by R. R. Irvine
Traveler and Martin, already awake and dressed, were surprised to find Silas Wagstaff waiting for them by the Jeep. Six plastic jugs of water, a bag of ice, and a grocery sack stood alongside the car. Two coffee mugs and a shallow bowl were sitting on the hood.
“I promised you breakfast,” Wagstaff said.
“We thought we’d get an early start,” Martin told him.
“That what’s I figured when I heard you moving around in the dark this morning. I packed you bacon sandwiches and threw in some Twinkies. There’s canned cream in the coffee and you can take the mugs with you if you want. The cat bowl, too. I’ll keep an eye out for you, and when I see you’ve made it back from Fire Creek, you can return the china. If you don’t show, I can always run another charge on that fancy credit card of yours.”
He squinted at the bright, cloudless sky. “Take my advice. When you leave the blacktop, keep your speed to ten miles an hour, no more. That way you’ll reach Fire Creek in three, three and a half hours. Any faster and you’ll blow a tire for sure. Or maybe worse. If you get stuck out there, don’t wander off. Stay with your car. Never more than a day or two passes before somebody comes by.”
Wagstaff shook their hands. “Don’t forget my sister, Ruth Holcomb. If you have to stay over, she’ll put you up.” He winked. “If you get up to anything with her, you’ll have to answer to me.”
******
From Highway 18, the road to Fire Creek rose steadily toward the northwest. Exactly as Wagstaff had said, ten miles an hour was the optimum speed. Any faster and the washboard surface threatened to shake the Jeep to pieces.
The landscape grew more desolate with each passing mile. Only bayonet-leaved yuccas grew close to the road. Farther out, clinging to the sides of narrow gullies, drought-stunted piñon pines looked on the verge of spontaneous combustion.
After a two-hour steady climb, they reached the crest of a low range of hills that didn’t show on the map. Traveler slowed the Jeep to a stop and found himself looking down into a sinkhole that stretched for miles before butting up against the blood-colored Furnace Mountains in the distance. A mirage lake shimmered along their base.
He squinted against the glare but saw no sign of Fire Creek. According to the map, the town stood at the base of those mountains, though why anyone would settle in such a place was beyond his imagination. Surely Brigham Young’s declaration that southern Utah would become his Dixie, his land of cotton to clothe the faithful, couldn’t have included the Escalante Desert.
Martin leaned over from the passenger seat to check the gauges. All were within the normal range.
“Let’s hope the air conditioner holds out,” he said. “Brigham looks like he’s run out of lives.”
Traveler opened one of the plastic jugs and swallowed a mouthful of tepid water while wishing for a beer. After Martin took a swig, they began the descent into Fire Valley. Even at ten miles an hour, the four-wheel drive raised a red dust cloud that trailed behind them like a smoke signal.
By the time they reached the ragged asphalt that delineated Fire Creek’s Main Street an hour and a half later, their hair, their clothes, the car’s upholstery, the entire surface of the vehicle were covered with a clinging layer of red dust. Their lips were caked with it. Traveler’s mouth felt gritty. Brigham had changed from calico to ginger.
City hall stood at the head of Main Street fifty feet from where the blacktop started. It was a squat, one-story building, fronted with rough-cut red limestone. Two narrow, jail-like windows were set into the rock on either side of a weathered door. The wooden sign over the doorway, black and cracked with age, had carved lettering: FIRE CREEK CITY HALL, 1870. DOWNWIND had been spray-painted over it in Day-Glo red.
No one was on the street, though half a dozen vehicles were scattered along the three blocks of asphalt before Main Street turned back into desert and disappeared into the nearby foothills. The squat one-story buildings closest to city hall, the Goldstrike Barber Shop and Perry’s Dry Goods, were boarded up.
Grabbing the open water jug, Traveler climbed out of the Jeep and rinsed his hands. Martin did the same, before retrieving the cat carrier and carrying it into city hall, a single room with whitewashed walls and a rough-planked floor showing a grooved path leading to a large desk. Behind it sat a man built like a sumo wrestler.
