The Widow's Son

by Thomas Shawver

  Chapter 8

  “You look a little peaked,” Emery observed, pouring himself another cup of java. After a lifetime of abstinence the man had clearly become an addict. “Anything wrong?”

  “It’s nothing, a slight matter of wind. Cabbage for dinner last night.”

  His eyeballs shifted briefly upward in an expression of bemused sympathy.

  Whether it was my sign of discomfort or his relief at being finally able to unload his dark secret to someone besides Natalie, Emery relaxed and became more personable. Before returning to the tale of indoctrination at his uncle’s camp, he prattled on about the joys of engineering. Obviously, he was the kind of guy who could no more stem his natural curiosity in science and mechanics than he could stop breathing.

  “I remember being five years old,” he said, “and wondering how everyday products worked. If something didn’t, such as a loose bicycle chain, I looked for the simplest solution to the problem, not stopping until I solved it. I still find myself imagining how I might redesign a toaster or trash compactor to work more effectively. The trouble is that one idea invariably leads to another until my version expands into an entire kitchen or industrial recycling unit. Hours later I realize I’ve wasted an entire Sunday on something that will never be produced.”

  “You must like your job with Becker Systems,” I said.

  “I do. Certainly, it’s more than a paycheck. At least for now. But I can do soils engineering with my eyes closed. My real interest is with fluid dynamics, the physics of geological processes. Dr. Becker lets me fiddle with some open-source programs from time to time. I’ve created a program that models the complex flows of air and water…”

  This went on for an extra ten minutes before the lecture ended with the arrival at the shop of Natalie and her daughter. The girl looked around anxiously, but brightened when she saw Josie coming toward the counter with an armful of books.

  “It’s Princess Claire!” Josie proclaimed, equally happy to see the kid sidling up to help her.

  Natalie viewed the warm exchange with barely disguised jealousy, to which the two were oblivious. The pair headed downstairs, and I heard Claire squeal with delight when Josie mentioned having recently seen a fox in our garden.

  “ ‘Princess Claire,’ my arse,” Natalie murmured to herself, shaking her head. Then, noticing Emery and me, she pasted on a smile.

  “How’s it going, boys? Solved the world’s problems yet?”

  “Not quite,” I said. “Emery was telling me how he and his two cousins got pulled into this blood atonement thing.”

  “Lamar Stagg was a piece of work, wasn’t he?”

  Emery frowned at her. “My uncle has his faults, but —”

  “Faults? Jesus, the guy is a sadistic nutcase! Why don’t you get to the nitty-gritty, Em? I’m going to say good-bye to Claire—that’s if Majansik will let me—then I must return to the Center. The cast for the Bloomsday play is coming in to rehearse at three o’clock and I have to get twenty scripts printed. Don’t forget to show him the Bible—or whatever the hell it is.”

  With that she followed the sounds of Josie and Claire’s laughter downstairs.

  “Where was I?” Emery asked when she had gone.

  “You’d placed your hands on the bones of your ancestor as part of the initiation,” I prompted.

  “Yeah, thanks.” He cleared his throat. “The next day my aunt returned and surprised us with a party. No mention was made of the ceremony the night before. The cars that had brought the witnesses were gone. After the cake and ice cream, Lamar made a little speech. He was a far different man from the night before. Now, he spoke of love and goodwill, and hoped that Denny and Porter and I would remember the lessons we had learned at the ranch when we went on our foreign missions.

  “Taking Regina’s hand in his, he blessed us with the wish that we find as good a partner in this life as he had found in his. That afternoon my parents arrived to take me home. Porter, who would be staying behind for another week, didn’t see me off, but Denny did. Before leaving, he and I pledged lifelong friendship to each other. We didn’t mention the dark vow that bound our souls.”

  I gave a skeptical look and said, “The fact that you’d pledged to murder a person whose only sin was to carry the DNA of Thomas Ford didn’t gnaw at your conscience?”

