The Blessed and the Damned (Righteous Series #4)

by Michael Wallace

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so, no.”

  “That’s a good answer,” Abraham said. “It’s an evil man who is ready to commit violence against another. Have you ever killed a person?”

  “No, I haven’t.” Stephen Paul left the return question unspoken, but Abraham could see it in the upraised eyebrow.

  Abraham nodded. “Yes, I have. I didn’t like it and have always asked the Lord if there were some other way. Usually, there is. But not always.”

  “And you think that will be necessary?” Stephen Paul asked. “Killing, I mean?”

  “The Lord will guide us, brother. I pray that it will not be necessary.”

  “Me too. I keep asking myself how could it be His will to leave three women without a husband and twelve children without a father, and I can’t figure it out.”

  Abraham put a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “If Brother Stanley were any kind of husband or father, this wouldn’t be necessary.”

  Weeds sprang from cracks in the sidewalk, and the flowers in the beds had withered and died from lack of water. Paint peeled from the siding, sandblasted by the winds that came off the Ghost Cliffs. The cliffs loomed less than a half mile distant behind the ranch, and heat shimmered off the dry, packed earth between here and there, unplanted and unirrigated.

  Stephen Paul wore a look of disgust as he took in the scene. “My house is a house of order, sayeth the Lord.”

  “The man’s house reflects his soul. I should have come this way earlier and I’d have seen it.”

  “We’re ten miles from town,” Stephen Paul said. “And he never told us he was coming back. The ranch was abandoned—there was no way to know. This place isn’t even on the electrical grid.”

  “Still, if I’d taken the time to wander through Brother Stanley’s house after the FBI raids, I’d have seen all this.”

  “The prophet had other things to worry about.”

  “I suppose I did,” Abraham said. “Come on, we’ve been spotted.”

  As they stepped up the walk toward the farmhouse, two small faces disappeared behind the curtains. The same scrawny dog lay on the porch, chained to the railing, that had been there on Abraham’s other recent visit. He gave a single, hopeful thump of the tail at their approach, but didn’t lift his head. Abraham grabbed the rail with his free hand as the stairs creaked under his feet. Years of dry rot had eroded the wood and someone’s foot had punched through the deck in one spot. He reached for the door, seeing no reason to knock, but it swung open as he approached.

  Sister Agatha stood behind the screen, a baby on her hip. She opened the screen, but then her eyes dropped to the crowbar, the tire iron, the gun at Abraham’s side. One hand flew to her mouth. Her knees wobbled and the baby started to slip from her arm. Stephen Paul shot out a hand and grabbed the baby’s pajamas while Abraham caught the woman’s other arm before she could fall.

  “No, oh no. Please.”

  “Where is he?” Abraham asked.

  “Don’t hurt him, don’t do this.”

  He took her by the elbow and led her into the parlor, set her down and looked around.

  The baby started to cry. A boy of six or seven came around the corner, eating an apple and wiping a runny nose across his sleeve. Agatha turned to him and said, “Find the sister wives. Tell them—”

  “No!” Abraham said. “Stand by your mother, boy. Neither of you move.”

  They found two more children in the kitchen, and he sent them back to the parlor with Agatha. They had wide eyes, like animals, and one wore a dirty cast on his right arm. The kitchen smelled like sour milk. Dirty dishes were piled high in the sink and empty peanut butter jars and soup cans littered the counters. Fruit flies hovered over a bunch of bananas that had turned from brown to black since his other visit.

  Stephen Paul ducked his head beneath a sticky strip that hung from the ceiling, carpeted with dead houseflies. “Disgusting. I wouldn’t let my dogs live in this filth. What woman could let her home turn into such a dump?”

  “A frightened woman,” Abraham said. “A woman who lives in a house without a righteous priesthood holder, a woman with a husband who has turned to Satan.”

  “So none of this is their fault?”

  “Yes, plenty of this is their fault.” Abraham twisted the tire iron in his fists and tried to fight down the righteous anger that burned in his gut. “But a dirty kitchen is the least of the sins in Stanley Clawson’s home. Come on.”

