The Widow's Son

by Thomas Shawver

  “You must think me nuts,” he began softly, setting his briefcase on the coffee table between us.

  I was tempted to respond sarcastically with something like: “Because you intended to murder Natalie? Or that you confessed it to her after changing your mind?”

  But I didn’t. The introvert was trying his best to be forthcoming about a matter obviously painful to him and I didn’t want the conversation to end before it began.

  Instead, I smiled diplomatically while my left index finger explored an ear.

  “One can’t hide a secret as dark as that forever,” he continued, looking at me with bleak, tired eyes. “She needed to know before deciding to accept me.”

  “Given what she told me last night,” I said, “you don’t have to worry on that score. She loves you very much.”

  Emery rubbed his nose between his thumb and forefinger, stifling a sniff.

  “Becker Systems lost its contract with the county,” he said, drawing a handkerchief from his back pocket. “I may lose my job. At best, my billable hours will be cut. We are going to need money. It’s the only reason I agreed to see you.”

  So much for Natalie’s claim that he sought a friend.

  He pressed the brass latch to open the briefcase.

  At first glance, the book seemed like nothing special. It was bound in what looked to be original brown calfskin, but it had been rebacked with a new leather spine featuring a gold embossed title that said Book of Mormon. An early edition of that was not uncommon in Jackson County, Missouri, where Joseph Smith had first settled and which remained home to thousands of Saints and a magnificent RLDS temple. True firsts, however, were another matter. Of the five thousand original copies, only a few hundred remained in circulation.

  Without lifting the book from the case, I carefully opened it to the first end sheet. The page was blank except for an inscription: Presented by Sidney Rigdon, June 28, 1844, to Alonzo Stagg, a faithful Danite who will hath Trampled the traitors into the earth.

  You get to know something about Mormon history if you live in this part of the country, which Joseph Smith declared to be the site of the biblical Garden of Eden. The local population in Western Missouri had initially welcomed the industrious and clean-living people who had been forced to flee Kirtland, Ohio, in the 1830s. But the Saints’ close-knit ways of buying up land and garnering blocs of votes soon upset the welcome wagon. Furthermore, their dismissive attitude toward other faiths soon turned them into enemies of the hard-heeled settlers who had wrested the land from savage Indians, cleared the forests, and tamed the prairie. Eventually, both sides committed atrocities.

  Sidney Rigdon, self-proclaimed Protector of the Church, used the Danites not only to protect his people from the “gentiles” but also to force dissenters—those who didn’t offer blind obedience to the teachings of the Prophet—to leave the Mormon-held counties under threat of death.

  I looked up at Emery. “Was Alonzo Stagg a relative?”

  He smiled wryly. “My great-great-great-grandfather.”

  I turned my attention to the cover page. It was heavily toned and foxed with rustlike spots on paper considered inferior for the time:

  THE

  BOOK OF MORMON

  AN ACCOUNT WRITTEN BY THE HAND OF MORMON,

  UPON PLATES TAKEN FROM

  THE PLATES OF NEPHI

  Beneath the two paragraphs of the prologue were the all-important words

  BY JOSEPH SMITH, JUNIOR,

  AUTHOR AND PROPRIETOR.

  PALMYRA:

  PRINTED BY E.B. GRANDIN FOR THE AUTHOR.

  1830.

  This was a true first edition, published in Palmyra, New York. I knew this because subsequent printings had eliminated the words identifying Smith as author once he’d proclaimed God’s words had been dictated directly to him through the angel Moroni.

  In addition to its rarity, this book was incredibly important to religion scholars because of changes Smith made to the text in later editions.

  Seeing my reaction, Emery’s eyes sharpened. “What can I get for it?”

  I had no qualms this time suggesting a price, knowing that prices for original Mormon works had skyrocketed in the past five years. A Palmyra first edition inscribed by an early LDS apostle went for more than double the estimate at a recent Swann Galleries auction.

  “Because of its historic association,” I said, gently closing the book, “I figure two hundred grand. Perhaps a quarter million.”

