The Visitation (51 page)

She said her number and Kyle tapped it in.

“Tell Meg and Charlie we’re taking Sally to the clinic and to meet us there. Tell them to bring some friends. And then call 911 and tell them we’re transporting a beating victim to the clinic— and you can tell them we’re being escorted by Officer Brett Henchle.” Then I prayed out loud, “And Lord, please help us.”

I caught Sally’s eye in the mirror. “Don’t worry, Sally. I’m not stopping, not for anybody.”

B
RETT TURNED ON
his siren. My heart was pounding and I felt guilty—hey, I was disobeying an officer—but I kept going, driving under the speed limit. Sally whimpered and cowered in the back seat, her hood over her face.

“Lord God, send your angels to help us!” Kyle prayed aloud, and then said into the cell phone, “Hello, Mrs. Fordyce?” He was too excited to talk slowly. He had to keep repeating himself. “We’re on our way now. We’re on our way into town. No, we’re on the highway
west
of town, going
into
town. No, Sally’s in the car with us. She’s in
our
car. We’re going to the clinic. No, the
clinic
.”

I could see Henchle through his windshield, talking on his radio. I rolled down my window and signaled with my arm for him to come alongside. He gunned his big engine and pulled up beside us, rolling his window down.

“Pull the car over, Travis!” he hollered, jabbing the air with his finger.

“We’re transporting an injury victim to the clinic!”

“
Pull the car over!”

In my right ear, Kyle was talking to the 911 dispatcher. “We’re inbound on the highway west of town. Yeah, that’s right. Officer Henchle is—well, he’s right beside us at the moment.”

Henchle shouted over the roar of our engines, our tires, and the wind, “Stop and we’ll transfer the victim to my vehicle!”

“She can’t be moved!” Well, it was going to be the truth as far as I could help it.

“Pull over—” And then he swore, hitting his brakes, ducking his car behind us just in time to avoid an oncoming semi.

“This could get hazardous,” I said, slowing down to thirty. We were approaching the edge of town.

“Now the
dispatcher’s
telling us to stop,” Kyle reported. Then he told the dispatcher, “Why don’t we just all meet at the clinic?

Huh? Well, could you call Officer Henchle and explain our situation? And tell him he doesn’t need to be sounding that stupid siren. What?” He listened, then told me, “Henchle’s called for a backup. Rod Stanton’s going to block the road into town.”

“I see him,” I replied.

Rod’s squad car was parked along the highway at the western edge of town, but something was a little odd. Cars were slowing in our lane, brake lights shining, and there were people standing in the street and gathering on either side. I gathered we weren’t the only show in town. I slowed.

“Oh no,” I said.

“Oh no,” Kyle echoed.

“What?” said Sally, leaning forward between the front seats.

There was another Jesus standing in the middle of the highway, a long-haired, bearded man in white robe and sandals. He was blond, and I could imagine him being a yoga-humming, yogurt-eating surfer in California before coming to Antioch to try the messiah game. He appeared to have a whip in his hand and he was flailing each car as it passed, hollering and preach-pointing with his free hand. The first car passed him by, and then the next. The third stopped to listen and I could see the passengers snapping pictures through the closed windows. I was coming up behind them.

Stuck between False Christ Number Two and a cop! I couldn’t stop with Henchle after me, but the right lane wasn’t moving. A car came by us in the opposing lane, and then I pulled around, hoping to get by.

This latest Jesus put out his hand and stood right in front of me, ranting and raving about something.

“What’s he saying?” Sally asked.

I rolled down my window. Brett Henchle was pulling up right behind me, his siren still blaring.

“Can we get through here, please?” I shouted, and I didn’t sound nice. By now I had a real gripe against false christs messing up my life.

This one approached my window, whip in hand. “No motor vehicles, sir! Thou shalt not pollute the air, a gift from the Father’s own hand!”

“We have to get to the clinic!”

“It is written, my town shall be a house of prayer for all nations, but you have turned it into a garbage dump!”

“This isn’t your town, bub!”

“I’ll get him to move,” said Kyle, opening his door.

“What?” I said, but it was too late to stop him.

“Extinguish your engine, my beloved,” said the christ, “and partake of the clean air God has—”

“Excuse me!” said Kyle, coming around the front of my car.

