Hell's Fortress

by Michael Wallace

  “Of course, I’m sorry. Thank you.” Jacob glanced around the garage-turned-clinic and was surprised to see how many young women were working around him. He’d been in a zone for so long that he’d scarcely noticed them coming and going. “And you, Sister Sarah. Sister Jessie Lyn, Sister Nell. Sister—”

  Jacob gaped. His sister Eliza stood over the prone body of Clancy Johnson, where she had been bandaging the incision in his abdomen.

  “Something the matter, doctor?”

  “You!”

  He swept her in his arms, laughing.

  “I swear,” she said, when they broke their embrace, “seventy minutes of surgery and you never once looked up. I was attending the whole time.”

  “When did you arrive?”

  “Yesterday morning, from the south. Right after your battle. We saw the aftermath. Sister Rebecca almost blasted us off the road. I’d have come in, but we were so exhausted we just collapsed.” Another smile. “And some of us hadn’t had a home-cooked meal all year. That big lug of mine is all skin and bones.”

  Jacob stared. “Does this mean what I think it means?”

  “We found him, Jacob. Steve is home.”

  Eliza was glowing. It was a beautiful thing to behold and he thought he would burst with joy.

  He hugged her again. “I’m so happy for you.”

  Then Eliza’s face fell as she sketched in the details of her trip to Las Vegas and the harrowing escape. There had been dark moments: Trost, killed on the road. Agent Fayer—no real friend of Blister Creek, even though Jacob respected her—dead of cholera.

  He was especially sorry to hear about Trost. He was a good man and a friend of the saints. Later, no doubt, Jacob would feel that loss more deeply. For now, he was so relieved that Eliza was safe, and Steve and Miriam too, that he couldn’t give Trost’s death the attention it deserved.

  Eliza also explained how she had cauterized Grover’s wound. Jacob listened, chewing on his lower lip.

  “Was that the right thing?” she said. “Please don’t tell me I caused him unnecessary pain.”

  “Well, I wasn’t there.”

  “Jacob, give it to me straight. I screwed up, didn’t I?”

  “Truthfully? I don’t know. They don’t generally recommend cauterizing infected wounds. The damaged tissue is often more at risk than it was before. But that’s presupposing modern antibiotics. And it must have been spreading awfully fast.” He put a hand on her arm. “You used your best judgment. That’s all you could do.”

  She let out her breath.

  “All the same,” he added, “I’d better take a look. Where is he now?”

  “Digging graves at the cemetery, last I heard.”

  “Better send him in.”

  “Lillian and I treated him earlier. It’s going to leave an ugly scar, but it looks clean.”

  “Good. Then I’m going to bed. What time is it?”

  “Almost midnight.” Lillian spoke up from the other side of the room, where she and her assistant were finishing up with Joshua.

  Jacob had operated all through the night and through the next day and into the evening. It had been like one of the hellacious rotations at Sanpete when he was a resident, only following a short night of sleep and a bloody battle. He yawned and made for the door into the house.

  “How long do you need?” Eliza asked.

  “About two days.”

  “I need you awake by ten.”

  “Tomorrow morning? Are you kidding? I am not getting up before noon.”

  Eliza fixed him with a serious look. “I’ve already waited a day and half. And I wouldn’t have done that either, if I hadn’t collapsed in exhaustion. I’m not waiting another day. If you’re asleep, fine—I’ll ask David to do it.”

  Jacob stared. “Ask him to do what?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Let’s see. I didn’t leave the valley, venturing life and limb, to go on a joyride through the desert.”

  “Wait, you’re talking about getting married?”

  The women in the room laughed, and he felt foolish.

  “Wow, you are tired,” Eliza said. She leaned and kissed him on the cheek. “See you in the morning, big brother.”

  It took Jacob fifteen minutes just to get upstairs. Everybody wanted to stop him and chat. Why weren’t they in bed already? He was at the bottom of the stairs, one hand on the railing, when his mother caught up to him, wringing her hands about Joshua’s surgery. He wasn’t going to die, was he?

