Hell's Fortress

by Michael Wallace

  “We drew them,” Jacob said. “Somehow, word is spreading. It must have reached Green River. Look, maybe they only want safety. They know we’ve cleared out the bandits. Would it kill us to leave them be? They can have all the fish and game they can take—it won’t hurt us any. They haven’t approached us, haven’t asked to enter Blister Creek. Haven’t come begging for food.”

  Stephen Paul took off his gloves and slapped them over his saddle. “Or maybe they’re waiting for their numbers to grow and then they’ll force their way in. Like what the Egyptians did to Israel a few months ago.”

  “First of all, that was three million refugees. This is a few dozen. Besides, the Egyptians failed.”

  “They failed because the Israelis obliterated their camps,” Stephen Paul said. “And we have a few dozen now. What about a year from now?”

  “We can’t let that happen,” David said.

  Stephen Paul nodded. “The Lord guided our ancestors here and prepared it for our use. We took the desert and made it bloom. The world mocked us, persecuted us. Even our Mormon brothers abandoned us to scorn. But we persisted. For generations we have prepared for this day.”

  “Whatever else you believe,” David said, “this is our sanctuary and home. Our families, our children. If this isn’t the time to defend ourselves, when is?”

  They made a compelling argument, but Jacob shrank from the implications. A doctor healed, he didn’t raise his fist in anger. Yes, circumstances had forced him to act, and he had taken human life before. But even killing his enemy, Taylor Kimball Junior, had delivered equal parts guilt and peace. This? This would be different. This would be Jacob instigating violence.

  He turned to David. “What should we do about it?”

  His brother frowned. “I—I need to think. If Miriam were here . . .”

  “I want your opinion, not hers.”

  “Stephen Paul is right. We have to root them out. Drive them away.”

  “Why? Not his thoughts, yours.”

  “Because the camp will grow. And then it will be harder.”

  “Trap one rat in the granary today,” Stephen Paul said, “or kill a hundred tomorrow.”

  “That sounds like something my father would have said,” Jacob said.

  “Or Elder Smoot,” David said. He sounded more confident now. “Or Miriam, or Sister Rebecca, or any of a hundred other people in Blister Creek. What would a doctor say about stopping cancer?”

  “Excise the tumor before it metastasizes.”

  “Exactly. If you don’t, the lump grows and you’re forced into more aggressive measures. Double the chemo, throw in radiation treatment, cut out more tissue. Practically kill the patient in order to save him. Isn’t that about right?”

  “Close enough,” Jacob said.

  Conceding the point was one thing. Contemplating the logistics was another. Jacob imagined galloping in at night with torches like a mob of Ku Klux Klan. Tearing down tents, bashing people with rifle butts. And if the refugees fought back, what then? A battle. Deaths.

  “Then we gather the quorum,” Stephen Paul said. “If we make it our idea, not Smoot’s, we can make sure it’s done with a minimum of bloodshed.”

  He put on his gloves and prepared to hoist himself into the saddle. His horse had been cropping at the grass and gave him a weary look.

  Jacob put a hand on his shoulder. “No, wait.”

  The two men looked at him.

  “Before we start a cycle of violence, we try the gentler path.”

  Stephen Paul looked doubtful. “What do you mean?”

  “We have to give them a chance. We’ll ask them to leave, first. And warn them of the consequences.”

  “I get it,” David said. “You’re going to politely ask the tumor to recede.”

  “It’s not a tumor, it’s a camp of human beings. Let’s not forget that.”

  Still, Jacob needed a proper show of force. Blister Creek had a reputation, earned with bloodshed during the fight to put down the Kimball clan’s violent power play. The outside world knew about the gas attacks, the armed assault. Had probably even heard about Jacob’s cousin driving a Winnebago packed with explosives into the army base last fall.

  Let them see we are strong. Give them something to fear.

  No horses. This was the time to burn some of their precious diesel fuel.

