Rory Buchan swung his rusty green VW Golf into the motel parking lot, the pink neon of the ship-shaped sign reflecting in his windshield. There were plenty of places to park, and he found Room 12 easily. He knocked. He was wearing a fringed suede jacket and a cowboy hat because of the chill, but the fresh air smelled good to him after hours in the studio.
The door was opened by a man wearing a sweatshirt, jeans and a ski mask, who put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him in. Rory almost pulled away. He didn't like the ski mask. The room was stuffy, a lot like the studio.
"You're Rory Buchan?" the man asked when the door was shut. He was about Rory's height, but leaner. He looked like he worked out. His mask was black with red stitching.
He gestured to three other men, also in ski masks, who sat on the bed and two of the three chairs.
"I wish I could introduce you, Brother Rory," he said, "because you're never going to meet a finer bunch of Christian guys than these right here. But we're keeping our identities secret for your protection. We do special work under special conditions, and our work depends on absolute secrecy. Maybe you'll decide to join us, and then we'll get acquainted.
"But I can tell you who we are as a group. We're the Hands of God. That's the name of our organization. I'm the spokesman. You can call me Thumb."
"Thumb?" Rory wanted to laugh, but was afraid to.
"Thumb." There was a smile in the voice.
Rory thought the Hands of God looked a little silly, not to mention uncomfortable, in the overheated room. One of them, in a bright red mask, had a finger up under his ear, scratching hard. They all looked fit though.
"Sit down, Rory, so we can talk." Thumb pointed to the empty chair, and Rory sat in it. Thumb sat facing him, on the foot of the bed.
"First of all, let's pray."
Thumb folded his hands, lowered his face and prayed aloud, a prayer rich in "thees" and "thines." Rory noted approvingly that he knew how to use the "-eth" and "-est" suffixes properly. That had been a rare skill for some time.
Voices said, "Amen," and "Yes, Lord."
"Brother Rory," said Thumb when they looked up again, "we have a story to tell you, but first of all we need to hear your own witness. You told me a little on the phone, but it's important that we hear the whole story."
"I'm always glad to tell it," said Rory. "But it's not a nice one."
"We've heard ugly stories before, Brother Rory. And we've seen ugly things."
Rory slipped out of his jacket and put his hat down on the floor. "I come from outside Chicago, but I ran away to Los Angeles pretty young. Its name was still Los Angeles back then, not just L.A. I was a street kid. I hustled, I mugged old ladies and broke into cars and apartments. I was hungry, I was dirty, I was scared all the time, and I was stoned most of the time. It's amazing I still have a brain left, or that I'm alive at all. Most of the kids I knew back then aren't. At one time I thought seriously about male prostitution. If I'd done that I'd be an AIDS statistic today."
Thumb asked, "What about your folks?"
"They looked for me. They registered me with some national Search service. Once I saw my picture on a milk carton, while I was sleeping in a dumpster."
"Why did you run away?"
Rory frowned. "My folks were really conscientious. It was painful to watch them, they were so conscientious. Sometimes when I'd been bad, I'd hear them talking on and on, trying to figure out what kind of discipline wouldn't leave me emotionally scarred. I think the tension of listening to those discussions scarred me emotionally.
"And of course they both had their careers, so they were big on Quality Time. You know what I think of Quality Time?"
"What?"
"I think if you really believe it doesn't matter how much time you spend with your kids, just so long as it's quality time, then you shouldn't worry about letting them stay up past midnight every night either just as long as the sleep they do get is quality sleep."
The Hands of God laughed.
"Then there was the marching. My folks were very sincere environmental activists. And one day they had me marching along with them carrying a little sign they'd made for me that said, 'I Want To Grow Up,' and suddenly I realized what that sign meant, and the next day I hopped a bus to California."
"Then you came to yourself in the far country, like the Prodigal Son?"
"Not exactly." The fellow in the red mask was bothering Rory. He was scratching harder than ever. Watching him made Rory want to scratch too.
"No, the fact is I kind of liked it on the street. It was like skating near the edge. I cast no thought upon the morrow.
"No, what happened first was that I met a girl. She was older than me about eighteen, I guess. It's hard to tell in that world. She used cocaine, but she was young and pretty enough to turn tricks for good money, and somehow she managed to keep independent. She took me into her apartment a little bitty place in a building that went back a couple earthquakes. She probably saved my life, because if it hadn't been for her I probably would have gone into prostitution myself. Her name was Heather, or at least that's what she told me. She was always glad to see me when she came home, and she fed me her idea of a meal might be jellybeans on a taco shell or peanut butter and cabbage sandwiches and I loved her. She didn't make demands. It's funny, because if you asked me what she was like I couldn't tell you. She never gave an opinion about anything that I can remember. I wish I knew what had happened to her in her past. I wish I could have told her what I know now."
