Righteous03 - The Wicked

by Michael Wallace

  He flipped through one of the books. “These three pages are just the people who disappeared from the Kimball family. Notice, no girls.”

  Allison tapped one of the photos. “This is the Disciple,” Allison said. “He’s about ten years older now, but it’s clearly the same guy.”

  It was a boy with a gap-toothed grin and a bowl cut. He looked more like Taylor Junior than Gideon, Eliza thought, but there was nothing particularly sinister that jumped out of the photo.

  “That’s Caleb Kimball, all right,” Jacob said. “Fernie, do you remember this kid? I’m having a hard time pinning down anything specific.”

  She frowned and looked at the picture. “I remember one thing. The Kimballs came up to Harmony and the Christiansons had the younger kids over. The sister wives were busy with dinner, so they had some of us older girls babysitting. Caleb was ten or eleven, and I found him in the barn, pacing back and forth, talking to himself. I thought he was making up a story, like kids do. He turned when I came in and said, ’The devil told me to climb into the rafters and jump off.’ I asked him what he was talking about and he said, ’But one of the angels said I’d die and then I’d never get into the Celestial Kingdom because it’s evil to kill yourself. I probably shouldn’t, right?’ There was something spooky in his expression and I thought he was absolutely out of his mind. And then it went away and he smiled sweetly up at me. ’I was just kidding, just playing a game.’ I might not even remember that, except that the barn burned down that night. I always wondered if that kid had something to do with it.”

  “I remember the barn burning down,” Jacob said. “Father thought one of the Kimball kids had been smoking in the hayloft. What was that, ninety-eight, ninety-nine?”

  “Something like that,” Fernie said. “You remember the barn incident, Eliza?”

  “Not really, I think I was in Blister Creek. Ninety-eight was the summer I spent with our Harris cousins.”

  “I never said anything,” Fernie continued, “because I wasn’t sure. And this was one of those cases where I didn’t quite feel like part of the family. He wasn’t my real father, after all.”

  “What do you mean?” Allison asked.

  “My dad suffered a nervous breakdown when I was two years old and ran off with a gentile woman. My mother married Abraham Christianson. So I’m Eliza’s half sister through my mother.”

  “And I’m Jacob’s half sister through our father,” Eliza said, “but Fernie and Jacob aren’t related by blood.”

  “Actually, I think Fernie and I might be second cousins, once removed,” Jacob said.

  “Third cousins, dear,” Fernie said.

  “Oh, right.”

  “How confusing,” Allison said.

  “Yes, I know,” Jacob said. “The key detail is that Fernie and I are not siblings.”

  “But wait a second,” Eliza said to Fernie, “You’d been with the family for years at that point. You didn’t feel you could speak up?”

  “I wasn’t a Christianson, I didn’t always fit in. My mother was busy with the younger kids. I wasn’t about to make an accusation I couldn’t back up.”

  Jacob set the book aside and pulled over another stack of albums. “These three are the Las Vegas books.” He opened the first one in front of Allison Caliari. “Lost Boys, mostly, but also some girls who ran away and small families we’ve lost track of. Tell me if you recognize anyone.”

  The woman thumbed through quietly, her expression growing troubled. The pictures varied, from screenshots of grainy security camera footage, to photos of twelve-year-old boys side-by-side with computer rendered pictures showing how the boy might look as an adult, to family snapshots, mug shots, and newspaper clippings.

  “I don’t understand, why do you collect all this?”

  “They’re people we’re trying to bring back,” Jacob said.

  “So what, you’re stalking them? To force them back into your church?”

  “They’re lost,” Fernie said, gently. “We’re trying to save them.”

  Allison looked between the two women, then at Jacob. “I think maybe I made a mistake.” She stepped back from the books.

  Eliza took her wrist. “Please, wait, let me explain. I think you’re misunderstanding. Anyone who wants to leave is free to go, isn’t that right, Jacob?”

