“Brother Tomlinson,” Heber said in a loud voice. “Thou art guilty of the blood and sins of this generation. By the power of the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood, we now seal thee unto death.”
“No,” Tomlinson whispered.
“Come with me,” Heber told his nephew. “If he moves from that spot, shoot him.”
“I understand.”
They walked slowly away. Heber clamped a hand on Abraham’s shoulder. “You’re a good boy. Like your father, but he might be a little soft. Certainly, he doesn’t have the stomach for this, and anyway, we can’t bother the prophet with this sort of thing. He has to be above the conflict, a leader of all men and that means we have to take the hard measures.”
“Are we just trying to scare him? You’re not really going to kill him, right?”
“No, I’m not going to kill him. You are.”
Abraham swallowed and looked down at the rifle. Shoot a man like a coyote among the sheep? He couldn’t.
Uncle Heber studied his face. “It is better for one man to perish than a nation to dwindle in unbelief.”
They were the words of the Lord in the Book of Mormon, when Nephi went back to Jerusalem to retrieve the Brass Plates. When Laban had refused to surrender the plates, the Lord ordered Nephi to cut off the man’s head. Nephi had initially balked, and now Abraham did, too.
“He’s just one man and a few weak followers,” Abraham said. “If they’re stupid enough to follow Tomlinson, they deserve to be cut off.”
“And their wives, too? And their children? Why, that’s fifty people. Isn’t it better that one man die than lose fifty souls to the adversary? And it’s a mercy for Elder Tomlinson. You’ll shoot him through the heart and his own blood shall atone for his sins. It will give him a chance to be forgiven on the other side. Now quick, lift the gun, do what needs to be done.”
Abraham had a hard time steadying the rifle in his hands. His mouth was dry. He looked down the sight. It was only thirty yards. His Great-grandmother Cowley, ninety-six years old and born on the plains of Wyoming in the back of a Conestoga wagon, could have made the shot without standing from her rocking chair. But the way the gun shook in his hands, he’d be lucky not to blow off his own kneecap. Elder Tomlinson found his voice. “Please, I know I was wrong. It was a terrible sin, but I’m sorry. Have mercy, I beg you.”
“He is suffering the regrets of the damned,” Heber said in a low voice. “It is not true contrition.”
“Uncle Heber, please. I don’t know if I can do it. How about a warning?”
A sigh. “And what would be a sufficient warning? A wound?”
“Yes, that’s a good idea.” Abraham’s words spilled out, one on top of the next. “Just a wound, maybe on the thigh. It wouldn’t kill him, we could take him back to Blister Creek and he’d know that next time would be it, there wouldn’t be another chance, he’d die if he defied the prophet a second time, what do you think?”
“Maybe.” Heber was quiet for a moment. “Not his thigh, though, that’s too easy. How about his shoulder. Can you hold your gun steady enough not to miss low?”
Abraham let out his breath. “I can do it. But he’s too close to the edge. He’ll fall back and he might go over the side.”
“Hmm. Good point. Wait here.”
Uncle Heber walked out to Elder Tomlinson on the edge of the cliff, while Abraham tried to steady his nerves. He’d been breaking a horse just two hours earlier when Uncle Heber had pulled up in his truck. His original plan for the day had been to join the survey team working at the edge of federal land on the west side of town. He wanted to teach himself how to use the theodolite. He couldn’t remember why he’d changed his mind and stayed at the ranch. If he’d stuck with the original plan, maybe he wouldn’t be standing here with a rifle, getting ready to shoot a man.
His uncle said something to Tomlinson, who whimpered and begged. When he slumped down, Heber dragged him back up and said, “Do this with honor and there may be mercy. Here or on the other side, the Lord will decide.” This stiffened him a little and Heber moved him to a new spot, so that Abraham could get a safe shot to the shoulder.
Heber walked back toward Abraham as the boy lifted the gun. His hands were steady now, and he said a silent prayer that the Lord would guide his shot. It had to be clean. Through the shoulder and the man would be okay. If he missed low, he’d kill Tomlinson. If he missed high, Uncle Heber might grab the gun and finish the job.
“Ready?”
“I’m ready.”
“Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord,” Heber whispered.