Rory paused and glanced at the scratcher. The man looked frantic, and Rory wished he'd take the mask off or leave the room or something before blood started coming.
Who were these guys anyway? Ski masks, for pete's sake. They could be first cousins to the Klan, or frat boys down from the Cities to embarrass a fanatic.
"You want a soda or something?" Thumb asked. Rory said thanks, and felt a little more comfortable. He now knew that Thumb was not a Minnesotan. Minnesotans say "pop" a soda to them is a fountain drink with ice cream. Somebody got a cola from a cooler and handed it to him. He said thanks again and drank.
"So what happened?" Thumb asked.
"When I say I loved Heather, I don't mean we were regular lovers. OK, she took me to bed sometimes, but more like a stuffed animal than a man.
"But Rowan ended that.
"In that world, there's a whole different power structure. It's not exactly organized crime, although some of them are into that too. But they might just as easily be city councilmen or postgrad students in the straight world. On the Street, though, they're the System.
"There was a guy called Rowan. I never heard him called anything else. He had a lot of juice. He owned some of the police, and he smuggled drugs and ran prostitutes. He scared people bad. They'd look around before mentioning his name. Some people said he was a warlock. And not the kind who mixes herbal potions and chants to Mother Earth. I mean the kind you hear about in stories the kind who sticks pins in dolls, or turns into a wolf, or eats babies. Rowan got lots of respect.
"I remember when a little Puerto Rican kid I knew just stopped showing up one day. I asked around and they said, 'He got Rowan mad.' End of story.
"Anyway, somehow Rowan met Heather, and he liked her, and that was it for her independence.
"That's anarchy. I ran into some prof from the college once, and he told me he was an anarchist, and I said, 'Brother, you don't know what you're talking about. You know what anarchy is? That's where the meanest, baddest headbuster gets whatever he wants. You know who were two of the all-time great anarchists? Hitler and Stalin.
"I'm getting off the story. One day Heather came back to the apartment with two bodybuilders in warmup suits. She looked at me and said, 'Sorry, Sweetface, the ride's over,' and she packed her toothbrush and they left. She had the saddest look on her face."
"What did you do?"
"What do you do when you're fourteen years old and in love for the first time? You make a fool of yourself and get people hurt.
"A junky who was too far gone to know what he was saying told me where Rowan's ranch was. I cleaned up the best I could and hitched up the Coastal Highway. I lived for a week in the woods on the ranch, watching the house. I was used to scrounging. The garbage was good.
"It was quite a place. Stables, vineyards, swimming pool, tennis courts, a private marina. The house was a big redwood thing, poking out over the ocean, hundreds of feet up the kind of place that slides into the sea when the rains get heavy.
"I watched what went on. During the day there was lots of business, with heavy hitters in big cars coming and going, and Rowan's bodybuilders patroling with guns. At night they held ceremonies. I suppose that was the witchcraft part, but it looked like plain orgies to me. Sometimes I spotted Heather through the windows. I couldn't come up with a plan to get her out of there. It was the first time I'd been clean in months, and I spent a lot of time just shivering.
"One night a couple of the bodybuilders caught me going through the garbage. They pulled automatic pistols and locked me in a weight room for the night.
"Next morning they marched me out to the sun deck where Rowan was having his breakfast. He was sitting at an umbrella table in a bathrobe, and there were lots of men and women at tables all around, mostly wearing swimsuits. Heather was at his table, in a bikini, and she acted like she didn't see me. It was a beautiful morning. You could see for miles and miles out on the ocean.
"I can't say how old Rowan was. He looked like he'd reached forty, then stopped, maybe a hundred years ago. He had black eyes, colder than rain in March.
"He said, 'I believe this is your pet, Heather.' She just nodded, not looking at him or me or anybody. Her face was white as cocaine.
"He said to me, 'You've invaded my sanctuary, little urchin. That's not permitted.
"'You understand what I'm saying, little urchin? You understand who I am?
"'Heather, stand up.' She did. She looked beautiful in that morning light, with her blonde hair moving a little in the breeze, and the sky and sea beyond, but it was like a horror movie. Rowan stood up and slapped her face. Then he pointed out to sea.
"Heather walked to the railing, and climbed over, and jumped.
"I screamed and struggled, but the musclemen held me.
