Hell's Fortress (11 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

By the third day after leaving Colorado City, Kemp had climbed into the mountains on the opposite side from Cedar City. He’d entered the dunes on the first night, followed the highway north the following day, then spent another night camping in the desert. On the third afternoon the highway lifted him into cooler elevations. In late afternoon he discovered a luxurious log home next to a crystalline mountain lake. He left his rifle with the horse, drew his Beretta, and approached the house.

There was nothing of value inside. Not that he needed food, thanks to Shepherd and Alacrán, but after two lean years he’d developed the finely tuned senses of a scavenger. People appeared to have squatted in the house over the winter. In a shed around back, he discovered what remained of them, more than a dozen bodies, thin and starved. And stinking. He shut the shed door and turned away, fighting nausea and anger.

What kind of world was this? People starving—children, even—and yet in Blister Creek they sat down every night to dinners of roast chicken, potatoes, and gravy. No, they weren’t responsible for this crisis, but maybe if people in general weren’t so damn selfish there would be enough for everyone.

Kemp came around to where his two horses were grazing on what remained of the front lawn. Even though he’d been changing mounts, three days of riding had left the animals exhausted. Especially the chestnut mare; she could use a day grazing at the lake and resting. And maybe he could spare it; the roadside campfire he’d spotted earlier in the day was two days cold. Even on foot his quarry had made remarkable strides climbing the mountain road. He didn’t think he’d catch them before they got to Cedar City on the other side of the mountains. Better to enter the desert well rested.

He eyed the abandoned vehicles in the driveway. Too bad he couldn’t drive out of here. But if the inside of the house was scavenged clean, what chance did he have of finding gas in one of the trucks?

Boot prints.

There they were, stomped in the dirt on the driveway. It hadn’t rained in a few days and they were still clear. Kemp measured one of his boots against them. He identified at least three different prints, maybe four, one of which belonged to either a woman or a younger boy. He’d bet anything that it belonged to one of the Christianson women. Could be Jacob’s sister, or the one who’d drawn a gun on him when he was standing over his mother’s dead body.

He drew his gaze up the driveway, where he made an even more startling discovery: a large rectangle on the pavement. It was a cleaner spot where a missing vehicle had sat without moving for months. The vehicle was now missing.

“You bastards. You grabbed a set of wheels, didn’t you?” He took a closer look. The other trucks had their gas caps removed. “And enough gas to drive out of here. Damn.”

Kemp came around the truck and drew short in surprise. A man jogged down the highway toward the house, coming from the direction of Cedar City. He wore a light backpack and carried a rifle. He spotted Kemp and staggered to a halt. He lifted his rifle and fumbled with the safety. The two men were no more than forty feet apart.

Kemp dropped to one knee as he drew his Beretta. His opponent was slow to bring his rifle to bear and this gave Kemp a chance to aim. He snapped off two shots.

The other man collapsed. As he fell, Kemp got a good look at his face, now contorting in pain. A stranger.

Kemp approached the man warily. He’d seen all manner of tricks among Islamist militias in the war. The enemy might have a bulletproof vest, be lying there uninjured and waiting, then produce a gun and blow off Kemp’s head when he got too close.

But when Kemp rolled the man over, he forgot those worries. The man groaned in pain. His hands clutched at his stomach. Kemp dropped to his knees and pulled away the hands. The man’s guts looked like hamburger meat stirred up with a jar of strawberry jam.

Kemp let out his breath. “Damn it. Why did you draw? I didn’t want to shoot you.”

“I didn’t know, I—” The man stopped with a grimace.

The man looked to be in his early thirties, with a receding hairline and auburn stubble on his chin. Slender, but with loose skin around his neck like a man who had once been huskier. Sweat drenched his clothing as if he’d been jogging for some time.

“It didn’t have to go this way,” Kemp said. “What were you thinking?”

“Thought you were . . . one of the polygs.”

“Why would you think—? Wait, are they still up here?”

“Don’t know. Escaped.”

“You were hunting them?” Kemp asked. “Did they do something? Tell me, I’m not your enemy.”

“Thieves. Gibson wants them dead. Please.”

“He sent up one guy?”

