Let Your Will Be Done: Chapter One

Chapter One

On clear nights, Zeke liked to look up at the stars and think that they were winking at him.  This would often last for hours, but it was not so much by choice.  For Zeke would much rather have been fast asleep.

The trouble was that Zeke just could not make his mind turn off, and it was arguable that he had a lot on his mind.  For it was while he was laying on his bed in a small room of the ramshackle cabin Zeke called home that he would stare up at the stars.

Nope, there was certainly no sleep to be had the night Zeke was given a view of the sky from his bed.  For the incident started with a raccoon scampering back and forth across the tin roof and ended with a thud—both literally and figuratively.

Zeke and his mother, Ruth, thought it was funny, but it was not until Zeke’s father, Eli, wanted to know what was so funny that the FUN really began.  For Eli grabbed his Winchester lever-action .30-30 normally used for hunting much bigger game and started shooting up through the ceiling at the coon.  When he had emptied the Winchester, he grabbed his Mossberg doubled-barreled 12-gauge.

No, Zeke’s father never came close to taking out that coon, but Zeke’s mother only needed one swing of her prized cast-iron skillet to knock out her husband.  She caught up to him with it after he had emptied his shotgun through the ceiling directly above Zeke’s bed, and he spent the rest of the night out cold in it.

Eli awoke the next morning and promised to patch the roof, but like so many other promises he had made to Ruth over the years, he never quite got around to it.  For cooking his corn took precedence over everything else.

Under different circumstances, Eli would be admired for his dedication to his craft, but it is said that the devil is in the details.  This is very applicable to Eli’s craft in a number of ways.  For Eli was a moonshiner.

If you are not familiar with moonshining, it is basically the distilling of corn kernels to produce hard liquor, and since Eli and those like him did not want to bother with the paying of excise taxes and other government regulations, moonshining was as illegal as all get out, as they say in those parts.

Eli came about his profession honestly, though.  For the family business was handed down through the generations for as long as could be remembered.

Moonshining was not the only family tradition Eli observed.  For the family name was Erickson, and every male in the direct line had to have both a first and middle name starting with E, with at least one of them coming from the Bible.

Eli’s full name was Elisha Elster Erickson, and Zeke’s was Ezekiel Edward Erickson.  Yeah, the hillbilly references abound to this story, but what do you expect when reading about a family living a few miles south of the Missouri border in the northwestern corner of Arkansas?

Zeke was unaware of being a hillbilly, and actually loved the way his name sounded.  Well, at least the Zeke part, but that took a serious hit the second day of third grade.

After the first day, the daughter of the school principal, Jenny, met with her best friend, Becky, and formulated a plan to embarrass Zeke.  They even practiced the routine to make sure of it going off without a hitch.

Just after Zeke entered their classroom on the second morning, Jenny exclaimed, “Oh look, Zeke is here!”  Then Becky let out a loud, “EEEK!”  If you do not get it, EEEK is the initials of Zeke’s full name, which Jenny had found in her father’s records, with a k added for sound effects.

Alas, Zeke had more than the pranks of a couple of mean girls on his mind that night.  For the meanest person he knew of was his grandfather, Reverend Jeremiah MacLister.  Let us back up this story a decade or so—okay?

Reverend Jeremiah MacLister came from a long line of Scottish Hellfire and brimstone Presbyterian ministers, who gradually came to embrace the Pentecostal Holiness view of Christianity.  It was actually a perfect marriage.  For there was still a lot of room for Hellfire and brimstone to be preached with the added benefit of securing the authority to cast out demons daring to torment those created by God to spend all of eternity with Him in glory.

There was plenty of both to be done as the pastor of the Razorback Ridge Holiness Church.  For the surrounding fields were ripe with backslidden saints living among moonshiners and other reprobates, and Reverend Jeremiah saw it as his sacred duty to harvest as many souls for the Kingdom as possible.

Reverend Jeremiah came to Razorback Ridge with a wife and two daughters.  So, his spiritual armor never came off, and his spiritual sword and shield were kept close at hand.

