Blood of the Faithful (6 page)

It was almost dusk when he and Stephen Paul came sneaking around the back way onto Elder Smoot’s ranch and farm. They dismounted in a dry wash, its sandy bottom glittering with quartz, and tied their horses to a jutting thumb of rock that hung over the wash. Then they proceeded on foot at the bottom of the wash until they were safely past the Smoot compound.

Smoot owned six silos of varying sizes. One double silo held barley on one side and wheat on the other. A third, smaller silo held feed corn. These he used for his own family and livestock, but he was required to report their levels to the church. These checked out, and while Jacob supposed that Elder Smoot or his sons might have been falsely underreporting their harvest, he didn’t think so. The yield per acre had been typical, given the climate issues.

Smoot’s final three silos lay down a dirt road another quarter mile. These stored communal supplies: wheat, milled flour, and dried beans.

Elder Smoot often relied on his own counsel, and Jacob didn’t entirely trust him. Early in the crisis, he’d even suspected that Smoot was preparing to sell a large quantity of the valley’s hoarded grain to keep it out of the government’s hands. After that incident, Jacob had erected a ten-foot chain-link fence around Smoot’s silos and topped it with razor wire. All deposits and withdrawals happened under the watchful eye of the bishop’s storehouse.

The padlocks on the gate were closed, the chains intact. And the fence and razor wire looked undisturbed. After a long, tiring afternoon of taking survey, Jacob was only half paying attention when he put the key into the padlock. It didn’t fit.

He glanced at the key fob, frowning. “What number key did you say again?”

Stephen Paul flipped open the notebook. “Fifteen.”

“This is fifteen.” Jacob tried again. “I must have written it down wrong. Let me see that.”

The notebook looked correct, and the fob definitely said fifteen on it. Had the fob been changed out? He tried again, thinking maybe that in his exhaustion he’d inserted the key upside down or something. No, that wasn’t it. One by one, he went through the other keys. None of them worked.

“I don’t get it,” Stephen Paul said. “Did we change out the lock and forget about it? When was the last time we checked these silos?”

Jacob looked at the notebook. “Not since last July, when Smoot rotated the flour. It was all good, then, assuming he reported correctly.”

“Could be Smoot accidentally broke the key and swapped in a different padlock.”

Jacob and Stephen Paul circled the perimeter. Everything looked good from the exterior. No cuts in the fence, no evidence someone had been messing around getting over the razor wire. The three silos sat silently, nothing seeming to be amiss.

But Jacob’s suspicions were growing. He went back to the horse and removed the bolt cutters from his saddlebags. When he returned, he cut the chain. It clanked as he dragged it out of the gate.

He climbed the feed bin ladder up the wheat silo, and Stephen Paul climbed the one containing beans. By now it was almost too dark to get a good reading, and when Jacob cupped his hand over the glass port to shield it against the setting sun, he doubted at first what he was seeing.

“One ninety-two,” he called over. “The notebook said four hundred something, right?”

Stephen Paul had reached the top gauge of his own silo, and now climbed back down the ladder. He stopped at the lowest checkpoint. “This one’s worse. Whatever the beans are at, it’s below the lowest gauge.”

He tapped the side of the steel silo, which gave off a hollow boom, then descended the ladder, testing the level until he found it. Almost to the bottom.

The third silo—the flour—was more full, but still contained only half what the notebook claimed it should. Jacob turned to catch the dying sun against his notebook and scratched a few numbers. He let out a low whistle.

“How bad?” Stephen Paul asked.

“Roughly, I figure there’s enough missing to feed two thousand people for six months. Or nine months on short rations.” Jacob flipped the notebook closed. “This is it. This is how the refugees are staying fed up there.”

“Why would Smoot do that? He has no love for those people. He wanted to finish the job. He
still
wants us to drive them out or kill them.”

“Don’t assume it was Elder Smoot,” Jacob said. “It might be a coincidence that this is on his land.”

Stephen Paul had been looking back in the direction of the Smoot home, even though the compound lay on the other side of a dusty hillock and out of view. When he turned back, his expression was hard.

“Whoever did this must be destroyed.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Miriam had turned from the highway and was halfway to Sister Rebecca’s cottage at Yellow Flats when she had second thoughts. She’d prayed in Witch’s Warts, she’d received confirmation. Yet the dark feeling settling over her contradicted her earlier impression.

