Blood of the Faithful (4 page)

Jacob didn’t say anything more, and it seemed that all the objections had been voiced.

They reached the cliffs and the reservoir. It was quiet up here, the water lapping against the shore to their right. The floods had receded from the old picnic grounds, leaving behind a thick layer of mud and sticks. Scraps of clothing lay half-buried in the mud, and a single tent pole stood upright with a plastic garbage bag flapping against the side.

A single cut tree blocked the highway, but there was no sign of gunmen hiding in the boulders that had rolled down from the hills to abut the road. They quickly winched the tree out of the way. David went up top to man the .50-cal behind the gun shield, but Jacob told him to keep the gun pointed away from the camp and into the hillside as they approached, so as not to look threatening.

“Pass up that white sheet,” Jacob told Miriam. Then, when Eliza had it, he told his sister to hang it out the window.

Moments later Jacob slowed as they reached the outskirts of the camp. The squatters had dragged more logs across the road and down the shoulder toward the reservoir, with two battered cars without tires pushed up behind to reinforce them. It wasn’t a serious barrier—the Humvee could winch it all out of the way—but it might stop them for thirty minutes or more, plus force them to leave the protection of the vehicle and expose themselves to gunfire while hooking up the winch.

The refugees in the camp must have heard the engine, because several hundred came up to line the road behind the barrier, staring toward the approaching vehicle. Plenty of rifles and shotguns in evidence, but no hostile moves. Not yet, anyway.

A year had passed since the battle up here, and little had changed with the camp’s outward appearance. There were tents and camper trailers and wagons overturned and converted into dugouts. Nobody had bothered to build anything so substantial as a log cabin or a shack with a corrugated metal roof.

But as Jacob stopped the Humvee in front of the barrier and studied the camp more closely, he noticed a few important differences. First, no latrines near the reservoir. After last fall’s bloody battle, precipitated in part because the refugees were polluting Blister Creek’s water supply, Jacob had broken the subsequent standoff a few months later to send in another armed excursion. Not to attack, but to deliver demands. Stop fishing with poison. Shift the camp two hundred yards from the water’s edge. And move the latrines to the other side of the highway.

The moment someone in Blister Creek sickened from cholera, Jacob warned, he would send his forces into the hills and wipe the camp off the face of the earth. But if the squatters respected the town’s water supply, he would leave them be.

The other obvious thing that had changed was the surrounding landscape. Pine and aspen forests had once covered the hillsides above the reservoir. Before the collapse, when the summer sun blasted the valley floor, half of Blister Creek would decamp for the reservoir. They boated and fished and swam, while the cool mountain breeze washed down through the trees, shaking the leaves of the aspens and making the pines sway. They picnicked in the cool shade of the cottonwood trees that grew up to the water’s edge.

But the downside of the extra elevation was the bitter cold and snow that pounded the mountains during the winter. It wasn’t easy to stay warm up here. By last spring, the refugees had already burned up the picnic tables and cottonwood trees from the park, then moved across the road to attack the woods that grew up the mountainside. Now it looked as though some brutal logging operation had attacked the surrounding hills, leaving thousands of naked stumps. There wasn’t so much as a sapling left standing.

“Like goats in a pea patch,” Eliza said, taking it in beside him. “It’ll be fifty years before this grows back.”

Jacob was so shocked by the destruction of their beautiful mountain sanctuary that he was out of the truck before he noticed the other surprising change to the refugee camp.

He was a doctor. His eye naturally went to the children wearing dirty rags for bandages, the old woman bent nearly double by scoliosis, using a ski pole as a cane. A man had a forearm poorly splinted between two flimsy pieces of particleboard. A couple of people were missing limbs. Probably had them sawed off nineteenth-century-style after last year’s firefight. But what Jacob didn’t see was obvious malnutrition.

These people should be starving. They
had
been starving. He’d seen them last spring, hungry and lean and bony. And when Joe Kemp’s band of refugees had come limping into the valley from the south, they’d had that same starved look. Even Steve, when Eliza brought him back from Vegas, hadn’t lost his hollow, hungry look for weeks.

These refugees were not fat by any means. Not even well fed. But they weren’t starving either. And there were several young children and old adults. Not the sort of people to survive a famine.

Something or someone was feeding these people.

He was about to whisper his observation to Eliza, who had come up next to him as Miriam also stepped out of the Humvee. Only David stayed with the vehicle, up top with the machine gun. But then a man stepped over the logs and approached them.

His filthy, layered clothing, unkempt beard, and matted, dirty hair made him look like the homeless men Jacob had seen in Salt Lake when he was a medical resident. The homeless had slept on cardboard mats beneath the freeway overpasses or had come shuffling out of the Salt Lake Rescue Mission. Most were mentally ill or suffering from a substance abuse problem.

But this man carried himself with a confidence that belied his appearance. He wore a pistol in a nylon shoulder holster, like an FBI agent or police detective. The sight of it made Jacob and his companions stiffen.

“Stay calm, all of you,” Jacob said, although the comment was mostly directed at Miriam.

Her typical behavior was to shoot first and then ask questions, except never mind the questions. Who needed to question a dead body? And the dead guy was probably a servant of the devil, anyway.

Thankfully, she remained still, her gun in its own holster. Instead, she met the man’s gaze, her mouth drawn tight, then cast a significant glance up to David at the machine gun. A message and a warning to the approaching man. Jacob could live with that.

The man approached warily until he stood about fifteen feet off. “What do you want?”

“I’m Jacob Christianson. I’m from Blister Creek, and I—”

“Yeah, I know who you are. We all know. Now get the hell out of here before you start another war.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Jacob stared back at the man, unwilling to simply turn around and go home. The man stared back. His expression darkened further.

“I don’t want trouble,” Jacob said. “Keep your people back. We’ll talk. There’s no harm in that.”

For a moment he thought the man would resist, and then there
would
be trouble, but then the man turned to the approaching squatters, some of whom were preparing to come over the barrier.

“Stay calm, all of you. I’ve got this.”

“Send them to the camp,” Jacob said.

The man glared at him for a long moment, then ordered his people back.

Again, they obeyed, retreating into the camp, some seventy or eighty yards distant. There they massed, watching, whispering amongst themselves. They were still too close. A couple of snipers hidden down there could kill Jacob and his companions before they could reach the safety of the vehicle. But that would be the death of the snipers. First, David would light into them from behind the safety of his gun shield. Then the machine gun would chew through the camp, killing hundreds. And then, when Blister Creek heard about the treachery at the reservoir, they’d mount a full campaign.

“So what do you want?” the man said.

“All I want is to talk. But first I brought you something. Can I give it to you?”

“Yeah?” His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What kind of something?”

“What is your name?”

“Go to hell.”

“It’s a name, that’s all.” Jacob was growing impatient. “Do you want to be enemies?”

“Too late for that, asshole. We tried, you came in shooting.”

“You didn’t ‘try’ anything. This is our land, we own it. You invaded, destroying everything and making demands.” As soon as the words came out, Jacob regretted them.

Miriam tapped Jacob’s shoulder. She leaned in and whispered. “Let me talk to him.”

Jacob frowned and gave a slight shake of the head. The last thing he needed was Miriam striking a match to things.

“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, we’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.