The Blessed and the Damned (Righteous Series #4)

by Michael Wallace

  “Eliza,” Fernie said. “Help me.”

  Eliza turned back to the car, and only gradually took in the accident again. The children screaming, the horn blaring. She rushed around to Fernie’s side of the car. The handle had snapped off, but she reached through the broken window and got the door open from the inside. Fernie winced, eyes closed. Her face looked gray with shock. She had one hand on her pregnant belly and the other on the dashboard, knuckles white from gripping so hard. The deflated airbag hung limply from the dash to drape in her lap.

  “What’s the matter?” Eliza asked, alarmed. “Is it the baby?”

  But Fernie just moaned. She put a trembling hand to her forehead, so pale Eliza thought she might be on the verge of throwing up. Eliza searched desperately for a cell phone. She couldn’t find either of them.

  She turned back to the road. The truck and car that had run them off the road were just pulling away. Eliza gripped the steel baton and climbed out of the canal.

  She needed to reach the road and flag down help.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Jacob and Abraham Christianson came upon the accident a mile outside of town, on the highway leading into the Ghost Cliffs.

  Jacob’s heart had been pounding since Fernie’s aborted phone call.

  Eliza! Look out!

  And then a horrible, screeching crash, while Jacob cried into the phone for his wife, trying desperately to reach her. The line went dead and he was left only to wonder, in fear and terror, what had happened.

  Moments later, he saw it for himself. A cloud of dust hung in the air, looking from a distance like a dust devil that had spun itself out and left a haze suspended in the still air. The dust cloud floated above the edge of the road, and as they drew closer Jacob saw his car lying in the canal at the bottom of the hill.

  Two other vehicles—a pickup and the green Taurus they’d seen outside the house—sat on the shoulder. They peeled away as Jacob sped closer, kicking up fresh dust.

  Abraham slapped the dashboard. “There they are! Follow them.”

  “The accident, Dad. We have to make sure they’re okay.”

  “No! Someone else can help. Follow them.”

  But Jacob pulled to a stop rather than tear off in pursuit. He jerked the keys away before his father could get them. He grabbed his trauma bag from the backseat. His father came after him, still protesting. Both men drew short when they reached the edge of the road and looked down.

  A canal followed the curve of the road, carrying water down from the reservoir in the Ghost Cliffs to feed the ditches, sluices, and gates that irrigated the valley farms. The car sat in the middle of the canal, so mangled that it looked like it had fallen from a semi carrying crushed automobiles to a salvage yard. The accident had thrown a spray of water and mud twenty, maybe thirty feet up the hill.

  The two men scrambled down the hillside. A sick feeling tugged at Jacob’s stomach. Children screamed over the blare of the car horn.

  Eliza came around the car from the opposite side, her face pale. “Jacob, oh, thank heaven. You’ve got to help.”

  Jacob felt distant, almost detached from his body, like he was watching someone else move. He splashed through the water to the car and peered into the backseat. There were his children, screaming. Daniel, the oldest, had a look of terror on his face like you might see in an adult. Someone who knows he has almost died. Leah and Nephi simply screamed and tried to get out of their car seats. But all three were frightened, not hurt. Jacob’s own fear eased. And then he saw Fernie. She sat in the front seat with the collapsed airbag hanging in front of the glove compartment.

  Her face was ashen, her eyes glazed. She had a hand to her face and the other on her belly, but she wasn’t moving. Shock.

  “Fernie, it’s me, it’s Jacob. Tell me what’s happening, talk to me.” She grimaced, but didn’t answer. Jacob turned to his father, who had waded through the water and stood a pace back, worry carved into his face. “Go back to our car. There are two more bags in the trunk. Bring them down. Quickly!”

  Jacob set the trauma bag on the trunk and got out a stethoscope and a pair of bandage scissors. He cut away Fernie’s seat belt, then scissored open the front of her dress and her undergarments from her neck to her belly. The seat belt had left a nasty red strip from her neck to her abdomen, with the worst part where it crossed her chest between her breasts. He didn’t like the look of that, specifically, the thought of the pressure on her neck and spine. He imagined that the airbag had deployed properly, but then the car kept rolling and came to a stop with a final crash into the canal. She’d slammed forward on the belt.

