The Rock Child (16 page)

“Captain Burton,” snapped the Lion of the Lord, “will you come to my office at nine o’clock in the morning?”

Terror played its fingers up and down Sun Moon’s body. Pictures of flight crashed through her mind. With the iron band Sun Moon controlled herself.

“Nine o’clock sharp,” Brother Young repeated. His face didn’t look brotherly.

“Of course,” said Sir Richard.

Sun Moon suppressed quivers.
I despise being at the mercy of men
.

PART THREE

ON THE ROAD

CHAPTER TWELVE

The door to our bedroom cracked open. A figure darkened the crack. Harold Jackson whispered, “We’re getting outta here.
Now!
” It was a good trick, making a whisper sound like a bullwhip, but he did it. He was standing still, but like a dust spout stands still while it’s spinning like fury.

Sir Richard jumped up like he’d been flushed from cover. Heckahoy! I’d been worried about him last night—seemed like he’d fought the popskull whisky and lost. Big and wild-eyed as he was, that angry scar on his cheek, he looked like that Frankenstein you hear about.

“
Move! We’ve got trouble!
”

I tapped on Sun Moon’s door, and she opened it in a flash, plumb dressed. She and I, seemed like, were getting used to skedaddling fast with the devil screeching at our hind parts.

“
Vamoose!
”

Clarissa came bursting in, the Prophet’s daughter that Sir Richard had been sparking last night, and she cared nothing that I was still pulling up my pants. She eyed Sir Richard greedily, but he was covered up by his nightshirt. (He always slept covered head to toe, but I never thought anything of it until later.)

“Ready,” she tossed at Harold. He pushed Sir Richard’s trunk toward her. She and one of her brothers hoisted it and ran off like spooked pack mules.

That was how our holiday at Brigham Young’s fine home ended—us stampeding down the back stairs like sheep fleeing a wolf. If I saw what I thought I saw between Clarissa and Sir Richard last night, we were. That man had a plain crazy streak in him that was hard to beat. Even after I knew about the opium, I saw the craziness riding it like a wild horse, and using the whip.

Harold rode point and got us out a back door, along some hedges, through a cut, behind some more hedges, and onto the street. It was plumb dark—no moon at all—and I pitched forward right onto my face once. The possible sack in my arms kept me from getting bunged up.

Two wagons loomed in the street, their shapes darker than the night dark. I could see black somethings sticking up that musta been the mule skinners, and somebody else on the board seat. The mules were clomping and wheezing.

“In!” said Harold, gesturing at the behind wagon.

We jumped in slickety-doo, and he roar-whispered, “All the way down!” When we were flat as ribbons, he threw some stuff on top of us—a lot of it, and he kept stacking it up. Found out later it was shirts, dresses, and blankets made by Mormon women. Best dressed I been before or since.

“Don’t make a peep!” said Harold’s voice. “On your lives, not a peep! No matter what happens!”

We were between a trunk and some gun cases, which later turned out to be Sir Richard’s traveling arsenal, which was substantial. Sun Moon and I didn’t have any trunks nor valises nor the like.

The wagon rocked and settled, which I figured was Harold climbing up. Then it rocked and settled again. “Clarissa, get down!” snapped Harold.

“Will not!”

“Will!”

More bouncing of the wagon, a lot more. The sound of shoes scuffling. A
whump!,
like a stiff hand hard on a bottom. A whimper. “Brother Young would send the Legion after you,” snapped Harold. Some more whining, getting farther off, and footsteps running away. So ended Sir Richard’s career as a seducer of Mormon women, far as I know. That night ended mine, too, and I never got started.

“Gaddup!” came the cry, and again. The wagon jolted, mules’ hoofs clomped. “Gaddup!” from both skinners. Now the crack of the bullwhips, too. We were off, no telling where to. I wiggled and tried to get my back
comfortable on the hard planks of the wagon bed. They kept banging back at me.

So I took a deep breath and told myself fighting it wasn’t going to make things easier. I was going wherever the mule skinners were going, heavens or hell or any octave in between. Most of me thought,
Just as long as we get clear of Deseret
.

Sweet gizzards, but hadn’t this whole journey gone strange. Set out for the Alpha farm but got tossed into the river, which took me on a side trip. Next set out for California or Tibet with a nun. Near got killed by Porter Rockwell but instead hid in Brigham Young’s harem. It all seemed like a good idea at the time.

It did all put me in mind of what the old Shoshone told me about the rabbit path. It strikes out at a queer angle, stops, doubles back, loops around, and general goes crazy-like. Regardless of anyhow, you must follow it. So this crazy trip all over the West, it was just my rabbit path. Even in the back of that wagon, I was headed right where I needed to go.