No, there was no reason to be concerned about the spiritual welfare of his wife, Sophia.  For she was as severe in temperament and physical appearance as he was, but there were plenty of good reasons to be naturally concerned about their daughters.  For they were as sweet in spirit as they were lovely in bodily form and certainly tasty treats for wolves both in and out of sheep’s clothing.

Naomi was the oldest and more on the conservative side.  Therefore, she did not test her boundaries.  In stark contrast, Ruth was her younger sister and a wild one by nature.  Therefore, anything forbidden was just exactly what she wanted.

Naomi focused all of her attention on her schoolwork and Bible studies while Ruth focused her attention on the boys who focused their attention on her.  One of those was Eli Erickson.

Now, Eli was as sly as any fox ever hoped to be, and he conducted himself as a perfect gentleman around Ruth’s parents.  He even regularly attended church with Ruth, and her parents were well pleased that she had settled on such a fine and obviously God-fearing young man.

Ruth trusted Naomi implicitly and confided in her about how Eli really was with her, which both thrilled and horrified Naomi.  She was still willing to keep her little sister’s deep, dark secret, but Ruth started bragging that daddy could sure preach about the wrath of God while Eli knew just how to show her His passion.

Naomi did not consider it a betrayal of trust to tell their mother about Ruth and Eli.  For she felt that it was her duty to help defend the family against the schemes of the devil, but she came to sorely regret her decision.  For it destroyed their family.

Neither parent believed in sparing the rod when it came to their daughters, but it had never crossed the line over into abuse.  This time obliterated that line.

Reverend Jeremiah quite literally took Ruth out behind the barn to administer her punishment, and she did not come back inside the house when it was over.  Naomi rushed out to help Ruth back into the house, but all Naomi found were blood-stains heading deep into the woods.

Naomi wanted a search party organized to go after Ruth or at least what may have been left of her body.  For she feared that a pack of wild dogs in the area had dragged Ruth’s body into the woods to dine on at their leisure, but their father was more concerned with saving his position as a pastor than saving his youngest daughter from whatever peril she might be facing.  For it was an ironclad rule that if a pastor could not maintain control over his own household, he could not be entrusted with the spiritual welfare of his congregation.

A principle of all sorts of warfare is that when one finds themselves in an indefensible position and retreat is not an option, the only options left are to attack or surrender.  Reverend Jeremiah launched his offensive the next Sunday service.

Now would be a good time to explain the demonic doctrines that governed what Revered Jeremiah preached.  First of all, he was a serious Calvinist, who believed in the Doctrine of Predestination.  This establishes that the Lord God Almighty created some people for glory and all of the rest for destruction in order to prove His power to an unbelieving world.  In other words, some people were created to spend all of eternity with Him in His Kingdom of Heaven as heirs to all that is His in glory while everyone else will spend all of eternity in damnation, with neither group being given a choice in the matter.

So, if none of us have a choice of where we will spend all of eternity, what need is there for the preaching of anything—right?  Well, the rest of eternity after our own time in this world is one thing while our time in this world is another.  Righteous living makes for a much better stay in this world, and since the devil and his demons are free for the time being to torment the saints trying to live a Godly life, spiritual warriors are needed to keep the enemy at bay.

Reverend Jeremiah was able to save his position as pastor by distracting his congregation from what was naturally considered to be his obvious failure to keep his own family protected with news of a very powerful coven of witches being discovered just over the state line in Oklahoma on Indian land.  Thankfully, the mustered good Christian soldiers marching as to war were turned back at the state line by local law enforcement on both sides of the border before things went way too far.

Nothing was ever openly admitted, but it is curious that where Reverend Jeremiah was leading his troops was in the direction of where Eli had taken Ruth to be tended to by a Cherokee shaman by the name of Blue Wolf.  Eli arrived too late to prevent the severe beating, but by taking Ruth to an old family friend, the love of his life lived.

