She didn’t miss the implication. A shield. Not a sword. Defensive, only.
Except Jacob spoke with such power and confidence that she was reminded of his prophetic calling. If she disobeyed him, would she be going against Jacob? Or against the Lord?
“Insofar as thou art faithful and true, thou shalt be protected from harm. No bullet shall pierce thy breast, no hand touch thee in wrath. Being faithful in all things, thou shalt return to thy people without a hair harmed on thy head. These blessings and exhortations I close in the name of the Holy Redeemer of Israel, even Jesus Christ, amen.”
“Amen.”
“Amen,” David added in a husky voice. His eyes were damp. “You heard him. Not a hair harmed on your head. I’m holding you to it.”
She hugged him, then eyed the sky again. “It’s time.”
The crowd surrounded Ezekiel, jeering, spitting, and cursing him. He lurched in terror from one brutal shove to the next. The mood was tense, coiled. They wanted blood, and they wanted his. Their anger was bewildering, though he’d heard it building for hours.
All day McQueen had kept him with his hands and feet bound, sitting with his back against the tires of the pickup truck. The camp itself was in an uproar. As the day passed and his tongue thickened with thirst, the sun beat relentlessly on his face, and the mood grew more and more ugly. People would come to stand behind the single guard, pointing and shouting at him.
They seemed to be blaming him for Chambers’s death. That was ridiculous. Ezekiel had been up top when it happened. Chambers wasn’t one of the squatters anyway, just a rogue FBI agent who’d struck up a friendship of convenience with their leader. Ezekiel knew their food supply was cut off, and these people were already thin and hungry, but surely they weren’t living so hand-to-mouth that a single missed meal or two would send them into a rage.
What kind of crazy fanatics were they?
When late afternoon had arrived, McQueen and three armed companions came up to where Ezekiel sat at the tire of Jacob’s truck, eyed him with a look of disgust, and ordered him to his feet. He struggled to stand after so many hours in a cramped position, his hands and feet still bound. One of the armed men grabbed the rope around his wrists and dragged him up. A young woman with short, hacked-off hair slapped Ezekiel across the face when he voiced a protest.
McQueen ordered the rope untied from his ankles, but left his hands bound behind his back. Then they’d driven him to the center of camp, where the crowd had gathered. McQueen pushed him into the center, and the crowd had begun to shove at him. He stumbled back and forth, exhausted and frightened, even as the fury of the mob grew.
“Please,” he begged. “What did I do?”
A teenage boy slugged him in the stomach and he doubled over, gasping. An old woman jerked his head by the hair while another woman spit in his face. More blows rained down on his head and shoulders. A well-placed kick to the thigh knocked his feet out from under him and he collapsed. They yanked him back to his feet. More blows followed.
This was how they meant him to die, he realized with terror. Each and every one of them taking revenge for all the indignities suffered over the past few years: the war, the famine, the wretched treatment at the military-run refugee camp, the evacuation of the camp, and the desperate struggle across the desert. More had died in the crossing. More still from starvation and disease at the reservoir. Exposure in winter, violence as the desperate turned on the desperate. They must have thought that if they could only reach Blister Creek, with its food and safety, they would survive.
Except Blister Creek had turned them away, even tried to wipe out their camp instead of sharing food like good neighbors. Then, when Chambers offered a lifeline, the polygamists of the valley had cut that off too. There was no way to get at the valley, but here was Ezekiel, bound and helpless. He knew all of this instinctively, yet it felt so unfair.
A blow smashed into his temple and he fell facedown in the dirt. This time they left him down. He was helpless to protect himself as the mob closed in to finish him off. Kick him to death.
McQueen barked an order for silence. The shouting and cursing from the crowd diminished, then died altogether as he roared his orders again. McQueen and several others pushed back the mob.
“Don’t kill me,” Ezekiel begged as they hauled him to his feet. “Please, I’ll do whatever you want.”
