ADVANCE PRAISE FOR A CRY FROM THE DUST
“A unique novel of forensics and fanaticism. A good story on timely subjects well told. For me, these are the ingredients of a successful novel today and Carrie Stuart Parks has done just that.”
—CARTER CORNICK, FBI COUNTERTERRORISM AND FORENSIC SCIENCE RESEARCH (RET.)
“Parks’s real life career as a forensic artist lends remarkable authenticity to her enthralling novel, A Cry From the Dust. Her work is a fresh new voice in suspense, and I became an instant fan. Highly recommended!”
—COLLEEN COBLE, USA TODAY BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF ROSEMARY COTTAGE AND THE ROCK HARBOR NOVELS
“In A Cry from the Dust, the novel’s courageous protagonist—a forensic artist recovering from cancer—finds herself facing “blood atonement” when she investigates the death of a young woman. This superbly researched mystery, based on actual events, shows what can happen when lack of education is combined with religious fanaticism.”
—BETTY WEBB, AUTHOR OF DESERT WIVES AND DESERT WIND
“Things I loved about A Cry from the Dust: the fascinating and painstakingly researched historical tapestry into which the story is woven, the frantic but intensely believable arc of events that makes you hold on extra tight, the compelling and flawed heroine who has absolutely no idea she’s the heroine. Part CSI, part Lie to Me, and all relentlessly original, A Cry From the Dust blends rich characters, little-known history, and a dose of conspiracy into a very modern storytelling style. Can’t wait to tear into Gwen Marcey’s next adventure.”
—ZACHARY BARTELS, AUTHOR OF PLAYING SAINT AND 42 MONTHS DRY
“With a strong heroine and suspense that keeps the pages f lipping, A Cry From the Dust is full of twists from the past, secret societies, and a sinister race against the clock. Highly recommend!”
—ROBIN CAROLL, AUTHOR OF THE JUSTICE SEEKERS SERIES
© 2014 by Carrie Stuart Parks
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.
Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].
Scripture references are taken from the KING JAMES BIBLE and Holy Bible, New Living Translation. © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Publisher’s note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
ISBN 978-1-4016-9044-1 (eBook)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parks, Carrie Stuart.
A cry from the dust / Carrie Stuart Parks.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-4016-9043-4 (paperback)
1. Mountain Meadows Massacre, Utah, 1857--Fiction. 2. Mormons--Fiction. 3. Utah--Fiction. I. Title.
PS3616.A75535C79 2014
813’.6--dc23
2014006456
14 15 16 17 18 RRD 5 4 3 2 1
To Frank,
who taught me to fish.
—Grasshopper
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
AUTHOR NOTE
READING GROUP GUIDE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
AN EXCERPT FROM PLAYING SAINT
PROLOGUE
ONE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
FOREWORD
BEFORE I MET HER, CARRIE STUART PARKS WAS already a forensic artist with years of experience in reconstructing crime scenes, drawing composites of bad guys from witness descriptions, recreating faces of the dead on—shudder!—their original skulls. Once she was interviewing a witness to a murder when she realized he was the murderer. She still has photos of people she’s had to draw the way they used to look before they were shot, clubbed, stabbed, drowned; you name it. Consequently, every dinner my wife, Barb, and I had with her and her husband, Rick—my banjo-picking buddy—included stories, some hilarious, some astounding, some a little difficult to hear while eating a rare steak.
At least twelve years ago, she said, “I’ve been working on a novel. It’s just in the first stages. Would you like to take a look at it and tell me what you think?”
And she said all that to Barb!
Well, Barb read it and passed the pages to me as we lay in bed. Hmm, I thought. Not bad. No, you lost me here. Ah! I like this! Ohh, Carrie, don’t do that. Now this works. Finally, I responded to the question Carrie never asked but . . . you know . . . sort of did.
Okay. I’d help her. (It was a no-brainer.)
From then on, every few weeks she hollered at the back door, “Knock, knock?” then brought in a case full of pens, highlighters, Post-it notes, her computer, and pages of manuscript—her homework—a copy for her, a copy for me. She read aloud; I followed. I commented; she listened and scribbled notes all over her work. She dubbed me “Master” and herself “Grasshopper” after that old Kung Fu TV show, but we were both new at it: she’d never written fiction and I’d never taught it. The learning was mutual.
And I guess it worked out.
Her perseverance alone was deserving of success, but she became a writer because she knew—and I knew—she could do it. She had the flair, the imagination, the whimsical, inventive, sometimes zany ability to go to other places in her mind and come back with the unexpected. She was a creative explosion sure to go off somewhere; all I had to do was aim her.
