Pillar of Fire

by R. R. Irvine

  “We found Biscari’s son buried on the reservation,” he said. “The Indians say radiation killed him. Looking at him, I’d have to agree.”

  “You see why I renamed this town Downwind. We’re all dead, murdered legally by our own government. It would have been better if they’d put a gun to our heads.” She sighed deeply. “That’s why I became a stringer, to write about what’s been going on downwind. Only, the editors like stories with happy endings.”

  After a late dinner, Traveler and Ruth sat side by side on the front lawn watching the night sky.

  “Sometimes I wish you hadn’t come here,” she said after a long silence. “Maybe none of this would have happened, then. Maybe Norm Shipler and Jason would still be alive.”

  “And the boy?”

  She leaned against him. “Because of you, Fire Creek will never be the same. Neither will I.” She kissed his hand, then held it to her breast. “You’ve made me very happy.” She rose up on her knees to kiss his mouth.

  “Come to Salt Lake with me,” he breathed.

  “I don’t want you with me when the cancer comes again.”

  He wrapped his arms around her. “You don’t know that it will.”

  “Moroni . . .”

  His lips closed over hers. She tried to say something more but her words were lost inside him.

  Suddenly, she broke away from him, sobbing. “Dear God. They’re at it again.”

  She pointed at a glow in the western sky. As Traveler watched, the light grew, mushrooming.

  “How many tests before they kill us all?” Ruth said.

  “That’s no bomb. It’s too close.”

  The screen door banged as Martin came out onto the stoop. “What the hell is that?”

  Traveler got to his feet, pulling Ruth up after him.

  She stared at the fiery sky and rubbed her arms. “It must be Coffee Pot Springs.”

  “We’d better take a look,” Martin said.

  “I’m going too,” she said, and drove the Jeep Cherokee while Traveler and Martin checked their .45s. Rather than risk driving into a pothole in the dark, they abandoned the Jeep a quarter of a mile short of the boulders and hiked the rest of the way, using flashlights from the emergency kit Martin kept in the back.

  “If anyone’s guarding the pass, they’ll see us coming,” Ruth said.

  Martin’s answer was to jack a shell into the chamber of his pistol.

  The wind shifted, blowing smoke in their faces.

  “Christ,” Martin said. “Do you smell it?”

  “Like a barbecue,” she said.

  “A human barbecue.”

  Traveler stopped, holding her back. “You’d better go back to the Jeep.”

  She shook free of his grasp. “Come on. Let’s get it over with.”

  By the time they crested the hill, every building in Coffee Pot Springs was burning. Even Thurgood’s tent was on fire, though it was burning more brightly than canvas would account for, Traveler thought. Around it, their faces radiant in reflected light, stood Horace Snelgrove, Orrin Porter, and Earl Hillman.

  By the time Traveler reached the tent, the smell of gasoline was overpowering.

  “ ‘And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud,’ ” Snelgrove shouted, “ ‘and by night in a pillar of fire.’ The messiah has come and gone, and we are his apostles.”

  37

  “I WOULD have done the same in their place,” Martin said once he and Traveler were settled at Ruth’s kitchen table, watching her pour a saucer of warm milk for Brigham. “You steal the body and burn it. Once that’s done, who’s to say Jason Thurgood hasn’t risen from the grave like Christ? That’s the way to create a religion.”

  Ruth banged her saucepan on the sink. “You wouldn’t hear a woman talking like that. Jason Thurgood was shot. Moroni’s Children have destroyed evidence. That’s a crime, pure and simple. They should be arrested.”

  “We didn’t catch them striking the match,” Traveler said.

  “And we can’t prove it was Thurgood they were cremating,” Martin added. “Or who killed him for that matter, thank God.”

  Ruth glared. “Why thank God? And why would they burn a man’s body if they weren’t responsible for his death?”

  “For the sake of argument,” Traveler said, “let’s say they didn’t kill him but only found the body. Like Martin said, it’s an opportunity in the making. If they compare him with Christ long enough, somebody might start believing it.”

