The Hosanna Shout

by R. R. Irvine

  “Me and Nephi are going to start cleaning the ceiling tomorrow,” Chester said.

  “I’ll want before-and-after shots,” Pinock said.

  “Father said God looked down on him from that ceiling,” Gustavson went on. “For years I’ve been driving past this building, knowing that if God was looking down on anybody, it should be me.”

  He moved away from the counter to run his hands over one of the massive Doric columns that held up the ceiling. “These are made of temple marble, my father used to tell me, the same kind they laid down across the street.” He spread his arms. “This was my bedtime story, the one he told every night. About my lost legacy.”

  Gustavson shook his head. “My father had no right to bet my future on a game of cards.” He left the column to confront Chester at close range. “You had no right to accept the bet.”

  “It wasn’t just one bet. Your father owed me a lot of money. The Chester Building was the only way he could get out from under, he told me finally, insisting that I accept it as collateral, as one last double-or-nothing bet.”

  Gustavson smiled crookedly. “Count on it, Chester. I’ll be here the day demolition starts. It’s going to do my soul good to see this place come down around your ears. After that, I’ll be able to pass by here in peace. You can forget the photos, too.”

  He turned away from Chester to point a finger at Pinock. “I want them back from the Historical Society. From now on, no one gets to see them but me.”

  Waving off any attempted argument, Gustavson tossed change on the cigar counter, grabbed a copy of the morning Tribune, which he spread over his toupee, and walked out into the rain.

  “That’s why we take our own photographs whenever we can,” Pinock said, shaking his head. “History should be shared, not left to the whims of those who inherit it. Thank God I’m in time to preserve this piece of our heritage.”

  “I should have been nicer to him,” Chester said.

  “I’ve already been over the photographs,” Pinock said. “I didn’t see any that would help you, but I did make some copies of the artwork. It’s a good thing, too. My experience is that old photos seldom survive if they’re not on file with us.”

  He moved to the center of the lobby, knelt down to feel the floor, then spread out on his back so he could stare up at the ceiling. “Can we get any more light in here?”

  At a nod from Chester, Nephi Bates opened a recessed panel in the wall near the men’s room and began throwing switches. The art deco chandeliers, designed to cast a golden glow, not candlepower, intensified the shadows at the corners of the ceiling.

  Pinock sat up, groaned loudly, and got to his feet to retrieve a battery-powered lantern from his equipment case. Caught in the bright beam, Brigham Young’s image came alive at the head of his pioneer wagon train. The artist, whoever he was, had captured a feeling of raw power. The Brigham Young portrayed there was more than a man; he was God’s chosen prophet.

  “I’m no art expert,” Pinock said, “but that could be Thomas Hart Benton, all right. He had a lot of imitators, though, but whoever did this was no amateur.”

  For the next few minutes he swept the beam of light back and forth across the ceiling, looking for a signature.

  “The nicotine and smoke buildup is pretty bad,” he said finally. “There’s always a chance, though, that you’ll find signatures when you clean the mural.”

  “I’ll get scaffolding in here tomorrow,” Chester said.

  “If you find Benton’s name, you can raise some hell, and maybe even some extra money before they tear this place down. One thing’s certain, though. There’s no chance of saving that ceiling separately from the rest of the building, not the way the Chester’s built.”

  Pinock walked back and forth across the lobby several times, his gaze never leaving the ceiling, before coming to a stop in front of the cigar stand, where he picked up one of the cups of coffee Chester had set out on the counter. He took a sip and smacked his lips. “When the rain lets up, I’ll go out to the van and bring in some portable lights so I can start shooting. When you get the scaffolding up tomorrow, I’d like to use it for my close-ups if you don’t mind.”

  Nephi Bates stepped forward. “I’d be honored to help you.”

  The comment brought a sigh from Chester. “Why not? I want people to remember this place when we’re all gone.”

  Traveler shivered.

