by Bobby Akart
After a few introductions, Sheriff Williams of Park County explained the purpose of his trip.
“This here is Johnny Weigel, the mayor of Fairplay. Folks, we need your help.”
Mayor Weigel stepped forward and handed each of them a photocopy of a family portrait he’d had made with his wife and two twin teenage daughters. He also provided them a flyer showing a close-up of the girls’ faces and their descriptions. The flyer was titled MISSING.
“These are our girls, Terri and Karen,” said the mayor. “Someone’s abducted them and we need your help in finding my babies. Will you help us, please?”
Sheriff Andrews replied, “Mayor, of course we will, but we’ve been manning roadblocks here for a couple of weeks and we’ve not seen any suspicious characters. There are lots of places kidnappers could be holed up between here and Fairplay. Heck, even if they were brought up this way, it’s possible the kidnappers took Boreas Pass on the other side of Hoosier Ridge and Red Mountain to our east.”
“I understand, Sheriff. Can I give you a stack of flyers to post around? I know you have a lot of missing persons, but these are my precious girls. They’re only fourteen. Can you please spread the word?”
Sheriff Andrews patted the man on the shoulder and said, “Of course we will. I’ll make sure our checkpoints have these and I’ll post them in town. Folks set up a bulletin board at the post office for everyone to post their messages to friends and family. They also use it to request assistance. We’ll get the word out, Mayor. I promise you.”
“There’s one more thing,” said Sheriff Williams. “We’ve had a lot of trouble brewin’ in Alma just down the road from us. A group of bikers have taken up residency and I just don’t have the manpower to dislodge them from the homes they’ve taken over. So far they haven’t killed anybody although they’ve gotten rough with some folks, if you know what I mean.”
“There’s an obvious group of suspects in the abduction of the mayor’s children,” said Hunter. “Have you questioned them?”
The sheriff grimaced and nodded. “It was the basis of an uneasy truce I was forced to make. They commandeered a dozen houses up and down Edgewood Road. I took two cruisers up there and sought out their leader, who refused to give me his name. Anyway, he said he was a father too and understood the mayor’s plight, but they weren’t kidnappers. He allowed my men to search the homes they’d taken in exchange for leaving them alone in the future, so I agreed.”
“Obviously, it was clean,” interrupted Sheriff Andrews.
“Yes, I don’t believe they know anything about the girls,” said the Park County sheriff. “But I wanted to give you a heads-up. Apparently, they’ve been moving northward out of Pueblo for weeks, plundering small communities like a swarm of locusts. It’s a matter of time before they’ve cleaned out Alma and head this way. Summit County is their next likely destination.”
“Sheriff Williams, can we assume these men are armed?” asked Hunter.
“Oh yeah. If they were riding horses instead of Harleys, you’d think a bunch of banditos just road into town. Most of them are brandishing sawed-off shotguns and bandoliers full of shells across their chests. Even their women have six-shooters strapped to their legs. Very Old West.”
“Do they have any type of affiliation? Maybe a patch of some type embroidered on their clothing?” asked Hunter.
Sheriff Williams looked confused as to the reason Hunter was asking, but his deputy offered an answer. “They all had patches sewn on their leather and denim jackets. It looks like a devil, but it’s not, you know. It’s colored blood red, but there’s a word embroidered in green that I can’t recall.”
“Vagos?” asked Hunter.
“Yeah, that’s it. It said Vagos.”
Several years ago, Hunter led a team to investigate a terrorist smuggling operation at the Mexico-Arizona border. During the course of the investigation, he ran across a biker gang known as the Vagos Motorcycle Club, or Vagos MC. Labeled as a criminal enterprise by the Department of Justice, members of the Vagos MC in Arizona actually helped the DTRA ferret out the smugglers, who happened to be associated with the Hell’s Angels, a rival gang.