“Marshal Peake?” Traveler said.
Nodding, the man stood up. He was a foot shorter than Traveler’s six-three, but every ounce his equal, two twenty at least. He wore no uniform, only jeans and a short-sleeve knit shirt that clung to his muscled chest. He carried no gun, though a shotgun and rifle were locked in a rack on the back wall.
Traveler and Martin showed their IDs.
Peake raised an eyebrow. “Seeing the two of you together, maybe I should call the county sheriff for reinforcements.”
“Just think of us as summer tourists,” Martin said.
Peake gave Martin the old one-eye. “Judging by the size of your partner, you’ve brought in too much firepower for anything as simple as a look-see.”
Martin laid a hand on Traveler’s shoulder. “Looking at him, I know it’s hard to believe he’s my son. I think my wife must have slipped him some extra hormones when he was a kid.”
Peake circled Traveler once before moving back behind his desk. “I know you now,” the marshal said. “I used to see you on TV, playing pro football. You looked bigger.”
“I had to bulk up to survive,” Traveler said.
Martin said, “I tried teaching him tennis, but he didn’t have the coordination.”
“You two can cut the bullshit.” Peake clenched a fist, causing muscles to ripple in a forearm twice the size of Traveler’s. “We don’t have much around here worthy of a look-see, and I haven’t seen a real tourist in years. So what we’re talking about, one way or another, is Moroni’s Children. And they don’t like outsiders poking their noses in. Neither do I, because I have to clean up the mess when they start ganging up on people like you. Usually, it’s sightseers who want to see polygamists, or maybe young bucks who want to join in the fun so they can have all the wives they want.”
“That may be the only good reason I can think of for living in a place like this,” Traveler said.
“You’d have to be born here to understand why we stay. I tried your big city and didn’t like it.” He leaned back in his chair and laced his hands behind his neck. “If it’s not Moroni’s Children you’re after, it must be the shooting.”
“Shooting’s a criminal matter,” Martin said. “Nothing to do with us.”
Peake rocked forward and stood up. “It’s the Smoot woman, then. The word is she’s related to one of the apostles. And don’t bother looking surprised. This may be the sticks, but I know enough to check on new people who move into my town.”
He stepped to the open door. “Look out there. You don’t see people on the street, do you? That’s because I warned them you were coming, and I wanted to get a first look at you.”
“It’s a hundred and five degrees out there,” Martin said. “It’s no wonder the streets are empty.”
“I think Marshal Peake got a call from Silas Wagstaff,” Traveler said.
“He was only being a good neighbor.”
“He doesn’t know our business and neither do you.”
“Silas’s not the kind of man to ignore someone like you. Neither am I. I phoned Salt Lake to check up on you. My brother officers don’t exactly love you up there, but they don’t have any black marks against your name either. They also say you don’t come cheap, which makes me wonder who’s paying the freight. Silas says you’ve got a church credit card. Is that right?”
Traveler eyed his father, who raised an eyebrow right back, a look that said Edgar Peake wasn’t the kind of marshal he’d expected to find in a place like Fire Creek.
“Credit cards are a wonderful thing,” Martin said.
Peake nodded. “If you’re worried about the Smoot woman, she’s perfectly safe. Not even the
craziest of Moroni’s Children—and there are some dandies—would risk the wrath of an LDS apostle.”
“We’re not here as bodyguards,” Martin said. “Just observers.”
Peake stared out at the empty street. “There are times when I wish I had a bodyguard myself.”
Traveler said, “It would be a lot easier if you told us where you stand when it comes to Moroni’s Children.”
“Easier for you, maybe.” Peake turned his back on Main Street. With the noontime glare behind him, his expression was impossible to read. “I’m only a part-time marshal, when I’m not pumping gas. Mine’s the only station in town, by the way, open by appointment. Most people don’t want to get on my bad side, in case I cut off their gas ration. Of course, what you really want to know is whether I’m a member or not. In this town, that’s the right question to ask, that’s for sure, since not much goes on around here that Moroni’s Children don’t have a hand in.”
