Oh the Deacon was roaring that Sunday.
He paced and frothed, balled his fists, hollered like a hog in a gate.
But he wasn’t yet started, nosir.
He stepped down from the pulpit and called ol’ Satan himself to come up from the pit-fires and fight it out with him right there, told him to bring all the demons he chose to help him.
By then the whole front row was on their knees, eyes closed, some of them speaking in the tongues like they do.
It was all I could to get them to wait for the altar call.
Horst held the pistol to the lady anchor’s head.
“You are to read this the moment the cameras come on. Read it precisely, with no deviations.”
The lady anchor wore excessive makeup, her hair sprayed stiffly as though being blown by the wind.
She looked different than on television.
Older.
Moved by sudden pity, I called to her. “Our goals are peaceful, but our message is being suppressed. We are all citizens together. Do as we ask and no harm will befall you.”
She glanced up, pale, quivering.
Horst backed out of camera view, pistol steady on her.
“Remember,” he said.