The Great Reminder

by R. R. Irvine

  Martin replenished their whiskey and then raised his beer glass. “To enlightenment.”

  “To Lael,” Bill amended.

  By the time they’d toasted Lamanites (Indians and their ancestors, according to Mormon theology) and half a dozen of Brigham Young’s fifty-five wives, Traveler figured Bill and Charlie were as maudlin as they were going to get.

  “Don’t you think it’s about time you told me what happened at the antique store?” Traveler said.

  “What we took,” Bill said, speaking slowly and precisely to avoid slurring, “is nothing more than a crock pot.”

  “A piss pot,” Charlie added.

  “Where is it now?” Traveler asked.

  Bill clasped Traveler’s hand. “The Angel Moroni isn’t the only contributor to the Church of the True Prophet.”

  Charlie snapped his teeth together. When no one responded, he snapped again.

  “What are you trying to say?” Martin said.

  The Indian removed the teapot’s lid and peered inside the empty vessel.

  “Well?” Martin glared at Bill. “You’re his translator.”

  Bill folded his arms and leaned back against the booth’s wooden wall.

  Charlie upended the teapot while puffing out one cheek.

  “I hear you,” Martin said. “You’re talking about Bill’s tooth.”

  Charlie blew into the pot’s curved spout, producing a melodious whistle.

  “Charlie’s right,” Bill said. “It’s best to tell your friends the truth. I traded the crockery for dental work.”

  “For God’s sake. I already had Doc Ellsworth lined up,” Traveler said.

  “Charlie and I cannot accept personal charity. Everything supporters like yourself give us must be used for the Church of the True Prophet.”

  Martin snorted.

  “I know I’ve sinned in the past,” Bill said. “I’ve spent your donations on drink. But that was before I met Lael.”

  Charlie twitched.

  Bill laid a reassuring hand on his disciple. “Not to worry. Wine is still one of my sacraments.”

  “Tell me the name of your dentist,” Traveler said.

  Bill manipulated his jaw and winced. “I’m sorry, Moroni. There’s still crown work to be done. Until then, God’s work must wait.”

  Charlie sucked on the spout.

  Traveler and his father exchanged weary glances before ordering another service of eighty-proof tea.

  20

  IT WAS nearly midnight by the time they left Duffy’s. Martin drove, though Traveler was sober by then. From the Jeep’s back seat, Bill and Charlie sang a pioneer hymn to the tune of “A Little More Cider.” “Hurrah for the Camp of Israel! / Hurrah for the handcart scheme! / Hurrah! Hurrah! ‘tis better far / Than the wagon and ox-team. / And Brigham’s their executive, / He told us the design. / And the Saints are proudly marching on / Along the handcart line.”

  When they’d finished, Martin nudged Traveler. “Do you remember what I told you about your great-grandmother? She pulled a handcart all the way from Council Bluffs.”

  Since no reply was expected, Traveler merely grunted in the dark.

  “When she got here, she raised hell because my grandfather was getting ready to take a second wife. ‘Brigham’s orders,’ he told her. Do you know what she did?”

  “Took after him with a broom,” Traveler answered by rote.

  Martin nudged him again. “Be sure you remember these stories. Pass them on to Moroni the third if I don’t get the chance.”

  They were heading up Main Street. At First South, Martin turned left to West Temple, then circled the block so he’d be on the right side of the street to park in front of the Chester Building.

  At that time of night, there were only two other cars parked on South Temple, Lael’s BMW and her church security escort, both in the red zone in front of the temple across the street from the Chester Building.

  “The lights are on inside,” Martin said. “Barney’s still up.”

  “He’ll provide the nightcap we need,” Bill said.

  “Revelations are a swallow away,” Charlie added.

  “ ‘And the arm of the Lord shall be revealed,’ ” Bill said.

  Lael, who was sitting behind the cigar stand with Chester, wrinkled her nose when Bill came around the counter to hug her.

  “Have you been waiting up?” Bill asked.

