Blessed Child (42 page)

The world slowly settled and Caleb saw that two people slept on the floor to his right. Jason and Leiah. They must have brought him to this place. He tried to stand, but he was afraid that he would fall, so he sat back down. Instead he sank to his knees and crawled toward the door. His dream strung through his mind. Moses.

Caleb managed to get out of the cabin and crawl twenty feet from the cabin where the ground began its slope down to the east. The sky was just beginning to gray. Stars still blinked overhead, tiny pinpricks of light scattered over the heavens. He fell to his face, panting from the exertion.

It seemed so simple now, this falling of his. He'd seen it clearly in his dream. There was a time when Moses had stood over the children of Israel as they fought the Amalekites. As long as he was strong and held up his hands they won. But when his arms grew tired and he lowered them, they were beaten. So Moses had two men hold his tired arms up until the Amalekites were beaten.

He was like Moses. When he lowered his shield—his faith—the sickness overtook him. And when he reclaimed his faith, the sickness left him. He'd never had to fight so hard before, because he'd never faced this world.

How had he missed it before? The world had pulled him into its trap. Yes, that's what had happened to him these last two weeks. He had come to this country and lowered his shield to the world. Not that the whole world was bad, but lots of it was, and he had opened his heart to bad parts as well as the good parts. Bad parts that were like the brine he poured into his vessel to replace the clean oil.

And most of it was through that silly television box in the corner of his room. He had soaked it into his spirit. Not that the box was evil by itself, but it had been his window into the world, a world that had taken him by storm.

Well, now he knew all of that, and it made him feel sick. He rolled to his side and coughed. He had known most of this three days ago in the basement when he'd repented. And now already he was here, dying on the ground like an animal because he had looked just a little.

“Jesus, forgive me,” he said softly. “My dear heavenly Father who has given me life, please, beat me if you want! I deserve much worse!”

But I don't want to, Caleb
.

Caleb caught his breath and lifted his head, half expecting to see Moses standing over him in a long white robe. But there was no one and the night was quiet.

He began to cry. “I have been so bad. And I can't take two steps without falling on my face. What is happening to me?!”

You are fighting the fight that all my children fight. Hear me, Caleb. You are my light. You are my smile. You make butterflies fly through my belly. Do you know why, Caleb?

Caleb did and he began to blubber like a baby.

Because I love you more than words can say
.

He wasn't sure why, but the soft voice in his heart made Caleb want to weep, so he did. He begged forgiveness and he cried into the dirt and he loved his Father with everything in his own little body.

The eastern sky had grown light and Caleb lay on his back, suddenly warm all over. He wanted to wrap his arms around the clouds and scream his love for God to the sky. He was changing; he knew that. The simple belief he'd once had as a matter of habit was not as instinctive any longer. He'd fallen and tasted the dirt and its memory lingered. But he still knew how to walk in the kingdom. Any child could walk in the kingdom of his Father.

He smiled. “Father, will you heal me?”

Immediately warmth spread through his bones and Caleb began to laugh. It was almost as if the Father were tickling him. He rolled over on his belly, laughing. The nausea and pain from the illness had left him. A sharp pain from the bandage remained. He turned to his side and felt the bandage. The pain from the wound was still there.

“Caleb?”

He spun to the voice. It was Jason. Caleb sat up, grinning.

Leiah walked from the shack, wide-eyed. “Caleb? Are you okay, dear?” She rushed up to him and knelt.

“Yes. I am okay.”

They must have thought his reaction strange because they exchanged an odd look. “How is your bandage?” Leiah asked, glancing at the white strapping.

“It's okay.”

“I should change it. Does it hurt?”

“Yes. But I feel better. God has taken my illness.”

Jason lowered himself to the ground, and Leiah followed his lead. They sat on the knoll facing the rising sun.

“So you still have your power?” Jason asked.

