Mystery Walk

'Your home is here,' she said. 'It'll always be here. I can take care of myself, the house, and the land; I've done it before. But you've got to go into the world and use what you know, and learn more about yourself. If you don't you've wasted everything that's gone before you.'

'I need to think,' he told her. 'I'm not sure what to do.'

'You're sure. You're just taking your time coming around to it.'

Billy clenched the piece of coal in his fist. He said, 'I want to sleep out tonight, out in the forest. I want to be by myself for as long as it takes.'

Ramona nodded. 'I'll get some food ready for you, if you ...'

'No. If I can't catch my food or dig it up, I won't eat. I'll just need a sleeping bag.'

She left the room to get what he wanted. Billy put the coal into his pocket and stepped out onto the porch; he wanted to lie on Southern earth tonight, to watch the stars move and let his mind drift. It was true that he'd felt the Hillburn Institute in Chicago pulling at him. He was curious as to what kind of place it might be and what might lie ahead of him in a city that size. Chicago seemed as far away as China, and just as foreign. It was true also that he was afraid.

He faced the horizon, ablaze with the colors of late autumn. The musky scent of dead summer wafted in the air like old wine. He didn't want to leave all the work to his mother, but he knew she was right; the Mystery Walk was beckoning him onward, and he had to follow.

Ready or not, he thought, recalling the games of hide-and-seek he used to play with Will Booker, whose symbol of faith in Billy's potential rested in his jeans pocket, here I come. . . .

46

The blue-and-silver Canadair Challenger had been in the air for less than an hour, and was now streaking over central Arkansas at twenty-three thousand feet. The late October sky was a dazzling blue, while beneath the jet a rainstorm whipped Little Rock.

Wayne Falconer, sitting in the plane's 'quiet pocket'—the area just behind the flight deck—was stunned and delighted. This silent eagle made his Beechcraft seem like a clumsy moth. Leaving the ground at Fayette's airport had been one of the most sublime feelings he'd experienced. Up here the sky was so clear and blue, and he felt as if he'd left his worldly responsibilities very far behind. He wanted a jet like this, he had to have one and that was all there was to it.

The business jet's interior was done in dark blue and black, with a lot of shining chrome and waxed wood surface. The motorized swivel-and-reclining seats were upholstered in black Angus steerhide, and there was a long comfortable-looking sofa next to a fruit and vegetable juice bar. Danish teakwood tables were bolted to the carpeted floor in case of rough weather; on one of the tables were neatly arranged copies of the Falconer Crusade's magazine. Everything in the long, spacious cabin sparkled with cleanliness, as if someone had polished every fixture and surface with a strong disinfectant cleanser. The oval Plexiglass windows, George Hodges had noticed, didn't have one streak or fingerprint on them. He'd decided that this Mr Augustus Krepsin must be a very fastidious man, though something about the display of Crusade magazines bothered him; it was maybe too clever, and was trying to win Wayne over too fast. Krepsin's assistant, Mr. Niles, bothered Hodges too. The man was polite, intelligent, and well informed about the Crusade's business policies, but there was something about his eyes that disturbed Hodges; they looked soulless, and they lingered on Wayne far too often.

Hodges sat a few seats behind Wayne, closer to the high whine of the twin jet engines at the rear of the fuselage. Niles, Hodges had noticed, was quick to take the seat across the aisle from Wayne. Henry Bragg was paging through a Field and Stream a couple of seats behind him. Bragg was pleased to be away from his wife and three stairstep children; he sipped ginger ale through a straw and watched the clouds move far below, a dreamy and contented smile on his face.

Beth, their attractive young flight attendant, came down the aisle with a cup of orange juice for Wayne. The cabin was more than eight feet wide and six feet high, so she had no trouble making her way to the young man. 'Here you go,' she said with a sunny smile. 'Can I get you a magazine?'

'No, thank you. What's our airspeed now, ma'am?'

