prehistoric world? The missionary wrote that the Indians did not accept him until they realized he wasn’t leaving. He had chosen to live with them, forever. He loved them and wanted to be one of them.
So Rachel lived in a hut or a lean-to, and slept on a bed she’d built herself, and cooked over a fire, and ate food she’d grown or trapped and killed, and taught Bible stories to the children and the Gospel to the adults, and knew nothing and certainly cared nothing for the events and worries and pressures of the world. She was very content. Her faith sustained her.
It seemed almost cruel to bother her.
Durban read the same materials and said, “We may never find her. No phones, no electricity; hell, you have to hike through the mountains to get to these people.”
“We have no choice,” Josh said.
“Have we contacted World Tribes?”
“Later today.”
“What do you tell them?”
“I don’t know. But you don’t tell them you’re looking for one of their missionaries because she’s just inherited eleven billion dollars.”
“Eleven billion before taxes.”
“There will be a nice sum left over.”
“So what do you tell them?”
“We tell them there’s a pressing legal matter. It’s quite urgent, and we must speak to Rachel face to face.”
One of the fax machines on board began humming, and the memos started. The first was from Josh’s secretary with a list of the morning’s calls—almost all from attorneys for the Phelan heirs. Two were from reporters.
The associates were reporting in, with preliminary research on various aspects of applicable Virginia law. With each page that Josh and Durban read, old Troy’s hastily scrawled testament got stronger and stronger.
Lunch was light sandwiches and fruit, again served by the stewardess, who kept to the rear of the cabin and managed to appear only when their coffee cups were empty.
They landed in Jackson Hole in clear weather, with heavy snow plowed to the sides of the runway. They stepped off the plane, walked eighty feet, and climbed onto a Sikorsky S-76C, Troy’s favorite helicopter. Ten minutes later they were hovering over his beloved ranch. A stiff wind bounced the chopper, and Durban turned pale. Josh slid open a door, slowly and quite nervously, and a sharp wind blasted him in the face.
The pilot circled at two thousand feet while Josh emptied the ashes from a small black urn. The wind instantly blew them in all directions so that Troy’s remains vanished long before they hit the snow. When the urn was empty, Josh retracted his frozen arm and hand and shut the door.
The house was technically a log cabin, with enough massive timbers to give the appearance of something rustic. But at eleventhousand square feet, it was anything but a cabin. Troy had bought it from an actor whose career went south.
A butler in corduroy took their bags and a maid fixed their coffee. Durban admired the stuffed game hanging from the walls while Josh called the office. A fire roared in the fireplace, and the cook asked what they wanted for dinner.
________
T HE ASSOCIATE’S name was Montgomery, a four-year man who’d been handpicked by Mr. Stafford. He got lost three times in the sprawl of Houston before he found the offices of World Tribes Missions tucked away on the ground floor of a five-story building. He parked his rented car and straightened his tie.
He had talked to Mr. Trill twice on the phone, and though he was an hour late for the appointment it didn’t seem to matter. Mr. Trill was polite and soft-spoken but not eager to help. They exchanged the required preliminaries. “Now, what can I do for you?” Trill asked.
“I need some information about one of your missionaries,” Montgomery said.
Trill nodded but said nothing.
“A Rachel Lane.”
The eyes drifted as if he was trying to place her. “Name doesn’t ring a bell. But then, we have four thousand people in the field.”
“She’s working near the border of Brazil and
So Rachel lived in a hut or a lean-to, and slept on a bed she’d built herself, and cooked over a fire, and ate food she’d grown or trapped and killed, and taught Bible stories to the children and the Gospel to the adults, and knew nothing and certainly cared nothing for the events and worries and pressures of the world. She was very content. Her faith sustained her.
It seemed almost cruel to bother her.
Durban read the same materials and said, “We may never find her. No phones, no electricity; hell, you have to hike through the mountains to get to these people.”
“We have no choice,” Josh said.
“Have we contacted World Tribes?”
“Later today.”
“What do you tell them?”
“I don’t know. But you don’t tell them you’re looking for one of their missionaries because she’s just inherited eleven billion dollars.”
“Eleven billion before taxes.”
“There will be a nice sum left over.”
“So what do you tell them?”
“We tell them there’s a pressing legal matter. It’s quite urgent, and we must speak to Rachel face to face.”
One of the fax machines on board began humming, and the memos started. The first was from Josh’s secretary with a list of the morning’s calls—almost all from attorneys for the Phelan heirs. Two were from reporters.
The associates were reporting in, with preliminary research on various aspects of applicable Virginia law. With each page that Josh and Durban read, old Troy’s hastily scrawled testament got stronger and stronger.
Lunch was light sandwiches and fruit, again served by the stewardess, who kept to the rear of the cabin and managed to appear only when their coffee cups were empty.
They landed in Jackson Hole in clear weather, with heavy snow plowed to the sides of the runway. They stepped off the plane, walked eighty feet, and climbed onto a Sikorsky S-76C, Troy’s favorite helicopter. Ten minutes later they were hovering over his beloved ranch. A stiff wind bounced the chopper, and Durban turned pale. Josh slid open a door, slowly and quite nervously, and a sharp wind blasted him in the face.
The pilot circled at two thousand feet while Josh emptied the ashes from a small black urn. The wind instantly blew them in all directions so that Troy’s remains vanished long before they hit the snow. When the urn was empty, Josh retracted his frozen arm and hand and shut the door.
The house was technically a log cabin, with enough massive timbers to give the appearance of something rustic. But at eleventhousand square feet, it was anything but a cabin. Troy had bought it from an actor whose career went south.
A butler in corduroy took their bags and a maid fixed their coffee. Durban admired the stuffed game hanging from the walls while Josh called the office. A fire roared in the fireplace, and the cook asked what they wanted for dinner.
________
T HE ASSOCIATE’S name was Montgomery, a four-year man who’d been handpicked by Mr. Stafford. He got lost three times in the sprawl of Houston before he found the offices of World Tribes Missions tucked away on the ground floor of a five-story building. He parked his rented car and straightened his tie.
He had talked to Mr. Trill twice on the phone, and though he was an hour late for the appointment it didn’t seem to matter. Mr. Trill was polite and soft-spoken but not eager to help. They exchanged the required preliminaries. “Now, what can I do for you?” Trill asked.
“I need some information about one of your missionaries,” Montgomery said.
Trill nodded but said nothing.
“A Rachel Lane.”
The eyes drifted as if he was trying to place her. “Name doesn’t ring a bell. But then, we have four thousand people in the field.”
“She’s working near the border of Brazil and
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