“That doesn’t quite answer the question,” Traveler said.
Peake snorted. “I left Utah for a while, right out of high school. It gives you perspective. You meet someone in Denver, say, or maybe Phoenix, you don’t ask their religion. It’s considered impolite. But here in Utah, that’s the first question people ask. If you give the wrong answer, they don’t want anything to do with you. So the only answer I’m giving is this. Everyone in town, the old-timers and the Children, too, got together with the council and decided they needed someone neutral to handle the drunks and what-have-you. Since I’m the strongest man in town I got the job. That’s not a boast. I took on all comers in arm wrestling and put them down.”
The marshal, staring at Traveler, added, “The way I see it, a show of strength is the best way to keep the peace.”
“We’ll do our best to keep it that way,” Martin said.
Behind Traveler, someone knocked on the doorjamb. The woman standing there, silhouetted against the dazzling sunlight, was tall, maybe five-ten, with square shoulders and a straight waist.
“I’m Ruth Holcomb,” she said.
As soon as Marshal Peake made the introductions, she crossed the room to shake Martin’s hand first, then Traveler’s.
“My brother told me to keep an eye out for you,” she said. “He didn’t say anything about an animal.”
“He said you could put us up,” Traveler said.
“There’s just us and our cat,” Martin added.
“You know what they say, three’s a crowd.” Her smile created deep wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. She was a widow, Silas Wagstaff had said, about Traveler’s age. Somewhere in her early forties, Traveler guessed, smiling back at her. She was hefty without being fat, with closely cropped black hair, finger-combed by the looks of it, flecked with gray. Her jeans were the no-nonsense kind, with rolled-up cuffs and baggy knees. Instead of a blouse, she wore a loose man’s shirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders, exposing deeply tanned, solid-looking arms. The hang of the shirt emphasized her substantial breasts.
“If Ruth can’t put you up,” Peake went on, “I don’t know where you’ll find another bed in town. She boarded our missionaries a while back, until they wore out their welcome.”
“The marshal makes it sound like I’m running a boarding house. We don’t get tourists in Fire Creek, and not many visitors either, except a few sightseers looking for polygamists. Those, I don’t take in. The truth is, my house is too big for a woman on her own, not that I can’t use the extra money. I can provide meals too, if you want them.”
“We have our own cat food,” Martin said.
Peake snorted. “There’s only one restaurant in town, the Escalante Cafe, half a block up the street.”
Ruth shook her head. “You’ve been a bachelor too long, Ed, if you call that place a restaurant.”
The marshal raised his hands in surrender. “You won’t get any argument. Ruth here’s the best cook in town.”
“You never came back for seconds.”
“We’ll take a room,” Martin said.
“I’ve got two spares if you want them.”
“Missionary rooms, we’ve been calling them lately,” Peake said, “though maybe now we’ll have to rename them.”
“You haven’t asked how much,” Ruth said.
Martin shrugged.
“Thirty-five dollars a day apiece, including meals.”
“We’ll take the two of them,” Traveler said.
“I’ll have them made up for you in an hour.”
“We’d like to look around town for a while,” Martin said. “Maybe we could drop off the cat now?”
“I’ll take him for you,” she said, reaching for the carrier. “Dinner’s at six. I’m one block east and half a block north, the two-story brick house on the corner of Fillmore and First.”
“First is Nephite Street now,” Peake said.
“I don’t care what the Children renamed it, it’s still First to me.”
“They have the votes on the council, Ruth. You know that.”
“If I had my way they wouldn’t be able to vote.” She nodded at Traveler. “I hope you’re here to cause trouble, like everybody’s saying.”
11
MARSHAL PEAKE insisted on treating Traveler and Martin to lunch at the Escalante Cafe. As soon as they walked in, Traveler knew the reason why. Nearly a dozen men were there ahead of them, scattered among half as many tables. Each table was covered in oilcloth, faced by four bentwood chairs, the teacher’s models Traveler remembered from grade school. None of the men was eating, only staring at the new arrivals, sizing them up and, if Traveler read their expectant eyes correctly, awaiting the marshal’s next move.
