“We won,” McKay said grimly. “But only because we killed all of them and they only killed ninety percent of us.”
“Ninety percent.” Eliza couldn’t keep the horror out of her voice.
He told how the battle had progressed. The army had destroyed Utah County first, fought a battle with the Utahns at Point of the Mountain, then swept into the Salt Lake Valley. There, they wiped out one town after another until they were finally stopped at the hastily constructed city wall. And if the army hadn’t run low on food and ammo, they’d have overrun downtown, as well.
“Most of our people died from disease and starvation—that’s the way of a siege. Hunger weakens you, and disease finishes you off.”
“But still, ninety percent. So many.”
“Yes.”
“Two million people lived on the Wasatch Front,” Steve said, his brow furrowed. “That still leaves a couple hundred thousand people. Do you have that many living here?”
“Ninety percent of what was left,” McKay said. “We’d already suffered terribly when they came. The current population of Salt Lake is thirty-two thousand. That’s all that remains of the two million.” He looked at Eliza. “I imagine you’ve gone through much of the same in Blister Creek.”
She looked down at her hands, suddenly guilty that she’d suffered so little while the rest of the world had collapsed.
“No?” he said, a frown spreading.
“I’m sorry, we haven’t. We were attacked, and some people have died because of inadequate medical care. But—” She hesitated. If McKay were their enemy, he would show it now. “But there are more people in town than ever. New babies keep getting born.”
McKay stared at her. A deep pain flickered across his face, a hint of anger. Steve stiffened next to Eliza, as if prepared to fight if the governor turned violent.
Then McKay turned away with a groan. “I should have known. After what happened with Fernie Christianson, why would I be surprised?”
Eliza had heard of Fernie’s encounter with the governor at the Green River refugee camp two years earlier, near the beginning of the crisis. But Fernie had been reluctant to share details. Eliza was now curious.
“What do you mean?”
“Fernie saved my life, you know. The mob was going to tear me apart, and that woman in her wheelchair stood them off. Bravest thing I’ve ever seen. And the most righteous. She could have let me die, probably should have. She didn’t. It was like she had the hand of—well, I don’t want to get too mystic about it, but something changed in me that day.”
“I can see that, the way you’ve held this together.”
“I haven’t managed very well. Our food supplies are gone, and all we have left is what we can grow ourselves. It’s not enough. We need more farmland, for one, but there are hundreds, maybe thousands of lawless people out there. Bandits and murderers, rogue army units. Mostly men, mostly young. They’re desperate and violent. People venture out, they get killed.”
“I still don’t understand what you mean when you said you should have known,” Eliza said.
“I should have known that if anywhere would be safe and protected, it would be Blister Creek. You were organized. Prepared.” He sighed and looked down. “If only we’d pulled together sooner.”
“You pulled together better than Las Vegas,” Steve said. “That’s completely gone.”
“I know, I heard.”
“What else do you know?” Steve asked. “Is there anything left out there?”
It turned out that McKay had been in radio contact with a handful of other towns across the heartland of the continent: Boulder, Rexburg, Helena, Omaha, Duluth, Cardston, Lubbock, Lincoln. Through them, he’d received news from more distant places.
Most of what was left of the country was clinging to the coasts, with the center of the nation a vast, burned-over wasteland. Tens of millions had starved on the East Coast, but there were still a number of smaller towns and some sort of military regime centered in the New York area. But entire states had gone black. Canada and Mexico had fared similarly, with the northern neighbor freezing and the country to the south falling into drought and famine and disease.
Outside of North America, Europe had fared badly, the freezing weather devastating agriculture and leaving them in famine. The Middle East was in even worse shape, torn by conflict and heavily reliant on imported food. After the American war in the Gulf, Israel had expended its nuclear weapons as a last-ditch effort to keep out millions of starving, armed Arabs.
There had been fewer wars in Africa, but most of the continent had simply starved to death, except, people said, the least developed regions. The poor, rural villages had never been connected to the rest of the regional or global economy, and with their tropical climates had better weathered the volcanic winter. Or so it was speculated. Nobody knew for sure.
Nobody had any information about India or Pakistan since their nuclear war, but they were presumed gone. Another nuclear exchange had occurred in East Asia during the Sino-Japanese War. Hundreds of millions of Chinese had died of famine and disease, even though they had ultimately won the war. Nobody knew if Japan had been completely overrun by the Chinese or not.
Southeast Asia had lost its rice crop for two straight years and starved. Apparently Australia had been doing relatively well until a massive flotilla filled with millions of Asian refugees had overwhelmed the country. After that, the country had gone dark, but it was a big continent, with a vast interior. Who knew?
“What about New Zealand?” Steve said.
McKay shrugged. “No idea.”
“South America?” Steve asked.
“Doing better than most. Brazil fell into chaos and anarchy, but for some reason the volcano left Argentina’s wheat belt relatively unscathed. They still have a central government. So does Chile. I don’t know about the northern part of the continent, or Central America either.”
“Maybe in a hundred years people will look back and say that this is when Argentina first became the most powerful country on earth,” Steve said.