  “More than right. I’m encouraging people to leave. I’d leave myself, if I could. But it’s not that easy. Imagine taking a bunch of Amish and sticking them in Manhattan and telling them to earn a living. Or ripping the burkhas off conservative tribal women in North Africa. You can’t just throw sheltered people into the world.”

  “And some people don’t want to be thrown,” Fernie said. “I know it’s hard for you to look at me, dressed like this, and believe it, but I don’t want to be out there in the so-called real world. I want to be with my people.”

  “And some of the people in these books do, too,” Eliza said. “The others could use support while they find their own way.”

  She pointed to one of the pictures, a troubled-looking kid with an overbite and too-big ears. It was a picture taken by his foster family in Cedar City. He’d stolen the family car and driven it to St. George where he and two friends had burst into a pawn shop waving plastic guns. The Gulf War vet behind the counter had a sawed-off shotgun to deal with this kind of trouble, but fortunately, he recognized three dumb kids and didn’t blow their heads off.

  “That’s my cousin,” Eliza said. “Six more months in the Washington County jail and then he’ll be back on the street. His friends will be waiting. We need to get to him first.”

  “Most of them are good people,” Jacob said. “The ones who aren’t are a danger, and not just to us. Guys like Caleb Kimball. We’re trying to find them before they kill people.”

  “Okay, that makes sense.” Allison stepped back to the table.

  Jacob opened another book. “A bunch of them end up in some other religious group. They’ve been fed a diet of religion their whole life and can’t leave it alone.” He pinched about a third of the new book between his thumb and forefinger. “These people are in a polygamist offshoot called the Church of the Lamb. They’re under the sway of some guy who claims he is Joseph Smith reborn.” He thumbed through the second half of the book. “And this guy, this guy, and these two brothers are in a group outside Bakersfield who claim they are evangelical Jews, whatever that means. This book and this are Lost Boys who are in trouble with the law, drug addicts, guys trying to fight their way back into my father’s church, and other nihilistic types.”

  “Wait,” Allison said. “Open that book again, let me see something. No, that one.”

  Eliza handed her the book and she flipped through quietly for a moment. “This one, here. Yes, him. I’ve seen this guy.”

  Eliza looked down at the picture with a frown. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. I saw him walking along the Strip with a girl I later spotted with the Chosen Ones, someone named Benita Johnson.”

  “Jacob, look.” Eliza pushed the book across the table. “It’s David.”

  “Who?” Allison asked.

  “It’s our brother,” Eliza said.

  “Oh my god.” Allison gripped her wrist. “You see? He knows her, he knows how to find her.”

  Eliza nodded. “And I know how to find David.”

  #

  It didn’t surprise Eliza that Jacob didn’t want her to go. But she hadn’t counted on Fernie’s opposition.

  “Absolutely not,” Fernie said after she and Jacob had put the kids down and the three of them retreated to the cold, dry air of the courtyard.

  “You know I have to,” Eliza said. “And you helped me find David, you supported me when I decided to go to Nevada to find him.”

  “Totally different,” Jacob said. “That was your brother. And one guy.”

  “This is Caleb Kimball,” Fernie said. “You remember the Kimballs, right?”

  “Come on, Fernie, be serious.”

  �
��I am being serious. You seem to have forgotten Gideon and Taylor Junior. Caleb is cut from the same cloth. And he’s surrounded by fanatics.”

  Fernie set the oil lamp down on the picnic table. Stars glittered overhead and a breeze brought the smell of juniper from the desert. A baby cried from somewhere in the compound, then quieted.

  Allison Caliari had stayed through dinner, seemingly stunned by the dozens of children, the feeling of an enormous family reunion in the main courtyard. The adults had been polite and welcoming to their visitor, but some of the children had stood a pace off, staring, as she ate, as if she were an animal at the zoo. Parents kept shooing the children away, but one by one they would return. Allison had retreated to a hotel in Manti to wait for Eliza and Jacob to come to an agreement.

  “Fernie’s right,” Jacob said. “I won’t let you go. If anyone is going to do it, it’s going to be me.”

  “You’ve got a job at the hospital, you’re just holding things together here, and Fernie and the kids need you, too. This could take weeks.”