“It never was my power. But yes, God has healed me.” Caleb scrambled to his knees, ignoring the pain at his side. “I have learned some things, Jason. I'm fighting the same fight that you fight, like Moses holding his hands up to beat the Amalekites. Do you know this story?”

“The Amalekites? No. God didn't heal your gunshot wound?”

Caleb blinked. “Gunshot? I . . . I was shot?”

“Yes, but it's only a flesh wound,” Leiah said. “We need to keep it clean and dress it, but thankfully it isn't deep.”

Caleb looked at the shack and then scanned the meadow, for the first time really. He saw Jason's white truck under the trees nearby. “Where are we?”

“We're in the hills north of the city,” Jason said. “You fell last night and someone shot you. We thought you might be in some danger, and we didn't want to take you back to the Orthodox church with Nikolous, so we brought you here until we decide what to do.”

Caleb grinned. “I like it here. Thank you, Jason.”

An amused smile crossed Jason's face, and he exchanged another odd glance with Leiah. “You're welcome, Caleb.”

“And to be honest, I didn't care for the witch's food anyway.”

Jason laughed at his reference to Martha. “You have her pegged. What was wrong with the food?”

“It was bitter.”

Jason sat up attentively. “Bitter?”

Caleb nodded. “More bitter every day it seemed.”

Jason jumped to his feet. “So he was poisoned! I knew it! And that witch was in on it!”

“I was poisoned by the witch?”

Leiah held her hand out and touched his shoulder. “Not necessarily. If you were poisoned, it would build up in your system—”

“Think about it,” Jason interrupted. “Both times he's gotten sick he's been removed from her food, and both times he's gotten well.”

“No,” Caleb said, shaking his head. “That's not why I got well.”

Leiah faced Jason. “You see? Besides, the poison would have built up in his system. It wouldn't just disappear when he stopped ingesting it.”

“I was healed by God,” Caleb said. They turned to him. “Both times. And the poison could've been in my body all the time because the food has been bitter for a long time. When my faith remained strong, the poison didn't work. But when I began to fail, it made me sick. Like Moses.”

They looked at him with raised brows. “Your power comes from your faith?” Jason asked. “So if you lose your faith, you lose your power and you get sick?”

Caleb chuckled. “I told you that I learned some things today. I'm only a boy and I don't know all his ways. Really I know only a very little, like how to walk in the kingdom. But I do know that it's God's power and not mine. But yes, it's faith. How can you walk in the kingdom unless you believe?”

Jason didn't seem completely satisfied with the answer, but Caleb wasn't sure how to make him understand. Walking in the Spirit was a very simple thing that people in this country wanted to make very complicated. But not even he knew how to describe it in their terms. In fact, he wasn't even sure he had it all right. Not even Dadda knew all the answers. He used to say that all those smart people who knew exactly how it all worked usually had it all wrong.

“Why didn't God heal your gunshot wound?” Leiah asked.

Caleb shrugged. “Maybe I need it as a reminder. It's okay.”

That seemed the end of it.

“Well, we really need to change the bandage. But I guess getting him to a hospital isn't the first priority. That settles that question.” She turned to Jason. “So what do we do?”

“We sit tight,” Jason said.

“For how long? We have no food; we have nothing.”

“I'll have to get some food. But if we go back, Caleb will be taken back to Nikolous, and we'll be taken into custody. I'm not sure I'm ready for either.”

“Yes,” Caleb said. “I would not like to go back to Father Nikolous.”

Leiah stood. “Couldn't we just tell the media what's going on? Or tell the police?”

“Tell them what? That we believe there's a conspiracy to assassinate Caleb? One maybe led by Charles Crandal, the presidential candidate? That although we have no evidence of it, we know the boy's been poisoned? Without hard evidence, we'll sound like two kidnappers who've done some fast thinking to cover their tracks.”

“We have hard evidence. His wound.”

“Something they might accuse
us
of,” he said. “And even if there's evidence at the Old Theater, I doubt very much it points to Crandal. And there's still the real possibility that whoever shot Caleb isn't finished with us. Going public could be the worst move now. No, we need to let this cool down a little.”