The Vagos MC boasted four thousand members across the Southwestern United States and was certainly dangerous. Hunter couldn’t possibly assume all the members he encountered to be as reasonable and levelheaded as the group he’d dealt with in Tucson, but they certainly hadn’t shown the violent tendencies some of their rivals exhibited. Further, they’d proven themselves to be reasonable in dealing with the mayor and sheriff of Park County.
“I know of them,” said Hunter. “We’ll keep an eye out.”
Sheriff Andrews extended his hand to the mayor and once again expressed his condolences. The entourage from Fairplay was about to leave and the deputy was turning the car around when the sheriff rolled down his window and hollered out to the group.
“Have y’all seen or heard anything from Rulon Snow?”
Sheriff Andrews answered, “Nah, I reckon he’s keepin’ to himself across the way, as always.” The sheriff pointed toward the east.
“That’s good. Thanks again.”
As the car pulled away, Hunter asked, “Who’s Rulon Snow?”
“It’s an uneasy truce like Park County entered into. We don’t bother the Snows and they don’t bother us. I’ve learned as sheriff it’s wise to enjoy any time of truce as long as both sides recognize it for what it is—a truce.”
PART THREE
WEEK TEN
Chapter 35
Day Sixty-Four
Red Mountain
It had been a snow-covered January morning in Salt Lake City when Rulon Snow entered the side entrance of a federal courtroom, nodded at the attorneys and sauntered up to the witness stand. He was a large man, standing six foot four and weighing well over two hundred and fifty pounds. As usual, Snow was dressed in all black.
As he was led past the jury box to take the witness stand, a faint smile crossed his lips. In the past, Rulon Snow had been the staunchest defender of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the polygamist branch of the Mormon religion.
Over the last two days of his testimony in the criminal trial of Elijah Gideon, he explained the FLDS way of life. His sister wives, wearing pastel prairie dresses despite the frigid temperatures outside, would always be on hand to show their support. By day three of his testimony, that changed and the women were noticeably absent.
That was because Snow, the former bodyguard of Elijah Gideon, the Prophet, had turned against his church. He was no longer there to defend their way of life, but rather, he was forced to take it down.
The United States Attorney’s Office, following the second morning of his testimony, approached him during the lunch hour and presented him with the draft of a fifty-eight count indictment that would charge him with polygamy, child endangerment, civil rights violations, and human trafficking, to name a few.
The heading of the indictment, which read in big, bold, all caps UNITED STATES OF AMERICA vs. RULON AMOS SNOW, had a profound effect on him, as it was intended. The prosecutors gave him two options. He could continue to testify about the virtues of the FLDS and the Prophet Elijah Gideon, or he could tell the truth and become a prosecution witness. In exchange for assisting the government, this indictment would be run through the shredder and Snow would be relocated to another state, far away from the vast-reaching tentacles of the Prophet Elijah Gideon and the FLDS.
That afternoon, his attitude while testifying on the stand changed considerably. The prosecutor asked why Snow would turn on the Prophet to become a witness for the government. Snow’s face reddened, purposefully forgetting the plea deal he’d made with that same prosecutor the day before, and responded.
He pointed his finger at Gideon. “Because they were raping girls on the compound, and I knew it and so did he. And the rapes continue until this day regardless of him being held behind bars!”
The courtroom erupted and the fede
ral judge was forced to drop the gavel several times to restore order. Gideon, a spindly, hollow-eyed man, stared at Snow with contempt. Once the head of Gideon’s private security force and his most trusted confidant, Snow had now turned on him and would become the key witness that put Gideon behind bars for life.
Snow’s testimony was riveting to the nation at the time. Stories of violent attacks within the compound against those who defied Gideon’s authority were told. Forced banishment of men who refused to follow orders were frequent, and then their sister wives were reassigned to new husbands.
But the most heinous allegation involved the confirmation of rumors that Gideon was in the process of creating a master race, loyal only to him, through a secret breeding program called the seed bearers. Snow testified Gideon chose a select number of church leaders to be the seed bearers, who were allowed to have sex with all of the women in the compound while their husbands sat outside in a holding room.