Abraham pulled the trigger. A crack from the rifle. His shot was perfect. It struck Elder Tomlinson in the perfect spot on the shoulder. A shot that would slice clean through with painful, but not crippling damage to muscle and bone. It would miss vital organs and leave a clean exit wound. He would recover, maybe with an old twinge to remind him of the time he’d defied the Lord. He’d never do it again.
Except Uncle Heber had lied. The bullet slammed into Elder Tomlinson’s shoulder, threw him back. He staggered, as if trying to keep his feet, and then he disappeared over the edge of the cliff. He screamed as he fell. It was only four hundred feet, it couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, a terrible, wailing sound that seemed to go on forever, falling in pitch like the whistle of a train as it passes. And then it stopped, but the echo reverberated through the canyon, together with the last, fading echo of an echo of the whip-crack retort of the rifle.
“No,” Abraham whispered. The gun fell to his feet.
He followed Uncle Heber to the edge of the cliff. Elder Tomlinson hadn’t fallen all the way. Instead, he’d caught on a ledge maybe a hundred feet down. His legs lay at a strange angle, the tape ripped off, and his back looked odd, like it was bending the wrong direction. And then, most horribly of all, his head moved.
No, dear Lord, don’t let him be alive.
But before he had a chance to see if Elder Tomlinson had somehow survived the fall, Uncle Heber led him way. The boy imagined Tomlinson conscious, trying to move to relieve the pain, his back broken, his organs ruptured, lungs punctured by broken ribs. Abraham pulled away and threw up.
Heber patted him on the back. “There, now. I know, it wasn’t easy. But it was a trial. You passed.”
Abraham wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at his uncle. “You said…you
told
me…”
“The path is not always easy for the Lord’s chosen people. I’m afraid this won’t be the last time you’ll be called on to do difficult work in His name.”
Yes, over the years Abraham Christianson had been confronted with other difficult decisions. Driving his boys out of town, for instance. He still remembered the way Enoch had pleaded for mercy, how David had stared at him with that hurt expression, and how Abraham had remembered that same expression from when David was five years old. It was enough to tear out his heart.
But sending Eliza to her death was another thing entirely.
The woman met him in the Ghost Cliffs, near the reservoir. It was only a mile from where Elder Tomlinson had fallen to his death. And for a moment, Abraham Christianson was a boy of seventeen, and could see Uncle Heber giving him that look of mixed pity and pride. Heber had later become prophet for fifteen years before dying of a brain tumor that first caused terrible headaches and later led him to paranoid speeches about “wooves” in sheep’s clothing.
Few of the old men were alive and some of the stronger ones of Abraham’s own generation had fallen from the church, or, like Taylor Kimball, were serving time in federal prison. And so Abraham found himself scheming with women.
First Sister Miriam, brought from Zarahemla to bring back Jacob, and now this one. She called herself Allison Caliari. They both knew this was not her real name.
She drove up in a BMW convertible, its top down. The wind had swept her hair from her face. She wore red lipstick that gave her mouth a hungry, sensuous look. A bit of liner made her eyes wide pools and she’d plucked her eyebrows. She wore a sleeveless dress and he had to pull his eyes from the muscles in her shoulders and the scoop in front that showed a hint of her swelling breasts. He had wives, some young and beautiful, others matronly, and others of the homely type known as sweet spirits. He enjoyed them all, and time had only dulled, not ended, his love of feeling a woman’s curves under his hands. He was not an indifferent lover, who spread his seed and then rolled away to tend to the stock.
Even though his experience had been limited to women of a certain background, Abraham Christianson was no fool. He didn’t take this woman’s appearance at face value, and he fought against the pull of her sexuality. She would not be his Salome.
She stepped out of the convertible, leaving the keys in the ignition. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Nothing like it anywhere in the world.”
“Well?” he demanded. “What did you find?”
She continued as if he hadn’t said anything. “The air, can you smell that? Juniper and sage. Wildflowers because of the spring rain. And I love looking at the red rock cliffs. I like to walk along the plateaus and look over the edge. You can see forever, the curvature of the earth and then look down thousands of feet.”
“People have fallen to their deaths that way.”
“They have? I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
There was an ironic tone to her voice and for a moment he imagined that she could read his thoughts, knew about the death of Elder Tomlinson.