  “What about me?” Fernie asked. “I could go.”

  “He’s my brother.”

  “And you’re my sister,” she said. “I’m not going to let you, I can’t take that chance.”

  “You can’t leave your kids, and you know it. Besides, you’re both too old. You’re almost thirty, and you heard Allison, they’re recruiting college students. Maybe you could pass for that age, maybe not, but we only have one shot.”

  “Then we’ll find someone else,” Jacob said.

  “Come on,” Eliza said. “You know it has to be me. Who else is young enough, knows David, and is smart enough to pull it off? Sorry, but it’s true. The choices are to help me or not, but I’m going.”

  Jacob was quiet for a long moment. Fernie closed her eyes. Eliza guessed she was saying a silent prayer, but whether she was asking the Lord for guidance or to change Eliza’s mind, it was hard to say.

  “It should be a man,” Jacob said.

  “A man? Oh, please,” Eliza said. “Cut the patriarchal crap.”

  “Liz!” Fernie said.

  “Sorry for the language, but you know it’s true. And since when do you pull that garbage, anyway?”

  “Give me some credit, Liz,” he said in a quiet voice. “I don’t mean you can’t do it because you’re a woman, I mean it’s more dangerous because you’re a woman. What’s the first thing these jerks do? Tell all the women to have sex with the prophet. You’ll be out heaven-knows-where, starving to death, no doubt, and then some creepy guy will come into your room at night and rape you.”

  “That sort of thing happens to Lost Boys, too.”

  “But not as often. Listen, what do you think Father would say?”

  “Father? Are you kidding? That old man can shrivel and die for all I care. You can be damn sure I’m not taking his advice.”

  “Liz!” Fernie said a second time.

  “Sorry.”

  To Eliza’s surprise, Fernie turned to Jacob. “She’s right though. We should let her go. She knows how to take care of herself.”

  Jacob turned and stared. “But Fernie, we agreed. You said—”

  “I know what I said. I was wrong. Someone has to go. It’s not just David, or the other lost children raised in the Principle who will join this cult, it’s Madeleine Caliari and all the others who are dying. That’s what your Book of the Lost is about, isn’t it? You told me yourself, it’s about finding the lost sheep.”

  “I’m having a hard enough time keeping track of our own people, I can’t start looking for other people’s lost kids, too.”

  “Nobody’s asking you to,” Eliza said. “That’s what I’m going to do.”

  “He’s going to recognize you,” Jacob said. “I don’t mean he’ll know you’re Eliza Christianson and that your father is Brother Abraham. But he’ll hear your accent, or you’ll say something wrong and he’ll know that you’re from a polygamist family.”

  “I’m counting on it. In fact, I’m going to announce it first thing. That’s why it’s going to work.”

  “Whatever for?” Fernie asked, her voice alarmed. “You can’t tell them, you just can’t. It’s too dangerous.”

  But Jacob looked thoughtful. “No, I think I understand.”

  “If I just show up, they’ll never let me in,” Eliza explained. “I’ll bet people are trying to infiltrate all the time. Cops, private investigators, people looking for a son or a missing sister. Once you ask politely long enough, you’ll try anything. But this guy isn’t going to expect someone from Blister Creek to come looking for Madeline. She’s a gentile.” She turned to Jacob. “Well? Will you help me, or not?”

  Jacob was quiet for a long time, but she knew what he was going to say before it came. Her brother was the most analytical person she knew, but he also knew when to take a risk, when to seize an opportunity. This was a big risk, no question, but also a big opportunity. There were lives at stake, and not just Madeleine Caliari’s. Eliza waited for him to finally say it.

  At last, he let out a sigh. “Okay, I’ll let you go.”

  She put a hand on his arm, then said gently, “Thank you, but I was going to go whether you let me or not.”

  “I know, Liz. If you were just asking, I’d still say no. What I mean is, I’ll help you as much as I can.”

  Fernie pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “Great. Now that we’re running toward the edge of the cliff, I want to hear how we’re going to get down without falling.”

