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64
Opening Day

Wearing shamrock-green blazers, the tour crew had taken off early in the Mescalero, to Pueblo. From there they'd left on a chartered turboprop, on a three-hour flight to LaCrosse, Wisconsin.

From the air, LaCrosse was a pleasant-seeming city built along the Mississippi, its residential areas green with trees. Their chartered bus met them at the airport, bearing neither signs nor banners, only the logo "Celebrity Tours," in large gold cursive letters on its blue and white sides. It even had separate men's and women's restrooms, and two tiny shower facilities just large enough to change clothes, stand in the spray and wield the soap. Though its new passengers didn't know it, on its last trip it had hauled a major rock group and its technical crew.

It took them to the parking lot of a large Lutheran church. Lee peered from her window. They parked at a reserved length of curb. The lot itself was crowded with people spilling onto the sidewalk, plugging the opening of an adjacent alley, standing on the concrete parking barriers along the perimeter. Television trucks stood by, with cameramen on cherry pickers. Small children and some not so small sat on grownup shoulders in order to see, perhaps someday to say they'd been there. People stood on adjacent porches; older children perched on porch and garage roofs. Faces peered from windows.

As crowds go, it was quiet. City police in white shirts and blue trousers stood about relaxed.

Dove stepped from the bus, surrounded by a golden aura that no one could miss. The crowd quieted, then began to buzz, not loudly, but differently. Dove seemed taller than usual. Wearing a short-sleeved, open-throated white shirt, dark blue slacks and the aura, he strode to the crowd's edge, a policeman beside him. Art Knowles and one of his security men followed a stride behind. Somehow an aisle opened for them, and when they'd passed through it, it closed, like the Red Sea, supposedly, for Moses.

They homed on an American flag in the center of the lot. It stood on a small, thirty-inch stand. To one side of it were gathered those to be healed—thirty or forty of them—along with a worried-looking pastor in clerical garb. Dove reached the platform, mounted it, faced them, and raised his hands, palms outward. Watching from the bus, it seemed to Lee his aura flared upward then, and when he spoke, his deep strong voice was easily heard to the street, though to those in the front row it seemed not especially loud.

"By your trust in coming here," he said, "and through the loving power of God, you . . . are . . . healed."

There was a silence that lasted two or three seconds, then a graying woman struggled from her wheelchair, raised her arms and screamed, "Praise God! Praise God!" A young man took off thick dark glasses and, laughing, threw them as far as he could, before turning and hugging the woman beside him. There were cries and sobbing embedded in a growing babble. Someone shouted, "I can breathe! I can breathe again!" People dropped to their knees, not only the healed, but numerous bystanders, praying, thanking God.

Lee stared through her window, her skin gooseflesh. She'd known and accepted that this was a healing tour, but what she saw was somehow unexpected. Beside the stand, the pastor stood with arms skyward, his mouth moving. Though Lee couldn't see it from where she sat, tears flowed down the man's cheeks.

With no further words, Dove stepped glowing from the platform, the aisle opened again, and with right hand raised in blessing, he started back to the bus. The brief babble had faded, softened by awe. The most conspicuous emotional reaction was tears. As he passed, hands reached out, touching his aura. Several people fainted. Then he climbed aboard the bus. Bar Stool revved up the diesel, the police moved some people out of the way, and it left.

It was as simple and brief as that. As the bus pulled from the curb, Lee could hear people in the crowd begin to sing "A Mighty Fortress," led perhaps by the pastor.

* * *

The TV cameras had recorded it all, from the ground as well as from the cherry pickers. Even after the bus had left, the production managers sat intent at their monitors. Reporters and camera operators began to work their way through the crowd, to talk with the healed, if indeed that's what they were.

* * *

The tour crew had watched and listened from the bus, partly through the windows, partly on television. They hadn't fully known what to expect, and when it was over, it took awhile for the experience to sink in. The primary reaction was sobriety, rather than exultation.

Dove sat in back, calm and serene, looking almost as if he were alone.

* * *

By arrangement with the bus company, Bar Stool was their actual driver. The company's driver served as his relief. Dove had specifically wanted Bar Stool for the tour, and Personnel had hired a temporary replacement to fly and maintain the Mescalero. A long-time friend of Bar Stool's, he'd flown a chopper for the Screaming Eagles in Desert Storm, and afterward for a westwide charter service on spray jobs, rescues, forest fire suppression and the like.

The bus rolled out of LaCrosse heading south, tailed by TV trucks. There was no interstate; they took a state highway. Duke Cochran was aboard, again representing American Scene. He did not approach Lee, nor she him.

Twice the bus stopped, once at a truckstop for lunch, and once for a prearranged healing in a small park at the edge of Prairie du Chien. A couple of dozen sick and disabled waited there, along with three or four hundred spectators. Lee wondered how many of the healed would remain healed in the morning. Twenty percent? A hundred percent? She could almost believe a hundred, but twenty would be remarkable enough.