“There’s a reward.” He winced. “Need the food. Others searching desert. I thought . . .
help me.
”

Ah, so this man had set off on his own. No doubt the fundamentalists
had
continued west. Christianson’s sister was on her way to Los Angeles. But this particular man thought maybe they’d doubled back to the east to lose the pursuit. Not a crazy idea.

What
was
crazy was thinking he’d take them on his own. And on foot so many miles from town. Kemp was one person and had easily taken this man down. What chance would the man have had against the four from Blister Creek? Zero.

Another groan from the injured man. “Don’t let me die. Please.”

“I’m sorry, I really am. You came around the corner so fast, and then you were drawing your rifle. What was I supposed to do? Man’s got to protect himself.”

“Need a doctor.” His face was turning white with shock.

“The one doctor I know only takes care of his own. He wouldn’t help you. And he’s a three-day ride from here anyway.” Kemp shook his head sadly. “There’s nothing I could do.”

“I can’t die. My kids, if I don’t work—”

Kemp couldn’t take any more. Before the man could finish that thought, explain why it was so important that he, in particular, live, he sprang to his feet and paced back toward the horses. Behind him, the man stopped talking and cried out in pain.

Dammit. Why?

When Kemp reached his horses, back to grazing now that they’d calmed from the noise of the gunshots, he turned around and looked at the poor fool writhing on the ground. Kemp was no medic, but he’d seen plenty in the war. The man was as good as dead. His body may not know it, may struggle on for an hour or two, but it was inevitable.

He drew his rifle from its holster on the mare’s saddle and pulled back the bolt to chamber a round. The M40 had an effective range of almost one thousand feet, but the injured man was only thirty feet away. Kemp didn’t bother fishing out the scope. He lifted the rifle to his shoulder.

It’s a mercy. It will save him pain.

The man lifted his head to look for Kemp. When he saw the rifle, he stared.

Kemp squeezed the trigger. The 7.62 mm round took off the man’s forehead. The rifle shot rolled through the mountains, echoing for several long seconds. The man lay motionless on the ground in a mess of brains and blood.

It was with a heavy heart that Kemp walked back up the road to squat by the dead man and search his possessions. His bag held a canteen and some homemade fruit leather—apricot by the smell of it. A box of shells and two books of matches. A hunting knife in a sheath. And a wallet.

Inside the wallet Kemp found several hundred dollars (worthless), credit cards (worthless), and a Utah driver’s license. Andrew La Salle. Thirty-three years old. Five foot eleven, 220 pounds. Two hundred twenty? Not recently.

La Salle.
Kemp had a buddy from the army with that name. He hadn’t looked anything like this guy, but the name took Kemp back to Iran. The shelling, the gunfire, the death everywhere. He pocketed the wallet and stood looking down at the dead man. What a waste of life.

After a few minutes of consideration, Kemp hoisted La Salle’s body over the back of his spare horse and tied him down. It wasn’t sentimentality over the shared name with his army buddy that made him do it, and it wasn’t guilt. He’d begun to form a plan.

The horse flared its nostrils and danced around before Kemp could calm it. When he had, he retrieved the dead man’s rifle, climbed into the saddle of the other horse, and set off again.

Kemp crossed the summit after dark and fought his way downhill another two miles before stopping for the night. He slept a few yards from the dead body to keep it safe from scavengers. An animal kept snuffling through camp—maybe a bear—and he slept fitfully, his pistol under his bedroll. When he did sleep, he dreamed about his dead buddies from the war: Bentley, Eibling, Harlow. And La Salle, with his round glasses and the harmonica he’d play at night to calm their nerves. He’d been playing that harmonica at the campfire one night when the mortar rounds came flying into the base. One minute La Salle was there, the next there was nothing. Kemp found the man’s glasses the next morning about thirty feet away from their campfire. Not broken, not so much as scratched.

The following morning, Kemp discovered that what he’d taken for the top had only been a false summit, and another climb, this time through snow-covered heights, awaited him. It was midmorning before he reached the true summit and late afternoon before he rode down from the foothills into the outskirts of Cedar City. He rounded a switchback and came upon a cemetery with hundreds of fresh graves. Three men with rifles were lurking in the scrub oak and shouted a challenge as he approached.

