“We have been expecting you. We have been pursued by you all our lives, and we knew that you would find us here. But we have been brought here to consummate our life’s work, and we are never going to run again. We are not afraid.”
Robbins’ neck was blushing red, a sure sign. “Maybe you better think again—”
“We are going to the Mount of Redemption on Sunday to await the Coming of the Light. I hope you gentlemen will find it in your hearts to join us there. Now, go away and bother us no more. Wash the earth from your hands and feet and cast your eyes to the limitless stars!”
“That’s nutty!” said Robbins. “Show ’em the letter.”
“Forget it,” said Cavanaugh. He showed by his look, his back turned coldly on the Nortons, that he considered it a lost cause.
They made one final call. And this one worked. At the orphanage, Reverend Edwards and Ted Cavanaugh pinned the Meredith kid in one lamplit corner. The old hotbox technique. Vince himself had used it in the union organizing days. Meredith was a pansy and it didn’t take much to break him. Suddenly, in a flood of tears, he said he was sorry, it was all wrong, embraced Cavanaugh like a father, disclaimed the Brunists, said they’d been persecuting him from the start, hinted they might have been whipping him, and, in fear of them, he asked to be hidden away. Reverend Edwards, deeply moved, offered his home for the rest of the week. The boy wept gratefully, then cheered up, became even joyful on the ride to the Presbyterian manse, and it made them all feel good. Won one!
Or so they thought. That night, Tuesday, not only the goddamn local paper and the city papers were headlining the Brunist story, but it was even featured on the six o’clock televised newscast. Helicopter movies of West Condon and the coalmine, blown-up stills of some of Tiger Miller’s photos, and the announcer saying: “In this placid little American community of West Condon, a small band of devout believers, calling themselves followers of the coalminer-prophet Giovanni Bruno, believe that on Sunday evening, the nineteenth of April, the world will end. In expectation of their own salvation, they will gather on this little knoll here, near the Deepwater Number Nine coalmine, where only three months ago an explosion and fire killed ninety-seven men. From that catastrophe, on Sunday, January eleventh, one man was rescued, this man—”
“Daddy!” Angie called out from her bedroom and he nearly went a foot up off his chair. “Listen to this!”
She threw open her door, the radio turned up fullblast. Cheap country-style music, badly sung. “What’s that?” he asked. She’d taken lately to listening to a lot of that crap, especially the morbid ones about dead people, not excluding dead daddies.
“The Brunists!” she cried. “They’re singing!”
Do not think that God’s Chosen are the mighty!
Do not think that God’s Elect are the high!
Just remember the stories in your Bible:
’Tis the humble whom God doth glorify!
Think of Moses, discovered in a river!
Think of Jesus, a carpenter’s son!
Think of Bruno, a humble coalminer!
’Tis the poor by whom God’s battles are won!
So, hark ye to the White Bird of Glory!
Yes, hark ye to the White Bird of Grace!
We shall gather at the Mount of Redemption
To meet our dear Lord there face to face…
“I’ll be goddamned!” Vince said, and hurried away midchorus to the phone. “Hello, Ted? Vince here. Hey, turn on your radio! The Brunists are singing! They’re on TV, too!”
“Jesus Christ, what next! Vince, I’ve got some bad news.”
“Yeah?” Felt the hair on his neck stand up.
“The Meredith boy. Wes Edwards just phoned in a panic to tell me the kid has slashed his wrists with a razor. He’s in the hospital.”
“Jeee-zuss God All-mighty!” Took the wind right out of him. “Is it bad?”
“No, Doc Lewis told Wes it looked very much like the boy’s done it before. Apparently he doesn’t do it to kill himself. But we can’t let go of him now. If he got back to the Brunists, he’d probably try to make murderers of us, or worse, the state of mind he’s in. We’re sending him up to a state hospital tonight. But, listen, Vince, not a word! Miller will probably find out, but if he or anybody asks, you know nothing, okay?”
“Sure, Ted. But Jesus, what a bad break!”
“Nobody’s fault. We might even have saved the boy’s life. No telling what he might have done after Sunday night. But we don’t want Wes Edwards to get mixed up in this if we can help it, and so it’s just as well the Brunists don’t know how he ended up over there. Anyway, he’ll be up there a good while, so there’s no worry about him Sunday night. Just let’s hope Miller doesn’t get wind of it.”
Fat chance. Headlines Wednesday night: BRUNIST KIDNAPPED! COLIN MEREDITH DISAPPEARS FROM WEST CONDON! TREATED AT HOSPITAL FOR INJURIES OR POSSIBLE SUICIDE! LAST SEEN AT HOME OF REV. WESLEY EDWARDS! And so on, big scare stuff. Phone rang. Thinking it was Ted, he answered it. “Mr. Bonali, this is CBS calling. We understand you were with the missing Meredith boy yesterday afternoon, just before his disappearance. Can you tell us—?” In a panic he hung up. Jesus! Kidnapping — that’s FBI stuff, isn’t it? He told Etta to answer the phone, ask who was calling, and if it wasn’t Ted, to say he wasn’t home.
He switched on the TV and — wham! — there was Mrs. Norton’s funny little face. Every now and then, as she turned her head different angles, the floods beamed off her glasses and caused a kind of leap of light around her head. “We do not know what has happened to him. Our … sources, our sources at the higher aspects have informed us that he has fallen into the hands of the powers of darkness. We are … deeply hurt and concerned, but we are not surprised. We have all suffered threats upon our lives and upon our health. We are praying for his deliverance.”
Announcer: “Mrs. Norton, do you have any idea who these powers, uh, these powers of darkness might be?”
Mrs. Norton: “Yes!” She paused, fingering a little medallion on her breast that flicked light back at the lens like a secret code. Vince started right up in his chair, felt a cold sweat in the small of his back. She was looking right at him. “All of you!” she said.
Feeling shaky, he called Ted, and Ted told him to relax, the entire story was being released, that he himself was taking all the responsibility, and that he would be by to see him the next morning. Final meeting of the Common Sense Committee tomorrow night. That calmed Vince down — Jesus! Ted was a great guy! — but he was still pretty restless. He paced the room, trapped by the Brunists: newspaper headlines black as death, their goddamn faces on television, and — blam! — Angie threw open her door again, and there they were:
Come all ye who seek your salvation!
Come all who would stand upon God’s Land!
Come and march to the Mount of Redemption,
For the end of all things is at hand!
So, hark ye to the White Bird of Glory …!
Ted’s message the next day, the sixteenth, was to cool it. But Vince was feeling so goddamn high, he knew it wouldn’t be easy. He had splurged on a bottle of whiskey, good stuff, in anticipation of Ted’s visit, but Ted had turned it down. Too early in the day, he said. Vince, who had already poured his own to make the offering of it more natural, felt a little awkward himself with a glass of whiskey in his hand at ten in the goddamn morning, but he lied that he usually took a bracer in the mornings. He hoped he hadn’t made some kind of mistake. Jesus! the thing hit him like seven hundred blazing bicarbonates!