  Stanley’s youngest wife—Sister Laura—was coming down the stairs as they reentered the hall. She stopped when she saw them, turned as if to flee back upstairs, and then stopped and met Abraham’s eyes, her face pale.

  “You’ve come for him, then.” Her voice was dull, flat.

  “Yes, Sister. Is he upstairs?”

  “He is. Should I call him?”

  “No, I’ll do that. How many children are upstairs?”

  “None,” Laura said. “They’re in the other wing or out back.”

  “Good. Wait in the parlor.”

  She bowed her head. “Thou sayest.”

  Abraham stepped aside to let her pass, then turned to Stephen Paul. “Prepare yourself.”

  A curt nod.

  Abraham hesitated. The tire iron felt suddenly heavy in his hands, and he wanted nothing more than to cast it away and turn from his awful task. And then he thought about the grim set to his son Jacob’s mouth when he told Abraham what he’d discovered. What would Jacob say now, if he knew what his father planned to do?

  He’d be horrified, of course, would insist that they allow the system to punish Brother Stanley. Right, and like Elder Kimball, arrested for fraud, the authorities would give Stanley a few years behind bars—assuming these wives would testify—and what kind of punishment would that be?

  “Brother Abraham?” Stephen Paul asked. “Is there a problem?”

  “The Church of the Anointing takes care of its own. The Lord blesses and the Lord damns. And we are instruments in His hands.”

  “Thou sayest.”

  Abraham Christianson, prophet of the Lord, turned toward the stairs. “Stanley Clawson!” His voice echoed throughout the house. No sound from upstairs. “The Lord sent me to call thee to account. Come down at once!”

  Again, nothing, just the sound of a woman weeping from the front room and a fussing baby. A child, asking what sounded like a worried question.

  Stephen Paul started for the stairs. “We’ll drag him down.”

  Abraham shot out his hand to stop the other man. “No. He’ll come.” He raised his voice again and this time felt the full fury of the Lord. “Stanley Clawson! In the name of He who is holy, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I command thee to appear.”

  And then he came. Like a dog who has bitten a child, Stanley Clawson slunk down the stairs, eyes downcast, guilt written on his face in his downcast eyes, slumped shoulders, and cowardly posture. So different from the strutting man Abraham remembered, an ally of Elder Kimball’s, a faction now utterly destroyed in Blister Creek and the church.

  When he reached the bottom of the stairs, Stanley stood a little straighter, but still wouldn’t look either man in the eyes. “It’s my house. I have a right to come back.”

  “You were not excommunicated, and it is your house,” Abraham agreed.

  At last he looked up. “Then why are you here, shouting at me like that?”

  “Your wives know why,” Abraham said. “And your children certainly must. I’d call them in to testify against you, but that would be cruel to them.”

  “What? It’s about that?” Stanley’s eyebrows lifted, and Abraham thought it incredible that only now did he understand. “The scripture says ‘spare the rod and spoil the child.’”

  “Hold him,” Abraham said.

  Stephen Paul moved swiftly to Stanley and shoved the crowbar against his neck, then rammed his shoulder into the man’s chest to pin him against the wall. Abraham leaned in his own weight and grabbed the man’s right wrist.r />
  “No, please! I’m sorry, please, no.”

  “That was the wrong scripture,” Abraham said. “I think you were looking for something about hanging a millstone about the neck of a child abuser and tossing him into the sea.” He jerked up the man’s wrist. “My son is a doctor, you know, not some rancher who knows how to splint a lame calf. He X-rayed that boy’s arm. Then, when he got suspicious, X-rayed every bone in his body. Four different fractures. That’s a lot for a five-year-old boy, don’t you think?”

  Stanley’s eyes bugged. “I didn’t, I really just—”

  Abraham stretched out the man’s arm and swung the tire iron. It connected with a crunch, just above the wrist. Stanley screamed. His eyes bulged out and his breathing came in shallow gasps.

