Roger chuckled. ‘I wouldn’t have taken you for a drinker at all. A good thing, because I don’t have enough for two. I was checking to see if there was anything growing in it. It’s cheap and it’s old. Scares me a little.’ He added, ‘Thanks for pointing out the hour, though.’
He poured a water glass full of the stuff and searched through a lopsided pile on his desk, pulling out several pieces of paper. He gulped some wine and began scouring a bookshelf to the left of the window.
‘Nephilim?’ Sander reminded him.
‘That’s you. Your kind. One of the words the Israelites had for you, anyway. I didn’t mean to mystify you with it.’ Sander thought otherwise. Roger turned and flung a small, tattered volume in his lap. ‘You read the King James, I’m guessing. That,’ he pointed to the little book, ‘is a translation of the Hebrew text before Christians went to work on it. Not hard to find.’ Roger was searching for something else. ‘You’re familiar with Genesis 6, verse 4.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘Have a look at it in that version. Page 12.’
Sander read:
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days – and also afterward – when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.
No sooner had he finished, than Roger tossed him another.
‘The Matthew’s Bible. First one authorized in English, about seventy-five years before the King James. Think of it as King Henry the Eighth’s version.’ Sander didn’t open it. ‘Go ahead,’ said Roger, ‘see what Henry’s guys called you.’
There were tyrants in the world in those days. For after that the children of God had gone in unto the daughters of men –
Sander closed the book. Roger had gathered what he sought. He sat with his armload in the chair across the coffee table from Sander and glanced at his glass of wine on the desk.
‘Yeah,’ said Roger. ‘In less than a century, you went from tyrants to giants. Long before that, heroes and warriors. You went back to Nephilim in the 1800s with the English Revised Version, roughly the same time “children of God” was taken to mean angels. But you were never heroes again. Officially. I’m sure you’ve seen the way you’re characterized in later passages. Not flattering.’
Sander was suddenly incensed. The fact that he couldn’t get a firm handle on the reason for his anger did little to quell it. Something in the authority with which Roger spoke of the Grant heritage. As it might be, Sander imagined, for a midget listening to Tolkien talk of hobbits like they walked Dixon streets. More, though, there was an undercurrent working in Sander’s mind. He was at last fitting together the pieces from recent events.
‘So you go around stalking big people until you can convince one that he’s some kind of ... what? I think you came here looking for us. You found out about Jason. Made him your little spy and now mamma’s taking the blame on herself.’
‘You had the talk with your mother, didn’t you?’
‘She told me God said not to come here. Starting to sound like a wise move.’
‘He said more than that.’ Roger stacked his books and papers on the table between them. ‘I understand why she’s upset. I’ve been warned before and it’s never easy. Never pleasant.’
‘Warned?’
‘Yeah. Except this time – and I’m assuming Josephine got the same treatment I did – this time it was more of a threat. That can rattle a person, even a strong one.’
‘Okay, Roger.’ Sander closed his eyes, hoping that when he opened them there wouldn’t be a lunatic sitting over there. No such luck. ‘God’s threatening you now?’
‘And you, your family. More yall than me, actually. He just refuses to talk to you.’
‘Lookit, I’m gonna head on back to the ranch,’ Sander said, hands on his knees, ‘and if God aint smote it with locusts or frogs, I intend to get some work done. I’m tempted to suggest you see somebody about this stuff, maybe get yourself a little medication, but I reckon I’ll stay the hell out of your business. From now on, I need you to do me the same favor. That goes for Jason too, if you happen to see him. We clear?’
‘You never told Jason that you speak to your dead relatives, did you? Or, more to the point, that they speak back.’
‘Do what?’
‘I didn’t think so. Wouldn’t reflect favorably on your state of mind.’ Roger was much more afraid of Sander’s temper than he evidenced, but he had to do something to keep him here. ‘I don’t deny stalking giants. Stalk is a good word for it. You can scarcely imagine how many cases of Marfan syndrome, Sotos syndrome, hypergonadism and various thyroid tumors I’ve seen or studied. Each of them resulting in what’s crudely termed gigantism.’ He laughed at himself. ‘All those semesters I spent with the rock hounds in the archaeology department ... Look,’ he said, extending several stapled pieces of paper, the top one crammed with his handwriting. Sander didn’t move.
