The Gates of Babylon (35 page)

Fernie huddled quietly with her two boys while the officers surrounded her. She said nothing but eyed Jim with a disappointed expression. That look hurt Jim more than any broken wrist bone ever would.

One of the MPs took the back of her chair to wheel her away.

“No,” Jim said. “Leave her alone.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You heard me. We’re leaving her.” Moving gingerly, he wedged his foot in front of the wheelchair to keep it from rolling forward. He wiped his sleeve at the blood that trickled from his forehead and into his eye.

“We have our orders.”

“And I have ten state police officers here. If you push this, it’s going to get ugly in a hurry.”

Jim didn’t know if this was true, or if the state police would slink away with whimpers and tucked-in tails as Killicut had when faced with the mob.

The MP stared back for a long moment. “It’s on your head, sir.”

He gave orders and the soldiers backed out of the lane, weapons at the ready against the people still milling in the street. Jim turned back to Fernie to see a very different expression on her face. Almost pride, but without arrogance. Like someone who has passed a difficult test, although he couldn’t quite figure out where that had come from.

“How did you do it?” Jim asked.

“I had help.”

“I thought so. Never mind, I don’t care. Do you have somewhere to go?”

She hesitated, then nodded. “I believe so, yes.”

“Good, because you understand that I cannot take you out of here with me. Those officers will go back and the general will give them more clear orders this time.”

“I understand, Mr. McKay.”

“You are a brave woman to face down that mob.”

“I wish that were true. I was terrified. I still am.” Fernie pulled her boys in even closer as she said this last part.

Jim had no answer and didn’t think she wanted one in any event. He gestured to the police officers to follow him out of the lane. He didn’t look back until he reached the street, and when he did, the woman was already wheeling herself across the alley.

It was time to return to Salt Lake and await General Lacroix’s wrath. How would it come? Arrest, imprisonment? Maybe even public trial and execution for treason. Jim would fight it, of course, and his brother would come up with some scheme, but he saw no realistic way to survive this.

So it was curious that a feeling of calm settled over Jim as he watched Fernie Christianson disappear into the alley on the far side of the lane.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Eliza waited at the cemetery for Elder Smoot to arrive. She left her horse at the gates and walked through the darkened gravestones, followed by three other women: Lillian Smoot, Carol Young, and Rebecca Cowley. Each woman carried a gun slung on a strap over her shoulder.

They came to a stop on a hillock in the center of the cemetery, next to Great-great-grandma Cowley’s headstone. Eliza rubbed a thumb over the cold, wet stone. Her fingers found the dates and the sheaves of wheat, all of which she recognized by touch.

Henrietta Rebecca Cowley—1872–1969

Lay Me Up One Thousand Bushels of Wheat

“You’re sure about this?” Lillian said.

What would Grandma Cowley say? Stand up to them? Or, rather,
Look at what happened to me—better back down before you get in trouble
?

“If Smoot pushes,” Carol said, “someone might die.”

“I have to,” Eliza said, “or I
know
they will.”

That stood behind her decision, caused her to gather the strongest three women from her council—the strongest three in town, that was—and enlist them in defying Elder Smoot. They carried assault rifles.

The first men arrived a few minutes later. The women shined flashlights on the riders in turn.

“Get out,” Eliza said when they came within earshot.

“Sister Eliza?” the first man said, squinting into the light. Ernest Griggs and his boys.

“You heard me. Get out. Wait by the gate. Tell anyone else they’re not to enter to cemetery.”

“But Elder Smoot said—”

“I know what he said,” she snapped. “I’m in charge, not Smoot. The prophet said so. You heard Brother Jacob with your own ears, in the Holy of Holies.”

“What should I tell them?”

“Elder Smoot can come in. Nobody else. When he arrives, you tell him I want to talk to him.”

Griggs gave up his argument and waved to his sons. They returned to the cemetery gates. Over the next twenty minutes dozens of horses and trucks arrived. Mostly men, but a few women who had either not received Eliza’s command to return home, or ignored it under pressure from their husbands. All of them stayed outside the gates.

