The Influence (24 page)

“I have no idea,” Ross said. 

Dave started toward the house. “I’m going to call around, tell everyone what we saw, see if they know any more than we do.” 

Ross walked over to the shack and went inside. He tried calling Jill to tell her what he’d seen, but either she wasn’t home or wasn’t answering, and he hung up, not wanting to leave a message. This was something that needed to be discussed, and he decided to call back later, maybe at the usual time. He put the phone back in its cradle. He hadn’t realized until now that there
was
a usual time, but sometime within the past week, nightly phonecalls had become a habit with them—and had become the part of his day to which he most looked forward. 

Jill called
him
less than a half-hour later, to ask a computer question, and he described to her their visit to Cameron Holt’s, the weird dynamic between the rancher and his workers, and the rotting
thing
in the smokehouse.  

“So it’s
not
an angel,” Jill said. 

“No, but…something about it makes you
think
it is when you’re near it. I don’t know how, don’t know why, but it happens. We all felt it, and obviously we’re not the only ones.” 

“Is it scary?” Jill asked. 

“Not exactly. It’s…weird.” 

“But it’s scary when you think about it, isn’t it? That all of these things are going on around it?” 

“Yeah,” Ross admitted. “It’s scary. And I haven’t been able to think about anything else since. Someone has to do something. We can’t just let things go on the way they are. We have to get rid of it somehow.” 

“If that’s even possible.” 

“Do you have any ideas?” he asked. 

“Do you?” 

“Fresh out.” 

She was silent for a moment, thinking. “You know, maybe Native Americans have encountered this before. Maybe they know what this is and how to deal with it. Odds are, this thing’s been flying around this part of the country for some time. You saw it, right? And Dave and Lita? Well, I’m sure they have, too, over the years. And maybe they know something we don’t. I’ll go see Michael Song. He and his family sell leather goods and turquoise jewelry at the market—next to Dave and Lita, actually—and even if they don’t know anything about this themselves, they might know someone who does.” 

“Like a…?” 

“Shaman,” she said. “Let’s face it, religion’s a lot better equipped to deal with something like this than science is. For the simple reason that it acknowledges the existence of the mystical. 

“In fact, I’m going to talk to Father Ramos, too,” she said. “The Catholic religion has cleansing rituals, rites meant to drive out evil spirits and repel demons.” 

“Father Ramos thinks it’s an angel,” Ross pointed out. 

“I’m going to talk to him. You should come with me and tell him what you’ve seen.” 

“Okay,” Ross said. He was a rationalist. He didn’t believe in ghosties and ghoulies and gods and monsters. At the same time, he followed facts and evidence, and if the facts led him to some sort of paranormal explanation for everything that was going on, he wasn’t so closed-minded that he would automatically reject that conclusion. 

And right now the evidence pointed toward that body in the shed being one powerful supernatural entity.  

He certainly didn’t think Jill’s shaman was going to solve all of their problems. 

But it couldn’t hurt. 

TWENTY THREE 

Vern Hastings glanced around at the six women and four men gathered in his living room. He was the lay preacher of this congregation, and though several others had tried to join his church in the past two weeks, he knew that they did so purely out of fear. The true believers were the ones who had been with him from the beginning, and it was only these worshippers he allowed into his house to celebrate the seventh day. 

Rose had placed a pitcher of water on the table, along with a stack of Dixie cups. As always, they had each been fasting for the past twenty-four hours, and the fast would continue until suppertime this evening, though in the interim they were allowed to partake of the cleansing purity of water. None of them did, each wanting to show their strength of will to the others, and Vern was glad. He was proud of his congregation. He had taught them well. 

The grandfather clock in the hall chimed ten, and Vern began his sermon, which today was about children and the Lord’s admonitions to them. He quoted Deuteronomy: “And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones.” He said this specifically for the sake of Tessa Collins. She was a glutton, and so was her son Wade, and if Vern had his druthers, they would both be taken to the edge of the city and stoned to death. 

