by R. R. Irvine
“Better not,” Traveler said.
“Mo’s right. We’ve got to see a man.”
“Who are you looking for?” Gwen asked once her husband had left to put in the order. One hand began walking its way across the table toward Traveler.
“The Saints of the Last Day.”
Her fingers, like participants in some child’s game, backed up. “Shit. A big hunk like you. I should have known it was too good to be true in a town like Kamas. All we ever get around here besides Mormons is misfits.”
Crablike, her hand moved back and forth on the table while her eyes, surrounded in blue makeup, watched Traveler.
“It ain’t natural,” she said, “men living out there together like that. They can’t kid me. All the goody-two-shoes talk. Bullshit, I say. I don’t care what they call themselves. Something’s going on. It has to be.”
“Where are we talking about?” Traveler asked.
One finger raised up, waving in his direction like an insect’s antennae. “Are you here to join up and call yourself a saint?”
“Do I look like a saint?”
Her hand turned over on its back. The antennae became a beckoning finger. “Come home with me. I’ll show you how to find God.”
Martin started to cough. Traveler couldn’t tell if it was the cigarette smoke or his father’s way of putting an end to the conversation.
“I’ll get you something to drink,” Traveler said, and started to stand up.
“You’d better make the burgers to go,” Martin managed to say.
Gwen smiled as if she thought Martin intended to take the food home with her.
“I’ll be right back,” Traveler said, and headed for the bar, where Lester had yet to order.
Traveler held out a twenty-dollar bill to the sweating bartender. “Two burgers and two coffees to go and no change.”
Five minutes later he returned to the table with a brown bag in hand and directions to the Saints of the Last Day in his head.
Gwen stood up to meet him. “Come on, you two. Lester’s good here for hours.”
“So are you,” Martin said, and sat her back down.
Traveler fed money into the jukebox and soon Johnny Cash was drowning out her protests.
20
STATE HIGHWAY 150 climbs to 11,000 feet before making its way across the Uinta Mountains into Wyoming. At Mirror Lake, elevation 10,500 feet, it was snowing when Traveler parked in front of a long-dead lodge that was serving as headquarters for the Saints of the Last Day. Night had just snuffed out the last dregs of light.
They were met by a man carrying a kerosene lantern that hissed like a night insect. He was dressed in black trousers and a black broadcloth coat buttoned to the neck. His face looked dead white in the artificial light.
“Welcome. I’m Brother Moab, first disciple to Brother Orson. He thought we’d be having guests sometime soon.” Brother Moab raised the lantern to spread its light and beckoned them to follow in his footsteps. “Be careful. It’s already getting slippery.”
They passed several small cabins, leaking light from windows and cracked walls alike, on their way to what had once been the lodge’s dining room. Half a dozen lanterns provided a steady hiss of background static, while exposing a long, narrow room with a vaulted ceiling. It reminded Traveler of a church. It had no furniture, only a line of logs that served as makeshift pews, on which sat fifteen or twenty men dressed in black trousers and white homespun shirts. All wore straggly beards that made them look like Orthodox Jews. One was young, the rest gray-haired.
Orson Pack stood at the head of the room, silhouetted against a roaring fire, and beckoned them with open arms. “As the good book says, ‘I will visit and soften their hearts, many of them for your good, that ye may find grace in their eyes, that they may come to the light of truth, and the Gentiles to the exaltation or lifting up of Zion.’ ”
When he finished speaking his followers rose and chorused, “Amen.” Their trousers, Traveler noticed, buttoned in the back.
The room smelled of smoke and the sour sweat of old men. Gusts of cold air whistled through chinks in the walls, causing the firelight to cast wild, flickering shadows. As a result, the men’s faces seemed to writhe with a life of their own.
“Come forward, Martin Traveler,” Pack said. “Sit here before us.” He indicated the wooden floor at the head of the pews.