  “Thank God we weren’t hired to investigate a homicide,” Martin added.

  Ruth sat beside Traveler. “I say thank God too, then. You told me yourself that you were hired to find out if Jason Thurgood was the messiah. Now that he’s dead, there’s nothing more you can do. Leave it at that. It’s safer.”

  Sure, Traveler thought. All he had to do was call Josiah Ellsworth and give him the bad news. Thurgood has gone up in flames, he’d say. Not quite a resurrection from Joseph of Arimathaea’s sepulcher, but the stuff of legend nevertheless. A legend being spread by the likes of Horace Snelgrove and Orrin Porter, now calling themselves apostles.

  The apostle, Josiah Ellsworth, returned Traveler’s call shortly after midnight.

  “I’ve heard from my daughter,” he said without preamble. “She wants to come home now that Jason Thurgood is dead.”

  “Did she tell you how he died?” Traveler asked. Martin was standing beside him, listening in.

  “I won’t be preached to,” Ellsworth said, “by relatives or employees. And I won’t tolerate blasphemy either. Just get her and bring her home.”

  “You hired me to investigate a messiah.”

  “My Liz says she’s in danger. That takes precedent.”

  “Even Moroni’s Children have more sense than to touch your daughter.”

  “She’s made some kind of foolish liaison with a man calling himself Orrin Porter, and she’s afraid what he might do when she tries to leave. You do this for me, Mr. Traveler, and I’ll consider it a personal favor, one to be repaid.”

  “We’ll have to wait for daylight,” Traveler said.

  “I’m not willing to take that kind of chance,” Ellsworth replied. “By morning I could have my own people in place.”

  Martin snatched the phone and clamped his hand over the receiver and whispered, “Better us than the Danites, Mo.”

  Nodding, Traveler took back the phone and told the apostle, “We’ll do what we can.”

  “I’ve arranged to have my grandson and my daughter examined at the BYU medical center,” Ellsworth responded. “How soon can you get them there?”

  “About dawn if we’re lucky.”

  “I’ll be there,” Ellsworth said and hung up.

  Traveler woke up Ruth. Brigham, who was sleeping beside her, mewed in protest. As soon as she sat up, Ruth grabbed a fistful of tissue and started sneezing.

  “You should keep Brigham in the garage,” Traveler said. “You must be allergic.”

  “We were both lonely.”

  Traveler kissed her between sneezes. “We’ve been ordered to grab Liz Smoot and her son and take them out of here tonight. I want you to come with us.”

  “What do you mean, ordered?”

  Traveler explained the situation.

  “This is my home,” Ruth said quietly. “There’s nothing for me in Salt Lake.”

  “There’s me.”

  Ruth shook her head slowly. “The radiation’s still with us here. I guess it always will be. I can’t ask you to stay.”

  He stared into her eyes and knew he’d been expecting such a rejection all along. He wondered if that’s why he’d been attracted to her in the first place, because permanent commitment was never an option.

  Martin’s advice, given when Traveler was twelve, came back to him. It had come at the insistence of Kary, who said it was time her son knew the facts of life and that it was a father’s duty to provide them.

  Martin had taken Traveler into his room then, sat him on the be
d, and winked because they’d already had such a discussion, complete with pictures from a medical book. This time, however, Martin rolled his eyes at the bedroom door where Kary was listening and said loud enough for her to hear, “About women, Mo, have nothing to do with them.”

  Thinking back on it, Traveler realized that Martin hadn’t been joking.

  He smiled at Ruth and heard a voice say, “Marry me.” He realized it was his own.

  She shook her head. “I can’t have children.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  She handed him the cat. “Goodbye, Moroni. Take Brigham with you. I don’t want the downwind getting her too.”

  He kissed Ruth gently, unsure of what he was feeling, and left without another word.

  38

  TRAVELER PARKED the Jeep across the street from the Hillman house, switched off the engine, and waited. Brigham and her supplies were stowed in the backseat.

  Finally, Traveler rolled down his window. There was a faint smell of smoke in the air, as if Jason Thurgood might still be smoldering. Traveler held his breath and listened. There was no sound. The only light came from a yellow porch bulb three houses away.