  “Not for a long time. Following a two-year mission in Belize, I entered BYU still convinced that blood atonement was necessary and moral. I’m not proud of it, but it was easier to justify when the odds were slim that I’d be called upon to actually do it.”

  “I can think of a couple of reasons why it shouldn’t have been all that easy,” I said. “But I’m one of those cynics who think religion causes as many problems as it purports to cure. Of course, anyone who believes that an angel told a poor young farmer in upstate New York where he might dig up a pair of golden plates…”

  I let the words hover in the air.

  Emery raised his chin defiantly. “Get this straight,” he said with a dry, insistent voice. “I may drink coffee and beer and I haven’t seen the inside of an LDS temple in over a year, but I still consider myself a Mormon. Only now I look to the parables—call it the mythology—for spiritual guidance, not literal truth.”

  I looked at him without saying anything, which merely goaded him on.

  “How is it that perfectly open-minded people such as you feel free to make snide remarks about the Mormon faith? You ridicule our temperate habits, particularly when it comes to caffeine, booze, and chastity before marriage. You mock the names we give our children. We’re labeled non-Christian because we don’t acknowledge the cross as a symbol, finding its emphasis on intense suffering to not be a particularly wholesome thing. And you excoriate our holy book as the work of a bankrupt con man rather than a charismatic saint on a par with the greatest disciples.”

  “My apologies,” I said. “But you pride yourself on your rational thinking. You’re an engineer, for heaven’s sake. How can you or anyone accept spirit weddings, after-death baptisms of everyone from Stalin to Walt Disney, multiple gods each with his own universe—”

  “Hold on a second,” Emery interrupted. “I’ve heard that, in one form or another, from every gentile I’ve ever known, including Natalie.” He clasped his hands and leaned toward me.

  “I assume you were raised Catholic,” he said.

  “I still attend Mass on Christmas Eve and Easter.”

  “Then you ascribe to the virgin birth of Christ?”

  “Uhh. Let’s just say I don’t put that on a par with the Resurrection.”

  Emery smiled at my hypocrisy.

  “Joseph Smith told a crowd in Nauvoo that he didn’t blame anyone for not believing his history. If he hadn’t experienced it, he would have found it fanciful himself. But, you see, the Prophet believes he did live it and, despite all the disparagement his words have received from doubters, Smith created a religion that has not only survived, but become the fastest-growing church in America. And as for those gold plates, I seem to recall Moses was handed a couple of stone tablets right after his chat with a burning bush.”

  “Point taken,” I said, seeing no reason for either of us to try and convert the other. My respect for him had grown in the last few minutes, while at the same time I was feeling ashamed of my snide and disdainful attitude toward his religion. Still, I wasn’t about to drop the subject of blood atonement.

  “When did you begin to question your uncle’s dictates?”

  “After I graduated from college. But it was more from practical reasons than a shift in ideology. The challenges of making a living pushed my commitment into the background. I took a job with a water treatment firm in San Jose and for the first time in my life associated with gentiles. Finding their less judgmental ways to be refreshing, I even dated a Presbyterian. It’s not that she was a real girlfriend—I suspect Helen hung out with me because I could fix her computer—but she was kind. Inevitably, I began to associate her with the girl we had
pledged to kill. I began to question what Lamar had programmed us for.”

  “But you still weren’t prepared to prevent it?”

  Emery edged forward in his chair. “No. I just prayed to God that the retribution wouldn’t fall on my shoulders. Then, shortly after my twenty-eighth birthday, Porter Grint was convicted of second-degree manslaughter for stabbing a man to death in Rock Springs. A Wyoming jury sentenced him to twenty years.”

  “So the torch passed to Dennis Dietz.”