The cafe occupied the lobby of what had once been the Escalante Hotel. The front desk had been reclaimed as a lunch counter with chrome and Naugahyde stools attached. Country music, muted by a swinging porthole door, came from the kitchen. The room’s pine plank floor had been painted brown to match the metal embossed ceiling. A sheet of bare plywood had been nailed over the stairway leading to the second floor.
“Quite a crowd for a town this size,” Martin observed.
“Just the regulars,” Peake answered. “Old-timers and friends who grew up with me.”
Traveler studied the faces. If there were any members of Moroni’s Children among them, they showed less zeal than Mad Bill, and far fewer trappings. No beards, no robes, no placard prophecies, only middle-aged wear and tear.
The marshal stepped behind the counter to tap a fingernail against a Coca-Cola thermometer on the back wall. “Ninety-five. It was 96 in here yesterday and 110 outside on Main Street.”
He led the way to an empty table that stood in the center of the room. Grinning, he sat down and nodded for Traveler and Martin to do the same.
Traveler clenched his teeth, knowing that he and Martin were being put on display.
“There’s no need to order,” Peake said. “Annie only serves one dish. Today’s Saturday, so it’s meat loaf. She’ll bring it out of the kitchen once we give her the word we’re ready.”
Martin nudged Traveler under the table to show he knew what was going on. “I could eat now.”
“No you don’t,” someone said.
“Not before we’ve had our fun,” another added.
The comment drew ragged cheers from the onlookers.
“I’d introduce you to everybody,” Peake said, “but that would be too many names to remember. There was a time when Mayor Gibbs would have been here to welcome you personally. He would have done the honors and then seated you right here, at his table.”
“Rest his soul,” someone intoned.
“Our new mayor’s one of Moroni’s Children,” Peake said as he pushed up the sleeve of his knit shirt until the material bunched around his armpit. Then he lowered his elbow onto the oilcloth and smiled at Traveler. “It’s best to get these things out of the way right up front, so we know where we stand.”
“Arm wrestling proves nothing.”
“Edg
ar’s letting you off easy,” one of the bystanders said. “Usually he knocks newcomers down and stomps on them. He says it softens them up.”
Traveler waited for the laughter to subside before responding. “I let my father handle things like this.”
Peake snorted derisively. “He’s an old man.”
Traveler mopped the sweat from his face to keep his smile from showing. Like so many others before him, Peake had failed to notice Martin’s right arm, twice the size of his left, the result of a lifetime of tennis and strong-arming for beers.
“This here’s Moroni Traveler,” Peake goaded. “He used to be a linebacker for L.A. People said he played mean and crazy.”
“You can’t believe what you see on TV,” someone answered.
The marshal spread his hands. “You see, Traveler. A reputation doesn’t mean shit unless you’re willing to prove it here and now.”
“My reputation is long gone.”
“There are some who might say you don’t have the stomach to face a man one on one.”
Traveler shrugged. “If you want me, you have to come through my father.”
Martin rolled up his sleeve.
“Come on, Ed,” someone shouted. “He looks pretty tough for an old bird.”
“Maybe Edgar’s gone soft,” another said.
Peake stared at Martin and shook his head. “I’ll go easy on you, old man. But your son had better watch himself when his turn comes.”
Martin adjusted his chair until he and Peake were facing one another. When they locked hands, Peake’s arm, seen side by side with Martin’s, looked enormous.
Everyone in the cafe crowded around.
“Say when,” Martin said.
“Take your best shot.”
Peake’s counterthrust levered Martin’s arm a quarter of the way toward the tabletop. For a moment, Traveler thought the contest was over, that Martin’s arm had passed the point of no return. Then he saw the grin fading from the marshal’s face, and knew that his father was stringing it out.
Half a minute passed before Traveler coughed to catch Martin’s eye, a signal to hurry things along. Martin immediately began applying pressure. Peake grunted as his arm was forced upward, past the starting position, and then down to defeat.
