It had been several years since she'd been to any religious service at all, and she was not sure what prompted her to attend this one. She remembered church as being dry and somewhat boring, like a documentary--something you knew was good for you but didn't enjoy.
But she had enjoyed Wheeler's sermon.
Oh, yes, she had enjoyed it immensely.
The preacher told it like it was. His topics were not parables from the past, Bible stories from two thousand years ago. He talked about the present.
And the future. It was his talk of the world to come that had really held her spellbound; her and all of the other people sitting enthralled in the cold desert air. Pastor Wheeler did not talk in generalities, did not make vague promises about some faraway future. He spoke in specifics, explained how Jesus would wipe the slate clean, would crush the Catholics bury the Baptists, maul the Methodists. Jesus liked blood, the preacher said, and the taste of human flesh. Christ would feast on the diseased and corrupted bodies of the unrighteous and cleanse the earth. Their discarded bones would line Highway 370, the border of the path of righteousness that would lead through this barren waste land to the Church of the Living Christ.
The people around her had really gotten into the sermon, shouting
"Hallelujah" and "Praise Jesus!" and she had gotten into it, too. It was as if her eyes had been opened, as if she had merely been existing for the past twenty-two years of her life and had now been invited to live. The loose ends of her world, the unconnected bits and pieces that she had learned and absorbed over the years had suddenly fallen into place, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and she suddenly knew why she had been born, why she was here.
To serve the Lord Jesus Christ
And Jesus would walk among them next week.
After the sermon, she had hung around, not knowing anyone but wanting to meet everyone. She'd spied Mr. and Mrs. Grimes, whom she recognized from the Ranch
Market, and walked over to them. They were talking with a group of five or six other men and women, and all of them had turned toward her when she'd walked up.
"Jesus hates Chinks," Mrs. Grimes said. "The pastor said last week that He hated those slant-eyed heathens."
"Yes," Shelly said, nodding. She did not know why she was agreeing; she only knew that it felt right.
"Do you want to help us smoke 'em out?" another man asked. He grinned, and there was something infectious in his grin, and she found herself smiling back at him. He looked vaguely familiar, and she knew that she'd seen him around town.
Mr. Grimes nodded his approval. "You're in, then."
Shelly had looked around the lot, noticing that most of the congregation had broken into small groups of ten or eleven. All of them seemed to be huddling closer together becoming more intense, more insular in their discussions. I Were they making similar plans?
It was possible. The Lord worked in mysterious ways.
A short, bald man with a curly gray beard scratched his weathered cheek. "I can get the gasoline," he said. "But what about the kindling?"
"No problem," Mr. Grimes said.
And now they were here.
Once more, Shelly looked out the windshield at Sue's darkened house.
She still felt good about what they were going to do. It still felt right to her. She had no second thoughts, no feelings of guilt or pangs of conscience. This might frighten Sue into seeing the error of her ways, into going to church, into realizing, before next week, before it was too late, that Jesus was the truth and the light. And if it did go too far, if something happened and someone got hurt, well, then it was God's will.
But she and Sue had been friends forever. Since second grade, when they'd met in Mrs. Michaels's class. They'd gone through an awful lot together. Grammar school and junior high and high school. Phases and stages: dolls and music and boys. Sue was her best friend in the world.
But Jesus was more than a friend.
And if she expected to be one of The Chosen, one of
The Forty, she had to prove herself.
"I think they leave the bathroom light on all night," she said. "I don't think anyone's up.
"I think you're right," Mrs. Grimes said. She opened her door, got out on the driver's side, and walked to the back of the van, opening it. "Be quiet," she said. "And let's do it quickly."
Shelly got out on the passenger side. Her adrenaline was pumping, and she felt ready for anything.
"Jesus wants us to take out those trees," Mr. Hillman said. "The pastor said that's the most important thing."
There were whispers of agreement from the other men and women getting out of the van.
Shelly grabbed one of the Hefty bags filled with the dried leaves they were going to use as fuel for the fire. It felt full and weighty in her grasp, satisfyingly full. Next to her, Hal Newman, the old man with the beard, grabbed his cans of gasoline. "Let's fry us up some chink," he said.
Shelly grinned at him. "Let's do it." " gasoline
Sue was awakened by the smell of smoke and
Her first coherent thought was that the house was burning down. She tried to leap out of bed, but with the partial coordination of the half-awake, she got tangled up in her sheets and fell to the floor, landing loudly on her side.
She didn't know whether it was her fall or the smoke smell that had awakened her parents, but she heard them talking loudly and excitedly in their bedroom, and she caught the muffled words "fire" and "trees?"
She stood up, untangling herself from the sheets, and saw a thin wisp of smoke drifting through her open window from between the curtains.
She hurried out of her bedroom, down the hall to her parents' bedroom, and through their window she saw an orange-yellow glow in the front yard..
The willows were on fire.
Her father was already dressed and hurrying out of the room, yelling for her to call the fire department, but she stared out the window, transfixed. There were two fires, one at the foot of each tree, and though the blazes were large and growing larger, they had not yet engulfed the trees. They seemed to be burning built-up piles of garbage and debris at the foot of the willows. Across the street, lights were on in the Malverns' and Chapmans' houses, and, silhouetted figures were standing at the windows. There was no sound of sirens, not even from across town, and Sue realized that none of their neighbors had bothered to call the fire department.
"Call!" her father ordered as he ran down the hallway, and she hurried to obey. Her mother was crying, gathering up photos and mementoes, shoving them into her oversize jewelry box.
Sue sped out of the bedroom, down the hall, into the kitchen. She found the list of emergency numbers next to the phone and quickly dialed the Rio Verde Volunteer Fire Department. Chief Simmons answered, "Fire station," he said sleepily.
"There's a fire on our front lawn!" She was practically shouting into the phone, her words all running together. She forced herself to slow down. Behind her, she heard bare feet running across open floor. Her mother, brother, and grandmother. "There's a big fire on our front lawn. My name's Sue Wing. I'm at ten-oh-one East Shadowbluff." : :,
"East Shadowbluff?" The captain was Instantly wide awake .....
"Yes."
"We'll be right there."
By the time she ran outside, where her mother, her grandmother, and John were standing on the stoop---her mother desperately clutching the overstuffed jewelry box--she could already hear the sirens. Her father had turned on the hose and was attempting to spray the fire at the foot of the smaller tree, but the water seemed to be having no effect. They had not gotten to the blaze in time. It was spreading, burning out of control.