The Valley of Dry Bones (28 page)

“Anything you say, Zeke. Yes. Anything. Thank you.”

Zeke wasn't surprised at the wide eyes that greeted them in the Commons. He signaled Katashi to get started, but as soon as Zeke sat, Doc whispered, “I suppose Mahir's voting for you.”

It was all Zeke could do to keep from saying, “That's right, and so am I and both our wives.”

Katashi greeted everyone, prayed, and explained that the elders had
decided the vote for pastor should precede everything else. “We have a lot to cover this morning, and if I seem ill at ease, it's because I am. As you know, I'm the newest elder, but it may come as a surprise to you that with the resignation of our former pastor, I happen to now be the oldest member of this board. I don't expect my colleagues to extend to me the respect that should elicit, because that hasn't been the case so far, but it's true nonetheless. I am two years Mr. Thorppe's senior and eight years Dr. Xavier's.”

Katashi's own chuckle was the loudest. “Thus ends my attempt at comedy, so let's get right into the voting. Mrs. Meeks will handle the counting of the ballots, so please raise your hand if you are an adult, eligible, and choosing to vote. Don't be shy. I'll be first.”

Katashi raised his hand, as did Raoul and Benita, Danley and Cristelle, Zeke, Doc, and Gabrielle. Elaine carried a small tin around the room from which she passed out sheets of paper and pencils, then returned to her seat with her own sheet.

“Instructions, Mrs. Meeks?” Katashi said.

“Just write either Zeke or Doc as your vote for the next pastor,” she said, “then fold your paper once. I will come back around and ask you to place it in the tin. Then I will count the votes and write the results on a separate sheet for Mr. Aki.”

Doc raised his hand. Katashi appeared to panic, as if he didn't want to recognize him. He leaned between Doc and Zeke and whispered, “I thought we agreed neither of you was to say anything before the vote.”

“Fair enough,” Doc said. “I was just going to suggest that whoever loses moves to make the vote unanimous and pledges his full support to the winner.”

“Well, sure,” Zeke said. “We believe God's in this regardless, so that should be a given. And Doc, just so you know I'm a man of my word . . .” He openly wrote
Doc
on his sheet and showed it to him.

“I never doubted you,” Doc said, smiling, and he showed Zeke his own ballot with “DOC” on it in large block letters.

“Sorry for the delay,” Katashi announced. “Carry on, and Mrs. Meeks will collect your ballots.”

As Zeke sat waiting to drop his in the tin, he noticed Alexis praying while the three couples sitting with each other seemed animated. The Gills, who had not voted, were whispering. Raoul and Benita showed each other how they had voted, though Raoul kept his attention on Mahir. Danley held Cristelle's paper so she could write with her free hand.

Strangely, Zeke noticed that when Elaine reached Gabrielle, it appeared she hadn't voted yet. She was hiding her paper from Caleb and Kayla. She turned her back to them, wrote, folded it quickly, and dropped it in the tin.

Finally Elaine returned to the front, where the elders put theirs in, then she sat off to the side and carefully pulled out and unfolded each one, making hash marks on a separate sheet. She wrote on it and handed it to Katashi, who stood and said, “The will of the majority, and we believe of the Lord, is that Zeke is our new pastor. Our former pastor has agreed to come and pray for him, but before he does that, Dr. Xavier has asked to say a word.”

Zeke reached to shake Doc's hand but pulled back when he noticed Doc was not looking, and he didn't want it to appear that Doc had refused. He knew Doc had to be disappointed and might even take it hard, but he had not expected to see Doc look as if he could barely move. Had he waited another two seconds, Zeke would have felt compelled to cover for him somehow.

But Doc finally rose, arms rigid at his sides, as Katashi sat. “Yes,” he said quietly, unlike his usual, confident self. “Thanks. I, uh, I wanted, I had wanted, I had said that, ah, here's what I'd like to suggest. I just have a motion that I want to make, if I could just ask Elaine, or Mrs. Meeks, excuse me. Mrs. Meeks, if you could just tell me the votes, then I'll make the motion, move the motion.”

