Ransom (14 page)

“It’s supposed to be better,” Marilee said. Once again an expression of anxiety passed over her.

“Well, you guys enjoy the show, we’re on in five minutes,” I said, attempting to regain control of the situation. Marilee and Jax glanced over at Gab and me, as if they had just remembered that we were still there. They smiled in tandem.
 

“Sorry, yeah we better get off the stage unless we want to be the main act,” Jax said with a low chuckle. Marilee flushed bright red, clearly realizing that she had overstayed her welcome.

“Thanks Gabriel, I really appreciate you seeing Jax and…” Her voice trailed off. She chewed her bottom lip before saying. “Do you think it worked?”
 

Gabriel’s face lit up like a miniature cherub. He was obviously amused by her question. It wasn’t common for people to have anything other than an unwavering belief in Gabriel’s abilities; most people relied on blind faith.

Gabriel nodded and smiled a little wider. Marilee returned his grin with one of her own, and the beauty of it made me shiver. The couple clasped hands and turned to leave, but before they had walked a few feet away Jax paused and turned around one more time toward us.

“This really means a lot to me man,” he said in a hoarse whisper that was filled with emotion. “We’ve had a rough road, but I think that things are finally looking up.”
 

Marilee locked on Jax, tilting her head to the side in a gesture that said she was surprised by his words. Gabriel smiled in his quiet knowing way, then nodded one more time. It obviously was enough because the two moved out of my line of sight. Unlike most people who came for a healing I was actually rooting for them. I had seen their love in the way they looked at one another, and though I knew I would never have that kind of thing in my life, it was nice to witness it.

 
As soon as they were off the stage, I shifted back into business mode. As the saying went, the show had to go on. And since we had two shows booked for the day, having everything go smooth and on schedule was even more important. Not to mention that if there were any glitches, no matter if they were my fault or not, Pa would see that I paid for them. Gabriel dabbed at his forehead with a white cotton handkerchief that he always kept in his pocket. After he had wiped away all traces of perspiration, he neatly folded the cloth and slipped it back away.
 

There was tension between us. We’d had another fight the evening before. I didn’t know if it was because he was well into the throes of puberty or something else, but lately Gabriel had been determined to defy Pa whenever he could. I hated to admit that he was acting more like me with every passing day. Whether he knew it or not, Gabriel was playing with fire when it came to Pa.
 

Sure Pa had left him alone throughout the years, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t change. If there was anything you could count on with Pa, it was his ability to surprise you. Gabriel had been lucky so far, but based on some of the glowers Pa had shot Gab’s way, that could change soon. If that happened my hand would be forced and how that all shook out was anyones guess.

I glanced out at the few thousand people that surrounded the temporary stage. The energy in the air was frenetic as people pressed in too close, everyone wanting a piece of Gabriel. They reminded me of vultures attacking roadkill. It made me all the more adamant to protect him. The song
Amazing Grace
blared from the speakers that were positioned on the lighting bars over our heads. That was the cue that said Gabriel was about to start the show. There were cheers and whoops of excitement in anticipation of the boy wonders arrival. Soon, what I had already considered too much energy, heighten to a feverish need to be amazed. All I could do was hope that Pa had held up his end of the deal, and had ensured that there was adequate security to control the crowd.

Before Gabriel had become a household name, added security hadn’t been necessary. But after Pa’s nauseating PR campaign, where he had shamelessly lied about Gabriel’s abilities, making him seem as if he was the second coming, the crowds had multiplied to unimaginable proportions. It only escalated my fears that something was bound to go wrong. I shook my head, the last thing I needed was to be distracted by possibilities, I had to deal with what was right in front of me; Gabriel, and the show ahead.

When the music lowered all the voices that had been raised in excitement seconds before, lowered until only the wind whistling through the fields was audible. A thin winding road that ran alongside the field was the only sign that anything other than farmland existed in this part of the country. I stared up at the sky, hoping for a rain cloud to form over us that would give Gabriel
 
a touch of reprieve from the unrelenting sun and heat that he so needed. But all I saw was a sea of cerulean blue.
 

