Tremble (12 page)

The preacher made his way to the library, determined to gate-crash
the knitting circle. When he arrived he found a group of rosy-faced, happily chatting women, each glowing (obscenely, he thought) with an extraordinary sense of wellbeing. Worse were the nauseatingly generous compliments they paid each other over the clicking of their knitting needles. Bill Williams was shocked to his very core. If they weren’t all over the age of menopause he would have sworn that they shone with the ruddy glow of pregnancy. Even more disturbing was the wall of silence that sprang up when he asked if anyone had seen the rainmaker.

The preacher stumbled out of the building to be confronted by a mass of migrating frogs crossing Main Street to breed in the new canals running alongside the road.

“The man has got to be eradicated, he is human vermin,” he muttered as he plucked one particularly amorous amphibian from his bald head. He turned and marched toward the mayor’s office.

When the preacher had finished his tirade, Chad glanced outside. Although the rain eased during the day, it always came down in heavy squalls from about seven p.m. every night. Interesting, the mayor thought, not quite able to pinpoint why this observation should be so disturbing, and whether he should associate it with his mistress’s sudden reluctance to see him. The world was not what it had been, and neither were the women in the town, he concluded. As he watched a cow struggle through the stream that had once been Main Street, he wondered about the rain’s disastrous commercial impact. It was then that he decided to call a meeting.

The husbands, sons, and brothers of Sandridge crowded into the town hall. Not one woman had been invited to the meeting. As the last farmer wiped his mud-encrusted boots and squeezed into the space a hush settled. The men turned to their elected leaders with tense faces. Chad suddenly felt nauseous with nerves. Jeremiah, noticing that the mayor had paled, nudged him in the ribs.

“Er…I’m sure that everyone here is in agreement that…er…the rain has to stop,” the mayor ventured.

A murmur of support rippled through the crowd. Chad took courage from the notion that these men might be businessmen first and husbands second.

“Good,” he continued. “Therefore, the question is…” His voice trailed off.

“Louder!” some smart-ass yelled from the back of the hall.

The mayor cleared his throat. “The question is…whose woman is sleeping with the rainmaker?”

The farmers looked perplexed, then angry. Their glances began to slide in the direction of their neighbors.

“Well, it ain’t mine!” one middle-aged farmer shouted. “My Shirley’s never been happier. Why, the other night she begged me for it! And I’m telling you, that was a first!”

Another, a young beanpole of a man with a squint, leaped to his feet. “He’s right. Mine wanted to try a new position last week and…it was kinda wild!” he concluded triumphantly.

The oldest farmer in the district pushed himself up with the help of his walker. “Agnes and I made love for the first time in twenty years. I dunno what came over the old gal but she was hot for it all right. Nearly damn well killed me,” he declared, hands shaking.

Suddenly every man in the hall started to shout out descriptions of the amorous adventures their wives, girlfriends, and lovers had submitted them to since the rains. It was bedlam, but one thing was for certain: the women of Sandridge had never been more sexually adventurous, nor happier, in any man’s memory.

Jeremiah pounded the table with a judge’s gavel. The commotion stopped instantly. Pushing Chad aside the sheriff stood up. “I don’t give a rat’s ass as to who the woman is—we have just gotta make sure this damn rain stops before it ruins all of us!” he shouted.

The preacher seized his opportunity and, springing to his feet, yelled out, “The rainmaker is to blame for all this! He is evil! He is the devil in disguise! I say we pull him in!”

Immediately a delegation of muscled farmhands volunteered to drag in the sex-crazed wizard.

“The sex-crazed wizard is already here.” Jacob’s sardonic voice rang out from the back of the hall. His eyes were dark-ringed with exhaustion, his hands trembling.

“Who is she?” Chad demanded.

“Which one?” Jacob retorted and smiled sweetly, at which fifty outraged husbands rolled up their sleeves.

“There is nothing I can do to stop the rain. What is given freely is impossible to take away.” And with that he calmly left the hall.

Four miles away, the dam, now full and brimming, absorbed its last raindrop and collapsed, sending tens of thousands of gallons of water cascading through the town. The water gushed down Main Street, swishing up against the brick wall surrounding the church. It flooded through the iron gate and found a weak spot in one of the church walls. Slowly it began to erode the stonework.

The next morning the local telephone and Internet services crashed due to overuse. Every female resident had been issued with an ultimatum: one visit to the rainmaker would mean expulsion from the community.

