by RC Cooper
Roscoe drove a red Volkswagen bug around the country with a sign on top: HE'S COMING! At truck stops and diners, at gas stations and roadside stands he bent the ears of believers and unbelievers alike; badgered waitresses, attendants, tourists; jawboned hitchhikers so vigorously that many opted to re-erect their thumbs. He drove I-95 south to Jacksonville and I-10/I-8 west to San Diego, I-5 north to Seattle and I-90 back east to New York--repeating this grand loop many times before deserting the interstates in favor of secondary roads, state, county and township, two-laners and one-laners, most paved, some gravel, a few dirt, crossing and criss-crossing one state after another, randomly distributing, to anyone who would listen and to many who wouldnít, the WORD. Then one day, in the beige barrens south of Albuquerque, he came upon a man walking a desert lane miles from nowhere, a man garbed in flowing robes andbearing a chin-high staff.
The brakes squeaked and the little red bug swerved to the right. Roscoe popped the door, climbed out, squinted against the desert light; an instant later his hopeful heart fell, for the approaching man, staffed, robed and sandaled, bore the unmistakable features of the American Indian: jet hair, small black eyes, big face deeply lined and reddened, it seemed, by pigments of the earth. Yet he was not dressed like an Indian, nor did he walk like one: his stride was long-legged, manly, purposeful.
Roscoe said:
"Brother, you should be ashamed of yourself! Mocking our Lord and Savior like that!" The Indian not responding but striding steadily forward, Roscoe added, "Even so, I consider it my Christian duty to offer you a ride."
By now the Indian was upon him; Roscoe could smell the manís salt odor as he passed by, propelling himself with his staff, stirring up dust with his sandals, gazing neither left nor right, seemingly oblivious to the presence of another human being. He never looked back. Watching the staff, the flowing robes diminish with distance Roscoe yelled, "You should be ashamed!" Seconds later passing in the bug, he made a point to
ignore the man just as the man was ignoring him.
But the image of the fellow teased Roscoeís mind. Something about him. Was it his insolence? His purposeful stride? His indifference to the presence of a fellow human being? Was the man a Christian? wondered Roscoe. A mad pretender? Or simply an Indian going on about some business inscrutable to the outsider? As Roscoe scouted the back roads of New Mexico and then Arizona, the image, the memory of the encounter gradually dimmed into a sort of unreality, a dullish dream, leaving him faintly uneasy but little more than that until, west of Prescott, in a region of desert pine and scrub populated by coyotes and rattlesnakes, he spied far off, along the roadway, a solitary figure--not an ordinary man, he realized as the distance closed, but yes!--a man garbed in flowing robes and yes!óbearing a chin-high staff. Roscoeís heart squeezed: his nerves jittered: his gut clenched. Brakes squeaked and the little bug swerved to the right. Popping the door, he climbed shakily out, squinted against the desert light. Manfully striding, propelled
by his staff, the impassive Indian stared straight ahead.
"What are you doing here?" demanded Roscoe, his voice querulous, almost whiny. "How did you get here so fast?"
Unresponsive as before, the Indian passed on by, tamping the earth, sandals scuffing roadside stones.
"Unbelievable!" cried Roscoe at the manís back. "Unconscious!"
For two miles, in first gear, he followed the fellow, dogged him without knowing why, and then, also for no apparent reason, accelerated, in the rearview mirror watched the Indian shrink, shrink, shrinkódisappear. Circling back fifteen minutes later, Roscoe saw no sign of him, not a trace.
"Unconscious!" he said aloud, and this time the incident, the coincidence, the miracle of time and place, would not fade from his mind. He lingered in Arizona for almost a week. He prowled the back roads, heart hammering every time he spied, in the distance, a human figure. He wound down dirt roads among the cactus, passed lone, loping coyotes and frantic to-and-fro roadrunners, squished the white-bellied corpses of snakes. Giving up finally he crossed into Utah, where he resumed the practice of stopping to inform strangers about the Advent of the One Who Had Died So That They Might Live. In a Chevron station he held forth, at the Desert CafÈ and Truck Stop, and at the Sunset Motel which boasted, "the BEST collection of rattlers in the ENTIRE WEST," and promised "one of the most AMAZING sights you ever saw, a RATTLER with THREE FANGS." The tumbledown motel flanked by a few wire-mesh cages proved a disappointment, and especially the three-fanged serpent that refused to open its mouth, but the woman behind the desk more than made up for it by her willingness not only to listen to Roscoeís message but actually to hear it.
"HEís coming among us!" declared Roscoe, dramatically sweeping his hands. "HE may be walking among us at this very moment. Oh hallelujuh!"
"Amen," said the aproned woman, who apparently serviced both the kitchen and the motel, undemanding chores judging by the empty diner and the vacant spaces beside a ramshackle row of units; the site reminded Roscoe of a dust-blown ghost town or a long-abandoned set for filming Hollywood cowboys. The womanís doe-eyed face was round and pleasant beneath yellow hair, dark at the roots, that spilled haphazardly over a plastic comb; one upper tooth was missing, an incisor, a gap she attempted to conceal by minimizing her smile.
"HE could be walking down that road this very minute," declared Roscoe, "directly toward this motel! Our Lord coming to save us! Unconscious!"
"Amen," said the woman quietly, wiping already-clean hands on the apron. Then, shyly: "Would HE look like HE does in HIS pictures?"
Without thinking Roscoe answered, "Oh youíll know HIM, all right. Youíll know your Lord and Savior! How could you not know HIM? HE will fill you with such happiness, such light, as you have never experienced in your life! Such wonder! Such joy! Oh hallelujuh!"
