by R. R. Irvine
“When the range officer finally got around to calling me back two hours later, the reading hadn’t changed. By then I was scared to death. ‘We’d better alert the local police,’ I told him. ‘That isn’t your decision to make,’ he said. Then he reminded me of the security documents I’d signed to get my clearance and the job. ‘Any unauthorized release of information could lead to a jail sentence,’ he said. He must have had my file in front of him, because I remember what he said next. ‘Any breach in security on your part and you’ll never enter medical school.’ ”
“So what the hell did you do?” Martin asked.
“I kept supplying the bastards with readings for the next two days. The needle on that counter stayed off the scale the entire time. As for me, I took a shower every damned hour like clockwork. The locals should have been doing the same thing too, only they were never warned. God knows how many of them died as a result.”
Thurgood wet his lips. “I’ve been dreaming about it ever since. It’s always the same. I’m standing under a shower, safe and cool, while everyone around me catches fire and burns to ash.”
“Jesus,” Martin said.
“So you can see I’m anything but a messiah. I’m a coward. I should have run out into the streets and given the alarm.”
“They wouldn’t have believed you,” Traveler said. “In those days, we trusted the government.”
Martin squinted at Thurgood. “At least two people are dead at that clinic,” Martin said. “The Biscari boy, another young man named Whitlock, and God knows who else. I wouldn’t want something like that on my conscience.”
Thurgood stared at Martin for a long time. Finally he nodded and said, “I came here to help people. In the end that’s all a man can do. Miracles are beyond me.”
Traveler dug the photograph of a sickly Josiah Smoot from his wallet. “I’m no expert, but after seeing the boy for myself today, I’d say you have one miracle to your credit.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
30
BY THE time Traveler and Martin got back to Ruth’s, the sun was beginning to lose its edge. The eastern slopes of the Furnace Mountains were cooling toward purple, while the air reddened as the first hint of an evening breeze began disturbing the dust.
Ruth met them at the door, holding a fluffy-looking Brigham in her arms.
“I gave him a bath,” she said, “and guess what. Brigham’s a she.”
Martin rolled his eyes and groaned dramatically. “That’s the Traveler curse at work. It’s inevitable. Females, even cats, give us Travelers trouble.”
She handed him the cat. “Your cat peed on my latest article.”
“Ruth’s a stringer for the Salt Lake paper,” Traveler reminded Martin.
“It was my own fault. I ran out of old newspapers for the service porch, though God knows why she didn’t use her litter box.” Ruth grinned. “It’s lucky I bought five extra copies down at Shipler’s. Because I wrote about Jason Thurgood, they ordered enough copies for everyone in town.”
“I wish you hadn’t,” Traveler said. “It might not be safe.”
Ruth shrugged. “Don’t worry. I practically called him a saint. Now, come on into the kitchen. A couple of apple pies just came out of the oven. You can read and eat at the same time.”
The story, buried in the newspaper’s feature section, was accompanied by a grainy black-and-white photograph of Thurgood at work inside his tent, surrounded by supplicants. None were recognizable because their backs were turned. Only a passing mention was made of Moroni’s Children. Instead, Ruth had concentrated on Thurgood’ s practice of medicine in a town that had been without a doctor for years. Young Josiah was not referred to by name, though his miraculous cure was detailed.
“Thank God you didn’t quote anyone calling Thurgood the messiah,” Martin said. “Otherwise, all hell might break loose.”
Traveler put down his fork and said, “We just came from talking to Thurgood.”
“So I heard down at Shipler’s.”
“Did you hear anything about a sheep camp?” Martin asked.
“Off the old mining road, south of town. That’s the Children for you. They’ve been arrested for polygamy too many times not to check everything and everyone that comes into range.”
“Can you tell us how to get there?”
“I’d better show you the way,” she said.
******
Pete Biscari was sitting beside an open fire skinning a jackrabbit when they arrived. His flock, kept tightly packed by a working border collie, was grazing along the lee of a low hill. As before, the older collie, Janie, stood guard beside Biscari, eyeing the newcomers warily.