  “You’d better get out of those wet clothes, Mo.” Chester slipped behind the counter to fetch the jug wine he kept stashed out of sight, topped off one of the Styrofoam cups, and pushed it toward Traveler. “Is anyone else in need of medicinal comfort?”

  Pinock accepted the offer while Bates, his pinched face condemning those who flouted the Word of Wisdom, retreated to his elevator.

  Before Traveler could finish his coffee, the revolving door whooshed into action and Charlie Redwine, wearing one of Bill’s flowing robes, came hurtling into the lobby. His hair was matted, the robe filthy despite the rain; he looked on the verge of collapse as he staggered toward the cigar stand. The two plainclothesmen from the tan sedan—both big men, one a Tongan like those the church recruited for the BYU football team—were right behind him.

  “Sanctuary,” Charlie croaked.

  Chester poured straight wine into a cup but Charlie waved away the offer and whispered, “Water.”

  Chester called over Nephi Bates, who didn’t look happy at the summons but still accepted an empty cup to fill in the men’s room. When he returned, Charlie drank it all before collapsing onto the floor, where he sat cross-legged. “At the prophet’s bidding, I’ve crossed the desert without water. I have passed God’s fiery test.”

  One of the security men, the Tongan, took a cellular phone from beneath his raincoat and punched in numbers. “The Sandwich Man has arrived.”

  Because of the robe, he’d obviously mistaken Charlie for Mad Bill.

  “He’s an Indian,” Bates told the man. “Not the Sandwich Prophet.”

  The man relayed the information into the phone. After a moment he said, “I understand,” disconnected, and glared at Charlie. “I expect a warrant for your arrest to arrive within the hour.” With that, he and his companion left the building.

  “The prophet and I have survived God’s crucible,” Charlie said.

  “Where is Bill?” Traveler asked.

  “He sent me ahead to prepare the way for him. ‘Tell them,’ he said, ‘that God’s fire has burned away our sins and purified our hearts. God has revealed himself. He has shown us the way.’ ”

  Traveler moved in for a closer look, checking Charlie’s breath and eyes to see if he had been drinking. There was no sign of alcohol, though his peyote pouch was empty.

  “When can we expect Bill to arrive?”

  “Before I am martyred,” Charlie said, “and in time to found his monument.”

  29

  TRAVELER FETCHED one of Bill’s dry robes from the basement of the Chester Building before accompanying Charlie upstairs to the office. While the Indian changed clothes, Traveler stared out at the temple, whose granite had taken on an obsidian luster in the rain. The Angel Moroni was lost in low cloud. Traveler felt lost too, more so now that he’d found Moroni Traveler the Third, whose life, like his, seemed linked to one of Claire’s whims.

  The temple lights came on, well ahead of dusk because of the darkness of the afternoon. The sudden illumination caused Charlie’s reflection to intrude on Traveler’s view.

  “You’ve made a remarkable recovery if you walked all the way from Bob’s Big Indian,” Traveler said.

  The Indian settled onto the client chair in front of Martin’s desk. “God showed me the way.”

  Traveler raised a fist, thumb extended, as if he were hitchhiking.

  “God’s hand was at work, not mine. We are resurrected, Bill and I.”

  Sighing, Traveler left the window to change into fresh jeans, a Black Watch tartan flannel shirt over a white turtleneck, and well-worn running shoe
s.

  “It’s dark enough to be dinnertime,” Charlie said.

  “Does that mean you’re hungry?”

  Before the Indian could answer, the phone rang.

  Traveler handed Charlie eating money as he picked up the phone. “Moroni Traveler and Son.”

  “This is Ida Odegaard, Mr. Traveler. I promised I’d call even if the news was bad. Lyman Snarr slipped into a coma and passed away an hour ago. The boy, Marty, joined him in heaven not five minutes ago.” Her sigh sounded like static on the line.

  “And Garth Tempest?”

  “He’s a lucky man, the doctors say. They just released him from the hospital. That’s one child, at least, who won’t be an orphan.”

  “Is Angel all right?”