‘I didn’t give you that newspaper article because it was the only one I could find,’ said Roger. He read from stapled sheets, ‘The Semi-Weekly Cedar Falls Gazette, September of 1897. The Fort Wayne News out of Indiana. That one was January, 1901. And,’ he flipped over two pages, ‘closer to home we’ve got the San Antonio Express from April of 1931 and the Amarillo Globe-Times. Sure you don’t wanna have a look?’ He met Sander’s stare. ‘Alright. In January, that last one will be only thirty years old. Every one of these is an article about the remains of giants. Unearthed accidentally, and now they’re in a museum somewhere. There’s better than sixty articles here.’ He placed the pages on the coffee table. ‘Don’t take my word for it, though. The library can get you copies of all the American ones.’
‘That’s good to know.’
‘Maybe it doesn’t interest you. It evidently doesn’t interest too many people. You’re not as newsworthy as you were at the turn of the century. Anyway, some of the bones they’ve dug up are ancient. Some not so much. I’ve seen them all. From France, to India, to Scotland. Despite what’s been written about your family over the years – and there hasn’t been much – you already know you don’t have any hormonal or thyroid condition.’ Sander had no reaction, but Roger knew he was right. ‘Such things are never consistent in an unbroken lineage and, at any rate, fail to account for your strength, your intellectual development, and the fact that you can speak with the dead.’
‘After all these years,’ Sander said, ‘here comes an over-educated preacher who can explain it all for us. Our forefathers were angels. Now it makes perfect sense.’
‘Not perfect, but a good deal of sense. I understand why you’re looking at me like that. I must seem like one of those Sasquatch hunters with all my “documented sightings”. I would hope–’
‘That’s not funny,’ said Sander.
‘No. It isn’t. A single thing, if nothing else, separates me from those people and the folks searching the sky for UFOS: I’m sitting across from a giant.’ Roger curtailed that thread and confessed, ‘I’ve been pursuing the truth behind scripture for thirty years, Sander, since my first undergraduate course in biblical history. I’m still not sure who the “children of God” are, but I intend to find out. Yes, it is an obsession.’ He added, ‘It’s not limited to Nephilim, either. If I’m wrong in the head, then I’m way more nuts than you think.’
‘What makes you think we talk to the dead?’
‘It was written once about your people. Specifically one named Bilgames. You probably know him as Gilgamesh. I have the original cuneiform if you’d like to see it.’
‘When I first came here, you mentioned helping me. That’s not your aim with this.’
‘Yes it is, albeit secondarily. Sincere, though.’
‘Secondary to what?’
‘A restoration.’ He held up the two Bibles from the coffee table. ‘What baffles the best of us, scholars of these writings, is how they sold this stuff to begin with. As much hoodoo as it seems now, Greek mythology makes more sense than the words we hold sacred. A wh
ole heap less paradoxical, anyway. The simplest ancient Sumerian wouldn’t have accepted this text, not like it stands today. Not as it has been for a millennium. So, what did they accept? What did they buy into?’ He plopped the books back on the table. ‘It very nearly starts with the Nephilim. Your kind were living proof to the veracity of the gospel. Proof is something the Olympians couldn’t offer. The origin of your people is woven into the backstory of divine creation, the monotheistic version. That’s what I mean when I say I can help you. I can help you know who you are.’ Roger leaned forward in his chair.
