The Wicked (The Righteous)

by Michael Wallace

  Abraham pulled the trigger. A crack from the rifle. His shot was perfect. It struck Elder Tomlinson in the perfect spot on the shoulder. A shot that would slice clean through with painful, but not crippling damage to muscle and bone. It would miss vital organs and leave a clean exit wound. He would recover, maybe with an old twinge to remind him of the time he’d defied the Lord. He’d never do it again.

  Except Uncle Heber had lied. The bullet slammed into Elder Tomlinson’s shoulder, threw him back. He staggered, as if trying to keep his feet, and then he disappeared over the edge of the cliff. He screamed as he fell. It was only four hundred feet, it couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, a terrible, wailing sound that seemed to go on forever, falling in pitch like the whistle of a train as it passes. And then it stopped, but the echo reverberated through the canyon, together with the last, fading echo of an echo of the whip-crack retort of the rifle.

  “No,” Abraham whispered. The gun fell to his feet.

  He followed Uncle Heber to the edge of the cliff. Elder Tomlinson hadn’t fallen all the way. Instead, he’d caught on a ledge maybe a hundred feet down. His legs lay at a strange angle, the tape ripped off, and his back looked odd, like it was bending the wrong direction. And then, most horribly of all, his head moved.

  No, dear Lord, don’t let him be alive.

  But before he had a chance to see if Elder Tomlinson had somehow survived the fall, Uncle Heber led him way. The boy imagined Tomlinson conscious, trying to move to relieve the pain, his back broken, his organs ruptured, lungs punctured by broken ribs. Abraham pulled away and threw up.

  Heber patted him on the back. “There, now. I know, it wasn’t easy. But it was a trial. You passed.”

  Abraham wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at his uncle. “You said. . .you told me. . .”

  “The path is not always easy for the Lord’s chosen people. I’m afraid this won’t be the last time you’ll be called on to do difficult work in His name.”

  Yes, over the years Abraham Christianson had been confronted with other difficult decisions. Driving his boys out of town, for instance. He still remembered the way Enoch had pleaded for mercy, how David had stared at him with that hurt expression, and how Abraham had remembered that same expression from when David was five years old. It was enough to tear out his heart.

  But sending Eliza to her death was another thing entirely.

  The woman met him in the Ghost Cliffs, near the reservoir. It was only a mile from where Elder Tomlinson had fallen to his death. And for a moment, Abraham Christianson was a boy of seventeen, and could see Uncle Heber giving him that look of mixed pity and pride. Heber had later become prophet for fifteen years before dying of a brain tumor that first caused terrible headaches and later led him to paranoid speeches about “wooves” in sheep’s clothing.

  Few of the old men were alive and some of the stronger ones of Abraham’s own generation had fallen from the church, or, like Taylor Kimball, were serving time in federal prison. And so Abraham found himself scheming with women.

  First Sister Miriam, brought from Zarahemla to bring back Jacob, and now this one. She called herself Allison Caliari. They both knew this was not her real name.

  She drove up in a BMW convertible, its top down. The wind had swept her hair from her face. She wore red lipstick that gave her mouth a hungry, sensuous look. A bit of liner made her eyes wide pools and she’d plucked her eyebrows. She wore a sleeveless dress and he had to pull his eyes from the muscles in her shoulders and the scoop in front that showed a hint of her swelling breasts. He had wives, some young and beautiful, others matronly, and others of the homely type known as sweet spirits. He enjoyed them all, and time had only dulled, not ended, his love of feeling a woman’s curves under his hands. He was not an indifferent lover, who spread his seed and then rolled away to tend to the stock.

  Even though his experience had been limited to women of a certain background, Abraham Christianson was no fool. He didn’t take this woman’s appearance at face value, and he fought against the pull of her sexuality. She would not be his Salome.

  She stepped out of the convertible, leaving the keys in the ignition. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Nothing like it anywhere in the world.”

  “Well?” he demanded. “What did you find?”