From Prairie du Chien, the bus crossed the Mississippi into Iowa. Even driving south from LaCrosse there'd been clusters of people here and there along the road, waving or just watching. Lee didn't pay a lot of attention to the people or the scenery—the broad Mississippi, high bluffs, country towns. She had other things on her mind. When she'd re-viewed the brief "farewell" video, after her abbreviated Life Healing, she'd wondered if Dove's aura was produced by some electrical device or by Dove himself. It had been deep blue then, with sparkles of gold and rose. Now it was golden, as in pictures she'd seen of Christ, and she did not doubt it was genuine.

* * *

The tour itinerary, flexible though it was, had been widely publicized by the media. At the front of the bus, above the aisle, a TV faced rearward. The suppertime TV newscasts showed numerous shots of the healings in LaCrosse, shots of the crowd, and brief interviews with some of the healed. One psychiatrist interviewed on CNN's The World Today pooh-poohed them as "hysterical healing," which he termed a mental disorder. To the delight of millions, anchor Michael Sandow's response left the doctor confused and upset. "If you were to treat some of the healed for their mental disorder," Sandow said, "and they became ill or crippled again, would you feel you'd helped them?" When the doctor failed to answer, he asked, "Well then, would it give you a feeling of satisfaction?"

At that the poor man stood abruptly, pulled off the microphone clipped to his shirt front, and stalked, stiff and red-faced, from the set.

Brief interviews with bystanders found them as impressed with Dove as with the healings. None of the cameras failed to show his vivid golden aura, and none of the interviewed failed to comment on it.

* * *

The crowd at Dubuque, Iowa, that evening jammed the intramural soccer field at the university. Parked cars and pickups almost plugged the streets. It was several times the size of the LaCrosse crowd; people had seen or heard about what had happened there. The bus pulled into a laundromat driveway a block and a half away; that was as close as it could get. Dove, with only Knowles, one other security man and two officers, walked through the crowd. It was louder than the LaCrosse crowd—some people were even boisterous—but an aisle opened. Again the rest of the tour group stayed on the bus.

And again before he left, people had gotten out of wheelchairs and off of pallets, had thrown away crutches, walkers, white canes . . . 

The number of people healed there was not explicitly known—estimates varied from a hundred to two hundred and fifty; the crowd was estimated at from three to five thousand. In ten minutes, Dove, Knowles, and the others were back on board, but it took twenty minutes for the bus to work its way to the highway.

While it rolled southward on US 61, Lor Lu spent considerable time on the phone with city and county authorities, particularly regarding healing sites convenient to highways, where crowds were less likely to cause traffic jams. He also called network and local television stations, giving them information and suggestions for the public, to reduce crowd problems.

So far the tour crew had had little to do. Lee was the exception. She rode next to Lor Lu, in the seat across from the driver. She'd finally been thoroughly briefed back at the Cote, Lor Lu reviewing with her the things she'd be doing on her communications laptop. It was loaded with a huge number of broadcast stations, shopping mall managers, motels, restaurants . . . and every law enforcement agency, large and small, in fourteen states. Rather quickly, she was handling the more routine logistical and liaison work. Lor Lu handled major decisions, overall integration, and emergencies.

* * *

After Dubuque, instead of stopping at a motel or rest area, they drove through the early evening to Maquoketa. There a substantial crowd waited in a theater parking lot, and several dozen more were healed. Then the 69-year-old Bar Stool turned east toward the Mississippi again, and drove to another theater parking lot at Clinton, Iowa. There perhaps a thousand waited to see Dove, with a hundred to be healed. When the bus left Clinton, Bar Stool's backup was at the wheel.

Bar Stool and Lee weren't the only non-Tours staff pulled from their jobs for the tour. There were also seven case facilitators, selected and prepared by Dove as healers. One of them was Jenny Buckels. Beginning at Dubuque, these support healers had moved around the back fringes of the crowds, healing such things as astigmatism, bad backs, arthritic fingers—whatever presented itself. An enterprising citizen with a camcorder had followed one of these secondary healers as she did her work, and when the bus left, interviewed several of the healed. One of them claimed that before his healing, he'd been unable to bend far enough to touch his knees. Now, beaming, he demonstrated that by bending his knees just a little, he could touch his feet. "My wife," he said, "won't have to put my socks and shoes on for me anymore."

He hadn't joined what he referred to as "the sick and wounded" up front, because "that's for people in worse trouble than me. All I had was some pain and inconvenience. With no more wrong than that, I didn't want to trouble the messiah."

The amateur video cubeage was sold to Davenport's NBC affiliate, and broadcast nationwide on the news. It showed the backup healer's aura, which photographed as mostly pale blue mistiness, with areas of pink and green.

* * *

Meanwhile the bus had driven on to Davenport, where a midnight healing was held in a mall parking lot. Most of the sick and disabled there hadn't seen the Clinton healings; they'd already been gathering hopefully for their own. But they'd seen the LaCrosse and Dubuque healings.

