A Cry from the Dust

by Carrie Stuart Parks

  Someone rattled the doorknob.

  I leaped to my feet, seeking a weapon, anything.

  I dashed to the hinge side of the door. I’d slam it against the person entering the room.

  The door swung partly open.

  I put my shoulder against the solid oak. Just a little more. Then push. Hard.

  Two hands appeared holding a tray.

  Child’s hands.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE LITTLE GIRL CAREFULLY BALANCED A TRAY containing a bowl of lentil soup, a scratched plastic cup of water, a spoon, and a paper napkin. Behind her was a woman about my age holding a very businesslike pistol aimed at my midsection.

  “You will move to the other side of the room,” the woman said.

  Any thought of grabbing the gun fled with the look from the girl. She was terrified. She placed the tray on the small bedside table before fleeing.

  I took a step away. “Where am I?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough.” Like the women hanging up laundry, my captor wore an ankle-length, calico dress with drab peach flowers on a gray background. She’d French braided her auburn hair, which hung to the middle of her back.

  “You can at least tell me your name,” I said.

  She thought about it for a moment. “Jane.”

  Plain Jane. It didn’t quite fit this woman. Maybe it was the gun, but the word dangerous came to mind.

  Jane inspected me as if checking out the list of ingredients on a cereal box.

  I returned her gaze, starting with her oversized, grubby Nike walking shoes, past the tan anklets, then made a point of staring at her uneven hem. I finally finished my examination by returning to her face. A vein throbbed in her temple and her lips formed a thin line.

  “You know it’s illegal to kidnap someone,” I said quietly.

  She worked a muscle in her jaw. “You do not know our laws, for you have not read our books!” She pointed at the scriptures on the bed. “On earth as it is in heaven.” She pointed to the needlepoint on the wall. Her hand trembled. “I bind you here on earth, in the name of Jesus.” White spittle gathered at the edges of her mouth. “You do not know what’s coming. There will be wars and rumors of wars. Then blood, fire, sun darkened. The remnant shall, will, be gathered. Zion will be redeemed. Then the kingdom of God will go forth, and the kingdom of heaven. Jesus will return and set up His government through His commissioned holy priesthood, to reign for a thousand years.” She backed away from me. “Though you are bound, you have been blessed.” She raced from the room, locking the door behind her.

  I waited until the blood stopped pounding in my head. Blessed? That was seriously creepy. I checked the door, just in case she hadn’t shut it tight. No such luck.

  The soup smelled like vegetables. I strolled to the bed and sat. What if they poisoned the food? That’s stupid. Jane could have simply shot me. But what if it had sleeping pills in it? Or drugs?

  At least time would pass by more quickly. Someone was bound to look for me. I’d been out of sight for twenty-four hours. Deputy Howell and the other men weren’t going to be much help. They were dead.

  Thinking about their murders made my throat burn. Just eat the soup. Get some strength. I tried a sip. It needed salt. Badly. Any seasoning would have helped. It was as nasty as my cooking.

  I finished the meal and sipped at the warm water. I was thirsty enough to drink it all, but somehow I figured they wouldn’t be waiting on me hand and foot.

  Lunch, or was it breakfast, now completed, I returned to the window. The women had finished their laundry duties. More lackluster calico dresses, denim overalls, white shirts, towels, sheets, and—just visible on the back row—underwear hung on the clotheslines.

  Suddenly a group of men and boys poured from the house across the road. They were joined by an equal number of men coming from the front door below me. Smiles, back-patting, and cheerful nods told me whatever the occasion, it wasn’t a SWAT team rescuing me. To my right, more men joined the throng and raced down the road to my left.

  The men disappeared around a bend. After a few minutes, two buckboards, pulled by mules, followed. I waited, but all the action was out of sight.

  The sun beat through the window, heating up the room. I shoved against the frame, but it was firmly stuck or locked. Sweat broke out on my forehead. My deodorant gave up and my armpits dampened my shirt. No sign of an air-conditioning vent. No vent at all.