  Next, he put the diaphragm of the stethoscope to her abdomen and listened until he heard the baby. Its rapid, strong heartbeat sounded normal. So did Fernie’s.

  Meanwhile, Eliza fished out the kids, one by one, and took them up the hill. Father came back with the two bags, which he set in the front seat. Then he popped the hood, and a moment later, the blaring horn died.

  “The baby?” Fernie asked, her voice weak.

  “Heartbeat is strong.” He listened a second time to be sure, then draped the ear tubes around his neck. One knot of terror unwound itself—the baby was okay—and all his worry focused on his wife.

  “Don’t lie.”

  “I’m not lying. The baby is fine.”

  “Promise?”

  “If the baby was in trouble, I’d be prepping you for an emergency C-section. I’m not. Now listen to me and stop arguing. I need to be your doctor, not your husband. Don’t move until I tell you. Where does it hurt?”

  “My neck and my back.”

  Just what he’d expected and feared. All that tossing and rolling, protected by a seat belt designed for the average body, not a pregnant woman. Too much pressure on her spine.

  Jacob snapped his fingers for his father, who came around from the front of the car. “The navy-colored bag has a cervical collar. Get it, please.”

  “A what?” Father asked as he rummaged through the bag.

  “To stabilize her neck. It looks like—”

  “Got it.”

  Jacob probed down Fernie’s legs. “Your hands are moving. Are they numb at all?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Jacob reached her feet. Her left ankle had twisted at an odd angle, toes turned inward. “How about your feet?”

  “They feel okay.”

  “Really?” He straightened out the ankle. Felt like a broken lateral malleolus—broken at the end of the fibula—and torn ligaments. The injury should cause excruciating pain. “Can you feel this?”

  “I think so.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  Fernie gave a little shake of the head. “Not really.”

  Jacob’s mouth went dry. His father stood by with the cervical collar, but Jacob didn’t take it, not yet. He ran through the medical supplies in the trauma bag and the other two bags. He wasn’t properly set up to take charge of a spine injury. No corticosteroids or other anti-inflammatories to reduce pressure on the spine.

  He looked around until he spotted Eliza. Her dress was torn and she was wet and muddy, with a superficial gash on one arm. “Go get my phone from the car. You’ll find the hospital in Panguitch in my address book under Garfield Memorial. Tell them who I am and that I’m bringing in a late third trimester with a suspected T-6 to T-10 injury. Then come back, I need your help.”

  “T-6 to T-10,” she repeated as she turned to go.

  Jacob took the cervical collar from his father and fit it around Fernie’s neck. “I’m going to ask you some questions, and then we’ll stabilize you and take you into the hospital. The kids are all right, the baby is okay, and you’ll be fine, too.” He pressed his thumb into her upper breast. “Can you feel this?”

  “What do you mean, fine?” Fernie asked. “What is it, closer to T-6 or more like T-10?”

  “Stop talking, please. Can you feel the pressure or not?”

  “I feel the pressure. And I’m not an idiot.”


  “Of course not. And you’ll be fine.” He pressed lower. “How about this?”

  “T-6 and T-10 mean something in the back, right?”

  “Thoracic vertebrae, yes.”

  Fernie opened her eyes and gave him a sideways glance without turning her head. “That’s the middle of my spine. I’m going to be paralyzed, aren’t I?”

  “Please be quiet and answer the questions.”

  “I need a blessing.” Her voice was stronger and her eyes grew lucid. She stared straight ahead. The words hung in the air, oppressive and thick.

  It took him an extra beat to answer. “There will be time enough at the hospital. Dad, look in the navy bag. Get me the—”

  “Jacob, please,” Fernie interrupted.

  “Listen to your wife,” Abraham said from behind him. The older man fished something out of his pocket, which turned out to be consecrated olive oil in a brass vial, attached to his keychain. “I’ll do the anointing, you give the blessing.”