  She continued as if he hadn’t said anything. “The air, can you smell that? Juniper and sage. Wildflowers because of the spring rain. And I love looking at the red rock cliffs. I like to walk along the plateaus and look over the edge. You can see forever, the curvature of the earth and then look down thousands of feet.”

  “People have fallen to their deaths that way.”

  “They have? I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

  There was an ironic tone to her voice and for a moment he imagined that she could read his thoughts, knew about the death of Elder Tomlinson.

  “And what about the stars?” she asked. “You come out at night and lie on your back and they’re so close it feels like you’re clinging to the skin of the earth. It’s impossible not to wonder about your place in the cosmos.”

  Abraham had felt those moments, too. And he would hear the scripture, Worlds without number have I created.

  “We’re not here for chit chat. Tell me what you’ve discovered or leave and don’t trouble me again.”

  “I love listening to you talk, Abraham. It’s like a time warp to the 50s. Yes, she’s there.”

  “And? Is she alive?”

  “For now. They put Eliza in the pit. She might have been raped, I don’t know for sure. If they haven’t done it yet, they will.”

  He felt his mouth go dry. Hopefully, she’d fought to protect her virtue. Yes, she would have, she was a fighter. “She’s not finished.”

  “She has a chance. You know and I know that Eliza is cut from the same cloth as Jacob.”

  “Not exactly the same cloth. Jacob has the priesthood.”

  “If by that you mean that people give him deference he hasn’t earned, because of what dangles between his legs, then yes, I suppose so.”

  Abraham said, “Why is it that whenever people live with gentiles, they come back spewing crudities?”

  “That’s not crude, that’s a euphemism. Nowhere did I say penis, dick, or cock.”

  He winced. “Okay, fine. Whatever the reason, God decreed that men hold the priesthood, not women. That gives them power and authority.”

  “It hasn’t always been that way,” Allison said. “And in the temple, women wield that power, too.”

  “True or not, it is that way now, we’re not in the temple, and the Lord has withheld the priesthood from women for His own purpose. Eliza has the spirit to guide her, but the forces of Hell are arrayed against her. What chance does she have?”

  “Not a good one. But she’s as smart as her brother—smarter than you, Abraham—and she’s got the same force of will as any Christianson. The Lord has chosen her for this task and if He wants her to survive, she will.”

  Says the woman who has shed her temple garments to live a gentile life, he thought. What could you possibly know about the will of the Lord?

  “Speaking of Jacob,” she continued. “How long do we have before he goes looking for her?”

  “Not long. I’ll bet he sent Eliza with a phone and made her promise to call in. They’ll have taken her phone or maybe she’ll have been smart enough to hide it first, but I don’t think she’ll be able to make a call.” He considered. “Let’s say a few days to miss her first call, another day or two for Jacob to get worried and go looking for her.”

  “Does he call the police or go after her himself?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think it will take that long. She’s there now, our prey should reveal himself.”

  “And that prey is valuable enough to sacrifice one young woman,” she said, “as much as it pains each of us to admit it.”

  “Yes. It is necessary.” His voice turned bitter. “But don’t,
for one moment, compare your pain to mine. She is my daughter, it is my heart being torn out of my chest.”

  “She’s just a girl.” The sarcasm in her voice sounded filthy to his ears. “What is one girl worth? You’ve got dozens of them. And if you lose one, you can use that dangly thing you’re so proud of to make another.”

  “How dare you?”

  “Me? You’re the one pretending he cares about his daughter, when you and I both know she’s just an object to you. I may be willing to take the hard steps, but at least I’m not a hypocrite.”

  “We’re done here. Go, I can’t stand the sight of you.”

  She put her hands on her hips and stared at him for a long moment, as if daring him to raise his right hand to the square, rebuke her and cast her out. He fought the urge. At last she shrugged and turned back to her car. She climbed behind the wheel of the BMW, a car with lines and curves that only enhanced the sexuality of its driver. She pulled onto the road, then blew a kiss over her shoulder as she accelerated rapidly. The engine growled and leaped forward.