It was the largest crowd yet, despite the late hour. Police had cleared a place near the entrance for those who'd come for healing, but the crowd was so large that many onlookers could hardly hope even to glimpse Dove.

He handled this by having the ill and disabled brought to the curb. Then, upright and calm, he levitated, floated a dozen feet above the crowd, and healed from there, appearing in the darkness like a great golden torch. The levitation affected the crowd like nothing else. There was a sound like a great "ah-h-h," punctuated by scattered screams.

Art Knowles winced at such exposure. It occurred to him that Dove might actually be safer than anyone else there, but he was taking nothing for granted.

During the healing process, cameramen in their cherry pickers recorded visible auras scattered throughout the crowd, like soft round bunsen burner flames, as if of people caught up spiritually by the experience. This was the most dramatic stop yet; joy made a bedlam of it.

When it was over, the bus moved on to the fenced and guarded sheriff's department parking lot near the courthouse. There it stayed the rest of the night, curtains drawn, most of its travelers sleeping.

Despite the hour, Lor Lu sat using his laptop and its phone, arranging things ahead. Lee sat next to him, her tasks somewhat similar, working from a list he'd printed out for her. When she was done, she wanted to talk to someone, but Lor Lu was still busy, and almost everyone else asleep. Each person had a double seat to themselves. The auras visible earlier had faded from her perception, except for Dove's and Lor Lu's, which still were strong. Dove sat upright, in back again, smiling, glowing, calm—engaged in what contemplations, Lee couldn't imagine. She doubted that even Lor Lu knew.

Duke Cochran also sat awake, writing on his laptop, and Lee went over to him. "Is it all right to interrupt?" she murmured. "I need someone to talk to."

Duke grinned. His eyes were bright, he seemed pumped, but his voice was a murmur. "Sure," he said. She sat down by him. "What did you think of it?" he asked.

Her voice was as quiet as his. "It was incredible. Inspiring! It's hard to believe this is really happening, and that I'm part of it. Here, in our time."

"And the levitation," he said. "That killed any doubt."

"Did you have any?" Lee asked. "Before that?"

Duke nodded. "Oh, yes. Even if he wasn't an avatar, it seemed to me that some people would truly be healed, with all that energy out there. But now . . ." His expression turned thoughtful. "Maybe Dove turns on some latent energy that all of us have. He does say they heal themselves."

Wearing his Tours blazer, Duke had climbed on top of the bus to watch, and had seen the auras manifesting among the crowd. Some reading he'd done stated that an aura was simply an energy field, and that everyone had one, all the time. But apparently they could intensify. He supposed they'd been energized by Dove's presence.

"I'd assumed you'd reject even the possibility," Lee said. "I know I did, till recently."

"Me too." He grinned again. "Even after I had personal proof that Life Healing is for real, whatever real is."

"Personal proof?"

"I tried it out. I wouldn't say it qualifies as a miracle, but it definitely demonstrates effective therapy." He laughed softly. "It took me totally by surprise. Got rid of old regrets, fears, resentments . . ." Again he laughed softly. "And fixations. Things like that." Then added, "When did you do it?"

"Just before we left. I'd been resisting it for months."

A minute later, Lee excused herself. Duke watched her move forward up the aisle. He still found her sexually attractive, but no longer lusted for her. Then he returned his attention to his laptop, and the article he was writing: "Inside the Healing Tour." It could serve later as a chapter in the book he intended.

* * *

Lee walked past her "sleeping seat," and sat down again beside Lor Lu. She had a question for him, and intended to watch for a gap in his activities. He was talking into his phone, but all she heard was a murmur, as if he had a "cone of silence," like Maxwell Smart in the farcical secret agent series she'd enjoyed as reruns as a child.

It was Lor Lu who spoke first. "You have something to say," he said.

"Yes," she answered quietly. "Dove levitated. He really is the Infinite Soul, isn't he."

It was a statement, not a question.

"The Infinite Soul incarnate. Yes."

"I could never have imagined the things I've seen," she said, then paused. "Auras! I didn't even believe there were such things. Then the night before we left the Cote, Ben and I watched the 'goodbye cube' again. It showed Dove with a sort of turquoise aura, flecked with rose and gold." She chuckled. "The first time I watched it, I didn't even notice, as if it wasn't there. But now . . ." She gestured toward Dove. "Now it's pure gold. What makes the difference?"

His smile softened. "Part of the aura shown on the cube was that of a human soul, Ngunda Aran. Another layer was the body's aura, and still another was the personality. But now there is simply the aura of the Infinite Soul, and of the body fully adapted to it."

Lee stared at the Hmong for a long moment, thinking how young he looked and how—ageless he sounded. Nodding, she got up and started toward the rear. A glance showed Dove still upright, unmoving and seemingly unchanged. For just a moment their eyes met, and a wave of unexpected rapture! flowed through her, leaving an afterglow of exaltation, expansion. She reached her seat beaming, took her pillow from the overheard compartment, let the seat back all the way and reclined on it. Almost at once she slept, without thought, without question.

 

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