The phony Jesus brandished his whip as if defending himself. “Touch me not!”

Brett Henchle cut his siren and got out of his car.

Kyle held out a dollar. “See this here?”

“You would bribe the holy one of Israel?”

Some pilgrims were moving closer, cameras ready. A woman in pink shorts and a plastic sunhat touched him, stood there a moment, then turned to walk back to her friends. “I didn’t feel anything,” she reported.

Kyle held the dollar out, coaxing the christ toward the left side of the road. “Whose face is this, and whose inscription?”

The christ took the dollar and looked at it. “George Washington.”

“You’re standing in George’s road, did you know that?”

The christ looked down at George’s pavement.

“Render unto George the things that are George’s . . .”

“Can I keep this dollar?” the christ asked.

“Okay, hold it,” said Brett Henchle, striding from his car, pushing through the pilgrims, his club ready.

But a woman in a biblical outfit got there first, embracing the christ. “Son! My beloved son!”

The christ looked baffled. “Who are you?”

She stepped back and gave him the classic
mother
look, her hands on her hips. “I happen to be your mother!”

Wow. Another one.

Brett was getting close.

“You’d better go,” Kyle told me.

I knew Kyle was sacrificing himself. I gave him a nod of thanks and eased forward through the gathering bodies.

“Travis! Don’t you leave!” Brett warned, pointing his night stick at me.

I hollered out my window, “Just meet me at the clinic!” and kept going.

In my mirror I saw a four-way spat going between Brett Henchle, Kyle, the christ, and his long-lost mother. Then Rod joined up and they had a five-way going. Antioch was definitely an exciting place to visit.

I reached the clinic in two minutes. Charlie and Meg Fordyce were already there and took Sally inside. They’d gotten the word around. Morgan Elliott was also there, along with Jim Baylor, Joe and Emily Kelmer, and Bruce Hiddle. They all saw Sally’s condition before her parents hurried her through the door, and now they gathered around me.

“Don’t worry about a thing, Travis,” said Joe.

Morgan put one arm around me, gave me a quick hug, and let go.

“We’ll see whose side old Henchle’s on,” said Jim.

Brett Henchle screeched to a halt right beside my car and almost fell out, he was so upset. “Travis—” Then he regarded the others standing around me and balked a little. “Now folks, I wouldn’t recommend getting involved in this.”

“Come into the clinic and have a look at Sally,” I said.

“First I’m taking you in!”

“No you’re not,” said Joe. “He was transporting an injury victim. It was an emergency.”

“I’ll be the judge of that!”

Rod Stanton drove into the parking lot of the clinic with Kyle sitting in the back of his squad car.

Brett nodded toward his backup and said, “It’s over, folks. Now unless you all want to be arrested, you’ll stand aside and let me do my duty.”

“I think you’d better take a look at
Sally
and do your duty!” Jim demanded.

“Let’s do it,” said Rod.

Brett jerked his head around and glared at his deputy. “
I’m
giving the orders here, deputy!” Then he noticed Kyle wasn’t handcuffed. “Where are his cuffs?”

“He’s not under arrest.” It wasn’t just a statement of fact. It was an act of defiance, and I could tell Rod knew it. “He hasn’t done anything wrong, and besides that, he helped me quell that second Jesus situation.”

“Nobody’s getting arrested here today,” said Joe.

“Unless it’s Mr. Brandon, the home wrecker and lover beater!” said Jim, jabbing his finger toward the ranch.

“Brett,” I said, “I’m hoping your loyalty is still to the law and to this community. If so, I’m sure you can understand my not stopping—”

“You resisted an officer, Travis! You resisted an officer, fled an officer, disobeyed an officer, acted like a jerk, made an officer
look
like a jerk . . .”

“Don’t give us that ‘officer’ business!” said Kyle. “You’re not an officer of the law—you’re an officer for Brandon Nichols and you know it!”

Brett turned deliberately and put his hand on his gun. “You want to say that again?”

Bruce interceded. “Officer, I think Kyle is asking you to clarify where your loyalties lie: with the law, and justice, and the good of this community, or with Brandon Nichols. Just who’s calling the shots here?”

Brett just stood there, stuck.

Rod tapped Brett’s arm with the back of his fingers. “C’mon. Let’s talk to Sally and take it from there.”

