Ark (29 page)

When Jim looked up from his notes, the calf had already been killed and its blood was being poured around the altar.

Clouds began to form over the mountains to the West. As the dead calf was placed on the altar, Rabbi Levi’s voice grew loud as he chanted and prayed. The wind rose unexpectedly, causing sparks to fly in a dusty swirl above the altar. Gene scanned the sky and commented on the possibility of rain, but John shook his head and said that the forecasts had all been positive. “We’re not supposed to have any rain for days,” he said. Glancing again at the approaching clouds, he looked more doubtful. “Of course you never know in the West. The weather can play tricks on you.”

General Wilcox stood to the rear of the group. Jim noticed that Lieutenant Bush was advising him. Bush left the General’s side and went into a trailer that bristled with antennae.

The General joined Jim, Gene and John in the outer courtyard where they’d moved to watch the proceedings. “This is it,” he said. “All systems go.”

Rabbi Levi’s voice strained to compete with the noise of the increasing wind. The Levites, squinting to see through the windblown dust, managed to uncover the ark and pick it up. They began carrying it ceremoniously toward the Tabernacle. Ahead of them walked the Rabbi, praying at the top of his lungs, his melodic song-prayer blending with the sound of the wind. It gave Jim chills despite the hundred degree heat. Gene looked around and pointed to the trailers. It seemed that most of the personnel were outside watching as the ark moved closer to the Holy of Holies.

The Tabernacle’s tenting was shaking in the wind but the ropes and lashings held firm. Jim noted that the design of the tent was proving to be sturdier than he’d expected.

“I wondered how that thing would hold up in a wind,” observed Gene.

“Now you know,” said John. “Why? Are you surprised?”

“Well, it lends some credibility ...” began Jim.

John interrupted. “If you’re going to say that the fact that the tent stands up to the wind is a reason to believe the Bible, I think you’re reaching a bit, Jim. Building a tent is common knowledge to the boys who wrote the book, don’t you think?”

Jim didn’t answer. He watched the ark as it moved toward the Tabernacle. At the moment, theological debate seemed not only inappropriate but irrelevant. Besides, he had felt for a long time that none of the events transpiring here would change anyone’s beliefs. Essentially people believe what they want to, and John was no exception. He’d heard John and Gene argue the Bible enough to know where each of them stood. While he never said so, John was an inch from Von Daniken's view that interloping space aliens had duped poor Moses. Gene, for the moment at least, was still open, but he was a dedicated techie who believed that given enough time everything would be explained.

Two of the Levite group were holding the curtains at the mouth of the Tabernacle as the four who carried the ark marched steadily toward the Holy of Holies. A moment later they emerged from the sanctuary and filed ceremoniously out of the Tabernacle. Finally, everything was in place.

Jim held his breath as he listened to the wind and the sound of the faraway rabbi wailing prayers as he stood alone to face the truth before him. He noticed that the wind was circling the huge encampment as though it had a life of its own.

“Look at the smoke from the altar,” said Gene.

In spite of the wind the column of smoke from the burning calf rose straight into the sky.

“That’s kind of weird,” said John.

#

Jim could still hear the rabbi despite the wind.

Gene studied the situation and smiled. “Don’t freak, everyone. It’s only a whirlwind. Normal desert activity in the afternoons.”

The smoke, it seemed, wanted to prove Gene wrong, keeping its form as a column rising up to the sky before dissipating into the wind at about fifty or sixty feet.

Jim wondered if his mind was feeding him suggestions of supernatural events. Certainly he was primed for it. Maybe he simply wanted to believe that it was God himself that empowered the ark. Now, he was seeing it. The devout might judge what they were seeing was a miracle. But was it? The behavior of the smoke hardly mattered. What really mattered was what happened with the ark.

Jim focused his attention on the Tabernacle and the rabbi’s voice. He listened for any intonation that might indicate what was going on inside the Tabernacle.

The whirlwind persisted for a long time before it began to subside. Finally the wind stopped completely and the heat of the desert returned. “Well, there goes your miracle, Jim,” said John with a grin.

The General was waving at Irwin Bush in the radio trailer. “Anything?” he mouthed, keeping his voice down out of respect for the semi-religious service that was going on. Bush shook his head negatively.

