A Cry from the Dust

by Carrie Stuart Parks

  So they wanted to play the deception game. Fine. Edwards seemed the most transparent. His choice of words and body language would answer my questions. I’d look for three or more physical or verbal clues delivered in a timely response. On his first reply, he’d broken eye contact, significantly paused, and given multiple denials. Answer to first question: yes. They’d read the article.

  “Are you responsible for the murders? Jane Doe, George, Ethan?”

  “No,” Bateman said.

  True answer. “Do you know who is?”

  “No,” Bateman said again.

  True.

  I strolled across the wooden floor to the tiny window, the floor creaking with each step. The thin walls allowed cold air to seep in between the boards. Pine trees pressed against the building’s side. The sun dipped behind the mountains, casting the room in shadows.

  Howell pulled a glass Kerosene lamp from the mantle and lit it. The room was less stark in the warm glow.

  “We’re here to help,” Bateman said. “We’d like to make you an offer.” His gaze flickered to the cell phone on the table.

  They claimed they were the last of the Avenging Angels, but someone else pulled their strings. I needed to get my hands on that cell phone and see the last dialed number. “Offer?”

  “The FBI can’t put you or your family into long-term, protective custody,” Deputy Howell said. “We also know you are in grave danger from whoever is behind the murders.”

  “Who is behind the murders?”

  “We’re offering to hide you,” Edwards said. “Until the killers are arrested and you’re no longer in danger.”

  “So you must know why I’m in danger.” I glanced from man to man.

  They shifted slightly in their seats, but didn’t speak.

  “What if I helped you?” I leaned against the fireplace. “George Higbee, who was one of you, an Avenging Angel, was killed at the Mountain Meadows Center. That’s a fact.”

  I had their attention.

  “On the same day, a young woman with an assumed identity was also brutally murdered. Both had their throats cut.”

  Edwards glanced at Bateman.

  “You, of course, know all of this because Deputy Howell was the investigating officer. Here’s my take on all of this. Jane Doe was delivering something to George Higbee.” I turned to Deputy Howell. “And you need to tell your colleagues that I’m an expert on deception, so you’d better not lie to me.”

  Howell stared at me. Bateman and McMurdie crossed their arms and looked down. Edwards shifted, tried to look me in the eye, then examined his fingernails with rapt attention.

  So far, so good.

  “But George was late to work. And the girl fainted and was escorted back to the motel. So the transaction didn’t happen. Good so far?”

  No one moved.

  “So, time to be honest. Who was Jane Doe and what was she delivering to George?”

  Edwards opened, then closed his mouth.

  “Come on, guys. You know I’m in danger. I have a right to know why.”

  Deputy Howell positively beamed at me. “I told you she was good.”

  Edwards glanced around, then gave a short nod as if making up his mind. “Yes, well. We don’t know who Jane Doe was, but about two years ago she called us. She needed money and had something to sell.”

  “How did she know to call you?”

  Edwards flushed slightly. “That was one of the reasons we knew she was legit. She said she knew our secret. And she had the proof.”

  “Which was?”

  Merrill Johnson started hacking, bending him forward in his wheelchair with a racking, gurgling cough.

  I raced to help, but the other men surrounded him, patting, rubbing, murmuring.

  I gripped the table, feeling helpless, and looked away from the distressed man.

  The cell phone was inches from my hand.

  The men were oblivious to me. I swiftly flicked the phone on, tapped the menu, found the last dialed number, and committed it to memory.

  Johnson stopped coughing.

  I placed the phone on the table, but the screen was on, screaming that I’d touched it. I stepped forward, blocking it from view. “Is . . . are you okay?”

  Deputy Howell tugged a cooler from the corner of the room, opened it, and handed a bottle of water to Johnson. “He’ll be fine. For now. Water?”

  I didn’t dare look at the cell phone to see if it’d darkened. “Sure. Yes.”

  Howell pulled several more bottles from the cooler and handed them around. Edwards struggled with the cap. So much for the all-powerful Avenging Angels. The room was silent as the men drank. I finished mine first and made a show of placing it on the table.

