He had grown angry lying there on the tracks and thinking about the night he’d broken his thumb. Anger was not depression. It burned away the blackness and before he knew it he was on his feet and stepping back from the tracks. The train roared past. Enoch stood a few feet away, swaying in the wind kicked up by the cars.
Enoch had gone south to Las Vegas. He’d got a job in a casino, had sex with half a dozen prostitutes, and drank himself stupid. And then Elder Kimball found him.
“Forget those people,” Elder Kimball had told him. “They abandoned you. They’re not your family anymore. We are.”
The goal, Kimball had told him, was the redemption of Israel. The church had grown weak and complacent. The Lord demanded sacrifice, change, striving. Nothing less would bring about the kingdom of God on earth. The Lord had chosen an imperfect vehicle to bring about this redemption. The Lost Boys. The Outcasts.
Gideon Kimball was their leader, but there were young men from every family: Youngs, Kimballs, Gibbs, Pratts, Johnsons. And now, a Christianson.
Enoch had gladly shed his apostate lifestyle, so recently adapted, to fellowship with the other outcasts. He had remained skeptical of their goals, not to mention their methods. They kept him working at the casino; it was there that he met the men who helped him launder hundreds of thousands of dollars. Dark hints came of a murder of a gentile. Maybe more than one.
But then he’d seen the angel. A man does not see an angel and remain lukewarm.
The strangest thing about the whole incident with Grandpa Griggs, Enoch thought now as Elder Kimball spoke the words of Enoch’s blessing, was that Jacob didn’t remember any of it. Enoch had mentioned it once; Jacob had remembered the fishing trip and a trip to the hospital, but not how or why Enoch had broken his thumb. This thing, this coal-black, diamond-hard memory from his childhood, had been so unimportant to Jacob that he had completely forgotten it. Did that speak more to Enoch’s failings or to Jacob’s?
“Well done, thou good and faithful servant,” Elder Kimball continued. “The Lord is pleased with your faith and obedience.”
There was no greater feeling than guilt lifting from one’s shoulders. It should have been a happy moment. But he kept thinking of Jacob.
As if on cue, Elder Kimball said, “But do not be deceived by the Adversary, my son. Others, even the very elect, have been deceived. They have become his servants. Do not follow their path with doubts and contention. You will fall away. You will become truly lost.”
He meant Jacob. His brother, the servant of Satan. The problem was, Enoch didn’t believe it.
“By their fruits, you shall know them,” Jacob had said.
For all Jacob’s skepticism, his brother had a good heart. Enoch had not forgiven Jacob for his role in driving him from Zion, but neither could he fully blame him. It had not been maliciousness on Jacob’s part that had led to Enoch’s expulsion.
No, he thought. You cannot doubt. Not the Lord’s plan. Not the angel.
The angel had spoken to Enoch. Elder Kimball had led the outcasts in thirty-six hours of fasting and prayer. When their faith had proved insufficient to show them the angel, the Lord had instructed them to take a sacrament of bread and wine within the very heart of the temple. It was the first time many of them had tasted wine, as Mormons had taken water in its place for over a hundred years.
After so much fervent effort, the angel had at last appeared. A burning figure of white. Enoch had felt such a fire in his soul that he had sworn to do whatever the angel instructed, no matter how difficult it might be.
And this, this was difficult. It would be the greatest test yet of his faith.
Elder Kimball closed his blessing and removed his hands from Enoch’s head. Enoch rose to his feet. He felt almost stunned by the experience and more than a little shaky on his feet. The light was brighter in the room than he remembered and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust.
Elder Kimball’s eyes glowed with the spirit. Kimball was a difficult man to read, dismissed by many for his temper and often petty behavior, yet when the spirit filled him he was a giant among men. He communed with angels, and could prophesy the future. The Lord spoke through His prophet, but the actor of God’s will was this man, of that Enoch had little doubt.
