She grabbed Diego, and before he could claw and hiss free, she’d slapped the cheeseburger into his hands. He scrambled back several steps, until his back was against the tires. He eyed it with a ravenous look.
“Go ahead, hurry. Eat.”
“Hey! What’s that?” It was Christopher. He came around the pile of tires. His voice flared with anger. “Put that down.”
And now, finally, Diego moved. He shoved half the burger into his mouth just as the man grabbed him. Christopher snatched up the burger and chucked it into the desert, then wrapped his hand around the boy’s windpipe with one hand and pried at his mouth with the other. “Spit it out. Now!”
“Leave him alone,” Madeline cried. “Can’t you see, he’s starving? Just let him—let go of him!”
She struggled with Christopher, but he threw her to the side. Diego was trying to get the chunk of burger down, and might have made it if he hadn’t bitten off such a huge piece. Christopher opened his mouth, scraped out the hunk of burger and ground it into the dirt with his bare foot. He tossed the boy to the side.
He turned on Madeline. “You. Harlot, temptress.” He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to her feet, lifted a hand to strike her across the face.
“Stop!” It was the Disciple. He stood a few paces off. A frown crossed his face. “Do not strike her.”
Christopher let her go. “It was her fault. You won’t believe what she did.”
Madeline took two steps back. She was shaking with equal measures of anger and fear.
“I saw,” he said in a quiet voice. He turned to her and there was a deep hurt in his voice. “Oh, Madeline. The Lord told me you might backslide like this. I suppose I didn’t take His warning seriously enough. If I had, maybe I could have stopped you. And the boy, too. You have tempted him, and now he will suffer.”
“Please, don’t punish Diego. It wasn’t his fault, he tried to tell me no, but I forced him. I shoved it into his hand and made him take a bite, it’s my fault.”
“I won’t punish the boy,” the Disciple said. “God will punish him for his weakness, not me.”
“How will He do that?”
Meanwhile, several others had come from the trailers and watched in silence, some with haughty, judging expressions, others with sorrow, and others with worried looks. One of these was Benita, who chewed on her lip.
The Disciple ignored Madeline’s question. “And I’m not going to punish you, either.”
“You won’t?”
She felt a wave of gratitude, mixed with guilt. She shouldn’t have done it, she knew that now. It was a weak moment and it wouldn’t happen again. The smug look on Christopher’s face faltered. Madeline glanced at the others to see relief on some faces, disappointment on others. There were plenty who’d be delighted to see her walk the desert, or thrust her hand into scalding water. So long as it wasn’t their punishment.
“No, I won’t punish you. It was weakness, more than a sin. Although I did tell you not to feed the boy, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did.”
“And you accept that I am the Lord’s disciple, correct?”
“Yes, I do.”
The Disciple came and put a hand on her cheek. “Then why?” He sounded sad, as if her disobedience had nearly broken his heart.
“I don’t know, Master. Please.”
He drew back and a smile warmed his face. “But if the Lord Jesus can be merciful, it’s the least I can do.”
“Thank you, I promise I won’t do it again.”
“I don’t think you will, but I need to be sure.” His voice rose and he turned to address all of the Chosen Ones. “The End is coming and only the most pure will survive. Madeline Caliari, can you be pure?”
Her mouth felt dry. Pure. There was only one thing that meant. A sudden silence from the others; she almost couldn’t hear them breath. Only the creak of black tires expanding in the desert sun, a jet overhead. It left a streak of chalk across the blue.
There was a moment, a split second, where she wondered what would happen if she said no, she couldn’t be pure. Would they let her go? Would the Disciple even tell Christopher to pour a little gas in the truck and drive her into the city? And if not, surely they’d at least give her a two-liter bottle of water and let her walk. She thought she could make Highway 157, fifteen miles away. And she could walk along the highway until a car came. She’d borrow someone’s cell phone and call home.
Mom. I’m sorry, I made a mistake. Could you forgive me, please?