  The phone was off.

  Heat rushed up my face. I moved to the window where a pine-scented breeze cooled my forehead. “Keep going. Tell me what Jane Doe was trying to sell.”

  Howell leaned forward. “Proof that Joseph Smith survived Carthage. She was selling the scepter of power. Joseph Smith’s journal, his revelations, written between 1844 and 1857, when he was killed at Mountain Meadows.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I SPUN AND PUMPED MY FIST. “I WAS RIGHT! Willard Richards did switch a body with Joseph Smith at the Carthage jail. And the death mask of Smith was a life mask, and was made the night before his supposed death.”

  “Deputy Howell told us you were intelligent and persistent,” Johnson said. “No one figured out the discrepancies before now.”

  I leaned against the wall and thought for a moment. “This journal, this . . . what did you call it?”

  “The scepter of power,” Edwards said.

  “Mmm.” I strolled to the fireplace, then back to the window. “How did you know it was really his journal? There’ve been some pretty amazing forgeries foisted on the Mormon Church.”

  McMurdie frowned at Howell. “When Jane Doe called us, she read passages from the journal. The phrasing, the chiasmus—”

  “A writing structure where two or more points are reversed or crisscrossed,” I said.

  Edwards nodded. “It’s found in the Bible, the writings of Shakespeare, and the Book of Mormon. Then, of course, there were the prophesies.”

  “Did they come true?” I asked.

  Edwards simply stared at me.

  “Okay, fair enough. I put Smith’s real history together,” I said. “Up until 1844. You can at least tell me this: Why was Joseph Smith on that doomed wagon train?”

  The men looked at each other. McMurdie gave a slight nod to the others. Edwards spoke, “That’s simple. Joseph Smith was returning for his church.”

  My heart beat faster. Yes, that made so much sense.

  “How did Brigham Young find out that Smith was with the settlers?”

  “I wish George were here,” Johnson said. “That’s the Higbee involvement. John, you know the story best.”

  Bateman stared at a point in space to my left. “Chauncey Lawson Higbee was an excommunicated Mormon and editor of the Nauvoo Expositor, the newspaper Smith destroyed. That’s what landed Smith in jail in Carthage. Anyway, there was bad blood between Higbee and Smith. John Higbee, Chauncey’s first cousin, was fiercely loyal to Brigham Young. John was present at Mountain Meadows and even rumored to have given the command to kill. Although it’s not documented, we believe at some point Chauncey identified Smith as being in that wagon train and sent word to his cousin about Smith’s plan.”

  “The slaughter at Mountain Meadows was about power and control,” I said quietly.

  “And hatred and greed,” Edwards added. “Believe me, with all our hearts, we wish it never happened.”

  “Why didn’t Smith make his appearance known when the wagon train passed through Salt Lake City?”

  “We don’t know,” Howell said. “He may have been ill, or felt the timing was wrong.”

  “So, are you saying Brigham Young murdered that whole wagon train to make sure Joseph Smith wouldn’t take contro
l of the church again?”

  No one spoke.

  “Okay. You don’t have to say it.” I moved to the fireplace and took a deep breath. “This changes your history by a hundred and eighty degrees.”

  McMurdie found words. “Until that girl called two years ago telling us of this book, we’d decided to let the secret die with us. Enough time had passed that all the witnesses were gone, evidence destroyed, history rewritten, and cases closed.”

  I shook my head. “You guys are in deep doo if this journal shows up.”

  Howell nodded. “And you are in deep doo if it doesn’t. Whoever is killing won’t stop until that journal is located.”

  My pulse raced. That journal was valuable beyond measure to certain people. “You offered to help me, to protect my family. I accept your offer. What happens next?”

  The men relaxed. “We’ll need to make some phone calls,” Edwards said. “Deputy Howell, would you be so kind as to take Gwen outside for a walk?”

  “Do you think I could maybe use the restroom first?” Drinking all that water may have kept me from altitude sickness, but my bladder was set to burst.