“And what about the stars?” she asked. “You come out at night and lie on your back and they’re so close it feels like you’re clinging to the skin of the earth. It’s impossible not to wonder about your place in the cosmos.”
Abraham had felt those moments, too. And he would hear the scripture,
Worlds without number have I created.
“We’re not here for chit chat. Tell me what you’ve discovered or leave and don’t trouble me again.”
“I love listening to you talk, Abraham. It’s like a time warp to the 50s. Yes, she’s there.”
“And? Is she alive?”
“For now. They put Eliza in the pit. She might have been raped, I don’t know for sure. If they haven’t done it yet, they will.”
He felt his mouth go dry. Hopefully, she’d fought to protect her virtue. Yes, she would have, she was a fighter. “She’s not finished.”
“She has a chance. You know and I know that Eliza is cut from the same cloth as Jacob.”
“Not exactly the same cloth. Jacob has the priesthood.”
“If by that you mean that people give him deference he hasn’t earned, because of what dangles between his legs, then yes, I suppose so.”
Abraham said, “Why is it that whenever people live with gentiles, they come back spewing crudities?”
“That’s not crude, that’s a euphemism. Nowhere did I say penis, dick, or cock.”
He winced. “Okay, fine. Whatever the reason, God decreed that men hold the priesthood, not women. That gives them power and authority.”
“It hasn’t always been that way,” Allison said. “And in the temple, women wield that power, too.”
“True or not, it
is
that way now, we’re not in the temple, and the Lord has withheld the priesthood from women for His own purpose. Eliza has the spirit to guide her, but the forces of Hell are arrayed against her. What chance does she have?”
“Not a good one. But she’s as smart as her brother—smarter than you, Abraham—and she’s got the same force of will as any Christianson. The Lord has chosen her for this task and if He wants her to survive, she will.”
Says the woman who has shed her temple garments to live a gentile life,
he thought.
What could you possibly know about the will of the Lord?
“Speaking of Jacob,” she continued. “How long do we have before he goes looking for her?”
“Not long. I’ll bet he sent Eliza with a phone and made her promise to call in. They’ll have taken her phone or maybe she’ll have been smart enough to hide it first, but I don’t think she’ll be able to make a call.” He considered. “Let’s say a few days to miss her first call, another day or two for Jacob to get worried and go looking for her.”
“Does he call the police or go after her himself?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but I don’t think it will take that long. She’s there now, our prey should reveal himself.”
“And that prey is valuable enough to sacrifice one young woman,” she said, “as much as it pains each of us to admit it.”
“Yes. It is necessary.” His voice turned bitter. “But don’t, for one moment, compare your pain to mine. She is
my
daughter, it is
my
heart being torn out of my chest.”
“She’s just a girl.” The sarcasm in her voice sounded filthy to his ears. “What is one girl worth? You’ve got dozens of them. And if you lose one, you can use that dangly thing you’re so proud of to make another.”
“How dare you?”
“Me? You’re the one pretending he cares about his daughter, when you and I both know she’s just an object to you. I may be willing to take the hard steps, but at least I’m not a hypocrite.”
“We’re done here. Go, I can’t stand the sight of you.”
She put her hands on her hips and stared at him for a long moment, as if daring him to raise his right hand to the square, rebuke her and cast her out. He fought the urge. At last she shrugged and turned back to her car. She climbed behind the wheel of the BMW, a car with lines and curves that only enhanced the sexuality of its driver. She pulled onto the road, then blew a kiss over her shoulder as she accelerated rapidly. The engine growled and leaped forward.
As soon as she was gone, Abraham fell to his knees. “Dear Heavenly Father. I submit myself to thy will. But if it please thee, if it will not thwart thy plan, I beg thee to strengthen thy daughter, allow Eliza to escape the den of vipers. In the name of the Holy One of Israel, even Jesus Christ, amen.”
He rose, dismayed to find that prayer had not banished the unsettled feeling. If anything, he felt worse, a claustrophobic sensation, like walls crushing in on him. As many children as he’d lost over the years, this one would be the hardest.
It occurred to Abraham that while Uncle Heber may have compared him to Nephi that day when he’d shot Elder Tomlinson, he wasn’t Nephi now. He was his namesake from the Bible. But instead of the Lord asking him to take his son into the mountains to offer as a sacrifice, it was his daughter he threw onto the altar.