“Love this place. Come here all the time.” Gideon stuffed beef tips into his mouth, letting grease and gravy run down his chin before mopping it up lazily with his tongue. “So you’ve eaten already.”
“Yes, and what took you so long? I’ve been here for forty-five minutes, waiting. And why didn’t you call me last night?”
“Too bad I didn’t know Jacob Christianson better. I thought he’d be like Enoch.”
This was the way it went between them. Kimball would ask questions that received no answers. At one time, Kimball had worked with members of the church, but thanks to Abraham Christianson’s interference, that avenue had closed. Instead, Kimball had been forced to seek out Gideon and the other Lost Boys, who sometimes followed their own agenda. That’s what came from living in Vegas.
“What happened? Did you take care of things?”
Gideon pushed aside the onions from his sweet and sour Chinese and forked a deep fried pork ball into his mouth. “Enoch wouldn’t have stood up to me like that. Oh, maybe he’d have crept around behind my back, but certainly no open defiance. Jacob fought back. I was unprepared.”
Elder Kimball let out his breath. “Dammit. You had a plan. It was simple.”
“Sure, simple to someone sitting in my apartment, watching TV. Yes, I had a plan. It failed.”
“Jacob is still alive.”
“That’s what I mean by failure, alright.”
What a pathetic, no-good excuse for a son the Lord had seen fit to send him. None of his sons were worth a damn, truth be told. Taylor Junior was a coward and bully in turns, Harold was a chronic masturbator, he suspected Nephi of being a sodomite, as was Ronald, if he was honest with himself. William was a liar and Ammon had been caught more than once trying to molest his younger sisters. The older sons were mentally strong but morally weak. The younger boys, mentally weak, but morally strong.
His daughters, on the other hand, took after Kimball’s mother, a bright, iron-willed woman who had always followed the straight and narrow and demanded the same of others. They outdid their brothers in every way imaginable. It was in his female posterity that any spark currently rested.
Patience, he told himself. The Lord has promised you a righteous seed and it will come. The angel had said that his seed would “number greater than the sands of the earth,” if he obeyed the will of the Lord, and his posterity would some day rule the earth in righteous dominion.
But still, he couldn’t help but think as he looked at Gideon that he had sent a lesser man to kill a greater man. No matter that the angel had sealed Jacob Christianson unto death. Kimball would have been fiercely proud of a son like Jacob. A son like that could lead the church some day, could be the very prophet and mouthpiece of the Lord.
He shook his head. “And what happened, did someone call the police? Did someone get arrested? Something about the girl?” Maybe a scattershot of questions would yield an answer.
“Does it matter? He escaped.” Gideon kept eating.
Kimball leaned forward and glanced to either side to make sure nobody was listening. “But how? The angel promised us.”
The angel hadn’t just promised. It had quoted scripture. The Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.
But they had failed. How could an angel, imbued with the knowledge of God, have made such a mistake?
The stranger thing was the relief Kimball felt at the news. He hadn’t wanted any of this. First Amanda, then Jacob. This one had come by his direct command. The entire plan was in jeopardy, but he did not trust a campaign of murder and intimidation to set it to rights.
So what now? He said, “The Lord has given a command and we must obey. This is a setback, but nothing more.”
“Jacob and Eliza left Vegas this afternoon. I tracked them to a hotel not far from Enoch’s house. But they’d already checked out. They’ve probably returned to Utah.”
Elder Kimball nodded. “That will help matters.”
Gideon set down his fork and pushed the half-eaten plate of food away. “Jacob’s no fool. And he has friends and family in Blister Creek. If we can’t get to him here, how do you propose we do the job in Utah?”
Elder Kimball turned the problem over in his head. “Enoch. He’s the one to do it. He can get close to his brother.”
“You think Jacob still trusts Enoch?”
“No,” Elder Kimball said. “Enoch ran from him. Told someone, because you guys showed up not long after. But Jacob needs his brother. Enoch can call, contrite. Request a meeting. Jacob will be anxious to agree.”
