’s going on, for he is come to . . . to, uh, do good works in the earth . . .” Brother, what am I saying? What am I doing?

  Suddenly, he heard a vicious, villainous laugh from somewhere behind him, so wicked that he spun around, looking for danger.

  It was the Messiah. He was leaning over the side rail of the flatbed, pointing and laughing, his teeth bared in a snarling grin.

  The mean old Mary had come out second best to Virgin Mary Donovan. With her shawl in tatters, her face scratched and her nose bleeding, she lay on the sidewalk as her son in the bathrobe comforted her and the tourists took more pictures.

  “I am he!” the Messiah bellowed tauntingly, his eyes crazy, his hair flying. “Hey, Cracker!” he hollered to the cowering christ in the bathrobe. “You’re next! Any time, Cracker, any time!” Then he materialized some more loaves and tossed them to the crowds.

  “Come and get it, my children! Come to me!”

  Matt kept driving as another Reader’s Digest inspirational favorite played over the loudspeakers, “Who made the mountains, w
ho made the trees . . .?”

  Uninvited, maybe even unseen by Cantwell, big, blustery Armond Harrison got a leg-up from some of his men and climbed onto the flatbed. As his followers cheered and the crowd snapped pictures, he smiled, waved back, then held up the Messiah’s hand like a referee announcing the winner of a boxing match. “We’re standing with you, Brandon! All of us!” Harrison’s people let out one big, organic whoop.

  Justin Cantwell smiled, waved, and eased Harrison toward the edge of the flatbed.

  Then Cantwell shoved him off, right on top of Harrison’s followers who collapsed like a house of cards under his weight.

  “I am he,” Cantwell reminded him, “and there is no other!” He returned his attention to the crowds. “Come to me! Whatever you need, I will give it! I am the one and only Messiah in your future!”

  Matt stuck his head out the truck window. “Michael! I don’t hear any prophesying out there!”

  Michael turned his eyes forward again. He kept walking, but not a word would come to his lips.

  Here came a vendor selling picture postcards of Jesus in the clouds and bumper stickers that read, I SAW Him IN ANTIOCH, WASHINGTON, or I SAW Her IN ANTIOCH, WASHINGTON.

  They passed a booth where a man sold Antioch billed caps and tee-shirts that boasted, “I saw Jesus in Antioch, Washington.” You had your choice: a picture of a farmer Jesus driving a combine or a jazzy, comic art face of Jesus between two sheaves. The Virgin got a tee shirt too, a more reverent pose of her standing on the curve of the earth, arms outstretched over the wheat fields of Antioch.

  A barbecue-on-wheels had come to town, selling ribs and hot dogs, and right next to that was an out-of-nowhere artsy booth featuring little crosses, bookends, napkin holders, jewelry, and even Bible covers made from . . . used lumber from Antioch, Washington?

  Sirens and screams broke through the din. People started running out of the way and Michael stopped dead in his tracks. Matt jammed on the brakes. Here came Rod Stanton in his squad car, blowing his siren, flashing his lights, easing from a side street onto the main highway as the crowds scurried aside. He stopped in the middle of the street, jumped out of his car, searched through the crowd, then got back in and kept going.