“Right here will do!”

We’d been Mexican jumping beans in the wagon bed for I don’t know how long. My back felt like the wheels had run over me. The sun had been up a good spell—I could see light through the cracks dancing madly on every bounce. Like Sun Moon and Sir Richard, I suffered in silence. Maybe they were quiet because fear was running in wide, wavy yellow streaks up and down their backs, like it was mine.

When I heard the shout the second time—“Right here will do!”—my fear jumped over the moon. I recognized the voice. That was the roar of the Lion of the Lord.

“You can sit up,” said Harold.

We did.

First thing I took in was the freight goods stacked all around us, full loads. Second was sons of Brigham Young surrounding us on their mounts, scatterguns laying casual-like across their saddle horns. At that range we didn’t have the chance of fool hens. Third was the Prophet himself on a big black gelding, unarmed, glaring like the Lord on Judgment Day. He was sitting that horse a little uphill from us, looking down. Man like that, I told myself, he’s the judge that hands down the sentence, but he’s not the executioner. No need for a great man to get his hands dirty with a common of work.

“Captain Burton,” he said in a big voice, “it’s past 9:00
A.M.
” I bet the
words of the Burning Bush came out sounding just like that. “You have put your hands on my daughter’s tits. You are a fool. Did you think to deceive me? Did you think to thwart my will? Did you think to pluck my innocent flower?”

Sir Richard just stared back. He was wrong, he did it, but he wasn’t one to say he did wrong. He’d die first. Question in my mind was, Who snitched to Brother Young? Because he never had a chance to see Sir Richard’s hands, not where he was. The second and more important question was, Would me and Sun Moon die, too?

Heckahoy, there wasn’t anything he could do. Sir Richard probably had his hands on his pistol and that big African knife—he always kept ’em close as he kept his personal equipment—but the scatterguns were cocks of the walk this time.

“Before I pass sentence, do you have aught to say for yourself?”

Sir Richard just kept staring. I looked around at the sons. Never saw such a collection of grim faces in my life. Finally, Sir Richard said, “Spare my companions, Brother Young. They have no fault here.”

“I would not harm Sister Sun Moon. Brother Taylor, did you indulge in like foolishness?”

“No, Sir. I was playing the piano.”

His eyes licked at me like low flames. “Take me seriously, Brother Taylor. My mind is firm on this.”

I don’t know what got into me next. The words came out, but I never planned them. “Brother Young, I never touched your daughters. I had carnal thoughts, plenty of ’em. If that’s a crime, I’ll go with Sir Richard. He is my friend, and I’m right proud to go wherever he does.”

The Prophet’s eyes gleamed. Now I was in the outhouse, way down in. “Lasses, too, have fantasies,” said Brother Young. “My daughters, however, will keep theirs in thrall to their wills. If they don’t, as I told Clarissa last night, they can whore it in California. We will have no whores in Deseret.”

If he’d banish his own daughter, I had no doubt about what he would do to us.

“Harold,” said the Lion of the Lord, and gave a signal with his head. Harold dropped a noose over Sir Richard’s shoulders and pulled him back against some grain sacks hard.

“Double-crosser,” I whispered. He turned his face away from me.

Afore I knew it a like noose dropped over me and pinned my arms
to my chest, and over Sun Moon. We were trussed like turkeys and yanked back hard, away from Sir Richard.

“It is said, Captain Burton,” declared the Prophet, “that you have worshiped the many gods of the Hindoos, the gods of the Persians, and the one God of the Arabs. Call upon them now and see if they save your life. Or call upon the name of Jehovah. He will not save your life—that belongs to me!—but He offers mercy to your soul.”

Brigham Young now raised a heavy pistol, a cap-and-ball weapon. He leveled it at Sir Richard’s chest and set the trigger. Steady, very steady. “Have you any last words, Captain Burton?”

Sir Richard just looked at Brother Young. “None,” said Sir Richard. I studied his face for a twitch or a tremor. All I saw was El Ayn, his evil-eye stare. The Prophet stared back with the two eyes of his head and the single eye of his muzzle. This time Sir Richard was outgazed.

Brigham Young squeezed the trigger. Smoke belched out of the barrel, and it kicked upward.

Sir Richard didn’t stir.

Brigham Young began to laugh.

Sir Richard looked down at his chest. Instead of blood, he saw a wad of cloth. He flicked it away with one hand.

Brigham Young had shot wadding at Sir Richard!