She put a hand on Caleb's head and smoothed his hair. He liked it when she did that. Their discussion about media and police required a better understanding of this country than he had, but it was clear that they didn't know what to do.

“We should ask the Father for his help,” he said.

“I agree,” Leiah said. “God knows we need it.”

Jason nodded. “You're right.” There was still a shadow of doubt that darkened his face, Caleb thought. Maybe he could help him see.

33

B
ANKS HAD FOLLOWED THE
B
RONCO
onto the dirt road before losing it in a cloud of dust that was itself lost to the night. Jason and company had disappeared into the wooded hills. That could be good and that could be bad, depending. But in this case it had been good.

According to the map, Banks had doubled back to the Texaco, for the road Jason had headed down forked three miles up, and both forks were dead ends—one within five miles, the other in seven. Unless that Bronco could climb trees, it was going nowhere but back. Which is why Banks spent the night parked on the road, at the fork, with his .308 on his lap. If they planned on retracing their way tonight, they would have to ram their way through.

But there had been no ramming. There had been nothing but black silence. Enough for him to sleep. And now it was morning.

Banks started the Monte Carlo, pulled it off the road, and stepped out. He walked up to where the road forked and opened the map. The fork to the right had the name
Canyon Crossing
scrawled in italics beside a wiggly line that ended in the hills five miles up. The other followed a dry creek for a few miles before heading into the same forested area under the name
Canyon End
.

He slid the map into his belt, plucked a stalk of grass, and walked across both forks, studying the gravel. These were not well-traveled roads, but there was no way to tell which had been used last night. Dried potholes spotted both; some molded mud or splashed water would have been the most obvious indication, but the roads were powder dry.

Banks stuck the grass in his mouth and looked south. The kid was probably dead. He should've taken another shot, for the head. Junior might have walked in on him with the delay, but at least he wouldn't be in this mess.

On the other hand, this mess was going to pay well. And in truth he could hardly ask for a better setup. Jason might be more resourceful than the average pinhead, but he was stranded up one of these two deserted roads with a woman and a wounded child. They would have to come out sooner or later. It was either that or shrivel up and die in the hills, and Jason didn't strike him as the shriveling-up type.

Banks walked back to the car and backed it into the bush beside the road. If he knew which road they'd taken, he would drive in and pop 'em. But as it was, he couldn't risk being up one while they doubled back on the other. No, this would be a simple waiting game.

Good enough.

He took out his rifle and his binoculars, locked the car, and climbed the twenty-foot rock outcropping that rose to the north of the fork. He settled behind a large boulder and studied the road below. He could see half a mile either way on each fork.

He rested his rifle on the rock and sighted down the road.
Pop!
He could take the driver of a car out at three hundred yards with this thing.

And that would be that.

Donna watched the sea of bodies march down Figueroa Street, waving their banners of protest overhead. The mob was well over a thousand now, and growing by the minute. The eclectic group wielded signs that read everything from
His blood will be on your hands
to the slogan from Charles Crandal's presidential bid
Power to the People
. But they all seemed to agree on one thing: the boy's abduction was part of some conspiracy involving the authorities, and they wanted him back.

Donna slapped the side of the news van. “Let's go. We have an exclusive with Nikolous in an hour.”

Her cameraman, Bill, jumped behind the wheel and fired the engine. A large white man with a red beard and bright blue eyes walked by with a girl who looked to be about seven or eight. They held signs that read simply,
We love Caleb, not Uncle Sam.
Donna smiled. She'd already sent the studio enough live footage to fill a dozen newscasts, and this was no longer her gig.

She climbed into the front of the van, and Bill pulled into the street, honking to clear a path. “This is nuts,” he said, inching the van onto a side street. “Plain nuts.”

“They're not as crazy as they look,” Donna said. “If you had a daughter with Down's syndrome you might be out there with a sign too.”