Biscari waved the carcass at Martin. “Jackrabbit stew just like you wanted.”
“You should see this man shoot,” Martin responded. “He can bring down a rabbit with a .22 rifle at a hundred yards.”
Biscari shrugged as if to deny the compliment. “Let me get this one into the pot and I’ll put on coffee.”
“We’ll have dessert first,” Ruth said. She’d insisted on bringing along the second apple pie, wrapped in foil which in turn was protected by an extra copy of the day’s newspaper. Biscari, who didn’t have enough plates to go around, ate his slice of pie off the newsprint, smacking his lips between each bite.
“Women have a special touch when it comes to baking,” he said. “I haven’t tasted anything this good since my wife passed on.”
“They told me of your loss,” Ruth said. “I’m sorry.”
Biscari appeared not to hear her.
“Have you had any luck?” Martin asked.
Biscari was staring at the remains of his pie. The dog at his side raised her head and whined anxiously as Biscari started to shake. At first the tremors seemed a trick of the flickering fire but soon became so apparent that Martin reached out in alarm.
“Pete, what’s wrong?” he said.
“That’s him,” he replied, slowly crumpling the newspaper into his clenched fist. He raised his arm against the night sky and said, “I’d know that bastard anywhere. That’s the man who was treating my boy. Dr. Jack Ottinger, from that damned clinic.” Janie sat up and bared her teeth.
Gingerly, Martin stepped around the dog and pried the paper from his friend’s hand. He smoothed it out and held it to the light. “That’s Jason Thurgood. Three hours ago I was standing as close to him as I am to you, and that photo doesn’t look anything like him.”
“It’s Ottinger,” Biscari insisted. “The man who promised to take care of Petey.”
For a moment, Traveler didn’t believe it. The photograph, like most newspaper shots, was grainy and softly focused. If it hadn’t been for the surroundings, the tent and Moroni’s Children, Traveler wouldn’t have recognized Jason Thurgood.
“Thurgood has blue eyes,” Martin said.
Biscari nodded. “That’s right.”
“Dark brown hair. Maybe five-ten, a hundred and sixty pounds.”
Again, Biscari nodded.
Martin spent the next ten minutes explaining the situation in Fire Creek, concentrating on the tent clinic that Thurgood had set up in the old ghost town.
The moment Martin finished, Biscari said, “I don’t care if he’s changed his name, he’s still going to have to answer to me for what he’s done.”
Ruth started to say something, but Traveler restrained her with a shake of his head. He saw no reason to involve her, despite her authorship of the article.
“We’re investigating Thurgood right now,” Traveler said. “Let us do what we’re paid for, and you stay away from him.”
Instead of answering, Biscari paced around the fire, with Janie in step beside him. When he stopped beside Traveler he said, “You don’t believe me, do you?”
“That won’t stop me from doing my job,” Traveler said. “We’ll talk to him. We’ll find out who he is.”
“What would you do if some doctor had taken away your father?”
“One woman’
s already in jail for trying to kill Thurgood,” Traveler said.
Biscari glared. “Could be she’s got the same reason I do.”
Martin said, “You have my promise, Pete. We’ll drive into St. George first thing tomorrow and interview the woman. After that, we’ll talk to Thurgood. If we connect him to your son, we’ll come straight back here and tell you.”
“I can’t stay here. There isn’t enough grass for the sheep.”
“We’ll find you.”
“You’d better hurry.”
31
THE ALARM went off half an hour before dawn. Traveler beat his father downstairs. Even so, Ruth had breakfast on the table by the time he reached the kitchen.
“I’ve been thinking about that clinic Mr. Biscari mentioned last night,” she said as she poured a cup of Postum. “A bunch of us were treated there, you know, for our cancers. It took years, of course, and hundreds of letters to our congressman before they agreed to provide radiation treatment at government expense. By then, half those who’d applied were dead.”
“Did you see anyone like Petey at the clinic?”
