Trial by Fire (25 page)

B
y Wednesday morning Nick knew the meaning of “praying without ceasing.” He didn't remember if he had slept or not last night, for he'd spent so many hours praying for Issie. He was beginning to despair of ever seeing her again, and he felt sure she had never come to know the Lord. He considered it his own personal failure. He would never see it as anything less.

When Mark and Dan and some of the other elders of the church came to get him so that they could set up chairs on Aunt Aggie's lawn for that night's service, he didn't have the energy to go. But reluctantly, he allowed them to take him to the old woman's house. Aunt Aggie seemed as distraught as he at Issie's plight, and hadn't been able to cook for the firemen since Issie disappeared.

When all was done, he found himself alone with Dan. “How do you feel, Nick?” his friend asked. “If you can't preach tonight, somebody else can do it.”

“No,” Nick said. “I can't stand up in front of these people and tell them everything is going to be all right. All my preaching about suffering purifying the church…I don't care if it purifies the church. I don't care if it purifies me. I just want Issie to be found, and I don't understand why she hasn't been.”

Dan sat down across from him and stared out into the breeze. “I wish I knew what to say, buddy. Some way to help.”

“If it was me who had to suffer,” Nick said, “I'd do it gladly. And the church…if God's trying to purify us…okay, we prayed for revival. But Issie's not one of us. She doesn't even know where to turn.” He got up and looked down at Dan. “What if she died not knowing the Lord? What if I had all those opportunities to tell her and I never made her understand?”

“Nick, you did tell her,” Dan said. “You told her so many times you probably can't even count them. She wouldn't listen.”

“She
couldn't
listen,” Nick said. “She just didn't have the ears to hear.”

“Who has to give her those ears?” Dan asked. “You?”

Nick shook his head. “No. I know only the Holy Spirit can do that.”

“Then why are you beating yourself up, man?”

“You make it sound like it's simple,” Nick said, “like all I need is a little assurance to soothe my conscience, then just wash my hands of her and forget she ever existed. But I can't forget! She might still be alive. And I don't know where she is!”

Dan looked down at his feet. “I've been praying for her day and night, Nick. I know you don't believe that. You think we have some kind of vendetta against Issie. But I've worked with her for years and I feel pretty close to her. I don't want to think anything happened to her. I'm still hoping for the best. Issie's tough. Don't forget that.”

“Yeah, real tough,” Nick said wryly. No one knew how vulnerable she really was. For some reason, she had only revealed that to him.

He looked at the men across the lawn from him, still setting up chairs. “Tonight after the service I'm going to give them my letter of resignation again, Dan. And this time I'm not going to take no for an answer.”

“No, Nick!” Dan said. “You need time. You
can't
do that!”

“Watch me,” Nick said.

I
ssie didn't know how long she'd been here now, but if she was guessing right, it had been three days. She had seen daylight come and go, had tried to mark the dark hours, but the days were running together and her hope was running out.

Her body ached with the effort of lying still in this cramped position, her bruises and gashes were sore to the touch, and she was almost out of water despite her efforts to ration out her drinks. Her hands had been shaking so badly today that she had spilled half of what was left. She only had a little water left.

Her head throbbed and her joints felt as if they had been pulled apart. She was having chills and knew that she must have fever, for even in October it was still warm enough that she should have been sweltering in the trunk.

She tried to peek out where she had pulled the rubber back, but the building was dark and she couldn't tell whether it was late afternoon or evening. If it indeed was Wednesday, then this was the day that Cruz and his evil friends would be dispersing around Aunt Aggie's property, aiming their guns at the congregation of Nick's church. She wondered how many would die.

She closed her eyes and began to pray, knowing that she was probably never going to get out of this trunk in time to stop the madness. But God knew where they were. He knew what they were doing. Would he allow the shooting to proceed?

She thought of Nick's sermon Sunday about how suffering sometimes brought revival, how tragedy purified the church and made it more vibrant and alive. It had made no sense to her then. Now she wondered if it would work that way. Was God going to allow evil to have its day? Was he going to put these people through suffering that they'd never experienced before? Could they endure it?