  Jacob’s anger overwhelmed his fear and frustration. “We don’t have time for that. Now do what I tell you.”

  “This is Blister Creek, and I’m in charge here. What she needs—”

  “You’re not in charge,” Jacob snapped. “I’m the doctor, not you. Now shut up and listen. Time is absolutely critical for a spine injury. Fernie needs an injection of a corticosteroid to reduce the swelling, and I don’t have that here. We have to get her to the hospital.”

  “She doesn’t need an injection, you fool, she needs the priesthood. Haven’t you learned that by now? You’ve got the power in your hands, Jacob. The power of the Lord! All your science and medicine is nothing compared to that. Now you do what I say. Lay your hands on her head and command her to stand up and walk.”

  “Do what?”

  “You heard me. Heal her. Command her to walk.”

  A dry blast of desperation hit Jacob. He stood in the canal, with the muddy irrigation water swirling around his ankles, the hospital more than an hour away, and his pregnant wife suffering a spine injury. A blessing. It would be quick. Maybe it would work. He’d blessed David, and his brother had thrown off the shackles of his heroin addiction. Words had come to Jacob’s mouth, as if from some divine source. David had stood up, opened his eyes, and been cured. Or so it had appeared at the time.

  Eliza came down the hillside. “I called and they’re sending an ambulance. They’ll meet you—” She stopped. “What’s the matter? Is it Fernie, is she okay?” She hurried forward.

  “Tell him, Liz,” Fernie said. She clenched her eyes shut in a grimace of pain, and Jacob put a hand to her face. It was cold and dotted with sweat.

  “Tell him what?” Eliza glanced at her father, and then her eyes dropped to the vial of consecrated oil. When she met Jacob’s gaze, he could see that she understood everything. And worse, that she agreed with them.

  “We don’t have time,” Jacob said. He was pleading with Eliza, begging her to take his side. “We have to get her to the hospital. Right, you agree?”

  “Of course we have to get her to the hospital,” Eliza said. “But what can it hurt to give her a blessing? It will only take a minute.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t give up,” Fernie said. “Find your faith. I need you to try, please.”

  The situation was grim, he knew that. What if he refused, what if they took her to the hospital without a blessing, and later it turned out that she was a quadriplegic who would never walk again? Wouldn’t that bring its own doubt, leave him always wondering? If he could find a mustard seed of faith, just enough to try, maybe he could heal her.

  “You’re right,” he said, coming to a decision. “Absolutely right. We’ll give her a quick blessing, but then you’ll do what I say.”

  “Of course,” his father said. He already had the brass vial open and dripped oil onto the crown of Fernie’s head.

  “We’ll stabilize her spine and get her out of here, lay her flat in the backseat. We’ll tie her down so she doesn’t move.”

  “Ready,” Father said.

  The two men stood shoulder-to-shoulder as they reached through the open car door and put their hands on her head. Abraham said, “Fernie Ellen Christianson, in the name of Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood, we anoint your head with oil which has been consecrated for the healing of the sick and afflicted. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”

  “Amen,” Jacob said.

  The two men raised their hands briefly, then returned their hands to Fernie’s head.

  This is ridiculous. We need a hospital, not magical incantations.

  “Jacob,” Fernie whispered.

  “Fernie Ellen Christianson,” he began, “in the name of Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood, we lay our hands upon your head…”

  Something changed.

  One moment he stood over his wife a skeptic, torn with fear, doubt, anger, confusion, and the next, all that was gone. An electric current entered from his crown and raced up and down his skin to flow out the ends of his fingertips. It wasn’t like the time on the porch, where he’d meant to give David a generic blessing, using his natural speaking ability to fool his father enough to show him where to get oxygen to help his brother. And then something had taken over and he’d declared that David was healed. This time, the words were right there, the channeling of a higher power. He could feel it. At that moment, he knew it.

  “The cup is taken from thy body,” he said. “Rise, Fernie, and walk anew. Thou art healed.”

