Sacred and Profane

You can keep
your white Christmas, thought Decker dreamily, as sunlight blanketed his prone frame. Give me December in L.A. anytime. Currier and Ives snowscapes looked swell on wrapping paper, but as far as he was concerned, icy Christmas winters were best left to penguins and polar bears.

Besides, he wasn’t really sure what relevance Christmas—with or without snow—held for him any more. No tree adorned the picture window of his living room, no cards sat atop the mantle of the fireplace, no multicolored lights hung along the wood planked siding of his ranch. Hell, here it was the day of Christmas Eve and he was out camping in the foothills, isolated from civilization, playing big brother to two little boys with yarmulkes. Christmas had never been a big deal to him, but still it felt strange. Some habits were hard to shake.

Using his knapsack for a pillow, he shifted onto his back. The air was sweet and tangy, the ground rich with mulch. Throwing an arm over his eyes, he noticed that it had been cooked a deep salmon and he cursed his coloring, typical for a redhead—all burn, no tan. He should have been more generous with the sunscreen. The arm, already dully throbbing, would blossom into full-fledged pain by tonight. He propped himself onto his elbows and called out to Ginger. The Irish setter trotted over to him,
plopped down by his side, and went to sleep.

Decker glanced at Sammy, who sat twenty feet away, reading while dipping his toes into an isolated pool of rainwater. Behind him, a narrow stream carried mountain run-off from last week’s rains. Earlier in the day, Decker had offered to take the boys wading, but Sammy had complained that the water was too cold. Though he wasn’t weak or timid, he just wasn’t keen on the outdoors. The star-studded nighttime sky, the hikes, the cookouts had left him unmoved. Though he insisted he was having the time of his life, Decker knew the kid would have been just as happy holed up anywhere as long as he had Decker’s undivided attention. The boy could
talk
. Often, after his younger brother, Jacob, had fallen asleep, Sammy would start to pour his heart out, engaging Decker in conversation that sometimes lasted until the early hours of the morning. He was an overly mature kid, not surprising for the first born who’d taken on the role of man of the house.

Jacob was a different story. The eternal optimist, an enthusiastic youngster who could elicit a smile from a slab of marble. Great at amusing himself. Right now he was busy watching an ant hill, eyes glued to the nonstop action.

Decker enjoyed both of the boys, but knew if he walked out of their lives tomorrow, Jake would recover quickly. Sammy was the vulnerable one. And that worried him because his relationship with their mother was so ambiguous. He and Rina were in love but not yet lovers. Her religious values forbade intimacy outside of marriage, and marriage right now was impossible. They were in limbo until Decker officially converted.

There was an easy way out. He could reveal to Rina that he was adopted and that his biological parents were Jewish, so there was no legal reason for him to convert.
But he didn’t consider that a viable option. Too dishonest. He was a product of his
real
parents—the man and woman who’d nurtured him. And they had raised him a Baptist. Besides, Rina deserved a genuinely committed Jew for a husband, not a Jew by accident of birth. Anything less would make her miserable. He knew he’d have to come to Orthodoxy on his own.

He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with the pungent, crisp air.

He was making progress. His weekly sessions with Rabbi Schulman had shown him to be a quick learner. So far, he had no trouble grasping the intellectual and legal aspects of Judaism. But Hebrew remained a roadblock. The boys loved to play teacher with him, drilling him on the
alef beis
from their first grade primers, correcting his pronunciation and handwriting. They giggled when he made a mistake and flooded him with compliments when he came up with a correct answer. It was a game with them, an ego boost to instruct a grown-up, and though he went along with their lessons good-naturedly, inside, in spite of himself, he was humiliated. Afterwards, he’d return home and take out his feeling of frustration on his horses, running them around his acreage, working up a sweat until he smelled like a man and no longer felt like a child.

He lay back down and groaned.
You’re on vacation
, he admonished himself.
Take it easy and forget your obligations
. He had no trouble blanking out work, but as always, his cloudy status with Rina—and Judaism—continued to gnaw at him. Seeing life through the skewed eye of a cop, Decker found faith hard to come by.

The sun grew stronger and he took refuge under a Douglas fir. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on pleasant images: his daughter Cindy as a little girl, laughing carelessly as she pumped her legs to swing,
himself as a boy, ’gator baiting with friends in the Everglades, Rina’s touch, her breath…His lids grew heavy. Halfway through a jumbled dream, he felt rain on his trousers. Startled, he sat up, only to see Jacob standing over him, gleefully sprinkling his legs with dirt.

“What’s that for?” he asked, wiping off his clothes.

The boy shrugged.

“You bored?”

“A little.”

“Hungry?”

“A little.”

Decker tousled the ebony hair that stuck out from under Jacob’s
kipah
and unzipped the knapsack.

“We’ve got peanut butter or salami sandwiches,” he announced.

“What about the chicken?”

“Finished it yesterday.”

“The bagels?”

“They’re gone, too. We’re on our last day of vacation, Kiddo. The way we’ve been packing it away, it’s a wonder we haven’t run out of food altogether.”

“I’ll take peanut butter.”

“Where’s your brother?”

“I dunno.”

Decker stood up and looked around. Ginger rose with him, coppery fur gleaming in the sunlight. Sammy was nowhere in sight.

“Wasn’t he just reading over there?” Decker asked.

“He said he was going for a walk,” Jake answered. “You were sleeping. He told me not to bother you, but I got bored.”

“Sammy?” Decker called out, taking a few steps.

Nothing.

“When did he leave?”

“I dunno.”