“If there’s anyone left to look back,” the governor said. “From where I sit, it seems like we’re still spiraling down. Maybe it won’t stop. Maybe this is the end.” He eyed the other two. “Why did you come to Salt Lake?”
“My brother thinks it’s time to rebuild,” Eliza said.
McKay looked baffled. “Now?”
“Salt Lake is standing. Battered, but alive. Cedar City was too, last time we heard.”
The governor gave a grim shake of the head. “Not anymore. The army rolled through on its way up I-15. It was wiped out.”
“Maybe so,” she conceded, “but there are people in Richfield who were organized enough that they drove us off when we tried to pass through.”
“Really?” The governor sounded pleasantly surprised. “I hadn’t heard anything about it.”
“I’ll bet there are more towns,” she said. “In fact, I’m sure of it. Come on inside to your maps, I’ll show you what I mean.”
Back in his office, she explained her thoughts to Steve and the governor. Running on the east side of the mountain range from the freeway, a series of valleys stretched for sixty miles between Richfield on the south and Mount Pleasant and Moroni on the north, with several towns in between, including Manti, with its Mormon temple, and Ephraim, formerly the site of a small community college. There would be lots of shared knowledge there, including people who knew how to live off the land, plus it was heavily Mormon and community-oriented.
Eliza ran her finger along the communities in question. “If the army came straight up I-15 on the opposite side of the mountains, they’d have bypassed all of it. There are enough people to band together whenever bandits or irregulars try to break through. There might be thousands of people, for all we know.
“Now look,” she continued. “We hav
e Blister Creek way down here, then the farming communities, then the main valleys of the Wasatch Front. Forget about the I-15 corridor south for the moment. We can’t hold it if anyone invades from California or Arizona, anyway. These mountainous regions are easier to defend.”
“If only we had a way to resettle Utah County,” McKay said. He sounded intrigued as he studied the map. “Then we’d have a near-continuous corridor between Richfield and Salt Lake. You’d still be isolated down there, but you could help protect us from the south.”
“What if we brought you fifteen hundred refugees,” Steve said with a glance at Eliza, whose eyes widened in understanding. “Could you help them build another fort in Utah County? Then you’d have safe territory for farming between Salt Lake and Provo.”
“Sure, if you can get me some refugees, and if they’ll cooperate.”
“What do you think?” Steve asked Eliza. “Is it worth a try?”
Resettling in Provo had to be better than the miserable conditions at the reservoir. There was plenty of land to clear for fields in Utah County, plus good water and proximity to the hard-earned knowledge in Salt Lake. What’s more, she imagined there were thousands more refugees out there, not just in Utah, but surrounding states, who had suffered terribly but somehow stayed alive while their families and friends died. If word got out that there was a stable, protected government on the Wasatch Front, they would come. A chance to escape the chaos, to return to some sort of normal routine, a hope for a real life again.
Eliza hesitated. “People can be stubborn. And there’s bad blood between us.”
“That’s all the more reason to get the squatters up here and away from Blister Creek,” Steve said. “Anyway, I bet they’d do it if we promised some of our food storage to help them get established.”
“Are you kidding, you still have food storage?” McKay said. “How much?”
“Most of it,” Eliza said. “We barely touched it.”
“Sweet heavens, you people truly are blessed.”
“If the squatters don’t take the deal, they’re fools,” Steve said.
“That’s only half our problem,” she said. “People like Elder Smoot won’t give up our grain without a fight. Not even for a deal that would get rid of the squatters once and for all.”
“If we don’t take the deal,” Steve said, “we’re even bigger fools.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Jacob was rehearsing his speech for the funeral when his wives entered the bedroom. Fernie came in first, in her wheelchair, followed by Jessie Lyn. He folded the pieces of paper he’d written his speech on and stuck them into his back pocket.
“Any news from Eliza?” he asked.
“We want to hear the speech,” Fernie said.
“You’ll hear it in a couple of hours.”
“Then let us read it.” Fernie held out her hand. “Come on, hand it over.”
Jessie Lyn raised her eyebrows. “We’re serious, Jacob. We want to see it.”
He looked back and forth between the two women. “So this is what a conspiracy of wives feels like. I finally know what the other men are talking about.”
Fernie rolled forward in her chair. “You know why we want to see it.”
“This is about us too,” Jessie Lyn said. “Not just you. Our kids and families.”
“I’m not leaving Blister Creek,” Jacob said, “if that’s what you’re worried about. But it’s time to have a hard talk.”
Fernie reached him in the chair and leaned forward to try to get the folded-up papers from his back pocket. “Great, then you’ll have no problem letting us read it.”
He put his hand over the pocket and held out his other hand to keep her at bay. “What are worried about?”
“Are you kidding?” Fernie said. “We’re on the verge of the Second Coming and you’re going to abrogate your responsibilities. Forgive me, but I find that concerning.”
