Blood of the Faithful (21 page)

There was her quarry. She’d found him, a prisoner inside the pickup truck. And the truck sat isolated from the camp, with only one guard standing watch. Miriam allowed herself a smile.

The Lord had delivered Ezekiel Smoot into her hands.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Miriam put the goggles away as she looped back into camp. She needed to think about what to do and couldn’t stand here gawking while she did. She kept her head down as she walked back through. After a few minutes she cut back around to get another look at the truck.

If there had been any doubt before, it evaporated when she saw the posture of the armed guard relative to the pickup truck. The man wasn’t guarding it from outsiders, he was there to keep the man in the truck cabin from getting out.

And look at how they’d placed the truck. Off the road, but set apart from the camp. They didn’t want Ezekiel in their midst, not while they argued about what to do with him. Ezekiel had probably driven up covered in blood and making demands. They’d taken his keys, told him to stay in the truck, then put someone to guard it.

But yes, they’d have taken the keys. That burst her fantasy of simply jumping inside, holding Ezekiel at gunpoint, and forcing him to drive back to Jacob and David. They could hold a church court instead of Miriam executing him on the spot; Jacob would like that. The guard would be collateral damage, but that couldn’t be helped. But no, not if Ezekiel didn’t have the keys. Probably McQueen had them. And who knew where he was or if she could even get to him.

By the third time she circled through the camp, she was sure the guard was alone. She’d inspected the truck from several angles and had a chance to look along the edge of the camp to make sure nobody else was keeping watch.

Go back. Tell Jacob what you’ve seen. Let him decide.

It was a strong impression, seemingly coming from nowhere. She froze, uncertain if she were hearing her own doubts or the warning of the spirit.

Insofar as thou art faithful and true, thou shalt be protected from harm.

“I
am
faithful and true,” she whispered. “Always.”

It was too good an opportunity to pass up. If she went back, Ezekiel would escape. McQueen and his fellow squatters would find a way to put him to use after they’d gained the valley floor. Maybe they’d mount the .50-cal on the truck, or maybe they’d aim it down from the cliffs while others assaulted the bunker from the road. Maybe they’d even try the rope trick on the cliffs again. Either way, once they reached Blister Creek, Ezekiel could show them every weakness, every vulnerability.

And here she was. One guard plus the traitor. Easy.

But she couldn’t use her gun. She was too close to camp and too far from where Jacob and David could help her escape. There would be other guards south on the road, and she’d have to run that gauntlet with an uproar caused by her gunfire.

Two women walked past carrying firewood toward the fire ring at the center of camp. When they were gone, Miriam reached under her denim jacket and eased her KA-BAR knife from its sheath, then walked with it tucked and hidden along the inside of her forearm.

She strolled out of the camp toward the pickup truck sitting quietly by the highway. Forcing herself to walk at a normal pace, which felt almost melodramatically slow, she approached the truck with no attempt at stealth. The guard spotted her and watched as she approached.

“Hey,” she called. “I have something for you. Are you hungry?”

The guy snorted, as if the question were not worth answering. But he sounded eager when he spoke. “What have you got?”

“Some guy came in from the mountains from cutting wood and turns out they’d trapped a couple of squirrels. Gamey, but it’s fresh.”

“In other words, the same old slop,” he said with a chuckle. “But I’ll take it.”

He propped his gun against the back of the truck as she approached with her left hand outstretched as if it held something. The man’s weapon was a double-barreled shotgun. Definitely for keeping the truck occupant under control, not protecting the vehicle itself from outside attack. But at short range it could turn her to hamburger. Only now his gun was out of reach as she let him step the last few feet toward her. Deluded by his hunger, that mistake would prove to be his death.

Miriam waited until the man reached out his hand, then grabbed his wrist and yanked him forward. He staggered, off balance. She swung the knife around with the other hand and thrust up and in.

He gave a surprised yelp as he came up against her. She shoved the knife into his belly as hard as she could. The force of his movement and her thrust got the first two inches in. Then she pushed off with her feet while hooking him around the neck with her left hand and dragging him down. A groan came out of his mouth and the knife slid up to the haft, all seven inches of blade now under his rib cage. She jerked it viciously back and forth as his legs went out from under him. When she pulled the blade out, he was dead at her feet and her hand was slick with blood.

