Blood of the Faithful Read online

  “Trust me.”

  He glanced at Eliza, who shrugged. Jacob stepped back and let Miriam take the forefront.

  “You’re former law enforcement,” she said.

  “What makes you say that?” the man said.

  As soon as she said it, Jacob saw what she meant. There was something about the way he carried himself. Confident, poised for action. Jacob hadn’t noticed at first, but supposed that Miriam had, and for the same reason that Jacob had been scanning the refugees for medical conditions.

  Miriam tapped her chest. “I was FBI.”

  “Hah, right.”

  “Special Agent Haley Kite,” she said. Her old name. “Salt Lake City Field Office. They sent me to investigate this crazy cult.”

  “And now you’re one of them? How did that happen?”

  “Long story.”

  For what became for Jacob an uncomfortably long time, the two of them flatly regarded each other in silence.

  “You know my name,” Miriam said at last, without taking her eyes from his.

  “Mine’s McQueen,” he said.

  “Steve, I’m hoping.”

  A slight roll of the eyes. Not the first time he’d heard that. “Whit.”

  “What?”

  “No, Whit,” he said, with what might’ve been the beginning of a smile. “Whit McQueen.”

  “Almost as good. That’s right out of central casting.”

  “Huh?”

  “Whit McQueen. It sounds like Sylvester Stallone’s buddy in a crappy old action movie. Is that your real name?”

  “Whitney until kindergarten. Fewer fights with Whit.”

  She nodded. “So I’m thinking cop. Am I right?”

  “Army. Military police, so yeah, you’re pretty much right. I was at Green River for a while until the army shut down the camp. Caught some bug there. By the time I got out of the hospital, the nearest base was in Denver, and I had no way to get there.” He shrugged. “Guess that makes me a deserter.”

  “Sounds like the army deserted you,” Miriam said.

  “Yeah, more or less.”

  “Bastards.”

  McQueen returned a wry smile.

  Jacob glanced at her, impressed. She could be such a hard case that he’d almost forgotten that Miriam had gained her reputation in the FBI by infiltrating criminal organizations. It’s what had brought her to the saints in the first place, only she’d infiltrated so deeply that she’d never got herself back out again. Here, she’d used that same skill to soften up McQueen.

  “Look,” she said. “Both sides screwed up last time. You guys were hungry, and we were scared. Some crap started and then got out of hand.”

  That was disingenuous, considering that Miriam had been among those most strongly advocating the move to destroy and scatter the squatter camp. Her explanation was of the “mistakes were made” variety. Surely, McQueen would see through it.

  But no. “I wasn’t here yet,” McQueen said, “but I heard. Ugly stuff. But I see why you’re jumpy. My dad joined the brush war in Kansas, fighting to keep the government from taking his corn. So I understand trying to protect what’s yours. I get it.”

  “That’s pretty much it right there.”

  “You still didn’t need to come in here shooting.”

  “Like I said, we screwed up.”

  The conversation faltered. McQueen stared at them, seemingly undecided. He glanced up at David at the .50-caliber machine gun, and the scowl refreshed itself.

  Jacob whispered to Eliza to bring out the food. Turning back to McQueen, he said, “We brought you something. No obligation. And it’s not a lot, but we can’t spare much. Not at the moment. It’s just to show our intentions are peaceful.”

  McQueen watched as the three of them hauled out the food and set it in the road. “What is it, wheat?”

  “Dried peas. Flour. Oh, and powdered milk.”

  McQueen’s eyes flickered at this last bit. So he had food—that part hadn’t impressed him. But powdered milk was something more valuable. Interesting.

  “And you don’t want anything at all in return?”

  “Peace. A chance to go back to before things screwed up.”

  “Too late for that. But I can tell you that if you stay out of our way, we’ll stay out of yours.”

  “Fair enough,” Jacob said. “How are things out there, anyway? Heard anything from the government lately?”

  “Government? There’s no government.”

