Judging from the mood in the camp, it was going to be a mess. Since the botched arrest, the whole place had been on edge, restless, belligerent, like a powder keg ready to go. Even at midnight, more than a day after the would-be raid, everyone was still awake, the prayers and camp meetings sounding shrilly through the darkness. A lot of the kids he’d noticed on his first visit to the tent city were gone—a night or two of sleeping on the hard ground, without an Internet connection or cable TV, had sent them scurrying home to their comfy suburbs. What remained was the hard-core element, the real zealots. And there was no shortage of those: there had to be at least three hundred tents here.
Buck himself was different. Gone was the flicker of uncertainty, the faint aura of surprise and wonder that he had possessed before. Now he seemed almost transcendentally calm and assured. When he looked at Harriman, it was as if he was looking right through him to another world.
“Well, Mr. Harriman,” he was saying, “have you gotten what you came for? It’s almost midnight, and I usually deliver a message to the people before retiring.”
“Just one other question. What do you think’s going to happen? The NYPD aren’t just going to walk away, you realize.”
He had half expected the question to shake Buck up a bit, but instead, the man seemed to settle even deeper into something like serenity. “What will happen will happen.”
“It may not be pretty. Are you ready?”
“No, it won’t be pretty, and yes, I am ready.”
“You say that almost as if you know what’s going to happen.”
Buck smiled knowingly but said nothing.
“Aren’t you concerned?” Harriman asked more insistently.
Again that enigmatic smile. Damn, you can’t quote a smile. “We’re talking tear gas maybe, cops swinging billy clubs. No more fun and games.”
“I put my trust in God, Mr. Harriman. Who do you trust?”
Time to wrap this up. “Thank you, Reverend, you’ve been very helpful.” Harriman rose.
“And thank you, Mr. Harriman. Won’t you stay a few minutes to hear my message to the people? As you say, something is about to happen. And as a result, my sermon this evening will be somewhat different.”
The reporter hesitated. He had to be up at five, ready to go. He was pretty sure the cops were going to do their thing tomorrow, and it might begin early. “What’s it on?”
“Hell.”
“In that case, I’ll stay.”
Buck rose and signaled one of his men, who came over, helped him don a simple vestment, and then accompanied him out of the tent. Harriman followed in their wake, pulling his recorder out of one pocket, trying to ignore the heavy reek of the encampment. They were headed, he knew, to a huge glacial erratic that reared out of the earth to the west of the tent city and which was now universally called the “preaching rock.”
The bustle of the camp died away as Buck went out of sight behind the massive boulder, climbed the grassy hummock to the rear, then reappeared on its lofty crag. He raised his hands slowly. Watching from below, Harriman found hundreds of people drifting in out of the darkness to surround him.
“My friends,” he began. “Good evening. Once again I thank you for joining me on this spiritual quest. It’s been my custom, in these evening talks, to speak to you of this quest: to explain why we are here and what it is we must do. But tonight my subject will be different.
“Brothers and sisters, you will soon face a trial. A great trial. We won a mighty victory here yesterday, thanks be to God. But the agents of darkness are not easily turned back. Therefore, you must be strong. Be strong, and accept the will of God.”
Harriman, listening with recorder raised, was surprised by Buck’s tone and manner. His voice was quiet, but it rang with an iron conviction he’d never heard before, even in the very first sermon delivered outside Cutforth’s building. There was a strange look in Buck’s bright eyes: a look of anticipation mingled with an almost stoic resignation.
“I have spoken to you many times about what we have come here to achieve. Now, on the eve of your trial to end all trials, I must take a moment to remind you of what we are up against and who your enemy is. Remember my words even when I am no longer among you.”
The eve of your trial. Who your enemy is. No longer among you. Since his last meeting in Buck’s tent, Harriman had begun reading the Bible—just a little, here and there—and the words of Jesus came back to him now: Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards.
“Why, my friends and my brothers, were our medieval ancestors—unsophisticated and unlettered in other ways—so much more God-fearing than people today? But I speak the answer even as I ask the question. Because they had the fear of God. They knew what rewards awaited the chosen few in heaven. And they also knew what awaited the sinful, the wicked, the lazy and unbelieving.
“The fault lies not just with the people. Today’s clergy are even more at fault. They sugarcoat the word of God, make light of his warnings, tell their flocks that hell is merely a metaphor or an antique concept with no actual reality. God’s love is expansive and forgiving, they tell us. They lull their flocks into a false sense of entitlement. As if a baptism here, a few good deeds there, a communion or two, is a ticket to heaven. My friends, this is a tragic mistake.”