Blessed Child (43 page)

“I wouldn't be marching in a parade with a sign that accused Uncle Sam. I can't believe they organized this thing so quickly.”

“It's nearly ten. Floor it, will you?”

“Am I ever late?”

She smiled. Bill might be surprised at how the people were reacting to Caleb's disappearance, but she wasn't. If they were in a different country, a predominately Muslim or Hindu one, for example, the crowds would be ten times the size. As it was, their own phone lines were burning up with overseas calls for information. At last count, over five hundred overseas networks had called NBC alone. Half of those had asked for her by name. She had broken the story and they figured she knew more than most, which in some way she did. She knew that Jason was no criminal.

Teheran had issued a public statement condemning the United States for allowing such harm to come to what they called “a chosen instrument of God's grace.” Evidently they figured that if God had seen fit to deposit the boy in Iran, they would have never been so flippant as to allow such an absurd thing as a kidnapping to occur.

Pakistan had issued a similar statement, blasting the president of the United States for not protecting the boy. In all honesty, Donna was sure the outrage expressed by the international community was taking the administration off guard. Separation of church and state might be a good thing, but it did not play well into the current situation. The White House had remained quiet about Caleb over the last four weeks, clearly uneasy about political fallout, regardless of their statement. Well, now the matter was in their lap, whether the administration liked it or not. Kidnapping was a federal offense.

Some were saying that it was already the largest manhunt in L.A. County in a hundred years. If you included the Feds, they might be right. They were sweeping the cities by category. Hospitals first, hotels and motels next, and so on. City police and highway patrol had cruisers on the streets of course, checking the roads and alleys for a white Ford Bronco.

The boy would resurface, and when he did she intended on being there. Jason couldn't keep him hidden forever. She understood why he'd taken Caleb—if her own child were being manipulated by the Greek, she might do the same. And Jason was seeing Caleb more as a son these days, she thought.

But there might have been better ways to deal with the matter. Why go into hiding? He should be coming out into the public with this protest. She would be the first to paste his face on a few million screens. Heck, she could probably get a worldwide audience for him if he wanted it.

There was always the possibility Caleb was as ill as Nikolous said he was. But if so, why had the Greek allowed the boy onstage in the first place? To restore his reputation. Either way, it looked like the Greek was whipping up public opinion against Jason for the event any such question was asked once the boy was found. The Father was no idiot, and he saw opportunity even in this. If it was determined the boy was ill, Nikolous would easily pin the blame on Jason. In fact, no matter what the boy's condition when he was found, Nikolous had Jason in the cross hairs.

“Jason, Jason,” she muttered. “You have no idea what you've done.”

“What?” Bill asked.

“Nothing. When was the last time we saw a day like this?” she asked.

“Not for a while. Oklahoma City bombing?”

“Maybe all the way back to Kennedy's assassination,” she said.

“Wouldn't know. I wasn't around at the time,” Bill said, smiling. He maneuvered the van onto 405, heading north.

“And you think I look like I was?”

“Didn't say that.”

“Sure.”

Her phone tweeped and she unfolded it. “Donna.”

“Donna, thank goodness.” It was Beck from the studio. “I just got off the phone with Sergeant Macky at the downtown precinct. You'll never guess what they found.”

“What?”

“A gun.”

“They found a gun. Where? On a demonstrator?”

“No. They found a gun in the Old Theater. Upper seats, left side. A rifle. And they believe that someone might have taken a shot at the boy.”

Donna jerked upright. “What?! Did he actually say that?”

“Not in so many words. But they did find a silenced rifle that he thought had been discharged—”

“How'd he know that?”

“Shell casing on the ground. They found blood on the ground where the boy fell.”

“I know. Any signs of a bullet anywhere?”

“Wouldn't tell me. The FBI are down there now. It's yours if you want it. We have enough of Nikolous.”

Donna turned to Bill. “Change of plans. Get us back to the theater.”