"Rowan came close to me and held my face with one hand and shook it back and forth until I stopped crying. He said, 'You go back to your gutter, little urchin, and you tell them what you saw. You tell them that Rowan is the Devil Satan himself and that you play like I say or you don't play at all. Remember to be afraid.' Then he let me go, and the musclemen carried me off and stuffed me in the trunk of a car, and a few hours later they dumped me on a sidewalk in L.A.
"I remembered to be afraid. I snatched a purse and got enough money for a bus ticket to Fort Worth. A soup kitchen preacher led me to Jesus, and I never looked back. Or wanted to."
"What a terrible thing for a kid to have to go through," said Thumb.
"I can't stand it!" the red ski mask cried, and he bolted for the bathroom. Thumb got up to follow him inside.
Rory heard a voice saying, "I told you I'm allergic to wool!"
"I told the guy polyester," Thumb's voice said.
"Look at my face! I look like a piece of steak!"
"Well try splashing some water on it. We'll pray about it later." Thumb came out and looked at Rory. "I guess the masks weren't such a good idea."
"You really need them?" Rory asked.
Thumb sat down. "We're not from around here," he said.
"I figured that."
Thumb took a deep breath. "What would you say if somebody asked you, 'Why doesn't God come down and stop all the bad things in the world?'"
"I don't know. You can't have miracles going all the time. It would be... a kind of anarchy."
Thumb nodded. "That's pretty good. But there's another answer. God is in the world, and He's working all the time. Through His Body. You know what His Body is?"
"The church."
"That's right. All real Christians. 'Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.' 1 Corinthians 12:27. The Bible says we're all parts of Christ's Body eyes, ears, feet and hands and Christ is the Head."
"And you're the hands?"
"We are. Not the only hands He's got, of course. There's all kinds of hands comforting hands, healing hands, building hands. We're the hands that bear the sword."
"I thought Caesar bore the sword."
"Christ also said that he who has no sword should sell his cloak and buy one. Besides, our Caesar's no help.
"Do you believe in Evil, Rory? Not just sad, mistaken people, but foul, hellish wickedness in the world that's got to be stamped out?"
"Yeah, I do. I've seen it."
"That's our calling. We stamp it out. We fight Evil head on. It's not fun, and it can be pretty ugly, and a lot of people just wouldn't understand. That's why we have to work in secret. Someday everything done in secret will be shouted from the rooftops, Luke 12:3, and then everybody'll understand, but for now we've got to keep our light under a bushel."
"And what is it you do, exactly?"
"I'm not sure you're ready for that knowledge, Brother Rory."
"Well, what brought you to Epsom?"
"Things are beginning to happen here. We've had a Word of Knowledge on it, and we know it to be true. You know what a Word of Knowledge is?"
"I guess so."
"You've heard of the Way of the Old Wisdom?"
"That group on the old Tysness farm, out by TrollValley. The girl who inherited it gave it to her cult."
"Right. Well W.O.W. is nothing but a witch cult. They're Satan worshipers, although they probably wouldn't admit it. Now who's gonna protect this community from the infection of these people?"
"You?"
"That's right."
"But you won't say how."
"We can give you a demonstration."
There were no ugly smells in the wolf's world.
There were bad smells smells of things that mustn't be eaten and danger smells, like bear and man. Especially man. But there were no ugly smells. Smells brought precious information, keeping the wolf healthy, keeping it far from danger, deep in the northern woods where the hunting was best and the men fewest.
Its world was an ecstatic symphony of smells, fluent of news around on the breeze, down from the sky, up from the earth. The wolf could see, but paid little attention to sight. Vision was too colorless.
The wolf barely knew it was hungry, for hunger is a wolf's way of life. It had forgotten losing its place as head of the pack, bloodied and run off, yipping, by a young rival. It felt vaguely its loneliness, an incomprehensible thing without a smell.
But hunting alone was hard. And the wolf was slower than it had once been. It had not eaten in more than a week.
All wolves know that beasts easily killed live to the south.
But to the south the man-smell grows stronger.
The wolf was moving south.
There was a wind that blew at its back. Somehow the wolf could not turn its face to that wind.
And there was a smell, somewhere, on that wind too. It was a new smell, but once sniffed not forgotten. It rode deep up inside the doggy brain, entering a chamber till now unreached. It was a new thing almost as if the wolf were the first poet of its race.
And the song of the smell told of the meal of a lifetime, waiting somewhere to the south.
"This isn't the W.O.W. farm," said Rory as Thumb stopped his rented Chevrolet at the end of a long country driveway. The house windows shone like tesserae of gold leaf.