“Retarded, you mean?” She shook her head. “They had orderlies watching us all the time so we couldn’t wander off. We never saw any other patients at all, though we did hear dogs howling once. The sound gave me the willies.”
She hugged herself. “I tried to do an article on the clinic once, but no one would talk to me about anything except my own treatment. They said most of what was done there was secret government research, and I could get in trouble for even mentioning it in print.”
“How did they treat you otherwise?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
Traveler kissed her. “That’s one thing in their favor.”
She kissed him back and whispered, “I missed you in bed.”
Her tongue was rearranging his blood supply when a drum started up, in her backyard judging by the sound of it.
“Your friends in the tepee have been up all night,” she said.
Traveler charged through the screen door and into the yard. The smell of marijuana carried all the way from the tepee, its smoke caught in the light spilling from the kitchen window. As soon as the door banged behind him, the tepee flap opened and Bill emerged.
“Come on in, Mo. Enlightenment awaits.”
“We’ve got enough trouble without you and Charlie getting arrested again.”
“We do God’s work, Mo. And maybe yours.”
“You don’t know what that is.”
“We’ve been talking to Miz Holcomb. She’s worried about you.”
“What else did she say?”
“She cares for you. I can see that for myself.”
Traveler smiled. “Martin and I are leaving for St. George in a few minutes, so keep an eye on her for me.”
“Hear me out first, Mo. As you know, Charlie and I are on a mission to raise souls. When we told our Shivwits friends at the reservation, their shaman showed us a grave. An outsider buried on Indian land.”
“Who exactly?”
“We didn’t ask. We didn’t know anybody was missing.”
“The former mayor here in town for one. Now get your friends out here and I’ll ask them myself.”
Bill shook his head. “It’s their shaman you’ll have to see, Mo, up on the reservation. We’ll take you to him.”
Traveler thought that over. As much as he’d like to pin the ex-mayor’s murder on someone like Orrin Porter, questioning Vonda Hillman came first. He and Martin owed Pete Biscari that much.
******
When Traveler and Martin reached the jail in St. George, the watch commander himself told them that Vonda Hillman was strictly off limits to everyone but her lawyer.
“We represent the apostle Josiah Ellsworth,” Traveler said.
“Do you have proof?”
“In this state, who’d lie about something like that?”
“I can’t take your word.”
Traveler gave him Josiah Ellsworth’s credit card, along with Willis Tanner’s direct access number at the Joseph Smith Building in Salt Lake. The watch commander passed both on to the police chief, who made the call.
Five minutes later, Traveler and Martin were passed through metal detectors and into a conference room.
Vonda Hillman surprised them. They’d expected someone her husband’s age, but she was at least twenty years younger. A good figure showed through the prison garb, though her hair was short and ragged enough to have been home-cut.
She sat facing them across a table, as directed by a female officer, who then left the room to watch them through a heavy glass window. As soon as the door closed behind the officer, Vonda said, “She told me you represent an apostle of the church.”
Traveler nodded. “We’re not here to investigate the charge against you.”
“Our interest is in Jason Thurgood,” Martin added.
She smiled. “You being here means the church must be after him. That does my heart good.”
“We’ve been warned not to speak with you about your case or your motive,” Traveler said.
“It’s no secret. It’s already been in the newspapers. I’ll tell you what I told the judge at the arraignment. Jason Thurgood is an agent of the devil.”
The perfect insanity plea, Traveler thought, especially if voices told her to do it. Preferably Jesus Christ himself. “Do you have proof?”
She laid a hand over her breast as if preparing to swear allegiance. “I was a member of the church all my life, following God’s path. And then he came to tempt me away.”
“How?”
She wet her lips but said nothing.
Martin said, “We’ve just come from Fire Creek. People there are calling Jason Thurgood a miracle worker. The messiah even.”
Vonda shook her head. “The devil uses miracles to trick the faithful. ‘Follow me,’ he says. ‘Follow my path.’ Only it leads straight to hell.”
