Riptide

Chapter 31

Bud Rowell was not a particularly churchgoing man. He'd become even less of one in the years following Woody Clay's arrival; the minister had a severe, fire-and-brimstone manner rarely found in the Congregational church. Frequently, the man would lace his sermons with calls for his parishioners to take up a spiritual life rather more exacting than Bud cared for. But in Stormhaven, the ability to gossip fluently was required of a shopkeeper. And as a professional gossip, Rowell hated to miss anything important. Word had gone round that Reverend Clay had prepared a special sermon—a sermon that would include a very interesting surprise.

Rowell arrived ten minutes before the service to find the little church already wall-to-wall with townspeople. He worked his way toward the back rows, searching for a seat behind a pillar, from which he could escape unnoticed. Unsuccessful in this, he settled his bulk near the end of a pew, his joints complaining at the hardness of the wooden seat.

He gazed slowly around the congregation, nodding at the various Superette patrons who caught his eye. He saw Mayor Jasper Fitzgerald up near the front, gladhanding the head of the city council. Bill Banns, the editor of the paper, was a few rows back, his green visor as firmly on his head as if it had been planted there. And Claire Clay was in her usual position of second-row center. She'd become the perfect minister's wife, right down to the sad smile and lonely eyes. There were also a couple of strangers scattered about that he assumed were Thalassa employees. This was unusual; nobody from the excavation had shown up in church before. Maybe the bad business that had taken place out there shook them up a bit.

Then his eyes fell on an unfamiliar object, sitting on a small table next to the pulpit and covered with a crisp linen sheet. This was decidedly odd. Ministers in Stormhaven didn't make a practice of using stage props, any more than they made a practice of yelling or shaking their fists or thumping Bibles.

The church was standing room only by the time Mrs. Fanning arranged herself primly on the pipe organ bench and struck up the opening chords to "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." After the weekly notices and the prayers of the people, Clay strode forward, his black robe loose on his gaunt frame. He moved into position behind the pulpit and looked around at the congregation, a humorless, fiercely determined expression on his face.

"Some people," he began, "might think that a minister's job is to comfort people. Make them feel good. I am not here today to make anyone feel good. It is not my mission, or my calling, to blind with consoling platitudes, or soothing half-truths. I'm a plain-speaking man, and what I'm going to say will make some people uncomfortable. Thou hast showed thy people hard things."

He looked about again, then bowed his head and said a short prayer. After a moment of silence, he turned to his Bible and opened it to the text of his sermon.

"And the fifth angel sounded," he began in a strong, vibrant voice,

". . . And I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace. And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon. The beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the streets. But the rest of the men repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship idols of gold, and silver."

Clay raised his head and slowly closed the book. "Revelation, chapter nine," he said, and let an uncomfortable silence grow.

Then he began more quietly. "A few weeks ago, a large company came here to begin yet another doomed effort to recover the Ragged Island treasure. You have all heard the dynamite, the engines running night and day, the sirens, and the helicopters. You have seen the island lit up in the dark like an oil platform. Some of you are working for the company, have rented rooms to its employees, or benefited financially from the treasure hunt." His eyes roved the room, stopping momentarily on Bud. The grocer shifted in his seat and glanced toward the door.

"Those of you who are environmentally concerned might be wondering what effect all the pumping, the muddy water, the gas and oil, the explosions, and the unceasing activity is having on the ecology of the bay. And those fishermen and lobstermen among you might wonder if all this has anything to do with the lobster catch being off twenty percent recently, and the mackerel run down almost as much."

The minister paused. Bud knew that the catch had been steadily dropping over the last two decades, dig or no dig. But this did not stop the considerable number of fishermen in the room from shifting restlessly in their seats.

"But my concern today is not simply with the noise, the pollution, the ruination of the catch, or the despoliation of the bay. These worldly matters are the proper domain of the mayor, if he would only take them up." Clay let a pointed glance fall upon the mayor. Bud watched as Fitzgerald smiled uncomfortably, a hand flying up to smooth one of his magnificent mustaches.

"My concern is the spiritual effect of this treasure hunt." Clay stepped back from the pulpit. "The Bible is very clear on this matter. Love of gold is the root of all evil. And only the poor go to heaven. There's no ambiguity, no arguing over interpretation. That's a hard thing to hear, but there it is. And when a wealthy man wanted to follow Jesus, He said give away all your riches first. But the man couldn't do it. Remember Lazarus, the beggar who died at the rich man's gates and went to the bosom of Abraham? The rich man who lived behind the gates went to hell, and begged for a drop of water to cool his parched tongue. But he did not receive it. Jesus couldn't have said it more clearly: It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

