Dead Reckoning (13 page)

They had built a log ferry to cross the swollen Blue River, not even pausing to rest on the west bank. They had marched right through the new mining town of Frisco—the last settlement they would see. They had passed beaver ponds where the elder had hoped they might linger. Hassard had driven them relentlessly through a winding and sheltered valley that looked to Hopewell like a good place to settle. But the new prophet of the Church of the Weeping Virgin seemed to think of nothing but his pilgrimage to the Mount of the Snowy Cross.

The trek had been exhausting. And now this—to be woken from a sound sleep in the chilly night. Hopewell gathered his gangling legs under him and willed his eyes to focus in the dim moonlight, catching sight of the hysterical Deacon Dee stumbling across the congregation.

“I know what to do now,” Hassard cried. “She told me!”

“Whoa, Deacon, whoa,” Hopewell said, as if calming a skittish horse. He reached a long thin arm far across the camp as Hassard stumbled near him and grabbed the man firmly by the collar. “You're unsettlin' the people like that.”

“Hopewell!” Hassard said, seemingly startled to find the elder there. “The Virgin came back! Where's the money?”

Clarence felt his coat for coins. Yes, it was still laden with gold, pressing heavily down on him as he got to his feet.

“Now get ahold of yourself,” Hopewell said. “You're not making sense.”

“It makes perfect sense,” Hassard said, gripping the elder's arm. “It's just like Paster Wyckoff wrote in the
The Wisdom of Ages!
The faithful have to renounce everything that pretends to take power from God. That includes government, all those other false religions, and—money!”

“We have renounced all that,” Hopewell said. “That's why we came out here, away from government power. Away from those other denominations. And we've given our money to the church.”

Clarence stepped around the dazed pilgrims and stopped with the rifle stock on his hip. He looked back for May, remembering where she had bedded down on the spruce boughs he had cut for her. He saw her rising in the moonlight, as fine a sight as he had ever seen.

“And now it's time for the church to renounce that money!” Hassard yelled, raising his arms and laughing. “We're finally to be free of that ‘evil mammon'—that's what Pastor Wyckoff called it. The Virgin came to me again tonight, Hopewell. Just now. And she told me why we're to make our pilgrimage to the Mount of the Snowy Cross. We're to sacrifice that money to God, there on the mountain. We're to give it up and trust in his will to get us by!”

“Wait a minute,” Clarence said, stepping forward. “When you had these people sell all their wagons and things, you told them the money would be used to file on homesteads or buy government land.”

“That was before the revelation!” Hassard hissed, waving his hand at the Vermonter. “Now I know better. What do you need money for? The wilderness will provide us everything. Now, where's the money, Elder Hopewell?”

“Hold on,” Clarence said. “I see where you're entitled to a certain amount of authority as guide of this party, but that money belongs to these people. It's up to them to decide what to do with it.”

“But it's not up to them,” Hassard said. “It's not up to me, and it's not up to you. It's up to God, and God has sent his angel, the Virgin Mother of his only son, to tell Pastor Wyckoff, and now me, what the faithful are to do to save mankind!”

“But legally—” Clarence began.

“Legally?” Hassard stomped toward the Vermonter. “Brother Clarence, you haven't embraced what this church is all about. There is no law but God's law!” He seethed with a rage almost real in its vehemence.

Clarence remained unmoved. “If it were your money, you could do whatever you wanted with it. But…”

“Look,” Hassard said, tromping off toward his saddle on the ground. “I understand your reservations. You haven't seen the Virgin weeping in your dreams.” He fumbled excitedly with the flap of his saddlebags. “But maybe this will convince you.”

Clarence scarcely saw the articles Hassard lifted from the saddlebags in the moonlight, but he could tell by the way the man handled them that they carried considerable weight for their size.

“I've got almost two thousand dollars' worth of gold dust here from my mine in Tarryall,” Hassard said, carrying the two leather pouches to Elder Hopewell. “I didn't mention it before, because I was greedy. Thought you might want some for your church. But now I'm willing to give it all up!” He placed the two bags of dust in Elder Hopewell's hands.