  “Well now.” Johnson cleared his throat. “We, uh . . . take care of that before coming here. The restroom, such as it is, is an outhouse.”

  “I’ll escort you,” Howell offered, stepping away from the now crackling fire he’d just built.

  “Unless I’m under arrest, if you don’t mind, just direct me to the outhouse. I am capable of doing some things on my own.”

  Johnson actually blushed. “Go out the door, turn right, and go around the cabin. There’s a trail. The outhouse is tucked on the opposite side of the woodshed. TP is in the bag next to the cooler.”

  Deputy Howell handed me a flashlight and a navy flannel jacket. The sleeves covered my hands and hung almost to my knees. It felt wonderfully warm. A gun would have been nice, just in case any grizzlies or cougars fancied white meat for dinner, served up with a toilet paper napkin. I turned on the flashlight and slipped from the room. No faces appeared at the window, so I took a fast detour to check the van for car keys. No such luck. Hot-wiring a car wasn’t my strong suit.

  I trotted uphill toward the outhouse, flashing the light from side to side. Fallen trees, shrubby brush, and stumps of long-cut timber bordered the path. A million stars sparkled in the ebony velvet sky. The chilly breeze held the promise of snow, making my ears ache. One pocket held a clean bandana, which I tied over my head. The flashlight flickered, and I had to bang it a few times against my hand to restore the dwindling amber light. Little illumination came from the tiny window facing the backside of the cabin. As promised, the outhouse was exactly where they said. I pulled open the door and held up the light.

  Spiderwebs, like snarled meshwork, crisscrossed the tiny space. Long-legged arachnids skittered from the light, or hunched down and glowered at me. I almost wet my pants on the spot. I involuntarily gave a shivery spider dance. There was no way in this lifetime I’d ever go in there, let alone expose my nether region to who-knew-what in that inky hole in the ground.

  Back to nature. I held the light higher. In the flickering illumination, a grouping of trees huddled to my right. I climbed to the spot. I could still clearly see the cabin, which meant that they could just as easily see me. A quick flick and I was in darkness. From here, it would be easy to find my way down.

  I finished and stood. A sound like a woman’s scream echoed off the mountains. Cougar. The mountains had always been home to me, and I enjoyed the solitude. How long do they need for their meeting? I’d given them a boatload to talk about.

  I moved a couple of steps uphill and processed the information I’d gleaned from our conversation. I’d need to call the number on the cell phone the first chance I got. Though they claimed they were the last of the Avenging Angels, they still had someone in authority over them or advising them.

  They’d also made it clear that the official church stance would remain that Joseph Smith died in Illinois, not Utah. DNA on the excavated body at Mountain Meadows would prove otherwise, but it was far better for Smith to die in a shootout with a Mormon-hating mob than slaughtered by members of his own church.

  I waited a bit longer, listening for the cougar or perhaps wolves, hopefully very far away.

  Just as I reached for the flashlight, I smelled it.

  Stale cigarette mixed with body odor.

  I froze, then crouched behind the larger tree trunk. It took me a few moments to find him. The beer belly, covered with a khaki shirt, poked around a tree upwind of me. His head turned and lips moved.

  Is he talking to somebody? A radio?

  A stick snapped.

  I clapped my hand over my mouth. The toilet paper looked like a snowy beacon. I quickly kicked it under a thick pile of pine needles.

  The wind shifted, and a soft voice carried to where I hid. “No one has come or gone since I got here. Yeah. Okay. Wait until we’re all in position.”

  Was that behind me? I couldn’t tell. I crouched even closer to the ground, pushing more needles around the toilet paper.

  Crack!

  My heart jumped. My hand held the scream in check.

  Beer-gut open fired on the cabin.

  Aynslee sneezed. Winston made a fluffy pillow on the backseat, but his fur kicked up her allergies. She quickly checked her backpack. It rested undisturbed at her feet.

  “Bless you,” Beth said from the front seat. “So, you’re awake.”

  “What time is it?” Aynslee asked.

  “Almost midnight,” Robert said. “We’re stopping in Ritzville for coffee.”

