Revival:

By Will Jowers

AN INNOCENT GIRL WAS BRUTALIZED AND KILLED, AND AN INNOCENT MAN WAS SAVAGELY EXECUTED FOR THE CRIME. ANOTHER MAN MUST RIGHT THE WRONGS – REGARDLESS OF THE COST.
The month of July in Tennessee brings heat sweltering temperatures, boiling emotions, and deep religious fervor. In a Southern Baptist Church, these things often melt together during the week-long summer revival – a marathon of Hell-Fire and Damnation sermons, endless altar-prayers, moving hymns, and an unrelenting call to the unsaved to submit to the Lord. It is a time when God’s Grace, grown dormant, is revived in the heart of the believer.
As a child, Micheal McKay knew just such a church. But in his late teens, fate intervened and he was drafted into a war on the other side of the world. In Vietnam, he grew up very quickly, learned the skills of a soldier, and lost touch with God. The skills he mastered included how to use a variety of weapons and how to kill – swiftly, silently, and without hesitation.
Seventeen years passed since McKay became a soldier. He has a new life and a loving family far removed in time from the steaming jungle and the hellish underground battles which he detested and feared, and where he fulfilled his mission so very well. He has become a different man with the past long buried and almost forgotten.
McKay’s only niece is 13 years old when she attends the revival where she is “saved” and brought into full church fellowship. Her joy is short-lived. She is raped and murdered the same day – in the very church where she’s just found her Lord. McKay’s old Army buddy, now also settled into post-war comfort, is found at the scene. Because he is black, and the inbred racism of the South is still alive, he is assumed guilty of the heinous crime, and is taken away to jail, beaten and unconscious. In the South, some forms of “justice” move incredibly quickly, and within hours, the Ku Klux Klan extract revenge on the falsely accused.
McKay returns home to bury his niece and to look for justice. He finds himself unwanted and alone – badly outnumbered by forces that do not want the truth to be found. But this is the time of Revival, and sometimes it is not God’s Grace that gets reborn. Sometimes, it is something very different indeed, the rebirth of an avenger, Michael McKay!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brighton Publishing LLC
• Release date: Jul 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781936587360

Will Jowers

Will Jowers was born on a share-cropper’s farm in rural West Tennessee sometime around the middle of the last century. His education started in a two-room country school house and proceeded, ultimately, through three universities and as many degrees in engineering, business administration, and psychology. He picked up his doctorate somewhere along the way. He escaped the farm and factory-worker life by accepting a commission in the Air Force.With a service career spanning the Vietnam War to the First Iraqi War, he spent almost half his military time somewhere outside the country. He flew a variety of special mission fighter aircraft as an Air Force “Wild Weasel” in South East Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. He served as a cold war Intelligence Officer and as an enemy threat systems analyst.After his retirement from the military, he was a Director for several major aerospace corporations. His major duties involved international weapons negotiations and deployment and airport security in such places as Tel Aviv, Rome, and Singapore.Since his last retirement, he has taught high-school drop-outs in an alternative-school GED program.

Book preview

Revival

"Holy Revenge"

By

Will Jowers

Copyright 2011

ISBN: 978-1-936587-36-0

E-Book

Smashwords Edition

Published by Brighton Publishing LLC

501 W. Ray Rd.

Suite# 4

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Seventeen Years Before …

The tunnel was narrow and shallow, sloping slightly downward as it led deeper into the hillside. The sides were scarcely wider apart than a man’s shoulders; the roof only eighteen inches above the damp floor. It was pitch-dark, and it stank. Somewhere ahead, a shallow pit had been dug across the tunnel width and then half-filled with human feces and urine, refreshed daily. From this fetid mess, sharpened bamboo pungi sticks protruded upward, the top four inches tapering into needle sharp points. Any slip into the pit—a knee or a hand lowered for balance—would result in a nasty, if minor, wound. It would be a minor wound from which the victim could easily die from one of the many filth-borne diseases.

