Blasphemy wf-2

by Douglas Preston

  Becenti stopped the nervous horses right before the group of scientists, the animals crowding into each other, eyes rolling, tossing their heads, barely under control.

  The crowd continued to back up nervously. “What are you doing with those horses?” Eddy cried angrily.

  “We want to join you!” Becenti gaped at him like an idiot and dropped a lead rope as if by accident. The lead horse tried to back up and Becenti stomped on the rope, arresting his movement. “ Whoa, you sumbitch!” he screamed. He bent down to retrieve the end. In that quick movement, he spoke quickly to the group, his voice just audible. “At my word,” he said, “get on the horses and we’re outta here.”

  Doke stepped into the open area in front of Eddy and Ford. “All right, pal, you better tell me who you are and what you just said to the prisoners.”

  “You heard me, man,” Becenti whined in a high-pitched voice. “I’m a friend in Christ! Thought you might need horses!”

  “You’re disrupting our business here, you idiot. Move these horses out of the way.”

  “Sure, course, sorry man, just trying to help.” Becenti turned. “Easy, horses!” he shouted, waving his hands wildly. “Settle down! Ho! Easy!”

  His shouting only seemed to agitate the horses further. Becenti grabbed their halters and began turning them around to lead them back out, but he seemed inept at managing the animals. When they didn’t obey he waved a coiled lasso at them, and they suddenly veered sharply, forcing Doke and Eddy back and crowding between them and the captives. One horse reared.

  “Get these horses out of our way!” Doke screamed, trying to shove them aside.

  “Praise Jesus and the saints!” Becenti shook his pistol over his head again and cried, “Now!”

  Ford grabbed Kate and swung her up on a roan, while Becenti threw Chen on a spotted Indian pony, then pulled up Cecchini behind himself onto a buckskin. Corcoran and St. Vincent scrambled up on another horse. Innes vaulted onto a sorrel and in under ten seconds they were all on horseback, two to a pony.

  Trying to claw his way through the milling crowd, Doke screamed, “Stop them!” He reached for his rifle and yanked it out of the scabbard slung across his back.

  Eddy had his gun back up, aiming it at Ford.

  “Praise the Lord!” shouted Becenti, spinning his mount around. He rammed Eddy, hooves churning. The man fell back, the shot going wild, and went down; and in an instant the Indian spurred his horse on top of Doke, who dropped his rifle and dove out of the way. Becenti raised his coiled lasso. Whirling it, he shouted “Hiiyaahh!”

  Already agitated, their mounts needed no further encouragement. They charged through the crowd, scattering them. After they had broken free, Becenti veered to the right and led them at a full gallop down into the cover of a sandy draw. Gunfire erupted behind them, ragged shooting into the dark, but they were already in the cover of the draw and the bullets went humming over their heads.

  “Hiiiyahhh!” Becenti screamed.

  The horses tore down the sandy draw, taking bend after bend, until the sound of the guns had become a faint pop-pop in the distance, the cries and shouts of the crowd almost gone. They slowed down to a fast trot.

  Behind them, in the distance, Ford heard the revving of a motorcycle.

  “You hear that, Willy?” Begay called from the rear. “Someone’s got a dirt bike.”

  “Shit,” said Becenti. “We’re gonna have to lose that mother. Hang on!”

  He turned out of the draw and charged up a slickrock embankment, the horse’s hooves clattering on the sandstone. On top, they raced across a dune-field, heading toward a deep arroyo at the far side.

  A rumble, and the whole mesa shook. Dark clouds of dust shot up against the night sky. Flames erupted from the ground a few hundred yards to their right. With a crackle, a piñon tree burst into flame, and another. A thunderous explosion sounded behind them, and another, back at the eastern end of the mesa.

  The roar of the dirt-bike engine sounded again, much closer. It was catching up fast.

  “Hiyaah!” Becenti cried again, as he charged over the lip of the arroyo and plunged down the slope toward the bottom.

  Ford followed, gripping the roan with his legs, Kate’s arms around him.

  78

  FORD’S HORSE PLUNGED DOWN THE SOFT slope of sand, leaning back and digging in as he half slid, half leapt down the long slope, sand sliding down around them.

