Rupert acts like a crazed rich man, talks like one, and maybe he is or was a rich man. He was riding with the Crusadeers, but he’s a pal of no one. The legend that trails after him is that he murdered his parents and burned their house down. He wears carefully knotted ties over colored T-shirts, shaves and trims his moustache and sideburns every day, files his fingernails, has swastikas tattooed on his biceps—which Houndawg, who considers himself a patriot, complained about. Religious exercises for Rupe are like doing calisthenics. Like Nat, he is a believer in the War of the Gods, says it’s why he stayed when the others left, but they don’t seem to be gods out of the Bible. “Nothing in this universe lasts or is meant to last,” he says in his precise tight assed way. “We are the gods’ agents, fulfilling the destinies they have assigned us.” Sick’s real name, the only one they know, is just the number he wears on both bony shoulders: 666. The number of the Beast. They took to calling him Sick for short, partly because he’s even more psycho than Juice, and it stuck. A glazy look and a fixed grin with clenched teeth, not so chummy as Deacon’s. Topknot wagging on top of his shaved head like a clownish hat. He and his pal X were survivors of a destroyed gang looking for a new connection, when the Wrath picked them up. Their old gang called themselves Avengers or Avenging Angels. Not clear what happened to the rest of them, Sick being too spaced out to be intelligible, X never speaking, just making guttural noises, an unshaven black-browed guy in raggedy black clothes, his staring eyes set wide on his cheekbones like they belonged to two different heads. What does X stand for? “It stands for I never learnt his name,” Sick said, “and he’s not talkin’.” Some of the mystery was cleared up when Hacker told them X’s tongue had been cut out. Sick said he didn’t know how that happened. By the time they first ran into Sick and X, Nat had already changed the name of the gang and they had fashioned new patches, and Sick said he admired the name and it suited his religion. It was Deacon who had suggested the change, just after he joined them. He said Warrior Apostles was too much like kid stuff and Nat agreed. They were already wearing tats like “The Burning Wrath” and “Rod of His Wrath,” and they were into something bigger and deeper. Something final. A great slaughter, like the Bible says. The sort vividly illustrated in the Eternal Forces comic. So Nat proposed The Wrath of God and nobody was against it. Deacon was especially pleased and from then on made sure whatever Nat wanted, he got. Their patch, which still has a mine-pick cross in a circle, also now has a fist with a bolt of lightning in it. When they added Spider to the gang, everybody got a fist and lightning bolt on their skin. Took to wearing upside-down crosses in the right ear. Rewrote their jacket studs. Swore fresh blood oaths.
The damp’s bad in here under the giant rocks, but the fire feels good, for the sudden rain which caught them on their way here has brought a chill to the day, more felt in wet clothes. There’s a nice smell, too. Chepe Pacheco in his blue-red-and-yellow headband and embroidered Mexican shirt is frying up green bananas. No idea where or when he picked them up, but they’ve all learned to like them. Nat is not completely stripped down like Deacon, who is still strutting around naked, reciting apocalyptic lines from the Bible (he claims to have once been a preacher, also an actor, a politician, a university professor, a lawyer, an auctioneer, a faith healer, a carny barker, and he may actually have been some of those things), but he has hung his dripping high-collared leather jacket from a jutting rock and his shirt is off and near the fire next to Deacon’s, drying out. Red hair is sprouting on his chest now, as if having been shaved off his head it had to find someplace else to grow. His old man has chest hair like that, going gray now. The only guy in the gang carrying a clean dry change is Rupert, who has a bagful of colored T-shirts and loud ties to go with the satin-striped black pants he always wears. Right now it’s a canary yellow shirt under a green and lilac tie. During house burglaries, Rupe likes to find an iron and press these things, then leave the hot iron plugged in and face down on the ironing board. His style is the very opposite of his pal Brainerd, who hasn’t changed clothes or shaved or washed since the day he joined up. He says he doesn’t think he has any socks left below the ankle, that they’ve just rotted away in there, but he hasn’t taken his old muddy farm brogans off to check. City dude and mountain man. Hard to say which is meaner, though. Brainerd claims to know about a Colorado ghost town they could all go to after this is over. If he can be believed. He’s a folksy bullshitter, now into a tall tale, thumbs in his suspenders, about a wild man of the woods who thought he was a bear and in most ways became a bear, and who was finally tracked down by his scat, which wasn’t bearlike, and was caught in a net and used in a circus sideshow until one day he clawed himself to death.
