He could hear the lights overhead humming at him like a swarm of bees, so loud it was hard to hear someone talking to him from across the store. Well, okay, he could always stand closer to someone talking.

When he started up a kerosene heater to demonstrate for a customer, it roared like a toilet refilling after a flush. He had to ask the customer to repeat himself a few times. Well, it only made that noise when it was running. He could always turn it off-and hope he'd never need the heat.

But the CDs-oh, the CDs! All he had to do now was touch the plastic cases and they would start playing in his head, right through the shrink-wrap! He put one of the girls in charge of stocking the CD rack and left it to her to sell them as well.

And now there were the radios! He could hear them all over the room, wailing and thumping the rock stations, crooning the easy listening stuff, or garbling out the news and sports, no less than fifty of them at once-and they were all turned off! Maybe he could tune them all to the same station, something sweet and relaxing. He went to the first radio, a portable CD/Ca.s.sette/AM-FM Virtual Surround Sound unit. All he did was touch the tuning k.n.o.b and he could hear the station as if he were wearing headphones.

He twirled the k.n.o.b until he heard the kind of music they play in elevators. Ah. He could live with that. He went to the next unit, another portable stereo, but this one bigger, with more bells and whistles. He set the station.

Hey, this was going to work!

See there, Don? One step at a time! We'll get a handle on this-I hope, I hope!

Then it occurred to him. Sure, there were no less than fifty radios on display in the store. He could get to them easily. But there were at least a hundred more in unopened boxes stacked under the shelves and in the back room, and he could hear them too!

Oh, man. This was going to be a long night.

As he headed for the counter for a carton knife, he pa.s.sed by the washing machines. Oh no, now what? It sounded like a squadron of B-17s flying overhead. He leaned on a washer- The rumble made him jump. He could feel it all through his body.

"NO!" He faced the washing machine, staring it right in the control k.n.o.b, and pleaded with it, "You're not running! You're not turned on! You're not even plugged in!"

It rumbled at him. Its companion dryer rumbled too. The whole row of washers and dryers rumbled like circus lions in a cage.

He backed away. The rumbling quieted a little. They seemed to be consulting one another, rumbling and mumbling. Could he live with this too?

"You don't scare me," he muttered.

They RUMBLED at him.

It scared him to death.

MATT KILEY burst through the door of his hardware store, startling Bev Parsons, his soft-spoken right-hand gal. "How's it going?"

She was checking out a customer, and held her peace until the customer stepped out the door. Then she showed a sour side he'd never seen before. "If you expect me to run this store all by myself, I expect to be paid accordingly."

He brushed past her. "You're not running it all by yourself!"

She was never one to be forward, but today she was angry enough. She followed directly behind him, down the aisle past the lawn sprinklers and garden sprayers, talking to his back, but getting it said. "I've kept track of the hours I've been here running this whole operation while you've been up at the ranch, and let me tell you, I might as well own this place!"

He stopped and turned so fast she ran into him. "You think you're the only one who has problems? If anything happens to Brandon Nichols, we could all be out of work!" He continued toward the back of the store.

She followed him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean he has enemies! Somebody came right into the house and trashed his room!" He reached the gun counter. "Barney!"

"Yeah?" Barney Myers replied from the automotive section.

"Let's have the key to the gun cabinets!" He turned to Bev. "Happens every time. Somebody starts doing the right thing and somebody else decides they have to hara.s.s him. Well n.o.body's gonna hara.s.s Brandon Nichols, not if I've got anything to say about it!"

Barney brought the key, and Matt opened the gun display case. He reached for a semiautomatic pistol, ripped off the price tag, and slipped it in his coat pocket. "Get me two cases of 9 mm rounds, those hollow points, and two boxes-no, make that four boxes of 12-gauge sh.e.l.ls, 00 buckshot." Barney selected the ammo cartons while Matt took a shotgun from the rack behind the counter.

Bev's voice quavered with fear. "But you can't just shoot somebody!"

Matt took the boxes of sh.e.l.ls from Barney. "Well they don't have to break into Brandon's house either, now do they? Thanks, Barney." He hurried around the counter and up the aisle again. "They don't have to get near him, they don't have to come on the property, they don't have to come nose to nose with me. It's all up to them. Close up tonight, same as usual. I'll be back sometime tomorrow."

26.

IWAS DRIVING across Texas in the early morning, covering miles and miles under a golden dawn, and feeling continually deceived by the crumpled, wrongly folded road map on the seat beside me. Maps of Texas still have to fit in your car, so they make Texas look smaller than you first a.s.sume. Twice I was sure I'd missed a town or a turn, only to find it thirty or forty more miles down the road. Nechville looked like a quick trip, but it was three hours at legal speeds, as promised.