Martin cast a quick look at his son before moving to the front of the room, where he eased himself into a cross-legged position on the worn planks. The constantly shifting patterns of light made his face indistinguishable from those nearest him.
Brother Moab nudged Traveler gently from behind. The detective allowed himself to be herded forward until he was seated on the first pew. Pack came over to stand beside him. His hand reached out, hovering over Traveler’s head.
He spoke to his followers. “This is the man I told you about. Moroni, Martin’s son.”
Pack’s touch was charged with static electricity. “We understand your cynicism, Moroni. It has gnawed upon us all at one time or another. I see it in your eyes. You’re angry because your father has turned to us at a time like this. But if you look deeply into yourself, you’ll see a glimpse of your own future in your father’s actions. He is a preview of what happens to us all, believer and nonbeliever alike, when mortality catches up with us. Don’t hold that against him or us. Are we less because we turn to God in the face of death?”
Pack removed his hand and knelt before Traveler. “God himself sought out His prophet, Joseph Smith, in Kirkland, Ohio, in 1831 to deliver His answer. ‘For the day cometh that the Lord shall utter His voice out of heaven; the heavens shall shake and the earth shall tremble, and the trump of God shall sound both long and loud, and shall say to the sleeping nations: Ye saints arise and live; ye sinners stay and sleep until I shall call again.’ ”
Traveler stared into the man’s eyes. Despite reflections of firelight, he saw nothing there to fear, and much to envy. Pack smiled before gesturing to his flock. Half a dozen of the oldest men came forward. They circled Martin and bowed their heads, their bodies swaying from side to side in time with a music only they could hear.
After a moment Pack rose to his feet and joined their circle. When he spoke again it was to Martin. “We ask you to understand us. Our search for God has turned us away from all but the true prophets, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Those who followed in their footsteps were false prophets. They preached change, change for the sake of convenience and greed. There is no profit in the status quo, they would tell us. So let us have change. Isn’t it inevitable anyway?”
Pack stopped speaking to stare at those nearest him. “I ask you, what good has change done us? Look around. People are drowning in immorality.”
Traveler groaned inwardly. He‘d heard that lament before, from men grown too old to remember clearly the impatience of their youth. Judging from the look on his father’s face, Martin also recognized such sour grapes. Yet there was no denying Pack’s sincerity. A con man wouldn’t have hidden himself away in the High Uintas.
Pack half turned to point out the buttons at the back of his trousers. “The fly in the front came into fashion for only one reason, to create fornication pants, as Brigham Young called them. ‘They’re an invention of the devil,’ he told us. ‘They make things too easy; it’s a temptation, and takes your mind off your work. I heard of a case in San Francisco where a man’s hardly had his buttoned up since he got them. If I can help it, the Latter-day Saints of the Church of Jesus Christ will wear pants that open on the sides; they’re plenty good enough, and speedy enough, for us in Salt Lake City. And I hope the women don’t encourage things to the contrary.’”
After patting his own behind, Pack continued. “Brigham said, ‘My pantaloons button up here where they belong, that my secrets, that God has given me, should not be exposed.’ But we here assembled have gone the prophet one better. We’ve removed temptation from the side to the back.”
He stopped speaking to wal
k among his followers. When he’d completed his tour he came back to sit beside Traveler.
“Brigham tried to help women walk the moral path. He designed chaste garments for them, which he called his Deseret Costume. But the women, even some of his own wives, insisted on following the fashions set by gentiles. And our prophet said, ‘The women say, let us wear hoops, because the whores wear them. I believe if they were to come with a cob stuck in their behind, you would want to do the same. I despise their damnable fashions, their lying and whoring; and God being my helper, I’ll live to see every one of those cussed fools off the earth, saint or sinner. Who cares about these infernal gentiles? If they wear a piss pot on their head, must I do so?’ ”
Pack paused, whether for breath or to eye Traveler for the gentile he was, the detective didn’t know.
“Do you wonder that the Saints of the Last Day have forsaken women altogether? Our name should tell you the answer. The world ends on the last day. We here hasten its approach by refusing to produce offspring.”
