by R. R. Irvine
“We understand they do radiation research at the clinic,” Martin said.
“It’s no use asking me about it,” she said. “All I know is everybody who goes anywhere near the clinic has to wear a radiation badge. As I understand it, the place got its start right after World War Two. Something to do with the atomic bomb program. Only then it was just a bunch of wooden barracks and Quonset huts.”
“Did you ever visit your husband’s place of work?” Traveler asked.
“Only once. I hate to say it, but I feel uneasy around retarded people.”
“Was your husband’s work helping them, do you think?”
She shrugged. “Maybe that’s why Jack didn’t want children, because of the risk of something going wrong. Maybe they zapped his balls with all that radiation. I don’t know. But it must have been dangerous. He always showered out there at the clinic and then again when he got home, until all the hot water ran out too, the inconsiderate bastard.”
8
THE WHITLOCKS’ house, a faded 1950s green stucco square, sat on an unpainted cinder-block foundation surrounded by white gravel. The only vegetation visible was two potted cacti resting on a concrete slab outside the front door. A FOR SALE sign hung from a metal post next to the rural mailbox.
The Whitlocks stood side by side behind their screen door and examined Traveler’s card. They looked to be in their early fifties, the same age as their house and just as dispirited.
“When we saw you park out front,” Mrs. Whitlock said, “we hoped they’d sent you over from the real estate office.”
“We’re here about your son,” Traveler said.
She stepped back, edging behind her husband, who read Traveler’s card again.
“Are you working for the government?” Whitlock asked.
“Petain Biscari,” Martin said. “We’re helping him with his son.”
Whitlock latched the screen door. “He’s gone too, just like our boy.”
“Can you tell us how it happened?”
“We were told not to talk to anyone.”
“Mr. Biscari needs your help,” Martin said.
The woman sighed. “He should accept the fact that his boy’s dead. Still, I know how he feels, so ask your questions.”
“Start by telling us about your son.”
She leaned against her husband. “Our Tad used to talk about Petey Biscari. They were friends. They . . . we don’t know why . . . but they went off together.”
“Mother, I can’t take this,” Whitlock said. “Besides, you know what they told us. Speak to no one.” He backed away from the screen, turned, and disappeared through an open doorway leading deeper into the house.
For a moment Traveler thought the woman was going to shut the door in their faces. Then she unlatched the screen and beckoned them inside.
“I’m sorry there’s no place to sit,” she said, “but we shipped our furniture back home, when the clinic said they’d buy our house if it didn’t sell by the end of the month.”
“It feels good to be out of the sun,” Martin said.
“I’d ask you into the kitchen for a cold drink, but my husband isn’t up to company yet.”
Martin nodded. Traveler said, “Do you have any idea why your son ran away from the clinic?”
She shook her head.
“Was your son receiving any kind of radiation therapy?” Traveler asked.
“That part of the clinic was strictly separate. They promised us that, because we didn’t want our boy mixed in with patients who might be sick or dying.”
“A boy doesn’t run away unless he’s unhappy,” Martin said.
“We said the same thing to his doctor when he came here.”
“Dr. Ottinger?”
“That’s right. He and another man. Dr. Ottinger said we were his first stop and that he was going on to the Biscari place.”
“The last time Biscari saw him, Petey was still alive,” Martin said.
She tried to smile but her lips didn’t have it in them. “If it hadn’t been for the doctor, they wouldn’t be buying our house, you know. He said someone had to pay. He made the other man put it in writing. They had a big fight after they left, because I could see them yelling at each other in the car.”
“Who was the other man?”
“The man who runs the clinic, I think. He gave my husband his card, but I don’t remember the name.”
“Could you ask your husband?”
She shook her head. “John’s afraid of getting stuck here in the desert with this house. Maybe he’s right. Maybe they’ll renege if they find out I’ve been talking to you. He has to get away. We both do. It’s our only chance of escape.”
“From what?” Traveler asked.
