“Whatever we do, let’s do it,” David said. “We’re losing time.”
“And we’ll lose a lot more time tearing off in some random direction only to turn around and backtrack,” Jacob said. He addressed Krantz again. “We’re not talking Kimballs here, ready to die for the cause. They’re thieves and opportunists. You think they’ll risk another fight?”
“We did administer a pretty good ass-kicking,” Krantz admitted. “Still. You go back that way with one pickup truck and they’ll be all over you. Better if we turn the whole operation around and fight our way back through. Of course, that means giving up our Vegas plans.”
“I can’t do that,” Jacob said. “Or my next trauma patient is going to die. If I don’t get more medical supplies, a whole lot of people are going to die. And we need that stuff Trost’s daughter is holding onto as well. The rest of you have to keep going. I’ll take her back myself.”
Krantz let out a low whistle. “I don’t know, man. I can’t send you back through alone.”
Jacob was cleaning up the best he was able, wrapping the bloody waste in the blue towel and scrubbing blood from his hands with the antiseptic wipes. David draped his jacket over Miriam’s bare torso.
“What about the Winnebago?” he asked. He didn’t take his eyes off his wife, but his tone was less frantic. “It’s big, it’s armed. They’ll see the truck and the motor home coming. And they’ll think we came back to finish the job.”
Jacob liked that plan, at least the psychology of it. “By the time they figure it out we’ll be back through.” He zipped up the duffel bag with his medical equipment. “So I’ll go back to Colorado City with Alfred and as many refugees as I can hold. We’ll have some guns, we won’t be helpless. Steve, you take the flatbed on to Las Vegas. Take Officer Trost. And David.”
“I’m not leaving Miriam,” David said.
“And David,” Jacob insisted. “The three of you get what you can in Vegas.”
“No, Jacob. Not this time.” David’s voice was hard, like he’d dug down to bedrock.
“We don’t have time to argue. Someone has to make the call and in this case it’s me. As a doctor. Can you trust that at least?”
“It’s not about trusting you. I’m not going to be like Alfred. My wife might die. I’m not letting her out of my sight.”
“There’s a reason we kick family out of the OR. Trust me, there’s nothing you can do to make it better. Steve, tell him.”
“Sorry, I’m with David on this one,” Krantz said in his low rumble. “If it were Eliza, you’d have to physically tear me away. And good luck with that. Besides, you didn’t see Miriam out there. We’re alive because of her. You owe it to David to let him stay with his wife. If she dies while he’s off, he’ll never forgive himself.”
“The only way she’s going to die is if we sit around arguing about it,” Jacob said, his exasperation spreading.
“Then don’t argue,” David said. “Let’s go.”
Jacob gave up the fight. Krantz and Trost would have to manage in Las Vegas by themselves.
“My list is in the glove compartment,” he said. When Krantz had pulled it out, Jacob said, “Hand it over for a second. And is there a pen?”
He wrote down a type of ventilator machine that would work better for Miriam’s injury than what he had back in Blister Creek, then handed back the list. “That will make a real difference if you can get your hands on it.”
Krantz thumbed through the pages. “I don’t know what most of this stuff is, but I’ll do my best.”
“You’d better, or I’ll have to go back.”
“What’s most important?”
“Let me think. I need that autoclave and I need syringes, antibiotics. Daniel’s psychotropics. Even little stuff like gloves, bandages, and… look, it’s all important.”
Jacob climbed out to give orders to the rest of the caravan. He expected his cousin to push back, to say there was no way in hell he was taking his people through Colorado City again. He found Alfred in the back of the pickup. They’d wrapped his dead wives in sheets and tucked them beneath the tarp. Alfred was practically catatonic and merely nodded dumbly when Jacob told him the plan. Jacob spread the word that Alfred had agreed, and that ended any arguments, though there were plenty of worried noises from parents and children alike. Having escaped Colorado City once, nobody wanted to go back.