The lady who rented me my car told me I would probably smell Nechville before I saw it, and she was right. At first, I thought something in my car was overheating or shorting out, but I soon discovered it was just the wind coming through my vents after blowing through Nechville's stockyards and oil rigs. It smelled like a herd of cattle tarring a roof, the scent of manure and ammonia interlaced with the stench of black crude. Undoubtedly the people of Nechville had long ago learned to live with it, since the town wouldn't be there at all without it.

I drove by the stockyards, the ground trampled and fertilized to a thick, gamy black under hundreds of hooves, and saw the oil wells on the right and the left nodding slowly, emphatically, yes, yes, yes. Slowing to twenty-five miles per hour, I pa.s.sed the city limit sign-NECHVILLE, population 2,125. It was not a bad little town at first glance, almost a Texas version of Antioch. They had a feed store, a tractor and implement dealer, a True Value Hardware, even a local appliance store-only it wasn't Pepto-Bismol pink.

So here I was, a stranger in a strange town in the middle of the vast state of Texas and feeling like it. Now what?

I pulled over at a service station to top off the tank and check the yellow pages of a phone book. As I flipped the phone book open, I was praying for help and guidance. I could feel b.u.t.terflies in my stomach.

Churches, churches . . .

I would know it when I saw it. It wouldn't be Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, or Baptist. I was guessing it would be-how shall I say it?-hyper-Pentecostal. Judging from Justin Cantwell's bitterness and the reception I got from the Reverend Ernest Cantwell, it would be stridently, strictly, inflexibly, legalistically, pharisaically Pentecostal. There would be a long list of complex, tangled, sometimes contradictory, often hypocritical, but absolutely essential requirements and taboos defining what it meant to be a Christian. I was familiar with that kind of church and glad I never had to attend one. I was guessing that Justin Cantwell did.

My finger stopped on a promising possibility: The Nechville Church of the True Gospel.

"Good morning and praise G.o.d," said the cheerful male voice. "True Gospel."

"Hi. What time is your service this morning?"

"Sunday school's at nine forty-five and morning worship's at eleven."

"Is Pastor Cantwell preaching?"

"Oh, absolutely. You can't hold him back. Think you can join us?" "I'll be there."

"Well you're gonna hear the truth. That's what we're all about. And your name is?"

I said "Thanks a lot" cheerfully and hung up. They'd picked the right guy to answer the phone. If I were them, I sure wouldn't want the pastor doing it.

I checked my watch. It was just before ten, so I had an hour. I asked the man at the cash register how I might find the church and he drew me a map. Then I returned to my car and drove through town in no particular hurry. I didn't want to attend Sunday school because I'd be sitting in the adult Sunday school cla.s.s where I'd have to introduce myself to everyone else, and most likely Reverend Cantwell would be teaching. I wanted a chance to get a feel for the place first. Now I'd be the timid visitor sitting in the back.

What happened next had to be the gentle, guiding hand of G.o.d. I was driving by a quaint, wide-porched home on Main Street and spotted a sign in the yard: H. K. Sullivan, M.D. I got a hunch, I felt in my spirit that I should stop, and so I did.

Parked across the street, I took a moment to rethink it. I didn't know how many doctors were in this town, probably not many. Whenever and however Justin Cantwell got those scars on his arms, this doctor might know about it, or perhaps know the doctor who did. There was a car in the driveway. I thought I saw someone in the backyard. It couldn't hurt to knock on the door and ask.

DR. HOWARD SULLIVAN was in his seventies, dressed in work jeans and a tee shirt advertising Imodium AaD. He sat beside Mrs. Sullivan on their couch while I sat opposite them, waiting for the doctor's verdict on the photographs I'd handed him.

"So now he's claiming to be Jesus," he muttered.

"He's allowing people to believe and say that about him," I qualified.

The doctor laid the photos out side by side on the coffee table, studying them. His wife held his arm, her eyes troubled.

"There's a whole lot I could tell you about him, but I can't."

I closed my eyes and sighed in disappointment and frustration. Don't be rude, I reprimanded myself. "You do understand my situation?"

He nodded. "I sure do. More than you think. And I want to help you, but I can't tell you anything without the Cantwells' consent. That's just the way I do things."

"Is his name Justin Cantwell?"

The doctor nodded. "I can tell you that. Yes."

"Was he ever a patient of yours?"

The doctor nodded again but said nothing.

