The Hosanna Shout

by R. R. Irvine

  Before Traveler could respond, Snarr came down the bar to refill their glasses. When he saw Martin standing at the back door, he waved him over and poured another drink.

  Rather than be sandwiched between Traveler and Martin, Tempest fled toward the front of the saloon, where the others were beginning another stanza.

  “And standing there as big as life

  And smiling with his eyes,

  Joe says, ‘What they forgot to kill

  Went on to organize,

  Went on to organize.’

  ‘Joe Hill ain’t dead,’ he says to me,

  ‘Joe Hill ain’t never died.

  Where working men are out on strike

  Joe Hill is at their side.

  Joe Hill is at their side.’ ”

  When the singing stopped, Martin looked at Traveler. “You’d better tell Dr. Snarr what happened.”

  Traveler decided to get it over with as quickly as possible. “Garth Tempest poisoned the lemonade. He told me so himself.”

  “What’s the joke? Why would he do something like that?” Snarr said.

  “Angel wasn’t his daughter. She was named for me. I was the one he wanted dead. He mistook me for a Mormon because of my name and thought I’d drink lemonade instead of beer.”

  When Snarr shook his head in disbelief, Martin quickly summarized Traveler’s relationship with Claire.

  “Hold it,” Snarr said finally. “Garth drank some of that lemonade too. He was sick as a dog. I saw him throwing up myself.”

  “He told me he took a handful of aspirin,” Traveler said.

  “Son of a bitch. That would explain the tests, why his liver functions are perfectly normal.” Snarr drank directly from the whiskey bottle he was holding. When he came up for air he said, “But that doesn’t explain why he would kill my parents, or my brother either, for that matter.”

  “He blamed them for keeping the truth about Angel from him. He didn’t want them to die quickly, he told me. He wanted them to suffer first. As for your little brother, Tempest says that was an accident.”

  The half-empty bottle trembled in Snarr’s hand. “The bastard! Why did he have to use something like dimeth? Have you ever seen anyone die of liver cancer?”

  Traveler shook his head.

  “I have, goddammit.” With his free hand, the doctor rubbed his face as if trying to remove the pain reflected there. “You and your father get out of here. Now!”

  Traveler looked at Martin, who shrugged and left the way he’d come.

  “I can go to the police with you,” Traveler said.

  Snarr glared.

  “You have Tommy to think about.”

  “Good-bye, Mr. Traveler.”

  Traveler looked for Tempest who, though surrounded by miners and smelter men, was staring back, looking smug.

  Snarr turned his back on the crowd. Visible in the mirror, but only from Traveler’s angle, Snarr removed a phial from his pocket and poured some of the liquid into the whiskey bottle he was holding.

  A few drops and you get cancer, Traveler remembered as he walked toward the door. A few more and you die.

  “Come on, Garth,” Snarr shouted, “it’s time to drink to the loved ones we’ve lost.”

  41

  AT SEVEN the next morning Traveler and Martin expected to have the Chester Building to themselves. But Bill and Charlie were there ahead of them, as was Barney Chester, Nephi Bates, and Wayne Pinock from the Historical Society. Pinock had already set up half a dozen camera lights around the base of the metal scaffolding and was now focusing their beams on the freshly cleaned ceiling mural. Several NO SMOKING signs, done in Chester’s hand, had been taped to the scaffolding’s crossbeams.

  “There’s definitely a face in those clouds,” Pinock announced once he’d adjusted the last of his lights. He looked at Chester. “Did you find a signature during the cleaning?”

  Chester shook his head. “We didn’t have your lights to work with.”

  “I’d better climb up there and take a look for myself, then, hadn’t I?”

  An aluminum stepladder got Pinock started. After that, he used the scaffolding’s metal beams for footholds. His weight caused the entire structure to wobble precariously.

  Traveler grabbed hold to stabilize it; the others joined him.

  “Better him than me,” Martin muttered, staring up at the ceiling thirty feet above.

  Once on top, Pinock began examining the mural with a magnifying glass, concentrating on the thunderheads looming above Brigham Young’s wagon train. He went back and forth across a ten-foot section twice before nodding to himself.

  “The likeness is definitely Joseph Smith,” he shouted down. “The style looks familiar too, but I don’t think it’s Thomas Hart Benton.”

  “I told you before,” Bill said. “God’s up there.”

  “Joseph Smith isn’t God,” Chester said, winking to show that he knew Mormons who thought otherwise.

  “The WPA photos are in my case,” Pinock called out. “Will someone bring them to me?”

  Traveler looked around for volunteers. Bill and Charlie folded their arms and sat cross-legged, like Indians. Bates retreated to his elevator while Chester fussed with an unlit cigar.

  Martin said, “A man my age shouldn’t exert himself.”

