Ollie's Cloud (40 page)

Chapter 36

The following week is a time of dreams. In a ramshackle house two farms removed from Ollie’s homestead, a nine-year-old girl, Winnie Talbot, is awakened at four oclock in the morning. Running into her parent’s bedroom, she shakes her mother.

“What is it dear?” Edith Talbot asks. “Another dream?”

Winnie nods
.

“A scary one?”

Winnie shakes her head. “Just sad,” she says.

Winnie’s father, Ed, has had enough of the girl’s nightmares. God has cursed him with a daughter who suffers from a kind of madness. Even though his wife and many of the neighbors (especially the religious ones) think of Winnie as an oracle, Ed knows better. His mother was mad, and his grandfather—both of them subject to prolonged periods of melancholy, like Winnie, during which they would sit and stare speechlessly for days or weeks.

“I’m glad your words have come back, Winnie,” Edith says, stroking her daughter’s hair. “Care to tell me about it?”

“There was a man standing under a palm tree.”

Edith considers this. Confused, she says, “And the man was sad?”

“No,” Winnie says. “He was happy. But I was sad.”

“Why were you sad, Winnie?”

“Because he is going to die.”

“When, Winnie—when is he going to die?”

“On the last day of the year.”

“Then why is he happy?”

“Because the one he has been waiting for will come soon after.”

Edith Talbot has no idea what this dream means, but surely Reverend Crenshaw will know. And possibly old lady Peterson on the far side of town, and Felix Shims at the Methodist Church, and... Many people who will want to know that Winnie has had another dream.

At the precise time of Winnie’s dream, it is noon in the Ottoman Empire. Once each year, Siyyid Kazim, the leader of the Shaykhis, visits the tomb of the Imam Husayn, and this is that special day. Traveling with more than twenty students, he stops at a large palm tree to perform the Muslim noonday prayer. The faithful gather around him while a grizzled shepherd, who was sitting on the stony ground near the tree when they arrived, watches from a few paces away.

“Join us if you wish, my friend,” Siyyid Kazim says to the shepherd, who seems astonished at the presence of the Siyyid and nods timidly.

After devotions, Kazim stands and stretches. The students sip from their water gourds. Kazim is not yet fifty, but his bones feel as if he is eighty. A constant pain in his stomach keeps him up most nights, and life itself seems to be seeping out of him one drop at a time.

The shepherd shyly approaches Kazim. “I believe that I have a message for you,” he says.

“For me?” Kazim says, surprised..

“If you are Siyyid Kazim, yes.”

Kazim is bewildered. How could this shepherd know his name? “Who sent this message?’ he asks.

The shepherd bows suddenly. “The Prophet Muhammad,” he answers. “I cannot understand why He chose such a lowly creature as me. I must be mistaken.”

The shepherd’s words catch the attention of the group. Siyyid Kazim takes the man’s hand and lifts the shepherd to his feet. “You were seated here before we arrived. You were expecting me. How is that possible? Even I did not know that we would offer our prayers at this spot until we stopped here.”

The shepherd’s dark eyes, folded into deeply set wrinkles carved by years of squinting, seem to brighten. “It is too much for an old man to believe that God would speak to me. I waited here to prove that my dream was just an old man’s fantasy.”

“I have had dreams, too,” Kazim says. “Tell me about yours.”

After a deep breath, the shepherd begins to speak. “Three days ago I was tending my flock in the field over there.” The shepherd points beyond the palm tree to a stony meadow. “As my sheep were grazing, I reclined against a large stone and fell asleep. A dream came to me, and in this dream I saw Muhammad, the Apostle of God, who spoke to me. The prophet said,
Give ear to My words, and treasure them in your heart. For these words of Mine are the trust of God which I commit to your keeping
.”

The shepherd is suddenly overcome with emotion. He drops to his knees and says, “Forgive me if this dream if not of God!”

Kazim kneels beside the old man. “You said the message was for me,” he says. “You must deliver it.”

The shepherd rubs his face with dusty hands, shakes his head, and calms himself with a whistling exhalation through cracked lips. “The Prophet told me to stay near this tree.
On the third day after this dream
, He said,
a descendant of My house, Siyyid Kazim by name, will alight at the hour of noon beneath the shadow of the palm tree. As soon as your eyes fall upon him, seek his presence and convey to him My loving greetings.
”

Kazim touches the man’s shoulder, and the warmth of his hand seems to soothe the shepherd. “What were His greetings?” Kazim asks gently.