"No, this house belongs to a young woman named Leslie Prill."
"What's she have to do with us?"
"She's a witch."
"Yeah, I heard there was a witch living somewhere out here. She's pretty quiet about it though. Just fortune-telling and spiritual healing, psychic readings, that sort of thing."
"Typhoid Mary was an ordinary, middle-aged woman who worked as a cook. But she carried a germ that killed people."
"Hey, I'm not defending witchcraft. I just don't understand why we're here."
"Why don't you walk up to the house and talk to the lady, Rory?"
"What?"
"Talk to the lady."
"What about?"
"Tell her about Jesus."
"I just walk up to her door at 2:00 in the morning and witness to her?"
"'Be urgent in season and out of season.' 2 Timothy 4:2. It's always good practice, and you'll learn something."
Rory took a deep breath and got out of the car. It took him a couple minutes to walk up the driveway, past the mailbox and the wind-break pines and some bare young mountain ash trees. All the lights were on in the little house. Rory knocked on the door.
A handsome young woman answered it. Her brown hair was cut in a shag and she had very soft brown eyes. She didn't seem surprised to see him.
"I'll do you a free reading if you'll spend the night," she said. She seemed a little unfocused.
"I I don't "
"Look friend, I'm having a bad night. If you want bed, we'll go to bed. You want to talk, we'll talk. But I can't be alone. There's reasons. Please."
It was the voice of a child locked in a closet.
"I can't stay the night," said Rory. "But I'd like to talk."
"Sure. Come on in. Twenty bucks for a reading, thirty for the cards. Horoscopes are a hundred and fifty, and I need a week to cast them right." She led him through a little porch into the linoleumed kitchen. The tiles were worn but clean, like the appliances. She leaned against the sink and faced him, arms folded.
Rory unbuttoned his jacket, and her eyes fell on the bronze cross that hung from his neck.
"You didn't come for a reading," she said.
"No."
"People who wear big crosses like that don't ask for readings. Little jewelry crosses, yeah, but not big ones like that. You want to talk to me about my soul."
"People with crosses do that often?" She hadn't asked him to sit, so Rory leaned against a counter.
"Now and then. You want me to open my heart to the love of Jesus so I can become the kind of sweet gentle Christian who burns people like me at the stake."
"I haven't burned anybody at the stake all week."
"Cute. 'I was never a Nazi, I just voted for Hitler.'"
"And witches never judge anybody."
She looked at him and shook her head. "Sorry. I don't even know you. But that's just it, you see? You don't know me either. To you I'm just the Wicked Witch of the West. A target you shoot holy words at. You'll say your little speech, and then you've done your work for God, and if I don't buy it, too bad, off to Hell. But you don't listen. You don't care what I care about. You don't care how I feel."
"How do you feel?"
"I'm scared!" She shivered visibly. "Everything's turning around I set the stones rolling, and now they're rolling back at me, and I don't know why!"
"Stones? What do you mean?"
"Stones! Rocks! You roll them out of the way to build a road, or plant a garden. Or you pile them up to build a house. But if they roll back down on you they crush you."
"You're talking about spirits? The powers in heavenly places?"
"Forces. Fate. Patterns. The Mother Goddess. The vitality of the earth, and growing things. I love them all. I served them with love, and now they're crushing me. I can feel it coming, and I don't know why!"
Rory said, "How can I say it so it doesn't sound like preaching? There's a Power greater than those powers, Leslie. A Rock that doesn't roll. He loves you, and He'll never turn His back on you. He'll protect you and He'll help you, if you let Him."
"Him!" she spat back, hugging herself. "It's always a Him, isn't it? Father and Son no mother, no daughter, no goddess! Your heaven's like some private men's club, and if they let me in, it would probably be to do the dusting. You can't stand to leave anything for us that's why you burn us! You've perverted love, and you've polluted Mother Earth, and you've killed everything gentle and kind in the human heart, and when anybody especially a woman has the guts to use the powers of the earth to relieve pain, you burn them! Burn at the stake! Burn in Hell! Burn, burn, burn, burn..."
Rory walked toward her, but she moved away from him and picked up a knife from the draining rack.
"Get out of my house!" she cried, tears running down her cheeks, knife pointed. "You're no comfort you're just another slap in the face I don't need tonight! Take your bloody cross and your bloody Bible and your fire, and get out!"
"Jesus loves you, Leslie."
She told him what he could do with his Jesus.
"I'll pray for you."
"Do I have to call a cop?"
Rory went out.