I let out a little cackle without meaning to, like a belch.

Brother Young commenced seriously to laugh now. He was guffawing. He was roaring. He was slapping his thighs. The laughter bubbled out of him like water from a big spring, and the sound echoed like in a deep well. It was a once-in-a-lifetime, boy-ain’t-this-fine laugh.

The sons, though, kept their grim expressions. I tried to stifle my own cackling, which sounded childish to my ears.

Finally, Brother Young sobered up. Sir Richard had glared at him all along, stony silent. When Brother Young got quiet, Sir Richard says, “Mr. President, I apologize. I abused your hospitality.”

Brother Young nodded. Nodded again. “You did. I can understand lust and how hot it runs. I have myself looked at titties with desire, particularly young and innocent ones. I know my sons do the same.” He cast his eyes around at them. “But you asked me for sanctuary and then …” The two looked at each other, and finally Sir Richard lowered his eyes. He was wrong, good and wrong.

“That is not why you were shipped out, however. You are four hundredweight
in wagons belonging to Brother Jackson’s freighting company—maybe Harold’s father should charge you freight rates.” The Prophet smiled at the world. Likely he was trying for a joke. “No, I asked you to come to my office this morning for a reason you did not guess.” He gave a pause here, as a good orator will do, making us wait. “I had intelligence that Porter Rockwell was laying plans. Even the refuge of my home, it seems, is merely a challenge to his ingenuity…”

From above a voice called, “It was easy to plant that intelligence, Brother Young. Sure did work, too.”

Porter Rockwell rose up black and massive from behind a boulder uphill of Brigham Young, and two others beside him. They had us all covered with rifles.

Brigham Young took a big breath, and it seemed to make him not only wider but taller. “Brother Rockwell,” he said, “put your gun down. You are endangering your immortal soul.”

“Did that long time past, Brother Young.”

Now Brigham Young spoke with an edge. “We have discussed this. Your services to the Church have not smudged your soul.” He sounded short-tempered.

Porter Rockwell gave a crooked smile over the barrel of his carbine. “May be there is other matters, Brother Young.”

“I cannot answer for that,” said the Prophet. “You will, in the fullness of time.”

Rockwell nodded. “Right at this here time, Brother Young,” he said with sweet mockery, “the whore and her friends will answer.” His tone changed sharp now. “Oblige me by breaking those side-by-sides open and turning your horses back to the city, all of you.” The sons looked at Brother Young. At a wiggle of his eyebrows they broke the shotguns open. “You drivers can take the wagons on. I ain’t no thief. Just four hundredweight will stay here. Permanent-like.”

“Brother Rockwell,” said the Lion of the Lord, “you’ve been the Destroying Angel of the Lord. Now you’re becoming the instrument of the devil. You will pay the ultimate price.”

“I ’spect so,” said Rockwell. “You know, you don’t head back real quick, you oughta stand out of the line of fire. I ain’t shed no blood of Saints yet.” He grinned. “I’d guess Brother Taylor qualifies as an apostate.”

Brother Young looked back at us in the wagon bed, then up the hill
at Rockwell and his side men. He looked all around at his sons. Everyone knew what he was thinking. Rockwell said, “No, Brother Young. Those scatterguns at this range will feel like raindrops. Our rifles will shoot you in one side and out the other.”

I could see Brigham Young figuring it, too. He didn’t like the sum he got. Me neither.

The Prophet nodded to himself, stepped down out of the saddle, and handed the reins to one of his sons. He nodded to himself again, confirming whatever it was. Then he began to walk.

Up that dusty, rocky ridge he walked, straight toward Porter Rockwell. It was a steep walk, and he was a man with a lot of heft. He did it graceful, though—he had more than fat in those thick legs—chugged on up there like an engine. Never once looked up at Porter Rockwell, or back at any of us. I expect his inner eye was checking out the country beyond the Great Divide right then. Only a fool would trust Porter Rockwell. Hell, Rockwell couldn’t predict himself.

This time he snugged that carbine tighter into his shoulder, pressed his cheek down harder on the stock, and squinted a bit more keen. And held his fire. Or did until he could near choose between Brigham Young’s chest hairs in his sights.

“Give me the rifle, Brother Rockwell.”

The Destroying Angel didn’t move, didn’t stir, didn’t shift, didn’t waver.

I took a deep breath. Seconds went by. I ordered myself to let it out, but it wouldn’t go. Minutes went by, seemed like. Rockwell’s sidekicks kept their sights on Brigham Young’s sons, waiting, waiting, waiting for the main man to decide.