McQueen slapped him across the face. “Shut up.”
Ezekiel hung his head. He was shaking and wouldn’t be able to stand if they weren’t holding him up.
“The rest of you, go,” McQueen told the mob. “We’ll deal with this one later. For now, you know what to do.”
Just as McQueen and his armed companions had marched Ezekiel into the camp, now they marched him back to the truck again. He regained some of his strength as he walked.
“They’d have killed you,” McQueen said. “Don’t forget that.”
He pushed Ezekiel into a sitting position with his back against the rear driver’s side tire. McQueen stood above him, his hands on his hips, looking down with a scowl.
“Do you have water?” Ezekiel asked.
McQueen nodded at the short-haired woman who had slapped Ezekiel earlier. She trotted back to camp and came up with a faded green soda bottle half filled with cloudy water. Ezekiel glugged it down.
“Any food? I’m so hungry I can barely stand. Even a bite or two, anything.”
McQueen let out a barking laugh. “If you’d said that in the camp, they’d have killed you. Look at you, so fat and lazy. It makes me sick.”
Ezekiel didn’t have an ounce of fat on him—too much physical labor these days for that. But compared with the hungry, lean figures he’d seen in the camp, he must look that way to them.
“That’s why you’re angry, isn’t it?” he asked. “Because there’s no supper tonight.”
“There’s never enough to go around. Someone always goes hungry. We don’t have a single meal saved up—how could we? But tonight there will be nothing.”
“Give me time,” Ezekiel said. “I’ll find a way back into the valley. And when I do—”
“Don’t insult me, you polygamist freak. I know what you want. Chambers told me everything.”
Ezekiel blinked. “What?”
“It’s a power struggle, that’s it. You think I don’t know? You killed the head of the cult, didn’t you? That’s what all the blood on your hands is. Now you want to hide until it’s safe to go back and take over.”
Ezekiel started to protest. But that would be stupid. He was in enough danger as it was. They despised him already. What if they knew the blood was from his own brother? That his allies had turned against him? That Jacob Christianson was still alive and vigilant down below?
“And when you claim your place as head of the cult, what then?” McQueen asked.
“It’s not a cult. It is the church of God.”
“I know what you’ll do,” McQueen said, as if he hadn’t been listening. “You think I don’t? I’m a survivor—I’m nobody’s fool. Chambers would have kept feeding us, but you? You’d cut us off in a heartbeat. That’s right, as soon as you’re head of the cult, you’ll let us starve.”
It was hard to argue with his logic. Certainly, Ezekiel had no intention of keeping these locusts feasting on their grain. It was only Jacob’s weakness that had allowed it in the first place.
“I brought you a machine gun,” Ezekiel said. “And ammunition.”
McQueen smiled. “Yes, you did. And I’ll put it to good use, don’t you worry.”
“Doesn’t that count for something?”
“Yeah, it will keep you alive. That, and your knowledge of the valley. You can show us around when we get there.”
Ezekiel licked his lips. “You’re going down?”
“You cut off our food. You’ve left us no choice.”
“Why are you here?” Ezekiel said. “We never said we’d help you. We can barely take care of ourselves. Why didn’t you go somewhere else?”
“There is no somewhere else, you idiot. Now sit there and be good. We’ll have work for you later.” He nodded at one of the men, who was armed with a shotgun. “Keep an eye on the polygamist.”
The short-haired woman looked up at the sky. “It’s almost dark. What if he makes a run for it?”
“Tie up his feet again,” McQueen said. When that was done, he nodded. “Now stick him in the truck. If he opens the door, blow his brains out.”
A few minutes later Ezekiel found himself bound and shoved into the truck cabin. The sun was vanishing behind the western mountains. Another twenty minutes and it would be dark. He was thirsty again and his stomach growled uncomfortably. Outside, the guard with the shotgun leaned against the side of the truck and looked down at the commotion still roiling through the camp.