All over town wives, mistresses, and daughters, having been cut off from their girlfriends, stared glumly at silent phones, while outside their men struggled with sandbags in a desperate attempt to hold back the floodwater. Some unfortunate women sported black eyes, others lovebites; several had split lips—all injuries inflicted by their men with the same desperate intention: to wipe the mark of the rainmaker from the bodies of their women.

That night Jacob taped a sign to his door with one word written on it:
OUT
. He drove to the other side of town and left his car parked outside the motel as a deliberate false lead. Carrying his rock-climbing gear in a backpack he doubled back. On the way he noted that the preacher’s Volvo was parked outside the mayor’s office. He crept up to it and jabbed the two front tires with his hunting knife. That will keep him there for at least another hour, he thought.

The rainmaker followed the path of a creekbed now swollen with water. Moon, the coyote, ran before him, a silver shadow darting from bush to bush. Neither of them were frightened of the rushing floodwaters. Water was Jacob’s element and he was totally in command of it. But he was not in control of love, and this was what occupied him as he strode through the darkness.

I can sense her entirely, he thought, stunned by the clarity of his perception. Encouraged, he tailed the owl, who flew in front of the coyote.

The creek joined with the floodwater and led him to the gap in the churchyard wall where the waters had broken through. Jacob stepped into the grounds thanking the rain gods. The coyote followed; finally they were both on the other side of the forbidding wall. For a moment the rainmaker froze, suspicious that it had been too easy. Then, exhilarated by her proximity, he turned and saw a light shining in the bell tower.

The owl flapped her damp wings and swooped up toward the belfry. A second later Miranda stepped forward into the light and Jacob could see her framed in the window. His heart jumped and his mind stretched out, up through the dripping branches to curl its way through the barred windows and across her lips.

I’m here, my darling, it won’t be long now
. His silent reassurance hung like smoke in the rain. Her answer came back, as lyrical as wind chimes,
Be careful, it’s too quiet
.

Nervously Jacob glanced around; there was no light on in the house or the church.

The owl landed on Miranda’s shoulder. She held out a key; the bird flew back through the rain, toward Jacob. Swooping low it dropped the key at his feet. The rainmaker unrolled his mountaineering equipment, took out a rope, and swung it up to hook onto a support fifteen feet up the tower. Slowly he began to make his way up, sinking each foothold into the mortar between the stones. He was halfway when a bullet whizzed past his head.

“Keep climbing and I’ll kill you!” The preacher stood at the bottom of the tower, rifle raised. He fired another bullet that grazed Jacob’s left shoulder. The next embedded itself into a heel of his heavy climbing boots.

Miranda gasped.

This is it, Jacob thought, preparing to die. At least I will perish pursuing something worthy.

Instead he found himself tumbling through the air to land heavily in the soft mud. He lay there for a moment, stunned, convinced that he had broken at least two limbs.

The preacher strode over and rested the snout of the rifle against his forehead. “I could kill you now and the Lord would thank me for ridding the world of one more piece of vermin. Now git!” he snarled.

Jacob lifted himself up painfully. He wasn’t scared of the preacher
and he wasn’t frightened of dying. He looked up at Miranda, who shook her head, telling him to go. He touched his heart then his lips, sending the gesture her way.

“You got one minute before I shoot!” The preacher pushed the rifle into Jacob’s ribs.

After silently pledging to Miranda that he’d be back, Jacob limped through the iron gate. He’d almost reached the motel to pick up his car when he realized that her key had fallen out of his back pocket.

As soon as Jacob was gone the preacher ran up to the belfry. Miranda was already cowering in the corner.

“Bitch!” The preacher undid his belt. “You are nothing more than an animal in heat!” His belt whistled through the air and landed with a crack on Miranda’s flesh.

Hit me! You can never touch me now!
she screamed silently.
I am loved, and I will be saved!

He whipped her over and over until she sank into unconsciousness. Dragging her to the bed, he wrapped a heavy chain around her ankles and wrists.

“I am saving you from the beast. He will soil you and take your soul,” he whispered, weeping as he tied her down. The owl, perched on a rafter above, gave silent witness.

The next morning Jacob lifted the gauze bandage he’d stuck over his wound. He’d been lucky; it was a superficial graze. He leaned over the mirror lying flat on the kitchen table. If the bullet had been any lower he would have been killed.

Outside, a starling swooped down and settled on a cherry tree whose naked branches had suddenly become studded with pink flowers. The bird cocked its head and looked through the window at the unhappy man. Then it began to sing. Soon, other starlings circled the tree.