She thought back on the shooting that had happened at a Fort Worth church not that long ago, and recalled the article she had read about how that church had become even more effective than they had been before, how it had bonded them more closely to each other and to the Lord, how it had brought them all to their knees and made them turn to prayer as a significant habit of their lives.

Had God used that evil for good? Had it rippled out from that church into the community, reaching people like herself and drawing them in? Could God make good of even this?

She tried to find peace in that hope but still couldn't stop thinking that if she could just make her way out of this place she would be able to go and stop them. She would be able to warn Nick before the first bullet fired.

There had to be other ways to suffer through, to purify a church, she thought. Surely the church burning was enough, and Ben's murder. But then she wasn't God and she didn't know what he knew.

She recalled the words she'd heard so many times but never really in context, not until she'd spent time with Nick. “Thy will be done.” Could one really pray that even on the cusp of tragedy? she asked. Then quickly the answer came.

Yes, trust me.

“I do trust you,” she said, “but please don't take Nick. Please don't take him. They need him.”

She shivered with the chills coursing down her spine and wondered how long it would be before she would drift out of consciousness and into oblivion. She wondered if God would wait a while before taking her to heaven, or if he would come for her immediately.

It didn't matter much. Either way, the next time she opened her eyes she would see Jesus. The thought thrilled her. She couldn't believe it. She had never been that sure of anything before, yet some part of her longed to stay here, to explore what life could have been like if she had embraced it God's way. She'd love to try that again.

“Lord, I'll be the thief on the cross if you want me to,” she said. “I'll be the one who never has the chance to come down and clean up his life. I'll be the one who will see you today in paradise. Or I can get down off this cross and walk back into Newpointe and let you change my life the way Nick says you can. I'll be a walking testimony, the bad girl turned good, the one who couldn't do it on her own but who finally figured out she didn't have to.”

Either way was okay with her. God's hand was on her life now, and it was on her eternity. For the first time in her life she felt the peace of knowing that everything would be all right, however it turned out.

T
he congregation started arriving for prayer meeting at five Wednesday afternoon. Aunt Aggie, still disturbed about Issie's disappearance, had not made her characteristic smorgasbord. But members brought covered dishes which they set up on rented tables.

They milled around the grounds as they ate and fellowshiped, none of them aware that their gathering made them prey for the hunters waiting to take them down.

 

F
rom her state of half-consciousness, Issie Mattreaux thought she heard the sound of a car. She tried to peer out the little slit she had created by pulling the rubber away from the trunk, but all she saw was the daylight peeking through dirty boards in the building.

She told herself that she needed to cry out, needed to kick on the trunk and beat the top of it and scream so that someone would hear her. But she had so little energy left.

She kept her face on the carpet beneath her. She had to find the energy to cry out, she thought. She had to make some noise. She groaned, tried to make herself heard, but her throat was dry and it barely croaked out.

She hit the trunk with her fist, kicked against the metal. “Help!” she managed to get out. “Somebody help me!”

She heard a car door slam, then the doors to the small building were opened. Cruz, she thought. He was back, probably to speed her death.

Any minute now he would open the trunk and torture her a little more, dangle freedom in her face, then slam the door shut again.

She heard him doing something to the car, then heard the sound of water running. After a moment, the trunk opened. Blinded by the sudden burst of light through the open doors, Issie tried to raise up, but was too weak.

Just as she suspected, Cruz stood over her.

“Not dead yet, huh?” he asked. He saw the empty two-liter bottle lying next to her and pulled it out. “Where'd you get this?”

Her lips were cracked and parched. She just looked at him. The acrid smell of gasoline rose on the stagnant air. He leaned over the trunk and looked Issie in the face. “Have you ever thought of hell, Issie?” he asked.

Her mind raced for an escape. If she could grab him by the throat, pull him down, pull herself out of this trunk, maybe she could get away.

“Cause in a few minutes,” he said, “just a very few minutes, this car is gonna be on fire, and you're gon' be in the middle of hell. And then me and my friends, we're gon' go to where Nick Foster and his church are meetin', and we're gon' blow them all away. Most of them are already there, in place.”

