Brandon Nichols was young, handsome, maybe even charming.
It was easy to see the glow in Mrs. Macon’s face every time she looked Brandon’s direction.
“So you’re a prophet of God, huh?” Brett asked.
He seemed embarrassed. “That’s what Mrs. Macon says.”
“What do you say?”
“I am sent from God, but I let people draw their own conclusions.”
“What were you doing down at Mack’s?”
“Buying groceries for Mrs. Macon.”
“That’s right,” the widow confirmed.
“How did Mrs. Baylor end up on the floor?”
Mrs. Macon answered, “Slain in the Spirit. It’s a God thing.”
“A God thing. Right.”
Brandon volunteered, “I touched her in greeting, and I guess falling down was her religious response.”
“Did you heal Norman Dillard’s eyes?”
“Yes.”
“And Matt Kiley?”
“Yes. Him too.”
Brett appeared mystified. “Just like that?”
“Yes.”
Brett looked at the driver’s license again. Nancy ventured a glance over his shoulder. The photograph looked a little blurry, but it was the same guy, all right. Brett asked, “So you’re from Missoula?”
“That’s right.”
“How come I never heard about you before this?”
“I’ve just begun my ministry.”
“Oh.”
Apparently Brett was out of questions. He gave a little shrug.
“Well, Brandon, as far as I can tell you haven’t broken any laws and you haven’t hurt anyone.” He allowed himself a quick little smile. “I guess the opposite is true. If none of these people has a complaint and Mrs. Macon is happy and willing to have you here, I’ve got nothing more to do.”
He handed the license back. Brandon reached out to take it and their fingers touched.
Brett flinched as if he’d gotten a shock.
“Oh, excuse me,” said Brandon.
Nancy could tell Brett was trying to maintain his tough cop image, but she also knew something strange had happened. The big officer’s hand was shaking. He pressed it to his thigh to steady it. “Okay then . . .” His voice was trembling. He cleared his throat.
“Guess that’s it.”
Suddenly he winced and grabbed his left leg just above the knee.
“Brett? What’s wrong?” Nancy asked.
“Something’s poking me.”
He grabbed a pinch of his pant leg and shook it out. There was a faint, clinking sound as three jagged pieces of metal fell out onto the patio.
Mrs. Macon let out a little gasp. Nancy stared, her usual professional poise surrendering to gawking amazement.
Brandon stepped forward, stooped, and picked up the three pieces. “Vietnam, July 19, 1971. A grenade killed three of your friends—Franklin Torrence, Emilio Delgado, and Rich Trenner.
It would have killed you too if Rich Trenner hadn’t been standing in the way.” He stood, holding the shrapnel in his open hand.
“He took most of it. These three pieces are the only ones that hit you.” Brett held out his hand and Brandon dropped the shards into his palm.
Mrs. Macon was beaming like a proud mother, wagging her head in wonder.
His face filled with fear and awe, Brett handed the metal shards to Nancy, and as she examined them, he pulled up his pant leg.
Even the scar was gone.
So was Brett’s tough cop image. He was visibly shaken, and could only gaze at the young man in stunned silence.
Suddenly there was a voice. “Yoo-hoo!”
Dee Baylor, her friends, and the television people came around the corner of the house.
“Well!” said Mrs. Macon.
Brandon Nichols cocked his head. “Now, now, I don’t recall Mrs. Macon inviting you up here!”
Mrs. Macon grabbed his arm. “Brandon, let’s invite them to have some tea! And the officer and Nancy too!”
He considered it, then playfully shook his finger at Dee and her friends. “No cameras! Let’s just be neighbors today!”
Dee and her friends immediately looked at the reporter and her cameraman. The cameraman got his cue from the reporter and set the camera on the ground.
“Come on over!” said Mrs. Macon. She asked Brett and Nancy, “Would you like to stay a while?”
Nancy was intensely willing. “Oh yes! Absolutely!” She gave the shards back to Brett.
