The Caleb Collection Read online

  You are mighty!

  Then again, with a thundering cry from the congregation.

  You are mighty!

  Jason couldn’t stand it any longer. He ran for the platform, nearly oblivious to his surroundings. He flew over a middle-aged man still in the aisle, raced to the altar, and was up on the stage before having time to consider his rash move.

  The boy was jumping up and down, singing full throated to the sky. Jason took three large steps forward, swept the boy from his feet in a bear hug, and swung him around.

  The band boomed in full volume, and suddenly a thousand normally reasoned citizens of Southern California broke out in a spontaneous dance of celebration.

  Jason dropped the boy to his feet and glanced out to the crowd. Leiah was running for them. Behind her, a sea of people bounced with uplifted hands and twirled into the aisles and thundered in unison:

  You have risen,

  You have conquered,

  You have beaten the power of death!

  Then Leiah was onstage jumping with Caleb, tears still wet on her face. The pastor was still on his knees, but his hands clawed for the ceiling and he wailed the song.

  The entire scene was surreal. No one had urged them into such an uninhibited state. The pastor himself, a conservative-looking fellow, seemed as stricken as any of them. The wordless repentance and now this exuberant dance were completely unsolicited and spontaneous.

  A thought whispered through Jason’s mind. The notion that this was all absurd. But it was quickly overpowered by the strange desire to worship this same God that the rest were worshiping in such abandon. To fall at the feet of this God. This Christ.

  His God.

  He fell to his knees, lowered his head, and sobbed breathlessly.

  They sang the song for fifteen minutes while Caleb, Leiah, the worship leader, and now the pastor as well skipped from one end of the stage to the other. In the end Jason joined them, and the place became a madhouse of wild celebration. No brilliant words were spoken—no pulpit message to bend their ears—only this uncommon display of repentance and passion. Twice the pastor walked up to the podium to say something. Twice he walked away without speaking.

  And then the auditorium quieted, and they knelt among whispers of reverence to God for several very heavy minutes, before the drummer started again and a new song broke from the worship leader’s lips. Dancing erupted across the auditorium once again. The celebration went on like that for two hours, and Jason felt as though he just might have crossed over into heaven.

  They knew who the boy was now, because several had yelled out his name and the rest had roared their approval. Caleb left the stage and began running through the crowd, tireless in his delight. He touched a deaf woman, and she began to scream with praise. He pulled a paraplegic from his chair and then danced with him across the floor. For two hours the party went on.

  Jason had never seen the boy in such a state of joy, and it occurred to him that this was what Dr. Paul Thompson had counted on. This free flow of the spirit among a throng of believers.

  Countless members of the congregation came up and hugged Caleb. He was small and cute and full of the Holy Spirit, and they could barely resist him. Jason moved through the hours in a daze, stunned at the emotions rolling through his own heart.

  It made little sense, but he no longer cared. His eyes had been opened. For the first time since meeting little Caleb he had seen the boy’s treasure; he had seen the kingdom of heaven. At least a small part of it. And he knew without question that he wanted to walk in that kingdom.

  They would have stayed longer if it weren’t for their promise to return the boy by three. They reluctantly climbed into the Bronco at two and left Coastview Fellowship.

  They rode for ten minutes in silence, and Caleb seemed content to lie down in the back seat to sleep.

  “Well,” Jason finally said, exhaling.

  “Well,” Leiah repeated with a grin.

  “So, I guess Dr. Thompson wasn’t such a fool after all.”

  “I guess not.”

  They rode on, and Jason wasn’t sure there was much else to say. They just sat there wearing silly grins and rode in silence for another ten minutes.

  “I think I’m a Christian now,” Leiah said.

  “Yeah.” Jason chuckled. “And what’s that mean?”

  “I’m not sure. But I met him. He forgave me. Does that make sense?”

  “Yeah.” It made sense because he knew the same thing.