There was a familiar smell in the air as Eli approached Blue Wolf’s cabin with Ruth.  It was not until he had her inside before he recognized the smell as being marijuana.  A large kettle of it was simmering over a fire in a hearth in the northwest corner of the cabin.

Blue Wolf had Eli place Ruth on a bed near the hearth and ushered him outside.  He told Eli to return in sixty days with three gallons of his best shine.  Eli told him that he would gladly bring thirty gallons if he could save Ruth, but Blue Wolf said that three would be plenty.

When the sixty days were up, Eli returned with the three gallons, and Ruth was sitting out on the front porch of Blue Wolf’s cabin grinning from ear to ear.  Eli almost dropped his precious cargo when he saw Ruth and took off in a mad dash toward her.

Ruth squealed with delight when Eli picked her up and spun her around.  Then their lips locked and stayed locked until Blue Wolf cut loose with a loud belch after taking a big swig out of one of the jugs Eli had delivered.

Eli let go of Ruth and went over to give Blue Wolf a big hug.  Blue wolf said that a hug would be just fine, but he didn’t want a kiss like Ruth had received.

Eli, Ruth and Blue Wolf sat on his front porch talking and laughing for hours.  As the day progressed, more and more of Blue Wolf’s neighbors stopped by and joined in.  By the time night fell, it looked like half of the tribe was there having a great time.  Some brought their own shine for Eli to sample, and his mind was going wild with variations to try when he took Ruth back home.

Oh no, Eli was not thinking about the MacLister home.  Neither was Ruth, and from then on, they were officially a couple, despite no paperwork ever being filed in a courthouse.  Eli and Ruth waited until they were actually back in their own bed to consummate their union, though.

Yes, the beating Ruth took from her father was over nothing.  For Eli and Ruth had previously not even come close to having sex of any sort.

Ruth did not know just what the shaman had done to heal her so completely, but she did remember Blue Wolf making poultices out of skinny green leaves in that kettle.  He also had her drink a cup of the strained liquid in the morning and another in the evening.

Marijuana grew wild in several places Eli knew of, and he wondered if it would give his shine an added kick—along with more effective medicinal properties, of course.  So, he started experimenting with the amount of marijuana added to the corn during the distillation process.

It was not long before Eli believed he had something really special, and from the reaction of his regular customers, he was not wrong.  Eli had inherited them when he inherited the family business from his father after he and Eli’s mother were killed in an automobile accident the year before, and Eli’s few dozen regulars quickly grew into the hundreds as word spread of his special Holly Jolly Joy Juice.  Ruth had called it that one day after sampling some finished product, and the name stuck.

The Erickson clan had been cooking their corn for generations in relative obscurity, and with the local sheriffs and their deputies always being well cared for, there were rarely any contentious encounters with law enforcement.  The trouble was that Eli’s Holly Jolly Joy Juice was proving to be too popular, which attracted the attention of the feds.  Alas, the happy days were coming to an end.

Not quickly, though.  For when Ruth gave birth to Zeke two years after her beating, customers from well over a hundred miles away in every direction came to celebrate in high style for over a month.

Ironically, Ruth’s father inadvertently provided cover for Eli’s enterprise by distracting the feds with his terrorist group, The Sacred Sword.  Yeah, I suppose that is indeed begging for a more detailed explanation.

It is quite natural to think that Reverend Jeremiah lost his mind when he was told of Ruth’s presumed fornication with Eli, which resulted in him almost beating her to death.  Furthermore, when he realized what he had done, it was quite natural for the self-righteous reverend to desperately seek for a way out, which resulted in him inventing the story of the coven of witches on the nearby Cherokee Reservation.  After all, no one in their right mind would take matters that far.

On the other hand, those truly in their right mind, which is of our Heavenly Father—not the wisdom of this world, knew that Reverend Jeremiah was not in his right mind to begin with.  For he would not have continued drifting farther and farther away from what our Heavenly Father actually says is absolutely true about Himself and all of His most awesome ways if he had of been in his right mind.

