The Children of Red Peak Read online

  Bart groaned. “He’s killing himself right now. And our careers.”

  “So life is hopeless,” Winder said over the phone. “That’s the message.”

  “No,” Deacon told him, plugging his ear harder to shut out his bandmates. “Death is hopeless. If the human race stopped trying to find meaning in death, they’d find more meaning in life. We’d grow up and find our purpose. There are nearly eight billion people on the planet. We could do anything if we weren’t a bunch of assholes.”

  “Stop talking,” Frank growled. “Just shut the hell up.”

  Steve laughed. This wasn’t his first trip to the imploding band rodeo.

  Winder chuckled as well. “So what is the meaning of life?”

  “You tell me,” said Deacon. “The search itself is what’s important.”

  “Fair enough. Last question. If Alexandra were still alive and you could say anything to her, what would it be?”

  “I’d say I understand your pain, but you have to find your purpose so you can keep going. I’d say I know firsthand how hurtful taking your life can be to the ones you love, so if for nothing else, you go on for them.”

  “Firsthand, you said? What happened to you?”

  “I grew up in a group called the Family of the Living Spirit that committed mass suicide fifteen years ago. My mother and almost everybody I loved died that night. More than a hundred people.”

  Another long pause from the reporter. “Seriously?”

  Deacon glanced at his bandmates, who stared back at him with their mouths hanging open. “Yup. Foreal.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Fourteen.”

  Joy gripped Laurie’s arm. “Is he serious?”

  Laurie nodded.

  The reporter sucked in his breath. “Were you there the last night when—”

  “We were talking about Alexandra,” Deacon said. “The point I was trying to make was with all I’d survived, music didn’t give me pain. It saved me. I wish it had saved Alexandra, because that’s why we’re doing this. If you can’t find a purpose, you go on with this ridiculous charade because there’s nothing else. Given the alternative of nonexistence, life is its own reason to live.”

  “That’s very interesting,” the reporter said. “Can I ask you a few more questions about the, uh, cult?”

  “No,” Deacon said and hung up.

  “Well,” Bart said.

  The silence stretched.

  “I can’t believe it,” Frank fumed. “You don’t give a shit about anything, do you? I hope you know you just sunk this band.”

  Deacon stood. “I know I don’t care about your bullshit, Frank.”

  He’d joined Cats Are Sad so he could bleed from his wrists for as large an audience as possible. Bare his soul for the mob so they could eat its flesh and drink its blood. Allow his love to be ritually crucified.

  If the band didn’t want him doing that anymore, he had no further use for it.

  Laurie followed him outside, still gripping her mug of heavily sugared coffee. “Take it easy. They’ll come around.”

  Deacon tilted his head and stared at the bright blue sky until he felt like he was falling into it. “They want to be rock stars.”

  She snorted. “Who doesn’t? I still think you can have your cake and eat it.”

  “Why else have cake?” he said, completing an old routine.

  “As long as the cake comes first. The art. I told Frank you were just speaking the plain truth to that reporter.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘Nobody gives a shit about the truth.’ ” She fidgeted. “So. What now?”

  He blinked away the brightness and came back to the earth. “I’d like to pick up my car. Then I’m gonna go away for a while.”

  “What about the album?”

  “Soldier on without me. You have the story, and I trust you. I’ll be back.”

  Laurie gulped down her coffee with a masochistic wince and tossed the mug into the bushes. “If that’s what you need to do, then do it. Don’t stay away too long, though.”

  They got into her VW Bug and drove to the Wild Moon. Honey was right where he’d left it, still covered in a film of dust and ash from his journey to Bakersfield.

  “Hope you find your chill,” she said.

  Deacon sat behind Honey’s wheel and started the car. “Hope you come up with some legendary chords.”

  As she sped off with a final wave, he glanced at two proverbs tattooed on his sweating arm: IMPERARE SIBI MAXIMUM IMPERIUM EST, which meant, ruling yourself is the greatest power, and upside down under it, MAKE PAIN YOUR FRIEND. Hope and reality in conflict. Pain and desire in collaboration.

