Righteous03 - The Wicked (7 page)

“Yes, I do. And I’ve found that the hens only complain when the rooster bullies them.”

“No wonder,” Father said.

“No wonder, what?” Jacob demanded.

“No wonder Zarahemla is such a mess.”

“Excuse me? A mess?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s clever how you took control after this other man, this so-called One Mighty and Strong, met his untimely demise. But that’s the time to tighten your grip.” He banged his fist in his hand. “Come down hard, show them the straight and narrow. You can call on the Lord to guide you.” He turned to Eliza. “Go help the women, do it now.”

She didn’t move, but looked to Jacob. “I’ll stay if you want me to.”

Jacob continued to stare at Father. “Yes, please stay, Liz.”

Eliza took the chair next to Jacob’s side. “Since you asked so nicely, I’m happy to stay.” She smiled at Father. “See how easy that was?”

A tick worked alongside his jaw. “Both of you? How dare you defy me. I should, I should…”

“You should what?” Jacob asked.

“You know what I can do. Don’t make me say it.”

“Feel free to kick me out,” Jacob said. “If that’s what you’re getting at, go ahead and do it. Do the same thing to me that you did to Enoch, to David, Jeffrey, Caleb, Alonzo, Hyrum, Samuel, and Peter. What you’ll no doubt do to Phineas, Brigham, and Benjamin, when the time comes. They’re not exactly leadership material, either. Why should I be any different?”

“You want to be a Lost Boy?” He sounded incredulous.

“I know who I am. I won’t be a Lost Boy.”

“Oh, so you think you don’t need me, because you’ve got these people in Zarahemla eating out of your hand. I’m telling you, the sooner we bring the two churches together, the better. That’s why the Lord told me to put you as my first counselor, that way you can convince them it’s for the good. You don’t want to jeopardize that, do you?”

“Threats only work if you have something to threaten,” Jacob said. “I never wanted the job, so if you snatch it away, I’ll say good riddance. I’ll be my own man.”

“You’ll be what I tell you to be.”

“No, Father, I won’t. Nobody tells me who I am.”

He sputtered. “I don’t believe it. I just cannot believe what I’m hearing. I’m warning you, boy, I’ve had other rebellious sons. You know what happened to them, what they’ve become, how far they’ve fallen. That will be you, too.”

“Father, I’ve got a medical degree and am a respected doctor at a hospital. I am married and have three children, with a fourth on the way. Liz supports me, and Fernie, and several hundred other people who can see that you don’t need whips and bullying to lead them.”

“You’ve only accomplished that because of me and because it was the will of the Lord. Now, are you going to obey His servant or not?”

“Come on, Liz, let’s go. I can see we’re wasting our time.” He began to rise.

“No, wait! We need to talk.”

Jacob sat back down. “I’ll be happy to talk, Father, but no more bullying. You deal with us—not just me, with Liz, too—and you’re going to deal with us as equals. If you don’t deal with us as equals, we’re going to shake the dust from our feet and never visit this place again.”

Eliza sat up straight. She had watched the exchange with growing astonishment. In spite of his bluster, Father had been on the defensive from the beginning. In years past, nobody had stood up to him like Jacob, but Father had always won, through sheer force of will and a righteous certitude in his own actions. But not today, today it was clear that Jacob was more than his equal. He was stronger than Father, even on the older man’s home territory. And now, the threat to shake the dust from his feet, to condemn Father forever.

Father turned gray. “What do you want?” he asked at last.

“Liz, tell him what we want.”

“Look at me, Father,” Liz said. She forced strength into her voice, to match Jacob’s. “In the eye.”

“Do you have to do this?” he asked Jacob. “It is humiliating. I’ve already agreed to listen, do you have to rub my nose in it?”

“Do it,” Jacob said. “Look her in the eye and wipe the condescension off your face. She’s not a child, she’s an adult. If you don’t do her the courtesy of treating her as an equal, you’ll be the one who will look like a fool, not her.”

Father stayed rigid for a long moment, then his jaw loosened. He turned his face to Eliza. At last, he met her gaze and she was surprised to see a touch of pride in his expression hiding behind his arrogance. Pride in her, it would seem. “Well, you’ve certainly learned some lessons from your brother.”

“I hope so.”

“You know, Liz, you remind me of my great-grandmother, still spitting nails until she died.”

