The Gates of Babylon

by Michael Wallace

  Trost got down from the horse and cinched his pants over his big gut. He looked around, but his eyes seemed glazed, and he didn’t seem to notice the women putting away their weapons and continuing about their business as if they hadn’t just been preparing to gun down a stranger the instant he’d shown himself up to no good. His brow furrowed into a worried expression.

  “Are you okay, Officer Trost?” Eliza asked.

  “Didn’t your brother tell you I was coming?”

  “He might have tried, but cell service is down again. You could ride into town and look for him.”

  “Town? No, no, I can’t do that. I don’t want those government guys to know I’m here. It might get back.”

  “What might get back?”

  Instead of answering, Trost fished into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. He paced around, turning the phone in various directions, as if trying to find the elusive signal, then put it away with a mutter.

  “Why don’t you sit down on the porch and have a lemonade?” Eliza said. “If Jacob said he’s coming, he’ll be here.”

  “What? Oh, okay.”

  Eliza helped him lead the mare down to the creek to drink and graze along the bank. Trost removed a leather satchel from his saddlebags. When he came back to the porch, he took Eliza’s empty rocking chair and tucked the satchel between his knees. Fernie wheeled into the house and came back with a carefully balanced tray with a glass of lemonade, which she handed to the police officer. He drank it in a few gulps but turned down Fernie’s offer for more. Instead, he stared across the desert.

  After a few minutes, the work picked up again, even if conversation died with the presence of an out of town police officer in their midst. Two girls carried rusting hand pumps from the shed around back and set them on a tarp for sanding and painting. Rebecca and Fernie returned to a pedal-operated sewing machine they were disassembling to oil the moving parts.

  Miriam and Lillian put away the electronic gadgets and picked up rifles. They disappeared onto the cattle path west of the cabin. A few minutes later, one of the rifles fired.

  Trost started to his feet at the first gunshot. “What the blazes?”

  Eliza looked up from her dull book on meat preservation and said, “Target shooting. Testing out new rifles. Nothing to worry about.”

  “That didn’t sound like a .30-06.”

  “After what happened last summer, we need something stronger than deer rifles.”

  “There aren’t more of those Kimballs running around, are there?”

  “Not so far as I know,” Eliza said. She caught Trost looking around, as if noticing all the activity for the first time. “We’re relearning old skills and rescuing old equipment. And teaching kids from outside the valley, if they bring something to trade. Just in case.”

  “Fine, fine. Glad to see you folks taking care of your own.” Trost took off his hat, pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket, and wiped the sweat from his forehead and the back of his neck. “Whew, it’s hot.”

  “Haven’t heard that much this year.”

  “No. Afraid not. A few days like this, then it’s cold again. It’s already snowing in the mountains, you know.”

  “Yes, I know,” Eliza said. She hesitated. “What’s this about?”

  “I need to talk to your brother.”

  “Yes, but what about?”

  He gave a side glance to Fernie and Rebecca. Eliza was about to tell him that he could trust any of the women here, when two more gunshots sounded and he started again. For a police officer, he was awfully jittery. Her eyes drifted to the satchel still clenched between his knees, but she looked away when he caught her staring.

  An uncomfortable moment of silence passed and then Fernie said, “Did you ride all the way from Cedar City, Officer Trost?”

  “Yes. Left three days ago.”

  “That’s a long ride,” Fernie said.

  “Don’t I know it. But I didn’t have much choice in the matter.”

  “You couldn’t drive?” Eliza asked.

  “My gas ration is two gallons per patrol car per day. St. George PD is out of business, and the highway patrol shut down operations south of Beaver. I can’t even keep I-15 clean, let alone drive out of Iron County. Anyway, it was easier to get into the valley by horse. I figured if I came in off-road, maybe I could do it without the damn Feds questioning me. It was too easy, in fact. You people ought to set up some sort of watch in that basalt outcrop southwest of the highway.”

  “We’ll keep that in mind,” Eliza said.