He dismounted with his hands held high. When they approached and discovered the dead body, he shared a sad story. Kemp had sent La Salle into an abandoned home to forage for food while he checked out the vehicles to see if they had any salvageable fuel. The polygamists had ambushed them and murdered La Salle in cold blood.

The gunmen listened with their faces hardening into skepticism. La Salle they may know, but who the hell was this guy?

“Name is Joe Kemp. I’m an army scout and sniper. Been watching Blister Creek for a long time. I know where they went. Let me talk to Gibson. You let me see him and I swear to God I’ll bring these fundies to justice.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jacob was at the cabin at Yellow Flats, trying to raise St. George or Cedar City on the shortwave, when two men came galloping down the dirt road from the direction of the highway. His wife, Fernie, sat at a card table on the porch, transplanting tomato seedlings. Other women and teenagers worked around the property taking plants out of Sister Rebecca’s greenhouse or turning spades in the vegetable garden. It was time to take a risk and do some planting. Other women worked at an old-fashioned loom or dipped tallow candles.

Fernie was the first to spot the men on horseback. “Riders!”

Jacob snatched up his rifle and shouted for the women and children to arm themselves. The Kellen boys came running in from the fields, abandoning their plow and mule team. Within moments, the cabin bristled with weapons. Then Rebecca, binoculars raised, called out that it was two of their own. Safeties clicked and rifles lowered.

The only news that came by galloping horse was bad news, so Jacob turned off the radio, which crackled with static, and came down from the porch. Work resumed behind him. The riders stopped near the creek, their horses lathered and blowing, and waited for him to approach. It was Stephen Paul and Jacob’s brother David.

David slid out of the saddle and Stephen Paul followed, but stiffly, with a hand at his back. Yesterday, in surgery, Jacob had removed a splinter of wood from the erector spinae muscles in his lower back.

David wiped sweat and dust from his face. “We tried to signal you from the cliffs. I must have flashed fifty times.”

Batteries were scarce and Jacob only used the hand radios in an emergency, but they’d worked out a system for flashing mirrors in the daytime, and blinking electric lights at night. From the Ghost Cliffs you could signal the northern edge of the valley (including Yellow Flats), then to the temple spire in the center of town, and from there anywhere in the valley.

“I wasn’t watching,” he admitted. “I’ve been on the shortwave trying to get through to Cedar City. What’s going on?”

“There are strangers at the reservoir,” David said. “Squatters.”

The reservoir? That was above the northern edge of the valley, which Jacob had assumed was still sealed by the quarantine.

“We rode up to check out the dam,” David continued. “The smaller turbine has been acting funky. We thought we’d have a ride around the reservoir while we were at it.”

“That’s when we found the camp,” Stephen Paul said.

“How many are we talking about?” Jacob asked. “Like Kemp’s group?”

David shrugged. “Maybe twice as big? Hard to say. We didn’t stick around to count. Two men whipped out guns the moment they caught sight of us.”

“You know the old picnic area on the north side?” Stephen Paul said. “They’re dug in pretty good. Fishing, hunting. Pitched tents and lean-tos. Someone is building a cabin out of a couple of turned-over wagons.”

Jacob let out his breath. Where had they come from? Panguitch was the nearest town to the north, and it had been abandoned since last fall. So had all the ranching and farming communities throughout south central Utah on this side of the mountains. The nearest population center was—where?—the Green River refugee camp? Suddenly, he had his answer.

“Want me to gather the quorum?” Stephen Paul asked. “Most of the men are in town already. I can fetch the others quick enough. We could meet in the temple this afternoon.”

“If we do that, Smoot will agitate to send a raiding party and drive them off.”

“I’m sure he would,” Stephen Paul said. “And maybe he’d be right. Remember what happened with the school bus? Smoot’s son is dead, another son missing.”

“That was a drone attack, not the fault of the refugees. We told them to leave and they left.”

“You
bribed
them to leave,” David said. “We can’t do that every time.”

“No, we can’t,” Jacob admitted. “And it seems that the quarantine is lifting or these people wouldn’t be so close. This might be only the beginning.”