Gideon paused then nodded his head. “Okay. And what about the girl?”
“Eliza Christianson?”
Elder Kimball eyed his son. Gideon wanted the girl, he knew. Not like Taylor Junior, and his naked desire, but Gideon, too, was desperate for a wife. He could never lead in the church without one.
And Eliza was a comely child, there was no denying. With Jacob out of the way, Abraham Christianson would be hard pressed to prevent the marriage of his daughter to one of Elder Kimball’s sons. But which one?
“The Lord will reward those who serve him, my son. And Eliza Christianson needs taming if she is to make a good wife and mother. Who better than my son to accomplish that task and collect his heavenly blessings at the same time?”
Gideon smiled and Kimball knew that his words had done their job. “Then we have work to do, Father. Jacob Christianson must be laid low.”
There was a strange glint in Gideon’s eye and Elder Kimball felt a moment of doubt. The sudden fear that Gideon had led him to this point instead of the other way around. Taylor Junior, for all his scheming, was less dangerous.
Gideon returned to his plate of meat.
Kimball watched with disgust and wished again for a son like Jacob Christianson.
#
Eliza woke that night to the rumble of distant thunder. Several seconds passed, and she was drifting back to sleep, when she heard another rumble, followed by a third. She went to the window and drew open the curtains.
Tongues of lightning licked from the sky. The storm played far to the south and in that direction one could see for miles. Most of the thunder didn’t reach Blister Creek. The lightning lit the underside of a dark front, coming this way.
Jacob had set out for priesthood meeting that evening almost as soon as they’d returned to Blister Creek. He had men to question. Fathers of some of the Lost Boys.
Meanwhile, Eliza had continued her discreet inquiries. She’d taken aside her sister Fernie and later spoken to Charity and three of the other wives. What had Amanda been doing the last few days before her murder? Had they seen any Lost Boys around, other than Enoch? Or maybe Taylor Junior? Did he come and go a lot, perhaps to St. George or Las Vegas? She could sense that some of them suspected that Eliza was working with her brother to resolve Amanda’s death.
Turns out that neither Elder Kimball nor Taylor Junior were in town. Ostensibly, they’d gone to St. George to settle business with the agricultural co-op. Eliza thought otherwise. As for Gideon Kimball, nobody had seen him. They were surprised that she asked.
The storm hit. The flashes came so quickly that the sky did not darken between strikes. Thunder rumbled, then roared, then finally cracked like so many whips. The rain fell in sheets.
Water guttered off the edge of the house. It flowed into the street and met a stream growing on the side of the road. Every minute the stream grew bigger, and soon branches and debris joined the water. It soon covered most of the road.
Movement came from the hall outside her room, voices. Someone knocked, hard. A woman’s voice said, “Eliza, are you up? Eliza, open the door.” Eliza unlocked the door and the deadbolt. Charity Kimball stood in the doorway. “There’s flooding at the Jameson Young compound. They need all able hands. Can you come?”
“Of course.”
The rain still fell hard when they left the hou
se minutes later. People poured from homes all along the street. They hurried east on foot or climbed into the back of pickup trucks which pushed through the flooded street. Eliza caught the spray from a passing truck. Another truck stopped and she joined several Kimballs in climbing into the back. They reached the Jameson Young farm minutes later.
The farmhouse sat on a floodplain, surrounded by farmland, but the family had built up the land at the lip of the creek to hold in the water during floods. A snarl of broken tree limbs had formed a blockage downstream. Dislodged stones ground along audibly at the bottom of the creek and piled against the obstruction. The water poured over and around the tree limbs.
In the meanwhile, the backed up water streamed over the top of the dike and toward the house. It spilled into the window wells of the basement and lapped against the foundation of the house.
Dozens of people were already hard at work and several more arrived each minute. Shovels filled wheelbarrows and buckets. Others hacked at an irrigation ditch to channel water away from the house. Someone came with a truck full of sand and the Kimballs brought a Bobcat, whose shovel could do the work of twenty. Young children held open sacks while adults and other children filled them with sand.