  I gazed around the stark room again. No power outlets.

  No light switch.

  No overhead light.

  Once the sun set, unless someone brought me a flashlight, I’d be in darkness until morning. That was so not going to happen. I hobbled to the bed and surveyed the contents of the drawer. Slim pickings. I opened the Bible. In the center was a place to write family names.

  A single name was penned in a flowery hand. Jane Baker (Smith) 1847–1931. Below it, she’d written, Because of the blood of them who have been slain; for they cry from the dust for vengeance upon it.

  Slowly sinking to the bed, I pictured myself holding the blood-stained plaque from the Mountain Meadows Interpretive Center.

  Jane Baker was the eighteenth name on the list of surviving children.

  Smith not only survived the Carthage shootout, he remarried and started a new family. Jane was ten at Mountain Meadows. She must have appeared much younger or she, too, would have been brutally murdered.

  After two years, the US Army located seventeen children. Her name didn’t appear on their list of recovered children, only in the memory of the surviving children. She’d remained a captive of the killers of her family.

  What would that have done to a young girl’s mind? How would it affect, twist, taint her thoughts? The quote below her name gave some insight. Vengeance.

  I shook my head. How did Jane Baker . . . Jane? The name of the woman holding me captive. Coincidence?

  After grabbing the Mormon scripture book, I feathered the pages. A few passages had penciled notes in the margins, and a ribbon marked one section. I rechecked the calendar. No additional important dates. Just daily temperature readings.

  The pencil was dull. I itched for a sharpener. I twirled it around in my fingers as I tried to piece together the information. Primitive conditions. Except for the thermometer. Baby making. I picked up the calendar. The writing jumped out at me.

  I stopped twirling the pencil and stared at the lead tip.

  Someone wrote the daily temperatures with a sharp pencil point.

  But this was a rounded, dull graphite tip.

  I jumped from the bed, ignoring the pings of protest from my body. Where? Where? The bed refused to move, in spite of my efforts. I tried the cross-stitch on the wall. Bolted down.

  That left the small table. I yanked the drawer out, but it caught and refused to budge. Pushing it back into place, I eased to the floor, lay on my back, and slid under.

  The penciled note on the underside was short, but clear.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-NINE

  THE WRITER HAD SCRAWLED HER GRAPHITE message deep into the wood with a sharp, angular hand, dulling the pencil I’d found in the drawer.

  My name is Mary Allen Smith. I’m seventeen. I’ve had three children. Nephi, Sarah, Benjamin. They all died. I must leave. God give me strength.

  Poor Mary Allen Smith. She would’ve started having babies at around thirteen. A bit younger than my own daughter. From what I knew about such groups, that age wouldn’t have been unusual. Did she actually get away from here?

  Thirteen. She wasn’t old enough to vote or get a driver’s license. Just old enough to become a mother, and to bear the pain of her babies’ deaths.

  The Joseph Smith photo stared benignly from the wall in front of me. She’d probably stared at that photo every day. Memorized it.

  So she’d recognize that face when confronted with the sculpture of it.

  Jane Doe was between eighteen and nineteen. The autopsy report sai
d she’d borne children. She’d taken another identity. Run away. Fainted when she saw my sculpture.

  It fit. Mary Allen Smith could be the murdered Jane Doe. How did she get away from here? I couldn’t exactly ask the gun-toting woman to point out a handy escape route.

  The hard floor felt good, a brush of coolness on my back in the baking heat. Maybe I could just remain here, pretending to be unconscious, then spring on the woman when she bent over to check on me.

  Assuming she returned.

  And I didn’t die of dehydration first.

  After a few more minutes, the pain from my shoulder and hips became unbearable. I gingerly sat up and reached for the water. A few sips and a new problem emerged. I had to go to the bathroom. Did these demented people really want me to use the bedpan?

  They had to have a bathroom or two or six for all those kids. I stood, then limped to the door. Bang. Bang. Bang! “Let me out.” Bang. “Anybody.” Bang. Bang. “I know you can hear me!”