  “He has buckshot in his butt, Mom. He’ll be fine.” His tone was sharp, and he regretted it at once. “Sorry, I’m just—please, it will have to wait.”

  Upstairs, he collapsed on the bed, too tired to even take off his boots. Fernie wheeled herself in a few minutes later. “Come on, off with the boots.”

  She tugged them off and set them to one side. “Now the rest of it. Do you know what a hassle it is to wash blood out of sheets these days? Get them off, mister. You’re not going to force me out of this wheelchair, are you?”

  He groaned and undressed to his undergarments, then climbed under the covers. “Don’t let me sleep through the wedding.”

  “Not a chance. I promised Eliza you’d be at the temple at ten or I’d do it myself.”

  “Oh, so you’ve given yourself the priesthood now? This I would like to see.”

  Fernie turned her chair so she could stroke his face. It was the first time they’d been alone since he’d left her in bed forty hours earlier. “I’m glad you’re safe,” she said.

  “Me too. And thank you. We’d have been overrun if you hadn’t been vigilant.”

  “It was Rebecca’s idea. She suggested that the best time to attack Blister Creek would be when the men were fighting at the reservoir. I put my best women at the bunker and had everyone else on standby.”

  “They said no women died. Is that true?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I wish the same could be said for the men.”

  “We lost three at the clinic. I don’t know if others didn’t make it to me. Nobody would tell me a thing.”

  “You didn’t need the distraction. That’s why I kept Eliza out until you were almost finished.”

  “Well?”

  Her voice dropped. “Eight more fell. Eleven dead in total.”

  Eleven. A sick feeling settled into his gut. “Who?”

  She named them. Three were teenage boys. Eight were men with families.

  “Elder Potts had five wives,” Jacob said. His throat was so tight he could barely get the words out. “Twenty children still living at home.”

  “There are ninety-two fresh orphans today. Nineteen widows. If you count Bill Smoot from last week, twenty-one women have lost their husbands.”

  “We’ll take care of them.”

  “We held a joint meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve and the Women’s Council this morning,” Fernie said. “Of course, the decision is awaiting your approval, but Elder Stephen Paul and I have put together a plan for the care of widows and orphaned children.”

  “That’s good,” he started to say, then caught something in her tone. “Wait, why do I suddenly have the feeling I’m not going to like this?”

  “Shh, we’ll discuss it later.” She pulled her hand from his cheek. “Get some rest. I’ll wake you in a few hours.”

  Jacob was half-dressed on the side of the bed while Fernie was putting on his white shirt before he realized that he was out of the covers and sitting up. Daylight streamed through the window.

  “You are not making this easy,” she said. “Come on, you big baby, give me a hand.”

  “Sorry.” He buttoned up the shirt, yawning. “What time is it?”

  “Quarter to ten. If I know Eliza, she’s pacing back and forth in the temple lobby. Steve has already received his endowments, so any time you show up,
they’re ready.”

  Jacob dressed in his temple whites and then helped his wife down the stairs, where David and his two wives waited with the wheelchair. Miriam and Lillian were freshly scrubbed and looked sweet and pretty in their long white dresses. Lillian looked especially young, with her hair drawn back and her ears sticking out a fraction too far. Miriam held her baby close, wearing a look of devoted motherhood. It was hard to believe he was looking at a cool, calculating killer. Blister Creek’s own lioness.

  Jacob eyed her short hair, cropped above the shoulder. She’d previously worn a braid that had stretched halfway down her back.

  Miriam caught his look and shrugged. “Had to pass myself as an FBI agent.”

  “Do I dare ask why? And if it worked?”

  David shook his head. “I would recommend, no.”