  “It was like I felt his breath on me and I could hardly stand it,” she said. “I knew that I desperately needed his forgiveness and he gave it to me. He smothered me with it.” She turned and looked out her window. “I never would’ve imagined such a love.”

  “I know.”

  “I think I know what Dr. Thompson meant,” Leiah said. “I think I know the power of a healed heart.”

  “Yeah, wow.”

  Then they fell back into silence and eventually small talk. But Jason’s mind was buzzing all the way to Pasadena.

  It wasn’t until after they had dropped Caleb off that the snide whispers about his son’s death began slinking through Jason’s mind. They had prayed for Stephen, hadn’t they? So why was his son dead? If Caleb’s power really did come from God, why had God passed Stephen over?

  Why couldn’t other Christians be like Caleb?

  Was all of heaven somehow captured in this one boy, relegating the rest of the world to slog through a powerless existence? So he had seen the kingdom, but what did it mean to walk in that kingdom with the kind of power so easily at the fingertips of the ten-year-old boy back there?

  It was a good question. And it was gnawing at his mind already.

  26

  Day 30

  HONEY!” STEWART LONG STRODE through the front door grinning from ear to ear. “Peter!”

  It had taken a week, but he had done what they all knew had to be done. The last seven days had drifted by in a surreal haze for all three of them. It was a kind of “the train’s at the station now but may be leaving at any minute” feeling that hung over them at the dinner table each night. That’s what more than a few talk-show hosts were saying anyway. They were debating over this “noble savage” theory of Caleb and saying that once culture got ahold of him it might be all over. So then the Longs had to get tickets fast.

  But getting tickets proved far more difficult a chore than deciding to get them. Not because they’d jacked the price to a thousand bucks a head, but because Nikolous the Greek had trimmed the audience down to three thousand. From what Stewart could dig up, two thousand of those weren’t even traded on market but sold to a class of people beyond his reach. That left a thousand and at least half of those were snatched up by scalpers, who then resold them for an ungodly sum within hours. It wasn’t the money—Stewart would have paid any price now. But simply put, tickets were as scarce as fossils from Mars.

  This morning his luck had changed. He’d pulled a Jack Burns over for speeding and discovered a warrant out for twenty unpaid speeding violations. That was when Jack flashed five tickets for the show downtown at Stewart. He had caught himself a scalper.

  He even paid Jack for three of the tickets, two grand apiece. That was six grand he gave Jack—a lawbreaker whom he should be hauling down to the station rather than making rich. Instead Stewart wrote him a check, told him to slow down, and then broke every posted speed limit on his way home to display the spoils.

  But then he was a cop; he could do that. And Jack would get his due soon enough.

  “Peter!”

  His son spun out of the kitchen, leading Barbara.

  “What is it?” his wife demanded.

  Stewart waved the large green tickets. “Guess what these are?”

  “Tickets?” Peter asked, leaning so far forward Stewart thought he might tumble out of his chair.

  He paused for effect. “Tuesday night. The Old Theater. Three—”

  “You’re kidding!” His wife flew at him an
d snatched the tickets from his hand before he had a chance to finish. She studied them, mouth open.

  “We . . . we’re going?” Peter asked. He’d turned white.

  “What do you think of that?” Stewart asked, grinning wide.

  Peter looked from his dad to his mom, and then back to his dad. “What does it matter what one thinks as longs as . . .” He let the quote trail off and sat in silence for a moment. Then he whirled around and wheeled for the kitchen.

  “I think that’s good,” he said. “I trust Caleb.”

  Something was wrong with Caleb. One glance and Leiah knew that something was terribly wrong.

  He slouched on the couch, pale as dough, with his hands on his gut. He’d been looking a bit peaked these last few days, but she’d assumed it was nothing more than the lack of sunlight. The poor child had hardly seen a ray of natural light in a month. He’d complained of his stomach, but never adamantly. The food was new; it was to be expected.