Brett dropped the shards into his shirt pocket. His hands were still shaking. “Uh, no, thanks . . . I gotta go.” He started backing away, still unable to take his eyes off Brandon Nichols. “Thanks anyway, I—” He stumbled against a lawn chair and finally turned to see where he was going. “Uh, how do I . . .”
Mrs. Macon hurried over and directed him. “You can just follow the walkway around the house to your car.”
“I’ll ride back with . . .” Nancy looked at the reporter.
“Alice,” the reporter replied.
“I’ll ride back with Alice.”
Nancy and Alice gave each other a thumbs-up. Now this was a story!
Brett stole one more look at the young man before turning on his heels and getting out of there.
“He even looks like him!” he muttered.
I DIDN’T HEAR MUCH about that meeting up at the ranch until Thursday. In the meantime, Matt Kiley took some time Thursday morning to walk the length of the highway through town, roughly a mile, allowing himself to be photographed, videoed, and interviewed by whatever pilgrim or reporter might happen along. For a man confined to a wheelchair for over a quarter of a century, his rate of recovery was remarkable. His legs, once thin and atrophied, seemed to be filling out by the hour.
Norman Dillard still relished every sign, book, and newspaper he could read. He even enjoyed trying to catch the license plates of passing cars as he worked in his motel office. He also learned of another benefit that came with perfect vision: One of the pilgrims passing by on the sidewalk happened to be a very attractive young lady. “Well, helloooo, what have we here?” She didn’t know he was watching her and didn’t hear him. It was a real kick.
THURSDAY was Brett Henchle’s day off. He was out in the driveway shooting baskets with his two sons when his wife, Lori, brought him a cordless phone. “It’s Kyle Sherman,” she said.
He made a face, bounced the ball to his sons, and took the phone, sitting on the steps that led up to the house. Lori sat down next to him, listening while she watched the boys continue dribbling and shooting.
“Yeah, this is Brett.” Brett listened for a moment, then repeated for Lori’s sake, “Uh-huh. You want to know about the Jesus impersonator up at the Macon ranch. Right.” Brett listened a while longer. “Pastor Sherman, he’s not claiming to be Jesus. His name is Brandon Nichols and he’s just a ranch worker from Missoula, Montana. Yeah, he really does have a name. He even has a driver’s license. He’s for real.”
Lori could hear Kyle’s voice squawking on and on as Brett rolled his eyes. She could tell he was anxious to get back to the game.
“Well, I’d say he’s religious, yeah, but he hasn’t done anything illegal. He’s working for the widow, she’s happy with his work, and that’s that.” More squawking, something about the people in church, the pilgrims visiting town, blah, blah, blah.
“Listen! People can believe whatever they want about this guy. If you think he’s breaking the law, show me. Otherwise, this is none of my business. You’re the minister. You work it out. Okay. Bye.”
He clicked the phone off and handed it back to Lori. “That guy’s a pain in the you-know-what.”
“A little hard-nosed, is he?”
“You should have seen him at the ministerial meeting. ‘It’s demons!’ It’s none of our business, that’s what it is! The guy’s a pain!”
“Speaking of pain, how’s your leg?” she asked.
The question changed his mood. He l
eaped to his feet, ran in place, then did some high kicks. “What pain? I feel great!” He hollered to his boys, “All right, let’s get this game going!”
She marveled. She’d never seen him so alive. He seemed younger now than when she married him.
“WELL, THE PILGRIMS ARE GATHERING,” said the smooth and soothing voice on the telephone.
“At least we know you’re not Jesus—Brandon,” I replied.
“So you’ve heard from Kyle already.”
“He’s a very unhappy camper.”
“Well, not to be critical, but he has a small mind. If anyone wants to consider me their Jesus, I allow them that. Kyle should do the same.”
I had to laugh. “He’s not wired up that way.”
“So I gather. But how about you, Travis? I think you’re ready to widen your world.”
“I’m not about to believe a lie if I can help it.”
He paused, I suppose to frame his question. “Why did you go to Minneapolis? Try to remember, Travis.”
