Dark of the Moon

“Amen.”
    “Amen,” Virgil said. He pushed himself out of the chair. “I guess I’ll be going.”
    “That’s it?”
    “Maybe. I’d still like to figure out where the Revelation came from. When I find out, I could be back.”
    “And you’ll be judged according to your works,” Feur said.
    “Revelation 20:12,” Virgil said.
    Feur cocked his head: “Are you born-again?”
    “I’m a preacher’s son,” Virgil said. “I talked the Bible at supper every night of my life until I went to college, Mr. Feur. You don’t get that kind of an education at Stillwater.”
    “Maybe not,” Feur said. “But I kept one book in my cell, the King James. When we were locked down, I had that one book to read; and I read it twenty hours a day. When we weren’t locked down, I read it four hours a night, every night for three and a half years, there among the sodomites and catamites and child molesters. You didn’t get that kind of education.”
    Virgil sat back: “Revelation is your text?”
    “It is…” Feur’s eyes went to the light coming through the window, playing on the floor…“It is the most powerful thing I’ve ever read. It was a Revelation.”
    “My personal belief is that Job is the key book in the Bible,” Virgil said. “The question of why God allows evil to exist.”
    Feur leaned forward, intent on the point: “Job talks of the world as it is. Revelation tells us what is coming. I’m not entirely of this world, Mr. Flowers; not entirely. Some of this world has been burned out of me.”
    Virgil said, “We’re all entirely of this world, Reverend. You’re just like anybody else, going to and fro on the earth, and walking up and down on it.”
    Feur was smiling at him, then shook his head once and said to Trevor, “Show Mr. Flowers to the door. And give him one of our booklets about the niggers.”
     
    O N THE WAY back to town, Virgil’s cell phone rang. He glanced at the dashboard: one minute after two. Williamson from the newspaper. He flipped open the phone and said, “Yes?”
    “Todd Williamson. You had some news for me.”
    “This comes from the sky, from nowhere. You can get confirmation of the rumor from a Mrs. Margaret Laymon or her daughter, Jesse. Jesse, we are being told, is the natural daughter of Bill Judd Sr.”
    After a moment of silence, Williamson said, “Fuck me with a barbed-wire fence,” which Virgil thought was pretty prairie-like of him.

6
    W HEN HE ’ D GOTTEN off the phone with Williamson, Virgil punched up Stryker’s cell-phone number, thought about it for a moment, then tapped it. Stryker came up five seconds later. From the background rush, Virgil could tell that he was in his truck.
    “Did you talk to the Laymons?” Virgil asked.
    “Yeah: sex and money on the low plains,” Stryker said. “They’re telling the truth. They’ve talked to an attorney over in Worthington, and they’re going to petition the district court for a part in the probate process. Margaret says Jesse will stand up to a DNA test.”
    “Where’re you at now?” Virgil asked.
    “Heading back to the office.”
    “Got your heart in your mouth?”
    “I wish I hadn’t told you about that,” Stryker said. “You gonna spread it all over town. On the other hand, I’ve got Joanie to hold over your head.”
    “Listen. I’m just coming up to I-90 after talking to Feur. Not much to report there. So: tell me how to find the Laymons. And give me their phone number.”
     
    G EORGE F EUR ’ S readiness to swear on the Bible, and in a comprehensive way, had impressed Virgil. Feur had the stink of fanaticism about him, and fanatics, whatever else you might say about them, didn’t take the Word lightly. Interesting, though, that he’d denied knowing the Gleasons. That was something that could be falsified…
    The town of Roche once had a bar and a combination grocery–gas station. Now it had two empty and unsalable old commercial buildings slowly sinking back into the earth, and a dozen houses, some neatly kept, some not: flower gardens here, untrimmed lawns there; grape arbors and old wire fences, rusting swing sets and a brand-new tree house, a collapsed chicken house, abandoned farm equipment from the first half of the twentieth century, all gathered on the banks of the Billie Coulee, a seasonal creek that ran down to the Stark River.
    A white dog with floppy ears was sitting in the middle of the street when Virgil got there, twenty minutes after talking to Stryker. The dog