Miriam shuddered and allowed a moment to recover as she looked down at him. The poor fool had been doing his job; he wasn’t to blame. If she could have spared him, she would have. But it was life and death, the people of God arrayed against the forces of Satan. Circumstances had forced her hand.

A quick glance at the camp showed nothing amiss. Figures moved about in the darkness, but nobody cried out or ran toward her. The guard was dead on the ground. Out of sight. If they looked toward her, they would see only a solitary figure moving in the moonlight outside the truck, exactly as expected.

What now? Sneaking up and gutting a guard was one thing. Trying to knife Ezekiel in the confines of the truck cab another. Miriam was strong for a woman, but Ezekiel was a man and a rancher, six feet tall with broad shoulders and arms. In the open, she had no doubt she could take him, but the cramped space would negate her advantages in training and maneuverability.

And she couldn’t shoot him here. Not so close to the squatters. She had to get him away from camp first.

Miriam sheathed the bloody knife and walked slowly around to the opposite side of the truck so she could come in from the driver-side door out of view of the camp. She couldn’t risk someone catching a glint of moonlight off the door window as she opened the truck. When she passed the back bumper, she grabbed the shotgun propped where the guard had left it. She confirmed that both barrels were loaded.

There was one final concern as she reached for the door handle. Had Jacob set the cab lights to turn on automatically when the door opened? She guessed not—that would be a risk to the battery at a time when it would be hard to recharge—but she wasn’t sure. If so, the cab light would attract interest from the camp, and she’d have no choice but to shoot and run.

Miriam took a deep breath and swung open the door. No lights came on. She aimed the shotgun into the darkened interior, her knee holding the door open. The moonlight caught movement in the interior. A person had been lying down on the bench seat and now raised himself to a sitting position.

“Don’t move,” she said.

The man inside made a small, frightened noise in the back of his throat. “Don’t shoot me.”

Miriam’s heart leaped in triumph. Yes. It was the apostate and traitor.

“Ezekiel Smoot. You will come with me.”

“If I do, will you kill me?”

“No,” she lied. “We’ll go back to Blister Creek.”

“And they’ll kill me there.”

“Brother Jacob will make that decision, not me. He is a merciful man.”

She meant to give him hope. He must know that the others in the Quorum of the Twelve and the Women’s Council would be calling for his death. Slit the throat of the murderer so that his blood would atone for his crimes. But Jacob would argue for compassion. If Ezekiel came peacefully, he had a chance. Or so he would imagine.

“You can’t shoot me,” he said after a few seconds. “It will make too much noise.”

Miriam hardened her voice. “I can and I will. The prophet sent me to bring you back. If I must die to obey him, so be it. The Lord will welcome me on the other side of the veil with open arms.”

“You’re a woman! You’ve got a husband and children. You can’t throw your life away.”

“And I will see them again someday. Try me, Ezekiel. I already killed your guard. I will kill you too.”

None of this was a bluff. She lifted the gun to shoot.

“No! I’m coming, I’m coming.”

Miriam stepped back two paces while he came out. Her movement was automatic, muscle memory from years of FBI training, from all those drug raids. Give sufficient space so that if the enemy did something stupid, he’d have no time to close before she could fire.

That training saved her life.

Ezekiel came out attacking. Shockingly, he still had his machete, and it was this that he swung in a wide arc toward Miriam’s head. It hadn’t occurred to her that McQueen would leave Ezekiel armed. But she wasn’t so shocked she was left without time to pull the trigger. Indeed, her finger was tightening automatically before she remembered not to shoot. At this range, the shotgun would blow a hole right through him. But then the entire camp would come running.

Miriam ducked to one side as the blade whooshed past her head. Ezekiel was off balance, his charge hasty and without skill. She sidestepped him and smashed him in the ribs with the gun butt as he stumbled past.

He came back around, flailing madly. His technique—or lack of it—may have served him well hacking through an unarmed crowd of children and their mothers, but it was helpless against Miriam’s training. She again ducked aside and this time bashed him on the kneecap. He stumbled and fell with a cry, and she hit him between the shoulder blades. He fell flat on his face.