Decker cupped his hands and called out:

“Sammy Lazarus, are you playing a game with me?”

He waited for a response. The sounds of the woods became magnified: bird songs, the rush of water, the buzz of insects.

“Hmm. Must have wandered off.” Decker took Jake’s hand and started to check out the immediate area. The dog followed.

“Sammy?”

Silence.

“Sammy, can you hear me?” Decker frowned and patted the dog. “Know where Sammy is, Ginger?”

The dog’s ears perked up, but her expression was blank.

“Sammy!” Jake called out.

“Okay,” Decker thought out loud. “Let’s take this one step at a time. He can’t be very far away.”

He picked up Sammy’s discarded sweat jacket and held it under the dog’s nose. She immediately skipped over to the area where Sammy had been sitting and parked herself.

The ground revealed a few bare footprints. Decker tried to follow them, but they were light and sporadic, disappearing altogether as the copse thickened with foliage.

“Sammy?” Decker bellowed.

Stay organized
. He constructed an imaginary hundred-foot radius from the last footprint and decided to search that area meticulously, go over every single inch for a sign of a footprint, a torn piece of clothing…

Ten minutes of hunting and shouting proved to be fruitless.

“Where is he?” Jake asked nervously.

“He’s somewhere around here,” Decker said. Despite
his anxiety, he kept his voice steady. “We’ll find him, Jakey. Don’t worry…Sammy!”

“Why doesn’t he answer?”

“You know your brother. His head’s in the clouds.”

Decker was not given to panic—his job required a detached mind and a cool head—but images began to form in his mind. Horrible images…

“Sammy!” he shouted.

“Maybe he hurt himself,” Jacob said. His bottom lip quivered.

“I’m sure he’s fine, Kiddo,” Decker answered.

But the grotesque images grew more vivid. The look of terror on Rina’s face—he’d seen her like that before…

“Sammy, can you hear me!” he yelled.

“Sammy!” Jake echoed, then turned to Decker, wild-eyed. “Peter, what are we gonna do?”

“We’re going to find your brother, that’s what we’re going to do.” Kids, he thought. You need eyes in the back of your head. “Sammy!”

“Peter, I’m scared.”

“It’s going to be fine, Jakey,” Decker said.

His responsibility. His fault
.

“Did you see or hear anything unusual while I was sleeping?” he asked Jake.

The boy shook his head fiercely.

“Then he’s got to be around somewhere. He’s just lost.”
As opposed to kidnapped
. “Sammy!”

His voice was growing hoarse.

All those kids. Those missing kids
. He knew it all too well. Goddam dumb parents, he used to think. Yeah, they were goddam dumb. He was goddam dumb, too. Suddenly enraged, he ripped through the area like a wounded animal, trying to clear a path for himself and Jacob.

The little boy started to cry. Decker picked him up,
hugged him, and continued the search as Jake clung tightly to his neck.

“Maybe we should head back, Peter,” Jake suggested, sniffing. “Maybe Sammy went back to where we were.”

Decker knew otherwise. Sammy should have been able to hear their calls even if he were back at the campsite.

“Sammy?” he tried once more.

He needed help, the sooner the better. Lots of people…Helicopters…There was still plenty of daylight left, but no time to waste. He gave the empty woods a final once over and headed back toward camp.

Suddenly, Ginger took off, her haunches leaping forward in a single fluid motion. The two of them raced after her and saw a small figure, shrouded by trees, standing over a thick clump of underbrush.

Decker ran over to the shadow and grabbed it firmly by the shoulders.

“Damn it, Sammy!” he said. “Didn’t you hear me calling you? You scared me half to death!” He clutched him to his chest. “Why didn’t you answer me?”

The boy held himself rigid. Decker saw that his eyes were glazed.

“What’s
wrong
with you? What
happened
?”

“
Yuck!
” Jake spat out, staring into a pile of decayed foliage. Decker looked down.

There were two charred skeletons. Except for the right shinbone, which was buried under leaves and dirt, the first skeleton was completely exposed, a blackened arm-bone and fist sticking straight up as if beckoning for a hand to hoist it to its feet. The skull and the breastbone bore holes the size of a silver dollar. Shreds of flesh were clinging to the torso, petrified and discolored from exposure.

The second skeleton was partially buried, the ribcage and left legbone completely covered with dirt. A trail of
leaves overflowed from the lower jaw, falling downward as if the dead mouth were vomiting detritus. Bits and pieces of charred skin stuck to the pelvis and limb bones, but unlike the first skeleton, the eye sockets and cracked skull retained dew-laden globs of jelly that glistened in the sunlight. Brain and eye. A cloud of flies and a mass of black beetles were feasting on the leftover morsels, unperturbed by the presence of intruders.

Gently, Decker walked the boys away from the ghastly sight and swore to himself. Nothing like a vacation to remind him of work.

“Are they real, Peter?” Sammy asked at last, his troubled eyes beseeching Decker.

“Yes, they’re real.”

“What are we gonna do?” Jake asked.

“I think we should
bentch gomel
,” Sammy said quietly.

“What’s that?” Decker asked.

“It’s like what you say when you don’t get killed in a car crash, or like when you don’t die from the chicken pox.” Jacob looked up at Decker. “I don’t feel so good.”

“Sit down, Jakey. Catch your breath.”

The boy sank into a pile of leaves.

“Go ahead and pray, Sam,” Decker said, placing a broad hand on the boy’s shoulder. He reached into his rear pants pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He’d been trying to cut down, but at this moment he needed a nicotine fix badly.

“And when you’re done,” he said, striking a match, “we’ll go call the police.”