Pillar of Fire

by R. R. Irvine

  When he was kneeling beside the body, Traveler shouted, “If you ask me, he was trying to claw his way out when somebody dropped a rock on his head.”

  “Old Norm lived here all his life,” Peake said. “He knew all he had to do was go upstream to find an easier way out. He must have panicked, that’s all, tried to climb the bank, lost his balance and fell backward, cracking his skull open. Plain bad luck, that’s all.”

  Traveler turned to Ruth. “Is he serious?”

  “As big as Ed is, you can’t expect him to go up against a man like Porter.”

  “It could be somebody else.”

  Ruth thought that over for a moment, then cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted at the marshal. “I swear, the crutches weren’t here, Ed.”

  The marshal waved off further dialogue and went to work, spreading the tarp over Shipler’ s body and weighting down the edges with large rocks. After that, he grabbed the rope and climbed out of the ravine.

  “I have to call the county sheriff anyway, even for a suicide,” he said when he reached them. “But I don’t think the forensic team will find a damned thing.”

  “And the crutches?” Traveler said.

  “My guess is the only prints we’ll find will be Norm’s.”

  “What will that prove?”

  Peake shrugged. “I’ll tell the sheriff about the crutches. Whether he’ll believe you or not will be up to him.”

  “Dammit, Ed,” Ruth said, “are you going to let someone like Orrin Porter get away with this?”

  Traveler took hold of her hand. “We could have been mistaken about the crutches, Marshal.”

  “What?” she said.

  Traveler squeezed her hand, hard, and nodded at Peake, a barely perceptible signal. “Do you want us to make sure the dogs don’t come back while you call the sheriff?”

  “That’s a good idea, but stay up here and out of the way.”

  “You can count on it.”

  “What the hell was that all about?” Ruth asked as soon as the marshal left.

  “I’m thinking about what you said a few minutes ago. That this is your town and that you’re not leaving. I won’t always be around to protect you. Besides, we could have missed the crutches.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “I don’t see Orrin Porter having much of a motive. Shipler was already terrified of him and everybody else. The broken leg had seen to that.”

  Ruth shook her head. “I’ve known Norm Shipler all my life. I have to do something.”

  “Leave that to me,” he said.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  Traveler took her hand and led her out of the sun and into the shade of a stunted tree. “I came here looking for the messiah,” he said. “No, scratch that. I came here investigating a point of theology, or so I thought. Martin said there was more to it than met the eye, and he’s probably right. As soon as the marshal gets back, I’m talking to Liz Smoot.”

  “You’re a glutton for punishment, aren’t you? That woman almost killed you once.”

  “This time I won’t turn my back.”

  “She and her son have been staying at the Hillman house, though I hear Orrin Porter spends nights with her whenever he can tear himself away from Eula and Vyrle.”

  27

  MARTIN WAS pacing out front by the time Traveler and Ruth got back to the house. Ruth took one look at him, at the two reservation Indians, and the tepee pitched on her front lawn, and murmured, “My God, I haven’t changed the sheets or made our bed. Stall them for a few minutes.” Without waiting for an answer, she made a beeline down the driveway and in the side door.

  The Indians’ tepee, though painted with animal totems, looked suspiciously like army surplus. Its flap opened and out crawled Bill, followed by Charlie, who immediately reclosed the flap, but not before smoke leaked out.

  “We were discussing immortality before you arrived, Mo,” Bill said by way of greeting. “Charles and I have big plans. Baptisms all across this state.”

  “And your friends?” Traveler said, nodding at the two Shivwits.

  “Like us all, they seek enlightenment, Mo. With luck, they’ll soon become our first live converts.”

  Traveler glared at his father.

  “Don’t blame me,” Martin said. “They didn’t stay put at the motel. I had to go all the way to the reservation to find Bill and Charlie. They wouldn’t leave without their entourage.”

  Charlie, Traveler noticed, had a new medicine bag, a replacement for the one confiscated by the police in St. George. The Shivwits also wore bags around their necks, as did Bill.