  Eliza gasped. Fernie let out her breath in a sound that resembled nothing more than the sigh of pleasure she would give during the final, ecstatic moments of lovemaking. Abraham Christianson’s hands tightened on top of Jacob’s own, as if seized by the electrical current.

  And that was it. There was nothing more to say but close the prayer. But at that moment, something sank inside Jacob. Doubt. It was so firmly embedded in the bedrock of his soul that there was no way to dig it out. The doubt was heavier, more solid than the glowing feeling of being blessed by the Lord, and just as he meant to close the prayer, out came one final sentence.

  “If it be the will of the Lord,” he added.

  The words felt wrong as they came out, thick on his tongue. Bitter. His own, not the Lord’s. He wanted to take them back, but it was too late, they could not be recalled. Instead, they hung in the air like the cloud of dust on the road. Father’s hands felt suddenly heavy, dead over his own.

  “In the name of Jesus Christ, amen,” Jacob said.

  Nobody spoke for several seconds. “Oh, Jacob,” his father said at last, his voice thick with disappointment. “It was there. You had it.”

  “Don’t just stand there,” Jacob said, a knife-twist of anguish in his gut. He looked back and forth between Eliza and his father, unable to bring himself to look at Fernie. “Someone get me the big green bag.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Prophets fall,” Aaron Young said. “Sometimes it happens.”

  Elder Kimball looked around the gathered circle of panting, sweating men, alarmed at what he saw in their faces. Not just Aaron’s, hardened into stone, but Eric Froud, nodding sagely. Phillip Cobb gave a shake of the head, but it wasn’t negation, it was a look of concern, sorrow that such a step would be necessary.

  “What are you saying?” Kimball demanded.

  “If Abraham Christianson can fall, so can Taylor Junior,” Aaron said. “What if he’s no longer obeying the Lord, what then?”

  “You have no evidence for that,” Kimball said.

  Aaron took a pull of water from his canteen. “I have evidence. Look around. Where is he?”

  “He hiked ahead. He has things on his mind.”

  “Wake up, Kimball. He abandoned us. And he failed to do what the Lord commanded. Right, Stanley?”

  Sweat poured down Stanley Clawson’s face, and he cradled his broken arm. He looked up and nodded, but didn’t try to speak over his he
aving breath. Stanley and Elder Kimball were the two oldest men in the group, and Kimball knew he must look nearly as haggard. Stanley had struggled for the last hour to keep up.

  The six men stood in the shadow of a juniper tree, four miles from where they’d hidden their vehicles near the Colorado River. The river curved like a muddy ribbon, hundreds of feet below them, with canyon walls rising on either side. They’d followed the punishing slope of a deer trail leading into Dark Canyon. This side of the wilderness area was less accessible than the southern approaches, where one could take dirt roads through the national forest and almost to the edge of the mountains, but it was safer. Some of Taylor Junior’s earliest followers had been coming here for more than two years and never stumbled into a single hiker.

  “Come on, Stanley,” Aaron said with an impatient note in his voice. “Tell them what happened.”

  “I—I was waiting up by the road. I didn’t see clearly, but—”

  “Just tell them what you saw, old man,” Eric Froud said. “We haven’t got all day. And I don’t like standing in the open like this.”

  “That’s right, there’ll be time enough later,” Kimball said. “What if a plane goes over? Let’s get up the canyon.”

  “Let him talk,” Aaron said.

  “He was supposed to finish the job,” the older man said. “That was the plan, that’s what the Lord told us. Taylor Junior said it himself. A commandment. And we formed a prayer circle and swore an oath. But we thought it was just Fernie and the kids. When Eliza Christianson got out of the car—”

  “Taylor Junior panicked, that’s what he did,” Aaron said. “He grabbed me and dragged me off. Afraid of a girl. I had a gun.”

  “Things didn’t go as expected,” Kimball said. “You said a car was coming.”

  “So what? Either the Lord really told Taylor Junior to kill Fernie Christianson or He didn’t. Taylor Junior either disobeyed a direct commandment from the Lord, or the Lord never spoke to him in the first place. He’s either a fallen prophet or a false prophet. An apostate or a liar. Which is it?”