“What is today, May thirty-first?” Stephen Paul asked. “It’s been four days since the school bus showed up. These squatters at the reservoir have been there at least a week, based on what I saw. I can’t figure out what drew them here. It’s the middle of nowhere.”

“
We
drew them,” Jacob said. “Somehow, word is spreading. It must have reached Green River. Look, maybe they only want safety. They know we’ve cleared out the bandits. Would it kill us to leave them be? They can have all the fish and game they can take—it won’t hurt us any. They haven’t approached us, haven’t asked to enter Blister Creek. Haven’t come begging for food.”

Stephen Paul took off his gloves and slapped them over his saddle. “Or maybe they’re waiting for their numbers to grow and then they’ll force their way in. Like what the Egyptians did to Israel a few months ago.”

“First of all, that was three million refugees. This is a few dozen. Besides, the Egyptians failed.”

“They failed because the Israelis obliterated their camps,” Stephen Paul said. “And we have a few dozen
now.
What about a year from now?”

“We can’t let that happen,” David said.

Stephen Paul nodded. “The Lord guided our ancestors here and prepared it for our use. We took the desert and made it bloom. The world mocked us, persecuted us. Even our Mormon brothers abandoned us to scorn. But we persisted. For generations we have prepared for this day.”

“Whatever else you believe,” David said, “this is our sanctuary and home. Our families, our children. If this isn’t the time to defend ourselves, when is?”

They made a compelling argument, but Jacob shrank from the implications. A doctor healed, he didn’t raise his fist in anger. Yes, circumstances had forced him to act, and he had taken human life before. But even killing his enemy, Taylor Kimball Junior, had delivered equal parts guilt and peace. This? This would be different. This would be Jacob instigating violence.

He turned to David. “What should we do about it?”

His brother frowned. “I—I need to think. If Miriam were here . . .”

“I want your opinion, not hers.”

“Stephen Paul is right. We have to root them out. Drive them away.”

“Why? Not his thoughts, yours.”

“Because the camp will grow. And then it will be harder.”

“Trap one rat in the granary today,” Stephen Paul said, “or kill a hundred tomorrow.”

“That sounds like something my father would have said,” Jacob said.

“Or Elder Smoot,” David said. He sounded more confident now. “Or Miriam, or Sister Rebecca, or any of a hundred other people in Blister Creek. What would a doctor say about stopping cancer?”

“Excise the tumor before it metastasizes.”

“Exactly. If you don’t, the lump grows and you’re forced into more aggressive measures. Double the chemo, throw in radiation treatment, cut out more tissue. Practically kill the patient in order to save him. Isn’t that about right?”

“Close enough,” Jacob said.

Conceding the point was one thing. Contemplating the logistics was another. Jacob imagined galloping in at night with torches like a mob of Ku Klux Klan. Tearing down tents, bashing people with rifle butts. And if the refugees fought back, what then? A battle. Deaths.

“Then we gather the quorum,” Stephen Paul said. “If we make it our idea, not Smoot’s, we can make sure it’s done with a minimum of bloodshed.”

He put on his gloves and prepared to hoist himself into the saddle. His horse had been cropping at the grass and gave him a weary look.

Jacob put a hand on his shoulder. “No, wait.”

The two men looked at him.

“Before we start a cycle of violence,
we try the gentler path.”

Stephen Paul looked doubtful. “What do you mean?”

“We have to give them a chance. We’ll ask them to leave, first. And warn them of the consequences.”

“I get it,” David said. “You’re going to politely ask the tumor to recede.”

“It’s not a tumor, it’s a camp of human beings. Let’s not forget that.”

Still, Jacob needed a proper show of force. Blister Creek had a reputation, earned with bloodshed during the fight to put down the Kimball clan’s violent power play. The outside world knew about the gas attacks, the armed assault. Had probably even heard about Jacob’s cousin driving a Winnebago packed with explosives into the army base last fall.

Let them see we are strong. Give them something to fear.

No horses. This was the time to burn some of their precious diesel fuel.