  “We had a vision,” Bill said to counter Traveler’s disapproving stare. “We came in answer to your need. Your father only supplied the means.”

  Traveler knelt beside the tepee, opened the flap, and took a deep breath. “I’d have visions, too, if I stayed in there long enough.”

  “It’s true, Moroni,” Bill said. “We’ve seen the way to help you.”

  With a wave of his arm, Charlie urged Traveler inside the tepee. “You must open your senses.”

  Traveler shook his head. “I have work to do.”

  The front door opened and Ruth came out to join them. After introductions, she suggested they move the tepee into the backyard where there was shade.

  “We didn’t want to do that without permission,” Charlie told her.

  “You have it. While you’re taking care of that, I’ll fix us all some lemonade.”

  “My father and I have someone to see first,” Traveler said.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Ruth said and disappeared into the house.

  “I see your luck with women has changed,” Martin observed.

  “It’s too early to tell. In the meantime, we’ve got to see Liz Smoot, who’s living with the Hillmans. She’s also been sleeping with Orrin Porter when he’s not otherwise occupied with the rest of his wives.”

  Martin groaned. “I don’t want to think of the consequences if Josiah Ellsworth gets wind of that.”

  ******

  The Hillman house shimmered in the heat waves rising around it. Even Earl Hillman, on his knees in the vegetable garden, seemed to oscillate as he rose to greet Traveler and Martin. He wore a broad-brimmed straw hat and a red bandana around his neck to catch the sweat. Shouts of children playing came from behind the house, where a pair of woolly junipers provided shady hiding places.

  Without preamble he said, “Being big-city people, you ought to know if those stories you see on TV are true, about the things they do to women in prison?”

  “Not in a jail like St. George,” Martin said. “Prison’s another matter.”

  Hillman sighed so hard he sagged. “I only visited my Vonda once in jail, when I got her a lawyer. Brother Snelgrove says if I see her again, I’ll be dead too as far as he and the Children are concerned. My Vonda’s been excommunicated, you know, shunned for eternity, her name never to be spoken again.”

  He lowered his head. “Maybe I’m dead already, for even using her name to you. But a man can’t break old habits just like that. Every day, every hour, I sin in my thoughts. I think of Vonda and pray for her.”

  Martin took the man’s elbow, and led him into the shade under the eaves of the house. There, Hillman slumped against the weathered clapboard beneath a small window.

  “Were you with her when she fired the shot?” Martin asked gently.

  He nodded.

  “Has she told you why she did it?”

  Hillman closed his eyes, though they continued to move beneath his lids. “She said she had a debt to pay.”

  “What debt?”

  His eyes shimmied behind the lids. “ ‘Payment,’ she told me, ‘to give the devil his due.’ ”

  Traveler shook his head, rekindling pain from the blow he’d received. Talk of the devil, abetted by the haunted look in Hillman’s eyes, reminded him just how dangerous cult country could be. A man Martin’s age might not have survi
ved the attack he’d endured. The thought kicked in enough adrenaline to start Traveler’s hands shaking. He’d been a fool to involve his father in something so dangerous.

  “I’m not crazy,” Hillman continued. “I may sound it but . . .” His eyes opened. “My Vonda is not the kind of woman to lie. When she told me that Jason Thurgood was the devil’s man, I knew one thing for sure. That in her heart she believed it absolutely.”

  “And you?”

  Hillman licked his lips. “It doesn’t matter. She’ll never be dead to me, no matter what. If I dared, I’d tell that to Brother Snelgrove and be done with it. But I can’t. I shouldn’t be talking to you. Norm Shipler tried it, and look what it got him.”

  “Why did you join the Children in the first place?” Traveler asked.

  “Not for the extra wives, like some think. If I’d ever tried anything like that, Vonda would have killed me.” He flinched at the sound of his own words. “I don’t mean that. Vonda wouldn’t hurt anybody. What happened with Jason, with the shooting, has to be some kind of mistake. No, I joined because I knew Fire Creek couldn’t survive without the Children.”