Eliza took up a shovel. This was Zion. People working with singularity of purpose. Every member of the community had arrived to offer assistance to one of their own.
Two men hooked up a diesel pump but it strained against the water still pushing over the top of the dike. A growing wall of sandbags topped the dike, but it wasn’t enough.
The Bobcat pushed into the water but couldn’t get far enough in to reach the obstruction in the river, which was the source of the problems. The water had risen too high and the prophet—she saw Brother Joseph directing the efforts nearest the river—kept people from getting too close to the river where they might be in danger.
Eliza saw Taylor Junior working with two of his cousins from the Anders family. He didn’t look her direction and she stayed out of his way. She kept an eye on him, ready to move away if he looked her way. And she was not the only one watching Taylor Junior. There was Eduardo, working near the man and watching him out of the corner of one eye.
That was curious. Were the Mexicans working for the Kimballs? She couldn’t remember. She looked for Jacob, thinking she should point this out to him. She couldn’t see him.
Whether he’d been gawking or checking her out, she wasn’t going to be intimidated. She worked her way to his side before she remembered that he didn’t speak English. But he looked up when she came, and she thought he might understand a few words, at least. “Hello, Eduardo. Where are your friends?”
He gave her a brief look. “Disculpe. No speak English.”
“Friends. Uhm. Amigos.”
“Ya no están.”
Eliza had no idea what that meant and he hefted a newly filled sandbag and made for the dike before she had a chance to try again. She thought that was the end of it, but he came back a minute later.
She watched Eduardo as he worked. Unlike the other men, with long sleeves and high collars, he wore only a white tank top, stretched tight over his muscular shoulders.
Maybe he had been interested that evening when she’d gone to their trailer with Jacob. Or maybe he’d been gawking, but now he was aggressively not noticing her. Either someone had warned him off—unlikely, as only Jacob could have noted the exchange, and that was not her brother’s style—or he was feigning disinterest.
While she was watching Eduardo, she found that she’d drawn closer to Taylor Junior than she would have liked. He was talking to Jameson Young. “Look,” he said. “You’ve got to pull it back. The water’s too high over there. Goes any higher and it’ll kill the engine. We’ll never move it.”
“We need five minutes,” Jameson Young said. His flashlight cut through the rain drops to shine against the foundation of the house, then back to the growing dike. “Five minutes and we’ll have the water diverted. But I need that Bobcat to stay where it is.”
“We’ve had that thing for six weeks. Thirty grand. My Father will kill me if I lose it.”
“Five minutes and you pull it back. And if you lose the Bobcat, I’ll pay for a new one. Five minutes.”
“Yeah? Alright. Five minutes.” He waved to one of his younger brothers who operated the Bobcat, and the boy kept digging in place.
And then Taylor Junior turned and saw Eliza watching and smiled. “Hey, gorgeous. Can’t let me out of your sight?”
She retreated quickly to the shadows, but not before she saw the dark look cross his face and saw him glance at Jameson Young to see if the man had been listening. He had.
What had she been thinking? Why hadn’t she just stayed out of his way? And could she have handled that any worse?
“What an asshole.”
She turned in surprise to see Eduardo still working next to her even though she’d moved over toward the house. “You speak English.” He said nothing, maybe regretting that he’d opened his mouth. “Come on, Eduardo. I’m not an idiot. Why were you pretending not to speak English?”
He looked at her closely for the first time since she’d addressed him. “Why does it matter?” His English was almost perfect, with just a slight accent.
“I don’t know. It’s just weird.” She hesitated. “I can’t tell if you were checking me out the other night or just wondering whether it’s the lack of makeup that makes polygamist girls so ugly.”
He laughed, then returned to shoveling as someone moved past. He looked up a minute later. “Some girls don’t need makeup. Look, won’t your brother cut off my cajones if he catches me talking to you?”