Brandon Nichols might not be Jesus, but he was supernatural. He knew all the right buttons to push, all the perfect thorn-in-the-side memories to dredge up. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Fantasy, Travis. Like anyone else, you wanted a kinder reality, and I don’t blame you.”
“It didn’t work.”
“Well, that was then. The rules are about to change. My followers will be looking for a kinder reality, and they just might get it.”
“Your followers?”
“Just don’t blame them, Travis. You were there yourself, once.
Oh, and Travis?”
“What?”
“Don’t be like Kyle.”
When the line went dead I stood there, unable to move, unable to think. Why did I go to Minneapolis, so many years ago?
My mind dredged up the only answer I had: Because God called me.
Or had he?
Nine
NOT LONG AFTER I turned eighteen, God assigned me the holy work of discipling Amber Carr, the quiet girl from drama class who turned out every Wednesday for the Kenyon– Bannister meetings. She didn’t smoke, and she seemed to maintain a quiet dignity while so many of the other kids were Spirit-filled Christians but still basically nuts. She came to me with her questions, I drew from the deep well of my experience for answers, and we hit it off. She came over to my house and we talked about the Lord. I went over to her house and we talked about the Lord. When we weren’t talking about the Lord, we went to the movies or to an occasional concert. The rest of the time we just enjoyed how the Lord had brought us together.
It was a great time of year to help a pretty girl grow in the Lord. Spring was rolling around, the weather, though usually wet, was finally warming up, and there were plenty of days nice enough to get outside and walk on the beach. I found that the more time I spent with her, the greater the intensity of my calling, until it seemed God wanted me close to her, sharing my wisdom at every conceivable opportunity.
I remember the night I first kissed her. I did it in the name of Jesus and strictly for his glory. From that point, we continued to glorify the Lord in like manner whenever we got the chance, so often that my memory of it includes no specifics, only one murky continuum.
Oh, but the ecstasy of it, the lofty, dizzying heights of joy! The glory of the Kenyon–Bannister days had no glory like this glory. This was a calling from the throne of God strong enough to make me drive for miles when I had a car and walk for hours when I didn’t, just to be with her. Nothing else was as important as getting to wherever she was to nurture her, protect her, instruct her, and participate in God’s unfolding plan—which now included, I was certain, both of us, together, following his call.
The Lord began to confirm this to us separately. Amber had a dream about us and then, that very morning, the old song by Herman’s Hermits came on the radio. It told her that, even though the young man she loved didn’t know much about anything, if she loved him anyway, God would use us to make a wonderful world.
God spoke to me in signs and prophecies, which I recorded in a journal. One day, while walking and praying, I saw a car go by with a license number the same as Amber’s birthday, and then I got a prophecy: This is my choice for you, the path I have chosen. Walk ye in it. By the time we graduated, we knew we would be married as soon as the Lord made a way.
There were, however, some logistical details to work out. Amber was planning to start classes at the University of Washington in the fall, while I had virtually no plans except to minister the gospel, whatever that was supposed to mean. As the summer rolled by, she worked as a motel housekeeper to raise money for college. I spent most of my time playing my banjo. Her family threw their doubts right in her face. My family tried lovingly to express theirs.
I prayed for them all. None of them—not even my dad, a man of God—realized what a powerful God we served, and how God could intervene miraculously for those who were totally sold out to him.
The clock kept ticking. Fall came around. In a few weeks, Amber would actually start classes at the university and live with her grandmother in the north part of Seattle. I had no job, no car, no savings, no plans, and no miracle. Of course, it was not unlike God to test our faith, to make us wait until the last possible moment before he opened our Red Sea and saw us through safely.
The Red Sea didn’t open. Amber started her classes and started learning things I didn’t know. After a summer of waiting on God and claiming the miraculous, she was going somewhere, while I wasn’t. She even started to sound smarter than me.
Finally, bowing to pressure I was getting from all directions, I acknowledged that having a job while waiting on the Lord wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
Thus began a darker time than I had ever known in my life.