The man had driven several hours to get to Las Vegas. As the spirit eased its presence, it was replaced with exhaustion and Elder Kimball looked every bit his fifty years, and then some.
Elder Kimball handed him two scraps of paper. “This is it, Brother Christianson. Thy commission from the Lord.”
Enoch bowed his head. “Thou sayest.”
He handed Enoch a set of car keys. “White van, California plates.”
With that, Elder Kimball led him to the door of Gideon’s apartment. Enoch rode the elevator down in a haze.
He stepped into the parking lot. Lamps cast puddles of light on the pavement. He found the white van, parked in visitor parking. He clicked open the lock and slid open the door. Before he got in, he unfolded the first of the slips of paper given him by Elder Kimball.
Deliver the coolers, it read simply.
There were six coolers in the back of the van. He opened the lid of the first. Packed on ice was a tray containing several hundred thumb-sized glass vials, stacked in layers. He lifted a vial and examined its milky, frozen contents by the interior light of the van. Each vial contained some five milliliters of ejaculate, containing hundreds of millions of sperm. How many vials were here? A thousand? Five thousand? Thawed, Enoch imagined a river of sperm, flowing to impregnate hundreds of women.
Enoch replaced the vial and shut the lid. Taped to the top of each cooler was a manila envelope with a name, a phone number, a clinic, and an address. He looked inside one of the envelopes. It was stuffed with hundred dollar bills.
Enoch backed out of the van and shut the door, then climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine. Before he drove off, he looked at the second slip of paper.
It read:
Jennifer and Samuel Gold
7705 East Landover Rd.
Oakland
Below this, in Gideon’s spidery hand, the chilling script, “Let the blood of the wicked be spilled to justify the souls of the righteous.”
He stared at the paper, reading it again and again. Death had come to his hands. Enoch had become the Destroying Angel.
#
Jacob fought the urge to cower when he saw the two men with baseball bats. Eliza cried out and fell back. If he had allowed it, terror would have doomed him. Fear begat fear. It would drain the blood from his head and leave him weak as an old man.
The first man rushed at him with bat poised to deliver a crushing blow.
Jacob did not submit to fear. False bravado could substitute for the real thing. The two men would be just as juiced with adrenaline and he could turn it to his advantage.
He lifted his right arm to the square and said in a commanding voice, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to halt!”
The effect was electric. The two men stopped short. Eliza’s cry strangled in her throat. Jacob felt the power of his own words even though they had been said with all cynicism.
Jacob cocked back his fist and punched the first man in the nose. A satisfying crunch. The man lowered his baseball bat and Jacob grabbed for it. He twisted it from the man’s grasp and shoved the end into the man’s stomach, driving him backward.
The second man came on the attack now, his bat swinging wildly. Jacob parried his blows easily, but couldn’t get back on the offensive. The other man recovered and moved to join the battle, albeit unarmed this time.
Eliza had regained her wits. She snatched the liquid globe from the lava lamp at the nightstand and hurled it at the man with a bat. He lifted the bat to parry the globe. Jacob caught him a blow on the shoulder as the man lifted his guard. Jacob wrenched the other man’s bat loose and tossed it behind him. Eliza picked it up. She waved it shakily. Nevertheless, they were now armed, and their opponents we
re not.
“You fool,” the first man said. He clutched a hand to his nose. Blood trickled between his fingers. “You are playing with fire.”
“Is that you, Gideon?” Jacob asked. It had been too long since he’d seen the man to tell from his voice. “And you?” he said to the other. The other man hadn’t spoken, and he wondered if this were deliberate. He would recognize Taylor Junior’s hoarse voice in an instant. “Is that Taylor Junior?”
“Consider this your warning,” the one he thought of as Gideon said.
“A warning? Were you going to beat me within an inch of my life, is that it? Maybe rape my sister? Is that what you mean by a warning? I don’t think so. I think that crap about blood atonement was your way of justifying my murder.” No answer from the others. He continued, “But you failed. Maybe you should consider this your warning. I’m on the errand of the prophet. The Lord won’t permit you to stop me.”