“We attended a healing session,” Martin said. “A young boy in terrible agony was cured.”
She leaned forward against the table. “Are you telling me you witnessed a miracle?”
Martin shrugged. “You tell us.”
“We can’t speak further until I touch you, and that’s against jail rules.”
Traveler got up and knocked on the door. When the jailer opened it, he explained the situation.
“Handshakes only,” she said, “while I’m in the room.”
Timidly, Vonda rose to shake their hands. “I feel you both,” she said and sat down again.
When Traveler and Martin also sat, the jailer left them alone.
“A woman has to be careful,” Vonda said. “Sometimes the devil uses people without them knowing it. They become his advocates. Sometimes he makes people sick so he can cure them. Those are the devil’s miracles and only an illusion.”
Traveler watched her closely. More than age separated her from Earl, her husband. She had an inner strength he lacked, convictions that she was willing to kill for.
Traveler said, “Are you saying that the Smoot boy’s cure is only an illusion?”
Vonda nodded. “Liz and the boy stayed with us, you know, Earl and me. A sickly boy, on his way to dying. But not now. Now he burns bright with the devil’s light.”
“He’s a child,” Martin said, “an innocent. What does it matter who saves him?”
“A body without a soul belongs to Satan.”
“What if Jason Thurgood is a better doctor than you think?”
“You haven’t thought it through. Only the devil’s creature could have survived my bullet. I put the gun right against him before I pulled the trigger.”
Traveler looked her in the eye. “He was wearing a bulletproof vest.”
She shook her head violently. “I know I’m right. That little boy was at death’s door, then suddenly he was up and playing with the other children. That’s when talk of the messiah started and when I joined the Children. Soon after, they sta
rted offering second wives to Earl, and I started wondering if I’d been tricked so they could spread their fornication. There was only one way to be sure. Lay hands on Jason Thurgood and know the truth once and for all. When I told Earl what I was going to do, he said, ‘Woman, don’t you believe your eyes when you’ve seen a miracle?’ ‘Feeling’s believing,’ I said. Earl laughed at me. ‘Go ahead and do your devil test,’ he said. ‘See how far it gets you.’ ”
Martin groaned. “Are you telling us that you shook Thurgood’s hand and felt nothing?”
“As good as,” Vonda said. “When I held out my hand, he turned away from me, but not before I saw the look on his face. Squeamish, that’s what he was.”
“When did this happen?” Traveler asked.
“During one of his so-called tent sessions.”
Traveler looked at his father, who nodded to show he was thinking the same thing. During curing sessions, Jason Thurgood was scrupulous when it came to his hands, constantly dipping them in disinfectant.
“Were his hands wet?” Martin said.
She nodded. “He could have wiped them, but he didn’t. He just turned away. That’s when I knew what had to be done.”
Speaking softly, Traveler said, “He wouldn’t shake hands with you because he wanted to keep them clean for his patients. They were wet with disinfectant.”
Vonda stared.
“It’s true,” Martin said.
“Sweet Jesus, forgive me.”
“One more thing,” Traveler said. “Have you ever heard Jason Thurgood called by any other name?”
She shook her head.
“What about Ottinger?” Martin added.
She pushed back her chair and dropped to her knees. “His name is Jesus.”
32
BY PUSHING the Jeep hard enough to rip out a muffler, Traveler and Martin made it back to Fire Creek by noon. While Ruth made them a bag lunch, they rousted out Bill, Charlie, and the two Shivwits. Traveler’s intent was to reach the reservation by midafternoon, examine a body that might be used against Orrin Porter, and be back in time for Jason Thurgood’s evening sick call.
Ruth saw Traveler off with a kiss that had Martin speculating about grandchildren all the way to the burial ground. Once there, the scorching bleakness demanded silence as the two Indians and their tribal shaman led the way to a lonely rock-covered grave. The late afternoon sun still had fire enough to force Traveler to wrap his hands in handkerchiefs before removing the protective red rocks.
