by Mike Duran
He finished the bottle of orange juice, opened the door, and stepped onto the gravel shoulder. Behind him, the entire Endurance Valley spread. Patches of rich green farmland interspersed with dwellings, framed by the rugged mountains. No wonder the Indians considered this landscape magical.
Across the highway rose the rocky columns. Apart from graffiti chiseled into one, the spires appeared almost lunar, like alien obelisks puncturing the earth’s crust. In person, the Black Pass seemed much bigger. A plaque embedded in a stone pedestal at the base of the nearest column outlined important details of the Endurance archway, as well as geological information.
Out of the corner of his eye a figure moved into the doorway of the shop.
Zeph turned as a gust of wind sent nearby chimes tinkling.
“Mornin’, son.” A thick man with wild, overgrown sideburns and red suspenders stood in the doorway. “Welcome to Meridian.”
Zeph squinted against the glare of the cresting sun. “Morning, sir.”
“Name’s Earl.” The man lumbered onto the porch with a noticeable limp, stood on the edge, and peered down at Zeph. “We been expectin’ you.”
Again Zeph wondered why he had come up here. He cleared his throat. “My name is—”
“Don’t bother!” Earl rumbled. “I know who ya are and why you’re here.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“You’re here for the tour!”
“Of course.” Zeph folded his arms. “So, what’s the tour?”
Windows framed either side of the doorway, draped with lace curtains, displaying shelves of curios and pottery. A fleet of pale green flying saucers dangled from fishing line near the wind chimes at the entrance, no doubt the glow-in-the-dark variety.
“There’s a coupla tours,” Earl said. “The House of Gravity’s popular. The Pueblo City tour is a buck-fifty. You can take it yourself out back. Just follow the red footprints. There’s some genuine pottery and mannequins all dressed up and propped in the windows. Like Indians. And there’s petroglyphs in the cave—we still ain’t found the bottom—and lotsa arrowheads scattered. You can collect ’em for a buck each. But the barricaded areas are off limits. Some fella got lost down there awhile back. Wandered out three hours later, glassy-eyed and spacey.”
Zeph shifted his weight. If the traveling circus was looking for a new barker, Zeph might have discovered him.
Earl slipped his thumbs under his suspenders. “But most folks just wanna see Ginny.”
Pinching sand off the bridge of his nose, Zeph asked reluctantly, “Who’s Ginny?”
“You mean, what’s Ginny? She’s just a coupla parts. A mummified hand, two legs from the knees down, and what appears to be a wing. Well-preserved and not at all human.”
Dust swirled at Zeph’s ankles. How the man knew Ginny was a female was a discussion Zeph did not want to broach. Instead, he asked, “So, what is Ginny?”
The saucers wafted at a passing gust, followed by the tinkle of the chimes.
“There’s a coupla theories. Some say she’s a spaceman. Ya know, an extraterrestrial. Can’t be sure. The one that keeps people comin’—from as far away as Alaska, matter of fact—is that Ginny’s an angel.”
Before he had time to steer the conversation away from Ginny, Earl continued.
“Course, some think the Paiute—you know, the Indians that lived ’round here—preserved the remains for one reason or the other. But if you ask me, I think it’s residue from those government experiments. Probably some farmer caught a whiff of radioactive fog or somethin’. Anyway, the parts are in the caboose, and you can view ’em for two dollars. Or with the purchase of ten dollars or more, you can see it for free.”
Zeph stared at the man for a moment.
A pickup truck carrying a load of pickers from one of the outlying farms crested the hill, and the driver made the sign of the cross as they passed between the stone arches. The slow-rolling dust cloud swept past, and the vast silence of the mountain pass returned.
“You said I was here for the tour.”
“Indeed, I did.” Earl strummed his suspenders. “Follow me!”
Earl turned and limped back into Meridian. Zeph remained, listening to the floorboards creak inside. The foam saucers fluttered in the breeze, and the wind chimes sent harmonic fractals dancing along the porch. Zeph climbed the steps and entered Meridian.
“Feel free to take a look around,” Earl said, waiting for him at a glass counter. “I’m sure you’ll find something to your liking.”
