The church-trailer was atop a rising hill, a small rocky creek at the base, a hundred feet from us. A narrow asphalt county road angled the side of the church. Between church and creek and slender lane, the scene was postcard pastoral. Until you saw the big green John Deere tractor tipped into the gulley, its bush hog attachment like a giant lawnmower on its side. The injured operator sprawled beneath the tractor, his right leg red with blood. He wasn’t moving.

Another shot rang out. A headlamp exploded on the tractor, glass raining down on the wounded man.

“AVANT THEE, SATAN,” screamed a voice from the church. “Yea though I WALK through the VALLEY I FEAR NO EVIL!”

It was Cherry’s turn to duck-walk to the trunk, returning with a bullhorn. She aimed the cone over the wall. “Zeke? This is Donna Cherry. You remember me, right? I always loved your preaching.”

“BITCH DEVIL!” the man screamed, punctuating his words with a volley. “SPAWN OF SATAN! WHORE OF BABYLON!”

“Not working,” she said, ducking back down as the guy started talking in tongues. “ARM-A-LACKEE TATALODO. SHEM PAYLA RAS! HARWHALLA DEEM-ADAYDA!”

“He’s losing whatever’s left,” Cherry said. “Mad as a hatter.”

“The guy under the tractor looks passed out,” I said. “Probably in shock.” I gauged the width of the creek, deep-cut banks, the creek a good yard beneath the level of the land.

“I think I can get to the wounded man with the car,” I said. “There’s a rise I can use as a ramp.”

“Jump the creek? No way. You’ll plant the nose in the creek bed. Even if you make it, you’ll have to drive in front of the church. He’ll pop you like Dick Cheney shooting a caged bird.”

I studied Cherry’s car, the big Ford Crown Vic cop cruiser with a roaring four-point-six liter V-8 and the beefed-up frame and suspension. Harry and I had done enough unlikely feats in our succession of Crown Vics that the Motor Pool considered us persona non grata. I scuttled to the cruiser, pulled myself inside, studied a downslope over meadow grass to the creek-jump east of the church, then the two-hundred-foot run to the toppled tractor.

Ducking low, I jammed the gear stick into reverse, pulling out of the cover as the windshield exploded. He had the range. I pushed the accelerator to the floor and heard the big V-8 scream. I roared into the field below the church, the creek rushing at me.

I hit the rise, the car bottoming out, grille lifting in rebound. Airborne. Then: Thunderous boom, shocks breaking, sideways-skidding, passenger door popping open on busted hinges.

I’d crossed the creek.

Now to pass the trailer. I saw the rifle barrel hanging out a front window, ready to pick me off through the open door…

Change of plans. I skimmed the car across the front of the trailer, cheap pasteboard construction versus serious Detroit iron. The Crown Vic peeled open the trailer like a jack plane slicing pine. A tire exploded. The hood popped open. My face filled with steam from the radiator. Tire flapping, I aimed the wobbling vehicle toward the wounded man.

And then I was out and rolling beneath the tractor. Touching the man’s throat. Feeling a pulse, thank God.

I saw Cherry and Caudill racing to the listing trailer with guns drawn. A warning shot, Cherry baying Stay down! The ambulances were moving in. It seemed odd that I didn’t see the Feds.

I stood and was doing fine for about three seconds, until adrenalin buckled my knees and I sat flat on my ass like a swami.

18

Cherry and Caudill had stormed the trailer when they’d seen Tanner on the floor, moaning, grabbing at his belly. In what seemed like seconds - and with no resistance - the pair had the reverend subdued.

The bush-hog operator was rushed toward a hospital in Jackson. The paramedics from the second bus were trying to get Tanner stabilized. We’d figured the guy was having a psychotic episode, but it seemed he had serious physical problems as well. He struggled to pull in breath, then rolled to his side and began shaking.

Krenkler walked up, looked at the reverend. “Jesus,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “What’s wrong with him?”

“What’s wrong with you?” I said, anger rippling through my guts.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I said, “The only people I saw crossing the field to the church were Cherry and Caudill.”

“And?”

“Three armed and experienced FBI agents and you sat on your thumbs.”

Krenkler looked on the verge of a yawn. “It’s a local matter. Not our problem.”

“What?”

“We’re here to stop a psychotic torturer, not a local head case. There were no new inclusions on the geocache site and Officer Caudill told us the victim was emotionally erratic. Ergo, it fell under local jurisdiction.”

“That’s bullshit,” I said. “Fellow law-enforcement agents and an injured man were at risk and you squatted behind a wall and watched it like a croquet match.” I looked at the two other agents. They were turned away, like this scene wasn’t happening.

Krenkler’s mouth twisted into an ugly shape. “Get out of here, Ryder. That’s an order.”

“It’s not your jurisdiction, Agent Krenkler. You just said so.”

The mouth twisted tighter but any response was interrupted by the preacher convulsing so powerfully he knocked one of the attendants from the ambulance. The sick man projectile-vomited a sticky curd the color of dead blood. It kept coming, a deluge, like a drainage pipe had broken in his guts.

“My God,” Cherry whispered.

“His vitals are failing,” one medic yelled to the other, eyes tight to the monitors attached to Tanner. “Oh shit, he’s shutting down, cardiac arrest.”

The medics applied the shock paddles. Nothing.

Applied them again.

After four tries, they shook their heads. The bus pulled away. Somewhere in there the FBI had departed to do things in its jurisdiction.

McCoy appeared, called by Cherry. Caudill and I followed Cherry into the torn and listing church-trailer, McCoy standing aside and watching us work. There were no pews, only folding chairs in disarray. At one end of the floor was a plywood pulpit, painted white, a hand-painted cross on the front.

“Look for drugs,” Cherry said. “The rev was acting like a guy on PCP or meth.”

Caudill was scrabbling through a metal cabinet. “Bullets and bibles. Wonder why he stopped shooting?”

“He got too sick,” Cherry said. “Dry-heaving like his body was trying to push something from his gut.”

“Demons,” I suggested. “Unfortunately, they were in his head.”

“Let’s check his house,” Cherry said. “Nothing’s here.”

We walked the fifty steps to the trailer where Tanner had lived. A two-box life. We went our separate ways and I checked a closet.

“I’ve got six boxes of ammo at fifty rounds per,” I noted. “Another box of nines for the Browning. Was Tanner expecting a revolution?”

“Paranoia.” Cherry lifted a 3 × 5 index card, a hole punched in one corner, a loop of string tied through the hole.

“Got something?” I asked.

“A note that says Bless you Brother for your constant inspiration. From one of the flock, I expect.” She tossed the note aside and studied a pan on the stove.

“Tanner’s last meal. Chunks of chicken, potato, carrot, mushrooms, gravy. Hope he said grace.”

We stepped into the dining area where I reported finding nothing of merit, Caudill the same. We heard a clanging of silverware and turned to see McCoy in front of the stove. He’d fished something from the stew with a fork, holding the specimen at eye level, studying it in the light through the window.

“I don’t like this mushroom,” he said.

We bagged the stew and went outside. Cherry’s cruiser was a jumble of useless metal and Caudill took us to his department, loaned Cherry a county car. She drove me to her office.