  But looking at the dark circles under his eyes now, she knew that he was a sick boy.

  Jason picked her up at noon, boiling with questions and eager to ask Caleb about something that had kept him up half the night. He’d changed somehow, and his demeanor had made Leiah laugh. But Caleb had changed too, and that had wiped the smile from her face.

  They’d tried to coax him into talk, but the boy was disconnected this morning. Honestly it looked like he’d taken a whipping back in that room of his, and Leiah wondered if Martha had taken it to him. Jason had given it about ten minutes and then ran out to fetch Nikolous. Martha was out tending to her duties. Leiah sat alone with Caleb who stared blankly at the far wall.

  “Caleb, honey.” She brushed his bangs from his forehead. His head felt hot. “You’re scaring me.”

  He just sat there like a lump of clay.

  “We’ll get you to a doctor, okay? I don’t know what this is, but we’ll get you to a doctor right away, okay?”

  Caleb closed his eyes.

  The door suddenly banged open and Nikolous strode in, followed by Jason. The Greek stormed up to the couch, snorting like a bull.

  “What do you mean he’s sick? He can’t be sick!”

  Leiah took Caleb’s hand. It felt clammy. She looked up at Nikolous. “We need to get him to a doctor right away. He has a fever and whether you like it or not, he is sick.”

  Nikolous scowled at the boy. He stepped up, pulled the flesh below Caleb’s eyes down, looked into each eye, and stood up.

  “He’s not sick. He’s tired, and what do you expect after your keeping him out so late yesterday!”

  Jason spoke quietly. “He’s sick, and it has nothing to do with taking him to church for a few hours yesterday morning. We have to get him to the doctor.”

  “He can’t go to the doctor, you idiots!”

  “Why not?” Leiah asked.

  “How would that look? He’s a faith healer, for heaven’s sake!”

  “I don’t care how it looks,” Jason said, more sternly now. “He looks like death warmed over.”

  “And he has a meeting tomorrow night. Three thousand people have paid a thousand dollars each to come, and they did not pay to see a boy in a hospital!”

  Leiah stood, suddenly furious. “There’s no way he can go out onstage in this condition. He’s sick, you big oaf!”

  “He doesn’t look sick to me, and as it stands I’m his caretaker, not you. If you think he’s sick, then tell him to heal himself. If he can fuse spines, he can certainly bring a little color to his own face.”

  “Please, Nikolous,” Jason said in an even tone. “He’s really not looking his best. Could you at least bring a doctor here to have a look at him?”

  The Greek lifted a hand to stop them. “You don’t think I see through your silly plot to have him removed from me. You’re pretending he’s sick to destroy his reputation. Do you take me for a fool?” He turned for the side door.

  “Martha!”

  The door opened and Martha clacked in.

  “Take the boy to his room and see that he’s ready for tomorrow evening’s meeting. Give him some water.”

  The Greek faced them and pointed to the door. “Now please leave us. You are not helping the boy.”

  “Our hour isn’t up! You can’t just throw us out,” Leiah said.

  “I am doing just that. Now leave.”

  “But you can’t!”

  Jason stepped over to the boy and kissed him on the head. “We’ll be here tomorrow,” he said. “Don’t worry; we’ll take care of you.”

  He stood and faced the Greek. “You’d better hope you’re right about this, Nikolous. If anything happens to him . . .” He ground his molars and let the statement stand.

  “Come on, Leiah.”

  She leaned over and kissed Caleb on the cheek. “I love you, Caleb,” she whispered. “Don’t let them hurt you.”

  He looked into her eyes for the first time that day and he grinned barely. “I won’t,” he said.

  She nodded and smiled back. There was some hope.

  Leiah faced Martha. “At least give him some aspirin and some Pepto-Bismol. His stomach’s bothered him for three days now; you’d think a caring person would notice.”

  Martha blinked and Leiah thought her look odd. It was surprise that crossed her face, not the anger Leiah would have expected. But the nursemaid ended it in predictable fashion, with a humph.