  “I wanted to see what you get up to when I’m not around,” she said.

  “You’re all drunk,” Chester complained.

  Lael nodded dramatically. “You should have taken me with you.”

  “You sound like my wife,” Martin told her.

  She escaped Bill to say, “What was Mrs. Traveler like?”

  “Kary?” Martin scratched his head. “How should we answer, Moroni?”

  Traveler was thinking that over when Bill spoke. “We came here for a nightcap.”

  Chester shook his head. “I’ll make coffee if you want, but that’s all. You already smell like West Temple winos.”

  Bill straightened his shoulders. “Charles, we’ll use your nondairy creamer.”

  The Indian pulled out his medicine bag and held it at the ready.

  “I give up.” Chester began filling paper cups with the jug wine he kept under the counter. He stopped at five, bracing the gallon jug on his hip, and looked at Lael. “What about you, young lady? Have they corrupted you too?”

  “ ‘Strong drinks are not for the belly, but for the washing of your bodies,’ ” she answered from The Book of Mormon.

  Traveler stared at his father, whose answering nod was barely perceptible. They both recognized that particular piece of scripture as one of Kary’s favorites. Only in her case, she’d used it to condemn Martin’s excesses while condoning her own.

  Lael picked up the sixth empty cup and held it out toward the jug. “There are times when the body must be cleansed inside and out.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Martin said. “Mrs. Traveler used to say the same thing.”

  Lael’s willful smile, Traveler thought, was much like his mother’s. A smile that persisted until she got her way.

  “A toast,” Bill said. “To Lael.”

  Charlie handed out the cups of wine.

  “To women,” Martin added.

  Everyone took a sip, though Traveler had the feeling that Lael only pretended to swallow. She saw him looking at her and winked.

  “To Bill’s secret benefactor,” Traveler said. “His dentist.”

  “Why secret?” Lael asked.

  “Tell her, Bill.”

  “No you don’t, Moroni. You don’t catch me that easily. So I have another appointment tomorrow at nine. What’s the big deal?”

  Lael pursed her lips. “What are you men up to?”

  “I think it’s time you went home,” Bill said. His pleading eyes locked on Traveler’s face.

  Traveler said, “Come on, Lael. I’ll walk you to your car.”

  Martin took her by one arm, Traveler the other. Together they led her across the lobby and through the revolving door.

  “Do you think I need chaperoning?” With a toss of her head, she indicated the church security men parked across the street. “I used to think it was my uncle who was having me followed, but it’s Willis who’s responsible. He says it’s for my own good.”

  “He speaks for the prophet,” Martin reminded her.

  “With men you never can tell.”

  Martin sighed. “You would have got on with Mrs. Traveler. You speak the same language.”

  The three of them crossed South Temple Street in mid-block. The BMW’s remote-controlled locking system beeped at their approach.

  Traveler opened the door for her.

  Smiling, she eased into the BMW’s bucket seat. “What did Claire look like?”

  “A lot like Mrs. Traveler,” Martin said.

  “Do you have a picture of her?”

  “Kary always said cameras didn’t like her.”


  “What about Claire?”

  Traveler closed the door on Lael, who immediately lowered the window.

  “When you get to be my age,” Martin said, “you can’t remember what anybody looks like.”

  Traveler heard singing and turned around in time to see Bill and Charlie spill through the revolving door and out onto the sidewalk in front of the Chester Building. Charlie had the wine jug slung over his shoulder.

  “Why are they the only ones who love me?” Lael asked.

  “I met Kary when I was about your age,” Martin said. “Moroni was old enough to know better when Claire came along.”

  “I’m talking about me, “ Lael said.

  “Now that I think about it,” Martin said, “you do look like her a little.”

  “Which one?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Damn you both.” She revved the engine violently, then U-turned and took off toward Brigham Young’s statue at the head of Main Street with the church security chase-car in pursuit.

  Martin waved a hand in front of his face to dispel the smell of burning rubber. “We Travelers always did have trouble communicating with women.”