Of course she would. She’d wire money to Las Vegas and catch the first flight from Portland. And then she’d take her daughter home and help put her life back together. Madeline could find her old friends, get a job, even enroll in school again.
But the moment passed in an instant. She’d given up too much to get here, she couldn’t turn her back on all that sacrifice, and she couldn’t face the End, the Tribulation, alone. She needed the Disciple to protect her from the horrors that awaited the earth.
Madeline looked down at her feet. “I shall be purified, if that’s what you want.”
“It is not what I want that matters. I want to send you inside and tell you not to do it again. It is what God wants that matters. And God wants me to prepare you for purification.”
The atmosphere was now electric. The last few Chosen Ones had come from the trailers and stood in a tight knot with the others. They stood rigid, on the balls of their feet. What would be the sentence? The Disciple eyed them one by one. “Benita go to the root cellar. Bring out twenty heads of lettuce.”
A collective gasp passed through the others. Madeline felt her knees go weak. “Twenty?”
“It was a serious transgression.”
“But twenty? Nobody has ever done more than ten.”
“Nobody has so blatantly defied the will of the Lord.”
“No, please. I can’t do twenty heads, I just can’t.”
“You must. The lettuce, Benita,” he added in a sharp voice.
Benita stared at Madeline for a long moment and there was something unexpected in her expression. Was that, could it be envy? And then the girl turned to hurry for the trailers.
The Disciple looked at Christopher. “Prepare Madeline for the purification.”
Christopher stepped forward with a gleam in his eyes. He grabbed her blouse above the collar and tore. Buttons popped off and her shirt came free. She felt their eyes on her thin, bony body, her small breasts, and resisted the urge to cover herself. Christopher made for her pants, but she was already shrugging out of them herself. Then her underwear. A horrid shame flooded through her.
Naked, skin bleached white, she wouldn’t last long in the sun without suffering a horrible burn. But this wasn’t that kind of ordeal. It wouldn’t be long before she’d welcome a sunburn. Twenty heads of lettuce. She would die.
Christopher grabbed her arm, looked to their leader for guidance.
The Disciple looked her over, then nodded. “Bring her to the pit.”
Chapter Six:
The bullet-dimpled sign read Blister Creek: Population 2,397. Eliza closed her eyes as Jacob drove past. Beyond that lay two full miles of sagebrush and red rock, but she could see the landmarks without opening her eyes: the spires of Witch’s Warts, the Ghost Cliffs looming over the north side of town, the temple, which would grow from a dot until it dominated the heart of town. Together, they breached her defenses with a flood of memories.
Her early visits left a pleasant veneer over the darker impressions. She’d come several times as a child and could remember swimming with cousins in the reservoir. An aunt had taught her how to bake pies, an uncle found her father’s old bicycle in a shed, changed the tires and cleaned up the banana seat and Eliza spent hours riding around town with the other girls. She even remembered her brother Enoch catching a fence lizard and letting her hold it. It had closed its eyes and held still while she stroked its saphire-blue belly. And when she stopped, it squirmed free, scrambled up her dress a
nd took a leap for freedom.
All of that happened before she was fourteen. Her memories from her later teen years were twisted. Sexually assaulted, traded like a prize heifer, and the horrific moment when she’d dropped a stone on Gideon Kimball’s head, crushed the life out of him and sent his evil soul speeding to hell.
“Are you okay?” Jacob asked.
“No.”
“Do you want to go back?”
“I can do this.”
“Are you sure? Because I can take you to Panguitch, get you a motel room, and you can wait until I’m done.”
“Yes, I’m sure. That’s not how I want to live my life. I’m going to walk down the streets of Blister Creek, holding my head high. And when I see Father, I’m going to look him in the eye. I have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Good for you,” Jacob said.
She opened her eyes when they got to the wide, gridded streets of Blister Creek itself. A pair of women in prairie dresses with several children in tow stopped and stared at the strange car as it passed. Two boys on dirt bikes slowed to watch, and a pickup truck coming from the other direction made a wide u-turn to fall in behind them. Off main street, they stopped to let a sleeping dog rise, stretch, and stroll to the side of the road.