She was about to ride home when the sound of another horse’s hooves reached her ears. She turned to see a man coming down the dirt road behind her, tall in the saddle. It was too dark to see his face, but she could see the long shape of a rifle and scabbard tied to his saddle. Miriam unsnapped the holster of her Beretta, but didn’t draw it. Then she waited.

The man rode his horse around a cattle guard, and slowed as he approached. “Who is that?” The voice belonged to Stephen Paul Young.

“Sister Miriam,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“I was surveying the valley with Brother Jacob. We finished a few minutes ago.”

“Yes, but your home is that way,” she said, pointing east.

“And yours is that way.” He gestured toward the center of town. “So I could ask the same question.”

“I’m here for a meeting of the Women’s Council. Nothing unusual in that.”

“Is that so? Wonder why the Women’s Council would summon me, then.”

Miriam eyed him for a long moment. “Come on. Let’s see what this is about.”

She gave him furtive glances as they rode together toward Sister Rebecca’s cabin. If anything, Stephen Paul was less likely to be working against Jacob than she was. The only people more loyal to Jacob were his own family: his wives, his favorite brother and sister, his mother.

I’m loyal too,
she thought.
That’s why I decided to come.

Sister Rebecca was rocking on her front porch when they arrived. The woman was in her early forties and never married, so far as Miriam knew, although it seemed that there had been some sort of relationship between her and Abraham Christianson that had nearly led to marriage. She was an attractive woman, independent, and skilled with firearms and fixing old equipment. Miriam had always treated the woman with cautious friendliness.

Rebecca had taken the old, abandoned Cowley cabin on Yellow Flats, and cleared and manured the alkaline soil. She’d pruned the wild apple orchard into shape and now raised pigs, chickens, and cattle. Sister Charity, the elderly mother of the dead Kimball conspirators, lived quietly on the property as well, but the older woman was nowhere to be seen at the moment.

Stephen Paul climbed down and tied his horse to the hitching post in front of the porch. But Miriam didn’t dismount.

“Is this it?” she asked. “Just the three of us?”

“No,” a deep voice said from the other side of the porch. “There are five. So far.”

Elder Smoot and another man stepped from the far side of the porch, where they’d been waiting in the shadows, as far from Sister Rebecca as one could manage and still be on the porch. Rebecca lit a kerosene lantern, and Miriam saw that the second man was one of Smoot’s sons, Ezekiel.

Miriam twisted the reins in her hands, prepared to turn the horse around and get out of there. “I might have known you’d be mixed up in any conspiracy.”

“There’s no conspiracy,” Smoot said. “I came to listen, that’s all. Anyway, I didn’t call this meeting, I was invited. My son too.”

“So
you
called it,” Miriam said to Rebecca.

“Not me.” Rebecca held up a note. “I was warned that visitors would be coming. Figured it didn’t hurt to listen. There are some things that have been bugging me for a while.”

“They’ve been bugging all of us, I’d guess,” Stephen Paul said. “That doesn’t mean this meeting is a good idea.” Nevertheless, he trudged up to the stairs, grabbed an empty rocking chair, and sat down next to Rebecca.

“So nobody is in charge?” Ezekiel asked. He turned to his father. “You’re the priesthood elder. You can lead until someone else steps forward.”

“This isn’t a priesthood meeting,” Rebecca said.

“What does that mean?” the younger Smoot pressed. “Of course it is.”

“Easy, son,” his father said.

More hoof clomps, and then another woman rode out of the shadows. Carol Young, Stephen Paul’s oldest wife. She gaped at her husband.

“You?” he said, seeming to be equally surprised. “Did you send the note?”

“Not me,” Carol said. “Was it yours? Didn’t look like it.”

“It wasn’t me either.”

“So
nobody
called the meeting,” Miriam said. “Right.”

Still, she was intrigued enough that she dismounted and tied off her horse next to Stephen Paul’s. She heard the nicker and snort of the Smoot horses around the other side. Carol hesitated, then slid out of the saddle to join her husband.

