The Revelation (5 page)

"What for?"

"Oh, nothing."

"He's open on Saturday?"

Marina nodded.

He scanned her face, looking for telltale signs of sickness. "What's wrong?"

"I told you. Nothing. I'm just going in for a checkup."

"Why didn't I hear about this checkup before?"

"Because it's not important. Just get dressed so we can go." Annoyance had entered her voice, and she walked over to the closet, pulling out a pair of Levi's and throwing them on the bed. "Wear these," she said.

He put on the pants as she rummaged through the closet for a shirt.

She finally picked out a plain, light green, cotton dress shirt.

"Here. Just roll up the sleeves."

He bowed down before her. "Yes, master. Will there be anything else?"

She laughed. "No. You can keep your shoes."

He put on his clothes.

Gordon sat in the small air-conditioned waiting room for what seemed like an eternity, glancing periodically at thestulted wall clock that hung above the door. The clock's oversized hands moved in a cruelly slow parody of time, ticking off minutes that registered as seconds, hours that clocked in as minutes. He already knew by heart the minute brush strokes that made up the three watercolor prints on the waiting room walls, and now he simply stared into space. Every so often he would pick up one of the magazines on the low glass coffee table in front of him-Flying, Computer Science, or perhaps Modern Medicine--and scan the glossy pages for some item of interest. He had exhausted the magazines and was just about to start on The Children's Living Bible when he heard Marina's muffled voice through the thick clouded glass partition that separated the receptionist's desk from the waiting room.

He put the book down and looked up. There was a blur of colored movement behind the frosted glass.

Marina's face was an embarrassed mixture of conflicting emotions as she came bustling through the waiting room door shoving a folded slip of prescription paper into her purse. Fear and joy, anxiety and excitement all vied for time on her features. She looked around the empty room for a second, as if not seeing him, then fixed him with an unsure smile. Her face was red. "I'm pregnant," she said.

Gordon blinked in startled incomprehension, not sure he had heard her right. "What?" he said.

"I'm pregnant."

He shook his head, still not believing what he heard. What was this?

What the hell was going on here? She had just gone in for a routine checkup. Dr. Waterston had just wanted to look her over, make sure everything was functioning properly. How the hell had he found out that she was pregnant?

How could she be pregnant?

She tried to smile, an attempt that only partially succeeded. She was opening and closing the snap clasp of her purse nervously. "We have to talk," she said.

He nodded dumbly, still stunned, still unable or unwilling to believe her news.

She walked over to him and took his hand, glancing around the empty waiting room. "I--"

"Out in the car," he said. "I don't want to talk about it here."

Outside, the afternoon storm clouds had appeared over the Rim, their blackness blocking the entire northern half of the sky. The two tall pine trees next to the doctor's office stood out against the dark background, their upper branches still illuminated by the afternoon sun, creating a strangely

artificial

highlighting

effect.

Across

the

street, the

sawmill's black metal stack was also still in sunlight.

They walked across the empty gravel to the Jeep, parked next to the Sears Catalog store. Gordon unlocked Marina's door. "Why didn't you tell me about this earlier?"

"I wasn't sure about it. I didn't want to worry you."

"You didn't want to worry me? You didn't want to worry me?" His voice rose in pitch, the anger showing in his face. "You think it's better to spring it on me like this?" He laughed shortly. "Jesus.

You could've at least prepared me." He walked around the front of the car to the driver's side.

"I'm not even sure I'm going to keep it," she said quietly.

He looked up. "What?"

"I said, "I'm not sure I'm going to keep it.""

He stared at her for a moment, and she could see the pain registering on his face. His brown eyes, usually so clear, looked troubled. They met hers and looked quickly away. He opened his door, getting in, and Marina climbed into the Jeep from her side, closing the door carefully.

Gordon started the car's engine.

"I thought you wanted to talk," she said.