“Jacob? Nah, he’s not like that. My father, on the other hand…oh, and I’ve got a number of cousins, uncles, and family friends who would happily do the same.” She smiled. “Don’t worry. Just play your, ‘me no understand’ routine and you’ll fool ninety percent of them. Where are your friends?”
Someone sloshed by and Eduardo waited until she was out of earshot before answering. “Jaime broke his big toe this afternoon on the job site. They took him to the clinic in Cedar City. We’ve got to pick up some supplies, so they’re spending the night and returning in the morning. Guess they missed the excitement.” He raised an eyebrow. “To answer your question, yeah, I was checking you out. Not the ugly thing.”
“Good answer, since I’m carrying a shovel,” she said with a smile.
He glanced over her shoulder and then quickly turned away. She followed his gaze to see Jacob go by with a wheelbarrow filled with sandbags. Even though her brother didn’t see her, she turned back to see Eduardo moving away with his shovel. She was more than a little disappointed to see him go, but it occurred to her with a thrill that they’d been flirting.
The rain let up with all the speed of a tap shutting off. One moment downpour, the next, nothing. Blister Creek still overflowed its banks, but they’d diked off the Young house and moved the Kimballs’ Bobcat to safety. The pump, at last, worked without opposition. It sent a jet of water back into the creek. And they’d made some headway in digging around the obstruction in Blister Creek as well. The water level outside the dike fell. They had saved the Young house.
The work groups broke up over the next half hour. Younger children and their mothers left first, followed by anyone without machinery, meaning the rest of the women, Eliza included. She set off for home on foot, following the stream of people. She was exhausted from the back-breaking labor, but with the memories of her conversation with Eduardo running through her mind, not particularly sleepy.
Why, exactly, did he pretend not to speak English?
She found herself turning from Main Street and away from the bulk of the people returning to their houses. She headed north, onto a darker street, where she was soon alone. The rain had stopped only minutes before but already toads emerged from holes and croaked for mates, looking to take advantage of the brief rains to breed. A fox or coyote slinked by her on the right and she he
ard other animals rustling in the sage brush or crossing the road.
Ahead, sheltered by cottonwoods, and raised on cinderblock above the muddy ground, was the Mexicans’ trailer. The porch light was on and more light streamed through a single window. She made her way toward the trailer.
This was crazy. Eduardo was a gentile, and a Lamanite to boot. What was she thinking? She should let Jacob question the man.
She stepped up to the door and knocked.
Chapter Ten:
Gideon Kimball stared at the ATM machine with disgust. He had entered the PIN number three times. The first time, he’d thought clumsy fingers. The second, he’d known something was wrong, and the third he’d begun to curse his brother’s name.
He was three blocks west of the Strip, in an all-night booth next to a small casino. Perfectly situated to drain a bank account so as to feed a gambling mania. He needed two thousand dollars, but not for gambling. The machine would not cooperate.
Gideon dialed Taylor Junior’s number from his cell phone. His younger brother answered in that raspy voice that made Gideon grit his teeth. The saccharine sweet veneer did nothing to improve it. “Yes? What is the matter my dear brother?”
“You know damn well what’s the matter,” Gideon said. “This card doesn’t work.”
Someone rapped on the window. He turned to see a couple of punks, maybe nineteen, twenty, with hoods pulled up and baggy pants. One of them wore sunglasses, even though it was night. Gideon shook his head and motioned them to move on.
“Ah, well, you see,” said Taylor Junior. “There was a lot of money coming out of that account. I thought I would change the PIN. In case you’d lost your card.”
If Gideon could have reached through the phone to throttle his brother he would have done so. “Father authorized these withdrawals.”
“Yes, I know. Most of it, at least. Twenty thousand last Monday. Fifty thousand more on Friday,” Taylor Junior said. “But then you took out a thousand yesterday. That was not in my instructions. What was that?”
The money had come from one of several fat accounts that his father held, thinly disguised, in gentile banks. He wasn’t sure why his father hid the money, probably to avoid paying a full ten percent tithe to the church. But if someone looked hard enough the accounts could be discovered.
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