  Emery leaned back, clasped his hands behind his neck, and closed his eyes. “How soon can you find a buyer?”

  Thoughts of Eulalia Darp and the ABAA suddenly ricocheted inside my frontal lobe.

  “That depends,” I answered. “Leave the book with me. I’ll call some dealers and get back to you in a couple of days.”

  Emery opened his eyes. They were a little wet.

  “Must be tough giving up such an heirloom,” I said.

  “You don’t know the half of it. For most of my life, that book represented my entire being. The inscription that you find so valuable is what, until I came to realize that Natalie truly loved me, bound me to a murderous legacy.”

  Then he proceeded to tell me why.

  Chapter 6

  Celtic Heritage Center? Didn’t know they had that many micks in this part of the world. If they got ’em up in Butte, I suppose they’re everywhere. Hear tell they breed like rabbits. Like us Mormons. So that’s her? Good lookin’; I’ll give her that. Tall, leggy gal. Nice tits, too. Cool the urges. Not why I’m here. Still, it seems a waste to do what’s gotta be done. There’ll be plenty of time afterward for the ladies.

  Emery had a way of talking as if conversing with himself. It wasn’t as if he was trying to be coy or arrogant. He simply trusted his own company more than that of others. But he had something he needed to share and I was the most convenient conduit.

  “At fourteen,” he began, “I was short and fat and I had as much gumption as a soft-shell crab. All I wanted to do was take things apart so I could put them together again. I’d been lax in my religious studies and hadn’t given personal testimony in months. People in my ward were beginning to say I was lacking in the spirit. One night I was swapping out the memory board on my computer when my father came into my room to tell me I was to spend that summer at his brother’s ranch. He said it would put starch in my spine and more love for Jesus in my heart. It really shocked me.”

  “Why?”

  “My parents were regular LDS Church members. They prayed to see a time when all would walk in the footsteps of the Great Exemplar, the Lord Jesus Christ. But they weren’t overly fervent, realizing that the world can’t be converted in a day. My uncles and aunts, however, belonged to a fundamentalist offshoot that was off the chart of accepted LDS teachings. Mom called them ‘religious tumbleweeds.’

  “Listening to their late-night talks when they thought I was asleep, I learned that Uncle Lamar once had three wives in addition to Aunt Regina when they lived in Canada. But there was something even more shocking than polygamy in his background.”

  “Don’t tell me he voted for Bill Clinton,” I said, hoping to stave off a stultifying lecture on religious apostasy.

  “Blood atonement,” Emery whispered, ignoring my feeble attempt at humor. “The doctrine that sometimes to save a person’s soul you had to spill their blood.”

  “Like when blood brothers prick their fingers?”

  He looked at me as if I weren’t taking any of his stories seriously.

  “No, Bevan. Like cutting someone’s throat to avenge a wrong.”

  For a moment I thought he was the one being sarcastic. But his expressionless face made it clear he was incapable of irony. I repressed a shudder.

  “Why on earth would your parents send you to someone who believed in that stuff?”

  “Lamar was my father’s older brother and he still held him in awe. When Lamar insisted that he no longer took the concept literally, Dad chose to believe him. After all, it wa
s something that was considered merely allegorical even by wild offshoots like the Kingston clan. My mother wasn’t so naïve. But when she challenged him, Lamar laid into her. He said she should be more concerned about my physical and spiritual development, not worrying about old-time Danite spook stories.”

  “So off you went to a Mormon boot camp,” I said.

  “Some might say that, but it wasn’t regimented; at least, not in the beginning. My uncle and aunt lived a few miles west of Grand Lake, Colorado, in a large pine lodge along the Tonahutu River. Dad practically had to shove me out of the car I was so terrified. I soon discovered, however, that the solitude of a beautiful mountain setting offered an attractive alternative to the kids who made fun of me at my suburban high school. Nor was Uncle Lamar the ogre I’d feared him to be. With his grizzled gray beard and bloodhound eyes, he looked like an old-time prophet. But when he wasn’t pontificating about some religious thing there was a gentle, even humorous side to him that was utterly charming. I’d never known a man like him.”