  They left Caleb sitting under the towering figure of the Greek, who watched them out the door.

  Neither Jason nor Leiah managed to bring any understanding to Caleb’s illness on the drive back to Pasadena. It simply made no sense. Nikolous was right. The boy had the power to heal a thousand people in one fell swoop. How could he be sick?

  Unless he wasn’t really sick. Or unless he couldn’t heal his own body, or ask God to heal his own body or however that worked.

  Or unless he was losing his power altogether.

  But how could that be possible? They’d both felt the power of God run rampant through the church just yesterday. They’d seen it with their own eyes. They had both met God, and they’d come away changed, knowing that Caleb’s source of power was indeed Christ. This they agreed to as they left the freeway and headed for Jason’s house.

  So then how could Caleb be either sick or losing his power only a day later? It made no sense. Unless he wasn’t sick.

  Jason drove straight to his house and parked the Bronco without dropping her off. She wondered if he’d intended that.

  He suddenly turned to her. “Whoops. Sorry. We’re at my house.”

  Obviously. She smiled. “I was wondering.”

  “Do you want a Coke?”

  “Sure.”

  He may not have meant to bring her here, but he’d asked her in quickly enough. And she’d answered as quickly.

  They’d spent a lot of time together over the last month, but almost all of it either in the car or in the coffee shop. The last time they’d been alone in his house he had put a hand on her foot.

  And it had terrified her.

  He led her into the kitchen, tossed his keys on the table, and opened the refrigerator.

  “Let’s see, we’ve got Coke; we’ve got root beer; we’ve got water.”

  “Water’s fine,” she said.

  He poured the drinks and lifted his own glass of cola. “To Caleb,” he said.

  She touched his glass in a toast. “To Caleb.”

  She walked into the living room and sat on the couch. Jason walked past her and eased himself into the armchair. The armchair was a good ten feet away, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. It was just as well.

  “So what was the question?” she asked.

  “What question?”

  “The question that kept you up all night. The one you were going to ask Caleb.”

  “Yeah.” He looked absently at the carpet. And then back up at her.

  “I still don’t understand this power of his, Leiah. I mean I understand that it must be from
God . . .”

  “That it is from God. You said you met him yesterday.”

  “Yes, I know. And I did. I met God. But exactly who is God?”

  She wasn’t sure where he was going with the question. “God’s God. The all-powerful Creator. I don’t know; look it up in the dictionary.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I know God is God. In fact I don’t really doubt that Christ was God. I prayed to him yesterday, kneeling on the platform, and it seemed totally self-evident. Jesus was—is—God. But what I’m asking is, what’s God like?”

  “I suppose you’d need to ask a preacher or read the Bible,” she said.

  “I did. I read the Bible last night. The whole Gospel of John.” He jumped up, grabbed an old black Gideon Bible off the television, and flipped through the pages.

  “Here, listen to this,” he said, settling back in his chair. “John fourteen. He, Jesus, says: ‘Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.’ Okay, good enough, but then he continues. ‘Or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these . . .’”

  Jason slapped the book closed.

  “So where’s all the miracles? Where are all the believers with faith doing what Christ did? Or for that matter doing even greater things? I don’t see them in the church. You think I should ask a preacher what God is like? How do I know he has a clue what he’s talking about? Especially if he’s not doing what Christ did.” He shrugged. “Just a question.”

  He had a point. “You ask Caleb. He’s doing what Christ did.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Or you ask Dr. Paul Thompson. I can’t believe he doesn’t know what God’s like,” Leiah said.

  He nodded.

  “Or the people from the church yesterday. You can’t believe they don’t know God.”

  “They think they know him. They know a part of him. But do they do what he did? Did the people that prayed for Stephen do what Christ would have done? Where was their power? They were nothing more than a bunch of rednecks jumping around, hooting and hollering.”