  “And I started thinking,” Abraham continued. “Your kids have always had a lot of falls and accidents, haven’t they? I asked a couple of my wives. Women have a sense for these things, and they agreed it was suspicious. So I drove out here last week, figured out you were back home. You were gone, but I talked to your wives. They tried to protect you, pathetic as that is. Why would they do that? Why would they let you abuse them and their children and then try to hide it?”

  Stanley’s face had turned white and he was blabbering, begging for forgiveness, making promises, but Abraham didn’t hear him.

  “If I deliver a blow for every bruise or broken bone your wives and children have suffered, would it kill you?”

  “No, please!”

  “Yes, I think it would, but that might be a kindness. A blood atonement, your own wounds atoning for your own sins. It might earn you mercy on the other side. But even if it made no difference, it would serve as a warning to the community. I won’t tolerate a man abusing his family.” Abraham turned to Stephen Paul. “Grab his arm again.”

  But when Stephen Paul tried to reposition his grip, Stanley broke free and ran for the door. He stumbled and cried, begging for someone to help him. He reached the door and staggered onto the porch. Abraham and Stephen Paul caught him at the foot of the porch steps.

  They threw him to the sidewalk and started in on him. Stephen Paul lifted his crowbar.

  “No!” Abraham said. He grabbed Stephen Paul’s wrist. “It’s too much.”

  Stephen Paul tossed the crowbar aside, and the two men laid into Stanley with their fists and boots instead. They hit him on the legs and arms, battered his ribs, shoulders, knees. Twice, Abraham had to tell Stephen Paul to ease up when he set into Stanley with too much enthusiasm.

  Women and children came onto the porch, but Abraham shouted for them to go back inside. They continued the beating. At last Abraham told Stephen Paul to stop. They stood panting, sweating. Stanley sobbed, curled into a ball.

  Abraham’s disgust turned to pity, and he wondered if the man’s children ever looked so pathetic after enduring one of their father’s beatings. His voice came out flat, the authority of God eroded until Abraham was just a man who needed to complete an unpleasant task. “You are no longer one of us, Stanley Clawson. Drag your body out of Blister Creek and never return.”

  Stanley spat blood onto the porch. One of his eyes was swelling shut. Abraham couldn’t remember either of them hitting the man on the face, but in the frenzy, mistakes would happen. “You can’t do this to me. This is my house, my family.”

  “You’re an animal,” Stephen Paul said, voice rigid and angry. “You made your choice already.”

  “No, he’s right,” Abraham said. “He can come back if he chooses. God has given each of us our free agency. But the day he chooses to return to Blister Creek is the day he dies. Do you understand me, Stanley?”

  The man groaned, but didn’t otherwise answer.

  Abraham and Stephen Paul rounded up the women and children of the Clawson family and loaded all twelve of them into the van. Abraham stood in front of the open door, massaging his right wrist, which he’d twisted in the attack, and looked at the frightened faces inside.

  “Consider this an opportunity,” he told the wives, “to get your own lives in order. I don’t care what Stanley Clawson did to you or told you. There was no excuse for letting that happen to your children.” He stopped, distracted by the crying children, the sobbing women, and the audible cries for help from the wounded beast, who had dragged himself back to the porch.

  “What are you going to do with us?” Sister Laura asked. She was calmer than the other two women, and comforted a child against her bosom. “Give us to other men?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “The Lord hasn’t told me yet. Maybe send you to Zarahemla for medical examinations. The only thing I know is you’re not staying another night at this house. I’m going to burn it down.”

  “Do we get any say in the matter?” she asked.

  “About the house? No. The other things, yes, of course. Meanwhile, get yourselves cleaned up—you’re all filthy—and ask the Lord for forgiveness for your own weaknesses. Forget about Stanley’s sins. Remember you’re daughters of God.”

  He slid the door shut, then said to Stephen Paul, “Drive them up to your house. Tell your wives to be kind. They’ve gone through all kinds of hell today. I’ll ask the Lord tonight what we should do with them.”

  Stanley let out a long, moaning curse from the front porch, and Abraham gritted his teeth and leaned against the side of the van.

