The Valley of Dry Bones (33 page)

“He says that King will be called The Lord Our Righteousness. That means the Branch of Righteousness is Jesus. The Bible says that people who believe in Jesus, like your Aunt Myrtle, become new, like they've been re-created. Old things pass away and everything about them starts fresh.”

“Man, it's too late for me to start fresh—”

“God told me to tell the one who believes he is unworthy, the one who believes he is beyond the reach of His love, that he does not have to be righteous or worthy because God made Jesus become that for all of us who believe in Him. The Bible calls it a mystery, and it may be hard to understand, but get this—Jesus, who was perfect and didn't sin,
became
sin for us when He died on the cross in our place for our sins. He became sin for us, took our punishment, and became our righteousness.

“Willard, I know, we all know, what you mean when you say you're too far gone, you're not worthy, you're not good enough, you've done too much, it's too late. That's true of all of us. None of us is good enough for God. That's why we need Jesus to become our righteousness. That's what God wanted me to tell you.”

The silence hung for several moments until Alex began humming, then they all sang:

Lord, I need You, oh, I need You

Every hour I need You

Willard's voice was so soft Zeke had to strain to hear him. “God knows ever'thing, right?”

“Right.”

“Hard to b'lieve He knows all I done an' can do that.”

“You want to know what else He says?”

“'Kay.”

“He says, ‘Your sins and iniquities I will remember no more.'”

“But all I've done, man. That's a lot to ferget.”

“‘I will be merciful, and your sins I will remember no more.'”

“I learnt the Ten Commandments. I can't 'member 'em all, but I bet I broke all of 'em and more times than—”

“‘I am He who blots out your transgressions, and I will not remember your sins. Your sins and transgressions I will remember no more.'”

Willard began to weep. “Too many, too many . . .”

“‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.'”

He was sobbing now, and Zeke went to him and put an arm around his shoulder. “‘Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.'”

Willard fell to his face on the floor. “Oh, God, I wanna be forgiven! I wanna be clean!”

“‘I have blotted out your sins like a thick cloud.'”

Willard struggled to his knees and wiped his face on his sleeve. “Man, oh, man,” he said.

“I feel like He done it!”

“God keeps His promises,” Zeke said.

“So am I like a b'liever, like one o' y'all?”

“You tell us,” Bob said, as they returned to their chairs. “Jesus came so we could have abundant life, but our sin separates us from Him. And the wages of sin is death. So where does that leave us?”

“Dead, 'cept God fergive me!”

“So that's good news.”

“Sure feels like it!”

“So are you a believer like we are?”

“I think I am!”

“What do you believe?”

“Wait. Don't tell me. I b'lieve Jesus died for my sins so God fergive me.”

“Did you deserve that?”

“Not on yer life!”

“The Bible says if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is the Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”

“Then I b'lieve I'm saved.”

“So do I,” Bob said.

“I got a lot to learn.”

“You do,” Zeke said.

“Am I still invited to lunch? 'Cause I'm starvin'.”

“Me too,” Alexis said.

They headed toward the Commons. “Do I still hafta call ya Mrs. Thorppe?”

“No, sir. I'm your sister now. You can call me Alexis.”

“And I kin quit worryin' 'bout you puttin' one 'tween m' eyes?”

“If you behave yourself.”

H
AVING FEARED
W
AT
D
OC
and the Hydro Mongers for years, the others at lunch were wary. Bob and Danley were absent, tending to their wives in the Gill quarters and the infirmary respectively. But Alexis had fetched the children, and by the time Zeke had told everyone what had just happened with Willard and they began to get to know him, Elaine suggested that Cristelle and Jennie would also probably like to meet him.

“I don't wanna push nothin',” Willard said, “but I'd like to meet them too. I'm gonna need all the friends I kin git. An' I 'specially need the one lady's fergiveness.”

“Cristelle Muscadin,” Elaine said. “What will you do now, Willard?”

