Blasphemy

He was greeted with a seething mob of the press, blinded by a thousand flashes and a roar of questions. Boomed mikes swung out at him from all directions.

He blinked, gaping and slack-jawed, like a cow before the slaughter.

An FBI paddy wagon idled in front, at the end of a narrow, cleared path.

“Reverend Spates! Reverend Spates! Is it true—?”

“Reverend Spates!”

“No!” Spates cried, rearing back against his handlers. “Not in there! I’m innocent! It’s Crawley you want! If you let me go back to my office, he’s in my Rolodex—”

Two agents opened the back doors. He struggled.

The flashes came a hundred per second. The lenses pointed at him glowed like a thousand fish eyes.

“No!”

He resisted at the threshold and was given a rude push. He stumbled, turned, begging. “Listen to me, please!” He broke into a loud, sucking sob. “It’s Crawley you want!”

“Mr. Spates?” said the agent in charge, leaning in the door. “Save your breath. You’re going to have plenty of time to tell your story later. Okay?”

Two agents got in with him, one on either side, pushed him into a seat, manacled his cuffs to a bar, and buckled his seat belt.

The door slammed, shutting out the tumult. Spates heaved a great choking sob, drew in more air. “You’re making a terrible mistake!” he wailed, as the paddy wagon pulled from the curb. “You don’t want me, you want Crawley!”

77

FORD STARED INTO THE BARREL OF the revolver, the gleaming steel eye staring back. Unbidden, the words of the confession came to his lips. He began to cross himself, whispering, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—”

“Praise God!” boomed a voice into the waiting silence.

Everyone turned. A Navajo appeared on foot, coming in from the dark, dressed in a buckskin shirt with a bandanna around his head. He was leading a string of horses and had a pistol in one hand, waving it around above his head. “Praise God and Jesus!” He began pushing into the crowd, which parted to let him pass.

Ford recognized Willy Becenti.

Eddy continued to point the gun at Ford.

“Praise God and Jesus!” Becenti cried again, leading the horses right toward them, forcing the kneeling people to move out of the way. “Praise the good Lord! Amen, brother!”

“Praise God!” came the automatic responses. “Praise Jesus!”

“My friend in Christ!” Doke said, rising to his feet. “Who might you be?”

“Praise Jesus!” Willy cried again. “We’re brothers in Christ! Come to join you!”

The horses were jittery, prancing about, their eyes rolling, and people were frightened and backing away from them. Behind the horses another figure loomed into the ruddy light, on horseback, herding the animals from behind. Ford saw it was Nelson Begay, the medicine man.

Becenti stopped the nervous horses right before the group of scientists, the animals crowding into each other, eyes rolling, tossing their heads, barely under control.

The crowd continued to back up nervously. “What are you doing with those horses?” Eddy cried angrily.

“We want to join you!” Becenti gaped at him like an idiot and dropped a lead rope as if by accident. The lead horse tried to back up and Becenti stomped on the rope, arresting his movement. “ Whoa, you sumbitch!” he screamed. He bent down to retrieve the end. In that quick movement, he spoke quickly to the group, his voice just audible. “At my word,” he said, “get on the horses and we’re outta here.”

Doke stepped into the open area in front of Eddy and Ford. “All right, pal, you better tell me who you are and what you just said to the prisoners.”

“You heard me, man,” Becenti whined in a high-pitched voice. “I’m a friend in Christ! Thought you might need horses!”

“You’re disrupting our business here, you idiot. Move these horses out of the way.”

“Sure, course, sorry man, just trying to help.” Becenti turned. “Easy, horses!” he shouted, waving his hands wildly. “Settle down! Ho! Easy!”

His shouting only seemed to agitate the horses further. Becenti grabbed their halters and began turning them around to lead them back out, but he seemed inept at managing the animals. When they didn’t obey he waved a coiled lasso at them, and they suddenly veered sharply, forcing Doke and Eddy back and crowding between them and the captives. One horse reared.

“Get these horses out of our way!” Doke screamed, trying to shove them aside.

“Praise Jesus and the saints!” Becenti shook his pistol over his head again and cried, “Now!”

Ford grabbed Kate and swung her up on a roan, while Becenti threw Chen on a spotted Indian pony, then pulled up Cecchini behind himself onto a buckskin. Corcoran and St. Vincent scrambled up on another horse. Innes vaulted onto a sorrel and in under ten seconds they were all on horseback, two to a pony.

Trying to claw his way through the milling crowd, Doke screamed, “Stop them!” He reached for his rifle and yanked it out of the scabbard slung across his back.

Eddy had his gun back up, aiming it at Ford.

“Praise the Lord!” shouted Becenti, spinning his mount around. He rammed Eddy, hooves churning. The man fell back, the shot going wild, and went down; and in an instant the Indian spurred his horse on top of Doke, who dropped his rifle and dove out of the way. Becenti raised his coiled lasso. Whirling it, he shouted “Hiiyaahh!”

Already agitated, their mounts needed no further encouragement. They charged through the crowd, scattering them. After they had broken free, Becenti veered to the right and led them at a full gallop down into the cover of a sandy draw. Gunfire erupted behind them, ragged shooting into the dark, but they were already in the cover of the draw and the bullets went humming over their heads.

“Hiiiyahhh!” Becenti screamed.

The horses tore down the sandy draw, taking bend after bend, until the sound of the guns had become a faint pop-pop in the distance, the cries and shouts of the crowd almost gone. They slowed down to a fast trot.

Behind them, in the distance, Ford heard the revving of a motorcycle.

“You hear that, Willy?” Begay called from the rear. “Someone’s got a dirt bike.”

“Shit,” said Becenti. “We’re gonna have to lose that mother. Hang on!”

He turned out of the draw and charged up a slickrock embankment, the horse’s hooves clattering on the sandstone. On top, they raced across a dune-field, heading toward a deep arroyo at the far side.

A rumble, and the whole mesa shook. Dark clouds of dust shot up against the night sky. Flames erupted from the ground a few hundred yards to their right. With a crackle, a pinon tree burst into flame, and another. A thunderous explosion sounded behind them, and another, back at the eastern end of the mesa.

The roar of the dirt-bike engine sounded again, much closer. It was catching up fast.

“Hiyaah!” Becenti cried again, as he charged over the lip of the arroyo and plunged down the slope toward the bottom.

Ford followed, gripping the roan with his legs, Kate’s arms around him.

78

FORD’S HORSE PLUNGED DOWN THE SOFT slope of sand, leaning back and digging in as he half slid, half leapt down the long slope, sand sliding down around them.

The roar of the dirt bike sounded on the rim above. Shots rang out, and Ford heard the snip of a bullet on a rock to his left. They reached the bottom and galloped down the arroyo. Ford could hear the dirt bike above them, racing along the rim.

Becenti reined in his horse. “He’s cutting us off! Turn around!”

The dirt bike slowed to a stop at the edge, sending a cascade of sand down into the arroyo. Doke planted his legs, pulled his rifle out of its scabbard, and took aim.

They wheeled their horses around as the first shot sounded, kicking up a jet of sand next to Ford. They took