Private Michael McKay lay face down in the total darkness. His left arm was stretched out ahead of him along the tunnel floor—a questing feeler for what lay ahead. His right arm angled forward but bent closer to his body. His right hand held a knife—a five-inch blade with a razor-sharp edge, the tip curving back in one inch of additional sharpness. The back edge of the blade was an eighth of an inch wide and saw-toothed for slicing through bone. It was a weapon designed specifically, carefully, and exactly for one purpose.

In the right hands, it was an effective and silent killing tool. Michael McKay’s hands were the right hands. They’d proven their effectiveness several times over.

McKay moved slowly, silently forward, moving inches at a time. His ears did not strain to catch sounds. He’d learned long before to relax; to become a part of the environment. Any sound, any movement, anything untoward would come to him instantly. Hopefully, his responses would be similarly instantaneous. Shortly, he encountered the pit with the deadly pungi sticks and deftly maneuvered across. Four feet ahead, he encountered another of the dark, dirty cloth curtains strung across the tunnel. A series of such curtains strung at infrequent intervals ensured that no light penetrated the depths—either from the surface opening somewhere behind him or from any internal source further along.

Silently, he eased through the barrier and inched deeper. Six feet further along the shaft, death lay silently sleeping.

***

Samrong Quan was an orphan. She was only one of many thousands from war-ravaged South Vietnam’s Quang Tri Province. When she was nine, her parents had died as innocent victims caught in a crossfire between the Viet Cong forces holding her village and an American Army squad Hell-bent on liberating it. In the end, the village was declared liberated—what little was left standing. The American soldiers conducted the body count that would be a part of President Lyndon Johnson’s nightly message to the public and then moved on in search of more Viet Cong insurgents. Samrong was left behind with the sobbing wounded, the smoking remains, and the silent dead.

She had survived in the wreckage of her village on scraps and garbage for almost a year, until she had been rounded up in sweep by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (called ARVN by the American forces). Taken to Saigon, she’d lived in an orphanage run by some French nuns for several months, until she’d been taken in by a family with room for one more. She’d then lived with the Nuygen family for the next three years as something between a servant and a foster daughter.

Master Nuygen was a moderately successful businessman with a small villa in Saigon and the remnants of a plantation in Quang Tri. Mrs. Nuygen was a good woman who treated Samrong well. The rest of the family consisted of three girls ranging in age from Samrong’s own to six years older. There were two older brothers, but they had left home two years before, and no one ever spoke of them. In time, her scars healed, and she began, once again, to fill out into something more than a little scarecrow. Life became almost good again after the horrors of her parents’ deaths.

Just after Samrong’s fourteenth birthday, Master Nuygen announced that he was taking the young girl with him on business to the plantation up-country. No one in the family said anything. A Vietnamese man was lord of his household. They’d traveled together for two days in the man’s ancient Renault sedan, passing through countryside of rice paddies and intermittent jungle. Always the horror of the on-going war surrounded them, from the American patrols that hogged the roadways, forcing them to wait patiently until the trucks and half-tracks had rumbled past, to bomb craters spotting the landscape. The normally peaceful day was routinely split with the scream of the American jets flying overhead.

Samrong had come to hate the Americans. She blamed them for the deaths of her family, the destruction of her village, and the end of her childhood. She ran from the soldiers she met in the streets of Saigon. She cursed them in the halting child’s curses she had learned from her friends and her older stepsisters. Her hatred was undirected, but it was deep and abiding.

Until the trip back to Quang Tri, she’d never heard Master Nuygen say a single bad word about the Americans so prevalent in his world. On the long, hot drive north, however, he haltingly, then more rapidly, unburdened himself to his young charge. At first, she listened in silence, flattered that he was speaking to her as if she were an adult. He explained how the Americans were outside invaders, destroying the land, the people, and their way of life, just as the French had done before them. He told her how they had no knowledge of the Vietnamese people and no desire to know them. He reminded her of her people’s ancient history and enduring culture which these brash outsiders so casually brushed away. The Americans came to destroy. They came to kill.