  Two years earlier, when Jacob’s father died at the hand of the Kimballs, Stephen Paul had shown him the dead prophet’s final secret: nine hundred thousand gallons of diesel fuel buried in tanks behind the abandoned service station south of town. Abraham Christianson’s last preparation to survive the coming of the Great and Dreadful Day of the Lord.

  The three men rode out from Yellow Flats to spread the word. That afternoon, twenty-five armed saints met in front of the temple, arriving on foot and on horse. Jacob, David, and Stephen Paul had lined up pickup trucks in the road.

  Elder Smoot was the last to arrive. He looked tired and irritable. He dismounted, pushed back the brim of his hat, and studied the trucks through narrowed eyes. “You’ve been holding out on me, Christianson? Where did you get the fuel?”

  “I’ve been saving a few gallons for an emergency,” Jacob said.

  “Oh, yeah? Enough to run the plows? Because it’s the devil’s work doing it behind a mule team.”

  “No. Not enough for that.”

  The irony of the fuel was that Jacob didn’t dare use it. Didn’t dare admit he had it. Only a handful knew it existed. The instant the army suspected, they would send someone in to confiscate it, quarantine or no.

  Smoot grunted. He had three of his surviving sons with him. Yesterday evening these men had lowered Bill Smoot into a grave between Bill’s grandfather and a brother who had died as an infant. The remains were too charred to dress him in his temple clothing, so the green apron and white robes lay stacked neatly next to him in a simple pine coffin. Ready to put on when Bill Smoot rose on the morning of the first resurrection.

  Which, according to the elder Smoot, could be expected any day now.

  But if not, Jacob had dryly noted, Smoot was still young, his loins still fruitful. His wives fertile. He had the tools to forge a dozen more sons before he was done. Oh, and maybe a few daughters too. It was all bravado and stoicism in public, but the bags beneath his bloodshot eyes told a different story.

  Jacob was risking his own family. His brothers David, Joshua, and Phillip, plus David’s second wife, Lillian. Stephen Paul’s wife, Carol, had arrived, together with his oldest son. The Johnsons had sent young men, as had the Youngs, the Griggs, and several other families. It was a solid, if zealous group. Rebecca Cowley had ridden out from Grandma Cowley’s cabin at Yellow Flats, making her the third and final woman. The party milled about on the temple lawn, waiting for Jacob to speak.

  He raised his voice. “You know why we’re here. You know what we’re doing.”

  They drew closer, faces grim in the lengthening shadows. Behind them, the red spires of Witch’s Warts glowed flaming red with the light of the dying sun.

  There were times when it paid to speak as a prophet. Calculatingly, even somewhat cynically, Jacob did so now.

  His voice boomed. “We are armed. Not with guns and grenades, but with the sword of truth and the breastplate of righteousness. The forces of Satan cannot stand before us. If they raise arms against the servants of the Lord, we shall cast them down to hell.”

  He glanced around the group. Stephen Paul looked proud, Smoot impressed. Lillian and many of the younger men stared in awe. Alone among the group, David looked skeptical, one eyebrow raised a fraction of an inch.

  Oh yeah? that look said. Then why do we have guns? Why not march in there unarmed and drive them out in the name of the Lord?

  Jacob folded his arms and bowed his head. The others followed. “Let me ask the Lord’s blessing.”
/>
  He chose his words carefully. This was the part where he needed faith that he simply did not have. Forget his wife’s certainty; he’d have settled for Eliza’s hopeful longings.

  “Our kind and gracious Eternal Father. Thou hast chosen us since the foundation of the earth. Thou hast saved us to be a remnant. Thou knowest the threats of the adversary that gathers against us. Guide our hands. Soften the hearts of our enemies. Let these people depart our lands in peace, that we shall not raise our hands in righteous anger. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”

  “Amen,” murmured the group.

  “As we lean on the strength of the Lord,” Jacob said, “so shall we be protected only as we obey His will. We shall show force, but we shall not exercise it. Thus sayeth the Lord.”

  This brought a louder “amen,” and a few cries of “thou sayest.” They loaded the trucks. David asked Jacob if he could have a word. The two brothers stepped away from the group.