Two years earlier, when Jacob’s father died at the hand of the Kimballs, Stephen Paul had shown him the dead prophet’s final secret: nine hundred thousand gallons of diesel fuel buried in tanks behind the abandoned service station south of town. Abraham Christianson’s last preparation to survive the coming of the Great and Dreadful Day of the Lord.

The three men rode out from Yellow Flats to spread the word. That afternoon, twenty-five armed saints met in front of the temple, arriving on foot and on horse. Jacob, David, and Stephen Paul had lined up pickup trucks in the road.

Elder Smoot was the last to arrive. He looked tired and irritable. He dismounted, pushed back the brim of his hat, and studied the trucks through narrowed eyes. “You’ve been holding out on me, Christianson? Where did you get the fuel?”

“I’ve been saving a few gallons for an emergency,” Jacob said.

“Oh, yeah? Enough to run the plows? Because it’s the devil’s work doing it behind a mule team.”

“No. Not enough for that.”

The irony of the fuel was that Jacob didn’t dare use it. Didn’t dare admit he had it. Only a handful knew it existed. The instant the army suspected, they would send someone in to confiscate it, quarantine or no.

Smoot grunted. He had three of his surviving sons with him. Yesterday evening these men had lowered Bill Smoot into a grave between Bill’s grandfather and a brother who had died as an infant. The remains were too charred to dress him in his temple clothing, so the green apr
on and white robes lay stacked neatly next to him in a simple pine coffin. Ready to put on when Bill Smoot rose on the morning of the first resurrection.

Which, according to the elder Smoot, could be expected any day now.

But if not, Jacob had dryly noted, Smoot was still young, his loins still fruitful. His wives fertile. He had the tools to forge a dozen more sons before he was done. Oh, and maybe a few daughters too. It was all bravado and stoicism in public, but the bags beneath his bloodshot eyes told a different story.

Jacob was risking his own family. His brothers David, Joshua, and Phillip, plus David’s second wife, Lillian. Stephen Paul’s wife, Carol, had arrived, together with his oldest son. The Johnsons had sent young men, as had the Youngs, the Griggs, and several other families. It was a solid, if zealous group. Rebecca Cowley had ridden out from Grandma Cowley’s cabin at Yellow Flats, making her the third and final woman. The party milled about on the temple lawn, waiting for Jacob to speak.

He raised his voice. “You know why we’re here. You know what we’re doing.”

They drew closer, faces grim in the lengthening shadows. Behind them, the red spires of Witch’s Warts glowed flaming red with the light of the dying sun.

There were times when it paid to speak as a prophet. Calculatingly, even somewhat cynically, Jacob did so now.

His voice boomed. “We are armed. Not with guns and grenades, but with the sword of truth and the breastplate of righteousness. The forces of Satan cannot stand before us. If they raise arms against the servants of the Lord, we shall cast them down to hell.”

He glanced around the group. Stephen Paul looked proud, Smoot impressed. Lillian and many of the younger men stared in awe. Alone among the group, David looked skeptical, one eyebrow raised a fraction of an inch.

Oh yeah?
that look said.
Then why do we have guns? Why not march in there unarmed and drive them out in the name of the Lord?

Jacob folded his arms and bowed his head. The others followed. “Let me ask the Lord’s blessing.”

He chose his words carefully. This was the part where he needed faith that he simply did not have. Forget his wife’s certainty; he’d have settled for Eliza’s hopeful longings.

“Our kind and gracious Eternal Father. Thou hast chosen us since the foundation of the earth. Thou hast saved us to be a remnant. Thou knowest the threats of the adversary that gathers against us. Guide our hands. Soften the hearts of our enemies. Let these people depart our lands in peace, that we shall not raise our hands in righteous anger. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”

“Amen,” murmured the group.

“As we lean on the strength of the Lord,” Jacob said, “so shall we be protected only as we obey His will. We shall show force, but we shall not exercise it. Thus sayeth the Lord.”

This brought a louder “amen,” and a few cries of “thou sayest.” They loaded the trucks. David asked Jacob if he could have a word. The two brothers stepped away from the group.

“What is it you always tell me?” David asked. “Something about how God’s will conveniently matches the desires of people speaking in His name?”