Sick, wearing Juice’s boots, which weren’t his originally either (maybe that’s how the old man picked Juice out; yeah, sure it was), says, “Y’know what? When I peeled Juice’s feet outa these boots, I found out he only had two toes on the left foot and they wasn’t next to each other.” “Probably shot them off or else stobbed them fooling around on his bike,” Thaxton says, and Nat adds: “Or got them caught in a paper cutter.” Everybody laughs at that, thinking he’s making a joke. But one day he did chop off part of a kid’s finger with a paper cutter, and Juice’s missing toes made him think of it. It was when his dad was the preacher at the Church of the Nazarene, and there was one in the office for trimming mimeographed church programs. The kid was a sissy-type piano player who sang in the choir and always made good grades, so you might say he deserved it. First it was just a threat, but then, almost not realizing he was doing it, Nat brought the blade down. Zop! End of piano lessons. Considerable trouble after that, but Nat threatened the kid with a lot worse (“If you rat on us, buddy, next time it’s your weenie!”) and the kid told everyone it was an accident, though later, when Nat’s family was getting kicked out of West Condon, the story came up again and earned him another licking. Sick found the word “Apache” inked into the red boots on the inside, and has been collecting feathers from the birds they’ve killed and eaten, including bright-colored bluebirds, orioles, and cardinals, to fashion a waistband and necklace for himself, turning himself into a warrior brave.
Nat steps out onto the ledge at the mouth of the rock pile. There’s a break in the rain, though it won’t last long—hot and muggy and more thunder and lightning off to the west. Houndawg has left with Paulie’s head and a mine pick. Nat can see him now limping into a marked trail in the woods. He needs Houndawg and wants him to get over whatever weirdness he’s going through. Toad’s bike, silvery, luminous in the cloudy light like the ghost of a bike, is parked just below him with all the others. It’s a good moment to take it for a spin, get to know it, and at the same time make sure they’re alone here in the park. While he’s checking out the power plant (the kickstart ignition nearly took his leg off the first time, he’ll have to get used to that), Deacon comes out with some of the stuff he took from Toad’s pockets. The ugly photo on the license could be anybody; could be him. Toad’s last name was Rivers and Deacon says they used to call him that before he got so big, and then he became Toad. “But you’re still a kid.” Deacon pauses to think about that. “That seems right. Kid Rivers.” He grins. “Already a legend.” He pats the rear fender of the bike tenderly as if it were a girl. “A pale horse,” he says, and grins his whiskery grin. “Give her a run, Kid. See what she’ll do.”
He does, and after trolling the park’s paved roads, he takes it up a hiking trail and back. It’s not as heavy as Midnight, but it’s longer and he’s not used to the hanger bars; he takes a spill on a tight narrow turn. But no harm done. Beginning to feel good. It’s powerful and easy to handle with its springer front end, and its popping growl gives him a thrill. And Houndawg will help make it even sleeker and faster, chopping it to fit him, making it his. The Phantom. One of Face’s favorite strips. He’ll find a Phantom comic, ask Spider to paint the character on the gas tank. Gray on gray. When he comes down out of the trail, Houndawg is waiting for him, leaning on
his good leg. Carrying the pick but without the head. That’s over. He pulls up and offers the bike to Houndawg for a test ride, and when he gets back—Houndawg, even driving it one-legged, shows why it’s a great racer bike—they sit there on a bench and have a talk. About the bike, things they can do to it, but also about what happens when the rain stops.