  Her curiosity was bursting, and she was ready to give in and ask about the leather satchel when she spotted another horse coming across the desert. This time the women didn’t snatch up weapons in alarm. The sun had shifted in the sky and the gait of the horse and the familiar figure of the man in the saddle told them enough.

  Jacob rode up at a trot. Eliza came down from the porch, hoping to get a moment alone with her brother, but Trost followed her down, satchel cradled in one arm. Whatever was in there had some weight.

  “You’re early,” Jacob said to the officer. “But I’m glad to see the women didn’t drive you off at gunpoint. I didn’t have a chance to warn them.”

  He hugged Eliza, and then he left her with the reins to his horse and made his way up to the porch. A handshake for Rebecca, and a kiss for his wife, Fernie.

  “Where are the kids?”

  “The little guys are napping,” Fernie said. “Daniel and Leah are out back with their cousins, picking tomatoes.”

  “Good, good.” He turned toward Trost. “All right. You’ve got my attention.”

  “I’ll get my horse,” Trost said.

  “Actually, I was going to unsaddle mine. What do you say we chat over a glass of lemonade.”

  “Already had a glass. Anyway, this is private.”

  Jacob frowned. “I don’t keep secrets from these women.”

  “This is serious.”

  The frown deepened. “I assume you didn’t ride out here to ask what we salvaged from the wheat harvest.”

  “Christianson, please. I don’t know all these people. And some of those girls,” he added, with a nod toward the ones sanding the hand pumps, “aren’t even from Blister Creek.”

  “Fine, we’ll get some privacy. But not alone. Liz, go saddle up your horse.”

  A few minutes later Eliza rode around the side of the house to find Jacob dismounted and sitting next to Fernie on the porch, the two of them speaking in low, intimate voices. He touched her legs and asked a question. She shook her head.

  Fifteen months of therapy had brought some limited movement to Fernie’s left leg, and she could push herself into a standing position if she had something to hold onto. To Eliza’s eyes, it didn’t look like she would ever walk again, but Jacob hadn’t dropped his optimism and there was something calm and measured about the way he worked at her muscles and joints in the evenings as if he were a physical therapist, and not a trained surgeon.

  Eliza felt uncomfortable disturbing their conversation, so she rode to where Trost waited some distance off, remounted, the leather satchel sitting on his lap. Jacob left his wife to join them.

  He glanced at the satchel. “Oh, good, you brought the snacks.”

  “It’s not food.”

  “Really? With that death grip, I figured it could only be food. Or maybe that’s my rumbling stomach talking.”

  “A gift for you, something I heard you needed.”

  “Syringes and some number ten scalpel blades?” Jacob sounded more serious this time.

  “Sorry. I heard you put out a call, but no, they wouldn’t give me any of that at Valley View Medical Center.”

  “Ah, well, then. I’m back to hoping for some good eats. Come on.”

  They rode down to the creek, where Jacob let his horse drink for a moment before they crossed. They met Miriam and Lillian coming back the other way, carrying their rifles.

  “Morning, sisters,” he said.

  �
�Good morning, Brother Jacob,” Lillian said.

  “Morning,” Miriam said, but kept her suspicious look trained on Dale Trost.

  Eliza thought about the ruthless way she’d blown up Mo Strafford’s tanker of stolen diesel fuel. You’d think she’d never been out of Blister Creek before, the way she was hardening against the outside world.

  Jacob led them across the jaundiced alkaloid soil that gave Yellow Flats its name. Normally, the terrain here was baked, hardpan, cracked and fissured like a pair of lips burned and dried by the wind and sun. But last summer had been so wet that the ground was still damp and the hooves left deep imprints in the ground. A few hot days like this and it would be back to its familiar state, but Eliza wasn’t expecting this hint of Indian summer to last long.