“They’re listening,” Lillian said. “I can’t believe it, but they are.”

“Wait until Smoot shows up,” Rebecca said.

“Where is he?” Eliza wondered. “It’s been more than half an hour since he made the call. He should be here by now.”

Even as she said this, four trucks crept down the highway, followed by another thirty or forty men on horseback. The helicopter still circling Blister Creek illuminated the convoy with its spotlights then returned to covering the center of town. That attention strengthened Eliza’s resolve.

“The army can end this at any moment,” Eliza said.

She’d given Griggs clear instructions, but it was no surprise that Smoot violated them. He didn’t enter the cemetery alone but brought his son Bill and Elder Johnson, all three of them on horses.

“Turn those lights off,” Smoot demanded.

“They can see in the dark,” Eliza said. “And they know we’re here.”

Nevertheless, she turned off her flashlight and tucked it into her pocket. The other women did the same.

“What the devil are you trying to pull, anyway?” he asked. “Where are all the women you promised?”

“There won’t be a fight,” she said.

“The devil, you say. And if you won’t provide the women you promised—”

“Because if there is a fight we’ll all be killed.”

“The Lord will protect us,” Smoot said. “If He is on our side, not one hair shall be harmed. His sword shall fall upon the heads of the wicked, and cleave them unto damnation.”

The women at Eliza’s side muttered at this.

Eliza took a deep breath. “Elder Smoot, by the authority of the prophet, who I represent, I command you to disband your men. Disobey and suffer the consequences.”

This time it was Smoot’s two companions who muttered. Smoot himself fell silent for a long moment. But when he spoke again, his voice was low and defiant.

“I will not, Eliza Christianson. I will defend my home, my faith, and my people. If you will not, then you can join our enemies in hell.”

Eliza unslung her assault rifle, thumbed it to full auto, and aimed it skyward. She squeezed the trigger. The horses reared and whinnied in fear, and the men fought to get their mounts back under control. Eliza emptied the clip.

Rebecca handed Eliza a fresh clip, which she slammed home. Eliza addressed Elder Johnson and the younger Smoot.

“You two go back and send those men home. There will be no fight. Nobody will move against the army or otherwise engage them until Jacob returns to Blister Creek. That is an order from the authorized leadership of the church and town. Go!”

Johnson and the younger Smoot pulled their horses and rode back toward the cemetery gates. Elder Smoot turned as if to follow.

“Not you,” Eliza said, pointing the gun at Smoot’s chest.

“Then what? Am I your prisoner?” His words came out mocking, but there was a hint of fear as well.

“Raymond Smoot, you are under arrest. If you resist, I will shoot you dead. This I swear before God, angels, and these witnesses. Do you understand?”

Smoot stared back, refusing to so much as blink as Rebecca turned on her flashlight and illuminated his face. For a long moment, he said nothing, did nothing but clench his jaw, a vein pulsing in his temple. Glaring.

And then a change. A flicker of his eyes, the barest slump of his shoulders. He still didn’t speak, but she could see the capitulation written on his face. The words didn’t come out, but they were there.

Thou sayest.

The people in the truck fell silent as Jacob drove back into the enemy camp west of Colorado City. Vehicles burned on the side of the road, with dead and dying men sprawled in the snow.

The dead, Jacob could handle. The wounded were another matter.

Two men had left long, blood-streaked trails through the snow along the shoulder. Neither was moving now, but as Jacob slowed to look, he could tell from the position and the mere dusting of snow on their backs that they were still alive.

“I know what you’re thinking,” David said in a warning tone. “And we can’t.”

“I’m a doctor. I can’t flip a switch and turn it off. My mind is triaging injuries, trying to figure out how to stop blood loss and stabilize blood pressure.”

“Jacob, for God’s sake, my wife is dying back here. You can’t stop.”