“I have my own worries,” Jessie Lyn said, and she did look upset, her earnest face scrunched up, her lips pressed together. “It’s no secret what you think about polygamy, and I know this has been hard for you, taking on a second wife. If you give up your calling, does that mean you give up on me too? If you leave and you take Fernie, will you abandon me here?” She put a hand on her belly. “What about our child?”
“I would never do that.”
“Do you promise?”
“Can’t you both trust me? Just for a few hours?”
“The way you were talking when you came home this morning, no,” Fernie said.
“Miriam’s blood was still on my hands,” he said, frustrated. “My brother was out of his mind. I hadn’t slept much in two days. I was saying all sorts of stuff, not all of it well-considered. I’m feeling calmer now, less rash.”
“Great, then let’s hear it,” Fernie said.
Jacob shook his head. “No, not yet.”
“You want us to trust you,” Jessie Lyn said, “but in a good marriage, trust goes both ways. We’re your wives. We love you. You need to trust us, talk this out. If you’ve got big changes in mind, let us give input before you chisel anything into stone.”
Fernie had turned her chair during this, and now she reached back toward Jessie Lyn. The younger woman took Fernie’s hand and came to stand by her sister wife. They both looked at him expectantly.
“I can’t tell you,” Jacob said, “because I’m still trying to work it out myself.”
“Let’s see what you’ve written,” Fernie said. “Please.”
He sighed and reached into his back pocket to remove the papers. “Okay, but like I said, this is an opening. It’s not done yet.”
“As it should be,” Fernie said, taking the papers and unfolding them. “That leaves room for promptings from the spirit.”
She read through the pages while Jessie Lyn looked over her shoulder. Jacob turned and stared out the window. The sun was out, the sky blue. Children were playing on the swing set between the two Christianson houses. It looked so peaceful.
But then a cart pulled up in front of David’s house, pulled by a draft horse, and led by Elder Griggs. It had come for the casket. In a few minutes Jacob would go next door to help David load the coffin into the back of the cart. Men were already at the cemetery, digging two graves. One was for Grover, killed two nights ago, but not yet buried. The second was for Miriam. Another tragic multiple funeral for Blister Creek.
And what of Eliza? Still no word from his sister or her husband. When he thought about them, the bands of worry tightened around his chest until he could scarcely breathe.
Let it end. Let this be the last time.
But the squatters were still at the reservoir. They had not yet attacked the freshly reinforced bunker, currently manned with twenty men and women from the valley. Maybe they wouldn’t—Miriam and Jacob must have gutted the gathering invasion force. But so long as they were up there, Blister Creek would always be at risk.
He’d slept about six hours before getting up to work on his funeral speech. It was enough rest to shake the bone-wearying exhaustion, but not enough to leave his mind clear and sharp. He’d struggled over the words and was unsatisfied with either the content or its presentation.
Fernie rustled the pages behind him. “Jacob, about the speech . . .”
He turned. “So, no word from Eliza?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Is there a part you think is wrong?”
Fernie handed the speech to Jessie Lyn. “Are you sure this is wise?”
“No, I’m not. I’m not sure of anything.”
“So many doubts,” Fernie said as Jessie Lyn read the pages with a frown spreading across her face. “I knew what I was getting when I agreed to marry you. It takes courage to walk against a huge crowd all marching in the opposite direction. I admire you for that. But still—”
>
“I’m not sure how much courage I have, but okay.”
“But when you speak tonight, promise me you’ll do one thing. That’s all I ask.”
“What is that, Fernie?”
“Open yourself to inspiration. Call it what you want, divine or not, but let yourself be open to whatever comes in the moment.”
He looked back and forth between the two women as Jessie Lyn handed him the papers. Footsteps creaked in the attic overhead. From the room next door came the sound of one of Father’s widows singing with her daughters. From outside, he could hear his son Daniel shouting excitedly about something. Downstairs, the door banged open. More noisy kids. So many people in the house. Always so many people.
And so much responsibility weighing on Jacob’s shoulders, starting in this room and radiating outward. His children, the larger family. The people of Blister Creek. All waiting for him to step forward at the funeral and say something wise. Something that would make sense of it all. Sorry, but his well of wisdom had run dry. He had nothing for them.
“Daddy, Daddy!” a girl cried. Leah burst into the room, followed by Daniel. His son’s and daughter’s faces lit up with excitement.
“It’s Eliza!” Daniel cried. “She’s on the radio.”
“Well, big brother,” Eliza’s voice crackled cheerfully on the other end after he’d shooed everyone out of his clinic. “Took you long enough. Didn’t Elder Smoot tell you I’d called? I had expected you to have the radio glued to your ear, waiting for my call.”
For a second, he had to put down the receiver, he was so overcome with emotion. Eliza’s cheerful voice told him everything he needed to know. She was safe, and so was Steve.
“Are you there? Jacob?”
“I’m here.”
“Is everything all right?” Now there was a touch of worry on the other end.
He didn’t want to explain, not over the radio. He just wanted her to come home, then he could tell her everything.
“Are you still in Salt Lake City?” he asked. “How can you hear me so well?” The radio didn’t have enough power to stretch all the way across the mountains and desert between here and there.
Blood of the Faithful Page 27