  Maybe the music wasn’t the right path, this ongoing addiction to nurturing his hurt so he could release it, the exquisite and never-ending cycle of agony and catharsis in his own personal Passion play. Perhaps it was time to try to make the pain stop. He’d take a pilgrimage he should have pursued long ago.

  He wanted to go home.

  Driving north, he joined the flow of traffic on the freeway until he reached the coastal highway in Santa Monica. Lush green bluffs crowded the road on the right, while on his left, the endless Pacific yawned under a storm front. Towering palm trees leaned with the wind. Sunbeams burst through the approaching gray clouds to gleam along the rippling sea.

  How great is God, Deacon thought. How ridiculously small was man.

  How much like a dumb, spoiled little kid. God and man both, actually, proving God made man in his image.

  Old memories stirred deep in his soul. Standing in the desert at night, studying the stars crowding the black sky. The distances so impossible and vast, the light took hundreds and thousands of years to reach Earth. To view the stars was to visit the past. He wasn’t going back nearly that far, but his origins felt as ancient to him.

  While gazing up at the heavens, Deacon had once tried to imagine the scale of God but couldn’t wrap his head around it. God seemed as remote as the stars at the time, and he’d felt like his suffering didn’t matter. Now he doubted there was a God, and nothing had changed. His pain, his trauma, his memories, none of it mattered one damn bit in the big scheme. They mattered only to him.

  The sunbeams died, swallowed by the clouds. He turned on the wipers as the first raindrops appeared on his windshield. The sky grew darker. Minutes later, the deluge arrived. Taillights of slowing traffic blazed mottled red. The palms shook in the wind gusts. With hope, the storm would travel east to extinguish the fires scouring the Sierra Nevadas.

  Then, at last, he could revisit the mountain.

  Soon. He’d do it soon.

  First, he had something else he needed to do, what he hoped might be a one-step program to breaking his addiction to nihilism.

  He took the first exit in Santa Barbara. At a red light, he inspected Beth’s business card to double-check the address. The storm had passed, leaving the air cool and moist and clean. After parking Honey in a garage, he walked to her condo building, feeling even more out of place than he did at Emily’s wake. Jeremiah Peale had once called America’s cities teeming sewers of grime and sin, and that’s just the way Deacon liked it. Instead, with its perfect planning and Spanish-revival architecture, Santa Barbara looked like it had been designed as a Disney attraction.

  In the lobby, the doorman eyed Deacon’s rumpled T-shirt, wild hair, and stubbled face with disdain. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m here to see Beth Harris.”

  The man bristled further. “Is Dr. Harris expecting you?”

  “I’m a friend.” Deacon turned away before any more judgment could be rained upon him. “Tell her Deacon is here.”

  He sat on a bench while the man returned to his desk to make the call. So tired, he could sleep right here. All he wanted was a nice, long rest, a chance to catch his breath. Decades ago, he’d run from Red Peak, and he felt like he’d never stopped.

  “Deek?”

  He opened his eyes, surprised he�
�d dozed off. He smiled. “Beth.”

  She crouched in front of him in a blouse and skirt, hair pulled back into an austere bun. Her bright, liquid eyes bored in his.

  “What are you doing here? Are you okay?”

  “I just wanted to see you.”

  The worry etched in her face softened. “I’m glad you came.”

  He said, “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”

  14

  WORSHIP

  2005

  The Heaven Express reached the end of the line.

  The bus parked on the side of the dirt road. The Family stood and stretched and gathered their belongings. Deacon peered out the window to see the first grinning people step into the sun’s glare.

  He’d squirmed with excitement the entire trip but now found it hard to move. “Do you think we’ll get a warning when it happens?”

  A voice, a trumpet blast, anything.

  Mom pulled her bag onto her lap. “It won’t hurt.”

  “We’ll all go together, right?”

  She ruffled his hair. “Hand in hand to meet the Lord.”