"Did you treat the wounds in his forearms?"

I didn't get a response. Mrs. Sullivan pulled her husband's arm and said, "I don't think you'd better go any further."

"I did," said the doctor.

"Honey, now that's all!" she warned him, and then she told me, "This is a small, close-knit little town and we watch out for our neighbors. If we violated any trust, we wouldn't survive here."

"Talk to the Cantwells," said the doctor, picking up the photos and handing them to me. "Please. I want to help you. I want to bring this whole sad story to a close."

"They'll be in church pretty soon," said Mrs. Sullivan, looking at the mantel clock. "That would be a good place to meet them."

"He'd have to behave himself in front of his congregation."

She jabbed him. "Honey!" Then she told me, "You may not get far with Pastor Cantwell, but I think Mrs. Cantwell will be sympathetic. Work on her if you can."

"All I need is their consent. I need to hear from them that I can talk to you."

"It's the Church of the True Gospel, is that right?"

"Over on Dunbar Street, two blocks down, turn left, three blocks on the right."

IT WAS AN OLD BRICK BUILDING with thick concrete steps and a blue neon "JESUS SAVES" sign bolted to the top of the facade. Worshipers were gathering, moving from the gravel parking lot, approaching from either direction on the sidewalk, dressed in their Sunday best, toting their Bibles. It might mean different things to different folks in different parts of the country, but, for these people in this part of the country, they looked very religious.

I was parked across the street. I checked my tie in the rearview mirror-it was black; very safe. I ran a comb through my hair- recently cut, with ears and collar uncovered. I'd already given my face a once-over with a small travel razor. I had a suit coat ready on a hanger and a good-sized Bible on the seat. Hopefully, I would look righteous enough not to disturb anyone.

I stepped out of my car, slipped into my suit coat, straightened and adjusted everything, and crossed the street, returning whatever smile or greeting came my way. The piano and organ were already playing the prelude. I followed the other folks up the front steps. Pa.s.sing through the door, I noticed a yardstick tacked to the doorpost for measuring the height of hemlines. I'd heard about that practice, but this was the first time I had actually seen it.

Being a Pentecostal, I gravitate toward the livelier kind of worship. I'm not a dancer, jumper, or roller, but I like a good tune, a catchy rhythm, and lyrics that express how I feel about my Savior. This church had them. The worship was great-a little protracted and repet.i.tious for my taste, but n.o.body else seemed to mind, so neither did I. The young fellow leading worship did plenty of jumping, and when he spoke I recognized the cheerful voice I'd heard on the telephone.

But I wasn't prepared for the pastor, the haggard, graying wraith sitting in a wheelchair on the platform. He clutched a huge Bible in blue-veined, seemingly palsied hands and glared at everyone. Sure, he smiled frequently, raised his hands in praise, sang the songs, and shouted Hallelujah, but his eyes never lost that steely glare and he never lost that weird hunch either, like a buzzard perched in a dead snag waiting for his next meal to die. This was Reverend Ernest Cantwell? This was Justin's daddy? I had food for thought already.

They went through announcements and some testimonies, and then it was the reverend's turn to preach. When he raised his arms to grip and propel his chair wheels, I saw that big buzzard again, ruffling his wings, ready to fly. He wheeled up to a specially made, lowered pulpit, set his big Bible on it, and then gaffed our attention with those eyes.

"I would that you were either cold or hot," he began, and I recognized the voice I heard on the telephone, a coa.r.s.e, ragged, booming voice you didn't trifle with, slurring the words. "But since you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth!"

"Amen," they said. "That's right."

"The axe is already laid to the roots, and every plant that does not bear fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire!"

"Save us, Lord! Amen."

"I looked throughout the nation for a righteous man, and I found none! There was none righteous, no, not one, and my anger was kindled against my people and it repented me that I had made them and set them on a hill, but woe to them, for now that hill will be brought low!"

"Amen!"

"So come out, my people! Come out from among them and be ye separate, for great is their destruction, and their destruction is nigh at hand, and the smoke of their destruction shall go up like the smoke of a furnace forever and ever!"

The locomotive started rolling, leaving the station, gaining speed . . .

"Our nation is ripe for judgment!"

"Amen!"

"Our towns and our cities are ripe for judgment!"

"Amen!"

"The church is ripe for judgment!"

"Yes!"

"And you are ripe for judgment!"

"Amen! That's right!"

"Did you hear me? I said you are ripe for judgment!"

"Lord save us!"

"You are ripe for judgment!"

"Amen!"

"I said YOU are ripe for judgment!"