  “What was your aunt like?”

  “Regina was a jolly, round-faced woman fifteen years Lamar’s junior who covered her full figure in calico and wore braids that hung on either side of her shoulders. She was very pious, but didn’t seem overly traditional even though Lamar insisted she wear an old-fashioned white cap. She’d been a soloist with the Tabernacle Choir before she met Lamar. They didn’t have children—a real curse for Mormons that must have weighed heavily on them—and I figured that’s why they were always hosting their relatives’ kids.”

  As Emery began to describe how twelve cousins joined him at the lodge that first summer, Josie suddenly appeared with a plate of brownies from the bistro.

  “What’d I miss?” she asked, passing around the goodies.

  “I’ll tell you some Sunday,” I said as she settled in a chair next to me. “Go on, Emery.”

  He took a bite first, grunted approvingly, then took another.

  “I got picked on by a few of my cousins,” he finally said, brushing crumbs from his shirt. “But that stopped when I made myself useful to Lamar fixing the tractor and doing other mechanical things. After that, they left their hands off me. The only exception was Porter Grint. He was scrawny back then, but mean as a wounded badger. He didn’t feel pain like a normal person either, always sticking himself with a knife or daring others to bet on how long he could hold a lit match under the palm of his hand.

  “Regina taught us hymns along with Mormon history while Lamar concentrated on showing us how to hunt and live off the land. I’d never liked the Boy Scouts, finding campouts an uncomfortable waste of time when I could be making something in the garage. But I was surprised to discover that I enjoyed the demanding outdoor training under my uncle’s guidance.

  “The next summer we learned how to survive in the wild for considerably longer periods. That’s when I really began to flourish. I’d grown to the height I am now and, while still no athlete, I was no longer Porter’s punching bag. By the third year the number of cousins invited back was down to five and our outdoor orientation escalated.

  “At sixteen, I underwent the endowment ceremony for the Aaronic priesthood at our temple in Ogden. Usually this occurs when a Mormon is preparing to go on a mission following high school. But, as I was to learn during another ceremony at Staggs Lodge, it was essential that I be purified for an entirely different reason.

  “After being washed and anointed, I donned white garments with a green satin apron in the shape of Adam’s fig leaf. I was given a name by which I was to be known in heaven, learned a whole series of secret handshakes, words, and penalties, and then passed through the veil to enter the Holy Priesthood.”

  “Good for you,” I said, stretching my legs. “Did you take up a collection?”

  Josie kicked my ankle and Emery gamely continued.

  “The next summer only Porter Grint, Dennis Dietz, and I were invited back to our uncle’s compound. This time we were completely cut off from the outside world. No more river rafting or trips into Grand Lake with Regina for supplies.

  “I was glad to see Denny sitting at the breakfast table that first morning behind an enormous stack of pancakes slathered in butter and syrup. He was a surfer dude from San Diego and one of those good-natured true believers who couldn’t hear enough about the wars between the Nephites and the Lamanites as chronicled by Mormon, the father of Moroni.

  “I think if we’d been allowed to celebrate Halloween, Denny would have pasted on a beard and trick-or-treated as Brigham Young. Not only was he good-looking and rich—his father owned the largest Toyota dealership in Southern California—but he also had a playful sense of humor, getting Regina to giggle like a girl with his slightly off-color jokes. ‘How many gentiles does it take to enter an outhouse?’ That sort of thing. Denny had always been nice to me as well. I liked him a lot.

  “Porter hadn’t changed much, though—still mean and foulmouthed when Lamar wasn’t around—and not the brightest bulb. I suppose there were reasons for the way he was. Aunt Louise preferred her dozen parakeets to people and that included her son. Porter told me she used to beat him with a cane whenever he failed to keep the birds’ water and food dishes full. His father never intervened. The only time either of them showed any affection was when he came home from school with a split lip or black eye.”

  I muttered something about being a member of that same club. But, by now, Emery was only listening to himself.