  The roar of the dirt bike sounded on the rim above. Shots rang out, and Ford heard the snip of a bullet on a rock to his left. They reached the bottom and galloped down the arroyo. Ford could hear the dirt bike above them, racing along the rim.

  Becenti reined in his horse. “He’s cutting us off! Turn around!”

  The dirt bike slowed to a stop at the edge, sending a cascade of sand down into the arroyo. Doke planted his legs, pulled his rifle out of its scabbard, and took aim.

  They wheeled their horses around as the first shot sounded, kicking up a jet of sand next to Ford. They took temporary cover behind a landslide of boulders. Another shot rang out, whining off the top of the rocks. Ford realized they were trapped in the arroyo. They could go neither forward or backward; the man had a clear shot up or down the arroyo on both sides. The embankment above them was too steep to climb.

  Another shot threw up a gout of sand just behind them. There was a raucous laugh from above. “You can run, you Godless assholes, but you can’t hide!”

  “Willy!” Begay said. “Now’s the time to use your pistol!”

  “It’s . . . not loaded.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  Becenti looked sheepish. “I didn’t want anybody getting hurt.”

  Begay threw up his hands. “That’s just great, Willy.”

  Ford heard another shot, the round humming just over their heads and thudding into the opposite embankment. “I’m coming down!” Doke’s voice roared triumphantly.

  “Oh shit, man, what do we do now?” Becenti asked. His horse pranced and snorted in the confined crowd.

  Ford could hear Doke sliding and hopping down the slope. In a moment he would reach the bottom, where he would have a clear shot all the way down the arroyo. He might not take down them all, but he’d certainly kill plenty before they could take cover around the next bend.

  “Kate, get on Begay’s horse.”

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Hurry.”

  “Wyman, you don’t know how to ride—”

  “Damn it, Kate, will you trust me for once?”

  Kate swung directly off their horse and got behind Begay.

  “Give me the gun.”

  Becenti tossed it to him. “Good luck, man.”

  Ford gathered up the horse’s mane in his left hand, giving it a twist around his fist. He turned his mount around and faced in the direction Doke would appear.

  “Grip with your knees,” said Kate, “and keep your weight low and centered.”

  At that moment, Doke appeared, grunting and sliding down the sandy slope. He reached the bottom, his face breaking into a huge grin of triumph.

  Ford kicked the horse in the flanks.

  The horse jumped forward and dashed down the arroyo straight toward Doke. Ford pointed the gun at him, screaming, “Aiyaaah!”

  Doke, taken by surprise and unnerved by the sudden appearance of the pistol, jerked his rifle off his shoulder, dropped to one knee and raised it. But he was late. The horse was almost on top of him and he was forced to throw himself sideways to avoid being trampled. Ford smacked him with the gun as he galloped past, then turned to the right and charged up the steep embankment.

  “Son of a bitch!” screamed Doke, repositioning himself and firing, as Ford’s horse struggled over the rim. Ahead lay an open area, some humped rocks, and, beyond, a windswept expanse of sand with a faint track across it. Ford recognized it from his first day, when Hazelius had taken him to the overlook.

  A round screamed past his ear like a hornet.

 
The next round hit the horse. The horse jumped sideways with a squeal and danced on the edge, but did not founder. Ford flattened himself on the roan’s back and loped him across the sandy flat, toward the track leading to the mesa’s rim. In a moment he was across the flat and among the humped rocks. He zigged behind them, keeping to cover, still running up. He could hear his horse grunting, wheezing, probably gut shot. He couldn’t believe the horse’s courage.

  The long open area loomed up ahead.

  Doke would have to get across the deep arroyo to pursue, and that would give him time to reach the far side of the open area—if the horse made it. Gripping the mane and laying low, Ford galloped madly over the sand.

  Halfway across, he heard the roar of the bike, much closer. Doke had gotten across the arroyo. The mounting roar of the engine told Ford he was catching up fast, but he knew Doke couldn’t shoot while riding.

  Ford rode up the hill, this time veering out to the track, where Doke could see him. He could hear him upshifting, the two-cycle engine of the dirt-bike screaming.