“Drive a little faster, could you,” she told her brother.
She stared at the temple as they passed, and thought about her brother Enoch, murdered by Lost Boys in the Celestial Room. “I won’t let that happen to David,” she said.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Jacob said.
He drove down Third West, to the old Kimball compound, now possessed by Abraham Christianson, prophet of the Church of the Anointing. Father was determined to hold together the people after the horrors that had nearly destroyed the church, and several years after the murders, he had largely consolidated control. At the very least, members had stopped slipping away to join other sects, or find their way to the Zarahemla compound, a hundred and fifty miles to the north.
Abraham Christianson waited on the porch with his arms folded. Even in his sixties Brother Abraham was still a tall, powerfully built man with the same charismatic aura that Jacob commanded. Eliza found herself wavering when she saw him. Mixed with the anger were memories of a childhood spent worshiping the man. He read to her, everything from the scriptures to Shakespeare, and taught her to swim, ride a horse, and shoot a rifle. But with so many children, a farm to run, and his church duties, she hadn’t seen nearly as much of him as she’d have liked.
“Jacob. Let me look at you. What a man you’ve become, you look like I did thirty years ago. Or should I call you Dr. Christianson?”
“Only if you want me to check your colon for polyps.”
Father laughed. “Let’s stick with Jacob. Eliza Christianson,” He said, turning her direction. “The prodigal child returns.” Before she knew it, he’d grabbed Eliza in a bear hug. When he was done, he gave her a critical once-over. “Good heavens, look at you. All grown up and beautiful. You look like your mother.”
“Thank you.”
“But still unmarried, that’s a bit of a disappointment. Well, there’s time, you’re not a barren womb yet.”
“I’m not any kind of womb,” she snapped.
He chuckled. “The family spirit, I like it. Well, let’s get you two inside. I’ve got a lot to discuss with Jacob before we get to the subject of marriage.”
It was the old Kimball house, but overlaid with the furniture and fixtures of the house in Harmony. There was the daguerreotype of Brigham Young, the framed photograph of the Manti temple under construction, a set of dinner bells carried by Father’s great-great grandmother across the plains, the piano where all the girls had learned to play. A china cabinet that had supposedly been in the family since the faith’s earliest days in Kirtland. Even the smell of the rugs brought her back to her childhood.
Father had Jacob sit down, but waved a hand at Eliza as soon as she moved to sit next to her brother. “The women are in the kitchen, getting supper ready. I’m sure they could use a hand.”
It didn’t matter much to Eliza, so she shrugged her shoulders and turned toward the kitchen. Some of her mother’s sister wives would be there, and she hadn’t seen them for ages. It would be good to catch up.
“Sit down, Liz,” Jacob said.
“It’s not worth fighting over. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, I don’t mind.”
“But I do, so unless you’d rather peel potatoes, I’d just as soon you stay with me.” The two men stared at each other.
“We have priesthood matters to discuss, son,” Father said. “I need Eliza to leave.”
“I have no secrets from Liz.”
“Oh, is that how you run things in Zarahemla? You let the women into your meetings, so they can peck like hens at everything you say? Whine and complain until they get their own way?”
“Yes, I do. And I’ve found that the hens only complain when the rooster bullies them.”
“No wonder,” Father said.
“No wonder, what?” Jacob demanded.
“No wonder Zarahemla is such a mess.”
“Excuse me? A mess?”
“Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s clever how you took control after this other man, this so-called One Mighty and Strong, met his untimely demise. But that’s the time to tighten your grip.” He banged his fist in his hand. “Come down hard, show them the straight and narrow. You can call on the Lord to guide you.” He turned to Eliza. “Go help the women, do it now.”
She didn’t move, but looked to Jacob. “I’ll stay if you want me to.”
Jacob continued to stare at Father. “Yes, please stay, Liz.”