Ezekiel took advantage of the man’s distraction to inspect the truck cab. They’d taken Jacob’s night vision goggles from the passenger seat, but a glance revealed a glint of blood-stained metal below the seat. They’d neglected to search the truck. The machete was still down there, the cursed blade that had killed his brother.
So McQueen meant to attack Blister Creek tonight. By then Jacob would have the bunker manned again. And he’d replace the gun with either the one from the Humvee if he was still in a defensive posture, or a gun taken from one of the other bunkers, if he meant to use the vehicle for his own assault. There would be a battle.
Several people came trudging up from the camp a few minutes later carrying a variety of plastic jugs and containers. Someone had a hose and a funnel. While the man with the shotgun watched, they siphoned the gas out of the truck. As each container was filled, its owner trudged off, but not back to camp. Rather, up to the highway, then south in the direction of Blister Creek, following the road as it stretched along the reservoir.
That was interesting. And alarming, at the same time. Where were they carrying all that fuel?
When the fuel scavengers were gone, the man with the shotgun returned to watching the camp, his back to the truck. Someone in camp lit a fire.
Keeping an eye on his guard, Ezekiel used his toe to ease the machete out from beneath the seat. He tried to get it turned onto its side so the sharp edge would be facing up, but this proved impossible with his hands bound behind his back and his feet tied together.
With a final glance at his guard, now in shadow as it grew dark outside, Ezekiel lay down across the seat bench. He twisted his shoulders until he got his hands on the floor. He groped blindly along the carpet until his fingers found the blade. It took more struggling to lift the knife up to the seat. When he had done so, he waited with the machete hidden beneath his body in case the guard opened the door and demanded to know why the truck was rocking from all of Ezekiel’s movement.
After several seconds of silence Ezekiel breathed a sigh of relief and began again. He twisted the machete until the blade was against the cord binding his wrists. Then he went to work sawing through.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Miriam, Jacob, and David hiked up the switchbacks in silence. It grew darker and darker as they snaked higher. By the time they reached the heights it was night. The moon, now waxing from the crescent of the past couple of nights, would be brighter in the sky than it had been, but it wouldn’t come up for at least an hour or two.
The three of them stood in the cool breeze that washed down from the higher mountains above. Miriam shivered, glad to have the denim jacket. The night was quiet. No insects or birds up here. The trees were all gone, and only tumbled boulders marred the landscape, spilling right up to the edge of the road. To the right of the highway lay the wide, inky pool of the reservoir. It would take twenty or thirty minutes to round the reservoir on foot and reach the squatter camp from the opposite side. She figured that was a safer bet than approaching directly from the highway.
Miriam turned on the night vision goggles just long enough to verify that no figures were lurking in the darkness. “All clear.”
Jacob pointed to the left of the highway. “We’ll take position behind those rocks and wait.”
“I’ll be awhile.”
“Don’t linger. Just go through the camp, look for Ezekiel, anything else you see that might be out of the ordinary, then come back. No heroics, no side adventures.”
“I know what to do.”
“Give me a minute with Miriam,” David said to his brother. “I’ll meet you at the rocks.”
As Jacob left for the boulders, Miriam and David picked their way along the dirt road on the south shore of the reservoir.
“Are you planning to follow me all the way around?” she asked.
“I’ve half a mind to, yes.”
“You’ve got nothing to worry about. I’ve done this sort of thing before, and against worse odds.”
“I wish you’d give this up. It’s not worth it. Not to me, it isn’t. Not to your kids.”
“It’s just reconnaissance.”
“You keep insisting. It’s less convincing every time you say it.”
“Oh, come on, what are you talking about?”
“You may have fooled Jacob. Barely—he seems suspicious. But I’m your husband, and I know you. I know what you’re thinking.”
“I’m not going in with any preconceived ideas,” she said, truthfully. “But if I see that traitor, if I have the chance, I’ll do what must be done.”