“I am to say, on behalf of the Prophet,
Rejoice, for the hour of your departure is at hand. When you shall have performed your visits to the tomb of the Imam Husayn and returned to Karbala…
” The old man stops, looks up at Siyyid Kazim with great sadness and then continues: “
…there, on the day of ‘Arafih, you will wing your flight to Me.
”

A gasp rises from Kazim’s followers. This old man has announced that Siyyid Kazim will soon die, on the day of ‘Arafih, which—though they do not know it—corresponds to the last day of the year on the Christian calendar.

The shepherd continues. “I do not understand the last part of the Prophet’s message. He said that I should tell you,
Soon after, He who is the Truth shall be made manifest. Then shall the world be illuminated by the light of His face.
”

Having pronounced his ominous message, the old man sits on the ground. Grieved at the news of their master’s death sentence, the students begin to weep.

“There is no doubt as to the truth of your dream,” Kazim says to the shepherd and then turns to his weeping followers. “And as for you—why do you weep and groan? Did you not hear the good news? The appearance of the Promised One is at hand. Why are you sad? Would you not wish me to die, that the Promised One may be revealed?”

The weeping stops. Siyyid Kazim tenderly embraces the old shepherd.

One of the students says, “It’s not fair that after all your work you will not live to see the prophecy fulfilled.”

Smiling, Kazim turns to the young speaker and says, “From what other seat would you rather witness such a glorious day?”

In Rochester, by lunchtime on the day of Winnie’s dream, Edith Talbot has spread the news of her daughter’s most recent vision to most of her friends. The Evangelicals are buzzing with excitement; surely the dream means
something
. By three o’clock, a group of churchmen track down Reverend Crenshaw and corner him in his kitchen. “What is the meaning of the oracle’s dream?” they all ask at once. The churchmen look to the Reverend as their advent advisor, a fount of mystical wisdom about the end times.

“I don’t like the word
oracle
,” the Reverend says. “Winnie’s a child of God—a bit odd, but many of the prophets of old were a bit off plumb, too. Sometimes I think that those with special, uh,
mental
aberrations
—as it were—possess a gift, or an openness to receiving God’s word.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” says Pastor Phelps of the Congregational Church. He is impatient. “But does this dream have anything to do with the Return of Christ? The year is almost gone, and we’re still waiting!”

Reverend Crenshaw, now sixty pounds lighter than his previous self, rises nimbly to his feet as if about to take the pulpit. He begins to pace.

“I believe the dream does pertain to His return, yes. Why would God be communicating to us now if not to speak about the Second Coming? It is logical that this dream is meant to reveal something profound about that great event.”

“So who is the man beneath the palm tree?” demands Felix Shims, a deacon at the Methodist Church. “And why is he happy if he’s going to die on New Year’s Eve?”

“And who is this person who is coming after this fellow dies?” asks the Baptist minister.

“Here’s what I believe,” the Reverend says. “The palm tree represents Christianity. Did not Christ ride into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, symbolically introducing Christianity to the world?”

The churchmen all nod yes. This makes sense.

“And the man beneath the palm tree, beneath that symbol of Christianity, must represent all Christians!”

The churchmen murmur approval. Why had they not seen this?

Felix Shims, however, is troubled by the Reverend’s interpretation. “Are you saying that Christianity is going to die at the end of this year?” he says.

“My dear friend,” the Reverend replies jovially, “in this dream,
death
must surely represent the death of this wicked world in which we live. The Christian beneath the palm tree is happy because the end of this world means the beginning of the reign of Christ. Did not Winnie say that the man was happy because the one he is waiting for—and I can only suggest that he is waiting for the return of Christ—will come soon after?”

“Astonishing!” remarks the Baptist minister. “It makes sense.”

But Felix Shims is not satisfied. “Wait just a minute here, Reverend,” he says. His brow is furrowed. “If the world comes to an end on New Year’s Eve, then how can Christ come
soon after
? My understanding is that Christ’s return is what brings about the end of the world. Doesn’t that mean that He will have to come
right before
, rather than
soon after
?”

The churchmen grow silent. Perhaps they had agreed with the Reverend too soon.

Reverend Crenshaw scratches his head. “You raise a good point, Felix,” he says, buying time to think. In a flash it comes to him. Of course!

“But then again, would you not all agree that we must die before we can be resurrected?” the Reverend asks.

Everyone agrees.

“And that our old nature must die before we can be
born again
in Christ?”

Again, there is no dissent.

“Then, my friends, does it not hold that the world must die before Christ returns? Is he not the life
giver
? This is the true meaning of the dream. On New Year’s Eve, the world will die—spiritually or symbolically or in reality, I don’t know which—but the world will die, and we will know it when it does. And shortly thereafter, Christ will return in the Glory of the Father to bring life abundant to believers in Him.”