They burned valuable time shifting refugees and topping off gas tanks from their supplies, but soon the flatbed truck was continuing toward Las Vegas with Krantz, Officer Trost, and a few armed men from Alfred’s camp who couldn’t fit in the pickup and the Winnebago. Alfred wouldn’t leave his murdered wives and sat in the back of the pickup beneath the tarps.
Jacob got back behind the wheel of his truck. Miriam was in the back, lying on her side and draped across three teenage girls crammed together, with her head on David’s lap, who kept pumping the bag on the BVM to give Miriam air. A man and his wife sat up front on the passenger side, armed with rifles. Jacob turned around and led the Winnebago back toward Colorado City.
And toward another confrontation with the bandits. Only this time without Krantz’s sniper gun or Miriam behind enemy lines. Not even Trost and his cool police demeanor.
Jacob’s only hope was that the enemy was so bloodied they would look at the weakened opposing force and refuse the bait.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The highway north of Blister Creek was a mess. Snow on the road, horses jostling in the dark, even trucks sliding around, their lights dancing crazy arcs back and forth across the unplowed pavement. It took Eliza forty minutes to fight her way back to the center of town, where the military was taking control.
To her surprise and horror, they’d ignored the USDA headquarters at the chapel and centered at the temple instead. Helicopters parked on the grass and parking lots, and two sat at either end of the block running past the temple. Armed men in fatigues gathered on the temple steps and the sidewalk in front of the building, trying to clear people from the street. Nobody had broken in yet, but a soldier was working at the lock of the thick oak doors. Soon enough they’d have it open and then they’d be inside.
One of the helicopters still circled overhead, rotors thumping with the pitch rising or falling as it approached and then departed. It illuminated the streets and houses with floodlights. Guns, cannons, and rockets would be ready to tear the town apart at the first sign that a mob was organizing for attack.
And there was a mob. It was mostly women at first, those gathered by Eliza’s efforts to rouse the town. She’d meant them as a counterbalance to Smoot’s aggression, but they’d become a major destabilizing force themselves. They argued with soldiers who pushed them back and confiscated weapons. A pile of at least thirty rifles and handguns already sat next to one of the helicopters.
A soldier with a bullhorn shouted for them to get back. When this didn’t work, another man fired warning shots into the air, and the crowd momentarily scattered before the shouting and accusations began anew.
Meanwhile, soldiers were clearing the Davis and Belton compounds on the opposite side of the street from the temple. They forced old women and children into the snow at gunpoint. A few carried blankets and coats, but most came out without so much as a jacket. They cried, begged to be let back in. Sister Edna, eighty-two years old, emerged in her nightgown and slippers, staggering with a look of groggy stupor as a soldier tugged on her arm. This outrage brought more angry shouts, and now there were men and women arriving on horses. They raised their guns overhead and screamed their rage.
Eliza looked at the scene and all she could see was a massacre. All those professional soldiers against a poorly armed mob of men, women, and children.
If only the army would leave the temple alone. She might talk her people down.
What were these men thinking? All they had to do was swoop in over the heads of the defenders, fire a few warning shots, and take Blister Creek without bloodshed. The people had grown accust
omed to occupation; they would grumble against this new, more aggressive posture, maybe even passively resist. But the Saints wouldn’t be so stupid as to fight back.
Except for the temple.
From a military standpoint, she supposed it was a bigger building, more secure with those thick stone walls, and a vantage point to look over the town from the top of its tower, from two windows below the gold-leafed statue of the Angel Moroni. A small fortress.
But no invader could be so ignorant as to misunderstand the significance of the temple. It was the sacred heart of Blister Creek, where the Church of the Anointing carried out its most holy rituals: eternal marriage, the temple endowments, the initiatory, and baptisms for the dead. To desecrate the temple… they may as well burn a man’s house to the ground.
A tall, middle-aged officer with a thin face strode up the stone stairs to the temple doors, where he turned around to look down on the crowds still pushing up the streets. Another soldier handed him a bullhorn.