“Grannie Cowley?” Eliza asked, surprised. Even dead for decades, the woman was something of a legend in the church and as a child Eliza had visited the abandoned farmstead near the cliffs, where the woman had lived alone for twenty years until she died at ninety-eight.

“Strong woman, didn’t always have much use for men.”

“Thank you, Father. I knew you had it in you.”

“Okay, let’s not get carried away. She still managed nine children. Why did you come, what do you want?”

“I want you to call back the Lost Boys,” she said.

“What? You can’t be serious.”

“I’m serious. I want you to send word that they’re forgiven and they can come back. This is their home and we are their family and if we can’t support them, we have no business calling ourselves saints.”

“Impossible. I can’t even believe you’d ask. You don’t know me at all if you think that I would even consider it. And it’s against the will of the Lord in any case.” He turned to Jacob. “Tell her, explain. It’s impossible. Especially after Gideon attacked the church, there is no way. And wives for all of these men? Where would they come from? Tell her.”

Jacob shook his head. “Talk to Liz, Father, not me.”

“Eliza, it’s out of the question,” he said. “You’ll never get that. Never.”

She was prepared for his refusal. Eliza and Jacob had discussed it at great length during the drive from Zarahemla to Blister Creek and agreed that he’d balk. But, Jacob suggested, it would open an important door, as well as serve as a wedge for getting what they really wanted.

“Okay, then. Call back
one
of the Lost Boys.”

“Anyone in particular, or should I just draw names from a hat?”

“David. Call him back.”

A moment of silence. “David wandered into the mists of darkness years ago. There’s nothing I can do for him.”

“You can remove your edict. Send word to Las Vegas that he’s no longer banned from Blister Creek or Harmony. That you want the prodigal son to return and you will kill the fatted calf when he does.”

“That won’t put him back on the straight and narrow. He’s got bigger problems than my anger.”

“Nothing that can’t be resolved.”

“You don’t know the half of it, Eliza.”

“We know about the drugs,” she said. “But if you welcome him, it will make David think. When he sees you’ve softened your heart, he’ll soften his own. And then I can talk to him and maybe he’ll listen this time. And Jacob can help, too. Fernie, Sister Miriam, the whole community at Zarahemla. He won’t even need to set foot in Blister Creek, not at first.”

Father looked at Jacob. “And you agree with this?”

“Yes, of course,” Jacob said. “It’s a reasonable request and you would show that you can be merciful as well as just. You’ll gain more with this one act than any number of punitive reactions could hope to accomplish.”

He said nothing in response, but pulled on the end of his beard. From the kitchen, the gentle murmur of voices and the sound of a pot being placed on the stove, a rolling pin on the board. “All right,” he said at last. “David Christianson is forgiven. Nobody else.”

Eliza got up and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you, Father. You’ll be blessed for this kindness.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But I have to warn you, it won’t do any good. You have no hope of pulling David out of his spiral into hell.”

“Why not?” Eliza asked.

“Because David Christianson is already doomed. An evil spirit has marked him for destruction. I’ve seen it in my dreams. Only a miracle would save him.”

Chapter Seven:

Eliza and Jacob met Fernie and Sister Miriam at a hotdog and creemie stand in Cedar City, an hour north of St. George. It was a clear, warm day and none of them wanted to get up from the outdoor picnic tables and get on with the unpleasant task of sending Eliza into the belly of the beast, Las Vegas. At last Jacob finished his root beer and went off to find a prepaid cell phone for her to use. Eliza got up to use the restroom and came back to find Fernie and Miriam engaged in an intense discussion.

“Of course I don’t want to share him,” Fernie said. “Why would I?”

“Then why not keep your mouth shut?” Miriam asked. “He’ll never get there on his own.”

They fell silent as Eliza approached. “No need to stop,” she said. “Count me with Sister Miriam. Jacob doesn’t want anything to do with plural marriage. I’m not sure why you do, Fernie.”

“Who says I do? Who says
any
woman does?”

“I know plenty of women who claim they love it. They love their sister wives, the idea of sharing the parenting and the household chores. And they say they’re never jealous.”

“Silk slippers on a cow,” Fernie said. “You can dress it up fancy, but it still smells like manure.”

“What?” Eliza asked, blinking. She turned to Miriam. “Have you seen my sister? I left her here five minutes ago, but she seems to have wandered off.”