  “I need more information,” Jacob said, “and there’s one man who can give it to me.”

  “You mean—?” Eliza started.

  “I do. It’s time to pay my respects to the prophet of the Church of the Anointing.”

  It was still a shock to think of her father as a prophet. Eliza thought of the last time she’d seen Abraham Christianson, after that horrible time in Blister Creek. He’d tried to force her into marriage to the repugnant son of one of the church elders, a man who had sexually assaulted her. Even knowing that, Father had not relented. Now that she was hundreds of miles away, living in Salt Lake, she’d come to a calm, steady place, and she thought she could forgive him, maybe, if he didn’t keep trying to drag her back into the church.

  “Be careful,” she said. “I don’t trust him. He’s still trying to manipulate you, and if you’re not careful, you’ll be sucked back into the whole mess.”

  “We’ll be careful, don’t worry.”

  “We?”

  “Eliza,” he said. “I want you to come with me to Blister Creek.”

  Chapter Five:

  The weakest of the bunch was a boy named Diego. He was maybe nine, maybe ten, but small, starved. Nobody knew who he was, or how he’d joined the group. Christopher said he was a homeless boy they’d found half-frozen in Reno a couple of years ago. Benita said no, the boy had a mother. She’d abandoned the child when Lucifer regained her soul and she returned to the crack house where the Disciple had found her.

  Madeline Caliari knew that the Disciple’s rules of purification were for their own good, but Diego was so young, so weak, that she always felt guilty to see him devour the meager rations, see the pinched, pleading look on his face. He never begged—she’d only ever heard a few whispered words—but sometimes, when the food had been divided and there was nothing left for Diego but a half-eaten apple or crust of bread, a whimper would catch in his throat.

  Once, after a sanctification with the Disciple, she’d asked him about the boy while she was putting her clothes back on. “He doesn’t belong with us,” she said. “We should leave him at a shelter in the city, let someone look for his parents. Or a foster home, if he doesn’t have any.”

  The Disciple slipped into his robe and tied it off at the waist with a braided rope. With his beard and hair, he looked like Jesus. “The Lord delivered him into my hands for a reason. Until I find out what that is, he’s not going anywhere.”

  “He’s too young. He doesn’t understa
nd, and besides, he’s still growing. The purification is stunting his growth.”

  “Stunting his growth? What does that mean?” The Disciple came, put his hand on her neck. “Madeline, child, there is no growth to stunt. Diego will never grow into a man, you know that. The Great and Terrible Day is upon us, and his only hope of avoiding the fire is to stay with us.”

  Madeline felt a rush of the Holy Spirit as she stared into his deep, liquid eyes and felt his warm hand against her skin. She knew he was right. But later, lying on the thin, smelly mattress, fighting the gnawing in her own stomach, she didn’t think about that warm feeling, or the sanctification. She only remembered the whimper as Diego clutched his half-eaten apple, and the way his hands trembled. The boy was asleep on the next mattress over, his whistling breath joining the snores and night coughs of the others in the trailer. Madeline reached out a hand and stroked his back. Even through his shirt, she could feel skin stretched taut over ribs and a jutting spine.

  The next day, when Madeline ventured on a scavenging expedition in the city, she tucked an uneaten cheeseburger into her blouse and kept it hidden until she got back to the trailers. After the food was divided and devoured—Diego’s portion being two limp carrots and a rind of cheese—she took him outside, behind the pile of rotting tires, where they sat on the hood of a wrecked car. She pulled out the cheeseburger.

  “Here, take this, but don’t say anything, right?”

  Diego stared at her outstretched hand, then met her eyes with a quizzical expression.

  “Go ahead. Hurry, before someone sees.”

  He turned back to the cheeseburger and stared. His expression reminded her of a stray cat her mother had once befriended at their house in Portland. Starting with food left on the porch, it had taken Mom weeks to earn the cat’s trust, convince it that she wasn’t going to kick it, or mistreat it in any way. Madeline couldn’t afford that kind of patience.