‘Do you remember my talk on Noah and the flood? Or, forget my talk, you know the tale. God made a point of sparing the seed of mankind along with all the other animals which couldn’t swim or fly. Except Nephilim. The King James tells us God said to Noah, “And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark,” and so forth. But that’s not how the Hebrew translates. More accurately, it says “all natural flesh”. The Talmud – Rabbinic writings, Jewish, fifth century – it says your people survived because one of you clung to the hull of the ark. Imagine it. The torrent comes without warning and you’re left to drown. For forty days, nine hundred and sixty hours, you hold fast, hand gripping that gopher wood like a vice, struggling to fill your lungs between swells.’ He snapped out of his admiration and appended an afterthought. ‘But why forty days? That’s the question nobody’s asking. I mean, how long can an average human being tread water, you reckon? No, God was serious about killing, and the animal He set out to kill was very strong. The rest of the poor sinners who went under were, foremost, collateral damage. Made for a good lesson on divine wrath, though.’
Roger had allowed his fervor to get the better of his propriety. He was thankful Sander wasn’t headed for the door.
‘Let me ask you something,’ said Sander. ‘Do you believe in God? Wait. Stupid question. Of course you do. He talks to you and all. I mean to say, do you believe He is the Creator, or do you just study Him like a historian might dig into the life of Plato or Aristotle?’
‘Both. One without the other would seem foolish to me. Interesting that you should bring up Aristotle.’ He began thumbing through his stack of material. ‘He actually wrote of the beginning. I have it here somewhere.’
‘Don’t bother. Can God hear us right now?’
‘Oh, you betcha,’ answered Roger, without looking up.
‘And His warning or threat to you evidently concerns what we’re talking about.’
‘God’s monarchy is not absolute, Sander. He’s ultimately accountable–’ Roger thought he found what he was looking for. As he scanned the page, from force of habit he lapsed into his teaching mode and was saying, ‘You didn’t believe Aristotle invented oligarchy, did you? He named it, so we’re told, but there has always been a council, or governing body, behind the scenes in heaven. Read these few–’
When Roger did look up, extending pages once again, Sander was walking past him.
‘Where you going?’
Sander turned, his hand on the doorknob. ‘Roger, I think you’ve got a screw loose. If not, we’re sitting around pissing off the Almighty while you drink spoiled wine. Either way, it doesn’t seem like a good way to spend the morning, does it?’ Sander ducked under the doorway and headed down the stairs.
Roger called after him, ‘Maybe a little of both! It’s worth finding out what He said to your mom, though!’
Sander pulled into the ranch drive and was astounded to see two stud walls standing on the concrete slab out back. Javier was helping Miguel assemble a third. He parked the truck and had his hand on the gate when he looked to his left.
Jo was on her knees in the backyard, buckled at the waist with her forehead resting in a brown patch of St Augustine grass. Sander cut and ran over to her. As he drew closer, he heard her slow sobbing.
Miguel stopped hammering and looked their way. Javier scolded him in Spanish and they both returned to their work.
‘Mamma, what’s wrong?’
Jo didn’t seem to notice him there. Instinctively, he put his big hands on her shoulders and tried to coax her up. He moved her an inch and thunder punched the ground, bouncing lawn chairs on the patio and rattling the corrugated barn roof. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Jo wailed and arched her back as though something had seized the base of her spine and snatched it downward. The sound she made was that of a cornered panther; of pain so near madness that there was no difference. Sander saw her face and, for an instant, did not recognize her. He had to stop himself from recoiling. Her head returned to the earth and the sobbing continued.
‘Don’t touch her,’ called Dalton from the patio door. He held the phone receiver to his chest, the cord stretched to its breaking point.
No good. Sander couldn’t help it. He was already bent to scoop his mother from the ground. Again, at the tiniest movement, thunder slammed the land from all directions. This one knocked spit from Sander’s open mouth.
Jo loosed another primal squall, Sander released her, and she mumbled, ‘I’m not. Not moving.’ At least, that’s what Sander thought she said. Her blistering scream had his ears ringing and he couldn’t be sure. Her head fell back where it was.
‘Goddamnit, son.’ Dalton shoved Sander on his rump. ‘I told you to leave her be.’ Then, to Jo, ‘The ambulance is on its way, honey.’