Outside the Tabernacle the Levites stood with their heads bowed. One of them was wiping grit from his eye, no doubt grateful that the wind was no longer blinding him. Finally, the rabbi emerged from the tent and closed the curtains. He looked off toward the sun that was beginning to sink toward the horizon. The clouds that had formed there were gradually filling the sky like outstretched fingers reaching toward them. The rabbi turned to face the group of people that watched in silence from a distance. Then he dropped to the ground.

The General looked back and forth between the rabbi and the lieutenant, expecting some activity involving the ark. Irwin shook his head again as he spoke into his headset, presumably to technicians inside the radio trailer.

The Levites, followed by nearly everyone else, ran to the fallen rabbi. John was the first from their group to arrive in the midst of the Levites. They had formed a circle as one knelt beside Rabbi Levi, feeling his pulse.

“I don’t believe it,” said John. “The man’s dead.”

Jim looked down at Rabbi Levi. The ashen face and dark lips said it all. He looked away, unable to bear the sight.

Then he heard a voice. It was THAT voice.
“Take off thy shoes, for the place where thou standeth is consecrated ground.”
And when Jim looked at the body, lying face up in the dust, he noticed the Rabbi’s shoes.

Jim looked up. Dark smoke from the sacrificial calf rose as a column into the sky. He realized then that he was standing in the blood of the sacrifice, next to the altar. He could feel its heat on his face as he looked at it.

The archbishop had arrived with the General. He pushed people gently away and knelt next to the rabbi. Rosary in hand, he prayed over the fallen cleric. The General watched dispassionately, muttering into his radio headset.

Inside Jim’s head the words he’d heard kept repeating. Finally he sat down and pulled off his shoes.

“What are you doing?” asked Gene.

Jim looked up at Gene. A tear rolled down his cheek.

“Jim, are you okay?”

Jim stood up. “I want to go in there,” he said. “Will they let me?”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” asked Gene. “God, all of a sudden everything’s going to Hell. Maybe you should just go into the trailer and get out of this heat?”

Barefoot, Jim walked briskly over to the Tabernacle and pulled back the heavy coverings just enough so he could slip through them. For a moment he was engulfed in what felt like a thick tapestry, then suddenly he was inside. The menorah was all that illuminated the interior. It looked just as it had when he explored it in the grotto.

Jim walked to the curtain that covered the Holy of Holies and stood there trembling. He held out his hand to push the curtain aside, but something prevented it. His arms hung at his sides like lead weights.

Falling to his knees, he cried like a baby. “Why? Why?”

There was no answer, only the shouts of people outside the Tabernacle.

Jim got to his feet and stared at the curtain. Gold threads amid the linen sparkled in the light of the menorah. He considered looking behind the veil but knew there was no reason other than to test the ancient warning against violating the Holy of Holies. He wiped his cheeks, then turned and left the Tabernacle.

Gene and John were standing outside. They seemed relieved to see him emerge from behind the curtains.

“What got into you?” asked Gene.

Jim realized that his actions had no easy explanation. “I’m okay,” he said. “Sorry.”

“What’s going on in there?” asked John. “Did anything happen?”

“I cried,” answered Jim, walking away from them.

The storm had moved in quickly. The clouds that had been gathering in the distance were now overhead, dark and threatening.

Gene ran to catch up with him. “Come on, Jim,” he said breathlessly. “You can tell me. What happened in there?”

“Nothing, Gene,” said Jim. “I was only there a minute.” He looked around. “Where’s the Rabbi?”

“He’s gone. They took him into to one of the trailers,” said Gene. “What do you mean you were only in there a minute? Try twenty minutes.”

Jim stopped in his tracks. “Twenty?” he said. “That’s impossible.” He knew that Gene was right. The clouds that now loomed overhead couldn’t have moved in that much in just a minute.

Jim kept walking. He didn’t want to stop and talk. He felt compelled to leave. When he got outside the courtyard he went over to a large rock and sat down. Soon a small group was standing in a circle around him. The General came into their midst. He was holding two plastic cups of ice water. He handed one to Jim. “Let me have a word with Jim, please.”