  Five minutes passed before Martin said, “If they’d heard us coming, they’d have reacted by now. Let’s get it over with.”

  They circled the house slowly, stopping to listen every few yards. At each step, dry weeds crackled underfoot. When they finished their tour without triggering a response, Traveler knocked on the front door, softly at first, then loud enough to be heard throughout the house, while Martin, his .45 drawn, covered their backs.

  Traveler tried the door, found it locked, and kept applying pressure until the flimsy wooden frame gave way. His flashlight beam showed an empty living room and part of the kitchen beyond. The door to the inside hallway was closed.

  They stepped inside, closing the ruined front door behind them. At that moment a light came on in the kitchen. Traveler turned toward it just as the hall door opened behind him. Another light snapped on, revealing Orrin Porter holding Liz Smoot in front of him, her fragile neck caught in the crook of his arm. His free hand held an ax handle. Behind him were Snelgrove and Hillman, holding the boy between them; they too carried ax handles.

  Porter tightened his grip until Liz gasped. The sound brought a smile to his lips.

  Traveler felt a surge of adrenaline, the same rush he’d felt at the opening kickoff of each football game. Psych yourself, his coach had preached. Play crazy. It’s the only way to survive.

  Traveler’s hands trembled, but he spoke quietly, enunciating each word like a drunk intent on passing a sobriety test. “We’ve come to take Mrs. Smoot and her son home.”

  “Kidnapping a man’s wife is a crime,” Porter responded. “Isn’t that right, my love.” He flexed his arm to make her head nod.

  “If we don’t take her, the Danites will.”

  “Fairy tales and bogeymen.”

  “You’ve taken the name of one of those bogeymen,” Traveler reminded him.

  Porter twitched, producing another gasp from Liz.

  “We have no quarrel with the White Prophet,” Snelgrove intervened. “The woman and her son are free to go, but at a cost. If they leave us, if they turn their back on the truly risen messiah, and on us, his transformed apostles, God knows what repercussions may rain down on them.”

  Martin stepped around Traveler and held a hand out toward Liz, but Porter shook his head. “She carries a child.”

  “Yours?” Martin asked.

  “God’s,” Snelgrove answered, pointing a finger at Liz. “Tell your father that. Tell him you weren’t touched against your will.”

  Porter relaxed his arm enough for her to speak.

  “I promise,” she croaked.

  Traveler said, “Mrs. Smoot, you and your son go outside with my father.”

  At a nod from Snelgrove, Porter released her. She immediately scooped up the boy and retreated behind Martin, who half-turned to shepherd them out of the house.

  “They are free,” Porter said to Martin’s back, “but you aren’t.” He swung the ax handle, catching Martin across the shoulders, just missing the back of his head.

  Martin’s cry was like an electric shock surging through Traveler’s body. His muscles spasmed; his body lunged forward of its own accord.

  The blow to his biceps had no effect, neither did the ax handle glancing off his forehead. His hands still found their target.

  A fist grazed his ear, Hillman’s maybe, though Traveler didn’t really care. Another punch caught him in the rib cage, just above the spot Liz had worked on that first time at Shipler’s. The pain fueled his rage, blinding him to everything but his attack on Orrin Porter.

  A gun fired, Martin’s .45 judging by the deafening roar of it, but Traveler held on.

  A shouted “Moroni” replaced the ringing in Traveler’s ears but his tunnel vision continued, with Porter at the end of it, distant, no longer fighting back.

  “Moroni,” Martin said more softly. “Please.”

  Traveler blinked, became aware of Martin touching his shoulder with one hand, his other hand clenching the .45.

  “Moroni,” Martin repeated, “don’t kill him.”

  Traveler’s hands came into focus. They were locked around Porter’s throat. The man’s eyes had rolled back in his head. His tongue protruded grotesquely.

  The force of Traveler’s attack had driven Porter against the wallboard. His legs were twitching, the beginning of a death dance.