  Groaning, Traveler fetched the photos and climbed up top with Pinock, who sorted through the shots until he found one that showed two artists standing on a similar scaffolding more than fifty years ago. The WPA mural behind them was in focus, but not their faces.

  “I snitched this one from the Gustavson collection before Gussie took it back.”

  “I wouldn’t know Thomas Hart Benton if I saw him.” Traveler’s voice echoed off the ceiling.

  “The one on the left could be him.”

  “Why don’t you ask me?” Bill shouted.

  Traveler leaned over the edge. “You haven’t seen it close up yet.”

  “I saw it in my revelation.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Look to The Book of Mormon.”

  That didn’t sound like Bill, who claimed to be writing his own holy book for what he and Charlie called their Church of the True Prophet.

  “Us prophets must stick together,” Bill clarified.

  “We don’t have time to go through more than a thousand pages,” Traveler said.

  “The name is Mahonri,” Bill answered. “I can say no more.”

  Pinock snapped his fingers. “He’s right. I recognized the style now. It looks like Mahonri Young.”

  Traveler peered over the side again to see Charlie and Bill slap hands and then immediately begin loading a long-stemmed pipe from the Indian’s full peyote bag.

  “He drew me to the Sea Gull Monument,” Bill announced.

  “Who?” Traveler asked.

  “The White Prophet, or maybe Mahonri himself.”

  “If he’s right and this is Mahonri’s work,” Pinock said, “it could be a godsend.”

  Mahonri Young, the last of Brigham Young’s grandchildren to be born during the prophet’s lifetime, was Utah’s most famous artist. The Sea Gull Monument was his creation, as was the monument at the mouth of Emigration Canyon that marked the spot where Brigham Young first set eyes on the Great Salt Lake Valley and told the members of his wagon train that they were home at last.

  “We’re going to need proof,” Pinock said.

  Together, he and Traveler went over every inch of Joseph Smith’s face. They were about to extend their search to the surrounding thunderheads when Pinock found a signature, Mahonri, hidden in the prophet’s hairline.

  “I’ll take some close-ups of this,” Pinock said. “If that doesn’t do the trick, we’ll get an art expert in here to verify the signature. While I’m at it, I’ll have blowups made of the artist’s face in that old photo. With luck, computer enhancement will put Mahonri into focus.”

  “Do you need anything from me?”

  When Pinock said no, Traveler launched
himself over the side and scrambled down the scaffolding. At floor level he stood eye-to-eye with Bill. “Talk to me about Josiah Ellsworth.”

  “I thought Charlie told you. He appeared to me in the desert.”

  “You said God appeared.”

  Bill lit his pipe and took a long drag, holding the smoke in as long as possible. When it began leaking from his mouth, Chester pulled a NO SMOKING sign from the scaffolding and waved it in Bill’s face.

  “Religious freedom’s at stake,” Charlie said, patting that medicine bag hanging from his neck.

  Chester pointed at the ceiling. “You and Bill will clean it yourselves next time Joe Smith disappears.”

  “I didn’t mean to say God came to us in the desert,” Bill said. “He sent a representative.” He sucked on the pipe until his face took on a dreamy expression. “Follow me.” Using one crutch, he moved across the lobby to the front window—with Traveler, Martin, Barney Chester, and Charlie right behind him—and tapped on the glass. “He was there, on the temple grounds, when I climbed among the seagulls.”

  “Spit it out, Bill,” Traveler said. “Are you talking about Josiah Ellsworth or not?”

  “ ‘Tell Moroni I do this for him,’ the White Prophet told me in the desert.”

  “Which Moroni?” Martin asked.

  “Dammit,” Traveler said. “White Prophet or not, the man also put my name on a deed. Will someone tell me if I’m related to him or not?”

  Martin sighed. “My contact at the City and County Building now says your name’s been removed from the deed. It was all a mistake, I’m told. A clerical error.”

  Bill nodded dreamily. “He told me, ‘Moroni must be taken care of one way or another.’ ”

  Traveler glared at Martin, who shrugged. “Your mother was always a mystery to me.”

  “Will someone come back here and hold the ladder for me?” Pinock shouted. “If I get to the lab right away, we ought to have our answer by noon.”

  42

  WILLIS TANNER entered the Chester Building at noon precisely; he had Wayne Pinock in tow. By then the lobby had been turned into an Indian campground, with two sets of tepeed sandwich boards providing sleeping shelters for Bill and Charlie, who claimed exhaustion after their desert ordeal, though Traveler suspected that an excess of religious, peyote-induced zeal explained their comatose state.

  Tanner joined Traveler and Martin at the cigar stand, where they were drinking coffee with Barney Chester. A fresh NO SMOKING sign had been taped to the front of the display case near the eternal flame, now repaired and burning without so much as a flicker.