  Just at the top, screened by scattered rocks and junipers, the mesa’s rim fell off into a sheer cliff-face without warning. Ford hauled back on the lead rope, halting the horse, and jumped off. He threw himself behind a rock cluster just as Doke rocketed past him. Thick tattooed arms gripping handlebars, golden hair streaming behind him like a mane of flame, Doke blew past him at sixty miles per hour and went off the cliff.

  Doke was airborne, the engine screaming full throttle, the wheels spinning up, a sound as high-pitched as an eagle’s cry. Ford turned to watch bike and rider arc down through dark space, the whine of the engine Doppler-shifting down as it plunged into the black landscape below. The last thing Ford saw was the flicker of the man’s bright hair, like Lucifer jettisoned from heaven. He listened, and listened—and then, a thousand feet below, came a tiny flower of flame, and a few seconds later the distant rumble of the impact.

  Ford crawled out from behind the boulder and stood up. The roan lay stretched out on the ground, dead. He knelt, touched it lightly.

  “Thanks, old pal. I’m sorry.”

  He rose, suddenly aware of how much his body hurt—the broken ribs, the bruises and cuts, a swollen eye. He turned, leaning against the ancient boulder, and looked back over Red Mesa.

  All Ford could think of was Hieronymus Bosch’s Last Judgment. The eastern end of the mesa, where Isabella had been, was a vast pillar of incandescent fire boring up into the night sky—as if to sear the stars—surrounded by hundreds of lesser infernos and fires, belching smoke out of cracks and pits for miles around. The ground shuddered and quaked continually from explosions, unseen violence vibrating the very air. To his right, half a mile away, was a surreal spectacle: a thousand parked cars blazed, their tanks exploding, miniature fireballs levitating the cars, jumping and popping like firecrackers. People wandered aimlessly around the ghastly hellscape or ran about, crying dementedly.

  Descending the hill, Ford met up with the others riding across the sandy flat.

  “He’s gone,” said Ford. “Over the edge.”

  “Man,” said Becenti, “you ride like shit but you did it. You launched that mother for good.”

  “Like a chariot of fire,” Kate said.

  “The horse?” Begay asked.

  “Dead.”

  The Indian was silent, his face grim.

  In ten minutes they had reached the cut at the top of the Midnight Trail.

  For a moment they all stood on the rim of the mesa, at the top of the trail, and looked back. The ground shook with a big explosion, and a rumble rolled across Red Mesa like thunder, punctuated by the crackle of secondary distant explosions. Another ball of fire rose into the air above Isabella. Smoke was now pouring out of cracks in the mesa behind them, lit from beneath by reddish flames.

  “Look over Navajo Mountain,” said Kate, pointing into the sky.

  They turned to the west. A string of lights had appeared in the sky over the distant mountain, rapidly closing in, along with a growing throbbing sound.

  “Here comes the cavalry,” said Begay.

  Another rumble, more flames. As Ford followed Kate down through the cut, he glanced back one last time.

  “Unbelievable,” said Kate softly. “The whole mesa is on fire.”

  Even as they watched, a great snake of dust shot up, ripping across the mesa as another coal tunnel collapsed and shook the ground, coming frighteningly close to them.

  Kate turned to the group and spoke, her voice strong. “I have something important to say.”

  The exhausted scientists raised their faces toward her.

  “If we fall into the hands of the authorities,” she said, “we’ll be debriefed in private and everything that happened here will be classified. Our story will not be heard.”

  She paused, eyeing them fiercely.

  “Instead, we will evade them and travel to Flagstaff on our own. And there, in Flagstaff, we will speak to the world—on our terms. We will tell the world what happened here.”

  The line of choppers approached, rotors thudding.

  Without waiting for an answer from the group, Kate rode down the trail.

  They all followed.

  79

  WHERE WAS HE?

  What was this place?

  How long had he wandered?

  The details escaped him. Something had happened, the earth had exploded and was on fire. The Antichrist was responsible and Eddy had burned him alive. So where was . . . the Messiah? Why hadn’t Christ returned to redeem His Chosen and rapture them into heaven?