  They rode to the boulder-strewn plain at the foot of the Ghost Cliffs, which loomed above them, bathed in sunlight and streaked with brilliant shades of gold and vermillion. A ribbon of pipe descended to the base of the cliffs, the new penstock for Blister Creek as it came down from the reservoir. Jacob and David were building a turbine house at the bottom to collect all that latent energy and dice it into electricity. Assuming they could make anything of the old turbine that was their sole recompense from the failed trade with Scorpion.

  The riders cleared the dead patch and entered a stretch of rabbit grass and wildflowers, almost luxuriant in their growth, thanks to the wet summer. Jacob pulled up on the reins. “How about here?”

  Trost looked around. “Good enough.”

  The three let slack their reins and climbed down from the saddles. While the horses dipped their heads to crop at the grass and brush, the three stretched their muscles and stepped away from their animals.

  “So it’s not a snack,” Jacob said with a nod at the satchel in Trost’s hands. “And it’s not medical supplies. So what is it?”

  Trost pushed back his hat and gave Eliza a sharp look. “I know she’s your sister and all, but are you sure we can have this conversation here?”

  “What do you mean, Brother Trost?” Jacob asked.

  He cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to be harsh, but I don’t like the way women gossip.”

  “You should move to Blister Creek,” Eliza said. “You’d fit right in.”

  “What?”

  “That’s pretty much how my quorum thinks,” Jacob explained. “They can’t stand the Women’s Council. Thinks they’re a bunch of gossips and busybodies. Good for nursing babies and baking bread, but not much else. You saw what those women are doing. Did that look like women’s work? Or did it look like a good way to prepare for the end of the world?”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” Trost said.

  “I know you don’t believe in that crap anyway,” Jacob said. “And neither do I, really. Most days, that is. But I’d say the odds of a total collapse have passed the point of nontrivial. And since the Feds are appropriating our crops and paying us in rapidly depreciating paper, we’re spending our resources on self-sufficiency.”

  “I get that. And I like that you’re helping outsiders, too.”

  “Not for free, we’re not,” Eliza said.

  “Is that what you’re asking for?” Jacob asked. “Our help? Because I count you as a friend, Brother Trost. One of the good guys. Nobody else came last time we were attacked, but you showed up, and you believed us when we told you what happened. And when I go foraging outside the valley, I start in Cedar City, because you’ve kept the town secure.”

  “We’re trying.” Trost hesitated. “Yes, I’m asking for help. Big, huge help, in fact. But I’m not asking you to give it away, I’m willing to pay.” He held out the leather satchel.

  “Liz,” Jacob said. “Care to take a look?”

  Something clanked as she took the heavy satchel and as she opened it, she expected to see ammunition. That was about the right weight and sound, but she didn’t see how that was much to offer. They had crates of ammo tucked away in cellars and behind false walls all over the valley. What they needed was heavy weaponry.

  But it wasn’t bullets that came out when she reached in for a handful. It was silver. Mercury dimes and pre-1964 quarters. A few half dollars with Franklin busts on them.

  Jacob peered into the satchel. “Money. You’re paying us in silver coins?”

  “The only kind of money still holding value,” Trost said.

  “I’d say. What’s silver at these days?”

  “Higher every day,” Trost said. “And it’s currently illegal to transport more than fifty ounces of silver or three ounces of gold, unless you’re hauling it to the bank to exchange for paper. So you see why I had to sneak in.”

  “A lawman, breaking the law,” Eliza said, though she was hardly scandalized.

  “Breaking unjust laws,” Trost said. “Anyway, it’s your problem now. And that’s only a down payment in what I can offer to help your community survive whatever comes next. But I need your assistance in return, to help me and mine. You’ve got the knowledge, the equipment, and the manpower that I need. Will you lend them to me?”

  Jacob stepped away from the money with a wary look, though Eliza could see the temptation on her brother’s face. She could see what he was thinking. Silver may be illegal to trade in quantity now, but what about after a collapse? How would you keep a community running without money backed by the government? How would you trade with the surviving outposts beyond the valley? Silver and gold, that’s how.

  Would it really come to that?