  “Okay.” Deacon inspected his lean body, which now felt light and alien, as useless as clothes would be where he was headed. The idea that he could blink from flesh into a different state of existence still unnerved him.

  He shouldered his backpack. “I’m ready for whatever happens, Mom.”

  “You’re a kind and loving boy, Deacon.” She leaned to plant a wet kiss on his cheek, which he accepted with a dramatic display of chafing. “I love you here, and I’ll love you there. The love between a mother and her son is perfect. Everything else is going to change, but that won’t ever change.”

  “Mom,” he growled, embarrassed. “Jeez.”

  She giggled. “Let’s settle in, and then I have to see to the organ. Don’t forget to drink plenty of water today.”

  Deacon followed the excited pilgrims off the bus and blinked in the harsh sunlight and roasting heat that radiated from the ground and rocks.

  The vanguard had been here for over a week, building their new settlement. A series of bare plywood shacks crowded a patch of dirt. The Temple and other communal buildings stood out as larger wood boxes. Red Peak loomed over it all.

  He threaded the crowd to join David, who squinted at the scenery. He pointed to an outhouse. “That’s your new crib right there, Dave. The bottom bunk is all yours.”

  The kid elbowed him with a grin. “Jerk.”

  The ramshackle camp wasn’t much to see, little houses built to provide the bare minimum of space and shelter. Instead of doors, heavy wool blankets covered the entrances. The air smelled like minerals with a musky, bitter tang from the creosote and sagebrush patching the dusty ground.

  “What a dump,” Angela said behind them.

  “It’s all a matter of perspective.” Deacon pointed up at the ocean of blue surrounding the mountain’s rusty crown. “That’s our real new home, right there.”

  The adults often one-upped each other with reminders that God was taking care of everything. Knowing nods answered optimism, and chummy reminders of God’s plan and the power of prayer addressed complaints. Jokes were insider jokes. The Family never let themselves forget they’d been chosen and that whatever they said and did, Jesus stood there listening to every word.

  “Shut up, Deacon.” She surveyed the camp with an expression of utter misery. “Just shut your stupid face.”

  Josh approached with his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his jeans. He stared at Deacon. “Everything okay, Angel?”

  “Everything is great,” she grated. “Praise the Lord.”

  The couple walked off to join the human chain forming between the trucks and the new Temple. Boxes of clerical supplies bobbed down the line until swallowed in the Family’s new house of worship.

  “She’ll come around,” David said. “She’d better.”

  “Yeah.” Angela’s outburst had him a little shaken. “Man, it is really hot here.”

  “We’re not staying long, right?”

  Deacon gazed again at the cobalt sky, which seemed much farther away now. A bird circled overhead, a black glimmer in the pale blue.

  A dove, he thought. A sign? God is welcoming us.

  The bird soared up toward Red Peak’s summit. He recognized the silhouette now. It wasn’t a dove but a vulture, which vanished in the blazing sun.

  The gang hiked through shad scale scrub girdling Red Peak’s base. Deacon plodded along, wishing he’d brought a walking stick like David had, wore decent hiking boots instead of sneakers, and could drink the rest of the water warming in his pack. This wasn’t any fun. In fact, in the parlance of his old life, it royally sucked.

  “Anybody feel like going back?” he said.

  Like the journey to Red Peak, the hike had started out as a grand adventure promising freedom. They’d climbed high enough to enjoy breathtaking views of the mountains to the east, beyond which lay Death Valley. Here, Deacon understood why the prophets found God deep in the wilderness. The very atmosphere invited a sense of connection with something bigger than himself.

  The kids christened the camp New Jerusalem.

  His elation didn’t last long. The oven heat dried him out and left him light-headed, and biting black flies plagued his every step. No matter how much water he drank, the hot, parched air sucked it out of him. Nothing grew here except cactus and scrub that promised itchy, stinging pain. The lack of trails meant every footfall had to be mapped among rocks and boulders to avoid twisting an ankle. The spirit rejoiced in what the body rejected, but he was surprised and angry at how quickly the spirit wore out.