“I'm sorry?” Elaine said. “What is it you want, Doc?”

“Pardon me,” Doc said. “I wanted to know the number.”

“Oh!” she said. “I was under the impression that we weren't going to announce—”

Zeke looked sharply at Katashi and shook his head. Katashi rose. “Yeah, Doc, ah, it was just either a tie or a majority was all we were gonna
say, so apparently it was a majority, right, Elaine?”

“That's right.”

“So, Doc, if you want to make a motion, like you said . . .”

“So,” Doc said, gathering himself and finding his voice, “you're saying it was a simple majority, a five-to-four thing?”

Elaine looked stricken. Katashi looked helpless.

Zeke stood. “Doc, there's no need to do this.”

“Yes, there is! Now I'm a grown man, and I want to know. I'm going to make my motion, but I want to know what the vote was. If it doesn't bother me, it shouldn't bother anyone else. Now, Elaine, if you don't want to tell me, just let me count them.”

Elaine looked to Zeke. He shrugged. She said, “Doc, if you must know, it was a clear majority.”

“Clear? What does that mean?”

“The vote was seven to two,” she said.

He looked as if he might topple. “Seven to two,” he said. “Seven to two, Zeke. And you and I know who the two were, don't we?”

“Don't do this, Doc.”

“Well, I said I would and so I do. I pledge my full support to the
clear
winner, Mr. Ezekiel Thorppe. And I move that we make it unanimous! I hereby change my vote from Doc to Zeke and ask that all my followers—all one of you—do the same. Will you do that? Will you, Zeke?”

“Thanks for your support, Doc,” Zeke said. “Everybody here loves and appreciates you. You know that.”

“Oh, I do! I do! Now can I get a second to my motion so we can vote? Gabi! Honey, do
you
want to second my motion?”

“Adam, don't,” she said, tears streaming.

“
You
voted for him! Second the motion!” But Gabrielle was out of her chair, pulling the children from the room. “Welcome to the pastorate, Zeke,” Doc added, and staggered from the room.

Elaine, face flushed, busied herself tidying up the pencils and ballots and the tally sheet, putting everything in the tin.

Katashi sprawled in his chair as if he'd just lost a prizefight.

Alexis stared at Zeke, hands folded before her as if still willing to pray.

Zeke turned to Bob Gill, who simply appeared sympathetic.

Lord, I'm lost. This is chaos, and I'm supposed to be in charge
.

“The truth shall set you free.”

I don't know what that means
.

“Yes, you do.”

Zeke stood and felt every eye on him, as if he were to make sense of this awful embarrassment.

“My role from the beginning of this radical endeavor has been practical, largely physical. Now I've been thrust into a role not of my choosing and for which I don't feel qualified but which—with God's help—I accept as His will. I hope it's been clear that I have always been transparent. You've always known when we faced a threat or had to tighten our belts. I never sugarcoated anything or tried to cover my own mistakes. A little later I'm going to own up to some serious mistakes I made within the last twenty-four hours.

“But now my role has become a spiritual one, and in the spirit of full disclosure, you deserve to know that the truth is I don't have a clue what to do. All I know is that we are the body of Christ, brothers and sisters in the Lord, and one of our members—along with his family—is hurting. When one is in pain, we're all in pain, and until we're all healthy, none of us is healthy.

“So in my weakness, here's what I'm going to do. Our former pastor was going to pray for me in my new position, and I still want him to do that, but not just yet. I'm going to refer to you as Pastor Bob one more time and request that while we here all covenant to pray as one for our brother Doc and his family, you go minister to him. Let him know we love him and want him and his family back here with us. Tell him we'll not finish this meeting without him. Would you do that for me?”

“You bet I would,” Bob said, rising.

As he left, Jennie raised a hand. “I have an idea,” she said, clearing her throat. “I think it would be good if we all moved close to Cristelle to pray. Bob has a way of succeeding in situations like this—or I should say
the Lord does, through him. God's going to bring Doc and his family back in here, and we're going to want to lay hands on him and forgive him and restore him, so we'll all want to be closer together to do that. If you agree, I'll need a little help moving.”