What he attempted to do to his youngest daughter was dictated by the demonic doctrine Reverend Jeremiah had embraced.  For it decrees that those created by God for glory have pure hearts and act accordingly while those created for destruction have impure hearts and act accordingly.

Taking all of that a step or two farther answers the obvious question—why would God go ahead and create some for destruction?  It has to do with the immeasurable goodness of His heart, according to what Reverend Jeremiah wanted to believe.  For God wanted His saints to share in the enormous satisfaction derived from destroying the unrighteous.  This He will do spiritually, come Judgment Day, but until then, the righteous still living in this world can participate in the natural destruction of the unrighteous still living in this world.

Taking it all to its despicable conclusion, the righteous will gladly participate in the destruction of the unrighteous in this world or prove to be unrighteous, themselves.  Since it was thought that Ruth had acted most wickedly, she had to be put to death, and it was only right that this would be carried out by her godly father, with the blessing of her godly mother.

That last part was proving to be problematic for Reverend Jeremiah, however.  For Sophia had been fully supportive of raising their children in holiness, but she considered almost beating Ruth to death as taking it way too far.

After being conditioned for all of those years to obey her husband without question, Sophia was unwilling to openly confront him, but that went by the wayside when he went into Naomi’s room one night and stuck his fingers up inside of his oldest daughter to check if her hymen was still intact.  By the time the dawn broke the next day, Sophia was dead and Naomi had run off to live with the family of a Joplin, Missouri girl she had become really good friends with at a Christian retreat in Clovis, New Mexico the summer before.

Reverend Jeremiah did not show his face again around the Razorback Ridge Holiness Church.  In fact, he did not show his face around anywhere.  There was even some talk that he had been caught up into Heaven after the great sacrifices he made in the fight against the forces of darkness!

Yes, prevailing attitudes toward wives and daughters back then were quite different than those of today.  For they were looked at as being more like the property of the husband and father—certainly not equal under the law.

Nonetheless, with there not being any tangible evidence that Reverend Jeremiah had actually killed his wife and then took Naomi with him into hiding, local law enforcement felt obligated to investigate to see if maybe Eli and his bunch had sought revenge for the beating of Ruth.  It was quickly determined that this was not the case, and they moved on to concentrate their efforts on finding Reverend Jeremiah and Naomi.

Reverend Jeremiah did not appear to be anywhere to be found, but they located Naomi at the Joplin home of her friend.  When they contacted her to ask if she had seen her father and inform her of what had happened to her mother, she told them truthfully that she had not seen him since leaving home.  Then she went back inside and ingested a lethal dose of sleeping pills from the medicine cabinet in the house.  Tragically, she had escaped her father’s clutches, but she did not know how to escape the enormous guilt she carried in her heart over her betrayal of Ruth’s trust triggering the avalanche of evil that had engulfed her family.

Even after all they had subjected her to, Ruth went into mourning when she heard what had happened to her father, mother and sister.  This endeared Ruth to Eli even more, and he was so thankful that their son had such a wonderful mother.

Speaking of their son, Zeke was as rambunctious as can be imagined.  For the boy skipped right over crawling and toddling to go straight to running, and he ran everywhere.  After threatening to for months, Eli really did tie a cowbell around Zeke’s neck in order to keep track of where the little booger was.  Zeke did not mind a bit and considered it a talisman like the shamans wore.

Blue Wolf had never married, nor had children of his own.  With Eli being like a son to him, it was quite natural for Zeke to be like his grandson.

Zeke was delighted in the arrangement, and he would spend several days at a time over at Blue Wolf’s place learning about the old ways.  Eli and Ruth loved their son dearly, but they were very thankful for the time Zeke spent over at Blue Wolf’s.  For with them always having to keep track of such an energetic child, there was little time left for anything else.

Life was a joy to behold for the Erickson’s for almost eight years, and then there was news of Reverend Jeremiah.  This is what was weighing so heavily on Zeke’s mind as he stared at the stars through the roof of his home that night.