Thick timber framed the structure with each end leading, rather perilously, into another dimly lit antechamber. Every possible nook was displayed with random arcane items. A long glass counter, cluttered with magic paraphernalia—card tricks, locked rings, wands—stretched before the entryway. Road signs hung helter-skelter on the rustic wooden walls, some with buckshot and rusted acne, announcing the historic Route 66, Four Corners, and Sunset Blvd. Crucifixes of all shapes and sizes adorned the walls. A massive snakeskin spread across a plaque above the counter, displaying what was purported to be the largest diamondback ever encountered in the Owens Valley. A poster of Raquel Welch in her animal skin outfit from One Million Years B.C. stretched across the ceiling, as did an assemblage of album covers, license plates, and tins. Rattlesnake eggs sat on the counter, but Zeph knew enough to not inquire.
“This is Jim.” Earl nodded toward a slender young man at a desk hunched over disassembled electronic parts.
“Heyah, Cap.” Jim saluted Zeph before returning to work.
“And this is Sultana.” Earl motioned to a girl dressed in black, tipped back on a stool reading a paperback. A bleached streak traced a geisha-cut hairdo.
Sultana righted herself, slid off her stool, and extended her hand. “Pleased to meet you. Finally.” Her smile was gracious.
Zeph removed his sunglasses and slipped them into his shirt pocket. He shook Sultana’s hand. “Ditto. I guess.”
“She’s also part of the remnant.”
“The remnant?” Zeph asked.
“Annie didn’t tell you?” Earl’s overgrown eyebrows knotted.
Zeph shook his head.
Sultana hoisted herself back on the stool, using her booted foot to lightly push off from the glass counter. “It’s a loose-knit group of religious fanatics who believe in Armageddon, the Great Tribulation, government conspiracy, and a variety of political intrigue.”
“Oh, is that all?” Zeph offered.
Sultana smiled. “We also happen to believe that, when you came back here—what, a decade ago?—you triggered a series of events that unequivocally prove you are the one spoken about in the prophecy.”
Zeph wrinkled his nose. “Um, maybe you can just show me the tour.”
“Right!” Earl slapped the countertop with his thick hand.
Zeph followed Earl through an aisle of geodes and crystalline spikes before ducking through a beaded curtain into a dim hallway. A series of wooden steps descended steeply to a door.
Earl lumbered down the steps with considerable difficulty, leaving Zeph to surmise that either Earl was not the tour guide or the tours were rather infrequent.
Sunlight burst into the stairwell as Earl opened the door onto a dusty landscape. Zeph winced at the glare, following the store owner into a sandy cove in back of the buildings. A calico dog looked lazily from its bed, flies agitating its crusty eyes. A wall of granite, veined with quartz and sandstone, towered along the backside of Meridian. A cobblestone trail traced the side of the mountain, cordoned by a rope walkway, before plunging into a squat cavern some fifty feet below the store.
“That’s where it all started,” Earl said reverently, staring toward the cave. “The legends, you know, about the prophet.”
Another gust of wind swirled at Zeph’s feet, and a low moan rose from the cavern.
He could not say why, at that moment, he thought about Jonah’s whale, its jaws opened wide, preparing to swallow the wayward prophet. Yet somehow Zeph reali
zed that if he walked into this cave, there would be no turning back.
Nevertheless, Zeph turned to Earl and said, “Lead the way.”
Chapter 29
A rickety string of bare bulbs crackled to life inside the Meridian cavern. Earl followed the roped walkway into the sloping subterranean grotto. Zeph remained behind him, unsure of what he would find.
“When they first found this place,” Earl’s voice echoed in the cavern, “there was leftover pottery and arrowheads everywhere. Whoever lived here got beamed up or somethin’.”
The string of lights wafted in a rising breeze, descending into a smooth, twisting corridor of rock. A series of archways disappeared below. The slope was gradual, but when he reached the first archway, Earl was sweating. He turned to Zeph, his face glistening in the artificial light.
“Most people have never seen what you’re about to see. So be careful, young man. For your eyes only, ya hear?”
Zeph nodded. “My lips are sealed.”