"I do." He put the car into reverse. "But I don't feel like doing it here in the parking lot." He pulled onto Main Street. A blue pickup truck--Tim McDowell's pickup--drove past them going the opposite direction and honked, a hand appearing over the cab, waving. Gordon stuck his own arm out of the Jeep's window and waved tiredly back. He sighed loudly.

"Jesus," he said. He was silent for a minute. "All right. Start from the beginning."

Marina smiled feebly. "Well, about a month ago ..."

He didn't laugh. His face, instead, was strained, almost angry. "What happened? Didn't your pills work?"

"Obviously not."

The Jeep sped past Char Clifton's 76 station on the way out of town.

Gordon shook his head. "Isn't the percentage of failures about point-one percent?"

"Something like that."

He looked at her suspiciously. "You have been taking them, haven't you?"

"That's not even worth answering." Her voice was cold.

His eyes met hers. "Okay," he said. "I'm sorry."

"You should be." Now it was her voice that was angry. "I'm the one who didn't want kids in the first place, remember? I'm the one who'd have to carry the baby for almost a year and then be its constant slave for another two. I'm the one who'd have to feed it and take care of it."

"Okay. I'm sorry."

They drove for a while in silence.

"So tell me what happened."

Marina sighed. "I didn't get my period when I was supposed to. I waited a week, then another few days, then I called Dr. Waterston. I thought about telling you, but ... I wasn't sure. I didn't want to worry you. So I decided to keep quiet until I knew for certain. He gave me the test a few days ago." She stared out the window, watching the green blur of the passing scenery as the Jeep zoomed down the winding road through the forest. A hazy pre storm sunlight filtered in prison slats through the trees.

"And?" Gordon prompted.

She turned to face him. "And?"

"Come on."

She sighed again and her voice, when she spoke, was low, mumbling, as though she were talking to herself rather than him. "I was praying to God I wasn't pregnant. I knew something like this would happen."

"Yes?"

She shook her head, her eyes half-closed. She looked tired, and she pushed a stray wisp of hair back from her eyes. "You know about Julie Campbell's baby, right?"

He nodded, frowning. In June, Julie Campbell had gone into labor a full five months early; the doctors still did not understand why. The premature birth, in the back of the maternity ward at Randall General Hospital, had been little more than an abortion. The stillborn fetus had been only a little bigger than a fist, its body and facial features not yet fully formed.

"And Joni Cooper's baby last year?"

Joni Cooper's baby had also been stillborn and premature.

He nodded again.

"And Susan Stratford's?"

"So what are you trying to tell me? That you're afraid to have a baby?" His voice softened. "Look, delivering a baby is a smooth procedure. Those three were just a fluke. We'll go down to Phoenix and have a real doctor look at you. In a real hospital. They have tests for these kinds of things. We'll find out beforehand if the baby will be retarded, deformed, what the chances are for a premature birth or a stillbirth. Hell, we'll even find out whether it's going to be a boy or a girl."

"We'll try the tests," she said. "But ..." She paused, trying to think. She closed her eyes, massaging the lids with the thumb and forefinger of her right hand. She opened her eyes and looked at Gordon. "They're probably not flukes. Dr. Waterston thinks they're connected."

His gaze snapped toward her.

She pointed out the windshield. "Keep your eyes on the road."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"He doesn't know what it is. He doesn't know if it's anything. But think about it. All three of them--Julie, Joni, and Susan--live north of town, like we do. All of them are under thirty-five, like we are.

All of them get their water from the Geronimo Wells pump--"

"The fucking water!"

"We don't know if it's--"

"I should've known it!"

"Known what? There's nothing to know. Dr. Waterston just pointed out all the things that Julie, Joni, and Susan have in common. It may be nothing; it may not."

"It may be nothing?"

"Look, they might be coincidences. Dr. Waterston just thinks, possibly, that it might be something else, and he wanted to warn me.

Just in case."

