(1995) The Oath (66 page)

A trooper asked, “Excuse me. Did either of you see what happened here?”

Evelyn looked at Steve, and Steve looked at the trooper, unable to think of any answer that would not take several days.

“Yes, officer,” he answered after a futile attempt to think of something. “I saw what happened.”

“Well,” the officer said, “I’ll need to get a statement—”

Oh sure, Steve thought, like you’re going to believe it?

Evelyn cut in, “Sir, this man is injured, and I’d like to get him out of here.”

He nodded toward the access tunnel and let them pass but reminded them, “We’ll need a statement.”

Then someone shouted from the tunnel, “It’s all his fault! Arrest him, you hear me?” It was Carl Ingfeldt, tugging at two burly troopers and pointing in Steve’s direction. “Benson! You killed our dragon!” He yelled up at a trooper, “He killed our dragon! It was our dragon, and he killed it!”

Steve approached and noticed the black stain was still there on Carl’s shirt. “Carl, calm down.”

“We’ll sue you, Benson!”

One of the troopers asked Steve, “Do you know what he’s talking about?”

Steve gave the trooper an apologetic look. “He’s beside himself.”

Both troopers nodded in agreement.

Steve looked at Carl curiously. “You’re going to go into a court of law and testify that I killed your dragon? What dragon?”

Carl became flustered and couldn’t answer.

Steve pointed to the black stain and lowered his voice to share a secret. “You still have him in there, Carl. You haven’t lost a thing.”

“Okay, fella,” muttered one of the troopers, “clear the area. Go home.”

Carl didn’t change his tune as the troopers prodded him along. “You killed our dragon, Benson! We’ll get you for that!”

“Move!” a trooper warned.

Steve and Evelyn could hear him arguing with the troopers, his voice a faint echo, long after they disappeared down the tunnel that led out of the complex.

Evelyn was considering Carl’s ravings. “So now we have a witness in case you ever have any doubts. You really did kill the dragon.”

Steve needed to check out one more thing to prove to himself that he had, indeed, killed the dragon. He looked down at his torn shirt. The black slime had turned to an ash gray dust he could easily brush off. He unbuttoned his shirt. Over his heart there was no wound, no pain. “I’m free,” he said simply.

Evelyn gave him a hug, and then they turned and walked arm-in-arm through the tunnel, down the long ramp, over the bridge, and finally to Steve’s camper, still parked in front of Charlie’s Tavern and Mercantile. The camper’s tires were flat, of course, but now the windows were all broken out as well and the inside stripped clean of Steve’s gear, clothing, and guns.

Oh, well, he thought. The bunk was still intact. At least there was still a mattress on it.

Steve climbed in, his feet crunching on broken glass, and flopped on the bunk, dazed and exhausted.

“I’ll see if I can find Lieutenant Barnard,” Evelyn said. “You going to be okay?”

She got an unintelligible noise spoken into the mattress for a reply. She closed the door gently. One remaining shard of glass fell from the empty window frame and tinkled to the floor.

Steve lay limp on the mattress and just let his mind wonder.

He saw Cliff again, much younger, holding Evelyn by the hand and holding up a huge cutthroat trout, bigger than he’d ever caught before, and, he was careful to point out, bigger than Steve had ever caught before . . .

Aw, c’mon, Cliff, it wasn’t that big . . .

He could see Tracy up in Homer’s cabin, looking strangely at home in that little place, living in a part of her past when life was so much simpler and mistakes were not so costly . . .

She wasn’t just beautiful on the outside.

He dwelt a moment on the last sight he’d ever had of Levi Cobb, lying on the ground, slipping into death as peacefully as slipping into a sleeping bag.

You weren’t crazy, old buddy. You had your quirks, but one thing you had that nobody else had was peace. That says a lot.

