He helped Jennifer with the food they’d brought, and the Sewells with their gear—because Mary Sewell weighed at least 250 pounds— and by the time he carried his own things into the cabin, the others were already in the bedrooms, getting set up for the night. What they should do, Reverend Beckford said, was have a bite of something to eat because it was already past five o’clock, and then get busy on what they’d come here for.
There were two bedrooms in the place, along with a bathroom, a small kitchen, and a big front room with a fireplace. The Reverend, Howard Lindsay and Keith had one bedroom; Jennifer and Mary Sewell and Mary’s boy Davey had the other. The beds were cot-size bunks built into the walls.
“Just what are you planning to do here, Reverend?” Keith asked while making up his bed. The Reverend was about fifty years old and easily six-foot-three but so skinny he might disappear through a floor-crack at any minute. A nice fellow, though, except he got so intense about things sometimes.
“Pray,” he said.
“I see.”
“No, you don’t see. But you will, soon as we’ve eaten.”
“There may be other people in some of the cabins along here,” Keith pointed out. “You plan on asking them to pray with us?”
Howard Lindsay said, “Yes, some of my people are out here this weekend. I checked in town before we left.” Lindsay was a broadshouldered, brawny fellow, just the sort you’d expect to want a cabin in a wilderness. The paint factory he owned seemed to make him a good deal of money.
“It’s a bit late to call on people this evening,” the Reverend said. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”
Keith finished getting his bed ready and went into the kitchen, where Jennifer and fat Mary Sewell—Big Mary, folks called her—were starting supper. They’d brought along food already cooked, Jennifer explained, because they hadn’t known how much free time they might have with all the praying to be done. After lighting the propane stove so they could heat things, Keith turned on the faucet in the sink and reached for a glass to get himself a drink of water.
“Use that,” Big Mary said, pointing to a plastic jug of store-bought water. “Deacon Lindsay says the river water’s clean and we’re crazy, but the way this poor world is headed, you can’t trust nothing any more.”
Keith said okay and drank bottled water and then went out to sit on the back steps and think about the story he would write. Noting how dark it was getting, he looked at his watch, then held his wrist to his ear to make sure the watch was still running. In town, with daylight-saving time in effect, darkness would still be a long way off. But here in the gorge, with its high, sheer walls shutting out the light, the day was already dying. Made a fellow feel a bit strange, like he was in another world. There’d be a near-full moon tonight, though, he remembered. The gorge should be something to see with moonlight pouring down into it.
He finished thinking and went back inside, where he helped set the table for a fine supper of Boston baked beans and ham and home-baked bread. After the Reverend asked a blessing that seemed a bit too long with everyone so hungry, they ate. Then the Reverend pushed his chair back and said, “We men ought to do the dishes, I expect, since you ladies did the cooking. But first let’s get started on what we came here for.”
He led them out to the river’s edge, where it was almost totally dark now. Even the shallow, twenty-foot wide stream was more heard than seen as it rushed past over its bed of boulders. With the Reverend telling them what to do, they formed a circle and held hands. Then in his deep, throaty voice he began praying.
“Lord, look down on this troubled Earth, please, and see what’s happening here. It isn’t pretty. All over this once-beautiful planet people are doing things they shouldn’t ought to be doing. Like polluting our rivers and lakes so we’ll soon be short of drinking water. And wantonly killing off whole species of the wonderful creatures you put here to share your bounty with us. Look, Lord, at how people are stupidly cutting down the forests we need to keep clean the air we breathe, and how they are further making the air unbreathable by poisoning it with smokestacks and automobile exhausts.
“Lord, the few of us that see what’s going on and want to put a stop to it need your help now in the worst way. Yes, we do. By ourselves we can’t make much of a difference because we’re so outnumbered by those who don’t care. Take a good look at what’s going on down here, Lord. See for yourself the ever-greater numbers of people using drugs—especially young people. Note the drug-related murders and the child abuse. See the number of people openly admitting they’ve turned away from you and are worshipping Satan.
“Lord, the Devil is on the warpath again, as you must know. We’ve got whole nations here that are stockpiling things like hydrogen bombs and planning to use chemical- and germ warfare against their innocent neighbours. It’s frightening, I tell you. It’s scaring the living daylights out of those of us who aren’t too blind or selfish to see what it’s likely to lead to. But Lord, you beat old Lucifer once before in a wilderness like this, and with your help we can whip him again. So look down on us here and tell us what to do, we beseech you. Tell us before it’s too late. Amen.”
Reverend Beckford prayed along those lines for another half-hour or so, then opened his eyes. “There,” he said with a heavy sigh, “I’m sure we all feel some better already because we know He heard us. We can go inside now. But at daybreak we’ll talk to Him again.”
When the men had done the dishes by lamplight, Howard Lindsay built a fire and the group sat by the fireplace, talking. Mary Sewell’s boy Davey played some hymns on a harmonica he’d brought along. The others exclaimed at how good he was and asked for more. Then the moon came up, filling the gorge with a shimmering mist of quicksilver, and Keith reached for Jennifer Skipworth’s hand.
“How about a little walk?” Keith suggested.
She smiled at him and they went out together, telling the others they’d soon be back.
* * *
The moonlight must have been responsible for what happened then. For more than two years Keith had known he was in love but hadn’t quite been sure he wanted to be tied down in marriage. After all, Jennifer Skipworth was a bit heavy on the church-going at times, even for Innsmouth, and even now, this expedition into Deeprock Gorge for a confrontation with Satan was on the spooky side. But before they had walked a hundred yards downriver he heard himself blurting it out. “Hey... why don’t you and I stop fooling around and get married, huh? Like soon, I mean.”
Then before she could answer, the moonlight did something else. Just ahead of them, at the water’s edge, a stone moved. Or if not a stone, a living thing that looked like a stone. It suddenly turned itself into a beetle or bug or insect the size of a dinner plate and with a loud hissing sound went waddling into the water, where it vanished.
Jennifer froze in her tracks and gasped, “What was that?”
Keith forgot about wanting to be married. His fingers tightened their grip on her hand and he went slowly forward, one careful step at a time, pulling her after him, until they reached the place where the thing had been. Smelling something, he dropped to his knees, still cautiously, and sniffed at the empty pocket of black sand. It had an odour of—what? Spoiled meat?
“Must have been some animal,” he said, rising. “A possum, maybe? But hurt, somehow. You want to go back?”
Jennifer thought about it. He’d asked her to marry him. The stupid possum or whatever it was had interrupted her answer. She wanted to marry this man. She wanted to tell him so, right here in this wilderness with the moon pouring its blessing down on them. “Let’s go on a bit more,” she said.