by D. J. Butler
Hiram fought off feelings of disappointment. “What? When…I thought you went to a dance.”
“Sorry, Pap, I kind of lied.” Michael grinned at Hiram. “Anyway, my risk of accidentally necking with some girl was much lower at the movie. I went alone. And as for the murder, I’m pretty sure we have a new moon going on, and don’t werewolves come out when the moon is full?”
“If only lying were the worst of our misdeeds around here,” Del Rose took in a breath and blew it out. “Well, Mr. Woolley, thanks again for your help, both with the well, and with poor Lloyd. If you give me your address, I’ll keep you posted on the investigation.” He took a pad in a leather notebook and a pencil and went to hand them to Hiram. “Send you a newspaper clipping when we catch the guy.”
Michael intercepted the writing implements. “My penmanship is better. You’ll thank me. Reading my pap’s pigeon scratch is a brutal experience.”
“That would be fine.” Hiram said. “Michael and I will probably head back to Lehi soon. It is beautiful country, though.”
“How did your ghost hunt turn out?” Gudmundson asked.
“We’re pretty sure the ghost is Jimmy Udall’s,” Michael said.
“Oh?” the bishop asked. “So now what?”
“I feel for the Udalls.” Hiram shook his head. Then he asked, “So, sheriff, are you going to go out and bring in Davison and Preacher Bill?”
“I sure will,” Del Rose said. “The prospector is easy to find, at his camp by the Udalls’. As for Preacher Bill, I can’t very well comb every canyon for him. There’s hundreds of miles of slickrock mazes out there, and half of it is too rough even for a mule. But I don’t have to search for him because I know where he’ll be. Later this afternoon, at four o’clock, he holds services out in Frenchie’s Canyon south of the river, near Castle Valley. Some kind of crackpot, holding Sunday services on Saturday.”
“Seventh Day Adventist?” Hiram asked. “Or a Jew?”
Del Rose said nothing. The silence turned awkward.
“I came in this morning to give my statement,” Hiram said. “If you want it.”
Del Rose nodded. “You found the body. You leave the crime scene as it was?”
“We put a sheet over him,” Hiram said.
“Anything else to add?”
Hiram tried to remember clearly. “When we approached the cabin, the light was on. I knocked, the light turned off, and then a man opened the door and attacked me. He knocked me down, and then ran off into the woods when Michael fired into the air.”
“You get a look at his face,” the sheriff asked, “or anything else that would identify him?”
“He smelled like liquor,” Michael said.
“You mentioned that.” Jack Del Rose grinned. “That’s not what we’d call a distinguishing feature in the policing business.”
“And decay,” Hiram said. “Like he was carrying around rotten meat in his pocket.”
Del Rose jotted down some notes on a little pad of paper on the desk. “Anything else?”
Hiram shook his head.
“I guess that’s it, then,” the sheriff said.
Gudmundson cleared this throat. “I’ll escort you out, Hiram. I was just leaving. Jack, you let me know how I can help.”
“I will. And thank you both for coming in.”
Hiram walked down the wide corridor with Bishop Gudmundson, Michael trailing.
The bishop kept his voice down. “I appreciate you coming in, Hiram. Jack Del Rose is a decent fellow, though he’s not the Federal B.I., but he’s also not the only authority around here. Don’t worry. I’ll do some asking around.”
Hiram stopped and gripped Gudmundson’s arm. It was muscled and hard, a working man’s limb. “Revenge won’t do anything for Lloyd, Bishop. He was a man of peace, and it served him well.”
Gudmundson lowered his head, gulping in air. “Maybe Lloyd was killed because he was a man of peace. But you’re right, Hiram. This isn’t the Old West.”
“And you don’t want to get mixed up in this, especially you. You’re the bishop, so be the bishop. Go comfort your flock, get ready for the funeral, finish moving in the Smothers family, feed the poor. See how those migrant fellows are doing, the ones whose truck you fixed. Let other people find the criminal.”
Gudmundson nodded. “You’re right.” He raised his head. “But if you have any magic that can help, Hiram, I’d beg you to use it.”