Eliza took the chair next to Jacob’s side. “Since you asked so nicely, I’m happy to stay.” She smiled at Father. “See how easy that was?”
A tick worked alongside his jaw. “Both of you? How dare you defy me. I should, I should. . .”
“You should what?” Jacob asked.
“You know what I can do. Don’t make me say it.”
“Feel free to kick me out,” Jacob said. “If that’s what you’re getting at, go ahead and do it. Do the same thing to me that you did to Enoch, to David, Jeffrey, Caleb, Alonzo, Hyrum, Samuel, and Peter. What you’ll no doubt do to Phineas, Brigham, and Benjamin, when the time comes. They’re not exactly leadership material, either. Why should I be any different?”
“You want to be a Lost Boy?” He sounded incredulous.
“I know who I am. I won’t be a Lost Boy.”
“Oh, so you think you don’t need me, because you’ve got these people in Zarahemla eating out of your hand. I’m telling you, the sooner we bring the two churches together, the better. That’s why the Lord told me to put you as my first counselor, that way you can convince them it’s for the good. You don’t want to jeopardize that, do you?”
“Threats only work if you have something to threaten,” Jacob said. “I never wanted the job, so if you snatch it away, I’ll say good riddance. I’ll be my own man.”
“You’ll be what I tell you to be.”
“No, Father, I won’t. Nobody tells me who I am.”
He sputtered. “I don’t believe it. I just cannot believe what I’m hearing. I’m warning you, boy, I’ve had other rebellious sons. You know what happened to them, what they’ve become, how far they’ve fallen. That will be you, too.”
“Father, I’ve got a medical degree and am a respected doctor at a hospital. I am married and have three children, with a fourth on the way. Liz supports me, and Fernie, and several hundred other people who can see that you don’t need whips and bullying to lead them.”
“You’ve only accomplished that because of me and because it was the will of the Lord. Now, are you going to obey His servant or not?”
“Come on, Liz, let’s go. I can see we’re wasting our time.” He began to rise.
“No, wait! We need to talk.”
Jacob sat back down. “I’ll be happy to talk, Father, but no m
ore bullying. You deal with us—not just me, with Liz, too—and you’re going to deal with us as equals. If you don’t deal with us as equals, we’re going to shake the dust from our feet and never visit this place again.”
Eliza sat up straight. She had watched the exchange with growing astonishment. In spite of his bluster, Father had been on the defensive from the beginning. In years past, nobody had stood up to him like Jacob, but Father had always won, through sheer force of will and a righteous certitude in his own actions. But not today, today it was clear that Jacob was more than his equal. He was stronger than Father, even on the older man’s home territory. And now, the threat to shake the dust from his feet, to condemn Father forever.
Father turned gray. “What do you want?” he asked at last.
“Liz, tell him what we want.”
“Look at me, Father,” Liz said. She forced strength into her voice, to match Jacob’s. “In the eye.”
“Do you have to do this?” he asked Jacob. “It is humiliating. I’ve already agreed to listen, do you have to rub my nose in it?”
“Do it,” Jacob said. “Look her in the eye and wipe the condescension off your face. She’s not a child, she’s an adult. If you don’t do her the courtesy of treating her as an equal, you’ll be the one who will look like a fool, not her.”
Father stayed rigid for a long moment, then his jaw loosened. He turned his face to Eliza. At last, he met her gaze and she was surprised to see a touch of pride in his expression hiding behind his arrogance. Pride in her, it would seem. “Well, you’ve certainly learned some lessons from your brother.”
“I hope so.”
“You know, Liz, you remind me of my great-grandmother, still spitting nails until she died.”
“Grannie Cowley?” Eliza asked, surprised. Even dead for decades, the woman was something of a legend in the church and as a child Eliza had visited the abandoned farmstead near the cliffs, where the woman had lived alone for twenty years until she died at ninety-eight.
“Strong woman, didn’t always have much use for men.”
“Thank you, Father. I knew you had it in you.”
The Wicked (The Righteous) Page 5