“Listen up!” the man shouted. He had a commanding voice, amplified now to something that almost but not quite cleared the shouted threats and screams of anger, which continued unabated. He said a few more things, incomprehensible, then bellowed, “You will shut up or I will order my men to shoot until this street is quiet.”
Not everyone stopped shouting on the other side of the barricades, but enough noise died down that the man could be heard more clearly.
“My name is General Lacroix, US First Army. Blister Creek is hereby under martial law. Curfew hours will be—”
He turned as he said this, and Eliza saw that the soldier had finished breaking the lock on the temple doors, and two men pushed them open. A gasp ran through the crowd, followed by a split second of silence, so deep that Eliza could hear the hinges creaking on the temple doors, could hear the deep, bellow-like breathing of her tired horse, a woman coughing, a soldier’s boots in the slush as he trotted from the temple toward the barricade.
And then the street erupted. Shouts, wails, screams, even curses from some of the normally mild-tongued men. A single, collective howl of rage sounded when the first two soldiers pushed their way inside, standing shoulder to shoulder with guns lowered, as if afraid of an ambush from inside. The general started to speak again, but not a word was audible.
Eliza urged the horse forward, forcing people out of the way.
“Move! Let me past! Out of the way!”
“It’s Eliza,” a man said. “Let her in.”
“Eliza, tell them!” a woman cried. “They can’t do this, they can’t.”
When she reached the soldiers, they lowered their weapons and snarled at her to back off. They held steady, but she could see in their posture that their nerves were shaken by the near riot conditions.
“Let me in! I have to talk to that officer.”
“And I said stand down!”
“You don’t understand. My brother is the prophet. He left me in charge. I have to talk to the general before someone starts shooting.”
For a moment it looked like they would stand their ground, but then they waved her down from the horse. She dropped from the saddle, felt insistent hands on her back from her people pushing her forward. One of the soldiers grabbed her elbow and hustled her down the street toward the temple. He passed her to another soldier, who brought her up the stairs, frisking her as she climbed.
General Lacroix was giving orders to two more men when she arrived. One of them hurried toward the nearest helicopter, which squatted like a black beetle on the grassy lawn to the side of the building. The other tightened his hands on his weapon and eyed her with suspicion.
The general watched her with an undisguised sneer as the soldier brought her up. She doubted she looked much like the voice of her people, with her hair a wet, windswept mess, the hem of her dress dirty and soaked, and her boots caked with mud.
“What the hell is this?” he said. “I told you no prisoners.”
“I’m no prisoner,” she said, jerking her arm to free herself from the soldier.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Eliza Christianson. My brother is Jacob, the leader of our church.”
“Is Christianson dead? Did they get him?”
“What are you talking about?” Her eyes narrowed. “Did you do something?”
“So he is dead.”
“No, he’s not dead. But he’s gone, and I’m in charge.”
“He left a girl in charge?”
“I’m not a girl, I’m a woman,” she corrected. “And yes, I’m in charge. Be glad he did. If it had been one of those men, there’d be a battle right now.”
“Is that what they want? Think about it.” He gestured at the crowd. “Your people attack, it’s going to get ugly in a hurry. Try me and you’ll see.”
“General,” the other officer said, sounding uneasy.
Lacroix turned with a peeved expression. “Well?”
“Are you sure this is a good idea, sir?”
“When I want your opinion, Inez, I will ask for it. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You have to get your men out of the temple,” Eliza said.
“It makes a good headquarters. Deal with it.”
“So you do want a battle. Because that’s what you’re going to get.”
“Good.” He turned back to Inez. “Radio that chopper. Tell ’em to give these bastards hell. And get two more birds in the air. This girl says we’re going to have a battle and I intend to give it to them. Kill every last one of them if we have to.”
“No, wait,” Eliza said.
“That’s better. No more bluffing, right?”