“What do you want me to do with it?” Hopewell said.

“Add it to the church coffers.” He took the roll of bills from his coat pocket and handed it to Hopewell. “Put this with it. And when the time comes, I hope you'll see fit to dedicating it to the Lord.”

“Just what do you mean by ‘dedicating' it?” Clarence asked.

“I am to find this mountain—the Mount of the Snowy Cross. I am to lead the faithful there. And we are to leave all our evil mammon at the place where we first catch sight of the cross. Those are my instructions from the Weeping Virgin. That is dedication, Brother Clarence. That is the dedication of the faithful!”

“That's throwin' money away on a mountaintop if you ask me.”

A look of suspicion swept Hassard's face. “Maybe you'd like to have your share of the money back,” he said. “Is that it, Brother Clarence?”

“No, that's not it, because I never put any money in there. I'm just against throwing money away when it might be put to some kind of good use.”

Hassard put his hands on his hips. “Have you read
The Wisdom of Ages
?”

“Not all of it,” Clarence admitted.

“How much have you read?”

“I only got through the first chapter.”

“Brother Clarence, how do expect to become a member of this church if you don't read Pastor Wyckoff's book?”

“I never said I intended to become a member of this church—no offense to any of these folks. You just hired me on as a hunter for this trip.”

“So you're here to make money, not to dedicate it. You seem to be struggling with inner greed, Brother Clarence.”

“No,” May said, the heads turning to look at her. “Clarence was real generous to me. He bought me supper in Denver when I was hungry and didn't have a place to stay.”

In the sparse light, Hassard saw the eyes of the pilgrims shift from May to Clarence and knew he needed to add nothing to their suspicions. “I don't doubt he did. But he's said he doesn't intend to join the congregation of the Church of the Weeping Virgin, he's offered no money to the church coffers, he's failed to read past the first chapter of
The Wisdom of Ages,
and yet he thinks he has the authority to tell these people what to do with their money?”

“You're the one who's trying to tell them what to do with the church money. I'm saying it's up to them, not you.”

Hassard took a few steps toward Clarence. “I'll tell you one thing I have the authority for. That's gettin' these good people safe to their promised land. To do that, I have to keep them fed, and I haven't seen you bringin' in any meat.”

Clarence shifted the rifle in his hand. “Game's been scarce. Prospectors must have spooked everything out.”

The deacon snorted. “You've got tomorrow to bring some meat in, or you're fired. Now, I'm goin' into the woods to pray. I'll say a special one for you, Brother Clarence. You need it.” He walked through the throng, which parted to let him pass into the trees.

When he had skulked far enough into the timber, he stopped to urinate on a tree trunk, then grinned as he buttoned his trousers back. That Clarence from Vermont really thought he was something. He almost hoped that smart-mouthed kid did kill some meat tomorrow. Pulling this thing off would be a lot easier without him around, but it would definitely be more interesting with him.

He found a log on the ground and knelt beside it, lying across the top of it. He would sleep there, and someone would come to wake him before dawn and find him as if he had fallen asleep in prayer.

Oh, young Clarence was full of himself. But Dee Hassard had made fools of brighter men than him. If he couldn't get rid of the damn nuisance, he would just have to put a ring in the Vermonter's nose and break him to lead. And if that didn't work, there was always the rust-pitted Smith & Wesson or the fine blue Colt taken from the corpse of Frank Moncrief.

Seventeen

Clarence sat against the trunk of a ponderosa pine, watching a small meadow take shape in front of him. His Remington rifle lay across his thighs, his right thumb on the hammer, left palm cupped around the forestock. Dawn was making the strange terrain known to him. He did not expect game.

This was lunacy. He should be in New Mexico by now, surveying his new domain, instead of lounging indolently in this strange forest. The Ojo de los Brazos waited to embrace him. Did the arms of May Tremaine?