He walked among his followers once again, laying his hands upon them one after the other. Finally he stopped before the youngest of his flock, whose beard was still dark and luxuriant. “I call upon you, my brother, to share your strength of youth with Martin.”
The man couldn’t have been more than thirty, which prompted Traveler to wonder what kind of faith would drive a man in his prime to hide himself away in the mountains with old men. Perhaps the same kind of passion that demanded celibacy of Catholic priests. Or maybe it was madness, Traveler decided after catching a glimpse of the young man’s eyes. The madness of a zealot.
The Saints, even those who’d been circling Martin, formed a double line so that the young man could walk between them, receiving the touch of each as he passed by. He sighed as each hand fell upon him. His eyes widened and flashed, growing brighter by the touch, as if he was storing the combined power of their contact within him.
When finally all had laid hands upon him, he turned to look at Orson Pack, who was now at Traveler’s side. Pack nodded and the young man leapt forward to take Martin’s head between his hands.
Martin cried out.
“The evil is being driven from him,” Pack said, restraining Traveler.
Martin writhed for a moment, then grew quiet.
“Come,” said Pack, leading Traveler to his father. “All here must now lay hands upon Brother Martin.”
Some knelt, some crouched, others stood so that all could touch Martin at the same time. When every hand was in place, Pack raised his head toward the heavens. “Lord, give us the power to heal your servant. Fill him, and all of us, with your goodness. Lord, we . . .” He faltered. His eyes widened as he stared from face to face.
“Amen,” someone picked up.
The others joined in as one.
Traveler’s amen was to himself.
Pack removed his hands. The others followed his example.
“From the book,” he said. “ ‘And it supposeth me that they have come hither to hear the pleasing word of God, yea, the word which healeth the wounded soul.’ ”
With that Orson Pack reached out to Martin, took him by the hands, and helped him to his feet. “You and your son must leave us now. I will show you the way.”
He took a lantern from a wall peg and led them outside, where a quarter moon was lighting a sky full of stars. Their breaths billowed in the clear air. A thin layer of frozen snow crackled underfoot.
“We can thank God that storms pass quickly in these mountains. Otherwise you’d have to stay the night.”
Through the trees, Traveler caught a glimpse of moonlight reflecting off the icy road. “That might be best.”
“You must go quickly.”
“Why?” Martin asked, blinking in the lantern light. He was hugging himself against the cold, all the more intense because of the warmth they’d left behind.
Pack caught his breath. “Surely you felt it when all our hands came together?”
Martin blinked uncertainly.
“I’m not talking about the touch of God.” Pack set the lantern in the snow at his feet and took hold of first Martin’s hand and then Traveler’s. He peered anxiously into their faces for a long time. Finally he nodded as if reassured by what he saw.
“There was no healing here tonight,” he told them. “Evil has come among us.”
“I don’t understand,” Traveler said, but Pack had already scooped up the lantern and was hurrying toward the Jeep.
When they caught up with him he was shaking.
Through chattering teeth he said, “I have sought the Devil’s touch all my life. And now that I’ve felt it I’m afraid. My faith may not be strong enough to cleanse even my own sins.”
Martin opened his mouth to say something but started coughing instead.
“I’m sorry,” Pack said. “I did my best.”
“Get in,” Traveler told him, opening the Jeep’s door. “There’s more to be said.”
After an instant’s hesitation Pack climbed into the back. Traveler helped his father into the passenger’s seat, and then slid behind the wheel himself and started the engine so the heater could go to work.
Martin retrieved his cough medicine from the glove compartment and upended the bottle. His swallows were so noisy Traveler could count the mouthfuls. After three of them his father came up for air, breathing carefully to test his throat. When he didn’t cough, he sighed and settled back against the bucket seat.
Traveler switched on the interior light so he could watch Pack in the rearview mirror. “When Newell Farnsworth introduced us outside the police building, why didn’t you say you were a relative of the family?” he asked Pack.
