Randy White - Everglades

Both of us walking again, Tomlinson made a calming motion with his hands. “I’ll make it quick. But you need to know what I’m talking about to understand how I met the guy. Okay?”

When I didn’t reply, he said, “Okay, a quick lesson in earth energy. There are focal points for electromagnetic power. Hot spots you might call them, or vortices. Sometimes they’re rocky areas, water places, whole biospheres. Or sometimes they’re built by man. Pyramids or Indian mounds. A deep water spring, for instance. Volcanoes.”

“Volcanoes,” I said. “That’s enough. I get the idea.”

“Wait, you need to hear the rest. Vortices have a dominant force, either electric or magnetic. A very few possess both-Power Places we call them. Over the centuries, mystics, psychics-even alien visitors-it’s where they go to replenish their energy reserves. The Everglades? The Everglades is one of the world’s great Power Places. All those springs and vortices; no other place like it.”

“Tomlinson, please don’t start talking about the Swamp Ape again. I’m still pissed off about you getting my truck stuck.”

“Ahh-h-h. The skunk that nailed you when you were trying to push me out of the ditch. A touchy subject, yes.”

I interrupted, “I don’t blame the skunk. I blame you. Only you. So do us both a favor, please don’t dwell on it.”

He said, “Okay, okay, so back to the energy deal. It’s part of a force field that links everything. The earth. Our own bodies. Our souls. The energy’s produced by three key elements: iron, oxygen and silicon crystals. Quartz and silicon; it’s the same thing. Silicon Valley? That’s why computers will ultimately evolve to the point where they have their own spirituality, their own crystal souls.”

I interrupted, hurrying him along, saying, “Okay, Minster was going to build on what you’d call a Power Place. I understand that, too. So what happened?”

“What happened is, this group of Cassadaga mystics preformed a spiritual intervention. On Minster. Minster and his major partner.”

“His partner. Okay, now we’re back on track. His business partner, was it a cult leader who calls himself Bhagwan Shiva?”

It was my turn to surprise Tomlinson. His facial expression is normally passive, always congenial. Now, though, his face illustrated an uncharacteristic distaste-maybe even a little touch of anger in there.

“Shiva,” he said. “Bingo. That’s what he calls himself. But it’s not his real name. He chose the name, like… like a Halloween mask. A disguise. It’s something to hide behind. Bhagwan means ‘Blessed one.’ Shiva means ‘Prophet.’ The dude we’re discussing, he’s neither.”

I began to smile, “In all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never heard you saying a bad word about anyone. You really don’t like him, do you?”

“Never met him; never want to meet. He’s a cult leader, and you know me, man: I’ve never found a religion I didn’t like. Do you know what religion really is? Religion, any legitimate religion, it consists of rules of morality linked by love. That’s it.

“What Shiva’s done is steal the worst parts of three or four faiths, and he uses them to feed on weakness. A lot of it’s taken from Scientology; the science-fiction writer deal? There’s a very heavy indoctrination program. They do what they call ‘cross-auditing,’ trying to rid themselves of a kind of virus implanted in humans by space aliens a billion years ago-which is cool. I’ve got no beef with Scientology. But what Shiva does is use it to control people, not elevate them.

“The guy he really models himself after, though, is Bhagwan Shree-he’s dead, now-but he had a couple of hundred meditation centers around the world. He preached free love, that getting rich was good. So Shiva’s stepped in, made himself the new Bhagwan. He’s part carnival act, part like those motivational shysters you see on late-night TV. It’s still all about energy, man. Negative and positive. The guy who calls himself Bhagwan Shiva, he’s a black hole. A power-zapper, and he just can’t get enough. The non- Bhagwan, that’s the way I think of him. Evil -I think of him as that, too.”

“You and your group of mystics confronted him and Minster? But you said you never met Shiva.”

“I said we performed a spiritual intervention to stop construction. The group I’m talking about, they can get into some dark mojo if it’s required. You ever hear of a voodoo thing called an ‘assault obeah’? Get the right shamans involved, you can suck the life energy right out of your target.”

I said, “You can’t be telling me your friends are capable of murder.”

“What I’m telling you is, someone can die without being murdered. But what they decided to use on Minster was all positive, man. Lots of meditation and some heavy-duty prayers.

“But Minster had been drained by the non-Bhagwan. Shiva, he’s like

… well, remember, in the movie The Wizard of Oz? That scene with the witch’s soldiers, the ones with the tails and spears? They’re marching into the castle, shouldering their spears, chanting what you think is ‘OH-eee- ohhhhhh… weeee-OHHH-one.’”

Tomlinson was singing it now. “‘OH-eee-ohhhhhh… weeee-OHHH-one.’”

I said, “Sure. Even I know that scene.”

Tomlinson said, “What the witch’s soldiers are actually singing are lyrics. Only you have to listen close to understand them. What they’re singing, over and over, is: ‘Oh, we loath-h-h-h-he… the OLD one.’ We loathe the Old One. Meaning the Evil One. That’s Shiva. He’s evil, man.”

I asked, “How do you know this stuff?” I was still back on The Wizard of Oz.

He flapped his bony hands at me- forget it -as he continued, “What I’m saying is, Minster was under Shiva’s control. So mind-zapping him was like trying to drill through solid steel. Which is why we went to see Minster. Two of our group’s leaders and myself.”

“You made an appointment at his office.”

“You kidding? People like us, we’d have a better chance getting an audience with the governor. No, we confronted him at the construction site.

“When he shook hands with me, he had this expression, like he was touching someone’s dirty handkerchief. We didn’t exactly become chums. But there was one of us, a woman, he really seemed to dig her. So she did most of the talking. A very cool lady-she doesn’t want anyone to know she really has the powers she has. She’s the private kind.”

I said, “It’s hard to believe that she convinced Minster and Shiva not to build their condo complex. Not with that much money involved.”

Tomlinson shrugged. “I don’t know. After the first meeting, I was out of the picture. My services were no longer needed. But construction stopped on the Tequesta Circle-that’s what we called it. So something happened.”

“You said this was about two years ago.”

“Yeah. Maybe a little more.”

“Could you contact your lady friend and ask her about Minster? Six months back, he disappeared. Fell off a fishing boat, presumed dead. Now Sally’s stuck with a lot of emotional baggage, plus some big financial decisions to make. It would be good to find out what we can. It might help her.”

“Minster’s disappeared? Jesus, you’re kidding.” Tomlinson had stopped again; sobered even more at the news. “Did they find the body?”

“No. But the court has, apparently, been presented with enough evidence to order that a death certificate be issued.”

He was tugging at his ponytail, biting the ends of his stringy hair-a familiar nervous mannerism. “That sounds exactly like it, man. Just what I was talking about.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Sometimes saving a sacred place takes extreme methods. What happened to Minster, Doc, it sounds just like an assault obeah. A very dark and powerful force. The body disappears, right along with the soul.”