He swerved for the nearest exit.

“They have any ideas who might have done it?” Donna asked into her phone.

“Off the record, they have some ideas, but they're not saying.” Beck paused. “You can bet the antichrist crowd is on the top of their list.”

“Is Macky down there now?”

“Yes.”

“I'll get back to you as soon as I have something.”

Donna snapped the phone closed. So the boy had been shot! This changed everything! For starters, it cast a whole new light on Jason's flight.

“Move it,” she said.

“I'm moving it.”

34

J
ASON LEANED ON THE DOORPOST
of the old shack and watched Leiah with Caleb. The boy sat cross-legged, talking to her in sweet tones. It was the most Caleb had talked since they'd first met him. He seemed to have broken out of his distant seclusion and found common ground with them. Or at least with Leiah. She sat with her legs folded to one side, listening to him intently.

The meadow had remained perfectly still through the morning. It was amazing how many jets and helicopters took to the air around the L.A. basin. There was hardly a minute when their sound could not be identified with a careful listen. But none of them came swooping in over the treetops with megaphones blaring. If they were doing a search, they were sticking primarily to the city, which made sense, considering the fact that they were probably operating under the assumption that Caleb was sick and required medical attention.

Caleb had spent most of the morning sitting on the grass overlooking the forest that fell away below them, content in the solitude. Leiah had changed his bandage twice. From what she saw, the bullet had struck his belt buckle and been deflected. The resulting superficial cut ran from his bellybutton to his right side.

Despite their growing hunger, Leiah had agreed that they should at least wait out the day before making a move. Jason would go into the Texaco for information and food if nothing happened before five. How to get in and out without being recognized was still under consideration. For all they knew, their pictures were plastered all over the newspapers and television. He couldn't very well walk up and make conversation with the store clerk.

Jason walked up and eased himself into the grass beside Caleb. A bird chirped noisily on the edge of the meadow.

Caleb turned and smiled and then continued his discussion with Leiah.

“It's not like really stepping into a kingdom with your feet, but with your heart. So this is why it's done with faith. Because faith's like the feet of your heart. That's what Dadda used to say.”

“And by kingdom you mean the realm? Like it's a different dimension?” Leiah asked.

“Dimension?” Caleb stumbled over the word. “It's a place, but a place your heart goes to. Where God rules. A kingdom.”

“But it's real? I mean real like this world.”

“Yes.”

“And you walk into it with faith, like just opening a door and walking in?”

Caleb chuckled. “I think you're already in this place, Leiah. You entered it on Sunday. Dadda used to call it being born into the kingdom. But to
walk
in the kingdom . . .” He scissored his fingers on his knee in a walking motion. “To walk in the Spirit—that's a different thing. Dadda called it stepping past the skin of this world. You find a new world.”

Jason listened, leaning back on his hands. The distant midday smog hung over Los Angeles in gray streaks, but here a pure breeze rustled through the trees, uncaring. Two worlds: the distant one where Nikolous was undoubtedly climbing the walls in search of them, and this one where the meadow lay peacefully under the sun. Like Caleb's two kingdoms.

“And what about me, Caleb?” Jason asked, facing the boy. He doubted Caleb's theology could be easily reduced to a book, but in a simple, childlike way it had the ring of truth. Dr. Thompson had a sharper understanding of proper theology than most, and what had he said about Caleb?
“He knows the reality of the kingdom of God like he knows his hands each have five fingers.”
More importantly, Caleb was clearly walking places few Christians Jason had ever known walked. Places Christ walked.

“I was a Christian a long time ago, I think. At least I made a profession of faith—when Stephen was sick. You think I was in this kingdom you speak about then?”

Caleb looked at him with round aqua eyes. “I don't know. Did you love God? Did you follow his Son? Then you were his child, but only you really know.”

“So you're saying that maybe I was born into the kingdom, but didn't have enough faith to walk where the real power exists? If I would've walked there, my son would have been healed?”