  Shaking his head, Traveler took his father’s arm and started back across South Temple.

  “Look out!” Bill shouted.

  Traveler heard an engine roar. He and his father both looked east, the way Lael had gone.

  Instinct, abetted by peripheral vision, told him he’d made a fatal mistake. He snapped his head around as Charlie, pivoting like a discus thrower, hurled the wine jug in the other direction.

  Traveler followed its trajectory and saw the high beams bearing down on him. He shoved his father one way and tried to roll the other, though he knew it was too late.

  Glass shattered as the jug smashed against the windshield.

  The vehicle veered, missing Martin but catching Traveler with a front fender. Breath exploded from his lungs as the impact hurled him through the air. He somersaulted once before landing on his shoulder in the gutter.

  He fought off pain long enough to see the vehicle, a pickup truck heading east. In that instant, the driver turned, peering back through a rear window partially obscured by a full gun rack.

  Get up, Traveler told himself. Run. The bastard might stop and use one of his rifles to finish the job.

  Traveler opened his mouth to shout a warning to Martin. His cry was lost in the tearing impact as the truck rammed head-on into Brigham Young.

  21

  BRIGHAM YOUNG, solid bronze standing on a solid granite base, had been built to last. So had those who shared his monument, including the bearded mountain man facing west toward the Chester Building. He held a bronze rifle and was often mistaken for Jim Bridger. The truck driver, hurled headfirst through an already cracked windshield, had bent the rifle slightly during impalement.

  Willis Tanner, who’d been called to the scene by police, looked as shaken as Traveler felt. Tanner’s nervous squint had closed one eye. The other one was blinking continuously and having a hard time coping with the glare from the portable floodlights that ringed the crash site.

  “Who is he, Moroni?” Tanner asked.

  Martin answered, “Considering his condition we haven’t gone through his pockets.”

  “You said he tried to kill you. That ought to rule out strangers.”

  Traveler stared at the fingers of his left hand and flexed them. They moved well enough despite their numbness.

  They’d get worse, he knew, the longer he waited to relocate his shoulder. He’d asked the paramedics do the job, but they turned him down, fearing medical complications and lawsuits.

  “Maybe it was an accident,” Tanner said.

  “Bullshit,” Martin shot back. “The bastard was aiming at us.”

  Tanner’s open eye fluttered at the swear words. “Considering the kind of people you deal with, it’s a wonder you’ve lasted this long.”

  Behind Tanner, three men from the coroner’s office took hold of the body.

  “Easy does it,” one of them said.

  “Please, God,” Tanner murmured. “Don’t let the rifle break.”

  “On three,” one of the men said.

  Traveler clenched his teeth and looked away.

  “One, two, three . . . shit.”

  “There’s a gouge in the granite, too,” Tanner said. “That’s going to have to be repaired.”

  The coroner’s men went through a second countdown. This time the rifle came free and intact, though glistening wetly.

  “Use your influence,” Traveler said. “See if there’s any identification on the body.”

  Rubbing his unruly eye, Tanner hurried over to Anson Horne, a police lieutenant assigned to police-church liaison. They huddled for a moment before Home said something to the coroner’s men. One of them, wearing surgical gloves, began searching the dead man’s pockets. He found a wallet and opened it to the celluloid windows so that Horne could get a close look.

  The policeman made notes before following Tanner over to where Traveler was sitting on the curb. Traveler stood to meet them, triggering a fresh stab of pain in his shoulder.

  “You should be in the hospital,” his father said as he, too, rose from the curb in front of the temple.

  “I hear you want an ID on the dead man.” Horne was a second-generation cop and a third-generation bishop, who considered criminals and Gentiles as the enemy.

  “When a man tries to run you down,’” Martin said, “you want to know his name.”

  “He missed you, didn’t he?”

  “Charlie Redwine diverted him with a bottle.”

  “So where is he?”

  Off somewhere sobering up, Traveler thought. “He went for coffee.”

  “And your Sandwich Prophet?”

  “They’re together,” Traveler said.