One more rider arrived. This was Peter Potts, the oldest son of Elder Potts of the Quorum. He was about thirty years old, with two wives and several kids. Before the crisis, the man had been thickening about the waist and thinning up top, sinking into the prosperous lethargy of middle age. But since the collapse he’d thinned down, and the muscles stood out on his shoulders and forearms. He looked ten or fifteen years younger. The same thing had happened to them all, to some extent or other. It was the manual labor, plus the elimination of refined sugars and other processed foods from the diet. Peter had also cut his hair to the scalp and grown a wiry beard, and looked much more formidable.

But Peter also claimed to know nothing about the meeting. And since nobody else seemed to be coming, it was obvious that someone here was lying. Elder Smoot had locked horns with Jacob in the past; he was the obvious choice. But Sister Rebecca kept her own counsel, and Miriam couldn’t rule her out either.

Rebecca retrieved another chair from inside the house, and shortly the four men and three women were sitting in uncomfortable silence as the crickets started up around the cabin. The cliffs loomed to their rear, a black gash with a swath of stars overhead that spread like a bowl over the valley.

“This is pointless,” Elder Smoot said after about ten minutes. “Go get our horses,” he told his son. “We’re going home.”

“Hold on, Father. Someone must have something useful to say.”

“When I saw the Smoots,” Rebecca said, “I assumed this would be a gathering of disaffected believers.”

“I support the prophet,” Smoot grumbled. “Don’t anyone claim otherwise.”

“We all support him,” Rebecca said. A significant pause. “So far as he obeys the will of the Lord.”

“And I suppose you think an unmarried woman knows that better than the prophet.”

“Don’t presume to know what I’m thinking,” she snapped.

“Why did you come?” Stephen Paul asked his wife in a quiet tone.

“Because of things you’ve said,” Carol replied. “You’ve been unhappy. Every time you talk about Brother Jacob, it’s to say he’s holding back, or he’s being soft. That he needs to make hard decisions.”

“I always thought a man could share worries with his wife,” Stephen Paul said.

“Of course you can. And I’ve listened. So much that I started to think that Jacob was making mistakes. I thought I’d come hear what Rebecca had to say. I had no idea you’d be here. Really.”

“Brother Stephen Paul, do you think Jacob is making mistakes?” Rebecca asked. “You spend more time with him than any of us.”

“Maybe, maybe not. He’s a smart man, hardworking. He keeps the community running smoothly. But this business at the reservoir—I don’t know what to make of it. And I don’t see why he needs to get to Panguitch—it seems dumb to hand over food and supplies so we can check out a ghost town.”

“So you
do
think he’s making mistakes,” Rebecca pressed.

Stephen Paul looked uncomfortable at this. “I hate to question the man. Maybe the food thing is a mistake, but I don’t know for sure.”

“Of course it’s a mistake,” Ezekiel said. “And why are we surprised? Jacob is only human, he’s not divine.”

“He’s the prophet,” Miriam said, unable to keep silent any longer. “The Lord won’t let him lead us astray.”

“What makes you say that?” Ezekiel asked.

“It’s in the scriptures. The prophet may not lead the church astray. Tell him, Elder Smoot,” she urged. “Your son seems to need a basic education in gospel doctrine.”

Smoot cleared his throat. When he spoke, he sounded hesitant. “The prophet won’t lead the church astray—we’re promised that. But that doesn’t mean he won’t try. If the prophet
tries
to lead the church astray, the Lord will strike him down, and a new man will be put in his place.”

“Is that what you’re advocating?” Miriam was growing angry. This was verging on apostasy. “Jacob has saved us. He defeated the Kimballs, he threw the army out of the valley. He saved my life personally. I took a bullet in the lungs, and he brought me back from death. He’s my husband’s brother. Who invited me here? What idiot thought I would turn on him now?”

“But Jacob isn’t perfect,” Sister Rebecca said. “He can’t know everything. When he ordered the attack at the reservoir, we almost got wiped out by army irregulars coming up from the south. He didn’t see that coming.”

“What’s more, we never finished the job,” Ezekiel said. “It only left the problem for later.”

“That’s right,” Smoot agreed. “We could have cleared out the squatters once and for all. They were bloodied, we could have put them on the run. Now they’re dug in, armed, and ready to fight back.”

“I’ve heard enough,” Carol said. The shadows hid her face, but her voice was distraught. “This entire discussion is giving me a dark impression. And I don’t want to see where it’s going.”