“Works for me,” Zeke said, as people headed that way. But what was he to do with Mahir? For now, he would leave Raoul with him in the back.

When he and the others had settled near Cristelle, Zeke put a hand on hers and said, “How are you doing? I haven't had a chance to check in on you.”

“Pretty good, sir,” she said shyly in her engaging lilt. “I didn't sleep so good until Danley was home, but then I worried about you.”

“Yeah, sorry. I'll tell more about that later. But do you feel you're making progress?”

“I don't know. I've never been hurt this bad before. Doc's been very good to me, and I know he cares. Can I pray first?”

The question so surprised Zeke that he didn't respond immediately and noticed that even Danley looked twice at her. It struck Zeke that he had never heard her pray. “Absolutely,” he said. “And then others, as you wish.”

Cristelle began. “Dear God, thank You for saving me from my sins. Thank You for dying on the cross for me. Thank You for bringing me to these people, my friends. And thank You for Dr. Xavier. Please help him not feel bad or angry or hurt. He's so smart and we love him and we know You love him too. Forgive him and bring him back to us so we can tell him we forgive him too. In Jesus' name. Amen.”

Zeke was stunned. Cristelle was so new in the faith, yet she seemed to understand its simplicity. How long had it been since he had enjoyed that “first love” of Christ? And what could Willard have meant when he said he had “cause” to run her down? That made Zeke wonder if Mahir had somehow changed his mind about her after having been the one who discovered the couple and brought them into the group. None of it was making sense.

Several others prayed, including Alexis, and Zeke had the sense that she was as staggered as he to realize that Gabrielle had apparently voted for
him instead of her own husband. Who knew Doc would insist on knowing the count and it would be revealed that his and Zeke's were Doc's only votes? Zeke could only imagine how things were going with the family and Pastor Bob.

Elaine Meeks was praying when Zeke's walkie-talkie crackled to life and he jumped. He hurried out the nearest door, Alexis on his heels. “Sasha, that you? This is Dad, over.”

“Daddy, I'm comin' in! I'm seeing something I've never seen before!”

“What is it?”

“Helicopters!”

“Zeke!” Alexis said. “Get her in here!”

“Copters, plural? How many?”

“Six, maybe more.”

“Get inside!”

“S
ORRY TO INTERRUPT
,” Zeke said, returning to the Commons. “No need to be alarmed, but Sasha's spotted choppers. Unless they saw her, which is unlikely, they don't know we're here, so they should pass us by. Just wanted you to be aware that we're on it.”

Naturally that changed the tone of the prayer meeting, though it still largely centered on Doc. And as soon as Sasha appeared, Zeke and Alexis pulled her into a corridor.

“Start at the top,” Zeke said. “Sight or sound first?”

“Sight.”

“Great. They see you?”

“Not unless they've got some crazy technology. I got to the decline and into the shadows pretty fast.”

“Smart!” Alexis said.

Zeke grabbed Sasha by the shoulders and forced her to look into his eyes. She was shuddering. “Sash, you did well, but I need you to focus. This is crucial.”

“Okay, so they're not flying real fast, and they're staying in formation even though they're changing direction. So unless they're searching the ground, they probably haven't seen me. I get down the decline far enough that I'm in the shadows where I can see them and they shouldn't be able
to see me even if they come straight over the top. And pretty soon they're close enough I can hear 'em.”

“That's when you called me?”

“Yeah. And I'm guessing there's six or eight of them. And they're big.”

“This is important, Sash. Were they close enough that you could see what color they were?”

She nodded. “Green.”

“Dark, olive drab?”

She nodded again.

“No kidding.”

“What?” Alexis said.

“I'm guessing US military and carrying troops. But why? There's been nothing on the news about any threat to the US in California. If Doc ordering embalming fluid and us offending the religious sensibilities of the Nuwuwu are the first things to get the feds' attention in all the years we've been here, these choppers have to be lost, because they flew right over the top of us and apparently didn't know it. Lexi, let me get back in there. Why don't you and Sasha take a peek through the southeast scope, just three to six inches every ten minutes, otherwise totally dark.”

“What are we looking for? More choppers?”