Hovis, holding up what looked like a raggedy tarpaulin thick with mud, had just been showing Uriah the missing slicker he’d found—“It looks different,” Uriah said, and Hovis said, “Gotta be it, Uriah. Ain’t nobody else but you’d wear nuthin this old and ugly!”—when Sister Debra’s strange boy interrupted Jesus’ recitation of his newfangled beatitudes and started screaming about the Antichrist, and everybody commenced shooting at the old mine tipple like it was some kind of giant coming after them. Neither Hovis nor Uriah could see exactly what they were shooting at, but they fired off a few rounds because it seemed like the way this day was panning out. A day which — both have thought but not at the same time — may be the last of its kind. Even before Jesus turned up with his sweaty little pal in the suit, Uriah could feel it in his bones, like the onset of a thunderstorm, though the skies are clear. The end of things. Uriah had said as much to the scruffy fellow in the Brunist tunic from back home, pointing out that the very sun seemed stalled up there, right smack on top of the Mount, and the fellow, a friendly and poetical sort, had said, “Yep, know what you’re sayin’, brother. Like it’s been a sweet ride, but bad curves a-comin’.” Sister Wanda had come to the hill with him, and when people asked after the big fellow she stared at them like she was only half there and said he was feeling poorly, and people said they were sorry to hear that but they were glad that he had let her be up here with the Elect now that things were really starting to happen. Poor worn-out thing, her belly hanging low on her scrawny frame; Uriah hopes she’ll be blessed with more smarts and gumption in the next world.
Isaiah Blaurock came past about then, just before the shooting at the tipple commenced, looking both fierce and quietly determined, like he always does, and Uriah thought he might have brought them all something to eat, but instead he just gathered up his three younguns from under the feet of Jesus and, without a word, carried them down to the foot of the hill where his pickup was parked. His wife Dot, who was just asking Jesus about the marriage supper of the Lamb, when could they start tucking in, seemed as surprised as everyone else and just stood there for a moment watching him go. Then she tossed her little one over her shoulder and went gallumphing after, shouting back over her shoulder: “Hold on! We’re going for reinforcements!” Which was when that boy started screaming about the Antichrist.
Now, they’re still blasting away at the tipple like it’s the Fourth of July (and maybe it is, wasn’t it supposed to happen sometime soon?)—“I got her!” someone shouts — when a number of armed men appear from different angles at the crest of the hill with rifles pointed down at them, and order them to lay down their arms in the name of the law; they’re all under arrest. Italians by the look of them, though others cry out that it’s the Powers of Darkness. And they could be both at the same time, because it was the Romans who crucified Jesus, wasn’t it? “We are afflicted from all sides,” Jesus says, seeming somewhat exasperated. The boy won’t stop shrieking and somebody says, “Who is that crazy kid? Shut him up before he gets us all shot!” and somebody else says, “Sshh! He’s one of the First Followers!” “What?” Young Darren puts his arm around him and he eases up and starts to sob softly and Darren leads him downhill, away from the center of things, toward the “doorway,” as it might be called, of the outlined temple.
And then that mean cuss McDaniel from the Christian Patriots points his rifle straight at the armed men’s leader, the one wearing a badge, and shouts back that he’s the acting sheriff out here and is the boss and he is arresting them if they don’t clear out immediately, or stormy words to that effect, not all completely Christian, and besides, he says, we got a lot more guns, so if you want to have a shootout, let’s get started. Then for a moment they’re all just standing there with their rifles and shotguns loaded, waiting to see who’ll shoot or back down first, the overhead sun casting ominous shadows under their brows and noses. Down on the mine road, a parade of yellow school buses with soldiers in them are pulling in and also some police cars with their sirens cranked up. “Reckon it’s time to go take a leak,” mutters the beardy fellow Uriah has been conversing with and he looks for a place to toss his smoke, finally just stubs it out inside his canvas bag and hands the bag to Uriah and asks him to hold it for him until he gets back. Hovis asks who that was and Uriah says it was a fellow from their parts who was agreeable to talk to if you could get past his smell. “He knowed a lotta friendsa ourn, or said he did when I mentioned ’em. Said he seen us on the tellyvision and come a-runnin’.” “Where’s he gone now?” “Off to take a leak, he said.” “With Sister Wanda? Don’t seem right.” “No. But you know Sister Wanda.” “She looked purty skeered.” “Well, I’m skeered, too.” “Whaddaya reckon’s in the bag?” “Cain’t say. Didn’t ask and t’ain’t polite to—”
Far from all these apocalyptical doings and without access to any TV screens now broadcasting them internationally in all their entertaining horror (the blast on the side of the mine hill is so powerful it knocks back the cameras and the images go bouncing up to the sky and back and even end up sideways, and by now everybody’s watching — wow! did you see that?), Georgie Lucci has just made his fortune. Long overdue and much deserved, beloved and noble faccia da culo, gran testa di cazzo that he is. At the airport, the mayor told him to wait in the car while he got the tickets. He left the briefcase in the back seat, but showed Georgie he still had the key: “No fucking funny biz, partner. I’ll just be a jiff.” Once the chump was out of sight, Georgie took off, barreling down the highway bat-outa-hellwise aiming for the state line, laughing all the way, pounding the wheel with his palm, jerking on his boner, blowing thankful kisses at la bella Marcella, his Lady Luck, his Virgin Mary, his Red-Hot Ruby, blowing kisses as well at his nonna, his mother, even the puttana who gave him his present dose, singing “Fly Me to the Moon” at the top of his voice, and imagining what he was going to do with all that money. He figures if that crook Castle said Brazil, that’s the one place he’s not going. He doesn’t know where it is, but it did sound cool, full of naked young ficas lying around on soft golden beaches, all aquiver with pent-up desire. A kind of island paradise, how he pictured it. But, too bad, he’ll have to miss it. He’s not that stupid. There are other beaches, other hot women. When he’s out of the state and far enough away to risk it, he pulls over beside some roadside picnic tables. The briefcase is a tough nut to crack; the mayor knew what he was doing when he bought it. His knife is as useless as a soft dick against a resistant maidenhead, so he takes the limo’s crowbar to it, alternatively smashing and prying at it, one eye on the highway for cops or snoopers. He speaks sweet nothings to the briefcase while he beats it. “Spread, amore! Show me what you got!” The lock breaks at last and he jimmies the case open. What he finds inside is wadded newspaper. Old yellowing West Condon Chronicles. The ones with the old Cunt Hill photos that caused such a storm. Like the one raging inside him. He’s grinning, can’t help it, but he’s murderously pissed. He leaves the newspapers to blow in the wind, hops back in the limo, pockets the revolver he’d noticed Castle hiding in the glove compartment, and guns it back to the airport. Where, after an emergency call from the mayor of West Condon, they are waiting for him. Caution. He may be armed.