He walked down the driveway, hands in his jacket pockets, shaking his head, praying as he'd promised.
The explosion's force knocked him on his face.
When he opened his eyes he could see his own shadow on the gravel, etched sharp as broken glass.
He rolled to look back. The little house was a torch, its flames clawing at heaven. The nearest trees flared like tissue paper.
"Leslie!" Rory ran back. He couldn't get within a hundred feet.
He ran to Thumb's car.
"We've got to get to a phone!" he said, jumping in.
"Right," said Thumb, and he started the motor. "We can't let a thing like this spread."
They raced to the next farm where Rory roused the farmer and his wife, and the call was made.
Then they drove back toward town.
Rory sat silent for a while. After a few minutes he said, "You blew up the house, didn't you?"
"It's possible."
"What does that mean? You admit it?"
"I don't admit a thing, Rory. There's all kinds of ways God accomplishes His will. Fire from Heaven has fallen before. Maybe that's what happened tonight."
"But more likely your friends planted some kind of charge maybe even while I was in there talking."
"Could be. Would it make that much difference?"
"Of course it makes a difference!"
"Think about it, Rory. God sent down fire on Sodom and Gomorrah. Women and children died. God didn't send fire to destroy the Canaanites. He told His people to do the job. He said to kill them all men, women and children. Equally just. Not pretty. Not nice. But it had to be done."
Rory listened in horror. This guy is crazy. I'm in a car with a psychopath.
So how come he doesn't sound crazy?
"Because what was growing up in Canaan had to be killed," Thumb was saying. "Canaan the land that became Israel it's the place where religions are born. Jews, Christians, Moslems, we all look to the God of the Hebrews.
"But suppose the Canaanites had won. Suppose their gods had been the ones three great religions worship?
"They sacrificed their children, Rory! They were killing their kids long before the Hebrews did. Can you imagine if Mohammed had believed in gods like that? You think the world's in a mess now?
"Stopping it was a brutal business. It hasn't gotten any nicer. And it isn't right that the Lords' church should be mixed up in it.
"So we the Hands of God we carry out the garbage. Prayerfully, humbly, we do the smelly work. That's our calling. We protect the world, and we protect the church.
"So before you make any decisions, Rory, and before you judge us, I want you to think. Because there's a place for you in the Hands of God if you feel the call."
Rory looked at him. "Why me?"
"Let's say the Lord led us to you."
Rory looked out the window. He'd lost his hat back at the farm he supposed. He wanted to be out of the car, out of the state the old instincts that had sent him running from Chicago and Los Angeles were still there. The man was making sense. But he couldn't be right! Say something nutty, Thumb make this easier!
"I liked her," Rory said. "We didn't have much in common, but I liked her. I think we could have talked; maybe I could have answered some of her questions.
"You practically admit you... killed her. And you expect me to join you?"
Thumb said, "You think Moses liked it, when they killed the Canaanites? You think Joshua was having a good time? I think it turned their guts.
"But the Lord commanded it. That's the only excuse in the world for doing it. You know the Lord doesn't command it lightly."
"How do you know He commanded it at all?"
"You're not ready for that knowledge, Rory. You've got to have faith enough to join us before you can understand it.
"We've saved lives tonight. You've got to believe that. And she felt no pain. It was over before she knew it. What she's feeling where she is now is another matter."
"I could go to the police."
"We wouldn't stop you. What could you tell them? A conspiracy in ski masks? I promise you there won't be a shred of evidence, except maybe somebody's cowboy hat."
Rory jerked in his seat.
"You'd be surprised at the things the Hands of God have done over the years, and nobody the wiser," Thumb continued. "Things you've heard about all your life. Things they told you about in school. If you read our secret chronicles, you'd have to unlearn half your history lessons."
They pulled into the motel parking lot. They could hear the siren of the volunteer fire department's hook and ladder.
"How many of you are there?" Rory asked.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
Rory reached for the door handle, then paused.
"You said the Canaanites had to be destroyed because they were sacrificing children."
"That's right. That's the great Abomination, the thing the Lord will never tolerate."
"I don't think Leslie was going to kill any children."
Thumb looked at his hands, the stared out the windshield.
"It's a good thing we called the Fire Department," he said softly. "A fire like that could have spread. No telling who could have gotten hurt."
Rory looked at the man, unreadable as a mummy in his ski mask. He got out of the car.
"I'll think about it," he said. "But don't hold your breath."
"Think about this, Rory. Where do you think your friend Rowan came from? Everything starts as a baby."
Rory closed the door and walked to his own car.