  I continued to kick and pound the door while shouting. No room can be that soundproof. My foot and hand now joined the litany of pain from the rest of my body.

  A rattle of the doorknob. “Move to the far side of the room.”

  I moved.

  Jane shoved the door open, gun still gripped in her hand. “You are wearing my patience thin. Stop the noise or I’ll be forced to tie you up.”

  “I have to use the powder room.”

  “We don’t have a powder room.”

  “Bathroom, then. Latrine. Loo. Head. Potty—”

  “Under your bed.”

  She was serious. Bedpans don’t flush. In this heat . . . “Look. I won’t run away. I just need a real toilet.”

  “I don’t have time for your selfish needs. The Gathering—” Her mouth snapped shut and she was silent for a moment. “Use the chamber pot.”

  I hoped she’d be the one to have to empty it. A hot flash whipped up my neck and across my face without warning.

  Jane’s eyebrows furrowed and her gaze sharpened. “You. You’re going through the change!”

  The change? A giggle bubbled up and I rolled my lips to stifle it. Yeah. I am changing into a cranky, menopausal toad. I lifted one shoulder. “Life happens.”

  Her eyes widened and the pistol wavered. “But that means you’re sterile!”

  I thought of the calendar and thermometer. Was the purpose of my abduction to provide fresh breeding stock for their tutti-frutti band of nuts?

  “I have to call . . .” She backed from the room, locking the door after her.

  The original plan probably was for me to die in the forest fire. Deputy Howell’s car was parked in front, and Mike will tell people that I was meeting with the deputy. When I’d obviously survived, someone saw the potential of replacing the runaway Mary. If I was correct in what this room was used for, I’d just made myself useless. Now Jane would be told to just get rid of me. Great. They were already hidden from society. If they could conceal an entire community, tucking away a single body would be easy.

  I pulled out the drawer in the small table. This time it slid completely out. Crossing to the window, I sank to the floor, rested my head against the glass, and looked at the message. My tongue stuck to the back of my throat. I would kill for an aspirin and a tall, frosty glass of water.

  I shifted lower, trailing my finger across the wood. No one knew I was here.

  A brick settled on my heart.

  How many people had died because of what I now know? I would never be allowed to leave here alive. If I could just fly . . .

  I read again Mary’s epitaph. “I hear you, Mary,” I whispered. “You summed up your life in just twenty-five words.”

  Twenty-five words. I’d begin with my name. I pulled out the dull pencil and carefully inscribed under Mary’s words, My name is Gwen Marcey . . . Five words. Twenty left.

  Mary would have been seventeen, and in that time she’d become a mother three times. I’d lived a lot longer. What had I accomplished? How about I write, I screwed up? No. Not completely. I could write, My daughter hates me. Aynslee’s image shimmered in front of me, hair tangled from sleep. “I love you,” I said to the vision.

  She nodded. “I love you too, Mom.”

  The room blurred. That was so easy. Just three words under my name. I still had seventeen left.

  I could list my achievements. Awards. Friends. Cases. How I always tried to choose the right course of action. But look where that got me.

  Maybe challenges?

  I touched my wig. I survived cancer. Good, but cancer survivor didn’t define me. Maybe changed, honed, focused, strengthened. Not delineated. Still seventeen words to go.

  Ambitions? Goals? Marriage? Mary didn’t mention her husband. What would I say about Robert? My mind went blank. Seventeen words wouldn’t do it. Or seventeen hundred.

  Regrets?

  That would take an entire novel; a War and Peace tome. I could start with letting Jane see my hot flash, which probably signed my death warrant.

  I really wasn’t any use to anyone.

  Not quite. There was someone who could use me if I’d just ask.

  Beth always said that everything happens for a reason. I carefully printed the words: God, I need You. Your will be done. I trust my life, and Aynslee’s, to You.

  Sixteen. I had one word left. Amen.

