The pathetic creature in hospital pajamas who appears at the top of the hill, held up between two burly white-coated male nurses, is shaved, nearly bald, pale as paper, thin and stooped, glassy-eyed. Clearly, he has been heavily drugged. His jaw hangs slackly, his naked big-eared head tips toward one shoulder, his knees sag. A poor bewildered man, whoever he is, being used cynically by corrupt authorities. An empty shell. Even if it is Bruno, it is not Bruno. People shake their fists and there are shouts of “Impostor!” and “Fake!” Colin runs hysterically at them—“That’s not him! I saw him die!” —then runs away, runs at them again, runs away, in a wild shrieking toing and froing. Several of those on the hilltop above them duck in alarm, but the banker solemnly holds his ground, watching Colin as if watching an animal in the zoo. Darren catches Colin as he staggers breathlessly by, pulls him under his arm. He is all a-tremble, as after his nightmares. There is a distant murmur of thunder. “Easy, Colin. It’s all right. We’ll make them go away now.”
“I can show you proof,” the banker says.
“Why don’t you people leave us alone?” Clara asks plaintively.
“That’s like asking the body to pay no attention to its cancers,” the banker replies, and there are angry mutterings from both groups of Brunist Followers.
Darren hands the mine pick to Colin—“Hold this for me, Colin. Careful! Don’t let it fall!”—and walks over to ask Clara’s permission to approach the visitors. She nods and he climbs the hill toward them, clutching her dodecagonal medallion concealed under his tunic, feeling no fear but uncertain as to what he might do next. Each side of Clara’s medallion stands for something, as defined by the First Followers — like ascent and descent, the disaster and rescue, etc. — with three sides representing illumination, mystic fusion, and transformation, which Darren has come to think of as the three final stages of the Rapture, something Clara is incapable of understanding, justifying his appropriation. Illumination is what he is seeking now, and he rubs that edge of the medallion, and as he does so, the old hill seems to wobble and darken and black bits in its soil sparkle as if to illuminate his path up the slope. Clouds have rolled in overhead; more distinct rumbles of thunder can be heard in the near distance. The banker has removed his sunglasses to glance up at the sky before gazing imperiously down upon Darren. A big man made bigger by the hilltop he commands. Darren returns the gaze calmly, finding power in those unblinking gray-blue eyes, but also a vast, soulless emptiness. Beyond redemption. Aware of it, and therefore disillusioned and embittered. “I only wish to speak to your prisoner,” Darren says.
“He is not a prisoner.” He nods at the two nurses and they bring him forward.
Darren senses a ghostly presence; the man exudes a chill. The sores on his arms could be signs of decomposition. A resurrected dead man? He thinks of that open grave at the old cemetery. The man’s eyes flicker over Darren’s tunic, the first signs of some kind of life, then over Darren’s shoulder at the hill and the others on it. Perhaps in recognition: if it is he, he has been here before. Watching him closely, Darren realizes that though he will not say so to the others, almost certainly this is indeed Giovanni Bruno. Or was. A kind of ghostly shadow. He is expressionless on the surface, but something is stirring underneath. There is another rumble of thunder. Louder. Closer. The man looks up as though in anticipation. Or terror. They all look up. When they look down again, the man’s eyes are closed and he is struggling to speak. “Dark…” he says. He sounds like he is strangling. He opens his eyes, his gaze fixed upon Darren. Darren feels momentarily pinned in space. “Light,” he says in that same strangled croak, and Darren knows he has been privileged. Dark…light. A false vision? A paradoxical one? Or a true vision that is itself dark and fearsome? Blinding. Darren, his back to Clara, risks reaching into his tunic and pulling out the medallion. He shows it to the man. The nurses are unable to stop the man from crossing himself in the Catholic way and falling to his knees, his hands pressed together in worship. It is precisely the effect Darren was hoping for. Or, rather, that he supposed God would grant. Then the man’s eyes roll back showing their whites, a kind of unearthly wail emerges, and frothy bubbles appear on his lips; he is trembling all over like a rag being shaken. Darren tucks the medallion back.