'Beth. Oh, I think we're flying around five hundred miles per hour by now. I understand you're a pilot.'

'Yes, ma'am. Beth, I mean. I've got a Beechcraft Bonanza, but it's nothing like this. I've always loved planes and flying. I . . . always feel so free when I'm up in the air.'

'Have you ever been to California?'

He shook his head, sipped at the orange juice, and put the cup down on his service tray.

'Sun and fun!' Beth said. 'That's the life-style there.'

Wayne smiled, though uneasily. For some reason, Beth reminded him of a half-forgotten nightmare: a dark- haired girl slipping on a slick platform, the awful noise of her head hitting the sharp edge, the sound of painfully exhaled breath and water closing over her like a black shroud. In the past three years his face and body had thickened, and the texture of his red hair had become dense and wiry. His eyes were deep-set and glowed as blue as the sky beyond the jet's windows. But they were haunted eyes, holding back secrets, and there were purplish hollows beneath them. He was very pale except for a few rashes of late-blooming acne across his cheeks. 'Beth?' he said. 'Do you go to church?'

Mr. Niles had given her a thorough briefing on Wayne Falconer before they'd left Palm Springs. 'Yes I do,' she said, still smiling. 'As a matter of fact, my father was a minister just like yours was.'

Across the aisle, Niles's eyes were closed. He smiled very slightly. Beth was a resourceful person who could think on her feet.

'An evangelist,' Wayne corrected her. 'My daddy was the greatest evangelist that ever lived.'

'I've never seen you on television, but I'll get it's a good show.'

'I hope it does good for people. That's what I'm trying to do.' He smiled wanly at her, and was pleased when she returned his smile with sunny wattage. She left him to his thoughts, and he drank his orange juice. He had just finished a three-day-long healing revival in Atlanta. It was estimated that he'd touched five thousand in the Healing Line, and he'd preached three scorching hellfire-and-brimstone messages. He was bone-tired, and in two weeks the Falconer Crusade was booked into the Houston Astrodome for yet another revival. If only he could find a record of a jet engine in flight, Wayne thought, maybe he could sleep better; the sound would soothe him, and he could pretend he was very far away from the Crusade, flying across a night sky sparkled with stars.

His daddy had told him buying this record company was a smart move to make. He should listen to this Mr. Krepsin, and trust in what the man said, his daddy had told him. It would all work out for the best.

'Wayne?' Mr. Niles was standing over him, smiling. 'Come on up to the flight deck with me, will you?'

Niles led the way forward and pulled aside a green curtain. Wayne was breathless at the sight of the cockpit, with its magnificent control panel, its gleaming toggles and gauges and dials. The pilot, a husky man with a broad sunburned face, grinned below his smoke-tinted sunglasses and said, 'Hi there, Wayne. Take the co-pilot's seat.'

Wayne slipped into glove-soft leather. The engine noise was barely audible way up here; there was only the quiet hissing of air around the Challenger's nose. The windshield gave an unobstructed, wide-angle view of brilliant blue sky dotted with high, fleecy cirrus clouds. Wayne noticed the movements of the control yoke before him, and knew the jet was flying under autopilot command. The instruments he faced—altimeter, airspeed indicator, horizontal situation indicator, attitude director, and a few more he didn't recognize—were set in a Basic T formation, similar to the Beechcraft panel but of course much more complex. Between the pilot and co-pilot was a console holding the engine thrust throttles, the weather radar controls, the speed brake lever, and other toggle switches Wayne knew nothing about. He stared at the panel with rapt fascination.

'Everything's right there,' the pilot said, 'if you know where to look for it. My name's Jim Coombs. Glad to have you aboard.' He shook Wayne's hand with a hard, firm grip. 'Mr. Niles tells me you're a flyer. That right?'

'Yes sir.'

'Okay.' Coombs reached up to an overhead console and switched off the autopilot. The control yokes stopped their slight correction of ailerons and elevators; the Challenger slowly began to nose upward. 'Take her and see how she feels.'