  Civilization went through periodic upheavals, but even the worst wars didn’t last forever. Even the Great Depression had come to an end. Yes, there were huge, cataclysmic events, but what were the odds of a complete collapse? That’s the way Eliza thought when she was talking with Jacob. Other conversations turned her mind down more terrifying paths, usually involving war, famine, and dead bodies covering the land.

  What Trost was offering was insurance against the worst-case scenario. Total collapse. And what did he want in return?

  When Jacob turned his back to walk a few paces away, Eliza let the silver coins slip through her fingers with a tempting clink, closed the satchel and set it at her feet. She looked into Trost’s eyes.

  “You’ve made your point,” she said. “The silver is valuable, and we’ll take it.”

  Jacob turned with a frown, opened his mouth to respond, but then said nothing. He looked at Eliza expectantly.

  “But it’s time to stop beating around the bush,” she continued. “You didn’t ride three days on horse, smuggling silver coins, to ask for help teaching you how to tan a leather hide or bottle tomatoes.”

  “No, I didn’t.” Trost glanced at Jacob, and then turned to Eliza and held her gaze. “I need you to crash the gates of Babylon.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Governor Jim McKay showed his ID once when his driver penetrated the bunkered entrance to Capitol Hill, a second time when he left the car at the base of the stairs to the capitol building itself, and a third time after he passed beneath the rotunda, through the west atrium, and approached the governor’s offices. This in spite of the fact that his face was one of the most recognizable in the state. He swiped his badge twice to get into the inner offices, waiting each time while his two bodyguards—one to guard the governor, the second to guard the guard—swiped their own badges. There would be no repeat in Utah of the assassinations in Indiana and South Carolina, or even the failed attempt on the governor of Idaho.

  And so he was surprised when he took his missed phone calls from his secretary, Gloria, dismissed the guards, and pushed into his office to discover two men inside, waiting for him in the dark. One man sat behind his desk, the other at the closed blinds, as if the frosted, bulletproof glass wasn’t enough to conceal the crime he was about to commit.

  Jim froze. He tried to back out of the room, to scream for help through a throat choked closed by a pair of strong hands. The terror, the nightmare returned. It was two years ago and he was trapped in a room wi
th his cousin from Blister Creek, Abraham Christianson.

  “One noise, cry, or scream and your brains end up on the back wall,” Abraham says.

  He presses his gun barrel against Jim’s forehead. Jim freezes in terror.

  “You have wronged me and mine,” Abraham continues. “And that makes you my enemy. I destroy my enemies.”

  Christianson hadn’t shot him that day. Threats only. But he’d destroyed Jim all the same. The man crushed Jim’s presidential campaign by passing rumors to the other campaigns in the presidential primaries. But that wasn’t the worst of it. No, it was the paranoia with which Jim watched the violent struggles at the heart of the polygamist communities that led to his cousin’s death, and Abraham’s son Jacob taking over the reins. And Jacob no doubt remembering, in his black polygamist heart, his hatred for the McKay brothers. And now, with Jim governor, that hatred must be consuming him.

  He staggered backward, reached for the door now swinging shut behind him. The man behind his desk stood. He had something in his hand.

  No, not like this…

  And then the man pulled the chain on the desk lamp. The light came on and dissolved the shadows in the room, and sent Jim’s foolish, cowardly fears scurrying away. It wasn’t the polygamists after all. Why would he have thought that? Only his brother Parley and a man Jim didn’t immediately recognize. Of course. No one but his brother could come and go from the governor’s office at will.

  Jim looked over the other man. His face was red, as if terribly sunburned, and he was nearly bald, but in clumps, like a man with a bad hair transplant that was falling out. White gauze wrapped his hands and he sat stiffly, as if in pain. Jim met the man’s gaze and looked away quickly.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Parley said. “You look like you’re about to throw up.”

  Jim’s galloping pulse slowed, and he took deeper breaths instead of the shallow gasps of a rabbit in the coils of a snake. “Nothing, nothing. The usual, you know.”