  I traced the word, then studied the landscape in front of me.

  Even if I could find a way out, I had no idea where I was. Idaho? Montana? Colorado? Somewhere remote, with mountains. Not near the forest fire as I could neither see, nor smell, smoke. Big enough to hide an entire colony of misfits. All gathering . . .

  I straightened. Gathering? Jane had briefly mentioned the remnant gathering, but where had I heard that term before? I closed my eyes and remembered. The drawl echoed in my ears. “The time of Gathering is nigh. Only the chosen mighty one can lead. Only a prophet. He must prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight.”

  Chosen mighty one. Prophet. Prophet Kenyon?

  Did these people believe the end of the world was near? Of course, almost every major religion had some form of eschatology. What was this group’s particular take on it?

  I pushed up, put the drawer back in place, then paced. Moving seemed to hurt less than sitting still.

  Would it help my situation to know what they were planning? If they were contemplating some kind of a big whoopty doo, maybe they’d ignore me, at least for a little while. Or maybe the Gathering involved people outside their group. That might draw some attention.

  I strolled to the bed and rummaged through the Mormon scriptures again. The place marked with a ribbon was Doctrine and Covenants, section 85. I skimmed it, pausing at number seven.

  “And it shall come to pass that I, the Lord God, will send one mighty and strong, holding the scepter of power in his hand, clothed with light for a covering, whose mouth shall utter words, eternal words; while his bowels shall be a fountain of truth, to set in order the house of God . . .”

  Joseph Smith called his journal the scepter of power. This mighty and strong one needed that book to stake his claim.

  Sweat broke out on my forehead. If the mainstream LDS Church gets ahold of this journal, it will disappear, and this group of nuts will be delegitimized.

  The urge to use the restroom became too strong, and I pulled the chamber pot from under the bed. No sign of spiders. With my various injuries, squatting was torture.

  The temperature in the room was Africa-hot and ripe with sweat and outhouse stench. I nudged the chamber pot with my foot to the closet and shut the door. Ha. Now I did have a water closet.

  I debated stripping to my undies. That’d cause Jane to take notice. Maybe stand in the window wearing my birthday suit. They’d get the hint I was cooking up here.

  The water was almost gone, with no sign of anyone bringing another glass. I took a tiny sip, then finished it off. What was I waiting for? Room service? I wandered to the window in case a conv
oy of Navy Seals appeared on the road to rescue me. Maybe I could break a window? But that might bring Jane running with that gun.

  The only things moving outside were the tops of the trees in a slight current. I slid to the floor and leaned against the wall.

  I awoke with a start, my head resting on my arms against the windowsill. The hot room must have lulled me to sleep. Cerulean-blue shadows crept down the mountains. Night would come quickly, and my room would be plunged into darkness.

  The rattle of the doorknob sent me lurching to my feet. My foot had gone to sleep, and I moaned as prickly needles stabbed my chemo-damaged toes.

  A young woman, obviously pregnant, entered carrying a tray of food and water. What happened to my good ole gun-packing Jane? Maybe now that I wasn’t fertile Myrtle, she wasn’t concerned with my health. Hopefully this woman was more interested in talking to me. She looked about the same age as Mary Allen, my possible Jane Doe.

  “Hello,” I said.

  The pregnant woman unloaded a bowl onto the small table, then turned and leaned against the door. “You need to eat.”

  “I will. Thank you for bringing my dinner.”

  She frowned at me and murmured something under her breath. Whereas Jane’s dress was newer and her shoes expensive, this girl wore hand-me-down, faded, ill-fitting clothes. It seems I had come down in position with the group, no longer warranting Jane’s attention, but relegated to a wife of lower status.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.” I moved closer.

  The woman’s eyes grew larger and she started to play with the end of her long braid. “I didn’t say nothin’. Nothin’ important.”

  “It might be important to me.” Another step nearer. “My name’s Gwen. What’s yours?”

  “Esther.”

  “That’s a pretty name. From the Bible, Queen Esther?”