The news came from a cassette recording of Reverend Jeremiah reportedly dropped off at an AM radio station in Rogers, Arkansas.  He said that he had been taken up into Heaven by the Archangel Michael, where he was commissioned and trained to lead a great army of earthy saints and Heavenly angels to cleanse this world of all wickedness so that the Lord Jesus Christ could come back to set up His eternal kingdom on earth.  He went on to declare that what had been widely distributed as the Word of God was a forgery written by wicked men in league with the forces of darkness.  He would deal with them all in due time, but the cleansing was to begin in the four-state region.

There was nothing more out of Reverend Jeremiah for nine months.  Then during one single night, thirteen churches in Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma burned to the ground, and the houses of many of their members also burned, which resulted in the deaths of over five hundred people.

Also on that night was the single greatest tragedy.  For the entire town and many of the residents of New Israel, Kansas burned.  The town had been founded after the Civil War by mostly freed Missouri slaves, and many of the modern residents were descendants.  No, it would not be a stretch of poetic license at all to contend that several family trees died that night.

The tragedies continued more frequently after that first wave, and law enforcement was baffled.  For nary a trace of Reverend Jeremiah’s army was found anywhere, and rumors flew that it really was supernatural.

Reverend Jeremiah’s cassette recordings continued to show up at the Rogers radio station.  A hidden camera was set up outside of the station in the hope of catching sight of who was dropping off the cassettes, but on the nights when one was left, the camera always mysteriously malfunctioned.

One of Reverend Jeremiah’s recordings was completely in what is called tongues in Pentecostal circles.  A prominent Pentecostal minister from Springfield, Missouri was asked to interpret the recording and convey it in plain English.  He enthusiastically agreed on the condition that the interpretation and his commentary on it would be publicly broadcast, and the day after the broadcast, his church and home burned to the ground.  When the preacher railed against evil being called good in a sermon delivered from the pulpit of another church in Springfield the next Sunday morning, that church burned and his smoldering corpse was found hanging from a tree behind the ruins of the church on the following Monday morning.

Eli and Ruth knew that it was just a matter of time before her father focused his wrath on them.  They were making preparations to move to Blue Wolf’s place and under the protection of their powerful Indian friends when Reverend Jeremiah struck.  Eli and Ruth were caught outside and killed in a hail of gunfire before they knew anyone was there.  Flaming torches were thrown on their house, but it refused to catch fire.  Then the raiders withdrew into the shadows and waited for Zeke’s return.

Zeke had been already on the reservation, and when he was told what had happened to his mother and father, he announced that he was going back home alone to properly bury his parents.  Blue Wolf begged him to at least let several go with him for protection, but Zeke insisted that it was something he had to do by himself.

Zeke retrieved his cowbell talisman and put it around his neck.  Those present looked at each other with bugged eyes, but Zeke pretended to pay them no mind.  The consensus of opinion was that they were seeing the last of the boy as he walked toward home.

With his cowbell clanging away, everyone within earshot knew just exactly where Zeke was during the 57-mile trek back home.  Out of respect for his wishes, Zeke was not approached by his friends, and his enemies were evidently biding their time.

Zeke lay on his bed and stared at the stars for two nights awaiting the arrival of his grandfather.  At sunrise on the third day, he went out in the front yard and drove a heavy wooden stake into the ground.  Then he took a short length of rope and tied one end to the stake and the other end around his waist.

Zeke had been told that during better days of the Indian tribes living on the plains, great warriors would do that in front of their enemies and dare them to count coup by riding up and striking them with their pony-lances.  If the warrior survived until the chief of the opposing force said enough was enough, the enemy would withdraw with honor and many lives would be saved on both sides.

Zeke did not know if his ploy would work, but he was willing to try.  The trouble was that his grandfather did not have an ounce of honor in his soul.  When his men approached at dusk on the third day, they saw Zeke staked out front and refused to go further.  Reverend Jeremiah screamed in rage and pulled his pistol as he walked up to Zeke.  He had a look of pure delight on his face as he squeezed the trigger.