No, he couldn’t. But it tore at him to leave these men to die. They were no longer enemies; they were human lives. He continued forward, conscience torn.

If there were any healthy, armed bandits left, they kept hidden. The machine gun emplacement Miriam had manned so skillfully sat empty, its gun barrel pointed skyward. Two ropes
dangled from the telephone pole where Alfred had cut the bodies. They undulated and twisted in the wind like snakes. Jacob approached the bridge.

A young man stood in the middle of the span and held out a hand for them to stop. He wore a gray jacket with a Brianhead Ski Resort patch on the upper right chest and several lift passes still attached to his zipper. Jacob recognized him as one of the two men who’d thrown themselves from the van as Miriam shot it up. No sign of the other.

The man squinted against the pickup’s headlights. His face was pale, and he clenched at his shredded jacket on one side. Blood dripped through his fingers to the snow. Jacob stopped the pickup truck. The motor home flashed its brights urgently at his rear.

“You can’t stop here!” David said. “Push him out of the way.”

“Keep going, Brother Jacob,” one of the women pleaded from the backseat. “He’ll try to kill us.”

“She’s right,” David said. “It’s some kind of trap.”

But even as his brother was saying this, Jacob jumped down from the truck and made his way to the injured young man. The man wobbled and Jacob caught him by the elbow.

“Dude, they hit us hard,” the man said, gasping, face pale. “Don’t know where they came from, but somehow they got around us. Scorpion told us—”

“I’m a doctor. Stop talking.”

The injured man blinked, looked more closely at Jacob, and then his eyes widened in alarm. Jacob tightened his grip.

“Let go of me!”

“You want that? Really? If I let go you’ll end up frozen and dead by morning. Nobody else is coming. That what you want?”

“You’re the guy driving that truck, aren’t you? You were shooting at us. Why are you helping me now?”

“I’ll explain later. Come on. We’re not going to hurt you.” Jacob tugged gently but insistently on the man’s arm.

The man stopped resisting. Jacob dragged him around the back of the truck, unzipping the man’s jacket as he did so. He probed at the wound. It was tenderized meat on that side, an absolute mess where the costal cartilage connected with the lowest two false ribs. He’d taken a .50-caliber bullet to the chest, which had hit with the force of a jackhammer. But it was a glancing blow, with no penetration of the chest cavity. Get him out of the elements, bring him into surgery, and he would live.

The people in the back were none too happy to see who would be sharing the dry space beneath the tarp in the truck bed. Alfred, sitting with his dead, shrouded wives, turned on his flashlight then stared in silent fury.

“This man will be alive when we reach Blister Creek,” Jacob told him. “Am I clear?”

“He’s a murderer.” And there was murder enough in Alfred’s expression.

“Alfred,” Jacob said in a warning tone.

“May the blood of the wicked justify the souls of the righteous.”

“Dude,” the injured man said. He wobbled as he tried to back away. “You promised.”

Jacob raised his right arm. “Alfred Christianson. In the name of He who is most holy, do not touch this man or his blood shall cry against thee from the grave.”

Alfred didn’t answer for a long moment. Then he lowered his eyes. “Thou sayest.”

The injured man was still struggling, not trusting this latest pronouncement, but together Jacob and Alfred wrestled him into the back of the truck and beneath the tarp, where he gave up and lay on his back, gasping and moaning.

Suddenly aware that he was standing in the middle of the bridge, leaving both vehicles a target for a counterattack, Jacob ran back and jumped behind the wheel. The women were in a panic and had infected David, who begged him to get them the hell out of there. Jacob tore off toward the town, bracing for attack.

But it never came.

Jacob had no idea how many bandits had died or suffered injury from Miriam’s infiltration and Krantz’s sniping, but that battle in front of the bridge had ended the siege of Colorado City. Nobody waited to ambush them from a boarded-over shop window or came tearing out of a house with assault rifles blazing. And when they headed back into the mountains, they passed through the darkened dunes without seeing a single vehicle.