As he talked, Samrong learned that her foster-father himself was not only a member of the Viet Cong, but a man of some importance there. He was one of the regional leaders in the group in Quang Tri. He wanted little Samrong to think about her parents, about their deaths at the hands of the invading Americans, and about the destruction of her home by these outsiders. He wanted her to become a member of a cell in his organization—a member of the Viet Cong.

Suddenly, the missing older stepbrothers came into better focus. She knew, without having to ask, where they were and what they were doing. They, too, served the cause. They, too, worked to throw the Americans out.

Samrong hardly hesitated before responding to Master Nuygen’s generous offer. She swore her allegiance with tears in her eyes. She swore to do whatever she could to help rid the country of this invading menace. She would serve. She would help. She would kill the Americans.

That night, in the master suite of the old French plantation house, Master Nuygen raped her for the first time. Afterwards, she lay silent and unmoving. She did not cry. All her tears had been used up long before.

For the next several months, Samrong underwent indoctrination, education, and training. She learned to carry messages, to smuggle arms and ammunition, to spy on the American patrols. Eventually, she learned to kill, first with a bomb hidden in a basket of melons left behind in a bar frequented by the American soldiers. Then, she learned how to shove a knife suddenly into the belly of an unsuspecting drunken soldier. No one suspected a pretty little girl who walked with downcast eyes and a humble, scrunched up shuffle, until it was much, much too late.

***

As Private Michael McKay inched his way along the tunnel toward the Viet Cong spy center, Samrong Quan lay asleep in a small alcove cut into the earth alongside the entry shaft. These alcoves were designed to provide a sleeping sentry for all entranceways into the complex. They were dug into the earth alongside the main tunnel-way, slightly elevated to keep the moisture out. They were six feet long and totally hidden in the darkness. Only a person used to sleeping at home, safe in bed, would waste time worrying about whether a sentry placed there would actually sleep through an invader crawling past only inches away. Anyone who lived in the jungles—and the tunnels under them—knew better.

As McKay crawled past the opening, he felt more than heard the disturbance. Something in the air currents, something in the feel of the earth itself caused him to jerk sideways and forward, bringing his knife hand up and backward toward where the danger was sensed.

The enemy soldier had rolled off the low platform and brought the big blade down hard—where the center of the invader’s back should be. It struck. But not where the enemy had intended. Instead of the middle of McKay’s back, the blade penetrated the flesh of his right thigh. His roll to the side actually caused it to penetrate deeper; however, his rolling momentum was unexpected and pulled the handle from his attacker’s hand. The sentry’s body, following through on the thrust, landed atop McKay just as he got his knife hand into position. His left hand found and grasped the hair of his assailant as she landed atop him and pulled the head back hard. His knife hand automatically flashed for the now vulnerable throat.

One quick slash was all that was needed. McKay felt the hot gush of blood splash onto his face and chest, tasted its copper tang, felt the body spasm, and heard the gurgle of the warning scream die in the bubbling outrush of air. After a few, long, trembling seconds, the body went limp in his arms. Samrong Quan’s war was over.

***

McKay quickly and quietly examined the body in the dark the only way he could. Female. Almost no breasts. Young? Probably. Dead? Definitely. He found a part of her dress not completely soaked in blood. Tearing a long strip of the cloth off, he wrapped it around his thigh, anchoring the knife in place and, to some degree, staunching the flow of blood. He knew instinctively that pulling the knife out here and now would only make the bleeding worse.

With the distraction out of the way and with the sleeping sentry no longer available to sound the alarm, McKay started his slow, silent movement forward again. Before he did, however, he did two things that, to an outsider, would seem very strange. Reaching to the body in the darkness, he quickly removed a small item and placed it in his pocket. Then, he lifted the knife close to his face and carefully licked a small taste of the blood from the blade. These tasks completed, he moved forward again. Somewhere ahead, this entrance tunnel would open into the underground nest he sought. Private Michael McKay, US Army, age nineteen years and six months, crawled forward to complete his mission.