As with every other show, I was dressed in loose black cotton pants and a thin white long-sleeved shirt, clothes that usually kept me relatively cool in the searing heat. Unfortunately with the oppressive humidity and wide open space, sweat was already trickling down the small of my back, soaking through my once clean shirt. In my estimation it must have been at least one-hundred-degrees in the sprawling wheat fields. I hadn’t expected the climate to be this sultry, since we were supposedly already well into the fall.
 

Gabriel, who was made even tinier by the sheer number of people that crowded around the stage, strode out. All semblance of his arthritis was lost in his confident gait. It never ceased to amaze me how at home he was in front of the crowd, that hollered his name in a frenzy as if he was a rock star.

Seeing his swagger and the aura that said he had been born to be in front of the world, made it easy to forget that he was a skinny pubescent boy. He gripped the cordless microphone in his thin fingers expertly. He had donned his wide brimmed golden straw hat, but wisps of his platinum white hair had managed to sneak beneath it and were fluttering softly in the almost non-existent breeze. In contrast to me, who turned russet brown after just a few minutes in the sunlight, Gabriel never seemed to get colored by the sun. From the outside we looked no more like brothers than a cat and dog did, but even cats and dogs could find a common ground, and grow to love each other.
 

 
I ran a hand through my sweat drenched hair, stunned at how easily Gabriel coped with the Southern heat. I pulled my gaze from him, back to the crowd that had grown rowdy again. Nervous agitation had me shifting from foot to foot like a boxer ready for a fight. The glaring truth was that the crowd was too big for the handful of local security guards that Pa had hired.

 
Always trying to cut corners, Pa only kept two regular security guards on staff, reasoning that he didn’t want to have to feed people when there was so much down time between shows and traveling to venues. His cost cutting method had worked so far, but with Gab’s increased popularity it was no longer sensible. I had never agreed with Pa’s rationale anyway because with a shortage of staff familiar with the set-up and the crowds, I always felt like we were playing Russian Roulette. Most times you spun and didn’t get the bullet, but there was always a chance you would, and if you did you died.
 

Gabriel was upbeat and lively. I marveled how he never seemed to tire of the multitude of people that stepped into his life, with their hands out for anything he could give them. It was exhausting to watch him do his
work
.

“You sir,” Gabriel said in his soft voice that carried deep into the sweltering air. Gabriel pointed at a middle-aged man wearing a navy ball cap, and overalls, over a dirty sweat-stained once white tank top. The man, obviously a farmer, was the color of hazelnuts from prolonged exposure to the sun. He held a boy of about five in his arms. Even from a distance the hearing aids in the boy’s ears were visible.

The man, realizing that he had been singled out, looked positively thrilled. His rapt expression said he was certain that Gabriel would be able to heal the boy’s deafness. The kid didn’t share his father’s enthusiasm and clung to his father’s neck like a burdock in hair. They mounted the rickety stairs that were positioned off to the side of the platform. I held my breath, hoping that they wouldn’t give way since the stage was another thing that was long past due for an upgrade. Moments later, the father with his son held firmly in his grasp, strode across the stage.

Gabriel, as he had done thousands of times before, reached for his would-be patient. The boy, who was still uncertain, buried his face in the crook of his father’s neck.

“Remove the hearing aids,” Gabriel said in a voice that held both kindness but also an undercurrent of power. The man nodded, plucking the hearing aids from his child’s ears. The crowd pushed in even closer until the platform gave a shrieking squeal, loud enough that they retreated back a little. My heart was already pounding in my throat. I was a hairsbreadth away from grabbing Gabriel and getting the hell out of there. Right then I didn’t care about the people that had paid money to see the faith healing boy wonder. All I cared about was protecting my little brother.

The farmer slipped the hearing aids into the pocket of his overalls then used sign language to communicate with his son. Whatever he said convinced the kid that it was safe to turn around and face Gabriel. Gabriel placed his tapered fingers over the child’s ears and an audible gasp came from the crowd. I knew they all believed that they were about to see a miracle. I almost pitied them.
 