  “She’s fine, and so far no one else has come down sick either. We’ve had doctors in from Salt Lake, and even they can’t agree what caused the sickness, though they’re sure it was some kind of food poisoning. Until we know for certain, the rumors will keep flying up and down Bingham Canyon, though you’ll never convince me that it was deliberate, like so many people are saying.”

  “Did they eat anything the rest of us didn’t?”

  “Didn’t I say? They think whatever it was, was in the lemonade, so it really is a miracle that Angel and Tommy escaped.”

  Traveler closed his eyes and saw the picnic table again, cups full of lemonade standing around the thermos. The women were drinking it, so was Snarr, while he and Martin stuck to beer. The children, he remembered, had fled to the neighboring table, lured there by Ida Odegaard’s chocolate cake. His memory showed them drinking milk.

  “I’ve never heard of lemonade going bad,” he said.

  “Practically everybody in town made lemonade. The lemons all came from the same place, too. That’s why they’re checking the water at the Tempest house now.”

  “Who’s checking?”

  “The sheriff’s men.”

  “What about Garth,” Traveler said, “is he well enough to take care of Angel?”

  “Don’t you worry about that, Mr. Traveler. Angel is staying with us for the time being, until Garth gets back on his feet. Now, before you ask any more questions, my husband is standing right here and wants to talk to you.”

  “Traveler,” Almon Odegaard said abruptly, “I don’t like people coming here pretending they’re somebody else.”

  “I had to protect the girl.”

  “I find it hard to believe that she was named after you as a joke. If you’re lying about that, if you’re the child’s real father, God knows what else you’ve done. I told the sheriff’s investigator the same thing, so you can expect a call from him. Jesse Snarr knows you’ve been playing games too. Doctors are supposed to be objective, but he lost both parents and a brother, so I’d watch out for him if I were you.”

  “What does he think about the food poisoning?”

  “He’s like me. I want to hear you tell your story to my face before I’ll believe it.” Odegaard hung up.

  Traveler started to dial the sheriff’s office, then had second thoughts.

  “When my father gets back,” he told Charlie, “tell him I’ve gone back to Bingham.”

  “I’ll send out for Chinese. That way I won’t have to leave the office.”

  “Save something for Bill.”

  Charlie eyed the twenty-dollar bill that Traveler had given him.

  Shaking his head, Traveler handed over another twenty before leaving the office. When Nephi Bates let him off in the lobby, Martin was standing in front of the elevator, waiting to go up.

  Traveler shepherded him over to the cigar stand, out of Bates’s earshot, where Barney Chester was disassembling the eternal flame again.

  “Do you think I ought to ban smoking in here?” Chester said. “After we get the ceiling cleaned, I mean.”

  “Why don’t you check out front and see how church security’s doing?” Traveler said.

  Chester put down the flame spout he was holding and wiped his oily hands. “A few minutes of privacy coming up. Call me when you’re through.”

  Once Chester was gone, Traveler relayed the news from the Odegaards. The moment he finished, Martin said, “Christ, I was carrying that little boy on my shoulder at the picnic.” He touched Traveler’s shoulder.

  “Mrs. Odegaard assures me that Angel’s going to be fine,” Traveler said.

  “She doesn’t look like Claire.”

  “Claire told me she was blond as a child.”

  “You drank some of that lemonade, didn’t you?” Martin asked.

  Traveler shook his head. “After the football game, we were both drinking beer, don’t you remember?”

  “I don’t like it,” Martin said. “Only the people sitting at one particular picnic table got sick. That makes me wonder if it wasn’t deliberate.”

  “In that case, who hated the Tempests and the Snarrs enough to do it?”

  “We could have been among the dead.”

  Traveler nodded. “I’m on my way back to Bingham right now.”

  “To keep an eye on Angel, I hope.”

  “Among other things, like calming down the mayor. Do you want to come with me?”

  “Not just yet,” Martin said. “I’ve come up with something interesting on the Chester Building. With one exception, the lots surrounding the building are owned by a single holding company, probably the church, though I won’t know for sure until I do more research.”

