Blasphemy

with the other wrist, and tied them off, so that Hazelius was half-hanging, half-standing upright, arms apart. His clothes hung in tatters from his filthy body.

Suddenly, Kate wrenched free, leapt forward, and embraced Hazelius.

The crowd burst into angry shouts, and several men grabbed Kate and yanked her back, throwing her to the ground. A scarecrow of a man with a squared-off beard scooted out of the crowd and kicked her while she was down.

“Bastard!” Ford shouted. He slammed the man in the jaw, knocked another aside and fought his way toward Kate, but the mob swarmed him and he was driven to the ground with fists and clubs. Half-conscious, he was barely aware of what happened next.

The roar of a dirt bike sounded at the edge of the crowd, the engine sputtering to a stop. A deep, authoritative voice sounded out: “Greetings, Christians!”

“Doke!” cried the crowd. “Doke is here!”

“Doke! Doke!”

The crowd parted and a mountain of a man strode into the ring, dressed in a denim jacket with the sleeves ripped off, brawny arms tattooed, big iron cross dangling from a silver chain around his neck, assault rifle slung across his back. His long blond hair whipped in the winds generated by the fires.

He turned, embraced Eddy. “Christ be with you!” He released Eddy from his embrace and pivoted to the crowd. Doke radiated easy charm, a complement to Eddy’s ascetic severity. With a mysterious grin, he reached into a bag and removed a glass bottle filled with a clear liquid, unscrewed the cap, flicked it away, and stuffed a rag into the hole, leaving the end dangling. Then, holding the rag in place with two fingers, he shook the bottle and held it up. The crowd roared. Ford smelled gasoline. With his other arm he raised a Bic lighter until both arms were over his head. He waved them back and forth and did a full turn around, like a rock star onstage. “Wood!” he cried, his voice hoarse. “Bring us wood!”

Eddy said, “ ‘And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire!’ The Bible is clear on this point. Those who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior are cast into everlasting fire. This, my fellow Christians, is what God wants.”

“Burn him! Burn the Antichrist!” responded the crowd.

“‘And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire,’ ” Eddy continued, “ ‘cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are.’ ”

“Stop it! In the name of God, don’t do this!” Kate shouted.

Heaps of dead pinon branches, cactus husks, and sagebrush bushes were passed over the heads of the crowd and tossed at the foot of the tree. A brush-pile began to grow.

“This is God’s promise to the unbelievers,” said Eddy, striding back and forth in front of the growing pile. “‘And they shall be tormented day and night, for ever and ever.’ What we do here is sanctioned by God and confirmed repeatedly in the Bible. I give you Revelation 14:11: ‘ And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night.’ ”

The brushpile grew helter-skelter. Several men began kicking it up around Hazelius.

“Don’t do this!” Kate screamed again.

The pile reached Hazelius’s upper thighs.

“ ‘And fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them,’ ” quoted Eddy.

Cactus husks, sagebrush, and rabbitbrush, explosively dry, continued to pile up, burying Hazelius to his waist.

“We’re ready to do God’s will,” Eddy said quietly.

Doke stepped forward, raised his arms again, Bic in one hand, Molotov cocktail in the other. The crowd fell back and a silence followed. The man did another half turn, hands raised. The crowd shuffled farther back, awed.

Doke flicked on the lighter and lit the Molotov cocktail. The dangling rag flowered into flame. Turning, he pitched he lighted bottle into the pile. There was a whump! and fire blossomed inside the brush, erupting upward with a loud crackling.

A great “Ohhhh!” went up from the crowd.

Ford braced himself, his arm around Kate, supporting her as she swayed, nearly fainting. They all watched in silence. Nobody turned away.

As the flames mounted, Hazelius spoke, his voice steady and clear: “The universe never forgets.”

75

NELSON BEGAY WATCHED THE HUMAN PYRE with mounting fury. Burning a man alive. This is what the Spanish had done to his ancestors if they didn’t convert. And here it was happening all over again.

But he could think of no way to stop it.

The flames leapt up, catching the man’s tattered lab coat. They obscured his face and scorched off his hair with a sizzling flash.

Still the man stood.

The flames mounted up with a roar, his clothes blackening and burning off in strips, like fiery confetti.

The man didn’t flinch.

The roaring fire consumed his clothes and began charring and peeling off his very skin; his eyes melted and ran out of their sockets. And still the man never moved, never flinched—and the sad half smile never left his face even as his face was scorched. The fire caught the ropes holding him to the tree and burned them off—and yet he still stood, solid as a rock. How could it be? Why didn’t he fall? Even as the dead pinon he was tied to went up in a writhing column of fire, the flames leaping twenty, thirty feet into the air, he remained standing, until he had completely disappeared into the pillar of fire. From a hundred feet away Begay could feel the heat of the fire on his face, heard it roaring like a beast, the outermost branches of the tree like so many burning claws; and then the flaming tree collapsed in a great shower of sparks that swirled into the heavens, so high they seemed to join the stars themselves.

There was nothing left of Hazelius. The man had completely vanished.

The other prisoners, held in a group at gunpoint nearby, looked on in absolute horror. Some were weeping, holding hands, arms around each other.

They’re next, thought Begay. The thought was intolerable.

Doke was already reaching into his bag, pulling out another bottle.

“Screw this,” said Becenti under his breath. “Are we just gonna let this happen?”

Begay turned to look at him. “No, Willy. No, by God, we’re not.”

FORD STARED AT THE DYING FIRE dumbstruck with disbelief and horror. Where Hazelius had just stood there was a great crumbling heap of coals, nothing more. Ford held Kate tightly, supporting her. She stared into the coals, her smudged face streaked with tears, her body still. Nobody moved or spoke.

They would be next.

The crowd was suddenly quiet. The preacher, Eddy, stood to one side, Bible clutched to his chest in two bony hands. His eyes looked hollow and haggard.

Doke, the tattooed man, also stared into the fire, his face radiant.

Eddy raised his head and looked at the crowd. He pointed a shaking hand at the heap of coals. “ ‘You shall trample the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet.’ ”

His harangue woke the crowd up. They shifted uneasily. “Amen,” said a voice, echoed feebly by others.

“ ‘Ashes under the soles of your feet,’ ” Eddy repeated.

A few more ragged amens broke out.

“And now,” he said. “My friends, the time has now come for the disciples of the Antichrist. We are Christians. We are forgiving. They must be given a chance to accept Jesus. Even the greatest sinner must be given one last, final chance. On your knees! ”

A follower hit Ford across the back of his head and he involuntarily dropped to his knees. Kate joined him, pulling him close.

“Pray to Our Lord Christ Jesus for the salvation of their souls!”

Doke knelt on one knee, Eddy following, and soon the entire crowd was kneeling on the desert sand in the