Hiram’s shoulders suddenly felt very heavy. “I plan to.” He let his hand drop.
Gudmundson grinned, his lips pulling back to show even yellow teeth. “Well, now, that’s the best news I’ve heard all day. We have a cunning man helping us. Lloyd will have justice.”
“We’ll try,” Hiram said.
Gudmundson slapped Hiram on the back. “There are grand forces at work here in Moab. Look out at the Monument, and tell me there’s no God.”
Hiram liked Gudmundson. He liked the feeling of camaraderie he had with the man, too; they were both people of faith, people who served, men who worked with their hands.
Out in the sunlight, Michael watched Bishop Gudmundson walk away. Then he turned to Hiram. “Pap, that knife looked pretty sophisticated, and it was made of silver. I’m not buying the story that Mr. Gudmundson is selling, getting those knives with Mr. Preece in Salt Lake. If I was a betting man…”
“Boy.”
“A betting young man,” Michael finished, “I’d put my money on the widow Artemis. If she etched the Uranus symbol into that cross, maybe she made knives for those men. Maybe, I don’t know, they never paid her, so she killed Lloyd with the knife she made. Or at least she might tell us where they really got the knives.”
Hiram didn’t respond. He felt his heart thud in his chest, and a knot of lust settled into his belly. Seeing Diana did make sense, though he was afraid he had another motive, one that had nothing to do with daggers.
Chapter Eleven
Hiram dawdled by the truck, to the visible annoyance of his son. It was still relatively early Saturday morning. They stood beside the Double-A, parked on the street in front of Diana Artemis’s house.
“We could try to find her phone number,” Michael suggested. “Assuming she has a telephone.”
“I’m being silly, aren’t I?” Hiram felt embarrassed and nervous. He wanted to see the widow again, and desperately. What might this be doing to his charms?
Hiram stuck his hand in his pocket and gripped his heliotropius. “Michael, tell me a lie.”
Michael looked at him skeptically. “I love Moab with all my heart and soul.”
The bloodstone remained cool, unmoved. “Another one.”
“I’m certain that Jimmy Udall is in Greece, on the island of Mykonos, enjoying the sun.”
Again, his bloodstone did nothing. Hiram removed it from his pocket. He handed the heliotropius to Michael. “Son, I’m not concerned about you lying to me about seeing that movie in Lehi.”
Michael waited and squinted. “What am I supposed to feel?”
“It’s like a pinch.” Hiram frowned. “It’s not working.”
“Right.” Michael shook his head. “Your magic rock isn’t pinching me.” His son caught himself. “Okay, that came out a little sharper than I intended. So, what’s the problem?”
“I had that big meal yesterday, that steak, which was a luxury I didn’t need. It could be that.” Hiram waited for his son to react to the lie. “Feel anything?”
Michael wrinkled his nose. “Not a thing. Sorry, Pap. Am I letting you down?”
“It’s probably fine.” Hiram could hardly admit to himself what he was feeling, and he certainly didn’t want to discuss it. “Let’s go talk to the widow. If it was Sunday, she might be out. She said she was Catholic, right? And I think maybe she has a slight French accent.”
“I thought I heard one.” Michael passed the heliotropius back to Hiram, who stuck it in his pocket. This time, his son went first, down the path beside the house.
Hiram kn
ew a French accent when he heard one. He and Yas Yazzie had avoided the red lights and ladies of the evening during their time overseas. Other doughboys had fallen into infidelity, but not them.
But there had been a woman, a French woman, and like Diana, she had been a young widow. The Kaiser’s war machine made widows and orphans; it created despair and fear. For that matter, the English and the French and the Americans had created widows and orphans right back.
Hiram stopped walking. He smelled perfume, Monique’s perfume, and her shy smiles. Such pretty dark hair, like Diana’s, it had fallen in ringlets down her pale face, smudged with dirt. Wars were dusty, muddy, bloody things, and they darkened faces as well as souls.
