Jack McDevitt - Ancient Shores

Stuyvesant stopped to watch.

It was almost hypnotic. A stiff wind rocked the car, enough to blow the snow devil to pieces. But it remained intact.

Stuyvesant never traveled without his video camera, which he had used on several occasions to get footage he’d subsequently sold to Ben at Ten or to one of the other local TV news shows. (He had, for example, got superb footage of the Thanksgiving Day pileup on I—29 and the blockade of imported beef at the border by angry ranchers last summer.) The snow devil continued to glide back and forth in its slow, unwavering pattern. He turned on the camera, walked a few steps into the field, and started to tape.

He used the zoom lens and got a couple of minutes’ worth of pictures before the whirlwind seemed to pause.

It started toward him.

He kept filming.

It approached at a constant pace. There was something odd in its manner, something almost deliberate.

The crosswind ripped at his jacket but didn’t seem to have any effect on the snow devil. Stuyvesant’s instincts began to sound warnings, and he took a step back toward the car.

It stopped.

Amazing. As if it had responded to him.

He stood, uncertain how to proceed. The whirlwind began to move again, laterally, then retreated a short distance and came forward to its previous position.

He was watching it through the camera lens. The red indicator lamp glowed at the bottom of the picture.

You’re waiting for me .

It approached again, and the wind tugged at his collar and his hair.

He took a step forward. And it retreated.

Like everyone else in the Fort Moxie area, Stuyvesant had been deluged with fantastic tales and theories since the Roundhouse had been uncovered. Now, without prompting, he wondered whether a completely unknown type of life form existed on the prairie and was revealing itself to him. The notion forced him to laugh. It also forced him to decide what he really believed.

He started forward.

It withdrew again.

He kept going. The snow got deeper, filled his shoes and froze his ankles.

The snow devil continued to back away. He hoped he was getting the effect on camera.

It whirled and glittered in the sun, maintaining the distance between them. He slowed, and it slowed.

Another car was pulling off the highway. He wondered how he would explain this, and immediately visualized next week’s headline in the News: “Mad Editor Put Under Guard.”

But it was a hunt without a point. The fields went on, all the way to Winnipeg. Far enough, he decided. “Sorry,” he said aloud. “This is as far as I go.”

And the thing withdrew another sixty or so yards. And collapsed.

When it did, it left something dark lying in the snow.

Jeri Tully.

That was the day Stuyvesant got religion. The story that actually appeared in the Fort Moxie News would be a truncated version of the truth.

Unfortunately, there was no ready-made church at hand in Fort Moxie. But the Lord provides, and in this case He provided Kor Yensen. Kor was going to Arizona to move in with his son and daughter-in-law on a trial basis. But he was reluctant to dispose of his oversized house until he saw how things went. The opportunity to rent it to the TV preacher on a short-term basis arrived at precisely the right moment. It never occurred to him that the action would cause a permanent rift with his neighbors, who were mostly Methodists and Lutherans, and who preferred a more sedate form of worship than the hosannahs and oratorical thunder provided by Old-Time Bill.

In order to fulfill its function, Kor’s house needed some renovation. The Volunteers tore out three walls to get adequate meeting space. (They posted bond with Kor, promising to restore everything.) They installed a backdrop of dark-stained paneled walls and crowded bookshelves to maintain Bill’s signature atmosphere. They put in an organ and a sound stage and installed state-of-the-art communication equipment. Two days after their arrival, and just in time for the regular Saturday night service, the Backcountry Church was ready to go.

At precisely 7:00 P.M. local time, Bill’s exuberant theme music, “’Tis the Old-Time Religion,” rocked the house, and Bill himself, about thirty bars in, walked out in front of the cameras and welcomed the vast television audience to Fort Moxie. He explained that the Volunteers had come to do battle with the devil, and he led a packed house of eighteen (which, through the wonders of electronic enhancement, sounded like several hundred) in a thundering rendition of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” The choir, whose location in an upstairs bedroom was disguised by drapes and handrails, joined in, and everybody got into the mood very quickly.

“Brothers and sisters,” Bill said, raising his hands, “you may wonder why the Volunteers have come to the Dakota border. Why many of us felt the Lord wanted us here.

“Tonight we are in the shadow of Johnson’s Ridge.” He looked beyond the camera lenses, out into living rooms around the country, where the believers were gathered. People at home always said that they thought he was talking directly to them. “Only a few miles from here, scientists have opened their port to another—” He paused, drawing out the moment. “—place.

“ Another place .

“And what kind of place have they found? They speak of trees and pools, of white blossoms and harmless creatures, of beautiful skies and warm sunlight. They speak in terms that are very familiar to anyone who has looked at Genesis.” He smiled. “The scientists, of course, don’t realize this. They don’t recognize the place because they are too much of this world.

“But we know where they are, brothers and sisters.”

“Amen,” chanted his audience.

A reporter from the Winnipeg Free Press , Alma Kinyata, cornered him after the service. “Reverend Addison,” she asked, “do you really believe that we’ve discovered Paradise?”

They were in his office, upstairs at the back of the converted church. It was spartan by any measure and particularly humble when contrasted against the power and influence of its occupant. He’d brought in a desk and a couple of chairs. Copies of the Bible, Metcalf’s The Divine Will , and the Oxford Theological Studies stood between marble bookends. A picture of Addison’s mother hung on the wall.

“Yes,” he said, “I honestly believe we have. There is no way to know for certain, although I think that if I were to go there, I could give you a definitive answer.”

Alma felt good about this one. He was responsive, and it was going to be a solid story. “Are you planning to go up there? To Eden?”

“No,” he said. “I will not set foot in the Garden. It is forbidden to mortal man.”

“You say you would know Paradise if you saw it?”

“Oh, yes. Anyone would.”

“But the people who have been there haven’t drawn that conclusion.”

“I mean, any Christian . I’m sorry, I tend to think in terms of believers.”

“ How would you know?”

Addison’s eyelids fluttered. “Paradise partakes of the divine essence. Adam and Eve were sent packing early. That was a smart move, if I may say.” He grinned, rather like a large, friendly dog. “It kept the Garden unsullied. Pure. Oh, yes, that place is sacred, and I think anyone who pays attention to the welfare of his soul would recognize that fact immediately. You will recall the angel.”

“The angel?”

“Yes. ‘And he set an angel with a flaming sword.’ I can tell you I wouldn’t want to be among those who have trespassed into the things of God.”

Alma left convinced that Addison beleived none of it. But she got her story and scared the devil out of a substantial portion of the countryside.