COMPTON METAL FABRICATORS was a cavernous building on the ship canal in Seattle, a drafty, metal shell with glassless windows and gaping doors that let the cold wind through. Compton built crab boats, big metal hulls that filled the building, brown with rust, dirty all over, cold and dark inside. And the noise! Metal-bending machinery, air-powered grinders, rattling guns, hammers. The place smelled of sparks from grinders, arc welders, and cutting torches.
I got there at seven in the morning for my first day, a pristine and godly young man among rough-hewn, crusty shipbuilders who seemed obsessed with the obscene and knew only one adjective they applied to everything. Bill, the supervisor, a burly, hard-hatted guy with a lisp you didn’t dare make fun of, handed me an air-powered grinder and set me to work grinding off the metal beads left behind by the welders. The thing weighed about ten pounds when I started in the morning. By ten o’clock it weighed twenty, and by noon it weighed forty. I climbed all over that rusty hull, up and down ladders and catwalks, inside and out, lugging that machine and pulling the air hose after me. My mission was simple: see the bead, grind the bead.
At four o’clock, nine hours and seventy years later, the big horn sounded and the place finally got quiet. I walked out to the parking lot with all the other guys in their dirty blue coveralls, got in Mom and Dad’s Oldsmobile Cutlass and headed for home.
And the morning and the evening were the first day.
And the second day was like unto the first.
And the third day was like unto the first and second.
By the fourth day, I had become a man of prayer more than I had ever been before. Surely this was all a mistake. There must have been a clerical error in heaven. An angel had put God’s plan for someone else in my file folder. I began crying out to God from below, above, and inside that boat, trying to bring the error to God’s attention. I never heard back.
After about a week on the job, Bill asked me if I ever got claustrophobia. When I said no, he sent me down inside the double hull of the boat to rattle off the charred scabs of metal left by the welders and sweep out the watertight compartments. It was like working inside a metal coffin with just enough room to twist my body around and look for sca
bs with a work light.
Buried alive in the hull of that crab boat, I prayed. I needed to hear from God. I needed a sign, a prophecy, a word of knowledge, anything. God was in control and had a plan, I was sure of it. I wouldn’t be there for long. God would get me out. I would marry Amber and we would go somewhere clean, quiet, and glorious, not dirty, noisy, and humiliating, and there we would serve the Lord happily ever after.
Every Sunday night, with Monday morning to look forward to, I prayed.
Every morning when the alarm clock rang, I prayed.
While perched on the high catwalks along the hull with my grinder, while crawling inside the hull with a work light and rattling gun, while sweeping out below deck while falling sparks from a torch burned holes in my shirt, I prayed.
I prayed for God to change things, to make a way for me to minister for him, to get me out of there. I was ready to hear him speak. I was ready for any thought, any impression, any hint of anything else anywhere else.
Finally, it happened. After two dirty, exhausting, deafening weeks at Compton, an answer began to dawn like a faint glimmer of light from heaven. I was at home with my folks, dead tired and about to go to bed when a Billy Graham crusade came on the television. Mom, Dad, my older brother Steve, and I all watched it, one wondrous and powerful hour of songs and gospel preaching. The bigness of it, the unique, unpretentious pageantry, and the crowds of people streaming forward at Reverend Graham’s invitation struck a chord in my heart. I wanted to be a part of it.
I didn’t belong in a dirty shipyard among all those crusty, cussing shipbuilders. I belonged there, at that crusade, helping to spread the gospel.
I took the dream to bed with me and woke up with it in the morning. I thought about it all the way to work and sang “Just As I Am” as I picked up my grinder at the tool crib. I thought about preaching, teaching, prophesying, even playing my banjo for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. I could act in a Billy Graham movie. I could sing a song at a Billy Graham crusade. I could write songs, books, and Bible lessons. I could counsel.
The more I thought about it, the more excited I got and the more I prayed. This had to be it. God’s calling. Of course! This short time in the shipyard was to humble and prepare me, that was all. It wasn’t meant to last. My deliverance, the next step in God’s masterful plan, was on the way.