She reached up, tried to grab his collar, but he knocked her hand free.

Come on, Issie,
she told herself.
Get up. You can do it.

She reached up again, this time clawing his face. With as much adrenaline as she could summon, she threw herself up and tried to bolt out, but his fist came down across her face, reopening the gash on her cheek and knocking her back in.

The back of her head hit against the rim of the trunk, and she screamed out in pain. Before she knew it, he had her back in the trunk and darkness closed over her again.

The smell of gasoline fumes made her nauseous and she gagged, but there was nothing in her stomach to throw up. Had he doused the car with fuel? she wondered, panicked. Was he about to set her on fire? Was it almost over?

The words kept dancing through her mind as the pain in her head overtook her.
Today you will be with me in paradise.
The words gave her a strange comfort, and she let herself slip away.

C
ruz parked in the designated area where they had decided to leave their getaway cars. They had a plan to use pipe bombs to distract attention so they could get away, so he'd stuffed two into his pockets and pants legs, so he would be able to toss them when he was ready. As he got out of his car and headed through the woods that would come out at Aunt Aggie's property, he felt the thrill of knowing that soon his plans would pay off.

He got to the edge of the property and saw that Jennifer was already in place behind a cypress tree. He looked across the dip in Aggie's land for Harris and Graham on the other side.

They were ready.

From his position, he tried to see around the tree. He saw a plume of smoke drifting above the sky and knew that that was the old stable he had set on fire. The whole structure would go—from the wall he'd doused with gasoline, to the other old, brittle walls—and eventually the car would catch the flames. She was probably dead by now. Nothing was going to stop them now.

He checked his rifle, which one of his disciples had stolen from his father's gun cabinet. Satisfied that it was ready to go, he waited until the right moment.

T
he crowd milled toward their seats as Jesse Pruitt started playing his harmonica at the front of the assembly, leading them all in a chorus of “Blessed Be the Name of the Lord.”

Nick's head throbbed with the ache of urgency as he walked to the back of the congregation and sat down. His people filled in around him, and as they did, he pulled his letter of resignation out of his pocket and quickly read over it again.

He hoped they wouldn't be too hurt by this. They'd had enough loss lately. But God was doing things in his life that he didn't understand. He didn't know how to work around them or through them. All he could do was follow what God wanted, and right now it looked as if he wanted him out of ministry.

As his congregation sang praise songs to the Savior, Nick's soul felt heavier than it had ever felt. He cried out in his heart to God, praying that he would lead him to Issie, that somehow she would be okay, that in spite of all the odds and all the fears and dreads that had coursed through him, that somehow God would bring her through this.

Are you still listening, Lord?
The question came from an honest quadrant of his heart, pleading for an answer.

Then suddenly he opened his eyes and lifted them up to the heavens, and he saw a plume of smoke coming from somewhere miles away, over the trees. He got slowly to his feet.

He wondered if the fire department had been called. He tried to think where that smoke might be coming from, and realized there was nothing in that area but woods. Maybe someone had left a campfire, or a hunter was making his meal…Or maybe after the dry summer they'd had, a spark had caught into a giant conflagration. Or maybe…just maybe…

Someone was in trouble.

Issie!
He knocked his chair over with a crash, leapt over it, and bolted toward Aunt Aggie's house. He pushed past her on the porch and headed inside.

“Where you goin',
sha?”
Aunt Aggie asked, following him inside. “T-Nick!”

“I saw smoke,” he said. “There must be a fire back up in the woods.”

He picked up the phone and dialed the number for the station. Junior Reynolds picked up the phone. “Midtown Station.”

“Junior, there's a fire over on the northeast corner of Newpointe, back up in the woods, probably near Hamp Carlson's deer camp. Have you had any calls?”

“No,” Junior said, “none at all. Does it look bad?”

“Not yet,” he said, “but we gotta get over there before the whole forest catches. And I'm thinkin' that maybe it's where Issie is.”

He hung up the phone and hurried back out to his car. He didn't even notice the attention he caught as he jumped in and skidded away.

In seconds, he heard the sirens coming behind him. If only he could find the smoke, maybe it would lead him to Issie.