  Traveler caught movement in the window above Hillman’s head, a woman’s face momentarily glimpsed. “Is that Liz Smoot inside?”

  He nodded. “She hasn’t set foot out of the house since your accident.” He ducked his head. “Not an accident exactly, but you know what I mean.”

  “We’d like to see her,” Traveler said.

  “Brother Porter gave me the job of keeping an eye on her. He wouldn’t want her having visitors unless he was present.”

  “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t I knock on the front door and see if she’ll talk to me. You don’t have to be involved.”

  Hillman, a good six inches shorter than Traveler, looked up and smiled. “You wouldn’t be threatening me, would you?”

  “Would that help?”

  “It might if Porter ever asked me if I resisted.”

  “Consider yourself threatened.”

  “Then I’d better knock on the door for you, because she’s under orders not to open it to anyone else.”

  28

  LIZ SMOOT stood in the open doorway staring wide-eyed at Earl Hillman, who immediately thrust his hands into the air. “If Orrin asks you,” he said, “I didn’t have any choice. A man my age wouldn’t stand a chance against someone as big as Moroni here.”

  Liz shifted her gaze to Traveler. “I didn’t expect to see you without the sheriff. My father would like nothing better than to see me arrested for assault. So go ahead. Drag me back to Salt Lake in handcuffs.” She thrust out her wrists.

  Martin pushed Traveler aside to introduce himself. “It’s a good thing my son has a hard head.”

  “My father sent you both, didn’t he? Two men against one woman and a little boy.”

  Hillman retreated down the porch steps. “I’ll be in my garden. Just shout if you need me.”

  Watching him hurry away, Liz shook her head. “That man walks around here in a daze most of the time. If it wasn’t for me cooking, I don’t think he’d remember to eat.”

  Traveler’s first impression of her had been a fleeting one, interrupted by an ax handle. Seeing her now, he found it hard to believe that she’d been capable of such an attack. For a woman in her forties, she looked old-age frail, no more than a hundred and ten pounds, her shoulders hunched under the burden of her coarse homespun dress, cinched at the waist because it could have held two women her size. Her hair was knotted into a lifeless braid, and she wore no makeup to hide the deep lines around her eyes and mouth.

  “You’d better get out of the sun,” she said.

  The living room was filled with rows of folding chairs all facing one direction.

  “We use this room for prayer meetings,” she told them, “so we’d better sit in the kitchen.”

  She led them down a narrow hallway and into a kitchen large enough to hold a pioneer trestle table and a dozen mismatched chairs. Once Traveler and Martin were seated, she fussed at the sink, staring out the open window into the backyard where the children had abandoned the junipers to jump rope, chanting, “One potato, two potato, three potato, four.”

  “Why are you living here?” Traveler asked.

  “I had no choice,” she said without turning around to face him. “You should understand that. I had to find a way to save my son.”

  Martin snorted. “What about my son?”

  “I didn’t have a choice there either.”

  Traveler remembered the way she’d looked to Orrin Porter for guidance, for approval, a moment before she swung the ax handle. “What hold does Orrin Porter have over you?”

  She swung around and pointed a finger at him. “I know what people are saying about me and Orrin. Understand me. I’d do anything for my boy. I’d . . . I’d

  He could see her searching for the right word. Finally, she closed her eyes and sighed hard, making her shoulders sag even more. “I’d fuck the devil himself if I had to.”

  Her eyes snapped open. “Don’t look so shocked. Any mother would do the same.”

  “And is he the devil?” Martin asked quietly.

  She smiled crookedly. “Orrin Porter was the one who took me to see Jason Thurgood. I knew then that it was a sign, that Jason had the power, and that Orrin was his guardian angel. That’s right, not the devil. He was like the first Orrin Porter Rockwell, who protected God’s first prophet.”

  “Are you saying that Thurgood is the new messiah?”

  She nodded at Martin. “You’ve met him for yourself. What do you think, Mr. Traveler?”

  “He’s a good man, I’ll admit that.”