  While they walked the few blocks to the church, David filled him in on the developments of the past day. The bodies were in the icehouse, the funerals scheduled for that afternoon. Stephen Paul had accompanied David in the Humvee back up to the reservoir—not another punitive expedition, David assured Jacob—but reconnaissance. There were still squatters at the lake, although they were down to a few hundred, not thousands. The rest were either dead or had fled north.

  “We can deal with a few hundred,” Jacob said, relieved. He glanced at his watch as they reached the steps to the temple and its doors rebuilt from the previous fall. “Perfect, we’re right on time.”

  “You three go ahead,” Fernie told David and the other two women. “Tell Eliza we’ll be there in a second.”

  Jacob stepped around Fernie’s wheelchair so he could speak to her face-to-face. “Is this about what you told me last night?”

  “Yes, about our plan for the widows and orphans.”

  “I think I know what you’re planning, and I don’t like it.”

  Fernie met his gaze with a serious expression. “And I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say they don’t need to remarry, that we can take care of them anyway.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to say.” He made his voice light. “See, we don’t even need to have the conversation.”

  “Don’t get sidetracked. Eliza is going to strangle us if we don’t hurry.”

  “Then what’s the rush? We’ll talk later.”

  “I need you to hear it from me, and not someone else.”

  “Fine, you say your piece and I’ll say mine.”

  “You can make the case that they don’t need to remarry, and in some circumstances you would be right,” Fernie said. “But civilization has collapsed. We need to keep our wagons circled. A home isn’t just a way to support a family, it’s also for mutual protection. And a man is needed for priesthood authority.”

  “So you say.”

  “So we all say. The Second Coming is at hand, and those women want the power of the priesthood in their houses.” She held up her hand. “No, don’t interrupt. I know how you feel—we all do, really. And we still decided this is for the best.”

  “Be that as it may, you can’t just give away the widows. At the very least you need to—”

  “To ask them? We did.”

  “Already? Their husbands died yesterday. And except for Bill, they’re not even in the ground.”

  “No man—or woman—knows the day or hour of the Lord’s coming. Nobody wanted to wait. But I promise, we gave the women a choice. Every one of them is free to remarry or to live as a widow. Two of the twenty-one women have chosen to move in with Sister Rebecca and Sister Charity at Yellow Flats instead of remarrying.”

  “It’s a dying institution,” Jacob said. “I’m going to rid this community of polygamy. We no longer kick out the excess boys, and there’s no more underage marriage or swapping of daughters. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “Yes, I know. Your goals are transparent to one and all. But it’s not going to happen overnight. In the meantime, this is what the widows want.”

  He sighed. “You’re telling me this is what the women want? To be traded like cattle?”

  “It isn’t like that. The nineteen who will remarry have chosen their husbands, not the other way around.”

  Jacob was taken aback. “Well, that’s something. My quorum agreed to that?”

  “More or less. That is, some more, some less. Again, they’re awaiting your judgment.”

  “And you can promise me that the women are making this choice freely? That there’s no coercion of any kind? Other than the usual religious kind, of course.”

  “Don’t be so cynical. But yes, all of them. Of course we didn’t just let any woman choose any man. There was a lot of back and forth with existing sister wives. In the end, we gave each of the widows three options, based on the deliberations of the council and in consultation with the quorum. David will be marrying a third wife. Your brother Joshua will be marrying Bill’s youngest widow. She doesn’t have any children yet, so it seemed a good pick for Joshua’s first.”

  “Joshua is not ready for marriage.”

  “He’s twenty-five. Time to get ready. Stephen Paul is taking two new wives. Elder Smoot is marrying Elder Potts’s two oldest. One of Smoot’s sons is taking one of his brother’s widows.”

  “Okay, I don’t need all of it right now. First, I want to speak with the quorum and the council and chat with a few of these widows. I’m not convinced.”

  “You’ll want to start with Jessie Lyn,” Fernie said.

  “Yes?” He shrugged. “Okay.”

  “What do you think of her?”