He even considered Harold Bly for a moment, perhaps the best embodiment Steve had ever seen of all that could go wrong in a man. Harold was the very last of the Hyde family, and maybe that was just as well. The dragon came in with Benjamin Hyde, filled its cave with bones over the years, and finally went out with Harold. “If This Be Sin, Let Sin Be Served,” they had said. Not such a great idea after all.

So count me out, he thought.

With enough sorrow to last him for years, Steve just wanted to get out of Hyde River, away from this mess, these people, these patrol cars and cops and questions. He needed a shower, he needed some sleep, he ached all over, he was tired, he was filthy . . .

But he wasn’t burned. That thought occurred to him again. He should have been a black cinder by now, deader than dead, gone from this world, pure history.

But he wasn’t. He’d fought the dragon too, just like Evelyn. And just like Evelyn, he’d come out a winner.

Which brought another thought, a thought that had been so far away for so long: “Hey, I’m not going to die today. I get to live. I don’t have to be dragon manure; I don’t have to end up a pile of bones in that cave.” He couldn’t quite believe it, so he told himself again, “You get to live, Benson. You’re free.”

The sun would be up in just a few minutes. Wow. He’d be alive to see it.

Flashing lights filled the camper for just a moment as an aid car roared by, heading for West Fork. He figured there’d be more of that kind of noise but decided he could sleep through it.

He felt at peace; that was the main thing. Even in sorrow, while the fire crews mopped up the fires and the police rounded up the looters, while investigators asked their questions and the rioters slinked back to their homes, he felt so much at peace that he fell asleep right there—kind of like Levi—in his battered and broken camper, and slept until Evelyn and Lieutenant Barnard finally woke him and offered him a lift out of the valley.

EPILOGUE

THE MEDIA
carried the story of the Hyde River riot for a day or two, blaming poverty, unemployment, and labor/management disputes for the sudden outburst of destruction and violence.

The police concluded that Harold Bly had been torn in two— accidentally or intentionally they could not determine—by an articulated loader they found parked near his body. They determined that the fires around town were set by rioters and the burned corpses were victims of those fires. Because no witnesses came forward, there were few arrests other than looters caught in the act. The only persons regarded as missing were Charlie Mack, Phil Garrett, Sheriff Lester Collins, and Sheriff’s Deputy Tracy Ellis. Anyone else not found, either dead or alive, was accounted for by friends and relatives and crossed off the list.

The people who were driven out of Hyde River have left for good; those still living there have had nothing to say.

Levi Cobb is dead; the binder he had me read is gone and most likely destroyed. His killer, Harold Bly, is dead as well, so that case was summarily closed. Levi’s body was released to his sister, who with power of attorney and the key Levi gave me opened Levi’s safe-deposit box and recovered the original diary of Holly Ann Mayfield, the Hyde River Charter, and the other documents Levi had collected. Levi’s legacy remains.

THE OATH
also remains.

Last month, if only to resolve the matter in my own mind, I slipped surreptitiously through the town of Hyde River and once again climbed Saddlehorse. What I expected, I found: the cavern where the dragon had made its lair was blasted shut.

I looked all through my camper and whatever gear I had left after the looting, trying to find that small dragon scale I’d found the day the dragon trapped me. I suppose it vanished, simply ceased to exist, the moment the dragon vanished.

So all the evidence is gone, and the dragon is once again a myth, guarded by believers and ignored by skeptics.

To keep the memory vivid—and to be sure I didn’t dream the whole thing—I still make frequent trips back to Oak Springs to visit Evelyn and her boys, and to visit Levi’s grave—yes, he really is buried in the family plot near West Fork. Up the road from the cemetery I always pull off at a popular viewpoint and gaze upon the Hyde River Valley as it stretches and winds far to the north. I’ve viewed the lazy river and the steep, tree-laden mountains in all four seasons now, and even photographed them with one of Cliff’s cameras.

It’s not that I’m enthralled by the view, majestic as it is. It’s because I’m haunted by the possibility that one day, though I hope it never happens, I might detect an unnatural ripple in the clouds that gather over Saddlehorse, or a delicate, serpentine window of silver flickering for only an instant against the pink sky of sunset. It happened, and I want to remember; if it happens again, I want to know.