“I thought that was obvious.”
“We need to know more about Heber if we’re to have any chance of finding him.”
“He‘s like a son to me,” Pack said.
“But the Saints of the Last Day don’t believe in offspring.”
“Ours is a hard road, I admit that. Sometimes we stray.”
“The Farnsworth girl says you tried to talk him out of marrying her.”
Something showed in Pack’s face. It might have been embarrassment. “He was young. The heat within him was too great to join the Saints at that time.”
Traveler swung around to see if the mirror had missed anything. At their first meeting Orson Pack had seemed a man perfectly composed. But now his eyes were restive, as if they’d seen more than was good for them.
“When was the last time you saw Heber Armstrong?” Traveler asked.
“The boy I knew was lost to me when he left for his mission. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get back. The evil one must be driven from our midst.”
“I hope you have more luck with him than you did with my father’s illness.”
Pack stared down at the folded hands in his lap. “I deserve your scorn. Because of me, your belief is stillborn.”
“And my father?”
“I’ve heard about a woman near here who does pioneer cures. Go back down the highway about a mile, just beyond the range cattle sign. There’s a dirt road leading off to the right. You can’t miss it. Emma Kimball’s shack is about a hundred yards farther on. You can walk it from here if you prefer. In daylight there’s a path to follow.”
“Is she to be our second opinion?” Traveler asked.
Pack’s hands squeezed together; his fingers writhed. “There are people in Kamas who swear by her.”
“And the Saints? Do they make use of her services despite their rejection of women?” Martin’s elbow dug into Traveler’s side.
Traveler reached across the seat and opened the back door. Pack got out without another word.
21
CAUGHT IN the flashlight’s beam, Emma Kimball looked as old and moth-eaten as an Egyptian mummy whose wrappings had come loose. One glimpse of her and Traveler felt foolish for suspecting hanky-panky with the Saints of the Last Day.
For lack of anything better he said, “
Orson Pack sent us.”
She smiled, exposing teeth the color of old ivory. Her eyes remained hidden under heavy, sagging lids. Her neck, protruding from gray, one-piece overalls, looked as fragile as a twig. “This late at night I was hoping for more excitement than that.”
“I’m surprised you opened the door.”
“I’m a hundred years old, fer chrissake.” She touched her cheek, a girlish gesture meant to deny the statement. But her fingers came away suddenly, as if they’d found something they didn’t like. “There’s nothing here to steal, including my virtue.”
She shuffled back out of the way, an invitation to come inside. Traveler sidestepped, deferring to his father, who’d insisted on diverting the Jeep down a road so badly rutted only the four-wheel drive had saved them.
“Which one of you’s sick?” she asked as soon as they were inside.
“I am,” Martin said.
The atmosphere inside the cabin was as thick as fog, its smell so astringent Traveler’s sinuses started throbbing. The room was no more than twenty feet square and lighted by an old-fashioned kerosene lamp smoking so badly its glass chimney had turned black. A narrow bed stood against one wall, beneath the room’s only window. Most of the remaining floor space, except for a well-worn path leading to the bed, was taken up by tables of varying sizes and shapes, including a picnic table with attached benches. Pots, pans, tin cans, and buckets were strewn everywhere, stirring ladles protruding from a few of them.
Emma leaned toward Martin and touched a gnarled finger to the side of her nose. “Have you been drinking?”
Sheepishly he fished the medicine bottle from his back pocket and showed it to her.
Her eyes opened wide enough to show pleasure. “That would never get past the Word of Wisdom.”
Jesus, Traveler thought. Here they were in the wilds of Utah, visiting a woman who would have been called a witch a hundred years ago, and there was still no escaping Joseph Smith’s revelation outlawing liquor and tobacco. The whole thing was inspired, some say, because the prophet’s first wife got tired of Joe and his cronies carousing in her house and spitting tobacco juice on her floor.
