“You look okay to me.”
He turned with a raised eyebrow. “You’re a bad liar, Christianson.”
“Okay, Krantz, I’ll shoot straight. You look like walking death. How about that?”
He grinned. “Better.”
Steve was steadier on his feet than when she’d found him in the hotel conference room. He was going to be okay.
They made their way around the catwalk, then threw open the metal doors and stepped onto the roof. Feeling exposed, they crouched in the shadow of an evaporative cooler and looked across the factory buildings to the city beyond.
The fires had spread on the west side of the city, sending fresh columns of smoke into the atmosphere. Gunfire crackled in the distance, joined by the steady thump of mortar rounds and artillery. Light flashed to the south, followed by a concussive boom.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Steve said.
“Not even in Afghanistan?”
He shook his head. “When they write the history of the twenty-first century, Afghanistan and Iraq won’t even make a footnote. Assuming anyone is left to write it down. Might be oral history, the way we’re going.”
“Or polygamist monks copying manuscripts.”
“Polygamist monks,” he said. “Wonder how that would work. Is this really the end of everything?”
“I hope not.”
“Me too. What does Jacob think? Does he still believe we’ll pull it together?”
“He’s losing hope. A few weeks ago, he made some comparison to the fall of Rome, then said you’d have to throw in World War III and the Black Death too.”
“He’s not far off. A billion dead and counting. That’s what they’re saying.”
“That’s what they were saying in February,” Eliza corrected. “Better double that figure.” She thought about the nuclear war on the subcontinent. “Maybe triple.”
“It’s enough to turn a skeptic into a fundy. So if Jacob admits that it’s falling apart, is he still denying he’s a prophet?”
“He’s trying to, yes.”
“And Fernie? How is she?”
“Still paralyzed, but standing tall in her faith. I wouldn’t say she and Jacob have been fighting, but it’s a stressful time.”
Another flash, followed by an ear-splitting boom. The warehouse shook. That one was close.
“Stressful?” Steve said when the building stopped shaking. “Yeah, I’d say so.”
“How do we get out of here?” Eliza asked.
“Come on, let’s take a look.”
They crawled between giant grated fans, meant to circulate long-extinct air-conditioning systems below. An array of solar collectors gleamed on one side—that would be extremely valuable for Blister Creek, if there had been a way of getting them home.
On the edge of the building, Steve lifted the binoculars he’d been carrying. He scanned across the city, then handed them to Eliza and pointed out various pockets of firing.
“We need to get north,” he said. “See that road to the west of the burning office tower? What do you think about that?”
“There are soldiers behind those Jersey barriers. They’re shooting at someone across the street.”
He took the binoculars. “You’re right. Okay, so we bypass that street. The big one running parallel to it is Palms Boulevard. That looks clear. We’ll head up a few blocks, then go around.”
They stared in that direction in silence for several seconds. Of course it went without saying that the battle lines this afternoon might very well shift by nightfall.
The sun burned orange as it crept toward the western horizon. Sunset was still several hours distant. She didn’t want to wait—she wanted to get Fayer to Jacob’s clinic before it was too late—but leaving in daylight was suicide and they both knew it.
Steve crawled back to the fans and stopped in front of an enclosed metal water tank that Eliza hadn’t noticed before. There was a faucet for draining the tank, and he strained to turn it. In the past, he could have snapped the thing off with his powerful hands, but now he had to crank hard to get it open. A rusty sludge of water came out, then ran clear.
“It’s not potable,” she warned. “Look, it funnels into the tank from that rainwater catchment system. It was probably used to cool equipment.”
“It’s got to be cleaner than that slop Fayer drank in the tunnels.” He splashed it on his face, but didn’t drink.
“Filled with volcanic ash, bomb blast residue, and any other crap coming out of the sky.”
“Got any more cheery thoughts?”
The pulverized remains of human beings.
She didn’t say this part aloud. But she couldn’t help remembering how they’d all drank from the cistern water discovered in the abandoned subdivision.
He turned the tap to a trickle, stripped off his shirt, then splashed more water on his chest and shoulders. He was so thin.
He cast a backward glance. “Sorry, but these pants have got to come off. I’m filthy and they’re going to rot clean through if I don’t get washed up.”
“Then I should probably look away.”
He waggled his eyebrows. “It’s up to you.”
Nevertheless, he turned his back as he stripped out of his pants and underwear. Eliza didn’t look away. He ran his head under the water, then let it run through the sweat and dirt along his back.
Steve was more slender than he’d been, but the muscles still rippled along his back and shoulders. She dragged her eyes down his sides to his lean waist, his naked buttocks. Butterflies rose in her stomach.
I’m almost twenty-five and still a virgin.
He was only a few feet away. Would it be the end of the world (so to speak) if she put her hands on him? She could reach around and let her fingernails trail across his chest. Let her hands drift to his stomach and the fine hair that spread from his navel down to his . . .
She flushed, her heart pounding, a warm feeling spreading through her body. He turned and met her gaze.
“You don’t know how many times I’ve regretted waiting,” she said.
