David Morrell - Long lost

In a dying town, the word tradition sounded brave. "You don't know any Dants?"

"Like I told the other FBI agent, they're before my time. I moved here only ten years ago." The expression on his face made it seem that he wished he hadn't.

"Can you think of anybody who might know about them?"

"Sure. The reverend."

"Who?"

"Reverend Benedict. The way I hear it, he's been in Brockton just about forever."

The white steepled church and the cottage behind it were the only two buildings in town that didn't look in need of repair. On the right, between the church and a graveyard, a path went through a rose garden. Ahead, an elderly man in a short-sleeved blue shirt with a minister's collar had his back to me. He was on his knees, his head bowed in prayer. Then his arms moved and his head bobbed, and I realized he was pruning the roses.

He had a hearing aid tucked behind his right ear. It must have been an excellent model, because he heard me walking across the grass and turned to see who I was.

"Reverend Benedict?"

His wrinkled brow developed more furrows as he came creak-ily to his feet. His old pants had grass stains on the knees.

"My name's Brad Denning. Ben Porter at the hardware store-"

"A fine man."

"-suggested I talk to you about a couple of families who used to live around here."

"Families?"

"The Dants."

The reverend's eyes had sparkled as if he'd welcomed the opportunity to test his memory. Now they became guarded. "Do you remember the Dants?" I asked. "Are you with the FBI?" "No." "Someone from the FBI asked me about the Dants last year," the reverend said.

"I know that. But I'm not with the Bureau. Did the agent show you this photograph?"

"Yes. That's Lester. I told the agent the same thing."

"You're sure of that? It's Lester Dant?"

"He was younger. He didn't have that scar on his chin. But there's no doubt it's Lester."

I felt sick. The theory I'd worked so hard to believe toppled. Lester Dant, not my brother, had taken Kate and Jason. He wouldn't have had a reason to keep them alive.

"Why do you want to know about him?"

"It doesn't matter anymore, Reverend," I managed to say. Hollow, I turned to leave.

" 'Just a routine investigation,' the FBI agent told me."

I looked back at him. "Hardly routine."

"What's wrong, Mr. Denning? You seem in terrible distress."

I hadn't intended to explain, but something about him invited it. In despair, I started to tell him. I tried to keep my voice steady, but the more I revealed, the more it shook.

The reverend stared. He seemed to hope that I was finished, but then I told him more-and more-and his shocked look turned to pity for someone who, because of a boyhood mistake, had been condemned to the torment of hell.

"Lester did all that?"

"Or my brother pretending to be him. That's what I needed to find out."

"God help him. God help you."

"If only God would."

"All prayers are eventually answered."

"Not soon enough, Reverend."

He seemed on the verge of telling me to have faith. Instead, he sighed and motioned me toward a bench. "There are several things you need to understand about him."

" 'Understand'? I hope that doesn't mean make excuses or sympathize, because what I really want to do, Reverend, is punish him. And please don't tell me to turn the other cheek or let God take care of vengeance."

"You just said it for me."

We studied each other.

"You're positive that the man in this photograph is Lester Dant?" I asked.

"Yes."

I felt sicker. Even so, I had to know the truth. "All right then, Reverend." Despondent, I sat on the bench. "Help me 'understand' him."

"And his parents," the reverend said. "You also have to understand his parents." He thought for a moment. "The Dants." His frail voice strengthened. "There were six families of them originally. They lived around here for as long as anybody can remember. That's what my predecessor told me, at any rate, when I was assigned here. But they weren't really part of the community. You couldn't even say that they were part of the United States."

"You've lost me, Reverend."

"They were separatists. Tribalists. Loners. Somewhere in their history-my predecessor had a theory that it went as far back as the Civil War-something terrible had happened to them. They came from a place that they desperately wanted to forget, and they settled around here, determined to be left to themselves."

A bee buzzed my face. I motioned it away, fixing my attention on the reverend.

"Of course, to keep their families going, they couldn't be entirely insular. They had to interact with nearby communities, looking for young people to marry. On the surface, they had a lot to recommend them. They knew their Bible. They owned property. They didn't drink, smoke, gamble, or swear. For a while, they attracted new members, usually from families so poor that marrying a Dant was a step up. But word got around how severe they were, and the Dants had to look farther, mostly among other strict groups, trying to negotiate marriages. Their options became more limited. By the time my predecessor arrived, the families had dwindled to three."

I shook my head, puzzled. "If they were determined to stay to themselves, how come somebody named Dant owned the hardware store?"

"A lifeline. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't be self-sufficient. Even in a good year, with bountiful crops, there were necessities that they couldn't produce for themselves. To them, Brockton was like a foreign country. The hardware store was their embassy. They exported their excess produce through it and imported lumber, tools, clothing…"

"Medicines."

"No," Reverend Benedict said, "never medicines. The Dants were as fundamental religiously as they were politically. To them, sickness was a sign of God's disfavor. They felt it was a sin to use human means to interfere with God's intention."

"Because of our fallen nature?"

"For which the Dants believed God punished us," the reverend said.

"With a self-destructive attitude like that, it's a wonder the families survived."

"That's the point-they're all gone now." Reverend Benedict pointed a wizened finger toward the photograph. "Except for Lester."

"When did you meet him?"

"After the fire."

"The fire?"

"I'll get to that. First, you need to know that, because the Dants avoided doctors, the town had no idea of the birth and death rate out there. Every so often, emissaries would come to town and get supplies. Mostly men, but sometimes women and children. I suspect that their motive was to show everybody in the family how corrupt the outside world was. It could be that we looked as strange to them as they did to us." "Strange?"

"The effects of inbreeding were starting to show." "The law let them get away with it?"

"Once in a while, a state trooper went out to check on things, but what was he going to charge them with, except wanting to be by themselves?"

"Child endangerment."

"Difficult to prove if the children are well nourished and can quote their Bible."

"Isn't there a law that children have to go to school?" "The Dants hired an attorney who argued that the children were getting an adequate education at home. It came down to religious freedom. These days, I suppose we'd call them survivalists. But they weren't hoarding weapons and they weren't plotting to overthrow the government, so the authorities decided that dragging the Dants into court was worse than leaving them alone. Live and let live became the motto. Until the weekend when Lester's mother was one of the emissaries who came to town." I listened harder.