  “What about the army?” Miriam asked. “We know there were irregular troops out there. I’m sure some of those guys are still lurking around.”

  McQueen shook his head. “Haven’t seen anything like that. A few bandits on horse up north of Panguitch, that’s about it.”

  “Panguitch still abandoned?” Jacob asked.

  The last time he’d been there was around the time the squatter camp formed at the reservoir. He and David had scavenged the abandoned hospital for supplies. There had been a few ranchers and such still hanging on, but otherwise the town had been taken over by starving dogs and tumbleweed.

  “Not a soul in sight,” McQueen said. “Other places are the same. Parowan burned to the ground. Tropic is covered with drifting sand. There’s no town or settlement of any kind within fifty miles.”

  Really? Then who is feeding you?

  Curiosity was gnawing at him, but he didn’t want to put the man on his guard.

  “I’d like to drive on through to check things out,” Jacob said. “But we’ll have to come back this way to get home. So I want to make sure we have an understanding.”

  “What kind of understanding?”

  “That we’ll have free passage. That you’ll open the highway and won’t block it again before we get back.”

  “Do that,” Miriam added, “and we’ll have trouble.”

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t do that,” Jacob said quickly. “But I want to be clear up front.”

  “See, I can’t allow you through,” McQueen said. “Not yet. You want something from us, you’ve got to give us something in return.”

  “We gave you food,” Miriam grumbled. “And you have no right to block our highway, anyway.”

  “It’s a state highway,” McQueen said with a smile.

  “Which you have already pointed out no longer exists,” Miriam said.

  “Exactly.”

  The atmosphere was growing antagonistic again, so Jacob moved to defuse it. “Looks like your boots are worn through. And I’ll bet you could use a few wool blankets. I could give you ten. Also, I could probably spare another hundred pounds of powdered milk.”

  “When?”

  “How about Monday?”

  McQueen scoffed. “You think I know what day it is?”

  “Today is Saturday,” Jacob said. “Tomorrow is Sunday, and I can’t do it on the Sabbath. So, two days from now. Do we have a deal?”

  “Got any meat?”

  “Not a lot. But I could bring up maybe twenty pounds of jerky.”

  “Jacob,” David called down from the Humvee. “Are you sure about this?”

  “Make it fifty pounds of jerky,” McQueen said. “And ten pairs of boots. Twenty blankets. Do that and we’ve got a deal.”

  Jacob shook his head. “Not for the right to drive past your camp.”

  “Then forget it.”

  “We’re going through here.” Jacob felt his temper rising. “You can make it difficult. But you can’t stop us.”

  “Yeah? You might be surprised.”

  “Is that a game you want to play?” Jacob asked. “Fine.”

  He turned to go. It was only half bluff.

  “Come back on Monday,” McQueen said when Jacob was halfway to the truck. “Bring that stuff you said. We’ll let you up and back one time. After that, w
e’ll see.”

  Jacob turned back. He met the man’s gaze, then slowly nodded. “It’s a deal.”

  “What a crock,” Miriam said from the backseat when they were in the truck and driving down toward Blister Creek. David remained up top at the machine gun.

  “What’s that?” Jacob asked.

  “He was bluffing,” Miriam said. “You didn’t have to give them a thing. We could have forced them to open the gate for nothing.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Jacob said. He glanced at Eliza, sitting in the seat next to him. “What do you think?”

  His sister chewed on her lower lip. “Something was off. I can’t place it.”

  “You know what we do?” Miriam said. “We go home, we gas up Steve’s armored car. Grab Lillian, Stephen Paul, and Sister Rebecca. On our way we pick up the Smoot brothers. We can be back here in an hour.”

  “Then what?” Jacob asked. “Blast our way through?”

  “No need,” she said. “They’ll back down when they see we mean business. If they don’t, if they play games when we get back from Panguitch—or wherever you want to go—then we make them pay.”

