Alex Scarrow - October skies

They listened in silence to the sounds of the woods; the creak of laden branches and ancient swaying trunks, the hiss of a gentle breeze through the tops of the trees.

‘That mean you don’t believe in the Almighty, Lambert?’

Ben often wondered if he did. ‘I don’t know. The more I learn of the mechanics of this world, the less room I can see in it for something like the hand of God, if you see what I mean.’

‘Not sure I do.’

‘I have a book in my trunk, a medical textbook. I bought it in London before I set off. You can see, looking through it, that we know how the body works now, what each organ does for us. But before we knew these things, we believed our bodies were simply clay that God had breathed life into. Do you see? It takes just a small amount of knowledge to undo so much of what we’ve been told to believe for centuries and centuries.’

‘I dunno… seen things in my time that no medicine book gonna explain.’

‘Of course, not everything can be explained. But it seems to me, every week in the medical and scientific journals I used to subscribe to back in London, there is more and more of God’s mysterious work that we can unravel and discover the hidden cogs and gears within.’

Keats thought about that for a moment. ‘Hmm, mebbe so.’

‘To answer your question, though,’ Ben continued, ‘I’m not sure I do believe in a God, not any more.’

‘Shit,’ Keats cackled, then slapped him on the back. ‘You see that bear ’gain, bet a nickel you’ll start praying, eh?’

I probably would.

He smelled another waft of tobacco smoke and then Keats hawked up and spat. ‘Guess I better go and check in on our other watchers,’ Keats grunted. ‘I’ll be back shortly,’ and the glow of his pipe and the outline of his form disappeared into the darkness.

Alone, it was quiet save for the rustle of a fresh breeze through the trees, and the hiss of shifting powder snow. His eyes combed the tree line, a dark wall of foliage just a dozen yards away, drawn instantly to every little rustle of movement out there.

Hurry back, Mr Keats.

It was funny. Back home in West London, in the fashionable and affluent area of Holland Park where his parents had purchased a considerably generous town house for him, he would have turned his nose up in disgust at the sight of the grimy, gaunt and bristly old man. He would have considered him as something less than human; part of the sea of urban misery that loitered suspiciously amongst the back streets and tradesmen’s entrances of Soho, Covent Garden and Piccadilly Square. He had the same grime-encrusted and weathered face that filled the pungent main thoroughfares of the East End.

But right here in this clearing, in the middle of this dark and forbidding mountain forest, he trusted the man with his life.

Ben heard the light crunch of snow underfoot coming from behind him. He spun round to see a dark form standing a few feet away.

‘Who’s that?’ he whispered.

The dark form took another step closer and then stopped. Then he heard the softest whisper. ‘It’s Mrs Dreyton.’

‘My God, what’re you doing out at this time, Mrs Dreyton?’

‘I… I… need to talk to someone.’ She took a step closer to him. By the wan light of the moon, her face appeared almost as pale and luminescent as the snow, her eyes dark pools of torment. ‘You were there. You heard him.’

‘Preston?’

She nodded. ‘I… I’ve been to see him.’

Ben smiled. ‘That’s good. He was asking after you today.’

‘I told him what I… what I know now.’

‘What?’

Her voice broke and she sobbed. ‘I gave him everything. My life, my love… my body, my children.’

‘Mrs Dreyton?’

‘I thought, through him, God was touching me. Touching Emily and Sam.’

‘Dorothy, what you heard him say the other day was nothing more than the product of the medicine, of a fever-’

‘No.’ She shook her head solemnly. ‘I see now his lies have led us to this place. He’s no prophet.’ Dorothy’s hands went to her face. ‘Oh, God, forgive me for following him.’

‘Dorothy, what did you say to him?’

‘That I know he is a liar… and a thief.’

‘A thief?’

She looked up at him. ‘What he has was not gifted to him, it was taken.’

He held out a hand to comfort her. But she shied away.

‘What? What is it he has, Mrs Dreyton?’

‘God will punish him for that,’ she cried. ‘God will punish him, and punish us all for following him.’

‘What is it that he has?’

She ignored him. ‘We have to leave here, Mr Lambert. We have to leave soon, before it’s too late. My children trust you. I trust you. Will you help us?’

‘What? We can’t leave here now. We’ll freeze, or starve, or-’

‘God’s vengeance will come down on us.’ She reached out and grabbed his arm tightly. He could feel the steel grip of her hand through three layers of clothing. ‘Do you believe in eternal torment, Mr Lambert?’

‘What? No… no I can’t say I-’

‘Because that’s what awaits Preston, in the very depths of hell.’ She looked back at the other camp. ‘Or maybe it’ll come to us… here in this forsaken place.’

‘Mrs Dreyton, you’re not making much sense to me.’

She shook her head. ‘Maybe… maybe, if I tell the others, warn the others,’ she muttered, turning away from Ben, ‘I’ll be forgiven.’ She stepped away from him, crunching back across the snow.

‘Mrs Dreyton?’ he called to her softly, but she was gone.

Had she really accused Preston of being a liar and thief?

Ben wondered for a moment how Preston would react to his most devoted follower denouncing him as a false prophet. And realised, with a shiver of unease, that it would lead nowhere good. Not for anyone.

Monday

Munston, Utah

Shepherd smiled at the people out in the basketball court, waving to them as a rousing rendition of ‘Abide With Me’ was being belted out by the Munston Homes Choir for God, stepping as one from side to side and clapping their hands to the infectious rhythm.

Booking them had been a good idea. His campaign co-ordinator, Duncan, had said, ‘You can’t beat a good ol’ Baptist choir for feel-good factor.’

He was right, of course. The rally had gone spectacularly well. Originally it had been booked into a local school. But support was growing for the campaign so fast that Duncan’s team had quickly needed to upgrade the venue to the sports hall of a nearby college.

Shepherd noted, with satisfaction, a bank of cameras at the back. Not just local press photographers, but some network camera crews too. The town of Munster, home to one college, a cereal processing and packing plant, one shopping mall and at least seventy churches of different denominations, was just the third stop in his tour of Utah.

The state was easy territory. Everyone knew him now, and it was obvious already that neither Republicans nor Democrats were going to get their foot in here. His message was a fresh message that was coming right out of the blue and wasn’t tainted with the tit-for-tat baggage that the other two parties were burdened with. His message didn’t have the shrill sound of a party frantically hanging onto power, nor the hectoring ‘Doubting Thomas’ tone of a party impatient to get into power.

Shepherd knew that he didn’t sound like the other candidates, and more and more polls were beginning to show that was going to be just about enough to cajole tentative support from the soft conservative centre.

Shepherd bowed again to the ecstatic audience’s delight, and then strode defiantly off the podium, flanked by a pair of security men from his ministry. They walked him briskly through changing rooms that reeked of body odour and the sort of cheap aftershave that young men like to douse a little too liberally. They led him out of a rear door to where a dark-windowed Humvee waited patiently for him, engine already idling.