  His clothes were charred, his hair was singed, his ears buzzed, his lungs hurt, and it was so dark . . . . Acrid smoke poured out of fissures wherever he walked. A dark haze blanketed the land like a fog, and he could see no more than a dozen feet ahead.

  An image loomed at the limit of his vision, round and nodding, vaguely human.

  “You!” he shouted, and scrambled toward the shape across the stony ground. He tripped over the smoldering stump of a dead piñon, the rest of it reduced to a circle of ashes.

  The shape loomed.

  “Doke!” he called, his voice muffled in the smoke. “Doke! Is that you?”

  No answer.

  “Doke! It’s me, Pastor Eddy!”

  He ran, stumbled and fell, and lay for a moment breathing the cooler, fresher air close to earth. Climbing back to his feet, he pulled out a kerchief and tried to breathe through it. A few more steps. A few more. The dark object grew larger. It wasn’t Doke. It wasn’t a man. He reached out to touch it. It was a dry rock, hot to the touch, balancing on a pillar of sandstone.

  Eddy tried to concentrate, but only fragmentary thoughts came to him. His mission . . . his trailer . . . clothes day. He recalled washing his face at the old Red Jacket pump, preaching to a dozen people with the sand blowing, chatting on the computer with his Christian friends.

  How had he gotten here?

  He pushed himself away from the rock, unable to see through the deepening haze. To his right was a glow and a soft roar. A fire?

  He went left.

  A charred rabbit lay on the ground. He nudged it with his boot and the thing twitched convulsively, flopped on its back, its sides heaving and its eyes widening with terror.

  “Doke!” he called, and then he asked himself: Who is Doke?

  “Help me, Jesus,” he moaned. Shakily, he knelt and clasped his hands, raising them to heaven. The smoke swirled around him. He coughed, his eyes streaming water. “Help me, Jesus.”

  Nothing. A distant rumble sounded. To his right, the flickering glow was leaping higher, an orange claw raking the sky. The ground began to vibrate.

  “Jesus! Help me!”

  Eddy prayed fervently, but no voice responded, no words, nothing in his head.

  “Save me, Lord Jesus!” he called out.

  And then, suddenly, another shape coalesced in the blackness. Eddy scrambled to his feet, flooded with relief. “Jesus, I’m here! He
lp me!”

  A voice said, “I see you.”

  “Thank you, oh thank you! In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!”

  “Yes,” said the voice.

  “Where am I, what is this place?”

  “Lovely . . . ,” said the looming figure.

  Eddy sobbed with relief. He coughed again, hard, into his ragged kerchief, leaving a stain of black sputum.

  “Lovely . . . I’ll take you where it’s lovely.”

  “Yes, please, take me out of here!” Eddy stretched out his hands.

  “So lovely down here . . .”

  The reddish glow of the fire to his right suddenly flared up, casting an appalling glow in the dense haze. The figure, illuminated dull red, moved closer and Eddy could now see his face, the bandanna around his head, the long braids on his shoulders, one of them unraveling, the dark veiled eyes, the high forehead . . . .

  Lorenzo!

  “You . . .” Eddy backed up. “But . . . you’re . . . dead. I saw you die.”

  “Dead? The dead never die. You know that. The dead live on, burned and tortured by the God who created them. The God of love. Burned because they doubted Him, because they were confused, hesitant, or rebellious; tormented by their Father and Creator for not believing in Him. Come . . . and I will show you . . . .” The figure stretched out its hand with a ghastly smile, and now Eddy noticed the blood; his clothes were drenched with blood from the neck down, as if he’d been dipped in it.

  “No . . . Get away from me . . . .” Eddy backed up. “Help me, Jesus . . . .”

  “I will help you . . . . I am your guide to that fine and good place . . . .”

  The ground shook and opened beneath Eddy’s feet, gaped into a sudden, bright, roaring, orange blast furnace. Eddy fell, fell, into the terrible heat, the impossible heat . . . .

  He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came.

  No sound came at all.

  80

  LOCKWOOD GLANCED AT THE BIG CLOCK mounted on the paneled wall behind the president. Eight o’clock in the morning. The sun had risen, the world was going to work, traffic on the Beltway was slowing to its usual crawl.