When he gets back to the hideout, carrying Houndawg through the sudden violent return of the storm, he finds Deacon stretched out on his belly, getting his big butt tattooed by Spider by light from the fire and the lamp of one of the mining helmets they stole. Sick is stripped to a loin cloth and feathers and is doing an Indian dance around the fire, his topknot wagging. “Hey, it’s Kid Rivers,” Deacon says, grunting from the needle’s pain. Others call him Kid in greeting. They’re making fun but they’re not making fun. Deacon has been preparing them. Nat Baxter is dead. It’s how he likes it. Like a superhero emerging from his weakling disguise. The Kid. Juice’s abandoned jazzed-up bike—what Houndawg called a garbage wagon and Face used to call “Juice’s Jukebox”—had a sticker on its back fender that said “Watch your ass! Jesus is coming and He is mad as hell!” Deacon admired that and it’s what he’s having tattooed on his own backside. He says it’s a kind of tribute to crazy Juice. Spider is even adding a small motorbike speeding across the top of the letters, the cyclist longhaired with a blue headband. Spider calls the body just a big web for catching things, especially things that matter to the body’s owner and to nobody else, and he prefers original designs over the classic ones, often linking them up with thin threadlike lines. His own body is tracked by those crisscrossing lines. Maybe it’s how he got his name, or maybe his name gave him the idea. When Chepe Pacheco joined the gang, he had only two tattoos: one a traditional rose with the word “Mamacita” under it, the other the badge of a previous gang with skulls and daggers and something written in Spanish. He accepted the Wrath of God tattoo somewhat reluctantly, but then liked Spider’s work so much he began drawing pictures for him of things he remembered from his home country—which is a hot wet place somewhere south of what Cubano called May-hee-ko—for Spider to use as the basis for new designs, adding a new tattoo in and around the needle tracks every week or so. Spider likes to show off Chepe to strangers like a sort of walking gallery. Chepe thinks of it as a kind of personal photo album and checks the pictures out from time to time with his side mirrors. Too fancy for Nat, whose skin, bike, and jacket are kept relatively unmarked, except for the identifying emblems of the Wrath. And he has no time for the past.
Thaxton has come back from hunting with the prize quarry of the day: a wild turkey. Thax is a mean dude, has known a lot of trouble, done prison time, digs the holy war concept. He’s not a comicbook reader, but he has that style, knows all the grisly ways the saints died, shares the Wrath’s hatreds. Came with the Crusadeers, but Juice didn’t know him, didn’t think the others did either. They’ll have the turkey for supper. Deacon offers to prepare it. He lets them know he was once a chef in a fancy New Orleans restaurant. They don’t have an oven, but that’s all right—he’ll cook it over the fire in a whiskey sauce. Rupert asks for the feathers. To make a pillow, he says, which makes everyone laugh. Rupe can have them, Teresita says, if he’ll pluck the bird. The Wrath are in a lot of trouble, but they’re safe in here, the park empty, rain pouring down, thunder cracking; the Big One concealing them, preparing them. But there’s also a lot of restlessness. When they were holed up in the shack, they called it cabin fever. What would it be called now? The storm has blackened the skies, turning the sun into darkness, like it says in the Bible; but for the miner’s lamp setting Deacon’s butt aglow, their rocky hideout is lit only by the wood fire and the occasional flash of lightning. Faces a spooky ripple of light and shadows. Nobody’s saying anything. They’re waiting for him to tell them what happens next. They have to wait for the rain to stop—can’t light fuses in the rain—but it will stop. Maybe tonight.
“So, what’s exercising you, Kid?” Deacon asks, sitting up. “Say the magic word.”