Monique had been with them, those last mad days, when they’d raced through the trenches, untangled themselves from the barbed wire, and smelled the gas and the corpses. Through that hellscape, she’d been with them, until the very end. She’d wept over Yas’s body, in the burned-out church, ancient enough itself, though the chambers below the basement were far older, pre-dating Rome.
Hiram hadn’t cried. It was unmanly to cry, especially in front of a woman. He had done so later, when he was alone. Monique had looked at him with tears tracking down the dirt on her face.
He hadn’t lost himself completely to her beauty, but he had certainly noticed it.
“Pap?” His son’s voice came from a great distance.
Hiram smelled the spicy smell, garlic or mustard, fried in sugar. Maybe, he was remembering Monique cooking for them, a small piece of beef, going bad, in onions and butter.
Michael caught him before he fell, and Hiram didn’t—quite—lose consciousness.
He leaned back against the fence.
A big woman in a house coat and big slippers—Hausschuhe, that was the German word—appeared, coming around the front of the house. She had her hair in curls, covered, like Elmina had worn hers.
Hiram found a verse of Matthew running through his head. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
“You, sir, are you okay?” the woman in the Hausschuhe asked.
Another voice answered. “Yes, Edna, this is Hiram Woolley and his son. They’ve come to see me.”
“Easy, Pap,” Michael said.
Hiram sank until he sat on the gravel, feeling the rough rock under his palms. He clung to his consciousness. He couldn’t pass out in front of Diana.
“What is the trouble with him?” Edna asked from her back steps.
“Just a little faint,” Diana answered. “He fasts too much.”
Edna laughed. “A man should respect his own appetite. Especially if he’s a working man.”
Hiram opened his eyes. Diana crouched in front of him, and her beauty hurt. Why had she never re-married? Why hadn’t Hiram? Why hadn’t he found a nice Lehi woman to take care of him? No, he’d have taken care of her, and done a better job of it than his father ever had.
Hiram would keep her safe from sickness and disease. He’d failed with his mother, he’d failed with his wife, but he wouldn’t fail Diana.
“Sorry.” He blinked. “I’m a little light-headed.”
“I should have told you to wear this against your skin.” Diana drew near, and he felt the heat from her body, a soft hand on his head, and then she pushed the silver cross from his breast pocket into his hand. He hadn’t felt her grab it. “Say your charm, Hiram. You know, your prayer. Your faith is strong.”
Embarrassment caught Hiram for a moment, but then he remembered she was a cunning woman. He slurred his charm. “I conjure me by the sun and the moon, and by the gospel of this day delivered to Rupert, Giles, Cornelius, and John, that I rise and fall no more.”
He felt better. He couldn’t smell the spice and the sweetness, only the soft fragrance of the woman in front of him. Michael fanned him with his own hat.
Out of habit, and not a little vanity, Hiram smoothed what was left of his hair.
Edna had come down as well and she stood over them. “Well, his color is coming back.”
“In the summertime, red is better than white,” Michael said. “In the winter, white is his natural shade. How are you feeling, Pap?”
He looked into Diana’s pretty green eyes. “We apologize if you don’t see clients on Saturday. We should have called.”
“And look, she’s fixed you up, just like that,” the woman said. “Diana is a godsend. She cleared up my arthritis, so I can quilt again. ‘God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.’”
Hiram climbed to his feet. “Well, Mrs. Artemis, it seems the powers of Uranus were not quite enough for me. Though I didn’t pass out.”
“I do have something else that might help,” Diana said.
Edna reached out a hand, perhaps to touch him, and then withdrew it. “I’ll put some tea on. Tea will fix anything. Or would you prefer coffee?”
“I’d like some water,” Hiram took his hat from Michael and held it. “I’m sorry I caused you any concern, Mrs. Artemis.”
“Let’s get you into my house,” she said. “It’s the best time of day, cool, but not too cold. This desert does like to change its temperatures.”
Michael found a joke. “The weather in Utah changes more often than some of my friends change their underwear.”
Edna wailed laughter. Diana smirked.
Hiram shook his head. “Michael.”