The words came out before she could consider their potential double meaning. Did she mean waiting to get married, and then it was too late because he’d disappeared in California? Or waiting to be intimate until they were married? The rule in the church was absolute about chastity before marriage. But oh, how her body ached for his touch. Even now, as thin and dirty as he was. As dirty as she herself was.
“Eliza.” His voice was husky.
“Steve, I—I—”
“I want you so badly.”
She leaned toward him.
“No,” he said with visible effort. He held out his hands to stop her. “It’s not what you want.”
“It is what I want.”
“Not here, not like this. Soon, I swear to God. We’ll get back to Blister Creek. And your brother will say the words. Then we can do it.”
“What if we don’t make it back?”
“We will.”
“Just in case. I don’t want to die like this. I want to be your wife. Then we’ll be together in the next world. Grover has the priesthood. He could marry us.”
“You said we needed to be married in the temple,” Steve said. He sounded so calm, but his breath was shallow and he put his hands down to cover his crotch, like there was something happening down there that he didn’t want her to see.
Eliza was not that naïve. She understood.
She nodded. “To be married in the next world, yes. We need a temple marriage.”
“And you believe that?” he asked, bending for his shirt, which he then held in front of him.
She watched his every move, not even trying to keep from staring. “I don’t know. Yeah, I guess so. I hope so, anyway. Do you?”
“Mostly, no. I think i
f two people love each other they’ll find a way to be together in the next world.”
“My father used to say that men were animals,” Eliza said. “That girls needed to protect our virtue. Walk down the street underdressed and unescorted and a barbarian is likely to sweep down from the hills, carry you off, and ravage you.”
“That sort of bullshit is an excuse for men to control women,” Steve said.
“You sound like Jacob. Well, except for the swearing part.”
“Sorry. I’ve fallen into old habits while I was away. I might have to confess to your brother about a few spare cigarettes that came into my hands as well.”
Eliza took a deep breath and turned her gaze. “Okay, now that my brother came up, I’ve suddenly rediscovered my self-control. Better than a cold shower.”
Steve laughed. “I always imagine my aunt Hilda when I start to lose control. I accidentally saw her naked when I was twelve. Wrinkles and everything.” He grabbed his underwear and pulled it on, then reached for his pants. “But I swear to you that we’re driving out of here tonight. And when we get back, I will collar your brother for a shotgun marriage, only I’ll be the one with the gun to make sure it happens.”
“Oh, yeah? Then what?”
He buttoned his pants. “Then I will carry you off, barbarian-style, for some good old-fashioned ravaging.”
“I will hold you to that, Mister Big Shot FBI Agent. Either you ravage me or you will turn in your badge and gun. Got it?”
As they made their way back inside, an unfamiliar emotion stirred in Eliza’s breast. For the moment she forgot everything: the drone attack, Trost and the bloody hole in his head, their capture at the hands of Sergeant Ludlow and his men, the horrific escape from the hotel, Fayer’s cholera. She wasn’t even troubled by the thought of a final, deadly flight from the city.
The emotion was a lifting, rising optimism. It was hope.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Jacob tried to think like a general as he prepared for the fight. This wasn’t another drive-by shooting like their first attack on the squatters. The camp had doubled in size, then doubled again. It had suffered one attack; ultimatums had been traded, lines drawn in the sand. Jacob had no illusions; the fighting would start the moment the forces from Blister Creek arrived at the reservoir. It would be a real war.
And so he spent the day after the failed meeting with the Women’s Council laying the logistics for the battle to come. He ordered David, Stephen Paul, and a dozen men to the switchbacks to fortify their rear guard positions. Then he loaded a truck with ammunition and weapons and drove up to meet them.
A series of retaining walls protected the switchbacks descending into the valley, and Blister Creek had built concrete bunkers at three of them earlier in the spring. The uppermost one was now a beehive of activity, with men coming and going, while others excavated a series of trenches. They loaded dirt into wheelbarrows, and hauled it across the road to form a dirt berm. David was directing the work and looked up when Jacob parked the truck.
David was already peeling back the tarp from the cargo when Jacob came around. He ran his finger over the barrel of the Browning .50-caliber machine gun that lay beneath.
“I thought you were sending the spare gun to the south bunkers. Did you change your mind? Or did you manage to salvage the one from the drone attack?”
“This isn’t that gun,” Jacob said. “I swiped this one from the Teancum checkpoint. If there’s any part of the valley that’s safe, it’s the east side.”
The two brothers stood aside for men to haul out the crates of ammunition, which they carried toward the trenches.
“We have a machine gun here already,” David said with a nod toward the bunker. “Are you sure we need a second?”
“I’m not sure of anything. But I want it here just in case.”
Stephen Paul made his way over, a shovel propped over his shoulder. Sweat streaked the dirt at his temples. “I heard what you said. I say we take this gun and mount it on one of the pickups. We could use the extra firepower in the battle.”
“We can lose the battle and still recover,” Jacob told him, “but if we lose the road to the valley floor we’re doomed. If we’re forced to retreat, this is where we’ll make our stand.”