  “Think of Jessie Lyn?” Another shrug. “Nice young woman. Seems to be a good mother. She was a big help in the clinic. Oh, she’s one of Potts’s widows. I didn’t even think of that. She didn’t say a word.”

  “You almost married her once, remember? When your father was trying to maneuver Eliza into an alliance with the Kimballs, they offered you Jessie Lyn Kimball in trade.”

  “Yes, I remember. Thank goodness I—” He stopped. “Wait. No.”

  “Jacob, listen to me.”

  “I have a wife. I don’t want another. We settled that a long time ago.”

  She held his gaze. “And how is that fair? Do you think David wants another wife, when he’s already struggling to incorporate Lillian into his family? Do you think any of these women and children want to make this change? Wouldn’t they all choose to be with their own husbands and fathers?”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “Jessie Lyn is a Kimball. They are still a vital part of the church. This would finally end the conflict between the Christiansons and the Kimballs.”

  “It wouldn’t be fair to Jessie Lyn.”

  “You would grow to love her.”

  “I promise you I would not. I’m not wired that way. I can only love one woman and that’s you.”

  “You would, because you would try. And because you’re a good man and sincere, you would succeed. Maybe it would be different. I don’t know. Of course I want to be special in your heart, but it’s a big heart and I can share it.”

  “Fernie, please.” Jacob shot a desperate glance at the temple. “Eliza and Steve are waiting.”

  “It was Jessie Lyn’s idea, not mine. None of the other widows asked, though I know that several were thinking it. They know what kind of man you are.”

  “Jessie Lyn came to you specifically?”

  “She said she’d had a dream that she would be your wife.”

  “I dreamed once that I was a Roman emperor,” Jacob said. “When I woke up, I was not wearing a toga.”

  “You made the call, Jacob. You sent those men into battle. Hundreds of people died and some of them were your own followers. They trusted you, and their wives and children trusted you too. Jessie Lyn put her husband’s life in your hands. Now Elder Potts is dead and she has asked if you will marry her. If you w
ill be a father to her daughter, and give her more children, so that she can raise a righteous seed as her patriarchal blessing has promised. Are you going to tell her no?”

  Jacob didn’t have an answer. Only a sick memory of the dead, either by his hand or by his orders. Twenty-one widows and ninety-two orphans. One of those widows was Jessie Lyn; one of the orphans was her daughter.

  The temple doors swung open. A tall, skinny stranger in white appeared and started down the stairs. Only when the man had reached the bottom and was greeting them with a familiar deep voice did Jacob recognize him.

  “Steve, what the devil happened to you?”

  “Crash diet,” Steve said. “But don’t worry, I’ve been doing nothing but eating and sleeping since I got home. I’ll be in fighting trim before long. Now, are you going to come marry us or do I have to send a posse to drag you in?”

  Jacob’s troubles momentarily forgotten, he pushed Fernie up the side ramp, then had Steve help ease her chair over the threshold and into the lobby of the temple. More guests lingered there—siblings, cousins, uncles, and aunts. Only a few would fit into the sealing room itself. While Fernie rolled up to Eliza, who was chatting nervously with Miriam and Lillian, Jacob looked through the crowd, searching for someone.

  “You believe all this stuff?” Steve whispered.

  “I take it you did the endowment?”

  “Yes. Handshakes and moving robes and sashes around and all that. It was all I could do not to run screaming for the door.”

  “It helps if you think of it as symbolic,” Jacob said. “And to remember that if you don’t do it, Eliza won’t marry you.”

  “In that case, lay it on me. What other crazy stuff do I have to do?”

  “Nah, you’re through the worst of it.”

  Where is she? Jacob wondered as he picked his way through the crowd toward the sealing rooms down the hall. Several others pulled in behind him.

  It was then that he realized who he’d been searching for. Jessie Lyn Potts, née Kimball. The young woman who would be his second wife. Subconsciously, he’d been expecting to see her, not because she was family, but because he’d been worrying that the marriage was a fait accompli. That she was already here with her temple robes, ready to marry him.