  “How long before we reach Seattle?” Aynslee scratched Winston’s ear. He rewarded her with a juicy burp.

  “Another three and a half hours, not counting stops. Technically, the conference isn’t in Seattle,” Beth said. “It’s north of Bellevue, on Lake Washington. A new, elegant conference center. We’ll have quite the adventure.”

  “Yeah, well, okay.” Aynslee shrugged, then nudged the backpack open. She’d wrapped the package from Ethan Scott in a T-shirt. Maybe she could find a chance to throw it into the lake. No Ethan, no Utah, no Academy.

  I burrowed farther into the tangled shrubs, my ears covered against the bedlam of gunfire. Pinpoints of golden light appeared in the flimsy cabin walls as the pounding projectiles struck.

  No return fire came from the cabin. I moved my head slightly. Boom! That sounded like a shotgun.

  Had the men inside ducked the bullets? Somehow I didn’t think Johnson, confined to a wheelchair, would move fast enough to avoid the onslaught. Why didn’t Howell fire back?

  I hunkered down farther, blending with the darkness, allowing only my eyes to move, breathing silently through my mouth. As each shot occurred, I’d shift my gaze and locate the shooter. One. Two. Three. Four. At least five men. Maybe more in the front where the cabin blocked my view. Beer Gut approached the structure, passing me without looking.

  The light from the cabin expanded, then a whoosh!

  The building exploded. Fire lapped around the shattered windows.

  Dead. They are all dead.

  Voices called to each other around me. The killers.

  Think. If they find you . . .

  The inferno illuminated the woods, turning the pines olive green and orange. My patch of darkness evaporated with the light.

  The woodshed in front of me cast a deep shadow, but it was too near the blaze. If I could shift to my left, a line of trees could provide a small amount of cover. Then what? I’m in the middle of an Idaho wilderness.

  Move now. Worry later.

  That seemed like such an easy concept, but I remained frozen.

  Go. Now!

  I stayed in the shadow of the trees, sliding, creeping, slithering away from the fire. The cover ended. Three quick steps, then another lodgepole. I clutched the craggy bark like a lifeline. No killers in sight. They must be in front of the cabin.

  The illumination from the fire lapped at t
he darkness, sucking up cover, undulating in the shadows. I crouched, scrambled away from the cabin’s pyre. If I could swing around the building, I could follow the road to the cluster of houses I’d spotted on the way in. Electrical wires meant that they were less primitive. I might even find a phone.

  Whoooosh!

  I ducked.

  The roof caved in, sending dancing sparks upward.

  Oh, Lord, those poor men. They didn’t have a chance. They were fathers, grandfathers, probably great-grandfathers. They should have died peacefully in their sleep.

  Not shot down and burned.

  My nose ran and I wiped the tears streaking my cheeks. The air was thin, and I sucked it in, trying to get enough oxygen to race to the next set of evergreens.

  A twig snapped. A hand gripped my shoulder. A rasping male voice said, “Well, lookie what I found.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  AYNSLEE WATCHED THE PASSING HEADLIGHTS, curled up in the backseat with Winston. She’d tried to talk to her dad about the article, but once again he was ignoring her. The more she thought about just running away, the better it seemed. Her dad’s book was more important than she was. She’d heard her parents fighting one night and Dad had said they both ruined his writing career. Mom wasn’t any better. She said she had to take the job, that a motel room in a small town wasn’t any place for a kid acting out.

  It was a stupid little party where some other kids were doing drugs. No one had even asked her to explain, and instantly, she was a dope addict. Then Mom sent her to that school full of losers.

  What ever happened to second chances?

  Aynslee buried her face in Winston’s fur to hide her tears.

  The man gripped my shoulder painfully. I didn’t wait for reinforcements. I spun, then slammed my foot into his crotch.

  He dropped like a pile of concrete.

  I ran. Keep the cabin behind you. Run downhill. Branches snapped and broke in my hair, rough bark ripped my skin, loose pine needles skidded underfoot.

  Someone shouted on my left.

  I ran faster, sucking in thin mountain air. How far did we drive past those buildings?