  As soon as she was gone, Abraham fell to his knees. “Dear Heavenly Father. I submit myself to thy will. But if it please thee, if it will not thwart thy plan, I beg thee to strengthen thy daughter, allow Eliza to escape the den of vipers. In the name of the Holy One of Israel, even Jesus Christ, amen.”

  He rose, dismayed to find that prayer had not banished the unsettled feeling. If anything, he felt worse, a claustrophobic sensation, like walls crushing in on him. As many children as he’d lost over the years, this one would be the hardest.

  It occurred to Abraham that while Uncle Heber may have compared him to Nephi that day when he’d shot Elder Tomlinson, he wasn’t Nephi now. He was his namesake from the Bible. But instead of the Lord asking him to take his son into the mountains to offer as a sacrifice, it was his daughter he threw onto the altar.

  The only question was whether or not the Lord would show mercy or require Abraham to burn her.

  Chapter Sixteen:

  “Are you ready to die?” the Disciple asked.

  “I will die for the glory of God,” Christopher said. “If I have to.”

  Christopher stood close enough that their noses were almost touching. They were almost the same height and once, in a BART station restroom in San Francisco, the Disciple had glanced in the mirror to see Christopher watching him and for a moment he’d seen himself reflected in the other man’s eyes. A prophet, a visionary. The man worshiped him, honored his every word and edict. If only they all felt this way, things would be different. He could stand on the wall overlooking the quad at the universities, proclaim the will of God, and they would listen.

  “They mock us,” he said.

  “Yes, Master.”

  “They laugh, spit on us, throw beer in our faces, egg us from cars.”

  “You warned us it would happen,” Christopher said. “And it came true. You speak for God.”

  “In Seattle, the police arrested us for vagrancy, in Los Angeles, they dragged us in for questioning.” The whispering in his head grew louder. He closed his eyes, tried not to listen.

  “They always persecute the righteous,” Christopher said. “But still His holy work continues. Nothing can stop it.”

  “Well spoken, my servant. That is all.”

  Christopher handed him the nettles cut from the far side of the dump, then picked his way through the piles of tires toward the trailer. The Disciple felt the sting on his hands, reveled in it. He would sit naked in the sanctifying room and rub nettles over his nude body until he had clarified his thoughts. They needed to be very clear today if he was to have the strength to accomplish the horrific tasks that lay before him. He couldn’t have the angels and demons whispering, arguing, fighting in his head.

  The Disciple couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t hear the voices of the damned and the elect. And sometimes one of the demons would go a step farther and try to possess him entirely. He remembered once when he was a boy waking with his limbs paralyzed and a terrifying presence sitting on his chest. The voices were screaming, and only after he’d prayed silently for several minutes did the evil being leave him alone. He’d crept down the hall in the darkness to the bathroom, thinking that if he splashed water on his face he could shake the urge to hurl himself from the second floor window.

  The hall in the children’s wing was maybe fifty feet long, with half a dozen bedroom doors on his left. Twenty children slept in these rooms, most of them set up like dorms, with three or four children per room. His older brothers Gideon and Taylor Junior shared the room next to his. He heard them arguing as he crept past.

  “Do it, TJ. You know you want to.”

  And Taylor Junior’s whining voice. “I don’t want to. Come on, please, just go back to bed.”

  Caleb—that was his name in those days—stopped, amazed at the cowardly tone in TJ’s voice. Both boys were bullies, but Gideon was older and seemed content to torment TJ and two of his teenage half sisters, one older, one younger. Taylor Junior, on the other hand, directed his nastiness to anyone younger than him. He’d stick out his leg to trip a younger child walking by, or reach into the shower while you were in it to turn the water scalding hot. Caleb had even seen him loosen the nipple of a bottle so that it would dump milk over a baby’s face and clothes.

  Caleb had fallen prey to a combination of pranks, random punches, sabotaged chores (Father never believed the explanations), and other nasty behavior that it hadn’t occurred to him that TJ might be equally oppressed by his own older brother.

  One of the demons overheard his thoughts and whispered, And you could do the same thing. You can’t get back at TJ, but Vera is helpless, and Phillip is a sissy. Two of the angels immediately chimed in with a rebuttal.