"Amen," said the woman happily. "Amen and amen."
"Oh youíll know HIM, all right! How could you not recognize your Lord and Savior? Youíll know HIM! Youíll know HIM!"
But later, remembering his own words Roscoe actually considered them for the first time and had a terrible thought: what if the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ presented himself not as expected, a gentle young man, sweet-voiced, with soft brown hair and beard, but as someone else, a cowboy, for example, or a roughneckóor an Indian? Impossible! The very thought rose a sweat on Roscoe and forced him off the road. For many minutes he sat perfectly still, breathing at a yoga pace, slowly counting to a thousand. Impossible! Moving again, though the panic had passed he was unable to concentrate; in a daze he drove drove drove as though the motion itself would relieve his distress. Then, shifting into second gear to pull a long hill, rising among great flame-colored rocks, excitement sparked him even before he consciously discerned, in the distance, a figure beside the road; he climbed toward it until, distinguishing the unmistakable robes and staff, he felt that his swelling heart must burst. Brakes squeaked and the little red bug swerved to the right. Popping the door, he climbed out. He squinted against the desert light. Staff-propelled, the impassive Indian approached, staring straight ahead, manfully striding.
Planting himself directly in the manís path, Roscoe demanded, "Who are you?"
The Indian attempted to bypass him on the left, but Roscoe quickly blocked him with a sidestep.
"No! Answer my question! Who are you?"
The Indian tried to pass on the right, but again Roscoe planted in front of him.
"No! Answer my question!"
It was then that, for the very first time, the Indian looked at him. And an amazing thing happened: as he swivelled his black eyes, the golden pupils, at first tiny, slowly expanded into blinding disks that blazed with the intensity of a thousand suns. Throwing up his arm Roscoe shielded his face, groaned; without thinking,
he fell to his knees, kissed the sandalled feet.
"Forgive me, my Lord! Oh forgive me! Forgive me!"
Without speaking the Indian commenced walking again, striding up the long rise flanked by flaming monoliths. Scrambling after him, Roscoe caught at his robe, crying, "What should I do, my Lord? Tell me what to do!" but the Indian marched on, impervious, oblivious, leaving Roscoe alone finally, standing on the roadside, a solitary figure, distraught. Then suddenly he sprinted to the car. Accelerated through the gears and drove fullspeed, not even surprised that the Indian he should have passed was nowhere to be seen, whipped the little Volkswagen down dirt roads and onto asphalt until, two hours later, he creaked to a dusty stop at the Sunset Motel.
"You what?" said the woman, at once believing and disbelieving. She smelled of rosewater, and her brown eyes were so wide they seemed to occupy her entire face. "Donít befunning me, now."
"You have to help me," said Roscoe.
An hour later he was on the road again, or rather they were, for the woman had hung a "closed" sign on the motel door; and nowthe red bug, racing down the highway, shouted from its top
HEíS HERE!
"We must get HIM to talk to us, tell us what to do." Firey as asparkler, Roscoe squirmed and yakked as he piloted the small car down highways and byways, over steep hills, through narrow valleys, searching searching searching the barren roadside. "I tell you it was like staring into the sun," he said, "I was scared Iíd burn up my eyes and go blind. Unconscious! Oh youíll be so happy, youíll be so happy, youíll be so HAPPY!"
"Iím already happy," she said quietly, "just thinking about it. All this wonderment. Ainít it silly that with HIM walking the earth alls most folks care about is three-fang rattlers."
"It might take days," Roscoe warned. "You never know when or where it will happen. HEís not thereóand suddenly HE is. I hopeyou have patience."
"I got plenty of that," she said calmly. "Without it the Sunset
Motel would make me crazy."
"It might take days," repeated Roscoe.
But it didnít. Half-blinded by the late sun streaming over the mountaintops, Roscoe swooped the small car into a narrow valley between two firey mesas and, shading his eyes, thought he saw something, a dot, a speck, far, far ahead on the right side of the road. "There!" he shoutedó"Look!"
Clamping her fingers to deflect fierce sunrays, the woman squinted, shook her head. "Donít see nothing."
"Way out there. On the right. I can barely make it out. Just a dot."
Roscoe mashed the accelerator, but it was already on the floor.
"Iím looking," she said, and she was: straining her eyes, holding her head so still it might have been made of glass.
"Now!" he said. "Look! Now you can see HIM. There HE is!"
"I should have wore my glasses. I ainít very good at distances."
"Weíll be there in a minute. Oh hallelujah! Hallelujah! Weíll get HIM to talk. Weíll ask HIM what we should do. Oh Lord, weíre YOURS! With all our hearts and souls, weíre YOURS!"
"Amen," said the woman, straining to see.
They came within half a mile, five hundred yards-four hundred-three-two. Finally, even in the dying light, Roscoe's keen eyes picked up the flowing robes, the chin-high staff.
"There! THERE! THERE!"
Whipping by, Roscoe squeaked the brakes and the little red bug swerved to the right. Popping the door, he climbed out, calling to the woman, "Come on! Come and meet HIM! Come into joy everlasting!"
Standing in HIS path, Roscoe heard the door open behind him, heard the woman climb out even as HE approached, impassive, manfully striding, propelled by HIS staff.
"Come!" called Roscoe over his shoulder: "Come and meet Our Lord and Savior JESUS CHRIST!"
"Yes," she said, close behind. "Yes I will. But where is HE?"