She looked away, unable to meet his eyes. “From something neither of us dares admit. From that moment when we heard the news that our Tad was gone and the burden of him was lifted.”
9
TRAVELER AND Martin drove back to the Texaco station, picked up Brigham and their ice chests and headed for Fire Creek, intending to avoid the heat by driving at night. Neither spoke for miles. There was no need. They both knew there was nothing more they could do for Pete Biscari short of a full-scale background investigation, which could take weeks. The Smoot boy, in the final stages of Hodgkin’s disease, took precedent.
According to the map, the road to Fire Creek should have been paved. But when Traveler and Martin reached the turnoff no asphalt showed in the high beams from the Jeep’s headlights, only crushed rock and red dirt.
Traveler braked to a stop while Martin checked the map again. Ahead lay the great Escalante Desert, colored a stark white on the map and overlaid with a red-lettered warning in the legend: CARRY DRINKING WATER ON THESE ROADS.
“We passed a gas station a while back,” Martin said. “Let’s pick up more water.” He leaned over the seat and spoke to Brigham. “What do you say, cat? How many lives have you got left?”
Sighing, Traveler reversed the Jeep onto the shoulder and drove back the way they’d come, to Wagstaff’s Highway Haven, one of those stucco relics from the thirties.
The moment Traveler pulled in beside the old-fashioned glass-topped gas pump, the station’s screen door banged open and a man came out to greet him. He wore one-piece, grease-stained overalls, had gray unkempt hair and a week’s worth of whiskers. He could have been forty-five or sixty.
He grinned and said, “I saw you pass by a few minutes ago, son. At night, in this kind of weather, the smart ones double back. Do you want a room or a fill-up?”
Traveler eyed a rusting metal sign, LAST CHANCE GAS, WATER AND LODGINGS. NEXT STOP 70 MILES.
“I’ll start with some water,” he said.
The man smacked his lips, a sound of approval. “There was a time when water bags were made of canvas and hung on every bumper in these parts. Now there aren’t any real bumpers, and all I’ve got is plastic jugs. How many do you want?”
“That depends on the road to Fire Creek.”
The man ran a hand along the fender of the Jeep Cherokee. “I wouldn’t take a decent car on what’s left of that road, son. I know they call these things sport utilities, and they show ‘em on TV climbing mountains, but out in that desert . . .” He shook his head. “I’m Silas Wagstaff, by the way, and I don’t travel anywhere around here without at least half a dozen gallons of water with me. If you’re smart, you’ll stay over in one of my cabins out back for the night.”
“How long’s the drive to Fire Creek?” Martin asked.
“Maybe three hours in daylight.”
“And in the dark?” Traveler said.
“There are more things out there to worry about than potholes and rock slides. Most of them walking on two feet, if you get my meaning. But suit yourself, Mr. . . .”
“Moroni Traveler and son.”
Wagstaff snorted. “Named you after Joe Smith’s angel, did they. His Moroni brought God’s word on golden tablets. What do you have to say for yourself?”<
br />
“If you’re going to rent us a room,” Martin said, “you’ll have to settle for plastic.”
“There’s three of us,” Traveler added. “We’ve got a cat in the backseat.”
Wagstaff shrugged. “What do you say to twenty bucks a night, and I’ll throw in coffee in the morning, unless you’re following the Word of Wisdom.”
“Coffee’s fine.”
“This will be a first for me, serving caffeine to a Moroni. Hell, I’ll throw in some bacon and eggs and milk for the cat. Come on in and I’ll take your plastic and get you a key.”
The gas station office couldn’t have been more than ten feet square. Cases of motor oil, replacement parts, cartons of bottled water, and a stack of tires lined the back wall. A small counter the size of a card table stood in the middle of the room; it held an antique brass cash register. The metal folding chair behind the counter had a Coors logo on its back. A metal rack full of dusty Twinkies, cupcakes, and candy bars stood next to the door. A Coke machine old enough to have THE PAUSE THAT REFRESHES printed on the side took up what space remained.