The words sounded right when they came out of his mouth and he could see they had some effect on the men. For the moment, they did not move. They would be torn between their desire to complete the murderous task and fear.
He pushed his advantage. “Who are you?” No answer. “Who sent you?”
Without a word, the two men turned to leave. He let them. Moments later, Jacob and Eliza were alone. The entire incident had lasted just minutes.
And now the aftereffects of adrenaline washed over him. His hands shook and he was so light-headed that he had to sit down on the bed. He bent over and breathed deeply.
“Wow,” Eliza said. She put back the globe from the lava lamp. To his surprise, it had not broken. “Where did that come from?”
“What?” He sat up.
“Your words. It was like God had taken hold of you. I’ve never heard you talk like that before.”
“Ah, I see.” How could he tell her? The words had not come from God. They’d been his own, calculated and cynical.
Whatever the source, they had bolstered Eliza’s confidence.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We’ve got to get out of here. Before they come back to finish the job.”
“Can we go back to Utah?”
“Not yet, no. We’ll find a place to hang out until we can find Enoch. He’s bound to come back soon.”
But he didn’t. Eliza and Jacob found a cheap hotel room a few blocks away, paid for in cash. In the morning they called Enoch’s apartment several times, but there was no answer. Jacob left Eliza in the room while he went to Caesar’s Palace. No, Enoch wasn’t there. As a matter of fact he’d called that morning requesting two weeks leave to take care of urgent family business.
And it sank in that he wasn’t returning. Not anytime soon. He shared the news with Eliza when he returned to the hotel.
“What now?”
“We could spin our wheels in Vegas for a long time. I don’t have any other addresses or phone numbers. No way we’ll find anyone here just wandering around.” He shrugged. “So it’s back to Blister Creek. There, at least, we have a lead. We know the Kimballs are involved somehow.”
She said, “Assuming that one of the Kimballs—say, Gideon or Taylor Junior—killed my cousin, we still haven’t answered why. What possible motive do they have?”
“She betrayed them in some fashion,” Jacob said. “But it’s not so simple as that, because Enoch is mixed up in this, too. There’s something else going on.”
Eliza said nothing, but she looked troubled.
#
Jacob made Eliza drive back to Blister Creek. It was Tuesday afternoon and five days since they’d found Amanda’s body. Eliza didn’t mind the drive. Sitting in the hotel room that morning she had done nothing but stew in her own thoughts. She worried about Enoch, worried about Jacob. And she was afraid for herself.
Once they escaped the snarl of traffic around the city, the freeway stretched straight and empty for mile after mile. They stopped for dinner in Mesquite, a gambling oasis just inside the Nevada border.
Jacob read while Eliza drove. He had pilfered books of Mormon history from Enoch’s apartment. As they cut through the top of Arizona and back into Utah via the magnificent Virgin River Gorge, just south of St. George, Jacob stopped to rub his temples. “I hate reading in the car.”
“So take a break. Enjoy the scenery.”
“Can’t,” he said. “Enoch is right about one thing, you know.”
“That we ignored his troubles?”
“Ignore is a neutral word. Abandon is more accurate.”
“You didn’t. You said you found Enoch one other time?”
He nodded. “Dad told me not to. Enoch had called the house and left a message on the machine. Drunk, I think. He was begging for help and forgiveness. Dad told me it would be a waste of time. But I took the phone number Enoch left and tracked him down. By the time I arrived in Vegas a couple of weeks later, he was no longer asking for help. He was hostile, in fact. But quite sober.”
“He’d probably already taken up with the Lost Boys,” Eliza said. It was odd, though, that a drunk Enoch had asked for forgiveness. A sober Enoch had decided that no forgiveness was necessary. Not from them, at least.
“Maybe so. At the time I thought Dad was right. It had been a waste of time. Now I think I gave up too easily. I should have pushed him. Should have insisted he get out of Vegas.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” she told him. “You had no choice. The church teaches us to shun apostates.”