  The bland mask returned. “Yes. But we hadn’t been in touch for years, so I didn’t know if Denny had become as uncomfortable with the pledge as I had. It didn’t matter, though. Much to our uncle’s dismay, Denny had become a Marine officer. Six months after Porter’s appeal was denied, he was wounded during his second tour in Afghanistan. The former surfing champ returned alive, but not whole—a Mon-50 directional fragmentation mine had taken both legs, his right arm, and his right eye.”

  “How soon did you hear from your uncle?”

  “He called to tell me a week after he’d learned of it. Almost as an afterthought, Lamar added that a ‘certain young lady’ had lived long past her majority. He didn’t have to remind me of my obligation, but he could tell by the hesitancy in my voice that I lacked commitment. I was summoned to Colorado.”

  “If you had doubts, why didn’t you simply refuse to go?”

  Emery rubbed his jaw. He was silent a moment, then he said slowly, carefully: “The oath was implanted in my brain, wiring my will to its dictates. Despite my lax church attendance, I was no apostate. Either Brigham Young and Joseph Smith were prophets of God or they were not. Either Alonzo Stagg and his descendants were vengeance-seeking monsters or they were avenging angels selected to right a terrible wrong.”

  He ignored the appalled look on my face and pressed on.

  “All that I had been taught to believe was the doctrine of blood atonement was moral and necessary. The very principles of Mormon eternity were at stake. I intended to confront my uncle with my doubts, to see if he might have reinterpreted the doctrine.”

  I knew little about cults, let alone brainwashing. But I understood from my own experience how easy it is to deceive oneself, no matter how crackpot the rationalization. What a person wishes to be true, no matter how crazy, he usually finds a way to believe until a better option comes along.

  “Lamar was seventy-five when I arrived at the lodge,” Emery continued, “and suffered from emphysema, but the holy fire in his eyes had not dimmed. His long, once-powerful body slumped in a reclining chair. Although he was next to a roaring fire in the great stone hearth, a thick wool Pendleton blanket covered his legs. Without so much as a greeting to me when I entered the room, he recited Brigham Young’s decree:

  “ ‘All mankind love themselves…and yet he would be glad to have his blood shed. That would be loving themselves, even unto an eternal exaltation. Will you love your brothers and sisters likewise, when they have committed a sin that cannot be atoned for without the shedding of their blood? Will you love that man or woman well enough to shed their blood?’ ”

  “And still you didn’t walk away?”

  Emery shook his head. Avoiding my eyes, he picked up the Book of Mormon from the table. In a droning voice, as if, once again, he was talking to himself, he said, “This, my very blood, spoke to me, dissolving all will. I redeclared my affirmation. My core belief had been tested and it was not found wanting. It was as if the angel Moroni himself had spoken to me. In dispatching the Ford descendant, I would save her from everlasting torment. The mad reasoning behind the oath was that it rationalized murder as a charitable act. Compounding the insanity was the understanding that if I failed to act, all the other killings would have been in vain. It was on this that I reaffirmed my vow.”

  He returned the Book of Mormon to the table. This time he looked at me. A muscle twitched in his cheek as he continued.

  “Lamar planted a kiss on my forehead and said, ‘This ends with you. You shall be exalted by the Prophet himself when your spirit rises, and the four who have preceded you in this task will guide you to his presence and the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.’

  “My uncle then pulled out a drawer from the table between us and removed a file folder. On the first page was a photograph of Natalie taken at some distance. She was in her twenties at the time and living in Boston. The following pages had a detailed genealogical history—as only the Mormons can do—stemming from before Governor Ford. Next was a chart listing her height, weight, date of birth—even that she had a mole in the small of her back. I read that she was now thirty-four years old, divorced, and had moved to the Midwest. I could make it appear to be an accident, but Lamar insisted that her throat be cut.”

  “Why the added cruelty?”

  “So that her blood would spill upon the ground, becoming an offering to heaven for her ancestor’s sins.”

  “Didn’t it bother you that she had a child?”

  His gaze didn’t falter.