Traveler handed Wagstaff the church credit card provided by Josiah Ellsworth. Without looking at it, Wagstaff edged behind the counter, opened the cash register, took a key from one of the coin drawers, and handed it to Traveler. “Yours is the second cabin in line. I live in the first one. There’s no TV unless you want to watch with me.”
Traveler nodded at the Coors sign. “We could go for a cold beer.”
“If you don’t mind waiting a few minutes till I close up, I’ll join you. I keep them in with the Cokes, but the Highway Patrol drops by sometimes this time of night, and I wouldn’t want them catching me selling and drinking it on the premises.”
“Do they patrol Fire Creek?” Traveler asked.
“Now and then, but Fire Creek’s not much of a town these days. I have a kid sister living there, though why she stays I’ll never know. Ruth Holcomb. She’s a widow just about your age.”
He looked at Traveler expectantly. When Traveler didn’t respond, Wagstaff continued. “I’ve been asking her to leave Fire Creek for years. We have family ties here, she keeps telling me. Me, I lit out on my own right after high school. Back then Fire Creek still had some life. Now . . .” He shrugged. “Our parents are buried there. Ruth’s husband too. She says somebody has to tend their graves, but it’s a waste of time, if you ask me. We’ve got too many graves around here, what with towns dying out and turning into ghosts. ‘So get away,’ I tell her. ‘Get married again.’ ”
Wagstaff raised an eyebrow at Traveler. “You’re not keeping up your end of the conversation. Are you married, or not?”
“He needs a wife,” Martin answered.
“Are you going to be staying in Fire Creek?”
Traveler nodded.
“Two strangers showing up at the same time is rare in this part of the country, which makes me wonder if you’re not government men.”
Traveler hesitated to tell the truth. The last thing he wanted was Wagstaff calling the news ahead to his sister.
Glaring, Wagstaff moved around the counter to rap a knuckle against a faded newspaper article taped to the front window. “You see this? It’s the apology we got back in 1990. It took Congress nearly forty years to get around to it, saying they’re sorry for killing us with their fallout. A little late, don’t you think? Half my friends are gone, called home by cancer and leukemia. Good Mormons most of them, so you can’t blame smoking for what happened to their lungs. My wife’s gone, God rest her, just like Ruth’s husband. Do you know how they got it, their cancers? I’ll tell you. From drinking milk, for Christ’s sake. From cows grazing on contaminated range, with the government lying through its teeth and looking the other way.”
Wagstaff stepped out the door and stood staring up at the night sky. The temperature had dropped enough to make Traveler roll down his sleeves. Martin did the same.
“Take a deep breath, son, and tell me what you smell.”
“Pine trees and sage,” Traveler said, “and something that reminds me of buckwheat.”
“I smell Harry. ‘Dirty Harry,’ we call him. That’s the bomb they set off in 1953. The wind was blowing this way and they knew it. There were thunderheads in the sky waiting to pick up the debris. They knew that too. But they had a delegation of congressmen waiting to see the sky light up, so they let her blow. They turned St. George into Fallout City. That’s what the newspaper called it. To this day, they say Geiger counters still go off the scale out around Fire Creek. So you can see why we don’t like government men around here.”
“We’re not from the government,” Martin said.
“It’s not just the radiation you have to worry about. It’s Moroni’s Children. No kin, I hope.” Wagstaff grinned at his own joke.
“Tell me about them,” Traveler said.
“I have to do business around here, you don’t. I don’t ask about a man’s religion when he’s spending money. I will say this. Fire Creek was all but a ghost town, what with the old-timers dying off and the young people moving to the big cities. Then the Children arrived and gave it new life. Even the Indians had stopped coming into town from the old Shivwits reservation. They’re dying off, too, I guess.”
Wagstaff went back inside to process Traveler’s credit card. He ran it through the machine, printing out a receipt before bothering to look at the name and expiration date. “For Christ’s sake. It says Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
Traveler nodded.
“Are you sure you’ll be drinking beer?”