  Traveler opened his fingers and Porter collapsed onto the floor, gagging. Out of the corner of his eye, Traveler saw Snelgrove and Hillman cowering against the opposite wall. Liz had her son’s face buried in the folds of her skirt.

  The adrenaline flooded away, leaving Traveler weak in the knees. He touched his face and felt blood running from a gash in his forehead.

  “Can you drive?” Martin said.

  Traveler nodded, though the thought of the 250 miles to Provo and the BYU campus brought the ringing back to his ears.

  From behind, Martin pushed him toward the door. Traveler hesitated at the threshold, part of him wanting to do more damage. Not for Martin’s sake, but for Norm Shipler’s, whose only crime had been to have two available daughters.

  Traveler turned, made a finger gun and pantomimed a shot at each of the three self-appointed apostles, one after the other.

  “Is that a threat?” Snelgrove asked.

  “A promise,” Traveler answered, “if anyone else in Fire Creek dies.”

  “What about natural causes?”

  “If I were you, I’d hire a doctor to keep everyone healthy.”

  39

  THREE HELICOPTERS, large enough to be army troop carriers, stood on a playing field a quarter of a mile down the road from the BYU medical center. Even at that distance the men surrounding the choppers looked like soldiers wearing camouflage suits and bulky flak jackets. Only there were no military markings that Traveler could see.

  “Danites,” Martin observed. He and Traveler were sprawled on the bottom of a long flight of granite steps that led to the medical center. Martin was wearing a sling to take the pressure off his right shoulder, where Porter’s ax handle had landed. The gash in Traveler’s forehead had been closed temporarily with a bandage. Liz Smoot and young Josiah had already been rushed inside for further examination.

  “Ellsworth’s been a long time,” Traveler said.

  “He asked us to wait. Besides . . .” Without turning around, Martin jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the Tongans who flanked the doorway, their muscled arms folded over fifty-inch chests. “They might bite.”

  It was Sunday morning, too early for BYU’s summer school students to be in evidence. A light smelter haze hung over the campus and took the edge off the 11,000-foot Wasatch Front to the east, turning the granite peaks the color of old varnish.

  The Tongans turned. By the time Traveler and Martin stood to face the building, the bod
yguards were opening the glass doors. A moment later, Josiah Ellsworth strode across the threshold, his black suit and white dress shirt as immaculate as ever. He was accompanied by a man in a white lab coat, who stopped on the granite terrace to shake Ellsworth’s hand, then cast a quick glance in Traveler’s direction before retreating back inside.

  At a nod from Ellsworth, the Tongans moved into position two paces behind him as he descended the steps. When he reached Traveler, he shook his hand formally, using a two-handed grip.

  “I’m in your debt,” he said. “When I heard my grandson was better, I thought it was only wishful thinking. Now that I’ve seen him for myself, I realize I should have had more faith. Of all people, I should know the power of prayer.”

  Ellsworth closed his eyes and lowered his head as if in silent communion. The Tongans never took their eyes off Traveler.

  “Payment has already been transferred into your firm’s account,” Ellsworth said when he raised his head, “enough to cover any contingency, though I know better than to put a price on what you’ve done for me. One day, I’m sure, my grandson will want to thank you for himself. My daughter too.”

  He took Traveler’s hand again and held on to it. “I don’t know what Liz told you, or what you might have heard said about her conduct in Fire Creek. I take comfort in the fact that Willis Tanner assures me of your discretion, though I still feel it incumbent on me to set the record straight. There was never a pregnancy. That condition was pure hysteria on my daughter’s part, probably the result of the strain of coping with young Josiah’s illness. Any talk of intimacy outside of a church-sanctified marriage was sheer fantasy on her part. Maybe she was forced to say such things. Who knows? We never will know probably. In any case, the doctors have assured me that my daughter was never in that condition. They have backed their diagnosis with signed affidavits.”

  Traveler stared into Ellsworth’s eyes, wondering if the man actually believed what he was saying.

  “May I count on your discretion?” Ellsworth asked, still clasping Traveler’s hand.

  “We were hired to find a messiah,” Traveler said, “not make moral judgments.”