Because others must be told, I now add this, my own account, to the letters, cryptic notes, diaries, and press accounts gleaned by Levi Cobb from the past century. I expect my story will be largely ignored by those who come after me, but who knows? It just might prove useful to the next hapless soul who suspects he is being followed, marked, and hunted by those insidious, golden eyes. After all, we all live in Hyde River. We all have our dragon.

The epilogue from an account of the Hyde River phenomenon by Steven Clive Benson, Ph.D.

THE OATH AN INTERVIEW WITH FRANK
PERETTI

1) All of your novels have a specific theme you weave into
them. What was the theme for
The Oath
—and why did you
land on it?

The Oath
deals with sin and how it controls and eventually destroys us. We can blind ourselves to sin and deny that it’s even an issue. Some time ago, I was in a situation in which some friends were involved in moral compromise but had convinced themselves they were doing nothing wrong; they weren’t hurting anybody, there would be no consequences, the Scriptures didn’t really say what they said, God wouldn’t mind, etc. In the meantime, it seemed their friends and family were in a state of denial, unwilling to face what was happening and acting like there was no problem. It reminded me of a television commercial about alcoholism in which an elephant is rampaging through a house while the family members act totally unaware of its presence. The point was, loved ones can have an alcoholic in the home but refuse to see it. Sin can work the same way. Even as it is getting its hooks into us and destroying us, we can choose to believe there is nothing happening, everything is okay, and that it’s no big deal. As I said in the Introduction, sin is the monster we love to deny.

2) Do you think we tend to take the topic of sin far too
lightly today?

Of course. You’ll recall Levi Cobb’s admonition to Steve Benson, that one way to thwart the dragon was to
care
. Before the victims of the dragon perished, they displayed a carefree, cavalier attitude toward their behavior and were oblivious to a black, oozing mark that was so obvious to everyone else. All around us we see the consequences of sin; we can see it destroying others even as it’s destroying
us
, but we don’t get a clue.

3) Fans of yours rave about the invisible dragon within this
novel. Did you have as much fun creating that character as
it seems?

It’s always fun to toy around with some weird element in a story— whether it’s a dragon, prophetically enabled eyes, a false Christ, or angels and demons. But I never wanted the dragon to be just another monster. He’s highly thematic, an allegory for sin, a real personality, and a plotting, scheming killer with a direct link to Steve Benson’s heart. He matches the description found in God’s warning to Cain: “Sin is crouching at the door, wanting to devour you, but you must overcome it.” So keep all this in mind as you read the book, and the meaning will come across.

4) A person’s heart literally turning black and oozing fluid
through their shirt is quite a graphic image within the
novel. Describe how you came up with that image.

Well, just think about how sin works. First there is a small pang of conscience; you know you’ve done something wrong and you feel a pang in your heart. The longer you deny the presence of sin, the bigger and more ugly it grows. At first you can hide it from others, but eventually it becomes so obvious that everyone else can see it even if you don’t. Ultimately it’s one big, black, smelly mark upon your life.

5) What has the number-one question or comment about
this novel been from your fans?

This would make a great movie!

6) Are there any plans in the works for this novel to be
made into a movie?

Well, God is moving us more and more into that medium. We’ve already made
Hangman’s Curse
into a successful film and DVD, and we’re just finishing up the movie version of
The Visitation
.
The Oath
is an exciting and logical next step. The trick is going to be raising enough money to meet a much larger budget. Obviously, this film is going to require some major special effects.

7) When you think back to the writing of this novel, what
is your favorite scene or moment within
The Oath
?

I love all of this book, but I especially like the harrowing chase scene in the end.

8) You released the
New York Times
best-selling novel
Monster
recently. What’s next?

A first for me, and that’s co-authoring a novel. Ted Dekker and I are doing a book together, a highly thematic thriller about a haunted house. It will be available in April of 2006.