Chapter One

Unlike the rest of the state, the western one third of Tennessee is relatively flat, with low, rolling hills, and numerous lakes. The area is sandwiched between the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers on its eastern and western borders, respectively. Without any significant industry for most of its history, survival was at the basic level, depending on farming and logging. During the last half of the 1800s and the early part of the next century, these activities slowly and systematically destroyed the land.

Out of the financial chaos of the Depression, an ecological ray of hope was provided through one of Mr. Roosevelt’s economic initiatives. The Works Public Administration was devised to create jobs—and, just maybe, provide some needed public service. To West Tennessee came a plan to convert part of the devastated acreage into a huge state park. Nearly fifty thousand acres of wasted farmland was converted into a revitalized forest.

Several county roads wind their paths through the park, most often following the original ridgelines and natural terrain. As the Loblolly and Short Leaf pines grew and spread, they crowded in on the roadway. Forty to fifty feet over the surface, the spreading limbs often met, forming a natural, light-spattered archway and making the roadway a long, snaking tunnel through the dense woods.

Through this winding, blacktop-surfaced tunnel, a ten year old Ford pickup wound its way at a leisurely thirty miles per hour. The windows were rolled down against the sweltering early July heat and humidity. Behind the wheel, the driver sat relaxed, his left arm resting on the open window, his right hand on the top center of the steering wheel, gently guiding the vehicle around the twists and turns.

Isaac Turnbull was a big, handsome black man, early middle-aged, with a hint of gray showing in his close-cropped hair. His chest was thick and his arms muscular, indicative of years of working on a farm. As he drove, his left hand occasionally lifted a sweating can of Coke to his lips.

On the passenger side floor, a Styrofoam cooler held ice and an additional can of Coke. Buried at the bottom of the ice were two cars of Budweiser. Clarice did not want Isaac to drink beer anymore, so he was very careful to never let her catch him doing so. Today, the beers were for after this morning’s work, to cool off with on the drive home.

Eventually, the road Isaac was following neared the southern boundary of the huge park, and he could see a general thinning of the trees and a clearing up ahead. The green tile roof of the white folk’s church came into view through the trees, and he slowed, looking for the fire trail leading off to the left before the road passed the church grounds. Slowing more, he eased the truck into the woods and parked a truck’s-length back in the trees.

Shutting the engine off, he sat for briefly and listened to the engine tick, tick as it cooled. Then the sound of gospel music reached him. Loud, enthusiastic, and accompanied by a badly tuned piano—also played loudly and enthusiastically. He sat quietly, finishing his Coke and listening to the music. White folks were singing the same songs his own friends and relatives sang in the Ebeneezer Baptist Church every Sunday. From a distance, they sounded almost exactly the same: soul-stirring, natural music sung with unrestrained joy by good folks praising their Lord with song. No town-church fancy choir ever could make that sound. White folks or black folks.

He sat in the quiet morning until the song finished and, after a short pause, another began. Then, moving somewhat awkwardly, he climbed down from the truck and reached back inside to take out two items. One was a large, paper grocery bag, and the other was a heavy oak stick—almost as large as a baseball bat at one end and tapering slightly toward the other. He hobbled slightly as he shifted the walking stick to his other hand and then placed the folded grocery sack into his back pocket.

Isaac followed the fire trail as it sloped down the side of the hill, passing a few dozen yards from the church yard. He moved slowly, partly in silent homage to the Tennessee summer heat that sucked the energy out of anyone silly enough to hurry. Secondly, he was enjoying the ringing music coming through the woods from the church. And finally, he moved in a slow shuffle, aided by the big walking stick, because some years before he’d had an intimate close encounter at a fetid little place called Tui Hua. This particular encounter involved a 7.62 mm, steel-jacketed bullet from a Kalashnikov AK-47 that had shattered Isaac Turnbull’s right hip. In its travel, it did additional, and more intimate, damage along the way.