Miriam dropped the shotgun, reached behind her back, and whipped out the KA-BAR knife from its sheath. She drove her knee against the small of Ezekiel’s back as she fell on him. Then she grabbed his hair with her left hand and yanked back his head. At the same time she reached around with the knife and jerked it across his throat.

The blade bit deeply, and Ezekiel’s gathering scream turned into a gurgle and a spasm that nearly pitched her off. Blood gushed onto her hand. He flopped violently. She got the knife free and dragged it across his throat one more time to be sure.

Miriam threw herself backward, gasping and panting from the exertion. Ezekiel struggled on, but within mere seconds he was stilling. His hand twitched, still holding the machete. Then he lay motionless, his throat cut, his blood spilled onto the ground through a severed artery in his neck. The manner of his death hit her.

Without meaning to do so, Miriam had rendered the blood atonement on Ezekiel Smoot. His crime of apostasy was so great that only the spilling of his own blood would allow him some measure of mercy in the world to come. Otherwise, his soul would be cast into Outer Darkness for all eternity.

“You’re welcome,” she whispered. She wiped the knife clean on Ezekiel’s pant leg, then sheathed it as she rose to her feet.

In spite of her hard words, she felt shaky and sick. It was one thing to kill a gentile, another to cut the throat of a man she’d known for years. A saint. Fallen, yes. Apostate, certainly. But still a member of her own community. It took effort to fight down the churning sensation in her gut.

Her left leg hurt, and when she felt at it with her hand was surprised to discover a ragged hole in her jeans, and a superficial, but painful, cut along her thigh. She had no memory of being struck, but he’d apparently grazed her with the machete on one of his lunges. But it was nothing, wouldn’t even require stitches.

Miriam put on the goggles and turned them on. She looked down at the camp. All quiet. Nobody had seen or heard a thing. That was a small miracle in and of itself.

She mouthed a silent prayer as she picked up the shotgun and checked to verify that her pistol hadn’t come dislodged from its holster in the struggle.

Miriam felt better as she reached the road and slipped south along the highway, her goggles still on and nobody appearing between her position and where David and Jacob waited. A surge of triumph rose in her breast, and she remembered her earlier prophesy.

If I’m right, if this is the End of Days, I’ll destroy our enemy and return unharmed this very night.

A smile touched her lips. David had taken it as a boast. Maybe it had been, a little, but going into camp to kill her enemy hadn’t been the time for false modesty. It had been the time to shore up her courage.

“I knew it,” she whispered. “It truly is the End of Days.”

She was so caught up in these thoughts that she almost didn’t notice the movement on the opposite side of the highway. When she saw it, she froze.

That side of the road had once been a park and picnic area. A grassy slope had stretched from the highway down to the reservoir. On hot days, people would flee the oppressive heat of the valley and enjoy the shade of the hundred-year-old cottonwood trees in the park. They would picnic at tables while their children played on the grass or dove from the docks to swim in the reservoir. People would launch fishing boats, and a couple of families even had motorboats for waterskiing.

Those days were long gone. The cottonwood trees had fallen when the squatters arrived. The grass had first grown wild and weedy in the unusually damp weather, then died, unwatered, when the climate turned dry again.

There were a dozen people milling down the slope from the highway, standing around something the rough shape and size of a camper van, only it had strange things sticking out from it at angles. People were circling the vehicle, checking these items. Someone else lay on his belly up top, screwing something down.

Miriam approached cautiously, still looking through her goggles. She had no cover, and there was a small risk that someone would spot her against the moonlight. But it was still plenty dark, and their attention seemed focused on their labors. When she’d crossed the highway, she dropped to her belly and crawled down the dirty, weed-covered slope like an infantry soldier inching beneath barbed wire.

The vehicle was indeed a van, or had been. The objects fastened around the side were bits of metal and boards, together with sandbags and tires—anything that could be attached to give the vehicle protection from gunfire and explosives. The man up top was fastening down the stolen .50-caliber machine gun. McQueen had put together a crude version of the Methuselah tank that had carried Miriam and her companions safely out of Las Vegas last year. And as soon as she recognized what it was, she also knew what they intended to do with it.