  “If you’ll excuse us, Barney,” Tanner said, “I’d like to talk to my Moronis alone for a moment.” Tanner walked into the men’s room without waiting for a reply.

  As soon as Traveler and Martin joined him there, Tanner began checking the stalls. Once certain they were empty he said, “Garth Tempest has been hospitalized.”

  “How bad?” Traveler asked.

  “They’re calling it a relapse. They say his system must have been full of poison all along. That he must have been more resistant than the others.”

  “What does Tempest say?” Traveler said.

  “Nothing. He slipped into a coma just like the others and isn’t expected to live.”

  Martin said, “You could have told us this in front of Barney. So what are you holding back?”

  “I thought you’d want privacy when you learned that Moroni Traveler Tempest is about to become an orphan.”

  “Where is she?” Martin asked.

  “She’ll be staying with the Odegaards until the legal system gears up to place her in a foster home.”

  Martin sighed.

  “What about the Chester Building?” Traveler said.

  “Barney ought to be in on this.”

  As soon as they returned to the lobby, Pinock began switching on his floodlights. Once the ceiling was illuminated, Tanner slowly circled the scaffolding, his head thrust back as he studied the mural. Finally, he signaled to Pinock, who extinguished the lights.

  “If you don’t mind, Barney,” Tanner said when he returned to the cigar stand, “we’d like to leave the scaffold and lights in place for a while. That way scholars will have a chance to come and see this for themselves. Put their stamp of approval on it, so to speak.”

  Chester shrugged. “What do I have to lose?” He poured a cup of coffee for Tanner.

  “Is that Postum?”

  “Of course,” Chester said, though everyone knew it was a lie.

  Sipping, Tanner made a wry face.

  “I know that look of yours,” Traveler said. “You already know the verdict on the ceiling.”

  At a nod from Tanner, Pinock retrieved a folder from his briefcase and hurried forward to spread photographs on top of the cigar counter. They were blowups of the two WPA painters from the Gustavson collection. Their enlarged faces were much sharper than the original photographs. One face was circled in fluorescent Day-Glo orange.

  “It’s Mahonri Young, all right,” Tanner said. “We’ve verified it.”

  “What does that mean exactly?” Chester said.

  “Your ceiling’s a treasure, Barney. No doubt about it. Word of your discovery has already been passed on to the prophet.”

  “Which one?” Traveler said.

  Tanner ignored the question. “He asked me to thank all of you for saving an important part of our heritage. We fully expect the faithful to be making pilgrimages here soon to see your ceiling.”

  “Are you saying my building’s safe?”

  “It’s a shrine, Barney, the first prophet painted by the grandson of our second prophet. It’s already been added to the register of historic sites.”

  Chester’s lips moved but no words came out. In frustration, he threw his arms around Tanner, who squirmed awkwardly.

  As soon as the clinch broke, Traveler glared at Tanner. “Talk to me, Willis. Somebody pointed Bill and Charlie in the right direction. They say it was the White Prophet.”

  Tanner tapped his toe against Bill’s sandaled feet protruding from the sandwich-board tepee. “Who am I to question another man’s revelation?”

  “Why would Ellsworth help us?”

  Tanner stared at the ceiling. “A vision of Joseph Smith was saved. As a result, all charges have been dropped against Bill and Charlie. The prophet has seen to that. Obviously, their trespass on the temple grounds was part of God’s plan.”

  Traveler grabbed Tanner’s arm. “You’re the expert, Willis. Am I related to Ellsworth?”

  “We must know our ancestors, Mo, both living and dead. That is the commandment that God gave to Joseph Smith.”

  “You sound as vague as Martin.”

  Tanner smiled. “ ‘Tell my Moronis,’ the prophet said to me before I came here, ‘that I honor them for their work. Without their efforts, one of God’s treasures would have been lost. We are in your debt.’ His words, Mo. I repeat them as spoken. ‘If there’s anything I can do for my Moronis, all they have to do is ask.’ ”

  “Now that you mention it,” Martin said, “there is some legal paperwork we could use a hand with. The adoption of my granddaughter.”

  “Actually, that’s already in the works. In this state, the courts listen carefully when the prophet speaks, and he has decided that Lael and I should adopt Angel. ‘Naturally,’ the prophet said, ‘my other two Moronis will have full visiting privileges. Moronis, no matter who they’re named for,’ he said, ‘cannot be separated.’ ”

  “Glory hallelujah,” Bill shouted from inside his sandwich-board teepee.

  “We can do better than that,” Martin said. “Come on, Mo, hold the ladder for me.”

  As soon as Martin reached the top of the scaffolding, he led them in the Hosanna Shout.

  THE END

 

 

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