The weight of fifty-six hundred pressed against his lungs, pulled at his shoulders. He felt like a fool right now. He was wasting his time. What if some other investor was snapping up the Ojo de los Brazos at this very moment? When his father found out, he would never hear the end of it. He wished at this moment that he had come west without the damned money. Look how far he had gotten on his wits. The money was only tormenting him, hurrying him through places were he might otherwise linger.

“Get the game, or go,” he muttered to himself. This wilderness would decide for him. If he did not have meat on the ground by the time the sun bathed this meadow, he would leave the Church of the Weeping Virgin to fend for itself, and he'd turn south toward his destiny. He would not even rejoin the party. May would be with them. He would see her graceful limbs, meet her eyes, and lose his resolve.

I will have forgotten her by the time I reach Santa Fe. Good-bye, May Tremaine. Good luck. What will become of you while I build my kingdom down in New Mexico?

A sound swelled up under him, as if a heart had begun to beat in the bosom of the earth. His eyes searched as the Remington rose. The heartbeat thumped under him again, and he saw the buck deer bounding on four stiff legs at once. He pulled the hammer back, and the hooves came down again: the third heartbeat.

He shifted into shooting position as the buck landed broadside and froze. The irons found the shoulder. Black powder stained the air. The buck flinched and fell, quivering now on the ground.

The rhythm of the earth's heartbeat continued, coming now from the Vermonter's own chest. His ears rang, but he heard the echo of his shot glancing off some distant rim. The curve of an antler—bulbous and velvet-covered this time of year—stood above the grass no more than fifty paces from where he sat.

He got up and strode slowly toward the dead deer. From whence that buck had come, he could not say. It seemed to have sprung from the soil, surprising him. He had seen this happen with deer before, seen them materialize where moments before nothing had stirred. But this was fresh magic.

He approached the carcass and stood over it. A big deer compared to the whitetails he had hunted back in Vermont. What had made him start bounding like that—drumming the earth with all fours like creation's own heartbeat? He had read in the sporting magazines that this was the way with blacktailed deer, hopping on four legs at once, but he had never dreamed it would shake the ground so.

He knelt, felt his grip take in the velvet antler, dreamed of riding into camp in glory. His doubts evaporated, and as he reached anxiously for his gutting knife, he knew he was in the right place, the right time. He was sick and tired of trying to live up to his father's expectations. This was where Clarence Philbrick belonged, whether there was any money in it or not.

*   *   *

Dee Hassard had turned the pilgrims onto a trail recently widened by the axes of prospectors … a trail used for centuries by dark-skinned huntsmen … a trail as old as the migrating herds who had trodden it bare long before any human shadow fell upon its ground. It led the faithful along the flanks of the Sawatch Range, toward Notch Mountain, where the view of the Snowy Cross supposedly awaited them.

May walked near the rear of the party this morning, glancing often over her shoulder. Her feet had healed and toughened nicely, thanks to the moccasins Mary Whitepath had given her. She might have paced the sojourners at the head of the pilgrimage, as she usually did, but something caused her to drop back today.

Strange how the pilgrims daily took their regular places in the processional, May thought. Some kept to the head of the line, some lagged, others habitually gravitated toward the middle. Back here, May was getting acquainted with a whole new set of believers. Faces she had seen around camp took on names, loosed voices.

“Are you plannin' to go all the way up to see the cross?” one said.

May looked into the tired but hopeful eyes of a young mother walking beside her. She couldn't place the accent. Scottish or Irish, she guessed. Maybe Welsh. She wished she knew more about the world. “I don't know what I'm plannin',” she admitted.

The immigrant woman carried a baby in one arm, had a misshapen bag looped across one shoulder. Her other hand led a child tired of trotting, begging to be carried. “I'll follow Deacon Hassard there if I'm able,” she said.

May glanced at the trail behind her. “Let me carry that baby for you,” she said. “I don't have a load to pack.”

“Thank you,” the mother said. She handed the baby to May, swinging the heavier child up into her arms. “Are you ready to join yet?”

“I don't know that either. What all do I have to do?”

“You have to go through the initiation.”

May drew her lips together. She was hearing more about this initiation all the time, the references always vague. “How come I can't just join?”