“Insofar as thou art faithful and true, thou shalt be protected from harm. That’s what the blessing said.”
“And I will be.”
“You told Jacob you were going to reconnoiter. He’s trusting you to keep your word. If you go against that, how will you claim you were faithful and true?”
“I’ll be faithful and true. But maybe not to what Jacob is expecting.”
“So you’re trusting your own wisdom, and not the prophet?”
“I’m trusting my own inspiration,” she corrected. “What the spirit tells me directly.”
“Jacob gave you a blessing. That was the spirit speaking.”
“There are two ways to interpret that blessing. One is Jacob’s way. Caution, compromise. Hold out and things will blow over.”
“And your way?”
“Not my way, the Lord’s way. The world is ending. You know it, I know it. Everyone in Blister Creek knows it, even Ezekiel Smoot. Everyone except Jacob. Either everyone else is right and Jacob is wrong, or Jacob is right and we’re all wrong. Every single one of us, wrong.”
“I believe this is the end,” David said, “but I don’t know it.”
“I do.” She put her hands on his shoulder. “And I know that the Lord has chosen me to protect this valley. A shield, yes, but sometimes a sword too. And even as I protect our people, so will the Lord protect me in turn. I know this.”
“But I don’t,” he insisted, as stubborn as ever. He took her hands from his shoulders and held them. “Miriam, I really don’t.”
“There’s one way for you to know for sure,” she said, as something occurred to her.
Even as the thought came to her mind, a shiver worked itself down her spine at the implications. Was that a whisper of doubt in her mind? She pushed it aside.
“If I’m right, if this is the End of Days, I’ll destroy our enemy and return unharmed this very night. If I’m wrong and Jacob is right—”
David stiffened. “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.”
“I’m not tempting Him. I’m trusting Him. My life is in His hands.” Miriam took a deep breath and began again. “If I’m wrong and Jacob is right, if this is nothing more than a natural disaster, then the Lord shall remove me for my folly.”
“Please, don’t say that.”
She nodded. “Then this
very night shall mine enemy smite me unto death.”
Miriam continued alone. Last year they’d used this road to circle the reservoir in the Humvee and attack the camp from the back side and she wasn’t surprised to see that the squatters had taken steps to render it impassable to vehicles and horses.
Every few hundred feet a trench had been cut across the road. In other places, logs blocked the road. Once, she almost stepped on a nail strip thrown across the road, but was traveling with the night vision goggles and spotted the dark stripe against the dirt. She stepped gingerly over it, watching for other traps or snares. It occurred to her that with McQueen in charge, a former military man, they might have improvised mines to catch the unwary. Was she heavy enough to trigger them?
Heavenly Father, guide my steps.
The light of a small fire flickered on the far side of the reservoir, but otherwise the camp was dark. The arrival of spring must have come as a welcome relief for the refugees. With the hillsides denuded and firewood farther and farther away, it must have been a frigid, miserable winter up here. The lucky lived in dugouts or campers, while others would have suffered through the cold in tents or beneath propped-up tarps. Some must have died. Many of the survivors no doubt wished they had.
Why didn’t they go away? Blister Creek couldn’t help them; the church members had enough worries caring for themselves. It wasn’t fair for them to stay up here starving and freezing, their presence making the saints of the valley struggle with fear and guilt.
Listen to yourself. Have you no compassion? These people are suffering.
Miriam shook her head. Compassion was a trap. It would have been kinder for Jacob to drive the refugees away the moment they’d arrived rather than to leave them up here, filled with hope. And then Jacob’s compassion had made the treachery of Chambers and Ezekiel possible.
She slowed when she came within a few hundred yards of the camp. She could see the sentries through her goggles. Two people sat behind a barricade of logs, their heads and rifle butts poking up. A third person lurked to one side, this one wrapped in a blanket, his back against a tree stump. He was either asleep or sitting so still she might have missed him with a more casual examination.
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