Everyone complied, and when they were beyond earshot the General turned back to Jim. “Everything went nuts for a while there, didn’t it? Can you tell me what happened?”

Jim looked up at the General. Rolling clouds moved ominously behind him. “I really can’t say,” said Jim, sipping the ice water. “They say I was in there twenty minutes. Why didn’t someone come and get me?”

“I wouldn’t let them,” said General Wilcox. “I thought you’d be better off if we left you there for a while, but finally I told my son and Gene to go in and see if you were all right. That’s when you came out.” The General surveyed the area then looked back at Jim. “Mind if I share your rock?”

Jim moved over a bit to give the General room. “Suit yourself.”

He expected an interrogation, but the General made no effort to press Jim for answers.

General Wilcox squinted at the Tabernacle, then at the clouds rolling overhead. “Looks like rain.”

Gene brought Jim his shoes. He didn’t linger or make any comment. He just handed them to Jim and left.

“Isn’t the sand hot on your feet?” asked the General.

“To tell you the truth, I hadn’t noticed,” said Jim. “I feel like a complete lunatic. Guess I freaked everyone out,” he added. “Is the rabbi ... is he ...?”

“Heart attack, I guess,” said the General. “The heat, the robes. I think it just got the better of him.”

Jim thought over what had happened. “You don’t see any significance in the fact that he died at the altar, right there in all that blood?”

“Of course I do, but come on, Jim, it was the strain that killed him. The rest, it’s just circumstantial. Isn’t it?”

Jim drained his cup of ice water. “I have no idea.”

For the moment the General was silent, his eyes wandering around the encampment as he sipped his own cup of water, but he made no move to leave. Jim thought that the General must have many questions he wanted to ask but was afraid that Jim was too in fragile a state to deal with them. Considering the money he was making for doing practically nothing and the distress his actions had caused, he felt he had to try to give the General some answers.

“I’m okay, General Wilcox,” he said. “Is there something you wanted to ask?”

“I’m just trying to understand what happened.”

“I sympathize, Sir,” said Jim. “I’m not sure how much help I can be, though.”

The General looked down at Jim’s tennis shoes and at his bare feet. “The shoes?”

“I heard a voice say to take them off. That’s the truth of it.” Jim felt his face begin to flush with embarrassment.

“A voice? In your head?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Is this like the, uh, other times you heard voices?” asked the General, looking Jim in the eye.

“That’s what all this is about, isn’t it?” Jim began to feel like the General was humoring him. “Don’t mince words, General.”

“I try to keep an open mind,” said the General. “I know you heard voices before. That’s why you didn’t move to New York, isn’t it?”

Jim was about to answer, but there was a shout from behind them. It was Lieutenant Bush. The General excused himself and got up. “Stay here and relax, Jim,” he said. “If you want to you can use my air conditioned trailer. It’s that one over there.” The General pointed to a large aluminum trailer that stood near where Irwin Bush waited for the General.

“That’s okay, General. I’ll stay here.” Jim started to brush the dirt off his feet.

The General got halfway to Bush before he noticed that the lieutenant was pointing to the Tabernacle.

For a moment Jim thought he might have knocked over the menorah. A bright flickering in the sanctuary looked like a fire had broken out. It was hard to see past the opened curtains at the end of the Tabernacle because of the cloud of dust that hung there. But there was no wind. So why the dust?

He realized that it wasn’t dust at all. The Tabernacle had become cloaked in a light mist of some kind. It looked like fog pouring out of the sanctuary. As Jim watched, it grew taller and taller, mingling with the smoke that still rose from the altar.

Jim looked back at the General in time to see him disappear into the communications trailer.

Gene stood wide-eyed, frozen in his tracks a few yards from Jim. “Are you seeing this?”

“Fire,” sad Jim. “The menorah. Maybe one of the curtains caught fire? Maybe the veil. It’s not too far from the menorah.”

They stared drop-jawed at the cloud as it thickened and grew into a large column that rose directly above the Holy of Holies. “That’s no fire,” said Gene.

“Cameras!” someone yelled.

Jim turned to see who was shouting. It was the General, standing in the open door of the communications trailer. “Get with it, people! Move. Move. Move! I want this recorded!”