Gabriel tilted his face up toward the sun and when he did his skin was bathed in a healthy glow that he normally lacked. I was certain that to anyone in the fields he surely resembled a cherub that had fallen from the Heavens. At Gabriel’s touch the boy grinned wide, showcasing his gapped-tooth smile.

Gabriel spoke unintelligible words, something he usually did when he was in the midst of a
healing
. He opened his mouth as if he was swallowing down the sunlight that was casting its warm fingers over him. After a few minutes he brought his face in line with the boy’s gaze. With his face shadowed by his straw hat, his sallow almost sickly complexion returned.

“Speak,” Gabriel whispered.

“Hello,” the child said in the flat tone of someone who couldn’t detect the cadence of his own voice.

“Can you hear me?” Gabriel said into the microphone.
 

As rehearsed, the boy nodded. There was no denying that Gabriel had gifts, things that he could do that had no reasonable explanation, but over the years they had been sporadic and unpredictable. To ensure that the crowds got their moneys worth, Pa had decided to even the odds, planting a fake
healing
in every show
.
That meant that any other special occurrences that did or didn’t happen, no longer mattered. Gabriel was free to do as he pleased. It was an old trick that people had used in shows for years and mostly worked.
 

At first Gabriel had gone along with the ruse without issue, but lately with his new found resistance he had questioned the honesty of the act. It was just one more problem that had accompanied the unwelcome shifts in behavior that were occurring on a regular basis with him.

A sudden whoop went up from the crowd and they pushed in again. At that exact moment Gabriel glanced over at me. When he did, despite the heat, a wintry chill settled in my bones. I knew that look. It meant that something was about to happen, and from his panicked expression it wasn’t going to be good.

“Get off the stage,” he bellowed, so loudly that feedback screeched over the speakers. Gab’s voice had lost all of it’s calm. The absolute terror was almost palpable in every syllable. The man, his eyes the size of dinner plates, hitched his son on his hip and pelted toward the stairs. Frozen in place, I watched mutely as he almost lost his footing half way down, thankfully he and his son managed to get to the bottom unharmed.
 

“Run,” Gabriel screamed, spinning toward me.
 

His tone was so filled with horror that it made the blood in my veins go to sludge. Gab moved toward me with speed that didn’t seemed possible for a kid with arthritis and restrictive braces on both legs. As soon as he reached me, he shoved me with the full force of his body. It was enough to unbalance me. I stumbled back several feet, pinwheeling my arms as I did. I fell hard on the rough wooden floor. When I tried to stand up I realized that my shoe had gotten caught under a speaker, preventing me from getting back on my feet. By the time I had freed my foot, the platform that I had just been standing on started to give way. Then everything seemed to go in slow motion.
 

I leapt up with my arms outstretched, trying to grab Gabriel. Before I was even fully erect I saw everything shift under him, his body juddered and the boards where he stood began to curl in around him. As if in response to my unspoken desperation, I heard cracks and loud pops. Another creak, much louder then before, ripped through the air.

Gabriel reached his arms out to his sides in the pose of the last crucifixion. He threw his face up to the sky overhead. I could tell from the knowing expression on his placid face that he was well aware that I was never going to make it to him. Without me to scoop him up and away he was about to be lost. It was all happening too fast for me to catch up.

“Gabriel,” I bellowed, as if saying his name might float him away from the moment that was ready to take him away from me forever. Then the boards beneath his feet gave way, and I saw his face go blank. Though I was still in motion, a feeling of hopelessness encased me. I knew with sickening clarity that there was nothing I could do to save him.

By the time I had said his name a second time, he had disappeared from my view, lost in the black hole that had once been a stage. Rotting wood and debris filled in the gapping crevasse where Gabriel had stood, pretending to heal a boy just moments before. All I could think was that it couldn’t be happening because how could everything in my life have shifted into chaos in a fraction of a second?