  “What is it you always tell me?” David asked. “Something about how God’s will conveniently matches the desires of people speaking in His name?”

  “What was I supposed to do? Tell them to shoot at will?”

  “How about asking for genuine guidance?”

  “David, one of two things is true. Either God is leading us, or He isn’t. If He’s not leading us, I’ve got to do the best I can. If He is, then He knew what He was getting when He chose me. Some people know, some people believe. And some people doubt. I’m a doubter.” Jacob eyed his brother. “What about you? Seems like you’re changing.”

  David shrugged. “Miriam and Lillian are strong in their faith. They’ve been working on me. And you’ve got to admit that circumstances seem to indicate it’s all true.”

  “Every doomsday cult from Waco to Tehran is convinced of the same thing. That’s human nature.”

  “Never mind that,” David said. “What if the squatters fight back? They’re hungry, they’re desperate. They’re convinced we could feed them all if we weren’t so damn selfish. What are you going to do then?”

  “If they don’t listen, we’ll escalate. I understand that. I accept it.”

  The pickups were ready to go, truck beds filled with rifle-toting men and women. People looked expectantly at the brothers, still standing apart and chatting.

  “Then it’s settled,” David said. “If we have to, we use any means necessary.”

  Jacob didn’t answer.

  “So what are we waiting for?” David asked.

  “You’re pulling away, all of you. The doubters are now believers, and the believers are fundamentalists. The fundamentalists have become fanatics. I’ve lost Miriam, I’m losing Stephen Paul. My own wife is terrified of the outside world and wants it to hurry and collapse so it will all be over. My children pray for God to burn the wicked so they’ll leave us alone. Eliza is gone—I need her back. Until she returns, you’re all I have left.”

  David said, “Before you came for me I was a Lost Boy. A drug addict. Father proclaimed me a failure and I believed it. You brought me home. You saved my life. I would follow you into hell itself.”

  “I don’t want you to follow me to hell. I want you to listen to my doubts. I want you to use reason and not faith. That’s how we’ll survive this.”

  “I know you’re a man with human weaknesses. Dude, you’re my brother—of course you’re not perfect.” David gripped him by the shoulders. “But God has whispered into my heart. I doubted before. I don’t anymore. You are the prophet. You are the One Mighty and Strong.”

  No, I’m not.

  David turned to climb into the back of one of the trucks. All but the first one started up with the familiar, yet by now so rare sound of rumbling diesel engines.

  Jacob cast a longing glance at the sandstone maze of fins and spires behind the temple. How easy it would be to walk into Witch’s Warts and disappear. Then emerge from the other side and make his way to the mountains. Leave all this behind.

  In spite of his lofty words, his attempts to mold the others into a peaceful army, he knew the truth. The moment he climbed behind the wheel, he would set them down a terrible path.

  But if he felt unsure, he didn’t dare show it. So he straightened his shoulders and walked with long, confident steps until he reached the lead pickup truck. Stephen Paul sat in the passenger side with an assault rifle across his lap. He handed Jacob the keys, which were received without comment. Moments later they were rolling north toward the reservoir.

  As they did, Jacob said a silent prayer.

  I don’t know if you’re listening. Chances are, you don’t exist. But if you do, if you are listening, please spare us bloodshed.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Jacob and his companions drove into the Ghost Cliffs to search for the squatters’ camp. The speed of travel stunned him. Over the past year the valley seemed to have grown. The distances, which he’d once measured in minutes—ten minutes to the grain silos, thirty to the Young ranch—had stretched now that those same miles needed to be covered on horseback, foot, or bicycle. You noticed details at those speeds that you never would when zipping along in an air-conditioned cocoon. Colors, smells. The feel of gravel beneath your boot.

  And there was time to think.

  He had none of that now. Instead, he sat in a truck filled with grim-faced men and women. The other trucks held the same. Give them orders and they would kill and be killed according to his will. His father had relished that sort of power. Jacob feared and mistrusted it.

