The Left Behind Collection: All 12 Books (81 page)

“We didn’t see him,” Chloe said carefully, kneeling next to the old woman. “But my dad did.”

Loretta turned quickly to stare at her. “Mr. Steele saw him? And is he all right?”

Chloe shook her head. “I’m sorry, ma’am, he’s not. Bruce is gone.”

Loretta lowered her chin to her chest. Tears gathered and pooled in her half-glasses. She spoke hoarsely. “Would y’all mind turnin’ that off then, please. I was just praying I’d catch a glimpse of Pastor Bruce. But if he’s under one of those sheets, I don’t care to see that.”

Buck turned off the TV as Chloe embraced the old woman. Loretta broke down and sobbed. “That young man was like family to me, you know.”

“We know,” Chloe said, crying herself now. “He was family to us, too.”

Loretta pulled back to look at Chloe. “But he was my
only
family. You know my story, don’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am—”

“You know I lost everybody.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I mean, everybody. I lost every living relative I had. More than a hundred. I came from one of the most devout, spiritual heritages a woman could come from. I was considered a pillar of this church. I was active in everythin’, a church woman. I just never really knew the Lord.”

Chloe held her close and cried with her.

“That young man taught me everythin’,” Loretta continued. “I learned more from him in two years than I learned in more than sixty years in Sunday school and church before that. I’m not blamin’ anybody but myself. I was deaf and blind spiritually. My daddy had gone on before, but I lost Mama, all six of my brothers and sisters, all of their kids, their kids’ husbands and wives. I lost my own children and grandchildren. Everybody. If somebody had made a list of who in this church would be most likely to go to heaven when they died, I would have been at the top of the list, right up there with the pastor.”

This was as painful for Buck as it seemed for Chloe and Loretta. He would grieve in his own way and his own time, but for now he didn’t want to dwell on the tragedy. “What’re you working on in the office, ma’am?” he said.

Loretta cleared her throat. “Bruce’s stuff, of course,” she managed.

“What is it?”

“Well, you know when he got back from that big teaching trip of his in Indonesia, he had some sort of a virus or something. One of the men rushed him to the hospital so fast that he left his laptop computer here. You know he took that thing with him everywhere he went.”

“I know he did,” Chloe said.

“Well, as soon as he was settled into that hospital, he called me. He asked me to bring that laptop to him if I could. I would’ve done anythin’ for Bruce, of course. I was on my way out the door with it when the phone rang again. Bruce told me they were taking him out of the emergency room and straight to intensive care, so he wouldn’t be able to have any visitors for a while. I think he had a premonition.”

“A premonition?” Buck said.

“I think he knew he might die,” she said. “He told me to keep in touch with the hospital for when he could have visitors. He was fond of me, but I know he wanted that laptop more than he wanted to see me.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Chloe said. “He loved you like a mother.”

“I know that’s true,” Loretta said. “He told me that more than once. Anyway, he asked if I would print out everything he had on his hard drive off his computer, you know, everything except what he called program files and all that.”

“What?” Chloe asked. “His own Bible studies and sermon preparation, stuff like that?”

“I guess,” Loretta said. “He told me to make sure I had plenty of paper. I thought he meant like just a ream or something.”

“It’s taken more than that?” Buck said.

“Oh, yes sir, much more than that. I stood there feeding that machine every two hundred pages or so until I’d finished up two reams. I’m scared to death of those computers, but Bruce talked me through how to print out everything that had a file name that began with his initials. He told me if I just typed in ‘Print BB*.*’ that it should spit out everything he wanted. I sure hope I did the right thing. It’s given him more than he could ever want. I suppose I should just shut it down now.”

“You’ve got a third ream going in there?” Chloe said.

“No. I got some help from Donny.”

“The phone guy?” Buck said.

“Oh, Donny Moore is a whole lot more than just a phone guy,” Loretta said. “There’s hardly anything electronic he can’t fix or make better. He showed me how I can use those old boxes of continuous-feed computer paper in our laser printer. He just hauled a box out and fed it in one end and it comes out the other so I don’t have to keep feeding it.”

“I didn’t know you could do that,” Buck said.

“Neither did I,” Loretta said. “There’s a lot of stuff Donny knows that I don’t. He said our printer was pretty new and fancy and should be kicking out close to a page a second.”

“And you’ve been doing this how long?” Chloe said.

“Just about ever since I talked to Bruce from the hospital this morning. There was probably a five- or ten-minute break after those first two reams and before Donny helped me get that big box of paper under there.”

Buck slipped into the inner office and stood watching in amazement as the high-tech printer drew page after page from the paper box through its innards and out the other side into a stack that was threatening to topple. He straightened the stack and stared at the box. The first two reams of printed material, all single-spaced, lay neatly on Bruce’s desk. The old paper box, the likes of which Buck hadn’t seen in years, noted that it contained five thousand sheets. He guessed that it had already used 80 percent of its total. Surely, there must be some mistake. Could Bruce have produced more than five thousand pages of notes? Perhaps there was a glitch and Loretta had mistakenly printed everything, including program files, Bibles and concordances, dictionaries, and the like.