So . . . Ka-Boom! Here it is, Carrie’s first novel of the unexpected, mysterious, and shocking, drawing (pun intended) upon the highly specialized world of forensic art and featuring a heroine very much like herself. Hang on for the ride.
Oh, and, Carrie? Well done.
Frank E. Peretti
October 16, 2013
PROLOGUE
1857
THE BULLET EMBEDDED INTO THE DUSTY WAGON wh
eel, sending wood slivers flying.
Heart pounding, Priscilla James whispered a prayer through cracked lips. “All I have to do is stand, Lord. The next shot’ll kill me dead.” Her death would be fast and preferable to this parched agony.
She willed her muscles to push her off this blistering earth, to face the Indians who’d kept the wagon train pinned down for the past four days. Without food. Or water.
She tried to keep her gaze off the small row of crudely made crosses near the edge of the circled wagons. Seven men dropped like buckshot quail with the first hail of bullets. Three died right away, and the other members of the wagon train gave them a proper Christian burial. The preacher read the Bible and everything. She’d felt all tore up inside. Then.
Stand up. Do it now. One shot. It’ll be all over.
The breeze shifted, wafting the stench of rotting flesh.
Priscilla shivered in spite of the heat. Lying like small mounds of snow out on the prairie were the two little girls. The men said not even heathen savages would hurt children dressed like tiny angels, waving white flags and toting water buckets.
That had been two days ago.
They gave up burying the dead yesterday.
She tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. No tears formed in her burning, dry eyes. The September sun lashed the reddened earth.
The child’s whimpering started up again.
Priscilla sighed, shifted farther into the buckboard’s meager shadows, and pulled the tiny girl into her lap.
Jane Baker settled down and muttered in her sleep “ ‘. . . I shall not want . . .’ ” Priscilla gently worked a snarl out of the girl’s hair. Poor lass. Who’d take care of her if I were dead?
Though Jane was nearly ten, she was runty and looked half her age. She lost her ma only four weeks ago, birthing. The baby scarcely took a breath before it, too, died. Her pa, an old man with a scarred face and slight limp, said they’d leave the wagon train at Salt Lake City, but he took sick just before they reached their goal. He must have had brain fever, ’cause he ranted like a madman for a week. He was just getting better when the Indians killed him; he now rested under one of the three crosses.
Priscilla’s uncle was buried next to Jane’s pa.
Priscilla figured that sort of made Jane her ward. None of the remaining settlers would have anything to do with the child. They said she was wrong. Touched. Some even said the Devil was in her.
Another bullet smacked into the buckboard.
Priscilla jumped.
Maybe that’s the solution. They’d both try fetching water. They’d die heroes.
The murmuring of voices roused her from the sooty black thoughts. The grumbling grew to excited calls. “White men!”
“Praise God. We’re saved!” Mrs. Dunlap waved a hankie. Settlers poured from the circled wagons, pointing.
Goose pimples broke out on Priscilla’s arms. Thank You, Lord.
In the distance she spotted several men on horseback, waving flags. They’d come! Mr. Fancher’s plan worked. Last night he’d sent three of their best scouts to find help.
She’d soon be out of Utah Territory, in California. Home with her folks. She wrapped grubby fingers around the locket holding pictures of her ma and pa. Little Jane had her own treasure, a small packet never far from her. Priscilla peeked once when Jane was sleeping, but there wasn’t any money or jewels, just a journal and photo of her pa.
Jane would get better in California. Priscilla would take care of her.
Jane jumped to her feet to join the milling throng. Priscilla followed, squinting at the two men waving white flags and slowly riding toward the camp.
“Mormons,” a man standing next to Priscilla said and spat on the ground. “Don’t never trust ’em.”
Priscilla nodded. Mormons refused to sell them fresh supplies since they entered Utah Territory, and food was all but gone even before the Indians ambushed them. Priscilla even thought she saw white men driving off their livestock after first slaughtering some of the cattle.
“Maybe so,” she said. “But they be lookin’ like saviors right now.”
One stranger dismounted, handed the reins of his bay horse to his companion, and continued forward. The settlers crowded around him. Priscilla caught the words “Indian agent,” but she couldn’t get close enough to hear more. The weary smiles around her spoke of good news. The agent waved, jumped on his horse, then spurred it to a gallop. The two men quickly disappeared.
Funny. The scouts weren’t with them. Maybe they were waiting up the trail. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickled. Stop fussing now. We’re safe.
Jane stood motionless, gazing after the retreating men, her eyes wide and unseeing.
Priscilla touched her on the shoulder and shook her sleeve. “It’s over. Come on, Jane.”
Jane’s lips moved. Priscilla bent closer to hear.