Not too many places you can lay the blame for inexplicably punctual thunder. Looking up at the blue sky, Sander could think of only one. As the three of them sat in the yard awaiting the paramedics, he was not altogether surprised when the pain left Jo’s body as mysteriously as it had stricken her. Nor was he taken aback by his mother’s attitude toward the ordeal. At the hospital, while a nurse drew vials of her blood, Jo was resigned to the inconvenience, like she was waiting on a dim-witted trainee at the supermarket to figure out the cash register. Dalton was utterly distraught, however, and that tested Jo’s patience, so she sent him in search of ginger ale.
When the nurse left the room, Sander said, ‘What do you think it was?’
‘I don’t have to think. He told me.’
‘God talked to you while you were hurting?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did He say?’
‘He said be still. He just wanted you to see it, then He said it would go away. It did.’
‘Why would He do that?’
Jo heard boot heels on the linoleum in the hall. ‘Let’s talk about it later.’
The doctor said Jo’s blood work would take twenty-four hours. He made his prediction that it was just a pinched nerve, sent Jo home with a sample of anti-inflammatory drugs and prescribed rest until the labs came back. Dalton put her to bed and joined Sander on the sofa in the living room.
‘I sent everybody home,’ said Sander.
‘Good. That’s good. I’m worried that something is bad wrong with her.’
‘Don’t be, dad. I think the doctor is right. Something got twisted or pinched. I bet it’s nothing serious.’
‘Have you ever seen a person hurt like that?’
‘I have now.’ He rose and grabbed his truck keys off the table. ‘That medicine is gonna knock her out for a while. I need to run back over to the church. I forgot something.’
‘Bring back dinner,’ said Dalton.
Sander was pounding on the church door fifteen minutes later. Roger hurried down the stairs to unlock it before the thing flew from its hinges.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘The threat,’ Sander blurted. ‘What did God say?’
Roger invited him in and they stood in the back of the dark meeting hall.
‘In essence,’ Roger told him, ‘He said leave well enough alone. He got kind of archaic with the “or else” part. Lots of “thee” and “thine” and verbs ending with e-t-h. He does that when He’s hiding something.’
‘Leave what alone?’
‘I told you I’ve been working on biblical translations, restoring lost and distorted scriptur
e. I’ve had a modicum of success over the years, all things considered. Some of the stuff that was originally there – God wasn’t too happy to see it in print in the first place. Nothing to be done about it, though. Man wrote it and it was factual. His council would have been eager to remind him of that.’ Which explained a sum total of nothing for Sander. Roger said, ‘It seems the Nephilim might be a particularly sore subject for the Almighty.’
‘Okay. Back up. You keep saying these things as if God has no choice in the matter. What council are you talking about?’
‘See, it was a stroke of luck for God that man started revising the Word. For the most part, we took out or changed the parts He didn’t like. Now there’s just enough truth left to impress the faithful and the rest of it makes any questions look argumentative, at best. But just as we were the only ones who could change it, we’re also the only ones who can change it back. I know it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense right now, sort of disjointed. I need to run up and get a few of those items you didn’t see before you left.’ Yet he made no move to get up. Instead, he asked, ‘Why the change of heart?’
Sander told him the story, in brief.
Roger shook his head.
‘I was hoping that it wouldn’t come to that, but it makes sense that He used her.’
‘She didn’t do anything. Why not hurt you?’ Sander said. ‘You started it.’
‘True enough, in a manner of speaking. But you don’t care one way or another for me. Much more effective to use Josephine. If He stops you, then He’s stopped me. On the Nephilim front, at least.’ Roger studied Sander for a moment. ‘And He has stopped you, hasn’t He?’
‘I guess He has, yeah. I’m not really sure I was on board to begin with.’
‘That’s His way. Very proactive, most of the time.’
‘Then, why didn’t He come to me? Warn me?’
‘God can’t lay a finger on you, kid. The Nephilim belong to the holy council and it’s strictly hands-off for Jehovah. Has been for quite some time. I’m still working on the details of that.’ Standing, he said, ‘I made you some copies, so you might as well take them. I’ll just be a minute. Help yourself to the coffee.’
The Legend of Sander Grant Page 11