“We know about underwear and boys,” Edna said. “I raised three sons and a husband.” She walked back up her steps and into her house.
Hiram kept a grip on his son as they walked down the path and into Diana’s cottage at the back of the yard. Once in the parlor, he took his place on the couch. His pride was hurt, and he had to let that go.
Or his craft might not work again.
Though his charm against falling sickness had worked. Or had that, after all, been the Uranus cross?
“I won’t apologize again,” Hiram said, “though I want to.”
“We have greater concerns than that.” Diana sat in a chair, while Michael took up his stool. “I heard about Lloyd Preece.”
“Already?” Shock was evident in Michael’s voice.
“Small town,” Hiram murmured.
“And when a pillar in a small town is removed, everything tilts immediately.” Diana sighed.
“Mrs. Artemis…” Michael started.
She held up a hand. “Diana. Please. And if you refer to me as the widow Artemis, you’ll break my heart, young man.”
Michael colored. “Never that.”
Hiram’s eyes went to Diana’s legs. She wasn’t wearing stockings, and he saw one shapely leg, and one made of wood, falling to a simple black shoe. The craftsmanship was excellent, smooth as a natural limb, and an excellent match to her flesh leg. He wondered how far that wood went up to meet flesh.
He tried to swallow, but his mouth had become a desert. Her dress was blue, this one with flowers that appeared to be lilacs.
He shifted his gaze to her face with some effort. This dress plunged in an uncomfortable way. “We have questions about Lloyd’s knife.”
“Can I get a piece of paper?” Michael asked. “I can sketch what I saw.”
Diana provided him with a notebook. Michael had to pass over many pages to get to a blank sheet. He drew a rough picture of the weapon. “This isn’t Lloyd’s knife, though. It’s Gudmund Gudmundson’s. We ran into him at the sheriff’s office.”
“I’m familiar with Gudmund’s knife,” Diana said. “It was created to harness the powers of Jupiter.”
“Did you make the knife for him?” Michael asked. “Or inscribe the signs?”
“No.” She pointed at one of the signs, a circle quartered by a cross, with smaller circles at the tip of each arm of the cross. “This means Jupiter.”
“I don’t remember that one from rea
ding my horoscope in the newspaper.” Michael grinned, maybe to show he didn’t really read his horoscope in the newspaper, or maybe to show there was a limit to how seriously he was taking this whole conversation.
“First of all,” Diana said, “Jupiter isn’t one of the twelve houses of the Zodiac, so you wouldn’t see it in the newspaper, in any case. But secondly, this is not the sort of symbol you see in the newspaper. This is called the ‘Seal’ or ‘Character’ of Jupiter, and it’s only used in serious magic.”
“Not for reading the future?” Michael’s grin didn’t falter.
“Not for trying to decipher in which way the stars and planets will influence the future,” Diana said slowly. “Instead, a knife such as this is used to draw the power of the stars and planets to the wielder’s aid.”
“To what end?” Hiram asked.
“To the ends of Jupiter,” she said. “Power and prosperity.”
“It hasn’t worked that well for Gudmundson, then,” Michael said. “He’s a handyman, while his buddy Lloyd Preece got rich. Maybe the bishop’s dagger is broken.”
“Maybe,” Hiram demurred. “What’s the other sign?”
“This one, you might see in a newspaper.” The image was of two parallel, jagged lines. “This is the symbol of the sign Aquarius. This knife was crafted to channel the power of Jupiter to the benefit of its wielder, a person born when Jupiter was in the constellation Aquarius.”
“When would that have been?” Michael asked.
Diana leaned back. Hiram had a hard time listening to her words, her face was so interesting. “Jupiter travels around the ecliptic at the rate of approximately one sign per year, not counting periods when it is retrograde. Without consulting an ephemeris…I think in about 1914, and before that, 1902.”
“Gudmundson could be thirty-three,” Michael said. “That all seems to fit. He says he got it in Salt Lake, along with another one, that Lloyd carried. They were up there together. Found them in a curio shop.”
“It could be,” Diana said. “I could consult with the spirits.”