Today, the memory of that time and place came back, although very briefly, with the pangs always associated with movement after sitting for some time. But it was an old and familiar pain—long since faced, long since accepted. Isaac was alive. More than could be said for some.

At least it wasn’t failing him now, the way it sometimes did. The hip had a bad habit of freezing up on him if he rushed too much. Until he’d learned to pace himself and never rush, he had often found himself falling flat on his face as it locked and pain lanced through his body.

Today the memory could be forced back into its special place, and life could be enjoyed. Today, Isaac Turnbull was thinking of poke salat. Summer poke salat that grew way down in the creek beds under the big, shady bushes of the more mature spring plants. Here, the young, tender shoots that had to be grubbed for in the dank and, occasionally, snake-infested undergrowth. Hard work, but Clarice was a good hand at rendering them into a tasty meal, especially with a little salt pork belly and cornbread. His mouth watered a little in anticipation.

Briefly, Isaac’s attention was taken away from the thoughts of his coming evening meal. Just before he lost sight of the church, he glimpsed a young blonde girl leaving the side door of the church building and walking quickly toward the small white concrete block out-building that had once been the old church. She was a beautiful girl who looked to be in her early teens. White cotton blouse just starting to swell in front with a promise of future delights. Long, tanned legs flashed under her plaid skirt.

Isaac Turnbull stopped and stood very still until the little girl finally vanished from his sight, his eyes squinted and never leaving her as she walked. His face remained placid, almost expressionless. Finally, a hint of smile lifted the right side of his mouth. He blinked, wiped the sweat from his forehead and then continued down the trail toward the creek bed and the hidden greens.

Chapter Two

Greer’s Chapel was a Missionary Baptist Church, founded eighty years before to serve those in need of the Lord’s Word, at least those needy souls in families within a mule-drawn farm wagon’s ride away on a Sunday morning. It was steeped in a Fundamentalist belief in the absolute and universal Truth of the Written Word and the Surety of Salvation.

The land where the church stood was originally donated by the Greer family who owned the surrounding farmland, and the name had remained, although the family had long since moved away. A line of gravestones in the cemetery marked the time on Earth of various family members and attested to the fact that there had been Loving Fathers and Beloved Mothers in the line. One tombstone—near the end of the row of Greers—bore only a name and two dates—birth and death. No Loving or Beloved comments marked the passing. More details could be found in Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary, should anyone be curious. No one was.

In the first days of the church, services had been held under a brush arbor—a structure of poles supporting a sheltering cover of interwoven tree branches. This covering was more effective in keeping out the sun than it was the rain, but the early church-goers were a hardy group, often in need of the good word and willing to suffer a little discomfort to receive the Hellfire and Damnation sermons regularly dealt out there. Rain might dampen the body, but it could not quench the spirit.

Soon, the brush arbor gave way to a one-room log building built by willing hands of the farmers and loggers who worshipped there. Over the years, the building had grown, been torn down, and replaced by a more modern and larger one, only to be replaced in turn. Five such had been built where the current building stood now.

The church grounds occupied approximately three-quarters of an acre on the southern border of the big park. It sat atop a ridgeline that backed away from the blacktop road which wound out of the park and continued on to the nearest small town some five miles away. The land fell away on the three sides away from the road, reaching down toward creek beds and bottom land a few hundred yards along. Outside the church clearing, the whole was covered in thick stands of oak, hickory, maple, and elm trees.

The most recently replaced church building was an older, white, concrete-block structure that stood on the Northern edge of the church ground. Scheduled for eventual demolition, it currently served a variety of purposes—primarily storage of extra pews and aging hymnals, and Sunday school space for the younger classes.

The main church building was only a few years old, once again having been erected by the combined skill and sweat of the church members. This was not the type of group likely to waste money hiring someone