  “Oh, I get it,” Jacob said. “Tear up their camp again. Mow down a bunch of hungry refugees. Is that about right?”

  Miriam didn’t answer.

  “Is it just me, or did that McQueen guy seem well fed?” Eliza asked.

  She’d seen it too, Jacob thought.

  “Sure,” Miriam said. “He’s the head of the camp. If he doesn’t eat, nobody does.”

  “Except there were a bunch of kids and old people too,” Eliza said. “We didn’t see many people like that in Las Vegas. None of them made it.”

  “Which means the whole camp is getting fed,” Jacob said.

  “Hmm,” Miriam said. “You’re sure?”

  “McQueen was nonchalant when we unloaded the food,” Jacob said. “The only thing that got him excited was the powdered milk. Then he asked for meat, not more grain. They’re not starving.”

  “I don’t see how he could be getting food shipments,” Eliza said. “They shut down the camp at Green River because they couldn’t feed refugees anymore. So it’s hard to imagine shipping it another two hundred and fifty miles.”

  “The only thing I can think is Alacrán and his irregulars again,” Jacob said. “Feeding the camp to be a thorn in our side.”

  “Yeah, that doesn’t make sense either,” Miriam said. She’d turned around and was messing with the guns, a sure sign that she was still nervous. “We bloodied Alacrán’s nose last time around. We haven’t heard a peep from them since last year.”

  “Are you really going to give them more of our food?” Eliza asked. “And blankets and boots too? Just so we can use the highway without coming under attack?”

  “An attack we could brush off like a mosquito bite,” Miriam added.

  “The weather is straightening out,” Jacob said. “That means there’s nothing stopping us from rebuilding, from going out, finding others, and starting it all over again.”

  “There’s nobody out there,” Miriam said. “And nothing left to rebuild.”

  “I’ve got to agree with Miriam,” Eliza said. “It feels like we’ve fallen into a deep well and can’t get out.”

  “A well is a good place to be when there are bombs going off overhead,” Miriam said.

  Both women had a point, Jacob thought. Blister Creek had fought through another winter. Most of the modern comforts were gone: flushing toilets, hot showers, cheap electricity for washing and cooking. Clothes that wore out and could be replaced for a few bucks. Internet, telephone service. Even the radio was dead; there was nothing but crackling and the occasional static-filled voice from hundreds of miles away that would appear and vanish like a ghost. Maybe if they had a more powerful transmitter they could reach someone, but so far, nothing. It appeared that the world no longer existed beyond the valley and its reservoir.

  Yet Blister Creek itself had adapted. For now.

  He was not as confident in their long-term chances. Medicine was a problem. Tools could not be replaced. Even their once vast stores of diesel fuel needed rationing. Some day the hydro turbines would break and the solar panels would stop working.

  If civilization as a whole didn’t rebuild, the survivors would sink further and further into anarchy and chaos until they faced another Dark age. It might last for generations. 600 AD all over again, except with millions of guns and endless stores of ammunition.

  “Someone has to take the first step,” he said. “Why can’t it be us?”

  “The only rebuilding will come in the Millennium,” Miriam said. “But first the world must be cleansed with fire.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Yes, we do,” Miriam said.

  There was no use arguing with a fanatic, and when Eliza said nothing, but simply stared glumly out the window, he didn’t want to engage her either. Frankly, he didn’t want to know. If she’d gone down the same path as David and Miriam, then what?

  Then he’d be alone.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Miriam was in sacrament meeting when the note fell into her lap. Elder Smoot stood at the pulpit, delivering a passionate talk that compared the burning of the wicked in the Last Days to the need to cleanse one’s own heart of evil desires. He called on the congregation to open to 2 Peter 3:10. When Miriam opened her scriptures, the note dropped out of that exact spot.

  She palmed it and shot a quick glance at David and Lillian. Her husband was reading the scripture himself, while her sister wife was helping Miriam’s son Diego search through his own Bible. David’s third wife, Clarissa, was nursing her baby, half-dozing in the way of exhausted new mothers.