Under cross-examination, Snow vehemently denied that he was one of the chosen seed bearers, although both he and Gideon knew otherwise. He and Gideon also knew the breeding program to create a master race was Snow’s idea to begin with.
The trial ended nine days later and the feds lived up to their promise to relocate Snow. He made peace with three of his sister wives and their eleven children. The Snows were given a Ford Econoline van, five thousand dollars, and a parcel of land on the eastern slope of Red Mountain, just above Boreas Pass.
For years, the numbers grew within the compound built by Snow. Rumors were rampant that Snow practiced polygamy up in the mountains, but no one was able to file a specific complaint and Sheriff Andrews was not inclined to go looking for trouble.
The Snows stayed to themselves except occasionally the young men slipped out and found themselves in trouble in the Breck. Most recently, two of them were caught spying on a woman sunbathing topless in her backyard. A neighbor held them at gunpoint until sheriff’s deputies picked up the juveniles and brought them to jail.
When everything went south, Sheriff Andrews emptied the jail and personally delivered the juvies back to the heavily guarded gates of the Snow compound. He gave them a stern lecture about staying close to home and told them their father would consider it a sin for them to gaze upon the nudity of another man’s wife.
The boys, age fifteen, smirked as they exited the car. As they casually walked through the solid, wooden gate, Sheriff Andrews could see Snow standing there to greet his sons, numbers eighty-six and eighty-seven of his offspring.
The truce was maintained as the sheriff and Snow continued their live and let live approach to life.
Chapter 36
Day Sixty-Five
Quandary Peak
“It’s trial and error, you know?” said Mac. “The deer mice collected by Janie and Barb will help. If they can continue to deliver test subjects, I can expand the numbers I infect with the plague.”
Mac and Hunter admired the sunset. They were enjoying a rare moment alone together. Janie was working the checkpoint with Derek, and her parents had decided to take a walk up and down Blue Lakes Road. They had Tupperware filled with bread trout and tartar sauce to deliver to Janie and her new friend.
“Mac, will you run out of materials? I mean, do you have enough of the plague and the other things, the peptides?” asked Hunter.
“Oh, yeah. I don’t need much to do the experiments on the mice. If I’m successful and perfecting the compound, I’ll only have enough for one human trial, but that’s all I’ll need.”
Hunter refilled her glass of wine. They both had acquired a taste for Beaujolais, a far cry from their beloved Budweiser or Tequila shots.
“You mean when,” added Hunter.
“When? Of course, when I create the cure. You know, it’s hard to stay positive when I spend most of my day in the lab, making notes, tweaking my concoction. Wondering if the most recent trial will lead to success. Hunter, at some point, I’m gonna need to give it up.”
He took her by the shoulders and kissed her. “Listen to me, Doc. Never give up. From what you’ve described, the theory is sound. It’s amazing that you can work under these conditions. But don’t quit until you run out of the plague. And when you do, let me know and I’ll go find you some more to work with.”
She slugged him on the chest. “No way! Don’t even think about it, mister!”
They enjoyed the sounds of the forest for a moment as the sun set over the horizon. Hunter lit some candles and they settled into the Adirondack chairs.
“Hunter, would you have done anything differently? I mean, in the weeks before we ended up here.”
“I want to be honest with you because I love you,” Hunter started. “I saw the handwriting on the wall the day you testified in front of Congress. I knew finding a way to stop the pandemic faced an uphill battle. The way the public reacted was a precursor of things to come.”
“People freaked out,” added Mac.
“As I knew they would. I’ve always known it wouldn’t take much for society to collapse. But it was a wake-up call for me to start thinking and planning for the inevitable. At the time, Quandary Peak wasn’t on my radar, but I did consider other options.”
“What do you mean? Places to move to? To hide out?”