“Have faith, brother,” Stephen Paul said. “The Lord of Hosts guides our army. There will be no retreat.”
“We could win the larger war,” Jacob said, “and still have a rough slog of it in the battle. It might last longer than we think, and if it does, we’ll need a strong position for resupplying our forces.”
“I guess so,” Stephen Paul said, still sounding unconvinced. “We do have the gun mounted on the Humvee. That should be enough.”
“How many rounds have you brought me?” David asked.
“For the .50-cal? Ten thousand.”
David frowned. “For two guns? That won’t last long. I was thinking thirty.”
“If I leave thirty thousand rounds, thirty thousand will be fired.”
“How many rounds will the women have at the Moroni checkpoint?” David asked.
“Twenty.”
“So, more. Is that because the women asked for it, or because you’re expecting trouble on the south end of the valley?” David frowned. “Wait, you’re not preparing to lose, are you?”
“What do you mean?” Stephen Paul asked, his voice sharp.
“I think he is,” David said. “He’s preparing to flee. In case we’re routed, he’ll need to hold the south end of the valley long enough for us to evacuate.”
“It’s only a contingency,” Jacob said. “I’m not planning to lose.”
“Stop worrying,” Stephen Paul said. “We have the initiative. We have the organization. We have the Lord on our side. Now, if you ask me, both the gun and the ammo from Moroni would be better used up here. In the battle itself.”
“You’re sounding like Elder Smoot,” Jacob said. “Both of you.”
Stephen Paul carried his shovel back to the trench works. David directed two of the Johnson boys to haul away the machine gun. He watched them go with a scowl, no doubt still wishing he could use it in the upcoming battle instead of here, guarding against an unlikely retreat.
Of course Jacob wished he had more heavy weapons. The Browning machine guns were more or less the same weapon that had killed hundreds of thousands of men in the First World War, and the gun’s killing power was little changed in the century since.
But more than that, he needed additional ammunition for the four he already owned.
Smaller weapons were less of a problem. The valley was awash in small arms—hunting rifles, pistols, AK-47s, AR-15s, shotguns—but the heavier stuff came courtesy of the occupation forces of the previous summer. First had come armed men under Chip Malloy, when the USDA set up a military administration. Later came the army. When Jacob’s cousin Alfred killed General Lacroix in a horrific suicide attack, the army had pulled out. They had failed to secure the USDA’s abandoned arsenal before their retreat. None of the equipment would fight off a military offensive, but it would be murderous against bandits, refugees, and other small-scale threats.
At first. In the long run, Jacob doubted they could repel a sustained siege. A valley-wide survey counted more than nine million (declared) rounds of everything from .22 rounds to shotgun shells. Small arms could hold out for years. But for the machine guns, Jacob only had sixty thousand rounds. It sounded like a lot, but with a .50-cal capable of firing six hundred rounds per minute, four guns could blow through that ammo in a hurry. Grenades and mines were in even shorter supply.
Destroy this threat and you won’t need to fight again. Everyone will know. Approach Blister Creek and you will die.
Was that true? Or would the refugees keep coming even then, thousands upon thousands? Drawn by starvation and illness to the one remaining source of food, electricity,
and civilization for hundreds of miles in any direction. They would come. Year after bloody year as the world tore itself apart. As millions, then billions died. For the huddled remnant in Blister Creek, it would be like waiting out a sandstorm or a plague of locusts that never ended.
He looked up from his thoughts to see his brother studying him. “What are you thinking about?” David asked.
“What else?” Jacob said. “The end of the world.”
“I thought maybe Fernie and the women.”
“No, not this time. I’m trying not to worry about them.”
“You should go to her. Tonight, before the battle.”
Jacob sighed. “I wouldn’t know what to say. She’s angry. I’m angry. We’re on opposite sides of a position with no possible compromise.”
“You need to say something. You never know when—” David stopped, seemed to reconsider his words.
“You never know when you might die? Do you think I’ll take a bullet tonight?”
“No, no, I wouldn’t say that. Of course not. You’re the prophet.”
“That didn’t save Father.”
“All I mean is that the future is uncertain,” David said. “I keep thinking about what I would have told Miriam if I’d known she was going to disappear. Last night I was holding the baby, giving her a bottle and thinking how she should be at her mother’s breast.”
“How is Diego?” Jacob asked.
“He has been crying himself to sleep at night. He’s terrified of losing his mother. Can’t say I blame him.”
“I’ll bet having Lillian around helps.”
“It does. She’s a comfort to all of us. But Lillian didn’t come home last night. She stayed up late with Fernie and Rebecca, then spent the night at your place. I don’t think she’s angry, just busy. I miss her too, you know. Now that Miriam is gone”—his voice caught—“she’s all I have.”
Jacob threw his arm around David’s shoulder. “They’ll be okay.”
“I keep telling myself that. But the world is dying out there. I’m worried.”
“Come on. It’s Eliza and Miriam. They can survive anything.”
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