But there had been no glitch. Buck casually fanned through first one ream and then the other, looking for something other than Bruce’s own notes. Every page Buck glanced at contained personal writing from Bruce. This included his own commentary on Bible passages, sermon notes, devotional thoughts, and letters to friends and relatives and churchmen from around the globe. At first Buck felt guilty, as if he were invading Bruce’s privacy. And yet why had Bruce urged Loretta to print all this stuff? Was he afraid he might be gone? Had he wanted to leave it for their use?

Buck bent over the fast-rising stack of continuous-feed sheets. He lifted it from the bottom and allowed the pages to drop before his eyes one at a time. Again, page after page of single-spaced copy, all from Bruce. He must have written several pages a day for more than two years.

When Buck rejoined Chloe and Loretta, Loretta said again, “We might as well shut it off and throw the pages away. He’ll have no use for all that stuff now.”

Chloe had risen and now sat, looking exhausted, in a side chair. It was Buck’s turn to kneel before Loretta. He placed his hands on her shoulders and spoke earnestly. “Loretta, you can still serve the Lord by serving Bruce.” She began to protest, but he continued. “He’s gone, yes, but we can rejoice that he’s with his family again, can’t we?” Loretta pressed her lips together and nodded. Buck continued. “I need your help on a big project. There’s a gold mine in that room. From just glancing at those pages, I can see that Bruce is still with us. His knowledge, his teaching, his love and compassion, they are all there. The best we can do for this little flock that has lost its shepherd is to get those pages reproduced. I don’t know what this place will do for a pastor or a teacher, but in the meantime, people need access to what Bruce has written. Maybe they’ve heard him preach it, maybe they’ve seen it in other forms before. But this is a treasure that everyone can use.”

Chloe spoke up. “Buck, shouldn’t you try to edit it or shape it into some sort of book form first?”

“I’ll take a look at it, Chloe, but there’s a certain beauty in simply reproducing it in the form it’s in. This was Bruce off-the-cuff, in the middle of his study, writing to fellow believers, writing to friends and loved ones, writing to himself. I think Loretta ought to take all those pages to a quick-print shop and get them started. We need a thousand copies of all that stuff, printed on two sides and bound simply.”

“That’ll cost a fortune,” Loretta said.

“Don’t worry about that now,” Buck said. “I can’t think of a better investment.”

As the Learjet made its initial descent into the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, Fortunato ducked into the cockpit and knelt between Hernandez and Rayford. Each slipped the headphone off the ear closest to Carpathia’s aide. “Anybody hungry?” he said.

Rayford hadn’t even thought of food. For all he knew, the world was blowing itself to bits and no one would survive this war. The very mention of hunger, however, triggered something in him. He realized he was famished. He knew Amanda would be as well. She was a light eater, and he often had to make sure she remembered to eat.

“I could eat,” Hernandez said. “In fact, I could eat a lot.”

“Potentate Carpathia would like you to contact DFW tower and have something nice waiting for us.”

Hernandez suddenly looked panicky. “What do you think he means by ‘something nice’?”

“I’m sure you’ll arrange for something appropriate, Captain Hernandez.”

Fortunato backed out of the cockpit and Hernandez rolled his eyes at Rayford. “DFW tower, this is
Global Community Three
, over.”

Rayford glanced back as Fortunato took his seat. Carpathia had swung around and was in deep conversation with Amanda.

Chloe worked with Loretta in fashioning a terse, two-sentence statement that was sent out by phone to the six names at the top of the prayer chain list. Each would call others who would call others, and the news would quickly spread throughout the New Hope body. Meanwhile, Buck recorded a brief message on the answering machine that simply said: “The tragic news of Pastor Bruce’s death is true. Elder Rayford Steele saw him and believes he may have died before any explosives hit the hospital. Please do not come to the church, as there will be no meetings or services or further announcements until Sunday at the regular time.” Buck turned the ringer off on the phone and directed all calls to the answering machine, which soon began clicking every few minutes, as more and more parishioners called in for confirmation. Buck knew Sunday morning’s meeting would be packed.

Chloe agreed to follow Loretta home and make sure she was all right while Buck was calling Donny Moore. “Donny,” Buck said, “I need your advice, and I need it right away.”

“Mr. Williams, sir,” came Donny’s characteristic staccato delivery, “advice is my middle name. And as you know, I work at home, so I can come to you or you can come to me and we can talk whenever you want.”

“Donny, I’m not mobile just now, so if you could find your way clear to visiting me at the church, I’d sure appreciate it.”

“I’ll be right over, Mr. Williams, but could you tell me something first? Did Loretta have the phones off the hook there for a while?”

“Yes, I believe she did. She didn’t have answers for people who were calling about Pastor Bruce. With nothing to tell people, she just turned off the phones.”

“That’s a relief,” Donny said. “I just got her set up with a new system a few weeks ago, so I hope nothing was wrong. How is Bruce, by the way?”

“I’ll tell you all about that when you get here, Donny, OK?”