“Don't know, 'cept I gotta git outta the water bid'ness, and I owe it to my guys to tell 'em. That's nothin' but a rip-off. I don't know how I'll make a livin', but it won't be doin' that. Maybe Zeke'll find somethin' I kin do fer him, but he don't owe me.”

“You can't see Mrs. Gill for a while,” Benita said, “'cause she gonna be sleepin'. But maybe you can meet Cristelle.”

“Make it fast,” Raoul said. “We gotta tell Zeke what we heard on the news.”

“What's up, Raoul?” Zeke said.

“You're not gonna believe it, man. You're famous.”

“Me?”

“I'm tellin' you, man. You and Doc? They're comin' for you. No way you want to go anywhere tonight. Huh-uh.”

Zeke left the table and signaled Raoul to follow him to a corner. “This had better be major, because I'm going to that burial service, and I know who I want there with me.”

“Not me, I hope.”

“Actually no.”

“Good.”

“You scared?”

“Not usually, you know that. But tonight I would be, and I'd be scared of you or anybody else goin'.”

“What in the world, man?”

“I'm tellin' you, I heard your name and Doc's name on the news and I'm not messin' around.”

“All right, I'm going to see about taking Willard in to meet Cristelle. You round up Bob, Katashi, and Doc and tell 'em we're meeting with you and Benita in a few minutes in my quarters. Bob might need you to find someone to stay with Jennie.”

“Those guys would be goin' with you?”

“And probably Willard.”

“You changin' your rules, Zeke?”

“You mean Doc and me being together on an op?”

“Yeah. 'Cause this one is really gonna be dangerous.”

“Still praying about it.”

Zeke sent Benita to ask Danley if Cristelle was up to seeing Willard. Mahir asked if he could go too. Zeke turned to Doc. “What do you think?”

“Cristelle should be okay as long as you're in there to keep the peace. That
is
a lot of people.” He counted on his fingers. “You, Mahir, Danley, Cristelle, Willard. I don't need to be there. Neither does Benita.”

Zeke told Doc about the meeting in his quarters afterward in anticipation of the burial service. “And yes, I'm planning on violating protocol. You all right with it if I decide to bring you along tonight?”

“Hey, you're talking to the new Adam. Just here to serve, and you know I mean that. But you might have to answer to my bride.”

“Got it. See you in a few.”

The meeting in the infirmary was almost as thrilling as the one in Zeke's quarters had been. Willard was emotional just meeting Cristelle. “Last time I saw you, I thought I'd killed you,” he said. “Sorry jes' doesn't seem enough, but I am, an' I mean it.”

“I know,” she said. “Danley told me what's happened to you, and I want you to know we've forgiven you. Haven't we, Danley?”

“We have. And we forgive you too, Mahir. Both of us.”

Mahir looked to Danley as if to see if it were true. Danley nodded. “I'm not gonna pretend it's easy, but we either believe this stuff or we don't.”

“Willard and I have a meeting to get to before he leaves,” Zeke said. “Can I trust you three together?”

“Mahir's why we're here,” Cristelle said. “We need to get to know him again.”

“We all do, Mahir,” Zeke said, pulling him into the hall. He whispered, “I'll be telling the whole team this before the end of the day. The elders are going to serve as your parole board for six months. You'll report to us. You won't be armed during that time, you won't go outside alone, and you won't leave the compound area. We'll monitor all your assignments, which will be drastically altered from what you're used to.”

“I'm just grateful to still be here, Zeke.”

“You realize if you were anywhere but California, you'd be behind bars.”

“I do.”

“We'll see how it goes.”

When Zeke and Willard got back to the Thorppes' quarters, Alexis had already let in Bob, Katashi, Doc, and the Gutierrezes. “Gabi's with Jennie,” she told him. “Sasha's with the kids. Elaine's on watch. I want to sit in on this if you're still planning on going tonight.”

“In case you have to put a forty-caliber bullet right between my—”

“Stop it.”

“You were great, Lexi.”

“I almost wet myself.”

“So did I.”