“Look, Liz, here’s how I see it,” Fernie continued. “We’re not getting rid of polygamy. It’s part of our culture. And I know in my heart that it comes from the Lord. Why, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just His way to make our lives more difficult, who knows? But I also know that when you keep it secret, when you barter women like livestock, it turns out ugly. If you want to get rid of the manipulation, the underage brides, trouble with the law, you need to bring it into the open.” She hesitated. “I might need to set an example.”

“What about you, what do you think?” Eliza asked Miriam.

“I don’t have any emotional attachment to polygamy, if that’s what you mean.”

“Well, then?”

She shrugged. “My family was moderately religious, but I never had any sort of spiritual experience until I came to Zarahemla.”

“It’s not like that turned out well,” Eliza said.

“I know, I’m still wrestling with that. But in spite of everything, I can’t deny what happened to me there. I know God led me to the truth, and I know I was promised I would be the wife of a great leader when the Last Days arrive.”

“Meaning Jacob?”

“I believe so, yes. In the Lord’s time.”

Eliza glanced at Fernie, who said nothing.

“But I don’t know for sure,” Miriam added. “Right now all I know is that Jacob isn’t acting to his full potential.”

“How do you know that?” Fernie asked, her voice strained.

Miriam looked surprised. “Don’t you think he is falling short of his calling?”

“What I think or don’t think is irrelevant. I don’t know how you could make a judgment, that’s all. Whether or not you’ll be married to him some day, you aren’t right now and you don’t have any more insight than anyone else in the church.”

“I think I do.”

“Right, because you were an FBI agent, you think you have a special insight,” Fernie said. “Some super exclusive ability to discover hidden motives.”

“I didn’t lose my skills when I quit the bureau. It’s why the Lord brought me here, so I could help Jacob reach his potential. I’m convinced of that. And I’ll do what it takes to make it happen.”

Eliza didn’t understand either woman. Fernie wasn’t jealous about sharing her husband’s body with Miriam, but sharing insight into his soul was another matter. And Miriam claimed she only wanted to obey the will of the Lord, but Eliza had heard enough claims to know that the will of the Lord matches one’s own desires with startling frequency.

Fernie opened her mouth to say something, but Eliza never found out what, because Jacob pulled up in the car, having secured the prepaid phone.

#

Eliza entered Las Vegas feeling confident. She knew the limitations of its power. She’d entered the first time as a naïve teenage girl, tagging along with her brother Jacob while he investigated a murder. The city was just as aggressive six years later, still dripping with sin and corruption, but it no longer had the power to frighten her.

It helped to picture the city naked.

There was no reason for Las Vegas to even exist. It didn’t have a port, wasn’t on a river. It wasn’t surrounded by rich croplands and hadn’t grown organically from some trade advantage. It wasn’t even the capital of the state. Instead, Vegas was surrounded by dry, baking wilderness and survived only by upping the shock value from one year to the next. People came to gamble or be entertained, but these days you could do those things anywhere. What other places didn’t have was the continual growth of the lurid and obscene, the promise that every time you came back, there would be some sparkling new thing to catch the eye. A volcano! Pirate battles! The Eiffel Tower! Someday, that sparkle would fade and then the city would die. People would return to live in real towns and cities and leave Las Vegas to crumble in the desert until it became the biggest ghost town of all.

In the meanwhile, the city’s outward appearance was a hulking, intimidating monster, but Eliza knew the beast was toothless. What was it Jacob had told her once? “The real monsters live inside us.”

And so she fought down the neon, concrete shock, ignored the lurid, the obscene, and the aggressive and thought about her brother David. She stepped off at the Greyhound bus terminal, near the Strip, then stood on the curb with her suitcase in hand, while the buses huffed diesel fumes. Her eyes scanned the street for a taxi.

Miriam and Fernie had returned to Zarahemla in the second car while Jacob drove Eliza to the bus stop in St. George, in the extreme southwest corner of Utah, just over the border from Arizona and Nevada. They had stood apart from the others as passengers shuffled onto the bus. Mostly older people, probably heading for Las Vegas for a weekend of gambling. But there were also a few shifty types, with drawn hoods and baggy pants or shaved heads and tattooed arms. One guy wore plugs in his ears and bristled with piercings.