Spontaneous applause greets his creative output. Not until after supper will it occur to the Reverend that he has set a precise date for the end of the world.

Chapter 37

Through the window of the Rochester Inn, Ollie can see the November snow descending in a suffocating fury. Ollie sits across a pine table from newspaperman Thomas Sharp. It is not the icy wind whistling through the cracked window pane that causes Ollie to shiver; it is the harrowing tale being spun by the editor of the
Warsaw Signal
.

“Since the death of your friend Horace Carter, you’ve been living in terror,” Ollie summarizes as Sharp stops his monologue to sip his coffee.

“Unfortunately, I can’t prove that the Mormons were responsible for his death, though I’ve tried.”

“You could be wrong.”

“You don’t know these people the way I do. Horace was a Mormon, then left the Faith. This is unforgiveable to them. Their secret Avenging Angels track down apostates and spill their blood on the soil, believing that only this can redeem their traitorous souls in the eyes of God.”

“If they are the murderous lot you make them out to be, why have they not killed you? Why stop at intimidation?”

“Believe me, there are nights when I wish they would burst into my room and spill my blood, just to get it over with. I feel like a man who’s been marching for months toward the gallows. On the streets I sometimes see them staring. Some nights I hear footsteps outside the window. But that’s not the worst of it.”

“What could be worse?”

“Their intimidation has had the desired effect. It has rendered my pen impotent.”

“I think you over-dramatize your surrender. In the past weeks I’ve read your articles and I would not characterize your writing as timid.”

“Ahhh, but you don’t know the words that were
not
written!”

“I do know, however, what you
did
write. I’ve followed your articles… dare I say
religiously
? You criticized the formation of the Nauvoo Legion.”

“To no avail. It may now be the most powerful army in the land. Who could have known that when Joseph Smith moved his band of outcasts to Nauvoo, that mosquito-infested hell-hole would become a military headquarters.”

“You decried the Nauvoo city charter that authorized the Legion, and Joseph Smith’s land transactions. You’ve denounced their prophet himself… and his excessive power.”

“Excessive power seems almost too modest a description for someone who is mayor, lieutenant-general of the Nauvoo Legion, presiding judge of the highest city court, land speculator, and political boss. But I have not protested a new ordinance passed by the Nauvoo city council that allows the city to review all state arrest orders! This puts more than power in the hands of Mr. Smith. It makes him essentially
exempt from civil law
!”

“Then you must write your conscience,” Ollie says.

Thomas Sharp pulls a wrinkled piece of paper out of his coat pocket and puts it on the table. His eyes urge Ollie to read it. “I have written my conscience,” Sharp explains. “But I lack the courage to publish it. I believe that my health depends on my silence in this matter.”

Ollie reads some of the written words aloud: “Now we ask our citizens; what think you of this barefaced defiance of our laws by the City Council of Nauvoo, and if persisted in, what must be the final result?”

“Violence.” Sharp replies, answering the question he had written. “I believe violence may be inevitable. I have it from a most trustworthy source that Joseph Smith is going to write a letter to several of the candidates for the United States presidency. He will be asking them if they are willing to validate and sustain Mormon rights with federal power.”

“I can’t believe that any candidate would agree to such a thing.”

“Probably not, but Mr. Smith has the entire Mormon vote to pledge. If they all refuse, however, I understand that Smith is prepared to declare himself a candidate.”

“Joseph Smith? President of the United States?”

“His ambition knows no bounds. And for every decision he makes, he can testify that God revealed to him indisputable divine guidance.”

Ollie stops to think about this. “Have you wondered if the man truly is a prophet?”

“Oliver, he is a polygamist. His followers kill people for heresy.”

Ollie again stops to think. This description sounds like the great mujtahids of Islam. These wise men certainly were not prophets, and they represented a counterfeit religion. Only Christianity, of which Mormonism most certainly is a clever perversion, bears the stamp of authenticity.

“Your grudge with the Mormons is a political one,” Ollie says at last. “My dispute with Joseph Smith is purely religious.”

“Personally, Oliver, I don’t care if your dispute is over the color of his eyes. The anti-Mormon movement needs every man of influence it can find. Your stories appear in many newspapers. You could help make the case for controlling this madman.”

Ollie stares across the table at Thomas Sharp. “If you publish this story”—he holds up Sharp’s wrinkled article—“I will help.”

“You drive a hard bargain. It’s my life on the line, you know.” Sharp extends his hand, almost tipping over the oil lantern that burns brightly in the center of the table.

Ollie takes the man’s hand and shakes it once, firmly.