Bluffing? Was he bluffing about the helicopters, or did he mean Eliza? Because she wasn’t, not at all.
“Ready to tell your people to go home?” he asked, holding out the bullhorn.
Eliza didn’t take it, unsure what she would say. What could she say? She couldn’t get the soldiers out of the temple, and her people would accept nothing less.
“I don’t want anyone to die,” she said. “Your people or mine. But mine are furious, and there’s nothing I can do if you don’t… if you don’t give me something.”
“I’m giving you nothing.”
“Can I pretend you’re giving me something?”
“You can pretend all you want.” He handed her the bullhorn then stood back with his arms folded.
Eliza lifted the bullhorn to her lips and chose her words carefully before speaking. “Listen to me!”
She didn’t have the kind of voice that could dominate a crowd, bullhorn or not, and it took a moment for everyone to quiet down enough so she could be heard.
“I have something to say. People will die if you don’t listen.” She waited until they quieted, then said, “This is only temporary. They’re searching the temple for contraband.”
Fresh howls of rage.
Eliza continued over the noise, ignoring the tears and protests.
The soldiers would be out by tomorrow evening, she lied. They would use Chip Malloy’s offices in the chapel as their headquarters, and billet their troops in the Belton and Davis compounds across the streets. Nobody would be harmed so long as they cooperated.
“Brother Jacob will be home tomorrow,” she finished. “He’ll know what to do. Until then, go home. Fast and pray for a peaceful solution.”
Lacroix took back the bullhorn and turned it off. “I meant what I said,” he told her. “You want peace, you keep them away. And we’re not going anywhere. Your temple is mine. You understand? If I want to drive a tank down the hall and change my oil on your high altar—or whatever it is—I’ll do it.”
He handed his bullhorn to Inez, who looked away when Eliza tried to make eye contact, and then the two of them entered the temple. Several more men followed, carrying assault rifles over their shoulders and heavy bags and crates between them. It was obvious to anyone with eyes to see that this was no temporary search.
But Eliza’s
lie had created enough uncertainty in the crowd that the rage was draining away by the time she got back to the helicopters that barricaded the road. People patted her on the shoulder or shook her hand, and she told more reassuring lies. She encouraged people to obey the soldiers clearing the street and soon had them beyond the barricades. Cooperating with their enemies made her stomach churn.
Calm them. Keep them alive.
She found Elder Smoot holding the reins of her horse and braced herself for another struggle. He nodded sagely when he saw her then turned back to a low, urgent conversation with Elder Johnson. The older man held an umbrella in gloved hands and wore a heavy overcoat that was too large for his diminished frame. His gray beard was tucked into a scarf wrapped around his neck. Two of Smoot’s sons stood a few yards away, pulling people back from the confrontation with the soldiers.
“You did the right thing,” Smoot told Eliza when she approached. “Attacking under those conditions would have killed hundreds. We might have taken them, but at a cost too great to bear.”
Eliza nodded, relieved at his conciliatory tone. “That’s what I thought. When Jacob gets back—”
“But we’ve seen their strength.” His lips thinned until they disappeared between his mustache and his beard. “It is enough to give a man pause. But our Lord is mightier than any weapon, our priesthood strong enough to turn aside bullets.”
Something in his tone had shifted, in a way that reminded her of how her father used to speak before he pronounced judgment. Surely he didn’t mean to—
“They are too wicked to stand,” Smoot continued. “The Lord shall deliver His temple into our hands.” He waved over his son Bill. “Raise the alarm. Nobody goes home. I want every gun, every person who can hold a gun. Men and boys. Even women. Every gun, every bomb, every box of ammunition. Meet at the cemetery in half an hour.”
Eliza grabbed his arm. “Elder Smoot, do you know what you’re doing?”
“No, I do not.” He pulled free. “It is out of our hands, girl. Only the Lord knows. But He will tell me His will.”
The Gates of Babylon Page 25