“ ‘. . . cry from the dust . . . ,’ ” Jane said. “ ‘. . . for vengeance—’ ”
Priscilla cupped the small child’s face in her hands and stared into her unfocused eyes. Heavens t’be, the last of the girl’s mind was going.
After grabbing Jane by the wrists, Priscilla twirled her in a circle. “Come on, we’re going to California. You can come to my party.”
Priscilla stopped spinning, stood motionless, then touched her hair. “I must be a sight.” She pulled Jane to the Conestoga where she retrieved a comb and mirror. The mirror’s image shocked her. She’d lost weight and her skin was brown from dirt and the sun. With no water to wash up, she contented herself with brushing and braiding her hair.
Jane continued to mutter, “ ‘. . . vengeance . . . destroy . . .’ ”
The thud of hooves and creak of wood announced the return of the man, this time accompanied by two wagons.
“Surrender your weapons,” the Indian agent shouted. “Put them in the bed. Wounded go into the second wagon. We’ll walk you out of here.”
Grinning broadly, Priscilla took Jane’s hand. The rescuers marshaled women and children first, then the men. Slowly, like the Israelites leaving Egypt, they followed their Moses. Priscilla hummed and swung Jane’s arm. A crisp breeze brought the smell of sweet prairie grass, and Priscilla breathed deeply.
“ ‘Yea, though I walk . . . shadow of death,’ ” the young girl whispered. “ ‘I will fear no evil . . .’ ”
The valley narrowed, with rocky outcroppings and sagebrush hemming in the straggling group. The agent reined in his horse. He was near Priscilla, and she smiled slightly at him.
He didn’t seem to notice. He rose in his stirrups, looked around, and shouted, “Do your duty!”
The rocks seemed to burst into life as Indians hurtled down upon them, shrieking, shooting, chopping, slicing through the women and children.
Priscilla froze.
Mrs. Dunlap, walking beside Priscilla and carrying her baby, fell dead with a bullet piercing her forehead. Eight-year-old Sarah Fancher’s scream was cut short as a crazed Indian sliced her throat.
Heart pounding, unable to breathe, Priscilla bolted, yanking Jane with her.
They ran like jackrabbits, dodging the rocks, shrubs, bodies, and frenzied killers. The air filled with the reek of copper and screams of anguish. A huge man stabbed a bayonet into young Henry Cameron, screaming, “For Jehovah!”
Not Indians. Mormons.
Something punched her, and a million scorpions stabbed her side. Priscilla stumbled and lost her grip on Jane. The child flew through the air as one of the bloodied men grabbed her up.
The landscape blurred and she glanced down. A red stain spread up her dress. Her legs refused to hold her. She spun, slamming into the earth.
The sun blinded her for a moment, then a man blocked it. The big man.
“Please, spare me.” Priscilla raised her praying hands toward him. “I’ll do anything. Please . . . oh, please . . . I’ll be your slave . . .”
“For Jehovah,” he shouted, and thrust the bayonet.
CH
APTER
ONE
MOUNTAIN MEADOWS, UTAH, PRESENT DAY
“ARE THESE FROM THE THREE BODIES THEY DUG up?” The question came from my right.
The first of the early-afternoon tourists gathered just outside my roped-off work area. More people charged toward me, ignoring glass-fronted display cases holding historical articles and docents in navy jackets hovering nearby.
You can’t beat disembodied heads on sculpting stands to draw a crowd.
The open, central structure of the Mountain Meadows Interpretative Center featured towering windows that overlooked the 1857 massacre site. The architect designed the round building to resemble the circled wagons of the murdered pioneers. Exhibits were below the windows or in freestanding showcases, allowing visitors an unobstructed view of the scenery, with directional lighting artfully spotlighting displays. In the center of the room was a rock cairn, representing the hastily dug mass grave where the US Army interred the slaughtered immigrants more than two years after the attack.
A woman in a lime-green blazer with the name of a tour group ushered silver-haired couples past the welcome banner to a tidy grouping on my left. Neatly dressed families with a smattering of dungaree-clad teens joined the spectators and advanced to my cluttered corner.
Out the window I could see another surge of visitors scurry through the late-summer heat from the tour bus parked on the freshly paved lot.
A hint of sweat, deodorant, and aftershave replaced the odor of fresh paint and new carpeting. I double-checked to be sure the two finished, reconstructed skulls faced toward the vacationers. The clay sculptures rested on stands looking like high, three-legged, wooden stools with rotating tops. I’d nicknamed the three Larry, Moe, and Curly. Larry and Moe were complete, resting on shoulders made of wire covered with clay. Once I finished Curly, all three would be cast in bronze for permanent display.
The questions flew at me from all sides. “Who are they?”
“Are real skulls under that clay?”
“Doesn’t it bother you to touch them?”
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