  “Nobody’s stopping you,” Wyatt said. “Go back if you want.”

  Emily waved at a buzzing fly. “We need to find our spot.”

  Deacon frowned. He shouldn’t have brought it up. He was weak. High pain threshold, but little endurance. Life wasn’t much more comfortable back at the camp, melting during the day and shivering at night. Just hauling water from the spring a mile away was an exhausting trek.

  With no farming to do, the adults spent much of the day praying on their knees at the Temple, waiting for God to come. What had started out as an adventure, like a camping trip, had already become grueling.

  At the farm, the kids had their secret places to play with no grown-ups around. The woods and baptismal stream. The Tehachapi Loop. They hadn’t found a place here yet, and couldn’t go back without it. They were on a mission.

  After another mile of hiking, Josh stopped at the head of the group. “Check this out, you guys.”

  The kids gathered around to study a massive wall of black basalt that jutted from the slope, covered in hundreds of Native petroglyphs. A lip of rock provided a natural overhang that protected the carvings from the elements.

  Deacon’s eyes picked out bighorn sheep, zigzags representing mountain ranges, tall figures with shining heads. At the top, a massive petroglyph depicted what appeared to be an eye in a diamond. Under that, a creature spread its wings.

  Along the periphery, someone had carved a wavy line of crosses.

  Wyatt pointed at the eye. “I’m pretty sure that’s Tam Apo, the Great Spirit.”

  This was a holy place for the Natives. Before the Europeans came, the whole region had been Paiute-Shoshone territory.

  “What about the thing with the wings?” Emily said. “Is it supposed to be an owl?”

  “I have no idea what it is,” Wyatt answered. “From what I heard, though, that one was the key to a vision quest. Indians would come here, wash up, and hang out for days praying for a vision or a dream to show them their purpose. Then if the vision told them to share, they’d carve what they saw on the wall.”

  “How do you know all this?” David asked.

  The big kid shrugged. “I grew up in Nevada, near a reservation. I had friends who told me some stuff. I don’t remember most of it.”

  Deacon found the symbols stirring. They sang to him like poetry. History and scripture. Na
tives had come here to talk to the spiritual world and walked away with both power and purpose. These carvings recorded the testimonies of generations. The wide diversity in styles suggested differing artistic capabilities, or possibly the evolution of symbols over the centuries, or maybe the even more fascinating possibility that Natives from far away made pilgrimages to this site.

  Red Peak had a weird aura of power around it, that was undeniable. Sometimes, at odd moments, Deacon sensed a rumbling hum in the atmosphere, but when he turned toward the sound, it either stopped or changed direction. There was something about this place.

  A breeze crossed over them, providing a brief respite from the heat and flies.

  “I think we found our spot,” Emily said.

  The kids nodded. It was a great place. As a bonus, the jutting rock face offered plenty of shade from the afternoon sun.

  “Hey,” Angela called behind them. “Take a look down here.”

  They turned and followed her gaze down the slope into the gorge below, where a ghost town lay in ruins. The kids gasped in delight.

  “No way,” Deacon said.

  They picked their way down the rocks toward the crumbling skeletons of old wood cabins and a steepled church with a caved-in roof. The thick, twisted trunks of dead bristlecone pines stood among these structures.

  “What’s it doing here?” Beth yelled as she hustled down the slope.

  “Gold rush town,” Josh called out. “That’s my guess.”

  The California Gold Rush had brought many settlements to the Sierra Nevada, subsequently abandoned after they’d drained all the gold.

  Deacon, David, and Beth ran to a cabin that hadn’t collapsed to its foundations, and found the dark, open doorway draped in cobwebs.

  “I am so not going in there,” Beth said. “Let’s find another one to explore.”

  Deacon held out his hand. “Dave, let me see your walking stick for a second.” He extended it to break the webbing. “Should we go in?”

  David gaped into the darkness. “Be my guest.”

  Holding the stick like a spear, Deacon crept into the dusty interior, which was dimly lit by gaps in the clapboard roof. The bones of a mouse crunched under his foot, making him wince.