  Stephen Paul put a hand on his shoulder. “You did what had to be done.”

  He met his counselor’s gaze. “Why didn’t anyone tell me? If one of those wives had said something, I could have stopped it. A blessing would have cured Stanley at one time, before it got too late.”

  But all things served the Lord’s purpose. The Lord could have told Abraham Himself if He’d wished. He’d remained silent, and Abraham could only assume that there was a reason.

  Stephen Paul went back inside for his crowbar. When he returned, he stopped midway to the van and waited for Abraham to come to him.

  “I’m glad we didn’t have to kill him,” Stephen Paul said.

  “Me too.”

  “The other time, was it hard?”

  “What, when I killed a man? Worse than hard, it was a mistake. And I was doing someone else’s dirty work. I won’t ask you to do anything I won’t do myself.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  Abraham fixed him with a hard look. “But this was a test for both of us. Brother Stanley targets women and children. His own women and children. Is there any greater coward than that? He didn’t fight back, he couldn’t. I’m afraid there’s harder business ahead of us than breaking the bones of a coward.”

  “Meaning we have to kill a man?”

  “Probably several men. Maybe women, too. Once evil has taken root, only drastic measures can tear it up.”

  Stephen Paul turned the crowbar over in his hands as he looked back at the porch where Stanley had finally climbed to his feet and now staggered inside, hopefully to collect keys and cash before he drove out of Blister Creek forever.

  “I will obey the Lord.” He turned back to Abraham and met his gaze. “And thou art His prophet.”

  Abraham felt something tug his attention east, into the heart of the desert. The edge of the wilderness. A few hours by car, no more. It was time to call Rebecca, to get about destroying the enemies of the Lord.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Jacob Christianson approached the old woman warily. He couldn’t see yet if she had a gun. Last time she had. He kept Eliza behind him. He’d weighed the risk of abandoning the pretense of his sister’s death—which, to be honest, wasn’t bearing fruit anyway—against using her as added leverage against Charity Kimball.

  Don’t resist, Charity, he thought. Make this easy, please.

  She sat in a cheap plastic chair by the back door of the Winnebago. The tires of the motor home had gone flat, and sand rose halfway up the wheel well. She’d constructed a makeshift sunscreen from a blue plastic tarp and two aluminum tent poles. A vast sandstone bluff rose behind the motor hom
e, and a boulder shielded it from the road. There were a few scrubby trees, sagebrush, cactus, and clumps of desert grass that bent in the breeze to etch lines and circles in the sand.

  She held a book—make that a personal journal—and a pen, which she tucked beneath her chair as they approached. Jacob’s eyes dropped to the book. Was it a diary of a woman who had found peace in the solitude of the desert, or was it a list of the world’s injustices, of the faults, real and imagined, inflicted on her over the years? He studied her face, the grim set to her mouth, the gray, stringy hair held back with a rubber band.

  “Sister Charity,” he said. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “Brother Jacob.” Charity’s expression looked like she’d eaten something chalky. “And Eliza. Alive.” She didn’t sound surprised. “My daughter said they held a funeral. Put up a gravestone and everything. Seemed fishy to me. Well, I can guess why you did it.”

  “And are you going to tell Taylor Junior?” Jacob asked.

  “Of course not. For one, I haven’t seen him in years. Glad of it, too. But I don’t care if you brought Eliza. You’re still wasting your time, I’m not going back.”

  He kept his tone light. “No gun this time. That’s a good sign. Maybe you’re softening.”

  “I’m not softening. And you’re not going to convince me.”

  “We’re not here to convince you. You made it clear last time.”

  “Not clear enough, apparently, because here you are.”

  Jacob shook his head. “Don’t worry, Sister Charity. I’ve given up trying to dislodge you from this place. But we need your help.”

  “My help? What kind of trick is this?”

  Eliza stepped out from behind Jacob. “It’s no trick. We do need your help. And you won’t just be helping us, you’ll be helping innocent women and children.”

  Charity glared. Eliza didn’t look away. After a moment Charity returned her gaze to Jacob. “Fine, what kind of help?”