"You mean," Jim said, unbelieving, "that all of this, all this chaos, happened when Bach was born, when Thomas Edison was born, when all those other people were born?"
Brother Elias shook his head. "The adversary is lucky that the unborn infant is here at this place at this time." He shrugged. "Perhaps he planned it that way. I cannot say."
"I have to call iVIarina and warn her," Gordon said.
The sheriff nodded and gestured toward the door. "Call her. Tell Pete to let you use the phone."
Gordon pulled open the door. He turned suddenly around. "What will my daughter be when she grows up?" he asked.
Brother Elias only smiled.
Gordon ran out into the hall.
Jim stood and looked at the preacher, a mixture of fear and bewilderment visible on his features. "This is the first time this has happened?"
"I did not say that."
"Were any of these . . . special people ever born in Randall?"
"No," the preacher said. "We were not in time. The boy was never born."
Gordon ran into the front office, got the phone from Pete, dialed the number of his house and let the phone ring. Six, seven, eight times.
He waited until the twelfth ring and hung up. Marina had had plenty of time to return home since she'd dropped him off. He was worried, but he knew Brother Elias would not let him drive back home to check on her. Maybe he could convince the others to stop by the house for a few minutes on the way to wherever they were going. He knew they would be heading in the direction of the Rim.
The other three men walked into the front office.
"We must go," Brother Elias said. "It is getting late. Time is short."
Angry as she had been with him, Marina was scared, Gordon knew. She might not have believed everything he'd told her, but she instinctively felt the danger. She had probably already left for Phoenix. She was probably well out of Randall by now.
Yes, he decided, adjusting the camera over his shoulder as he followed the other men out of the office. She was probably long gone by now.
He hoped to God she was.
Marina, taking a hot shower, did not hear the telephone ring.
A line of light orange was just beginning to infiltrate the fading purple of the eastern sky as the two pickups pulled off the paved highway onto the control road. Brother Elias had originally said that he wanted enough pickup trucks for each of them, plus a few extra vehicles just in case. But the sheriff had been able to scrape together only three county trucks and one private vehicle--Carl's. As it turned out, they only needed two of the trucks. Father Andrews could not drive a stick shift and so was forced to ride with Gordon.
And Jim did not want Brother Elias driving by himself. Not with a county truck.
The preacher had said nothing to Jim during the twenty-minute ride to the control road but had instead stared silently out the window at the passing trees. Jim had tried to talk to the preacher, had tried to ask questions, had tried to get some type of conversation going, but Brother Elias had refused to speak, and soon he had given up. He turned on the radio for a brief while, but the only station that came in was an obnoxious rock station out of San Francisco, and he ended up turning the radio off. "You get the strangest stations in the early morning," he said to Brother Elias, but the preacher ignored him and they drove in silence the rest of the way.
Gordon and Father Andrews drove in silence as well, each thinking private thoughts. Gordon had looked at the priest as the truck before them had sped past the turnoff to his house, and Father Andrews, as if reading his thoughts, had smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry," he said.
"She'll be fine." They had driven the rest of the way in silence.
Ahead, the right taillight of the sheriff's truck began blinking slowly on and off, and the truck turned onto the control road. Gordon slowed down as he followed the sheriff's lead. What little light they had had from the not-quite-rising sun was cut off instantly as they entered the low darkness of the forest. Here it was still night. They descended the dirt road down from the highway and wound through a small ravine.
Around them, the trees grew high and tall and close to the road. Even the high beams of the truck did not penetrate far into the blackness.
To their left, past the trees, unseen but felt, rose the huge majestic form of the Mogollon Rim.
The sheriff's truck moved carefully over the one-lane road, taking the sharp turns slowly. The road straightened out, and the truck's red taillights increased in brilliance as the sheriff braked to a stop.
Gordon pulled to a stop as well. Jim came jogging back. He motioned for Gordon to roll down the window. Instead, Gordon opened the door and stepped out. "What is it?" he asked.
"Come here," the sheriff said. He walked briskly forward, past his own truck and stood in the middle of the road. "Look familiar?"
Gordon nodded, feeling the coldness creep over him, the goose bumps rising on his arms. This was where he had been walking in his dream.
He recognized the shapes of specific trees, the convergence of certain silhouettes. Beneath his feet, even the dirt of the road felt familiar. "This was where part of my dream took place."
"Mine too."
He turned toward the sheriff. "What does this mean?"
Jim shook his head. "I don't know." He nodded toward the truck. "Our friend there's not talking."
"We are wasting valuable time," Brother Elias said from inside the pickup. "We must start moving. There is much to do." His voice sounded stronger in the forest darkness, even more authoritarian than usual, and there seemed to be a hint of urgency in it.
Brother Elias, his skin the dark brown of a full-bloodedAnasazi , wearing only a loincloth, clutching a spear, standing before a ceremonial bonfire as around him warriors stood hushed.
Father Andrews shut his eyes against the vision, forcing the unwanted picture out of his mind through a sheer effort of will.
"Go back to your truck," Jim told Gordon. "Let's get going." He climbed into his own cab, slammed the door shut and put the engine into gear. Behind him, he heard Gordon's truck start up.
They moved forward. The narrow dirt road was now straight, moving toward the landfill in a direct line through the trees. A doe hopped onto the road, froze for a second in the glare of the oncoming headlights, then bounded off. They saw no other animals. Finally, they came to the open chain link gate of the landfill and stopped.
Before them, blocking the entrance, parked sideways across the dirt road, was a truck.
Brad Nicholson's Pepsi truck.
Gordon got out of the pickup, his heart pounding. The cab was empty, he saw, its door open. The canvas strap used to close the back gate of the truck was swinging gently in the open air.
"Stay back!" the sheriff ordered. He had gotten out of his truck and was advancing toward the gate, gun drawn. Gordon remembered the rifles sitting in the bed of his pickup and he was tempted to grab one, but he remained rooted to the spot, watching as the sheriff moved cautiously forward.
Jim put one foot slowly in front of the other, trying desperately not to make any noise. He glanced from side to side, listening for the sound of movement, prepared to defend himself against whatever might jump out at him. He reached the open door of the cab and cautiously peeked in. Empty. He moved around the front of the truck, still preparing himself for an unexpected attack. From here, he could see the rest of the dump. A reddish orange glow emerged from the smoldering embers of thecumbustible pile in the middle of the cleared area, and he shivered. He scanned the space immediately around him.
Nothing moved. He continued walking around the truck. The canvas strap of the rear door had stopped swinging, and the sheriff realized that there was no breeze. Something must have hit the strap to make it move. His grip tightened on his gun, and he peeked into the back of the truck.