The dog had managed to rouse itself and loped along behind them. Earl ducked under the rope and held it up so Zeph could do the same. A series of carved steps branched off the main tunnel. The cool breeze disappeared, and dank, listless air took its place. Earl navigated down these steps into an adjoining corridor of smooth, graceful, sandstone-type walls. The further they moved from the main trail, the darker it grew. If there were not another light source ahead, they would quickly be in complete darkness.
The memory of the doppelgänger ignited, striking dread inside him. How did Zeph know this stranger could be trusted? Here he was, miles from civilization, in a dark cave, following a guy wearing red suspenders into a hidden chamber. What if Zeph was being led to his death? After all, the detectives assumed someone was after him. Why else would someone shoot his look-alike? Why not the remnant? It wouldn’t be the first time religious fanatics committed murder. Perhaps it was all an elaborate scheme to get him here. Alone. What better spot to off a wayward prophet with a bankload of money than in a lightless tunnel behind a roadside attraction?
Zeph’s breathing was labored, and a claustrophobic terror seized his thoughts. His mind squirmed under the weight of the horrific possibilities. He wondered what lay ahead of him.
Then, in the dim yellow light, symbols and etchings began to appear on the tunnel walls. They were timeworn and prehistoric. Zeph stopped to marvel at them.
The passage elbowed and opened into a dark chamber. Particles glistened faintly on a sandy substrate. Earl disappeared inside. Zeph attempted several steps but had to stop. He stood listening. Earl wheezed somewhere, and his footsteps scraped the floor. Muffled reverberations indicated he had entered a small chamber with a low ceiling.
A flashlight beam snapped on, aimed straight at Zeph. He shielded his eyes.
When he opened them, images, slight and pale, filled his field of vision. Winged creatures and dancing men—an immense sandstone storyboard stretched before him. It was an oval chamber with a crude fire ring in the middle and no other apparent exit. A dead end. Earl’s flashlight passed over the faint images painted on the wall—a collage, a Mesolithic coloring book—that Zeph strained to comprehend.
“This is it.” Earl’s voice died in the chamber. “They excavated the site decades ago, said it was some migrating tribe going south, but they up and vanished. This is all they left us.” He steadied the flashlight beam on the wall. “They reckoned it was discovered by some early miners. Creeped ’em out, so they left the place untouched. But it’s where the story started.”
Zeph’s eyes roamed the menagerie of pictographs, but he could not make sense of the images. “Story,” Zeph murmured in disbelief, still wrestling against a rising dread. “What story? And what does this have to do with me?”
Earl peered at him, perhaps detecting the submerged skepticism in Zeph’s tone. “You really don’t know?”
Zeph shook his head.
“Look here.” Earl traced the beam across a long green serpentine body, perhaps eight feet in length, which seemed to be the centerpiece of the panel. “It represents the earth. That’s how they saw it. A great, graceful thing. But dangerous! And notice the wound.”
The beam rested upon a dark gash in the serpent’s side. From it there rose a black cloud and dark winged things with yellow eyes.
“The earth was wounded,” Earl said reverently. “Profaned or defiled. From it spewed evil. Like Pandora’s box—somethin’ wretched was released.”
Zeph stood mesmerized over the crude prehistoric paintings. He glanced back the way they’d come and did a double-take. The calico dog sat at the mouth of the chamber, its eyes glistening like tiny moons. Sultana and Jim stood on either side of the animal. Either Zeph was cornered or what he was about to see really interested them.
Earl swabbed sweat off his face and turned his gaze back to the petroglyphs. “They believed one would rise to heal the land, a great prophet. And this would be the sign.”
He swung the beam to the next panel of rock where, etched in the cave wall, stood a pale figure with an oversized head. Instead of a mouth was a thick vertical line—as clear and unmistakable as the scar on Zeph’s face.
He could not stifle a faint murmur. Zeph took a step back. Then another.
Earl said, “They called him the Branded One. It’s all over their prophecies and legends. It’s who they waited for. A wielder of wild magic. A great sorcerer who would heal the land. This one, with a mark on his face.”
Earl kept his light trained on the figure. However, Zeph’s head was buzzing. The musty underground air seemed to bristle with energy.