For an agonizing moment, the only sound was Brett’s labored, angry breathing.

Finally, abruptly, Brett started toward the door of the clinic, but not without barking a few “last word” orders. “I want this parking lot cleared! If you’ve no business here, then clear out! Now!”

I tagged Kyle and Morgan. “Let’s get to a phone.”

I HELD THE RECEIVER
to my ear and dialed the number I got from information. “Come on, now, time’s getting tight.”

I was sitting in Morgan’s office at the Methodist church. Morgan and Kyle were sitting in the church office behind the foyer, listening in on a speakerphone, its microphone muted. We all listened as the telephone rang at the other end once, twice, three times, four times— “Hello?” The voice sounded grumpy, gravelly, and a little slurred.

“Hello, is this the Cantwell residence?”

“Yeah, who’s this?” The man could have been drunk. It was hard to understand him.

“Hello, I’m Travis Jordan. I live in Antioch, Washington. I suppose you’ve read about us in the papers—”

“No.”

“Oh. Well, I’m calling to speak to Lois Cantwell.”

“She’s not home right now.” This guy could never get a job telephone soliciting, that was for sure. He could get a job
discouraging
solicitors.

“Well then, is this Reverend Ernest Cantwell?”

“Yeah, who’s this?”

I told him who I was again. “I think we might have a mutual acquaintance. Would you by any chance have a son named Justin?”

There was silence at the other end, but I could hear a labored breathing.

“Are you there?”

“I don’t have a son named Justin, no.”

“Any relation at all named Justin?”

“No.”

“Do you have a son?”

“No!” The tone of his voice told me otherwise.

“Well . . . I happen to know a Justin Cantwell who hails from Nechville, Texas, and has a mother named Lois.”

“I don’t know any Lois, either.”

Oh? “Uh, excuse me, sir, but you just told me Lois wasn’t home right now. I’m calling a number listed under both your names, Ernest and Lois Cantwell.”

“Don’t call this number again!”

Click.

I hung up and sat back to wait for Kyle and Morgan to journey through the church sanctuary and join me. As they entered the office, I looked up at them for their reaction.

Morgan shrugged a little. “I guess I’m not surprised.”

Kyle patted his pockets symbolically. “Anybody got change for airfare?”

“I could sell my mother’s old watch,” Morgan quipped.

“
GILDY!”

The scream rattled the house and made Gildy Holliday jump in her seat. She was already nervous and frightened. She’d been working at the quaint desk just off the kitchen, writing checks to pay the help and compiling a grocery list, when she heard the crashes, tinkles, and rips coming from the guest room. That was Nichols’s room now. He’d decided the main house was more to his liking than the guest cottage, the big kitchen more practical for his parties, the larger, more elegant guest bedroom more conducive to his romantic flings.

But the arrangement also put him under the same roof as Gildy with no walls or bars between them. She didn’t answer him, but clicked off her computer, threw the corporate checkbook into a drawer, and grabbed her coat. It was time to get out of there.

Brandon Nichols was moving through the house like a man possessed, his footsteps quick and pounding, his breath chugging. She headed for the back door— He was there, his eyes like those of a stalking panther, his hair dangling like black lightning bolts across his brow. He moved toward her.

She ran behind her desk to keep it between them.

“Call Brett Henchle!” The voice was low and sinister. “My room’s been vandalized!”

She picked up the telephone receiver on her desk but hesitated to dial, staring at him.

His eyes were darting about the room as if watching a swarm of tiny, invisible demons. “Torn up! Broken! Everything a disaster, a
disaster!”
He noticed she hadn’t dialed. “Well,
call them!
Somebody’s been here! It’s a senseless, despicable act of hatred! We have enemies, Gildy! They’re trying to destroy us!” He stopped in the middle of the room, wiping drool from his mouth with the back of his hand. “Trying to destroy us. Hate. It’s everywhere, all around. Notify the staff! We’re going to heighten security tonight! No one comes or goes. We’re locking the place down.”

“I’ll tell them,” she said weakly, still holding the receiver but not calling.

Now he seemed dazed by his own anger, scanning the room, slowly turning as if searching. “That bedroom is swimming with evil. It’s crawling. It’s alive. I can’t sleep there anymore.”