“Yes. Well, maybe. It wasn’t until you were terminated by the CDC that I decided to research places safer than the East Coast, where the populations are dense. But I wasn’t prepared to make a move until I did what I could to give you an opportunity to find a cure or a vaccine. Fort Collins was that opportunity and this place was a residual benefit.”
Mac set her glass down and swung her leg over the chair so she could face Hunter. “You were prepared to go elsewhere, but without me?”
“No, of course not,” he replied. “I would’ve taken you, but I opted to let you continue your work. I was going to support you however I needed. Plus, there were your parents and Janie. I could’ve made it happen, but here we are.”
“Where?” asked Mac.
“Where was I considering?”
“Yeah.”
“There is a provision in my trust that allows me to purchase real estate anywhere in the world as long as the asset is held in trust until I turned thirty-five. How the money was invested was not my father’s concern, as long as I wasn’t filthy rich before I was mature enough to handle it. In his mind, that was age thirty-five.”
“He was wrong.” Mac chuckled.
“Maybe. Anyway, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in the South Pacific on operations for the DTRA. We tracked down an elusive financier of the terror group named Abu Sayyaf, an offshoot of ISIS in the Philippines. We ultimately found him hiding in New Zealand. Have you ever been there?”
“No.”
“It’s incredible. I contacted a realtor and she began looking for properties. I wanted something secluded, in the mountains, but near enough to a small town to purchase basic provisions. Actually, I envisioned something like this except on an island somewhere.”
Mac wiped away a tear. “We should’ve done it. Our life has changed dramatically and I don’t believe it’s going to get better anytime soon. We’re at risk because I was obsessed with proving everybody wrong. I wanted to prove I could cure the incurable. That phrase runs through my head all day long.”
“No, you’re wrong, Mac. This is your calling and I firmly believe that. If I thought New Zealand or a private island in the Bahamas was the answer, I would’ve insisted. You saw the map on the monitor back at Fort Collins. There were lots of red dots on New Zealand too.”
She took Hunter’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “I suppose. The plague can show up anywhere. So far, we’ve been isolated from the threat. That’s a good thing.”
Mac had barely finished the sentence when gunshots reverberated through the valley.
Chapter 37
Day Sixty-Five
Quandary Peak
“Not a step closer, do you hear me?” Tommy shouted at the dark figur
es approaching the top of their driveway. He and Barb had just finished delivering the food to Janie and Derek at the checkpoint. They’d lingered for half an hour to chat with the twosome, who’d been bored to tears. As Barb led the way down the driveway, Tommy heard the sounds of feet scuffing the road behind them from the direction of Blue Lakes. He told Barb to fetch Hunter and he went back up the hill to confront the intruders.
The dark figures continued their approach. Tommy didn’t hesitate. He fired a warning shot over their heads. It was far enough away not to hurt them, but it was close enough for them to hear the bullet whoosh by. After firing, he quickly moved to his left behind a tree to take cover.
“Hey, man! Are you crazy?” shouted a younger voice.
A girl companion could be heard whimpering in the dark.
“I ordered you to stop,” Tommy repeated. The couple continued to approach him. Tommy glanced down the darkened driveway and he heard the heavy footsteps of Hunter rushing up the hill. He looked down Blue Lakes Road and two flashlights were lighting up the dark evening.
“My girlfriend’s not feeling well. We were hiking the trail. You know, to get away from the madness in town.”
Madness? In town?
Tommy wasn’t interested in making conversation, especially with someone who was ill. “Stop, or this time I will shoot you.”
“If he doesn’t, I will!” yelled Hunter.
“So will we,” yelled Janie from down the road.
“Okay, whatever, dudes. This is way crazier than the Breck. I just need something to eat for my girlfriend. She’s not feeling well.” They inched forward.
“No closer,” yelled Hunter as he reached Tommy’s side. Hunter whispered to him, “I’ve got this.”
“You might be infected, so you’ve got to go,” said Hunter. “We’ll let you pass, but we want you off our mountain and out of here. Now!”