He liked Tessa’s husband Andy, however, and he figured Andy might pick up on the hint and get his woman and his boy in shape before it was too late. 

Vern continued talking about children, going over God’s laws against disobedience, harlotry and girls’ wearing of clothing associated with men. Though he and Rose had no children of their own—the Lord had not seen fit to bless them with offspring—there was no doubt in his mind that the two of them would have been far better parents than everyone else in this congregation. Not to mention the idolaters and heathens who populated the town and lands around them. 

After he was finished speaking, they each prayed, then sang a song unto the Lord. There was a pause, and then Vern cleared his throat before addressing the most important subject before them: the angel. As he had for the last several Sundays, he recounted the events of New Year’s Eve. 

“There are no accidents,” he continued. “There is nothing that happens that God does not know about or plan. He
knew
we would shoot down His angel in our drunken revelry. He
wanted
us to do so. But now He is waiting for our response. Yet again, He has sacrificed one of His own for us, a blood sacrifice, and now it is up to us to do the same, to offer up to Him a blood sacrifice of
our
own.” 

This was the moment he had been waiting for, and he opened the closet door behind him and pulled out the small cage that he used to house the jackrabbits he sometimes caught. In it was a baby he had taken from an Indian woman on Thursday. He placed the cage down on the carpet next to the coffeetable and stood there proudly as everyone looked at it. 

He had seen the Indian woman standing next to one of the pumps at the gas station, holding her baby, obviously looking for a ride, and the idea came to him. He had no doubt that it was divinely inspired—there was no way he could have come up with such a plan on his own—and as smoothly as though he had rehearsed for days, he rolled down the window of his car and said easily, “Would you like a ride?” 

She was suspicious for a moment, but she got in, and Vern drove at first in the direction she told him, until they were out of town, then he ignored her directions and took off down a dirt road that led into the desert toward the ruins of the old Peralta ranch. She was quiet, almost as though she knew what was coming, and she did not fight him as he stopped the car next to Wailing Woman Wash, got out, walked around to the passenger door, opened it and took the baby from her. He motioned for her to get out, and when she did, he placed the infant on her seat. She’d said nothing since getting into the car, and he knew that was the Lord’s doing, because he was weak and would probably not have been able to go through with it had she pleaded for mercy or begged him to stop.  

Grabbing her arm, he pulled her to the side of the road and threw her into the wash. He wasn’t sure what he would have done at that point—stone her? strangle her?—but it didn’t matter because she hit her head on a large rock when she fell and was immediately still. Blood, an astonishing amount, flowed out from the side of her head onto the sand. 

Instantly, as though it was part of a plan—and it
was
: God’s plan—a wild one-eyed dog came running out from between some brittlebush and began desperately chewing on the woman’s exposed ankle. Several crows flew down from the branches of a nearby palo verde, and from high in the sky two turkey buzzards dropped down and landed on her back. None of the animals paid any attention to the others, and all tore into her flesh, feasting. He had no doubt that in several hours there would be nothing left but bone. 

As he turned away, back toward the car, a coyote crossed the road, heading toward the woman in the wash. 

Vern had taken the baby home with him, told Rose of his plan, and put the infant in the cage, in the closet, feeding it only water. It had remained there until now, until needed. Opening the wire gate, Vern withdrew the baby and placed it atop the table, where it lay on its back, unmoving. Too weak to cry, the infant made low mewling noises. 

Rose handed him a knife—her curved filleting knife from the kitchen—and he held it up. “Who would like to do the honors?” 

He knew none of them would be brave enough to carry out the Lord’s will and was merely trying to shame them, to make them uncomfortably aware of their own cowardice, but to his surprise old Etta Rawls raised her hand. “I will,” she announced. 

He was proud of her—as was the Lord—but he smiled, shaking his head. “I thank you, Etta, but on second thought, I believe it would be better if I did the deed myself.” 