“When you returned from the city,” Earl said, “you came with the scar. And then we knew you were the prophet, this Branded One who would heal the earth’s wound.”
Everything seemed to go mute as Zeph studied the antediluvian caricature. The fear that he felt at that moment was unlike anything he had ever felt. It was the fear of destiny.
Nausea tightened his gut. Zeph realized he was touching his scar and dropped his hand to his side. It was just as Annie had said. Something long ago had been set in motion. Something that he had no control over. The tumblers of some vast universal combination were falling into place, and there was nothing Zeph could do about it. Nothing except wait for the vault to swing wide.
Or run. Which is what Zeph instinctively did.
He turned and pushed past Sultana and Jim. The calico dog yelped as he stepped on its paw and stumbled up the corridor like a madman. Earl called after him, but Zeph ignored the man and barreled through the ancient tunnels into fresh air. He hurried through Meridian, knocking a tray of polished stones to the floor as he passed. Zeph ran onto the porch and stood there in a stupor, swaying, squinting in the daylight. He wondered if he might vomit.
Behind him, the floorboards thumped under Earl’s approach. “Zephaniah! Zephaniah!”
“Stop it!” Zeph spun about, facing the storeowner. “Would you all just stop calling me that?”
The glow-in-the-dark UFOs fluttered on a gust of wind.
Sultana emerged behind Earl and stood in the doorway, gaping at Zeph.
Zeph’s gaze dropped, and a wave of regret yanked him back to earth. “I–I’m sorry, sir. I shouldn’t have—”
The dog pushed past Earl’s leg, loped toward Zeph, and sat at his feet, staring up at him. The chimes tinkled in the dry air.
After a moment, Zeph heaved a sigh. “Look, I’m … I’m pretty confused right now.”
Earl stepped toward him. “I was there when you killed that man.” Zeph looked up. “I didn’t kill him.”
“Ol’ Duty probably deserved it, lyin’ to the Holy Ghost like that.”
“I should’ve never come here.”
“You can’t resist the hounds of heaven, son. I’d say they’re mighty on your trail.”
Zeph shook his head and wandered back to the truck. As he put his sunglasses on and opened the door, Earl called to him.
“Weaver.”
Zeph
looked up.
“Little Weaver,” Earl said. “He owns the Vermont. Got Indian blood ’n him. Right knowledgeable man. And storied! Been keepin’ an eye on you, like the rest of us. He’s been here, seen the prophecy. Don’t know about his theories, though. Says he’s part of the remnant now, and I can’t deny him that. Anyway, he can help you, son.”
Zeph stood for a moment looking at the owner of Meridian. The Vermont. It figured. But could anybody really help him? Even this Little Weaver?
“Thank you, sir,” Zeph said. “And I’m sorry about—”
“Don’t mention it!” Earl brushed his hand through the air. “Just know this.” He stepped to the edge of the porch. Jim and Sultana came to opposite sides of him. “We’re the remnant, son. We been at this a long time. And trust me, we will see this through.”
If the words were intended to produce confidence in Zeph, they had the opposite effect.
Zeph nodded, got into the truck, and spun a U-turn on the highway. He did not look back at the billboard or the Black Pass, or the cloud of dust spreading in his wake.
However, he did wonder if the smallest thing in the world really was a closed mind.
Chapter 30
The prophets were an odd bunch,” Annie said.
Tamra looked up from the scrapbook. Their conversation with Zeph Walker had left her mind numb. She still had a hard time comprehending that the boy in these pictures was the man who had just sat next to her on her grandmother’s sofa. “It’s just so hard to believe. A modern-day prophet?”
“Why not?” Annie came to Tamra’s side, and they both gazed at the news clippings of the Prophet of the Plains. “God didn’t just suddenly stop speaking. And if He still speaks, He can use anyone He wants, including Zeph Walker.”
“Yeah, but he seems so … confused.”
Annie nodded ruefully. “Just like the prophets of old. They were often troubled. Conflicted. Sometimes disobedient. Look at Jonah—he ran from the call of God. Elijah fled to the wilderness and lived in a cave. Moses argued with God. Yet God used them. They were flawed, but they still had incredible power.”