  Miriam shifted her daughter Abigail to her other knee and used the toddler to block the note from the view of David and Lillian. She gave it a quick glance, felt her pulse quicken, then tucked the note into the back of her scriptures.

  Smoot’s voice turned into a drone as Miriam’s thoughts circled the note’s contents. When the meeting ended, she handed Abigail to Lillian. “Could you bring her home and get her down for her nap? I’m going to take a quick walk through town.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Trying to clear my head. Thinking about this thing at the reservoir tomorrow.”

  Miriam lingered outside the chapel while the congregation dispersed. Women in long dresses and braided hair pushed strollers, while men with beards spoke in earnest tones, discussing crops, speculating on the wars and rumors of wars and other, more trivial issues. Elder Smoot strolled past, his cane tucked under one arm, two of his wives following him down the sidewalk, themselves trailed by a dozen children.

  Smoot gave Miriam a curt nod, which she returned. He no longer seemed to believe that she meant to overthrow priesthood authority in Blister Creek, yet neither had he warmed to her as an equal in the community.

  Was it you? she wondered. Did you put the note there on the scripture you intended to read from the pulpit?

  What a strange thing that would be. Elder Smoot, one of the senior members of the Quorum of the Twelve, and full of patriarchal vigor. A staunch opponent of the Women’s Council and a man who still offered to trade his daughters to other men in marriage, who told his sons when they could or could not take a wife. Not openly defiant of Jacob, per se, but certainly violating the prophet’s intentions.

  Miriam waited until the last children had been shooed along by their mothers, the last old woman had hobbled away. When they were gone, she crossed the empty parking lot toward the temple, her scriptures in hand. After making sure nobody was watching, she slipped into the sandstone fins behind the building. Soon, she was out of view, in the deep shadows cast by the looming stones.

  Unlike most of the church members, Miriam had not grown up in Blister Creek, and the labyrinth filled her with unease. People could
and did get lost among the strange, twisting formations. People had seen dark angels. Conspirators had met beneath the frowning overhangs. The Kimball cult had used Witch’s Warts to infiltrate Blister Creek, emerging near the temple to work their evil. Witch’s Warts was a strange and savage place, but the only spot where she could be assured of solitude.

  So she picked her way a hundred yards or so in, careful to study landmarks, before stopping in a clearing. A giant knee of sandstone rose to her left, while to her right sat a wide, overturned bowl of red stone the size of a house and the shape of a turtle shell breaking the surface of the sand. Behind her, two narrow fins closed in so tightly they were nearly kissing.

  A whiptail lizard came strutting and bobbing through the sunny patch in the middle of the clearing. When Miriam moved, it broke into a sprint, flew across a dune, and disappeared down the other side. A crow cawed from deeper into the maze.

  Miriam opened her scriptures and removed the note. She read it again.

  The Hour of Destruction is nigh. There shall be no rebuilding, no truce, no accommodation with evil. This wicked world shall not know peace until the return of our Redeemer. Then shall the earth be cleansed.

  These things thou knowest in thy heart. Error has entered this holy valley, and only the blood of the faithful shall resist the machinations of the Enemy. Yea, even the Father of Lies.

  Sundown, Yellow Flats.

  Miriam turned the paper over. There was nothing on the other side.

  The note wasn’t explicitly addressed to her. Maybe it had fallen into her hands by accident. Yet it had been in her scriptures. Her name was written on the title page inside the black leather cover.

  Then perhaps it had come to her late. Who was to say that today was the meeting at Yellow Flats? Maybe the note was weeks or months old and she’d missed it earlier.

  Except the note had fallen directly from 2 Peter, the exact chapter chosen by Elder Smoot for his reading. That explained Smoot’s significant look after church. He must have called the meeting at Yellow Flats, had known Miriam would open her Bible to that spot because it was his sermon and he knew she always followed along in her scriptures.