  But Caleb wasn’t paying attention to the arguing voices, not now. Gone, too, was the Satanic visitor who had sat on his chest and paralyzed his arms and legs just minutes earlier. He cracked the door and glanced in to look at his brothers.

  Taylor Junior sat on the floor, naked. He was just hitting puberty and a few hairs sprouted around his groin. Gideon stood over him, fully clothed. In his hands, a pair of girl’s panties, pink, with frills. They looked like they’d fit a child no older than seven or eight, but where they’d come from, Caleb couldn’t guess. Nothing so worldly would be allowed in Blister Creek.

  “Put them on.”

  “Come on, Gideon. Please, just let me go to bed.”

  Gideon shook his head. “Not until you put them on. Or do you want me to tell Father what I found? That you’re hiding girl panties to rub on yourself.”

  “They’re not mine! You put them there!”

  “Why would I do that?” Gideon asked in a faux injured tone. “I don’t want to tell Father that you’re a girly boy, that you want to stick your thing in boys’ bums, but I might not be able to help myself.”

  “Liar!”

  Gideon’s tone turned nasty. “You have five seconds. One. . .two. . .”

  Taylor Junior snatched up the panties and struggled into them. When he had them up, they stuck to him, too tight, ridiculous looking. Watching from the doorway, Caleb fought down a giggle that was part nervousness, part delight to see TJ humiliated like this, when he was usually the one doing the humiliating. His brother’s back was turned, and Caleb couldn’t see the expression on TJ’s face, but he could imagine it.

  “Just like a girl,” Gideon said. “I can’t wait until you start to grow titties.”

  Caleb meant to slip away, but just then Gideon turned and fixed him with a half-smile, and a raised eyebrow. A look that said, Do you like it? Do you want to wear panties, too?

  He fled. In the bathroom, he locked the door and made faces in the mirror that alternated between the sneers the demons told him to make and the gentle, beatific expressions that reflected the sweet things whispered to him by the angels.

  The next day he was walking by the shed nearest the greenhouses when he heard Taylor Junior inside, trying to
start a weed whacker. TJ pulled the cord, the motor coughed and died, then he’d do it again. Caleb watched through the glass window, delighted to see his brother sweating and fighting with the tool. He pulled and pulled. At breakfast, Father had told TJ to hack down the weeds in the north irrigation ditch and Father wasn’t the type to accept weak excuses about faulty equipment.

  TJ stopped and panted, then gave another pull. It sputtered, refused to start. “Damn it! Start, you son of a bitch.”

  Father would stick hot pepper sauce on the tongue of anyone caught swearing, and some of the sister wives would split your lip with a backhand without a second thought. Few things brought on a quicker expression of righteous fury in the Kimball household than any curse stronger than a damn or a hell.

  He should be punished.

  It was a strong, clear voice. He didn’t know at first if it was an angel or an evil spirit, but the thought struck him as so right, so righteous, that he decided it must have been an angel.

  “How?”

  Use your gift of discernment.

  There was a can of gas mixture for the weed eater outside, together with a damp spot on the brick threshold where TJ must have spilled some on the gravel while filling the tank. It was a chilly morning, and unlike Caleb, TJ wasn’t wearing a jacket, just a t-shirt, as he’d anticipated working in the sun as it rose. And so he’d apparently gone into the shed where it was warmer instead of staying outside to fight the weed whacker. Caleb unscrewed the lid off the gas can.

  Inside, TJ started yanking at the cord again and shouting at the weed whacker when it refused to cooperate. He didn’t glance over his shoulder as Caleb hefted the can and sloshed some against the door. He spilled more on and around the wooden siding that surrounded it, then emptied the rest in a puddle on the brick outside. There was no lock on the door—little petty theft in Blister Creek—but the door did have a latch higher up where you could shut it so the wind wouldn’t drive it open or a small child wouldn’t come in and fool around with tools and garden machinery. He stood on his tiptoes and flipped the latch. It locked Taylor Junior inside. Caleb reached into his pocket, lit a match and dropped it into the pool of gasoline. Then ran.