"It might possibly be something else? Three dead babies in the space of one year? In a town this small?"

"You were the one who said they were probably flukes."

"I was wrong, okay? I was wrong." They had driven past Tonto Wash and were coming up on the small dirt side road that led to their house.

Gordon was silent for a few moments. His face, when she looked at it, was working silently in a confusion of anger and frustration. His brow was furrowed, his jaw clenched. He slammed on the brakes of the speeding Jeep, slowing down, and turned onto the dirt road. "There has to be some kind of investigation into this," he said. "I'm calling the EPA, the county government the state government, everyone I can think of. Goddamn it, there are going to be some lawsuits."

"Lawsuits against who?"

"Against ..." He faltered. "Against whoever it is that's causing this." He pulled up in front of their house and cut the Jeep's engine.

He sat silently for a minute, staring out at the line of trees next to the car. He breathed deeply, audibly. When he spoke again his voice was quiet. "What do you want to do?"

"Well, I think we should go to Phoenix like you suggested, and have some tests run." She put her hand on his. "Then we can start talking about the normal questions: Do we want a baby? Can we afford a baby?

All that."

"The normal questions." Gordon smiled sadly. "Jesus."

The sky was completely black now, all traces of the hot morning sun erased. A drop of water fell on the windshield. And another. And another. Marina motioned toward the house. "We'd better get in. It's starting to rain."

Gordon said nothing. She stared at him for a moment, then shifted her attention to the rain-splattered windshield. Several drops exploded on the glass, causing a network of minuscule waterfalls to cascade down the window to the cracked rubber of the windshield wipers where the water formed two small pools. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gordon shift in his seat, heard him pick up the set of keys from the seat between them. He opened his door, got out, and made a dash for the house. She waited a few moments, until he had unlocked the front door of the house, and then followed him. By the time she reached the porch, it was raining heavily, huge hail-sized drops pelting the broad leaves of the oak tree next to the door and causing the loose gravel of the drive to skitter about with noisy click-clacks.

Inside, the house had retained the morning heat despite the cold rain outside. It seemed stuffy, uncomfortable, and Marina went around the house opening all of the windows to let in the cool water-freshened air. Gordon put his keys on the kitchen counter then moved to the front doorway, where he stood looking out through the screen. The thick monsoon clouds formed a wet ceiling above the forest, blocking out even a partial view of the Rim. "Damn," he said.

Marina finished opening the windows in the back of the house and returned to the living room. "What?" she said.

Gordon tried to smile for her sake. "I said "At least it's cool."" She stood next to him and put her arm around his waist, snuggling into the crook under his arm. She looked with him out the screen door toward the forest. Her eyes brimmed with tears, but she did not allow him to see them. The tears flowed freely down her cheeks. "Yes," she said softly.

"At least it's cool."

Jim Weldon slept for ten hours straight--a record for him--and for the first time in almost a month his sleep remained undisturbed by nightmares. He was exhausted; his body and brain were just too damned tired to allow him to dream, and he lay on the bed unmoving from four in the morning until two in the afternoon.

He had never had a day like this before.

The morning had dawned clear and hot like any other, and he'd gotten to the office by eight. He'd expected a few minor complaints, maybe some drunks or speeders, then an afternoon of paper shuffling and serious rest. But Tim Larson had called less than an hour later with news of the vandalized Episcopal church, and by noon the investigation had spread to include the mysterious disappearance of the Selway family and the series of goat mutilations, which apparently stretched all the way from the Green River Ranch south of town to Bill Heard's place up on the Rim. The bodies of Loren Wilbanks and Clay Henry, or what was left of their bodies (connected somehow with the goat mutilations?), had been discovered by a neighboring rancher late in the afternoon, and by the time they had dusted for prints, taken the pictures, examined the house and carted off the bodies six hours later, the other five churches in Randall had been vandalized. Although the desecration of these churches had to have taken place between six and ten p.m."