  “Porter made up for his deficiencies by being a fine shot and the first of us to master the complicated handshakes, secret words, and oath penalties. The outlawed Danite gestures pertaining to throat cutting and disemboweling were particularly appealing to him. He was descended from Orrin Porter Rockwell, Brigham Young’s notorious bodyguard, and he couldn’t have been prouder that he shared the name. That final summer and into October our training radically changed.”

  “I suspect there was a move from physical challenges to enhancing mental ones,” I said, recalling my Marine experience.

  Emery nodded. “During the next phase Lamar maintained our physical workouts, but also interspersed it with lectures on the martyrdom of Joseph Smith and his brother. The indoctrination was constant and repetitive with lots of emphasis on the atrocities committed against our ancestors during the Missouri-Mormon War of 1838.

  “Others we had never seen before took over much of our training. They were hard, no-nonsense men, nonrelatives who regarded us three boys as nothing more than worms to be transformed into creatures of their own reckoning. We were told that outsiders, even those Mormons like my parents and siblings, and the cousins who had been to previous camps and found wanting, clung to the wrong beliefs and were dangerous. We were never allowed more than four hours sleep a night. Unlike before, we wore the same unwashed dungarees and cotton shirts for days at a time. There was no free time for math equations or tinkering with machines. All decision making was controlled by Lamar and his men. Regina had left the compound. We had no tasks other than to obey commands. We were often isolated from each other except when we had to stand and recite our wrongful thoughts and then be subjected to the criticism of our instructors. Even Porter broke down at times. His cursing stopped, as did his bullying.

  “Denny took it hardest, however. He’d become dull and lackluster, a drone. It was as if his exuberant spirit had died. Only when receiving praise from our uncle did he break out of his zombielike trance. Then the light of God shone upon him.

  “Looking back on it, I suppose the same description would apply to me. Despite the hardships, for the first time in my life I felt part of something greater than myself.”

  “It’s hard to believe you could be so naïve,” I commented. “You must have had some inkling of what the training was leading to.”

  Josie, who had been shaking her head and grimacing throughout Emery’s monologue, came to his defense.

  “The three of them were, what, only sixteen or seventeen then?” she asked. “Cut
off from the rest of the world, they would have needed extraordinary mental strength and will to realize what was happening to them. It sounds like Lamar’s methods were straight out of the brainwashing handbook. To be immersed in that kind of environment would give anyone a distorted sense of reality. In most cases like this, there are serious ramifications—science is still learning how the mind adapts to prolonged mistreatment.” She reached for Emery’s hand. “How did you adjust?”

  Rather than answer, he pulled his hand away and avoided her eyes.

  “Did you have nightmares?” she prompted. “Or trouble getting back into normal society when you went home?”

  This time it was I who nudged her under the table. It was painfully obvious he’d always had trouble integrating into society—and it wasn’t just due to any psychological torture at his uncle’s camp for wayward boys.

  But to my surprise, Emery flashed a smile— the first evidence I’d seen that he could be happy. I thought of Natalie’s description. She was right. It was like the whisper of a laugh.

  “I don’t know,” he finally answered. “I was never that good in a group to begin with. I’m not trying to defend myself, but we had become so controlled that we believed departing from their commands meant eternal damnation. It wasn’t until our knife-handling lessons went from practicing on straw dummies to killing sheep that I finally began to suspect the purpose for which we’d been selected.”

  He hesitated a moment, but the smile remained as he focused on Josie. “I liked the feeling of control. I suddenly had power. It was intoxicating. At certain times I still feel it.”

  “I’m not sure that’s something you want to advertise,” she warned.

  His smile dissolved. “Not to worry,” he answered. “I know it was madness.”

  “So what happened next?” she asked.

  “On our last day we awoke to find cars with license plates from Utah, Arizona, and California parked outside the main lodge. Porter, Denny, and I were kept in our rooms without food or water. Late that night, after being told to put on our endowment garments, we were blindfolded by a masked figure in a long hooded robe. He led us to an outbuilding that had been off-limits to us before.”