He had everyone sit at the table in the kitchen. “Raoul and Benita have been monitoring the TV news audio feeds to see if anything's been said about the military buildup in California.”

“And they've all been talkin' about it,” Benita said. “The news changes and gets more
loco
all the time.”

“I can hardly wait,” Zeke said.

“We started listenin' right after Willard got here,” Raoul said. “Man, it's the most craziest, messed-up story you ever heard. They got it all wrong, mixin' a little of this with a lot of that, and makin' up somethin' that's supposed to be bigger than Jonestown and Waco and Ruby Ridge put together. And you're like the dictator of this cult, and—”

“
I
am?” Zeke said.

“Yeah, and Doc is the mad doctor, killin' the members and committin' mass genocide on the Indian tribes.”

“They're mentioning us by name?” Doc said.

“Not only that,” Benita said, “they're interviewin' people who know you, like the doctor that runs that medical group you belonged to. He was sayin' they always knew you were involved in something strange and they had to part ways with you.”

“What?”

“And Pastor Bob,” Raoul said, “your son-in-law was on there sayin' he knew years ago that you would murder your wife. And Zeke, an Indian Affairs agent said you escaped from custody with the help of your vast network of coconspirators. But a member of the Shadow Wolves tracked you down and knows you head up—what did he call it, Benita?”

“A warren.”

“Yeah, a warren of underground bunkers full of hundreds of armed combatants and, what was it? Munitions dumps.”

“What are Shadow Wolves?” Alexis said.

“A really small contingent of highly specialized Native American trackers who cooperate with the government,” Bob said. “The only hole in that theory is that they don't come from the tribes we work with or live anywhere near us. Makes for a good story, though. I could see Kineks wanting to be part of that, but there's only about fifteen of them representing a whole bunch of tribes, just none of them hers.”

“Where do they come up with all this stuff?” Zeke said. “What possible intelligence could they be relying on to concoct all that? They fly choppers directly over our only location and roll a tank right over the top of us and don't know where we are or that this is the
only
place we are?”

“It has to be President Scott,” Bob said. “The election's coming up, he needs something dramatic to get reelected. A noisy raid that heads off a 9/11 or a Paris shooting before it begins makes him a hero—as good as being a wartime president. Government agencies piece together bits of unrelated information and build a huge story they start believing themselves.”

“It's just ludicrous,” Zeke said. “Makes me almost wish we
were
a threat to the US government. We're so small-time, it's laughable! Aren't they gonna look like fools when it turns out we're just thirteen schlumps and three kids who live in a cave and act as a sort of poor man's Salvation Army? I mean, we help poor people and tell 'em about Jesus.”

“That's the problem, Zeke,” Bob said. “If they paint this thing to the public like we're some dire threat that Derrick Scott must stop at all costs, the last thing he wants is for us to turn out to be paper tigers. Even if all he's authorized so far is six or eight helicopters, a dozen tanks, and a couple of personnel transport trucks—and you know he's probably mobilized exponentially more than that—they're well into a seven-figure investment already.”

“Oh, yeah,” Raoul said, “they've even got a name for it: Operation Dry Bones.”

“Really?” Zeke said. “They're going Old Testament on us? One of the networks, or—”

“They're all calling it that,” Benita said, “so it musta come from Washington, eh?”

“Sure seems like a stretch, but whatever captures the public's imagination, I guess.”

“My point,” Bob said, “is that what might seem the best course for us would be the biggest embarrassment for the president.”

“You mean immediately going public with the naked truth?” Zeke said.

“Sure. We've broken no laws; we've only tried to help people. We've given up normal lives, willingly sacrificed everything. There are only this many of us, no network, no warren; we're basically Christian missionaries, social workers. We don't force our beliefs on anyone. We have a few converts, we have a few detractors. We have weapons for hunting and self-protection but we've never fired at anyone. The respected tribal leader of the Nuwuwu and his successor son will testify that Doc has never met, let alone treated, the woman they're burying tonight—that his heavy medications and embalming fluids are for one of our own, end of story.”