He paused to look around. "Maybe this always seemed like someone else's problem to you. After all, most people in this town are not rich by any standard. But this treasure hunt has changed everything. Have you, any of you, stopped to think what will happen to our town if they succeed? Let me give you an idea. Stormhaven will become the biggest tourist attraction since Disneyland. It will make Bar Harbor and Freeport look like ghost towns. If you think the fishing is bad now, wait until you see the hundreds of tourist boats that will ply these waters, the hotels and the summer cottages that will spring up along the shore. The traffic. Think about the countless venture capitalists and gold seekers who will come, digging here, digging there, onshore and off, plundering and littering, until the land is destroyed and the fishing beds obliterated. Sure, some in this room will make money. But will your fate be any different than that of the rich man in the parable of Lazarus? And the poorest among you—those who make their living from the sea—will be out of luck. There will be only two choices: public assistance or a one-way bus ticket to Boston." At this mention of the two most despised things in Stormhaven— welfare and Boston—there was an unhappy murmur.

Suddenly Clay leaned back, gripping the pulpit. "They will unleash the beast whose name is Abaddon. Abaddon, king of the Pit. Abaddon, which in Hebrew means the Destroyer."

He scanned the rows sternly. "Let me show you something." Stepping away from the pulpit, he reached for the linen-covered shape on the small table. Bud leaned forward as an expectant hush filled the room.

Clay paused a moment, then plucked the sheet away. Beneath was a flat, black stone, perhaps twelve by eighteen inches, its edges badly worn and chipped. It was propped against an old box of dark wood. Carved into the face of the stone were three faint lines of letters, crudely highlighted in yellow chalk.

Clay stepped up to the pulpit and in a loud, trembling voice repeated the inscription:

"First will ye Lie

Curst shall ye Crye

Worst must ye Die

"It's no coincidence this stone was found when the Pit was first discovered, and that its removal triggered the Water Pit's first death. The prophecy on this evil stone has held true ever since. All of you who would seek idols of gold and silver— whether it be directly, by digging, or indirectly, by profiting from the diggers—should remember the progression it describes. First will ye lie: The greed for riches will pervert your nobler instincts."

He drew himself up. "At the lobster festival, Malin Hatch himself told me the treasure was worth a couple of million dollars. Not an inconsiderable sum, even for a man from Boston. But I later learned the real estimate was closer to two billion. Two billion. Why would Dr. Hatch deceive me like that? I can tell you only this: The idols of gold are a seductive force. First will ye Lie."

His voice dropped. "Then there's the next line: Curst shall ye Crye. The gold brings with it the curse of sorrow. If you doubt that, talk to the man who lost his legs. And what is the last line of the curse? Worst must ye Die."

His hollow eyes parsed the audience. "Today, many of you want to lift the stone, so to speak, to get the gold idol underneath. The same thing Simon Rutter wanted, two hundred years ago. Well, remember what happened to Rutter."

He returned to the pulpit. "The other day, a man was killed in the Pit. I spoke to that man not one week ago. He offered no excuses for his own lust for gold. In fact, he was brazen about it. 'I'm no Mother Teresa,' he told me. Now, that man has died. Died in the worst way, the very life crushed out of him by a great stone. Worst must ye Die. 'Verily, I tell you, he hath his reward.'"

Clay paused to draw breath. Bud glanced across the congregation. The fishermen and lobstermen were murmuring among themselves. Claire was looking away from the minister, down at her hands.

Clay began again. "What about all the others who have died, or been crippled, or bankrupted, by this accursed hoard? This treasure hunt is evil incarnate. And all who profit from it, directly or indirectly, must expect to be held accountable. You see, in the final reckoning, it will not matter whether or not treasure is found. The mere search is a sin, abhorrent to God. And the more Stormhaven follows that path of sin, the more penance we can expect to pay. Penance in ruined livelihood. Penance in ruined fishing. Penance in ruined lives."

He cleared his throat. "Over the years, there's been a great deal of talk about a curse on Ragged Island and the Water Pit. Now, a lot of people will dismiss such talk. They'll tell you that only ignorant, uneducated folk believe that kind of superstition." He pointed toward the stone. "Tell that to Simon Rutter. Tell that to Ezekiel Harris. Tell that to John Hatch."

Clay's voice fell almost to a whisper. "There have been some strange doings on the island. Doings they're not telling you about. Equipment is malfunctioning mysteriously. Unexplained events are throwing things off schedule. And just a few days ago, they uncovered a mass grave on the island. A grave hastily filled with the bones of pirates. Eighty, perhaps one hundred people. There were no marks of violence. Nobody knows how they died. The beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the streets.

"How did these men die?" Clay suddenly thundered. "It was the hand of God. Because do you know what else was found with the dead?"

The room fell so silent that Bud could hear the brushing of a twig against a nearby window.

"Gold," Clay said in a harsh whisper.