Billy Don was studying to be a youth pastor and first attended the study group in the company of a twittery young girl who, thankfully, didn’t last long. When she left, Darren begged Billy Don to stay on, and he did, becoming his most trusting follower. Which has its limits. Billy Don believes just about everything Darren teaches him, but rarely seeks insights of his own. They have had arguments — about the uses and misuses of dogma, about the interpretation of this or that verse, about the impermanence of the church and the nature of divine punishment — but ultimately Billy Don always grins and says Darren is too smart for him. Only on the subject of sin is Billy Don obtusely doctrinaire, unable to grasp that while for the common man the artificial concept of sin is essential to maintaining order, for those who by knowledge and understanding have risen above the mundane world, there is no sin. God and nature are one. Nature’s desires are God’s desires. In satisfying them, one is carrying out God’s will. “Nothing is sin except what is thought of as sin,” as a great man has said. “But what if what I wanted to do was to throw that cute girl in the front row onto the teacher’s desk and rip her clothes off?” “Well, you’d probably be arrested, and it doesn’t sound like the sort of thing a wholly free and knowledgeable man would contemplate, but it would not necessarily be a sin.” But Billy Don doesn’t get it. “I don’t know,” he always says with a grin, “sounds to me like just an excuse for raising Cain.” Darren misses the challenge of an intellect comparable to his own and sometimes grows impatient, but is always instantly appeased by that affectionate grin of surrender.
The men have stopped working. They seem upset about something. Colin runs into the hall, yelping, eyes darting in all directions, arms flung about like he’s trying to fly, runs out again. As Clara steps out of the office, removing her spectacles, Billy Don comes into the hall and explains that there are people driving past on the roads out at the edge, honking their horns, shouting insults and obscenities, throwing beer bottles and stinkbombs into the camp. A lot of them. “Yes, we been expecting them,” Clara says, looking both calm and worried at the same time, fingering the medallion around her neck. “Don’t pay no at tention to them. They’ll go away.” But then three cars of young people swing into the camp itself. They crawl out of their cars, some of them carrying clubs and chains, which they swing about menacingly. Their leader is a cocky young fellow who wears an old black fedora tipped down over his Roman nose; he stands with his hands on his hips, legs spread, grinning icily like a Hollywood gangster. Ben Wosznik and the others walk down to meet them and tell them that this is now private property and they are trespassing, but they just laugh and shout out insults and tell them to pack up and get out, religious sickos are not welcome here. One of them gives Wayne Shawcross a push. Then big Hunk Rumpel comes lumbering up from the campsite below, cradling a rifle. He doesn’t say anything. He just walks slowly up to them and stares solemnly into their faces. After a quiet moment, they get back in their cars. All but the one in the black fedora, who holds his ground, glaring at Hunk, baring his teeth. Hunk flicks his hat off, stands on it. “Hey, Naz,” shouts one of his friends from inside his car. “Time to go!” “All right,” says the one called Naz, “but this fucking asshole’s gotta get off my hat.” Hunk, staring steadily at the boy, slowly grinds the hat into the mud with his boot heel. The boy’s eyes begin to water up. “C’mon, Naz. That dude looks like he might not be all there.” “That was my dad’s hat,” the boy says, his voice breaking. “He…he died.” Hunk stares at him without expression. Kicks the hat away. Then he turns his back on him and walks away toward the trailer lot below. The boy picks up the mashed muddy hat, wipes away the tears. “That fat fucking sonuvabitch. I’ll get him,” he mutters, his face still screwed up. He raises a finger to them all and stalks off to his car and, wheels spitting up mud, roars away.
While there is still a trail of pale late-afternoon light in the sky, Ben and Clara pull on their boots and raincoats, tuck flashlights in their pockets, and climb the muddy path up to Inspiration Point, Ben’s old half-blind German shepherd, Rocky, padding along beside them. A habit they’ve learned: coming up to the Point to pray alone together and talk things through. They have a lot to talk and pray about. The anniversary of the Day of Redemption and dedication of the camp is close upon them, and there’s still so much to be done, so many problems to face. Not least of all, the multitude of Brunist Followers believed to be on their way here. How will they ever accommodate them? God has been good to them and Ben and his crew have worked miracles, it is amazing that so few can have done so much, but it has also been a hard month, with flooding and sickness and construction setbacks and difficult living conditions, this little summer camp not being built for such harsh weather. And now today these new harassments and intrusions. They will have to speak to Mr. Suggs about it; maybe his friend Sheriff Puller can help. The sheriff’s visits worried them at first, but Mr. Suggs assured them he could be trusted and would help protect them from the townsfolk if need be. The sheriff’s deputy turned out to be an old Nazarene church friend, Calvin Smith, who became a Brunist Follower the same night Abner Baxter did, though he and his wife Lucy did not stay active after the Day of Redemption. Cal Smith is not one to show what’s on his mind, but he did not seem unfriendly and gave the building work they were doing an approving nod. He told Ben he still listened to his records and hoped he would make some more.
With the skies slowly clearing, it is brighter up here than down in the camp, where the night is already settling in. Inspiration Point — they were calling it just “the higher ground” like in the song, until Mrs. Edwards told them the real name for it — is a small wooded rise with a granite outcropping some forty or fifty feet above the rest of the No-Name Wilderness Camp, their own mighty rock in a weary land, looking out across the trees and flat scrubby lowlands toward the old Deepwater No. 9 coalmine, long since closed. The abandoned mine buildings, with their skeletal tipple and rusting water tower, sit on a rise close by a sizable hill over there that is said to be, though not much higher than where they stand, one of the highest points around. The Mount of Redemption, as they have named it and as they know it and revere it. It was the discovery of this view during their first inspection tour in January that most convinced them to accept Mr. Suggs’ offer and come back here in spite of the adversity that must inevitably follow. It seemed to say: This place is our place. A place in the wilderness, shown to them by God, to pitch their tents, wherein to make a dwelling-place for the Lord. Like young Billy Don Tebbett said when he saw the view: “It’s awesome. Almost like a picture in the Bible.” This morning’s sunrise service up here got canceled by the rain, but it was just right for their Good Friday vigil two days ago, the sky blackening then with the coming storm. It made them feel like the Disciples must have felt in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives, which people who have been there say is not much higher than where they stand now.