Before Traveler could answer, a siren whooped in the distance.
“Here comes the Highway Patrol, on time as usual,” Wagstaff said.
As soon as the car passed by without stopping, Wagstaff opened the Coke machine, took out three beers, and passed them around. After a long drink, he said, “The last strangers to take on Fire Creek were a couple of missionaries Salt Lake sent in. The pair of them got run out of town.”
“Is that your way of asking our business?” Martin said.
“Technically, it’s none of mine. But I know one thing for sure. Fire Creek doesn’t attract tourists. For starters, the road is a son-of-a-bitch. Chunks of it disappear every time we have a gully-washer. Only last week I tore out a muffler trying to get around a slide.”
“Are there any strangers in Fire Creek at the moment?” Traveler asked.
“I knew it,” Wagstaff said. “As soon as I saw you I said to myself, ‘Silas, here’s trouble. You’re here about the woman and the little boy.’ Am I right?”
“We’d rather not say,” Martin said.
“You can’t keep secrets in a small town, not for long anyway. Word always gets out. The word I hear is that she’s related to some high church mucky-muck. What do you say to that?”
Traveler shrugged.
Wagstaff said, “Someone named Moroni might get his ass in a sling considering the way things are in Fire Creek these days. I hope you know enough to be careful of Moroni’s Children.”
“They’re polygamous, we know that much.”
“That doesn’t cover it. There used to be half a dozen cults within a hundred miles of here. They were scattered up in the White Hills, in the Castle Cliff area of the Beaver Dam Mountains, in places nobody else wanted. They had one thing in common. They all said that they alone knew God’s will, that their way was the way of the true messiah and that all others were agents of the devil. For years they’ve been killing one another in the name of God, but never in great numbers. Then along came Moroni’s Children, settling in the Furnace Mountains around Fire Creek, and suddenly they’re the only cult left in these parts. So what happened, you might be asking yourself. Did the others see the folly of their way and convert?”
He stopped speaking to finish his beer. “You know what the good folks around here think, don’t you? That Moroni’s Children killed off the competition. That the desert’s littered with unmarked graves.”
&n
bsp; Wagstaff sighed. “They say you can see the old Mormon Trail from our satellites two hundred miles up. They say the wagon wheel tracks are still there, etched in the grass of the Great Plains after a century and a half. So why the hell can’t they find some recently dug graves? I’ll tell you why. You’d need an army to find anything in that desert. Even then, you couldn’t cover everything. It’s too goddamn rough, too hot, and too dangerous. So what I’m saying is, if the heat and the snakes don’t get you, the polygamists will. Judging from the look on your face, you know that as well as I do. Besides which, you don’t look like the kind of men seeking religious enlightenment. So why the hell are you here?”
He raised a restraining hand. “Don’t bother lying, let me guess. Let’s start with the woman and the child. Is she related to an apostle or not, or is that just gossip?”
Traveler wasn’t about to invoke the name of Josiah Ellsworth if he didn’t have to. “I’ve heard a lot about a man named Jason Thurgood. People tell me he works miracles.”
Wagstaff chuckled. “I wouldn’t know about that, but my sister might. She strings for one of the papers up in Salt Lake, and’s been thinking about writing an article on his good works.”
“Who’s the law in Fire Creek?”
“They’re too small to have anything but a town marshal. Edgar Peake’s his name, a good man, but don’t expect him to go up against the Children. Still, you ought to be safe enough as long as you stay out of the desert. Even the Children don’t like calling attention to themselves if they don’t have to.”
Wagstaff tilted his head as if trying to see Traveler from another angle. “Looking at you, they might make an exception. So take my advice and check in with Ed Peake as soon as you hit town. When he’s not marshaling, he’s pumping gas or hanging around city hall.”
10
SUNRISE THE next morning was like turning on a gas burner. The nighttime cool evaporated in an instant. Heat waves sprang from the red soil. The smell of sage and pine was quickly erased by the creosote stink of softening asphalt.