The nurses, cursing, their needles out, give Darren a hard shove, sending him staggering backwards, whereupon, with an angry shout, his friends from the camp charge the nurses and something of a scuffle breaks out. The banker imposes himself, threatening arrests in a bellowing voice. The police draw their weapons, and it is all over as soon as it has begun. The one they say is the Prophet Bruno is carried away, now completely lifeless. Is he even breathing? Was he before? As they turn to leave, the banker announces through the megaphone, his jaws clenched: “As a result of the barbaric murder of the county sheriff and the arrival in the area of dangerous elements known to be associated with your unlawful cult, let me advise you, the National Guard is being flown in tomorrow and state troopers are on their way. This hill will be off limits.”
An open challenge, compelling response. But before one can be made, there is a powerful explosion. “The camp!” someone cries. “They’re attacking the camp!” People break for their cars, clambering down the hillside, tunic hems lifted. Colin drops the pick and runs after them. Somewhere, a second blast can be heard. The police run too. Motors are turning over, wheels are spinning. There are shouts. The sirens start.
“Dark,” Darren thinks, left alone under the turbulent sky, feet planted apart to stay the earth in its violent turning. It is beginning to sprinkle. “Light.”
Spider says the chawing noises are making him sick, and the rest more or less share the ink artist’s disgust. Not Nat’s favorite grub, but he accepts what Deacon offers him. You have to learn to eat what’s set in front of you, as his evil old man used to say, belting him one if he didn’t. Deacon, stripped to his vast hairy pelt while his clothes dry near the fire, has danced around naked in the storm, netting a dozen or so small birds, sparrows and wrens mostly, huddling in the bushes. He has skewered them live and held them over the fire to burn their feathers off, then dipped them in and out of a barbecue sauce made of molasses and hot spices, cooking them crisp in several passes over the fire. He and Nat are eating them whole, crunchy heads and feet and all. Better than the grasshoppers Deacon fried up in the same sauce earlier, calling them crispies. Some of the others have gone off in the squally rain, looking for small game like coons, possums, chipmunks, squirrels — what Brainerd calls mountain boomers — which in truth don’t taste any better or even as good and can be tough as old shoes, the best being the occasional family pet dumped in the park by their owners. Last night it was a pair of half-grown cocker spaniel pups down by the entrance, just squatting there waiting for them, their tails wagging. Let’s give them a good home, Deacon said, lifting them tenderly by their napes.
The Wrath of God are bivouacking in a state park known for its giant rock formations, upheaval of another time, regrouping here after the bad hit they took, tending to their wounded, some grieving. Old Houndawg, for example. Alone, silent, his damaged leg wrapped with a bloody shirt, Paulie’s head in his lap, still wearing its black eyepatch. Nat watches him and wonders at the hurt Houndawg is showing. Nat doesn’t share Houndawg’s grief, though maybe he should. The sheriff’s murder of Littleface brought an end to that feeling — unless rage is a form of it, in which case he is grieving most of the time. People: they come and go in their garbagey way, always more following on. But when the End comes, this sick recycling of flesh stops. Nat plans to be in on that. The Big One put that nitro in his hands for a reason. He will do his part. The only real grief Nat feels is for the loss of his bike, Midnight. An impulsive decision, pushed into it by Deacon and Houndawg. But probably the right one. He’ll get over it. Too much at stake for sentimental brooding. He has ridden hard over the past two months, dragging himself and his pals through tough and dangerous times, assembling the Wrath for a holy battle worthy of superheroes. Half of whom are either dead or have now abandoned him. He’s angry about those who have ducked out, but there are still plenty for getting the job done. Fewer for the enemy to shoot at. The enemy is worldly power itself, he reminds himself, munching a bird; it’s no pushover, you have to expect to take some losses. Sometimes you have to pull back, take off your cape, shake off the krypton factor, get your strength back. Something Face might have said. Might say: he still feels his presence. Hears him talking to him sometimes. Littleface had the idea that when you die you come back as someone else, like a comic superhero, or villain. Nat doesn’t quite believe that, but he watches out for him just the same. He thought he saw something of Littleface in one of the Crusadeers. Wrong.
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