Robert Coover - The Brunist Day of Wrath

Clara was not happy about today’s ceremonies — whose idea was it to dig an empty grave for Giovanni Bruno? — but she did not oppose them. After all, her deceased first husband is being honored and she admitted she could see the value of consecrating a future resting place for their martyred Prophet’s remains before the temple’s construction makes such decisions difficult. It was only that the ceremony seemed premature. She was even less happy about people arriving last night who said they were Brunist Defenders, answering her call and pledging their loyalty to her. She called Darren into the office, demanding to see the letter that went out over her name, and he showed it to her, reminding her that with Sister Debra’s interpretive help, he had foreseen with such awful certainty the imminent return of the motorcycle gang, and in greater numbers than before. He had spoken about this at prayer meeting weeks ago and he was worried about Elaine, and he is right to have been. Clara was at the hospital all the time then; he felt he had to do something that she would do. Now, with the murder of the sheriff, their bulwark against a hostile world, they desperately need more help. Surely she can see that. They are in terrible danger. And these people are here to serve her and protect her. They will be able to double the guards at the camp now and they can help complete the periphery fence. Darren did not believe this would be done — there was no time left for it — but it pacified Clara. He was quite calm. He knew what was about to happen, even if she did not. She only nodded and went out to help organize cots for the newcomers to use in the Meeting Hall overnight. Many have been saying someone should tell her husband about the rapturing of his dog, but he is nowhere to be found, even though he promised to introduce his new song, “The Tabernacle of Light.” Clara, Darren knows, is worried about him, too — so warm and reliable a man suddenly become so distant, so moody — so she is generally willing to let Darren have his way. Nevertheless, Darren now thinks of her as something of an obstacle.

At today’s ceremony, it has been Darren’s plan to place in the Prophet’s empty grave several symbolic objects — a tunic, a miner’s helmet and the mine pick on which he leans now as on the cross itself, the Prophet’s seven “Words” as scored by children of the Eastern churches onto a wooden tablet with a woodburning kit, a Bible opened to the Book of Revelation, all wrapped in oilcloth — while reading a selection of Biblical texts from both Testaments as elaborations on the Prophet’s wisdom. Now that he has received the message of the emptied tomb and learned of the city’s intentions, Darren will change slightly his scriptural selections, placing more urgent emphasis on the fearsome horrors ahead — the earth reeling to and fro like a drunkard (it does seem to be reeling), the stars plummeting from Heaven, the sun quenched and the moon turned into blood, the tortures of the damned — and adding in more about deception and false prophets. He intended to put in place today the headstone from Ely Collins’ grave, picked up some weeks ago by Mr. Suggs, but it seems to have vanished. Bernice Filbert has asked Mr. Suggs what happened to it. He cannot remember. He tries so hard, she said, but some things just aren’t there anymore.

Little by little, Abner Baxter and his followers have come drifting toward the Mount. Clara sends Wayne, Hunk, and Billy Don, along with three of the new Defenders to remind them they are not welcome, but her emissaries are met halfway by the acting sheriff, Calvin Smith. After a brief discussion (Wayne and Billy Don scowl up at Darren; he gazes back at them without expression), a compromise is reached, allowing the Baxterites to collect within earshot some forty or fifty yards below the tabernacle floor plan where the service is to be held. Down where a blackened patch marks the place where Sheriff Puller’s car burned and not far from where Darren captured “the voice in the ditch.” Perhaps the voice is there still. Or will now return. The acting sheriff, Darren has been told, has purged the newly deputized Christian Patriots of those alleged to have been involved in attacks on Abner and his people, and has added several new volunteers of his own choosing, mostly from among Abner’s followers. Darren wonders if the death of Sheriff Puller, which has allowed this to happen, was somehow God’s doing? Of course it was. Everything is.

No sign of the city authorities with their surprise visitor. Maybe they aren’t coming, having realized how futile it would be. Or maybe the tip, given its unreliable source, was a trick, a way to unsettle him, deflect him from what it is he has to say. Hovis comes over to say he thinks he just heard a motorbike over Tucker City way. Not that far away. Hovis pulls out his old gold pocket watch and stares at it. Off on the horizon, a summer storm is boiling up, coming in from the west off the back of the hill, the blackening sky setting the two yellow backhoes off in bright relief. All the more reason to get on with it and back to the safety of the camp. Darren points at the storm clouds and calls out: “Let’s get started! Trouble’s brewing!” And, as if by his conjuring, a group of people appear there at the top of the hill in front of his pointing finger.

It is their tormentor, the town banker, flanked by armed police, city authorities, the old priest in his sinister black robes, others who are probably preachers and town leaders, standing above them on the crest in their ominous dark glasses like tyrants and judges. The powers of darkness. They have come up the backside of the hill, no doubt hoping to surprise them. Darren is not afraid of them. The banker raises a megaphone to his mouth and calls out, “My fellow Christians!” The Followers have gathered around Clara inside the outline of the tabernacle church, as if seeking sanctuary in a holy place. Well, they are right. It is a holy place. Darren, near the open grave intended for the Prophet’s ceremonial burial, steps across the chalky trench to stand inside with the others and leans there on the mine pick, Colin quivering behind him. “We come to you in peace on this holy Sabbath, praying only that we might reach some understanding beneficial to us all. No matter which church we belong to, everyone here believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son, and in the Father and in the Holy Ghost, and that’s the main thing.” The banker is grinding his jaws in suppressed anger, even as he tries to appear conciliatory. Most of those with him look uncomfortable, bullied into being somewhere they don’t want to be. “If we have our differences, they are minor compared to all that we have in common. Not only our Christianity, but this great country, too.”

Clara’s people accept this hypocrisy in silence, except for Willie Hall who lifts his Bible in the air and calls out: “These yere rich men is fulla violence, these inhabitants hereof is a-speakin’ lies, and their tongues is deceitful in their mouth! Micah 6:12!” And that stirs some of Abner Baxter’s people, slowly creeping up the hill below, to shout Biblical epithets and heap scorn of their own, though Abner himself remains silent. “God’s agonna mizzerbly destroy these wicked men, deceivin’ and bein’ deceived!”

“No, no,” says the banker with a forced smile. “It is precisely the truth that we seek and freedom from deceitful—”

“Please, please,” says Darren, raising his hand and waving away this meaningless preamble. “I have the impression, Mr. Cavanaugh,” he says, hearing his own voice crisp and clear in the midday quiet, “that, although he is hidden from us, you have brought someone to show to us.”

That catches the banker off-guard, indeed everyone on the Mount, except maybe Billy Don. Who is probably frowning, poor boy. The banker draws back and studies Darren soberly. “Yes, it’s true, young man,” he says. “That empty grave you’re standing beside is intended, I understand, for the remains of your founder, the lapsed Catholic Giovanni Bruno, whom you believe is dead. But he is not. You have been misled. He has been professionally cared for these past five years in the mental institution, where he was sent after the criminal outrages on this hill. Here he is. Mr. Giovanni Bruno.”