  “Of course. But when I mentioned the fact to Lamar, it was kindly Aunt Regina who answered. ‘The girl is an inconvenience,’ she said. ‘Nothing more.’

  “Three months later. I moved to Kansas City, found my job with Becker Systems, leased a house, and began my surveillance of Natalie.”

  “You mean you stalked her,” I corrected bluntly.

  “Yeah, okay. No use in sugarcoating it.”

  “So, what kept you from following your orders?”

  “Once I was settled, I began frequenting the bistro. Secretly, I followed her home after each shift. Some days I even watched her take Claire to school. Seeing how hard she struggled to make a go of it, however, tore at my heart. I fretted about her living in that awful neighborhood. I worried that some harm might befall her before I could release her to heaven in a proper manner. When I found myself wondering what would happen to Claire, I realized that if I didn’t act soon I’d wouldn’t be able to honor my oath. June twenty-seventh, the anniversary of Joseph Smith’s martyrdom, was drawing near. The time had come to prepare. I turned to the biblical passage of Isaiah, chapter 30:

  “ ‘…Iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall…And he shall break it…he shall not spare…’

  “Reassured in the righteousness of my task, I left my office at a quarter to five and drove to her neighborhood. The plan was to strike when Natalie parked in the alley behind her house.

  “All went according to plan until a UPS truck suddenly pulled up behind her and the driver asked for directions to another house. Natalie got out of her car and, seeing me, gave a puzzled smile. She told the delivery man to follow her as it was easier to show than explain and the three of us marched down the street to the house.”

  I shook my head. “So the reason Natalie lived was due to pure luck, not your conscience.”

  “Luck, fate, the hand of God. Call it what you will. I was terribly shaken and conflicted, but I still intended to finish the job. I reported my failure to Lamar that night over the telephone. Instead of chastising me for failing, he cited the Prophet’s revelations in Doctrine and Covenants, section 64, lines 9-10. That night I read Joseph Smith’s words in my book:

  “ ‘9. Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin.

  “ ‘10. I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.’

  “At first I wondered if Lamar intended to retract everything he’d said about blood atonement. But he wasn’t one to mince words or speak in riddles—nor was he likely to experience a crisis of faith, as misbegotten as it might be. Aunt Regina was dying of throat cancer. Maybe that had something to do with it. But why couldn’t he tell me it was no longer necessary or moral to comply with the oath? I wanted a definitive answer.”

  “Did you get it?”

  Emery rubbed the back of his neck. �
��I tend to overanalyze and dwell on the internal architecture whether it’s a machine or person. But I don’t think emotions are bad impulses to be suppressed lest they get in the way of rational thinking. The next morning Lamar called to tell me Regina had died. There was no mention of blood atonement. I thought my prayers had been answered.”

  At that moment, Natalie returned from downstairs. She was smiling again. Apparently, the differences with Josie had been resolved.

  “What prayer was answered this time?” Natalie asked.

  “I was telling him about my aunt’s passing.”

  “Oh.” She turned to me. “That same day Emery came to Café Provence to give me a rose he’d plucked from his garden.”

  “And to invite you to the funeral,” Emery said.

  “Oh, yes. That. I was astounded, especially when he said the service would be somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Until then he was just a customer, a quiet one at that. The encounter behind my house was the first time I’d seen him outside the bistro and here he was inviting me to meet his relatives at his aunt’s burial.”

  “You laughed at me,” Emery reminded her.

  “Not at you,” Natalie said, chuckling, “but the absurdity of your request. I mean, I’ve been invited on some weird dates, but to a funeral?”

  “It worked,” he said, tossing a gentle smile at her.

  “What worked?” I asked.

  “I knew I’d have to do something audacious to attract her attention,” he explained. “For engineers, fear of failure is the biggest cause of inaction. But I have a theory that it’s really failure only if you don’t learn from it, so…”

  “Have I mentioned Emery has a highly developed frontal cortex?” Natalie said suggestively. “Just what every girl desires in a man.”