  “Look into your heart,” she said, “and you’ll know, like I do, that the Lord’s faith is being rekindled here in Fire Creek. I’m proud to be part of it and so is my son. If God wants me to be a wife to His messiah’s guardian angel, so be it.”

  Martin shook his head. “I’d be willing to bet money that his real name isn’t Orrin Porter.”

  “I know that. He told me so himself. He had a revelation. God told him to take the name, and the responsibility that went with it. God told him to become His avenging angel.”

  “Does your father know about your relationship with this man?” Traveler asked.

  “I’m not yet a full member of Moroni’s Children. My faith and commitment have yet to be fully tested.”

  Gingerly, Traveler fingered the lump on his head. “I’d say you’ve passed so far.”

  “I came here to see my son cured. I thought you were standing in the way of his salvation, Mr. Traveler. I couldn’t allow that.”

  “Your father is worried about you.”

  “About his grandson, you mean. His namesake. His immortality.” She placed her hands on the table as if to push herself away from further contact. “They say he’s the White Prophet, though he’s never admitted it, even to me. If it’s true, if he commands the army of Danites, then I’m lost. Maybe we all are. Maybe the devil is too strong for us.”

  Tears ran down her cheeks. “I have sworn a blood oath to protect the messiah. All of us have. Even if I have to fight my own father, I will honor that oath.”

  Martin said, “When I asked Jason Thurgood if he was the messiah, he denied it.”

  “My son is cured,” Liz said. “Through Jason Thurgood, the Lord’s hand has reached out and touched my boy. My Josiah is cured as surely as the Lord saved Jason from the bullet meant to kill him. You don’t have to believe me. I’ll show you the miracle myself.”

  She stood and beckoned them to follow, out the kitchen door and into the rear yard where, despite the oppressive heat, the children were still jumping rope. Two girls were twirling the rope while the other four children took turns.

  “Josiah,” she called, “come here for a moment.”

  The boy who was jumping rope broke free and came running across the yard. Traveler recognized him immediately, the rosy-cheeked seven-year-old in the healthy photograph, no longer r
esembling the boy with Hodgkin’s disease.

  “You see,” Liz said.

  Traveler took the photographs from his wallet and showed them to Martin.

  Shaking his head, Martin said, “What kind of treatment did he get?”

  “God’s touch was all he needed.” She knelt to hug the boy, who squirmed to duck a kiss. The moment she released him, he charged away to rejoin his friends. “All the rest you see here are Porter’s children. Most of the houses on this block are his. Snelgrove and his wives have the next block down.”

  “I thought this was the Hillman house,” Traveler said.

  “Because of who my father is, Orrin thought it best that I have a chaperon. It’s a fair trade. I keep house for Earl now that his wife is away.” Liz bit her lip. “Actually, she’s dead to us. Poor Earl. We all pray for him constantly. To think that the woman he loved turned against God and tried to kill His anointed one. It’s worse than murder, if you ask me. Vonda—” Her teeth snapped together. “It’s best not to speak her name. We might give the devil an opening. A bishop’s court was held after the shooting. Despite Earl’s pleading, she was excommunicated, to be shunned for all eternity.”

  Liz hugged herself. “She will not be raised from the dead, and will burn in hell forever.” A long sigh turned into a shudder. “But Earl loves her still. I can see it in his eyes. Sometimes I wonder if he won’t turn his back on us, like I did with my father.”

  “Your father wants you to come home,” Traveler said.

  “Is that your job, to kidnap me away?”

  “Kidnappers wouldn’t be here talking.”

  “Tell my father I still love him, but I can’t risk my son’s life by leaving this place.”

  “What if he won’t listen?”

  “You’d better convince him, Mr. Traveler, and from now on leave me alone. Otherwise, I just might have to tell my father that the child I’m carrying is yours.”

  Traveler clenched his teeth. Martin was right. Follow rule number one and stay away from religion.

  “He wouldn’t believe you,” Traveler said.

  “Are you sure?”

  Martin laid a restraining hand on Traveler. “Let’s do like the lady says, and leave her alone.”