She rose to her feet and tromped down the stairs from the porch. She untied her horse. “Honey, are you coming or staying?”

“I, um, I think I’ll stay a bit longer.” Stephen Paul sounded uncertain, worried.

“Follow the spirit,” Carol said. “It will speak the truth to your heart.” She climbed into the saddle.

As she did, Peter Potts followed suit. “I’ve heard enough too,” he said as he climbed onto his horse. “I won’t speak against you, but I won’t be a party to it either.”

Moments later, he was trotting down the road after Carol Young.

Peter hadn’t spoken up until that point, and his sudden departure was surprising. Next to the Smoots, the Potts family had the deepest history of rivalry with the Christiansons. Miriam had assumed that Peter was here because he was already known to have doubts about Jacob. Maybe he’d even called this meeting. He seemed as likely a candidate as any of them.

“How about you?” Ezekiel asked Miriam as the sound of their horses’ hooves faded away in the darkness. “Aren’t you going to run off too?”

“Not at all. I want to hear your treachery with my own ears. That way I can testify at your excommunication trials.”

“Let’s all settle down,” Rebecca said. “There’s no treachery here. We’re trying to decide if we need to do anything, that’s all. That might mean nothing more than sitting down with Brother Jacob and explaining our fears.”

“Jacob would be hurt if he could hear us talking,” Stephen Paul said. “He might even offer to step down. But he wouldn’t call a church court either. He’d say we had a right to free discussion.”

Miriam grunted. That much was probably true.

“What do you think about the reservoir scheme?” Elder Smoot asked Miriam.

“I don’t like it at all. Feeding the squatters is the dumbest thing we could do. I don’t think we should attack them, necessarily, but for now I say ignore them, keep them from the valley.”

“What about getting to Panguitch?” Smoot asked.

“That makes more sense to me. Jacob is hoping he can get medicine, but even more, that he can find some sort of community on the outside. A partner to start rebuilding. I understand why. I happen to think it’s a fool’s errand is all.”

“We’re all agreed on that,” Rebecca said. “The Second Coming is nigh. There will be no rebuilding. Jacob can try, but it’s a waste of energy better spent preparing Blister Creek.”

“True enough,” Stephen Paul said.

“Same opinion here,” Ezekiel said. “But the other thing that sticks in my craw is this business with the gentiles. The ones in the valley, I mean.”

“Steve Krantz is one of us now,” Miriam said.

Ezekiel shrugged. “So you say.”

“He was baptized, he married Eliza in the temple.”

“He’s still an outsider.”

“I was an outsider once too. And Rebecca lived for years outside of the church before she came back.”

“It’s not about you, or Steve, or Rebecca,” Elder Smoot said. “There’s Of
ficer Trost’s daughter. She doesn’t belong here. She doesn’t even pretend to believe.”

“She keeps to herself, grows ninety percent of her own food. She’s harmless.”

“Unless the question is purity of the community,” Smoot said. “Then she is not harmless at all.”

“And then there’s Larry Chambers,” Ezekiel said. “As if we need yet another former FBI agent in our midst. Those guys were our enemies for a long time.”

Miriam wasn’t going to argue that point. It was too tricky to answer. And she wasn’t too keen on having Chambers around, to be honest. They should have left him in Las Vegas and let him take his chances there. The way Chambers acted, it was clear he didn’t want to be here either. But she didn’t think the man was dangerous.

“Now that the gentiles are here, we can hardly kick them out again,” Miriam said. “That’s a death sentence.”

Stephen Paul rose to his feet and tramped down from the porch. The others fell silent. Miriam thought for a moment that he’d grown disgusted and was going to ride off and catch up with his wife. But a moment later he came back up. He was holding a small notebook.

“Jacob and I rode around the valley this afternoon to survey the silos and check the grain levels.”

“I was wondering what you meant by surveying,” Miriam said.

“I would have told you if you’d asked. I needed to tell
someone.
”

“I had other worries on my mind.” She nodded at the notebook. “I take it you found something.”

“It’s what we didn’t find.” He flipped it open. “We’re missing several hundred tons of beans, wheat, and milled flour from communal food stores. Jacob thinks someone has been stealing it and giving it to the squatters.”