  Long shadows stretched from the cottonwood trees to lean over the reservoir, which was so high that it crept almost to the road. Clouds of bugs hovered over the water, and leaping trout drew circles across its surface. Jacob felt a pang that he wasn’t coming up here with his kids to drop their lines into the water and wait for the telltale tug and the dip of bobbers as fish hit their bait.

  Right now the only people fishing these waters were the hungry refugees on the far side.

  Let them. Why couldn’t they stay, taking what they could from the land, until the crisis passed? Blister Creek didn’t need fish and game to survive. So long as these people stayed above the valley, the two sides could live and let live.

  By the time they hooked around the reservoir and came upon the squatter camp on the other side, Jacob was calmer and more determined than ever to find a peaceful solution. And so his first glimpse of the camp was a slap across the face.

  Occupying a wedge of land maybe five acres in size between the highway and the reservoir, it was bigger than he’d expected, dozens of tents and lean-tos.

  The site was an old picnic area, now trashed. They’d chopped down the hundred-year-old cottonwoods that had provided shade. On the other side of the road they’d hacked a gash through the trees a hundred yards into the forest, a wound marked by broken branches and snapped-off pine boughs. Limbs and sticks marked a path across the road. And what a mess: empty cans strewn about, torn tarps flapping in the breeze, strips of corrugated metal, piles of deer bones and hides. They’d dug their latrine too close to the reservoir. When he rolled down the window, he could smell the long, filthy trench.

  A bonfire lit either end of the camp, together with half a dozen cookfires that sent smoky trails into the sky. People tossed logs onto the bonfires, which roared eight, ten feet high.

  “Blasted fools,” Stephen Paul said. “Haven’t they ever heard of wildfires?”

  Where were the children? Jacob couldn’t spot more than a handful. Hiding? Dead of starvation? Abandoned on the road? And if the refugees had brought any animals—horses, chickens, dogs—they were nowhere in sight. Probably devoured, based on the starving look of the squatters. Some of these people must have owned horses at one time, because there were wagons and trailers and no vehicles to tow them.

  Jacob parked the truck in the highway. The other vehicles stopped behind him. The people from Blister
Creek unloaded. They passed around boxes of shells.

  The squatters spotted the newcomers and came streaming toward the highway, shouting, calling for others. More poured out of tents. Soon, a hundred people were descending on them. Fearful murmurs rippled through the saints.

  “Steady,” Jacob warned. “You!” he shouted as the leading refugees reached him. “Stay back.”

  A number of the squatters had armed themselves with guns, knives, metal pipes, and branches cut into clubs, but most came running with buckets, empty jugs, and burlap sacks. They were looking for handouts, he realized.

  They ignored his orders and pressed in, hands outstretched. Begging, pleading for food. A woman grabbed Jacob’s wrist, screeching that she was first. Stephen Paul pushed her back, but not before her long, dirty nails dug a painful scratch into Jacob’s skin. The saints formed a tighter and tighter knot around the trucks.

  “Is it time?” Smoot said.

  “Steady,” Jacob warned. He pushed at a man with a bucket. “Get back. Don’t touch me.”

  He drew his pistol and fired twice into the air. The noise died. The squatters drew back onto the shoulder of the highway.

  “Listen to me! We have no food for you. We’re not here to give handouts.”

  “You have food, you liar,” a woman cried.

  He tried to identify the speaker. He thought it came from the woman who’d scratched him. Her light-brown hair was so filthy and matted it had almost become dreadlocks. She glared at him, eyes bloodshot and watering from behind hollow cheekbones.

  “That’s right,” she said when he met her gaze. “Look at you, bunch of greedy bastards. Stuffing your faces while we starve on fish bones and grasshoppers.”

  “Feed us!” someone cried. The clamor started up again and Jacob lifted his gun skyward. The noise died again.

  He whispered to David, who had sidled up to him, “Mark the ones with guns. If it turns violent, they’re the ones to worry about.”

  David nodded and eased through the crowded saints to pass the word.

  Had Stephen Paul and David said a hundred squatters? There were at least twice that many packed together, ready to surge at the truck. More lingered at the back. Tension vibrated through the mob. They might go off at any time.