“The real power? Do you think that real power is found in the miracles? God does them, of course, but other things like loving are much more powerful than healing. That's what Dadda taught me, and I've seen it too. God can form a world and straighten a crooked hand with a whisper, but to lure a black heart—that's the amazing thing. Did I tell you about the brine and the oil?”

“No. You sound like Dr. Thompson now. And where are all the black hearts you've lured?”

“God lures.”

“Either way, the fact of the matter is that if my son were here under the influence of your faith, he would be healed. But under my faith, or whatever you want to call it, he wasn't healed. That's a fact.”

The boy shrugged. “I don't know exactly how it works. I don't know why he didn't heal your son's body. But that's a small thing; the small things that happen in this life aren't really so important.” Caleb smiled wide. “We all die, Dadda used to say. Some a moment sooner than others. The moment works out to fifty years here on earth, but it's really only a blink of an eye and it comes for everyone.” Caleb looked down the valley. “I think that one of us will die soon.”

Jason blinked. Die? Leiah was staring at the boy. “What do you mean? You can't mean that! Why do you say that?”

The boy shrugged. “I don't know for sure. It's just a feeling I have.”

For a long time they sat in silence, staring at the horizon over Los Angeles.

Jason was the first to speak again. “My son was
everything
to me.”

“I think you're missing his point,” Leiah said. She leaned forward and studied him. “He's saying that the things we think are so important in this world aren't really that important at all! It's the heart that matters. The healing of the heart, not the body.”

Caleb didn't agree or disagree. He just looked down-valley.

Leiah was saying it, but watching her swallow, Jason knew that she was struggling. “And I think that makes sense,” she said. “What happens to this silly body of ours isn't the point. A person may be beautiful in this life—they may be given shiny hair and silky smooth skin—but it all means very little. It's gone in a flash. Like Dr. Thompson said: ‘Whoever said that a straightened hand was more dramatic than a healed heart anyway?'”

She was talking about her scars, which it seemed God had seen fit to leave her with. The comment brought another stillness to the knoll. Jason felt the impulse to rise and sit by her, but he sat still, awkward.

A strand of her dark hair played along her cheek, bent by the breeze. He saw her throat move with a swallow. And below, just below that blue collar, began the rumpled skin that she was relegated to hauling through this life— her skin of this world. One which she couldn't step past if she tried.

“Would you like to walk in the kingdom?”

Caleb asked the question, and it sounded odd on that lonely hill.

Jason joined them in looking down-valley. “What do you mean walk?”

“Would you like to empty your heart and let the Spirit of God give you the strength to walk in the kingdom?”

“Yes,” Leiah said.

Caleb turned to her. “Then you should first want it like you'd desire a treasure. More than anything you could own. It's your desire that will guide you, not your intention.” He spun back to Jason, excited. “Do you understand?”

Jason thought about that. In all honesty the things that once seemed so important to him felt like crumbs next to the peace he'd felt last Sunday. He was being a fool about his son's death, letting it hold him in this impossible place. What he would give to be free from it all—to walk where Caleb walked.

“ . . . give it up,” Caleb was saying. “Surrender it all for the treasure. Even your life. It's not worth anything anyway!”

The boy scrambled to his knees. “Then you ask and trust him,” he said.

Just ask and trust? Easier said than done. Jason glanced over at Leiah. She sat cross-legged and her face rested in her hands as if she were praying.

He looked to the horizon and closed his eyes.
Dear Father, I'm a fool. I feel like an ant down here.
He paused, thinking on the truth of that. This kingdom Caleb talked about seemed so far beyond him.

But I will set it all aside to walk with you. With your Spirit. Fill me with your Spirit, Father
.

He paused. In all honesty he would give up everything to walk with the Spirit. He would soon die anyway—another fifty years maybe. But to live with Caleb's simple joy, now that would be something. Just ask and believe? And why not? If Caleb could walk in this kingdom, why couldn't he?