For a brief moment, looking down at the brown-skinned infant, Vern thought that maybe God would not consider this a real sacrifice because it was not someone who mattered. It was just some papoose he had stolen. For the sacrifice to count, it should be one of them, a white person, someone important. But then he remembered that he was doing this for the entire Magdalena community and not just for his congregation. This baby
was
a member of that community, so in the end it
did
count. 

Besides, the angel they’d killed could not have been a very important one. If it had been, God would already have taken His wrath out on them. The fact that He was waiting, that He was offering them a chance of forgiveness and redemption, meant that this was the right thing to do. 

He held the knife aloft, offering a prayer. “Dear Lord, we are sorry for what we have done. Forgive us our sins, forgive us our pride, and let this sacrifice pay our debt to You so that we may once again bask in the glory of Your goodness. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.” 

Vern brought the knife down, feeling an odd satisfaction as the blade overcame a quick spongy resistance and pierced the skin, sinking easily into the flesh. Pain made the baby find its strength, and it cried out as the knife sliced into its midsection, but the cry was cut off almost before it could start as the child started to choke. Blood was everywhere, not spurting but flowing, running over the sides of the small body onto the table and streaming onto the rug. He pushed down harder, through organ, through bone, and within seconds the infant was dead, pinned to the table like a lab specimen.  

Blood continued to pour out of the body. Rose was trying to move the Dixie cups out of the way, but Vern stopped her. Improvising, he picked up one of the cups and put it under the red waterfall cascading over the side of the table. “Drink!” he ordered, and took a small sip before passing it to Rose next to him. She did the same, then passed it on, until everyone had partaken and the cup was back in his hands. He felt like vomiting—he wasn’t sure he would
ever
be able to wash that putrid taste out of his mouth—but he remained stoic, and said, “We will now give this child a proper Christian burial and hope the Lord hears our pleas.” 

Rose ran off to the kitchen to get something to clean up the mess, and Vern withdrew the knife, putting it down on the table before picking up the small body and placing it back in the cage. He’d take the cage outside and bury the baby in the yard. They would all help him. 

And, if they were lucky, the Lord would take back His angel and all would be forgiven.  

**** 

Jeri Noblit delivered the mail in town, and, after lunch, went out as she usually did to deliver to the scattered homes on the ranch route. For Christmas, Don had gotten a satellite radio installed it in her car, and she was beyond grateful. Reception had always been hit and miss out here—mostly miss—and it was nice to be able to hear continuous music as she drove. She was especially partial to the Outlaw Country station, and it definitely made the long drives between the various ranches more palatable. Not to mention the initial trip out to the highway to collect the mail from the postal delivery truck. 

She actually enjoyed her job now. 

The red flag was up on Dave and Lita’s mailbox—bills to be sent out, most likely—and she pulled next to the box, pushed the flag down, removed outgoing mail and replaced it with incoming: a couple of ads and what looked like an official envelope with a Las Vegas postmark (something to do with Dave’s parents, no doubt). The next stop was Mose Holiman’s trailer, and it was so far out that she considered skipping it today. But though there was only one piece of mail for Mose, it was from the government, so it was probably important, and as inconvenient as it was, Jeri drove the ten miles out to his place. After all, it was her job. 

On the way back, she intended to swing by Cameron Holt’s ranch and drop off his mail. The past few times she’d been by, there’d been no problem, but last week Cameron had been standing by his mailbox with a shotgun, waiting for her, and when she’d rolled down the window to hand him his mail, he’d pointed the shotgun at her and told her to get the hell off his land. She’d been tempted to just throw his mail on the ground and take off, but she was honestly afraid that he might shoot at her as she was driving away. There was something off about him, something crazed, and she’d reacted instinctively, pretending she didn’t hear him, putting his mail in the box and driving calmly off as though nothing was amiss.