  Pointing a finger at Traveler, Horne said, “Knowing those two, I could have them arrested for drinking in public. Better yet, maybe I can get the sandwich man’s bail revoked.”

  “The last time we met,” Traveler said, “it was me you threatened to arrest.”

  “If I had my way, it would be against the law for a Gentile to be named for our angel.”

  “Lieutenant,” Tanner said sharply, “I want your cooperation.” His tone implied that he was doing his job, speaking for the prophet.

  Horne glared at Traveler before complying. “The dead man’s name is Mahlon Broadbent. Does that mean anything to you?”

  Traveler shook his head and looked at his father.

  “I knew a lady named Broadbent once,” Martin said, “but that must have been thirty years ago.”

  “According to the driver’s license,” Horne continued, “he comes from the town of Cowdery Junction. That’s down south.”

  “Sevier County,” Tanner said.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been to Cowdery Junction,” Traveler said.

  The policeman eyed Martin.

  “You know me and cemeteries, Lieutenant. Cowdery Junction is one I haven’t visited so far. Now, if you don’t mind I’d like to take my son to the hospital to get his shoulder looked after.”

  “Stop fussing,” Traveler said. “You and Willis can put it back in place.”

  “Not me.” Tanner backed up a step. “I remember what it was like the first time you did it at East High.”

  “You make it sound painful,” Horne said.

  “It makes me cringe thinking about it,” Tanner answered.

  Horne smiled. “I’d be glad to volunteer.”

  22

  TRAVELER MADE the mistake of moving when he woke up the next morning. Pain erupted in his shoulder, rushed down his arms, and started his fingers throbbing. He clenched his teeth and swung his legs out of bed. The scabs cracked open on his knees where he’d shredded them on Main Street.

  He groaned.

  “I’ve got coffee and codeine,” his father called from the front of the house. A moment later he appeared in the bedroom doorway. “
One pill or two?”

  Traveler held up three swollen fingers.

  Martin left the coffee cup on the nightstand and fetched a glass of water before counting the pills into his son’s outstretched palm.

  “I think we should forget about Cowdery Junction for a day or two, Mo.”

  Traveler washed down the pills. “Major Stiles doesn’t have the time.”

  “Maybe so, but I still don’t like what’s happening. A POW goes missing fifty years ago, we’re hired to find him, and suddenly someone from Cowdery Junction shows up and tries to kill us.”

  “What do you suggest, that we tell Lieutenant Horne the truth?”

  “If I thought he’d believe us, yes.”

  Traveler stood up and winced.

  “What’s the hurry? Wait for the codeine to kick in.”

  “There’s something I have to take care of before we leave town. You fix breakfast, I’ll limber up in the shower.”

  “You ought to see a doctor.”

  “Would you settle for a dentist?” Traveler said.

  An hour later, at 9:00 A.M. exactly, Traveler parked the Jeep in the loading zone in front of the Newhouse Building. The ten-story structure had been erected in 1910 to look like the commercial buildings in New York City, a failed attempt to turn Salt Lake’s Exchange Place into the Wall Street of the West.

  “You wait for me,” Traveler said. “I’ll see Bill’s secret benefactor alone.”

  “You’re in no condition to challenge anyone,” Martin protested.

  “He won’t know that.”

  The smell of dental antiseptic greeted Traveler the moment he stepped off the elevator on the fourth floor, FRANKLIN GUTHRIE, D.D.S.—black letters on a frosted glass door that looked as if it had been there since the Newhouse was built—was at the end of a long, linoleumed hallway.

  The waiting room was empty, its chairs arranged facing a sliding glass window cut into the wall next to a door marked PRIVATE. A placard taped to the glass read, PLEASE HAVE A SEAT AND WAIT FOR THE NURSE.

  Traveler went through the door without knocking. There was no nurse, only Bill laid out in the dental chair, the saliva ejector making sucking noises as it trailed from his mouth, and a short, burly dentist who looked strong enough to pull teeth with his bare hands.