  “The city wouldn’t be crazy enough to try condemning church property.”

  “You may be right, but one thing’s for sure. Your old friend, Josiah Ellsworth, the White Prophet, is listed on the holding company’s board of directors. Sam Howe’s name was there, too, as attorney of record.”

  “Who owns the other piece of property you mentioned, the exception?”

  “Apparently you do. Your name’s on the deed. You’ll be a rich man when this block is developed.”

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “Maybe it’s meant to be a bribe. I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.”

  “There must be a signature somewhere, one that’s supposed to be mine,” Traveler said.

  “I can’t check that until tomorrow. That’s one of the reasons I’d better stay here in town, so you watch your back out there in Bingham.”

  30

  TRAVELER DIDN’T reach Bingham Canyon until after dark. By then, the rain had slacked off to a fine drizzle. The air smelled fresh, with only a trace of Kennecott to compete with the mountain sage. No lights showed in Emma Dugan’s boarding-house and no one answered his knock, so he left the Jeep parked out front and walked up Main Street to the hospital, only to find the door locked and a posted notice giving a telephone number to call in case of emergency.

  After backtracking to the Pastime Bar, a round of drinks got him Shaky Johnson’s personal escort to the mayor’s house, a narrow two-story clapboard that fronted Main Street like most everything else in town. Johnson stopped short of the porch. “The mayor told me to keep an eye out for you, so tell him I did my duty. I delivered you just like he wanted.”

  He started to turn away but changed his mind. “Miz Odegaard’s not one to turn people away, but if you end up needing a place to stay tonight, we can always put you up at the Pastime.” He tipped his cap and walked away.

  Traveler watched the man out of sight before knocking on the door. The porch light, a yellow bug bulb, came on. A curtain moved at the window next to the door. A moment later Mayor Almon Odegaard, holding a revolver at his side, its muzzle pointed at the ground, opened the door, looked Traveler up and down, and finally beckoned him inside.

  Once across the threshold, Traveler held his arms out as if expecting to be searched.

  “That’s not necessary.” Odegaard went up on tiptoe to stow the revolver on top of a six-foot china cabinet next to the living room’s front window. The room also held an old-fashioned rocking chair and a narrow sofa and matching armchair that reminded Traveler of picture
s from a Sears catalog.

  “The children are in the kitchen,” Odegaard said. “So’s Garth Tempest. Be careful what you say around him.”

  “Does he know my real name?”

  “We haven’t told him yet.”

  Traveler started for the kitchen but Odegaard held him back.

  “I want to hear what you have to say for yourself first,” Odegaard said. “About you and this woman, Angel’s real mother.”

  Keeping his voice down, Traveler did his best to explain his on-and-off relationship with Claire. When he finished, Odegaard shook his head. “I don’t think you’d make up something like that. Now what about Hannah Tempest?”

  “I never met her before coming to Bingham. I swear it.”

  Odegaard took a deep breath. “I don’t like what’s going on here, but I’ll believe you until you’re proved wrong. Now let’s get in the kitchen before Garth comes looking for us.”

  The kitchen was the same size as the living room, maybe twelve by twelve, but warmer because of a steaming pot of soup bubbling on the stove. In the center of the room was a battered oak dining table, around which sat Tommy Snarr, Angel and her father, Garth Tempest, and Ida Odegaard. The children looked unchanged, but Tempest was no longer the vigorous man who’d opposed Traveler at the football game.

  His head hung loosely, as if his neck muscles had gone slack; his shoulders slumped; his staring eyes showed no recognition when Traveler nodded at him.

  “Father,” Mrs. Odegaard told her husband, “you fetch another chair.”

  “I think it’s time the children went to bed,” he said.

  She looked from her husband’s face to Traveler’s before nodding, rising to her feet, and holding her hands out. Tommy obeyed her summons immediately, but Angel slid off her chair and tried to climb onto Tempest’s lap. His only response was to stare at his folded hands which lay on the blue-and-white checkered tablecloth.