Nat doesn’t preach. He hates preaching. Anything that stinks of church services. He doesn’t pray either, not in public, just shouts sometimes at the Big One. “I think we got some killings to avenge,” he says now. “They gotta feel our anger.” That’s his way of explaining it to the others. In his mind, those killings have just been part of what’s really happening. The war of the gods. What happens next was always going to happen, with or without the killings. He has his shirt and jacket back on now. He feels older in them. His head is clearer. Vengeance is part of it, of course. The Big One’s way of motivating. He used to imagine being Robin after the brutal torture, disfigurement, and murder of Batman. The rage that would consume him purely put him above the law. That’s what he has been feeling since the murder of Littleface during these long weeks on the road. The wrath. He has a detailed battle plan—who goes where and when, what to do if things go wrong—that he’s plotted out with Houndawg. They’ll start with the power plant and phone exchange. The radio station. Then the power centers, beginning with the schools and churches, followed by city hall, the police, jail, fire station, bank, and businesses. All carefully timed. He has hand-drawn maps with everything marked. Systematically destroy it all. Bring the sick town to its knees, like Deacon says. By his cruelty he will instill fear into the peoples. The dwelling place of the wicked shall come to nought. He had not planned to include the church camp, but after what happened today: it’s another target. It will have to be annihilated. A word he learned only a year or so ago. His old man used it in a sermon. Hated the sermon. Digs the word. A great battle, and he will call upon the dead Warriors to be with them. He gets the maps out of his backpack, spreads them on the dirt floor. He also has marked the overland escape routes via the rail beds the Apostles discovered when they were here last time. But things still aren’t just right. He’s looking for a phrase, or for something to happen. Something does. Baptiste returns. “They chased me. Lots of ’em. And they was roadblocks.” He is excited. They’re excited. “But the weather was bad. They couldn’t send up choppers, and the bike could go fuckin’ anywhere, through any kinda shit. Finally I shucked ’em, left ’em off in the next state somewheres chasing their assholes. If we stay outa sight, they’ll figger we’re long gone.” Flickering grins now on the faces around the fire. They’re a unit. Everything’s cool. “All right,” Kid Rivers says quietly, moving toward the flames, gunbelt over his shoulder. “Here’s the plan…”
This is war. They’re ready for it.
IV.5
Monday 6 July
The rain drums oppressively on the Halls’ little caravan roof. It has hardly stopped since yesterday afternoon. Willie came in wearing his visored cap down over his ears and declared, “That selfsame day was all the founts a the deep broke up and the windas a Heaven was opent and the rain was ’pon the earth forty days’n forty nights! Genesis 7:11-12!” And then he went back to his room again. He is terrified by what has happened and will not leave the caravan, rarely leaves his room. Mabel is frightened, too; they are all frightened. Nothing has prepared them for what they saw when they came running back from the Mount of Redemption yesterday. A scene of such horror as to make one’s knees fold. They could not even be sure how many bodies there were, so ruined were they. Poor dear Ben was there, his head shot up so bad he could hardly be recognized. Clara collapsed with a terrible cry when she saw him. Billy Don raced back to the sickbay cabin to get the stretcher and he and Uriah carried her through the sudden storm to her house trailer. At first they thought there were only three bodies other than Ben’s because there were only three heads and six feet to go with the three motorbikes parked by the back road, but there were enough other parts that what was left did not fit into just three bodies. Maybe, someone said, the ones who got away are cannibals. With what they have seen so far, one can expect just about anything, no matter how ghastly.
They have all been over to see Clara, one at a time, keeping a vigil. She is muc
h changed, a frail and shriveled shell of herself. Ludie Belle said she looked to be a “pore thing on the down-go,” reckoning her condition to be more problematical than just her present dismay. Bernice is back and has brought along a nurse friend from the hospital to help out, and the nurse said the same and said she must see a doctor. While she was visiting Clara, Mabel looked in on Elaine. The poor child is nothing but a skeleton. The startled look in her big eyes startled Mabel. If she is carrying a baby and not a devil, that baby is not getting nourished. Of course, if it is a devil, starving it might be the right thing. She didn’t know what to say—to Elaine or to Clara, or to Bernice or the nurse either, who said that if the girl really wanted to go, they probably couldn’t stop her. Mabel tried to be cheerful, but she only broke into tears. And prayer. They have all wept and prayed. Since yesterday they have not stopped praying and weeping, for they feel the hovering presence of death and the end of things, and praying is the only thing they can do. As for the weeping, they can’t help it. Mabel’s cards have been foretelling as much, but no one has wanted to believe it. Mabel has not wanted to believe it and has not always told them what the cards were really saying. The acting sheriff, Calvin Smith, was there where it happened because he’d been with them on the Mount and had run back when they did. He said it looked to him like the motorcycle gang intended to blow up the camp but Ben stopped them and it cost him his life. Ben was a hero. A hero and a saint. They have always known that. He apparently shot one of the bikers; the rest were killed in the explosion. Their gang leader died, that devilish middle son of Abner Baxter, the one responsible for what happened to little Elaine. His body was the one without a head, but his motorcycle got left behind when the others ran away. Calvin said that this was the dynamite stolen from the mine. It was a big blast, so he hoped it was all of it.