“There’s always a choice, Liz. Anyway, think how self-serving that injunction is, anyway. What’s the cardinal sin in the church? The sin against the Holy Ghost. Even the murderer or the adulterer gets some measure of glory in the next world. But turn your back on the church and that’s it. God throws you into Outer Darkness when you die. Think about that for a moment.”
She already had. “Apostates are dangerous. Someone who has the truth and then decides the gospel is not for him. We’ve either got to be wrong, or the apostates are enemies of God.”
“Quite. It’s like the church is a foxhole and shells are raining down on us from all sides. It sucks, but at least we’re in it together. Then suddenly one guy puts down his gun and climbs out of the foxhole waving a white flag. Hey! What’s that guy doing? He’s going over to the other side. Shoot him in the back!” He looked out the window. “We shot Enoch in the back.”
Jacob turned back to his book and a few minutes later said, “Here, I found it. Pull over.”
She pulled off the freeway just outside St. George and parked at a Chevron station. He handed over the book and pointed to a picture. It showed two sides of a medallion, together with some sort of hieroglyphic or astrological signs. “Is this what Enoch was wearing?”
She studied the picture. She’d only had a glimpse of the one around Enoch’s neck, but it looked right. “I think so.” She read the inscription. “A Jupiter Medallion. What’s that?”
“Joseph Smith wore the Jupiter Medallion against his breast at the time of his martyrdom. It was a totem of divine protection, something like the temple garments, but more esoteric.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Neither had I. Just reading about it now.”
“But where did Enoch get this thing?” Eliza asked. “Do Gideon and the others wear these medallions as well?”
“No idea.” He read from the book, “Typically a person born under Jupiter will have the dignity of a natural ruler. He knows what is due him and expects to receive respect accordingly. In physical appearance the highly developed Jupiterian is strong, personable, and often handsome.”
“Handsome? We’re not talking any of the Kimballs, then. Taylor Junior is about as handsome as an earthworm. Seriously, though, what does it mean?”
“I don’t know. Maybe nothing. But there was a lot of symbolic stuff in the early church. Sunstones, masonic symbols, that kind of thing. Joseph Smith liked to study hieroglyphs, Hebrew, old esoteric rituals. This is something like that. Like I said, it’s probably nothing.”
He tossed the book into the back seat. “Let’s gas up and get back on the road. Want me to drive?”
She welcomed the chance to pass off the driving responsibilities and take a nap. As she drifted off, she heard Jacob mutter, “Only I’ve seen the Jupiter Medallion somewhere else. But where?”
Chapter Nine:
Elder Kimball sat in the buffet hall at Circus Circus, eating from a dinner available in quantities that would satisfy the greediest glutton. Several of said gluttons had taken up residence at the next table and made repeated forays to the buffet, returning each time with huge mounds of food. Kimball found the food unimpressive. The breadsticks were stale, the pork chops overcooked. There was soggy pasta, pre-whipped mashed potatoes, and potato wedges that had sat too long under a heat lamp.
Jacob Christianson had died and he was eating a cheap, never-ending buffet in a casino in the heart of modern-day Gomorrah.
And Kimball had authorized the murder. If his enemies ever learned the truth, there would be hell to pay. Abraham Christianson and indeed, half the population of Harmony, would come to Blister Creek looking for revenge.
His son arrived at last. Gideon stepped into the restaurant and looked around for his father, not seeing him at first. The man’s nose was swollen, perhaps broken, and his eyes were bloodshot. He studied the room with all the intensity of a contract killer before fixing on his father.
But he didn’t come directly. Instead, he made his way to the buffet. He took a plate and made his way gradually down the line, scooping up country fried steak, beef tips, fried chicken, pork chops, and buffalo wings.
Elder Kimball was irritated by the time Gideon took his seat across the table. He eyed the plate. “What, are you a carnivore? You’ll give yourself a heart attack.”
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